morning at 6:00 a.m. >> -- into what went on tonight. thankfully there are no reports of damage and no injuries reported. we thank you for watching the live coverage here. i'm morgan radford. thank you for joining us. good evening. i'm donny deutsch and i'm thrilled to be here. there are 479 days until the 2020 presidential election and tonight we will break down the week's top stories and see how they're shaping. the battle for the white house, there are lots to cover and this "saturday night politics." ♪ we've got a spectacular group with us tonight. a super spectacular group. but before i introduce them as a tip of the hat to my former friend donald trump -- keyword here "former" -- we have built him a wall. it is a "saturday night politics" wall. that's our roadmap to wrap up

the week's top stories including trump the favorite. why democrats should be terrified about his chances for election. bye-bye acosta. the president loses another cabinet member but will it end the epstein problem. plus race away from race, why the democrats should cease-fire on the obama called circular firing squad. when will democrats in the media stop taking trump's red meat back. emily jane fox who we have known as the super millennial, author of "born trump," thrilled to have you back here. you are becoming a regular by popular demand. we have a newby, my good friend from ""morning joe"." eddie, you are the only new member, the chairman of african-american studies at princeton university and msnbc contributor. chief public affairs officer move on.org and msnbc

contributor and heidi presbilo who is a msnbc contributor, head honcho. you were mocking me before i got going because i said i wanted the chairs to be white and you said it was really weird. >> tell him about the initiating haze ingalls. >> let's get to the wall. trump the favorite. democrats, be afraid. be very, very afraid. everything is going trump's way and pointing to four more years of trump. sound scary? how about 12 more years of trump? >> our economy is so good, our unemployment numbers are at record lows. you know, so many good things are happening. >> all right. i didn't want to start the show on a downer. if you watch this network most of the time we see these wonderful polls about how the democrats are winning and they're beating him in every state. this one is up six points, and i say, phooey and i say it because i want to scare the democrats. i see certain things. let me go over, i would say follow the money.

here are certain economic polls. you have the moody economic poll by mark zandi, chief economist at moody's analytics, who says trump will win all 12 points in the poll. you have the goldman sachs model that shows him winning. you have the 13 key factors model, and you have the sports books in vegas. all of the money, polls, analytics, point to trump. that's number one. number two, my reason is if you look historically there have been two incumbents that have lost since roosevelt and that's george bush sr. and that was jimmy carter and you have two presidents with tanking economies with no passionate base and were running against transformational candidates. this is none of the issues with trump. the third reason i am frightened, this guy will use the power of the presidency like no other president before him to get re-elected, whether it is starting a war, whether it is tomorrow flipping mike pence for nikki haley. wherever your mind can take you, he will do it.

i put that all up, and i say, emily, democrats beware. am i just too negative, donny? >> no, i think you are 100% right. i have been thinking about this and talking about this. i spent the last week with people outside of politics and efrp saying, there's no way trump can win reelection. i keep saying to them, this guy is winning. unless something bad happens to the economy, he's getting re-elected. i think the polls you cited are interesting interesting and following the money is important there, but we have to follow the money trump has raised in his reelection. he has raised a staggering amount for his reelection campaign. everyone i have talked to working on the campaign who is close to the president said, look at how much money we raised and it is just from our base. we haven't even gone towards the bush people and we think we are going to bring in that money. if we are talking about following the money, look at how much his campaign is bringing in. it is a staggering amount and that's what we need to pay attention to. >> eddie, not only is there money, there's never been a more singular voice for a party ever.

