good afternoon. i'm chris hayes in new york. donald trump is on his way home from the u.s. capitol of huddling with top washington republicans today. this morning's main event, a closed-door meeting with house speaker paul ryan and rnc reince priebus. for his part, trump tweeted out, of course, earlier great day in d.c. with speaker ryan and republican leadership. things working out really well, exclamation point. even this afternoon ryan has yet to endorse the presumptive presidential nominee for his party. he did say earlier he was encouraged by their conversation. >> i think this is going in a positive direction, and i think this is a first very encouraging meeting, but, again, in 45 minutes you don't litigate all of the processes and all of the issues and principles that we're talking about. >> to help us break down everything that happened on this very busy thursday in the nation's capital joined by a of nbc reporters hallie jackson and ruk russert.

you were reporting there's a very notable republican figure donald trump held at the meeting after his meeting with house speaker paul ryan. >> reporter: secretary james baker was at that meeting over at the d.c. law firm jones day. apparently on his way back to houston. had been in washington to testify before the senate foreign relations committee at the capitol earlier this morning. interesting development for trump as he tries to pave the way for himself here in washington, build some of the relationships, and another notable relationship that he's working on, one with one of his biggest foes here in the senate, lindsey graham, the two holding a phone call according to graham's office ahead of trump flying here to washington not just meet with speaker ryan, as you mentioned, but with the rest of the house leadership, with senate leaders as well. graham says that in that phone call it was cordial, that the two spent about 15 minutes discussing national security. he understands that trump is reaching out to many people to solicit their advice, and graham says he believes that is a wise move on donald trump's part. remember, chris, graham is

somebody who rather begrungingly backed ted cruz during the primary season even though he said weeks ago deciding between cruz and trump was like deciding being shot and being poisoned. trump is holing the phone calls with graham and that graham is accepting the phone calls is a development. we've seen what appears to be a sense that there are members here moving towards a more conciliatory tone to trump that that hadn't been heard before and luke spoke to senator corker with more on trump trying to charm his colleagues here. >> thanks very much, hallie jackson. let's bring in luke russert. not surprised that he's effective interpersonally and being charming. no one ever said that was something that he lacked and to me also it's just unclear what the end game can be other than ultimately falling in line behind the guy. >> reporter: i think you're right on both those points. look, there's a reason why donald trump has gotten to where

he is. he is a charmer in person. he slaps backs. he makes people feel bigger than themselves. clearly a lot of that befell upon the politicians who met him today on the republican side. the other question that you brought up is a very smart one, too. what else do you have to do? can you create some scenario like paul ryan did where you're not going to fully embrace him but then when you do that you become sort of an outlier with your leadership. look, ketch mccarty, the whip is on board, mitch mcconnell, he's on board with trump and the rest of the senate leadership, is and, by the way, which i think is the most important news today, chris, that's very underreported, the nrc chairman greg waldon of oregon, someone very instrumental in getting the house majorities in 2010, holding on in '12 and '14 and growing them, he's all in with trump saying it's time to unify behind him and the same goes for roger wicker and the nrsc and

the members in charge of electing republicans saying let's fall in line, let's go. the one thing about that is that donald trump is so unpredictable. that's the word i hear from these members, so if they embrace him now in may, they really have no other choice, but what happens if something as bombastic as another ban on all muslims coming into the u.s. comes out. what if you have the language like all mexicans coming across the border are rapists. those are right now things on the back burner. we're past that. we're going to smooth out those rough edges that he is as a candidate right now and he said there's an el man of surprise with donald trump. while they embrace him now, perhaps pay for that in the future, but i do think it's telling that ryan is still not going all in. i read that as one thing. keeping hisself clean for 2020. he doesn't want to get too close or at least wants to have a little bit of a buffer zone if he wants to go big in 2020.

>> keeping -- he is in the middle of a six-month long mud lied so something tells me he's not going to keep his face clean for six months. >> jim baker, using the term for the republican establishment forever. >> yeah. >> and if sometimes gets really stretched out of shape because we don't know what it means. who is one human being hon planet earth who most embodies the republican establishment, james baker would be that person, so what was he doing in that room? >> let's pick through a couple of things. first of all, in the last three minutes since we've been talking we received word from secretary barrack's office officially now confirming his meeting with donald trump today saying that that meeting was requested by the trump campaign adding that baker has had conversations with other gop candidates at their request and that baker would have no further comment at this time. so that's sort of the news in just the last five minutes. you can say hot off of the presses of the iphone. when you talk about barrack being part of the establishment, look at his resume. former chief of staff for

