skyscraper. can't fix it with duct tape, then you ain't using enough duct tape. rated pg-13. that what happens up this hour, steve kornacki, a little bit of news going on today. >> just a little bit. thank you for that. it is 11:00 a.m. out west, 2:00 p.m. at the white house and that is where any minute now we're going to see the president trump p greet the prime minister of the netherlands, we'll show you that arrival when it happens. meantime, much of the focus in washington remaining on the countdown to the president's supreme court pick. trump saying he will pick a nominee and announce it in just a week on july 9th. speculation on who that person will be is already playing out in the court of public opinion. so far five names have emerged from the president's apparent

short list. federal judges brett kavanaugh and amy bar receipt are top contenders for the slot on the supreme court. the person who fills kennedy's seat, whoever it is, is going to avoid losing any republican senators in the confirmation battle or win over support from democrats from red states, three words looking large, roe versus wade. we said we were waiting on arrival of the prime minister of netherlands and there he is. being greeted by the president. this happening live right now just outside the white house. you see the two of them there posing for the cameras and now walking back inside. they are going to sit down and cameras are going to be brought in before their one on one meeting there. president sometimes makes comments impromptu comments to the cameras so we will wait for some tape from that. we will play it back for you when we get it. that's probably a few minutes from now. keep an eye on that. again, we will pick back up with the coverage of this pending

nomination by the president. battle lines being drawn, democrats and activists warning to stop this, one of the reasons has to do with the issue of abortion. >> a candidate for this important position who would overturn roe v. wade would not be acceptable to me because that would indicate an activist agenda that i don't want to see a judge have. >> the job of the judge is to decide cases before the court but one of the concepts that really means a lot in america is stare decisis, roe v. wade has been affirmed over the year. >> how are democrats framing this fight? here's how minority leader chuck schumer put it last week. >> a more idealogical successor could up-end decades of

precedent and drag america backwards to a time before americans with preexisting conditions could affordably access health care. to a time when women could not be prosecuted as criminals for exercising their reproductive rights. >> it a series of tweets this morning, chuck schumer also singled out barrett, said she attacked the supreme court's decision and fought efforts to ensure that women have access to contraceptives. according to axeios, they keep planning to hammer two arguments, that it will lead to an outlaw of abortion and repeal much affordable care act. will centrists push back impact the president's supreme court short list? let's bring in justice correspondent pete williams and capitol hill correspondent kasie hunt. chuck schumer taking on these potential picks by name.

the affordable care act, abortion featuring prominently in the message. if you're schumer, you have to worry about keeping democrats together but you have to flip republicans. is he looking at collins and mur could you ski as the only possibility there? >> i think that's about right. i don't think that the universe of republicans is particularly large. quite frankly, i think the bigger concern is keeping democrats together. i think that's part of why he's focusing on the affordable care act in particular and health care. that is a message that joe man chin can take to west virginia and say to a town hall group, hey, this is a real threat to health care. you already feel like you can't afford. that is one story of the mid-terms it's the democrat central messaging strategy but if you look at graphs on health care premiums and what are people worried about, democrats are on to something with that. you're seeing it roll out in their supreme court message. that's as much about joe manchin

and donnelly as anybody else. the abortion piece of this just isn't something that voters are as receptive to in those states as in other places. maine and alaska, two senators, i was struck by collins comments over the weekend that you played at the top of the show, to say she would have hostility, that's farther when she went when we were talking to her in the hallways last week. i definitely took note of that. finally, i do think it's interesting that schumer is attacking barrett by name. there has been some thinking in republican circles that if the president were to select a woman for this job, that would help turn down the temperature and quite frankly make it harder for democrats to argue that this person would be a huge threat to roe versus wade. just because you are a woman does not necessarily mean you'll hold a certain set of political positions or act a certain way but there is that line of thinking behind the scenes. >> that's interesting.

