nbc's kristin welker inside the briefing room. news broke a short time ago, kristin, before that briefing started, about the possible easing of those russian sanctions. that was your question to mr. spicer. what was his response? do we have any new information on what all of this could mean? >> reporter: well if you look at the language on the treasury department's wet, crabsite it indicates that the administration has eased sanctions against the russian intelligence agency fsb, however, sean spicer disputing that characterization and saying this is not in effect an easing of sanctions but rather a fix to some language that was already in place under the obama administration. what we are going to have to do now is drill down on that and fact check those assertions againhe headline is that he sisted this is not in fact an easing of sanctions. of course there has been a lot of scrutiny of thissed a straying given some of the.

>>ing remarks that president trump has made about russia's president vladimir putin, and we know that when former president obama left office, relations between these two countries were at their chilliest in decades. and there was some concern within the foreign policy community that what we would see was an easing of that very chilly relationship. so we'll have to really drill down on what specifically that means. you also heard sean spicer address that phone call with the australian prime minister in which by all accounts president trump was not agreeable to a deal that was put in place over with former president obama and the australian prime minister that would effective will he export 1200 refugees who would have to go through the normal vetting process to the united states. what sean spicer indicated is that in the wake of that heated phone call, the president is in fact taking another hard look at that deal that was already put in place. craig i'm just told i think we

do have sean spicer's sound on those russian sanctions or at least the indication that the administration is looking into lifting sanction. let's listen to what he had to say moments ago. >> it is a fairly common practice for the treasury department after sanctions are put in place to go back and to look at whether or not there needs to be specific carve out -- >> the language on the treasury department's website suggests that you are in fact easing tank sanctions and authorizes certain sanctions with the federal security service. does that suggest a shift from -- >> no, it was what i was saiding, regular course of action. >> reporter: that was sean spicer's pushback. again we have to look into and do moact check. more more headline that came out of this briefing. halle jackson asked spicer about

the raid in yemen this of course claimed the life of an american soerld. he acknowledged that -- that he was in the residence and briefed throughout the even while that raid was unfolding. when pressed about whether or not they would still characterize it as a success, which is how they initially characterized it, spooiz spicer said look you don't want to characterize anything as a complete success when you are talking about the loss of an american life. but the totality and the american lives that may have been saved, he made the argument, ultimately made this a worthy mission. so a lot of headlines coming out of today's briefing craig. >> kristin welker coming to us from the briefing room. thank you as always. congressman adam schiff is the ranking democrat on the house foreign affairs committee. thank you for your time. >> thank you. >> let's start with russia here. andrea mitchell telling us just a few moments ago she talked to two sources inside the obama administration.

they are characterizing this as quote a technical correction, perhaps not an easing of sanctions. do you have any additional information regarding these corrections or easing of sanctions? what are we looking at here? >> i would certainly hope it's not more than a technical correction because to ease any sanctions right now would be a tragic mistake. we have the russians embarked on a new military campaign in ukraine. they are currently testing what they can get away with this with president. i think they understand that this president would be reluctant to admit his new russia policy is a failure. they are pushing elements already in ukraine. i would like to see greater sanction a stronger pushback on russian because what they are doing in ukraine. i don't have much confidence that that's going to happen. but i think any sanctions imposed by president obama for

the russians meddling in the presidential campaign, it would send the wrong message if this was anything other than a technical correction. >> we have what purpose to be time line of sorts with regards to the military operation in yemen in custom we lost an american service member. also a number of civilians were killed, including an 8-year-old girl. as we learn more about what happened about what happened in yemen, what can you make of that? are we getting the whole story on that operation? >> well these operations don't take place overnight in the sense that they require weeks and weeks of planning. and so i wouldn't be surprised at all if this was an operation that was well under contemplation going back into the last presidency. often her waiting for the right opportunity -- they are waiting for the right opportunity. things can go wrong and things do go wrong. often targets are tipped off one way or another. sometimes by sheer luck on our

