stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. >> thanks so much, mika. i'm stephanie ruhle and here is what is happening now. we are less than 24 hours from the long-awaited testimony of former special counsel robert mueller. this thing could be a political game changer or it could be a big, fat bust. now even some top democrats are fearing the worst. that is because on monday the justice department sent a letter telling mueller he should not discuss anything beyond what has already been released in his report. now, assuming mueller does what the department of justice asks, we could see the exact same situation we saw earlier this year when democrats and never trumpers were anticipating a bombshell from the mueller report and ended up pretty frustrated. let's get right into the conversation, what all of it means. reporting on this for months, donna edwards, former democratic

congresswoman from maryland and "the washington post" columnist and right next to me brett stevens an op-ed columnist for the "new york times," talk to me, ken, to you first. democrats' best case scenario, getting mueller to read the report, which most people haven't read. when i say the report is a dud it's not actually a dud if you read it. >> that's right. that's what democrats are hoping that they can get out of robert mueller. if he won't go outside the four corners of the report, at least he can present the movie version of his dense and lawyerly book. for the american public to digest. they want him to talk about all those contacts between the trump campaign and the russians, the trump campaign's acceptance of help from the russians, and, particularly, they want to talk about the obstruction of justice examples where he has said he hasn't exonerated the president from a crime. they would love for him to say if he wasn't the president i would have indicted him. they don't believe mueller will ever say that.

>> i want to share what the justice department wrote in this letter. it says, mueller cannot discuss any redacted portion ls of the report, cannot comment on the investigation or its conclusions regarding uncharged individuals, and he cannot discuss any investigative steps or decisions that aren't already public. assuming mueller follows the justice department guidelines, and let's make it clear, mueller asked for these guidelines. he said, what are my guard rails? assuming he stays within them, are democrats going to be disappointed? >> first of all, steph, he can and he will stay within the justice department guidelines because that's who bob mueller is. and, no. the democrats aren't going to be disappointed and the american people aren't going to be disappointed. here's why. we've heard so many people say, you know, this is going to be the movie version of the story not the book. ken just mentioned that a moment ago. think about it. ask the american people to read a book about the sinking of the titanic.

they're not going to do it and it is not going to absorb their sort of consciousness. but ask them about the scene where leonardo dicaprio and kate winslet are leaning into the wind over the front of the ship -- that they remember. >> except of course leonardo dicaprio and kate winslet accepted those roles. they wanted to star in that movie. robert mueller doesn't. >> it doesn't matter. he is on the stage tomorrow. he has got to perform in the way bob mueller performs, which is strong, under stated, circumspect. i suspect in this movie scenario, you know, bob mueller is the iceberg. he's big, strong, steady, and he's unyielding. trump is the s.s. titanic and he is about to crash into mueller. >> dear viewers, if somebody at this moment is not making a meme of bob mueller and bill barr standing in the bow of the boat with celine dion singing i'm going to be really disappointed in you.

donna, how about this? robert mueller wants to be confined to the four corners of the report. how frustrating is that for democrats, given bill barr doesn't confine himself to the four corners. the president doesn't. steve mnuchin not releasing the president's taxes, kellyanne conway ignoring the hatch act. if you're a democrat, how do you feel about robert mueller doing the right thing? >> you know what? i'm actually not concerned. i've read the report. you have. but the american people haven't. what's within that report is damning enough. i think what's really important for democrats is to ask their questions and get out of the way. enable bob mueller to walk through the evidence that's in his report. you know, i'm disappointed there is not staff counsel guiding that in a very professional way but i'm convinced that if democrats stick to a script, you know, follow their questions, ask followup questions, and get out of the way and let bob mueller tell the evidence that's

