is speaking out there's a direct impact on apple employees, and -- >> it's connected to the world. >> still, point taken. >> that does it for us. point taken. >> crash test dummies also. >> that does it for us. stephanie ruhle picks it up. >> before they start singing, i will take it over. good morning, i am stephanie ruhle. this morning we are talking about a big reveal. >> the qualifications of judge gorsuch are beyond dispute. >> i will be a faithful servant to the constitution of laws for this great country. >> praised by conservatives, but democrats are digging in for a brutal fight. >> this is a seat that was stolen from the former president obama. >> and a last stand. democrats do not have the numbers to stop trump's cabinet

nominees, so they are simply boycotting their votes. >> this is the most pathetic thing i have seen in my whole time in the united states senate. >> and mark cuban, the billionaire businessman, joins us live, and we will get his thoughts on donald trump and the controversial travel ban. we will begin this morning with trump's biggest decision to date, nominating gorsuch to replace antonin scalia on the supreme court, and the real battle is about to kick off, and democrats are threatening to do everything they can to block neil gorsuch, and the republicans are considering a nuclear panel to get him through. i want to take you to kristin welker at the white house. how exactly did donald trump settle on neil gorsuch for his nomination? >> reporter: good morning, steph. we know president trump met with four finalist, including thomas

hardiman, who we talked about as one of the frontrunner and ultimately he settled on neil gorsuch because of his solid credentials, and pete will talk more about that. bottom line, he felt he was the best pick for the bench. the question becomes now what you were talking about, how does he get him through the confirmation process? we know a robust strategy is under way here at the white house, and kelly ayacht will be shepherding him through the process. and mitch mcconnell has to get democrats onboard, and they are still fuming about the republicans didn't give barack obama even a hearing, and so will they go with the nuclear

approach, and donald trump today as a number of meetings related to this and he's going to be meeting with groups, and they are going to be talking about all of this, how specifically to get neil gorsuch through that confirmation process. but the expectation is, he might be confirmed and there may be a whole lot of debate headed into that process. >> thank you. i want to dig a bit more into who judge gorsuch is, and who better to be it with than our correspondent, pete williams. i want to share what judge gorsuch said last night, specifically about his approach to the law. >> it's for congress and not the bench to write the laws. a judge who likes every outcome he reaches is very likely a bad judge. stretching for results he prefers rather than those the law demands. >> all right, pete, there you

have it. what can you tell us about this guy? >> that could have been said by antonin scalia, too, and that's a conservative view of the law, and that's one of the reasons why he was chosen. he is somebody considered to be in the mold of justice scalia in terms of the way he writes and he's a gifted writer and his opinions are clear and he has two of the same attitudes about the law that justice scalia did that statues themselves and are mainly interpreted based on the words and not the intent of the people who pass them and the constitution is to be judged by what the framers had in mind when they initially put the bill of rights and the other provisions in the constitution. so i think that's one factor why he was chosen. the second reason i think is he was a former clerk to justice anthony kennedy, and if he is confirmed, by the way, he would be the first one to serve on the court with a justice he once served. they want to see another vacancy

on the court during the trump administration, and they wonder if justice kennedy might be getting ready to step done, and if so would justice kennedy feel more comfortable leaving with somebody like neil gorsuch, who he knows and likes rather than somebody more conservative than that, and that's a factor why the conservative groups pushed for his nomination. >> it sounds like it's a strategic decision. >> absolutely. >> i want to bring in our panel now. welcome to you both. i want to start with this graphic that i found so interesting, and it's where judge gorsuch sits on the ideological graph, and he's more right than what we thought about. what do you make of this? >> in a rational world he would