pete williams, the names now starting not just to come out as potential picks but to be attacked by a stake holders in this. when you look at that short list, what appears to be the short list or a version of it out there right now, are there any discernible big picture differences between these candidates? >> no. i would say that's the simple answer to the question. they are all appeals court judges and all have a judicial record. kavanaugh authored 300 opinions on the d.c. court of appeals and thapar and barrett only there a year, put there by president trump. amy barrett has said she thought roe versus wade was erroneously decided. of course ruth bader ginsburg has said she thought the supreme court should not have decided roe, it froze in place a movement to strike down abortion

limitations on their own and the decision galvanized public opposition going on for 45 years. so roe has been controversial both by people who support and oppose abortion rights but i think they are all pretty consistent here in terms of judicial philosophy. that's why they are on the list. >> all right, nbc's pete williams and kasie hunt, the president set to make this announcement a week from now. thank you for joining us. a legal affairs correspondent for national public radio joins us now and john pothorse the. thanks for being with us. let me start with you and pick up the point that kasie was making. there is this strategic argument i think you're hearing from maybe folks on the right saying the idea of putting amy barrett on the court, that if roe is going to be overturned and conservative court would overturn roe maybe there is some advantage to having a female justice be seen as the deciding

vote. >> i think that's probably the view of perhaps some in the white house who judge the political pluses and minuses. in the last analysis, the folks who are making the recommendations to the president did not put her on this list to get her this job now. they put her on the list to get her the later. as far as they can tell, they are not interested in somebody on the court for a year or two. they want to see what this person's ideology is really like. now if you look at this group of five, a liberal or moderate wou would. >> but for the two on the bottom of the screen, they have very short records and they don't want to take a risk. i would say that kavanaugh,

hardidman and kethledge are the real contenders and conservative records and that's why they are there. >> if the politics are going to shape the president's decision here in this sense, that narrow republican majority in the senate, susan collins little bit lisa mur could you ski as well, do you think the president can be moved by that narrow margin in the senate moved away from one who seems to be attracting any particular opposition? >> no, i think we should look at this actually oddly enough in terms of the midterm elections as to say republicans need a rallying cry for the mid hitch te term elections, amy barrett would not be a serious front and center nominee had had not been for the nature of the confirmation hearing last year when she was attacked by leading democrats particularly by dianne

feinstein for being too religiously conservative. dianne feinstein says the dogma lives deep within you. she's a mother of seven. she's a serious catholic, she was a professor at noter dame. and the possibility of showing a democratic assault on an attractive female conservative nominee on the grounds that she is too religious in the wrong way, could work in her favor as a potential candidate because it might be seen by the white house as the sort of thing that would galvanize conservative opinion leading up to the election and gin up real partisan support for republican candidates in the senate and house. >> the comments from susan collins, i'm curious how you interpret them. they seems publicly to be going farther in putting out the signal, i might have reservations here on the issue

of roe. on the other hand if you play all of her comments from over the weekend, she was saying, she had those same concerns about neil gorsuch and didn't look at someone hostile to roe. do you think she's saying something that could lead her to a no? >> it's kind of difficult to tell. certainly no candidate, democrat or republican, is ever going to say how they are going to rule on a future abortion case. that would -- unless they want to say this is settled law and i will uphold it. and democratic nominees have done that about the death penalty for example, i know of no case of a republican nominee doing that about abortion. sister-in-l certainly not in recent times. what she wants is somebody to say this is precedent and i'm generally inclined to uphold precedent. the obvious follow-up question,

would you uphold this one and nobody is going to answer that question. >> john, we hear so much about how they were -- how about they were conservatives who held their nose and voted for donald trump for this reason, his ability to pick supreme court justices and get them through a republican senate. from the standpoint of religious conservatives who apparently are high on the president's mind as he makes calculations, is the expectation this is the moment they've been waiting for roe to be overturned and this is the pick that will do it? >> i don't think -- i think people are overestimating the importance of roe here. that is to say, roe is a calling card for the left in this battle, not for the right. you aren't hearing republicans talking about oh, this is fantastic finally roe is going to be overturned. the supreme court for the right has a much broader mandate and it's much more about doing and making sure that large scale conservative governance is

protected or that liberal governance from the court is impeded, than about individual decisions. roe is a fund raising call for the left not for the right. >> it's a pretty good fund raising call for the right too -- i mean -- >> i don't agree. >> same-sex marriage -- from a significant part of -- we're talking about the base here. we're not talking about -- >> i know the base. >> i think the base roe is a good calling card for them. this is what they wanted for a long time. >> all right, we will leave it there. thank you both for being with us. appreciate that. up next, detames of the new nbc news exclusive what kim jong-un has been doing with nukes since the summit in singapore. and just like that we felt a little less alone. but then something happened. we had to deal with spam, fake news, and data misuse.

