on first day as president he seems to be trumping a good story. he meeting with business leaders and congressional leaders, with drawing from tpp partnership and going ahead with the keystone pipeline, insisting it be built with u.s. steel. instead of oxygen in the briefing room at 1600 pennsylvania avenue is taking up by the false claim by the president himself that widespread voter fraud in rang of 3 to 5 million people are illegal and explains -- he spent about the first five to ten minutes talking about the campaign about how 3 to 5 million illegal voted in the election. according to the post fact-checker this is a bogus claim. the dodging numbers appears too

be the conspiracy theorist appears 3 million votes illegal aliens. the report is actual lay tweet. the person who authored the tweet won't explain how he arrived at his figure. he would also not say what the data is or where it came from or what methodology he used. trump's press secretary backed him up and suggested a white house investigation could happen. >> reporter: does the president believe that millions voted illegally in this election? >> the president does believe that. he stated before his concerns of

voter fraud and people voting illegally in the campaign. >> reporter: what evidence do you have? >> as i said, i think the president has believed that for a while based on study and information he has. >> reporter: wouldn't he want an investigation of this? >> as i've noted several times now, he's believed that for a long time and he won fairly overwhelmingly -- >> reporter: i'm asking you why not investigate -- >> maybe we will. >> do you believe there was widespread -- >> reporter: how could he be comfortable with -- >> no, he's very comfortable with his win. it's an electoral based system, he got 306 electoral votes. >> it's the second time the he's been forced to defend his questionable numbers to the press. here he was on saturday night. >> we know that 420,000 people used the d.c. public transit yesterday, which compares to 317,000 that used for president obama's last inaugural.

this was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration period, both in person and around the globe. >> you don't want to get your train schedule from this guy. according to "the washington post," after sean spicer delivered that rebuke to the press saturday night, many critics thought he went too far and compromised his own integrity. the president thought he was not strong enough. michael steele is the former chair of the republican national committee. this is really weird. i thought that jeff zeleny of the "new york times" had a great question. he said to sean spicer, do you believe this 3-to-5 million vote theft by illegal immigrants? because it forced him to admit, okay, i'm a flak. i'm just here doing my job. i have a boss watching on the nanny cam.

i better say the right thing with force but he didn't say he believed it. >> he clearly dodged the question. i think the reason why is because he's the spokesperson who is channelling donald trump, both the message, the facts or the alternative facts as the case may be and even the tone and demeanor and when he can swing it, the look. that is his job and it what every press secretary demands of his press secretary. >> why would donald trump leak through his confidante saying she didn't like the fact that the preds of the united states doesn't like the fact that he doesn't own any dark suits. so in walks sean spicer with a dark suit for the the first time. is this how the president communicates with his national spokesman? why didn't he call him and say wear a dark suit tomorrow. >> either way sean certainly got the message. you could see he changed the color, the cut --

>> flashy tie. >> he looked a lot better in donald trump's eyes, i think. >> he's leaking the fact he doesn't like the guy's looks. this is like he's casting miss universe again. >> what about the 3 to 5 million people, i assume he means hispanic people coming into the country without papers as somebody who didn't vote for him, though 29% of his panic voters did vote for him. i'm going to steal your line here. there's 11 million people here in the country illegally. that means 3 million of this many risk coming out. that shows patriotism. i would give them all citizenship now.

>> you are in the roosevelt room with the political leadership of both parties talking about your agenda. that would tell me you won the election. it not like you're sitting a the a cafe having a cold cup of coffee trying to figure out what happened in your election. so the focus on the fact that 3 million people, 5 million people, it's all about having lost the popular vote to hillary clinton. that's what rubs this man to his core. and the problem is his people can't get him off of that stick. >> this is what -- >> he's still fighting over the number of people who showed up at the inauguration. he argues over the poll numbers on who won the debates. >> what seems to matter most to donald trump through the campaign and up to now is donald trump and the fact that he can't get off the stick, as you put it. and when he goes to the cia wall that memorialized -- >> what's the stick?

