tomorrow. 3:00 eastern, noon pacific. you can find me on snapchat. i just snapped with katie couric on twitter and instagram. up next, steve kornacki. good afternoon. live, day 13 of the first 100 days. topping the agenda, dumb deals. >> we're taking advantage of by every nation in the world virtually. it's not going to happen anymore. it's not going to happen anymore. >> donald trump's very unorthodox foreign policy under scrutiny. transcripts reveal new tensions with old allies. trump defending his tough tone. also on our agenda, his secretary of state now on the job. >> well, my first day is here. i am on the job. hi. i am the new guy. [ laughter ] [ applause ] >> rex tillerson, stepping into the state department, and a whole host of global issues to

deal with. tillerson encouraging state department employees to put political differences behind them as trump's policies develop. rounding out our agenda, kellyanne conway plays hardball. >> he is the president. he is enacting policon behalf of a nation. >> kellyanne conway sitting down with chris matthews as nearly two weeks of the trump administration are in the books. a sneak peek of what they had to talk about a little bit later this hour. we begin, though, with our top story. leaked transcripts, dumb deals. bad hombres. donald trump showing that he plans to conduct foreign policy in a dramatically different way than his predecessors from both parties and in a way that's alarming national security experts in both parties. controversy today over a subject no one thought would loom large in this or any presidency, the u.s. relationship with australia. at issue here, revelations about

that phone call over the weekend between trump and the prime minister of australia, malcolm turnbull. trump apparently talking bluntly and aggressively over a deal that president obama had made with australia to accept some 1200 refugees from an australian detention center. trump later tweeting that he wanted to study this, quote, dumb deal, and asked this afternoon if he has any further thoughts about the deal trump said the situation is why he thinks the united states is in a poor global position right now. this is what he said. >> i have a lot of respect for australia. i love australia as a country, but we had a problem where, for whatever reason, president obama said that they were going to take probably well over 1,000 illegal immigrants who were in prisons, and they were going to bring them and take them into this country. i just said why? a previous administration does something, you have to respect that, but you can also say, why are we doing this? that's why we are in the jams

that we're in. >> also some reports about trump's recent phone call with the mexican president enrique nieto. he told them that the u.s. may send in the military to get rid of what he calls bad hombres. an administration telling nbc news that trump was making a lighthearted comment, that it wasn't a literal threat to use the military. not to be forgotten, national security adviser michael flynn abruptly announcing yesterday that iran is, quote, on notice after a recent missile attack. that caught washington off guard. the administration now saying no specific actions against iran are planned but that nothing is off the table. i should say. joining us now, hallie jackson at the white house. hallie, some issues in terms of what exactly went down in the phone call with the australian prime minister and what didn't.

the common thread in all these stories, we're talking about donald trump in the campaign said he wants to use the tactics he outlined in the book, "the art of the deal." that sounds like that's what this looks like when you apply it to foreign policy. >> when you apply it to his interactions with country after country. as far as the australian prime minister, one senior administration official described it to me today as blunt, sort of acknowledging that the tone was extremely candid. you heard press secretary sean spicer saying this afternoon that the tone was in fact cordial. even though malcolm turnbull said he was frank essentially which is diplomatic code for a tough phone call. it was short, 25 minutes, not an hour. we know donald trump ended the call, according to an administration official himself because he felt like the conversation had ended, all this revolving around this, as we talk about "the art of the deal," the deal the obama administration entered into to

accept about 1200 refugees from australia after a vetting process. spicer indicated today that that deal remains on. here is what he had to say. >> out of respect for him, he is going to allow that process, continue to study and allow it to move forward. under the conditions that had been set that there will be extreme vetting on every single one of those individuals. >> so that's where things stand. obviously this is of great interest to our ally in australia, a key ally, steve, when you look at what they've done militarily for the united states, you look at where the relationship has stood for a number of years now. bigger-picture-wise, we're hearing more and more about the phone calls president trump is making with foreign leaders. in some ways he has ripped up the rule book for how the conversations proceed. >> thank you for that, hallie. joining me now to discuss more. bill richardson, former u.s.

ambassador to the united nations. jer jeffrey blish and kay bailey hutchison. jeffrey, starting with you. on the issue in australia, the specific issue here that apparently caused the difficult phone conversation i think is something that's not familiar to many americans, certainly it wasn't on our political radar. if you could talk us through the issue here. as i understand it, you have got a deal that the obama administration struck where they would take -- australia would take refugees from central america that the u.s. has been holding and in exchange the u.s. takes refugees from the pacific that australia has been holding? is that the basis of what was going on here? >> yeah. i think that's part of it. the idea is that in australia they have had a large number of refugees coming in from southeast asia and the middle east. they've been processing them on some islands and wanted to make sure they didn't take all of them in australia, if they could share them with partners.

