he is a heck no on trump care. i m a heck no on this. i think they ve got problems with the vote. i ve personally spoken to 29 of my conservative colleagues who are no on this as of today and we re not even counting the moderate republicans who are a no. i think they ve got a lot of arm twisting to do between now and thursday if they re going to pass this bill in the house. does he sound scared to you? because congressman massey was in the room today when donald trump came to the house of representatives to urge republicans to vote for the bill. here is how congressman massey describes tough guy donald trump. threatening and pushing around all those republicans who oppose the bill. he was very charming. there was some light-hearted jabs at his opponents in the room but it was all in good fun. light-hearted jabs. that ought to do it. that s what tough guy trump is delivering to republican opponents of his bill. thomas massey doesn t claim to be a tough guy the way donald trump does, but he certainly doesn t sound afraid of the tough guy. and to listen to congressman massey, no republicans are. he s been to kentucky once, and vice president pence has been to kentucky once and it s still not changing senator rand paul s mind or my mind. i m not sure what they can do to get the vote they need. president trump told them if they did not vote for the bill, they would face primary challenges in their districts. again, congressman massey is not worried. now, to your point about being in electoral trouble offer this vote, before i came over here to speak with you, i counselled my call log. i have 275 constituents who asked me to oppose this bill and only four who have asked me to support it. known that from day one. mark meadows won his last election with 64% of the vote. mark meadows knows how to call calculate his chances. ken, this is looking very difficult for paul ryan and donald trump in the house of representatives now. what i m struck by is no one who comes out against this bill seems even slightly intimidated either by the speaker or the president. yeah, there s a couple reasons for that, lawrence, i think. first of all, in this house freedom caucus, you have folks that are just personally predisposed to opposing the leadership. we ve seen that time and again. so i don t think that either having the leadership or donald trump lean on them is necessarily the ticket to getting them on board. additionally, there s no evidence that trump would be able to leverage to actually go after gop house members. tease are district by district battles, not national media based advertising wars or air wars. as you cited in the run-up there, the health care bill is not particularly popular. so these folks are not going to face challenges from the right necessarily, let alone ones where donald trump would be a major factor in whipping up support for a primary challenger. let listen to what congressman david brat told conservative caty tur today. do you believe this vote is going to happen on thursday? right now we re aiming for it. aiming for it sound like you re not very confident you re going to have it. i don t think there s the votes. there s 10 or 20 moderates and folks in tough races up in the northeast corridor that have coverage issues. so no. so it s a problem right now. what does it mean to the trump presidency if the president loses his first big vote in the house of representatives? it would be huge, enormous. i was thinking about listening to trump make this case of not being able to persuade republicans, and i thought back to ronald reagan when he got his legislation through in the first year, and he had to apply pressure but that was because he had to convince democrats, not republicans. what you ve got here is a weak president and an unpopular bill. they re having tough sledding. to see a republican president with a republican congress 60 days into his presidency have this amount of difficulty is extraordinary. of course it s an unprecedented tremendous blowback. but the reason is that these are self-inflicted wounds by donald trump. he is a corrupt president and a corrupt man and it catching up to us. it not just the description, it the ineptness. it not just the investigation. it s the a this man just isn t up to being president and day after day, week after week, we re seeing more and more evidence of that. i think it s unnerving republicans. ken, there s some speculation today that the drop in the stock market is related to what peter is now saying, that wall street is now getting that same kind of impress this presidency, that he is unbalanced and incompetent. what does that mean for thing about tax bill wall street is hoping for and all the deregulation that wall street is hoping for? that s a kind of valid question. they painted themselves in the corner by doing it as the first bill out. it just a super complicated issue. but additionally it want necessarily the one that he or the folks in his administration, in his inner circle, felt the most strongly about. they did feel more strongly about the a tax overhaul and some the deregulatory measure. the de they said the members of congress for six years, the republican members of congress had campaigned against my sources tell me there are folks inside the administration o say they wouldn t mind seeing this fail because they would see it as sort of a failure for paul ryan, who they believe put them in this position. nont business, i agree with pete, it would be set back his entire agenda because some of these other. a quick last word on what you think if this bill either fails in the vote or if the speaker has to just take it down and not go to the vote on thursday, the potential damage to paul ryan. i think it would be a beg blow to ryan. i mean, this is his bill. he set it up. he s pushing it. and trump has in a sense hinged connected himself to ryan, to that wagon. and if it crashes into the side of a hill, that s going to be very bad for ryan. but it would be bad for trump and it would be be bad for entire republican party. it would signal to voers they re not ready for primetime. they ve got the senate, the house and the presidency and they can t govern. they can t pass what is sense and you know politic, victories build on themselves and so do defeats. if this goes down, this isn t the only issue they ll go down on. and there as within more night nairos and then those republicans who voted for it and compromised themselves in the house will have done that for nothing, trying to get them to do that once given on any other bill is going to be pretty tough, too. ken vogel, peter wehner, thank you both for joining us tonight. thank you. coming up, the leader of a physician s group tells us he s never seen legislation that would do more harm to health legislation that has ever been presented in congress concerning health care, according to a physician s group. that s next. with advil, you ll ask what sinus headache? what stiff joints? what time of the month cramps? what nighttime pain? make all your pains a distant memory with advil the world s #1 choice what pain? advil. not just the automobile, f tomorrow will transform but mobility itself. an autonomous-thinking vehicle protecting those inside and out. and it s the mercedes-benz of today that will help us get there. the 2017 e-class, with innovations no car has offered before. and that will change driving forever after. lease the e300 for $549 a month at your local mercedes-benz dealer. mercedes-benz. the best or nothing. yesterday robert dougherty tweeted this in 38 years advocating for doctors, patients and doctors i ve never seen a bill that will do more harm to health. he is a senior vice president at the american college of physicians, america s second largest physician group. last night he said verse 2.0 is even worse. medicaid block grants, work mandate, ban on further expansion will harm the most vulnerable. and joining us now, robert dougherty. thank you very much for joining us tonight. i want to start, first of all, with what you see as the differences in this 2.0 version, the version of the bill that was hastily written yesterday and released last night. sure, lawrence, and thank you for having me. the original bill was bad enough because it targeted the most vulnerable people in our society, poorer and sicker people, particularly those on medicaid. in an effort to make sweeteners to attract more vote, they made it even worse for those people by putting a block grant aid, which means they would be stuck holding the tab and they would need to and then the work mandate, we believe health care is a right and people shouldn t be forced to prove that they are able to work in order to have coverage. i want to go to something that donald trump said about physicians specifically and their reaction to the affordable care act. let s listen to this. many of our best and brightest are leaving the medical profession entirely because of obamacare. obamacare has been a complete and total catastrophe and it s getting worse and worse by the day and yet you watch the fake media, the fake news and they try and build it up. it s a disaster, fellas. it s a disaster. your reaction to that, robert? physicians have frustrations with red tape and things like that, but that has nothing to do with the affordable care act or obamacare. the physicians i represent internal medicine doctors, the largest specialty in the united states are strongly committed to the idea that their patients should have access to affordable health care. what we know is that the bill that will be going to the house on thursday would roll back coverage for millions of people and get particularly the most vulnerable and that really sticks in our craw. a society should put its greatest attention to supporting those who need help the most, the poor kids on medicaid, elderly on medicaid, mental health disorders who get coverage through medicaid and the idea of going after those people and taking the coverage away, to our members at the american college of physicians is unconscionable. you are getting some help from rick schneider who sent this letter to his delegation saying there are 1.75 million children, seniors, pregnant women and disabled individual served by traditional medicaid in michigan and roughly 104,000 of them reach side in your district. he wrote to u.s. representative tim wahlberg in a letter saying that this legislation will adversely impact them. it seems that that s not something understood by a majority of the republicans in the house. maybe so far. we re still hopeful the bill will not pass the house on thursday or that speaker rife ryan will reconsider rushing ahead and rushing the legislation through. clearly governors, governor kasich is another, who understand that medicare is crucial to the health of their resident and medicare expansion states like michigan, ohio, terminating that program would have terrible consequences for vulnerable people, older and sicker people covered by medicaid right now. i think there are more and more republicans who are getting it, certainly the governors more and more are getting it but i do think you see more members of congress, members of congress that are having strong reservations at least with the plan that s being put forward for a vote on thursday. yeah, i think from your experience you know when you see this kind of trouble getting through the house, there s probably even more trouble trying to get the same bill through the senate. robert doherty, thank you for joining us. i really appreciate it. my pleasure. up next, the senate confirmation hearing a supreme court justice. what you should be looking for in that hearing. that s next. various: (shouting) heigh! ho! ( ) it s off to work we go! woman: on the gulf coast, new exxonmobil projects are expected to create over 45,000 jobs. and each job created by the energy industry supports two others in the community. altogether, the industry supports over 9 million jobs nationwide. these are jobs that natural gas is helping make happen, all while reducing america s emissions. energy lives here. toddlers see things a bit undifferently all while reducing america s emissions. with pampers easy ups they ll see a stretchy waistband you ll see pampers superior protection and you ll both see an easy way to underwear pampers easy ups it releases a cooling sensation in your mouth and throat. zantac works in as little as 30 minutes. nexium can take 24 hours. try cool mint zantac. no pill relieves heartburn faster. produced better justices than john marshall or oliver wendell homes, both of whom did not have confirm s hearings and had not been subject to fbi background checks because the fbi had not been invented yet. the first senate confirmation hearing was at the beginning of the 21st century when president wilson chose the first jewish nominee, louis brandeis, the supposed gentleman of the senate then were taken aback by a jewish nominee and decided we better slow this thing down and ask a few questions and so they had their first confirmation hearing. louis brandeis was then confirmed and went on to become one of the great figures in american jurisprudence. there were only two more confirmation hearings before the television days and both to address suspected scandals and both were then confirmed. william o. douglas was the longest serving member of the united states supreme court and possibly its most influential and its most liberal. most liberal member ever. he lived a romantically scandalous life for his era as a supreme court justice. he was married four times while serving on the supreme court. excerpts of an article he wrote appeared in ever green magazine, which was considered a mildly porn graphic magazine. it is impossible to imagine the longest serving justice in the history of the united states supreme court getting through a senate confirmation hearing today. and luckily for william o. douglas, he didn t have to. douglas reportedly sat outside the judiciary committee s meeting room on the day he had heard his nomination was going to be discussed privately among the members, and he passed a handwritten note to the chairman saying do you have any questions for me? that note came back to justice douglas with the chairman s handwritten one-word reply no. and the republic survive and justice douglas wouldn t recognize what went on at the judiciary committee today. it is a game, steeped in a relatively short tradition that the press mistakenly thinks is a long tradition of judicial nominees refusing to comment on anything that you would ever expect a candidate for the united states supreme court to be able to discuss. like, say, the single most famous case of the modern era, roe v. wade. they pretend that cannot be discussed. the game of the judiciary is to pretend you don t have an opinion on the case everyone has an opinion about. here is clarence thomas in his confirmation hearing in 1991 telling senator patrick leahy that even though roe v. wade was decided when he was in law school, he neff talked about it, never formed an opinion about it. have you ever had discussion of roe v. wade other than in this room? in the 17 or 18 years it s been there? only i guess, senator, in the fact in the most general sense that other individuals expressed concerns one way or the other and you listen and you try to be thoughtful. if you re asking me whether or not i ve ever debated the contents of it, the answer of that is, no, senator. have you ever, pretty gatherings or otherwise, stated whether you felt that it was properly decided or not? senator, in trying to recall and reflect on that, i don t recollect commenting one way or the other. there were, again, debates about it in various places but i generally did not participate. i don t remember or recall participating, sir. judging by pat leahy s follow-up question, he didn t actually believe that answer. that was the moment i decided clarence thomas was willing to say anything and that was before anita hill came forward to accuse him of sexual harassment. today neil gorsuch was willing to play the game. he couldn t possibly offer his opinion about the case because of that meaningless and false and relatively short senate confirmation tradition that says you can t possibly be a fair supreme court justice if you ve ever thought about any case that may come before you in any form. of course exactly the opposite is true. presidents are looking for highly educated lawyers who have already been through the senate confirmation process at least once and sometimes twice as federal judges and appeals court judges. and that they re the kind of people who think about this stuff every day. but in the senate confirm ago confirmation hearings, they have to pretend they haven t and they have to pretend there s no hypothetical case they could ethically answer in their conformation hearings pause then no one would believe they could be fair in a case resembling that came to the supreme court. here s neil gorsuch today playing that game. it s a blanket religious test. is that consistent with the first amendment? senator, we have a free exercise clause that protects the free exercise of religious liberties by all persons in this country. if you re asking me how i d apply it to a specific case, i can t talk about that for understandable reasons. no. there s nothing understandable about those reasons. and to prove it, gorsuch himself later actually did talk about a hypothetical case, as senator leahy persisted with his line of questioning about religious tests. let me give you an example be, should there be a religious test to serve in the military. senator, that would be inappropriate, yes. that s against the law. that s against the law. see? pat leahy actually got a supreme court nominee to teak a hypothetical position on a hypothetical case that could now easily come to the supreme court. president trump could easily decide that the solution to the massacre at fort hood by army major nidal has and is to ban muslims from serving in the military. that is not far fetched in trump world. and neil gorsuch has already ruled on it right there in the judiciary committee today. but that doesn t mean that he would not give a fair hearing to all of the details of a particular case, that a trump ban of muslims in the military would present to the supreme court because fairness as a judge does not mean in a you have no opinions. fairness as a judge means that as a human being you are full of opinions, political and otherwise, but fairness as a judge means that you limit your judicial findings and your jujs rulings to what the constitution intends. being a fair judge means that the controlling law in the case is more important to you than your own opinions or prejudices. it doesn t mean that you don t have opinions or prejudices. and so neil gorsuch got nothing wrong on his side of the game today in the judiciary committee. very, very few supreme court nominees ever do get anything wrong because it such a simple game. they don t even get things slightly wrong according to the rules of that game. democrats in the senate along with republicans unanimously voted to the justice that neil gorsuch is nominated to replace, antonin scalia, who was the most right wing conservative judge in the modern history of the court. he got the unanimous vote of democrats and republicans because the tradition then enforced that vote. the tra dgs was simply is the nominee qualified to be a judge. not do i agree with this nominee. that s the new standard, do i agree with this nominee. and it is just as will the as the old standard because the constitution gives no guidance to what senators are supposed to consider. the standards are all based on tradition and now we see that that tradition changes over time. senator al franken disagrees with judge gorsuch s position on a case involving a truck driver who was fired by a trucking company after disregarding his supervisor s order, unhooking his trailer and driving to a gas station to get out of the freezing cold. the truck driver, who had been in his unheated truck for hours in subzero temperatures said he was numb and his speech was slurring and by the time he left the broken down trailer, here s what senator al franken said about this case today. it is absurd to say this company is in its rights to fire him because he made the choice of possibly dying from freezing to death are causing other people to die possibly by driving an unsafe vehicle. that s absurd. now, i had a career in identifying absurdity. and i know it when i see it. and it makes me, you know it makes me question your judgment. senator franken thinks it s absurd that judge gorsuch ruled for the trucking company against the truck driver. that alone is a perfectly legitimate reason for senator al franken to vote against neil gorsuch. but there is another bigger reason that has never been present before in the senate confirmation process for any supreme court justice in history, and that is neil gorsuch is the only nominee ever selected to fill a stolen seat on the united states supreme court. we ll discuss what the senate should do about that next with frank rich. i no longer live with the uncertainties of hep c. wondering, what if? 