as i watched presidents, i say the most important thing -- and i think i want to refine that a little bit. i think probably defense of our country might be now otherwise we don't need the supreme court so badly, right? and we're doing well in that regard. very well. i think we have problems that are a lot bigger than people understood. i think i was left something that has had problems but i think we'll straighten out those problems and i think we'll stroly.ten them out very judge gorsuch is an exceptionally qualified person from the standpoint of experience and education, columbia with honors, harvard law school with honors, oxford at the highest level. great, great student, great intellect, supreme court justices white and kennedy, he clerked and so i just think it's great to have this meeting because we want to have him go

through an elegant process as opposed to a demeaning process. >> yes. >> because they are very demeaning on the other side and they want you to look as bad as possible. of course, the press can be very demeaning, too. i'm sure the press will be very dignified in this case. i really want -- that's the word. i really think he's a very dignified man. i'd like to see him go through a dignified process. i think he deserves that and hopefully it will go quickly and you'll see what happens. so what we might do is we might ask for the folks in the room just to give yourself a quick name and introduction and, wayne, i would say they know you. perhaps they know you better than they know me. >> i doubt that. wayne lapierre, national rifle association. >> ceo and president of concerned women for america. >> i'm sharmane with american values. thank you for this nomination.

>> thank you so much. >> i'm with the independent business association. thank you. thank you. >> tom with the u.s. chamber of commerce, mr. president. congratulations on a fantastic nomination. >> thank you. >> thank you for the election. >> thank you. i'll do a good job for you. >> margorie, susan b. anthony. >> david, national right to life. thank you for such a quick and excellent nomination. >> paula white. >> thank you, paula, for the help during the campaign. soith that, i'll ask you to all hit the road. >> thank you, mr. president. as you pointed out last night -- can i ask a question? thank you. as you pointed out last night, a

number of democrats say they are going to oppose him. what would you say to those democrats and would you encourage senator mcconnell to invoke the nuclear option if he feels he can't get 60 votes? >> well, i think there's a certain dishonesty if they go against their vote from not very long ago and he did get a unanimous endorsement and he's somebody that should get. you can't do better from an educational, from experience, from any standpoint, a great judge. he'll be a great justice. so, no, i feel it's very dishonest if they go about doing that. and yes, if we end up with the same gridlock that they've had in washington for the last longer than eight years, in all fairness to president obama, if we end up with that gridlock, i would say, if you can, mitch, go nuclear. because that would be an absolute shame if a man of this quality was caught up in the

web. so i would say, it's up to mitch, but i would say, go for it. okay? thank you. thank you. >> right now on "andrea mitchell reports," the white house launching its campaign to confirm president trump's choice for the supreme court. just moments ago, you saw president trump encouraging mitch mcconnell to go nuclear as judge gorsuch makes his first appearances today on capitol hill. battle lines drawn, parties returning to their corner. and diplomatic protests as career diplomats break all precedent, joining a protest against the executive order which the president is trying to say is not a ban. but the president said today, "everybody is arguing whether or not it is a ban. call it what you want. it's about keeping people with bad ideas out." joining me is kristen welker and

kasie hunt. kristen, first to you. and then kasie, i want to bring you in on the evolving protests. kristen? >> reporter: this is significant, andrea. it was the big question, would president trump encourage republicans to go nuclear. that effectively means that right now they would need a majority of votes, 60, to get gorsuch passed through confirmation and will they be able to get about eight democrats. that is, i should attribute, to our kasie hunt, that's how many they need to get on board in order to get this nomination through. what you heard the president say is, if they can't get that, and if democrats try to filibuster this vote, for example, they should go nuclear. meaning that they would change the rules and try to get judge gorsuch passed through confirmation with a simple majority. it is a tactic that democrats

have also used infuriating republicans but they haven't used it for a supreme court justice. so this would break with decades of legislative tradition and history. so it would be significant. we'll have to see how mitch mcconnell responds. you heard the president saying ultimately it is up to the senate majority leader how he wants to proceed and, of course, in order to gauge that, he'll have to see how democrats respond. but democrats already threatening to filibuster this vote. they are fuming because president obama's pick for the supreme court to replace antonin scalia never got a hearing. so that's part of what is at the root of this. democrats also make the argument they feel as though judge gorsuch is too conservative on various points. so you will see that come into play on the broader debate. again, the president really drawing the battle lines here, andrea. >> and kasie hunt, already i saw one of your notes that there were seven democts saying that they would vote for him.