part. so these are risky operations. and you know, i do think that it calls for a very careful, deliberate process where you evaluate what's the intelligence value you hope to gain, if it is an intelligence gathering operation. here it looks like part of the goal was to capture information, and what are the risks to our ips troops? but wouldn't leap to the conclusion it was poorly thought out or there were mistakes in the execution. sometimes of the mail storm of the operations things can go wrong butcalls on us to understand the risks inherent in these kinds of operations. we continue to learn more about the phone call over the weekend between the president and his counter-part in australia. is our relationship with that country, is it damaged now or are we making much ado about nothing? >> it is damaged. i met this week with some

australian permitaryians. it was before the blow up on the ento. this is one of our most prized relationships from an intelligence point of view. we have fewer closer partners than we do in australia. they have fought side by side with us in war after war. they are one of our most valued partners. that the president would get off on such a bad foot with our ally with this kind of confront indication over the phone with an agreement that was reached that we need to honor, i think it does damage, it does damage to that particular relationship and also does damage in terms of what the australian people think of america and what we are going do, what our policy going to be, whether they can trust us, whether they can count on us to you are back against china to work with them as cooperatively in the fight against isis. it throws a lot into question with one of our dearest partners. i tell you this, it's deeply disturbing for me that this

president has harsh words for the australian german allies, mexican friends. the only one he doesn't have harsh words for is russia apparently and russia is thes where he ought to direct his harsh words again. >> this is president trump at the national breakfast. take a listen into when you hear about the tough phone calls i'm having, don't worry about it. just don't worry about it. they are tough. we have to be tough. it's time we are going to have to be a live tough, we are taken advantage of by every nation in the world virtually. it's not going to happen anymore. not going to happen anymore. >> at this time yesterday we got news about iran, trump reiterating what his national security adviser said yet. iran has been formally put on notice for firing the missile. do you have some sort of clear

definition of what put on notice means? >> i was at the prayer breakfast. it was hard for many of us to hear him talk religion freedom right after the imposition of this muslim ban but also his tough talk for our al lice ice like australia. the whole idea that we ought to be confronting our friends and allies -- we are tremendously benefitted from these alliances. his view of the world apparently is that everybody is cheating us, every is out to get us. we are the poor victim. no. we are a great beneficiary frankly of these tremendous alliances we have with countries like australia, our nato alliance. those are to our benefit. and he needs to start understanding that. in terms of iran, iran is a menace. iran is a grave threat. and we ought to be working with those same allies to confront iran when it very lates u.n. resolutions over ballistic missiles.

i don't know what put on notice means. and there may be some value to making the iranians wonder what it means. but i think the state department, our own state department wonders what that means. the american certainly wonder what that means and i would have more confidence in this administration if i knew that this was the product of thought and sbe agency consultation, that we had talked to our allies about it beforehand and told our allies we are going to put them on notice, we would like tyou do the same thing. none of that appears to have happened here. i think this caught, you know, americans by surprise as much as it did our allies. >> do you think perhaps it was a precursor to some sort of justification for withdrawing from the nuclear deal? >> this is what concerns me, that they are looking for a reason to repudiate the agreement. if we do that, iran will go back to enriching. there will be no reason for them not to. and it won't isolate iran. it will isolate the united states. so they will have a runaway nuclear program.

we will be more isolated. that is not a foreign policy of success. that would be foreign policy disaster. so yes, we ought to confront them on their ballistic missile program. we ought to confront them on their support of hezbollah and terrorist proxies. we ought to confront them on the belij residence of the houthis and their firing on our ships and our allies. their actions in the strait. there ought to be consequences, we should work with our allies to imconsequences but we shun tear up the nuclear agreement because it has curtailed iran's nuclear weapons development. >> we have covered many topics. congressman adam schiff, thank you. that brings us to the pulse question of the day, should president trump honor president

obama's pledge to take in more than a thousand refugees from australia whyia. >> the nomination for betsy devos the nominee for secretary of education now in jeopardy. two republicans made the decision not to support her. while' go to the hill for the latest on that. president trump also weighing in on the violent protests that erupted overnight at uc berkeley. should he have left well enough alone? we'll look at that as well. this is msnbc. yet some cards limit where you earn bonus cash back to a few places. and then, change those places every few months. enough with that! (echo) with quicksilver from capital one you've always earned unlimited 1.5% cash back on every purchase, everywhere. welcome to unlimited.

