When all in starts right now. Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. Days after a senior republican senator referred to the white house as adult day care, the man that many believe is in charge of supervising the president , Chief Of Staff john kelly, was sent out before the press to shoot down reports that the president s tantrums are causing big problems. The day began as it often does with a president ial outburst on twitter. This one aimed at the struggling people of puerto rico. Who three weeks after Hurricane Maria are still suffering through an acute deadly crisis, many lacking access to safe water and food, and Urgent Medical care. Well have the latest from the island coming up later this hour. Today the president appeared to blame puerto rico for its current situation, threatening to cut off federal recovery efforts. I quote him here. Electric and all infrastructure were disaster before hurricanes. Congress to decide how much to spend. We cannot keep fema, the
military, and the First Respond hoarse have been amazing under the most difficult circumstances in pr forever. An Agency Spokesperson tweeting, fema will be with puerto rico, u. S. Virgin islands, every state and territory impacted by disaster every day, supporting throughout their response and recovery. Asked about trumps tweets the Chief Of Staff put a kinder, genter spin on the president s core message. Does President Trump believe that the people of puerto rico are American Citizens . Yes. Who deserve the same access to federal aid as people who live in texas and florida . Yes. What is his tweet about, then . Which tweet . The tweet where he says we cant be in puerto rico forever. I think he said the u. S. Military and fema cant be in there forever, right . He did, First Responders First Responders. This country, our country, will stand with those American Citizens in puerto rico until the job is done. But the tweet about fema and d. O. D. , read military, is exactly accurate. Theyre not going to be there
forever. And the whole point is to start to work yourself out of a job and transition to the rebuilding process. Kelly went on to deny a series of reports suggesting his efforts to contain the president , as senator bob corker put it, are cut putting kellys own job in jeopardy. According to the l. A. Times he and the president have engaged in shouting matches. Vanity fair reported kelly is miserable in his job, remaining out of a sense of duty to keep trump from making some sort of disastrous decision. None of that is true, kelly said. Although i read it all the time, pretty consistently, im not quitting today. I dont believe, and i just talked to the president , i dont think im being fired today. And i am not so frustrated in this job that im thinking of leaving. I will tell you this is the hardest job ive ever had. This is, in my view, the most
important job i ever had. The Chief Of Staff adopted the president s latest Attacks On The Press directed specifically at nbc news over a couple of damaging report in the last week, first that the Secretary Of StateRex Tillerson openly disparaged the president , referring to him as a moron. And then that the president wanted a tenfold increase in the u. S. Nuclear arsenal. The president reacted with what was even, for him, a fairly astonishing assault on the core concept of the first amendment. Threatening to revoke the networks broadcast license, which doesnt exist by the way, and shut down unwelcome coverage. Today his own Chief Of Staff took his own swipe at the press. My only frustration, with all due respect to everyone in the room, is when i come to work in the morning and read about things i allegedly said or things that mr. Trump allegedly said or people who are going to be fired or whatever. And its just not true. It is astounding to me how much is misreport the. I will give you the benefit of the doubt that you are operating off of contacts, leaks, whatever you call them. But i would just offer to you the advice, id say you know, maybe develop some better sources. Amid looming confrontations with north korea and iran and growing concerns about whether the president s aides can restrain him from lashing out, kelly insisted the president doesnt need babysitting. I was not sent in or i was not brought to this job to control anything but the flow of information to our president so that he could make the best decisions. I have found that mr. Trump, from the day i met him, does not is a decisive guy, hes a very thoughtful man i should say. Again, i was not sent in or brought in to control him. And you should not measure my effectiveness as a Chief Of Staff by what you think i should be doing. Political analyst who covers
the white house for usa today was at the briefing. What did you make of that today, heidi . We has had a brutal cycle, he being the president , and john kelly. If you remember, when kelly came in the headline was that all thats leaks were going to go away, he would instill discipline in this white house. Yet you have all these stories coming out about shouting matches, about kelly possibly even leaving. And so just like they did when nbcs story came out about Rex Tillerson, immediately hes pushed out to talk to the press and to shoot it all down. And to deny it. And he can do that. He can deny it. Because these sources are background. I will tell you, and you know this already, that theres no way we would get this reporting unless these sources were speaking on background. Because they would be fired for talking like this. It doesnt make that information untrue. In fact, itshighly unlikely that the information is untrue. And i guess its good at least that kelly said, i give you the