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your hotel should make it easy to do all the things you do. which is what we do. crowne plaza. we re all business, mostly. cars.com anyone ever have occasional y! constipation,diarrhea, gas or bloating? she does. she does. help defend against those digestive issues. take phillips colon health probiotic caps daily with three types of good bacteria. 400 likes? wow! try phillips colon health. i m heartened by the support i have received from people who regne that there s no such thing as a republican judge or a democratic judge. we just have judges. in this country. except of course the judges who actually run for office in states that elect judges. and of course the judges who are selected for the supreme court of the united states who in recent times anyway have already been clearly identifiable by the presidents who chose them, like neil gorsuch, as democrats or republicans. joining us now frank rich writer at large for new york magazine and emmy award winning producer of hbo s veep. i want to go to the imagery moment in the one-on-one with donald trump where donald trump asks neil gorsuch a question that he disapproves of. lindsey graham sets the stage for us. let s watch this. in that interview, did he ever ask you to overrule roe v. wade? no, senator. what would you have done if he d asked? senator, i would have walked out the door. it s not what judges do. and there is the perfect execution of the theater of the confirmation hearing performance by a supreme court nominee. didn t it look rehearsed? yeah, it did. and also i don t believe a word of it. i believe if that moment happened, he would have said to himself i m dealing with the most ignorant president in history who doesn t even know the public tradition that we re not supposed to discuss this and i will tell the most ignorant president in history i can t comment on that now, i don t have he would have given his confirmation hearing answer to the question, which is i can t talk about that. although the way lindsey graham, who is after all a lawyer framed that question, there was a lot of wiggle om yway. he just asked him if he asked you would you overturn it. the question could have been what do you think about roe v. wade and gorsuch could have told him the truth and still he could have given that answer to graham under oath today. right. so the democrats have a very tough set of choices in front of them. they, first of all, have this issue of the stolen seat. there s no question that the asterisk is on this seat of all team. there are many on the democratic side who want them to vote against gorsuch on just that alone. it won t make a difference but i can understand the desire of the democratic base to want. it was a stolen seat and it an outrage. that s a good way to protest it and it not outrageous to cast that vote as opposed to what mitch mcconnell did to merrick garland. neil gorsuch called up garland to say this seat should have been yours. lassie come home. should all the democrats oppose moving to the vote? in other words, filibustering it because that risks the possibility that mitch mcconnell will then say, okay, no more 60-vote threshold on supreme court justices and then what are you going to get in the end of that anyway? nothing good if i would not know how to advise a democratic senator on this. and given that harry reid and the democrats sort of set this precedent anyway about breaking rules like this, that s not good and that could come back to haunt them, particularly if there s another obviously if there s another supreme court vacancy. the list of gorsuches just goes on and on. they had a dozen off the top of everybody s head in washington that the list that gorsuch was on. right. they re all sort of youngish, they re all presentable or most of them are presentable. really this guy, i m sure he s a lovely man and smart. but really, if he wanted to cast in an hour drama you wanted to cast this person, this is from central casting. i mean, the question i guess one of the questions that s being calibrated is how far from scalia is he? where is he in terms of a replacement in that seat? what does he do to the balance of the court? well, the washington post i think had a story, the political scientists have looked at every single opinion of his say he s considerably to the right of both clarence thomas and alito. so i think we have the answer to that question. that s the scalia seat. he may be to right of scalia. the on person ever to the right of those guys. frank rich, welcome back from hollywood. you ve wrapped on veep. we need to see more of you. coming up, the world was watching when the fbi director told congress that the president of the united states was not telling the truth. at ancestry, we call it a hint. simply type in a name and follow the ancestry leaf far into your family s past. a past filled with stories that intrigue. and inspire. and in doing so, reveal the one unique, improbable, and completely remarkable path that led to you. discover your story. start searching for free now at ancestry.com there s nothing more than my vacation.me so when i need to book a hotel room, i want someone that makes it easy to find what i want. booking.com gets it. they offer free cancellation, in case i decide to go from kid-friendly to kid-free. now i can start relaxing even before the vacation begins. your vacation is very important. that s why booking.com makes finding the right hotel for the right price easy. visit booking.com now to find out why we re booking.yeah if you have moderate to severe ulcerative colitis or crohn s, and your symptoms have left you with the same view, it may be time for a different perspective. if other treatments haven t worked well enough, ask your doctor about entyvio, the only biologic developed and approved just for uc and crohn s. entyvio works by focusing right in the gi-tract to help control damaging inflammation and is clinically proven to begin helping many patients achieve both symptom relief as well as remission. infusion and serious allergic reactions can happen during or after treatment. entyvio may increase risk of infection, which can be serious. while not reported with entyvio, pml, a rare, serious brain infection caused by a virus may be possible. tell your doctor if you have an infection, experience frequent infections, or have flu-like symptoms, or sores. liver problems can occur with entyvio. if your uc or crohn s medication isn t working for you, ask your gastroenterologist about entyvio. entyvio. relief and remission within reach. could save money on car insurance.nce you know, the kind of driver who always buckles up. comes to a complete stop. and looks both ways, no matter what. because esurance believes that s the kind of driver who deserves to save money on car insurance. in fact, safe drivers who switch from geico to esurance could save hundreds. so if you switch to esurance, saving is a pretty safe bet. auto and home insurance for the modern world. esurance. an allstate company. click or call. yet up 90% fall short in getting key nutrients from food alone. let s do more. add one a day men s complete with key nutrients we may need. plus heart-health support with b vitamins. one a day men s in gummies and tablets. or how high the pollen count, flonase allergy relief keeps your eyes and nose clear. flonase helps block 6 key inflammatory substances that cause nasal congestion and itchy, watery eyes. for relief beyond the nose. flonase. breaking news. the white house has just announced donald trump s first foreign trip as president. the white house says the president will travel to brussels in may for meetings of heads of state with nato member countries. the president looks forward to meeting with his nato counterpart to reaffirm our strong commitment to nato. the president will surely be asked there by reporters why he has said that nato is obsolete. we ll have more on nato s view of president trump next. where s frank? 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well, i think the first reaction was to report the facts that the fbi director is essentially saying president trump hasn t been telling the truth about all kind of things and that the investigation about the russian involvement is still under way. but i think also the reaction was why is trump tweeting in the middle of all this? why is trump going on and on about this on twitter when there s a very solemn hearing going on in front of the u.s. congress? i think people here are very confused watching this administration, and i think they just don t know what to do when they look at trump s presidency. so one of the things they re doing is they re starting to turn more toward russia. we re hearing a lot here in france, even from presidential candidates about the need for closer relations with russia because russia somehow is a more traditional ally, is a more stable country. it s absurd to think that that would be the case, but that s what we re hearing. it s such a strange turn of logic, if we can even use that word, christopher, but is that just part of just how disorienting the trump phenomenon is in europe? well, i think so. i mean, i think trump is going to in may he s going to the nato summit, well, that s great. but the fact is people here just don t have much confidence in the united states to back them up anymore. and as chancellor merkel suggested in only slightly veiled language, there s real questions now about whether the united states shares the values of europe or at least of mainstream politicians and leaders in europe. is the united states really supporting democracy? does it understand how serious the problems can be if you embrace russia? you know, so what they do is they say where can we look for stability? and if we re not going to get the kind of backing we need from the united states, we better start looking to cut better deals with russia. and how did the merkel visit play in europe, especially the moment of donald trump refusing to shakeer hand camera where everyone could hear it? i think people were appalled. i think merkel understood and i think many europeans understand that the policies of the trump administration are deeply hostile to the european union and in many in many respects to nato. the merkel when she was standing there next to him kept trying to call him out very quietly saying, you know, we believe in europe and you don t
casualties. there has, in fact, been a surge in reported civilian casualties in the u.s. air campaign against the so-called islamic state. and under trump, a massive increase in u.s. drone strikes, more broadly, almost one every two days according to the council on u.s. foreign relations. today, tragically, marked the third time this month a u.s.-led air strike may have killed civilians or even our allies, with 18 syrian fighters alied with the u.s. killed in a coalition air strike in syria. the pentagon blamed partner forces. that news comes on the heels of last week s air strike in syria and now today the decision to launch the mother of all bombs. and we are just 84 days into the trump administration. i m joined by steve schmidt larry corb. larry, i m going to go to you first because there is a very strange donald trump relationship to the military. he claimed during the came papa that you knew more about the generals, that he was smarter about isis, now he s in office he s outsourced everything to them. what do you make of that contact. president trump is going to have it both ways. he s outsourcing to them and if something goes wrong, he will blame them. and he s also making a very tragic mistake as you pointed out here with the number of civilian casualties. that s why you need a civilian to oversee what the military wants. i don t blame the military. i remember when i used to fly for the navy, you d want to, you know, go after the enemy. you ve got to have somebody who looks at the civilian casualties. for him to say he did not know about dropping this so-called mother of all bombs, basically if i can paraphrase general mcmaster s book, that s a dereliction of duty. the first time you drop that bomb, the president s got to be involved. steve, i m not sure which would be worse, if he didn t know about it at all and just outsourced and let them do it, or if he knew about it and won t very clear that he was going to step up militarily the pressure against isis, and isis is a deadly foe, dangerous. there s no room for negotiation here. they need to be destroyed, and i think you see an increasing tempo of strikes in order to do that. it s interesting you mentioned a red line because it seems that the administration was trying to establish two red lines at once. we have the one to steve s point, larry, against isis. but then you have this second one against north korea, which we know is going to apparently do some sort of demonstration against themselves. this is leon panetta on hardball, talking about the seeming other kind of threat that donald trump is sort of vaguely making that if china can t handle north korea, we would somehow do it. this is leon panetta earlier tonight. the fact is we re dealing with a nuclear-powered nation. if we were to try to attack them, they would virtually wipe out seoul and 20 million people who live in seoul. and if it became a nuclear war, which is likely, millions of lives would be lost. and that s the reason we haven t pulled the trigger. the fact is we ve used both containment and deterrence as a princil licy here. i think frankly in the end, that s what we re left with whether we like it or not. and frankly it was containment and deterrence that ultimately resulted in the soviet union self-destru self-destructing. larry, you worked in the reagan administration. that was reagan s doctrine, containment. can donald trump successfully maintain this hyperaggressive posture against north korea and this red line against isis at the same time? you hope so because they are totally different. north korea as secretary panetta said, they have artillery 20 to 30 miles from seoul, and they could literally, you know, with these thousands of artillery strikes wipe out 20 million people. that s without even using their some of what trump is doing is trying to get the approval that he gets from using the military, the sort of love from the media he gets, the sort of respite from the ridicule and attacks on his other aspects of his agenda by using the military sort of as a way to boost himself? so i think we saw during the campaign is that donald trump has this remarkable intuition, this native intelligence almost on how to please the crowd, how to get the applause. i think it s innate to who he is as a marketer, as a communicator. we live in an era where trust in public institutions in this country has completely collapsed across the board. i think it s one of the defining crises in america of our time with one exception, and that s the united states military, which has risen in the eyes of the american people. and i think from my perspective, you look at someone who has the radical world view of a steve bannon, the antagonism to the u.s.-led liberal, global order that presidents from truman through obama, whether they were republicans or democrats all bought irninto. i think people like mcmaster, mattis, extremely well read, prepared. as douglas macarthur pointed out in his farewell address, it s the soldier who hates war more than others because he s seen the terrible cost of it. i m reassured by the presence of these mainstream figures around donald trump. mcmaster, mattis, and donald trump is right. the united states military is one of the most remarkable institutions in the world. it s hyper-competent. it s efficient, and i think that he likes the glow being associated with it that it gives him. yeah. i think the concern that a lot of people have, though, of course is that we have a civilian-led government, and donald trump has put together almost an aware of military leaders and has essentially said they re running things. and you should be reassured by them, not by the president of the united states. i thk that s disturbing to a lot of people. thank you both thank you. > coming up, having rekdled his interest in repealing and replacing obamace, donald trump has come out with a new tactic, threatening to sabotage obamacare and leave millions of americans holding the bag. how democrats are fighting back after this two-minute break. h y. try new flonase sensimist instead of allergy pills. h y. it s more complete allergy relief in a gentle mist you may not even notice. using unique mistpro technology, new flonase sensimist delivers a gentle mist to help block six key inflammatory substances that cause your symptoms. most allergy pills only block one. and six is greater than one. break through your allergies. new flonase sensimist how to win at business. step one: point decisively with the arm of your glasses. abracadabra. the stage is yours. step two: choose la quinta. the only hotel where you can redeem loyalty points for a free night-instantly and win at business. quite, obamacare is dead next month if it doesn t get that money. i haven t made my viewpoint clear yet. i don t want people to get hurt. what i think should happen and what will happen is the democrats will start calling me and negotiating. democrats are countering, however, with some threats of their own. accords to the washington post, democratic leaders determined to use their leverage in the upcoming fight to force the trump administration to make the payments. the president s handling of the first health care bill has been the only thing so far to have a real impact on his approval rating and not in a good way. now he s going back for more and he s threatening to drag the rest of his party down with him. with congress on recess, town halls are back in full swing. just like last time, health care is at the top of the agenda. i talkedo hlth insurance companies,which, by the way, we only have one in the state that will write these policies. one. if you live in eastern tennessee, you don t have anybody. most states right now have one. i m a registered republican in your house district. i m sorry to say i was shocked that you declared your intention to vote for the american health care reform act, the so-called trumcare bill and to replace the affordable care act or obama care. that s not the way we do things here in colorado. it s sad to see these premium increases that are going up. we re living rite now under obamacare. it s the law of the land. it s the law of the land, and you can thank obamacare you can thank obamacare for these huge [ audience shouting ] that s why we need to repeal and replace obamacare. sit down with the democrats and fix the affordable care act. [ cheers and applause ] i want this repeal crap to stop. [ cheers and applause ] i m joined now by senator brian schatz, democrat from hawaii. senator, you know it s been interesting. you look at the town halls and you see that people are showing up clearly angry and terrified frankly that they re going to lose their health care. on the other hand, you have people like congressman dave bratt. i believe he s from washington state, who is positively giddy about the idea of repealing the affordable care act, saying it s a conservative principle. 