president reagan, bush 41. obviously the secretary of state, head of the treasury department as well. he has a long history and a long history of relationships here in washington, and here's why that's key. number one, one of those relationships with paul manafort, right, somebody who has risen to the top as far as the springboard and structure of the trump campaign, somebody who has been viewed by some as potentially manafort's mentor through the political process. also, when trump has talked about who he wants to bring on to his team or as he's looking for, for example, a running mate, not that, again, not at all speculating that baker would be in that position, but somebody who could -- no, somebody who could help potentially navigate those relationships in washington, somebody with experience and somebody who understands how this city works and how to sort of massage and network relationships here. >> all right. hallie jackson and luke russert, great. learned a lot. today's panel, amy holmes, speech writer for former senate majority leader bill frist,

author of "black ethnic" and finally senior political wrirlt at "538." what's the purpose, having worked on capitol hill, i keep going back and forth on what this meeting was, essentially a made-for-tv moment where essentially it's all been foreorda foreordained, he'll be nominated as the leader of the party and there's real differences where people node to be brought on board. >> it's a real meeting and not made for television and they weren't photographed or actually recorded together or hugging. >> good point. >> did not do the standard photo-op when you make a made-for-television meeting. >> exactly. i spoke today with a former rnc official and he said paul ryan has to walk a fine line and spoke with a k street lobbyist, plugged into the republican establishment saying paul ryan needs to walk a fine line in terms of trying to create unity with the party but as luke russert was mention is not necessarily soiling his own

hands in case donald trump goes way off the reservation, but they need to find points of common ground. i'm sure you heard this verbiage among republicans saying, well, i will support him but i won't endorse him had. you might see paul ryan arrive at that sort of formulation. >> i just don't think -- i mean, from a political standpoint and from a polling standpoint, i mean, i just don't think that's going to work for anyone. let me give you an example of what this will work look and i don't know if he's going to be a drag on republicans or if he'll be a ballast to them. democrats think he's a drag. this is strickland who is running against rob portman for senate, okay, in ohio, putting out a statement attacking portman for being in a face-to-face meeting. the guy isn't even endorsing him. portman's face-to-face meeting is another indication that portman has pledged his support to the most divisive figure in

american politics. you're tied to him whether you like it or not. >> you're tied to him no bhaert what you do and we've seen an increasingly strong relationship between the presidential vote and the senate vote and house vote. >> people don't split their tickets. >> you might as well join in with trump and get the benefits that have instead of just not being with him and then people hate you if you're a republican because you're not with him or you're a democrat because supposedly you've endorsed him. >> but the counter to that is that paul ryan in his case is actually wildly popular in his district in wisconsin and donald trump lost that district to ted cruz by 20 points. so for paul ryan in terms of his own political future and becoming re-elected it doesn't necessarily help to jump on the trump train. >> i don't think palm ryan is thinking that much about his future, spending all of it in that district. i think he's looking at numbers outside that district. >> sarah palin, you know, a threat to cantor him i don't think is going anywhere. >> there are members of the house who have looked at the district and looking at their district numbers and trump blew

certain opponents out of the water, then they are very quickly on the trump bandwagon. >> having one on my show every night at 8:00 p.m. we lead off every night somebody who didn't vote for trump saying i'm there, and they are looking at their district. >> looking at their poll numbers and it's brilliant for democrats to use trump as a strategy to say any republican is now a trump supporter. >> yes. >> whether they -- >> that's exactly righting. >> whether they have said nothing or endorsed him or said, well, we need to think about it for the party. it's brilliant because you can capture a lot of moderate republicans who don't want to pan muslims. they don't want to ban the new mayor of lander or deport all latinos and immigrants. like these are -- even though they are statements he made in the past statements he still holds true on and there are several independents and moderate republicans that don't agree with him. >> and luke's point about this is key, right, because the problem -- you talk about unpredictable. things he's already said and a huge line and you could even go for hours on stuff he said about women. it's -- >> the blacks. >> yeah. >> we even have all forgotten

about the birtherism because it was the thing that launched him in the political campaign. >> so 2006. >> exactly. >> all that will be back. >> the problem if you're any of these people, particularly ryan, as soon as you do endorse him you own everything he says going forward so now when you endorse him, whatever crazy thing he says in june, july, august, september, october, that is now yours also. >> look at john mccain, mocked for being a prisoner of war by donald trump. >> like one week in. >> he had to go on the chat shows this weekend and like a hostage video said well, i think we should unify behind the party and mr. donald trump, like he -- his heart is so not into it and privately he's making sure everyone knows that trump is a disaster. >> and he's also in a competitive race. >> that's exactly it. >> he needs arizona -- the trump base -- the republican base in arizona who he has never had a good relationship with this for a lot of reasons, they love that. >> probably the most -- one of the most pro-trump bases, jan brewer one of his first