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for more on you how these stories are playing out on capitol hill, let's go to two mainstays of reporting on the hill. casey hunt who practically lives

there now and jake sherman a politico who lived there for some time. >> thanks for reminding me. >> that's right. there are worse places to live. let's start with russia. do we know from your sources there on the hill whether this -- it was an easing of sanctions? was it a technical correction as the white house maintains? >> craig, at this point, honestly, everyone here is trying to figure out exactly what it is. i have talked to several senators actually on my way over here. i talked to a couple of senators on the phone as well. and frankly, they are seeing this come through as these news reports are breaking. obviously we saw sean spicer come out and say this is not an easing ever sanctions. i think right now there is some serious filtering through going on right now. i talked to tim kaine, the senator from virginia, of course the vice presidential nominee. he said look i don't think they should be doing anything at all until congress finishes their investigations of the hacking, meddling in the u.s. election.

>> jake, meanwhile, it's senator majority leader mcconnell and mccain who a short time ago as i understand it went on the record saying they don't want to loosen sanctions in any way, shape, or form against russia. is that accurate? >> yeah, donald trump is on on island here. nobody important with power in congress wants to do this. paul ryan today at his press conference said he is a russia hawk. if donald trump does anything he has signalled he is going to make sure that that loosening doesn't happen. so this is just another example about how it would be advantageous if the white house coordinated with capitol hill on things like this, on thing this mag di attitude because lawmakers feel like they are being caught by surprise which is not something they appreciate or they like. they are going to move swiftly with veto-proof majorities i would imagine to reinstate sanctions if in fact they were lifted. >> jake just mentioned paul ryan, the house speaker. casey hunt, i know you talked to him about that phone call over

the weekend with president trump counter-part in australia. what did the speaker have to say about that phone call? >> well, craig, the speaker was pretty strong in saying that he believes that our relationship with australia is not in any jeopardy, that that will continue as is. he has always been reluctant to criticize donald trump. he says, you know i'm not going to respond to every tweet. i'm not going to respond to every flap. but he was pressed in this briefing and i asked him about it. i think we have that sound if you want to take a look. >> australia is a very essential ally. they are and they will continue to be. i think it's important that presidents and prime ministers, heads of state are able to have candid and private conversations with one another. >> so there you have the extent of his kind of reaction there. i will say, though, an australian reporter actually followed up later on in this press conference, and it was interesting to kind of hear the

perspective that they brought to this essentially saying to the speaking, hey does this mean that our relationship with america is going to be fundamentally different going forward? reign again had the same kinds of response. i think, again, this is -- when you pull back the lens, this is -- and jake was just touching on this. congress, as these news reports come out one at a time congress is having to grapple with what exactly is true, what is the white house saying about sit in they are often being left kind in the dark and often surprise. i think this is another example. you also had importantly john mccain called the australian ambassador himself in some ways freelancing around this. >> we have that sound as well casey hunt. here is senator mccain talking about that phone call. take a listen. >> this in my view was an unnecessary and frankly harmful open dispute over an issue which

is not nearly important as unit states/australian cooperation and working together. >> casey just mentioned lawmakers occasionally felt out of the loop. they are being caught by surprise with some of these reports as well. you are hearing, jake, that republicans are in any way frustrated so far with this president's performance in his first two weeks? >> maybe not on substance. but on style, i think definitely there's a huge gap between what republicans on the hill want to see and what they are seeing. the president is not making courtesy phone calls to the hill. and it's not entirely clear. we haven't heard a big uproar from the public that we should change our relations with australia. so i'm not sure what the constituency is here. the australians already feel out of loop because donald trump canceled tpp and they were an integral part of tpp.

