news in the day ahead. vice president mike pence "morning joe" is starting right now. ♪ under newly emboldened confident america is good for the world. an america that is strong and prosperous at home is a nation that can lead abroad. but you cannot and should not do so alone. so we are two countries together have a response to lead, because when others step up as we step back, it is bad for america, for britain, and the world. >> good morning. it is friday, january 27th. welcome to "morning joe." with us on set we have washington anchor for bbc, world

news america, katty kay. former treasury official and "morning joe" economic analyst steve rattner. and in washington, columnist and associate editor for "the washington post," david ignatius. nbc news capitol hill correspondent kasie hunt. >> let's stop here and say what an unbelievable week. >> oh, my gosh. >> there's so much coming at us. one of the more memorable tweet said i follow news for a living. that's my job, yet, i'm overwhelmed by the onslaught of information comt ing at me. if i'm feeling that way what about americans that don't follow it every day? david ignatius wrote in "the washington post" this morning that the first week of the trump presidency showed he is more determined to overturn academic trade and national security order than even his critics feared. yesterday, he showed us that.

>> just that. >> katty kay, obviously, some real concerns from not only britain, but europe and across the world because donald trump is actually doing what donald trump said he was going to do. >> yeah. there is an element of fear and confusion about what is going to replace all of this. if he is going to rip up the world order that is underpinned the west since the world war ii what comes next and is politics like science and nature, in a vacuum and will somebody else step in again? that is what you heard teresa may saying. i thought it was a nuance speech. >> it sympathized what is happening in britain and america while staying, we are still here and we are still responsible for leading the post world war. >> she called out nato and the united nations and mentioned

estonia and she is getting flak at home for doing that but saying you could get rid all of these allowance without risking the security of the west. >> here is the incoming that we were poring throughhere. after reports surfaced on wednday that mexico president enrique pena. he said the following. late in the day, the mexico president confirmed via twitter that the meeting was off. speaking to republican conference in philadelphia, president trump said it was a mutual decision and assured lawmakers about managing the wall's multibillion dollar price tag. >> i've said many times that the

american people will not pay for the wall. and i've made that clear to the government of mexico. we are working on a tax reform bill that will reduce our trade deficits, increase american exports and generate revenue that will pay for the wall if we decide to go that route. >> sean spicer spoke on ford air force one. >> you tax that money 20% of imports a practice that 160 other countries do right now, our country's policy is to tax exports and let imports flow freely which is ridiculous but by doing that way make $10 million a year and pay for that wall. if you think a border tax from countries like mexico we have a huge trade deficit does that is

going to provide the funding. >> word of a proposed 20% border tax on mexican imports sent shock waves across the political war and reince priebus walked the statement back and telling nbc's peter alexander it was only one idea in a buffet of options. but then last night, alexander talked directly to the president at the white house who said of a 20% border tax, quote, we are going to tax people coming in. look. we cannot lose ourompaes to mexico or any other place and then we have them ke the product and just send it across our border free. we are going to put up substantial tax on those countries, okay? and that is why. by the way, they are coming -- they are all coming back, okay? without that, they don't come back so easily. >> let's stop here and get reaction. because this is a great place to just stop. >> yep. >> and explain. that the position that donald trump came to yesterday was a position he originally opposed two weeks ago and that actually

is, steve, 20% border adjusted tax. the house republicans have been pushing this for sometime because it would fund corporate tax rates and also fund a cut in personal tax rates. it's not a radical idea. it's not this punitive tax that donald trump seemed to suggest he was going to levy yesterday. this is actually a tax that a lot of companies don't like and a lot of economists don't like but it is not a radical idea but that is something lost in translation, as well as the fact that at the end of the day, this tax will be paid by american consumers. >> well, you've asked the question and you also answered it but i'll answer it again. >> which question exactly did i ask? >> there's so many. >> there wasn't a question. maybe just an answer. >> this is what is called a conversation. >> so, look. point one. everybody agrees the corporate tax system in this country is screwed up and that it favors

actually imports over exports and everybody is on board to change it. this idea is one after number to reform the corporate tax code and not necessarily a bad idea. economists are divided by it but not aimed at mexico but aimed basically at redressing the disincentives companies have now to produce things here rather than -- >> could i ask a question this time? why is it that other countries do this? as sean said, 150, 160 other countries do this but we don't tax imports. >> it's not as much we don't tax imports. other countries rely on a value added tax and that has a lot of the same effects and that actually is what creates, in a way, this incentive for companies to export rather than to import and moving us in that direction. here is the key point. the key point it is a replacement for the tax code and not some additional tax we put on and not aimed at mexico in

particular. threvenuis what w need to make up for the revenue we are losing from the corporate tax cut. there is no real additional revenue to the treasury to pay for the wall and the consumers of america will end up paying for the wall. >> "wall street journal" says it will raise about a trillion dollars off of the 50 billion dollar trade deficit with mexico. it would easily, as "wall street journal" said this morning raise the $10 billion for the wall without actually cutting into the republican plans to use the additional money to cut corporate tax rates. >> i'm not sure the math works exactly that way. i think that the money you raise from this tax would, in fact, be used to -- we have a 35% corporate tax rate in this country, one of the highest in the world. we want to reduce that. i'm not sure -- >> you agree with that? >> i'm not sure how much revenue is left but it's not money coming from mexico. it is money being paid by our companies and therefore by us.

>> willie, yes, it would be paid by consumers who buy mexican products and the people selling the mexican imports would get the 20% tax rate and pass it on to the government? >> i think that is an important distinction for people watching. it's not a 20% tariff. in other words prices would go up. >> assuming the companies hit -- pass the it on to the consumer. >> whether people think the dollar will go up or not. >> that makes it more implicated. we are getting into the weeds here because also it will have the effect of strengthening the dollar and lessen the impact for the importeders in the long run >> it will suppress the mexican economy which is already on a down swing at the moment, potentially.

what to we know about immigration rights across the border? they rise. >> president trump's tax on imports sounds familiar to a reform pushed by house republicans and an idea known as border adjustment and trop the corporate tax rate from 25% to 30% and exempting exported good froms united states and impofg a 20% tax on goods imported to the united states. president trump said any time i hear border adjustment i don't love it because it usually means we are adjust into a bad deal and what happens. kevin brady, the chairman of the house ways and means committee defended it against criticism that would pass the cost on to consumers. >> we are proposing an equal 20% tax rates on imports to the united states as well as the products here in the united states. so for the first time they would be taxed equally. leveling the playing field and competing competition is good for the consumers. i am convinced this world economy recognizes changes. we will strengthen our main

american exports and our dollar will appreciate and imports buying them at a lower price and i think it balances out in a major way. >> there are some republicans not on board. john cornyn and others. i'll read lindsey graham's tweet. >> worthit. >> this is how he summarized. any policy proposal that drives up tequila or margarita is a big-time bad idea. moocho sad. end quote from lindy graham. >> david ignatius, while this is part of the house republican plan, senate republicans aren't thrilled by it. probably have trouble passing the senate. but i'm sure you are more interested in the messages that actions like yesterday sent. not only to mexico but the rest of the world? >> joe, if i just sort of step back a bit.

what i see as a result of yesterday's actions and really this whole first week of the trump presidency is a planned visit to washington by mexican president who does not want to trade with donald trump and trying very hard to be relatively moderate in his country, under a lot of pressure. and that plan getting blown up as a result of what seems to have been trump's increasing discomfort with the idea of going forward with kind of delayed process of payment for the wall. in his interview with david mura, he seemed to be ready to accept a formula that would delay pam and thpayment and the tweet to force the mexican president to cancel the visit. i think it's difficult for the u.s. and mexico unnecessary crisis and first foreign policy

rupture of the trump administration and doesn't seem necessary. >> david, the time line of it. i haven't heard a lot of people talking about this. the white house had worked hard the entire previous day to keep the meeting going and had been working around the clock trying to get the mexican president to agree to the meeting. he did. and as soon as he did, that is when the president sent out those tweets, blowing up the meeting. so it soeems like the sabotage was intentional and actually went against what his own staff was trying to put together. >> joe, you put your finger on the thing that has got me scratching my head. we have seen in this first week a president with a very ambitious agenda, moving faster than i can ever remember a president in his first week. but creating so many small flaps and storms that those become the

story and detracting in this ambitious change agenda and it's puzzling. the mexico example is a perfect one and i think another clear example is the question of cia interrogation where the president has new people and the president after listening to jim mattis, i'm not so sure about torture. all of a sudden, he is back in the thick of that very divisive painful issue. >> then last night, david, you know, we have talked about this a good bit and i have tried the past several days to get clarification on what is torture, where does waterboarding fit. obviously, we consider that to be torture. but part of that exercise was i knew the president was speaking in an exact way, that he was talking about torture when what he meant to say was enhanced interrogation techniques. he tried to clear it up last

night but that doesn't really matter because theresa may comes to the united states. he is talking about ftore furor which is illegal and nobody is going to allow that to happen. but she comes over and has to clear that up because of his inaccident language and makes her position far more tenuous, as well as republicans on the hill and americans standing in the world. >> a brief last thought on this, joe. never want to say that president trump should take lessons from anyone but if he were to take lessons from a single person this week, i would say it's theresa may. she managed to express clearly what a conservative change agenda like trump's sounds like when it's carefully stated. her line about russia we need to engage but beware i thought was

perfectly tied and perfectly stated. she is is someone i hope the president trump will form a bond with because she can help him. >> last night, mika, the president tried to clarify some of the remarks on torture. >> you've been watching him do exactly what you were talking about which is a little bit inexact roundabout way that talked about the topic that causes this concern upheaval. >> when they are shooting and chopping off the heads of our people and other people, when they are chopping off the heads of people because they happen to be a christian in the middle east and isis is doing things never heard of since medieval times, would i feel strong about waterboarding? as far as i'm concerned we have to fight fire with fire. with that being said, i'm going with general mattis, i'm going with my secretary because i think pompeo is going to be phenomenal and i'm going to go

with what they say, but i have spoken as recently as 24 hours ago with people at the highest level of intelligence and i asked them the question. does it work? does torture work? and the answer was yes, absolutely. waterboarding used to be used because they had is really wasn't torture. it was the one step slightly below torture. >> that's why it was legal. >> torture is real torture. >> fingernail. >> i'm sure it's not pleasant but waterboarding was just short of torture. when, you know, all of a sudden, they made it torture. so here is the story. look. i spoke with people the other day who are in there world that we are talking about,hey had, absolutely, it works, absolutely. now, general mattis said that he doesn't intend to use it. i'm with him all the way. do i believe it works? yes, i do. do you have any even a doubt it works? >> none. >> neither do i.