endorsers. >> i don't think ryan is terrified and the important thing about paul ryan is he was built to compromise eventually with donald trump. that is who paul ryan is. he's the guy who brings the wonkery and principle and at the end of the day he caves. remember in, 2012 he was mitt romney's running mate. mitt romney ran to the left of barack obama on medicare while paul ryan designed the plan to reform medicare. he had to swallow all that have and carry the romney message into the fight against obama. >> that's what ryan does at the end. day. >> one of the lessons of 2012, and here's paul ryan -- i want to talk about paul ryan because he plays a particular role in this. let's listen to what he said about the presser. >> i was very encouraged with what i heard from donald trump today. i do believe that we're now planting the seeds to get ourselves unified, to bridge the gaps and differences and so from here we're going to go deeper into the policy areas to see where that common ground is and how we can make sure that we are operating off the same core principles.

>> all right. so here's the thing. remember, even though romney was the top. ticket in 2012, when romney put ryan on the ticket, he then inherited the ryan budget. obama people, the ryan budget, ryan budget, ran against the ryan budget. i saw a tweet saying are we headed towards the disposition of trump and the policy agenda of paul ryan, is that the trade that ultimately happens here which is all the orthodoxy of paul ryan which is let me note not particularly popular with voters, all the stuff that is big cuts of top marginal rates, austerity, entitlement reform, cutting medicare, married to trump, that seems like an electoral disaster for me? >> very good for republicans but not a good pitch to independents and all of those that are talking about donald trump's temperament, but also look at paul ryan in terms of trying to create leverage with donald trump. if you listen to that press conference he's trying to talk about bringing trump over to the conservative side. we've already seen trump flip-flop on taxes. first he would raise them for

the wealth and got a lot of pushback and now he's saying the wealthy would pay less. paul ryan is trying to maximize his policy leverage. >> you know, i just don't see how they are going to do it. take something like tpp, right. >> >> there will have to be a vote on that this year. they won't be able to weasel on that. >> that's the big trade deal with pacific countries. >> exactly. trump is like, listen, it's all about america first. he's going to these towns that love him. >> that's right. >> 90% of these blue collar white towns trump, trump, trump. they don't want trade deals and want everything in america. >> that's a progressive issue. >> this is not going to be something where they can sort of massage and figure it out. trump -- trump is very clear on how he stands, and he's pulling a lot of these looking class members in. >> the thing about tpp, trump has the more popular position, not just in the republican party, with voters at large than the parts of the republican base that want that deal, okay, so

there are things that trump has excelled at because he's been against republican orthodoxy and i think it's a political mistake for the republican party if paul ryan gets his way and gets policy position like medicare cuts adopted for the general. >> we've already seen somebody who meshes conservative ideology with this temperament of trumpet marco rubio did that at the beginning of the trump, went all trump and started talking about the hands, the crazy stuff and personal insult. what did marco rubio do, he plummeted. i just don't see how that works. donald trump isn't popular because of his temperament. he might be popular in spite of that. he's popular because his policy positions actually sell among republican voters. >> i would agree with that to a certain extent. but donald trump already in the last couple of hours backpedalled on banning >> that's the problem that paul ryan has that not just the things he says when they are outrageous. he will have touched every base by the time he gets back around to home on whatever the policy is. >> what does paul ryan have to

offer that donald trump actually needs right now, i don't think that much. >> hold on. he's the chairman at least for now of the convention and that's a lot of power and convention. >> is it? >> i think -- i think that is power in name only. >> i've spoken to delegates about this and they said in 2012 there were huge fights about who could speak from the floor and those floor speeches can launch political careers. >> donald trump, we've seen this with the media, no one follows up with him. i changed my mind on muslims. >> okay. >> so we think about cleveland and the rnc, yeah, actually i do want him to speak, and i -- i really don't see right now the republican -- who in the republican party really has the stones to stand up and say you're not in charge. >> paul ryan at the convention, tried to get out of it and basically said oh, no, no, no, no. still to come. what about voters, voters finding themselves in d.c. and what this do think about the