they need eight to block. but if this does reach a fight over whether it should be a filibuster or a simple majority, ultimately the republicans will win. they have certainly 51 votes. it's just that it's something that neither side really wanted to do but it was -- they can say it started with harry reid but they always made an exception for a supreme court justice. one other quick point to both of you, the question at that photo opportunity was phrased in a particular way about judge gorsuch's confirmation by a voice vote when he was confirmed to be a federal judge. the argument has always been that there's a higher standard for supreme court justices, lifetime appointments at the highest level of the judiciary than for the federal judiciaries. kasie? >> reporter: that's right. i'd be careful with that list of seven. but i think there is a

significant contingent of moderate democrats who are not ready to jump in and say they are definitely going to oppose this nomination or they will join a filibuster, including people like joe manchin of west virginia, heidi heitkamp of north dakota. they are both up for re-election. that's a difficult calculus for them. yes, there's a lot of pressure and anger inside the democratic base to try and stop absolutely anything that donald trump is doing and that's why chuck schumer is in such a difficult spot as their leader. but there's a flip side of it for democrats who are in these red states. they don't want to be seen as being obstructionists. you saw donald trump hit on that as well in that little back and forth that we just saw. he knows that that is a way to go after some of these senators. americans clearly demanded change in the last election. so the flip side of this is liberal democrat who is are

already coming out and saying they will oppose him and that's actually pretty unusual as well, as you know. usually senators will come out and let the hearing process play out. they will hear from the -- have their meetings privately with a nominee. in this case, there's so much bad blood left over from what happened with merrick garland and you combine that with the executive order and it's a recipe for a clash here. i've talked to multiple republicans today. they are all starting to sound like they are all on the same page about that nuclear option. they said, make no mistake, we are going to confirm gorsuch to the supreme court. that tells you that a moem mow has gone out from mitch mcconnell's office about where they are on this. >> absolutely. real quickly, kasie, the other backdrop here, as you've been reporting, protests at chuck schumer's house last night in brooklyn. >> reporter: yeah. >> the fact is, these democrats are under enormous pressure and

they themselves are really angry about some of the confirmation battles and those executive orders over the weekend, how it was handled, how it was rolled out. there is a fury on the hill that we have not seen in decades. >> reporter: that's right, andrea. they were trying to delay these confirmation hearings when we were talking last week but it was not to this degree. and they were prepared to potentially say, yes, we're going to fight the supreme court nomination but chuck schumer, there was a little bit of a willingness and faith that this is scalia's seat, perhaps we will fight this war if there's a liberal justice who retires and donald trump is still president of the united states. but frankly, the way that the democratic base and you're seeing it in the streets, chuck schumer saw it outside of his house, as you point out, this has just created an environment where it is near impossible for democrats to be seen publicly going along with president trump. andrea? >> thank you both so much. and for those of you viewers who

might be confused as to why kelly ayotte, the defeated senator from new hampshire is on the hill today, there's always a sherpa who accompanies these nominees. in the past it's been former ambassador or ken duberstein or a former senator. kelly ayotte has been asked to accompany judge gorsuch around. she is recently defeated but has good relationships on the hill in both parties and kelly ayotte is that person escorting him. now, our sherpas on all things legal, pete williams, who is, of course, on the hill last night in front of the supreme court and with us as well, amy howe, co-founder of scotus blog. pete, to you, who is judge gorsuch? why is he a plus as republicans in the white house believe because of some of his roots, his mentors? >> first of all, he knows the senate. he was a senate page while his