50 laboratories, 50 experiments going on simultaneously. you can see what works and what doesn t work. he s talking about ending community rating, ending the requirement that states that insurance companies have to not charge older people more than they charge younger people, ending those requirements in the packages. i don t understand what republicans think people want, but do you detect any desire out there to go back to that old system? well, i think that they spent so much time using obamacare as a foil, that they forgot to formulate a policy. so here they are in charge of both chambers, in charge of the executive branch, and it all fell apart really quickly. actually without our intervention as democrats. we didn t have the votes to intervene. they didn t approach us to intervene, and yet it all collapsed within because they were lying for the last seven years. the truth is that what donald trump and many other republicans said for many, many election cycles is you could get rid of the bad stuff and keep all the good stuff. but the truth is that to the extent that the bad stuff is revenue, you need that revenue for taking care of people with pre-existing conditions, for community rating, for people being able to stay on their parents plans until they re 26 years old. so all of the things all of the protections in the affordable care act had to be arranged by virtue of revenue and by virtue of regulations. and now that they don t have president obama as a foil, this thing fell apart, and it fell apart quickly. so you still have 20 or 30 members of the house who are so ideological that they re willing to inflict pain on their constituents, but the rest of them are just running scared, trying how to figure out how to fulfill a campaign promise that nobody wants them to fulfill anymore. you know, you ve had now senator ron widen come out and say we re not going to negotiate with hostage takers. that was the quote in the washington post. ron wyden saying not going to negotiate with trump if he s trying to take hostages. but behind the scenes, would democrats cut a deal with the white house if trump dropped repeal and said, okay, let s do an obamacare fix instead and call that trumpcare? you think democrats would go for that? it s a good question. i think there s two things. first of all, to the extent that donald trump is threatening to withhold money from insurance companies which will harm individuals across the country, which will make hospitals and hospital systems fall apart, if his threat is essentially, i m going to inflict pain on people and destroy the american health care system, or i ll do it with you, we re not going to negotiate under any circumstances like that. now, what we have said all along is if they officially drop their proposals to destroy the affordable care act and we talk about iterating legislation and working on a bipartisan basis, everybody knows aca doesn t work perfectly. but everybody also knows that for any major social legislation, that you iterate it over years, whether it s the social security act, the medicare act, whatever it may be, the clean air, the clean water act. you have updates to that law. this is one of the very few major social changes that had no updates into the statute, which is why it s a little clunky. if they want to get back to legislating in good faith, we are more than open to that. but they have to drop repeal from their vocabulary. and how far are democrats willing to go? if donald trump withdraws from this was essentially a lawsuit that the house republicans brought, saying that the subsidies to these insurance companies were unconstitutional. at the moment, it s on appeal. trump could just say, we re not going to fight it anymore. we re just going to stop paying. how far would democrats go? would they allow those subsidies to go away in order to stand to this position of not participating in repeal? look, this is donald trump s decision. i think he s threatening the american people. i think he s also threatening the legislative branch. one thing that he hasn t figured out is that legislators don t like to be bullied. you know, he s not in real estate anymore. he s sort of trying to treat members of the united states senate, who are former governors and admirals and astronauts and, you know, tv stars, and people with substantial egos and substantial support in their home states. they cannot be bullied. they will not be bullied, and this idea that you can sort of treat members of congress, a co-equal branch of government, as though we re sort of a subcontractor in a real estate deal that he wants to stiff, it s one of the reasons that he s been such a failure so far as a president, is he doesn t understand that we have three co-equal branches of government and that the legislature the legislative branch is not going to be shoved around. so especially on this, we re not gointo allow him to hold the erican people, the american health care system hostage and negotiate under those terms. now, if he wants to improve the affordable care act, we re all in. yep. it is a co-equal branch of government. i think donald trump might be learning some civics 101 in his 84 days as president. thank you very much. appreciate it. thank you. let s bring in jonathan cohn who covers health care for the huffington post. jonathan, i think that last point is very important. you have senators who have their own egos. they have their own power bases. it s not as if they re going to respond to bullying. but more than that, they couldn t get blamed according to the new polling if health care goes awry. it s not democrats who would take the blame. it would be donald trump and republicans. kaiser health did a poll. 61% say the president and republicans in congress are now in control of the government. they re responsible for any problems with it moving forward. i don t understand the politics of threatening to take away subsidies for millions and millions of people when they would get blamed for the, you know, pain that results. do you understand the politics on the republican side? no. this is one of the most baffling political moves i have seen in a long time. i mean you said you cited that kaiser poll. there have been other polls. it is very clear that, you know, if the health insurance system suddenly unravels for millions of people, they re going to blame the people in charge. they re going to blame the trump administration. now, if you listen to trump, who has this weird tick where he likes to tell you what his maneuvers are, like in realtime. like here s what i m trying to do. so his theory is basically, look, i m going to threaten to withhold this money and cause all these problems for millions of people, and democrats will be so upset about that. you know, chuck schumer is going to be on the phone with me saying, please, president trump, let s make a deal. that makes no sense because the alternative that trump is offering is basically to take insurance away from even more people. so, you know, he s basically saying, look, if you don t agree to take i m going to take away insurance from several million people unless you agree to work with me on taking insurance away from even more people. it just doesn t i m honestly baffled why he thinks this is going to work. and do you think that the fact that it s democrats that he s threatening and not his own party is sort of a tacit admission that he can t get a bill through his own party, and so he s essentially admitting that he needs nancy pelosi and chuck schumer to put together the whip count for him? yeah. i mean there s no question at this point. there s a lot of we keep hearing republicans were this close to a repeal bill. they have some really fundamental disagreements within the republican party about what to do. if you try to imagine sort of a way forward on health care to make some changes in the law, it s pretty obvious that the governing majority here is some combination of republicans and democrats. and senator schatz, as he said, democrats would be more than happy to work on a set of bipartisan fixes, you know, modest changes to the law that would make a real difference for people. and, you know, there would be give and take. republicans would get some things they wanted. democrats would get some things they wanted. but the sort of pre-condition for that, the ticket into that conversation is republicans saying, all right. we don t have the votes to repeal the law, so we re going to work with you democrats on making some changes. you know, we ll give and take. you do some things we want. we ll do some things you want, and we ll move forward. it s so easy to imagine what this deal looks like. but, you know, first the republicans some of them, trump, you know, some leaders will have to say, all right. we can t do repeal. let s work on actually, you know, improving this law, fixing its weak spots, which are very real. there s a lot of people who are unhappy. there are a lot of problems with this law. but these are not hard problems to fix if republicans would be willing to work with democrats. very quick prediction. the freedom caucus is predictg they will get something passed through the house of representatives. do you think that will happen? you know, i have no idea. i don t see how they get that coalition right now. but, you know, who the heck knows? you never know in congress. yeah, absolutely. thank you very much. appreciate it. coming up, donald trump s campaign promise of a nationwide deportation force. new reports say the administration is so eager to get started, they re looking at cutting corners to get there. that story just ahead. if you ve tried every pill on the shelf to treat your tough nasal allergies. .listen up. unlike pills that don t treat congestion, clarispray covers 100 percent of your nasal allergy symptoms. clarispray. from the makers of claritin. my insurance rates are but dad, you ve got. .allstate. with accident forgiveness they guarantee your rates won t go up just because of an accident. smart kid. indeed. it s good to be in, good hands. when asked by the new york post if he still had confidence in his chief strategist, steve bannon, who is reportedly feuding with donald trump s son-in-law, this is what donald trump had to say. i like steve, but you have to reme he was not involved in my campaign until very late, trump said. i had already beaten all the senators and all the governors, and i didn t know steve. i m my own strategist. steve is a good guy, but i told them to straighten it out or i will. hardly a ringing endorsement. according to the washington post, who interviewed 21 of trump s aides, confident aunts and allies, the president s comments were described as a dressing down and a warning shot. the one bannon friend reflecting on them wednesday likened bannon to a terminally ill family member who had been moved into hospice care. exactly how this turf war in the white house will affect the course of the trump presidency is ahead. it should not be the first medicine to treat diabetes, or for people with type 1 diabetes or diabetic ketoacidosis. do not take trulicity if you or a family member has had medullary thyroid cancer, if you ve had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2, or if you are allergic to trulicity. stop trulicity and call your doctor right away if you have symptoms such as itching, rash, or trouble breathing; a lump or swelling in your neck; or severe pain in your stomach area. serious side effects may include pancreatitis, which can be fatal. taking trulicity with a sulfonylurea or insulin increases your risk for low blood sugar. common side effects include nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, decreased appetite, and indigestion. some side effects can lead to dehydration, which may make existing kidney problems worse. with trulicity, i click to activate what s within me. if you want help improving your a1c and blood sugar numbers with a non-insulin option, click to activate your within. ask your doctor about once-weekly trulicity. and you re about inyour within. to hit send all on some embarrassing gas. hey, you bought gas-x®! unlike antacids, gas-x ® relieves pressure and bloating fast. huh, crisis averted. era may look like. according to the post, dhs has already found 33,000 more detention beds to house undocumented immigrants and is considering ways to speed up the hiring of hundreds of new customs and border patrol officers, including ending polygraph and physical fitness tests in some cases. which directly contradicts homeland security secretary s john kelly quote that we will not lower stads and we will not lower training. however, he also said that there would be, quote, no mass deportations. but the new memo and the president s own campaign promise suggest otherwise. are you going to have a massive deportation force? you re going to have a deportation fo and you re going to do it humanely. they re going back where they came. if they came from a certain country, they re going to be brought back to that country. that s the way it s supposed to be. joining me now is david nakamura, author of that washington post article on the deportation force. david, before we get to the specifics of the deportation force, i want to read one excerpt from the jeff sessions speech that actually didn t make it into his spoken remarks, but it was written into his remarks. he deviated from it. but he also planned to say that criminal organizations that turn cities and suburbs into war zones, that rape and kill innocent citizens, it is here on this sliver of sand where we will first take our stand against this filth, against this filth. do we know who wrote this speech? we don t know who wrote the speech, but it s interesting that it was left out and yet it was included in the prepared marks delivered to reporters and it got a lot of attention on social media even though he didn t say it. jeff sessions as a senator in alabama was one of the hardest-line senators on immigration that there was in the senate, and he helped really take down president obama s effort at comprehensive immigration reform even though the senate approved that in 2013, in the house and through his pressure and working with conservative house members and ultimately the republican house dropped out. but now he s in a position of power. you see the justice department now becoming more activist on immigration enforcement in a sharp departure from the obama administration, which the justice department sued arizona over their hard-line laws on immigration back in 2011. and now you see this memo that i reported on yesterday from dhs talking about behind the scenes planning to try to fulfill donald trump s executive orders. yeah, and going back to 2014, sessions was called amnesty s worst enemy, the new york times magazine talked about the fact he essentially is kind of the last gasp of bannonism. he, bannon and ller, for them, immigration is a galvanizing issue at the center of their parent vision for reshaping the united states. according to what you were able to find in that memo, how is he playing that out as attorney general? what is the plan? there s two different things. the memo i reported on is from the department of home lewandowsky security. that s general john kelly. this was focused on border patrol. you sort of laid out some of the details. also in there was something you didn t mention, which was that dhs would work with local police departments, deputizing them in many cases and giving them immigration enforcement authority, which has traditionally been the reserve of the federal government. this alarms advocates because they believe local police would not have as much oversight or training. these are the big issues. separately, jeff sessions is trying to make his department have more prosecutions of undocumented immigrants over crimes they commit, which would then put them into the pool of so you have the administration trying to work in concert together to fulfill the president s goals. you mentioned if something happened to steve bannon in the white house, who has been sort of on the rocks lately politically, that, you know, sessions would be the last gassegasp. but sessions is credited as the architect for a lot of this and his action as pre-date as far back as steve bannon s world view. they re pred cating this a lot of this on attempting to characterize immigrants a violent criminals. how do they plan to whip up the criminality doesn t exist in the real world. are they looking to charge people with felonies or higher level crimes? the president talked on the campaign about going after immigrants first of all who have a criminal history. you know, and thoseho already have prior outstanding deportation orders. some of those go back a long time. some of them are for more minor offenses, even traffic offenses. those could be in a pool considered people who have violated legal statutes in the country, and they d be eligible for removal. but session koz attempt to prosecute many more immigrants. right now the justice department focuses on sort of drug cartels and those who commit more violent crimes, prosecuting them and moving toward removals from dhs. he could also prosecute for misrepresenting themselves. a lot of people drive without a driver s license to try to get to jobs in the country. look, the supporters of donald trump might say that s fair game. these people are in the country illegally to begin with and they re committing other violations. what really is the bottom line here is that you see, as i mentioned, different agencies moving to sort of reinvent how they do business on immigration enforcement and trying to, you know, sort of build the a apparatus to deport more people. a lot of this also does depend on funding and right now congress is split on this. it does not seem likely it would be easy for them to get a lot of this funding. and it just so happens there s a nice private prison industry that is eager to provide those tens of thousands of spots. yes, people are lining up for the contracts if those were to happen. thank you very much for joining us. still to come, learning on the job when you re the president of the united states. we ll talk about donald trump s constantly shifting policy points ahead. plus a troubling report card for mar-a-lago in tonight s thing 1, thing 2 starting just after this break. tech: when your windshield needs to be fixed. trust safelite autoglass. for these parents, driving around was the only way to get their baby to sleep. so when their windshield got cracked. customer: we can t drive this car. tech: .they wanted it fixed right. so they scheduled with safelite. our exclusive trueseal technology means a strong, reliable bond, every time. at safelite, we stand behind our work. bye, bye. because the ones you love, sit behind it. (parents whisper jingle) safelite repair, safelite replace. even if you re trying your best.be a daily struggle, along with diet and exercise, once-daily toujeo® may help you control your blood sugar. get into a daily groove. let s groove tonight. share the spice of life. baby, slice it right. from the makers of lantus®, we re gonna groove tonight. toujeo® provides blood sugar-lowering activity for 24 hours and beyond, proven blood sugar control all day and all night, and significant a1c reduction. toujeo® is used to control high blood sugar in adults with diabetes. it contains 3 times as much insulin in 1 milliliter as standard insulin. don t use toujeo® to treat diabetic ketoacidosis, during episodes of low blood sugar or if you re allergic to insulin. get medical help right away if you have a serious allergic reaction such as body rash or trouble breathing. don t reuse needles or share insulin pens. the most common side effect is low blood sugar, which can be life threatening. it may cause shaking, sweating, fast heartbeat, and blurred vision. check your blood sugar levels daily. injection site reactions may occur. don t change your dose of insulin without talking to your doctor. tell your doctor about all your medicines and medical conditions. check insulin label each time you inject. taking tzds with insulins, like toujeo®, may cause heart failure that can lead to death. find your rhythm and keep on grooving. let s groove tonight. ask your doctor about toujeo®. share the spice of life. i can t wait for her to have that college experience that i had. the classes, the friends, the independence. and since we planned for it, that student debt is the one experience, i m glad she ll miss when you have the right financial advisor, life can be brilliant. ameriprise thing 1 tonight, we know donald trump loves to brag about his compaes and his properties every chance he gets from trump hotels to trump states to trump government courses. most leently, trump took the opportunity to tout the dessert options offered at his $200,000 membership mar-a-lago club in palm beach, florida. as he described what he was doing at the very moment he received confirmation of the missile launch on syria last week. i was sitting at the table. we had finished dinner. we re now having dessert, and we had the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you ve ever seen. and president xi was enjoying it. look at that chocolate cake. it does look delicious. it even has his name on it. but it could be pretty risky ordering a slice if you should ever have the chance and the cash to visit mar-a-lago yourself. why? well, that s thing 2 in 60 seconds. termites. we re on the move. hey rick, all good? oh yeah, we re good. we re good. terminix. defenders of home. and you re about in to hit send all on some embarrassing gas. hey, you bought gas-x®! unlike antacids, gas-x ® relieves pressure and bloating fast. huh, crisis averted. mar-a-lago has the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake you ve ever seen according to the owner of mar-a-lago, donald trump, president of the united states. just look at it. it even comes with ice cream, two sauces, and a trump logo right on the top. but we ve learned some information about the kitchen where it s made that may turn your stomach. according to the miami herald, florida restaurant inspectors found 13 health code violations at mar-a-lago s kitchen in january. three of which were, quote, high-priority, meaning they could allow the presence of illness-causing bacteria on plates served in the dining room. a spokesperson for mar-a-lago responded to the report saying, quote, we take food safety very seriously, and all the minor adjustments were made immediately. additionally, the report by the health inspector was updated the very same day to reflect that the mar-a-lago club was in full compliance. the communications director for the florida department of business and professional regulations also released a statement, saying, quote, these infraxzs were part of a routine inspection and were not complaint-based. the infraxzs were corrected on de and the eablishment was immediately brought int compliance. see, that s good news. but maybe now we know why trump always orders his steak well done. when a critical patient is far from the hospital, the hospital must come to the patient. stay with me, mr. parker. the at&t network is helping first responders connect with medical teams in near real time. stay with me, mr. parker. .saving time when it matters most. stay with me, mrs. parker. that s the power of and. guests can earn a how cafree night when theypring book direct on choicehotels.com and stay with us just two times? spring time. badda book. badda boom. or. badda bloom. seriously? book now at choicehotels.com it can seem like triggers pop up everywhere. luckily there s powerful, 24-hour, non-drowsy claritin. it provides relief of symptoms that can be triggered by over 200 different allergens. live claritin clear. threat. mr. xi then explained the history of china and korea. mr. trump said after listening for ten minutes, i realized it s not so easy, mr. trump recounted. i felt pretty strongly they had tremendous power over north korea, he said, but it s not what you would think. that was just one of the trump evolutions or full flip-flops that we learned about in the past 24 hours. for instance, after months and months of railing against china and its currency manipulation, the president in that same wall street journal interview said that his administration won t label china a currency manipulator in a report due this week. and after a presidential campaign in which he said nato, obsolete, the president at a joint news conference with the nato secretary general said, quote, it is no longer obsolete. but while some of those 180s toward a rational conclusion may be heartening to some, a leader who flips and flops in just ten minutes might just as easily flop back, and his decisions may be at the whim of the last person who got in his ear. right now, tt struggle is playing out in the white house between breitbart s steve bannon and the president s family, son-in-law jared kushner and daughter ivanka trump. that is next. think again. this is the new new york. we are building new airports all across the state. new roads and bridges. new mass transit. new business friendly environment. new lower taxes. and new university partnerships to grow the businesses of tomorrow today. learn more at esd.ny.gov ito treat your toughy nasal allergies. .listen up. unlike pills that don t treat congestion, clarispray covers 100 percent of your nasal allergy symptoms. clarispray. from the makers of claritin. lwho s the lucky lady? 