so i think this is a moment where a lot of people are scratching their heads wondering where donald trump is picking a fight with an ally that has been with us in every war since vietnam and before. >> donald trump had been demanding that the upper chamber approve jeff sessions as attorney general. but now betsy devos's confirmation appears to be up in the air a bit. maybe sessions might not be needed to be confirmed immediately. what's happening here? >> a little bit of a wrinkle there, craig, because suddenly they need self sessions to be a senator so that he can vote for betsy devos. so they have accelerated kind the procedural timetable for voting on the education secretary. republicans the white house and leaders here on the hill they have adamant that they have 50 votes. they will of course need mike pence to break that tie. but i think the question mark is still -- we have been talking to a lot of these senators, so i think the list is dwindling, was there going to be another potentially moderate republican

senator who was going ton and say no to this? that would effectively sink the nomination. so far it seems people are committing to he ing tting to h hearing reports from those that say their offices are inundated with phone calls about this. systems are jammed with voice mails and that it has intensified in recent days a. lot of that is coming from democrats. and a senator i spoke to seemed to think you know what, this probably wasn't going to make a major difference but you never know. sometimes this is a form of pressure that does change minds at the last minute. that's what we are keeping an eye on as far as figuring out if devos is going to get confirmed or not. >> jake, let's wrap up with supreme court politics of the i want to call your attention to something from the "new york times" today. democrats believe a unique sequence of events issuing a constitutionally questionable executive order on friday, firing an acting attorney

general who refused to defend it on monday and nominating a supreme court justice on tuesday places executive overreach of executive powers squarely at the center of the battle. >> it's going to be testy. these decisions have impacts for 50 and 6 # years oftentimes. i think that the president yesterday gave republicans a lot of cover and said do what you need to do to get him confirmed. go nuclear. there is not uproar from the public and this works on trump's behalf. i think there won't be a uproar if republicans pass him with 51 votes. i think a lot of people would yawn over that. that being said these hearings are always up creditably testy. privately democrats say that gorsuch is someone who is well qualified a lot of the qualifications that you need to be a supreme court justice.

i think you will see fireworks but i imagine at this point unless casey hits me and tells me i'm wrong that he will be confirmed. >> casey, do you disagree. might hit him anyway. no i don't disagree. >> do you think this will be one of those occasions where the nominee gets approved with 60 votes at least? >> i think there is an incredible a. pressure on democrats still to listen to their base. and i think there is going to be an incredibly noisy fight about this. i think we are still in a space where it could potentially go either way. we don't know there are eight democrats who are going to be voting with mitch mcconnell and republicans on this. but i do think there is a chance this could go the way of the other nominations. personal meetings matter. so far, i think people have been impressed with his grace, the fact that he called garland is something that stood out to at love people.

i think some of it will also depend on how the political environment proceeds from here. the tenor of the discussion around that executive order was something that was so intense that democrats just at that particular moment didn't feel like this was something that they could possibly cooperate on. i think you know, that is kind of the x factor in determining exactly how this supreme court fight is going the play out. >> jake sherman on the hill for us. and casey hunt also on the hill. a big thanks to both of you. president trump at the white house now talking to the folks from harley davidson. let's listen in. >> i thought we were going to win it. from the beginning we felt we were going to win it. harley davidson is a true american icon, one of the greats. your motorcycles are carried american servicemembers in the war and the wars. they take care of our police ficers. and i see it so often. whenever i go, whenever there is a motorcycle group oftentimes it

is a harley. and the sound of that harley is a little different. i have to tell you. it's really good. thank you harley davidson for building thing in, he ma. i think you are going to even expand. i know your business is now doing well. and there is a lot of spirit thatn the country that you weren't having in the last number of months that you have right now. you see what is happening. i'm especially honored to welcome the steelworkers and the machinists to the white house. who is a steel worker? you are all steelworkers essentially, right? you guys chb supportive. a lot of the top people didn't support me but the steelworkers did support me. a lot of the top people will be losing their jobs. we want to make it easier for businesses to create more jobs and more factories in the united states. and you are a great example of it. that means we have to make america the best country on rert to do business. and that's what we are in the process of doing.