mother was running the epa during the reagan administration. i think conservatives like him for two reasons. they wanted to find someone who would approach the law and vote on cases the way justice scalia would and found someone slightly more conservative than justice scalia on a number of points. they like his view on liberty. i think theecond thing s. a strategic move by the conservative groups. this was a man who was once the law clerk to anthony kennedy. presumably having him on the court would make justice kennedy comfortable. there's been a lot of talk that justice kennedy has said maybe he'll retire this term, next term. that's the seat they really want to get under the trump administration. that would truly change the shape and direction of the supreme court. so if this nomination makes justice kennedy more comfortable to step down, he won't think if there's somebody he doesn't like, there goes the neighborhood, i better stay, then that is a strategic plus. >> although, i wouldn't push

that too far. when you see these stories leaked out of the white house, if you're an 80-year-old supreme court justice, proud of his role, they call it kennedy's court because of his decisive role, i wouldn't be so happy about the white house spinning, well, maybe you'd like to retire. >> true. >> very healthy, active supreme court justice. >> i think they are responding to what they have heard. >> completely understandable. he's also 49 years old, amy howe. this is a career-changing, decades-changing nominee. presumably he is a healthy person at 49. >> that's right. i think that's what is making democrats so bad. he's replacing justice scalia and the ideological balance will remain more or less the same but he's extending that for another 25 years and even if you keep the court in the same place, compared to where it would have been if president obama had a

chance to nominate merrick garland and get him confirmed to the court, the court will be in a very different place. >> one of the things i noticed last night, in the solicitor's office in the bush years, neil saying that he was really helpful in trying to work through the issues on the torture legislation. he's got a lot of allies in both parties. people saying this is a good guy, a solid guy. tell me about hobby lobby. that's one of the concerns about the liberal wing. >> sure. this was a case brought by the owners of hobby lobby. it's a family who is very religiously devout and the affordable care act has a requirement that they must provide access to certain forms of birth control and the owners of hobby lobby says providing this health insurance with specific birth control violates our religious beliefs because we believe it makes us complicit in

abortion. judge gorsuch was on the panel that heard hobby lobby's case in the court of federal appeals. the case went to the supreme court and by a vote of 5-4, the supreme court upheld the ruling for hobby lobby and against the federal government, upheld judge gorsuch's ruling. >> and pete, the people i noted around the president in the roosevelt room was wayne la p lapierre, the head of the nra and you had a lot of group concerned women of america and having wayne lapierre sitting next to him, that sends a strong signal in terms of what they are trying to mobilize. >> the power at that table, other than the president, of course, was the guy whose back

was to the camera, patrick leo, head of the federalist society. he played much more of a role on who the good nominees would be, briefing the president on their judicials' background. any time there's a republican in the white house, they have an important role to try to get judges, especially on the lower courts that can go to the supreme court. >> i want to do a little throwback here, when you talked about him being a page, when his ther was at the epa, his mother, anne gorsuch, was forced out of the epa over the way toxics and the super fund was handled. i was covering the reagan white house then. a year and a half later, a week after she was appointed by president reagan to an ocean's commission, we all trekked to the eastern shore. there was a photo op and then this is what ensued.

>> you've got to go. >> can you talk about the damage of that, mr. president? >> will it limit the damage? >> frankly, i don't think there should be any thought of damage about the birther appointment. >> do you think this is going to take the heat off of you for appointing her? >> i answered that question. i'm not going to give you a different lead. >> that has a lot to do with it. mr. president, the birther appointment has a lot to do with the environment. >> i gave you my answer, andrea. >> the press secretary put his hand in front of the camera. then they turned off the lights a and then we tried it again. that's the way it was in 1984 over anne. >> he was in high school then. >> he was 17 years old. >> right. and i should say, one of the things that people say about judge gorsuch, whether they

agree with his decisions or not, is that he doesn't have any of that killer instinct that his mother had. he's a very polite man. he's polite in his judicial opinions as well, which would be different than justice scalia. >> we did see him in pictures with his friend, tony -- justice scalia. he was fishing with justice scalia. they were very close. he called him a lion of a supreme court. so there is certainly that and i did note that maureen scalia, of course, justice scalia's widow, was there at the white house last night. >> and other members of the family. >> and other members of that family as well as other members of the president, his two sons. well, what a roller coaster we are on. thank you so much. >> thank you. >> on any roller coaster, i'd like to have you with me. the weight of the nomination is following on the shoulders of the more moderate senate

