house reporters at the white house. and then, joint sessions develop later, mostly with foreign leaders that the president has those sessions. and then, you have exchanges with reporters. those are the short q&a's that take place on the south lawn with the helicopter whirling in the background, or in the roosevelt room, or the oval office, and sometimes in the cabinet room. these are much more informal sessions. then, the third types are interviews. and so, the last two, the exchanges with reporters and interviews, have increased. in trump's case, he has had many more. when you look at the six presidents, trump has 442. these figures are by the end of june. 442 short question-and-answer sessions, which sometimes can involve one question, but most times are many minutes, and it can go up to 20 minutes or so. they are sessions where the president, especially in the marine one ones, it is a somewhat chaotic situation. and -- [laughter] martha: with people with ladders, cameras, edging their way in. it's a setting where in

here is one from the white house briefing room. doug: that one got a lot of interesting comments on twitter. it was a day when we had seen the president couple times, i believe. the white house press secretary, sarah huckabee sanders, who i have gotten to really know and respect, she has the toughest job in the white house so far, , by far, she was doing her daily briefing. because we had seen the president a couple of times and where my desk is at the white house reading room, it is all the way in the back. i can hear on the pa when the secretary comes in and starts speaking. i was not planning to go out and photograph her until question started. when she said she had a guest with her, i grabbed my camera and run up to the briefing room. that would be his first time in the briefing room. all of a sudden, a feed shows on the monitor. all of a sudden it was like, this is a first, i have never seen this. it was an interesting day. her face -- the questions that she got about it, they were interesting. but again, she has a tough job.

one evening at the white house. the president and first lady were heading out. we saw his son, barron was up by the motorcade. i saw him walk across the lawn. normally, we are not allowed to photograph any of the children. we always give them that respect that we aren't going to photograph him unless the president is around. because he was around and we thought he was leaving, the ball started rolling, i thought i should get this. in case they see this video. so, i started photographing. as soon as the two boys saw the tv cameras, they put their jackets over their head. which made it kind of funny and different. you know, the boy, barron always has a secret service agent with him. so, just like every member of the trump family and like every member of the obama family group -- family, they had constant secret service around. i think they just like, sasha and melia, going to school, barron has secret service with him in school. brian this is a unique photo. : people can see your stuff independently on twitter. how do

who was at the white house during the clinton years. there are many examples of this. the trump white house has a record of misleading the public. this administration lies consistently. and it's all led from the top by a president who lies even about the weather and the time of day. that is why this deserves outrage and backlash. sanders going to fox is not surprising. there's been a revolving door between fox and the white house for several years. it should be surprising that someone who misled the public and called the press the enemy would land these types of jobs. spicer is not at the top of his career right now. you don't go to dancing with the stars when you're at your peak. this is the kind of job you take when you may not have many other options, maybe he has an incredible dancing talent we don't know about. i guess we'll find out. >> oliver darcie, thank you so much to both of you. >>> we have breaking news, subpoenas have been issued in the suicide of jeffrey epstein, aimed at re-creating the night he died behind bars. plus, t

>> look, nobody in this white house or few people in this white house spent as much time close to the president physically every day as madeleine westerhaut. she had an office just outside of the oval office. she was a gatekeeper for the president. if you wanted to have a chance to talk to him, she was a good person to know in the west wing. and so for her to suddenly be on the outs was shocking to a lot of people. she had been seen as one of the people in his inner circle. mind you, she had previously worked for other republicans. she was not originally a trump supporter in the primaries. but she had works her way into his level of trust. so when he heard about these comments, apparently she had made at this dinner, obviously, you know, pushed over a line that he was willing to tolerate. he says, as he always does, he blames the media. nobody in the media reported on these, that i saw. this got around the white house because they were pretty surprising things for somebody to say, even in a private setting. >> jill, it was interesting too, some of the reporting out there suggests mayb

and the white house rebuffing those efforts. that's information coming from multiple current and former senior administration officials to our own jake tapper. and we learned that dhs officials have been battling the white house for more than a year to get them to focus on domestic terrorism. and when the administration released a report, it was really scantily mentioned in this 20-plus page report. it was put out by the administration last fall. it is called the national counter terrorism strategy. in it, it says that ral islamic terrorists remain the prime threat to the u.s., that domestic terrorism in that document is only mentioned twice without much detail. now this despite the fact even fbi director chris wray recently testified last month that almost as many domestic terror arrests occurred in the first three quarters of this fiscal year as there have been arrested connected to international terrorism. the number of domestic terrorist arrests, about 100. and christopher said the majority were motivated by some version of