i watch the people on television, oh, donald trump is in favor of torture. look. we have people that knocked down the world trade center and all over the world, they go into a club and machine everybody down. and then they -- we are not allowed to waterboard? it's so -- it seems so foolish and so naive, but this is what we have to put up with. >> willie, if you're scoring at home, he tosses out the red meat, waterboarding, good thing, torture, good thing. walks it back. but i'm with james mattis. i'm with general mattis. not going to do it. later on, he says i'm going to do what is legal so he is not going to do it. tosses out red meat, again. they say it works and we should do it. >> hannity agrees. >> walks it back. but mattis, quote, i'm with him all the way. not going to do it. but he tosses out the red meat

again. i can tell. you look at that and look at all of the transcripts this past week and he has said in his own unique way he is siding with james mattis and he is not going to push for waterboarding. he says it. and, yet, he tosses out the red meat to his supporters which causes problems for theresa may and the rest of the world. >> as i watch that, what i see is someone keeping the tough guy cred intact from the primary. >> the gut. >> listen. these are the bad guys chopping off head and we pour a little water on their face? please, we can do that but i'll defer to general mattis who knows more about these things than i do. i think in the end it gives him ae an out if we don't use enhanced interrogation or waterboarding he can put that off mattis and keep his -- >> it allows him to say you say you're for torture. no, no. i said i'm going to do everything that is legal and i'm

with james mattis all the way, right? but he still tosses the red meat out there. as willie said, he gets sort of this street cred with the people who supported him but it causes a hell of a lot of problems for theresa may and other leaders. >> this is the single biggest problem that theresa may is facing today back in the uk in terms of her visit here is what donald trump has been saying during the course of this week about torture and it is forcing her into a decision saying we would not support the american people so he is forcing a wedge between himself -- >> we think. it's concerning, we think. >> we think. we also have to wonder is he saying some of this in order to shore up james mattis who could not have been happy during the course of this week to apparently had himself contradicted this early on by his principal? >> it remains just to be careful here. >> except for the fact every time he brings up james mattis name, he says i'm going to follow him and defer to him, et

cetera, et cetera. >> then he cites other experts that tell him it contradicts what james mattis say. >> i think you're right, joe. one hand red meat to the base and not use torture because he will. >> reporter: james mattis as his shield. >> i think we should say what kind of reaction and consequence this approach will have. we have never seen it before. kasie hunt, amid all this, he spoke at the republican conference. how did that go and tell us about it. >> well, this question of torture, for example, is one that i think very neatly encapsulates challenges for trump right now. they don't understand this is something he is talking about and it's a unique example because normally, you know, republican leaders come up to microphones and they are asked to explain whatever tweet it is that donald trump has offered up

that morning. they get pretty frustrated with it and try to spend a lot of time talking around it. in the case of torture that is not how it was handled. take a look at how mckconnell ad ryan so definitive on this yesterday. >> i think the director of the cia has made it clear he is going to follow the law and i believe virtually all of my members are comfortable with the state of law on that issue now. >> and torture is illegal. and torture is not legal. so and we agree with it not being legal. >> paul ryan sort of grabbing the microphone there! >> yeah. >> microphone down. >> that's one way to put it. >> look. i just think in this case normally paul ryan tries to either give donald trump space or say i'm not commenting today on what donald trump has to say but clearly an issue that is not the case. they are grappling pretty intensely with the pace of all of this. one person described it to me as

trying to surf the wave that is donald trump on any given day and especially on tax reform. you guys were digging into that and talking about how you were getting down in the weeds. the challenge for republican leaders is they are sitting down around a table with donald trump and trying to explain all of this to him. that is a little bit of a challenge. you know? there is some confidence he is coming around to where they stand on these things. but he is really new to governing and i think that there is a lot of both public and private kind of frustration going on right now. >> the headline really, other than the impact on foreign policy. >> which we don't know. >> at least legislative impact that this -- what happened yesterday actually brings donald trump to the house position. so they were certainly had to be pleased about that at the retreat. >> but they are still confused about it, joe. that's the thing. they thought mid afternoon that this is what he was doing. he was embracing a policy that they have been trying to convince him that he should

embrace. but then 20 minutes, half an hour later, all of a sudden, peter alexander is reporting, no, this is just one option. so everyone is left with their head spinning. >> right. and then last night, didn't trump confirm it with peter alexander? >> yes. >> he confirmed it with peter. david ignatius, i think as we all try to figure out how to handle the incoming, just the torrent of news and headlines and breaking news and shocking revelations headed our way, i think it's important that we try to figure out how to sort through what is real, what is -- you know, what is smoke in mirrors and what is being done to intentionally provoke us. in that category, i bring to the table the most inflammatory and disturbing statement that i have no doubt it was made to provoke

us and have the media rip the sack cloth and ashes, you know, from themselves and sort -- steve bannon telling the press that they needed to shut up. i lookedt it. he said the media should be embaassed and milied and keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while. that's not going to happen. and he knows that is not going to happen. i do just wonder whether this is, again, for effect to stir up -- to start a fight with the media that, obviously, breaks in their direction every time they fight the media. >> i think one of the interesting surprises for me of the first week of the trump presidency is how important steve bannon is as a voice, going into the inauguration, nobody could be sure. but that inaugural address was pretty much straight steve bannon as i read it. and i think both bannon and

trump have worked hard over the last week to make the press, the media the opposition, as bannon put it, you're the opposition, because i think they feel they will be more successful running against people in the news business, characterizing them as dishonest, unfair, than otherwise. i think it's a very deliberate strategy. my feeling, as we have discussed in the past on the show is people in the news business we just have to do our jobs. we are not in the business of taking sides. we are not a permanent opposition. we are journalists but there will be an attempt to make us seem like a partisan force in this from bannon and also from the president. >> nick confessore said we need a lot less think pieces on trump and a lot more reporting. just stop talking about it! >> it speaks for itself. >> just report. and let people decide what they

draw from all of this that is happening. of course, you need people explaining, but at the end of the day, this is such a short sided strategy. i say washington always wins. the media always wins. >> this is a terrible strategy. >> this is the worst strategy. you know what? if they are thinking we ran against the press -- i don't mean to be short here but i have put historical perspective on it. they beat hillary clinton. the only politician less trusted than donald trump. so if they are going back and looking at 2016, a race they lost by 3 million popular votes and they think they will expand that the next four years, this will end very, very bad. mark it down at 6:27 this is what we did when we were predicting donald trump would win the nomination. let me do it this way.

it goes toorge the other wahe o. let me say taking on the press like that, it always ends badly. the press always wins. washington always wins. you figure out how to work with them. or you're going to get crushed. there you go. just a little helpful reminder. i said the same thing to the obama administration. i've said it to every administration, and some people get it and some people don't. >> the press just ignoring what steve bannon says and get on and do our job. our biggest challenge is that there is so much news coming out of the white house that trying to figure out what is optic s ad has substantial policy on people in the u.s. is our biggest challenge. >> saying this cleanly and letting the story speak for itself. the two things we know steve bannon has been responsible for are the inaugural address read it over and so far this

statement about the media. read it over. still ahead, the top democrat on foreign relations says president trump just caused, quote, severe damage on the world stage. james langford will also join the conversation. we will be right back. safety doesn't come in a box. it's not a banner that goes on a wall. it's not something you do now and then. or when it's convenient. it's using state-of-the-art simulators to better prepare for any situation. it's giving offshore teams onshore support. and it's empowering anyone to stop a job if something doesn't seem right. at bp, safety is never being satisfied. and always working to be better. at bp, safety is never being satisfied. we've done well in life, with help from our advisor, we made it through many market swings. sure we could travel, take it easy... but we've never been the type to just sit back...

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this is the single greatest meeting i've ever had with anybody. it's the highlight of my life. >> still ahead, former -- >> where was that from? >> i don't know. but it didn't make me laugh. >> the first part was the abc interview. >> was it? interesting editing there. >> rick single reacts to the big shake-up as incoming rex tillerson takes over. plus, cnbc chief international reporter on the threat of a trade war with china and now mexico as well. "morning joe" is coming right back. liberty mutual stood with me when i was too busy with the kids to get a repair estimate. i just snapped a photo and got an estimate in 24 hours. my insurance company

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joining us from capitol hill, cnbc chief international correspondent michelle caru caruso-cabrera. here on set is from harvard kennedy school of law, rick

stengel. >> we heard official asked to leave or fired or quit. >> some after many yors. >> years. >> not big news. >> does that happen? >> relative low level people.no >> does that happen? >> relative low level people. >> they are all political people and all gone during the inauguration. these are relatively low level people -- >> don't you usually keep those in place? >> no. >> no? haven't these people been here a long time? >> they had been but they are deputies or i think one or two assistants. pat kennedy is the one big fish and leaving but not a big, big story. some of them are retiring. they have reached the retirement age and looked at this as a good opportunity. >> while we are on this topic, let's talk about something that happened earlier this week where they sent out messages to agencies, don't put out any statements without passing it by us first.

a lot of people very concerned about that. but i wouldn't think barack obama's administration would want george w. bush's administration putting out statements on global warming. >> no. i think that is not unreasonable. the state department, by the way, is a tremendous bureaucracy where even the tiniest statement goes through this clearance process of dozens and dozens of bureaus. so it's not like people are going to be speaking out officially on their own. they were reluctant to do that any way. that is par for the course not a big deal. >> unlike the bad lands national park clearly in north dakota where they started tweeting things by themselves on climate change and got into trouble. >> that stopped quickly. >> that stopped. >> part of media is everybody has an avenue of communication. >> they can do things by themselves. >> rick, you wrote this piece in "the atlantic." the end of the american century. a line in there trump's administration is the death nail of the american century. what does that mean exactly?