democrats. west virginia democratic senator joe manchin is joining me now. well, senator, first of all, you have, i think, telegraphed that you're going to vote against betsy devos. i wanted to bring us up to date on that. have you announced your decision? >> i have said i think we put a statement out this morning and i went through that with thought and concern about the people of west virginia and i met with miss devos. she's a very fine person. but in west virginia, we're a rural state. we depend on our public education very much and the support and how it works, i don't think she has the experience in the public arena and support of public education, we don't have the resources to take care of public education the way we need to, the way we

are today. if you divide that money up, whether it be charters or vouchers, you're taking money away from a very rural state, such as west virginia. i was very concerned for those reasons and that's why i would not be able to support a vote for her. >> getting back to the supreme court, what do you know about judge gorsuch and where do you stand? we heard from the president today that he is going to urge mitch mcconnell to invoke the nuclear option if there's a filibuster. >> well, first, let me say about the nuclear option, i was totally opposed to harry reid pulling the nuclear option when he did. i think it is wrong. we got to where we got because of what harry did and his inappropriate stance on doing this. he did not do the supreme court which i was very pleased about that and now understanding that republicans want to do it, i think it should be a 60-vote rule. my reason for saying that, if you think about who who my

predecessor was, robert bird, he'd be rolling over in his grave. that's not right. it should be a bipartisan. and i believe that we should give all of the consideration, sit down in a very civil manner, talk to justice gorsuch, judge gorsuch, find out more about him and go over his findings and his past dealings and past rulings. also, we know that he comes from an extremely good background, a great resume, impeccable resume. he deserves that. my democrat colleagues are saying, wait a minute, republicans treated our nominee horrible. that doesn't make any excuse. two wrongs don't make it right. what mitch mcconnell did was absolutely wrong. it was an embarrassment to not even sit down and talk to him at

that time. if you want the branches of government, we have three. we know how troubling it is for the legislative branch, which i am in and then you have the executive branch and judicial branch. if you want to judicial branch to work and the rule of law, which we've been known for and admired worldwide, you've got to have nine supreme court justices. >> well, at the same time, your message to senators wyden and merkley and others, what do you say to them? >> i think merrick garland should have had a vote. they had enough votes to turn him down. it could have just been a consideration of the process, voting. with that being said, whether you think you've been robbed or not, this system basically has not been the fairest system that we work in and deal in.

it is the system we have. it's still the best in the world if we're trying to make it work. quit playing the politics so divisive that we have. the republicans were horrible in how they did it and shut things down. there's no question about that. but me standing here now and saying we're going to give it back to them, i wasn't sent from west virginia to play that type of a game. try to get something accomplished, find the best person. if i can go home and explain when i evaluate gorsuch, i want to be able to explain my reason, same as i did with betsy devos. >> i didn't mean to interrupt. does that also extend to your colleagues boycotting finance meetings and markups and votes on these nominees in committee? i know republicans changed the rules and voted them through. >> in west virginia, i can go home and explain why i voted for something or against someone. what i cannot explain is why i

will not participate and why i don't vote at all. i can't explain that. they don't accept it nor should they. that's not who i am. >> joe manchin, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> busy day here. what can i tell you. and president trump has posted his picture on twitter with "moment of prayer last night after my nomination of judge neil gorsuch." much more ahead. we'll be right back. when you're close to the people you love, does psoriasis ever get in the way of a touching moment?

