all right. we are just about done. you can catch me again at 3:00 eastern. i'll be here for that. >> and i will see you at 9:00 a.m. and i'll be watching you at 3:00. >> see us on all those various things we tell you about what you can see us on. >> what about me at 2:00 p.m.? >> you don't have to go into any apps or streaming things. you can just stay right here and you see our great friend chris jansing. >> the next hour we're just watching chris jansing. >> we hope that's the place to be. i am chris jansing. in for katy tur. 11:00 a.m. out west. 2:00 p.m. in washington where in just minutes president trump will welcome the president of romania to the white house. now the official agenda includes energy, security and trade, but this is also an opportunity for the president to talk to the press with questions almost sure to be asked about new reporting on white house economic worries. "the washington post" reports

that several senior administration officials are keenly aware of the risk of a downturn. those officials have, quote, begun discussing whether to push for temporary payroll tax cut as a way to arrest an economic slowdown. it's one of several ideas the administration appears to be considering as the post puts it, the internal discussions reveal growing concerns about the economy among president trump's top economic aides. a reminder that both trump and his economic advisers have spent the last two days denying there's a risk of recession. and they claim they weren't preparing for one, although they also admit they're not ruling anything out. it's the kind of bizarre push and pull we've seen play out with this president time and again. especially when it comes to the economy. "the washington post" offers up the following example. when barack obama was president and the economic statistics were good, then-candidate donald trump said they were fake. when trump became president and inherited the exact same stats,

they suddenly became real. now that they're turning south, they're apparently fake once more. which leads us to today's big question. is the white house morworried about an economic downturn to than they're willing to say publicly. joining me is geoff bennett, msnbc political analyst jonathan lemire, politico white house reporter nancy cook and "new york times" tax and economics reporter jim tankersley. what a great panel. thanks to you all for being here. jeff, the deputy press secretary hogan gidley was on fox news today. he was pressed about this whole idea of a payroll tax cut. let me play what he said. >> if there were to be a temporary payroll tax being considered, what might draw the conclusion that there is a need to stimulate the economy? the economy that, obviously, the white house and the president tout is still on very strong ground? >> first of all, there's a payroll tax cut, not a payroll tax because we are always looking to give people back

their hard-earned money. that's what the conversation was about. i was in the meeting yesterday. we talked about all types of options. this president has taken this economy to new heights we never thought possible and so many detractors on the left said couldn't ever happen. >> i don't think geoff, he answered the question, but we know from our own reporting "the new york times" has said, "the washington post," on and othere is nervousness about the economy in the white house. so is another tax cut on the table? >> not at the moment, but let's try to parse out the conflicting messages. you have white house officials saying on the one hand the fundamentals of the economy are strong yet they're also explicitly acknowledging that white house officials are considering ways to prop up the economy. president trump just the other day on sunday said he sees no recession on the horizon, and yet, chris, he's bullying the fed chairman to cut already low interest rates, which, by the way, is the kind of thing you'd do if you are concerned about a recession. even the president, chris, reviving talk about a middle

class tax cut. remember back before the 2018 midterms he promised a 10% tax cut across the board for middle class workers. that never materialized. but now white house officials say that that's back on the table for discussion. why would they be talking about that unless they're concerned potentially about a recession somewhere on the horizon. the issue about this payroll tax cut, and we should explain to people it's a 6.2% tax that we all pay. it goes to help fund medicare and social security. if you cut it and make $50,000, that's an extra $83 in your wallet every month meant to boost consumer spending. but it also drives up the deficit. and donald trump on his watch has driven up a trillion-dollar deficit. it's the kind of thing that democrats on the other side of pennsylvania on capitol hill aren't going to get behind. i think the real thing this administration has to come to grips with is this china trade deal. you hear from economists and business leaders who say the white house, if they are really concerned about this economy, have got to find some sort of agreement with china.