get as many votes as sotomayor, and unfortunately we don't live in a rational universe right now. i think the most important thing for people to focus on is this is a guy that has deep, deep respect for the rule of law, for limited government. and i think that given the world we're in and some of the things going on with the administration, this is something to focus on. this is somebody who has been skeptical about the overreach of the executive, and frankly, i think the most conservatives will think this is as probably close to the best possible pick donald trump could have made. >> there's so much fear across the board that donald trump in the last week has been overreaching. with a nominee like this, the fact he has shown in the past so much respect for rule of law, does it give you a sense of comfort if this guy goes through he will not be a trump pushover? >> at the end of the day, the justice is going to permanently submit policies for donald trump for generations to come -- >> that's no matter who you will

get? >> i don't feel comfortable. if you look at his rulings, you have to question is he going to question will he stand up for women's rights or the lbgt community, and he had rulings where he went against contraception protection for women. this is not somebody that democrats should stand for. they should block him. >> then is the answer the democrats should block everyone? donald trump upon the election, and what you are going for is what people did vote for? >> 3 million people did not vote for donald trump, and he did not win the popular vote, so that's something else to put in place. >> here's the mistake, though. this is not the kind of judge who is going to be a political conservative. he's a judicial conservative. he's not an outcome oriented conservative, and he would stand up against a trump overreach. >> why? >> he has a deep respect for the

constitution and the bill of rights and the rule of law and this is the kind of justice you would hope if you have an administration running off the tracks. he spoke about taking on the administrative state that has become too powerful, and to that extent, understand a judicial conservative does not mean a political or ideological conservative, and this is a brilliant man and somebody, the kind of person that i would think that both sides of the aisle would want, and barack obama's former -- >> let's just say we accept charlie's -- how charlie lays it out. is it worth it if this is who gorsuch is for democrats to filibuster if there are other battles ahead. >> two weeks ago republicans were filibustering merrick garland. when republicans are in the

white house there's a certain set of rules, and when they are not in the white house they are a certain set of rules. and president obama had the right, and they held that seat open for a year? >> but do they have to get pragmatic here? >> the people who have been protesting for the past two weekends are speaking and they are the ones who have been saying let's not allow donald trump to get anything, and it's because of the type -- look what he has done. he brought it on himself. >> the cycle of hyperpartisanship keeps ratcheting up and it needs to be broken, because if they do filibuster him, there will be a nuclear option and that will change it forever. >> charlie, who thinks about forever? terms of the -- the world we are living in today, we are living in a world of short termism, and a political leader or ceo,

people are thinking about today and not six years from now. >> this is why it's an irresistible force, because the democrats are under tremendous pressure to block it and the pressure from the conservative republican base will be just as intense to get this thing through. this is the first time donald trump has united conservatives and the pressure from the republican base will be as intense as the democratic base to resist this. >> it will be an interesting time to see what happened. it can't be rule for one party and then when the democrats try to do what they want to do for their own base and all of a sudden we can't do it either. it's not one way. >> we know the heat is on and we have a lot more to cover. next, another day of confirmation votes on the hill today, but maybe it won't happen. democrats are beginning to dig their heels in, and boycotting. how many votes will actually happen? and mark cuban joins me with

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the battle lines are drawn again. democrats are vowing fierce resistance to president trump's

supreme court nominee, neil gorsuch. and key to the opposition several democrats are questioning his record on women's issues and corporate interests. let's bring in democratic congressman tim ryan who serves on the armed services committee. i would love to get your take on judge gorsuch. >> it seems like taking us backwards, actually, if we want to get into back alley abortions, and rolling back the ability for people to collectively bargain. these are terrible things. one of the things i really worry about is the campaign finance issue to think that unlimited money can be thrown into the political process. i think it's going to make the problem worse, the big problem that we have right now with money in politics and average people not having a voice. >> did you think you were going to get someone more liberal than judge gorsuch? is it about who he is specifically and what he represents or the fact that you