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when you find something you love, you can never get enough of it. change the way you experience tv with xfinity x1. well, donald trump met with gop leadership today in washington, d.c., our own jacob sovorov is jakewalking on capitol hill. stopped just in time. are visitors in washington aware of just the monumental stakes of what's transpiring yards away from where they stand? >> reporter: no. and it's like a five-minute walk, chris, here from where donald trump met with reince priebus and paul ryan and people frankly had no clue. i found it so fascinating and we've been talking about this ad

nauseum and picking off people in tour groups like this or the people i'm about to go pick off and i haven't talked to quite yet nobody knows what's going on today. hey, what's going on, jacob from nbc? >> vance. >> mallory. >> let me squeeze in here. v vance has his cowboy boots off. vance and mallory, came here on a huge day. do you know what's going on? >> i know that paul ryan and donald trump met together. >> ding, ding, ding, you got it. >> you guys are republicans? >> yes. >> you had mentioned to me you're from north dakota. >> yes, born and bred republican. >> north dakota, ted cruz dleend up there. clearly there's some need for party unity in north dakota. do you think paul ryan and donald trump were able to hammer things out today? do you care? >> i like paul ryan as a leader and i hope they get together because i don't want hillary clinton but i'm definitely not enthused about trump. >> is party unit an important thing for you going into november? >> i think so. i mean, ideally we could come

around the issues rather than the party itself, like the issues would be what decides the election. >> but are paul ryan and donald trump going to be able to hammer these things out, seem far away on taxes and immigration and all kinds of other stuff. will they be able to work it out and is it important to have donald trump win in november? >> i think it is, and -- and what i really am encouraged about donald trump is if he can surround himself by good people, personnel and policy, heard that a lot. i think if he puts good people around and can work with paul ryan and leaders here on capitol hill, that would be great. >> one things that i heard you guys talking about yesterday is the primary process was just such a small amount of the republican electorate, 20 million people came out on the republican side and had five times that will come out for the general election, and it seems like from talking from people like here, my exception with my friends from north dakota, people are not paying attention to what's going on, because they are not engaged in the process

and don't care about the unity summit and what happens between paul ryan and donald trump doesn't really matter to them. >> nbc's jacob soboroff, jakewalking on the hill, taking a little break. thank you very much. >> thank you, sir. still ahead, why hillary clinton is blasting donald trump for not being more like richard nixon. we got another one. i have an orc-o-gram for an "owen." that's me. ♪ you should hire stacy drew. ♪ ♪ she wants to change the world with you. ♪ ♪ she can program jetngines to talk and such. ♪ ♪ her biggest weakness is she cares too much. ♪ thank you. my friend really wants a job at ge. mine too. ♪ i'm a wise elf from a far off shire. ♪ and sanjay patel is who you should hire. ♪ thank you. seriously though, stacy went to a great school and she's really loyal. you should give her a shot. sanjay's a team player and uh... and that a tired dog is a good dog. [ dog barking, crashing ] so when you need a dog walker or a handyman, we can help you get the job done right, guaranteed.

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the gentleman who called out what about his tax plan, i hope you'll keep asking that, and what about his taxes? so we'll get around to that, too. because when you run for president, especially when you become the nominee, that is kind of expected. my husband and i have released 33 years of tax returns. we've got eight years on our website right now. so you've got to ask yourself why doesn't he want to release

them? yeah, well, we're going to find out. >> mitt romney speculating trump's he is tans to release the documents because they must contain a bombshell. lawrence, this is part of the thing that you do when you're the nominee and romney knows better than anyone the mounting pressure there is because he tried to resist it. >> right. >> do you think the same walls of gravity will apply here? >> absolutely not. if donald trump proved anything we've got to get a whole new set of gravity laws for him, especially on tax returns. i mean, this is going to be the most minor thing you could possibly throw at donald trump. and he's got his answer which is, by the way, unprovable, that he's having an audit. let's remember one thing, journalists of america, there is

zero evidence that he's having an audit. >> that's right. >> there's no idea. we're taking his word for it that he's being audited. but, you know, richard nixon did release his tax returns while they were being audited. nothing that prevents you from doing that, but, no, i don't think anybody is going to get anywhere against trump over the tax returns. >> i think also to the extent that he doesn't release it the story doesn't change, right? >> you know, here's the problem for hillary clinton with this particular story. there's something she's not releasing at the same time. >> that's right. >> she's got a big stack, $22 million in lex tour fees from interests, commercial interests, that have pleadings before the united states government all the time. she's not releasing any of the things she said in any of those speeches, so donald trump is just going to take -- is going to take that apple and turn it into and orange and say where are your speeches, so it's -- i just don't think it's going to work for hillary at all. >> it's funny that she started that riff responding to someone saying what about his tax plan? i've been watching the clinton

