thank you for watching. you can watch or listen on sirius xm radio, tunein, msnbc app and apple tv. find me all over social media, twitter, facebook, instagram, snapchat and linkedin. "deadline: white house" begins now. hi, everyone, it's 4:00 in new york. i'm chris jansing in for nicolle wallace. president trump reopening his favorite culture war with fresh attacks on the so-called squad of minority congresswomen whom he recently said should go back to their country. but you don't have to dig too far below the surface to find an existential excess and trump may be using them as a distraction. trump woke up to a trending hashtag he was desperate to change, #trump recession. it came along with headlines the economy is in distress, maybe even headed for a nose dive,

which trump's aides even admit could spell disaster for the president. a source close to trump telling axios, i'm very worried about the economic data. a lot of us are concerned. without the narrative on the economy, he can't win. axios adds the team is worried about polling positions in pennsylvania, michigan and wisconsin. and one senior white house official be warns, he's running out of tools to juice the economy. those leaks from inside trump's orbit, potentially devastating for a president whose signature campaign message is this -- >> an economic miracle is taking place in the united states. we have the strongest economy in history. the economy is thriving like never before. our economy is going to soar. the 401(k)s are up 50%, 60%. soon it will be 78%. >> we had the highest stock market in the history of our country. our country now has the hottest

economy. we will win so much you're going to set sick and tired of winning. we will keep winning, winning, winning. >> never going to stop winning, a promise unfortunately is not aging well. so it's little surprise trump, whose sixth day of summer vacation features nothing on his schedule but a campaign rally, is turning to his usual damage control protocol. first lie. say the story is fake. he tweeted today, business optimism is at a all-time high. then create a diversion. often some kind of race-related controversy, which today targets muslim-american congresswomen eel an omar and rashida tlaib. but a word to the wise, when lying, race baiting and zescene phobia are your lifelines, you're losing. here at the table a.b. stoddard from real clear politics, rick

stengal who worked in obama's state department and former editor of "time" magazine and waneta from america's network action fund. of the many quotes we just heard from the president, one of my favorites is 60%, 70%, somebody told me 78%. something in there. but your headline reads recession can doom's trump's re-election. are the folks inside the white house axios is quoting right to be worried right now? >> the short answer is yes. and it's not surprising to see some of the leaks like in the axios story. i went through a history of presidents who had to run for re-election after recessions happened in the last two years of their first term. what i found was the last four presidents who had that kind of recession so shortly before their re-election race all lost re-election. of the last nine presidents who didn't have that kind of recession, all of them won.

now, they were a little mixed before that. recessions were a lot more common before that. but this is a pretty demonstrated pattern that we've seen over the last century-plus in american politics. the other thing with president trump in particular is i think it can actually be more damaging to him for this reason. right now he's basically got one thing going for him as far as a policy in his re-election campaign. but it's a big one. the economy is what people generally regard as being the most important thing with the re-election race. the moment that goes away for the president, he's no longer going to be in the low 40s, mid-40s. he's going to drop below that and at that point as an incumbent president it becomes very, very difficult to put together the map that you need to win the electoral college. >> bloomberg put it pretty succinctly when they wrote, one expert told us short of justices gorsuch and kavanaugh's membership in the communist party, there's hard to think of any development that could

undercut trump more than a recession, a.b. >> that's right, it's the most important issue usually but trump is very unpopular, between people who approve of his record on the economy and approve of his job is something like 30 percentage points in some polling. there are people who think he's done a great job on the economy and will not vote for him against. without this to buffer him, he's looking at defeat. people who have not faced recession, presidents who go into re-election with with under 50% approval like jimmy carter and george herbert walker bush, they have lost. he has to turn this around. it's key to the leaks of people around him he's run out of weapons in his arsenal. he's run this so roughshod he's given himself no opportunity to buffer a downturn and that's why he's panicked. >> yes, how much should he worry about the political consequences of this, rick? because if you listen to him, what, me worry?