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later this week, mike pompeo makes a third trip to north korea. he was meeting with the president as the white house maps out next steps after the historic summit in singapore. but there appears to be disagreement within the administration over how long denuclearization could take. also renewed questions about kim jong-un's true intentions. more than a dozen u.s. officials telling nbc news now that north korea is actually ramping up nuclear production at secret sites. jeff bennett is at the white house and carol, let me start with you.

that's quite a headline. what do you know? >> reporter: what we learned from talking to a number of officials about this new intelligence assessment is that north korea has been increasing its uranium enrichment program in recent weeks and did he have netly since the singapore summit and that they are actively working to try to deceive the u.s. on the extent of its program in terms of the number of missiles they have or number of facilities they have. so while the president is saying that two things north korea is no longer a threat and that north korea has committed to denuclearize, the intelligence officials are painting a much different picture and that picture is that north korea is -- has no real intent to denuclearize and in fact working actively to a, deceive the u.s. on what it has and b, try to expand and continue using their program.

>> and interesting you mentioned the president's comments after that summit. i think we have -- we do, we said the president was sitting down meeting with the prime minister of the netherlands, here's what he had to say. >> good afternoon. >> hello, everybody. >> big group. >> big group. academy awards. bigger. thank you very much. it's a great honor to have the prime minister of the kingdom of the netherlands. that's the official title -- >> absolutely. >> sounds elegant and beautiful but it's a great honor to have you. we've worked together and have a very close relationship. i think the relationship with the netherlands is better than it was now. we'll meet over next few weeks ago at nato and we'll discuss that today also and discussing trade and the eu and lots of other things that tremendous numbers are coming out on the united states and government.

our economy is very good. probably the best it's ever been. and we are very close to making some very good trade deals, fair trade deals -- i want to say fair, fair trade deals for our taxpayers and for our workers and our farmers and a lot of good things be happening. i think the eu we're going to be meeting with them fairly soon to work something out, if we do work it out, that will be positive. if we don't it will be positive also because -- >> no. >> we'll think about those cars -- >> we have to work something out. >> it will be positive. mr. prime minister, thank you for being here. >> it's good to be here. and can i add to this that the relationship between the netherlands and united states is over 400 years old. we are ally and always been friends and friendly working closely together. and our talk today will no doubt concentrate on jobs and on security because the president and i, we were both convinced

that this -- our prime task is essentially to make sure our countries are safe and stable and that we have an economy which is providing the jobs and the future growth for our people. and there's so many opportunities between the united states and netherlands to do more, both in the area of security as well as in the area of having more jobs and having more trades and more investments, and almost 1 million people, 825,000 in a job in the u.s. because of dutch investments and quarter of a million in job because of u.s. investments in the netherlands. >> that's right. >> our aim will be to increase those numbers and be more successful. i will be looking forward to our discussions. >> that's a great honor. >> i will say i just spoke with the president elect of mexico and we had a great conversation about a half hour long. and we talked about border security. we talked about trade and nafta. we talked about a separate deal just mexico and the united states. we had a lot of good conversation. i think the relationship would be a very good one.

we'll see what happens but i do believe it's going to be a good one. he had a very excellent election, did -- i would say even better than anticipated. i told him a number of years ago when i saw him campaigning for a different race frankly, different year, different race, i said he'll be some day he's going to be the president of mexico, so he remembered that and turned out to be correct. we had a great talk in the morning during the morning and i interviewed and met with four potential justices of our great supreme court. they are outstanding people and they are really incredible people in so many different ways and academically and every other way. and i had a very, very interesting morning so between the president of mexico and also the -- i guess you would call him the president-elect but i think he'll do -- he's going to try to do very hard and help us with border.