campaign attack donald trump's tax plan which he did release, one of the few things he has paper on, on his website and has huge cuts for the top earners, unsurprisely, but then he's now gone through four or five iterations of that. i mean, do you think that they will ever be a tax plan that's criticizable because he'll keep changing it? >> look, he'll keep changing it and it will always be criticizable but it won't matter for a particular segment of voter so for hillary clinton voters or democratic voters who care about the policy specifics, sure, but for some independent republicans, sure, but of anything that we've learned in this primacy season policy specifics don't matter, that's not the game that donald trump is playing. in fact, any criticism levied against him, whether it's taxes in terms of his own personal taxes or a tax plan in some ways can reinforce his argument that the establishment is upset with him that he's being attacked unfairly and for his voters that can be mobilizing for them. >> sure. here's my question. in some ways 2012 was about do

you think -- it was about a few things, right? it was do you think the economy is getting better? have we come further where we were or did barack obama do a good job of setting us on the correct trajectory and obama did a good job of turning it on a researcher rum mitt romney who played less taxes in effective rate than you do and talked about the 40% compare about people like you? what does this election end up being about? i don't know what it's about. it's about donald trump and his friccing plane, and it remains to be seen. if taxes are one of the things we fight elections about in this country. that's off the country if he goes back and forth with the muslim ban. >> this election has already been about what you wrote a book about which is sort of the collective national nausea directed at elites and directed at what is perceived to be the establishment, whether it be in government, political parties or the media. that is what it has been about so far so you have two mirror

image negative people who are -- who have historically negative ratings among their own political coalitions because the sides that are backing them can push them and shove them in the face of the other side and say, see. it's like bringing the elephant man to a beauty pageant. i disrespect your whole premise so i'm going to have someone that we know is unpalatable to you, have fun with it. it's more about that than any specific issue or any kind of broad sense of the country. >> and there's also the fact that historically it's very hard, an uphill climb to win the white house three times in a row for any party. >> an unihill climb and dealing with a small sample going back to '48 or whatever, but i think we should point out just because something worked for donald trump in the primary doesn't necessarily mean it will work in the general election. remember, donald trump's favorable rating according to gallup is 31%. 31%. i mean, this guy is desspiced by motor voters and you talk about oh, he would win and unify the republican base, same percentage it was a week ago. >> yeah. i think the disapproval numbers

are not the thing to look at anymore. they used to be, but with the disapprovals of both of these candidates you really have to just look at the one-on-one polling because the reason i dislike donald trump is different from the reason i dislike hillary clinton as a voter, right, so the voter is matching -- >> always a choice. >> always a choice. packaging the dislikes and they are going to end up in one place or the other uncomfortably and we're starting to see the one-on-one polls that are kind of close between hillary clinton and donald trump, so normally in the old days would look at the dis'previously numbers, that settles it, nothing to talk about here, but there's a lot to talk about besides the disapproval numbers. >> and they are very volatile and can go rapidly in either direction. >> and the funny thing approval and disapproval and people talk about bernie sanders, the approval rating very high, the further people get from the fight, the more approved they are, so hillary clinton, when she was essentially out of electoral politics as secretary of state had a 65% approval rating. there's other times in her life where she's had a 65% approval

rating and other times when she's had 30% approval ratings. same person and same human being and her name is hillary clinton and fluctuate wildly based on the context. >> if you look at the real clear politics average or the huffington polhill hill leads by six points at that point. >> remember that. she's never in her campaign life held a lead as small as six points, never. okay. so that's functionally a tie. >> that's a small sample side. >> i don't know about national averages tell us in terms of where the election will be decided in terms of the key states. >> we can get into that in six months but in 2000 she was able to hold the lead over rick lazio. >> a 30-point lead. >> she started with a 30-point lead and she dend -- here's what she d.a year out she was polling at 56%. she won at 55%. $35 million later, campaigning did not get her one voter. okay. all it did was have rick lazio

come up about ten points of her. >> remember an element of volatility which you pointed to in 2004 roughly a third of americans described themselves, self-identified as republicans, as democrats and as independents. the democrats have lost a little bit. republicans have lost quite a bit but independents have gone from 31% to 44%. they still track pretty partisanly. >> they vote like partisans. >> but they are a lot more volatile and that's what we've seen in here. the fact that we have a socialist outside, democratic socialist outsider and donald trump this far along is very telling. >> still no trump endorsement by speaker ryan. just how far apart are donald trump and paul ryan on policy? if you he modera to severe rheumatoid arthritis,

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goro with crest pro-health advanced. m's right...again! i'm the one that's going to save social security, believe me. >> how would you actually do that, can i ask you, because right now -- >> because you have tremendous waste. >> i'll tell you. >> take up two-thirds.

