Election. That ad, which borrows heavily from Hillary Clintons 20083 00 a. M. Phone call ad comes from the campaign of marine le pen. Shes the leader of frances far right. A party whos image shes tried to sanitize since inheriting its leadership from her father, a holocaust denier with nazi ties. She promises, too, as the New York Times put it, protect not just france, but frenchness. Thats because the outcome of todays voting will be a bellwether to the extent of the wave of nationalism which swept donald trump into power has taken hold throughout the western world. It could also decide if france follows britain with a frexit and the withdrawal of france from gnat to nato. The terrorist attack seized by pen. Donald trump told the Associated Press that the incident will, quote, probably help her win because she is the candidate strongest on borders. Thank you both for being here. Chris, i will start with you. How is it looking for the leading four candidates and could you tease out for us who the top four candidates are. In addition to le pen, who i think you have described perfectly, we also have emanuel macrow who was the front runner this first round of the elections. Hes a sen tryst and trying to try support from the center left and center right for his movement and if he succeeds in that, he also would be the most proeurope, proamerican candidate. Barack obama called him up and gave him a few words of encouragement yesterday. Then we have very far left. Wont describe himself as a communist. Hes supported by the communist newspaper. He is the one who had the boast mome most momentum. Hes a great speaker, great debater and he took off after the debates here in france. And then you have the former prime minister. He looked like he was a shoein for this election. Hes far right, but still mainstream right. But he has been plagued by some pretty bad scandals. You put two things together, first of all he wants to put about 500,000 Public Sector jobs and then hes accused of putting his wife and children on the public payroll to the tune of about a million jobs for jobs they didnt actually do. So thats not Great Electoral situation for him. Well see. I think a lot of people will vote for him who wont admit to the polls, but it could be very, very close among all those four. Not good options. Not a lot of good options there. I want to play to the point thrks is the call or at least part of the call that former president barack obama made and it was made into a little bit of an ad. Lets take a look. I have president barack obama for you. Hold on one second. Thank you very much. Hello. Hello, mr. President. How are you . Mr. Emanuel . Yeah, exactly. Im doing very well. How will you . Can you hear me. Yes, i hear you very well. The main message i have is to wish you all the best in the coming days and make sure that as you said you work hard all the way through because you never know. It might be that last day of campaigning. Yeah, i do agree. That makes all the difference. And e. J. , i think a lot of americans would immediately say were going to vote for him. He seems to be the guy thats most prowestern. Do you think having the former president weigh on his side helps or hurts him . My guess is on balance. You have this fascinating shadow show down in france. By the way, thanks to chris for such a good setup of this segment because you had trump in what i think really outrageous intervention, basically endorsing the far right candidate in france who wants to wreck the western alliance, pull france out of the eu and it is not american first, it is nativism first is what trump was doing there. And then you have president obama basically anointing macron as his candidates. I think his politics are father rim to obamas, rather center left. And if you take those two, trump may actually hurt le pen a little bit is my sense and that you have the terrorist attack, excuse me, where a dear french friend of mine said what struck her is the french took that with extraordinary calm and that it may not have as much impact as we would anticipate, but well see. And that ad that you showed at the beginning clearly hopes to take advantage of fear. Yeah. And i guess that is the big question, chris, is a lot of you wrote a column for the day by beast, which i probably cant quote even on basis cable. You said the election could really hurt america, ill put it that way. Should we be concerned that le pen could walk away from it on the one hand and is there any hope for him to actually pull it out . I know there is hope. I think that probably the obama call was helpful to him. You have to remember that obamas hugely popular in this country and has been for years. Normally the polls have shown him getting like an 80 Approval Rating. Always much higher in france than his rating in the United States, as a matter of fact. Where as trump is seen as more like a flake and even le pen has been uncomfortable with trump because, among other things, she was against the tomahawk Cruise Missile attack on serial. I think that its a little bit strange that trump would endorse her at this point. Yeah. We will definitely be watching i think. Since degal set up the president ial republic, there hasnt been a race where you have four candidates at the end with at least a plausible chance to get in the run off, and this i think is the most important election in the west this year. Yeah, absolutely. And i was so concerned about germany, but now we all have to fear a frexit, so we will all be watching. We will have you back on soon. E. J. Will be back shortly. Donald trump is not only dabbling in the politics of france. This week he called turkish lead to congratulate him on his victory. It was an odd offer of well wishes from an american president , given that international on ser varies say the election, which cements his authoritarian role was riefed with political intimidation and poll lat r ballot rigging. Earlier this month trump welcomed to the white house the egyptian president , w. Joining me now is the author of the