that's the thing driving the most uncertainty. >> when you look at all of this put together, the potential maybe, maybe not for another tax cut when you look at all the economic indicators but also what's happening with tariffs, what's happening with china and the president yet again chastizing jay powell for what he called a, quote, horrendous lack of vision. what do you see going on here? >> well, there's clearly a slowdown happening in the economy. that's what's going on. the white house can see it. i just published a piece updating some charts that the administration had used in september to show us all how great the economy was doing. and by almost every measure that they used to sell the health of the economy, things have gotten worse. growth has slowed. we're not in recession territory yet in terms of growth but manufacturing is essentially in a recession. and we have a lot of reason to be worried about the overall health of the global economy. so in that environment, yeah, there's real reason to be worried, especially if you are a

president who has, you know, a stronger ratings -- poll ratings on the economy than on almost any other issue and you're facing re-election next year. they have every reason to be both trying to talk up the strength of the economy, trying to talk to consumers who remain the big engine of growth while at the same time making contingency plans for what if things get worse because of these external and self-inflicted headwinds? >> so you have, at the same time, the white house advisers are going from sunday show to sunday show talking about how great the economy is. and to jim's point, you don't want people going off into a panic. you want people to have confidence to spend money. on the other hand, are they doing that to calm potential public fears? or is it aimed at the man who is at 1600 pennsylvania avenue? >> i think it's a little bit of both. there is certainly -- yes, they're trying to cover the waterfront and suggest the fundamentals of the economy are still strong. and, look, largely the economy

is doing well. it's certainly slowing down but it's still doing well. we're not at a recession. we don't know there's going to be a recession, but there are enough troubling signs that they are starting to worry. the president has shown time and time again he doesn't always listen to advisers around him. he is out there full force saying the economy is doing great. any blame, he's not going to accept any. people around him realize they're worried about the impact of the china trade war. >> so maybe if they're worried they don't want to go to him, do they go to reporters? they get this out there? maybe we should be thinking about a tax cut or some other contingency plan? with the message to the president? >> it is certainly a tried and true tactic that if you want to deliver a message to the president, sometimes you do so by cable. whether it's fox news or talk to a reporter who writes something and those articles end up on the president's desk. he's known to value that outside advice whether it's a media report or informal advise or the phone far more than the people

he surrounds himself with in the west wing. he's also talked, he's wedded himself to the economy in his rhetoric. not just the stock market day in, day out. no president has ever tied themselves to the fortunes of wall street like he has. and he reaps in the benefits but then wants to try to ignore it when things don't go well. he's promising growth at such a huge number. 4% or more. even if we don't have a recession but just growth slows, that's enough for voters to say he's not following through on his promises. >> nancy pelosi has raised this idea there's a conspiracy afoot to make the economy look bad to tank his re-election hopes, but if the people were putting the ideas out there that maybe some kind of tax cut or other action needs to be taken in the event of a downturn, is his own economic team part of that vast conspiracy that he seems to see? >> well, i think that his economic team privately, you know, as jonathan and jim and others have said are weighing

options but publicly what trump is trying to do is really message this. that is happening in two ways. one is by reassuring consumers and voters that the economy is fine. i talked to one former administration official that said that voters really vote on this state of the economy based on how they feel about their own pocketbooks. so part of what trump is trying to do with all this happy talk on the economy that he and others like larry kudlow, his top economic adviser are giving to people is really so that people feel secure even if they see data points that suggest otherwise. and then the second thing that he's trying to do to message about the state of the economy is to have scape goats so that if there is a potential recession he can blame people like jay powell, the head of the federal reserve. he can blame the media. he can blame democrats. he's definitely trying to set up some fall people in case there's a downturn heading into his re-election. as jonathan and others have said, the state of the economy is his most potent message

heading into 2020. >> a message came out, jim, from the committee for responsible federal budget. and they said this. that cutting the employee side social security payroll tax by two percentage point for two years would cost nearly $300 billion before interest. i mean, any of these things, are they likely to be met with any kind of pushback from republicans who maybe think that already we've spent way too much money beyond what we have? >> i think the bigger question is whether house democrats would think about taking any of these up. they would need to have a compelling case from the president of the economy was in dire need of more stimulus to think about something like a payroll tax cut moving quickly through congress. he's not making that case right now. it will be a very different situation if we got into sort of the kind of thing we saw in the start of the last recession where, you know, democrats and republicans work together to try to inject some stimulus.

we don't have the president saying that, and i think sort of republicans are an academic point at this point. democrats control the house. if you'll do a stimulative tax cut or spending increase you have to start there. thank you. jonathan lemire, you'll be back with us later on in this hour. still ahead, jill biden makes the case for her husband, essentially saying, you may not like him best, but he's your best chance of beating trump. plus, more signs the president is backing off his support for background checks. if not the president, who can lead the charge on legislation that most americans support? but first, the voters he's losing make the president vulnerable heading into 2020. so, every day, we put our latest technology and unrivaled network to work. the united states postal service makes more e-commerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country. e-commerce deliveries to homes when i needed to create a better visitor experience.