>> tremendous waste, fraud and abuse. that we're taking care of. that we're taking care of it. it's tremendous. we have in social security right now thousands and thousands of people that are over 106 years old. now you know they don't exist. they don't exist. there's tremendous waste, fraud and abuse, and we're going to get it, but we're not going to hurt the people who have been paying into social security their whole life and then all of a sudden they are supposed to get less. >> donald trump back in february promising to save social security without reducing benefits. earned benefits or entitlements as some people call them are one of the many areas where trump and house speaker paul ryan have some big differences on policy. for more let me bring in nbc's kelly o'donnell covering all of this from capitol hill today. kelly, from the beginning, i think donald trump did something very politically smart which was he just told the base of the republican party what they wanted to hear which is that he has no interest, quote, unquote in, most entitlement reform and that's what most republicans

want to hear. they don't want to see social security or medicare cut very much. paul ryan has made his name calling for cuts to that. how does that end up working out? >> it's also a message that can be hurt to disaffected democrats or independent voters, too, who have an anxiety about the government how not coming through with any sort of promise and commitment made for those -- those kinds of benefits so trump is hitting that populist tone but as you point out paul ryan has been a student of how kolt federal government shape the curve for spending on entitlements like medicare, social security and so forth to change the -- the far end where he says there is a real threat. at the same time, paul ryan talks about the fact when his father passed away as a kid he got social security, so he tries to bridge that. he's an expert on that subject, but trump has been about the kind of showmanship in this race. we've seen that. i talked earlier today with

tennessee congresswoman marcia blackburn, a republican, who knows both men and sees a way that they could come together. she said to me perhaps opposites can attract. >> i think it's a little bit of both. it is a getting to know you kind of meeting and maybe speed dating, full. there's a little bit of that in there, but also paul is all about policy, and i think mr. trump -- >> he's known for that. >> he's known for that, and it's in his down, a and i think mr. trump knows he needs some insight into how the policy world works and how we have to follow the rules of the house in the senate and the rules -- the rule of law in order to have policy that is going to be lasting and is going to change. >> so part of what we're hearing from republicans is that this meeting opens the conversation to talking about how would you achieve some of the things that trump is talking about, like any

candidate. there is the rhetoric. campaign season. there is the down-to-earth serious business of governing or sometimes not governing, depending on how things go. so policy matters to people who have made their careers in politics. trump is new to all of this so now part of what has to happen, both in his transition team for a future potential trump administration and to launch a campaign needs to sort of staff you have, learn more, get more of a sense of what these policies could be and some republicans here are open to trying to help him shape the ways that he could do that, even when there are disagreements. chris? >> kelly o'donnell, thank you. just to take a step back for a second. we're now talking about, like, well, he's not into -- the thing, the thing that he's going to dork the thing of governing, which is you say what, you know, you propose solutions to problems and you legislation them, like that whole thing is a bracketed thing and the thing i keep thinking about, when he said there's hundreds of

thousands receiving social security over 106 years old, that's not true. there's people in the database but they are not cutting checks to those folks, judgment so we're clear on that. what i hear when i hear that, lawrence, is every huckster with a policy to sell is going to be setting up a meeting with paul manafort because if you have -- if you've got nothing and you're committed to nothing, then, man alive, are there people in washington, d.c. who have got a really good policy that you should get behind. >> and paul manafort is going to instruct the candidate as he has already is the only salesman you're going to listen to is paul ryan, the most powerful person in the congress. paul ryan is dictating starting today what the trump policies are. that's what the meeting was about, paul ryan taking the imbecile candidate to school, the school of governing. what did he say about constitution and the separation of snow showers in other words, trump is on his way to learning that the president does not have the power to raise tariffs on things from mexico. only paul ryan does.