>> he just can't get off that issue. >> goes to the cia, stands in front of a wall that commemorates people who died, he goes on how he knows tom brady. it leads him to believe delusional issues. >> he got to go in and argue with congress, tough cookies like chuck schumer and paul ryan. he's got to argue facts with them. donald trump's assertion, that's all it is, that millions of illegal immigrants while in the country illegally illegally voted for him was peddled online by conspiracy expert. the california secretary of state called it is corrosive lie. let's watch. >> did you feel the need to correct him? and does it trouble you he continues to hold a belief like

this that isn't based in fact? >> i've already commented on that. i've seen no evidence to that effect and i've made that very, very clear. >> i have no evidence whatsoever and i don't know that anyone does. if there were that many illegal people who voted. and frankly it doesn't matter. he's the president and whether 20 million people voted, it doesn't matter anymore. he's the president and i'm not sure why he brought it up. >> i'm telling you, he is now the president of the united states, he's the chief law enforcement officer and as such, he sits at the top of our legal structure, he's atop of the legal branch. this has to stop. he needs to share with us the information he has or he needs to recant this. >> i'm kind of amazed that even the major metropolitan papers, the quality papers like yours and the times and the wall street journal, they try to avoid radical language. "lie" was on the front page of

"new york times" today, that these numbers he's putting out of lies. >> i think journalists realized this election cycle was taking place in a post-truth world. when you have the facts that something is a falsehood, something is bogus, something is not true, then it is okay to call it what it is, which is simply a lie. that's what you're seeing happening in these papers. >> i think they have to. >> they have to call it -- >> they have to call it what it is. because otherwise you do get sucked into that alternative fact, universe. and that is not the space that i think the american press, of whatever -- >> david, you haven't worked on the inside. i have. at some point the people around the president, men, women of whatever age, whatever vintage they are politically have to go up and say, boss, i'm your biggest true believer, you've got to drop this rap. this is no good for you. you got to say like you did with

the birther thing -- >> he really didn't get off the birther thing. >> he did. he said he was born in america. >> but he wouldn't fess up to the fact that he had done this for five years. and throughout the campaign again and again we sat at this very table, chris, from the time he attacked john mccain onward and said why don't the people around him tell him to stop tweeting, stop say tacking miss universe, and the truth of the matter is he can't, he won't and it's not going to stop. this is our president. get used to it. >> apparently you're right but he seems unwilling to let it go when it comes to the size of his inaugural crowd. he tweeted out today again this image, a photo delivered yesterday that will be displayed in the upper/lower press hall. according to congressman steny hoyer, the top being of crowd size came up. >> he didn't change his view of the crowd size. >> he brought it up? >> from his perspective, a very, very large crowd.

we didn't push it beyond that. it was clear this was still on his mind. >> i'm going to be a little bipartisan here. you weren't here but i was here during the whole clinton mess. for a long time i sort of watched the people and thought who is going to be honest during this real mess? you have a president saying something that's not true, everybody knows it's true, he did have this relationship, whatever you think of it, but some people like carville would never deny it. he would say this "itsy bitsy sex thing." when you make people lie with you, the cabinet secretary is going to be asked this, they're going to have to lie with him, you're misusing your office thoroughly. if it gets to be like kim jong un. what do they think about kim jong un? he thinks he's the greatest novelist in the world and they're all supposed to say it? >> and he can play basketball really well. >> when you make people lie for

you -- >> if you can't take advice on these issues of war and peace and the economy and you can't accept other facts that are beyond what you assume, you can't make good decisions, the people around you can't do their jobs and the american public loses faith in you, as it already has. >> thank you, michael steele. coming up, trump's meeting with union leaders at the white house. we'll find out what happened at that meeting with two union presidents. will he get behind them if he can get their people more work?

we been talking about this for a long time. great thing for the american worker what we just did. >> that was president trump, yesterday formally withdrawing the tpp.

and last night president trump convened leaders from the construction, carpenters, plumbers from the trade union. >> we just officially terminated tpp. [ applause ] we're going to stop the ridiculous trade deals that are taking everybody out of our country and taking companies out of our country. >> the president reiterated his campaign promise to direct billions towards infrastructure investments. sean mcgarvey is president of the building trades union and he said trump gave him the impression that the american citizenry and american treasury will be investing in infrastructure.

listen. >> we will build the next generation of roads, bridges, railways, tunnels, seaports and airports. that, believe me, folks, is what our country deserves. >> joining me now are two union leaders at that meeting with president trump. terry o'sullivan and mark mcmanus. gentlemen, thank you for coming on. are you guys happy that trump at least is talking the talk about infrastructure jobs, real high-paying jobs, real jobs? >> absolutely. here's what was impressive, chris. he gets inaugurated on friday. monday the building trades had a meeting with the president, the vice president and all of his key staff. and that meeting was based on a whole host of things, but infrastructure was the main tenet of that.