in that report, that it will be damning for the president and if the republicans want to go sideways and down every other rabbit hole that you can find, let them do that. they will look foolish in the face of the evidence presented by bob mueller. so i'm not worried at all. i think -- and, by the way, for members of congress who like the public haven't read the report, there are still 24 hours. >> carol, i'm guessing iceberg dead ahead is not in the script but you've got some new reporting where you think you know what might be in there. it is questions around don jr. and why he didn't testify. >> well, look. there's the broad implications of the overall report and what people who are going to be watching tomorrow may not have heard about it that robert mueller might talk about and then for those who have been paying very close attention to the report there are some unanswered questions within it. one of them is this question of why donald trump jr. was the only trump official at that infamous trump tower meeting in

june of 2016 with russian affiliated officials. was not interviewed in this investigation. and on page 117 of the report it says that he declined to be voluntary -- voluntarily interviewed. voluntarily is a key word, because it suggests that there was an effort or at least an ask for him to be interviewed and so we talked to people who said that there is one of two reasons why he would have not been interviewed and one is that investigators didn't see him as an important witness, which they say is almost impossible to believe, because he organized the meeting. there are e-mails of him saying that he wanted to accept the russian officials' offer of dirt on hillary clinton. it seems very unlikely they wouldn't have seen him as important. the second reason why he wouldn't have been interviewed according to our sources is that he decided to invoke the 5th amendment. that is the leading theory among

people we talked to about why he wasn't interviewed and so we expect that lawmakers will ask about this specific meeting and that specific question tomorrow. >> brett, i want to read what the ranking republican on the judiciary committee doug collins told the a.p. he said this. remember, the mueller report is a one-sided report. it has not been questioned from the other side. this is our chance to do just that. robert mueller has testified 88 times. before this. every single word in that report was pored over. to say he is a careful operator is a gross understatement. could this be a misstep by republicans? >> i mean, republicans have been trying to play bob mueller as a kind of an untrust worthy partisan from the beginning, which has always been one of the more sort of laughable, almost hilarious contentions by the republicans. in fact, bob mueller at the end

of the day probably did the president the biggest favor he could have asked for by failing to come up with a clearly indictable offenses. he is going to be a very careful witness. the fact is i think he'll end up disappointing both sides tomorrow. when you're 74 years old, your character is set. i think we're going to have very careful testimony. >> hold on a second. when you're 74 years old what? >> your character, your compass, your behavior is pretty much set in stone, right? >> ah. >> i think that's the case with, you know, donald trump isn't going to change the kind of person he is. bob mueller -- >> i thought you were saying by the time you're 74 you have a high moral standing. i'm sorry. what? >> that is not. >> whew. >> i simply said it's set in stone. you're going to get i suspect very careful testimony from mueller and what we're going to learn is what most americans should know. that even if the behavior isn't impeachable, it is disgraceful. that's what americans should take. you know, just to part company with the metaphor that was

offered, the iceberg here should not be bob mueller. the iceberg here should be the american people looking at the overall scope of the report and saying, even if we didn't find a crime that will lead to conviction in the senate, this creates -- this demonstrates a pattern of behavior that's disgraceful and should be stopped by not giving the president a second term of office. >> so it might not be impeachment but it might be enough for people to say, i'm voting against this. donna, i want to play part of what we heard from a trump supporter in michigan back in may after justin amash had a town hall. watch this. >> i was surprised to hear there was anything negative in the mueller report at all about president trump. i hadn't heard that before. i mainly listen to conservative news. i hadn't heard anything negative about that report and president trump had been exonerated.

>> i mean, that's amazing. everyone at this table and you all have read the report. first paragraph of the report says there were sweeping and systematic influence from a foreign government and the last line cites u.s. versus nixon and says no one is above the law. what could the impact of america simply hearing everything that's in there do for this situation? >> that's why i think the mueller testimony is in fact important in order to paint that picture and tell that story we've talked about. it's not surprising to me that given that woman and others' limited knowledge coming from conservative media. she comes up with that conclusion. and it's notable, i think, that tomorrow fox news, for example, is not airing the mueller testimony. >> actually, i don't believe that's true. i think they are going to air it. >> okay. i misunderstood that. but any case, i think it's going to be important for the american people to really hear unfiltered