we have unbelievably bad border laws, immigration laws, the weakest in the world. laughed at by everybody in the world and mexico is very strong immigration laws so they can help us until we straighten oit our immigration laws which has been bad for many years, decades and we'll have them taken care of. very interesting though was my four meetings, i'll be meeting with two or three more and we'll make a decision on the united states supreme court, the new justice that will be made over the next few days and we'll be announcing it on monday. and i look forward to that. i think the person that is chosen will be outstanding. thank you very much, everybody. >> over next -- >> i'll be announcing that on monday. >> monday. >> w.t.o? >> w.t.o treated the united states very badly and i hope they change their ways.

they have been treating us badly for many, many years and we were at the big disadvantage with the w.t.o. we're not planning anything now but if they don't treat us properly, we will be doing something. thank you, everybody. >> . >> thank you very much. >>. >> is it always like this? let's go! >> okay, again that was the scene just a couple of minutes ago, took a few minutes to get the tape turned around but the president sitting down with the prime minister of the netherlands if i heard right said to him as press was shouting out questions at the end, is it always like this? yes, it tends to be at these things. let's bring back carol lee and

jeff bennett, a couple of pieces news there, number one that he spoke with the president elect of mexico last -- this morning i should say. saying that was a very good call could be a good relationship, the hard line posture towards the mexican government and his hard line posture could make for an interesting relationship with the president saying nice things and also saying he has now met about four -- sat down with four potential supreme court picks and saying again that pick will be announced next monday, the 9th. >> that is new. we knew the president and his team of advisers had been doing a deep dive into the backgrounds of the top prospects but here now we've learned from the president that he has himself talked with at least four of the potential nominees and says he could talk with another two or three and just last week he said he whittled down the list of 25 potential picks to justice five including two women the president said. other bit of news at the very

end, a question about the world trade organization. the world trade organization does what it sounds like it does, an intragovernmental body that regulates world trade. we know the president had ordered up draft legislation that would allow the u.s. to really abandon some key principles of the world trade organization and add that to other reports that the president floated the idea of pulling out from the world trade organization all together, he was asked about it and says that the u.s. is treated very badly. we should say the legislation would really face an uphill climb in congress, including from some republicans who have bristled at the president's approach to tariffs and that sort of thing, steve. >> one of the issues where there's a clear divide from where the party has been and this president seems to want to go on the issue of trade. jeff, on the question of the supreme court pick, i'm wondering what you're hearing there as sort of a behind the scenes because you've got democrats now obviously rach eting up the rhetoric here to fight a potential trump pick and going after these potential

picks by name. we saw chuck schumer singling out amy bennett. is that something that is -- barrett, that is likely to move or would potentially move the president in terms of his final pick? >> in a word, no. i mean, the democrats really lost this battle in 2016 when they lost the election. republicans are fully aware that they are in the driver's seat here. they do have that slim majority in the senate and the republicans in the senate who would ultimately confirm the president's pick here have for the most part completely supported the president's lower court choices and all for the most part spoken favorably about the folks on the master list devised by the federalist society, group of conservative lawyers. we should say there are a few potential swing votes out there like susan coil linz of maine who made very clear for her overturning roe versus wade is a nonstarter but democrats all they really can do at this point, steve is message. i don't think it's something that will really factor into the

president's decision-making here. >> and carol, a topic that did not come up in the president impromptu comments, the issue of north korea. you're laying out what is taking place clan destinly inside north korea. how is the administration processing that? >> it's interesting because if you look at the agreement that the president and kim jong-un came to in singapore, it says that north korea would work towards denuclearization. i think the question for the white house now and they haven't responded to our requests to answer this question yet, maybe they will at the briefing later today, is whether or not you know, the president sees what's happening in north korea as a violation of the spirit of that agreement that he came to with kim jong-un. then the other larger question which loomed over the talks and now more prominent given this intelligence assessment, whether or not north korea can be

trusted at all to cut any sort of deal. you have the president's national security adviser saying they would work towards denuclearizing in one year. that's a very aggressive time line. if they are already playing games, how can the u.s. trust them? >> carol lee and jeff bennett. thanks for joining us. president just making comments there about the issue of immigration and according to the last numbers put out by the department of health and human services, more than 2,000 migrant children are still separated from their parents. but as of today, hhs says it will no longer be releasing those numbers to the public. over the partly cloudy there were -- weekend there were hundreds of protests to reunite families separated at the u.s.-mexico border. one guatemala2346789 was reunited after seven months apart. marian na. let's get to that story and what the president had to say about immigration and talked about