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the republican national committee has raised an impressive $20.8 million in july, a record for a july nonelection year. that money will go to supporting republican candidates all across the country, but also for president trump's re-election efforts. and according to a new nbc news/"wall street journal" poll, the president may need all the help he can get. our first read analysis paints a picture of a vulnerable incumbent president who, since 2016, has lost 3 points with male voters, 19 with women, 19 with white voters who don't have a college degree and maybe most worrisome for the white house, he's lost 23 points with independents. joining me is republican

strategist and msnbc political analyst rick tyler and politics editor of the root and msnbc political contributor jason johnson. so maybe we'll call it mixed news for the president, rick. excellent fund-raising numbers, but not so good polling. can the first one help improve the second? >> look, i think so. yeah, let me start here. so the president for the main criticism of him has been that he is not adding to his coalition. he sticks with his base and is only going to stick with his base, not expand his base. he has lost 23 points with independents, 22 points with white college educated and he's lost 19 points with white uneducated or noncollege educated. that's a group he did surprisingly well with. he lost 19% among women, 15% among whites. and everything else is pretty much -- he's down in every single category. now, of course, all these poll

numbers are taken against a generic candidate. and as you say, they raised -- the republican national committee raised $21 million in off-year election. that's good news for trump. not really good news for the republican party because you can be sure that when trump is in trouble, the money is going to go to protect the president and not republican incumbent seats. so that kind of money like hundreds of millions of dollars it looks like the republicans will be able to spend against the eventual nominee. that could damage a person's reputation significantly. look at trump, it's very hard to damage his reputation because his reputation is already so bad, but any democratic national candidate, anybody who is a nominee on the democratic side can really get hurt. >> remember in the beginning of the presidency when he first started doing some of the tweeting and making some of the comments and he's hurting himself with suburban women? well, women are some of the drivers of the bad poll numbers

but it goes on and on. men, whites, latinos, independents. how do you fix a wholesale slide even with the kind of money the rnc is bringing in and his own campaign re-elect is bringing in? >> you can't. this is the titanic. it's already hit the rock which is trump's own behavior and policy and now it's sinking. does it mean it's going to sink completely underground by the time we get to 2020 and the election? i don't know. but any president, very rarely does a president increase their vote share the second time around. it happened with bush, but that's because we had 9/11. but obama went down and trump's going to go down. so he's not going to be able to really fix these numbers. all he can hope to do is run against a democrat who he can drag down as well. i've been saying this all along. donald trump is not likely to be lucky enough to run against hillary clinton again. he's not going to run against someone who has a 30-year

history of being attacked and having a sort of acrimonious relationship with the press. so usually i would say, you know, losing to the generic democrat doesn't mean anything for trump but he's got nothing but generic people he's running against next year. none of them are going to create the kind of anger illicited toward hillary clinton. he is actually in trouble for once. and if the economy goes down, he's in serious trouble. >> meantime, we have some new reporting out of his inner circle. the new yorker uncovering the old video of secretary of state pompeo criticizing trump when he was a candidate in 2016. compare what you're going to hear to how he talks about the president now. >> donald trump the other day said that if he tells a soldier to commit a war crime, the soldier will just go do it. he said they'll do as i tell them to do. we've spent 7 1/2 years with authoritarian president who ignored our constitution. we don't need four more years of that. >> i've enjoyed the privilege of working for president trump.

the comments from back in 2016 it was a tough political campaign. when i'm on your team, i am all in as i was. and when my candidate left, i was all in for president trump then as well. and i'm in for america today. >> all in, jason. will president trump buy that or could pompeo be getting a phone call? >> no, look, the reality is, most of the people in the white house don't really like donald trump. unless it's steven miller who is getting his policies pushed through. every other month we're getting leaks from people saying, oh, my gosh, this guy is crazy. we don't trust him. so this doesn't surprise me. he may get chewed out for half a minute but there are dozens of people in the white house right now in the republican party right now who do not like the behavior of this president, who do not like the ethics of this president but they'll support him and they'll do anything they can to get him re-elected because he's pushing through the policies they want. so this doesn't surprise me. this could be the case with half a dozen people. >> rick, you make anything of the fact that scaramucci has now turned against the president?