look, any party trying to unseat, you have the nipping each other, but particularly after the first debate and particularly on the race issue we will talk about later, i think democrats are shooting themselves in the foot. >> i will push back a little bit. >> please. >> i think you are right to say democrats ought not to be overconfidentialitover oft. >> i'm saying be scared stiff. >> i'm worried about fear as a decisionmaking. it is an inflection point so we can't act out of fear. >> i'm not excusing -- we will talk about fear as a tactic. i'm just saying what cost them in 2016 were a lot of people, oh, we got this. >> that i don't -- >> frankly, i'm not cheerleading. i'm looking at the facts, but at the same time if i get some people going i have no problem with that. >> so i want to say that you're right in saying to democrats, don't think that this game is already over. it is very important. but i also think we need to look at what happened in 2018 in the mid terms. what we saw were numbers that were really interesting. we saw a turnout that was at

presidential levels during a midterm. we saw black voters turning out at president obama numbers and surpassing those numbers in certain places, we saw young people, millennials, people after them, gen xers, but all of that has been formed. i think we will be upended in 2020. so part of what i'm saying is you are right that democrats shouldn't think it is over, but part of what i think we should include in our calculus is that the electorate is expanding. >> yes. >> in interesting sorts of ways. if the electorate expands donald trump cannot win. >> oh, the democrats have the numbers. careen, it is interesting. i think '18 was a head fake in that i think a lot of voters voted congressionally for the democrats -- let's put a bumper in for trump, guardrails but i still might want him in office and it might be different when it is a question of him.

it was a little bit -- it is very different when you are voting. look, you have trump's 37% want him but 78% out there quietly still want him in there but let's put guardrails around him. >> look, that's probably a good argument, probably, but with trump really -- he took on 2018, he made it all about himself. it was a referendum on him. he doubled down on immigration, talked about caravan. i mean it was a big thing. like he went across the country and really did these big rallies for folks. look, i teach campaign management at columbia university and i tell my students all the time, everything what you just said. when it is an incumbent, incumbent is always the favorite, period, right? you make a really good point. he raised $105 million in this last past quarter. so he will have a real operation. so, yes, we have to be -- there is a fear that we need to have, but we cannot use that as a strategy. >> no. >> but we need to wake up and realize this is going to be a reelection. he got to -- it is all about 270 and he got there last time, lost

the popular vote. he could do it again. >> of course he can. heidi, question. on the hill right now if you were to line ten dems up and got them quietly with a bourbon, how many honestly would say, i think we're in trouble here? >> i mean at least five. i think it is 50/50 shoot now. the reason why is because to your point, carin, this is a 270 strategy. i feel already in some of the commentary, in some of the discussions that i've seen around capitol hill and in washington just in general, a bit of an overconfidence looking at national polls that look at all of these democrats who could beat donald trump, when we all know that it is going to come down to three or four states. we're starting to get polling in now that drills down on those three or four states, wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania. in three of them, there's only one candidate right now who could beat donald trump, and that's joe biden, and he has yet to go through the rigamarole of

a full campaign and bloodying of a full race. >> let's move on. the big five, the latest nbc wall street poll shows the democrat field pairiring down t top five. that's a good thing. eddie, i was throwing popcorn and gummi bears and frosty o's -- that was when i was a kid -- at the tv at the first debate and part of the second debate, watching people. i was saying, they shouldn't be up there and they're taking time away from people we know are contenders and a good thing is happening there, it is clear who the top five is. >> i think it is a good thing in the way the process is playing itself out. the one thing the dnc cannot be seen as doing is putting its thumb on the scale. >> absolutely. >> exactly. >> it seemed we needed to have an embarrassment of riches because we've been complaining for eight years over the emptiness of our bench. now we see it is really strong, it is really vibrant. and as the campaign, as the primary continues to move on it is naturally going to weed out. i think as we move to the

seconds one and the third one we will see less -- fewer and fewer people. i think it is a good thing. >> and the base doesn't want a coronation. the base does not want a coronation, so everyone has to go through the process. like you said, by the third debate a lot of these people will be gone. >> yes. heidi, if i had a handicap -- well, i keep going to you. >> theoreticals. >> i actually think that it is going to come down to -- i think bernie and elizabeth very quickly will cancel themselves out in favor of elizabeth. i mean she is the new bernie. it is very clear the way that's going. i also think buttigieg will be around for a while. he raised 25 million bucks and he is an interesting guy. i don't know if he will push it over the line, but he along with obviously kamala and biden is going to be standing for a long time. >> he will be standing for a long time, but i think the fact that he struggles so mightily with the african-american vote is really a death knell for him being at the top of any ticket. in terms of elizabeth warren and

