this is the case where democrats have subpoenaed deutsche bank and capital one to get records related to president trump and his business. those banks so far have been unwilling to tell the court whether the financial documents they have about president trump their tax returns, and if so, whether they would be handing those over to congress, too. but even though those banks have been resistant, they have to tell the court one way or the other by tomorrow at 4:00 p.m. eastern. we expect those to be public filings. so that could end up being a big deal. keep an eye out for that. that does it for us tonight. we'll see you again tomorrow. now it's time for "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." >> this announcement by the president that he wants to have, when he's host of the g7 next year, he wants to have it on one of his own properties, continues this phenomenon of possible trump crimes committed in public, therefore, they're not crimes just by doing them in public. emolument clauses we can't say if they're legal for the

president, but it certainly appears to be, it certainly might be, and there certainly is no other president in history who would run the risk of appearing to do something that might be illegal like this, but then there's donald trump. >> the thing about the emollument stuff, too, in terms of all the cases being wrangled, all that stuff is, you know, how do you separate out the normal profits his hotel would be making from additional profits he would be making as president. this thing about making other countries pay him if they want to come to the g7, they have to pay his family if they want to attend the g7 summit. that's like the test case you would invent in kindergarten or first grade in order to make

crystal clear to everyone involved, what is the legal way to do this? it's a laboratory concocted test case for the most illegal thing you could do when it comes to that part of the constitution. >> well, we'll see what it does, if it happens, to attendance at the g7. >> maybe it will be the g1. >> could be. the g1. i'm stealing that. i'm going to have to use that. so if you think, if it crosses your mind someday that the best way for us to deal with hurricanes is to nuke them, then that's your problem. and there's nothing to be concerned about, that you happen to think that, but what if the guy with our nuclear codes in his pocket thinks nuking hurricanes is the way to stop hurricanes and he repeatedly asks about that in white house briefings? briefings? that's going to be the subject of trump talk at the end of this

hour tonight. tonight's episode of "trump talk" in which we try to explain in terms that even a trump voter can understand what is behind the latest, very strange piece of "trump talk." robert murdoch owning the trump-supporting "wall street journal" couldn't ignore the obvious this weekend. so the "wall street journa's" top headline today was "u.s. left isolated at g-7 summit." they know they would be fired by rupert murdoch right now if they put the word "humiliated" so they put "isolated," which is what happens to donald trump at g7 summits. he flew off from the summit after raiding about the china trade war. everyone knows only the

president is able to raise tariffs because of national security, so the trump washing machines are illegal, and so are the rest of the trump tariffs which have nothing to do with national security. tariffs can be raised and lowered by congress for any reason, but the president's authority to do so rests entirely on national security. since china is not really a democracy, president xi of china can do whatever he wants with tariffs, so donald trump was shocked that china's response last week to donald trump's september 1st scheduled increase in tariffs on chinese goods was new tariffs by china. fighting tariffs with tariffs is something that always happens in trade wars. and so donald trump was the only person in the world surprised by china's new move on tariffs. in one of his rage tweets on

friday, donald trump used an exclamation point to say that china's tariffs are, quote, politically motivated. all tariffs on the planet are now and always have been politically motivated. and so the trump response was, of course, to increase the illegal trump tariffs. and then on sunday, in what you can be forgiven for thinking was his continued attempt to hold onto the title of most humiliated person in the history of global summits, donald trump said he not only has second thoughts about his illegal tariffs, he has second thoughts about everything. >> do you have second thoughts about escalating the trade war with china? >> yeah, for sure. why not? might as well. >> do you ever second thoughts about the trade war? >> i have second thoughts about everything. >> second thoughts about everything. well, we know just from the public record he's had second thoughts about most of his wives and most of the people he has

hired to work in the white house, but he has never had a public second thought about his big lie about our trading relationship with china. >> china has been taking, out of this country, 500-plus billion dollars a year for many, many years. it was time to stop. >> it doesn't have to stop, and it's not going to stop, because if it did stop, it would create a global depression, which is what the g7 is worried about. it's not going to stop because america loves what it gets for the money that donald trump says china is taking from us. donald trump tries to pretend that china just takes the money. chinese producers of goods take our money and give us the goods that we want. the chinese-made washing machines or iphones or athletic shoes and jeans and so on and so on and so on, and that's the way international trade works.