>> henry luce in 1941 wrote a great essay in "life" magazine and everybody thought it was in "time" magazine about the american century and before we god into world war ii. he was trying to persuade people we needed to get into world war ii but it was this vision of america as the architect of a global world order on after the war. which, in fact, came to pass. we did create this liberal world order which the world still depends on. to me, saying that this is the end of the american century, it's not the end of american power. we are still powerful. but it might be the end of us as the global rudder that steers everything, that people depend on. you know? whether it's nato, whether it's the eu. i think having been traveling around the world for the past three years. people want that. people want american leadership, they want american guidance. >> michelle, while we are sorting through things, help us sort through what happened yesterday with mexico. >> yeah. so the foreign minister and the commerce secretary held a news conference last night over the

embassy here in washington, d.c. and sad, defiant, somber, angry. they are pretty upset and said they were discussing protocol for president knnieto visit nex week and said if they don't want to pay for the wall maybe we shouldn't have the visit overall. the relations are pretty tough at the moment to give you an understatement. i can tell you from my position as a reporter over at cnbc where we cover business news, the biggest yesterday was sean spicer articulating the border adjustment tax provision that is in the house gop plan. he cloaked it in protectionist terms and later tried to walk it back. but the headline today is that the white house is closer to this provision than it has been in the past. the fact that he even talked about that as a possibility of a way for paying for the wall is very big news for the business community because it will be a dramatic change to the corporate tax structure here in the united

states. not the personal income tax structure but the corporate tax structure. >> willie, as we said, that is something donald trump, two weeks ago, was against. now, yesterday, he seemed to bring his position far closer to the house republicans. >> yeah. but there is still not complete clarity on it. i mean, they came out yesterday, the press conference saying we might do this tax, 20% and spicer had to pull back and say it's one of the many options we are considering and peter alexander walked up to donald trump on the microphone, they are going to -- we have to put money on what they bring into our country because that is why america is getting screwed. so, michelle, where are we left with this? what is the likelihood we get a border tax and what is the impact on consumers? >> reporter: when you talk to people in paul ryan's office or kevin brady's office at ways and means, they consistently and both of those representatives consistently articulate that they call border adjustability is crucial to corporate tax reform because it raises a

trillion dollars over ten years, and they want to get to revenue neutral. now here is the thing. everybody says, oh, my gosh, if you tax imports and border adjustability means taxing all imports and means consumer prices are going way up. the supporters of this tax and many, many republican sporters of this say that is absolutely not true. and here is what you have to wrap your head around. this would be very strong dollar. the dollar would strengthen a lot. some estimate by 20 or 25% and that means that all of the stuff that walmart buys from overseas actually gets cheaper. the more people learn about this policy, it's the exporters who get nervous rather than the importers like the retailers. >> rick stengel what are you oking the next few weeks from this white house? what are the next big steps? >> we were talking about this before. i hope they sort of modulate their tone on the world stage.

he owned casinos, right? he is not a gambler any more. he is the house and what america is. we are supposed to be stable. even these discussions with mexico it's like we shouldn't be overreacting. there is nationalism all around the world and if we spike that that comes back to haunt us and what michelle was saying. we are an economy that depends on consumer spending and when people put tariffs on products, everybody is paying more and not what people want. >> people are already making their own deals. you've had the mexicos, germans and chileans saying since we pulled out of tpp we will make our own deals and the chinese will expand in asia. the russians will have their spear of influence in eastern europe and chinese have their in asia and saying that is going to happen. singapore is saying that is going to happen because of what trump is doing and is that what america wants and is that the right moment we have so many crises already in the world for

america really to abdicate that position? >> you have donald trump and theresa may both leading their countries in a different direction. theresa may i thought gave a powerful persuasive speech, very well thought out. but it was a speech that said we are going to go it alone. we are going to make our own treaties without the eu and we would like to have a great trading relationship with the united states, but it is -- it is a reversal of where great britain has been for 30 years. >> yes, joe, but i'd underline something that theresa may said. she said, we believe in the vital importance of the european union. we won't be in it but we think it needs to be strong. she underlined the importance of nato. she said, this new britain wants to be more global, more

internationalist, not less. i think that would be one of the themes for me at the end of this first week of the trump presidency, the america first theme, sort of pulling back, protective, defensive has led to a rupture with mexico, our neighbor across the border. mexicans are really angry and upset. i think the reason from theresa may is be careful as you move toward being more nationalistic, asserting your own interests. do it in a way that doesn't harm relations with people you may end up meeting. >> the thing is it was intentional provocation. >> and unnecessary. >> the staff had gotten the two sides back together and it was intentional. >> but -- >> for, again, whatever strategy he has in his mind. maybe he thinks this will and we have talked about this. trump has -- >> we have never seen this before. >> trump is a negotiator.

ma maybe he says it's too early to meet with them. and jerusalem, like i said a week or two ago, that is another example. you throw it out. it's a chip. but then he goes, wait a second. we are going to pull back -- >> what i don't get is the gambling aspect of that, joe. he's there for a while. we have long-term interest and certainly long-term interest with mexico. this kind of early rupture just doesn't have goodividends, right? as i was saying beforee are the house now. we are not gambling and people don't want to see america gamble. >> i suspect actually his attitude is, i'm just guessing, his attitude is we are the house, so we can have a provocation, we can let them get angry, we can sit here and we can wait for them to come and negotiate a better deal. i would never do it in a billion years and, by the way, if somebody on my staff said the press was the enemy, they would be fired in two second. i am not -- again, i'm the

interpreter here. i'm guessing. but it's a pretty calculated guess. it's the same thing i said with jerusalem a week ago. he threw it out there. to tell the arab nation. if you don't deal with us, things will get ugly fast. now he hears from arab nations they want to deal with him, he pulls back on jerusalem. okay, let's just wait. >> right. israeli had a chance to deal with all of the sunni and gulf nations who want israeli to do well because they are more afraid of iran or isis or anybody else. if you move the embassy to jerusalem you sacrifice all of that. >> which is probably why it's not moved right now. it is a historic opportunity to get sunni arab nations and israeli together because they have a lot more in common in 2017 than not. >> exactly. >> which we have never been able to say since 1948. >> rick stengel, thank you. we are back in a moment.

>> how important is to to repair this relationship? >> it's repaired? >> it got repaired -- israeli has been treated very badly. >> you're holding back the last-minute money that president obama gave to the palestinians? >> we are going to see what happens. >> where do you stand on the embassy -- >> i don't want to talk about it yet. it's too early. my business was built with passion... but i keep it growing by making every dollar count.

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los angeles in the mid '60s, and out of hollywood, a former movie actor and television host. >> mr. ronald reagan. >> conservative and charismatic. he was running for governor. i covered ronald reagan as he went up and down the state in a greyhound bus. at first, the opposition laughed at him. but ronald reagan won in a landslide. the beginning of a historic political career that i observed

up close. >> was that the invitation you were just referring to? >> that's right. >> thank you. >> tom brokaw started his career at nbc news 50 years ago and tom joins us at the top of the hour ahead of this sunday's new prime time special featuring men from his unparaeled career. also ahead a border adjustment is said to be on the buffet of options to get mexico to pay for trump's promised wall along the border. former president of mexico vicente fox reacts and he'll join us after this. are you getting this? these numbers are off the charts... sir! what's the status? there's a meteor hurtling towards earth. how long until impact? less than a minute. what do you want to do, sir? listen carefully... if we all switch to geico we could save 15% or more on car insurance.

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welcome back to "morning joe." it is friday, january 27th. is anyone here glad it's friday? >> yes! very glad. >> katty kay is and david ignatius are both still bus and tom brokaw joins the conversation. here at nbc, we are celebrating tom's 50th anniversary with the network with a prime time special tom brokaw at nbc news, the first 50 years. we are going to get to that in a moment. some incredible highlights. we get to see that special this weekend. is that sunday night, tom? >> yes. from 9:00 to 11:00 on sunday night. >> we will have a nice preview

this hour as well. after reports surface odd wednesday that mexican president nieto would likely cancel his upcoming to the white house president trump tweeted yesterday morning the u.s. has a 60 billion dollar trade deficit with mexico and it has been a one-sided deal from the beginning of nafta with massive numbers of jobs and companies lost. if mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall then it's better to cancel the upcoming meeting. later in the day the mexican president confirmed via twitter the meeting was off. speaking to a republican conference in philadelphia, president trump said it was a mutual decision and assured lawmakers about managing the wall's multibalance dollar price tag. i-say the american people will not pay for the wall and said that many times. we are working on a tax reform

bill that will reduce our trade deficits and increase american exports and generate revenue from mexico that will pay for the wall if we decide to go that right. >> stop. if we decide to go that route? >> yeah. >> it sounded the way that was written, if we decide to build the wall. if you look at the construction of that sentence, and will pay for the wall if we decide to go that route. i just -- it's just -- again, i'm just curious about all of the things that are being thrown out and how many of them will end up actually being real. >> and how many deliberate. is that a deliberate leaving himself room not to build the wall when he is being so adamant he is going to build the wall? >> those were from prepared remarks and, again, it is just like waterboarding which he brings up and then tells people i will follow james mattis. i will not waterboard. then he will throw out more red

meat. again, i just wonder how much of this are for the people who voted for him? >> well, a classic example is on a thursday, the cia is akin to the nazi, germany, way they treat people. on saturday, he is up to the cia and says no one loves the cia more than i do and standing in front of the wall with all of the former agents from around the world. but an extension of his campaign, frankly. this is the same way that he campaigned and we do have to remember, this is the president that the people chose under the electoral college. he is doing everything that he said at that time that he would do. not entirely consistent with it, but the style that got him to where he is. >> to your point, this is a president who lost to hillary clinton and it's not necessarily a clean statement as the one you made because i think there is a lot of support he still needs to gain. it's not a president completely elected by the people. >> he won the popular vote and

he won it comfortably. >> he won it comfortably. >> he won the way presidents are elected. >> that said, though, if you want to get re-elected and win the popular vote and have your support go from 40% to 45% to 50% to 52%, at some point you have to stop preaching to the choir. >> he is not building the wall with mexico and we have caused an awful lot of diplomatic damage for something that is not going to happen. >> i think tom is right. donald trump says i'm delivering on my campaign promises. if you go over the course of the last week, not one thing he has proposed or issued an executive order on that he didn't talk about repeatedly during the campaign. >> the people shouldn't be shocked by it. >> she shouldn't be shocked. tpp building a wall. the dakota access pipeline abortion funding looking at our relationshipith the u.n., black sites and inteogation. these are all issues and ideas that came out during the

campaign so in his mind he is delivering on all of the things he was going to do and his tone and rhetoric on remember the election is rigged? he still talking about that even though he won. crowd sizes at his events. the inauguration. these are all themes and ideas that we saw over the course of the past week. >> that is important to underline at the end of this first week. everything he has done, he has said he would do. and he got, what? 306 electoral votes? i think the number he got. he got them, as tom and you said, promising to do exactly what he is doing this week. >> let's go now down to mexico. joining is the former president of mexico, mr. vicente fox. thank you for being with us, this morning. i think it's an understatement to say you're not a fan of donald trump looking at some of the things you've said about him lately. just, yesterday, you said when i saw today's gathering of the republican party retreat, trump being there reminded me of hitler addressing the nazi

party. comparing donald trump to hitler. what did you mean there? >> just comparing donald trump with hitler and comparing the republican party with the nazi party, because they -- they don't seem to have free mind. they don't have to decide on their own. they seem to be doing just exactly what senor trump proposed to them. i would say senor trump, please, please grow up. now you're president of a great nation, of the most powerful nation in the world. please, grow up. be or try to be a real president and keep throwing smoke balls. your strategy in dealing with businesses is not the one to do

in government and among nations. we take you seriously. seriously, that president pena decided not to come to the united states. n it was not a mutual decision. it was our president's decision because we are offended, because we being harmed and because you're affecting our businesses like ford motor company. ford motor company now has a bond, now people is not buying ford cars because you played the round with ford motor company. now several mexican states are not buying any more cars and several corporation in mexico have done this in. now you move how you're going to charge for the wall. how do you think that mexico is not going to pay? your proposal yesterday was a