the testimony coming directly from bob mueller to tell the story of what happened. and i think for many of those people it is going to be a surprise to them because they haven't heard this. it won't give leverage to members of congress going back into their districts during a five-week recess to begin to process this information to help their constituents understand. i would actually disagree on the impeachment question, because there's a reason the founders didn't define high crimes and misdemeanors. that is because it's up to the congress to do that on behalf of the american people. i look forward to the days following the mueller report as the american people begin to process what bob mueller tells us on wednesday. >> let's talk about the days after his testimony. two weeks from now, go around the table. ken, to you first. two weeks from now will we be talking about robert mueller's testimony and will the american people be? >> we will be, stephanie.

i'm not sure the american voters will be. it just hasn't broken through. our own poll shows less than half of the american public has heard anything about the mueller report compared to say 75% in a mass shooting or other big news event. for some reason it's no the breaking through. for half the country they're hearing inaccurate things on right wing media about the mueller report. we'll be talking about it but it doesn't seem to be breaking through on the campaign trail. >> that is exactly right. i think democrats for better or worse need to understand that if they're going to start focusing their efforts in a laser-like way on defeating the president next year. >> donna? >> i think the next two weeks is going to be really important and it is an opportunity. when you have millions of people watching live television for a couple hours hearing from bob mueller it's going to break through. >> glenn? >> i'm with donna. it hasn't broken through because nobody has seen the movie. we haven't seen the trailer for the movie. i think what the questioners need to do is not only expose trump campaign-russia coordination. let's call it what it is --

collusion. they haven't yet exposed all of the obstruction of justice by the president. we also really haven't countered the president's narrative of no obstruction no collusion, which we hear every day. now they'll be able to ask bob mueller, did your report find no obstruction? he'll say, no. that's false. did it find no collusion? no. that's also false. then i hope when we see trump or barr or lindsey graham or mitch mcconnell say no obstruction no collusion we immediately put up on the screen, bob mueller saying that is false. that could break through. >> last to you, carol. >> well, look. i think that for democrats this is, whether or not we're talking about robert mueller specifically and two weeks from now, the question is more where they go, what's their path forward? once they get through this hearing, what's next in terms of oversight? you know, it's not just whether this resonates with people, voters in the middle and do they turn people's attention toward this who otherwise hadn't paid attention to it? it's what kind of momentum and pressure does this put on the

speaker of the house and other democrats to move forward with impeachment? they've also got to watch their base. and so to the extent that robert mueller stirs up, you know, more angst and pressure among base democrats to move forward on impeachment, that's going to be something that the leaders of the party are going to have to contend with. >> all right. thank you. congresswoman, brett, guess what? i'm not done with you. stick around. overseas a new p.m. in the u.k. just announced in the last hour, boris johnson elected the new leader of britain's conservative party and the next prime minister the former mayor of london set to take over tomorrow after he meets with the queen. he, of course, follows theresa may who stepped down last month. in his speech he promised to get britain out of the european union by october 31st. that will be some special halloween. coming up next right here, if democrats want to get 2020 right, the answer might be don't

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this morning a series of new reports have focused on answering one lingering question in the case against jeffrey epstein. the financeer who pled not

guilty to charges of sex trafficking of teenage girls. how on earth did epstein make all of his money? according to the "new york times" he had deep ties to some of wall street's top figures. "the times" details epstein, quote, liked to portray himself as a financial wizard, someone whose business and investing acumen made him indispensable to corporate executives and other leaders but there is very little evidence to support that notion. mr. epstein nonetheless managed to affix himself to a handful of prominent wall street veterans. meanwhile an article in "vanity fair" dives into epstein's relationship with billionaire hedge fund manager glen dubin and how epstein turned personal relationships into multimillion dollar deals for himself. why exactly these wall street veterans stayed by his side for so many years. joining me now bill coen who also dug into epstein's wall street network. in his must read "vanity fair" piece and the editor behind the