it's something allies do frequently. when i was in australia, the australians took some people being released from guantanamo. in that case you are taking people who have been believed to be terrorists. in this case you're talking about regular refugees, families, kids, people looking for a better life in australia and have been in processing centers for in some cases years being vetted. >> the common thread here in terms of the question of donald trump, how he'll conduct foreign policy, this phone conversation with the australian prime minister, with the mexican president. is donald trump approaching this in a very different way than we've seen in a president, he tried to reassure people will the style today. listen to what he had to say. >> when you hear about the tough phone calls i am having, don't worry about it. just don't worry about it. they're tough. we have to be tough. it's time we're going to be a little tough,olks. we're taken advantage of every nation in the world virtually.

it's not going to happen anymore. it's not going to happen anymore. >> bill richardson, let me ask you about that. when i hear that and when i read these reports, i am thinking back to the campaign. donald trump made a big deal about the idea of negotiating differently with world leaders, having a different type of relationship with them. there were a lot of references to the philosophy he laid out in the book, "the art of the deal." how much room is there on the international stage to do the kind of things donald trump has done in the business world with foreign leaders? >> there is a difference between foreign policy, dealing with leaders, your allies like australia and mexico. these are your friends. the first week we cancel the transpacific partnership. that's 11 countries including mexico, canada, australia, japan, some of our best allies. foreign policy should not be

conducted with threats and bluster. i am glad the secretary of state has been confirmed. you do it by diplomacy and quiet negotiation. the art of the deal is to humiliate somebody and then bring it back to your own advantage. it doesn't work in foreign policy and i don't believe it will work. >> kay bailey hutchison. the idea of, australia, one of our staunchest allies. you heard bill saying this humiliates them. do you see harm or logic in this? >> i do think president trump campaigned and is doing exactly what he said in the campaign in his way of operating. however, i also think that there was no mention of humiliating the australian prime minister, and as all of us have said, australia has been our staunchest ally in so many

respects. and i think that when mr. turnbull was asked about the conversation, i think he clarified that it was blunt but there was no hanging up or anything like that. so i thought that that was good. and i think president trump also went back to president nieto and said that they had a good conversation for an hour, and so maybe there is now a path to talk to mexico. and of course, we do have a free trade agreement with mexico that we hope will possibly be amended to assure that it continues because it's very good for canada, the united states and mexico. but i think we have to get used to a different kind of president. i mean, he is what h is. and i think especially his appointment of rex tillerson as well as general mattis shows that he is going to rely heavily on people who have great depth

of experience in foreign relations as well as national security. he said he's going to defer to them. if you heard the speech that rex tillerson made today to the employees, his first act when he came in was to talk to the employees and to say safety of all of them and our representatives throughout the world is number one and then he also said that he understood that people differed in the election but we are one team now. it was very inspirational. so i think there are some really good points of light that are coming out of this first 13 days. >> jeffrey, you have a particular familiarity with australia. what is your sense? how is this news going over down under? and what is the long-term effect on the relationship? >> it's not going over well down under. but i think in terms of long-term effect, one phone call

will not change a strong and profound relationship like the australia-u.s. relationship. i think two things need to be emphasized in terms of doing diplomacy right. one is you are talking about people who are representing a public, and the public hears these messages and they feel just as strongly a sense of national pride as we do. and so how you communicate with their leaders is going to affect how much the leaders can do on behalf of the u.s.-australia relationship. every deal we make is in the context of a lot of other deals. right now we depend on australia as one of our core partners in every signal national security operation, whether it's counter insurgercy. counter-terrorism. human trafficking. if we want to put satellites up in the air we rely upon satellites and antennas coming out of australia. when we look at our trade in the

world, we have a large surplus coming out of australia, to the u.s. when you think about where american businesses are investing, yeah, some of their largest investments in the world are in australia. this is a big, deep relationship, and sort of looking at it as a set of deals where you are trying to take advantage of them here or there sort of misses the bigger picture, which is we have got hundreds of deals going on simultaneously and you have got to take them all together to understand whether you're doing well or doing poorly. >> bill richardson let me pick up on that. the point was donald trump campaigned on this idea that he campaigned on the idea of the hard-line on foreign policy. is there an argument to be made that folks do have to get used to this in some way? >> well, my hope is that the president changes his style, because this is getting us nowhere. australia is unhappy.