20% tax on mexican imports. do you know who pays a tax when you import? is the american corporation, the company that is importing the car. and if that car mexican will keep selling 20,000 as an example, u.s. dollars, it will have a 4,000 tax paid by a u.s. corporation. finally, the consumer will pay 24,000 instead of 20,000 with its own pocket money, so mexico is not paying for the wall. you are paying for the wall. taxpayers in the united states are paying for the wall. >> there are leach in this country who agree with that assessment including some republicans in the senate but a long way to go from disagreeing on trade policy and a proposal from donald trump and comparing him to adolf hitler. in what way do you think he is like adolf hitler? do you think a chance the united states in 2017 ends up like

nazi, germany? >> he say -- he real populace. i mean trump. he plays around with everybody. i mean, the way he spoke to the senators and the congressmen from u.s. congress is incredible. i mean, he's playing around with everybody. and that's why i make the comparison. hitler used to embellish, used to get in love people by his nice talking, by his promises, by their grand dreams. trump just moved from tweeting or from campaign promises to executive orders. executive orders doesn't mean a thing. i mean, when he comes to congress and tell them i need the money for the wall, i need 25 billion for the wall, what is congress going to say?

and then he would promise again. he would tell congress don't worry, i'm going to collect that money from mexico. that will not happen! understand, please, senor trump. >> former president vicente fox of mexico, thank you for your time. appreciate it. >> the "wall street journal" -- >> there is a bit of a jump from 20% border adjusted tax to exterminating -- >> let's not go to that. the "wall street journal" writes about -- >> i know people don't like adjusted border tax but it's a little different than exterminating 6 million jews and starting world war ii. >> if we are trying -- vicente fox is not helping. >> his tweets also inflammatory. >> donald trump's path to the

presidency as an outsider always implied on the job training. this week's lesson? the world is not a republican primary. i'm going to read that again. this week's lesson? the world is not a republican primary. president trump's twitter broadsides against mexico has unleashed a political backlash that has has now become a diplomatic crisis with a friendly neighbor. in this case he is out negotiating himself. .rump is a foreign affairs neophyte but also learning that nations can't be bullied like gop candidates or ceos. they have their own nationalist political dynamics and when attacked they push pack. mr. trump said as a candidate that he would treat america's friends better than mr. obama did but his first move has been to treat mexico like mr. obama treated israeli. on presents course he may get comparable results, or worse. >> again, he knew exactly what was going to happen when he sent out those tweets.

you has a president with a 12% approval rating and you send out those tweets and back that president into a corner no way he can respond. >> you run through a list of all the national security issues facing the united states that are real and urgent at the moment. north korea, china, potentially russia, middle east. >> syria. >> why create a problem where there is not a problem? immigration across that border at a 40-year low and not necessary to take an ally of the united states and turn them into an enemy in the space of three days. >> tom, you brought up a good point about talking to scott walker a year ago and doing a little bit of research on how important exports are to the state of wisconsin and the rest of the country. which would be hurt by this. >> at a critical part in the campaign, the governor and i wererading phone calls as i was trying to catch up with what he thought. he was in mexico at e time on a tde mission. thinking about that last night,

i went online. the trade council in wisconsin for international trade says they have 8,500 companies in michigan and many of middle and smaller are eager to do business with foreign countries. and mexico is a huge market for them at this point. and the governor had been down there. do you think that those companies in wisconsin could now go across the border and say we would like to do some business down here? they are not going to get a good welcome. it's tough for them. we are living, however you want to describe it, in a global economy. i think the president, obviously, got elected and saying we are going to change the rules some but there are facts in play here. there's a huge market on our southern border and the mexican economy is doing quite well. that is one of the reasons that immigration, illegal immigration from mexico is down. >> decreased. to tom's point, david ignatius, these are facts that president

trump absolutely knows. i mean, it's hard to imagine that he is sort of stumbling upon this. so what is the grand strategy? what could it be? >> why he wanted to pick this fight to blow up his planned meeting with president nieto, i can't say. i just would note one way to think about this. pentagon has something they call net assessment and the idea is that after a conflict, a week of conflict, let's say, you take a look at how many of our side got killed and how many of their side got killed. in other words, what is the net effect of what happened? and i think if you look at this first week of the trump presidency, the net assessment would be, you know, interesting but as many as much damage inflicted on what he wanted to do as he managed to make gains and mexico is a perfect example. this is a key country on our border. it's a country we need.

it does not want to trade war with the u.s. and relations are significantly worse off today than a week ago. why? what is the benefit? >> how does that impact what the world is seeing right now regarding mexico? how does that impact our relationship with china, with asia, with the rest of the world? >> well, countries like china have seized the opportunity that the trump presidency is offering, to fill the vacuum for international leadership of this global system. when trump says america first, china is saying, no, we put the global system of trade and economics first. we are going to be your new partrs ande are going to be the new leaders. i thk that is something people need to think carefully about. we are dismantling piece-by-piece the structure of american economic and security power around the world and if we are not careful, we are going to end up weaker than before.

>> so tom brokaw, you giving us context is more important now than ever. and we look back on your 50 years at nbc news. it might be an appropriate moment to take a look at your time covering president ronald reagan. take a look. >> los angeles in the mid '60s and out of hollywood, a former movie actor and television host. >> mr. ronald reagan. >> reporter: conservative and ka ris m ris mattic. he was running for governor. i covered ronald reagan ago s h went up and down the state in a greyhound bus. at first, the opposition laughed at him but ronald reagan won in a landslide the beginning of a political career i observed up close. >> was that the invitation you were just referring to? >> that's right. >> thank you. >> reporter: when he ran for president, many in the eastern establishment didn't take him seriously. questioning his qualifications.

but ronald reagan won big time. >> a personal note. i can't help but recall 1966 riding around in a greyhound bus with him and learned in every lex in which he is ever involved, never laugh at the ronald reagan. >> mr. gorbachev, tear down this wall! >> reporter: by the time i interviewed him in his final week in office, ronald reagan had surprised just about everyone. did you begin to think maybe there is a lucky star that is hovering over ronald reagan at puck is part oyour life in some fashion? >> well, whether i call it luck or an answer to prayers, i realize that i was very blessed. >> tom, you -- >> can i say one thing very quickly? the map in those days were blue for republicans and red for democrats. we invented that map and i'm still arguing with those who changed the colors! >> you should. yes. >> i grew up and i was such a nerd. i would color in the states and

it was very jarring when republican states went from blue to red. >> it didn't make any sense. red is always the color of the left and blue blood or whatever you want to describe it. >> exactly. >> we spend election night having to explain it to our viewers in europe. makes no sense. >> i don't know who made that. but any way. how blessed you were to be -- first of all, you were in the south of wsb. you started with wsb. you saw civil rights close up and then you went out to california and you saw the rise of really the political figure of our time. >> i had just turned 26 when i drove into the lot as nbc in burba burbank. they said you will have an be assigned parking spot and there was a car in my parking spot. i went inside and said i thought i had a parking spot. they said, that is bob hope. that was a big lesson. the first week i was there on the bus with ronald reagan. politics is why i'm here and i got to cover him and know him

well. >> people were laughing at him at the beginning. >> they were not laughing at him and didn't him as seriously as they might have in one branch of the democratic party. the republican party was all for him. he was a very gifted performer, obviously. he had the great stu spencer as a strategist and helping him along the way. he won in a landslide. a ceful candidate not getting himself out too far and saying things he would never have been a twitter. people now said to me, well, ronald reagan and donald trump. i said, no. deportment and demeanor was a big difference between the two of them. both outsiders. and ronald reagan governed the la largest state in the country successfully before he came east and ran for president. >> you say you got to cover him and know him well. how did you balance that? >> well, it was tricky. we had differences along the way. he was hard to get to know. he was a very private man. all of the people who worked for him will tell you a time they couldn't reach him.

mr. reagan and i had differences along the way. but she was such a good politician. she would quickly resolve those differences if she could. at one point when they first took office, i said what they thaw is intemp rat things about his childhood and i got a message don't come near the white house. nancy is infuriated with you. they said you're invited to a state dinner and you have to confront nancy in the line. figure out what you're going to say. i didn't have it worked out until i got up to her. i said, nancy, back to square one. she has a photographer take the picture at that moment and throwing her hands back with a big laugh saying, tom, back to square one. and we closed the differences. >> your relationship with them and their relationship with you. going to state dinners and

getting to know them and covering them and being as objective as possible, it's a careful dance. >> i think everybody understood the rules. they were pros what they did. it was not personal with them. i deal with their staff a lot. by the way, i went to state dinners and democratic and republican administrations. and you do have those relationships but it doesn't mean that you change your stripes for every president who comes in. you know what your job is. you know what theirs it. then you try to find some common ground to advance the interests of the country. >> thank you, t brokaw, very much. the two-hour "dateline" airs this sunday at 9:00. tom brokaw, thank you for everything! david ignatius, thank you as well. >> thank you, david. do you think you'll have anything to write about this next week? >> no. so little to cover in washington these days. >> maybe you should take up stamp collecting or something? >> golf, maybe? i don't know. still ahead on "morning joe," a lot of unease that

president trump would go nuclear and last night he said he wasn't afraid to go it but thankfully he wasn't talking about weapons. we will explain that ahead. a look at tom brokaw as we head to break back in 1989. the only american network anchor to report from berlin the night the wall came down. >> "nbc nightly news" with tom brokaw. tonight from west berlin. >> reporter: good evening. live from berlin in the most historic night of this wall's history. what you see behind sme a celebration of this new policy announced today by the east german government that now, for the first time since the wall was erected in 1961, people will be able to move through freely.