having a conversation within the last few hours with the president elect of mexico, reiterating there that there are weak border law and bad border laws that need tore changed and rhetoric we've heard before. what did you make of what he had to say in the last couple of minutes? >> so steve, i've done reporting on what has been said in mexico about these migrants, regrettably none of the mexican presidential candidates including the winner, had a very strong stance on the border or migrant crisis as of yesterday. a lot of these central american migrants have to make the dangerous trek through mexico to get to the united states. their rights are violated along that journey. that isn't something that is new. we were embedded with the migrant caravan, the safety in numbers as these people went through mexico and made the journey to the u.s. border. so it remains to be seen how

mexico or what will mexico do to stop the flow of migrants coming up to the u.s. border. according to what donald trump said. now the families that have made it here that were prosecuted and separated according to the zero tolerance policy, the big question was, was that policy and those images deterring others from coming? and i heard mixed messages on that as well. we've been reporting from shelters on the other side of the border asking families if you would have known this policy was in place would you still have come? some told me yes because lefltz of violence they are fleeing from are so high that they said to me at least my kid here even if he was separated from me, would have a chance at life. but this mother who was reunited yesterday with her 7-year-old daughter had this to say about what she would have done had she known this policy was in place. >>. >> what is your message for so many mothers coming here with their children seeking a better

life? >> translator: advise you to find another country to seek refuge in. it's too tough, people here don't have a heart. because a kid is a treasure that you have in life. >> steve, going back to our conversation about what will happen with mexico, most of the central american families i have spoken to, they do not want to stay in mexico. their ultimate goal is to get to the united states. finally, keep in mind that these people we've heard so much talk about, they are human beings at the end of the day. this mother who i profiled, she was a nurse back in guatemala. the dad who is behind bars will be deported had a small business selling internet access.

at the end of the day they leave everything to make it here. and that's the ultimate goal for many of them. steve? >> all right, msnbc's marian na ortens ortensio. the administration's policy of separating families at the border stirred widespread backlash leading the president to retreat and throwing into doubt the zero tolerance policy. two immigration bills failed to get out of the house. at the same time, trrm p and his party are trying to make an issue of the response from democrats, with activists and now calling for abolishing i.c.e. will will resonate with voters, mother jones and ms nbc political analyst of the

washington free beacon. >> we can put two different polls up here. one is this issue of family separations and we say widespread backlash, 3-1 opposition to the policy here. there you see it on the board, multiple polls right there. when you broaden it out and ask the question behind the so-called zero tolerance policy what should this administration and government be doing with families that are found crossing the border illegally, i found this finding interesting as well, the most popular option was detaining the families together releasing them back to their home country together as o poised to to releasing the families into the u.s. for a court data later time. that's known as sort of the catch and release option. that's the option that catch and release option that a lot of democrats talk about on this broader issue what to do with folks crossing the border illegally, is there a vulnerability for democrats of not necessarily being in line with where voters instinctively

are? >> i think you put your finger on it there, steve. in that you have a contradictory impulse among the a lot of voters and people like the idea of trying to be -- sounding tough and enforcing border controls, but they don't like how it's been done by donald trump and don't always noel how to think through the implications of being tough. does that mean you don't take in refugees and turn back asigh lem seeker as they live in tent cities on bridge while fleeing lie convenience and economic degradation and persecution of the lands. these are difficulti issuissues way trump has gone about this, much of the population recoiling at that and all of these wonderful gigantic demonstrations the past week. i do think trump still has the ability to demagogue on the issue and take advantage of these conflicting impulses that people have. >> matthew, at the same time, some of the images and some of