>> no, i mean, look. if it was john kelly turning against the president, i might listen to him, but scaramucci was in the white house for ten days. >> 11. >> don't undersell it. >> and he got fired by the president. so, no, i don't put a lot of credence in saying, oh, gee, i was right, put me on tv. or i was wrong. he was wrong. >> i think we recall that john kelly at one point called him an idiot. so -- >> i think it was worse than that. >> it may be worse. rick tilerks thank you. jason johnson, you're back later in the hour. jill biden making the argument for her husband. you may not like him, but here's why you should vote for him anyway. to open an account. at fidelity those zeros really add up. ♪ maybe i'll win ♪ saved by zero

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we've got this really interesting, brand-new 2020 poll. the big story may be the tightening race for second place. even though the strongest showing is from the front-runner. joe biden with a growing edge, but bernie sanders and elizabeth warren in a battle to be the progressive alternative. not such good news for another democrat who has taken a big hit. joining me, msnbc national political correspondent steve kornacki. so break down these new numbers for us. >> some interesting stuff here, chris.

our friends at cnn, a national poll, the story at the start of this summer, remember here on msnbc, nbc, the first democratic debate. it was joe biden taking a hit and the hit being delivered by kamala harris. the story now as this summer comes to an end is biden by the end of the summer is where he was at the beginning. things have stabilized for joe biden. still the front-runner. high 20s. near double-digit advantage. and kamala harris. at the start of the summer, he seemed to be surging. wow, this is the worst one she's had in a while, down to 5% nationally for kamala harris in this new poll. an interesting dynamic there for her as well. significantly in this poll, this right here. julian castro, 2%. why is that a big deal? that's the fourth poll that's recognized by the dnc where castro hits 4%. you need four polls at 2% by next week to qualify for the full debates. julian castro coming into today

was not yet in that debate. now thanks to this, he is in that debate. the big question mark over the next eight days, august 28th, that's the deadline. tom steyer the billionaire has three polls where he's hit 2%. he did not hit 2% in this one. he needs another poll in the next eight days, tom steyer does, to hit 2%. if he does, he gets on the stage for the depaul debates. just break this down. we've been seeing this. biden is not even in first place among liberals. it's elizabeth warren. it's the moderate and conservative wing of the party where biden isn't just leading. he's cleaning up. nobody else even in double digits. also age continues to be a major dividing line in this. again, biden not even leading democratic voters under 50 years old. biden is in second place. over 50. totally different ball game. aiming, ideology, huge divides in this. >> steve, thank you. clearly joe biden knows what's keeping him at the top.

the electability factor. there's a brand-new tv ad making exactly that case. and so did his wife jill. surprisingly blunt at a roundtable discussion with voters. >> you know, your candidate may be better on, i don't know, health care than joe is, but you've got to look at who is going to win this election. maybe you have to swallow a little bit and say, i personally like so and so better but your bottom line has to be that we have to beat trump. >> joining me, democratic strategist joel payne and democrat and former chief of staff to senator joe manchin, chris. good to see you both. is this a message to inspire voters? some people are saying that's kind of the political equivalent of eat your vegetables. may not be your favorite thing to do, but it's good for you. >> in a word, no. it probably will not inspire anybody except those who were only motivated by the idea of beating donald trump, which is what the biden campaign is

