russia and syria to understand what's happening. go to facebook.com/shawnhannity. that's all the time we have left. see you tomorrow night.onononon. fair, balanced, unafraid. here's martha. >> martha: day 83, the head of nato says yes actually, he president that all the nations should pay their fair share. >> we know that we all need to contribute our fair share because we need to keep our nation safe in a more dangerous road. >> martha: the president who says this as a campaigner. >> i was asked by a reporter about what we think about nato? i said it's obsolete because it doesn't cover terror. it was a big scream, trump is saying is obsolete. >> martha: watch. >> the secretary general and i had a productive discussion about what tornado can do in the fight against terrorism.

i complained about that a long time ago and they made a change and now they do fight terrorism. as it was obsolete. it's no longer obsolete. >> martha: it china the country he repeatedly went after is now talking about cracking down on north korea's nuclear program. president trump softens his recent lamp asked of china. you're not alone if you think day 83 looks like opposite day. ♪ welcome to "the first 100 days" everyone, i martha maccallum and in keeping with our theme tonight, the breathless concern that a trump administration would be too cozy with russia. now looks downright chilly. >> i expressed the view that the current state of u.s.-russian relations at a low point. there is a low level of trust between our two countries. in the world foremost nuclear

powers cannot have this kind of relationship. >> martha: we begin today with rick edson traveling with the secretary of state tillerson in moscow. >> martha, after hours of meetings in russia with the russian president, with russian foreign minister sergei lavrov secretary of state rex tillerson and lavrov gave a conference here. they made it very clear they solved very little. tillerson said assad's time in syria is coming to a close. lavrov said that bashar al-assad is a legitimate ruler of syria. he is recognized by the united nations and also asked that someone point out to him the last time a dictator was successfully deposed. tillerson and lavrov also failed to agree on whether assad used chemical weapons to kill his own people. >> the recent chemical weapons attack carried out in syria was planned, and it was directed and executed by syrian regime forces.

we are quite confident of that. >> i'm not convinced this is the case. nor are we convinced by the tv images. or by statements of people who were at the airport. >> they also argued over russian interference in the u.s. election. tiller some called it fairly well established. lavrov disputed that while the two were arguing here in moscow, the sides were also arguing in new york at the united nations. this is where russia used its veto power on the u.n. security council to defeat a western lead resolution that would condemn the use assad regime and also asked to provide evidence of what exactly happened the night that the administration charges in the west charge that assad uses chemical weapons against his own people. >> martha: thank you very much pretty here with moore, senator david purdue who sits on the senate armed services committee. welcome. glad to have you here tonight.

so your take on what we saw, my mind goes back to the concerns over rex tillerson when he was nominated for secretary of state because he had received a commendation as a ceo for exxon from the russian government. he wasn't giving them any quarter really tonight at all. >> right. i think what you see in the bigger picture is the president of the united states standing up and leading again and that's what we needed for a long time. last week, he reengaged with china in a face-to-face with president xi jinping. today, rex tillerson is over there with putin. you can see the outcome. when you stand stand up to a lr like putin, you're going to have some rough days but we are establishing what our national interests are and were being very explicit about that with nato, the united nations, with china and now with russia. >> martha: the fact that were hearing such opposite from what we heard from now president trump when he was on the campaign trail, he went after china, he's been going after them for years.

overnight at mar-a-lago and a dinner seems to have changed that. he talked so much about the opportunity that he saw in a relationship with vladimir putin and russia in terms of going after terrorism. now were completely on the opposite spectrum, both of those. why is that? >> i think he's chasing the same objective though and that is to a quarter of the china influence in north korea, to stop the flow of goods in and out of north korea. so did he get that fixed? yes, he did that. there's some positioning that goes on in the political race but i think it's all part of a longer-term strategy to reengage on the international global scene to support and defend america's interest around the world. at this thing that he did last week in syria was decisive, it was measured, it was proportional. that's the action of a mature season leader pretties only been in here as you said 83 days today. but i am excited at the fact that we are re-engaging in the world and that's what i hear from foreign leaders all over the world that they want america