and everyone at the g7 except donald trump knows that. and everyone at the g7 except donald trump knows that the trump tariffs and trade war with china are threatening to slow down the global economy. so everyone at the g7 was trying to, at minimum, cause donald trump to have second thoughts about his tariffs. but now that donald trump is back home, he will have third and fourth thoughts about his tariffs. donald trump has inverted the american political and diplomatic tradition of not criticizing the president on foreign soil. the president he criticizes, of course, is barack obama. donald trump is apparently haunted by the knowledge that barack obama was fully respected by everyone at global summits as the most powerful person in the room and fully respected intellectually and fully respected for his judgment in international affairs. donald trump knows he has none of that respect. and so he desperately reaches

for it, and in his reach, he exhibits why he deserves no respect on international affairs from anyone and why he will never get it. >> the certain section of ukraine that you know very well where it was sort of taken away from president obama. not taken away from president trump, taken away from president obama. president obama was not happy that this happened because it was embarrassing to him, right? >> wrong. what you just said is embarrassing to you. number one, you obviously cannot remember the part of ukraine that was seized by vladimir putin, crimea. everyone there knows that donald trump no longer has the capacity to retain facts like that, if he ever did. everyone at the g7 knows that donald trump does not have the basic necessary mental capacity for the job of the american presidency, and that was on display all weekend. and everyone at the g7 and

around the world knows that the united states and president obama never possessed ukraine or crimea, and therefore, it could never have been taken away from president obama. here is all of the land on the planet that is in any sense under the jurisdiction of the president of the united states. and here is where ukraine is. saying a certain section of ukraine was taken away from president obama is exactly the same as saying that france was taken away from president franklin roosevelt when nazi germany invaded france before the united states entered world war ii. donald trump was trying to humiliate president obama, but the joke is always on donald trump, because every word of what donald trump said about president obama humiliated donald trump by displaying his limitless ignorance to the world.

the presidency is an oral exam, and donald trump fails that oral exam every day. it is always donald trump's publicly self-inflicted wounds that hurt him the most. no one paints donald trump into a corner better than donald trump. watch him do it today when mishal sender keeps pressing him on the lies that donald trump was telling today. and notice that donald trump was able to insert the word crimea in his answer only at this point because he heard it in emi shrks shrksemisha's question. >> they said the reason russia was kicked out was because he took back crimea. >> i know you liked president obama, but it was annexed during

president obama's turn. if it was annexed during my term, i would say, sorry, folks, i made a mistake. president obama was helping ukraine. crimea was annexed during his term. now, it's a very big area, very important area. russia has its submarine. that's where they do their submarine work and that's where they dock large and powerful submarines, but not as powerful as ours and not as large as ours, but they have their submarines. and president obama was, pure and simply, outsmarted. they took crimea during his term. that was not a good thing. it could have been stopped. it could have been stopped with the right whatever. it could have been stopped. but president obama was unable to stop it and it's too bad. >> "the right whatever." "it could have been stopped, could have been stopped with the right whatever."

that's what president obama should have done to prevent vladimir putin from invading and stealing crimea. that's what president obama should have done, the right whatever. if that's your answer to your phd in international relations, you're not going to get your phd. if donald trump gave that answer on a tv game show, even trump voters would know that donald trump is going to lose that game show. everyone at the g7 is reading the polls in the united states that give them every reason to hope that donald trump will only be attending one more g7 meeting. and they know that the next president to attend the g7 meeting after donald trump will never say that the solution to anything is "the right whatever." leading off our discussion tonight, ambassador wendy sherman, secretary of state for political affairs and msnbc global affairs contributor, and

an msnbc political analyst. wendy sherman, there is so much to react to in this g7 weekend. i leave it open to you to take your pick. >> it's really as i sort of said half tongue in cheek a doozy. they treated him, the other leaders, with kid gloves because they didn't want to agitate as what they perceive as really a child who could throw a temper tantrum at any moment. your whole riff on tariffs is so true, lawrence, because the president only looks -- even though he said in his press conference today he doesn't make any decisions on the basis of politics, all of his decisions are about whether he can get reelected. he looks at poll numbers and he looks at the stock market numbers. so first he said, i'm having second thoughts about china and tariffs because the stock market had tanked.