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[burke] and we covered it, november sixth, two-thousand-nine. talk to farmers. we know a thing or two because we ve seen a thing or two. we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum today senate majority leader mitch mcconnell had this to say about president trump. some things he said simple tartan way things ought to be. he s learning the job. he was very wbr id= wbr32216 /> critical of nato during the campaign, even suggested nato was obsolete. they said other day wbr id= wbr32380 /> that that s /b> no longer how i feel. joining me is ben how. thank you both. ben, american people be disturbed that donald trump appears to be learning to be president? i think in some ways it can be good, but it really depends who is surrounding him and who s giving him advice. you were talking a minute ago. left foot is going to be depending on the last thing that was said to him. as long as bannon is there, there s a lot of reasons to be concerned. for republicans and conservatives and their agenda, i don t think jared and ivanka who i think aren t taking a lot of control, i don t know that s great for their agenda, but i think it might be better for the american people. as long as it s moving towards bannon getting out, then, yeah, it can be a good thing, at least better than being stuck with just bannon. shannon, do you have in your report whether or not bannon is skating on thin ice and on his way out? there is all of that mercier money and we know rebecca mercier who give money towards the campaign wants bannon to stay. what s the status of steve bannon. when i was with you guys a week ago, i said i really didn t know and i could get 12 different answers. this week, especially in the later half of this week, the wagons are really circling. there s an increasing choir of people saying not necessarily that he ll go but he ll be margin lies and had losing his proximity to the president. finally you re starting to see fraying among the trumpas who have been loyal no tter what happens but some supporters are upset of bannon being margin liesed. one guy said donald trump dropped an emotional anchor. we expect him to keep his word right now. meaning there s a large chunk of his base that wants the bannon agenda specifically. well, yes. but i do think in some ways for trump he s been concerned for a long time making sure the base is with him. there was sort of a band-aid ripping moment with syria where his most ardent supporters were not happy he did this. i know bannon wasn t happy he was doing this. the moment his base started to turn, you ve seen how trump s. once somebody turns on him, he s willing to throw them under the bus. and i think he s willing to throw the base under the bus because they already dislike him anyway. he s known bannon since 2011. there s documented evidence of him being on bannon s radio show. this sort of weird does she think disowning. what might a desperate donald trump do if you would venture to hazard a guess to get approval which is what he wants? well, i think he s going to shift focus to the economy where he feels he is stronger, where he feels he can take stock market to use as a gage of his success there. i think that s a place he feels comfortable. increasingly i think while maybe he didn t get a bump in the poll numbers, he did feel like he got positive feedback from a lot of members in congress and critics about his actions from sea. i wouldn t be surprised to see him taking more of a hawkish approach on foreign policy even if that does alienate some people because there was a lot of positive feedback. including feedback from the media which he doesn t want to admit he craves. do base trump voters let s talk about the working class. do they care whether he opens the plants that are shipping jobs to mexico? i think definitely in terms of blue-collar voters, they re going to care about the same things when obama and bush was p. they re hoping that trump was going to deliver on those promises. whether it s the wall, his positions on how he deals with foreign policy, and he s not coming through on left foot. i think the more they doesn t come through, the louder those voices, are going to continue to be louder and louder in their option to what he s doing which is going to make his life harder. he loves popularity. it s going to be difficult for him. we know donald trump loves to hear the applause, but it s clear he wants to applause of elites, not just that base that showed up at his rallies. can he make the rally calm down by dmorgt people which is a horrific way to get your numbers up. i guess i would just kind of say we re really far away from 2020 and a lot can happen then. right now this administration for the most part controls the agenda. wait until something happens outside of their control, north korea, russia, china, a recession, a natural disaster. there s going to be a lot that s going to happen in these four years. we re 80 somethg days in, but i do feel there s a lot of shifting that can happen in american mind sets in this country in the national agenda that we re going to be dealing with. quick last word, ben. there s so many ways for him to fail over the next four years as far as i m concerned. i don t think there s any question he s going to find ways to disappoint me, personally. we re going to get tired of
an investigative and investigatory perspective how much they will be willing to explain what happened on their platform and how much they will try to hold on to as a trade secret. facebook is not going to keep this same public profile they got for much longer. the old saying you can t be neutral on a social media, train platform, i don t know. i am ari melb ber, we have a professional story we are tracking, what bob mueller might have in his possession and how long agone the story is going. why some conservatives tell president trumps season of betrayal on the white house face-off with espn, their so-called culture war. but first the breaking news from st. louis. this is the scene right there we want to show you tonight. several hundred protesters are in the streets. they are protesting breaking news, an acquittal of a former st. louis police officer who was on trial for murder for g kiting a black man after a car chase. now, today, judge timothy wilson found that former st. louis police officer jason stockily not guilty of the charges of first degree murder. the shooting heard in 2011, a man anthony lamar smith 24 years old, joining us from st. louis with more is reporter casey nolan and our local nbc affiliate. casey, tell us what you are seeing and the background you can provide. well, what we are seeing is a bit of a pause an an active march. it covered at least five miles since 7:00 p.m. central time t. protest has been kind of ad hoc in different parts of the neighborhood. kind of sporadic. they seem to coalesce. this is the central west end neighborhood in the city of st. louis. locally people would tell you it s a high end neighborhood, a lot of shops, restaurants, things of that nature t. message here, a couple different hang on one second. a couple different chances, if i can rum size, up with was get out of the bars, get into the street. i think if i can over generalize, this is a particular kraud, the message to people in the bars, get out of the bars, get into the streets, early on, it was if are you going to kill our people, we re going to kim your economy. so the idea oof being on a night a lot of people are out on the sidewalks, having dinner, business is going on, the idea you need the shut that down. we have an interstate not too far from here. police blocked that off. there is a large police presence there. interstate 64 that runs through the heart of the city t. crowds came back here. we haven t seen much of a police presence, we kind of paused. right. we got 500 people roughly, it s hard to count. if anything, this crowd has gotten bigger in the 5 or so miles. walk us through what has been such a big piece of evidence on the ground in st. louis, because this is a case that hasn t gotten as much national attention, yet, there was strong evidence against the officer, apart from the shooting into the police cash, there was audio evidence the community was upset, showed the officer speaking about killing the person before they even engage some of the things we know have been on the minds of protesters. walk us through that in the make e wake of as i ve reported an acquittal, a judge finding a not guilty in this murder case. reporter: yeah, the thing that is captured on audeia was, we re financial to kill him, we re going to kill that [ bleep ] don t you know? and from there about 45 seconds later, jason stockily did kill him as he said. his attorney says he was in the heat of the moment. we re getting right now a bit of a reaction to us being here. this has been a crowd that s really not interested in talking to the press the main stream press if you will. so right now that s the reaction you hear as she chances, they react. but the audio was an issue,als, there was a gun in the car. the prosecutor said the guns were planted. they say they had dna everyday to prove it. the judge didn t buy it. it has been such a scene there in st. louis. thank you, i want to turn the page from that important story to another one. two big developments in the ongoing russia query, today, a witness outside the bob mueller jury room. tonight another report mueller got a grand jury related search warrant for facebook. because i was discussing briefly with rachel. let s start with this issue. paul manafort s spokesman, he spend two-and-a-half hours before the going, speaking presumably about something to do with his manofart work in relationship. president trump s former campaign share, now it s subject in the bob looul mueller investigation. my name is jason malone. i was ordered to appear today before the going. i answered questions and i have been dismissed. what types of questions did they have? that s all i have to say. that s all he had to say, a buzz feed reporting today on another secret meeting involving at subject in the same mueller probe. this is general michael flynn who is of course under investigation along with kushner, a person of interest and steve bannon, all of them with a se dret meeting with the king of jordan in january, the same time general flynn was pushing a middle east nuclear power plant plan that would have ties to russia. buzz feed reporting people close to the three trump advisers say the nuclear deal was not discussed with the king of jordan. a federal official with access to a document created by a law enforcement said the proposal known as the marshall plan was one of the topics the group talked about. tonight the wall street journal reporting that other news, facebook has given the mueller team even more information about these russian accounts that bought campaign ads on facebook, more than facebook gave to congress. last week facebook told congress about 500 russian-tied accounts. this journal tells us something new. they gave them copies of the ad, the details and the targeting things they used and policy dictates it would only turn over quote stored content of messages and information in a location information in response to a search warrant. let s unpack what could be going on. i m joined by one of the writers oevery that wall street journal piece, de and jill weinbanks, former watergate prosecutor and ms nbc contributor. jim, because of the search aspect, i m going to you first, do you read this as something that potentially requires a search warrant. walk us through why that matters. the search warrant matters because under facebook policy they re limited to what they would do if response to a subpoena, whereas the search warrant will allow them to provide more information. it s also interesting the story about it being more information to mueller than to the congress and, of course, congress has an obligation to make sure our elections are fair and not interfered with. it s important they get as much information about what the russians did on facebook to interfere with our election. so at some point, they will also need that. but it may be more important that the criminal case go forward first. right. and de, what have your sources tell you? well, my sources are telling me that, you know, facebook has been getting a lot of demands for this information and with the itative provided it to mueller because he has more power, he has more ability the ability to actually issue a search warrant and have you an enormous amount of information that comes with that. you have the creative of the ad what the ad looked leak, who the ads were targeted to, all kind of other information that could really help us understand, you know, how effective these ads were. yeah, for folks who aren t a big tech gurus, facebook users, people know what you do see, that s the front end. a lot of this goes to the back end, right in the data, met that data, any information that might have identifying aspects to it. based on your tech exper teerks deepa, do you think this is the kind of navigation can give mueller clues we wouldn t be able get from anyone other than facebook? absolutely. only facebook has copies of the ads, themselves him only they know who the buyers are and able to match that with the ad copy. that i have access to the reach of a particular ad. so they can tell how effective it was and who shared it and there are a lot there are an enormous number of details that only facebook has. they keep that private. that is a big part of the companies ethos. they don t like the share advertiser data, which makes eight little difficult for all of us to understand the nature and scope of these ads during the election, but mueller will have that information. it s very powerful. jill, i wonder if you could walk us through the different features of a potential criminal conspiracy, ultimately, if bob mueller is looking at something illegal, like hacking, he wants to see intel. it seems the facebook piece and the money piece, if threw is one, are other ways. that is to say even if you put the hacking in the filtered e-mails aside the money spent on facebook ads or if any money went into other accounts or changed hands, would be distinct and separate potentially criminal conspiracy acts if americans were involved in would create a hook for muler? absolutely. i think maybe what the public needs to know is that an act in further rance of a conspiracy doesn t itself have to be a crime. if are you spending money, that s not a crime. if you are spending money for an illegal purpose, it become as part of the conspiracy. so if any american paid for those ads or helped to identify how to target them, i think the targeting is a very interesting aspect of how they knew who to go after and how to rile up the public, because these seem to not be related to a candidate, more to issues, and were intended to rile the base in favor of donald trump and to be negative for hillary clinton. and to create events as well. so that they actually hosted events that brought in a lot of americans who, of course, did not know they were being lured there by russians. that s the weirdest part t. event they staged in idaho, according to russian organizers, they put out material is an anti-foreigner event. of course, it was staged by forepersoners, pretending to be americans. you can t make it up. jim, i want to play for you congressman cummings, we have been talking so far tonight about money that went to facebook. then there is all the money that went from other companies to the flynns and what that trail means. here was congressman cummings speaking about this. we want them to come in. the folks who, from these various companies that hired flynn, we want them to come in and tell us exactly how this thing, how this happened and, by the way, andrea, whether it s still going on, it may very well be that this was a major thing that he wanted to accomplish. he traveled all over the world to do it and so we want to know exactly is it still going on and what the communications were with with regard to it. jill, how does a federal investigation approach those entities? some of them may be doing something possibly lawful, which is influence pedaling, right? which we know goes on a lot in washington. yet, it seems flynn s failure to act rattly report on time at least brings some criminal liability into the picture? it s not a coincidence that all of these meetings and all of these relationships were not disclosed. it s interesting they had the meeting with the king of jordan while they were working for the transition. or in the white house, itself, they were working on trying to make money through a nuclear deal that could have also endanger endangered the stability of the middle east and as white house officials or trump foishls. so there is an awful lot of illegal activity there and things that are dangerous to our democracy that i think we need to know about, both in terms of crimes, but also in terms of the politics of it. yeah. jill w jill, deepa, i want to thank you for the last word. have a good weekend. thank you. up next we will talk about why the hats are on fire and what it means for donald trump. plus, later, a must-watch response to president trump s odd demand that he get an apology after an espn anchor discussed his quote white supremacy. and life s beautiful moments.ns get between you switch to flonase allergy relief. flonase outperforms the #1 non-drowsy allergy pill. when we breathe in allergens, our bodies react by overproducing 6 key inflammatory substances that cause our symptoms. flonase helps block 6. most allergy pills only block one and 6 is greater than 1. with more complete relief you can enjoy every beautiful moment to the fullest. flonase. 