the stories behind the family separation policy are so vivid and cut across party lines on here. is there an argument to be made that the nature of the family separation policy elevates that to something uniquely damaging to this administration politically? >> well, i think you can make that argument based on the speech with which the white house attempted to correct the policy. one can say that they therefore introduced more confusion into what exactly our policy is. the whole idea that the white house found itself on the wrong side of the 70/30 issue when it came to family separation then trying to detain the families together which is as you said the more popular option. for the white house, as long as a conversation steve is about say, attempts to abolish i.c.e., that they view is a winning issue. if it goes back to the idea of separating families, they are then on the losing side. >> speaking of that, i think we

can put this on the screen. one of donald trump's tweets, a call coming from the left, some democratic politicians have signed on to, the liberal left also known as democrats want to get rid of i.c.e. to do a fantastic job and crime would be ram pant and uncontrollable. make america great again. this does seem to be gaining a lot of momentum, this concept orn the left right now. is this something you think is going to become widespread among democratic elected officials in this mid-term campaign cycle? >> i would be surprised. i think trump has an easy case to demagogue and say there's massive crime. he's been trying to portray an america that's overrun by ms-13 and only the shock troops of i.c.e. are keeping america safe. there's nothing true about his presentation. i do think too many democratic elected officials sfatart calli for abolition of i.c.e. without

talking about how to control or enforce the border laws that do exist, that could be problematic for the democrats but i don't think you're going to see a lot of democrats issue that call. >> matthew, i keep thinking back this will sound so dated after the 2012 election and mitt romney lost and they did the autopsy of why they lost and talked about the issue of immigration and tone as being a long term threat to the party's viability in terms of the country's changing demographics. they were able to get donald trump elected on the most hard line platform imaginable in 2016. is there longer term and bigger picture, still something to that argument or completely onvy ee ated in republican' minds. >> the best counter argument to that was donald trump's candidacy and running hard on the immigration issue. there's broader complications with that argument, steve, about demographics and i think we can

say that demographics contrary to what a lot of people believe is not destiny. and in fact there's push and pull factors and there's also the very importance of candidates and i think that's something we'll see in a lot of the 2018 races this november. candidates at the end of the day matter more than some of these larger tidal wave things we like to talk about in washington. >> matthew, and david, thanks for being with us. if democrats want to win big this november, they may have to start small. we're firing up the big board to explain right after the break. ahh... summer is coming.

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♪ oh, what a relief it is! here's a trivia question for you. what do calvin cool ij and grover cleveland and johnson have in common? they were all presidents at one point but there's something else we're going for here. before they were all president, at some point in their rise to power, they were all mayors of cities. and these days, maybe that's the answer for democrats who want to make a name for themselves in the national arena. that would be a departure from reason -- let me show you why this is something we may be talking about. has to do with this. they call this donald trump's favorite map. he had copies of this -- this is the county map of the 2016 election. hillary clinton blue, donald trump red. more than 3100 counties and lion's share overwhelmingly red. you look at the map and say my god, america is overwhelmingly

republican and what you see is that the democratic support really is concentrated in these metropolitan areas in cities and immediately surrounding suburbs and then almost everything else just an ocean of red. so when you look at it that way, you say the democratic support it really seems to be consolidating and there is something to that. take a look what's happened just over the last generation, 1996, bill clinton got re -elected president and carried 1500 counties in in country, pretty spread out his support in 2012, barack obama also got re-elected, pretty healthy margin but didn't win half as many counties as bill clinton did and hillary clinton and her losing campaign in 2016 went farther down, fewer than 500 counties. you think about it. it's been half a century, john lindsey the last time you had mayors running for president in the democratic party, 1972, take a look at the 2020 field though. you're talking about garcetti

from l.a. and mitch landrieu from new orleans and de blasio from new york and south bend indiana, he's being talked about. mayors, corey booker is a senator now. he was the mayor of new york originally. is this the new path forward for democrats if their voters are increasingly in cities and metro areas, no longer about trying to win statewide office and try to win you can go that way or more about representing cities. talking about where the democrats go from here, jason candor running for mayor of kansas city. thank you for joining us. you're an interesting person to talk to about this, your name was -- you ran for the u.s. senate in missouri in 2016, very close race, a lot of democrats noticed you nationally and talked about a national future and now running for mayor of kansas city. is this the new path to the national arena for democrats? >> it's a very flattering