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will it be an originalist? >> i don't want to say that. you'll see on thursday. >> have you made your decision? >> i have made my decision

pretty much in my mind, yes. >> next question. >> i'm subject to change at the last moment but i think this will be a great choice. >> chuck schumer, others threatening -- we have never had a supreme court justice filibustered but there is a chance that might happen. >> whatever happens, happens. >> would you want mitch mcconnell to use the nuclear option? >> i would. >> talked about it? >> we have obstructionist. these are people -- i almost think -- what they did to jeff sessions, who is a great man and a wonderful man, and then they delayed it another week because they have a one week delay option? that's not fair to a man. other people are delayed. look at pompeo for cia. this is a great choice and everybody agreed and they delayed him a number of days also. >> the latest conventional wisdom is that -- >> i have to say here the democrats didn't even get an

opportunity to have merrick garland meet with the republicans so let's not talk about delays here. >> and obstruction. >> no comparison. >> joining us from washington columnist at the washington examiner kristen anderson and also associate editor of "the washington post" and msnbc political analyst, eugene robinson and steve rattner is back at the table. gene, you write in today's "the washington post" that we ignore trump at our peril. quote. where to begin? that's the daily question for anyone trying to find the word and deed of the new administration is like drinking from two fire hoses opinion one gushing policy and the other spewing insanity. neither steam can be ignored. i wish i could agree with those who say we should pay little attention to president trump's treshl interceptions and focus only on concrete actions but i can't. it matters the most powerful man in the world insists on fact that are nothing but a

self-grand diesing fantasy. it matter the president of the united states seems incapable of publicly admitting any error on. it matters that trump's need for adulation appears to be insatiable. >> they pulled back a little bit and said it's one of many options and donald trump says we are doing it. it's hard to look through where the truth is. >> exactly. if you're on twitter all day, it's just like you'reeing whip-sawed and story aft story after story. it's on, 20%. ybe it's not. maybe it is. last night in the interview, maybe i made up my mind on the supreme court, maybe i haven't. and so you have the president and spokesman going back and forth and coming out with policies that ultimately will be

important policies and important appointments, but you never know where everything -- anything quite stand. and then you have steve bannon's ridiculous eruption yesterday about the media. look, i don't need steve bannon's permission to do my job. i have the first amendment and all i need and i think we will keep that. so it doesn't bother me that he is angry or that he denigrates the press. but they won an election. they absolutely won an election and they irvery smart and won it nair on olli, but if they are thinking of themselves as the greatest political thinkers who -- and geniuses whoever walked the face of the earth -- >> i'm curious, gene. >> they are cruising for a bruising. >> i'm curious. when i saw it, i thought the same thing. and then two seconds later, i said, he's baiting us. he's baiting everybody.

this is so obviously an attempt to tell the press to shut up and the media should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep your mouth shut. he knows nobody is going to do that but this is now a political strategy. bait to press and to fight. >> absolutely. he is baiting the press. look. we shouldn't play his game. we shouldn't play anybody's game and we should do our jobs. and that is why i'm not one of those who is like, you know, i'm outraged that he would say such a thing. no. it's a political strategy. but at the same time, there was this -- there was this humorous behind it. the whole tenor and substance of what he was saying and i think he probably does, on some level, believe that is that we are really, really smart and you don't understand anything. and that is a recipe for a rapid and precipitous fall. >> we have come through the republican retreat now.

a week of donald trump and several executive order. how do things stand at the moment between the party, the republican party and leadership and the new president? >> i think winning is something that makes everybody feel very good about themselves, it gets everybody holding hands. and so i think at the moment, you are seeing congressional republicans thinking, look, we have got in donald trump a president who is much more likely to sign an agenda that we wanthan a president hlary clinton would have been so we are jubilant and we are excited. i think they want to make it work. but i think that they are at big risk of this president deciding to pick a twitter war with them. if, you know, you get a couple of weeks down the road and what paul ryan wants to do on tax reform, suddenly, isn't what donald trump decides that he wants to do to the letter. and you wind up with obamacare where they want to repeal but replace isn't something necessarily that donald trump loves. if all of a sudden the bills that start getting sent to the

white house aren't things that donald trump loves does he start vetoing them and saying, no, congress is the obstructionist? remember, for donald trump, the enemy is never the democrats. it's never republicans versus democrats for him. it's me versus mexico, me versus china, me versus congress, me versus the media, me versus these other big institutions. and so the idea that there's never going to be a time when he doesn't decide to try to throw his own republican congress under the bus, i think is a little naive. >> congressman nick mulvaney says he will move to curb spending spending on social security and medicare if confirmed as the budget director. that goes against the president's procompromises on t campaign trail. steve you described the republican as a extremist holding the purse strings. you say a founding member of the freedom caucus with an almost perfect conservative voting record mr. mulvaney sent his congressional career leading the

charge against federal spending and borrowing voting against everything from hurricane sandy relief to reopening the government after the 2013 shutdown. that placed him well to the right of republican leadership. he has argued for a balanced budget amendment and terrible idea. similarly he has repeatedly voted against legislation to raise the debt ceiling without which the federal government would shut down and possibly default on its own obligations and neither of which seem to bother the congressman. >> steve, you're on "in the debt "? >> "fix the debt." >> we are together on that part. but it seems to me that people like the congressman actually, if you want to fix the debt, you need a lot more people like the congressman. we were, what? at 5 trillion dollar national debt with bush and 11 trillion when he got out and at 20

trilli trillion now and 30 trillion the xtdecade what is extreme about him drawing the lin in the sand about run-away spending? >> it's all a matter of degree and how fast you fix the debt and how far you go in fixing the debt. do you want to raise the retirement age of social security to 70 right now and do you want to defund planned parenthood and cut 40% from a lot of cabinet departments? >> let's start with actually where the money actually is, social security and medicare. >> it can be done slowly as opposed to fast and harshly. i think he is talking about fast and harshly and i think you're talking about massive cuts to all kind of government programs that i think a lot of people depend on and want to see continued. >> i saw this unbelievable graph

from cbo on twitter. there are still some uses for twitter. only 4% of what our federal government spends goes to actually what we consider government. the rest are insurance programs, defense spending and interest on on the debt. medicare, medicaid, social security, defense only 4%. >> i'd have to check that graph. i don't think it's quite that low. >> look on my twitter feed. i know you do. >> i follow your twitter feed. >> i don't know if you know but between twitter and instagram i have 842 million people following me so just look and see. >> crowds are big, right? >> huge. 80,000 people in this room if there is 4. >> is it a good idea to shut down the government over defunding planned parenthood? is it a good idea to have a government default on its debt because you don't raise the debt

ceiling? >> is it a good idea to keep spending without having people saying stop? >> you could have people saying stop. >> nobody does, though. >> we never get to slow down. >> nobody does. we got 20 trillion dollar debt. >> as you pointed out i was part of fix the debt. we had a plan to fix the debt and far less harsh than what the congressman is talking about. please, joe, it's not all black and white. >> but, you know, it's all red because it's all deficit spending. i mean, you say balancing the budget is a bad item or having a balanced budget amendment is a bad idea. when are we going -- >> we had a balanced budget in the year 2000 as you know and sqaunede squandered it on the bush tax cuts. >> are the bush tax cuts responsible for the 10 trillion dollar debt that barack obama rolled up? >> no. they are, in part, they are,

because barack obama showed up with much lower tax rates than we had before george w. bush was there so less tax revenue but we had a financial crisis. >> we did. >> it's being driven by entitlements and everybody knows it if they understand the debt. it's all entitlements. >> gene, isn't president trump scrambling these arguments and these traditional lines in washington with proposals to spend money on the wall and proposals for a big infrastructure spending bill and not addressing the revenue side at the same time which is something republicans would like. >> he is totally doing that. and even last night when he was being pressed by sean hannity on isn't it time to rein in spending? he said no, not really. it's time to spend a lot of money. we got to fix our fln infrastructure. we got to build up our defense. look. this is a deficit spender in chief and he makes no bones about that. so this whole discussion abt reining in the debt, i think,

you know, just kind of put this on the back burner for the next four years because that is not what this president is about. >> we have been saying it for the past year and a half. he doesn't care about balanced budgets. he thinks big. he wants big. and he said it last night. he specifically said last night, he doesn't care about balanced budgets. >> no. i look at his tax plan and it blows another hole in the deficit. i think part of the problem with this conversation about entitlement spending is that americans don't understand that it can be a crisis quickly, that they don't feel it in their everyday life. what is the moment at which social security catch up to the country for real? >> this is the sort of thing i believe i saw that under the sorts of things that donald trump has proposed, i think around 2034 some of this goes bankrupt. it's hard to get people to think about things that don't touch their lives. we talked about he very beginning with gene saying, look, we got to talk about

everything that donald trump says and that is a big story. but if something donald trump is saying isn't touching someone's life immediately why you see the media may have whiplash on twitter but the poll numbers may not move quite as quickly because people judge policy based on what affects them. what i think could get people focused on entitlement reform earlier when you talk to young pe people who assume they lieutena will not see a dime of this. every focus research group i've done they think they will see a penny of social security. this is going to ht your parents. we now have a system where people are taking care of their parents, grandparents. a generation of folks sort of late baby boomers who are taking care of their really aging parents. we are starting to get intuitively it's not just about are you going to see social security but benefits cut for your parents? i think an argument that moves younger voters.

>> thank you both. still ahead, he opposes the president's nominee for secretary of state. says the president is wrong on the border wall and accuses him of silencing the epa on climate change. the top democrat on the foreign relations committee, senator ben cardin joins us ahead. i love the smell of napalm in the morning. no, this is double espresso. hodor! hodor! ehhh, hodor. you guys watch game of thrones, right? inconceivable! surely, you can't be serious. i am serious. and don't call me shirley? that's the unlimited effect. stream your entertainment and more with unlimited data when you switch to at&t wireless and have directv. plus, get the amazing new iphone 7 on us.

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♪ joining us from baltimore more democratic senator ben cardin of maryland. here on the set, news and finance anchor at yahoo! bianna golodryaa. we had issues where you're not in line with the president, senator. what are you most worried about at this point? >> well, within the last 24 hours, it's been his comments about mexico. mexico is a very important country. we need mexico for immigration policies to work in our country. we need mexico to stop illegal trafficking of drugs. the putting up this wall will not help in rars egards to immigration and his proposals to pay for it will hurt working

families in the united states and hurt our economy. it's just dangerous what he is suggesting in regards to our southern friend. >> and in regards to other countries, senator, reports being floated of an order that the u.s. might unilaterally lift sanctions against russia sooner rather than later. i know you're against voting for rex tillerson for secretary of state. a, have you heard about such a report being floated? and, also, what do you think from what your gather, what do you think rex tillerson's views are on this? >> well, we know that the president will be talking to mr. putin on saturday. we are extremely concerned that there might be unilateral concessions that are made. it's very interesting in our traditional allies, in nato, the president doesn't have nice things to say in regards to mexico and he doesn't have nice things to say. but a country that attacked us, russia, that attacked our free election system, now we are talking about easing up sanctions where they have

invaded ukraine? we are concerned that when you reward that type of conduct, all you're going to see is further russian aggression. this really concerns all of us. so, yes, we don't know. mr. tillerson was not strong at all in regards to maintaining or strengthening sanctions against russia. these are concerns that we have. mr. tillerson has done a lot of business with russia. we concerned that he is going to be more interested in the business relationships than promoting american values. >> senator cardin, katty kay here. what could democrats do about this? you clearly are concerned about the relationship with mexico at the end of this week. the direction that president trump might take america in in terms of russia or perhaps america pulling back from global leadership and international alliances. but what can you actually do about it? >> well, i'm not sure it's just democrats. i think we are concerned about american policy. democrats and republicans who share my views in regards to what mr. trump has said about

mexico what mr. trump has said about russia. this is about u.s. foreign policy which should not be partisan and great concern what he is doing could weaken america's national security. we are looked upon by the free world as the leader. if we start promising our values for transactional politic, that is going to be bad news for freedom around the world. >> well, definitely it creates an unnecessary division between the united states and our allies on key issues which we just don't need at this point, senator. >> no question. and there is real concern in europe. i've had conversations with leaders of other countries of europe. there's real worry in the baltic countries as to whether russia will now do what they did in ukraine in their country and they don't see america backing them up. >> senator ben cardin, thank you very much. >> let's turn now to nbc news