and so we talked about infrastructure, we talked about good paying, family-supporting jobs. so we are more than encouraged by the meeting. the president's a builder, we're builders. >> mark, is he talking about government doing this? highways are government's business, bridges are government businesses, airports to some extent are, train stations are and rail is. is he talking about laying out money or is he talking about tax breaks? >> he's talking about the government laying down money and talking about public/private partnerships. we have different funds that we can be partnerships that we do traditionally well with for our members. so there is a bit of a discussion on that. tax breaks wasn't in the discussion but it's all of the above and we're for it. more than encouraged. >> i know it's rare in this city of washington to see a deal made. schumer is talking about a trillion dollars now. do you think they can get

together and do something? >> we certainly hope. it's all been a bipartisan issue. >> highways have always been. >> and there's no reason it can't be as well. what is encouraging is our conversation with the president, his plan to have a massive infrastructure spending and the democrats in the senate talking about it as well. it's on the front burner, we're encouraged by that and we look forward to working with everybody to make it a reality. >> i've said this 2,000 times on this show, it's the problem of nothing getting done. the republicans, trusted to spend the money but they wouldn't do it. they're fight fisted. democrats want to spend the money but they're not trusted to spend it. >> so we have the wild card right now. mr. trump, president trump. >> can he get the people who don't like to spend to spend and the people who do spend not waste? >> i think if we're previous districting what president trump can do, i do have optimism coming out of that meeting, talking with senator schumer and talking with the white house staff, there's a deal to be made and it's good for the country.

i think the good leadership in senator schumer and the good leadership of the president of the united states who wants to get off to the right start. i do think there's a deal and in this town i'm optimistic for a deal. >> when he started talking about making it with american pipe, i think people are going to like that. that's my hunch. >> absolutely. >> our steel. >> this was a big day. less than 24 hours ago we were in the roosevelt room and the oval room, mark, myself and some other labor leaders talking about these very issues and in less than 24 hours there's five executive orders that are going to make a difference in our economy, our country and in the lives of men and women we represent. >> chris, you're going to love this part, he asked to bring a plumber in, a steam fitter in, a pipe coverer, a sheet metal worker. he wanted rank and file guys who had -- they had jeans on.

there's some respect there. good first step. >> i hope you guys stay in touch with us. i didn't vote for the guy, big secret here, but i do like the infrastructure stuff. there's a couple things about trump that i liked from the beginning. this is the big part. terry o'sullivan and terry mcmanus. peace in northern ireland. when we return, let me finish with the academy award nominations today. this is "hardball" where the action is.

let me finish tonight with the academy award nominations today. first some nominees i recommend you see. "la la land." if this movie doesn't float your boat, you've got pretty bad holes in it. it's about hollywood and hope and talent and the willingness to believe in it. see it if you want to see ryan gossling and emma stone dance together. "hidden figures" is about the

good people that make us great, the people that get passed over when the spotlight turns and just go see it. it will thrill you. "moonlight" is about the mystery of who we are, a quiet look at the lives we lead so alone, so in the dark with lifelong drama. "hell or high water" is pure americana. i haven't seen "fences" but i'm big on denzel washington but my wife kathleen was crying after she saw the movie. there's a lot of buzz about the many men and women of color about the oscar nominees. that's good. what's really good are the movies they're in. that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. join us tomorrow at 7:00 eastern. see you then.

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>> tonight on "all in." >> it was a comment he made on a long standing belief. >> president trump's first conspiracy theory. >> i think he stated his concerns of voter fraud and people voting illegally during the campaign and he continues to maintain that belief based on studies and evidence people have presented to him.

>> tonight, why donald trump's voting delusion matters and why, as the executive orders fly, republicans are cheering. democrats keep up the fight on nominees. >> i don't know why you won't be willing to answer whether or not you're in favor of block granting medicaid. that's not complicated. >> the latest alternative fact checking from the briefing room. >> the presidents actions today will create tens of thousands of new jobs. are the national parks back to subtweeting the president? and inside the "washington post" report of fury and tumble already boiling over inside the trump white house. >> and they said donald trump did not draw well. i said it was almost raining. >> when "all in" starts right now. good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. we are five days into the presidency of donald trump although we should note the white house considers this to be only president trump's second "working day."