lead-in, i'm running for mayor of kansas city because i want to see this inkred progress my city has made continue and touch everybody in the city. first kand diagnoseers came in the 1880s, it's where my heart is. i can only speak for my sflt. i'm hoping to get a four-year term and do a real good job and i'd like a four-year term after that. that's what i'm thinking about. >> it does feel like something is changing here, bigger picture. you think back to the '60s and '70s and 80s, folks had been moving out of cities and it felt like if you were trying too sort of prove yourself in politics you had to prove you could win over those suburbanits folks who left cities. now the democrats are voters are moving back into the cities. there's a whole issue with maybe having some issues appealing to folks in the suburbs and ex-urban areas but your party's coalition feels more than ever

is concentrated in metro areas. >> well, you know, i suppose that's right, when i guess -- i haven't thought about it that way honestly, when i ran for the you had senate, i got votes from folks, 220,000 who voted for donald trump even though the only thing we agree on, both afraid of sharks. i'm not sure it breaks down exclusively that way. i can tell you for me, the reason i'm running for mayor of my hometown is because i want to make sure that nobody feels like they got to move across town or out of town to find success for their family. i would imagine democrats around the country largely feel the same way about their hometowns but that's how i feel about mine. >> you've got the experience and running for citywide office and run for -- won statewide office and lost the senate race in 2016. are there tensions politically? are those tensions heightened now between if you look at missouri, certainly in a presidential race between -- st. louis and kansas city and then in between you've got that red.

are there political tensions there? do cities and immediate suburbs versus the rest of the state? >> i think probably anywhere you go in the country people feel some sort of regional differences and that kind of thing. i guess i always had success by making sure i was trying to do everything i could for all of my constituents, one of the things i'm excited about and i bring to this job -- i've held statewide office and represented kansas city in the state legislator and knocked on doors to win that race. one of the things i bring, an ability to make sure that kansas city gets its fair share from our state government as well, that's what i did when i served on the budget committee. you know, certainly all over the country there are these tensions but one of the things we have to do, we have to make sure that as americans we reach out and know each other and have these conversations and certainly leading a city which i hope to have the opportunity to do is a great way to demonstrate that. i said that the best argument

for progressive values is actual progress that people can see. and i'm just eager to help make that kind of progress and continue it in my hometown. >> all right, jason kander, thank you for the time. >> thank you. >> michael cohen breaks his silence. what he's saying about loyalty to donald trump. that's next. i'm really into this car, but how do i know if i'm getting a good deal? i tell truecar my zip and which car i want and truecar shows the range of prices people in my area actually paid for the same car so i know if i'm getting a great price. this is how car buying was always meant to be.

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well, 12 boys and their soccer coach have been found alive a week after they went missing in a cave in thailand. new video appears to show all are alive and alert. the boys all aged somewhere between 11 and 16. the rescue mission had been hampered late last week after three rescuers appeared to have suffered electric shocks acco according to the associated press. but again, the headline here, it is a good one, all of the boys and their coach have been found and they appear to be okay. meanwhile other big news today in the world of politics, president trump's long-time personal attorney, michael cohen, is speaking out for the first time since the fbi raided his home and his office back in april. he told abc news, quote, my wife, my daughter and my son have my first loyalty and always will. i put family and country first. before this interview, cohen had been vocal about his loyalty to

donald trump. here he was in an interview with fox early last year. >> i'll do anything to protect mr. trump, the family, now vice president-elect pence as well as the campaign. >> as recently as this april cohen tweeted, quote, i will always protect our potus, president of the united states, donald trump, #maga. so what could this shift in tone signal both to the president and to the special counsel, robert mueller? i'm joined by msnbc's justice and security analyst and former doj spokesperson, matthew miller. matt, the words are chosen it seems intentionally here to deliver some kind of a message. the question is, what's the message? >> i think there are two things michael cohen was attempting to accomplish here. if you've ever known anyone that's the subject or target of a high-profile investigation like, this the pressure of the investigation weighs on them but so does the constant barrage of