the white house denied it to us. the president was asked directly if he and advisors were talking about cutting payroll taxes and here is how he answered. >> so we're talking about indexing and always looking at the capital gain stacks, payroll tax. we're looking at i would love to do something on capital gains, we're talking about that. >> so there is confirming what his an mid station, at least some members were denying to us last night in addition to that he called on the fed to significantly cut interest rates, in order, between that and the tax cuts, the president called for just the kind of measures would one take the economy is slowing down, something top advisors have been going on the v and denying for days. just this morning one of the president's spokes people hogan gidley was denying payroll taxes were being discussed but actually admitted it seconds later in the same interview. >> it's not being considered at this time but he's looking at options to give back the hard-earned money they made. >> if there

the day before that the white house said they aren't. now today the white house says they are. just from a messaging standpoint they clearly seem disorganized. >> from a messaging standpoint it could be cleaned up a bit obviously. but i don't think -- look, i think if we learned, nothing is off the table in this administration, right? there's one decider in chief here, and until he says it's completely off the table, it's not off the table. so just because -- >> even if he says it's off the table, it may not be off the table. >> exactly. and that makes it difficult, right, for his republican allies in the congress to kind of move forward on plans like a 2.0. >> it also makes it difficult for folks like you to come on television and definitively state what the policy is. catherine, just in terms of the economics of this, i mean, republicans used to care about the deficit. under president obama there were, you know, there was so much focus understandably on the deficit and concern about it. you don't hear -- there's hardly any republicans who talk about the deficit. certainly thi

do you think a plan is coming out of this white house? >> reporter: if there is a plan to deal with any economic slowdown or recession, steph, the white house isn't emphasizing it. what accounts for this message? in large part the white house knows the way in which americans view the economy matters at least in terms of perception. when it comes to the economy perception can affect the reality. i think the question for this white house for trump's re-election campaign is, will he or can he successfully continue to project this message of positivity as it relates to the economy all the way through november, 2020, come what may. we just heard the president say he sees no signs of a recession on the horizon and that point can be debated but this is one of the things that what the president says publicly matches up with what he is saying privately. i'm told the president has reassured his advisers he is not at all bothered by the stock market swings, not bothered by the warning shot in the bond market last week. the top line take away from th

bush white house. she has degrees from new college in sarasota, florida and the university of missouri columbia. to her immediate left is tamara keith, who joined npr in 2009, and has been a white house correspondent since 2014. -- for national public radio since 2014. she co-hosts the npr politics podcast, which is the top political podcast in america. and i admit, it is something i listen to every single week. miss keith has covered the trump administration from day one. covered the final two years of the obama presidency, as well as covering the 2016 presidential campaign, when she was assigned to cover hillary clinton. in 2018, she was elected to serve on the board of the white house correspondents association. she has worked for a number of npr affiliate stations, including wosu in columbus ohio, and kpcc, southern california public radio. she has degrees from the university of california berkeley and the ucb graduate school of journalism. last but not least, she is a member of the bad news babes,

white house officials are down playing talk of a possible recession as democrats running for the white house, they are opening a new line of attack. doug luzader has more on that from washington. >> reporter: the white house is asking for some optimism here but democrats see an opportunity. president trump preparing to are up to the white house from his vacation and diving in on the economy. >> we are doing better than any country or even area, anywhere in the would. we are doing great. our consume ser consumers is really strong. >> defending the tough nee negotiating staps with china that fueled a sell-off on wall street and reversal, desiteing tof tariffs >> a goal is the men consumers. so far it's been virtually zero. >> reporter: at risk for the president, his strong suit this national polls. when it comes to handling of the economies our most recent fox news poll put his approval at 53%. >> this current trade war that the president entered our country into is not working. >> democrats with white house ambitions blame the president especially with the bond market signaling trouble