bernie, she is clearly now for the first time distinctively eclipsing bernie in our nbc "wall street journal" poll. so bernie is in this for the long haul. he is going to command a large chunk. therefore, the progressive vote if it consolidated that could pose a threat to joe biden i think will stay fractures. we might not see much movement as long as joe biden pulls out a strong performance in the next couple of debates. if he doesn't, then i think we see another scrambling. >> look, when you look at the polls, it is very, very simple. the nbc poll basically says that biden, no surprise, getting older people, getting african-americans. if you get them, you are going to win. the question is how can he start to pull some of the younger voters who are all bernie, all elizabeth? >> well, the problem with joe biden is that he is an old dog and he's struggling to learn new tricks, and he's someone who is

unapologetically himself which is a good thing. it is something that i think authenticity matters in politics and it should matter for who we want to lead our nation and head our government. but when you are authentically a version of a human being that does not feel like 2019, that is a problem. joe biden, to me, does not feel like a candidate for 2019. so i think it will be interesting to watch if he is able to evolve, if he is able to listen to this progressive wing of the democratic party who is so fired up and energized or if he stays the old joe that we all know. >> my only argument why it could still work for biden is comfort food. yes, he is certainly not exciting, he is certainly not new and shiny, but maybe after this crazy new ugly shiny we had, a little kind of -- >> if you look at the rest of the people who are in this top five though, none of them are comfort food. >> yes. >> so if that is the direction that people want to go in, there's only one candidate for you. that is joe biden. >> yes. >> but the fact that the other four are kind of the opposite of comfort food may tell you that

that's not what people's appetite is looking towards. >> donny, i think we are still in a change election cycle. >> i agree. >> so what produced barack obama, what produced donald trump was a deep -- beyond the insidious racism and the greed and selfishness of certain folks, was a deep criticism of what is happening in washington, d.c., a deep dissatisfaction of what is happening at the kitchen table. that hasn't been resolved. the fact that we're still in a change election cycle -- >> right. >> -- means that if joe biden is viewed as a backward-looking candidate, as someone who is -- how shall we say? a figure of old, it is very difficult for him to break through as someone who is shiny. >> if i am going to handicap, i think kamala is going to keep rising and rising. i think she is a powerhouse to watch. bye-bye acosta. trump's labor secretary steps down amid controversy of his jeffrey epstein plea deal. is this the end of trump's epstein problem?

>> this is a person that i've gotten to know, that hasn't been an ounce of controversy at the department of labor until this came up, and he's doing this not for himself. he is doing this for the administration. alex, i think you will agree, i said you don't have to do this. he doesn't have to do this. >> no, he does have to do this in reality. emily, you did a piece a few days ago in "vanity fair" where you talked about a meeting at trump tower between david pecker and donald trump and michael kohn about an article that was coming out about epstein. just bring us up to speed on that. heidi, i want to get from you what is going on "the hill" with those. >> the story was like 2019 bingo. it had every character we talked about. my reporting was in 2015, it was right before trump decided to actually run for presidency. david pecker came to visit as he sometimes did. he brought with him a copy of an issue that had prince andrew on it and talking about prince

andrew's alleged dalliance with epstein and women he allegedly hired. trump was in a meeting with pecker and mike an cohen. he called sam to his office after david left and they had a conversation about what david pecker knew, what epstein possibly had on other powerful men. it goes to show you this is a man who donald trump was very familiar with. he was very interested in. i think we are just at the very tippy-top of an iceberg about the epstein story, about the relationship with trump. what i keep thinking about is there are so many stories written, and the president said again on friday, you know, i have had a falling out with him. >> yeah. >> i don't care about the falling out. how did he fall in with him? >> yes, to the point in his 2002 article in "new york" magazine, we've been friends for 15 years, he is a great guy. like me, he loves women. he likes young women. i mean talk about puking when you hear that. and then he said he had the