then his hardliners pulled him back. the stock market went down again. and then he said, well, we've gotten these late night phone calls. mnuchin corrected him, the treasury secretary, by saying they were communications. all of this has nothing to do with real life. this has to do wit president of the united states caring about what the dow jones average is and what his poll numbers are. and as you point out, going after everyone who has been a successful president or almost president in the case of hillary clinton. he goes after all of those who might defeat him, who might come and confront him for his whatevers. >> i want to consider something we've never had to consider before for a president of any previous president attending a g7 or anything else, and that is the mental capacity of the president, the mental health of the president, possibly the mental deterioration of the president. and we're going to listen to him

describing today his wife's relationship to kim jong-un. let's listen to that. >> i also say that, by the way, with respect to north korea. kim jong-un, who i've gotten to know extremely well, first lady has gotten to know kim jong-un, and i think she would agree with me, he is a man with a country that has tremendous potential. >> so, ben, everyone there knows and they probably knew when he was saying it, that melania trump has never met kim jong-un. the white house has since admitted that. these leaders are watching each other, they're evaluating each other all the time, they have to deal with each other one on one, they have to deal with the group dynamics. what do you imagine it's like for the other leaders of the other countries who are there when they're watching him say things like this, which are completely false, that his wife

has a good relationship with kim jong-un, what are they thinking in terms of the brain they're dealing with what they're dealing with donald trump? well, lawrence, i just wish i had known when i was in the white house that if we had the right whatever we could have dealt with ukraine. but here's what i would say. the leaders of those other countries are dealing with real problems, right? i've been -- i've been with wendy at many g7s, i went to eight with president obama. that's when you roll up your sleeves and face the challenges of the global environment. now you have a president who is incapable of dealing with those challenges, but importantly, he's someone who has created almost all the crises that they're dealing with at the g7. iran resuming its stockpile of nuclear material, created by donald trump pulling out of the iran deal. kim jong-un, the man he lavishes

such praise on, is still shooting off missiles. climate change is accelerating in part because donald trump pulls out of the paris accords, giving a green light to a populace like brazil to burn up the rain forest. so they actually have to deal with problems, and what i saw at the g7 is a g6 in which the rest of the world is already moving beyond this guy. they're trying to figure out how can we stop him from wrecking the summit while we on the sidelines can get something done? we're witnessing, lawrence, kind of the creation of the post free world because that should worry us because it's leading to many of the crises around the globe. >> ambassador, the g6, as ben refers to them, are they just trying to hold on for the next 18 months and hope our election

night changes who they'll have to deal with as next president? >> i would say two things, lawrence. sure, they're hoping our election changes things and they don't have to deal with donald trump for another four years. but ben said something really important, which is there are real problems that aren't going to wait for the next election. and these leaders have their own domestic constituencies, they have their own challenges. boris johnson, who seems to be a pal of donald trump's, nonetheless, told donald trump publicly that the tariffs on china were going too far and that great britain actually sort of likes free trade and would like donald trump to get out of the way. macron, whose own poll numbers are not so great, is trying to take over as the leader of the free world and trying to mediate a relationship with iran to get us out of this incredibly difficult crisis that we are currently in, and poor prime minister abe who saw the

president even during the transition, really tried to build a relationship with the president. the president says, we've got principles agreed to on a free trade agreement. abe had to pull that back a little bit. and most importantly, abe knows that the missiles that kim jong-un is testing can reach japan even if they can't reach the united states, and he wonders why his good friend donald trump is abandoning him because these missiles can't reach to donald trump quite yet. it is really a very fraught situation where these leaders are trying to solve real problems that won't wait out our election. >> and ben, clearly the trump trump towers, which is one of the major tensions of the weekend that the g6 are hoping they can do something about, it's the american voter that's going to change what's happening with the trump tariffs as donald trump continues to see what those tariffs are doing to the