bush white house invited the president of china hu jintao to come visit the white house. it was clear this would not work. it was clear it would be tense from the beginning. i mean in the first instance t chinese wanted hu jintao to get a full state treatment. george w. bush says no, it won't be a state's visit but an official visit, in terms of protocol and poms and circumstances. the chinese wanted hu jintao to have dinner at the white house. george w. bush says no, we want you to come but we are not going to giver y you dinner but how at lunch. the bush's administration, disaster rousley botched to the hurricane. it had to be called off the last minute because of katrina and got postponed until months later. april, 2006, they were at last able to do this difficult thing. it then turned out to be a nice day. jintao got his 21 salute and they brought out the drum cord which was a cool thing to see in the colonial drum core outfit. quickly things start to go off the rail. you can tell that in part. the archive ap footage summing up that day is slugged with this title. "an

who was running the rope line at the white house. >> my answer would be white house communications agency. that's part of the department of defense. and when their sheet came in, it is the one that says the president's call, puts the time and says to, the call to the sea of tranquility, the moon. >> we have those notes in the exhibition. it says call to the sea of tranquility on the moon. how much time did he spend prepping for what he would say to the astronauts? do any of you know? >> i don't. >> i would say probably considerable time, knowing him. i can envision that he was over in the office with his yellow pad on his lap and that he wrote out several different thoughts that he might have on how he would do it. this is a man who always prepared. he loved to tell the story about winston churchill. how churchill, one time somebody came up to winston churchill and said how in the world, the spontaneous remarks of yours are so special. they're so great. and winston churchill said some of the hardest work i do is writing those spontaneous remarks. >> just to add to that, he often came out

is anybody here surprised the president resisted this or the white house resisted this? i would be more surprised if you had atory that said donald trump had a meeting and when this came up, he said, you know what, those rats, they're infesting the country and i want you to go get those white supremacists, we're going to send the military and the border patrol and whatever we have to do to get them but that is not what he said when it comes to white supremacy and that is what he says when it comes to mexicans or immigrants seeking asylum who are trying to get a better life and not the people trying to restrict americans from having a better life. >> and the fbi director christopher wray, appointed by president trump, just testified that the number of arrest is about the same as international terrorism and both of those are white supremacists. >> but the president was clear before the incidents happened that the -- all types of terrorism and oversimplification to say white supremacists or some political line that satisfies a segment of the society, he's talking about all

they keep marching around and around the white house. they circled the property four times or five times. they go back to cameron house on lafayette square and say, well, we are going to keep the pickets up. if you will not even meet with us, we are not stopping. we will keep going with pickets. so they keep it up throughout the spring of 1917. by the end of april, u.s. is now involved in world war i. now what do you do? do you keep criticizing the president in this very public way while we are at war? you know public opinion is going to turn against it will continue to be the biggest stumbling block. it says president wilson are deceiving russia. they say we are a democracy, help us win a world war so that democracy may survive. we the women of america tell you that america is not a democracy. 20 million american women are denied the right to vote. help us make this nation really free, that it must deliberate its people. this message is for photographs and newspaper coverage. today this would be a tweet. public opinion does turn against

a white house spokesperson tells the "times" we would welcome them to the white house in the future should a future date work out. >>> a surprise news in the nfl over the weekend as the team's starting quarterback, andrew luck announced his retirement. nbc news correspondent ron mott has the detail sg. >> this was not an easy decision. >> a brutal sport has lost a warrior. >> the only way forward for me is to remove myself from football. >> indianapolis colts quarterback andrew luck after a string of injuries signdelined m for long stretches, including the entire 2017 season announced he's quitting at age 29. >> it's taken my joy of this game away. >> and now you're starting to hear the reaction of some of the fans. >> the news was not immediately welcomed by home fans who booed. one fan taking off luck's number 12 jersey. >> i'd be lying if i didn't hear the reaction. it hurt. >> former nfl player daunte sta stallworth understands the decision. >> to take as many hits as he has day in and day out, over 17 years, i can't imagine what he's going through. >> luck, cwas the number one pik of

she is at the white house this morning. sarah, the white house portrayed a very different reception. they even released a sort of propaganda-like video on social media showing a warm reception, but the facts seem to counter the white house messaging here. >> that's right, jim. the white house did try to portray the president's visits to dayton and el paso as sort of a demonstration of the president's ability to act presidential in these kinds of situations. for example, his social media director, claiming that trump had been refused like a rock star at those places. and president trump, as you mentioned, had disputed the characterizations of local officials in dayton while he was flying from dayton to el paso to visit the scene of the other mass shooting, saying that they had mischaracterized his visit, even though democratic mayor of dayton, nan whaley, ohio senator sher odd brown, both of them had been dmikplitry of the visit itself. the eight surviving victims still being treated at the university medical center in texas