6 is greater than 1 changes everything. hey you ve gotta see this. cno.n. alright, see you down there. mmm, fine. okay, what do we got? okay, watch this. do the thing we talked about. what do we say? it s going to be great. watch. remember what we were just saying? go irish! see that? yes! i m gonna just go back to doing what i was doing. find your awesome with the xfinity x1 voice remote. president s rights supporters are outraged. he will get creamed on this. it will blow up in hisifies. this, tone deaf, ignorant at ease, at ease there this was a straight-up promise all the way through his campaign. i m sorry, you just are figuring out that trump promises aren t credible now? he likes us. he likes me, anyway. i do think the president does enjoy talking to chuck schumer than mitch mcconnell and ryan. how much do they let donald trump hug them? as much as you can. the goal is to get something done. trump has no idea logical core. he wants to quote win. he loves getting today press. the president likes the idea of cutting a deal and having victorie victories. do you feel something changinging in the air? donald trump s first month in office, we all know were characterized by chaos. much of it self imposed. now we are hearing the new buzz word maybe detrail. maybe chuck schumer and nancy pelosi could have reached a deal on d.r.e.a.m.ers, first report and scrutinized here when that news broke wednesday night. well that had already driven the gop base into a full rage by today. steve bannon s breitbart has the headline, trump supporters begin burning maga hats in protest against amnesty for no wall deal with democrats, followed by red lettering there, you have become the swamp. the article reports on these types of videos from trump supporters. i spoke to one myself earlier tonight. he endorsed trump but joined me on the beat to explain why he was burning his maga hat. we re hearing this from big names, a un coulter now talking impeachment. it s a tall order. does donald trump care? well, one aide says he can hardly remember the last time they seemed trump this pleased. one main reason here may be, guess what, the positive press, which donald trump may actually prize more than loyalty to his congressional republicans. one gop operative on this point explaining we got used to the new normal of chaos, maybe the new normal is betrayal for really no reason. another factor interesting, trump may be insulated from some of this allegedly bad news. you may know about i. i may know about it. he may not. instead of being able to march into the oval office and hand him the latest breitbart headline is playing with his fiercest nationalist reporters, aides supposeing this decision may have to go through a process implemented by, ofx, john kelly the general submitting a document request to get a presidential meeting. according to axios, he is getting fleeting however empty for alleged bipartisanship. you can t get mad about tweets you don t see. joining me to break it all down is the president ceo and ms nbc contributor and a former congressman and a politics reporter from the daily parkway east who broke that story i just mentioned. david, you have been in congress. guf gotten those piles of clips that mention you and access your information. sure. how much of this is donald trump hearing a version of press for the praise for meetings we report to just about everyone? he ran on his ego, he served on his ego, i think it s positive reenforcement he is hearing, if you go back to the advent of the tea party if 2010, remember marco rubio was their hero, he had comprehensive health reform. they kicked him to the curb, paul ryan the author of the ryan plan was this hallmark of conserve 2i678 n is no longer good for the base. trump is going through that, recognizing to get a deal in washington, you have to compromise and the bays will never understand that. the base will never understand it, yet, although i think david s legislative history there is exactly accurate. most of those deals were certainly broader. new polling shows most trump supporters do not face deportation of d.r.e.a.m.ers. people across the political suspect trum, we know it s logical, most people think if you happen to be taken here by someone else, the tlugs u solution is not to deport you today. i think that s what trump understands, he understands the base than a lot of the talking pretend to urns him, most people should be demored. so he is playing into that. he also recognizes he needs to repeat the business and that is widely held their evangelical movement supports the daca and the d.r.e.a.m.ers. this is one of the places he feels he can make a compromise and still looks good, he is being kind and gentle to americans. let s not forget, at the end of the day, donald trump is someone that shows he is not you mentioned rush limbaugh. we got trump dealing with chuck an nancy, trump is happy with it, nancy is happy, trump seems happy with it. not all of trump s voters, 67% fine and dandy with whatever trump does here. and that s what our caller said yesterday. they trust trump. if trump s doing this, then there is a long range reason that we don t know yet. they have total implicit trust. also does that match your reporting? with regard to his supporters? ye yes. well, in terms of the people inside the white house who are certainly not thrilled with with regards to the supposed deal framework that the president has struck with democratic leaders includes his policy adviser steven miller who is an immigration hard-liner and a complete hawk on these issues an wishes daca was something that was brushed into the ash heap of history. as we reported at the daily beast yesterday, there were other senior aids in the room during this dinner wednesday night and this high profile meeting with chuck and nancy. stephen miller was conspicuously absent and back to what you were saying earlier, regarding how upbeat the president has been with his supposed deal making with democratic leaders on capitol hill it s important to remember if the president thought mitch mcconnell and paul ryan weren t so mean to him, he would be striking a different kind of deal. as we ohrted. you are making a really important point, which is if normal politics the underlying history matters a great deal. in trump s world, there is no history, it s only today, if chuck schumer is 10% nicer than him, that s what he responds to almost like a pet. correct. and from our reporting, talking to people in and outside of the white house who are very close to the president, he sees republican leaders such as paul ryan, mitch mcconnell as insufficiently loyal and thoroughly incompetent and capable of getting anything done. look, i m not saying spite is his only motivating factor in terms of what he s doing right now with, in the president s words, chuck and nancy, but how, his relationship or lack thereof with people like ryan and mcdone p connell has all but insured he runs into the arms of other leaders. they happen to be democrats. funny is a funny thing to charge, this entire thing, this was supposed to be tax mopth, they re going to unite around that as republicans, donald trump girls got cornered by the attorney generals, who said we will sue you over the d.r.e.a.m.ers, he felt so jammed up, he made a labor day holiday announcement. he bought the the blow back and he s doing the schumer-pelosi thing, all he s doing is reacting to other people with no plan, david in the insult is to paul ryan and mitch mcconnell, trump should u could have struck the same deal and taken a burden off mcconnell and ryan s back, the big picture is this, this is the tragedy of donald trump, a guy that struck two deals, a critic at month. main stream republicans we were looking ar a candidate to swing us back from the tea party to get us back to what buckley used to call the most conservative candidate that can get elected. he should have sat down with chuck schumer and had guards on the back portion of the white house and said, let s do a deal, instead he showed this di vice it rhetoric, leadership. we saw the attacks and so forth, so now it s not believable that he s working with democrats. donald trump was a democrat, now a republican. no idea logical core, a transactional deal maker. if he had been that on the campaign trail and that from day one in officer, he could have brought the party back to the main stream. he blew it. david s point is in donald trump were a candy bar, no one would want it. nobody wants a candy bar without a filling. everybody hangering. some core. without the core, bring it home. i think that s a challenge. i think of the politicians in that room, nancy pelosi is incredibly astute and recognizes she has too leverage as much as possible. i think schumer has a new yorker and is feeling he is playing the inside baseball of donald trump. what will happen? nobody knows, we know that. but we do know that the more that the democrats are actually fawning over donald trump, encouraging him to do the right thing the fact that kelly is controlling the information that he receives, you get a sense there is much more a sense of discipline happening into the white house. he is actually getting positive encouragement that seems to feed the narcissistic piece that makes him do the right thing. again, talking to the folks in the immigration movement, no one is taking anything for granted. they will continue to do the work that needs to get done. unless they find something on paper, everybody is a little mystified. they don t know if this is a deal they will see. by filed on paper, you mean etched in stone. you worry about him ripping up the paper, to, the travel ban had multiple orders, the paper needs a little reenforcement. thank you all. good to be with you. coming up, this is something really important. a must-watch response that just happened to donald trump s demand for an apology after an espn anchor called him a white supremacist. for tech advice. dell small business advisor with one phone call, i get products that suit my needs and i get back to business. supremacy fight and instead bring a more equivalence stirred it for weeks, this week, congress passed a unanimous resolution to condemn one side ready to take groups and reject trump s rhetoric. that debate is of course the context for jemele hill s comments and posted a few essay arguing trump s embrace of white supremacy is the core of his appeal. that for the first white president. what would coates think about this debate? well, tonight, on all in with chris hayes, he talked directly how trump is trying to play the victim calling on espn to punish someone for criticizeing him. this is what white stream sifts tend to do going back to slave holders, who insist the north was trying to sub just fate th gait them. it s the white supremacists offended. i think it s characteristic. that is the fight between uspn and trurp which is partly a battle between a political entity and a corporate entity for speech. that s really a strategic battle when you get down to it. what about the underlying ethical allegation here? coates points to public evidence. if you own a business that attempts to keep black people from renting no you, if you are reported to say that you don t want black people counting your money, if you say, you know, not report it. come out and say someone can t judge your case because they re mexican, if your response to the first plaque president is they weren t born in this country, despite all proof if you say they weren t smart enough to go to harvard law school and demand to see their grades, if that s the essence of your entire political identity, you might be a white supremacist. strong words and a lot of everyday. up next, that a-nehisi coates explains further and i will weigh in live. go your own way once-daily anoro contains two medicines called bronchodilators, that work together to significantly improve lung function all day and all night. anoro is not for asthma . it contains a type of medicine that increases risk of death in people with asthma. the risk is unknown in copd. anoro won t replace rescue inhalers for sudden symptoms and should not be used more than once a day. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition, high blood pressure, glaucoma, prostate, bladder, or urinary problems. these may worsen with anoro. call your doctor if you have worsened breathing, chest pain, mouth or tongue swelling, problems urinating, vision changes, or eye pain while taking anoro. ask your doctor about anoro. go your own way get your first prescription free at anoro.com. arguments, i can make an argument the way they affect plaque people in a negative way. i wouldn t argue mitt romney is a white supreme sith. donald trump there is a lot in the back of the charge. it s the core of him. he began his career in birtherrism. it wasn t on the way. that it was thing that got et started. that was the thing that kicked it off. i think in that sense he s different. that s what got it started. i m joined by a former aid to hillary clinton and a seniored a national spokes woman from moveon.org. zerlin a, on the one hand, they want to be in a fight, a thoughtful and celebrated author engaging the underpinnings of the, that barack obama caused a backlash that many republican leaders to their initial credit did not fully engage and donald trump stood up in 2011 and 2012 and embraced racist birtherrism. it was a little commune yvette. they said i agree, the first black president wasn t born in the united states. they would say, i believe barack obama when he was not born in kenya. the underlying message there is you know if you are talking to the republican base, they don t believe anything barack obama says. so if the message is, why believe obama when he says he was born in the united states the message to the united states is he wasn t born in the united states, i think donald trump stoked a lot of the racial resentment in the week of economic down turn, particularly white working class voters in the rust belt donald trump spoke thad resentment. he ran on white identity. you say he ran on white identity. coates talks about it if race is, in part, a myth. donald trump he argues is the first president because he s appealed so directly and blatantly to whiteness as a political strategy. when you see the white house then trying to turn this and say, the president, a, should be able to say they re good people at a white supremacist rally but b should be offended when people what factually point out he is getting comfort to a white supremacist rally? i think it s important to look at a myriad of examples of president trump saying things that people would consider a race it. i m not saying every single person that voted for donald trump shared those views, they certainly supported those views and overlooked that in the direction. i think that s why you get a certain level of defensiveness. in defending donald trump s acts that he says are racists, saying mexicans are rapists, bank black people, saying plaque people live in hell, those are racist objectively and offensive to those communities of people so in order say that the people that overlooked those things and voted for him, including the hollywood access tape, that s when you get into trouble. that s when people get very defensive. i think it s important that we re having this conversation in this country because until we actually are honest about it, we will never move past it. corinne. i think it s clear that donald trump is a racist. i mean, birtherrism, for sure, i mean, it goes back to when his first kind of start in business was making sure that black people were not able to get housing and then you have the central park 5 and what he did there and accusing them of being guilty, asking for their execution an even when they were found fought guilty, he still never apologized for everything taking out that big ad in the 80s, he insulted mexicans, there is clear patterns, deck e decades of patterns of donald trump being a racist. here s the thing, the republicans, the republican party is, indeed, they built him. they enabled him. let s not forget, back in 2012 when mitt romney was having his convention, the republicans were asking their convention in tampa they invited donald trump to speak during the convention. and there is a year after donald trump basically was the voice of birtherrism. so they certainly gave that. i have a point. either it was always this way and donald trump is just continuing it or he wasn t and it is of something different. coates argument is he is distinctly worse and different than these other leaders. as tore where the supporters are, i ll say what other people say, it s just anecdotal reporting experience, i went to a lot of trump rallies, i met a lot of people who clearly weren t racist. yet have you this, kareem, let me put up data on a very bake question. this is 2017, are all races equal? okay? shouldn t be a hard question. and about 18% of americans won agree with that statement. so 2017, 18% of people, that would be a floor on the ceiling. you mightt want to realize that, 18% of people can t sign onto the idea that we are equal? it doesn t surprise me, ari, because of just look at where we are today. i mean, racism is definitely in, it s institutional, right? even in the interview that chris hayes had, with ta-nehisi coates, there are levels for people that experience racism. there are different the kind of how do i want to say, how did it he say that was really perfect? he says that people, you have to do more in order to reach a level like for president obama to be president, right? he had to be have gone to harvard law school. there was a lot for him to do. where donald trump he had no political at all experience. so that is i feel that is the difference here. there is a difference in this institutional racism we see. here s point i want to make sure with the espn part, a couple days ago, you had a white miss texas say the same thing a black espn host said. you didn t hear anything the white house say about that. there was silence about that. as the only plaque member of a business count sim and attacked him when he dropped out after his comments on charlottesville, he didn t attack the while ceos, i don t say he realizes in the moment he is attacking plaque people. there is a pattern. there will be a dereliction of duty if we omit that. thank you both for your discussion. coming up the ethics, what happened with the legal defense fund to foot bills in the russia probe. bring lawyers, guns and money. that is the famous line from the anthem, but don t forget the next line. how was i to know she was with the russians too? and bob mueller s investigation people need lawyers and money and as aides lawyer up the bills are mounting which is what made this week s announcement from an otherwise obscure department interesting. it s the office which walter vacated this summer when he said he could no longer work with the administration. with schaub gone the obama office ruled back a rule that requires transparency like the ones trump aides want to use. that would keep everybody in the public in the dark about who s bankrolling lawyers for trump aides which is a big deal. one spent years as a secret funder of lawsuits targeting his press enemies and it worked. he secretly used the courts to sue and bankrupt an independent media website that was only exposed after he won the lawsuits. so all of this matters a lot. secret donors, secret court agendas. the trump administration s effort to reverse this rule got hammered and that led them to reverse their reversal. now secret donations as of tonight are back to being banned. some people worry that nowadays it s like nothing matters, but here we should note for you this pressure worked at least for now. maybe the administration will try to change it again. we will be watching. one of the ethics watchdogs working the issue is also pressing trump in court where it won an order forcing the release of visitors to mar-a-lago. deadline was today. they coughed up 22 names. the ethics group says there s over 1,000. they re going to keep suing for the rest. mar-a-lago also in the news because trump just got taxpayers to reimburse him for a mar-a-lago visit. the government paid the trump owned club to reserve at least one bedroom for two nights. the charge, according to a new receipt that the washington post got a hold of, $1,092. one of the lawyers who leads that group is richard painter. he worked for george w. bush and he is going to get the last word tonight. switch to flonase allergy relief. flonase outperforms the #1 non-drowsy allergy pill. when we breathe in allergens, our bodies react by overproducing 6 key inflammatory substances that cause our symptoms. flonase helps block 6. most allergy pills only block one and 6 is greater than 1. with more complete relief you can enjoy every beautiful moment to the fullest. flonase. 6 is greater than 1 changes everything. [ l vwho can turn the worldan jeton with her smile?s who can take a nothing day, and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile? well it s you girl, and you should know it. with each glance and every little movement you show it. you re gonna make it after all. it takes a long time to get to the top. you re gonna make it after all. but with america s best you re gonna make it after all. bumper-to-bumper limited you re gonna make it after all. warranty, the all-new volkswagen tiguan will be there every step ow! of the way. but on the inside, i feel chronic, widespread pain.like most people. fibromyalgia may be invisible to others, but my pain is real. fibromyalgia is thought to be caused by overactive nerves. lyrica is believed to calm these nerves. i m glad my doctor prescribed lyrica. for some, lyrica delivers effective relief for moderate to even severe fibromyalgia pain. and improves function. lyrica may cause serious allergic reactions, suicidal thoughts or actions. tell your doctor right away if you have these, new or worse depression, unusual changes in mood or behavior, swelling, trouble breathing, rash, hives, blisters, muscle pain with fever, tired feeling, or blurry vision. common side effects: dizziness, sleepiness, weight gain, swelling of hands, legs and feet. don t drink alcohol while taking lyrica. don t drive or use machinery until you know how lyrica affects you. those who ve had a drug or alcohol problem may be more likely to misuse lyrica. with less pain, i can do more with my family. talk to your doctor today. see if lyrica can help. this inot this john smith.smith. or this john smith. or any of the other hundreds of john smiths that are humana medicare advantage members. no, it s this john smith. who we paired with a humana team member to help address his own specific health needs. at humana, we take a personal approach to your health, to provide care that s just as unique as you are. no matter what your name is. 2,000 fence posts. 