nothing at all. he keeps spouting these statistics, although let's be realistic here, even if you're prone to like the president, even if you put aside like a lot of people have said they have, they wish he wouldn't tweet so much, they wish he couldn't say some of the things he said. if you're going to the store and things are costing you more money, if you're seeing the jobs are not coming back to the factory he said was going to reopen, we can go on and on in that vain. it is hard to see in many ways where this campaign goes. >> yes, in aaron's very good story, i'm just stealing this fact, he said the only president since the civil war who has won a second term in the midst of a recession was mckinley in the 1900s. so that doesn't bode well. obviously the president's case for re-election is the economy. he doesn't have any other real cases. not to put cold water on this, the stock market was a little bit up today. the signs of recession are not

exactly overwhelming. there was the inverted yield curve everybody was talking about yesterday, which is the short-term bond had a larger payoff than ten-year bond. germany is down. china is down. those things are not good. but the u.s. economy is relatively buoyant. i just don't think we should be rooting for a recession because that's not good for america. i also don't think it's really in the cards. i'm not an economist but there are not that many signs out there that a recession is on the horizon. >> definitely not rooting for a recession but i think there are voters out there already feeling the impacts of a bad economy. for example, 1978 ceo wages have gone up 940% where worker wages have gone up only 12%? where farmers like one in wisconsin named les, dairy farmer, his stock of soy and dairy is not moving. he already knows trump in his trade by teat policy is impacting him as a farmer and he's losing now. there are people out there struggling to make ends meet and

i think anything that escalates trump's tariff and trade war with only hit us harder in our pocketbooks. >> there's been an expansion for ten years now. eight years under obama, two years under trump. but a lot of people have not felt part of the expansion for all of that time. those people i hope are not going to vote for donald trump because donald trump ain't going to help them. >> if you're feeling the recession, you're not saying to yourself, oh, but it was due. you say i'm feeling the recession. how do we fix it? to the point of how do we fix this, there's a great piece in "the washington post." trump's economic braintrust consists of a guy who plays an economist on tv, nutcase, the entire economic profession disowned and producer of lego batman. aaron, from your newspaper. >> yeah, and i think one other point -- and rick was right to point out recession does not seem likely according to most people who are economic forecasters. that's a really important point.

i think goldman sachs put it around 30% or so. i think the reason this is news is because it is so kind of contrary to the prevailing narrative of the trump era which is the economy has been moving in the right direction. there's also the matter, of course, of the trade war, which is being ratcheted up. the most recent episode of which when the president announced new tariffs on august 1, seemed to have had a major impact on the stock markets. what we're finding here is that the trade war has really turned into a massive kind of unnecessary risk when it came to the president's political fortunes here because regardless of how it turns out, trade wars by definition lead to at least some short-term pain. and so if you're running for re-election in 2020 and you know you have to go through that pain, you're really hampering what is your major talking point and your major asset in that re-election race. so i think the president was doing something with this trade war he has long believed in. he's been talking about these

kinds of issues for decades as one of the few things he's been completely consistent on. but that's turned out to be really an unwelcomed variable in what was already some pretty difficult math for him. >> also in that case, even though he's been consistent, he suggested that american consumers were not going to feel it. why did he pull back on it if he was worried about christmas shopping, right? even presenting something he has consistently messaged on and quite frankly, a lot of his base likes that we're getting ripped off by china and other countries, he's not able to put forward what it is and, again, back to the whole point of who is there, rick stengel, who is in his cabinet that has the economic wherewithal to say here's how we can, if not right the ship, how we can move it back in the right direction?