the white house reportedly considering a new tax cut to keep the economy going. so, why is the president saying the economy has never been better. >>> and elizabeth warren apologizes for the controversial dna test. is it enough to silence her critics? let's go outfront. outfront tonight trump is pushing a new conspiracy theory once again about voter fraud. this time, though, it's google's fault apparently. report just out google minipulated votes for hillary clinton in 2016 election. this was put out from a clinton supporter. google should be sued. my victory was even bigger than thought. bigger than thought. there is no evidence of that. there is no real evidence of that, i should say. his theory based off not a new report, even, but congressional testimony from last month, testimony that got little attention and was largely ignored until the theory appeared today on fox business discussing claims by a researcher who claims google may have shifted millions of votes to hillary clinton. how? well, epistein, the researcher blames bias in search results. >> google's

the white house said that is being misinterpreted. the press secretary saying the president's regret was that he was not tougher on china and that the tariffs weren't more stringent. so inverting the way many people read that moment in the room. you asked me to explain what the president meant there, chuck. i can't tell you. i can only look at what the president is saying and doing. the issue here at the g7 is he's saying and doing things that are contradictory. in this instance, for example, of these china tariffs and whether or not the president is having second thoughts, the white house seems to want it both ways in front of two different audiences. this is a president, chuck, who knows how to read the room. he's in a room now, right, and he was in that instance, with other leaders who are gently pushing back on the issue of trade. he gets that. this is a president who at least for this trip does not want to be, it seems, the wrecking ball. that's different from other summits. in this instance, the president wants to portray that e

we came back to the white house. typically, once you get inside the gates of the white house, there is a sense of relief that you have accomplished her mission. there is a little bit of a deep breath. just as we are pulling up to the oval office area where the president gets out, you have seen it many times in a press where he will walk up to the oval office, we got over the radio that there was a fence jumper. the french jumper was over on the ease part of the complex over by the treasury building. i was sitting in the right front seat of the limousine and i had to turn back to the president and say, we have a fence jumper and we have to stand in the vehicle until we get the issue resolved. and he said, a fence jumper, where? he started looking behind him and looking through. i was kind of glad for that response. after a few seconds goes on, he cannot see the fence jumper and i am not hearing it's all clear yet. then we say we have to get into the oval office. all that time i knew the uniformed officers and the agen

they said talk to the white house. i asked the white house. they said talk to the state department. not a whole lot of answers coming from the trump administration. >> they call that the old runaround. i got two people who worked for the state department, worked for a democrat and republican. jump ball for which of you wants to talk about how unusual and troubling it is the state department would be helping rudy giuliani on this. >> ambassador kurt volcker has an extraordinary reputation, bipartisan reputation. he was during the bush administration the u.s. ambassador to nato. so he's someone who respects and appreciates the united states' commitment to nato. honestly if i have to give my best analysis of this it is an example of the ukrainian leadership and state department leadership trying to placate an unhinged actor in the form of rudy giuliani and trying to mitigate the damage that he does when he goes out into the press making crazy product clamations. and when you look at rudy giuliani was at the forefront of donald trump's legal defense and missteps he had say on sean hanni

working with secret white house tapes is as exciting as it sounds. you get to be a fly on the wall in the oval office in the 1960's and 1970's, a time that big decisions are being made and big plots are being hatched and history is being made. we will hear from that, starting with marc, who will tell us a little about what the white house tapes tell us about endless wars, something that is incredibly timely. marc is also the author of the award-winning book "constructing the monolith." why don't you start us off? prof. selverstone: thank you. so, the united states has been at war, on a war footing for 17 years, 18 years. most conspicuously of course in iraq and afghanistan, but also in locales as disparate as somalia, yemen, libya, syria. collectively, these engagements have been known as the war on terror, or the global war on terror. most recently, president trump in his state of the union address referred to them as "endless wars." the presidents preceding trump recognized their endurance, and had sought to at various points disengage in the midst