only the house of representatives and the senate can do that. the president does not have the power to raise taxes or change any tax. only the house of representatives does, and that's the constitution that says that. it must begin in the house if it's a tax bill and, you know, ryan is laying out for him, you know, here's how it works, and -- and ryan said now we're going to get together on policy. what that means is staff people from ryan's world are going to talk to whatever they call them in the trump campaign, the two or three people who sit there and pretend they are thinking about policy and say, hey, here's how we do it, and we're going to send you two charts. show you the one where social security bankrupt and show you the one where medicare goes bankrupt, where the trust funds cannot immediate the obl gagsz and that's why we talk about it the way we talk about it and trump will look at the charts and go oh, okay. that's it. there's no trump policy. it's paul ryan policy from now on. >> this is what i was talking about before, the idea of getti

getting essentially the ryan agenda with the trump face. >> that's how trump will build unity with the republicans and one of the advantages of his vac yews sloganiering is that it leaves a lot of room for paul ryan detail. how are we going to address social security? maybe the retirement age, personal retirement accounts, these are all old ideas kick around washington for a long time since 2000 when i was on a social security commission. >> probably longer than that. >> and you saw, of course, you reported earlier about james baker holding that meeting with donald trump, again, to fill in the policy details underneath the broad proclamation. >> you could do nothing more politically damaging, i think, what do i know, than to turn donald trump into a guy who is campaigning on raising the retirement age and a free trade deal. >> i would bet my life savings as meager as it is that he's not going to do that. entitlement reform as a political project in washington

is dead. >> yes, naerlt. >> it died this year. it's dead on the democratic side in a way that it wasn't in 2012. barack obama when he came to office in january 2009 said i would consider this a failure if we kick the can down the road. democrats are not interested in. it all that is gone. >> republicans aren't interested. >> three main issues along with mexicans and the other stuff is he's going to protect your social security. >> so it's dead, it's dead. >> but he can also demonstrate with the media and paul ryan and are staffers who are educating him, the president proposes and congress disposes that he gets it and there is common ground to move forward. >> why is he? >> he doesn't need to say it publicly. >> there's an elite conversation among the republican party to try to reel donald trump in because he's blown apart the inherent republican ideology so there's those conversations to reel him in and then there's the campaigning conversation. >> yes. >> he's not going to campaign on policy. >> on any that have.

he's not going to do that. he'll take shortcuts and he's brilliant. >> he's ultimate shortcut. >> he's ultimate shortcut, and he's going to continue to do that, so there's campaigning discourse and conversation which will be very different from the policy. >> the really worrisome precedent, political parties on domestic policy are fairly coherent, sort of know what their instincts are going to be and how they will act. continuity, people elected a number of times that serve in the house and senate. on foreign policies, the last time we had someone who came in and said i'll put good people around me was george w. bush and talked about humble foreign policy in the debates and ended up in the longest war in the american >> it takes one -- there's always a crisis. >> there's going to be a cries. >> and people who have been thinking about the cries and the interventionists, not the non-interventionists. >> the point is the people who will be in the room, the day of a god forbid horrible thing happening in the world of a trump presidency, those people who will be in the room are going to be the same people who have been in the room in

washington for 20 years. the fact that jim baker is there or whoever, they will be the folks -- >> if donald trump has access to jim baker and donald trump is elected president you think he's going to ask chris christie who the secretary of state should be or the secretary of defense should be or is he going to ask jim baker who that should be? >> right. >> who is in charge. trump is the presumptive republican nominee and ryan the highest elected republican and so then who actually runts party machine? luckily, there's a better way... with the capital one venture card. with venture, you'll earn unlimited double miles on every purchase, every day. and when you're ready to travel, just book the flight you want, on any airline, then use your miles to cover the cost. now you're getting somewhere. what's in your wallet? wrely on the us postal service? because when they ship with us, their business becomes our busiss.

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you've got a lot of money that gets raised. the fund-raising structures have gotten more complicated in the post-citizens united era, but it remains the fact that the party is a big conduit for money, plrl in generals. you've got nrcc that will do its thing for the house and the nrsc that will do its thing on the senate side. the question is ultimately if the party gets told to do one thing by paul ryan and another by donald trump, what does reince do at the rnc? >> i don't want to be reince ever. if you think that's the case you're clearly out to lunch. >> the best line was obama, i'm glad you are here, feel like you're doing a good enough job to take the night off. >> here's the rub, and when they disagree, and they will. >> resources are finite. >> people under trump will try to make donors feel better by saying, listen, we know he's a bit of a loose cannon. however, we need you to still support us because we actually

do have the house and senate races that are incredibly important. >> right. >> it's very possible and plausible that the senate will be taken over by democrats, especially if trump is -- is on the ticket, no matter who his vice presidential candidate is. >> right. >> so i think that ryan is going to make it such that he has to make sure that the money comes in, right? donald trump doesn't really know how to fund raise. he doesn't understand fund raising and let's be clear the bushes may get the last laugh. >> that's all their people. >> they do have access to the tap so they can tell their people, well, you know, you can support senate candidates that we care about, support particular -- >> because it matters where they send the checks and how they work. >> exactly. >> because if you send it to the congressional committees, that money isn't fungible and goes to the commits and if you send it to the party it can get moved around. >> the greatest fear for the rnc not only does donald trump know how to do it he doesn't particularly want to. >> do you think this guy wants to do grip and grins and dialing for dollars? >> he doesn't.