don't want to get the seat filled by a donald trump pick? >> you know, we had a rough election, obviously, and one of the key issues was the issue of the supreme court and who was going to make these kinds of nominations, so i don't know, trump is all over the board with his rhetoric, and we were not quite sure who we were going to get and we were hoping for somebody more moderate but with trump's picks to the cabinet and now the supreme court, he is going after big corporate supporters, whether they are in the private sector or in corporate america and now with the court to support those kinds of people so they can come in and buy elections and rig the system and give tax cuts to the wealthiest and take the tax cuts to shrink the voice in places like ohio, and that's something that i think we have to continue to fight. >> i know you won't be involved in this vote. it doesn't happen with you, but

as far as neil gorsuch goes, he's replace, antonin scalia. they have similar principles. is it not worth it for democrats to save your firepower in the event there's a second seat open? that's when things start to change. >> i understand. i think this is such a critical battle we have to get our backs up here and i think we have to totally vet this guy. unlike republicans, steph, we will probably have hear ogz this person, unlike merrick garland, who they completely ignored. we will listen and vet the record and look closely at it to give the american people and others an opportunity to hear for themselves what he stands for. i will tell you, we have to fight some of this stuff because when you turn this stuff back, especially with the supreme court, it becomes a generational direction that is set, and unfortunately, if this guy gets approved by the senate, then we

are going to go in the same direction we are in now with a rigged system that favors corporate interests and back alley abortions. that's just the direction we are going to keep going in. we are going to hit the gas pedal and probably go faster in that direction. >> when you mention vetting, of course, my mind went to extreme vetting and the travel ban. clearly president trump is back and forthwi with what it shoulde called, and he put out a tweet saying call it what you want. it's about keeping people with bad intentions out of the country. many people across the board have huge issues with how this was rolled out, and donald trump has success with tweets and sound bites, and a sound bite like that, keeping bad people out, and 49% of americans polled agree with the ban. are you surprised with that? >> democrats need to do a better

job of getting the message out, this is dangerous, this is throwing gasoline on the radicals in the middle east, and the west, they hate islam and hate us and the biggest western power wants to ban us from coming into their country and that's going to increase their ability to recruit and send people over here to the united states. it's also going to diminish our ability to partner with muslim countries and shoulder with those in the middle east to stomp out and prosecute the war on terrorism. donald trump is completely wrong on this. this makes us less safe and increases their ability to recruit people for isis and it looks nuance, stephanie. this is the thing with trump. you get a tweet. it lacks any nuance. if you want to get into the country, more than likely as a terrorists, you are not going to

come in through yemen, but through a european country that would provide a little more cover and have a little less scrutiny, so if we want to improve vetting and make the country more safe, we may want to move into that direction where we are making sure we are covering all our bases. it's wrong and unconstitutional and a religious test and violates every sensibility we have as americans, and more so than anything it makes us less safe and increases the opportunity for terrorism to happen here in the united states, and we need to say that and we need to not back down from that because that's the truth. >> congressman, you just did a good job saying it. thank you so much. >> thanks. >> moments ago the senate finance committee announced it will reconvene in ten minutes to consider the nomination of tom price and steve phaou chin.

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call now and get a free gift. certificate benefits and limitations should be carefully examined prior to purchase. welcome back. i am stephanie ruhle. you are watching msnbc. few people have been more tough on president trumps than my next guest, and just yesterday he described the new emigration restrictions as half-assed and half-baked. the star of "shark tank" and owner of the dallas mavericks joins us on the phone. >> hello. >> last night many have said on both sides of the aisle he did a pretty good job rolling out his

supreme court nominee. what did you think? >> yeah, it was a nice presentation. the bar is low. all he had to do is not go off on a tangent, which for the phos part, he didn't do. he popped in his typical trump things, it will be the biggest and the best, whatever, but it was fine and now it's a question of what happens next. >> does it give you confidence after i will call it a disastrous week, a circus in the white house, and does it now give you confidence that president trump is turning the corner, what do you think? >> no, i don't think it reflects anything. look, there's a whole lot more we need to learn about how president trump does business. you know, i don't think his management style is all of a sudden going to change because he decided to stick to script