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an unprecedented number of diplomats have now been signing a letter of dissent to the president's immigration order. this after the trump cleaned house, firing not just the political appointees, telling ambassadors to come home, and the way it was done ruffled a lot of feathers. a veteran foreign service officer was about to board a flight to attend an anti-nuclear

weapons meeting and he was pushed aside. he urged colleagues to keep fighting for american values. joining me now is thomas countryman, the former acting undersecretary of state. welcome. >> thank you. it's an honor. >> well, let's talk about your methods to fellow diplomats. many are quitting in protests, many are signing letters, dissent letters which gives them a protection under what would be the equivalent of a whistle blower status, they can't be fired summarily. but they can be black listed for any kind of promotions. certainly there's signatures will be noted by this white house. >> first, i would note, i'm not aware of very many who have resigned in protest or gone public with the withins for their resignation. the dissent channel message is something different. the dissent channel was established during the vietnam war as a means for foreign policy professionals to convey

privately to the secretary of state. their alternateiews on policy. it's been used frequently at times, vietnam, iraq, bosnia, syria. what is -- has always been important about it is a clear requirement enforced by every secretary of state that there be no retaliation or retribution against officers for communicating that privately. i understand it's an unprecedently large number of -- >> it's usually a few dozen. now it's in the number of hundreds if not thousands. >> that's what i've been told. and it's civil servants. what is unusual and i think unfortunate in this case is that it was released to the press before it had been conveyed to either the acting secretary or the incoming secretary but that

doesn't change the fact that our foreign policy can only make sense if there is genuine debate and deliberation, the state department and between the white house and all of the foreign affairs agencies. >> that's what was said about this dissent. >> 25,000 people from other countries flew from from airports, seven countries that the obama administration identified and the bureaucrats have a problem with it? i think they need to get with the program or they can go. >> it's that kind of message that sparked a lot of other people reacting because the dissent channel has been considered a private way for decades of letting career people

protest. and that's supposed to be taken into consideration by the top management. >> well, first, i'm not surprised by the white house dme comment. mr. spicer knows more about exaggeration than anyon o the planet. wh is ominous is taken in context with other threats by this white house to take names to warn media, public servants and other public figures to watch themselves. i think it does raise apprehension. that's something that could be easily corrected by the white house and by the incoming secretary of state if they made clear that the long-standing prohibition against any form of retaliation or retribution still stands. >> well, there is a vacuum and that is part of the problem and they would argue that it's slowing down rex tillerson's confirmation. but there's also a vacuum that they can control at the nsc, where there are people that don't require confirmation, who

they were just not ready to put people into the levels at the nsc. you know, the way previous incoming administrations had been ready. that said, mr. tillerson is having lunch with the president, we're told today, and is up for a vote at 2:30 this afternoon. from what we know about him, should that lead to, if he does get confirmed, would that solve part of the problem, to have people and to have a deputy nominated? >> first off, i'll be happy to see mr. tillerson's confirmation. i've never had the honor to meet him but from mutual acquaintances, i have derived the highest respect for his reputation. i hope that among the first things he does is something that has been necessary in previous administrations, to make clear to all of the public servants in the state department that he will defend and protect them against any such retribution.

even if he is in his job tomorrow, which i hope happens, there is still, as you said, a vacuum, not just on the management side but on the policy side. >> and we should point out that steve bannon, arguably, is clearing that vacuum with foreign policy decisions. >> that's what mt concerns me about the executive order, that there was no apparent coordination or feedback from four key agencies directly affected, homeland security, state defense and justice. >> homeland says they weighed in but the argument is whether they were overruled at the last moment when some of the visa issues were addressed. >> it seems clear that the executive order was drafted by an extremely small group and i have seen executive orders much less complex than this that were debated, discussed, dissected far more rigorously than this one. if you don't trust professionals, public servants to help you on foreign policy,

then, by definition, you end up with an amateur foreign policy. >> tom countryman, thank you very much. thank you for your service. >> it's been an honor. and coming up, the top democratic on the senate judiciary committee, dianne feinstein, joining me next, right here. stay with us.