falling out afterwards. to your point, look, this is the beginning of a gigantic iceberg. there's another president that is going to have to -- we're not going to say what type, but certainly there will be a lot of digging going on there and a lot of powerful men. this could be the story of the decade. heidi, mulvaney wanted him out obviously. >> yes. >> so you knew this was happening by the end of this weekend? >> i was told by sources it probably would happen by the end of the weekend. this was a good excuse for mulvaney, who wanted him out all along for completely different reasons. but that said, i think it is giving too much credit to say it was all mulvaney. i think donald trump put him up to giving that news conference. he wanted to see, take the temperature, how it was going to play. well, guess what? it did not clear up by a long shot all of the questions that surround acosta and this epstein matter. you know, congress was getting ready to hold hearings. they probably still will call acosta to hold hearings. you have an investigation by the department of justice that now members of congress -- by the way, that has been going on since february, and congress

hasn't gotten any updates about what has been found there. you've got bill barr again looming over all of this and making -- >> which makes you all warm and fuzzy, right? >> -- and the information the american people are going to get. >> guys, real quick. >> can we talk about the fact all of this was known during his confirmation hearing? >> yes. >> this isn't something that just popped up as the president said today. we have known about this for years. they confirmed him anyway, and it is not something that was just a surprise to the trump administration. >> only one member asked about it. >> exactly. >> that was tim kaine. >> exactly up next, i will say it right. stunt trump's stunts. he is a master of distraction. democrats can't help themselves. i have a playbook for the many dids and t dids -- for the democrats to stop chomping on the raw bait. it is the women, stupid. why trump and republicans are giving democrats a clear gender path to the white house. also, there's this. >> how they're interpreting it and carrying it to another place is up to them but i'm not

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welcome back to the big show. i'm donny deutsch here with eddie, careen and heidi. joining us, mary gay, an msnbc

contributor. thanks for coming back. >> thanks for having me. >> this is your first 20 minutes of the show, eddie. how you doing? >> having a ball. >> blows "morning joe" away, doesn't it? >> absolutely. >> if you are watching at home, joe, deal with it. potus has ignited his base. what are dems doing leading up to 2020. using race to fire up their base. we have to go through the irony, a sickening irony that we have a president that got elected by things like the muslim ban, charlottesville, the birther, we don't have to go through the disgusting litany. the democrats are ripping themselves apart. let me -- on both sides, what i'm worried about will happen to kamala, oh, you were too tough on african-americans as a prosecutor the same way they went after biden for bussing

50 years ago. he's a guy about integration, his argument should have been in the debate, i didn't think it was the right way to do it, but is there a better way to tackle the issues without shooting ourselves? >> we have real issues to talk about in this country about race and we should not shy away from talking about them. it is not an partisan issue but an american issue. the problem is americans don't know how to talk about race. we are told not to talk about it instead of how to talk about it, so i think people get very defensive, especially white americans. there's a historical context that gets lost, and there's nothing wrong if you are joe biden with saying, listen, it was a different time and i would do things differently. my views have changed, i have learned something. but he hasn't really taken ownership over that. kamala harris has real questions to answer about her prosecutorial record. you think about the jeffrey

epstein case we are all talking about this week and i can't help but think about the kylie browder case and the cases of young african-american men and hispanic men who have been put in prison -- children really -- for, you know, petty marijuana possession. those are actually real and legitimate issues. the problem is that we get into this kind of tit for tat over calling one another racist and playing the race card. nobody knows how to talk about it. >> that's the point. i guess it was interesting the way kamala started, i know you are not a racist. you have kamala and joe, two great americans who you know in their cores want to do the right thing. one comes from an old school with a 50-year record and she comes from a prosecutorial background and there will be baggage there, but i think we are up against such a beast in trump and such a monster, that i would love us to figure out how do we tackle these without ripping each other apart. it was interesting. i was talking to an elderly white woman, and she said, you