we are redoing nafta. we are doing a lot of our trade deals and we are negotiating properly with countries even countries that are allies. a lot of people taking advantage of us. a lot of countries taking advantage of us, really terribly taking advantage of us. we had one instance in australia, i have a lot of respect for australia, love australia as a one. we have a problem that for whatever reason president obama said that they were going to take probably well over a thousand illegal immigrants who were in prisons. and they were going bring them and take them into this country. and i just said why. i just wanted to ask a question. i can ask that question of you, why? 1250, could be 2,000, could be more than that. and i said why? why are we doing this? what's the purpose? we'll see what happens. but a previous administration does something, you have to respect that. but you can also say why are we

doing this? that's why we're in the jams that we are in. and you guys especially the steelworkers understand what i'm saying, right? so i just -- you know, we have some wonderful allies, but we are going to -- and we're going to keep it that way but we have to be treated fairly also. we have to be treated fairly. and this administration our allegiance will be to the american workers and to american businesses like harley davidson. and we're very strong. in the 1980s, i remember this, you were victims of trading abuse, big trading abuse, where they were dumping all sorts of competitors all over the place and ronald reagan stepped in and he put on large tariffs, and you wouldn't be talking about harley davidson rite probably right now if he didn't do that but we are going to help you, too, and we are going to make it really great for business. not just you, but for everybody. we're going to be competitive with anybody in the world. we are going to be doing taxing

policies. very soon it's going to be coming out. and i know health care is a big problem for every company -- every company is now suffering with health care because of the tremendous cost. and that's one of the things that we are working on hardest. that and tax policy. and tariffs. and trade. i think you will be very haechl it is an honor to have you at lunch. i appreciate your support. your workers in particular have given tremendous support. i want to thank the people of wisconsin in particular. it has been amazing what happened up there. that was a big shocker that evening. wow. i'll never forget, wow, wisconsijust wen for trump. all of these people. especially that guy right there. then they said what's going on, wisconsin just went for trump and then michigan went for trump, and peps pens. they were great. just great people. these are amazing people and they get it. again, to all of you at the

table today thank you very much, we appreciate it. >> thank you. >> we really appreciate it greatly. thank you. >> thank you. >> is military off the table in iran? >> nothing's -- honestly, nothing is off the table. i haven't eased anything. >> that's what it says. >> well, i haven't eased anything. >> all right. there you have it. president donald trump just a few moments ago there at the white house spending some sometime with the good folks from marley davidson. also at the end the president once again not passing up an opportunity to relive election night as well thanking the good folks of wisconsin for helping him and talking about how much of a surprise it was there. peter alexander was there in the room just a few moments ago. peter, i think at the end we also heard president trump attempt to clear up some

confusion about these -- the easing of sanction, the white house insisting through sean spicer a short time ago that that's exactly what has happened here. what can you tell us pete. >> reporter: let me tell you if best of our understanding the best way to describe this is that the trump administration has been modifying i want say easing but modifying sanctions specifically as they relate to russia. this is an interaction that takes lays with the security service there, is fsb, the successor organization to the kgb. the bottom line is the appears to have an issue that the obama administration was aware of that for usa companies to export encrypted devices to russia you needed to have approval of the fsb in this country. that was intended i'm told by sources familiar with it tao to try to fix that problem. nonetheless it's being read by

russia with a wink and nod that the trump administration is looking to help them out on the path. donald trump was specifically asked about this at the ends of this meeting in the roosevelt room with executives from harley davidson. he made it very clear to us. he said i'm not easing anything. on a separate topic, i asked him specifically about what the national security adviser mike flynn said in this very room yesterday effectively saying that the administration is putting iran, quote on notice. i asked president trump -- i think my exact words were is military action against iran off the table? >> and he looked at me and he said nothing is off the table. there is a little bit new information in terms of his window into these two issues. one the foreign policy as it relates to iran and the other the foreign policy issues with