betting on. you know, i actually made ads for the hillary clinton campaign in 2016. and what you realize when you do that is, obviously, you're going to lead with your strongest message. i did not -- the words i did not hear in that ad that i listened to were the word iowa. i didn't see any iowans. it's an iowa tv ad but it's not in iowa. he feels like his national message of being the most electable, of being the one that can beat donald trump in the polls, of being the one that is the most tied to the obama legacy are all the winning messages that are going to get voters to turn out for him. and, obviously, he's being proven right so far. >> we're seeing in that new cnn poll, chris, that that is what matters to democratic voters. it's consistent with past polls. what do you care about? i care about someone who can beat donald trump. is it possible, chris, do you think even likely, this wasn't necessarily so off the cuff by jill biden but a clear sign this is our message. >> well, i think it's pretty clear they'll play up the

electability argument because it reinforces their own narrative. >> yeah, but to the point you say, maybe you don't like his positions as much as you like somebody else's? that's what some people sat up about. >> here's part of the challenge. if you look at past primaries, and if those are an example of what can happen, the electability argument is kind of a double-edged sword. for example, we saw, you know, in 2008, hillary clinton, then senator clinton played the, i'm the more electable candidate. i'm the candidate against the then young buck obama. you know, people, especially the democratic primary, especially in some of these early states want to be inspired. you've got to give them a vision forward. the electability argument is a given. that is clearly driving a lot of the energy in the base. but on the flip side, the reason why i think you're seeing more and in particular get some real momentum and energy behind her is that she's laying out a vision. whether you agree with it or not, she's got a vision forward.

and i think that's kind of the challenge for the biden campaign. you can play the electability argument all you want but you still have to make an empassioned argument beyond trump, beyond that as to why you are the stronger and the better candidate to be president. >> let's talk a little more, joel, about this poll because elizabeth warren is hanging tough against bernie sanders. in fact, she had her biggest crowd ever last night in minnesota. a monday night, the campaign estimates 12,000 people were there on a monday night. look, you can't equate crowd size with whether or not you'll win or anything like that or bernie sanders would have taken the nomination arguably last time, but what do you make of that? >> one word -- energy. and it's energy in a part of the country where democrats critically need it. the upper midwest. minnesota was a state hillary clinton won it was a close state that president trump challenged her in. i think there's an inherent message there that the warren folks are sending saying, listen, we've got a candidate

that can draw record or large size crowds in a state like minnesota. one other thing, too, going back to the poll you were talking about with steve earlier. what's interesting is, obviously, harris has dropped and biden's gained. and i wonder the message that's going to send to the rest of the field. if you're bernie sanders or elizabeth warren, and the next debate comes up and you're probably on the debate stage with joe biden, you have to ask yourself the question, given what happened to kamala harris, does it make sense to try to take a shot at joe biden? are voters going to punish you for that given the fact we're seeing voters act in a pragmatic fashion this time around? >> what do you make of that? kamala harris took a precipitous drop in this poll. she was at 17%. now the backing of 5%. she lost everything she gained in those debates. what do you make of that, and do you think that there's a point to be made about whether or not you go after joe biden or you go after president trump. >> you know, having been in these debate prep rooms, there's a lot of, i think, sometimes

excitement about throwing the punch. throwing punches in debates are nice. they get media moments but they don't always help you. in terms of that last debate and what we're seeing kind of play out, and i think warren again kind of exemplifies this and biden on the other side exemplifies it. if you have to have an argument, a narrative as to why you are running for president. that is distinct from simply, don't vote for the other person. and i think the trap that some of the candidates fell into in that last debate is thinking, you know if we just throw enough punches, we'll weaken them. that's not how it usually works. they've got to spend more time, more energy as to why they, meaning they should be president, why people should be voting for them. and i think given with -- basically 20-plus people who are still running for president, that narrative, that vision becomes even more important. >> right now, ten on the debate stage. maybe one or two more. we'll see. chris, joel, thanks, guys. appreciate it. last week the president