pentagon correspondents hans nichols. president trump will visit the pentagon for the first time today as commander in chief. what kind of performance and appearance could we expect? >> we are expecting him to sign presidential directives and give the pentagon orders on how quickly they need to come up with plans to potentially accelerate the fight against isis. now, there is a lot out there in the ether and talking to one pentagon official here saying back and forth and you could arm the kurds directly in syria. that could accelerate the fight. and, you know, in general what we have here at the pentagon is everyone just trying to figure out what this new team wants. not just mattis because he is very familiar with them but what the entire trump national security agency really wants. there haveeen a couple of tips on that. on wednesday night, mattis went over to the white house, had dinner with trump, general dunford and general flynn. i think 11 stars between them, here is a little detail for you. you know what mattis did on his

first day at the pentagon? first half day? he had to take a urine test. that's right. he peeed in a cup. the second full day, he got a haircut at the pentagon barber. here is about the pentagon barber. you go there and you get one question. civilian or military is in the civilian haircut, i've gotten one, no comment now is shorter and takes 60 seconds and cost 13 bucks. joe, do you tip on a 13-buck haircut? >> he do. hans, i think comfort in washington that general mattis is there as sort of a buffer to donald trump. is that the feeling inside the pentagon as well? >> it's the feeling inside the pentagon, particularly on this issue of torture. what mattis is telling people he gave both his word and his commitment and his opinion that torture doesn't work and that he is going to hold the line on that. in all of the conversations mattis is having he has had

video conferences with the key cocommanders throughout there. it's always good to see you again, sir. again. there is an emphasis on familiarity. he knows this building. but to give you a sense of how much they like him here. buildi. to give you a sense how much they like him here. the story about him getting his hair cut at the pentagon barber cut, that makes the round and people like him. >> it's the kind of colorful detail we've come to expert from you, hans. >> stay with us, thank you. some of the -- it's interesting, i feel like you worry some that mattis will be sort of out there if trump is making one comment on torture, there's the law on the other side then there's that middle ground. >> there's no doubt that trump has enormous respect for mattis and one has to wonder when he continues interview after interview to say here's my belief on torture. i believe it works. is he trying to box the general

in? you have to wonder repeatedly he said this in multiple interviews. i'm still not sure what his ultimate decision is. he said he's going to defer to the general -- the defense secretary. >> the president knows mattis doesn't have to be there. that's what's so fascinating about this foreign policy team, none of them have to be there and he's put them there. that's -- i think in turbulent times something to look at as a potential positive. we'll be right back with much more "morning joe."

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anything with a screen is a tv. stream 130 live channels, plus 40,000 on demand tv shows and movies, all on the go. you can even download from your x1 dvr and watch it offline. only xfinity gives you more to stream to any screen. download the xfinity tv app today. the piece of the house republican plant that trump folks are looking at is most problematic is the border adjustable part of it, it seriously disadvantages retailing that will raise costs for middle income people and it is a trillion dollar pay for that allows the very good

pro-growth reforms to happen. >> exactly. that's what i was going to say but it's -- it sounds better when grover says it. >> it does. there's going to be a big battle. did i miss anything while i was away? >> no. >> nobody tell him. >> what happened? >> he doesn't need to know. >> general mattis had a big first week though. >> got a hair cut. >> by the way, i've been corrected, so i said 4%, 4%, it's actually 11% of spending in the budget is nondiscretionary, but this pie chart is fascinating. >> no, it's not. >> it's friday. >> right here, these are from entitlement programs and the black is interest on the debt. and it's -- this is medicaid, you see actually, so i was right

to a point. this 4% -- this is all that we're spending -- >> it's been a really long week. >> just stop. >> it's only going to get worse. >> i think it is more fascinating than you. we'll be right back. all of this and more.

♪ >> the newly emboldened confident america is good for the world.

an america that is strong and prosperous at home is a nation that can lead abroad. but you cannot and should not do so alone. so we, our two countries together, have a responsibility to lead. because when others step up as we step back, it is bad for america for britain and the world. >> good morning, it is friday, january 27th. welcome to "morning joe", with us we have washington anchor from bbc katy okay and former treasury official steve ratner and columnist and associate editor for "washington post," david ignatius and capitol hill correspondent kasie hunt. >> what an unbelievable week. one of the more memorable tweets

said i follow news for a living, that's my job. and yet i'm overwhelmed by the onslaught of information coming at me and then the person that tweeted that said if i'm feeling that way, what about americans who don't follow it for -- david ignatius wrote the "washington post" this morning that if the first week of the trump presidency showed us anything, he's more determined to overturn established trade economic and national security order than even his critics feared and yesterday showed us that. >> just that. >> katy kay, obviously real concerns from not only britain but europe and across the world because donald trump is doing what donald trump said he was going to do. >> there's an element of fear and confusion about what's going to replace all of this. if he's going to rip up the world order that's underpinned the west since the second world war, what comes next.

and is politics like science and nature and will somebody else step in again? that's what you heard theresa may saying. >> i thought her speech -- >> very nuanced speech. >> sympathized what's happening in britain and america while saying we're still here. we're still responsible for leading the post -- >> she called out nato and united nations and mention estonia and threat of russia and she is trying very hard to align herself with the new white house and getting quite a lot of flack back at home for doing that. but she's also saying you cannot ju get rid of all of these alliances without risking the security of the west. >> well, here we go because here's the incoming that we were poring through. after reports surfaced on wednesday that mexican president pena nieto would likely cancel the upcoming trip to the white house. the u.s. has a $60 trillion

trade deficit and it's a one sided deal with massive numbers of jobs and companies lost. if mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall, it would be better to cancel the meeting. the mexican president confirmed that the meeting was off. speaking to a republican conference in philadelphia, president trump said it was a mutual decision and assured lawmakers about managing the wall's multibillion dollar price tag. >> i said many times that the american people will not pay for the wall. and i've made that clear to the government of mexico. we're working on a tax reform bill that will reduce our trade deficits, increase american exports and generate revenue from mexico that will pay for the wall if we decide to go that route. >> then white house press secretary sean spicer expanded on the president's remarks

speaking to reporters aboard air force one. >> if you tax that 50%, $50 billion at 20% of imports, which is a practice that 160 other countries do right now, our country's policy is to tax exports and let imports flow freely in which is ridiculous. by doing it that way, we can do $10 billion a year and pay for the wall through that mechanism alone. if you think about a border tax on imports from countries like mexico does, that's going to provide the funding. >> word of a proposed 20% border tax on mexican imports sent shock waves across the political world. reince priebus immediately walked the statement back, telling nbc's peter alexander, it was one idea in a buffet of options. t thenast night, alexander talked directly to the president at the white house who said of a 20% border tax quote, we're going to talk people coming in,

look, we cannot lose our companies to mexico or any other place. and then we have them make the product and send it across the border free. we're going to put a substantial tax on those countries, okay? that's why by the way they are coming back. okay? without that they don't come back so easily. >> so let's stop here and we'll get reaction. this is a great place to just stop and explain. the position that donald trump came to yesterday was a position he originally opposed two weeks ago and that actually is steve, that's a 20% border adjusted tax, house republicans have been pushing this idea for some time because it would -- it would fund cut in corporate tax rates and also fund a cut in personal tax rates. it's not a radical idea. it's not this punitive tax that donald trump seemed to suggest he was going to levy yesterday. this is actually a tax that a

lot of companies don't like and a lot of the economists don't like, but it is not a radical idea. but that is something lost in translation, as well as the fact that at the end of the day this tax will be paid by american consumers. >> well, you've asked the question and also answered it, i'll answer again. which question exactly did i ask? >> there are so many. >> there wasn't a question, just an answer. >> this is what's called a conversation. >> so, point one, everybody agrees the corporate tax system in this country is screwed up and that it favors actually imports over exports and favors companies moving jobs abroad and et cetera and everybody is on board to change it. this idea is one of a number to reform the tax code and not necessarily a bad idea. economists are divided about it but it's not aimed at mexico, but addressing to produce things here -- >> can i ask a question? why is it that other countries do this, sean said 150, 160

other countries do this but we don't do this, we don tax imports? >> it's not as much we don't tax imports, other kupts re -- countries rely on a value added tax and that creates in a way this incentive for companies to export rather than import. it would be moving us in that direction. the key point is it is a replacement for the corporate tax code, not some additional tax we put on. not aimed at mexico in particular and the revenue from it is the revenue we need to make up for the revenue we're losing from the corporate tax cut. there's no real additional revenue to the treasury to pay for the wall. and what's more, the consumers of america are going to pay for the wall. >> the wall street journal says it will raise another trillion dollars off the $50 billion trade deficit with mexico. it actually would easily as wall street journal said this

morning, raise the $10 billion for the wall without actually cutting into the republican plans to use the additional money to cut corporate tax rates. >> i'm not sure the math works exactly that way. i think that the money you raise from this tax would in fact be used to -- we have a 35% corporate tax rate in this country, one of the highest in the world. we want to reduce that. >> i'm not sure how much revenue -- however much revenue left, it's not money from mexico, money being paid by our companies and therefore by us. >> the thing to remember, willie, yes, it would be paid by consumers that buy mexican products and the people will actually -- the people selli the mexican imports would get the 20% tax rate. and pass it onto the government. >> that's an important distinction for people watching, it's not a 20% tariff but would have the same impact of a 20%

tariff on consumers, is that fair to say? prices would go up -- >> assuming companies hit past the cost are passed on -- >> it gets more complicated, whether people think the dollar will go up -- >> that's what makes it even more complicated and we really are getting into the weeds here because it also will have the effect of strengthening the dollar which will lessen the impact for the importers in the long run. we're well into a -- >> the other thing it will have the effect of suppressing the mexican economy, already on a down swing at the moment. what do we know about immigration rights across the border, they rise when the mexican -- >> president trump's tax on imports sounds familiar to a reform being pushed by house republicans, an idea known as border adjustment, dropping the corporate tax rate down to 20% while exempting exported goods from the united states and imposing a 20% tax on goods imported in the united states. two weeks ago president trump criticized the idea saying any time i hear border adjustment, i

don't love it because usually it means we're going to get adjusted into a bad deal. that's what happens. kevin brady defended it against criticism that it would pass the cost on to consumers. >> proposing an equal 20% tax rate on imports to the united states as well as the products here in the united states. for first time they would be tax equally, leveling the playing field creating true competition, that's always good for the consumers. plus, i am convinced that this rural economy recognizes changes an we will strengthen exports and dollar will appreciate import. you'll buy more of them at a lower price. i think it balances out in a major way. >> there are some republicans that totally on board john cornyn and john mccain and i'll read lindsey graham's tweet. this is how he summarized it. >> please. >> any policy proposal which drives up the price of corona or

tequila or margarita is a bad idea. mucho sad. >> david ignatius, while this is part of the house republican plan, senate republicans aren't thrilled by it and probably have trouble passing the senate. i'm sure you're more interested in the messages that actions like yesterday sent, not only to mexico but the rest of the world. >> joe, if i just sort of step back a bit, what i see as a result of yesterday's actions and really this whole first week of the trump presidency, is a planned visit to washington by mexican president who does not want to trade war with donald trump and been trying very hard toe relatively moderate in his country under a lot of pressure. and that plan getting blown up as a result of what seems to

have been trump's increasing discomfort with the idea of going forward with kind of delayed process of payment for the wall. in his interview with david muir, he seemed to be ready to accept a formula that would delay payment and then the next morning there was a tweet which really forced the mexican president to cancel the visit. the and the consequence, i think, is one that is going to be difficult for the u.s. and difficult for mexico and unnecessary crisis. really the first foreign policy rupture of the trump administration. doesn't seem necessary. >> david, the timeline of it and i heard a lot of people talking about this. the white house had worked hard, the entire previous day to keep the meeting going. and been working around the clock trying to get the mexican president to agree to the meeting. he did and as soon as he did, that's when the president sent

out those tweets blowing up the meeting. so it seems like it wasn't -- it seems like the sabotage was intentional and actually went against what his own staff was trying to put together. >> so you put your finger on the thing that has got me scratching my head. we've seen in the first week a president with a very ambitious agenda moving faster than i can ever remember a president in his first week. but creating so many small flaps and storms that those become the story and detracting from this ambitious change agenda. and it's just -- it's puzzling. the mexico example is a perfect one. another very clear example is the question of cia interrogation, where the president has new people who -- the president after listening to mattis, i'm not so sure about torture then he's back in the thick of that.