stunning "new york times" report. kate, walk us through the network that epstein built. the fact that the head of jpmorgan's private bank visited epstein not in his mansion, not at his island, but in his work release prison office. >> right. it's pretty phenomenal. let's talk about staley first. at the time a senior executive at jpmorgan running the asset management division. when he started in the jpmorgan role he was told he needed to know jeffrey epstein because he was a rainmaker of sorts who brought clients to jpmorgan and was a client himself in the private bank. so he did meet him. epstein apparently did steer clients to staley and jpmorgan. dozens of them. >> being a connector isn't that odd. you get paid to be the middle guy. >> sure. >> but when he was in prison? >> so staley, another important piece touching on glen dubin as well. staley meets glen dubin who runs hibridge capital management through epstein and makes this

connection and then buys the whole thing a number of years later. it really helps increase the success of that business. it grows the aum by a wide margin and makes staley and dubin both sort of business heroes. staley is so grateful for this help that he actually visits epstein during 2008 or 2009 at this time as you said when he is incarcerated and he's working out of an office in palm beach. >> amazing. bill, in your piece you describe an interaction between epstein and a portfolio manager at high bridge. i want to read it because the description is so out of the ordinary. this is according to someone who heard the story. kusnan went to epstein's townhouse and was ushered into a little room by a butler. there he saw epstein sitting atop a raised platform like a throne with two strikingly gorgeous young eastern european women standing beside the chair. epstein asked kusnan a few questions and then quickly declared that he was dismissed.

the butler escorted kusnan out of the mansion. he walked back to his office and sitting on the fax machine was the signed paperwork from epstein agreeing to make a multimillion dollar investment in kusnan's fund. this is not a normal interaction. a hedge fund manager doesn't go to a wealthy guy's house and greet him on a throne surrounded by beautiful women and then years later when the fund may lose some money an investor doesn't get to then get all the original investment out. why on earth would this scene happen? >> i think it happened, stephanie, because of glen dubin wanting it to happen. both joseph kusnan who did spend time as a portfolio manager at high bridge and dan zworn were setting up their own funds sort of like tiger cub kind of cubs funds under the auspices of glen dubin and glen having this

big-time relationship with jeffrey dubin, directed their -- his affiliates to essentially accept this money from jeffrey epstein no questions asked. and of course in typical nouveau, hedge fund manager way they didn't ask many questions even though they weren't allowed to and of course they accepted the money because it was a lot of money. >> but what was jeffrey epstein's special talent? this is what i don't get. right? why would they all stand by him and for so long, kate? we go back and we think bernie maddoff. all those people flocked to madoff because of out sized returns. talking about an amazing investor, look at his returns, a john paulson during the sub prime. you'd say, ah. this was the magic. where was jeffrey epstein's magic that had some of the biggest guys, leon black the founder of apollo, what in the world does he need or get from epstein? >> i think there were two narratives surrounding jeffrey epstein at least until he became

infamous for these other reasons. he managed leslie wexner's fortune, founder of l brands, a billionaire decades ago at a time when there were less billionaires and had a far reaching all encompassing role managing his investment money, his philanthropy, doing family office type duties. i don't think we even know the full extent yet but it was wide ranging. he was known for that and he got wealth eight least largely in part because of that. people knew that. he also had a reputation for being savvy when it came to tax strategies and estate planning. now, where he got that reputation beyond wexner i'm not sure but it was enough that leon black hired him over a course of 15 or so years on and off to do this work for him. >> so leon black who runs apollo, has dozens of tax specialists who work for him. >> right. >> he needs jeffrey epstein former math teacher from dalton? >> apparently. who does not have a bachelor's

degree. whatever happened there to establish that relationship, black trusted him enough that he kept him on and off for more than a decade and he also added him as a director, which is well known at this point, to leon's own family foundation board around the year 2000. >> many of these relationships stayed with jeffrey epstein through his prison sentence and after. glen dubin is one of them. could it possibly be these people didn't actually know the extent of what he had done? if he went to jail for soliciting a prostitute that could be something people would say, listen. this isn't good. it's not great but i forgive you. is there a chance they did not know the extent to the possible wrongdoing or what he is accused of now? >> look, stephanie, kate, kelly is a fabulous reporter and i respect everything she does. i'm really wondering frankly whether there's just a lot of myth making going on now about jeffrey epstein and his, you

