Crime. And is there an end game in sight . A New Washington post report revealing the president is not a criminal target in the russia probe. But that certainly doesnt mean hes in the clear. It certainly does not suggest the president is out of hot water. Theres an idea that although hes not currently a target, perhaps he still could be. And remembering a civil rights hero. Thousands gather in memphis, 50 years after the assassination of Martin Luther king jr. His legacy and his impact still being felt today. We talk about that dream. His dream is our dream. Weve got a lot to talk about this morning. Weve got to start with President Trump and the trade war he says is not a trade war. In less than 30 minutes, the opening bell will kick off the trading day. I want you to take a look dow futures, down several hundred points as concerns rise over a potential trade war with china. This morning beijing struck back hard at the u. S. With tariffs on 50 billion worth of american goods. Where do these goods come from . Trump country. 106 products on the list. Things like soybeans, cars, chemicals, and whiskey, all of this just hours after President Trump unveiled his own plans to target 1,300 chinese imports. Jason johnson, a politics editor at theroot. Com, Steve Schmidt, and democratic governor john hick en loenlooper of the state colorado. This morning commerce secretary wilbur ross actually we have the sound. I want to share this. Even shooting wars end with negotiations. Somebody sends a treaty with someone else, it has whatever terms it has. So it wouldnt be surprising at all if the net outcome of all of this is some sort of a negotiation. Even shooting wars end in negotiations. Lets make something clear. In war, death and destruction ensue, and no one wins a war. Wilbur ross went on to say hes surprised by Market Reaction. I would like to make something clear. Wilbur ross is lying to the American People. I know from people i speak to inside the white house, wilbur ross has been told by other economic advisers, by market participants, this would be the reaction. Peter navarro three weeks ago said no other country would retaliate because they cant afford to. Check yourself, mr. Navarro, they certainly can. Theyre called china. Steve schmidt. Again we see the commerce secretary, one of a cauldron of incompetence in the white house, has no idea what hes doing. We can think about these trade issues historically, smoot hawley tariff, we can see what happens when you instigate a trade war, how it can precipitate negative economic reaction, a depression. Maybe this will be experiential learning for the American People, as donald trump precipitates for no good reason a trade war that will have devastating consequences in the country, not just in the equities market but for real jobs, real people, real towns and cities in this country. And the consequences of an inept and incompetent president , whether its a from a National Security perspective with people being killed in wars or economically, will start to come home now. And i think thats what were starting to see here. This is very bad news for the American People, for people who are trying to get ahead, people trying to put their kids through colle college. You look at the attacks on amazon, for example. If youre a retired teacher, if youre a pensioner, youre devastated by the drop in stock price caused by a political attack by the president. This is such an important point. We have not seen anything like this before. We need to remember that amazon is not solely owned by jeff bezos. Its a publicly traded company. Were talking endowments, 401 k s, pensions. If anybody private citizen went after a Public Company in this form, spreading disinformation, we know the president is lying about what hes saying about the post office and amazon. The sec would be investigating it. It blows my mind why were not hearing that. Republicans have been working, and democrats, for years trying to address the issues at the post office, because its about pensions, its not about amazon who is paying the post office. Yet were not hearing from those government leaders and i dont know why. Governor hickenlooper, youre not just a politician, youre a business guy. When i hear wilbur ross and the president talk about these trade deficits, do you think they understand them . When gdp rises, when the economy is strong, the trade deficit grows, were buying stuff, were selling stuff. Do you think they dont get that . I think theyve got a twisted perspective. For whatever reason, what steve was saying about smoot hawley comes back, most of us in high school heard about smoot hawley, it was a funny word, a funny name for a law. The bottom line is, carefully constructed open trade creates wealth. We have access to one thing, we trade it to somebody else, we get it back. You obviously have to keep improving it. When you upset the whole apple cart and say were going to start from scratch, were not going to worry about what we did before, well start over, everyones going to get pushed into corners and as soon as we start raising tariffs, other countries are they have no other choice, what else can they do about come back and raise their tariffs . Ceos will stop spending. When a Business Leader doesnt know what the path ahead is, they put their pencil down, they stop driving. One person who agrees with us on tariffs is larry kudlow, the president s new economic adviser. I want to share something he wrote a few weeks ago. Tariffs are really tax hikes. Here it is. Since so many of things American Consumers buy today are made of steel or aluminum, a 25 tariff on these commodities may get passed on to consumers at the cash register. This is a regressive tax on low income families. This is the guy now advising the president , who says this is a regressive tax on the