russia. >> thank you peter. i want to clarify something coming out of that room president trump talking about the more than 1,000 australian illegal immigrants. we heard more than a 10u thousand over the weekend. the reality is these were 1200 refugees that were coming over after months of negotiations. again, all eyes on the white house right now. we are going to take a quick break. we'll be right back. liberty mutual stood with me when i was too busy with the kids to get a repair estimate. liberty did what? ye, with liberty mutual all i needed to do to get an estate was snap a photo of the damage and voila! voil (sigh) i wish my insurance company had that... wait! hold it... hold it boys... there's supposed to be three of you... where's your brother? where's your brother? hey, where's charlie? charlie?! you can leave worry behind when liberty stands with you. liberty stands with you™ liberty mutual insurance

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busy day for the trump administration domestically and globally. mark ginsburg joins us. our friendal michael steele joins us as well. # ambassador, let me start with you.

this was sean spicer a few moments ago talking about that phone call with australia's prime minister. let's listen. >> while he has respect for the australian people and respect for prime minister trum bul that we do not pose a threat to the united states of america. that the deal that was cut by the last administration is something that he is extremely, extremely upset with. he does not like it. but out of respect for him, he is going to i a lou that process, continue to study it and allow it to move forward under if conditions that had been set that there will be extreme vetting on every single one of those individuals. >> again, the two men were talking about this agreement that would have allowed refugees, mostly muslim, to be resettled in the united states. refugees, not illegal immigrants. mr. ambassador, what do you make of this? >> it is a shame obviously that the president clearly was placed in a position where on a phone call -- i'm wondering if i was side swipds by the fact that the

prime minister of australia was seeking a reaffirmation of this agreement. now, i think perhaps staff work may have been missing here because had the president been made aware of the request that was coming from the prime minister he would have been better prepared. also put this into context. the refugees that the president is deeply concerned about are people who have probably been extremely well vetted by the australians. after all they are our closest ally in the pacific. let's make sure we understand. first of all, there may have been sloppy staff work. number two, look, i do not condone have the president of the united states and the prime minister of australia engage in what essentially is a call that most of us would regret seeing happen. but number three on the part to see the president also put into a position where he is having to respond to perhaps an agreement he was unaware of. >> i looked to the agreement and it would have required not one

but two u.n. rounds of vetting by our folks here and would have taken up to six months for any of these people could through. apparently preference would have been given to women and chirp. michael i wanted to talk to you about something we saw play out last night. this unrest that forced the cancellation of a speech by the controversial editor of breitbart. president trump tweeting this this morning. if uc berkeley does not allow free speech and practices violence on people with a different point of view new federal funds? this is again the second time in ten days he is threatening to take away federal funds. protests notwithstanding is this an appropriate response from the president of the united states. >> protest withstanding. come on. this is the kind of crap that's going on at universities across the country when conservatives or voices they don't like show up. they hide behind you know their sankt moany and their

offendedness. look, universities are supposed to be the first and last place where free speech should reign supreme and be tolerated. and so yeah the president is saying okay let's renegotiate the deal. you are getting federal dollars that come from people that you know may not agree with your university and its purpose but yet their taxpayer dollars are going to that. so let's take a look at that. will he do that? i don't know. i doubt it. but the fact that he is putting it on the table is going to cause some of these university presidents to sort of check down and make sure that instead of handing out comic books to make people feel better because they are upset about something someone may say they will say look this is a place of higher learning and this is where you come to confront those who don't agree with you or those who agree with you. and this should be the space that we want to deal with, not have this environment wherever time you find someone you disagree with you start setting fires and breaking windows.