this is a main defense, trade ally, very important country. they give us troops. iraq, afghanistan, mexico, our neighbor, number two trading partner. the president of mexico is unhappy. the mexican public is unhappy. i mean, i don't see any plus in this. i see the hope that rex tillerson, that the president -- you know, he has only been there 12, 13 days. my hope is that their traditional diplomacy, that there are meetings to assess how do we deal national security-wise with especially our allies. these are our friends. and buttress the relationship, not demean the relationship with these phone calls. no matter how you look at it, it's not american foreign policy at its best. it's diplomacy. negotiation. that's how you get things done,

not by throwing darts at each other. >> kay bailey hutchison, quickly, i want to get one more question in. specific to donald trump and his relationship with capitol hill. you served in the senate. on the subject of putting iran on notice, we are hearing from capitol hill, everybody saying we had no forewarning this would be said. we don't know exactly what this means. this is a theme i am noticing early on, not consulting regressional leaders, members of congress on these pronouncements about foreign policy, is that something that can stand for the next few years? >> i think, in this case, i think the administration did a better job, because bob corker was at the white house and met with the national security adviser as well as the new secretary of state, and they were told what was going to happen and what the reasons were and they were briefed on the problems that had been seen in iran's behavior that was not in

line with the agreement that had been made. so i thought that they handled this one the right way by going to the members of congress. and bob corker is certainly the chairman of the committee that really -- he understood it and he defended it. so did paul ryan. and i thought really, as long as he does consult with congress and they do have forewarning, and if there was someone who didn't i wasn't aware of that. but i think that is a better approach. and i think that it was handled better and probably will, going forward, especially with iran, i think congress is going to have to understand what is happening with that agreement if it is not being upheld by iran, because actions will be taken. >> kay bailey hutchison, jeffrey bleich, bill richardson. thank you to all of you. squeezing in a quick break.

up next, the outrage of president trump and his first appearance at the national prayer breakfast. comments slamming arnold schwarzenegger and the ratings of "the apprentice," what does it matter to donald trump and his base of supporters, many of whom are on the far right. my colleague chris matthews sat down with claek clakellyann in the white house. he'll join me to talk about that and the president's first days in office. stay with us. what powers the digital world. communication. that's why a cutting edge university counts on centurylink to keep their global campus connected. and why a pro football team chose us to deliver fiber-enabled broadband to more than 65,000 fans. and why a leading car brand counts on us to keep their dealer network streamlined and nimble. businesses count on communication, and communication counts on centurylink.

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we had tremendous success on "the apprentice." when i ran for president i had to leave the show. that's when i knew for sure i was doing it. and they hired a big, big movie star, arnold schwarzenegger, to take my place. and we know how that turned out. the ratings went right down the tubes. it's been a total disaster. and mark will never, ever bet against trump again. and i want to just pray for arnold if we can for those ratings, okay. >> that was how donald trump opened his remarks at the national prayer breakfast in washington this morning, what is typically a somber event before an audience of devout religious leaders. the reaction from critics, shock, ridicule, outrage that he would say it. also bafflement. wondering will this offend a lot of the voters who elected donald trump. remember, donald trump got 80%

of the vote from white evangelicals. the cycle seems to be repeating itself. it has been repeating itself for over a year. trump says something that his critics and much of the media thinks will anger the relogistics conservatives. saying about abortion, he doesn't need to ask god for forgiveness. the insults that he hurls around. at one point one said trump has, quote, serious moral problems. none of it stopped trump from getting more support from evangelicals than almost any candidate ever. just about anything we are conditioned to believe will turn off evangelicals. so we played the moment from the prayer breakfast. mark, the producer was there.

