We started with one person, now we have an auditorium of russians he was speaking to or whatever the hell it was, and its ridiculous. And the senate is expected to vote this week on health care, but as of now, Republican Senators May not even know yet which version of the Health Care Bill that theyll have to vote on. This week the senate will vote to begin the debate to repeal and replace obamacare once and for all. The president and i are calling on every member of the senate to support. But first, to congress. Its put its foot down on the white house, and as soon as this week it will prove new sanctions against russia. President trump would need lawmakers approval to lift them and after it became clear a trump veto would be needed to stop, the white house changed its attitude. Listen. The administration is supportive of being tough on russia, particularly in putting these sanctions in place. The original piece of legislation was poorly written, but we were able to work with the house and senate and the administration is happy with the ability to do that and make those changes that were necessary, and we support where the legislation is now. Congress is also getting ready to hear from the president s key players in the room for that meeting at trump tower. People who have russian ties on monday and tuesday. Lawmakers hear from Jared Kushner, also in the coming days or weeks, donald trump jr. , former Campaign ChairmanPaul Manafort must turn over documents and be interviewed by staffers on the hill. Kelly odonnell is at the white house. Kelly, who do we know about the interviews . Its going to be a busy week ahead. A busy week and a lot of what will happen will be behind closed doors, so theres a limit to what the public will know, but these are important steps in which the teams working on capitol hill, not only the lawmakers part of the intelligence committee, but their professional staff that work for those committees, giving these kinds of interviews is a really crucial piece in the Building Blocks of understanding the investigation, especially with some of the more recent developments, including that 2016 meeting at trump tower that involved donald trump jr. And other members of the team with some figures from russia or associated with russia. So important steps. When it comes to Jared Kushner, he, of course, is the president s soninlaw and an official government employee, a Senior Adviser to the president , and he is really the only person who has gone from the Campaign World to the white house that has been directly involved in this. Of course, ivanka trump, his wife, also went from campaign to white house, but she has not been implicated in any supposed meetings. So Jared Kushner has something to talk about tomorrow. Hell be facing questions with the house intelligence committee, again, behind closed doors. His lawyer has worked with them to set about how they would do this. We are told it is a twohour window of questions that may not be enough to cover it all, but adam schiff, whos the top democrat on that committee, has a lot in mind that he would like to learn from Jared Kushner. Heres what hes thinking. Want to know whether those meetings took place, whether other meetings took place. We have a lot of ground to cover. His counsel has said theyll only make him available for two hours, so we expect this is only going to be the first interview. And part of what happens here is when Jared Kushners legal team went through his emails, calendar, background information, they came upon in some form or another that 2016 meeting at trump tower, where there were emails attached to that, and they revised Jared Kushners security clearance application to reflect that meeting with the russian lawyer and a russian lobbyist, and that opened this new door for inquiry and, of course, Jared Kushner in many ways was an unparalleled figure in the campaign because of his closeness to the president and the confidence the president has in him. So the committee will want to know a lot about what he was aware of and perhaps find new ground if theres any to be killed in this about any interface with russia. Kushner also played an Important Role in the digital side of the trump campaign, working with the teams that helped them to sort of use social media and to try to track their voters around the country, to turn them out. Thats an area because of the computer nature and hacking that the committee will want to explore, as well. So we will begin to see these close figures close to the president testifying, but again, we wont see it in front of the cameras at this point. It will be behind closed doors. Richard . Thank you, at the white house, Nbcs Kelly Odonnell with the very latest for us. Now lets bring in our three commentators, seema eyre, political analyst and republican strategist rick tyler. Rick, lets start with you. A lot has happened in the last three days. Developments certainly that are going to be thought of when Jared Kushner does hit the hill and potentially also Paul Manafort and donald trump jr. In coming days and weeks. With all of this thats happened in the last three days, do you think that this white house is feeling a little bit of heat . Well, i would think so. Theres a lot of shake up going on in the white house with the press secretary leaving and the new press secretary coming in and kushner, who i think is fairly vulnerable here, i think anybody else who would have had to update their security clearance forms as many times as he did, and its also interesting that i