motte to hack america, and steve clemons. Steve, lets start with you on this first, on the last point, on the welcoming sort of attitude toward the egyptian strong man by donald trump. But a lot of people are saying that the relationship that hes formed is to be credited with freeing an egyptian american prisoner who came home, at least according to the spin from the Trump Administration, from his work. Just as he did through the campaign, you know, tipping his hat to people even like kim jongun or putin in russia, anyone he saw as ruthless as wiping out their enemies as taking a harsh hand and really being a spear point of a dark, nasty, cancerous hyper nationalism around the country. Donald trump is applauding that. And it is very scary. Indeed from the Washington Post on thursdays, it was not until trump moved to relations with egypt on april 3rd, he pubically hailed his leader hip as fantastic and offered the u. S. Governments strong backing, that egypts posture changed on sunday, and they dropped all charges against this woman. Speaking of praising strong men, donald trump also seems to have an affinity forrer dwyane in turkey. The wait house is now denying that the call was an endorsement. But do we see a pattern here . And could that pattern hold even as turkey seems to be descending into autocracy. The pattern is very clear. Steve put it very well with the relationship to allsisy. There appears to be this alignment pushed by moscow, doubled down on with trump, to align all of these autocracies, whether it is the cue in egypt, turkey, the pushing for le pen in france, which would create this entire axis of autocracies that are all strong men that want to upset and break the world order. And france, if le pen wins in france in the second round of the elections, you could see the fraek up of the European Union and france withdraw from nato the way degal did. But it puts it into perspective why trump would call him and congratulate him on essentially breaking democracy in that country. It does feel like donald trump is short of joining, you know, what malcolm has called an axis of autocracies. You have these families, really families of the leader making quit of a bit of the money. Donald trump has a lot of investments in turkey. We havent done a lot to examine i dont think i should say has not done enough to exam where donald trump might be making money in all this, right . This is like my colleagues cover story called how to build an autocracy. He walks through how donald trump is in a way smoothing out and disrupting the kind of institutions in america that would hold him accountable. And david in his piece says it is not really about trying to set out to be an autocrat, it is about setting out to enrich himself. When you look at Vladimir Putin and the way others have shown how he has parked money with oligarchs around the world, with money parked in all the places he has helped enrich others, i think that is something we have to worry about. It is selfdealing. When you celebrate and see what these two men have done to journalists and you see donald trump and his teams attitudes toward journalism, our institution is under threat by auto cats who are coming in and in my view trying to selfdeal. And mean tile, malcolm, you have yet another of the words dictators having now apparently detained an american citizen. Yes. And this is typical of north korea. You know, we have been waiting since all of the ratchets up of rhetoric started a couple of weeks ago with the movements of the aircraft carrier, mike pences visit to south korea. They view provocation as a strategic tool to keep its en y enemies at bay. They think if they do something provocative, then they win. This is called government detention. It is a typical tool of dictatorships and they are going to pressure the Trump Administration with this now but i dont think trump is going to bite. Thanks for helping us sort it out. Thank you. Thank you, joy. Thank you. Up next donald trump has a huge week ahead of him. A week ahead of himself but he may have bitten off more than he can chew. Stay right there Liberty Mutual stood with us when a fire destroyed everything in our living room. We replaced it all without touching our savings. Yeah, our insurance wont do that. No. You can leave worry behind when liberty stands with you™. Liberty Mutual Insurance but weve got the get tdigital tools to help. When liberty stands with you™. Now with xfinitys my account, you can figure things out easily, so you wont even have to call us. Change your wifi password to something you can actually remember, instantly. Add that premium channel, and watch the show everyones talking about, tonight. And the bill you need to pay . Do it in seconds. Because we should fit into your life, not the other way around. Go to xfinity. Com myaccount. Its going to be great. It will happen. Youre going to do health care and tax reform . Well see what happens. No particular rush, but well see what happens. But health care is coming along well. Government is coming along really well. A lot of good things are happening. Its going to be a huge week, as donald trump would say. He plans to mark his 100th day in office saturday with a rally in pennsylvania, which also happens to be the same night as the white house correspondents dinner. Trump may not have much to celebrate. A poll shows his Approval Rating at 40 , the lowest for a new president. Trump also faces a mid light dead lynn to fund the government and avoid a shut down. White house budget director says the Administration May be willing to Fund Obamacare subsidies that help the poor afford Health Insurance but only if the democrats agree to fund trumps border wall, a wall that mexico was supposed to pay for. It doesnt surprise anyone that the actual physical wall is a top priority for this president. He ran on it. He won on it. And as every winning candidate always likes to say, elections have consequences. Joining me now all right. So the idea is that democrats would somehow be willing to wrap the hostage, which