to lead again. that doesn't mean they want 100,000 troops of american soldiers in syria but what they want is re-engagement to find balance in the world again. >> martha: there's clearly pushed back where there wasn't any in the past. senator john mccain as the chairman of your armed services committee, he's called and lindsey graham is called for perhaps the need for continued military action against syria. do you agree with him on that? >> i think there are couple of things. i have a lot of respect for senator mccain, but i trust this president right now pretty acted decisively last week. he also said this may not be the last action you see in syria relative to bashar al-assad is doing with his people. there are two things that need to happen in syria. one is we've got to stop isis, and that's job one. president trump said that again just today. second, bashar al-assad's gotta go. once those two things happen, then we have to reestablish the government in syria and also rebuild syria. there's nothing to go home to

now. all the refugees around the world have left that part of the world have nothing to go home too. this is another conversation were beginning to have. >> martha: great point. senator perdue, thank you very much. great to have you here tonight. so joining me now, former house until committee chairman who also served as a national security advisor to the trump campaign and a democratic strategist and former senior communications advisor to john kerry's 2004 presidential campaign. michael, welcome to you both. i'm going to start with you because of been struck watching the interaction with secretary of state tillerson. it is very different with what we saw with john kerry, who seem to have a pretty warm relationship with lavrov and also with his counterpart iran. >> john kerry had a 40 year relationship. second tillerson, new to the job just about three months. as an american i believe that we keep our policy at water's edge and when the secretaries are over there meeting with putin and its counterparts, i think

it's important that foreign policy has a clear, consistent, and easily coherent following and that's the hallmark of many great foreign policy. i was encouraged to see the dialogue happening that he did get the meeting with putin, which was typical for secretary of state from our country for the last 70 years. at least the dialogue is happening to deal with all the massive issues that were dealing with. >> martha: there was some question as to whether or not putin what it, they said we don't have it on her calendar but since you're here. push went to shop and they did end up sitting down together. let's play this exchange that we have between second tillerson and lavrov and i want to get your thoughts on this. >> the final outcome in our view does not provide for our role for the assad family in the future governance of syria. >> it's not to eliminate any political leader so to speak,

but to agree on how these things can be built. >> martha: what are your thoughts on that? >> i think this is one of the key issues that's going to be a little bit further down the road. the initial issue here isn't as the president stated very clearly, we need to fight and defeat radical jihadist and isis in syria. we then need to take a look at how syria moves forward and with the actions that assad has taken on or taken place in his own country, the international community is not going to accept assad but as going to be negotiated settlement because the president and i think other world leaders have stated very clearly, we're not going to put boots on the ground to topple assad for couple of reasons. it's what the trump doctrine has been. were not into regime change. the second thing, as we've seen in a rack, is oozing in libya,

when you have regime change as colin powell says, you've broken it. here not sure it's going to happen afterwards, but those two examples that hasn't been very positive, especially in libya. and then you have to figure out how were going to put it back together because you own it. >> martha: that was lavrov's point to an extent. quick question on china because today, there were north korean vessels that were loaded with coal as they usually are headed towards china. something really significant happens. china said were not going to accept those and turned those chips back, which is bad news for starving people in north korea who rely on that transaction. significant move in your mind? >> i actually give the president credit for this. the korean peninsula et cetera, located situation and the chinese have an outside ability to help affect that outcome. the korean leader's birthday is this weekend and, they like to have a show of force. the fact that he is able to use

dealmaking skills to put this kind of pressure both economic and military around north korea is actually that she should get some credit to my credit for this. >> martha: good to see you both. so did you know that there are 43 different government projects all designed to retrain workers in this country, but there is no one person or one office that even attempts to coordinate all those different efforts? that's the kind of redundancy that mick mulvaney wants to end. it may be pretty unpopular in the swamp as you might imagine. the director joins us in the white house next. plus rumors and intrigue surround president trump's chief strategist. once thought indispensable as reports suggest that stephen bannon may have a foot out the door at the white house. is that true? former term deputy campaign manager who produced six films with stephen bannon joins us with his thoughts.