and within the last hour, the senate judiciary committee approved jeff sessions who voted against sessions' nomination. it was an 11-9 vote. why were you among the 9 voting against? >> i feel strongly he's the wrong man for the time. i've known him for 20 years. i know the record. i know the views. he's trump partisan in the

campaign and i think what the attorney general has to do and senator sessions has alluded to this in the questioning, in the committee, is be prepared to say to the president of the united states and i cannot see jeff sessions with his record and i don't e him doing that. so i don't think that he will be the kind of attorney general independent from the executive representing the law, representing the constitution and representing the people. not representing donald trump. >> has the firing of acting attorney general yates and the rollout of the executive orders made it more difficult for the two parties to work together? you've got a supreme court

nominee coming up. i want to ask you about that. the whole environment here seems so toxic. >> well, it's calculated. my understanding is that one of the white house teams said what we need is an era of shock and awe to throw the congress off step and that's what's happened. we've had 16 executive orders not all prepared, not all legal, perhaps some unconstitutional, and ten memoranda of executive privilege in the last week along and what that has done to a population to where this is a president that was not elected with a strong plurality of the popular vote but by the electoral college, this has split the electorate. in my lifetime, i've never seen as many people on the streets day and night, all throughout

not only this town but all across america and certainly in my state. so we're getting constituent calls that are in the tens of thousands on issues. people are listening, they are alerted, they are worried. they want the congress to come together and form a separate branch of government, which is strong, which is based on law and the constitution. >> now you've got judge gorsuch coming up for confirmation and a number of your colleagues said that he shoul not be confirmed because of what happened to merrick garland. should he be taken on his own merits, he's a 49-year-old conservative judge to replace justice scalia with a good education and a lot of mentors on the court and elsewhere. so a good record. so how do you judge this nomination? >> well, let me respond to that as best i can. i was one of those that

recommended merrick garland and he's a person that i have admired on the d.c. court of appeals for a long, long time. he's an unparallel good judge. he was a great prosecutor, over saw the prosecution of the oklahoma city bombers and was complimented by the defense for the classic prosecution that he oversaw. to see him treated the way he was treated, walking the halls, having to beg for a meeting, asking for a hearing, receiving none, for a year this went on, just about. it leaves a very deep wren and set the precedent of removing from the president of the united states his ability to appoint or nominate a supreme court justice in his final year. and so now, here we are, we've kept the position open for a

year and here we are, republicans saying, we've got to rush to judgment, we've got to get this confirmed. and i say this. we are going to do our duty. we are going to do the interspection, the analysis that is necessary and first of all to really understand and know the views of this proposed supreme court justice. and then a decision will be made and democrats will either vote for him or vote against him but the process is important and it's important that we carry is out. it's also important, i think, that we g over what hpened last year and this is hoard to do because it went on and on for months and the humiliation is caused a very good man resounds with all of us still and so i think there has to be an understanding that a real

mistake was made in the way merrick garland was handled. we've got to recover from it, we've got to go on. i think we should go on but it's there. >> and the president said today that he would urge mitch mcconnell to employ the nuclear option to approve judge gorsuch as justice gorsuch by 51 votes. >> well, that's interesting. that's a threat in a long line of threats and this congress needs to stand on its own. we are a separate branch of government. we do have our ideals. many of us are experienced and have been here for a while and i don't want to see 9 senate of the united states bow down to a demand like this. as i said, we're prepared to do our due diligence, we're prepared to move ahead but

understand the difficult circumstances under which this is happening. and i don't think that's too much to ask. >> senator feinstein, thank you very much. >> you're welcome. good to see you. >> you, too. and we'll be right back. with my moderate to severe crohn's disease,... ...i was always searching for ways to manage my symptoms. i thought i had it covered. then i realized managing was all i was doing. when i finally told my doctor, he said humira was for people like me who have tried other medications,... but still experience the symptoms of moderate to severe crohn's disease.

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all year round. so call today. because now's the perfect time to learn more. go long. what do we want? >> thousands of protesters outside senate majority leader chuck schumer's home last night. of course, now the nominee for supreme court is being talked about as well. have you ever seen it this ugly? >> not this ugly this fast. >> on all sides. >> yeah. right. the shooting is happening in all directions. not this quickly. it feels like it a couple years in. it's ten days in. >> and you have the president already announcing that he wants the majority leader to employ