know, i will never forgive that kamala for the way she went after joe because it wasn't fair. i mean which is ridiculous to say, but you have people lensing it that way and then we turn off white voters and we will turn off black voters and we need both. >> i agree with mara on this one. we have to have a conversation. >> that's a given. but help me, let's tackle this directly. you are now the debate czar. >> oh, my goodness. the debate czar. >> let's put it down to real stuff. >> yeah. >> working back from, we have to go through the process, but we can't be so much collateral damage because we need every vote. so if you have them both in a room, you say, guys, let's tack tackle it the right way, what do you do? >> we are talking about two different things. what we saw with kamala harris and joe biden on stage, it is a debate thing, a debate tactic. we are talking about joe biden's record. remember, that whole bussing thing was around for three weeks and he never dealt with it. >> he didn't handle it. >> he didn't handle it. so there is a conversation about race we should be having, but

that what we saw is not the same. it wasn't an actual conversation about race. it was a debate. this is 18 million people watched. it was an opportunity for folks to get out there, to introduce themselves, and kamala harris used it as an opportunity to prosecute her case, if you will. but it was on joe biden as well, right? he never dealt with it. >> he never came back at it. >> she used it for herself to really make a point. he didn't do a good job. he was unprepared. so that was a -- that was just a debate tactic. >> you are saying, you know what, this would not have come become the three-week story had biden been more nimble on his feet. >> exactly. and then there's a different real conversation about race we should be having. >> you know, i am just a reporter. >> no, take off your reporter -- this is the kind of stuff we have to figure out. >> when does the democratic party start to point out that the way that donald trump has used race is to divide the working class and that we can

have a conversation about the disparities along racial lines when it comes to income and equality. i have looked at recent numbers about the earning differences between black women and white women. these are critically important things that we have to discuss, but at the end of the day when you are talking to the working class, regardless of color, you, the working class, have so much more in common than you do with donald trump and with a lot of his republican donors who helped put him there. i don't hear anybody kind of framing it like that, because the reason why donald trump is able to maintain his coalition is because the working class is divided along racial lines. many of the people -- >> the irony. >> -- in donald trump's coalitions are voting against their economic interests. i don't hear it framed that way. >> we can tell a long story about how that has happened. we can go back to the classic 1935 black reconstruction, as he is talking about, you know, white southerners, white planters and white sharecroppers and black slaves and the like.

there's a long story of how white working class folk and black working class folk have been divided. i want to approach it in this angle. for eight years, many african-americans found themselves in some ways muting the interest of their communities in the midst of an extraordinary economic collapse because we wanted to protect the flame. >> which flame? >> the left flank of president obama. >> okay. >> we knew if we were bringing too much critique to bear on him it would open him up to a racist critique that was circulating in the country. i think what came out of those eight years, the power that the black electorate understood it had. we know this election that the nomination goes through us, that it goes through particularly black women. so the way in which we are engaging politics, right, is not so much to mute the issues that confront black communities, but you have to speak to the particulars that inform and shape the lives of folk who are -- who are black and black communities around -- >> so how do you do it, knowing,

okay, we are moving chess pieces around. i have to do that. if i don't have that base i don't win, yet some of the suburban white voters that moved the 40 seats in congress in the suburbs of philadelphia, we have to get them. so there's no silver bullet, but we're seeing the debates in front of us just all of a sudden say -- >> let me say really quickly, one thing we have to do is we have to begin to talk about the dignity of work. we have to begin to talk about these issues that aren't -- they're not whitishe issues or black issues in any particular way. when we talk about justice it touches all of us. one thing we can't do, donny, one thing we have to stop doing is allowing racists to be racist, whether they're loud or not. when you tell me we talk about race explicitly that the white person in the suburbs is going to recoil and feel they can retreat, that there's something about -- >> it is not a recoil. it is just not talking directly to them because we're not doing it, making it about -- to your

point about the unified working class. >> no, no, i think what donny is saying, being an interpreter here, is calling people or implying people like joe biden is a racist is not helpful to the conversation. am i right? >> you know, i would say that the enemy needs to be racism. >> and donald trump. >> racism. >> and donald trump. >> and it is not to say that you can't hold people accountable for deploying racism as the president has done. you can and we must, but the enemy is not one another. i think that people feel defensive, white americans feel defensive because they feel like they can't win. >> yes. >> nobody knows how to have this conversation, and there are productive ways to have it. the problem is we have this elephant in the room, the president of the united states, who is not interested in having a real conversation. >> gas lighting. >> not interested, he is soaking it. >> gas lighting, literally. >> to echo, i think we have to make a distinction between talking about racism and calling people racist.