the white house wants to be vauv involved, i have hope. anybody who wants to do something to stop this epidemic i'll stand with. i'm just going to take you back about a year ago. i was in ohio at the request of governor kasich. i testified there about red flag and background checks and other things. and i said at the end of my testimony don't be afraid to act. your failure to act could lead to ohio being the next place for a mass shooting. i never expected that it would be now the last one that we're talking about. to everyone in washington, d.c., do not be afraid to act. the time is now. >> i want to ask you about the nra. the nra, wayne lapierre despite being the target of investigations, alleged corruption, all kinds of problems in the nra, yet he can get through to the president and the president can change his mind. >> i hope this time is different. listen, my daughter and other victims of gun violence, they were a cost of doing business for the nra. everyone now sees the way the nra manages its books and it's money. they were nothing

the white house wanted only to focus on jihadi threats. they had major idealogical blinders on. joining me now is counter-terrorism analyst phil mudd. just off the top, what is your take on this? >> do you remember the election campaign when the president -- remember, it wasn't that long ago when we spent a lot of time talking about isis. the president was talking about how he would eliminate isis. a good talking point for a president partly because if you contrast it to the white supremacy problem in the united states, isis is people overseas, the other people that we don't want in this country, so he could link that to some of his immigration commentary. in the face of that when you have a new team come in office that may not be that familiar with how to understand intelligence and terrorism reporting, you have officials in government come at you and say, isis is fine but the people we need to spend more resources on not only aren't isis, they're white people in this country. boy, that's a tough pill to swallow if you're new to the white

that the white house might consider sort of a nascent idea that the white house might consider some type of executive action on gun control. and this is something that people have told us on both sides may be a good idea, maybe not. and we talked also to people in the gun lobby who suggested that virtually any of the idea that's been floated around on capitol hill including that very simple idea of a red flags is a nonstarter as far as they're concerned. because they're concerned about due process for individuals who might get red flagged, how are they going to get noticed in a hearing? so all of this suggests that as washington continues this debate, it's something that nobody knows where it's going right now. back to you. >> executive action to do what specifically? >> executive action of some sort. now, what that means, we don't know. we've asked kellyanne conway, just yesterday. in fact i talked to her right out here on the driveway. i asked is the president talking about sweeping new measures in an executive action or is he talking about something like red flagging? and she pic

that was my first time in the white house. it won't be my last. few daysent the last on a 20 county tour. after the tragedies of this weekend, it reinvigorated me. it reinvigorated me as i stood with the flag and i thought to myself, you know what? this flag is flying over el paso today and it is flying over dayton today. that is because we are one america. there are america and not two sides. there are not when the other side is the ku klux klan and there are white supremacist. there is only one side and that is the american side. i have had so many islands approach me about gun safety and assault weapon bands and magazines that it has been unbelievable. i told them the story of when i sat across the president after parkland and advocated for gun safety. he said he wanted universal background checks and the next day, he goes and meets with the nra and folds. as your president, i will not fold. [applause] shouldconomic agenda unite rural and urban for this country. i have been talking about the farm bill but also childcare. we know the issues. and

can they pressure the white house? john: they can't ake a collaps in the stock market and can't take a collapse in agricultural ates. so not much more pain is the answer. robert: we'll keep an eye on what happens on capitol hill when everyone is back. for noin the summer, all eyes on the democratic race for president. th week 10 democrats qualifie for the deba in houston, texas. it'll be the first time vice president biden will share the stageagit senator warren. 10 others will tr to stay in the hunt the spite not making the stage. new york senator crirsen jill the race, ed out o all this comes as the political map is redrawn with georgia looking morend more like possible battleground. races in 2020, following the announcement this week by g.o.p. senator johnny isakson that he'll retire at the end of this year due to his health. we wish him the best. when you think about the iowa caucuses, there was big news on friday. you have theemocratic national committee saying, we dent want to have virtual caucuses. ucuses by pho

who was running that at the white house? >> my answer would be the white house communications agency and that is a part of the department of defense. when their sheet came in, it is the one that says the presidents call and it puts the time and it says the call to the sea of tranquility, the moon. we have those notes in the exhibition. how much time did he spend prepping for what he would say to the astronauts? do any of you know? >> i don't. >> i can't say. >> probable considerable time knowing him. i can imagine he was in the office with a pad on his lap and he wrote out several different thoughts you might have and how he would do it. this is a man who always prepared. he always wanted to tell the story about winston churchill and how one time someone came up to winston churchill and said how do you do that, it is so great. and winston churchill said part of the work i do is writing out those responses. >> one of the things we always did was have special remarks for anything he might be speaking about ahead of time. the p