>> ambassador we just heard from our peter alexander a few moments ago with regards to the situation in iran. around this time yesterday michael flynn came to the podium and took a lot of folks by surprise. and then we heard from peter just a few moments ago that everything is on the table with regards to iran. how concerned should we be? >> let's explain this to our viewers. there are sets of sanctions that have been imposed under the united nations against iran to prevent it from using its ballistic missile technologies to test ballistic missiles. it has consistently continued to test ballistic missiles. and indeed, craig, just a few days ago it tested a creuise missile. now i think the obama administration left a really sloppy mess for the president with respect how to enforce these united nations sanctions. the obama administration consistently turned a blind eye to the provocations of iran in

the middle east and in fact the provevation against our own naval ships. one of the things that i think, craig, that most viewers are unaware of is within days of the president's inauguration, iran sent a series of small ships to harass american battleships in the persian gulf. so this is ongoing provevation by iran. i think you are going to find bipartisan support to have the president stand tough and to put a warning notice down on iran that this can no longer be continued. >> je, i wish we had more time. michael steele thank you. ambassador thank you as well. we want to check in on the pulse question as well. microsoft pulse question. from you president trump honor president obama's pledge to take in more than a thousand refugees being held in australia? that was a question. so far, 97% of you say yes. there is still time to weigh in. muls.msnbc.com.

tonight chris matthews will be hosting a special town hall on president trump's first few days in office. he just spoke to kellyanne conway. on the other side this break, chris matthews will join me. ♪ i checked, everything's there... wait a minute... hey... hold on, i can explain. you better have a good answer... switch to geico and you could save a ton of money on your car insurance. why didn't you say so in the first place?

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msnbc hardball host kris matthews joining me from the north lawn of the white house. chris you just talked to kellyanne ahead this town hall tonight. what did she say? >> kellyanne conway is always loaded for bear in an interview. i think they are very strong. and i expect they will be a big part of tonight's discussion. we are going to have students at the university here talking about the power of the presidency, special this president. i asked kellyanne conway about people serving for life in the

government that they have to agree with the policies of a president? and that was basically her argument. she said she shouldn't be signing petition. they shouldn't be speaking out. their job is to carry on the purposes and the policies of this president. and i pointed out, well we've had liberals, progressives working in this government for years under presidents like nixon and reagan and they have all gotten through. why isn't that true today? and i still think her strong argument was this president wants support from the ranks. he wants everybody in the government to be pulling along in the same way. and i think you are going to be seeing more of this kind of thing, this strong call for a unity of purpose in the u.s. government, including from people obviously who didn't vote for him and that work this the government as civil serve apartments. >> dissent will not be to the rated. what else did she say, chris, that surprised you? >> well, she gave a very strong defense of the press's national

security council director mike flynn's warning to the rannians saying we are giving notice to you. it was strong talk and i didn't get a chance to ask her but it's certainly to me obvious that a president who ran against what they called stupid wars in iraq and a couple wars, that clearly this move is much more hawkish, i would say. i would say than what we expected. this is what we would have expected from the democratic nominee for president. much stronger, almost prickly approach to foreign policy. don't do anything or we're going to call you on. there is trump behaving if not belligerently, certainly a strong position now with regard to iran. what going to be interesting and frightening to see what might be coming. >> this town hall tonight over at american, folks who tune in, what can they expect? what will they hear? >> i can expect, i don't know whether all of the students are going to be progressive. i bet a lot are. i don't think they are going to be like the students at barkr berkeley but there is going to be a lot of argument and dissent

i expect to all of our guests in terms of these kinds of questions. the seven nation ban on people coming here, the ban on refugees for four months. the whole question whether that is in fact a muslim ban i'm sure is going to be a big part of tonight. also, i think it's just the role of americans and their government i mean we've got two republican senators challenging the new president's pick for secretary of educationing. we had recently the firing of an acting attorney general. and now again this continued condemnation of any outspoken dissent from civil serve apartments. or foreign service officers. this president is getting used to his authority. i think he is testing it and i think a lot of people are somewhat upset about it. >> one of the things that continues to strike me. we are less than two weeks into this new administration. and so much has already happened. chris matthews good to see you sir the north lawn. we will be tuning in tonight. it's called power and the

presidency. 7:00 eastern, only on msnbc. that's a nice picture of chris matthews there. look how happy it is. when we come back, our own chris jensing sitting down with pregnantive progressive activists talking about how they plan to fight back against president trump's policies tooth and nail right after this. is spectacular! (jessica) i feel like when he eats beneful, he turns into a puppy again. you love it, don't you? you love it so much! (vo) try beneful healthy weight with chicken. with real chicken as the number one ingredient. i own my own company. i had some severe fatigue, some funny rashes. finally, listening to my wife, went to a doctor. and i became diagnosed with hodgkin's lymphoma ...that diagnosis was tough. i had to put my trust in somebody. when i first met steve, we recommended chemotherapy, and then we did high dose therapy and then autologous stem cell transplant. unfortunately, he went on to have progressive disease i thought that he would be