for the most part in presenting the supreme court nominee. >> you tweeted last night that he's a dealmaker and can make a deal with senate democrats to ensure they confirm gorsuch. >> there's a couple things, right? a, dealmakers love to make deals and salespeople love to sale, and when somebody comes to the table and somebody who is a confident dealmaker, they will be always thinking they can get more so why not negotiate? it's always worse sitting at the table with that type of person. there's no downside because you can go back to your position. part two to that is donald loves being able to brag, and if you give something that gives him bragging rights. we will make this the fastest supreme court nominee confirmation ever in the history of the united states, and we

want to have you do this or that, and you never know in negotiations until you try, and i thought and think it's worth trying. >> what do democrats need to do? while we can laugh at it's the biggest and the best, and when you think about the travel ban 49% of the people polled said they feel good about it, and when they hear donald trump put out a tweet saying doesn't matter what you call it, it's about keeping the bad people out, and when my mom reads a tweet like that she says, you darn right. >> it is what it is. 25% of voters -- of citizens voted against him, and it's the 52% that didn't vote, what they do next that is important. the reality is the democrats don't need to communicate with

the people that voted against him. they don't need to communicate with the people that voted for him. they need to communicate for the people that didn't vote. those are the ones with the greatest impact. i am an independent and not a democrats and don't have a vested interest in the democratic party at all, but what i will say, at least from my perspective, everything that was wrong with the republicans during the obama administration was built around obstructionism, and it was bad for everybody and bad for the country, and the reality is that's how we ended up with a president trump, and in an honest moment with conservative leaders, you know, they will tell you that they didn't want a president trump, they wanted a real conservative, and with that in mind, why are the democrats looking to copy the obstructionist approach? it was everything wrong with the republicans. it didn't really work for them.

you know, they -- it's a problem and it's bad for the country. they need to take a different approach if they want to get different results. >> if the democrats are blowing it, how about the dia? are we looking at the wrong subjects? when i look at president trump last night, the first two people sitting next to him are his sons who he clearly said would be running the business and not part of his administration, and they were focused on conflicts of interests and the white house is laughing at us saying we can't have conflicts of interests, so what should matter and what should we be holding him accountable for? >> first of all you have to understand media, and i don't think the media does, and twitter reaches people that 9% of twitter users use it for news

and so the way people approach twitter, a way for the american president to reach the public, and that's not true. 91% of people are getting their news from other sources, maybe even facebook, and recognizing that the media has to understand that it is the way people consume news, and you are the originating source. covering the tweets is just playing right into the hands of the republicans. and the president. you know, cover the substance of the issues. what is happening. cover the facts of what is happening. i am not saying what report on what the president tweets, because most people don't have twitter and you have to do that, and you have to recognize that people reading or watching, those are the people looking for information, and cover it as an event not as a tweet. too much emphasis placed on the tweets. >> what about the pr.

we could argue all day long about whether or not we brought jobs back to carrier or if he is creating or pushing change with ceos, and hey, lower the price of air force one, but at the end of the day is donald trump having success with ceos and bringing jobs back? you are a man that truly understands innovation, and that's something we have not heard president trump say, and his whole media blitz that he is bringing back jobs, and will this work? >> i will analogize it to sports. every team says we are going to have a great season, and then you have to play the games. he can talk all he wants about, you know, i just talked to carrier and we added 730 jobs, and yadda, yadda, yadda, and at some point we will get jobs reports and at some point the unemployment rate will go up or down and the economy will improve or not improve. we will see the results, and

that's what matters. all this other stuff, you know, him talking about i talked to this company and that company, that's pretty much meaningless. in terms of what actually is impactful. taxes matter. i am pro his tax reforms and reducing pwaour rau things, and comes to actually creating jobs, taxes only matter when a company is actually making money, right? that's one issue. two, we have not changed the amount of withholding, and so if i am going to hire somebody and i have thousands of employees and if any of my companies, more than 150 companies i am invested in, if they are going to high i still have to pay all the additional withholding taxes, and i have to pay for insurance,