900 acres. 48 bales. all before lunch, which we caught last saturday. we earn our scars. we wear our work ethic. we work until the work s done. and when it is, a few hours of shuteye to rest up for tomorrow, the day we ll finally get something done. ( ) joining me for tonight s last word, richard painter, a professor of law, vice chair of citizen for responsibility of ethics in washington and a former bush attorney. walk us through mar-a-lago and what it means. well, mar-a-lago of course is the president s private club down there in palm beach and right after he was elected the dues apparently doubled from $100,000 to $200,000. we have a lot of people joining that club in order to get access to the president. meanwhile he s been taking a lot of trips down there and we had the united states government billed $500 a night for a hotel room. that s a lot of money to most taxpayers, i think we ought to be entitled to know who s coming in and out of there and lobbying the president and that s exactly why crew, citizen for responsibility and ethics in washington, brought the action in new york and the judge entered the order. and we don t think the president is complying with the order. we re going to go back to court. we re going to get those names and we re going to find out who s coming in and out of there. all they told us today is who the japanese prime minister s butler was and a bunch of other useless information from one particular visit and that s not what we asked for and that s not what the judge asked them to give us. right. so they by one count have 1,001 names. they only give up 22. is that going to upset the judge? do you think they re violating the spirit or direction of that order? we ll see what the judge has to say, but it does want look they complied with the order. that s not the way i read the order. they need to disclose who s coming in and out of there to lobby the president. this is has been referred to the winter white house, flying him and out of there. reimburse them $500 a night for hotel rooms. we have the right to that information and we re going to get it. do you think it s a deliberate business strategy him making these visits and trying to profit off the presidency? of course. he s making money off of it and that s not the only way he s making money. we re entitled to know who s going in and out of there just we re entitled to get the visitor logs out of the white house. and if we have to go back to court, we re going to keep going back until we get the information. the american people are entitled to it. it s an interesting case. it s get something reaction. that combined with the ethics office backing off that one rule today. you get tonight s left word. thanks for joining. thank you. appreciate it. in you want to catch me any weeknight, 6:00 p.m. eastern, there is the beat. with ari melber, that is my new show. i hope you ll check it out. monday i ll have a former federal prosecutor and a wall street journal reporter who broke that facebook story that we touched on tonight. hope you ll tune in. don t go anywhere right now. the 11th hour with brian williams is next. tonight while the evidence point to a president happy with
the attorney general was questioned for several hours by mueller s team last week on wednesday, according to a source close to sessions. former fbi director comey, he spoke with investigators last year. the interviews, we know, focused on two things. first, russia s meddling in the election. and second, whether or not president trump obstructed justice since taking office, especially as it concerns his firing of james comey in may. jeff sessions and james comey, they are of key interest. sessions for his meetings with the russian ambassador during the campaign, and of course the fact that he was involved in the firing of james comey. of course, as for former fbi director james comey, he took many notes that he s talked about, about his interactions with the president, and of course the special counsel will be interested in comey expanding upon those. the president weighed in on sessions interview on tuesday. are you concerned about what the attorney general told the special counsel? not at all. not at all. did you talk to him about it? didn t, but i m not at all concerned. reporter: sessions interview is a major development in shoot probe. the white house has continually said that it is cooperating with mueller s investigation. thank you. robert mueller s team is interested in why the president asked the fbi deputy director, andrew mccabe, who he vote for in the 2016 election. mccabe was acting director at the time of the discussion. according to a story first reported by the washington post and then the new york times, the president and mccabe met in the oval office shortly after the president fired james comey. mccabe described the exchange as disturbing. he reportedly told the president he did not vote after de not vote. after declining the discussion, president trump said he did not answer after asked mccabe about his family and the discussion pivoting to politics and his wife who ran for virginia senate as a democrat and received huge donations from terry mcauliffe, an ally of the clintons. the fbi is not commenting. this as president trump denies fbi director christopher wray threatened to resign over pressure from attorney general jeff sessions to fire or reassign mccabe. he didn t. he did not even a little bit. nope. and he s going to do a good job. white house press secretary sarah huckabee sanders could not explain how president trump would know wray has not threatened to resign. she guesses he found out from conversations he had with the fbi director. new signs that former trump campaign aide rick gates may be negotiating with special counsel robert mueller s team. gates has quietly added defense attorney tom green to his legal team. that indicates ongoing talks with prosecutors. green was spotted at mueller s office twice last week. in october, gates pleaded not guilty to eight charges of money laundering and failing to register foreign lobbying and other business. his longtime partner, former from the latest cache of text messages exchanged by two fbi officials who were later removed from the russia investigation. in one newly revealed text, counter-intel specialist peter strzok seems to suggest he doesn t think there is any there there in the mueller investigation and for that matter doesn t want to be part of the investigation. strzok and lisa page discuss a secret society and ways to fix damage done by the fbi investigation into hillary clinton s e-mail server. this is the latest ammunition for republicans already suggesting there may be something nefarious behind the loss of months of text messages between the pair. the republican chairman of the senate intel committee says don t read too much into that. today senate democratic leader chuck schumer has pulled funding for the border wall off the table. he offered the wall in exchange for daca protection for d.r.e.a.m.ers in talks with president trump last week over cheeseburgers. last night the president lashed out at schumer s change of heart, crying chuck schumer fully understands especially after his humiliating defeat that if there is nowalli wall, is no daca. john cornyn called the move a step backward. some say he offered the wall funding as part of the negotiation and for the white house to bank the offer was unfair. now this about the only bipartisan compromise it would not secure or border, encourage more illegal immigration, increase chain migration, and retain the visa lottery system. in short, it s totally unacceptable to the president and should be declared dead on arrival. one of the deals architects republican lindsey graham responded, the white house better start telling us what you re for rather than what you re against. security secretary kirstin nielsen told spus without commitments it was impossible to negotiate with her. tonight the president heads to davos. not on vacation but on global business, attending the world economic forum. gary cohn, director of national economic council, says the president will sell his accomplishments high and remind world leaders the u.s. is open for business. many cabinet members will travel with the president including treasury secretary mnuchin, secretary of state rex tillerson, and commerce secretary wilbur ross. there are also planned meetings with british prime minister theresa may and israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu. he heads to davos as trade tensions are running high. the tpp is back on that trade deal, remember, but not for u.s. just as president trump restricts asian imports, trump ditched the transpacific partnership a year ago. the remaining 11 pacific nations have forged ahead without the u.s. japan, canada, mexico and others say their new trade deal will help combat rising protectionism. there s concern that the u.s., a longstanding leader in global trade, is turning inwards as others preach america first. i m defending american companies. they ve been badly hurt from harmful import surges that threaten the livelihood of their workers, of jobs all over this country. trump signed an order slapping tariffs on foreign solar panels and washing machines to help u.s. companies. that could likely hurt some consumers. americans buy washers from other countries. a tariff will make all washers more expensive. foreign makers will have to offset the higher costs. with less competition, u.s. companies can raise prices. tammy duckworth is about to become the first u.s. sitting senator to give birth. the illinois democrat announcing she s expecting her second child in april. nine other women have had babies while serving in congress, but none were in the senate. duckworth says her daughter abigail is ecstatic to welcome her baby sister home adding, as tough as juggling the demands of motherhood and being a senator can be, i m hardly alone or unique as a working parent. duckworth is a retired army lieutenant colonel who served as a helicopter pilot in the iraq war. she was elected to congress in 2013. she is a double amputee, folks. this is one of the toughest womenor men in all of congress women or men in all of congress. just fantastic. great for her and her family. really wonderful basketball game between two other kentucky high schools wore marshall county high orange and blue as a tribute to the victims. the alabama house of representatives has advanced a bill to eliminate special elections when vacancies occur in the u.s. senate. it would instead allow senators appointed by the governor to serve out entire terms. the republican-backed bill passed along party lines and now moves to the state senate. the house member who sponsored the bill says he wants to spare taxpayers the cost. the race to replace jeff sessions did cost $11 million. house democrats say voters should have a say, clearly aware a governor in deep red alabama is likely to appoint a republican senator. and this, of course, weeks after democrat doug jones won a narrow victory over roy moore. formal sentencing expected later today in the trial of disgraced usa gymnastics dr. larry nassar. court resumes at 9:00 a.m. eastern with more of nassar s sexual abuse victims scheduled to deliver impact statements. there have been 163 so far including an 18-year-old who demanded an apology and got one. i believe in forgiveness, larry. you and i are human beings. we make mistakes. although you have hurt me, i want to forgive you and feel closure and move on to healing in my life. i want you to apologize to me right here. i want to forgive, but i also want to hear you tell me that you regret all the hurt that you ve caused. [ inaudible ] thank you. the ncaa is investigating michigan state university for its role in the scandal. nassar was also a doctor for student athletes there. faculty members have called for an emergency meeting of the faculty senate for a vote of no confidence in president luanna simon. florida voters will decide in the fall whether a million and a half felons will get their voting rights back. if 60% approve the amendment would restore voting rights to state residents with felony convictions after they complete their sentences, including parole or probation. the petition spearheaded by the group floridians for fair democracy would not apply to those convicted of murder or sexual offenses, those ex-cons would still be permanently barred from voting. the san francisco board of supervisors appointing one of its members to serve as interim mayor but not without drama. mark farrell was approved after the board voted down president london breed. she s been the acting mayor since the sudden death of ed lee last month. the vote coming after hours. the public comment with charges of racism toward breed who is black. some argue who breed who is running for mayor in the citywide election in june should not have a leg up over other candidates. farrell is not on the ballot. the secretary of state with some harsh words for moscow. rex tillerson says russia is complicit in syria s use of chemical weapons. we re live in moscow. hold together. a little to the left. 1, 2, 3, push! easy! easy! easy! (horn honking) alright! alright! we ve all got places to go! we ve all got places to go! washington crossing the delaware turnpike? surprising. what s not surprising? how much money sean saved by switching to geico. big man with a horn. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more. hi, i m the internet! you knoarmless bowling.lt? you got this, jimmy! you know what s easy? building your website with godaddy. pick a domain name. choose a design. you can build a website in under an hour. now that s a strike! get your domain today and get a free trial of gocentral. build a better website in under an hour. i love you. you ll always be up to date. you can easily add premium channels, so you don t miss your favorite show. and with just a single word, find all the answers you re looking for - because getting what you need should be simple, fast, and easy. download the xfinity my account app or go online today. breaking news overnight. at least two dead and 12 injured in a suicide attack outside a save the children aid office in afghanistan. one attacker detonated a suicide bomb at the gate, and another attacker was killed by security forces inside the building. police are still working to clear part of the building. we ll bring you updates as they become available. president trump and the turkish president scheduled to speak by phone today amid a growing rift over turkey s assault on kurdish troops. sarah sanders says the goal is to get turkey to de-escalate. a top adviser tells cnn the u.s. assured turkey it would only support kurdish militias until isis was defeated. turkey considers isis eliminated and says the ongoing military operation is necessary to protect the border with syria. a school in aurora, illinois, closing for a week due to a flu outbreak. one in six students that attend the illinois math and science academy were absent monday. school officials confirm most of them were suffering from flu-like symptoms. 13 of the 55 faculty members were also out with flu symptoms. illinois math and science is a residential high school where students live in dorms on campus. flu remains widespread in 49 states and puerto rico. at least 30 chi 0 children have from the illness. the hard part at this point, as you know, is no one has the flu shot. they are out across the country. the vaccine. there might be one clinic in a given city or town which is deep trouble for parents. this is january. a lot of people tried to get the flu shot in october, the beginning of the flu season. now there s this rush as people are reading headlines. look, 30 children dying from the flu. it doesn t peak until march. that s triple from last year. gives you some perspective there. the firings of james comey and michael flynn under increasing scrutiny. rapid developments in the russia investigation, next. if you have medicare decision guide. it could help you find the aarp medicare supplement plan that works for you. these types of plans have no networks, so you get to choose any doctor who accepts medicare patients. rates are competitive, and they re the only plans of their kind endorsed by aarp. remember - these plans let you apply all year round. so call today. because now s the perfect time to learn more. go long. major developments in the russia investigation. the special counsel narrowing its focus. why michael flynn and james comey firings could be critical. new reports say the president asked the acting fbi director who he vote for in 2016 right there in the oval office. it comes as the white house beats back claims andrew mccabe job was targeted by the attorney general. and a kentucky community is reeling after yet another school shooting. two teens are dead as the epidemic shootings continue across the country. good morning, everyone, welcome back to early start. i m dave briggs. i m christine romans. 31 minutes past the hour this wednesday morning. russia special counsel robert mueller focusing on the firings of former fbi director james comey and former national security adviser michael flynn as he prepares to interview president trump. two sources confirming to cnn a story first reported by the washington post that mueller is aggressively scrutinizing efforts by the president or others to hamper the investigation. cnn s sources say the terms for questioning the president are far from set. mr. trump s lawyers want him to answer questions in written form only but understand there may be in-person interviews. press secretary sarah huckabee sanders was asked why the president has not simply fired mueller. she said he hasn t in part because of how the media might react. why doesn t the president just get rid of robert mueller, fire him? mr. gidley said that it s wasting taxpayers money. in that regard, why doesn t he just end the investigation? because it s wasting the taxpayers money. look, we want to see this come to a complete and full conclusion. i think we all know what everybody in this room would do if the president did that, and i don t think that s helpful to the process. the report on mueller s plans coming as we learn two critical players in the probe have already spoken to mueller s team, including a member of the cabinet. more from cnn s jessica schneider in washington. reporter: we do now know that both the attorney general and former fbi director james comey have both been interviewed by the special counsel s office. the attorney general was questioned for several hours by mueller s team last week on wednesday, according to a source close to sessions. former fbi director comey spoke with investigators last year. the interviews focused on two things first, russia s meddling in the election, and second, whether or not president trump obstructed justice since taking office, especially as it concerns his firing of james comey in may. jeff sessions and james comey are of key interest. sessions for his meetings with the russian ambassador during the campaign, and of course the fact that he was involved in the firing of james comey. and of course as for former fbi director james comey, he took many notes that he s talked about about his interactions with the president and, of course, the special counsel will be very interested in comey expanding upon those. the president weighed in on sessions interview on tuesday. did the attorney general tell the special counsel not at all. not at all. did you talk to him? no, but i m not concerned. reporter: jeff sessions interview is an important part of the probe. the white house says it is cooperating. robert mueller s team also reportedly interested in why the president asked fbi director andrew mccabe who he voted for in the 2016 election. mccabe was the acting director at the time of the discussion according to a report first reported by the washington post and then the new york times. the president and mccabe met in the oval office shortly after the president fired james comey. mccabe described the exchange as disturbing. he reportedly told the president he didn t vote. after declining comment to the post, the white house told the times mr. trump did ask the question. a white house official tells the times it happened after trump asked mccabe about his family, with the discussion pivoting to politics and mccabe wife. his wife ran for virginia state senate as a democrat. and received $500,000 in donations from a pac tied to terry mcauliffe, a clinton ally. the fbi is not commenting. all this as president trump denies fbi director christopher wray threatened to resign over pressure from attorney general jeff sessions to fire or reassign mccabe. did he threaten to fire no, he didn t. he did not each a little bit. did not even a little bit. nope. he s going to do a good job. press secretary sarah huckabee sanders could not explain how president trump would know wray has not threatened to resign. she guesses he found out from conversations with the fbi director. president trump inclined to allow the release of