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a great appetite, and i mean a very strong appetite for background checks. and i think we can bring up background checks like we've never had before. >> new reporting today that the president is indeed backing away from background checks. one white house aide telling the daily beast he's starting to move on in the aftermath of the

dayton and el paso shootings. trump, of course, promised legislation, the likes of which, quote, we've never seen before. that was then. this is now. >> people don't realize we have very strong background checks right now. you go in to buy a gun, you have to sign up. there are a lot of background checks that have been approved over the years. so i'll have to see what it is, but congress is meeting, bipartisan. a lot of people want to see something happen. but just remember this, big mental problem, and we do have a lot of background checks right now. >> the white house denies the president is changing his position. insisting he'll work with congress on gun issues and mental health concerns when everyone is back in washington next month. but one democratic aide told "the washington post" there's a game of hot potato between trump and mcconnell with each insisting the other should make the first move. trump says it's on congress to lead, said the aides. that's an easy way for nothing to ever get done. back with me, politics editor of

the root and msnbc political contributor jason johnson. politico senior writer and political contributor jake sherman. you and i talked about this last week. you made the argument the folks you were talking to on the hill made it sound like this could be different. this time maybe something really would get done. can i tell you what the president just said? we don't have the tape yet, but we have the pool notes out of the oval office where he was meet with the president of romania, pretty much what you just heard. we already have very strong background checks. we need to look at mental health. i'm a strong believer in the second amendment and this is something that i have not heard him say in the last couple of days. it's a slippery slope. does that sound like somebody to you who is rehind getting something done, jake? >> what i also said was the president, in order to get something done, the president would have to keep a position for more than two, three days, a week, two weeks. so now we've seen him -- >> touche. >> it's amazing the white house

can make an argument and someone, frankly, would accept an argument that he hasn't changed positions because he's publicly saying the exact opposite of what he said last week. and now he's reading from the nra songbook which is, to be clear, a lot -- where a lot of republicans are publicly and have been for a long time. now he might work with people when he gets back, but now his focus is going elsewhere. the white house is now talking about a payroll tax cut and all sorts of other issues that need to happen in the first couple of weeks in september. so this is definitely, as we pointed out in playbook on monday morning, it's definitely receding from public attention. it's definitely going on to the back burner. and as you and i talked about last week, there's always a danger with this president in switching positions. so now he's not giving anybody the political cover or the political room to get it done. and one last note here, if mitch mcconnell -- if donald trump and mitch mcconnell are in a staring contest about who is going to go first -- >> come on.

>> i can tell you from a decade of experience covering mitch mcconnell, writing a book that dealt with him a lot, mitch mcconnell is not going to feel pressure to do something if the president is not on board. so mitch mcconnell's very comfortable with doing nothing in most cases. >> wait it out. >> and i assume would be here. >> worked for him on the supreme court. so jason, i am looking at these numbers again. the public support for background checks is 89%. red flag laws, 76%. buyback program, 75%. assault weapons ban, 62%. and you have the horror that so many americans felt in the back-to-back shootings. they went to bed with el paso and woke up with dayton. is the nra, are all these reports we hear about the impending death of the nra, obviously grossly overstated? what is going on here? >> chris, i don't think that the nra doesn't have power. they're probably not as powerful as they used to be five or six years ago for certain financial reasons but the republicans

don't really care, and they don't want to do it. that's kind of all there is to it. and also, when you have a president who drives the news cycle the way that he does, think about what's happened since those two shootings. really you can say a week. california with the garlic festival and dayton and el paso. two members of congress get blocked from israel. the president pushing for tax cuts. the president say he was going to buy greenland. you have new news we may be heading into recession. all those have happened in the last five days. so it's not just that donald trump keeps moving the news psychele to different things when there's an issue he doesn't want to pay attention to. his own chaotic presidency doesn't give sdemocrats, let alone republicans the consistent narrative they need to get anything done, let alone during a time they're on break. i don't think the republican party cares about gun control. they've demonstrated that the last six or seven years. they're not interested in doing anything behind the white nationalist terrorists that may

be behind these deaths. and the next time we have a shooting, we're going to go through this exact same cycle of tears, thoughts and prayers, people being concerned, folks out of d.c. saying this time we're really going to do something and nothing occurs. >> so if we wanted to be optimistic, jake, and i guess there was one little glimmer, although in terms of legislation, it doesn't mean anything. congressman peter king became the first republican to say that he would back some controls on assault weapons. he'd back the democrats' assault weapons ban. but realistically, what will you be watching for when congress gets back as the sign that anything at all might get done, even the most basic thing like the background checks? >> this isn't a complicated equation despite what the white house might think. the president needs to take a position, hold it for an extended period of time. gather people and try to build consensus, draft a bill and get it passed. this has been going on for 250, 300 years, however long we've