poor. Every single time the president tears up a deal, says i dont care about the paris accords, it affects solar power and clean energy, the iran deal affects the military, he says hell build a wall or attack mexico or Something Like that, or what we have happening now with china, it forces World Leaders to say, one, i cant trust this guy, and two, for my own domestic success, im going to dig in, im going to be tough with this guy so i dont end up looking like a fool in front of my own people. It leads to long term consequences for any other country we negotiate with. Yes, it will hurt people in their pocketbooks, yes, it will hurt business, but long term, no one will trust us. Nobody wants to get into a deal with somebody who lies to you or says something and changes it ten minutes later. Behind closed doors he is negotiating in ways people wouldnt understand, says fox. But people i talk to in the white house say theres no negotiating going on behind the scenes. As close as we can tell, its pretty much shooting from the hip. Hes got a basic plan. He makes a proposal. And then they walk away. Thats not the way you get to a deal. In business, certainly donald trump was successful by being a bully and pushing people into corners, things didnt work out, he would sue them. Thats not how trade works. Trade is based on predictability. People want incremental changes, they want to have some expectation that what comes out of this is going to be better for both sides, which is, you know, thats what youre trying to get to. And somehow people now are throwing up their hands and saying, were so nervous about what he might do next that well just raise our tariffs and make sure were safe. Right. Its patently obvious when you watched the News Conference yesterday, you watched the president talking about the trilateral relationship with the baltic re publpublicrepublics, a what hes talking about. Its the musings of an imbecile, really. Trade across the t trade crosses the border between the u. S. And canada. For the balance of the states save for two, its the number two trading relationship. Integrated supply chains. You want to talk about crashing the market, abrogate the nafta agreement, disrupt the trillion dollars of trade that flows across the border and this is what happens. This is an incompetent president who has no idea what hes doing, no idea what hes talking about. The consequences of incompetent actions will be paid for by the American People. Were starting to see that now. Were starting to see this with the Market Reaction. Were starting to see this in the bilateral china relationship. And so there are consequences for this type of action and behavior. And the American People are soon going to start paying the bill for it. We need to remind our audience of two things. A, Steve Schmidt is a republican. B, the United States walked away from tpp. President trump said were going to negotiate something stronger and better. We have not done that. Do you know who stayed in tpp . Canada. And the beat goes on for canada as they continue to trade with trading partners and were the cheese, standing alone. I need to turn to reports on special counsel muellers russia investigation. According to the washington post, the special counsel told President Trumps lawyers that while he is still under investigation, hes not currently a criminal target. The president s attorney, ty cobb, declined to comment while his lawyer jay sekulow said, quote, we do not discuss real or alleged conversations between our legal team and the office of special counsel. I want to bring in the man who wrote this extraordinary piece for the washington post. He is also moderator of Washington Week on pbs. Roberto. This is so the people. I want to share this quote. In private negotiations in early march about a possible president ial interview, mueller described trump as a subject of his investigation into russias interference in 2016. Hes not a target but hes a subject of the investigation. Walk me through the difference. Because this morning when i woke up, i actually turned on fox and friends and i saw that headline, hes not the target, like a huge win. But i think that might not be the case. It is a complicated legal situation. Working with my colleague carol lenig at the washington post, we reported that Robert Mueller is trying to get an interview with the president of the United States. In the discussions to try to make that sitdown happen, theyve been updating the president s lawyers about his status. They have told the president s lawyers he is not a witness, hes now considered a subject, not a criminal target, but somewhere in the middle, someone who is a subject, meaning someone who they want to find out more about his intent on certain decisions, but as of yet, at this moment, is not about to be indicted. In the middle, though, it could go either way. Governor, we learned in this piece that Robert Mueller is preparing a report on a possible obstruction of justice. What do you make of that . Obviously if that turns out to be true and comes forward, thats very serious. I mean, thats probably one of the allegations that could really stick. Certainly the frenzy speculation in a fenway serves the president. Hes a master of confusing, hiding the cheese, moving things around. In a fenway, my mother used to say when we were kids, methinks he doth complain too much. That may serve him. Whats your take on this, steve . Subject and a target, to me its kind of like the difference between being engaged and married, like one before the other. Inobjecti inexorably linked. Neither ends well . No, stephanie, not necessarily. The large issue is the russian federation, vladimir putin, across all of the west, are attacking democracies and attacking the idea of democracy. We talk about this country as a place, and