>> coming up, senator james lankford joins us, trying to assure constituents in oklahoma and americans at large that there will be a smooth transition from obamacare to whatever comes next. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. it's not a quick fix. it's my decision to make beauty last. roc® retinol, started visibly reducing my fine lines and wrinkles in one week. and the longer i use it, the better it works. retinol correxion® from roc. methods, not miracles.™

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former undersecretary and media and democrat fellow at harvard, kennedy school of government, rick stengel. >> and msnbc analyst. >> add that. we're trying to sort through what's big news and what's not big news. officials asked to leave, fired or quit -- >> some after many years. >> not big news. >> why is that not big news? >> relatively low level people. remember the upper part of the

department, the deputies and under secretaries and assistant secretaries are all political people. they were all gone when -- during the inauguration. these are relatively low level people -- >> don't you keep those in place? >> no. >> haven't these people been there a long time? >> they have. but they are deputies to assistant secretaries, one or two assistants and pat kennedy is leaving, he is the one big fish. but it's not a big, big story. >> let me ask you -- >> some of them are retiring and looked at this as a good opportunity. >> so while we're on the topic, let's talk about something that happened earlier this week where they sent out messages to agencies, don't put out any statements without passing it by us first. a lot of people very concerned about that. but i wouldn't think that barack obama's administration would want george w. bush's administration putting out statements on global warming. >> no, i think that's not

unreasonable. i mean, the state department by the way is a tremendous bureaucracy. even the tiniest statement goes through the clearance process of dozens and dozens of bureaus. it's not like people will be speaking out officially on their own. they are reluctant to do that anyway, that is par for the course. >> unlike the badlands national park in north dakota where they started tweeting themselves on climate change and got into trouble. >> that stopped quickly. >> the problem with social media, everybody has an avenue of communication. >> and they can do things by themselves. >> you wrote this piece in the atlantic and called it the end of the american century. trump's administration is the death nell of the american century. >> henry loose in 1941 wrote this great essay about the american century. and it was before we got into world war ii, he was trying to persuade people we needed to get into world war ii.

but it was this vision of america as a architect of a global world order after the war which came to pass. we did create this liberal world order which the world still depends on. it's not the end of american power, we're still powerful but it might be the end of us as the global rudder that steers everything, whether it's nato or eu, i think having been traveling around the world the last three years, people want that. people want american leadership and want american guidance. >> after a quick break, we have mu more politics and news to we'll bring in bill karins who will explain the story behind this hotel getting completely washed away. every tv doctor knows that when it comes to hospital romances,

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welcome back to "morning joe." bill karins with a look at the weather as we head into the weekend. >> it's been quiet here but we've got to show you pictures out of peru. it's the summer season and they've been getting nasty thunderstorms for two straight days. this hotel old colonial style hotel knew what was happening and saw the bank getting eroded and everyone was evacuated. some other construction projects in the town there in peru also

went in. pretty dramatic stuff. let's bring it back home. we're watching snow showers to the great lakes. we're not talking epic amounts of snow but the snow belt south of buffalo and syracuse near watertown, they'll pick up the 1 to 2 feet in elevations but the big cities less than that. cleveland, erie, 2 to 4 inches through the weekend and syracuse about the same, 2 to 4 inches. this brings us to the other news. this was released yesterday. this is our drought. eight weeks ago beginning of december. a major drought in the southeast and california, just so happens, since the new year, those are the spots that received the most rain, this was the updated map. we're now down to 16% of the u.s. in drought and almost completely eliminated california from the drought. the worst drought area is up here in southern new england where we got beneficial rains recently and also heading in the right direction there. the forecast for the weekend, this is a quiet winter weekend. if you like to do the outdoor events on weekend, this is the weekend from you, comfortably cool in the south.

the coldest air will be in the northern great lakes and sneak into the northeast. this is typically the coldest period of the weather and this is a pretty nice forecast saturday right through sunday. new york city, we've cold off after our temperatures in the 50s the last couple of days. we're back where we should be in the upper 30s, lower 40s. we'll be right back.

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in a moment we'll bring in senator lankford but first a quick look at the ground we've covered this morning. president trump tweeted it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting. the mexican president confirmed the meeting was off. >> the unnecessary crisis, first foreign policy rupture of the trump administration. >> it's not the end of american power. they want american leadership and guidance. >> proposed 20% border tax on

mexican iimports. >> the position he came to he originally opposed two weeks ago. >> the dollar would strengthen a lot and all of stuff that walmart buys from overseas gets cheaper. >> do we know about immigration rights across the border? >> president trump, please grow up. >> the most inflammatory and disturbing statement yesterday was steve banno noxt telling the press they needed to shut up. >> bannon and trump have worked hard to make the press and media the opposition. >> taking on the press like that, it always ends badly. >> biggest problem that theresa may is facing is what donald trump has been saying about torture. >> he has said he is siding with james mattis and not going to push for waterboarding and yet he tosses out the red meat to supporters -- >> when keeping the tough guy kred intact. >> we pour a little water on their face.

>> we're looked as the leader, if we compromise our values that will be bad news for freedom around the world. >> willie, we have been looking -- because you need to be balanced as you can and we've been stacked with a lot of people shocked what donald trump has been doing. we're looking for work one who would be defiantly be a trump supporter no matter what and i think we found it with bill press. radio host bill press -- >> you've got interesting times and what a week in washington. running fast, you can't keep up with it. >> no. that's part of the strategy. >> any parallels you can think of? >> i can't think of any. >> none. >> i think we really learned this week, elections have consequences, we've seen that. i think we also saw that this team is not quite ready to govern. they are not quite ready to hit the ground running. they really don't know how they are going to pay for or what

they are going to replace the affordable care act and how they are going to pay for the wall. we saw that yesterday, an embarrassing series of consequences. >> you also saw as willie brought up earlier, a president who is doing exactly what he told the american people he was going to do. >> yes, he's signaling what he wants to do. i think that said, if you really look at this, i'm not trying to be too critical but if you look at the executive actions. >> they are signals, yes. >> and so they are sort of like tweets on paper, right, we're going to do and this and this. but he didn't actually do any of those things but signaled the direction they are going to go in. again, elections have consequences. >> let's go to capitol hill and talk to the committee on intelligence, james lankford, so good to have you here. i'm curious, we want you to give us your impression of what the president of the united states is saying and i'm not being facetious, we'll been sorting through two topics, one, torture

and two the mexican tax or tariff. let's start with torture, which is your understanding of what the president's position is on torture? >> my understanding is he's released on executive order saying we need to review how we handle everything and see if everything is done. i don't see that as we're going to advance in torture and frankly as united states we put a stake in that past statute to say we're not going to do torture. we wl lead the world morally d weon't do torture, no matter what, a black ops site somewhere else or army field manual, we're going to continue not to do that. >> what about the second issue, a lot of confusion exactly on what the president's position was on the tax. is this a border adjusted tax that the republicans and house have been talking about? if so, do you support that? >> what i think he was talking about was a border adjustment tax. that's something that happens on multiple countries coming at us. for instance china has a 17%

border adjustment tax of our products going into china right now. multiple other countries have that against us. we have just never done that to be able to balance it out. what the house has talked about for a while and what was part of the conversation in even retreat time where the house was laying out position on that was to say this was something ha happened for a long time against us and we never responded on that. there may be a time to be able to do that. it was a surprise that they highlighted that and said this may be the way to pay for the border wall. i haven't seen that. i understand the administration stepped back and that's part of the buffet how to pay for the wall but not necessarily the option. >> speaking of retreats, yesterday two of the most liberal members spoke out during a visit which is arguably the most pro-trump state in the nation, west virginia. 68.6%, defeating hillary clinton by over 42 points. democrats gathered in

shepherdstown, west virginia, for a retreat closed to reporters and joe manchin hosted a seminar entitled discussion with trump voters. according to a schedule obtained by politico, an outside senators sanders and warren stopped to talk to anti-trump protesters, take a listen. >> i don't have to tell anybody here that our country today faces enormous problems. and that we have a delusional president - [ cheers and applause ] >> who is way out of touch with the needs of the people of west virginia and working people all over this country. >> wow. >> the question, bill is, and you've been following this for such a long time. it's great they are in a state that donald trump almost got 70% in and that is the rea question, how do you adopt that 50-state

strategy and get back the legislative -- >> that is a big question. what's the big answer because it's still baffling. >> a couple of months ago all of us were talking about how will the republican party rebuild? will it survive after this election? now we're talking about just the reverse. i think the democratic party needs a huge shake-up from top to bottom. when you say 50 state strategy, it's got to be first of all the leadership washington has got to be cleaned out in terms of leadership, whole new generation of leadership i believe. and the focus has got to be on the states and rebuilding on the states. every one of those states, particularly starting in the red states, states like west virginia and by the way, rust belt -- the working class states, michigan, wisconsin, and pennsylvania, which cost the election. i don't know whether that's going to happen but that's what's it's got to be. there's a lot of resistance on

the part of establishment democrats. last saturday, the women's march on washington, okay, i was there. let me just say emphatically there were more people there on saturday then there were there on friday. there were seven candidates for the new dnc chair. were they in washington? no. six out of serof serve were in talking to big donors. what message did that send, that we're the same old establishment party and not getting down to grass roots. >> that's the cover of time magazine, what nancy gibbs said on our show yesterday, leaderless. >> what's next. >> reminded it was in west virginia wherefore better or worse hillary clinton showed authenticity when she went there and spoke with the coal mineer. i talked to him after that and that resonated with him, words she had said about wanting to eliminate the industry as a whole and he approached her, what happens to our jobs. that was an authentic moment. >> one of the best in the