know, tax and accounting prowess, his money management prowess. i think this is all a narrative being created to cover up something much deeper and darker that we don't know what it is yet, because i'm sorry you don't give somebody a mansion on east 71st street that's now apparently worth $77 million just because you're managing his money. >> we don't have evidence of that though. at this point, gifting a mansion to jeffrey epstein at this point is urban legend. it may be true but we don't know for sure. >> i think bill makes a good point though. i think there was bluster and white lies probably also outright lies in terms of epstein and the way he described his relationships with these business figures. i think a lot of it was bs or greatly exaggerated. he did entertain and have people over and did meet people in offices and at functions. the interesting thing we found that in addition to that and we have some examples of the bluster in our story, there were these real connections. they may have been only a few but it was enough that he sort of leveraged that into access to

people and building this reputation, even if it was largely hot air. >> my goodness. >> i agree with kate completely on that. the question is, why was he able to leverage these relationships and for so long as you ask, stephanie. that is the mystery we don't know the answer to yet. >> guess what? we'll continue to dig. money, power, politics. kate, bill cohan, must read pieces. thank you. coming up new evidence that the president weaponizing race could be working not just with his base. ready for this? might be working with swing voters. the president has made his 2020 strategy clear. democrats are socialists. but i'll be joined by the last person on earth he would want to run against. a pro business woman, a democrat, who's done something republicans can only dream of. ♪

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welcome back. i'm stephanie ruhle. time for the stories we're watching this morning. we begin with violent protests ending with tear gas being fired in puerto rico after hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets protesting the island's governor ricardo rossello. in an interview yesterday rossello reiterated that he would not be stepping down. in the new york area hundreds of thousands of people

are without power after fierce thunderstorms caused major flooding and significant damage. authorities say it may take days for power to be restored. in a few hours the senate will vote on a bipartisan bill guaranteeing that the 9/11 victim compensation fund never runs out of money. the bill passed the house last month but was held up last week when senators rand paul and mike lee objected to a procedural vote extending the funding. and in one week the 2020 democrats will return to the stage for round two of debates. there is sure to be another moment like this one. >> raise your hand if your government plan would provide coverage for undocumented immigrants. [ applause ] >> that right there, that hand raise, has become the visual evidence of what some see as a shift to the left from democratic presidential contenders. as "new york times" jonathan martin reports the apparent move to the left is making some in the party nervous especially

democratic governors. quote, there was as much anxiety as optimism when the governors gathered for their annual fundraising retreat in nantucket last weekend and grap ld with why a party that won with a pragmatic message in 2018 is now veering sharply to the left. joining mae now to weigh in one of those very governors, rhode island governor, jeanna romando who was at that retreat, ashley strong for former house speaker scott ryan and also worked on scott walker's 2016 campaign and my friend brett stevens still stuck with me. governor, to you first. in the "times" piece you say that the democratic party cannot become the party of the checklist. what does that mean? >> good morning, stephanie. thank you for having me. we have to realize that the fundamental, most important issue on the minds of american voters is jobs and job security. we certainly care about many

other things. but providing a decent job with opportunity to advance, with secure healthcare, is the issue. for democrats, this can't just be an election about beating donald trump or being against donald trump. you know, this is about what's our positive vision for americans and as a governor you talk to people every day, if you listen to voters they'll tell you what matters. what matters is jobs, high wage jobs, jobs for their kids, opportunity to advance, an ability to get retrained or reskilled so you can get new, high growth jobs of the future. that's what we've been doing here in rhode island. i think that everyone running for president needs to focus on that. don't get distracted but focus on the most urgent issue, which is economic stability and economic growth. we have to grow the pie as well as redistribute the pie. and that's what i hear from

voters every day so that's what i think we need to focus on. >> governor, president trump is, or he'd like to take some of the credit for the economic success you've had in rhode island and why he believes he's responsible for some of those jobs. he wrote, when you were writing about the success you had, he wrote this. that may be true but she cannot have done it without the tremendous economic success of our country and the turn-around that my administration has caused. have his policies helped you? there hasn't been an economic turn-around but would you say this administration has been good for your state? >> no. i would not say that. stephanie, when i ran for governor in 2014, rhode island had for most of that year the highest unemployment rate in the country. the story of our state is that we hung on to old line manufacturing for too long. you know, so i had to get to work right away to make sure that we tackled that problem with urgency.