dont think he did them alone, so is there a culpability on the lawyers who fill these out, as well, and i think the senate is going to have tough questions for him. Of course, we wont see that directly, because theyll be in secret. One of the moves eluding to this, rick, the move with scaramucci being the communications director, and i move to you on this, because that move potentially could be readying for more waves, more developments that are upcoming, this based on key interviews that are happening in the coming week or two. Whats your reporting, what are your sources telling you in terms of the mood in the white house . Well, look, friday was obviously a tumultuous day. Sean spicer the night before had been saying to people this really was something that was kind of a last straw for him. He had drawn a little bit of a line in terms of if scaramucci was brought on, he was not going to stay on, and the reason is to give scaramucci a clean slate. The problem with that is, as you head into a week thats heavy with russia news, is this white house has struggled a little bit to communicate effectively if positioned on russia and to spin it in a way thats anything but detrimental to them. So i think when youre going to head into a week where you have Jared Kushner going to the hill, you have don jr. , Paul Manafort, all of these different threads coming together, you do have someone new at the helm of the Communications Shop whos just getting his feet wet in terms of figuring out how best to communicate the white house view on this. You also heard him this morning, the issue of pardons and whether or not that was discussed, you have one of trumps lawyers saying, no, we arent researching it, and scaramucci saying we dont have anybody to pardon anybody, but by the way, we were talking about it in the office last week. Those contradictions make it difficult to say okay, all of this makes sense as we go forward. Lets play exactly what he did say, lets listen to Anthony Scaramucci talking about pardons today. Does the white house believe the president has the power to pardon himself . I dont know. We havent even really looked into that. I dont know. I talked to jay sekulow about that, because hes a scholar. I took constitutional law from larry tribe, and if professor tribe is listening, i know he doesnt like the president , but i did get an aminus in your course. Got the issues of pardons. The president for the first time mentioning and using the word pardons in his tweet yesterday. And referring to lawrence tribe, the great lawrence tribe, just coauthored for the Washington Post that says, no, you cant pardon. Richard, its smart legal drama to research pardons. Nixon did the same thing. He asked his office, hey, look into this. Its smart. So, yes and no. Can he, trump, issue himself a pardon . Some people say yes, some people say no. Ken starr, at least in his investigation in special counsel and the New York Times said, no, he cannot pardon himself, at least thats the headline, if you will. Because the constitution basically says, listen, you cant be the defendant and be the judge at the same time, and thats where tribes position was. And tribe coauthored that article with richard paynter, who was the white house chief ethics lawyer under george w. Bush. And so the signaling that comes out of this, rick, is that the white house is considering pardons, thats at least one narrative, right, because the president did mention it in his tweet and now were hearing discussions and scaramucci trying to defend the answers and response coming from the president based on the reporting of him being uncomfortable with what is happening right now and looking at options. And so as the white house does look at options, what might they be based on a very Energetic Group of investigations happening, not only the four on the hill, but also counsel muellers . Well, they have several option. One is they can fight everything and undermine mueller, which is going to be difficult given his reputation on the hill, but thats the direction they are going. The other option is become transparent and put it all on the table. They said over and over again that theyve done that, so i think theyve exhausted that option because theres no credibility left. And so i think youll see them continue to fight mueller. Now, its interesting that theyll be trying to undermine the investigation. You would do that for two reasons. You have something to hide, or you really believe that somehow the russian influence on the direction being legitimized his presidency. I find that a little bit of a stretch, so one has to wonder what it is they are trying to hide. Rick, yesterday the president tweeted he was critical of his own attorney general again, saying he should be investigating Hillary Clinton and the email situation. Do you see attorney general sessions potentially as been said the shakeup in the white house might now, that wave might not hit the attorney general . Well, probably, but i dont think Jeff Sessions is going to move from being the attorney general unless he becomes personally compromised or the president fires him. Both would be fairly extreme. I think its okay to have tension between the attorney general and the president. In fact, thats why the office has a tenyear term. Its supposed to be set up that way. The Justice Department is supposed to be somewhat inoculated or set apart from the administration for the very reason that the Administration May have to be investigated. Ali, the report is hes standing past