but we cannot concede to the claim that to talk about racism is somehow to trigger racist. >> correct. >> as long as we concede that -- >> correct. >> -- which means you have to mute it -- >> correct. >> -- then what we are doing is buying into the track. >> we're going to move on, but that's the point. we are all on the same side on this. >> we are all on the same side. >> even with the nuances. eddie, you and i grew up differently and saw this but we want to get there and we're going to stumble there. >> i think, look, we have a president that gas lights us all the time, that i think is a racist and has racist policies and we do need to talk about that. i think that's why we're in the space that we're in, because we can't -- we're constantly going into a rabbit hole following him, and we have to get out of that. we have to really talk about that but also call him out. we cannot walk away from having that conversation at all. we can't go down that rabbit hole with him. >> final word? >> i would say racism is a

shared american inheritance. we all inherited it. we all have some complicity and responsibility in it and we can overcome it if we address it. if you ignore it, that's how we get donald trump. >> i will tell you one personal thing. onl i live in new york city, and my two little daughters truly are color blind and gender blind. whether it is a gay kid, a straight kid, a black kid, they see the world differently. we are still ageneration away. straight ahead, a fight within the caucus. kellyanne conway called it a cat fight, nancy pelosi versus the squad. note to kellyanne, get it politically correct. the fact is the fight between nancy pelosi and the far left four freshmen congress women is heating up. don't go away. heating up don't go away. direct messages have evolved.

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welcome back to "saturday night politics," what we also call "snp." let's get back to the wall. women, women, women, assaults on roe v. wade. the president with 19 assault accusations, a pedophile pal. when will the democrats realize it is the women, stupid?

emily, if roe v. wade being on the table does not light a fire under women, i don't know what will. i don't know -- when you put together that with ripping babies from parents at the border, when you put it together with the sexual assaults, what is a woman's explanation as a woman, if you talk to a female trump voter, is it just "i don't care, he is good for the economy?" i don't understand at this point how a woman has a trump defense. >> well, i don't know that you can defend the president on any of the issues that you just talked about, whether it is -- >> if you are not defending him, you just say it doesn't matter? >> that's not the deciding issue that they're casting their vote on. that's what the thing is. they have already made peace with those things. >> roe v. wade on the table? >> i mean there are a lot of republican women, conservative women who don't support a woman's right to choose. >> right. >> they are pro life. >> reporter: 60%, today more than ever support. >> sure, but 40% of the people in the country support president trump. the numbers are there. i think a lot of people in this country are not voting on moral

issues. they're voting on pocketbook issues. i think that that is how someone who supports the president could explain that away. >> and they always do. i guess, heidi, is there a button? is there a mama button, for lack of a better word. am i sounding like a dumb man saying mama button? >> continue. >> we'll see where it goes. you are well on your way. is there a -- something that makes an exception to that rule, emily, that it is not always the economy, stupid? that obviously it can't be so drastic, but that a woman -- you appeal to a woman's core maternal essence? i'm talking if i was sitting here and probing you guys, four women on the panel, how do i get -- how do i hit that nerve or, to emily's point, the nerve is not there to hit? >> i think the nerve has been hit. the nerve was hit the day of the 2016 election in that days after that women around the country began to organize one of the biggest marches in the history of this country on washington, and you don't necessarily need

to bring over those conservative women who may just feel much more culturally aligned with republicans because of a host of other issues, even if they're pro life. what you need is to really motivate the base. there are simply more democratic voters than there are republican voters, and on this issue of roe, because these laws are so, so draconian, not allowing exceptions for rape and incest, for instance, and whether they come to the supreme court or not just their existence is getting so much coverage i do think that will be a big motivating factor for the democratic -- >> that's where i would have been. when we talk about fear tactics later i would start to paint a picture like -- what is the movie? >> "hand maid's tale." >> start to paint that picture because it is not that far. >> we have seen that movement. you started with the women's march that happened the first