>> i will pull back even further. i think as a culture we overcredit the president with the effect on the economy. the best thing if you're a president is inherit a good economy from your predecessor. then you're lucky. >> and don't mess it up. >> that's what happened with donald trump. the don't mess it up and keep is going as it was. don't start a trade war that will throw a wrench in the economic engines. i think that's exactly what donald trump has done. >> eugene scott writes also in "the washington post" this kind of stoked the base strategy, right, the culture wars -- these facts are concerning for some economists but for many of the president's most loyal supporters these details are not a prime concern because despite some trump backers citing economic anxiety for supporting him, his willingness to respond to his culture anxiety is the hallmark of his re-election campaign. >> chris, honestly as a woman of color, i'm bracing myself for hearing that message for the next 14 months, because i know

he's going to keep that drumbeat going. the attacks on ilhan and tlaib today shows how he leverages the highest position in our land so to distrust the division and attack women of color, elected officials, no less. he has no guardrails here. he does not care he's throwing his weight around in such a fashion because he, unfortunately, in this case will get results. what we saw today from netanyahu is remarkable that he's allowing this to happen. >> brings us back full circle, if the culture stop does not necessarily hurt him, and in fact may help him with the base. some of the turnovers, corruption we've seen in the administration, doesn't have any impact, it's not a recession. will a downturn in the economy finally be the thing that convinces some of the people who have not stepped away from this president to say i'm done? >> that's the question. rick is right, we're not in

recession. we're not definitely going into a recession. but aaron's right that it is the trade war. these farmers have stuck by this president with the goal of trying to stop the threat of chinese ip theft. what i think the advisers around the president concluded is the chinese dug in for the long haul. they believe in a pre-election panic next year they will get an agriculture-only deal for from president trump thatp does the touch ip theft, if anything. and farmers are devastated for generations. some of them have to sell their farms. they've sold their cows. there are skyrocketing rates of suicide in the dairy community. these devastations will last at least ten years, if they are lucky. probably 20 to 30 or in their lifetimes. these supply chains will not be reversed if the president reversed his tariffs today. so the problem with the trade war as aaron brought up is that he is running out of ways to mitigate the damage that the

trade war has done. a year from now, how great are those farmers going to feel? i don't care what women he's attacking in the house of representatives, how can they hold on in this environment, even if the president tried to find a solution now on tariffs, the damage is done. >> we will continue with this panel. after the break, today's victim of trump's distraction campaign. why he's putting those two u.s. congresswomen in the middle of an international incident. also, one former republican senator says he's ready to vote democrat in order to vote out trump. and why democrats could benefit from hearing his top pick. and beto is back. after suspending his campaign to help his community grieve in the wake of two mass shootings, beto o'rouke has relaunched his presidential bid with a fiery new pitch to voters. volunteerism. fundraising. giving back.

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donald trump going back today to his base. his base-stoking playbook after realizing the economy may no longer be the saving grace he thought it might be for his re-election campaign. today reviving a move from the last couple of weeks, attacking members of congress known as the squad. trump tweeting this morning, israel would show great weakness if it let the first two muslim members of the u.s. congress, congresswoman rashida tlaib and ilhan omar, into this country. "the new york times" writing how trump's actions crossed yet another line, quote, no matter our virulent their differences at home, presidents have not traditionally enlisted the help of overseas allies to take

action against domestic political adversaries. but mr. trump demonstrated time and again over the last two years he sees little need to observe the norms that governed other occupants of the white house. feeling it's antiquated or irrelevant if he recognizes the existence at all. he sa omar and tlaib have become two of his favorite targets. hours after this benjamin netanyahu confirmed the country would, in fact, bar the congresswomen from visiting. a move that sparked outrage on both sides of the aisle. joining the conversation, correspondent from "the new york times" the great annie karni. the president is going in new hampshire, the closest state he lost in the last election, but he's seen time and again for his base these kinds of attacked, branding women like the two muslim members, the two female muslim members of congress, as