people he wants as his voters. it seems to me that's where this will change. >> that's absolutely right, lawrence. and let's face it, as with the criticism of obama, president trump came into this office with kind of the world view of a habitual, right wing consumer. he had no idea where this was going to end, where the objectives were. to this day, at the end of this trade war, we have no idea what donald trump is trying to achieve. the tariffs are taxes on americans. americans are paying more for goods because donald trump is levying these tariffs. americans in key industries that he needs for his reelection like agriculture are being decimated by this trade war with china because of the reprisals from china are really hurting american farmers. so what we're seeing, and what i think the candidates have to articulate is that he's

reckless, impetuous and doesn't think things through. he's having an effect on things affecting our economy. the inherent obama economy and his reckless trade war could put us into a global economic downturn. i think that's what's worrying all these leaders, and that should be worrying americans as well. >> wendy sherman and ben rhodes, thank you for starting us off tonight. really appreciate it. >> thank you. >> thanks. when we come back, another democratic member of congress, an important democratic member of congress has now come out in support of an impeachment inquiry. and we have new polling tonight in the democratic race for the presidential nomination of the democratic party. we will be covering that poll and seeing where that race is going. let's see, aleve is proven better on pain

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today congressman rathi a member of the house committee, announced his support of impeaching donald trump. that brings the total to 134 agreements in the house. and they want rob porter to testify in the impeachment engagement about passages that showed donald trump directing rob porter to help donald trump

lie about his attempts to fire special counsel robert mueller. porter spoke to mcgahn. porter told mcgahn he had to write a letter to dispute that he was ever ordered to terminate the special counsel. mcgahn shrugged off the request, explaining that the media reports were true. mcgahn told porter that the president had been insistent on firing the special counsel and that porter planned to resign rather than carry out the order, although he had not personally told the president he intended to quit. porter told mcgahn that the president suggested that mcgahn would be fired if he did not write the letter. joining our discussion now is congressman raja morthi of ohio. thank you for joining us. >> absolutely. >> tell us how you came to your position on impeachment. >> i think last week chairman nadler formally requested the

other committees of jurisdiction in the wide-ranging investigations of donald trump to produce any information that would bear on an impeachment investigation, so i decided that i wanted to support this particular process. i'm urging our committees, both the oversight and intelligence committees to cooperate. i suspect they will. and that was really what precipitated my decision. >> and what's been the reaction of your constituents? >> there's been a lot of support. there are some people that have some concerns, but i think that overall, i think that a lot of people know that this is probably the right thing to do because, you know, quite frankly, although none of us, including myself, relish the thought of this impeachment investigation, it's something that has to happen becauseeller

questioning witnesses as well as looking at classified and unclassified documents, that the president has engaged in seriously troubling, unethical and illegal behavior. >> what is your understanding of speaker pelosi's position on impeachment as of now? >> i think that her position is that she wants to allow members of the caucus, based on their conscience, to express themselves on whether they would support the process or not. and that includes supporting an impeachment investigation or inquiry. but i think that i don't know, you know, what beyond that she would want to have happen. my own view is that we have to conduct the impeachment investigation and inquiry to be able to assemble the information necessary to make a decision on next steps. that's very important right now.

>> chairman nadler of the judiciary committee who has jurisdiction over the impeachment process says that what he's doing is an impeachment investigation. he's essentially said that in court in pursuing these subpoenas, so i have to say at the outset of this discussion months ago, the coming out of an impeachment inquiry is something i understood. i'm not sure i understand it anymore because chairman nadler has said, we're already there. we're in an impeachment inquiry. >> right, because i think he believes he has the tools necessary to conduct that impeachment inquiry, or what he calls impeachment investigation, without formally, you know, beginning that process through a large house vote and so forth. and i think that's important because, as you know, there's been tremendous stonewalling by the trump administration with regard to the production of documents or witnesses for any type of oversight, let alone this impeachment investigation.