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>> i want the entire corrupt washington establishment to hear and heed the words we are all here to say. when we win on november 8th, we are going to washington, d.c., and we are going to drain the swamp. >> martha: that was president trump just days before his surprise election victory. vowing to take on a entrenched special interests and layers of bureaucracy in the nation's capital. now the hard part, a planned massive deconstruction of the agency of the federal government. in moments were going to hear about the director of office and budget, mick mulvaney whose job is it is to do all this. we begin with white house correspondent live on the north lawn. >> you're right. base of the what were talking about is rethinking the u.s. federal government structure. were talking about major downsizing and ultimately changing the way agencies themselves are actually managed and made out what they're

supposed to do for the people, you and me. it's very interesting. i want to shared a couple things of the president looks forward to having them under random, not from us is what's important. it's going to lift the hiring. here's the rub, replace that free with hiring that would be in line with the budget priorities. did you catch that? you heard the president say i'm going to drain the swamp. that means getting rid of what the administration views as inefficiencies in the federal government. the challenge however for the director mick mulvaney is navigating the politically paris landscape of stringing the size of government without hurting the party's chances in 2018. to keep this in mind, that skinny budget a lot of people heard a great deal about a historically deep spending touch. so the question becomes will the budget battle ultimately lead to a road down the parade line of physical fitness for this country or will it be the road to political tradition for the

g.o.p.? will they blame the president and his party if they shrink too much if the cuts are too drastic? one other thing we should point out today is the decided not to call china a currency manipulator. very interesting. he may have read that "wall street journal" report late this afternoon, he also said he will be willing to work on beijing with better trade deals of in turn they would help real and the north korean spread very interesting time to say the least here. back to you. >> martha: next guest is a key player in that plan, he is heading up an ambitious effort to dramatically restructure government, make it more accountable and more effective. mick mulvaney is the director of the office of management and budget and he joins me. welcome to the program this evening. it's good to have you. if i want to get that in the moment, but i want to ask about an issue that the president make quite a bit of news on today. just ten days ago, he said that china was the world's champion currency manipulator but today, it appears that he has a very

different take on that. he said they're not manipulating their currency. how do we put those two things together? >> i think it's a very difficult in the past for any country to establish trade currency manipulation. it's been very difficult to prove those given the rules that the wt sets out. i'm not sure what the president was talking about today, but i don't think it changes our policy. we had a really good meeting with china last week. sound like there's going to be some good trade of elements that come out of that meeting. all things considered, bless couple of days have been a tremendous success in terms of our relationship with china. >> martha: you touched on some and that may be significant here here... or maybe some of elements in that meeting that made him change his language a bit. maybe things he wants to get here and were going to see that story unfold as we go through. i want to focus on so much discussion about how the president is changing his tune on a lot of fronts but we just watched the drain the swamp moment, one of many. you are the swamp drainer and it's her job to do this. i read that there are 43 different agencies in washington, d.c., that handle

workplace training or retraining for jobs and there's no one person that even oversees the 43 agencies. is that really going to change? >> yes. matter of fact, goes further than that. 43 different programs spread across 13 agencies. imagine you're the president and you don't like the way those development programs are working, who do go talk to? 13 different agency heads? is pretty different to do that. when everybody's in charge, nobody's in charge and we are going to change that. we had a great meeting here yesterday with some business leaders from all across the country and one thing they encourage us to do is to redefine the federal governments that we focus on what it does, not what the agency's names are or what the committee is on the hill are. why not put all of the trade functions in one place? why not put all of those workforce development in one place. a tremendous idea but just the first step of draining the swam swamp. >> martha: is just one example as you point out. there are so many examples of crosses government agencies but

unfortunately for you, you now live and work in the area where most of these federal employees live and work, and they are not too happy with you because they were afraid that life is they know what which has been pretty good is going to change dramatically. you're going to be held to the standard whether you really revolutionized the way the government works. are you confident that you're going to succeed in that endeavor? >> i am, and many other presidents have tried this or at least talk about it from reagan to clinton haven president obama talked about doing it. but as the first time you really have a business man running the. we did a hiring freeze when we got it first got here to give us enough time to get the lay of the land and see how the government was operating and we just ended that today and put up a guidance because now we've discovered look, this place can be fixed and needs to be fixed and here's how are going to start doing it. it's going to have about a year to come up with specific proposals, but you have a president who is committed to running this. the more accountable government and, more efficient government and a more spendable government.