month of his presidency, literally right after his inauguration. >> i want to talk about marches. help me find that nerve message. i think it starts with obviously roe v. wade, but i'm trying to get to that nerve. >> but what i'm saying is i think you see that energy there already. as someone who works with an organization that has more than five million people and we do these protests, right, we connect with our members, we are seeing that energy. it went through with kavanaugh. he was the last big thing that happened. going back to babies in cages, it was after the zero tolerance policy. >> babies in cages, if it doesn't do it, i don't know what else, what words to use. >> let me say it quickly. when that zero tolerance happened and it tore families apart, that's when we saw a dip in donald trump's polling numbers with women and independents were already leaving him. that was a key. so i think women are there and you're right, we have a bigger base, democratic, and we have to continue to energize them.

>> i want to start the next segment. nancy pelosi has drawn the battle lines with the four outspoken congress women, the four known as the squad. smart move for the speaker? ask donny, ask marin. >> ask mara. >> i think it is in the best interests of speaker pelosi and alexandria ocasio-cortez and the three others to have a beer summit of some kind and put it behind them. >> is it possible? >> absolutely. they have way more in common than the things that separate them, and i think that, you know, nancy pelosi needs them, they need her. this is silly. they should put this to bed and they should -- i think i would love to see both be more careful, and, frankly, respectful of the voters. to my mind, i'm less interested in the politics of the tit for tat back and forth between them

as individuals, but i am more interested in seeing some respect for nancy pelosi's leadership but also some respect from, frankly, nancy pelosi for the voters that those freshmen democrats support and that would be the smart thing given the fact the base needs to be motivated. >> trump rode a wave of fear into the white house. why can't the democrats do the same? we will talk about the politics of fear fighting fear next. don't go anywhere. ♪ the shawn mendes verizon up concert was surreal. we were right in front of him. dead center. front row. i'll never forget that day.

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the h ♪ i got a wacky panel tonight. welcome back to "saturday night politics." let's get back to the wall. stunt trump's stunts. there i said it. in the last few days trump vowed to fight the supreme court on census, promised a 4th of july redo, held a media summit and the jump. when will we stop taking the bait? heidi, i think there's a tactic. even trump lost, quote, unquote, the census battle, he won. he got three days of an infomercial to his base. >> yes. >> is there a way -- and we talked about it on "morning joe" yesterday when he comes out and says, i'm not listening to the supreme court. this is what he said. if he tries to do that, we will come back and revisit it.

let's go back to the border. can we retrain ourselves? otherwise this will be a long 18-month media slush. >> let me just in defense of my media brethren, i think we have already adapted somewhat in that we have real-time fact checks. a lot of news organizations are not taking the entirety of his rallies whereas in the past -- in the first cycle in 2016 he was the only guy who got coverage. that said, there's always room for more adaptation. >> let's take that one technique, emily. let's take it as a real life example. he comes out and says i'm going to challenge the supreme court, okay. we have constitutional lawyers on the air, everybody is running around crazy. what is a way to handle that where they do it responsibly and put the information out but don't let him control the narrative after that? >> well, i think there has to be consideration of what is important, what should be news worthy and what should stay in the news. this is the president of the united states still saying something, so it is our responsibility to cover that.

these are things that could move markets, could move things on capitol hill, but you cover them, you fact check them and move back. >> i guess that's my point, move on. >> you move back to the four or five things that you have deemed are important and you don't let him control the agenda. you still cover it as it is their responsibility to do. you fact check it, as we need to do with this president, and then you forget about it. >> i do think and we're going to move on, there is a technique for the media if they are conscious of it to report it. but when it is so absurd go, he says the world is flat. we're not going to get experts on now, if some way we find out he is right we'll come back to it. let's move on. fear factor. republicans have used fear to win elections. it may be time for democrats to tune in the fear factor. karin, we talked about it in an earlier section. i see potential nuclear war, of climate change. most importantly, you will have 30% of judges changed over the