so with regard to calling it an impeachment investigation and conducting it in that manner, i think that will actually help to bring more urgency to the court's kind of decision and evaluation of how to proceed on the various legal matters in trying to get documents and witnesses, you know, to capitol hill. >> is there any coordination among the democrats about when members come out in favor of the impeachment process? because some days there's three, some days there's one. go ahead. >> i really think it really is something that's kind of based on people's conscience. i thought very long and hard about this. i've struggled with this decision. you know, i was raised to respect every president regardless of party as well as the electoral process, and i think that when you come to a

decision like, you know, an impeachment investigation, that's a big deal. and, unfortunately, we are at that point because of, you know, all the reasons we've talked about on this program before. >> number 133. congressman raja krishnamoorthi, thank you for being with us. >> thank you, sir. we have new polls on the democratic presidential campaign, and later this hour, "trump talk." donald trump's ideas to stop hurricanes with nuclear bombs. y other company out there. they give us excellent customer service, every time. our 18 year old was in an accident. usaa took care of her car rental, and getting her car towed. all i had to take care of was making sure that my daughter was ok. if i met another veteran, and they were with another insurance company, i would tell them, you need to join usaa because they have better rates, and better service. we're the gomez family... we're the rivera family...

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it looks like we ever new polling in the democratic campaign. a monmouth university poll shows a tie with bernie sanders, elizabeth warren and joe biden. it's a statistical tie for the lead. the biden campaign released a statement saying, this poll is an outliar that was contradicted by every measure of the national average. this weekend elizabeth warren drew 15,000 people to her campaign, an event in seattle. that is the largest for her campaign so far. the monmouth poll does not change the democratic candidate. ten candidates have already qualified for the debate in houston next month. the other candidates have until wednesday to get the 130,000 unique donors and four polls showing them at 2% or higher to

qualify. september's democratic debate will be the first time that joe biden and elizabeth warren will be on the same debate stage. we will discuss the state of the democratic race with cornell belcher and mark maury after this break. fter this break [farmers bell] (burke) at farmers insurance, we've seen almost everything, so we know how to cover almost anything. even a "three-ring fender bender." (clown 1) sorry about that... (clown 2) apologies. (clown 1) ...didn't mean it. (clown 3) whoops. (stilts) sorry! (clowns) we're sorry! (scary) hey, we're sorry! [man screams] [scary screams] (burke) quite the circus. but we covered it. at farmers, we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two.

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it's a three-raceway between yourself, sanders and warren. do you see it that way? >> like i said, we just started.

this is a marathon. we have a long, long time until this primary is over and then we have close to 400 days before there is a presidential election. it's a long way. there are a lot of qualified candidates running. my hope is that i think you're going to see more of it, we're going to start to talk about what our plans for the future are instead of making up things about somebody's past. >> we're joined by tonight's poll watchers, cornell belcher and cornell, what do you think? >> i often caution it is not a national election, it is a state-by-state contest. that said, some of the national polls do show some indications of what's trapping underneath and some trend lines here. i think this trend line is fairly clear, lawrence, that

senator warren is running a really good race. arguably she's running the best campaign thus far. it is beginning to show. she's putting her head down, putting in the work, showing up places, she's coming up with policies, she's answering a lot of questions. even more important to me than sort of what the horse race is in the national elections is the trend line that i think is really important here is that if you look at her favorability over the last several months, what you want to see is, are more voters getting to know her and are her favorables growing? the horse race number aside, that she is growing her name recognition and more voters are beginning to know her and think favorable of her says she's moving in the right direction. i would not be surprised, lawrence, that fairly soon she is going to really be challenging for the frontrunner

status in this campaign. >> mark, this new poll seems to pick up on something that we saw in the economist poll which is about a week older than this one, which was a statistical tie at the limits of the margin of error that had biden at 22, sanders at 19, warren at 17. so to see a poll a week later with them bunched tighter together really shouldn't be that surprising. >> i don't think it's that surprising, but you have to look at it with the totality of the other polling out there as well. just in the past couple weeks, you've had a cnn poll, a very high quality poll that had joe biden with elizabeth warren. our "wall street journal" poll taken last month showed joe biden with a seven-point lead. and within the last hour, there was a morning consult poll that showed joe biden in a contest with bernie sanders and elizabeth warren. this race is becoming more competitive. i agree with cornell completely that one of the big trend lines