>> martha: a lot of people feel there's a lot of blow and a lot of bureaucracy and they would love to see that managed a little bit better in washington with our tax dollars. before i let you go, a story today that says you will have been meeting on tax reform and that the model for corporate tax reform might be changing. the president talked about going from 35% to as low as 20 or 15%, is that not what were going to get right now connect the markets will be very interested in that and is it now more about a 10% tax bringing back that, can you explain to mexico i guess i can explain because he sort of raise two different issues but the bottom line is tax discussions have been going on since we got here in january. i've been participating in a group that's being led by the secretary of treasury to talk about ulcers of different ideas and all the issues that you just raise have been discussed from corporate tax reform, individual tax reform, how do you repatriate earnings overseas. we don't expect to have a policy for the next couple of weeks in

terms of specifics that we can show the people but were taking a very deep dive right now in all aspects of our tax code under the theory go big or go home. were not looking to sort of play around on the edges of tax reform in this country. we want to do much of the same thing we just talked about restructuring the government. were going to take the tax code back to a blank piece of paper and rebuild it from the ground up in a proper fashion in order to help people get back to work. that's what's driving all of this. how do you fix government so that folks have optimism again and have job opportunities again and not get stuck in is 1.9% we've had for the last eight years of the obama administration? were trying to get back to an america that has a healthy economy, puts people to work and gross of the folks have opportunity. that's what driving all of our work including tax reform. >> martha: oh one more crack at this. corporations and small business owners around the country listening to your words right now are listening to you very carefully. are they going to get meaningful corporate tax cuts from his administration? >> listen to this very closely.

yes. >> martha: okay. you heard it right here. mick mulvaney, thank you very much, you got a lot on your plate and we appreciate you stopping by. thanks to him. coming up, whenever the promise that century cities would be "named and shamed." not happening. we'll tell you what's going on with that. and now a man who knows stephen bannon well, joins us with his take on a sort of "game of thrones" environment that some say is going on in the white house right now. president trumps a deputy campaign manager straight ahead after this.

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>> martha: new to houston i as rumors were over a stick chat strategist stephen bannon reportedly increasingly at odds with president trump's son-in-law and advisor jared kushner, who has had to be a souring event on bannon's agenda. earlier today, white house spokesman sean spicer stopped short of denying that there was a feud. watch. >> i think a lot of it is overblown what you see in the media. there's obviously going to be spirited debates. the thing that is a healthy way for the president to get guidance and ultimately make decisions. i understand there's always going to be a little palace intrigue but i think the proportion that i've seen of

palace intrigue versus policy is a little out of whack. >> martha: joining me now, a man who knows the players well, from a deputy campaign manager for donald trump and fox news contributor david bossi. good to have you here. thanks for having me. >> martha: you do know a lot of these players here, so you see this all the time on the internet and everywhere else, what you make of it? >> i think sean was right on. this is a lot of due about nothing. the president has an incredible team. steve banas part of that team. jared kushner as part of that team. he has an amazing group of people around him. steve is an important part of that no less than anyone else and i think that that's the atmosphere at the president looking for, important team work element and i think that's what we did during the campaign so well. steve and jared and many others. we had spirited debates in the room, but we were able to come together for the president's agenda and support the president and thus their jobs today inside

the white house. it is difficult. it is hard because of the fishbowl aspect of the white house. but i've got to tell you, but they're all in for president trump's agenda and president trump is having a great two weeks here. >> martha: i guess the coming together part to support the president's agenda is the part that sounds like it's got a little tricky because the president himself said they're going to work this out or i'm going to work them out for them. winning the two sides between kushner and bannon in the president also said in "the wall street journal" piece, he referred to stephen bannon a guy who works for me and quote on my own strategist and we all know that stephen bannon's title is chief strategist. to the suggested that he doesn't like that stephen bannon has gotten a lot of credit from some of this whatever you want to call it mentality and the credo. >> it's interesting to see that from the outside. i've got to tell you, i've known