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some prominent democratic supporters do not think congress is doing enough to reshape the party and fight president trump's policies. chris jansing is here. you talked to some of these folks. >> they felt we, we meaning those folks in the trenches, the activists. the people out on the street, there has been arotest ever single day on t streets somewhere in america since the inauguration. since that, we've seen record number of phone calls pouring into congress. i wanted to sit down and talk to these people who are fighting the fight right now about, what's the strategy? take a listen.

>> we have mr. chaos in the white house. somebody who is impulsive, badly fought through, surrounded by am hour. people don't like amateur hour. >> so much is coming at you. it's hard for folks to stay focused on what to fight first. >> the democrats in congress, in particular, how much do they fight? do they fight every single one of these things? >> i would say not fight on judge. i would save your power to the next judge. >> does everybody agree with that? >> keep focusing on the immigration. >> does everybody agree with that? >> the supreme court is really, really important. in particular for those who have been fight negotiate racial jult space. >> do you pick the fights you can only win? >> you don't pick only the fights you can win. that's based on being opportunistic, not being organic and true to your values. >> i agree with that. if the aclu only brought cases we were sure we would win, there wouldn't be that many cases.

>> you look at jeff sessions becoming the attorney general of this country, and go back to racial justice, that's problem. betsy devos, we have no choice but to resist in multiple spaces. >> another case coming out is managing expectations. i think it's critical we not sort of collapse every time there's a setback because this is a long haul sort of thing. >> if you look at every critical civil or human rights victory in this country, it was a loser. it was a loser in the polls. it may have lost in the courts. it may have lost at the gisle, but we perrer is vooefed at times against life threatening and life-taking events and won. >> we can't just lay down and allow things to happen without showing opposition. there has to be a voice that we don't like this. at least it's on the record that we stood up in those times. >> what you're seeing now at grassroots levels are people who haven't been active, who feel

threatened and coming out to have their voices heard. establishment democrats need to step up, hear that, amplify that. >> i didn't hear any of you say you're depending on krong. >> depending on congress. >> no, no, we kissed them off a long time ago. >> wow, wow. >> they really believe this is a movement that's going to be very much from the streets. the question is, how do you organize it, number one? you mentioned this coming out of chris matthews and i went home late last night after doing this, and turned on rachel maddow and heard it from cory booker, people are exhausted. there are so many issues they feel passionately about but they don't know how to focus. >> it will be interesting to see if and how they can mobilize from these marches and protest, how they can transform into some form of decisive legislation.

>> thank you. john barrasso joining katy tur to talk about all of president trump's foreign policy moves in his first 12 days. had. the classes, the friends, the independence. and since we planned for it, that student debt is the one experience, i'm glad she'll miss when you have the right financial advisor, life can be brilliant. ameriprise ...stop clicking around...travel sites to find a better price... the lowest prices on our hotels are always at hilton.com. so pay less and get more only at hilton.com. parts a and b and want more coverage, guess what? you could apply for a medicare supplement insurance plan whenever you want. no enrollment window.

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snau that will do it for this hour of "msnbc live." i'm craig melvin. my colleague katy tur taking things over. >> thank you for stick around. mounting questions about the diplomatic tctics of the trump administration. this hour, the president under fire for blasting one of america's greatest allies over a deal to take in refugees. here's mr. trump a short time ago. >> i love australia has a country but we have a problem. 1,500, could be 2,000, i said, why, what's the purpose? we'll see what happens. >> the president also being criticized for remarks he made over the phone with the president of mexico. and in the past couple hours, reports that the treasury department