is elizabeth warren and her steady improvement in the polling, but overall i think you have to say joe biden is still the frontrunner, a very vulnerable frontrunner, and then followed by bernie sanders and elizabeth warren in some type of order. and with the caveat that cornell just mentioned, we have a long way to go until we get to iowa. >> you just cited a range of polling showing some very different numbers, and that is why you guys are always urging people to look at the average. >> that's right, and i think the average helps. i also think just the totality, the direction. lawrence, you mentioned the ugov economist poll as well as this monmouth poll both showing very, very close races in our polling. my rule of thumb is normally let's wait for three. if all of a sudden there's one more that comes out, i'll say, boy, we have a race on our hands.

but lawrence, what actually stands out to me right now really is just how stable this field has been, with the exception of elizabeth warren and her improvement. kamala harris taking off after that first debate and then coming back down to earth after the second one. but overall the polls have been pretty stable with this field. when this field gets winnowed down to ten people, then six and four until we get to iowa. >> for elizabeth warren, a huge crowd, 15,000. earlier kamala harris' announcement crowd was bigger than that. bernie sanders had big crowds, special counsel until his previous campaign, and there is always that campaign operative discussion that the crowds don't mean anything because it's just that one little town. but what do you see with elizabeth warren pulling in the 15,000 this weekend? >> two things, lawrence. before i touch that, i actually

want to get further in the polling nerd weeds and that is talk about why you do see often the numbers move around is what's a likely voter. lawrence, we're lucky if we get half of americans to vote in a general election. you're getting a lot less than that who are voting in a primary, so instead commercial fishing is more like fly fishing. for us to figure out what the primary electorate is is not always that easy. you will see some movement depending on who they let in screen, who they don't let in screen, especially in atlanta who has a wide swath of voters who can enter the democratic primary and play that democratic primary, guessing the electorate becomes just that. it becomes just as much art as science, so you will see some movement there in the polls. i got really nerdy on you with polls and samples. that said, i think that when you look at the crowd size -- i

worked for a guy in 2008 where we started seeing these immense crowds showing up and we were like, what does this mean? i think it means that you have a lot of energy on your side, and that's not a bad thing. you always want to see which candidate has energy on their side, especially when you're going to ask people to stand in line and participate in a caucus. >> mark, when the new polls come out, what is the movement -- what would you be looking for -- and by the way, just technically, do we know that polls are coming out that can change who is going to be in this debate? are we going to have more polls that can do it? >> we're all waiting, lawrence. we haven't received any guidance. normally late august is a dead zone for polling. a lot of people are on vacations, we're all headed into the labor day weekend. of course, these polls actually take a little more urgency given

that they are -- there is a deadline coming up for participation in september's debate. so i don't know if we're going to see any more polls. we're going to be looking. wednesday is the deadline, of course, on that. but then you asked me what i'm looking for in the polls, and i just want to see, do things actually end up changing? as i mentioned earlier, it has been pretty stable and what ends up changing the size of the field. >> thank you both for joining us tonight. i really appreciate it. when we come back, using a nuclear weapon against a hurricane? that's donald trump's idea. we're going to give that idea a full and fair scientific consideration right here. chair is just a chair. that a handle is just a handle. or... that you can't be both inside and outside. most people haven't driven a lincoln. it's the final days of the lincoln summer invitation event. right now get 0% apr on all lincoln vehicles plus no payments for up to 90 days.

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breaking news at this hour about tropical storm dorian. by the weekend, southeastern florida could feel some of the effects of the lingering tropical system. donald trump has property interests in southeastern florida and still strong interests in hurricanes. new reporting indicates donald trump thinks he knows how to stop storms like dorian in their storm tracks. that is next in tonight's episode of trump talk. i...decided to take the dna test.