been in existence. it's not very complicated to understand how gun legislation could go through. and in the absence of taking a position, what we're seeing right now is republican members of congress are saying, actually, we're not open to anything. the president is setting the tone that mental health is as far as he wants to go. if that's where he wants to go, that's fine. i'm not taking a position on it, but that's what he's saying is important and everybody is going to follow suit. it's a bit like follow the leader. if he wants to take a position, he can and could build consensus. it's really not that complicated. the formula is out there. it's been used before. >> jake sherman, jason johnson, thank you guys. much appreciated. well, we know the president loves twitter. but today, maybe it's on a whole other level. we've got that, next. and zero minimums to open an account. at fidelity those zeros really add up. ♪ maybe i'll win ♪ saved by zero

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are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. woman 6: ask your rheumatologist about humira. woman 7: go to mypsaproof.com to see proof in action. well, the president is on a twitter tear. already today issuing a warning to the media, calling a sitting member of congress an anti-semite and a white house aide grossly incompetent. but it's tweeting about everything from search engine bias to voter fraud causing the most controversy today. yesterday after listening to a segment on fox business he tweeted that google manipulated from 2.6 million to 16 million votes for hillary clinton in the 2016 election. hillary clinton clapped back, the debunked study you're referring to was based on 21 undecided voters. for context, that's about half the number of people associated

with your campaign who have been indicted. the question is how voters perceive all the president's tweets, not to mention the frequency of them. the way new york magazine puts it, everybody hates trump's twitter addiction, and it could become a campaign issue. the daily beast noting that democrats may use his twitter feed as another way to frame him as ineffective because he's so obsessed with it. back with me, jonathan lemire. joining me, political campaigns editor steve sheppards. you did this poll with the morning consult this spring and found 70% of registered voters say the president used twitter too much. my favorite are the 1% who say he doesn't tweet enough. but maybe on days like today when he's been tweeting, retweeting, fairly nonstop, i wonder what the net effect of this is. the president rejects the idea the public is weary of it, but he does use it as the major

communications branch of the white house. >> well, the public is weary of it. i would also say that i think all this does serve is to bake in how the american public views the president's use of president's use of twitter. we asked in that poll, 70% say he tweets too much. asked that the year before in 2018 and it was 72% said he tweeted too much. we asked in 2017, six months into his presidency, 68% said he tweeted too much. this is essentially about 70% of the country. and that's been very, very, very stable throughout the course of his presidency. in all, these tweets seem to do, even if one feeds the outrage and the outrage after that is bake in the perception that he tweets too much, it is unpresidential, and i think it hurts him, even if it is only at the margins, i think it hurts his standing with the american public in what could be when i talk about margins, could be the difference between re-election and losing re-election. >> there's a recent poll that

found 50% of total voters, 60% of independents think president trump has not kept his promises because he's distracted by things like twitter. is that where it could play into the reelect? >> first of all, 1% that thinks he doesn't tweet enough, none of those are white house reporters. i assure you of that. some are amusing. he had one about greenland yesterday. but the white house and president makes the argument that's his way of communicating directly to the people. time and time again he talks about media bias, believes most cable networks are against him, doesn't get a fair shake. this is a way to connect directly with the people. there's no question, it is frustration his aides and other republicans that he gets bogged down and sidetracked in nonsense, conspiracy theories, including one about google. there's no basis in fact there whatsoever. >> the only thing about google

throwing votes to hillary clinton and the idea of voter fraud, head of the sec ankad ka swisher had this to say. >> there's no evidence of the voter fraud the president is talking about. facts matter, mika. the american people deserve the truth from leaders, they also matter because they have policy consequences. >> it is a lie. it is a flat out lie. i think ellen is understating the situation. this is using twitter again, using a technical tech thing to spread lies, that's all this is. google has a lot of issues, there's a lot of issues with google and all tech companies, but this is not one of them. >> is this part of the baked in of it, jonathan? >> it can be. we have all gotten numb to it. he tweets so much and often erroneously. it carries weight. he is the president of the united states. he floats a conspiracy theory,