and i think increasingly his advisers both inside the white house, outside the white house, and on the campaign are very closely watching the state of the economy and president trump is getting worried about it. and i think subsequently he's trying to either come up with scapegoats to blame if the economy goes south like calling out the fed chair jerome powell with some frequency but also just a running commentary on things that he's commenting on, promises that he's made like building the border wall. i think that's a lot of what we've seen is being fueled by this anxiety over the economy. >> jon meacham, those tweets we read from the president about the hurricane, ostensibly about the hurricane but by the end of one of those tweets there he is going after personally the mayor of san juan, this feels like one of those instances, there have been many of these, there probably will be many more, but one of those instances where you can take a disaster, a potential daft and think about how past presidents, democrat or republican, would have addressed them in public and compare it and find

the white house had to clarify that. finally trump claimed that it will lose $3 billion to the $5 billion on the presidency and nothing to corroborate and he claimed as well as jim acosta noted that he would make no money from the g-7 next year being at his own private golf club. of course he owns the golf club and that money would go to the golf club's coffers. the president's words matter on the international stage and i might argue they matter more and the president said a whole host of false and misleading things during the course of the last few days. >> langley list the-- lengthy l there. thank you, jim. >>> and joining us now congresswoman her owna. let's begin with the press conference. he said china wants to make a deal to end the trade war. do you see any sign of that >> you never know with the president because i think just a few days ago he said that xi jinping was an enemy of the people and now xi jinping is a great leader. so as your prior commentator said you have to make a list of the misleading and outri

our white house had fact checkers. [laughter] sarada: policy people. they would offer their input, which we would then incorporate. eventually the draft would go to the president. we had probably spoken to him about the speech before but then it would go back to him. i sent it into him a couple of nights earlier and i got it back and only one word was crossed out. and i thought, this can't be right, the president loves pope francis, he was really excited about the arrival. i couldn't imagine he had no edits. of course, i get a call from the president's secretary the morning before the speech and she says, he wasn't done editing, he wants you up here. so i go to the oval and he is behind the desk, and in his neat handwriting he is making edits. "come on in." i do about obama impression. [laughter] about: he was talking this ties to my own faith and i want to focus on that, and it wasn't supposed to be a long speech, but he wanted to blow that out a little bit. and similar on this draft and i will look at it over lunch. i worked on it and send it back. i

the gardens of the white house. we will hear from dr. susan, programs manager for the u.s. botanic garden, jim adams, horticultural manager from the united states botanic garden, and jim mcdaniel, board of directors, like our previous panel, we will hear three short presentations and then our panelists will have a short conversation moderated by dr. chapelle. please join me in welcoming our speakers. [applause] >> thank you, it is an honor to be here today to speak with you about white house gardens. both of our other panelist our named jim and both worked on white house gardens. at the end am going to let you ask questions. we are the last panel of the day and we will finish the discussion by talking about gardens that have been established and modified since the kennedy administration. so from the johnson administration on. in many different ways, the white house gardens have been inspired and used. the start out by talking about garden trends and movements that have inspired and influenced the development of the

>> the white house is deeply concerned about the economy. they know, they see the same polling data that we all see which is that a lot of these suburban districts and the kinds of places in the country that turn the house and help democrats win the house in the midterm elections and you have a number of voters and certainly a large number of female voters who, you know, maybe are happy with perhaps, with getting various justices on the supreme court. they certainly have been happy with the economy, but they don't like the president's style, they don't like his untraditional tone. they wish he would just stop, i hear again and again from sloaters and they wish he would talk more like a president and speak in ways that are a little less inflammatory. so if the economy starts -- if we do start to head into a recession which seems to be what a lot of the economic experts are starting to talk about right now, the president loses a really strong argument for his re-election in these swing districts that could make the difference for him. >> look

house to make domestic terrorism a higher priority in the strategy, and the white house kept pushing back. what's your reaction? >> well, apparently he doesn't like to hear the words "white supremacist" in anything, so they cut back on any references to domestic terrorism and acknowledged that as a growing problem. as you know, chris wray only a couple months ago, acknowledged that domestic terrorism is a growing concern and that much of that is associated with white supremacy actions. >> sources tell cnn that the house judiciary committee is considering come coming back early to work on gun-related legislation, including perhaps red flag legislation, perhaps even a ban on some kinds of semiautomatic assault weapons, semiautomatic weapons, limits on high-capacity magazines. is there anything in there that i mentioned that you think could get through the republican-controlled senate? >> not as long as mitch mcconnell is in charge. we can't even get the law that was passed -- the bill that was passed by the house, which is just a background check law. so there are two people who are ho