benefit of the doubt that you have sources. Instead of like his boss who just called it all fake. His boss, the president of the United States, the theory he says is its entirely made up. He accuses of press of totally fabricating this when hes not threatening to shut them down or revoke the licenses of newspapers, which also dont exist. We should note here, kelly is also doing, it strikes me, a similar job to what sean spicer had today on the first had to do on the first day of the administration, to come out in the face of a set of circumstances people can see pretty clearly and essentially deny the evident right in front of their face. He did. But i would say at least he didnt go so far as to say outright untruths. And he was actually quite charming in his engagement with the press in terms of at least keeping a pleasant demeanor, not coming out there angry and scowling at us, calling us the disgusting media, and essentially threatening the
first amendment. He basically, you know, is i think trying to make a bridge to a certain extent with the media. Its interesting today that i was in this Health Care Executive order announcement with the president and he actually turned around and thanked us all. Which i guess is not usual. So i think there is a certain part of this that theyre trying to immediately address some of these stories when they come out and put these people out in front of the media. But one of the things that kelly says, he called the president very thoughtful. It struck me that theres so many things you could say about the president , many adjectives. Even if you wanted to praise the president theres lots of things you could say, canny, great political instincts, incredible way of capturing peoples attention. Hes not a very thoughtful person by basically the determination of every Single Person around him whos ever talked about him. Thats an opinion. And hes welcome to his opinions. And i guess after having dealt with some of the previous individuals who have come out there and actually said outright
untruths, like verifiably untrue things that are not factual, at least hes not going youre going to say thats in the territory of a characterization, as opposed to just like it was the mostwatched inauguration. Heidi, thank you for joining me. Congresswoman Maxine Waters is a democrat from california. Congresswoman, theres been a story that kelly is a sort of restraining force, that people should be happy that hes there if theyre worried about the president s temperament or worried about the president s current condition, and that its good to have him there. Is that your opinion . My opinion is it wont last for long. This president will not get along with him for very long. This president has the kind of disposition that would cause him to confront, argue with, fight with, shout at, those people around him. And theyre only going to take
it for so long. If you notice what kelly was saying, he was saying he was not fired today. He was not leaving today. And i dont know if he was qualifying that or not, but i think that was instructive. That even he knows it cant last very much longer. At some point, kelly said something about the views of democrats on security and what he called open borders. I wanted to play that for you and get your response to it because he was characterizing the Immigration Views of folks like yourself and members of your party, take a listen. All right. I believe that honest men and women can disagree on anything, politically or otherwise. The one thing i draw a little bit of a line to is on the security of the nation. There are certainly people in our country that have the opinion that open borders, near open borders are fine, people should be able to come and go. There are others, myself included, you can bet the
president , but i think the majority of americans feel as though security on the borders is important. Do you think thats an open open borders is an accurate characterization of a large view of folks in washington, for instance, on immigration . Absolutely not. If hes truly concerned about security he should be concerned about the way the president is goading with the north korea situation. He and kim jongun are basically talking to each other in ways that corker has said could lead us into third world war. So if hes really concerned about security, he should be concerned about whether or not this president is going to continue the kind of talking and goading that hes doing that would cause this kim jongun, who we consider to be unstable, to launch a very devastating missile into our country with perhaps a nuclear war ahead. Theres reporting indicating
that the president , the decision which were expecting forthcoming tomorrow in which he decertifies the iran bill, that was essentially born of a fit of pique, that the president was angry, he felt cornered, that the experts had come to him and told him, no, theyre complying with the deal and he should certify it, the Washington Post reporting he threw a fit, he was furious, really furious, its clear he felt jammed and thats why the White House Security adviser, h. R. Mcmaster and others, supported this plan to kick it to congress. What do you make of that . What are the consequences of Making Policy on Something Like this in this fashion . Its just unseemly that the president of the United States would be Making Policy on his own. Hes been advised by everybody, republicans and democrats, that he should not be undoing the iran deal. We have other nations, six other nations, that are involved with us in this deal. And so for him to have america look as if it wants to undo the