the face of the democratic party. >> that's right. and this attack actually was a little more shocking than usual for a president who is hard to be shocked by anymore in terms of trying to dictate the actions of foreign leaders to take against his own political enemies at home. he has -- the idea, the old very antiquated idea that politics stop at the water's edge has clearly been out of fashion since trump took office. we've seen him go abroad and play out his fights with political adversaries on foreign soil. for instance, in tokyo where he was wined and dined by abe, his best friend on the international stage, spent most of the trip attacking joe biden. this, however, is an escalated version of that tradition where he sits at home and commands a leader of another country to take an action against his adversaries here. >> and rick stengel, not just the leader of another country but the leader of one democracy

telling the leader of another democracy that two women who were legitimately elected by the people in their district should not be allowed to go to israel. >> yes, chris, you put it exactly right. it's appalling. the head of the u.s. government is telling a foreign head of state to not accept two dually elected members of congress over which he presides. it's appalling. the second appalling part of it is israel listened to it. israel bills itself as the only democracy in the middle east. a democracy that protects freedom of speech, freedom of representation, all of the freedoms we prize here. and what does netanyahu do? he does not allow these two critics to come in to his own country, nullifying this idea of him as a democracy. the other thing it also shows weakness, right? a strong leader and strong government allows dissent and allows criticism. a weak leader and weak country doesn't allow it and that's what netanyahu did. >> many organizations, aipac and others, pro israeli

organizations have said we don't like what these two women have said but they ought to be able, a.b., to go to israel and see for themselves. >> right. even the democrats in the house who are jewish and taken great offense to some of the things these two members have said in particular, have also expressed solidarity with them being legislators from separate but coequal branch of the government of the u.s. who should be invited into the democracy of an allied government. the president does not see the congress as a co separate piece of government, as we know. i have not heard from enough republicans, except mitch mcconnell and house minority leader kevin mccarthy put out tweets. but it's been pretty quiet over at the trump administration about whether or not we stand with the protesters in hong kong for their democratic rights and

their human rights. this is -- the president's been tweeting today that he thought if president xi just met with the protesters, everything would end up in a really nice hug. this is beyond belief. but actually save for marco rubio, i have not heard a lot of republicans talking today about him appreciate uripressuring is them into entry into israel. i think more republicans need to speak up. >> a.b., you're nodding. >> yes, he basically made the case i don't agree with anything these women say about israel but essentially by barring them from entering the country of israel, the israeli government and i guess by extension president trump, were giving them exactly what they wanted, which is to be turned into kind of the outcast, somebody whose views are so dangerous that youp can t can't allow them in your nation.

what does that do for your platform? it raises them up in certain ways. it looks youngijudging by how t came together where israel would admit them and the president tweeting what he did this morning, he pushed them into a corner to do what the president of the united states said or go against him and i'm not sure that necessarily was the right call. the president might like this as an electoral strategy but on a policy level as far as what israel is trying to accomplish and what many in the republican party want to accomplish with the israel policy, i'm not sure it was terribly productive. >> there's an israeli journalist who covers for a major newspaper in israel wrote, israeli officials want the media to focus on the 41 supportive members of the democratic members of congress who visited israel last week and less on omar and tlaib. but trump wants the media to focus entirely on omar and tlaib because it's good for him

politically. >> trump is weak and ineffective as a president. he has nothing to pull from. so what he does is turn to women of color, people of color, which he dehumanized repeatedly, from the golden he ascended that golden escalator in 2015, and this is his place. he has nothing else. he has nothing he can lift up and say, i did this for the american public. i have increased wages. i have done xy and z for farmers. he hasn't done anything. so this is what he turns to. >> the other thing he turns to, and we mentioned it, he consistently does not stop politics, domestic politics at the water's edge. he attack from abroad. let's just remind folks, and this is by the way all of the sound i'm about to play you is from this year. take a listen. >> kim jong-un made a statement that joe biden has is a low iq individual. he probably is based on his record. i think i agree with him on that. i think he's been a not very good mayor from what i