and all of these other costs that are more important than the changes that the president is proposing, that are actually more important than income tax changes, and there's a lot of things that have to play out before we know the results, and who knows if they will all work or not but i am not getting excited about what is said. >> you are invested in over 100 companies, and whether it was publicly or behind closed doors, we did not see corporate america or wall street behind president trumps when he was running, and it was around fears about what this man would be in terms of foreign policy, and the fact he has somebody like steve bannon so close to him right now, and are you concerned about that and do you think wall street and corporate america will start to turn? we need to have great trading

partners -- >> yeah, i am concerned. very concerned. e travel ban changed the calculous of hiring and investing dramatically, and i will explain how. the day before the travel ban, if i was looking to invest in a new startup, if the kid -- typically it's somebody young, has a green card, great, if they have a dual citizenship, great. i never look or investigated the genealogy, where are their parents from or do they have relatives in the country that could potentially perceived as a terrorism host. that all changed after the travel ban. now i have to consider those things. if i am going to go and invest in indiana university, standard, somebody who has a great idea for tphaour yo networks, now i have to say what is the ethnicity of the person, and what about their parents and relatives? is this going to be an issue?

that's bad for business across the board. and as far as a ceo, the imtp emphasis we placed on diversity, what is creating a lot of stress for my employees? if i have employees that might be of iranian descent, if they are overly stressed because they may not be able to visit their parents or their parents cannot visit them, or if they are older they can't see their grandkids, vice versa, they are not going to be focused on work, and those are issues every ceo has got to consider. not only that, because they are concerned and stressed, the employees are, they are talking to their fellow employees, and there are very, very close -- >> mark, i am sorry, i have to interrupt because we are out of

time. mark price is going to be sitting before the finance chicago, and what is the take you yourself have -- >> what he got -- i have not delved into it deeply, but if he got access to a pipe, that was a special consideration. those are not publicly available. when he said they were not publicly available, that's a huge negative. we have breaking news. the senate finance committee reconvening to vote on two of the picks, tom price, and steve ma knew chun. and we just learned it's being boycotted once again. democrats are boycotting the two nominees? why and does it make a difference? my kids launch food strikes all

the time, and by the time 7:00 rolls around, they say fine, i will eat my vegetables. >> reporter: well, the stakes are slightly higher in this particular case, and what is going on, the democrats are using an obscure rule available in the finance committee where at least one democrat has to be present before they can reach a vote, and they are boycotting the votes for the health and human services dartmentnd treasury respectfully. it's limited because they are in the minority, but you are seeing them really try to ratchet up the pressure in the wake of those intense protests about donald trump's immigration executive order. the temperature has really gone up here on capitol hill. you have seen it in the streets, and so the democratic base putting a lot of pressure on senators right now to do absolutely everything they can to slow down donald trump's cabinet nominees and his new supreme court nominees.

they are seeing that in the finance committee. we have seen more of an old school filibuster-style delay in the judiciary committee. you had democrats different speeches up to half an hour a piece yesterday to the point where they had to delay his hearing again until today, so we are waiting to see whether the democrats will use the same tactics to try and push sessions' vote off first, and meanwhile on the senate floor, we should see a vote on rex tillerson for secretary of state, and again, democrats have required republicans to exhaust the process, and they are not doing anything to help speed it up. i think look for more of that as gorsuch, donald trump's pick for the supreme court, tries to convince senators to move him through as well. >> thank you. up next a lot of democrats floated the idea of filibustering the nomination to the supreme court and republicans responding with threats of a nuclear option, and

what exactly is this option and will things grind to a halt on capitol hill? this is sort of what people didn't want, more gridlock. >> welcome to america. >> look at this, it's a budweiser ad weighing into the political battle that will air this weekend at the super pwobo or are they just trying to sell beer? or fill a big order or expand your office and take on whatever comes next. find out how american express cards and services can help prepare you for growth at open.com. find out how american express cards and services wiskin and nails you'll enjoy lustrous hair, vibrant skin,