today, in the four years i've been governor, our wage growth has out paced the wage growth in america. our unemployment rate dropped more than any other state in the country. today our unemployment rate is actually below the national average. why? because we in rhode island are investing in infrastructure, making college affordable, recruiting companies here. i've recruited more than three dozen companies to do business in rhode island. we're partnering with businesses, making it easier to do business in rhode island, investing in skills and talent so that everybody has a shot at getting a good job. in the time that i've been governor the president has attacked and tried to dismantle the affordable care act. that's not good for rhode islanders. we've seen cuts in job training. that's not good for rhode islanders. we haven't had nearly enough infrastructure investment from the federal government. so i would say despite a number of his policies, we're punching above our weight. and for anybody listening i want you to know rhode island is a

great place to do business and a great place to start a business. >> all right. brett, after the first debate you wrote that if democrats go on this path they will lose the election. and that people are going to start viewing democrats as the following -- a party that makes too many americans feel like strangers in their own country, a party that puts more of its faith and invests most of its efforts in them instead of us. >> right. >> elaborate on this. >> well, look. i mean, ultimately politics is about what are you going to do for me when you get into office? that's the question that most voters have on their minds. so when i saw, for example, everyone raise their hands at the debate when it came to offering health benefits for undocumented workers, my fear is a lot of americans say hang on a second. >> i don't have good enough health care. >> i don't have good enough health care. by the way, my tax dollars are paying for those benefits. if you want a successful welfare state, that is at some level

incompatible with an idea of effectively having open borders or a very loose immigration system. so democrats really need to start talking about what are they going to do for those voters, people, the sort of people who took governor raimondo into office, those moderate democrats, and say, here is how i am going to make your life better. not the lives of people who are outside the country or sort of at the margins as far as average voters are concerned, you know, at the margins of where you live. you saw a country -- this, by the way, is why populace is arising not only in the united states but in italy, in france, in germany, and so on, because there is a feeling that liberal eleets are paying more attention to the them rather than the us. i'm not endorsing this politics. i'm just trying to explain it. >> you have been inside of a campaign. how hard is it for these candidates to resist the pressure to move with the rest

of the field? you know, even in the last few months we've seen some of these candidates raise their hand and say, yes. i'm going to go medicare for all. let's do away with private insurance. then they've walked it back. >> correct. i think there's no question that donald trump has been able to successfully frame the debate and frame the field. i think that the party is now defined by some of these extreme policies that are unwise. you saw this in the 2016 election where donald trump was able to define who he was running against, hillary clinton, and what she stood for. this is just the fact of the matter in this upcoming election that donald trump will have the bully pulpit, has the ability to shape the message, and every day democrats will be pulled to the left both within their party but also with donald trump successfully being able to frame the party as the liberals. i think you're seeing that very clearly with the squad right now. the president is clearly focused on talking about them and

defining the democratic party by the extreme policies that we're seeing come from that group. most recently just this week a $20 minimum wage. that's a party that has no home in a lot of rural states. and i think that if you're seeing policies like that, seeing policies like decriminalizing the border, seeing policies like limiting private health insurance, these are policies that will have no home in rural america and, quite frankly, really risk not only the presidency for the democrats but the down ballot races, the senate races, the house races, the gubernatorial races. so i think the president is successfully defining the terms by which he is running and i think democrats would be wise to resist the urge but i don't think they're going to. >> jeremy, you were just in michigan last week speaking to voters who seemed to be sticking by the president's side even after his attacks on the four democratic congresswomen and the people you were speaking to were not the president's base. i want to share what you wrote. in port huron, many residents said they were willing to ignore mr. trump's outbursts pointing