campaign. >> got only 26% of the vote in west virginia. >> senator lankford, i know you're a small government conservative and mentioned ideas for paying for this wall. do you think generally though, $15 billion on a barrier fence along the southern border is an effective use of taxpayer money? >> national security is an effective use of taxpayer money. obviously most of the area between mexico and the united states already has some kind of physical barrier. this is not something new. for individuals saying are we going to build a wall physical barrier? that's been done years ago. we're talking about the gaps in between. do we close in gaps and if so how do we do that? every country wants to focus in on national security. when i've been in central america and i visited with the leadership there, they all focus on border security and i will tell you folks in central america are very concerned about the number of people coming through their country being transported by coyotes not spanish speaking and coming from around the world and hitting in

the same area. we talk about issues of security, this is one of the issues we have to talk about. >> senator, on your list of security issues facing the u.s., where would you rank mexico? >> where would i rank mexico? everything, canada, mexico, our borders as an area we need to be able to secure. we've talked about this since 9/11 commission. how do we secure our ports to make sure we don't have materials moving into our port areas and how do we make sure we limit the flow of drugs and limit of flow of terrorism coming in. the vast majority of people from mexico are coming for work. that's part of the immigration conversation, to fix our visa system. we do legitimately have individuals coming in for nefarious reasons. we've got to finds a way to filter that out. >> bill press -- >> let me ask, would you be willing to take a gamble and put up $15 billion to whatever the cost is to pay for this wall on the premise that some day, somehow, some way, mexico will

reimburse us? >> i don't know what that's going to be. quite frankly, i've heard that conversation as well and waiting to hear from the administration, the final proposal, laying out different ideas a week into this and waiting to see what the final proposal is. this is something we started 15 years ago that the american people were paying for border security ultimately national security is not the responsibility of another nation. national security is the responsibility of our nation, just like it is for every other sovereign country. >> so we have -- we're one week in the tmp presidency and a lot of americans are overwhelmed by the amount of news that's been coming out of the white house. what's -- what's your read on the first week of the 45th president's administration? >> it was interesting when i was coming on the program this morning, i thought there's no telling what you'll ask me because so many issues that are out there. i think you can start just about anywhere. i think the start for them is they are laying some things out and i heard the comment earlier on executive orders is not

accomplishing something saying what we're going to do. that's true, almost all orders are saying start the process on these things, sort of 90 day review and 60 day review and look at how we get this done. that's a typical executive order by the way to say we need to start this process, this is a new focus. to start we're going to start enforcing this law not enforced. he started by doing a lot of things he said he was going to do and working through the process one step at a time. >> james lankford, thank you so much. >> so what he's saying is that those people who during the campaign were like he doesn't mean that. he actually did. >> what he's also saying again what we've been trying to say this week and what you said also, which is there is a lot of smoke coming out of the white house in terms of a lot of policy proposals. but like, for instance, torture,

trump supports torture and his own statements have been befudling. he can't support it, it's illegal. he signed an executive order, go study that. he's done that time and time again and it's like -- everything is up here and everything is era ending crisis, it gets harder to sort through what's fact and what's . >> and all of this stuff up here, a lot of it has to ce down here to congress republicans in congress. i think one of the most interest being things to watch is how republicans in congress responds to these trump initiatives. let's face it, it's all smiles, they are really not on the same page on a lot of issues. you know that. >> paul ryan yesterday, where -- he literally laid in and said we don't do torture, we're against torture and don't do it. >> paul ryan and mitch mcconnell. >> and senator just said, we don't do torture, we're not

going to torture. >> paul ryan says there's no evidence of massive voter fraud. these are republicans who even demanded offsets for hurricane sandy relief, for god's sakes and now going to go around and say you can have $15 billion, it doesn't matter -- what happened to the art of the deal. >> the most important process -- we got a report that the economy grew at a tepid 1.9% in the last quarter of the year, talking about trade wars at a time when the economy continues to slow down and not grow at the rate he promises isn't helpful either. >> earlier this week when he was bringing in union leaders and auto leaders. that's trump's sweet spot. i thought that was good stuff. really good stuff talking about u.s. -- i know the wall street journal didn't like it and other conservatives didn't like it. when you say we're going to build keystone but with u.s. steel, that is a sweet spot.

all of these distractions just get in the way of what matters. it's jobs, jobs, jobs. just add, we have to look at donald trump as ceo, he looks at everything as a negotiation. when he says we'll put a 20% tariff on mexico, he's laying down a marker. you have to take it seriously and look at the impact because what he says has policy implication, but he looks at everything as a negotiation. >> huge concerns to this approach. we don't have any parallel to this. we don't know what the net effect will be. could the entire basis of our health care system be wrong? best selling author joins us to explain why what works so well in the past may now make it harder to fix the current crisis. keep it here on morning joe. thanks for loading, sweetie.

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explore your treatment options with specialists who treat only cancer. every stage... every day.... at cancer treatment centers of america. learn more at cancercenter.com/experts how important is a balanced budget to you? were you surprised republicans before you got here raised the debt ceiling $9.7 trillion? >> a balanced budget is fine but sometimes you have to fuel the well in der to really get the economy going. and we have to take care of our military. our military is more important to me than a balanced budget because we'll get there with a balanced budget. >> look, our country is in bad

shape, 6 trilli$6 trillion in te east. we have to rebuild our country and infrastructure. some republicans are fine with it, some don't like it. probably the democrats like that more than the republicans because that's always been one of the things. our roads and bridges and our highways and schools, our country was in bad shape. >> let's go to sara eisen. big news with the gdp? >> we learn the economy cooled off during the final three months of 2016. below 2% actually. 1.9% economists were looking for a number that was north of 2%. now when you add up 2016 as a whole, the economy only grew 1.6%. weakest growth in years. and it just speaks to the sort of start/stop nature of the economic recovery that has been so tough to break out of that 2% range. president trump is of course

promising 4% during the presidency and what's interesting about this number that just came out, the biggest drag on that economic growth was trade. turns out our exports fell and we imported more. that feeds the president's view that trade is hurting economic growth, whether it's the strength of the u.s. dollar or other factors, that's up for debate. as for market reaction here, the market investors seem focused on the glass half full version of president trump's policies. lower corporate taxes and fewer regulations. in fact the dow set another record high at the close yesterday. it looks like we're going to build on gains. historic week where we surpassed that 20,000 level. some of the stocks did get hit like can stelation brands which imports corona beer, tha border tax could harm a lot of importers and fruits and vegetables are on that list. at the top of the list is cars, that's why cars and auto parts,

that's what we import the most from mexico. president trump likes to talk about factories that are building cars down there. >> sara eisen, thank you very much. >> you may see the market react positively, because the fed may hold off on raising interest rates given the low growth and the economy but second we've talked about jobs in this being donald trump -- president trump's promise, where does automason factor in that. >> it's not the time to start a new trade war. certainly not with mexico. >> okay, then there's the issue of health care. joining us now from boston, surgeon and staff writer for the new yorker, he's also a professor in the department of health policy and management at harvard and latest piece he writes about are the current state of u.s. health care, the system. he says quote, we have a certain

heroic expectation of how medicine works. following the second world war, penicillin and then a raft of oth antibiotics cured the scourge of bacteria disease that it thought only god could touch. a transformation as no generation had before. it was like discovering that water could put out fire. we built our healthcare system accordingly, to deploy firefighters and doctors became saviors but the model wasn't quite right. if an illness is a fire, mg of them require months or years to extinguish or can be reduced only to a low level smolder. chronic illness has become common place and we've been poorly prepared to deal with it. much of what ails us required a more patient type of skill. well said, thank you for being on the phone and joining us from

boston. given what turmoil we're seeing in the debate over obamacare, what worries you the most about repeal and replace? >> well, there's a couple of things. number one, as we've gotten more and more capability to predict what kind of illnesses you will have, we have genomics and way to look at your data from living conditions and other information about your life. we're able to predict not just what conditions you have in the past, we've been talking about preexisting conditions and 27% of the country has preexisting conditions that if you're under 65 would be things that automatically excluded you from health care coverage before oba obamacare. if you didn't get it through your employer or medicare. we're in a new world where in the last few years we have data that makes it that virtually all of us have a preexisting condition waiting to happen. the power of medicine these days, when we talk about you

hear people say, if obamacare is repealed, if health reform is taken away, people can still go to the emergency room and they are misng the fact that the way medicine creates power and the way we save lives now. in this incremental steady way of taking care of people over time. people have chronic illnesses and chronic conditions, that's what's increasing life expectancies. >> doctor, with the great advancements that we have made in medicine, how do we harness those as we seek a way forward, either reform obamacare or repeal it and replace it to actually curb -- change the cost curb so we're not spending more money per patient than any other country in the world and not getting the results? >> yeah, there's a couple critical things, some of it already under way. we've been paying for what's called fee for service. meaning we pay for the quantity

of care and amount of stuff we put out. but we don't necessarily pay for what is the most life saving. a lot of that is what is the most cost savings. so you take for example, our biggest investments and what we pay the most for are things like surgery, my own field. the highest paid clin igss are orthopedic surgeons and gas t electroent roll gifts. what is the most life saving these days, we're starting to see how much benefit there is if you control hyper tension and prevent the heart attack and arthritis and prevent you from needing to have that joint replacement. so what we're under investing in, the lowest paid specialties, pediatrics and endo krinology, fields like family medicine, internal medicine. so the opportunities come from kind of investing in a steady lifelong incremental care that

predicts what kind of problems you're going to have and helps you stay on track and avert them. >> doctor, thank you very much for being on the show today. >> thank you so much. >> as we wrap up this friday, i feel like it's been a year since i've seen you. i saw you a week ago. whiplash. >> unbelievable week and how do democrats respond to this? how do they pick their fights? >> right now democrats are sitting by and watching the republicans fall all over each other trying to get their act together between the congress. >> you think that's the best move -- >> for now and pick their fights for some of the issues where donald trump tries to undo things that democrats really get to our core values. if they don't have enough votes maybe get republicans to join them. >> what does the press do? >> i think the press is in new territory here. each day each hour, we're seeing more headlines. the words out of bannon's mouth yesterday shocked a lot of people, you say that's exactsly

what he wanted to do, talking about it falls into that trap. we haven't been here before. >> i'm a member of the white house press corps, we are not the opposition party. >> i'll just say the best advice is what you learn journalist 101, let the story speak for itself and just cover it. >> do your job and cover it. >> that does it for us this morning. thank you so much for being with us this week and your patience. good morning, i'm stephanie rule, so much to cover starting with hitting a wall. the white house slapping a major tariff on mexico then take it back, sort of, as the standoff with mexico has intensified. >> i'm talking about a real wall, a wall that's got to be like serious. >> how the feud could hit your wallet hard. and the special relationship, president trump's first meeting