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this is msnbc and you are watching the senate finance committee meeting at this moment, and there you have it, empty, empty, empty, across the board. democrats have not shown up for what should be a vote today on tom price and steve mnuchin. the democrats are not there, and we will watch to see if they show up or maybe we will push it off further. now we will go back to the supreme court pick.

it's something we have been talking about all day, a nuclear option. >> i am opposed to the nuclear option and i was dead wrong against harry reid. >> a supreme court justice needs 51 votes in the senate to be confirmed and the republicans have a clear majority of 52. >> i only hope that both democrats and republicans can come together for once for the good of the country. >> that's what he hopes, but so far democrats don't seem to want to come together. their only option to filibuster the vote. republicans need 60 votes to break it, and there are eight votes short of that, and that will leave them with two options, scrap the nomination or go nuclear. they could vote to end the whole process to end the filibuster,

but it would then end forever. >> make no mistake, this nuclear option is the arrogance of power skprbg it's a fundamental power grab by the majority party. >> that, of course bg was joe biden back in 2005 decrying the nuclear option when republicans were considering it then, but it was the democrats that push the button in 2013, and democrats were in the majority and ended the filibuster for all court appointees except for the supreme court. this was senator mitch mcconnell back then. >> if you want to play games and set yet another precedent you will no doubt come to regret, and i say to my friends on the other side of the aisle, and you will regret it and maybe sooner than you this.

>> they could eliminate minority opposition forever. i want to bring in mark sanford. i want to read part of your statement from november 2013 when democrats were considering the nuclear option. you said removing the right of the minority to filibuster means their views matter less than those controlling the debate. there are real concerns here no matter who is in power and i think we cannot take those concerns lightly. so given that was your view back in 2013, should republicans consider going nuclear today? >> well, they simply may have to. i hope that's not the case. i stand by what i said in 2013, because i believe that the founding fathers' intent was the majority to have that in the house. >> in the senate, the democrats are not there.

so many americans are sick of the washington gridlock and it infuriates them. is this the right thing to do now? >> i would say no, because it goes toward the nuclear option, an it shing not good for our republic. dissent and disagreement is part of what goes with washington, and this methodology in the long run is sustainable. >> donald trump is a change president. it has been a jarring week and a half, and so for those to say let's slow the process, and fur looking at tom price or steve mnuchin who some said lied when they gave testimony last, is there an argument to be made? these are big jobs. >> there's nothing wrong with taking a closer look. again, the reality of the gridlock that we deal with in washington, d.c. on a daily basis is very strong partisan lines have been built over on the senate side on this, and you

know, you have a majority that wants to go ahead and move with the confirmation, and there will be an administration that wants a cabinet in place, and at some point people will say enough is enough and we have to fill a cabinet for the executive branch to function. >> you feel good about these cabinet picks? some want to slow down because they want to slow down the control of steve bannon last week. >> i would be among them, and i think it was weird and difference to replace, for example, the chairman of the joints chief of staff and fuse what it could be perceived as politics into the security decisions, and at the end of the day security decisions are neither republican or democratic decisions, they are american decisions. i would concur it's different and i don't like it and it raised questions with me as a republican as it raised questions with many democrats. >> thank you for joining us. appreciate it.

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you are watching msnbc. there you have it. the senate finance committee that moments ago, without the democrats in the room who were boycotting these hearings, voted 14-0 so, they approved both tom price and steve mnuchin for their cabinet positions. i want to bring back our panel here. i want to start with you in terms of the republicans had the power here. the democrats not showing up, did this push republicans to actually work together more? within the republican party there were people who took issue with tom price and steve uchin. when the democrats don't show up do the republicanssay, let's get together, guys. >> i think that was going to happen regardless.