press coverage. michael cohen has got a lot of bad press coverage. i think he wants just a little imagery -- image rehabilitation. the other thing is i've heard people say he was trying to sending a message to the southern district of new york or maybe the special counsel but talking to a reporter is typically not the way you sending a message to a prosecutor. he was represented by counsel. he'd just have his counsel pick up the phone, call them and say he wanted to cooperate. i suspect this was more a message to the president and it's a little bit of a warning and a little bit of a plea. the warning is, look, i'm at the ending of my rope. i don't have the resources to fight this. i don't have the incentive to fight this and i'm getting very close to a deal and what i need from you is something to get me out of this and of course that's a pardon. >> how is that likely to be received? do you suspect trump will understand that message and do you think he could act on it? >> i think he would understand it. the president has dangled pardons in front of other

subjects of this investigation before, his personal counsel john dowd called the attorneys for mike flynn and paul manafort last year and raised the possibility of a pardon with them. there's been no reporting that he's done it yet with michael cohen, although he did talk to him personally the day after the raid on cohen's office. so i don't know how trump would receive it, but it's been something that's on his mind. of course the political -- the political fallout from something like that would you would expect be quite large. mark warner has made it very clear at least in his mind and i think that is true for most democrats, that is a red line. pardoning someone who's the subject or a target of this investigation before they could cooperate or give information about the president is a red line that would be in the eyes of some members of congress grounds for impeachment. >> if you're special counsel, bob mueller the special counsel and you have the same sense of this that you do and say, gee, i think he's trying to send that message to the president there

about a potential pardon, what do you do? do you have a conversation with him? does it affect any potential deal? is there any response there? >> i don't think so at this point. look, the southern district of new york is proceeding with this investigation. they just got somewhere around a million more documents today. there's a deadline in that case for cohen's team to submit to the special master their preference of how to handle other documents by this thursday. we're getting close to the point where they'll have all the documents they need in the case. at that point you'll see them start to move forward either towards an indictment or going to cohen's team and saying, look, these are the charges we're likely to pursue against you. now is the time for you to come in and make a deal. i doubt anything that cohen did in this interview short circuits that process, which i suspect we're very near moving forward to anyway. >> so that's interesting just in terms of that possibility there of a pardon. if there was going to be something on that front, it would have to be in this very

narrow window then, i guess? >> well, here's the thing. you can pardon someone in advance, but if you were going to do it -- set aside the fact this would be such a disruptive thing, potentially fatal to the presidency. if you were going to do it, you'd want to do it before michael cohen sat down and had his proffer session and told prosecutors everything he knows. >> matthew miller, thank you for joining us. >> thank you. one more thing before we go. in a scene made for a james bond movie, a notorious murder row inmate escaped prison in france with help from armed guards in a stolen helicopter. this breakout took place yesterday. it was caught on tape pby a fellow inmate. you can see the armed masked commandos running out after they tore through his cell door with a grinding machine. they evaded cameras using smoke canisters and moments later they were airborne with a helicopter that they stole near paris. the pilot was held at gun point the entire time. the helicopter was charred on

the side of a road. the pilot was let go before they made off in a nearby parked car. at this hour, there is still no sign of them, despite a nationwide manhunt. an investigation also under way to determine how this all happened undetected. officials say drones were flying around the prison just weeks before sunday's escape. remember how i said he is notorious? this wasn't his first rodeo. five years ago he broke out of another prison by blowing away his cell door by explosives smuggled through tissue packs. he is an author and detailed his past crimes in a tell-all book. investigators hope his public profile will help get him back behind bars. quite a story there out of france. that's going to wrap things up for this hour. i'm steve kornacki in for katy tur and ali velshi is standing by. >> good afternoon to all of you. exciting times for our country. that's how president trump is describing the selection of a

supreme court justice nominee. we have just learned the president is interviewing potential picks. >> we had a great talk in the morning, during the morning i interviewed and met with four potential justices of our great supreme court. they are outstanding people. they are really incredible people. >> now, trump is teasing the crucial decision saying the name will be revealed after the holiday one week from today. the white house is preparing for pushback. earlier today the administration announced it's temporarily reshuffling key staff to focus on finding the right person to take the seat of retiring justice anthony kennedy. that's not the only story surrounding the president, however. trump's long-time personal lawyer, michael cohen, is shifting away from his previous vows to, quote, do anything to protect the president. cohen signalled