to strong hiring and local factories as evidence he was doing a good job. some raised fears about a move toward socialism within the democratic party and suggest that mr. trump's remarks might even gain him support by show casing just how far left the democratic party has shifted. again, i've been saying this for days. these are four freshmen congresswomen who have been in office for less than a year. you've got joe biden, who's been -- who is the front-runner, who has been in politics for decades, who is clearly not a far left democrat, sitting front and center at the same week when he is saying, nope. we're not going to offer medicare for all. how is it that the president is successful at reshaping this narrative? >> he has a bigger megaphone than any president we've ever seen in our lifetime and the out size coverage he earns for himself in the media is magnified by the out size coverage he is able to generate for these people that he attacks

on twitter. i think that's all part of what he's doing here. you know, there's not always a method here. there's not always a strategy. but one thing trump does is he learns through repetition and what he's been doing is repeating these attacks on these four women, knowing that the more he puts their name, their faces out there, the more that his base and hopefully other voters as far as he's concerned will see them as far, far to the left. and, you know, i do think it's worth pointing out what ashlee was talking about earlier there. broadly speaking, president trump is hugely unpopular. you've never had a president like this who never hit 50% in his approval ratings. but that said, these policies that he and the republican party are trying to tie democrats to decriminalizing illegal border crossings, abolishing private insurance, those are not popular either. for the next 16 months you're going to see the president hammering on that.

>> not all the democratic candidates are putting forward. >> they're not. the debates don't leave a lot of room for nuance because of the time constraints but i want to know from the candidates, okay. so if you don't support -- if you do support giving insurance or health coverage to undocumented immigrants exactly what would that look like? because that already exists. they can go into emergency rooms for example if you're here and undocumented. would you expand that? would you not? we haven't had that drilling down yet. >> they do go to an emergency room and we do have to pay for it. jeremy peters, ashlee strong, thank you so much. governor, bret, stay with me. i want to turn now to the budget. congressional leaders, we said nobody can work together. we were wrong. they have reached a two-year budget deal with the white house. it is going to increase spending by $320 billion and allow the government to borrow even more to avoid a fiscal crisis. the president took to twitter to share this big news claiming

victory despite the huge increase in spending. but it's that incoo esrease in spending that could make the deal harder for house republicans to get behind. kevin mccarthy weakly supporting the bill saying compromise is necessary in a divided government. i want to go into this discussion. congresswoman, do you see house republicans approving a bill like this that increases spending this much money? republicans. this is the house of the tea party. >> no, i don't see a large number of republicans but what i do -- i do think it is going to be a bipartisan vote. i think nancy pelosi is going to bring over the overwhelming majority of her democrats coupled with, you know, the handful of republicans that are needed to pass it and the same will happen over in the senate. and get it to the president. look, i think the one good piece

of this is, one, it extends the debt limit to 2021, which is really important so there is not a fight and there is stability. and then, two, it does increase domestic spending on democrats' priorities. so in that sense it really was truly a compromise. but i'm actually shocked at the number of republicans who have just thrown out any sense of fiscal restraint over the last two years of the trump presidency. but i'm not going to argue with doing something that's not going to result in another government shutdown, threats over the debt limit, and continuing these fiscal fights over the course of the couple of years with the presidential election in between. >> but are all republicans throwing the towel in? laura ingram, enthusiast of president trump, calls the deal terrible. we know that the president during the 2016 campaign, bret, promised to end the deficit, pay down all our debt, balance the budget. none of that is happening.