this attorney general. Look, when the white house did that interview with the New York Times last week, that was a pretty big headline saying, well, if i had known Jeff Sessions was going to recuse himself from russia investigations, maybe i would have picked someone else. When we asked Sarah Huckabee sanders about that later that day, isnt that undermining your attorney general . No, its not, and Anthony Scaramucci is saying, too, hes direct, honest about how hes feeling. I dont see how that helps your attorney general, but that friction doesnt look bad. Perjury, does he face that, saying the post did say he discussed the campaign with russian officials . Absolutely. Everyone always talks about perjury, but does it ever happen . No, it really doesnt. Its also because thats a hearsay. If sessions spoke to Sergey Kislyak and that conversation right now is hearsay. We have no corroboration of that conversation, and until we do, i think sessions is safe. Okay, thank you so much, seema, rick, ali, appreciate it. Now to breaking news from texas in what police are calling a horrific human smuggling case. At least eight people were found dead overnight inside a sweltering tractor trailer. This 18wheeler was discovered at a walmart parking lot in san antonio, texas. Inside, dozens of suspected migrants were packed inside of it, including two 15 year olds, who were among the injured. Authorities say at least 20 people were found in dire condition. The driver is now in custody. Nbc is there in san antonio, texas, and joins us right now. This is a quick moving story here, maya, what do we know . Reporter well, richard, just a horrific scene, 38 people packed into a sweltering tractor trailer. Eight of them ended up dying. 17 were rushed to the hospital in either serious or critical condition, and all of this came to light because somebody managed to get out of the tractor trailer and flag down an employee at the walmart asking them for water. The employee brought water and called police. Police discovered the scene inside the tractor trailer, and as you can imagine, it is summertime, south texas, and it is not here. It was 101 degrees yesterday, it was into the 90s, well into the evening. The driver of that tractor trailer is now in custody. Heres what the police chief had to say about where the investigation stands now. Take a listen. Checking the video from the store, we found that there were a number of vehicles that came in and picked up a lot of the folks that were in that trailer that survived the trip. Were looking at a trafficking crime here this evening. Department of Homeland Security is involved. They are working with us. Homicide will work with them to determine the origin of this tragedy. Now, just a short time ago, walmart issued a statement saying, this is a very sad situation, and we are doing everything we can to assist the authorities. Now, this is not the first time there has been a major human smuggling situation similar to this one. Back in 2003, 19 people died in victoria, texas, under a very similar tragic circumstance, also packed into a tractor trailer. Richard . Breaking story for us, thank you so much. Coming up, a better deal. Thats part of the new slogan democrats are hoping will catch on with voters as they roll out their new agenda. What they are looking to do and how they plan to do it as they prepare for the upcoming election cycle. I will never never wash my hair again now, i fuel it new pantene doesnt just wash your hair, it fuels it. 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Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer hopes so and says the party is expected to roll out a bold new agenda. We were too cautious. We were too namby pamby. This is sharp, bold, and will appeal to both the old obama coalition, lets say the young lady whos just getting out of college, and the democratic voters who deserted us for trump, the blue collar voters. Economics, george, is our strength. Joining me now, liz smith and steve murphy. Thanks for being here. Liz, well start with you here. Hes eluding to what was learned during the last election cycle. Group of voters across the country, especially in the heartland, saying youre not addressing what i need day to day economically. Do you believe this will do that . Look, i think his diagnosis of the problem is completely correct. Theres a big problem when only 40 of people know what democrats stand for. My god, were the party of fdr, lbj, barack obama, and now voters identify us as the party of not trump. A big problem of the 2016 election was we got sucked in every day by every outrage trump was putting out there. Most people dont have the time to read and freak out over his tweets and what he said to the french first lady, so hes right. We need to go out and articulate a proactive and positive vision centered around economics, one that appeals to every demographic in our country, and thats something we didnt do in 2016. My only caveat with that is we dont need to find Bumper Stickers. We need to do this in an authentic way that resinates with people. Do you need a Bumper Sticker here, steve . If the mid western firewall decided to look the other way in this last election and if its the Economic Issues they say have not been addressed no by two different administrations, dont you need a Bumper Sticker to say this is what we stand for, economics, at least in this case . A Bumper Sticker is fine and good if theres substance underneath it. If youre saying we need to do x, y, and z, and thats meaningfu