with us now, geoff bennett, my colleague covering the white house on the north lawn, white house bureau chief and msnbc political analyst, phillip rucker. thanks for being with us. geoff, bring us up to speed on what the white house is saying. it's not just the "post", others are reporting, yeah, maybe this is being considered, but the white house is saying, huh-uh, no way. >> reporter: we talked before, hallie, how a strong economy is key to trump's re-election bid. having a recession happen on his watch could be political kryptonite. as you mentioned, they are dismissing reporting that they are active live considering cutting payroll taxes to boost consumer spending by way of a statement. it says this. as larry kudlow says yesterday, more tax cuts for the american people are certainly on the table, but cutting payroll taxes is not something under consideration at this time. there is a phrase at the statement that caught our eyes. the more tax cuts for the american people are certainly on the table. take that with a huge grain of salt. as many people remember, just before the 2018 midt

a huge reversal at the white house just since our last broadcast on what they might try to hold off a recession. plus, joe biden puts out an ad for the general election not the primaries. he is running on electability. while a party stalwart warns against getting too far ahead of the public. another day of punishing heat on the east coast in a major city with lead in the drinking water, can't seem to get safe water to its citizens so they have to line up for it and carry it home, all of it as "the 11th hour" gets under way on a tuesday night. good evening once again. from our nbc news headquarters here in new york day 943 of the trump administration. in the midst of an economic slowdown that could threaten his re-election, a looming battle over gun control, growing fears about domestic terrorism, and the like, the president, eager to avoid all of those topics today chose russia and chose today to signal new support for russia and vladimir putin. trump renewed his call for russia to be welcomed back into what is known as g7 the leading nations due to meet this weekend in france. the un

it's a disgrace. >>> that was the scene outside the white house. moments ago that was the president emerging talking to the press. we weren't sure he was going to on a range of topics. that massively escalated trade war with china featuring prominently in the questions and responses from the president. you see the first lady there joining him. they are on their way to france for the g 7 summit. our panel is still with us. ron and sona, one of the comments the president made and i think i heard him reiterate on the subject of china and the trade war, he said we will win it. you said this all but certainly sets off the path towards a recession over the next year. do you see a scenario through the economic pain he can achieve his goals and win it in his words? >> if china were to collapse and have internal strith to get the economy back on track, it's possible. china has been shown in the past to with stand internal political pressure better than a president of the united states. xi is president for life. donald trump is not. he has more political pre

i worked with a former white house colleague. sarada: i also have my own sort of one woman shop and i do speeches and all kinds of writing, but also message strategy, communications, coaching for clients. kyle: i graduated from uva in 2008. i moved back to charlottesville about a year ago and i work for jim ryan. i also write speeches. >> i am curious, once you have all of the words on the paper, how much time did your respective presidents spend practicing, or do they have the ability to read it a few times and really deliver in a way that, with the appropriate pauses and all that goes into really communicating that? and is that the kind of thing they are doing at night in front of a mirror? john: that's a good question, and i don't know the answer. i don't know how much time he spent on it. now and then, we gave him the speeches in 23 point type and he read them usually on cards about two thirds the size of a sheet of paper. it was big type, and he could read it without his glasses. on occasion, i would ask the staff secretary

donald trump is the white house. this is not a white house where you say what is the chief of staff saying, the acting chief of staff. what is the point person on gun safety? it really comes down to sort of what is the feeling? the mood? the last person to talk to the president? whenever this all comes together. >> yeah. you're exactly right about that. the reality is he did go out and say to his staff, come one some proposals and tell me about them. it is aides talking to other people. you're right. it will come down to what the president wants to do and what he's feeling about this. and we know that he is getting pressured from both sides, right? and there is a lot of politics involved here. so he knows, and people that are trying to prevent him from pushing gun legislation are saying to him, you're going to lose your base. they're not going to like. this you're going to lose support in this 2020 election. we also know that there are a number of people, republicans, who are saying to him, you can push some proposal