the memo spearheaded by congressman devin nunez said to allege the fbi has abused surveillance laws. a person familiar with the matter is telling cnn the move is contingent on the house intelligence committee approving declassification. that could come next week. the white house insists no decision has been made on the release. conservatives have rallied around the memo, but democrats say it is republicans latest attempt to undermine special counsel robert mueller s investigation. i think it is sloppy, careless, and again, i think has no grounding in fact. top democrat on the house judiciary committee said it was profoundly unfair that house republicans have not share the policemen oh the memo with the fbi and justice department, the agencies the memo claims to unmask. new details from the latest cache of text messages exchanged by two fbi officials who were later removed from the russia investigation. in one newly revealed text, counter intel specialist peter strzok seems to suggest he does not think there is any there there in the mueller investigation. in others, strzok and fbi lawyer lisa page discuss a secret society and ways to fix damage done by the fbi investigation into hillary clinton s e-mail server. this the latest ammunition for republicans, already suggesting there may be something nefarious behind the loss of months of text messages between the pair. but the republican chairman of the senate intel committee says don t read too much into that. it may be a technical glitch. the bureau, the fact that they have provided the rest of them certainly doesn t show an intent to try to withhold anything. attorney general jeff sessions promising to leave no stone unturned, looking into why the texts were not saved by fbi retention software. efforts in congress to find common ground on an immigration bill are not off to a great start. senate democratic leader chuck schumer has pulled funding for the border wall after the table. schumer offered the wall in ex-change for daca protection for d.r.e.a.m.ers in talks with president trump last week. last night the president lashed out at chuck schumer s change of heart. cryin chuck schumer fully understands especially after the humiliating defeat that if there is no wall, there is no daca. john cornyn, second ranked republican in the senate, called chuck schumer s move a step backward. dick durbin, second-ranked democrat, said schumer offered wall funding as part of a negotiation and for the white house to bank his offer was unfair. the white house is saying this about the only bipartisan compromise it would not secure our border, encourage more illegal immigration, increase chain myself, and retain the visa chain migration, and retain theviews lottery system. in short, it s totally unacceptable to the president and should be declared died on arrival. one of the deal s architect responded lindsey graham said, the white house better start telling us what you re for rather than what you re against. homeland security secretary kirstjen nielsen got a similar message, pushing for her department s immigration priorities. democrat claire mccaskill said she told nielsen without agreement with president trump, it was impossible. a group of scientists is suing the epa saying they were illegally removed from the boards and committees as they received illegal grants. the epa announced it would not allow scientists to serve on the panels to keep advisers and free from potential interference. the scientists argue their removal was aterry and a violation arbitrary and a violation of the act. a spokesman refused comment because of pending litigation. democratic senator steve mnuchin of west virginia telling colleagues he will run for re-election this year, that s according to the new york times. chin s flirtation with mnuchin s flirtation with retirement triggered talks among democrats who feared losing the seat to a republican in solid red west virginia. he s been vocal about his displeasure with washington telling chuck schumer and others, this place sucks. he plans to file re-election paperwork before saturday s deadline. democrats must defend ten states in november and states president trump carried. tonight president trump heads to the swiss ski resort town of davos. not a vacation but on global business, attending the world economic forum. gary cohn, director of the national economic council, says the president will sell his accomplishments and remind world leaders the u.s. is open for business. many cabinet members will travel with the president including treasury secretary mnuchin, secretary of state rex tillerson, the commerce secretary wilbur ross. and there are planned meetings with british prime minister theresa may and israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu. this comes at a time when the u.s., there s a lot going on in the trade front. they re in the final stage of renegotiating nafta. that s not going well. the united states has imposed tariffs that are not popularpopulara popular among the crowd at davos. how do you think he ll be greet thursday? you ve been there. he s the star. he likes pomp and circumstance and pageantry to welcome him. he won t get that. he will get a lot of attention. he is now the marquee guest for sure. fascinating dynamics. ahead, a kentucky community mourning the loss two of high school students. a 15-year-old facing charges for opening fire at their school. another deadly shooting. yellen steps down february 3rd. she was first woman to lead the most influential bank. the first chair in nearly 30 years ton get a second term. a 15-year-old student facing murder and attempted murder charges after police say he opened fire at marshall county high school in western kentucky. two people were killed. police identifying those victims as 15-year-olds bailey holt and preston cape. 14 others suffered various injuries. the victims range in age from 14 to 18-years-old. these children belong to this community and to specific families in this community. this is a wound that is going to take a long time to heal. mourners held vigils around the area last night. students attending a basketball game between two other kentucky high schools wore marshall county high orange and blue as a tribute to the victims. police have yet to reveal a motive. gabby giffords, a victim of gun violence herself, issuing a statement saying this is the 13th mass shooting this year. this calendar this year. it is january 24th. the alabama house of representatives has advanced a bill to eliminate special elections when vacancies occur in the u.s. senate. it would instead allow senators appointed by the governor to serve out entire terms. republican-backed bill passed along party lines and now moves to the state senate. the house member who sponsored the bill says he wants to spare taxpayers the cost. the race to replace jeff sessions did cost $11 million. house democrats say voters should have a say. clearly aware a governor in deep red alabama is likely to appoint a republican senator. this of course just weeks after democrat doug jones won a narrow victory over roy moore. former sentencing expected later today in the trial of disgraced usa gymnastics dr. larry nassar. the court resumes at 9:00 a.m. eastern with more of nassar s sexual abuse victims scheduled to deliver impact statements. so far there have been 163, including an 18-year-old who demanded an apology and got one. i believe in nor giveness, larry in forgiveness, larry. you and i are human beings. we make mistakes. although you have hurt me, i want to forgive you and feel closure and move on to healing in my life. i want you to apologize to me right here. i want to forgive you, but i also want to hear you tell me that you regret all the hurt that you ve caused. [ inaudible ] thank you. the ncaa is investigating michigan state university for its role in the scandal. nassar was also a doctor for student athletes there. faculty members have called for an emergency meeting of the school s faculty senate for a vote of no confidence in president lou anna simon. david and louise turpin will appear at a court hearing today. prosecutors are seeking a criminal protective order that would bar the parents from contacting the children before the case goes to trial. it would prohibit direct or indirect contact in person, written, or electronic. authorities allege the turpins held the kids, age 2 to 29, captive in their home, chaining them, not feeding them or letting them shower. both parents are being held on $12 million bail. the san francisco board of supervisors appointing one of its members to serve as interim mayor, but not without some serious drama. mark farrell was approved after the board voted down its president, london breed. she s been the acting mayor since the sudden death of ed lee last month. this after public comment that included charges of racism toward breed who is black, but some on the board argued breed, who s running for mayor in the citywide election in june, should not have a leg up on other candidates. farrell is not on the ballot. a series of storms barreling toward the pacific northwest could dump over a foot of rain through the weekend. meteorologist pedram javaheri with the latest. good morning. we ve got an interesting setup here across the pacific northwest. a series of storms working across the region. one of which comes in later on today. we bring in heavy rainfall with it. not too unusual for this time of year. a break between wednesday and thursday, and a couple more systems line up with the moisture source directed toward portions of the northwest going into, say, saturday and sunday. how much moisture are we talking about? winter weather advisories, storm warnings, already in place across the region for significant mountain snow and certainly heavy rainfall along the coast. generally six to ten inches, some areas could see more than a foot of rainfall. that s on the immediate coast. get into the mountains, the snow amounts could accumulate to over four feet across parts of the cascades and even into the siskiyous, as well. big story developing over the next couple of days across the pacific northwest. really beyond that, generally quiet. we have snow showers, much of it lake enhanced, across the great lakes. temperatures across chicago into the 30s. little rock, around 60. dallas, middle 60s. new york, normal for this time of year, call it around 40. it will stay around the same trend for the next couple of days around the northeast. guys? all right. thank you very much. netflix just joined an exclusive club of companies worth $100 billion or more. we ll tell you why on cnn money stream next. my name is jeff sheldon, and i m the founder of ugmonk. before shipstation it was crazy. it s great when you see a hundred orders come in, a hundred orders come in, but then you realize i ve got a hundred orders i have to ship out. shipstation streamlined that wh the order data, the weights of , everything is seamlessly put into shipstation, so when we print the shipping ll everything s pretty much done. it s so much easier so now, we re ready, bring on t. shipstation. the number one ch of online sellers. go to shipstation.com/tv and get two months free. secretary of state rex tillerson says russia bears responsibility for failing to hold the syrian regime accountable over using chemical weapons against its people. tillerson in paris at a meeting with high-level diplomats to discuss a new international effort to combat chemical weapons. let s go live to moscow and bring in cnn s fred pleitgen. fred? reporter: good morning. all this comes after what appears to be another chemical attack that recently happened on the outskirts of damascus there in syria. clearly the u.s. firing at russia over all this holding russia accountable. one of the things secretary of state rex tillerson said toward the russians, he said that russia s failure to resolve the chemical issue in syria called into question its usefulness in trying to find a resolution for the conflict as a whole. now, after tillerson made the comments, there was a big diplomatic battle of words at the united nations between nikki haley, u.s. ambassador to the u.n., and the russian ambassador to the u.n. both sides trading barbs there. nikki haley saying, look, this should weigh heavily on the conscience of the russians. the russians for their part firing back and putting forward their own resolution on how to deal with chemical weapons that the u.s. calls a ploy to try and distract from what s going on. all this coming as the russians apparently are looking for new ways to influence u.s. policies. one of the main think tanks that s close to vladimir putin put out a paper saying that the russians will create a lobby inside the u.s. to try to influence things going on there. christine? thanks, fred. president trump and turkish president erdogan will speak by phone today amid a growing rift on turkey s assault on troops in syria. the u.s. and the kurds are allies. sarah huckabee sanders says the goal is to get turkey to de-escalate. a top adviser to erdogan tells cnn the u.s. assured turkey it would only support toured issue militias until kurdish mishals until isis was defeated. turkey says the ongoing military operation is necessary to protect the border with syria. let s check cnn money stream. global stock markets are lower after the u.s. stocks hit fresh record highs. the dow closed slightly lower, but look at the s&p 500. the nasdaq, all-time highs helped by a strong earnings season. netflix, big story there, surged 10%. reported record subscriber growth. now worth more than $100 billion. it joins an exclusive club of only 59 companies in the s&p 500 worth at least $100 billion. the new tax bill is a gift to big banks and jpmorgan chase is giving some of that gift back to its employees. 22,000 workers will get a raise. mainly frontline employees like bank tellers and customer service representatives. the bank will also open 400 new branches, hiring 3,000 new workers. jpmorgan credits tax cuts, less regulation, and an improved business climate for the investment. it s not so rosy for all companies, though. the makers of huggies and kleenex is laying off 5,000 workers. kimberly clark blamed low prices and poor sales of consumer goods. toys r us is planning to shut one-fifth of its stores, closing 180 stores as soon as next month. toys r us declared bankruptcy in november based on the shift toward online shopping. it will close unprofitable stores this. after a brutal year for retaile retailers. u.s. store closings hit a record high in 2017. there s so much change happening in the retail space. and in many ways, it s good for consumers, you know. when there s how s that? there s so many more choices and competition for your dollar, especially on line. but a lot of people are crushed that their local toys r us is closing. true. the new ones i guess will emphasize experience and babies r us, a successful model. early start continues with a major day in the russia investigation.
he was facing an uphill battle. a lot of people, including the republicans do not believe he has the experience of veterans affair and though he does have credentials as a doctor, he does not have the credentials to run something that brig. it s still a very fluid situation. right now the president says he s standing by dr. ronnie johnson and he s going to leave whether he steps aside up to ronny jackson. i heard the line where you have trump saying we wish to work on this new deal with iran. can you tell me what it is the president of the united states wants and what is it about this deal that macron that he d being to change? reporter: look, all we know is the line you just cited. there s no more information coming from the president what this deal might be. the french president went into much more detail. he said don t rip up the current deal until you have something else. so keep the deal this is the french president laying out his argumen arguments, he said keep the deal and we need another deal for the 2025 era, and we need a de th president wants extra deals on top of the existing deals, meant to assuage the concerns he has with the current deal that s been made with iran. the big question is going into this would mr. macron be able to prod, push, nudge mr. trump toward keeping the current deal? there isn t a whole lot of indication that s going to happen. a couple of hours ago mr. trump was saying that deal is inday and is insane, is ridiculous. he said nobody knows what i will do on that day, except you perhaps, emmanuel. teasing the world until the next episode on may 12th. mike rogers used to chair the house intelligence committee. congressman, nice to see you, sir. welcome. great you see you, brooke. thanks for having me. what s your take on the iran deal? why would iran even agree to a new deal period? well, i don t think they would. it certainly wouldn t be in their interest. and i think china and russia would be nudging them not to accept the deal. all of the things that the french president presented as could we get another deal on top of it are really ideas that a lot of us opposed to the deal put forward at the time. meaning is there a way to get after their ballistic missile program, which is turning into a dangerous element across the middle east, all of the cash that was dgiven to iran at the start of the deal, that $150 billion we re seeing in places li li like yemen. i was opposed to this deal. i hope the president doesn t rip it up. but if you could get a side deal, can you build sanctions on iran around their missile program. that would be a powerful thing forlt next few years and still keep our allies together around the nuclear deal that i think all of them admitted was flawed. are you saying keep with plan a because there isn t a plan b, but if you re mentioning the side issues, the deal could be i wouldn t wait until 2025. we can start doing that now. they re testing missiles outside of u.n. resolutions already. they re already violating u.n. resolutions just in their missile pr missile program. so keep the nuclear program and he called them four pillars. if he could get the president there, that would be a great outcome for us and our allies, maybe that s where they re hoping to get him. the president earlier today was asked about the language he used in describing this he referred to as honorable. here he was. kim jong un was he really has been very open and i think very honorable from everything we re seeing. now a lot of promises have been made by north korea over the years but they ve never been in this position. and congressman, just watching the president standing there with macron, he said he hopes to beal would you consider kim jong un honorable? not even close. this is somebody involved in kidnapping japanese women. his regime was responsible for the slaughter of people who disagreed with him and he thought that might in fact fry to take him out. remember what he did to himself father brother to try to cuckoo no, he s not an honorable guy. do you even think trump should meet with him? i have an and just slightly that we may have turned kim jong un a little bit. i think the pressure of the and think he does not want to give up his nuclear weapons. there s no doubt about it. so that s this one point where the president reemphasizes that he understands that that is the line for kim jong un. but getting him in a room might get us to the next step. if it doesn t, i ll give trump credit for this and i ll just get up and get out of the room. that s probably the best way to set up a m and i m not going to have any more tests until after the talks. not a big deal but it s a concession. i think getting any concession out of the north korean dealer is probably a good step. doesn t mean we re close. doesn t mean it going to. speaking of walking out, here s my final question of you, not physically walking out of a proverbial meet of a meeting, we mean we ve been reporting on allegations that according to weeks we ve been talking to, this was not and the white house gave them a heads up of the stories that could would come out and the president called dr. driven and i don t think he ll do it personally. do you think that was the president giving the guy an out to just withdraw? clearly to me that s southern democrats thought they were going to get a scalp on mike pompeo. that didn t happen. you also have republican and it doesn t mean he s guilty of anything. do you want to go through a whole other series of fights for your veterans affairs secretary or do you want to move on? i think the president said it s going to be tough, i ll stand with you because i nominated you but if you really want out of this, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, this would be the time to do it. congressman mike rogers, thank you very much. we do have more on this breaking news. we re learning about the specific allegations against dr. ronny jackson, which include excessive drinking, handling of prescriptions. we ll have that for you. also more cabinet drama. the white house right now debating whether epa chief scott pruitt will remain in his job. and we ll discuss and talk about who didn t get an invite in tonight s big state dinner. being voted out of the carpool? try zyrtec®. it s starts working hard at hour one. and works twice