the president now for many, many years prayed i was there at the beginning when he first thought of running for president. he has been saying the same things for years. he said them at sea pack, he said them at our freedom summit series across the country in iowa, new hampshire, south carolina as he was running for president. he's been saying the same things, he's had the same agenda and what he's saying is i've been saying these things for a long time. the thing is, stephen bannon has been saying these things for a long time as well. separately. they both have been saying a lot of the same things. steve on the radio show and with the breitbart. so i think there is a symmetry there and that's one of the reasons why they work so well together. >> martha: you put your heart and your passion into a lot of these ideas as well. the america first philosophy, nationalist -- economic nationalism, deconstructing the administered estate which we've been talking about. you think it's important for stephen bannon to stay in the west wing in order to see those

ideas through? do you want him to keep his job? >> first of all, certainly i want steve and the president to do what's best for the administration and for the country and i think steve is an important part of that. but that's the president of the united states call. we all serve the president whether it's on the campaign, the transition and now the white house and i don't speak for the president. >> martha: in terms of jared kushner, there's a lot of power obviously that is concentrated now injured kushner and ivanka trump. is that a negative? >> it's not. their incredible people. it jared an incredibly smart, smart as a web guy. he is incredibly confident. and i've seen him work through the campaign into the transition and now to this white house. he understands the president's agenda and he's working towards

that with the rest of the team and that includes stephen bannon. >> martha: so much of what we're seeing now, talking through the whole top of the show about china, but russia, about the attack in syria, which reportedly stephen bannon was in the rooms say no, we shouldn't fire these tomahawk missiles at syria, is going to get us into a mess. we sing a very different -- china is not a currency manipulator we here tonight from the president. all these ideas and i think a lot of people who have been very supportive of the president perhaps in your camp kind of don't recognize where he's coming from right now. >> i think things have changed for it what were going to see them coming days is that china was as the president said during the campaign a major currency manipulator. we think we've seen them stop those practices as he became -- as he got elected. i think now six months later, november to now, we are seeing reports that maybe he's not doing any more out of respect

for our new leader and i think that it's president trump's leadership that's getting them to stop that. we need to work with them on the north korea issue clearly. and i think that if there are facts behind the currency manipulation issue but, where they are stopping in, that's a good thing for us to be able to work together in the future. >> martha: always good to talk to you. thank you very much. good to see you tonight. so there is a brand-new republican in congress tonight, so is the g.o.p. relieved? or girding for battle? the next race to keep an eye on. plus while the focus is overseas and off the border, there are reports tonight that a deportation force is ramping up. our sanctuary cities still going to lose funding? or is that not going to happen quebec will tell you what were talking about. here to debate that next. >> for those who seek improper

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we would not miss it. watson, you gotta learn how to take a hint. i love to learn. >> cities that refused to cooperate with federal authorities will not receive taxpayer dollars. no one will be immune or exempt from enforcement. and ice and border patrol officers will be allowed to do their jobs the way their jobs are supposed to be done. >> martha: those of the border security promises made on the campaign trail and tonight, some significant developments in the crackdown efforts. the department of homeland security has no suspended with a weekly report that they came up with whether they were going to name and shame sanctuary cities and list the people that they allowed to go free, all of that. now they say that the list is not accurate, so the pulling back on it for now and they're

going to revamp it, so we'll see. at the same time, the president's budget director is pushing congress to take a hard line against the cities which could complicate those negotiations that are coming over keeping our government funded, so does that mean shut down as a possibility? trace gallagher has all the story for us from our west coast newsroom. >> the reports published by immigration and customs enforcement or ice, commonly known as century city reports but officially there called declined stain or outcome reports and are meant to draw attention to local and state governments that refuse to honor detainer requests, meaning they won't hold on to illegal immigrants so eyes can take custody of them. problem is in the effort to shame century cities and ratchet up the political pressure, ice mistakenly listed some places that do cooperate with the feds who, like travis county, texas, and franken county pennsylvania. so for now, publishing the names of sanctuary committees will stop, which is angering some