the white house is concerned about the economy. we know that president trump has had conversations with aides recently about whether this trade war with china could impact his chances going into a 2020 reelection campaign. keep in mind, u.s. steel is losing jobs, rv sales are down, which is an indicator of the strength of the economy moving forward. aside from that, there's volatility in the stock market. so of course the president having touted his record on the economy as one of his strongest selling points for voters, has to be concerned about a potential recession going into 2020. aside from that, we will hear from the president today. he's set to welcome to president of romania into the white house and you can bet reporters will be asking him about these potential tax cuts. >> boris sanchez, always good to have you. thanks very much. >> will congress do anything when it comes to stronger background checks on gun sales once they return from recess? remember all the talk about coming back early? we're going to ask a democratic c

bush white house invited the chinese president at the time to come visit the white house. and again, this is just one of those times in life when it was clear this might not work. i mean, it was at least clear it was going to be very tense from the beginning. i think it was maybe even clear from the beginning that it was going to go badly. i mean, in the first instance the chinese wanted hu jintao to be given the full state treatment. george w. bush said, no, it will just be an official visit, which is one big wrung down the ladder in terms of protocol and pomp and circumstance. the chinese wanted hu jintao to have a state dinner at the white house. george w. bush white house said, nope, we want you to come, but we're not willing to give you dinner. how about lunch? then an even bigger problem. hurricane katrina blew ashore in the gulf coast and devastated the great american city of new orleans and the bush administration, of course, disastrously botched the response to that hurricane. huh jintao's visit had originally been scheduled for the week new orleans had almost bee

best bowlerbe the in the white house. [laughter] up democratic primary coming , there are a lot of bowling pins up and there will just be one standing. lbj.t to talk about we know that -- richard nixon quit. lbj actually quit as well, he just did not make it public yet he talked about it to a couple of allies and his oldest friends. the most to talk about sincere political minute of lbj's life. it boils down to this one minute. quit because of a lot of reasons. johnson quit because he was a baby. he would say that his mother did not raise him right. we can debate that at another time. on 1964.to focus two days into the convention. two days before lyndon johnson gave his acceptance speech. exploded fireworks and his name was in my. that, landslide linden, who had made it to the senate by 87 votes would have defeated the republican candidate by almost 16 million votes. about 90% of the electoral college. it would be the high point of american liberalism. it would be the beginning of the end of the democratic party's dominan

how about back at the white house? >> it was -- it was -- i mean, i felt personally like i had a split personality because on the one hand you were trying to figure out what do you need to do now. as i think dwight said earlier, it's out of your control. on the other hand you're sitting there thinking about all the other things that could go wrong in this chain of events that take place over more than a number of days. and it really -- i mean, you couldn't get it off your mind, but you didn't want to think about it sometimes. it was very unique. >> as you would walk down the corridor in the west wing, you could hear from room to room every television was on by every staff person in the white house. >> wow. okay. now, there has been a lot of attention paid in the last couple of weeks to william sapphire writing a memo to your boss, larry, called the in event of moon disaster, offering suggested remarks in the case of a mission failure and that the apollo 11 astronauts did not survive. has that been overstated a little b

inside the white house those been ongoing. look, this stems from back in february when the president signed this national emergency declaration over the situation at the southern border. at the time white house officials said part of that would include to tapping into $3.6 billion in military construction funds but white house officials also cautioned us at the time that this was likely be the last pot of money the white house would go after. first they would look at other funds appropriated by congress. the drug money from asset forfeiture funds. so it is notable that the white house is now moving in the direction of going into these military construction funds. now, we are awaiting the department of defense to officially notify congress and to officially take this action to move these funds over. we do expect that to happen soon, but those discussions are indeed ongoing. it comes, of course, as the president is pressing his aides to move forward as quickly as possible to build as much border wall as can be done. >>> this is

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

in the white house. me theya nixon cox told would look from the television to the oval, from the oval to the television, because they couldn't believe what they were watching. part, i'm wondering if your father mentioned this to you, when it was done, your grandfather arrived. they went down to greet him. he was completely humbled by the event, totally overwhelmed by the courage of the astronauts and staggered by the history of the moment. has that come through to you? to your mom as well? >> yes. she says he was really excited about it. he thought it was a great opportunity. speech he talked about the gray service -- surface of the moon. i think he saw it as an amazing opportunity. >> we are going to talk about the context first before we get to the phone call. inyou all know this began 1957. i was a year-old, it wasn't my fault, the russians launched sputnik one. let's get the reaction to sputnik. go ahead. splat -- a slap in the face to american complacency. we were in the eisenhower presidency, the n