the nuclear option. the majority leader is married to one of the confirmed cabinet members. awkward position for him to have. and the democrats still infuriated by the way merrick garland was treated. >> yes. and on top of being infuriated by the way merrick garland was treated and being essentially held in limbo, walking the senate halls alone for a year, they are trying to set a precedent for what will happen for supreme court nominees going forward if as expected trump gets at least one more chance at a nomination in a four-year term and who knows if he's re-elected, how many beyond that. so they feel that there is a greater -- there's much more at stake than the antonin scalia seat, which if gorsuch is presumably confirmed to it, is essentially a net neutral in

termof the balan of the court. the next seat is the one that would tip the court. >> you see the president and he's surrounded by mostly conservative interest groups especially wayne lapierre of the nra sitting next to him. you can see what kind of outreach he's trying to mobilize for this justice. >> absolutely. and the east room scene last night couldn't have been more, you know, showy and apprentice-like. this is really the first really big presidential thing that he has done other than greet theresa may last week. a president only gets to name a supreme court nominee a couple of times, right? so this is a big deal. >> a big deal indeed. and then there are the executive orders. it's happening so fast and furious, it's difficult for the members of congress, for the media, for everyone to keep up.

anne gearer, thank you. the world is watching. up next, the former mexican ambassador to the united states. what is next with the wall and who will pay for it.

sparking outcries across the world, especially south of the border, joining me is veteran diplomat, former mexican ambassador to the u.s. what's the impact of the fallout from the executive orders, not just the one on the wall? >> it created a very bad narrative on both sides of the border. it's contaminated how people think and react to the u.s./mexico relationship and it's so important to the well-being and security of so many americans. >> the cancellation of the visit, which would have happened this week. >> i think it was unavoidable. there was no upside at this junk

st juncture. it's not just the issues that president trump has put on the table and you don't have a u.s. cabinet in place yet. so number one, there were the real dynamics of the whole of government approach and secondly, this ambush and back and forth on twitter made it politically impossible for the mexican president to come. i think he made the right decision. >> what about the realities of a tariff would mean, the blow back economically against the u.s. and how it would affect our economy in. >> it's certainly a known goal. not only would it impact avocados and guacamole for super bowl, which has become the main staple of super bowl for the past years, also because out of every dollar, there's 42 cents of american content. it's an own goal against american jobs and exports into

mexico that feed into this joint supply production chain that nafta is responsible for creating over the past 20 years. >> the impact around the world, the idea that we are becoming isolationists. >> this is something that i've been very concerned about as someone that has lived and worked with for decades, the public diplomacy footprint of the united states is being profoundly affected and many nations are seeing this critically important relationship between mexico and the united states, to friends and partners and allies to saying, if this is going on with mexico, imagine what would happen with other nations that don't have the skin in the game that these two nations have with one another. >> the dynamic is you have someone like reince priebus, an experienced person as chief of staff, and now you see steve bannon having a big impact on trade and on the immigration executive orders. >> and again, at a moment where

you still have several key cabinet positions that have not been filled because ratification confirmation in the senate is pending. and then the assistant secretaries that man the day-to-day relationship with mexico across the whole range of agencies and departments in washington, d.c. >> to be continued. i hope we'll have a contiin conversation, arturo. great to see you. >> we'll be right back. fount'n interest, david. you know i work at ally. i was being romantic. you know what i find romantic? a robust annual percentage yield that's what i find romantic. this is literally throwing your money away. i think it's over there. that way? yeah, a little further up. what year was that quarter? what year is that one? '98 that's the one. you got it! nothing stops us from doing right by our customers. ally. do it right. let's get out of that water.

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court nominee and another one of the president's picks for his cabinet, will it really accomplish anything? >> and faceoff, sean spicer holding a daily briefing a few minutes from now. we'll bring it to you live, of course. let's start with the nuclear option. last hour, president trump telling his senate majority leader to, quote, do whatever it takes to secure the confirmation of his supreme court pick. >> if we end up with the same gridlock that they've had in washington for longer than eight years, in all fairness to president obama, a lot longer than eight years, i would say, if you can, mitch mcconnell, go nuclear. >> moments after president trump said that, the mitch to whom he was referring, mitch mcconnell, said this about the looming confirmation battle. >> in the coming days, i hope and expec