the rnc is concerned he wouldn't be a prolific fund-raiser for all the candidates and while donald is out being donald we need you to be out there for the republican party. >> i don't know where half a billion will come from. >> a lot of fun. >> there's monon the zion. >> you think there will be? >> for sure. >> the koch people said they won't get into presidential politics this year, at least they did a few months ago and so they are going to go down ballot races. i heard thomas massie, a funny republican congressman from kentucky, say how they treat "house of cards" as a user's manual, a good line. >> oh, dear. >> the main thing that they get wrong is that there's an active intelligence in charge. >> there's not. >> paul ryan is not passing budgets. that's his one main job. he's not able even to do that. there's no one in charge of the republican party. >> if there was someone in charge of the republican party donald trump wouldn't be the nominee. >> there's a bunch of different

factions all working against each other and it's a great political science experiment going forward to see how republicans manage to raise money this fall, whether or not the senate and house fall -- the house especially, if donald trump gets blown out. there's a whole mishmash of a mess. >> i think what's also interesting is when we're talking about the super wealthy elites because there are particular individuals who have the party to turn on the money and then there are other people who know how to bundle it, particularly billionaires that trump presumably should know but he has no relationships with these people. they don't like him. help's a gaudy, tacky, like, you know -- >> he's not a member. >> not a member of the club. >> not a member of the republican donor class. >> he never was. he was actually a democrat. >> what was the one county that donald trump lost between new york and in those five mid-atlantic primaries and new england? >> green sglich no. it was manhattan. >> kasich got manhattan. >> that's exactly right. >> he has no relationships with these people. when does he ever do town halls

to shake people's hands and shake hands with real individuals, never does that. he doesn't want to get in with the glad handing. he can fund raise to me is almost laughable. >> and republicans were very bewildered he chose for his finance chair someone who himself has a history being a democratic donor, not a republican one. >> we'll be back in a moment and first here's half. on paerson with the cnbc market wrap. a mix closed to the markets today. the dow rights by nine points and the s&p dropping less than a point and the nasdaq down by 23 points. that's it is from cnbc, first in business worldwide. growing fast, you say? we can't contain it any long... oh! you know, that reminds me of how geico's been the fastest-growing auto insurer for over 10 years straight. over ten years? mhm, geico's the company your friends and neighbors trust. and deservedly so. indeed.

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all right. so the big meeting happened. here's my take on the meeting. donald trump wins these meetings because he's more shameless than anyone else and him a is an inhibitor, and i don't know paul ryan's absolute sense of shamelessness, but i'm sure he's got more shame than donald trump, and so donald trump, every time that he comes face-to-face with these people he has the comparative advantage. >> he also knows when his opponent or partner is cornered and ryan is cornered. he doesn't have a really good way out. >> that's the genius of trump where even in the debates you saw he's really great at exposing whatever your achilles is, can identify it really quickly and just go all in for it. >> did not do that in the joint statement today. it was not a -- it was -- it was a sort of much more diplomatic kind of we're both here thing. >> that would have been ryan coming out and understanding him and understands that's not the win so he has to scale it back a little bit. >> the statement is pretty andine. it's a win-win for both of them, come to the table, have a discussion, shake hands. >> plant the seeds. >> plant the seeds and leave

that meeting, you know, sort of walking the line for their constituencies. >> shaking hands without the cameras clicking is an interesting observation. thanks to my panel. that does it for this hour, but that's just hour one from me, chris hayes. i'll be back tonight in three hours at 8:00 p.m. eastern for "all in." check that out. a lot of good stuff on tap there, but for "ntp daily." starts now. if it's thursday, it's donald trump taking capitol hill by storm. four different meetings that could have enormous impact on the next four years. this is "mtp dale" and it starts right now. and good evening. i'm steve kornacki in for chuck todd. welcome to "mtp daily." all this hour we're going to take you behind the scenes in what has been