we talk about america as a place where people live and things happen. But we dont talk as much as we should, as much as we used to, about america as an idea. And the russian attack is on the idea of liberty, of freedom. Hes undermining the notion of the capacity of the American People for selfgovernance. Hes attacking our institutions. The lubricants of the democratic system are faith, trust, and belief. Vladimir putin is attacking that. And this president , theres a russian term, useful idiot, for an unwilling or willing collaborator to their aims, and the president is a useful idiot, referred to on russia state immedia media all the time as our president , meaning russias. When he attacks the intelligence community, when he attacks the justice department, when he attacks and undermines essential institutions, he is doing Vladimir Putins bidding, his work for him. Hes undermining the American Peoples faith in the idea of america, the capacity of the American People for selfgovernance, and the essential institutions that make our country special. And so its an extraordinary moment to watch this unfolding every day. When he attacks the free media, when he attacks the judiciary, those are all the pillars of a free democracy. And russia is aligning those similar attacks, i think steve is exactly right, this is ultimately again, it has what its doing is weakening the fiber, the fabric that holds us together. It hasnt broken it. But it is weakening it. Theres somebody who you could make the argument has felt undermined at some point this year, h. R. Mcmaster. I want to share something he said in his last speech as National Security adviser. Take a look. Russia brazenly and implausibly denies its actions. And we have failed to impose sufficient costs. Wow. With that, i mean, this on the same day, remember, President Trump yesterday, no ones been tougher on russia than me, and everybody is nodding their head because they know whats true. The russians know this, anyone who is halfway intelligent on National Security knows this, even republicans who wont speak out loud know this. The president has done nothing against russia. The president has not used the resources that have been allocated to combat what russia is doing. The president has stymied any attempts to protect our electoral system this fall about russia. He has done absolutely nothing. But i will say this. I think this is key, you know, what we talked about, what mueller is actually doing, being a target versus being a subject. This is like every episode of law and order. My favorite show. Minute too. Svu or the original . I like the original. Got to go with icet. But yeah, this is just come in and talk, come in and talk. If you tell President Trump that he is a target right now, hes not going to talk to you. So you basically have to keep dragging this out and suggesting that maybe, hey, were just trying to find out about those other guys, come in and chat with us. Robert costa, on a day when the president says nobody has been tougher on russia than me, when h. R. Mcmaster says we have utterly failed, what are the rest of republicans saying . We know theyre not saying anything publicly. What are they saying behind closed doors, whether its about the president and russia or your piece about Robert Mueller and the president . On the russia matter, with regard to Foreign Policy, republicans and democrats ive spoken to in recent weeks are alarmed to some respect about what they see as an Enthusiasm Gap in this administration between its Public Comments about president putin and the policies the administration has taken. They know the president and the administration have decided to expel certain diplomats as they have this standoff with russia over interference in the election and different activities russia has done over the last couple of years. At the same time, they dont see the president echoing general mcmaster in the same way, and they wonder why. And they also see the president having some kind of conversation with president putin about a possible visit to washington, even the white house. This sends up a red flag in the traditional Foreign Policy community. But of course in the white house they say the president just doesnt believe or share the same values or the same perspective as that traditional Foreign Policy community in both parties. All right, then. Governor, before we go, you had said just a moment ago that the system is not broken, but its definitely being tested, whether the president is doubting our judiciary or the free press. It almost seems like youre making a call for a stronger centrist leadership. Does that mean youre running for president . No, what im saying, and im being very clear, is that when you fray and weaken the fabric that holds things together, i mean, what it does is and steve said this, it makes people stop believing in government. Be a different kind of clear for me. Because governor kasich of ohio is sort of hinting that 2020 might be a time for President Trump to get a challenger. Could you and john kasich be the ticket . Ive told you this before, it would make a really long bumper sticker, only works for suvs. But is that in your future . No, i dont think so. Although john kasich, his points of contention with the president are always intriguing. I think hes worth paying attention to. That being said, as much as i respect him and enjoy his company, i think we disagree on too many things to really be a unity ticket. Ive seen dumb and dumber. Youre saying theres the chance. Thats what i heard right there. This is one of the most effective leaders of government in the United States, extremely successful governor. Businessman. Businessman, smart, competent, effective, virtues that are missing, you know, from a lot of our politics today. I hope hell run for president. Sounds li