we're now seeing former congressman mark sanford from south carolina say he is exploring the idea of running against the president. >> i hope he does. >> does he have a snowball's chance in hell ? >> no. but listen at least for the history books it will say some honorable republicans registered dissent at the destruction of what used to be normal conservativism in this country. >> mark sanford honorable republican? >> yes. absolutely. for all of his personal mistakes he is an honorable man who stood up bravely against what this administration stood for and stood for principles like fiscal responsibility which used to be at the heart of the conservative message. that has now completely gone by the wayside along with support for free trade, belief in the benefits of immigration, belief in international engagement. donald trump has been the worst thing that ever happened to what used to be called ronald reagan republicanism, which is why more republicans ought to object to his presidency. >> governor, you reluctantly signed a budget for your state, so you understand the need to

compromise. do you think this is a good deal for the country? is it going to go through? >> i do. i do think it's a good deal. look, we have a job to do and i think that as a governor you don't have the luxury of not doing your job and i think that's what americans want people in washington to do. do your job. less grandstanding. more compromise. more getting things done. no budget is perfect. as you say i reluctantly signed our budget because, unfortunately, the legislature decided to make cuts to some of our most successful job training programs. but on the whole, you want to have a budget, you want to have progress, you want compromise, you want to move forward. and so this budget, no budget is perfect. this budget is not perfect. you know, i agree with pelosi that there are increased domestic -- funds to domestic programs. there are important increases. and i think the american people deserve us to do our job and make progress and compromise.

it's not about us but about them. and i think on balance that's what needs to happen. >> all right. >> as i listen -- >> yes? >> as i listen to, you know, the debate and you're talking about democrats, focus on jobs. if you were at people's kitchen tables and at churches as i am, often, people are not talking about, are we too liberal, are we too centrist, too conservative? they're talking about how am i going to get a raise? how am i going to take my kid to the doctor and not worry about going broke because i can't afford it? let's give them answers that improve their every day lives. >> rhode island governor gina raimondo, thank you so much. former congresswoman donna edwards, and bret stephens, thank you all. next, certainly not a summer camp. an nbc news exclusive a 17-year-old migrant boy alleges horrific conditions inside a detention facility. we'll take you there. there loof on an adventure.

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how he was forced to sleep standing, gave away his food to younger kids to keep them from crying and witnessed a border patrol agent assaulting another baby. thank you for this amazing reporting. you spoke with this young man, abner, who has been reunited with his father in chicago. he talked about the conditions. >> it is so rare that you get an undocumented immigrant, let alone a child, to sit down and talk to the media. he talked about extreme heat and cold in his cell. and he talked about hunger and thirst. he would be fed at 10:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. when he would ask for more food, he was not given that. for the water, they went to their cinque in their cell and they only had their hands to drink with. they weren't given a cup. he talked about how dirty his hands were because he wasn't given soap. and the older children like him helped the younger children.

>> reporter: the little ones were 8, 9 and 10 years old. he's 17 years old. and he talked about how they had to look out for the younger ones because if they cried, the guards would get mad and they feared retaliation. >> this is the same facility are

where immigrant children reported retaliation, sexual assault. how are officials responding? >> reporter: customers and border protection tells us what abner is accounting here is inconsistent with their records and that they are going to refer anything, any of these allegations to the office of professional responsibility to look into it from there. >> well, we'll wait to hear back from them. julia, thank you so much for this reporting. still ahead, a new sign the president could force out intelligence chief dan coates. if that is not big news on its own, wait until you hear who trump has called on to help find a replacement. a replacement. i didn't have to call 911. and i didn't have to come get you. because you didn't have another heart attack. not today. you took our conversation about your chronic coronary artery disease to heart. even with a stent procedure, your condition can get worse over time, and keep you at risk of blood clots. so you added xarelto®, to help keep you protected.

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so the american people know what we're dealing with and hear it from mueller himself rather than the attorney general. >> the democrats may have a hard time getting much out of mueller, a reluctant witness ordered by the department of justi justice. from geoff bennett on capitol hill. kelly o'donnell at the white house for us. ken delaney and vice president for the national security program. lots to break down this hour. what's the strategy here for the democrats? because you write while america's political class has been obsessively falling into russia's efforts to help trump win the presidency, most of the country has not. so some would say this is done for, as we mentioned in the