deal, want to decertify them, he basically is saying he knows better than anybody. But of course during the campaign he said he knows more than the generals. He really believes that and its dangerous. For members of congress to sit back and watch what hes doing and watch the damage that hes doing in this country and to watch him just guide us into a possible war, and not speak up because theyre concerned about their reelection, is not responsible. I believe it is time for republicans especially to walk over to the white house and tell him enough is enough. As a matter of fact what do you mean by that i think he should be impeached. Al green was going to introduce a resolution, i was going to ask you if you would vote for impeachment knowing what you know now mr. When you say republicans going over and saying enough is enough what do you mean by that tangibly . What i mean is republicans should step up to the plate and
confront the fact that this president appears to be unstable that he appears to be taking us into war, that he has openly obstructed justice in front of our face, and that increasingly were finding that theres more and more lies about the connection with russia. I believe that there really has been collusion. And i do think that our special counsel mueller is going to connect those dots. But i think theres enough now that we all know and we all see and we all understand that we should be moving on impeachment. Congresswoman Maxine Waters, always a pleasure. Youre welcome, thank you. Ben howe, writer for red state, conservative political blog, and lonny chen, what did you make of kellys Performance Today . You know, i thought that it was a sincere performance. I think he did fine. I thought the most interesting thing about the exchange was, you know, this is a guy who has commanded large forces of soldiers. This is a guy whos been in war multiple times. Hes been shot at no doubt. And he said the hardest job hes ever had, the hardest job, is being the white house Chief Of Staff. That to me is indicative, i think, of the challenges that face this presidency and this white house. And the fact that kellys still in there i think is a testament to john kelly. Ben, the sort of going after the press which has been a kind of constant theme, an exchange where senator ben sass of nebraska rapped the president for his decertification, delicensing. Do you think theres broad conservative revulsion at that . Or do they generally feel, yeah, these people are our enemies . Its been interesting to watch, actually. I think a lot of conservatives in previous administrations, if a president was going to go after the press, one of the first things after their license specifically, i think they would have said, why is the government involved in Licensing Media anyway . Theyd talk free markets and things like that. Thats what i would have done. But instead they seem to play by what a lot of them call the new
rules. Which is the liberals made the rules, now were going to play by them. So even though it might conflict with what should be their conservative point of view, theyre going to end up taking the position, yeah lets take their license away, were just following their new rules anyway. There is a great story, lonny that to me epitomized part of the problem thats at the core of this presidency, particularly domestic politics. The president s trying to get this tax proposal done, hes been sort of working on that while this sort of awful news cycle has swirled hem with corker comments. This is what bloomberg reported. Months after the white house proposed ending a tax break for people in the hightax states President Trump grew angry when he learned the change would hurt some middleincome taxpayers. He keeps finding out what the actual substantive agenda is and keeps getting angry about it. What do you make of that . Tax reform is complicated and it turns out health care is complicate toot. All of these issues have multiple dimensions. Theres a reason why we havent done a big tax reform since 1986. And its going to be challenging in any situation. When the white house has had to answer this question about the impact of their tax plan on Middle Income Taxpayers, theyve had to say, we cant guarantee that every Middle Income Taxpayer is going to get a tax cut, we cant guarantee there wont be a single Middle Income Taxpayer that wont see a tax increase. Thats the reality. These are really tough issues and as they dig into it theyre finding out how difficult that could be. Trump is a terrible president who nonetheless has sounder political instincts tan anyone in the gop leadership, responding to the story from bloomberg. Trump who has in some ways political instincts about this stuff that i think is sounder than, say, paul ryans. Youve still got the ryan agenda and they cannot make the whole thing work. I think hes got great salesman instincts. And being a good salesman works well with the American People if you go past the media, go straight to twitter, things like that. I really think this whole administration would do a lot better if the people like kelly
wouldnt come out and try to translate for him and make it seem as though hes just this reasonable guy and has all these reasonable positions, when weve all got eyes, we can see how he is. And you know, if they would just be a little more honest, when they say hes a straight talker, he as straight talker, so embrace that and say, i wouldnt have said it but im not the president. I would say hes a weird mix of a sort of shockingly honest in some moments and incredibly, incredibly in your face deceptive in others. Theres sort of all mixed together. I think some people call that diarrhea of the mouth, yeah. Lonny, do you think the kelly is clearly out there because of the corker comments and because of the reporting about the background and because of tillerson, et cetera. I mean, do you think republicans are Behind Closed Doors saying, wheres this guy going . And concerned about that . Well, i think republicans feel like there are a number of folks in the administration who
are playing very important roles. I think Rex Tillersons one of them, jim mattis is another, certainly john kelly. The question becomes if those individuals end up leaving