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i'm like a really smart person. >> tonight's episode of trump talk, nuking hurricanes. in trump talk we examine things donald trump has said that we have never heard from a another president of the united states. and we bring in someone who even trump voters will agree knows more about that subject than donald trump to objectively evaluate trump talk. axios reports president trump repeatedly asked experts about using nuclear bombs to stop hurricanes. axios reports during one hurricane briefing at the white house, trump said, i got it, why don't we nuke them? according to one source who was there.

they start forming off the coast of africa as they're moving across the atlantic. why can't we do that? joining us with the answer is michaelman automann, directors of the earth systems science center at penn state university. professor mann, thank you very much for joining us tonight. to donald trump's question, why can't we do that? what is the answer? >> thanks, lawrence. it's good to be with you. first of all, why shouldn't we do it? obviously, it would do a lot of damage to ocean life, there would be residual radiation if we were to regularly drop nuclear bombs into the atlantic ocean. but it wouldn't work anyways because the powerfulness of a hurricane, of a fully-formed hurricane, is measured in hundreds of trillions of watts

of power. that's the equivalent of a ten megaton nuclear bomb dropped into the ocean every 20 minutes. so it wouldn't make any difference whatsoever. >> and other things that could occur by dropping a bomb in the ocean, a lot of these -- the prevailing winds in that area actually track toward the united states. so the radiation fallout would be in the wind system tracking toward the united states, wouldn't it. >> yeah. in fact, towards mar-a-lago potentially. >> yes. >> it would not be a wise decision for us to be producing that amount of radiation when the prevailing winds are indeed taking it right towards the u.s. east coast. >> which is not to neglect the fact that to get to the united states it would pass over inhabited islands all along the way, there by killing all sorts

of millions of people on that route. >> starting to sound like a bad idea, isn't it? i'll tell you what. if donald trump was serious about dealing with these intensifying hurricanes, the fact that we have seen the most intense atlantic hurricanes on record in recent years because of the warming of the oceans associated with human-caused climate change, if he really wanted to do something about it, he would account a on climate. he wouldn't try to scuttle international treaties like the paris treaty to do something about climate change. he wouldn't be appointing a veritable dream team of fossil fusil lobbyist and climate change deniers to run his energy and environmental programs within the white house. and so, in fact, what he is doing by not acting on climate is actually contributing to the

worsening effects of these storms, stronger storms with more flooding, more damage, more devastation. >> you know, in your first two minutes of response here, you managed to give plenty of reasons not to do this. the axios reporting is that the president has brought this up repeatedly, which means that a two-minute explanation has not been enough for him, and that the people in your advisory position, for example, in the white house with the president in these discussions have had to repeatedly make these points. how would you grade one of your students who you had to explain this to twice? >> well, let's just say that that student would probably be transferring elsewhere. no, you know, and the president has demonstrated a complete anti-pathy to science.

>> what about the part that the president -- we know the president wouldn't listen to anything you have to say here about the planet's temperatures effect on this. could you explain why the temperature of the water is relevant? >> yes. it means more evaporation which provides more energy to strengthen these storms. in fact, it's a very simple relationship. the warmer you make the ocean surface temperatures, the more heat you're putting into the atmosphere, the more intense these storms can become. and we are seeing that intensification. >> professor michael mann gets tonight's last word, and that word is "no" to nuking hurricanes. thank you, professor. really appreciate it. >> thank you, lawrence. "the 11th hour with brian williams" starts now. tonight, president trump comes home after barreling

through the g-7, locking horns with u.s. allies on trade, russia, and climate change. will it amount to anything? plus, in a move that could vet millions for trump's business, the president pitches business, the president pitches his florida resort as the site for next year's g7 using his farewell news conference to tout its abundance of parking. and finally, good news for the residents of newark, new jersey, whose water contains dangerous levels of lead but more waiting lies ahead as the "the 11th hour" on a monday night starts right now. good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. i'm steve kornacki in for brian williams who has the night off. day 949 of the trump administration. the president is back in washington after a weekend of erratic behavior, unexpected pivots and erroneous statements