is millions of peoples Health Insurance and pay for the wall mexico was supposed to pay for. Let me play you a couple responses from that. Lets go to thanty pelosi and her thoughts. The democrats do not support the wall and i think the republicans on the border states do not support the wall. The republicans had the votes in the house and the senate and the white house to keep government open. The burden to keep it open is on the republicans. The wall is in my view immoral, expensive, unwise and when the president says, well, i promised a wall during my campaign i dont think he said he was going to pass billions of dollars of cost of the wall on to the taxpayer. And even more blunt was Chuck Schumer over in the senate. He said the white house gambit to hold hos teenage health care in order to force american taxpayers flip the bill for a wall is a complete nonstarter. It doesnt sound as if this negotiation is going well. It is an inherent problem. People are going to blame republicans for the failure of health care if they decide to abolish obamacare straight out or replace it with this new crueller plan proposed this past week. They are not only going to continue to, you know, be blamed for it, but they are also going to pass the blame on to the state houses. Think about high risk pools and the things not well funded by the states in their health plan that would replace the guarantee that is currently in obamacare that you have for people who have preexisting conditions. States dont regularly fund this stuff. Who is going to get blamed . Not only republicans in washington, but also republicans in the state house. It feels like a strange negotiating tactic to say your choices are millions of people lose Health Insurance subsidies unless you let us pay for a wall that american tax pay we ares were not even intending to pay for. Im not sure where the leverage is for republicans here. The great irony is that donald trump ran as a great negotiator and a great negotiator should be able to negotiate with his own party to avoid a government shut down when that Party Control it is presidency, the senate and the house of representatives. Hes coming to democrats and offering them, as you stated, this deal where im not going to sabotage the Affordable Care act in exchange for you agreeing to support me in paying for the wall. Here is the problem. Hes actively at the same time trying to pass a law, a new law, that would impact blow up health care, that would take coverage away from millions of people. It is worse than the original trump care, trump care 2 is even worse, the sequel is worse, like sequels are, so hes asking democrats to agree to not have similar sabotage something in exchange for the likelihood that hes going to try to move something through thats even worse . That doesnt make any sense. There is no universe under which the democrats would agree to that kind of deal. And e. J. , whats sort of striking to me is the determined cruelty you are seeing on the republican side. They seem really bound and determined that they think taking Health Care Away from people would be a win they would somehow be rewarded for. Youve written a lot about the right. What is the thinking behind that . I have to say there is Something Wonderful for lovers of the truth when a ridiculous Campaign Promise that a politician knows he cant keep comes back to bite him. Thats whats happening to donald trump and his promise of mexico paying for the wall. It puts democrats in a very strong position saying you didnt say that taxpayers were going to have to pay for that. On health care, the reason this is like a wet fire cracker for republicans, last week trump was talking about going full steam ahead on this is the cruelty you talk about on the heart of this, and they cant get enough votes in their own caucus to throw all those people off health care. People talk a lot about the far right of the caucus, which wants to cut this way back because they dont like government providing these kind of benefits period. But youve got republicans from clinton districts and others who say we cant throw 24 Million People off health care. And, so, the very logic of what they want to do is getting in the way of getting it done. And, you know, there seem to be these two things happening at the same time. You have the president who was supposed to be this great negotiator who wants to look tough to other countries, whos clearly backed off the idea of forcing mexico to pay for the wall and conceded he really wants the american taxpayer. This is ryan priebus conceding the fact that theyre not going to try to get mexico to pay for the border wall. Take a listen. We have seen progress in regard to getting money for Border Security within the cr, so im confident were going to get something satisfactory to the president within current negotiations. It may not be the wall itself . It will be enough in the negotiation for us to move forward with either the construction or the planning or enough for us to move forward through the end of september to get going on the border wall. Very quickly, if they get this wall, do they wind up getting applause from their base or getting hurt for having spent american taxpayers money. As long as they make white people feel better, i think it is going to be a win. Do they wind up getting a win out of it if they manage to get taxpayers to pay for a wall that donald trump used to say he could make mexico pay for. Donald trumps base at this point is so committed to him and unwilling to commit. Those people who are core supports of donald trump are so committed to him at this point and so and not wanting to be wrong about him that i think he will get a written from that particular portion of the base, the diehard donald Trump Supporters and they really do want that wall. I think hes going to have some problems, though, with some of these people on the other side of that wall who are actually american citizens. Other than that, i think his diehards will be just fine and be happy. Wait until they fin