for me, this san encouraging sign. democrats are finally catching up to where their base is. yes, there were some major issues. this is not business as usual. you had these nominees who were not filling out their disclosure form properly, who were lying on the disclosure form. some of them woefully unqualified. i think democrats need to stand up. and just look what we've seen in the last -- >> they didn't show up. they boycotted. >> they used their procedural power which is what their base wants them to do. >> but what power is that? now they've shown i'm not going to show up. i'm going to take my toys and go home and have given the four republicans. >> this is why people hate politics in washington. they don't like this kind of gridlock. if i'm donald trump, i want every single day to have nancy pelosi on television talking about how they're going to obstruct and impose gridlock. this has a risk of flipping the script.

the trump administration is melting down in a variety of ways. the democrats will change the narrative to make the story about them. are they going to overreach? are they going to overplay their hand? i've seen this happen before so i'd strongly caution people. generally when your opponent is doing badly, do you step back and let him do it. what's happening here, though is the democrats are becoming the face of not getting things done. donald trump is going to go to the country and say, look, i was elected. i'm doing what i said. im doing this, this, this. what are the democrats doing? playing to their base and run away and doing these juvenile stunts. >> i have to disagree with you, obviously, of course. look what happened on saturday. donald trump puts out this executive order that is incredibly cruel that bans people who have -- who have called this country home for years. and what happened? organic, galvanizing of the people. and by the end of that evening, what happened? actual action happened. you had about four federal courts say we're going to grant

a stay. and you actually saw something. so it's not just these protests are not getting you anywhere. >> but pick your targets. you have to be smart strategically about what you do. the stories that you tell as opposed to things like this which, again, feel good, accomplish nothing, make you look foolish. >> if anything, i think donald trump is going to help us if he continues the chaos at these -- >> i agree, but these things can also help him. donald trump will feed upon any social unrest. you know that his base, they are sitting back there looking at people in washington, if the protests become uncivil or if they become violent, this will become a political asset for him. this is the one thing you may need to unite the republican party. this will pull together all the wings of the conservative movement which are not 100% behind him and have never been. >> donald trump is one ever the least popular of presidents beginning in his term that we've ever seen.

we'll see what his numbers look like. i think the political landscape will look very different two years from now. >> we're going to dip in. orrin hatch is speaking at this moment to our own kasie hunt. >> you're saying that -- >> are you concerned the relationship [ inaudible ]? >> no, they understand. but i don't think they can complain. my gosh, we've used the rules. there ought to be rules used. they used the rules the way they thought they could use them. they just -- >> mr. chairman -- >> that was chairman orrin hatch speaking to kasie hunt. you're watching msnbc. just moments ago, steve mnuchin and tom price confirmed. ool? ool? no sir, no sir, some nincompoop stole all my wool sweaters,

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before we go, one last word with charlie and careen. neil gorsuch. democrats going to filibuster or not? >> filibuster. >> absolutely not unless they want the nuclear option. big mistake. >> democrats are staying strong. >> they need to pick their target. >> that wraps us up for the hour. i'm stephanie ruhle. find me all day long on twitter or tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. here is my colleague, my friend, hallie jackson in d.c. >> right now, we have some breaking news, gang. senate republicans blowing up committee rules to force through two cabinet votes on the secretaries for health and treasure after democrats -- look at these empty seats. no-shows for the second day in a row. this may be because this whole thing is over. just breaking in the last couple of minutes. are fireworks going to fly again today later on with jeff sessions? the action is picking up right here again live later this hour with hearings on him and on scott pruitt, too. as if that is not enough,

moments from now, president trump's supreme court nominee neil gorsuch will make his first official visit to capitol hill with republicans praising the president's pick and some democrats promising to put up a fight. so is going nuclear the only option? finally, bandemonium. a war of words over what to call his extreme vetting executive order. we're covering all of the fast-moving action with kasie hunt on the hill, pete williams, peter alexander. the whole team is here. kasie, just in the last 20 minutes, we're prepping for the show and we have this breaking news. this vote now to move forward on stephen mnuchin and tom price even with no democrats in the room. how unusual is this? put this into context. >> i was just talking to the chairman orrin hatch. he said it's never happened before. particularly thicommitte has a really strong trati