critics of illegal immigration who believe the department of homeland security is caving to pressure. but during his first trip to the southern border who, attorney general jeff sessions made it clear the administration is not about to back off illegal immigration. >> this is a new era. this is a trump era. the lawlessness, that abdication of beauty to an enforcer laws of the pastor over. >> the president's budget advisor, former conservative south carolina congressman mulvaney who you talked to earlier wants to up the ante even further. mulvaney wants congressional publicans to make sure the next budget includes language restricting federal funding for sanctuary cities. the move was meant to placate the freedom caucus, the same lawmakers who cleared the g.o.p. health care bill. but the move will also enrage democrats and that could lead to a stalemate otherwise known as a

government shutdown. >> thank you. republican strategist and fox news contributor and crystal ball, offer of reversing the apocalypse. welcome to both of you. good to have you here tonight. so that's a bit of a rock in a hard place mercedes but let me start with you on this because if you do the sanctuary city act of federal dollars from places that are not recognizing the laws that are on the books and you use that money to put it towards a wall, you're probably going to get some democratic pushback and you may end up with a government shutdown. they are going to get plenty of democratic pushback but i think we've learned the lessons of the past, go back to 2013 republicans moved conservative republicans pushed for this government shutdown, it was incredibly unpopular, almost 81% of americans is approved that action and obviously i think that the democrats when they're talking about shutting down the government, they're shutting down their own very fabulous

government program that they themselves support and they highly criticized the republicans for that act. i think would be unwise for the democrats to move on a shut down of the government over this century cities. with that being said, would go against every single bone in the body of a democrat to want to shut down government programs in this case. >> martha: interesting position to be an crystal. >> i don't know when the president is going to figure out that there is no pleasing the freedom caucus. i thought it was encouraging after health care there were some signs that maybe he was going to rethink his approach. the republican caucus has been a notoriously difficult to work with. so he was going to reach out to democrats. this is exactly the wrong way to go about it. putting sanctuary cities and the defunding of century cities into the budget proposal would absolutely of poison the well not only for this continuing resolution but also going forward working with democrats at all. i think it's a disastrous move

not only for potential government shutdowns but moving forward and try to get anything done in this administration. >> will have to argue a little bit on that point because i think the democrats, the liberal democrats in particular have their resistance movement that they're unwilling to even sit down with the president and get things done makes it very difficult. i think that there is some room with several of the democrats, not many in the senate obviously in those battleground states like senator joe manson who has been willing to talk with the president. i think we have to remember back in 2015, it was the house republicans and united forests, both moderates and conservative republicans including hispanic republicans who voted in favor of defunding century cities. i think it's possible to get this done in the house from a governing coalition standpoint. the difficulty will lie in the senate obviously in terms of the democrats trying to put a stop to this, but they do run a very big risk if they decide to shut down the government.

>> will keep one quick thing in mind. the republicans are in control of the house, the senate, and they have the presidency. so the government shutdown, voters are going to know where the blame lies. >> though blame it on the democrats. >> how soaking back >> the republik and said you gotta give us the white house and were going to get all the stuff done. so it is on then, isn't it mercedes? >> last time around, i remember ted cruz reading green eggs and ham on the senate floor and that was what you saw. that was the visual that you can remember from that government shutdown and it was incredibly unpopular move by the conservative republicans. reading green eggs and ham on the senate floor, that the image that you're going to say. >> it's it wise to have the 1.4 billion for the wall in this bill and to have the century city money that they hope to get from some of these offenders?

>> my sources in congress have told me that is going to be very difficult, but you'll probably see more of a watered-down approach if he even see some republicans who are hesitant to put so much money or funding into building the wall, and that doesn't even include the potential losses that come with that. >> big campaign progress. >> report gives it a think this through. >> martha: thank you. a slim margin of victory for republican veteran over anonymous democrat has some republicans a little bit nervous about what that might mean. they break it down for us and with the two can take away as we look towards i hesitate to say it, the 2018 midterms when we come back. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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>> martha: potential warning signs out there for republicans after congressman ron estes won the special election in kansas last night. it was a little bit closer and squeak your then some republicans would've liked. so that is being seen as a little bit of a wake-up call for what's to come, especially if they look to next week and a closely contested race in georgia's six districts where