understand. he's done a poor job. crime is up. a lot of problems. he should be positive, not negative. he's a negative force, not a positive force. i think she's a disgrace. i don't think she's a talented person. i tried to be nice because i would have liked to have gotten some deals done. she's incapable of doing deals. she's a nasty, vindictive, horrible person. >> fast forward to last week, annie, when a reporter went to the white house and said, we're hearing the pressure is being put on bibi netanyahu to not allow these women to come to israel. it was categorically denied and yet we see what happens today. >> yes, in addition to all of the other groups he goes after, we're looking at another factor of this where it makes it very impossible to work for him and speak for him. stephanie grisham, the new press secretary, said cat cegorically not true when axios reported he wanted them barred from this

trip. he ka ulcalled it fake news and tweets it out. in addition, his own ambassador to israel, determineurmer, said intend to let him in. he puts the people hired to further his agenda in a very awkward place and makes them look like they're flat-out lying or simply don't know. >> annie karni, thank you for spending time with us and the rest of our panel. on a happy note, crossing the aisle to beat donald trump, a chronic republican going down the list of democrats he's thinking of going for in 2020. e. this is not just a fever. this is not just the flu. it's meningitis b... and you're not there to help. while meningitis b is uncommon... once symptoms appear, they can progress quickly and can be fatal... sometimes within 24 hours.

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donald trump wants you to think he's a lock to win re-election in 2020. don't believe him. in fact, he's vulnerable. and no matter how he spins the negative story surrounding his presidency, tonight at his rally in new hampshire, he's far from

a sure thing next november. and in trying to take advantage of that vulnerability, one area where democrats are likely to put some focus, poaching dissatisfied establishment republicans from across the aisle. exhibit a, former senator jeff flake of arizona. a card-carrying trump critic who left washington last year. so what kind of candidate is he welcoming for? well, flake told the desiree news absent a alternative to trump or viable third party candidate, he's ready to vote for a responsible democrat. his appraisal of the field, quote, i worked closely with michael bennet, he's a thoughtful, good man. amy klobuchar, i have worked with her. cory booker downplayed a lot of his bipartisan. and joe biden, it's been nice to hear him say i can work with the other side. that's not what primary voters want to hear but it's what the country needs to hear because it's true. i wish we had a republican candidate to say the same.

aaron and the table are back. we know where jeff flake came from and what it cost him to be the anti-trump member. having said that, people like him could be very fertile ground for whoever the democratic nominee is. >> yes, and i think it's helpful for democrats to have somebody like jeff flake out there making the case. justin amash is another voice democrats can point to and say, look, these guys were regarded as very conservative lawmakers. back when jeff flake was in the house, he was kind of wrecking shop a little bit because he was so fiscally conservative on certain issues. the idea this is now some kind of moderate republican who is just disenchanted because the president is too far to the right i think is a little bit difficult to swallow. so i would expect you will see democrats focusing a lot on people like justin amash. justin amash can run for the libertarian nomination if he wanted to. the more they have, those kinds of voices and conservative republican voices, i think that

helps them make that case. especially to those maybe suburban, conservative voters who maybe have reservations about the president. >> did you notice who was missing off that list, elizabeth warren, right? there's been a lot of talk about how well her campaign is going, the response that she gets in the crowds. but she faces a problem, right? she's a qualified candidate, sharp rise in support but lingering doubts over whether she could beat trump in the general election. >> i mean, i look to the statistics at this point. she's one of the few campaigns that's rising in the polls consistently. she's raising without massive donors, corporate donors, and she's really laying out plans that i think americans are responding to. she's developing a positive vision and narrative for the nation. so i think it's a little bit ridiculous and misogynistic to question whether or not she can take on trump at this point because she is garnering enthusiasm that can't be ignored. >> i think the problem really at

the heart of elizabeth warren is the whole idea you will need somebody more moderate to go up against him, that you will need somebody who people feel can stand on the stage with donald trump, the way "the new york times" puts in their story, many democrats love elizabeth warren and their worry about her is what is the meaning of electability? and how and who can take on donald trump? >> the coalition in the democratic party that wins the nomination has traditionally been nonwhite voters mixed with nonwhite college voters. that's what biden has. there are a lot of problems who want to vote trump out of office but they're not going to vote for elizabeth warren and they will vote for joe biden. that could change between now and may when the primary ends. we have no idea what will happen. but she's looking at dismal plaq black support. she has educated white voters. so she needs to expand her coalition to win. if she knocks off sanders, that's a threat, maybe she can be the party nominee.