next years, probably two more supreme court judges going on there. the world could change to frighten -- it has always been kind of a verboten thing for democrats to use fear. i think it might be the only tactic. >> here is the thing. we tried it in 2016 and it didn't work. >> there was a difference of -- it made it about him versus the world. you don't talk about him anymore. >> i see what you're saying. you are saying make it how the world -- >> don't even put him in. show the gray world. >> okay, okay. >> don't even -- it is given -- don't spend any more time on him. >> okay. >> it is basically, this is what it is going to look like, guys, and let's bring in the fash ips -- >> "the handmaid's tale." >> and the fascist stuff is coming, whether it is babies at the border, it is coming. >> well, i agree with you on that. i think there's something to -- like painting what this country would look like another four years of trump, what would happen if we continue to let this happen or go on with him. i totally agree. i think the way that we do that, which worked in 2018, is to also weave in the issues.

because the base, that's what excited people, right? we talked about democrat -- democrats didn't talk about him at all in 2018. they didn't. when you went out to these red districts, which i did, they didn't. they talked about the issues issues and they talked about what was bothering them, whether it was the tax cuts or what it was, whatever it was. >> and health care. >> you're absolutely right. >> the challenge is balancing that with baz because really have a hunger. like you see the popularity of elizabeth warren. how did he start out? he started out by talking about charlottesville. he said this next election is a test for america. it's a test of whether this election was an aberration or whether this is going to become who we are. >> 30 seconds. >> people are already so afraid and i think that you don't want to feed into that fear. i think that instead of going down -- >> why not, though? >> because that's what president trump did.

>> and the republicans have done it throughout time and they win. we play nice guys. >> -- recognize that the reality is terrify. we don't need to prey on that reality. here is the morning in america that we want to go to. >> i guess that's my point. i'm going to actually craft it over the next few weeks and show what that looks like because it is about reality. but my point about diagram tiesing it and not talking about trump but saying this is what life is going to look like. >> you know, donny, i hear what you're saying and i understand it comes from a lifetime of expertise. >> semi-expertise. but it seems to me that we're in such a crisis moment in the country. >> yes, that's my point that we have to do something. what i'm saying is this. fear has motivated our politics. we can go back to machivelli. it has motivated our politics since the dawn of the western world. part whatever we need to do in this country is to understand

that what has gotten us here has been a way of governing, a way of us participating as citizens, that has led to us vomiting up this too. we have to be something else, smarter, more deliberate, thoughtful. >> i think it is smarter if we don't scare people. all right, we need to take a break. there is more "saturday night politics" coming. ♪ ♪ award winning interface. award winning design. award winning engine. the volvo xc90. the most awarded luxury suv of the century.

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hilda, i like the new do. got some layers in there, huh? the more, the merrier. got to have this stuff in the morning. oh, that's too hot. act your age. get your own insurance company. carlo, why don't you start us with a little bit of cereal? you can spread i all a. and we're gonna split the warm hot dog. and i'll have a glass of grape juice to spill on the carpet. oh, uh, do you want some to spill? act your age. get your own insurance company.

oh, uh, do you want some to spill? -while you ponder that, consider adopting a rescue pet. there are 6.5 million of them; they all need a forever home. it would mean the world to them, and they will love you forever. this is the most fun i've ever had. that does it for us tonight. "saturday night politics" we're back here next week 8:00 p.m. eastern. you can follow the show on all these weird social media platforms and be sure to visit our page on msnbc.com. we will see you next week. have a safe week, guys. ♪ [ referee whistle sounds ] [ cheering ] when you need the fuel to be your nephew's number one fan. holiday inn express. we're there. so you can be too.

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due to mature subject matter, viewer discretion is advised. there's always a sense of underlying fear, and i think that it's important to not ever forget that. >> in a world dictated by fear, some resort to violence. >> while i was on lockup, i was always involved in excessive violence. >> when i was stabbing him, i was talking [ bleep ]. i said, you feel kind of vulnerable now, don't you? >> others become victims.