democrats are looking for an upset they hope after they've gone 0 for 5 in elections across the country since president trump was elected. some are asking of the g.o.p. should worry about this one, which is tom price's district, so he was another one that was plucked out of his district and back to capitol hill. fox news politics editor and fox news contributor and the political editor at town hall.com. gentlemen, welcome. it is good to have you here. so chris, let me start with you. as a wake-up call or not? >> depends on whether you wake up. the phone is ringing for the g.o.p. there is no question. there is no question that yes, this is a candidate you want to perform. there is a lot of reasons that has been broadly over interpreted that this is a referendum to trump or whatever. the truth is i wrote that the current republican administration in topeka, kansas, is about as popular as wheat fungus in the state. so there are a lot of local pressures here, but republicans

need to be concerned because if they don't do this right and they have a bad off year, have trouble in georgia next week, another one coming up in montana later on in the year, two gubernatorial elections. they have bad rounds, two things will happen, republicans will abandon the president and his agenda here in washington number one and number two, it will be harder to rate raise money and recruit candidates for next year. speak with the president had a pretty low approval rating. were all waiting to see the next round because it will be interesting to see how the syrian move the president does because he had a pretty good last couple of weeks and we don't have very good noon numbers on that. but the incumbent party tend to lose about 20 seats in the midterm election give or take a few. they only have a 22 seat margin, so there is reason for the party in power to be concerned that they might lose power. >> pendulum swing and what tends to happen is the party that is out of power, their voters are extra motivated. they want to come out and not

happy with the status quo and they have extra rooms behind them and use those from the republican side in 2010, in 2014, backlashes against president obama. i think both sides have their own spins on what happened last night in kansas. the democrats will say this was a seat that easily was won by donald trump by almost 30 points just a few months ago and the republican bony squeak by seven points. the shows that our voters have more intensity and are more engaged in the republicans are going to be in trouble. the republicans are going to say all right who, as chris mentioned, the sort of a lackluster candidate who ran an underwhelming campaign. very unpopular governor. >> martha: no doubt, the white house is looking at what happened in the first few weeks as we get close to the end of the 100 days and they are retooling a bit and there's discussion about bannon and kushner, all of that which we talked about a little while ago. do you see this white house recalibrating? >> yes. ground a.

this is a president and administration of the white house that looks like they're doing a pretty hard reboot right now and we have a lot of campaign promises being traded in. we have a much more conventional version of trump is him that has come out versus what we heard in his address at his inauguration, a very different attitude, and it's probably helpful for republicans because where the next races next week is in suburban atlanta, which is the very kind of voters who recoiled from trump's and one point oh, the stephen bannon version. bipartisan and accommodating at home, and for the different trump, that probably sells a lot better with affluent voters in atlanta. >> we political nerds are breaking apart every little data point on these races, the special elections. a lot of this will come down to how does the economy look next summer, period. >> martha: good to see you

both. coming up next, a major expose from "the new york times" on ramp at mismanagement inside the white house. what could be about? stay tuned. we'll be right back.

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>> martha: now for the quote of the night. this is from melinda bates. she is very concerned about trump white house. and she said it is the single most high profile event that takes place at the white house the each year and the white house and the first lady are judged on how well they put it on. i am really concerned for the trump people, she writes because they have failed to fill some really vital posts and this thing is all hands on deck. she talking about the state department or maybe a state dinner or the g20? no, she's referring to the white house easter egg roll. you see, they reportedly relate with their order of commemorative eggs. they might only have military bands instead of people like justin bieber singing this year and they might have a few thousand fewer egg rollers because apparently last year it

was a mob scene out there but never fear, secretary sean spicer said it was a be an excellent time. he said that, not me. have ♪ >> tucker: good evening and welcome to "tucker carlson tonight" despite donald trump being an alleged russian puppets, the american tensions with russia keep rising. a russian official said relations are at the lowest point since the cold war. at secretary of state rex tiller's and had an unproductive meeting with vladimir putin in moscow. >> president trump: right now were not getting along with russia at all. if we may be at an all-time low in terms of relationship with russia. >> we need to put an end to this steady degradation which is not doing nothing to