leaders are a little nervous because she would have to win the nomination without that durable support from part of the coalition that is traditionally given the nomination. to that candidate. so that's really the concern you have whispered now. i don't think you will see jeff flake and these people who were never trumpers get on board unless it's joe biden. >> unless it's joe biden? >> i don't think klobuchar will be the nominee, i don't by bennet will be the nominee. tim ryan can't get to the debate stage. none of the moderates can qualify for the next debate. without biden there's no center lane left. >> it's early, we always say that, but you look at the south carolina poll that just came out, once again, he's got a double-digit lead. there hasn't been a lot of movement in and around joe biden. joe biden has stayed at the top of the polls. >> we also have to remember it's still early in the primary process. in both parties for as long as i

can remember, the idea was you run to the left or to the right in the primaries and you run to the center in the general election. elizabeth warren can tack to the center if she becomes the nominee. there's no reason why that's not possible. she can appeal to voters that flake is talking about. the question about what senator flake is saying is, is he a proxy for potential voters, swing voters, the mythical, legendary swing voter who might not vote for president trump and go to the democratic candidate. i'm skeptical about that. to me the democrats win by amping up the coalition of 2008 and 2012. there are way more of those folks than republican voters. if you take people of color, women, college-educated women, women who make more than $100,000. that was part of the obama coalition. there are more of those every day and fewer republican voters every day.

double down on the obama coalition and that's the winning recipe for 2020. >> aaron quickly for the third time we will see it's very early, but who is the white house most worried about? who is team trump worried about the most? >> to hear them say it is biden and i think that's the most logical answer to that question. >> decent you want to think they're saying that because then democrats will vote for -- >> that's what i always think too. there are certainly arguments to be made biden is not the strongest opponent for president trump. for many of the reasons we are seeing in recent weeks here with him saying things and off the cuff things that don't quite compute. going back to where we started this conversation, elizabeth warren, if you look a little deep in the numbers, the electability concern is something going away a little bit for democratic voters that maybe it started out that way. so it's not actually a concern for the general election.

i do think it's too easy to attach her to these massachusetts democrats who have run for president before to kind of caricature her as a former harvard professor, liberal elite kind of person. she speaks in a way that's very populist and can be motivational in certain ways like the president did in 2016. >> something we haven't talked about, after the break, a brand-new beto attempting to relaunch his campaign. o'rourke is striking a tough tone.

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i'm confident if at this moment we do not wake up to this threat, then we as a country will die in our sleep. the response to this has to be that each of us make a commitment to see clearly, to

speak honestly, and to act decisively in this moment of truth. i for one see more clearly than ever. >> beto o'rouke with a warning and poignant call to action in his big relaunch speak today. that's after a week off the trail when o'rourke chose to stay in his hometown of el paso after it recovers from that racially motivated mass shooting at a walmart. today was also a chance to address a question he's being asked more and more -- >> there have even been some who suggested that i stay in texas and run for senate. but that would not be good enough for this community. that would not be good enough for el paso. that would not be good enough for this country. we must take the fight directly to the source of this problem, and that person who has caused this pain and placed this country in this moment of peril,

and that is donald trump. >> joining the conference msnbc correspondent garrett haake. you were there for the speech and i know you had a chance to talk to beto o'rouke. what is your take out of it? >> this is angry beto. a far cry from hope and change but this is someone who will go out on the campaign trail and make his campaign about donald trump far more explicitly than he has up to this point in the hopes of doing two things, either winning this nomination for himself i think by making an argument similar to the one joe biden has been making or at least keeping everyone focused across the common enemy for democrats in this case. you saw how frustrated o'rourke got from reporters last week, is this president a racist or not? are you going to the iowa state fair and eat a pork chop there? this is someone trying to snap the focus of the race back where he thinks it belongs or at least