retweets two weekends ago about jeffrey epstein's death, that does matter. he has always lost sight of the fact the american people and people around the world in foreign captains, friends and foes alike listen to what he says, believe what he says. his words or retweets can move markets or effect policy around the world. he has never embraced that. it is one thing to use it occasionally to make a joke, another thing when he promotes things that are patently false and impact people's list. >> 12,019 false or misleading claims. the frequency has been escalating. is there anybody that thinks anything about this will change between now election day? >> i don't think the public expects it to change. jonathan mentioned republicans wished he would give up his twitter account since the

beginning, that's clearly not going to happen between now and election day 2020. one thing i point to, i think it is easy to look at this and say because we're so used to it that nothing matters, but i think it does matter. you look at the nbc news and "the wall street journal" this weekend, 49% of americans approve of the job the president is doing on the economy, yet trailing all of the democratic candidates, trails generic democrat, the gap between his overall approval rating and approval rating on the economy, a lot is his style. a lot of it comes out to the american people via twitter. >> guys, great conversation. thank you. we'll be right back. conversati. thank you. we'll be right back. rer. and tremfya® was proven superior to humira® in providing significantly clearer skin. don't use if you're allergic to tremfya®. tremfya® may lower your ability to fight infections and may increase your risk of infections. before treatment, your doctor should check you for infections and tb. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms or if you had a vaccine or plan to. serious allergic reactions may occur.

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so the president has been in the oval office with the president of romania. there's been an agenda there, but he answered questions from media, and they have been wide ranging as is often the case with this president. they talked about russia, they talked about trade, they talked about the economy, and about guns. once again, backing off on what he said about background checks. here's the president a short time ago. >> to stave off any economic slowdown? >> i would like to see a cut of fed rate, that should have happened, i think they're tardy in not doing it. they raise too quickly and i have been quite vocal on that. they also did quantitative tightening which was ridiculous.

and despite that if you look, i guess you could call it normalized, but if you look, our economy is doing fantastically. you look at the previous administration, they weren't paying interest. they had no interest rates. they had loosening, not tightening. frankly, it is a big difference and our economy is incredible, our jobs. you look at the jobs market. you have to be proactive. so we need a fed cut rate because if you look at what's going on with the european union as an example, they're cutting. look at germany, what they're doing and what they're paying, they're actually doing something inverse, nobody has seen it before. we have to keep up to an extent. right now we're paying a higher rate of interest and we didn't follow the world and generally speaking that's okay but you can't have that much cut. we could be greatly helped if the fed would do its job and do

a substantial rate cut. also they were doing quantitative tightening, very bad to do. they should do easing, actual easing, no tightening, at a minimum, doing nothing about that. but they have to do a rate cut. the other thing is we're looking at various tax reductions, but i'm looking at that all the time. that's one of the reasons we are in strong economic position. we're the number one country anywhere in the world by far as an economy. europe has a lot of problems and asia, you look at china, china has had the worst year in 27 years. they want to make a deal with us, but i can tell you, i'm not ready to make a deal unless they're making the right kind of deal, i'm not ready to make a deal. so i don't know. but i will say this. something will happen maybe soon, maybe a little bit later, but china very much wants to make a deal. >> what kind of tax cuts would you look at?

we heard again central cut in payroll tax, indexing, captain gain -- capital gains. >> we talked about indexing a long time. many people like it, it is simple. i can do it directl we're talking about indexing and always looking at the capital gains tax, payroll tax. looking at -- i would love to do something on capital gains. big deal goes through congress. payroll taxes, something we think about, a lot of people would like to see that, that very much effects the workers of our country and we have a lot of workers. right now by the way, we have more people working today than we've ever had before in the history of our country. almost 160 million people working today. i think the word recession is a word that's inappropriate.

it is just a word that certain people, i am going to be kind, certain people and the media are trying to build up because they would love to see a recession. we are very far from recession. if the fed would do its job, we would have a tremendous spurt of growth. the fed is psychologically less important. less so actually, but psychologically important. if the fed would do its job, which it has done poorly in the last year and a half, you would see a burst of growth like you've never seen before. that would be lowering interest rates, maybe putting some -- if you look at what china and germany is doing, what so many countries are doing, putting money in because we want to compete with other countries. so i think that we actually are set for tremendous surge of growth, if the fed would do its