Administration. He also hosted the canadian Prime MinisterJustin Trudeau at the white house where the pair talked about trade among other topics. But once again this white house did not spend its business day on offense, advancing its agenda, played defense instead. On a story played out by a team from nbc news says, quote, President Trump wanted a ten fold increase this past summer with a meeting according to three officials in the room. The president of course labeled the report fake news. Are you discussing Nuclear Options . No, i never discussed it. That was just fake news by nbc, which gives a lot of fake news. No, i never discussed. I think somebody said i wanted ten times the Nuclear Weapons we have right thou. Right now we have so many Nuclear Weapons. I want them in perfect condition, perfect shape. Thats the only thing ive ever discussed. I want modernization and total rehabilitation. Its got to be in tiptop shape. Again, todays story is about the u. S. Nuclear arsenal, easily the most fearful single power of the presidency. Its a topic candidate trump talked about a fair amount in the years before taking office. Do you have oo priority . Because i want to go to senator rubio after that. I think nuclear, just the power and devastation is very important to me. Look, nuclear should be the off the table. When you said that, the whole world, the japanese, theyre hearing a guy running for president of the United States talk of using Nuclear Weapons. No one wants to hear that from a president. Then why do we make them . Can you tell the middle east were not using Nuclear Weapons . I would never say that. I would never take any cards off the table. What about europe . Would you use it in europe . No. Then just say it. Look, i am not taking cards off the table. I dont want to rule out anything. I will be the last to use Nuclear Weapons. Its a horror to use Nuclear Weapons. I am not be a happy trigger like some people might be. I think once the Nuclear Alternative happens, its over. At the same time we have to be prepared. I cant take anything off the table. A sampling thereof what we have heard on camera from him. In august on this network joe scar borough reported. Several months ago a Foreign Policy expert on an International Level went to advise donald trump, and three times he asked about the use of Nuclear Weapons. Three times he asked at one point if we had them, why cant we use them . Thats one of the reasons he has he just doesnt have Foreign Policy experts around him. Trump asked three times. Three times an an hour long briefing why cant be use Nuclear Weapons. And it was that summer meeting when the president reportedly made that remark about our Nuclear Weapons, which brings us to where we are in present day relationship with the president and lets not forget secretary of state rex tillerson. The report goes onto say the july 20 meeting was described as a lengthy and sometimes intense review of worldwide operations. It was soon after the meeting broke up that officials who remained behind heard tillerson say trump is a moron. I think i have a little bit different attitude on north korea than other people might have. And i listen to everybody, but ultimately my attitude is the one that matters, isnt it . Thats the way it works. Thats the way the system is. Our lead off panel tonight. Carol lee, Nbc News National Political reporter came to us from the wall street journal and was one of our bylines on the report of the president and our Nuclear Arsenal. One of several stories she has broken lately. Jeremy bash, former chief of staff and animist Nbc National Security analyst. And jonathan lemere, White House Reporter for the associated press. Also animist nbc political analyst. Welcome to all of you. Carol, id like to begin with you. We heard denials to your story carefully worded denials as your story was carefully worded. Set it up with exactly what youre reporting and what the denials were. Sure. What our reporting showed, and to be clear we talked to three people who were in this july 20th meeting, ask it was not a very large meeting. It was at the pentagon in a secure room known as the tank. And essentially the point of the meeting was to walk the president around the world and say heres the military assets we have in this area, heres the number of troops here. And as part of that whole presentation, they did a presentation on the Nuclear Arsenal. And they showed the president a slide with a chart that looked at the u. S. Arsenal from the 1950s to current and the russian arsenal from the 1950s to current. And the president looked at the chart, according to these three people in the room, and saw the point at which it was highest and said why dont we have that, why not that many . Lets get those, and i dont want this other, you know, 4,000. And so essentially saying i want to have a Nuclear Arsenal thats almost ten times as large as it is now. And one of the interesting things about that is the people in the room didnt take him literally, and they basically said, look, here are all the reasons why thats not feasible. We are bound by treaties. This would be a major budgetary restraints that would be incredibly kbensive. And also its just not necessary. Weaponerry has changed so much since the u. S. Arsenal was at its peak, and theres a whole bunch of conventional weapons. The u. S. President s comments was one of several in this meeting that took his advisers a little offguard a little bit. Jeremy bash, i have a few questions for you. Whats preventing us from adding to our arsenal . Whats the chain of command, in other words who gets to launch . And what scares you about the reporting of carroll lee and her colleagues . This