as hard when you take it again the next day. stick with zyrtec® and muddle no more®. that i served. of the fact i was a c130 mechanic in the corps, so i m not happy unless my hands are dirty. between running a business and four kids, we re busy. auto insurance, homeowner s insurance, life insurance policies. knowing that usaa will always have my back. that s just one less thing you have to worry about. i couldn t imagine going anywhere else. they re like a friend of the family. we are the cochran family, and we ll be usaa members for life. save by bundling usaa home and auto insurance. get a quote today. the kayak explore tool shows you the places you can fly on your budget. so you can be confident you re getting the most bang for your buck. alo-ha. kayak. search one and done. anna and a little nervous. into retirement. but not so much about what market volatility may do to their retirement savings. that s because they have a shield annuity from brighthouse financial, which allows them to take advantage of growth opportunities in up markets, while maintaining a level of protection in down markets. so they can focus on new things like exotic snacks. talk with your advisor about shield annuities from brighthouse financial- established by metlife. caterpillar, which had excellent results but they warned the steel tariffs weren t going to get any better. so it s a case of what have you done for me lately? secondly, you have an overarching reports of earnings that are good but not brilliant. the u.s. treasury bond hit 3%, the ten-year bond. it takes the wind out of stocks and you start to look for a rotation. knowing it and seeing it happen are two different things. more allegations against the president s v.a. nominee and the president essentially giving him an out on that. also ahead, the first lady stealing the show alongside the french first pamfamily today. we ll talk about this fashion choice. any guesses of what she might wear tonight to the big state dinner? we ll be right back. patrick woke up with back pain. materials to form an incredibly strong bond. for the toughest jobs on planet earth. does your business internet provider promise a lot? let s see who delivers more. comcast business gives you gig-speed in more places. the others don t. we offer up to 6 hours of 4g wireless network backup. everyone else, no way. we let calls from any of your devices come from your business number. them, not so much. we let you keep an eye on your business from anywhere. the others? nope! get internet on our gig-speed network and add voice and tv for $34.90 more per month. call or go on line today. now back to this whistleblower bombshell that might derail president trump s next pick as the veterans affairs secretary, dr. ronny jackson. the doctor was started moments ago on capitol hill and when asked about the allegations against him, here s how he responded. is there any truth to these allegations? i m looking forward to rescheduling the hearing and getting the process moving. thank you. reporter: any truth to these allegations? thanks, guys. reporter: what makes you qualified for this job? thanks, guys. reporter: what makes you qualified for this job? reporter: can you answer the questions adequately in. i can answer the questions. i m looking forward to rescheduling the hearing and answering these questions. we know these new allegations just brought his confirmation hearing to a standstill. it was supposed to happen tomorrow. it s now been postponed indefinitely. that s go to our senior congressional correspondent. you smoke with leaders, manu, what is his response? they brought up his doling of prescription drugs and a toxic work environment. two whistleblowers have come and told this information to the senate veterans affairs committee and they include at least one person who is a current associate of dr. jackson s and another person who a former associate of dr. jackson s. i should caution, the senators are not sure whether or not these allegations are accurate but they are troubling enough they decided to take the extraordinary move and delay a wednesday confirmation hearing over his nomination. the leaders made very clear they want more records and they want to look into this further. because, quite frankly, i don t have enough information to say this is true, this isn t true, this is true. we re continuing the vetting process and we ll get to the bottom of everything. reporter: are you concerned about what you have learned so far? if it turns out to be true. mr. jackson and myself and everybody in congress needs to take a deep breath, give the man a chance to be heard, let s give as you chance to ask the questions that need to be and as chairman i m going to see to it this information that comes to my attention that needs to be vetted, it s going to be vetted. the white house has been derelict in the vetting process, which accounts for some of the problems with their nominees. some republicans agree with senator blumenthal s assessments of concerns with the vetting process, saying these are things you d come up with before a nomination is proposed. in the meeting that ronny jackson just had with the republican of kansas, he denied doing anything improper, he said he s looking forward to answering all these questions. he says there is nothing he s done that should disqualify him from this post. it seems like ronny jackson is ready to dig in, even as the members investigate these allegations it and could linger until some time. manu, thank you. on the same cabinet trouble beat there s more to report with someone else in the administration. cnn has learned the white house is debating whether it s time for scott pruitt to go. he has been a problem and a major distraction from an ethical standpoint. he has denied any wrongdoing and so far the president has not soured on him. so our cnn politics reporter and editor at large is with me now. i see three faces already on your screen with perhaps more to go. talk about a group you don t necessarily want to join. first of all, let s remember broadly donald trump pledged i will bring the best people into my administration. i will bring people that no one else running for president or has ever been president before can bring. let s start over here. rex tillerson, gone because he and donald trump could not get along. that s actually somewhat of a success story for trump because my pompeo looks like he might replace tillerson. and tom price, you might have for gotten about him. gone because liking to fly, high priced either first class or private planes. then here we ve got david shulkin. this is the job that ronny jackson is at least nominated to lead veterans affairs. shulkin, big problems with, wait for it, using taxpayer money to fund his wife s trip to europe with him. these are the three that are gone! these are tngss and so we ve got three fired. we ve got all of these that have tensions. jeff sessions, the attorney general, it would take a whole show to go through his problems. ryan zinke, interior, problem with flights again. betsy devos, has done a number of negative things as it treelts public relations. and down here, this is the big one, scott pruitt, it feels to me like the temperature has changed. we ve seen this with some of the other cabinet members donald trump has fired. it builds and builds and build and they say no, no, no, and all of a sudden donald trump gets sick of the negative press. i think that s where we re headed to. it s a group people don t want to join. we could get into this whole macron visit to the white house, all the brushing of i don t know what that was on macronel. where do you want to begin? i do want to get to this picture i do want to go to this picture. this is the four of them after macron and trump both gave speeches. lots of people talking about melania trump s hat. that s the buzz of the picture. i want to point this out. i find the political theatrics fascinating. what is going on here and here? why is macron doing the hook em horns sign? it s super weird. melania trump grabbing his other two figures. donald trump grabbing just macron s middle finger, super, super awkward. these are the things i spend my life trying to figure out, brooke. it s a blessing and a curse. is there any more you want to dissect from this photo? you have the horns and the middle finger. 60 degrees in washington when this picture was taken. i sweat a lot at all times. i don t wear an overcoat unless it s 20 or below. one other thing. i ll go from happiest to least happy to be in this picture. happiest. she s thrilled. i think it s probably the hat. macron, this is like a devious look because he s doing the hook em horn thing and then you get to brigette macron thing and she s like, wait, we re doing hand in pocket move? my biggest takeaway is that macron may be a secret kiss fan. we ll have to do a whole cnn special on that one. i expect that to be your next topic for your next show. we will be right back. so we swapped your car out for the all-new chevy traverse. yes. do you think it s going to surprise your daughter? absolutely. wait, is mom here yet? where s mom? she s in this car. what the heck? whoa. yo, whose car is this? this is the all-new chevy traverse. this is beautiful. it has apple carplay compatibility. do those apps look familiar? ohhhhh. do you want to hit this button? there s a hidden compartment. uhh, whoa. mom, when i m older can you buy me this car? i wanna buy me this car. almost $800 when we switched our auto and home insurance. with liberty, we could afford a real babysitter instead of your brother. hey! oh, that s my robe. is it? when you switch to liberty mutual, you could save $782 on auto and home insurance. and still get great coverage for you and your family. call for a free quote today. you could save $782 when liberty stands with you. liberty mutual insurance. president emmanuel macron. joining me, the man who is legendary in the world of fashion, he s dressed first lady michelle obama 20-plus times. it s nice to see you. so happy to be here with you, brooke. i want to get into the pressure of dressing a first lady. first, we have to show the photos of melania trump today. she s in, in my opinion, stunning white michael coors blazer and hat and the blazer is stealing the show. what do you think? i think it s gorgeous, glamorous, very old hollywood. she looks great and i love the hat actually. i love the hat, too. looking ahead to tonight and the state dinner, you dressed michelle obama a number of times. was the 09 india dinner the first one for you when she was wearing your dress? yes. i was in miami when she wore it because i had no idea until the last moment that she was going to wear it or not. it was always a big, big surprise. we re playing through all of these. i think that was the dress from 09. we re going through all of the different dresses she wore of yours. perfect because it was the india state dinner, you re an indian designer. what was the process of designing for her? it was never 100% you were sure she was going to wear it. you get a call from the white house saying it s the india state dinner, would you design a dress for her? so it was always close to time. you have to pull in all plugs. they were afraid to give me measurements so i had to actually design from figuring out the dimensions when you do art class, you know that your face is like nine inches. you have to like divide everything up. cleverly i designed a strapless on a stretch core set with a stretch lining so i had a few inches to play with just in case it got a little to make sure it fit right. but also i had this i wanted a little bit of history in there on the first state dress that i did for her. when i worked for halston, i worked with warwhol but the embroidery was andy warhol and you take the poppies on a it just looked rich and glamorous. now you go to all this work and you re pulling out all the stops and you don t even know if this is the dress she s going to wear? which was kind of crazy because i was here for thanksgiving in miami and when i found out that she wore my dress, hell broke loose. my poor building was stormed with news and everything else. i m sure it was. and that you didn t even have her measurements and through magic you pulled it off and then some. but ending back to melania trump, this is the french state dinner. any guesses on who she may wear, what she may choose? if i take a wild guess, she will wear american and it s probably ralph lauren. that s my wild guess. and i just feel because it s america, he s so american, so it might be the way to go. but i think she should wear american. that would be the right thing. why? last yes. because you are part of america. you need to promote american designers. you need to, you know, you re the ambassador for this country. and you are the first lady. you have to be part of, you know, the fashion of america. and you have to pick an american designer. i think it s very, very important. naeem khan, thank you so much. always good to see you. good to see you, brooke. coming up, the man who police say ran over pedestrians in toronto is now charged with ten counts of murder and we re learning of his praise for a mass killer. and no bail for the waffle killer. what he s telling police and why his father may also face charges. it was my very first car accident. we were hit from behind. i called usaa and the first thing they asked was are you ok? they always thank you for your service, which is nice because as a spouse you serve too. we re the hayles and we re usaa members for life. see how much you could save with usaa by bundling your auto and home insurance. get a quote today. are you one sneeze away from being voted out of the carpool? try zyrtec®. it s starts working hard at hour one. and works twice as hard when you take it again the next day. stick with zyrtec® and muddle no more®. we need to help more tocalifornians get ahead.d, that s why antonio villaraigosa brought both parties together to balance the state budget with record investments in public schools. and new career training programs. as mayor of la, he brought police and residents together to get illegal guns off the streets and keep kids out of gangs, and on the right path. that s antonio villaraigosa. a governor for all of california. the officer didn t shoot. moments later the suspect was arrested. while police say the attack was deliberate, they do not yet know a motive. there will be no bond for accused tennessee waffle house shooter. today a judge revoked his $2.5 million bail. his grandmother said he is, quote, a sick boy. he is expected to appear in court tomorrow but there could be more charges for his father. he may face legal troubles because he gave his son s guns back to him when he wasn t supposed to. meantime, this happened today inside the tennessee statehouse. james shaw jr., the hero who tackled the shooter and prevented more death was honored today by state claulawmakers ane waffle house says it will offer compensation to the victims. starting with the waffle house shooter and his father. there had been multiple instances in the past. he thought taylor shift was stalking him, tried to trespass at the white house, ends up getting arrested. authorities do all the right things, take his guns away, prevent him from buying firearms, presumably give them to his father, his father presumably gives them back to his son. is the father in trouble? there s no question the father didn t act in a way that we in society would want a responsible father to act. i think law enforcement specifically got a promise from him that he wouldn t give the guns back to his son. if the father knew in some way that he was planning something like this and gave the guns back, he could be liable for some kind of accessory to murder. but that doesn t sound like the case we re dealing with. what it sounds like is he gave them back, just knowing his son was mentally unstable. right now as our federal and many of our state firearm laws exist, that s not a crime. and that s what s, you know, the bigger issue here. so under illinois law as i understand it, he would actually be liable because they do have a stricter law that was enacted after sandy hook where you have to have a special license to have a gun, like a permit, and if you he would not have been eligible for that anymore. that was revoked. so if the father knew that and gave the guns back, then under illinois state law, he could face some liability. but under federal law, he, as i understand it, only had a misdemeanor conviction at the time. you can t give a firearm knowing they re what s called a prohibited person under federal law. but having a misdemeanor is not a prohibited person. the atf agent was asked about that and he said maybe. and just lastly, red flag laws. that s the point, i think really here, the broader point about the shooting. one is if there were red flag laws in illinois, in tennessee, this was a guy who should not have guns. i mean, i really don t think any reasonable person could disagree with that. and law enforcement knew that and was looking at him. they could have petitioned a court and had the guns taken away from him and from the home. the way they did it was much more informal. they just knew it wasn t right for him to have gun. they gave them to the father. under red flag laws, they d go through proper procedures and take the guns and keep them away from the home. you don t want the guns going back to where a dangerous person lives. next, to president trump, jennifer. earlier today when the president was talking about a lot with reporters, the question was posed with regard to his personal attorney michael cohen, are you thinking of pardoning him? this is the president s response. thank you very much. stupid question. go ahead. any other anybody else, please? so he says stupid question. i would posit that the man is under criminal investigation, it s a valid question. do you agree with me? well, of course. lots of reporters have been asking him about this and he s been talking about it. sounds likes he just didn t want to talk about it in that moment. he doesn t want to talk about this pardon issue. a lot of people are suggesting the scooter libby pardon out of nowhere and the call to cohen right on the heels of the search warrant excuse is signaling he will pardon him. do you think the scooter libby thing was a signal or the posthumous pardon of the boxer calling him up a month ago? i think the timing, you have the search warrant excuse on a monday. on friday he says i don t even know scooter libby but i hear he was treated unfairly. at the department of justice it takes months and months and months to go through a pardon request, including ask the prosecutors what they think about the request, he didn t do any of that. it looks to me like he s sending some sort of message there. jennifer and mimi, thanks so much on all things legal today. president trump called north korea s dictator honorable, shot down questions about michael cohen. details from a very significant news conference today next. with an ingredient originally found in jellyfish, prevagen is the number one selling brain-health supplement in drug stores nationwide. prevagen. the name to remember. .most people. but on the inside, i feel chronic, widespread pain. fibromyalgia may be invisible to others, but my pain is real. fibromyalgia is thought to be caused by overactive nerves. lyrica is believed to calm these nerves. i m glad my doctor prescribed lyrica. for some, lyrica delivers effective relief from moderate to even severe fibromyalgia pain, and improves function. lyrica may cause serious allergic reactions, suicidal thoughts or actions. tell your doctor right away if you have these, new or worse depression, unusual changes in mood or behavior, swelling, trouble breathing, rash, hives, blisters, muscle pain with fever, tired feeling, or blurry vision. common side effects: dizziness, sleepiness, weight gain, swelling of hands, legs and feet. don t drink alcohol while taking lyrica. don t drive or use machinery until you know how lyrica affects you. those who ve had a drug or alcohol problem may be more likely to misuse lyrica. with less pain i can do more with my family. talk to your doctor today. see if lyrica can help. talk to your doctor today. if you have moderate to severe plaque psoriasis, little things can be a big deal. that s why there s otezla. otezla is not an injection or a cream. it s a pill that treats psoriasis differently. with otezla, 75% clearer skin is achievable after just 4 months, . with reduced redness, thickness, and scaliness of plaques. and the otezla prescribing information has no requirement for routine lab monitoring. don t use if you re allergic to otezla. otezla may cause severe diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. tell your doctor if these occur. otezla is associated with an increased risk of depression. tell your doctor if you have a history of depression or suicidal thoughts, or if these feelings develop. some people taking otezla reported weight loss. your doctor should monitor your weight and may stop treatment. other side effects include upper respiratory tract infection and headache. tell your doctor about all the medicines you take and if you re pregnant or planning to be. otezla. show more of you.