he thinks democrats want to see it go. politically it's sort of a risky move any time you talk about a reset of your campaign, that means things are not going where you want them to. but when you're at with beto o'rouke is, bottom of the top tier, 2% of polls, has a little bit of a money problem but qualified for the next debate, why not roll the dice and be politically exactly who you are and want to be and let the chips fall where they may. >> we are talking about usually any other universe but any other universe when you talk about a list of criteria a presidential candidate should be, the kind of characteristics they should put out there, angry would not be at the top of the list. but when you look at the democratic base and activists, that's exactly how they're feeling. could this work? >> he's making a moral case that this is a moral crusade against the single greatest threat in modern history of the united states of america, which is the present occupant of the oval

office. is this about whether there's a public option for health care or whether medicaid can be expanded? he's making the case we have this perilous, mortal threat and that's the focus. i think it's a very powerful argument. i agree with that argument. it was a very smart david brooks column the other day about how all of the democratic candidates are kind of in the weeds and they're not talking about this moral threat to america. and beto is. and that's very compelling. >> i do think aaron blake, one of the things garrett said that makes you perk up is he's actually decided to be who he is and to talk about how he's really feeling. imagine that. i'm assuming that speech was not focus grouped. >> yeah, i can't speak to that. i don't know how much calculation there was involved in this but i think generally speaking beto o'rouke, different candidates have different strengths. some of them are very good at triangulation. some of them are very good at

raising money, and some of them are very good at kind of emoting and connecting with audiences. i think we see that certainly to some degree with joe biden when he's speaking on stage. you see the passion from him. i think if there's another candidate who can do that, it's beto o'rouke. if he's going to make a splash in this race, he's probably going to do what he's naturally good at and what we are seeing in this speech is more of an effort to play that up. so there's an angry -- there's a fine line between anger and passion. you can have a little bit of anger but generally speaking what you want to convey is passion. i think this speech was maybe the first step towards making that a more passionate campaign. >> and i'm wondering, garrett haake, if beto -- the folks on his team that you talked to, it's not as if the senate race goes away because he made this speech today. they will see how he does. you pointed out all of the obstacles in his path. he has a high hill to climb to

stay in this race. having said that, it's not like the clock is ticking until tomorrow. >> that's true. the filing deadline to get into that senate race would be in december. but i can tell you as long as i have covered o'rourke going back to the last senate campaign, from the minute that was over until now, never have i heard from him in an on-the-record conversation or private conversations with him or anyone close to him any desire to involve himself in that race. i think the best way to think about this is like most democrats, beto o'rouke really, really did not like ted cruz, hated ted cruz. would have loved to have seen him thrown out of the senate. in that race he talked a lot about the fact he could be a good voice for texas in part because he was able to work with a senator like john cornyn. and think to get just as fired up and get back in the race and run against someone you think is kind of meh is probably not going to happen. and the other democrat that ran a close house race in 2018 in

that race against cornyn. i do not see it happening, but we're a long way from december. >> and there are an awful lot of democrats, as we know a.b., who would love to see bullock and hickenlooper who dropped out today saying he's thinking of running for the senate, have all three run for the senate. if there's anybody close to the please get him out of there behind donald trump it's mitch mcconnell. >> i'm actually surprised how little the democrats and primary campaign are talking about the need to take the senate majority back or they can't get anything done. it's interesting. it's really on the back burner and crucial for them going forward, for judges, for everything. and it is a sign of the near death of the parties. donald trump was an insurgent and took over the republican party. bernie almost became the nominee in 2016. the parties barely raised significant money anymore. they have databases. they cannot pick candidates. it's the wild west.