shows a fundamental misunderstanding by our commander in chief on the role of our arsenal and whats in it. We have far more Nuclear Weapons than we have war plans for. In every region of the world our regional leaders develop war plans and they say how many weapons do we need, how many nukes do we need. It will cause proliferation and make the use of Nuclear Weapons that much more likely. The reason im so concerned is because in our system only the president can order a nuclear strike. And once he gives that word, his word are taken literally, his order cannot be countermanded by anybody. Anybody up and down the chain, five stars, three stars so on. No. The president says go, we go. After that sobering note, you were out on this story a couple weeks back. You too reported on this meeting at the socalled tank in this pentagon. Specifically the way they drew donald trump in, remind our viewers why were trumps businesses around the world invoked at this meeting . July 20th has become in ret row spect a pivotal for this administration. The president in weeks prior to that meeting had questioned the need for a robust american presence around the world. And in particular they were discussing on what to do in afghanistan. So secretary tillerson, defense secretary mattis, other top officials, other senior white house aides gathered in this windowless room in the pentagon known as the tank and mattis in particular took the lead in delivering this saying mr. President this is why we need embassies here, this is why we need forces here, this is why we need this base here. And to put it into context the way the president best grasps this information, a lot of maps were used, diagrams explaining in particular why this was was needed for americans, in particular one business most of all, the trump organization, to say this is why americans around the world, their businesses are safeguarded by this presence out there. And explained to him why this mattered. Now, the result of this meeting did lead to a rare win for secretary tillerson, which was pushing maintaining the force in afghanistan, the president weeks later did agree to that, even slightly increased the amount of force were going to have there. But the under current was not just afghanistan. It was sort of explained to the president why all this matters. Jeremy, youre a veteran of the tank. I assume after the years at the pentagon and i assume the room speaks of some seriousness upon entering. Yeah, thats the room where the chairman, the vicechairman and joint chiefs of staff meet regulary as a group, with the secretary of defense. And one of the paintings in the room is of course of president lincoln bringing our country together after the civil war. Its a very sobering room. Its concerning to hear that the senior National Security leaders of our country would have to explain to the president , the president s only financial bottom line. Carol, to your piece, lets start with the president on twitter, with all the nak news coming out of nbc and the networks, at what point is it okay to challenge their license . Bad for country. Licenses must be challenged and if appropriate revoked, not fair to public for the record. Nbc news doesnt operate on a license, but local nbc news stations broadcast with licenses. Then our friend former campaign strategist, steve smidest wrote this on twitter tonight, the attack by trump on the First Amendment today is likely the most unamerican sentiment ever uttered by a president of the United States. Cant think of another. Not to be out down, there is always historian michael begs loss back on the board on twitter reminding us about Richard Nixon floating the idea to challenge the Washington Post owned stations, their licenses. Weve been here before. Carol, first of all congrats on breaking the First Amendment. Im wondering how it feels to have this much pressure and talk exerted and talk surrounding the story you filed. Well, look, we feel like this is a very important story, its a very serious topic. And i have to say, you know, none of this surprises me. Yes, the president escalated, you know, his attack on what he calls fake news. But, you know, i fully expected him to respond this way. This is how the president responds to any news report he doesnt like. Its just and, you know, it keeps ratcheting up. When you look at the story, you cant the importance of this, particularly at this moment when the United States is in a, you know, the highest tensions that theyve seen with north korea and the president s about to throw the u. S. Nuclear deal with iran into uncertainty, this is window into how this president thinks about the most serious issues that any president faces. And so its not fake. And we expensively reported this. And we spoke with a number of people, and including three of whom were in the room, and each of them had the same thing to say about how the president conducted himself in that meeting. Ill take your window metaphor and raise you. Jeremy bash, this is all a window into the world. They can also hear, jeremy, loose talk about Nuclear Weapons, the only nation ever to use them in anger and kill hundreds of thousands of people. I think the president s position on expanding our Nuclear Arsenal on talking about only military options with north korea, brian i would rather have one First Amendment than 30,000 Nuclear Weapons. That one First Amendment protects far more than any Nuclear Weapon could. And remembering the chain of command, this is also being watched by people with stars and birds on their uniform, people with stripes and people with barmizech and people all down the line who are charged with keeping these weapons tiptop shape ready to go, as they say in south korea, ready to fight tonight. Of course, this talk comes at a time when the nation is facing a number of Foreign Policy crises. You mentioned north korea. The decision on iran looms. This is president still relatively untested on Foreign Policy. This is president when first dealt with his international cries over the summer used phrases like fire and fury. He made personal insults of what he felt was north koreas aggression. He took it personally. He wanted to latch back. There were people very concerned about perhaps the stability of the Leadership Structure in the United States, about the president s willingness to use this or at least express an interest in growing dramatically our arsenal when most military experts around him say theres no need. Our thanks. Thank you all being part of our lead off panel. Coming up the president speaks about the divide and Republican Party in this new interview tonight. Plus a new poll finds over half the nation says the president is unfit to serve. In other words, its just another wednesday night as the 11th hour rolls along. In fact were just getting started. I just saved thousands on my loan at lendingtree. Com. In less than a minute, i found out how much home i can afford. I like how you shop for loans the same way you shop for flights online. I didnt realize at lendingtree you can save money on almost any sort of loan. I consolidated my Credit Card Debt with a personal loan. I found a new credit card with 0 interest for 15 months. You just shop, compare, and save. And its all free. Go to lendingtree right now and start saving. Throughout history, the one meal when we come together, break bread, share our day and connect as a family. [ bloop, clicking ] and connect, as a family. Just, uh one second voice guy. [ bloop ] huh . Hey . I paused it. Bam, family time. So how is everyone . Find your awesome with xfinity xfi and change the way you wifi. Ive met some great, great people that are republicans, and ive great some people frankly, ive met some good people, not necessarily great people that are democrats. And i actually think well have democratic support. The one thing with the democrats, they Stay Together like glue. Theyre lousy pall tigs and their policies are terrible, but they do stick together. We have great policies but the republicans tend not to be unified. That was the backdrop, a hanger full of supporters prior to the president s speech and that it aired afterwards. President trump tonight with a kind of backhanded compliment there for democrats. Again, he sat down to be interviewed with shawn henty in pennsylvania. Todays interview comes on a heels of a the New York Times revealing fresh frustrations inside the west wing. Some stemming with inside relationships with those outside his senior staff. Quote, chief of staff jun kelly and increasingly unwilling to be managed even just a little. The person close to the white house said the two men had engaged in shouting matches in recent days. The president has started to call people more on the weekends from the cellphone, didnt used to do the person said. Noting that trump often calls hannity after the fox news host nightly show. Tonight of course trump was hannitys guest. He took time to tout his tax play, talk about the progress of the border wall, and downplay the possibility of russian collusion during the campaign. Russia was an excuse used by the democrats when they lost the election. They said, why did you lose the election . They said, it was russia. It wasnt russia, it was a bad candidate. And then they say ah, it was trump that colluded with rusha. This was an excuse by the democrats and people got carried away. With us to talk about all of it phil rucker, anita cume ar, and sam stein now politics editor for the daily beast and animist nbc political analyst. Mr. Rucker, id like to start with you. First of all, you hear there the language of a threat of an existential challenge to his own election. We hear it often and in those words. Second, we also hear words that are serious that grab you and get your attention like unraveling and unstable. We havent heard this since nixons sullen days, his days of depression in the white house. Phil, this is serious language. It really is. And i can tell you im hearing it from people inside the white house and outside. Theres a lot of concern about this president s foul moods. Hes generally been unhappen in this office for many months. Hes concerned. Hes had frustrations, moments of tension with chief of staff john kelly. Although i should note theres no inldication that kelly is going to either be fired or quit imindependently, thats for sure. And youre right its a historic moment here, and we should take this seriously. Anita, a question i always try to ask you. How did the trump agenda move ahead today . Well, the president was out there trying to get back to tax reform. That was what that vet you talked about pennsylvania was. He tried to use that to talk about other issues. I heard very familiar things in that interview. Things he wanted to get out, and he had a very friendly audience there cheering him on with Shawn Hannity as well. So how did it move forward . Theyre trying to move forward on tax reform. But this is after the last week of dealing with criticism how he handled puerto rico and the hurricane. And then his tweet storm about senator bob corker on sunday. He got off topic, and hes trying to get back on. And thats just not the way things are going to get done. Sam, how far is this from normal and quite. Where is congress these days . And correct me if im wrong but i think the corker thing really opened things up. Extraordinary. And i thought this interview with