stacey abrams would have knocked off david perdue in florida. she refuses to run. no one wants to run for the senate. the party can't come to these people anymore and say we will help you later if you help us now. it's every man for himself. >> garrett, thank you very much for spending time with us. i'm assuming it's another steamy afternoon there. coming up, outrageous comments from an elected republican who has his own party saying stop talking. and it isn't donald trump. it's time for the biggest sale of the year on the

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gop congressman steve king facing more criticism and calls for his resignation after making comments yesterday suggesting the world's population wouldn't exist if not for rape and incest. comments that the third highest ranking republican liz cheney called appealing and bizarre. this is not the first controversial statement we've heard from the iowa congressman just to name a few. in 2017 he said assimilation, not diversity, is our american strength. and earlier this year he said white nationalists, white supremacists, western civilization. how did that language become offensive? and the congressman in his only public response to this so far just in the last hour while we've been on the air, he didn't take it back. he instead hit back at liz cheney for her voting record on abortion. i barely even know what to say about this, but another winner

from him is "i'd like to see an america that is just so homogenous that we look a lot the same." >> chris, he says it because he believes it, and that's it. he believes it, it's a disgrace, it's disgusting, he should resign. if every republican does not come out against him and call for his resignation, it shows where they stand. >> mccarthy already said we took away his committee assignments. on the other hand you can make the argument he still has the same vote that every other member of the house does, which is one. >> right. i think they just need to obviously put their resources into getting rid of him so that they can try to hold that seat and rid themselves of the liability between now and then there's not much that you can do. >> do you see them doing that? >> i mean, i think that they should. i think that they're probably quietly doing it in ways that are not overt, that might become overt soon if liz cheney's talking this. was. but i think it's just -- the republican party knows exactly

what it's doing to itself. this has happened for years from comments from candidates about consensual rape and just atrocities and they didn't put enough distance soon enough between the parties and those individuals where it didn't seem to stick. >> on the other hand, wouldn't democrats, whoever the democrat is that's a republican-leaning district, but wouldn't you rather run against king than somebody else? >> you know, i'm doing my best to try to not even dignify his remarks with a response, chris. i was kind of hoping you weren't going to call on me. but, yes. obviously he's a target now. i mean, you have so much ammunition, and as you were saying, if the republicans were smart, they would catapult him out of that seat and put in a better nominee. but as a democrat, i'd like to run against steve king. i already have my campaign. >> but the president has held his fire on this one, maybe tonight we'll hear from him, who

knows. >> this isn't exactly a good subject for him to comment on. >> has that ever stopped him? good subject, bad subject? >> it could stop him this time. >> what do you think? aaron? >> oh, i'm sorry, you're calling on me. >> we started our own little conversation here, but we'll go back to you. >> i think the problem with this especially for the republican party is that once they start really strongly rebuking steve king, maybe they do something beyond the committee assignments, they don't support him in his re-election or something like that, the question becomes, well, if these comments are okay, what about all these other comments that the president made? the president of the united states is not going to come out against steve king because he doesn't like this kind of what he views as a gotcha game where you're not allowed to say what you actually think and everything is kind of played up. and so i wouldn't expect the party to do anything. they are just going to hope this goes away and that he loses his re-election. >> we'll be right back. especially these days.

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a.b. stoddard, juanita tolliver, thank you all. that's going to do it for me. i'm chris jansing in for nicolle wallace. "mtp daily" with chuck todd starts right now. right now ♪ if it's thursday, an economic downturn could spell disaster for president trump in 2020. so as the economy threatens to take a dive, president trump dives right back into the culture wars. now israel is denying entry to two american members of congress after public pressure from the president. plus, beto testing how the 2020 democrat is trying to breathe new life into his flagging campaign again. welcome to thursday. it's "meet the press daily." good evening. i'm chuck todd here in washington. we begin the moment with high economic anxiety as the president faces the prospect of an economic downturn in an