trump sort of treating it as a little bit of a roast. the bigger question of donald trump is the loyalty he seems to inspire from christian conservatives, it has shocked a lot of people. what do you think it's from? >> well, i see -- i think your analysis was spot on. he has a teflon quality when it comes to evangelicals. there is a reason for that. first of all, when he does the whole thing with schwarzenegger, "the apprentice," the ratings. evangelicals and other americans say, that's trump being trump. there is the teflon quality. the reality is this. trump is an outsider and therefore is beholden to no one. he is delivering already in the first two weeks to evangelicals like very few republican presidents have ever before. look at the mexico city policy, the reinstatement of that. you have got the gorsuch nomination. he is even ridiculing the media over the fact that they wouldn't cover the pro-life march like

they covered the women's march. that's what evangelicals like. se in the media's face and they're smiling throh this all. >> i wonder too sometimes with trump, whether it's with evangelicals or other groups that are behind him, is a lot of it the reaction from trump's critics, from trump's opponents, does it make people on the right look and say, well, if he is angering those people, he must be doing something right? >> good point. i think that's part of it. i think it's a deeper issue. i call it the dr. phil moment between evangelicals and trump. it happened early in the campaign, especially on super tuesday when he won all the evangelical states in the south. here is the dr. phil moment. there is a kinship there. no one can quite explain it in a test tube. here is what it is, steve. donald trump speaks in the world of absolutes. evangelicals live in the world of biblical absolutes.

right and wrong. jesus is the only way to heaven. heaven and hell. there is a kinship between both of them in this regard. here is the other thing, steve. it's very important. when donald trump gets ridiculed for speaking boldly, whether you believe him or not, he does speak boldly, that just in. so do evangelicals. both are ridiculed for speaking boldly in public. that is a lot of that relationship. that's the dr. phil moment. >> i think if there is one big myth that's been exploded by trump and his success on the right and with the christian right in particular, i think a lot of people in the media assumed christian conservatives needed a fellow christian conservative to vote for, somebody who it was clear was as devout religiously as they were. pretty clearly not the case with donald trump, but it doesn't matter. >> they want someone who is going to deliver. and they've been burned before. they've been used as a prop as an evangelical and political prop. 2004. george w. bush running for

reelection said, evangelicals, get out to the polls. i am more the federal marriage amendment. ken melman and karl rove got evangelicals out in record number at the time, 78%. they dropped it like a hot potato. the point is this. donald trump is actually saying things and delivering in the first two weeks of the administration -- his administration, to evangelicals. tell you what, this couldn't have gone any better for donald trump in the first couple of weeks with ejvangelicals. >> david brody. thank you. the contentious phone call with the prime minister of australia. the thousands of refugees hadoud in camps. i discuss about the founder of global citizen. will your business be ready when growth presents itself? american express open cards can help you take on a new job,

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it's time for a quick check of the headlines at the half hour.

president trump saying today americans shouldn't worry about the tough phone calls he is having with world leaders. comments follow reports that trump got angry with australia's prime minister during a weekend phone conversation over a deal to resettle refugees. white house confirming today that trump told mexican president enrique pena nieto that he may send in u.s. troops to deal with what he calls bad hombres if mexico doesn't. the administration saying it was a lighthearted and not literal comment. president trump taking aim at arnold schwarzenegger over the ratings of the apprentice, telling an audience at the national prayer breakfast that he is praying for improved ratings. schwarzenegger responding that maybe the two should switch jobs. rex tillerson telling american diplomats they're entitled to express their beliefs but cannot get personal convictions get in the way of working together as a team. the former exxonmobil ceo

speaking on this his first official day in office after being confirmed yesterday. the trump administration moving to modify sanctions the obama administration imposed on russia over alleged hacking and interference in the presidential election. the changes allow certain transactions, quote-unquote, certain transactions with russia's security service, the president insisting this does not mean the u.s. is easing sanctions. we may be in for a long winter. wait for this day every year. punxsutawney phil emerging from his hole in pennsylvania this morning to see his shadow, meaning we'll have six more weeks of winter. where is bill murray when you need him? one of the top stories. the world of international diplomacy and its intersection with politics. the friction between president trump and the prime minister of australia over a deal reached by the obama administration to allow refugees to resettle in the united states. "washington post" reporting overnight that trump got angry with australia prime minister

malcolm turnbull when he mentioned the deal during their weekend phone conversation. now, this morning trump took to twitter. he called it, quote, a dumb deal. turnbull is not talking about the specifics of the call but denies reports that the president hung up on him. he said the call ended courteously. both turnbull and the white house saying the u.s. will honor the deal. >> the fact that we received the assurance that we did, the fact that it was confirmed, the very extensive engagement we have with the new administration underlines the closeness of the alliance. >> the agreement involves more than 1,000 mostly muslim refugees now housed at camps in new guinea and in the island nation of naru. australia criticized for its policy of not accepting asylum seekers or refugees who arrive by boat instead paying for them to be housed on those islands.

msnbc and the parent company nbc universal are media partners of global citizen and hugh is here. this was an issue on nobody's radar. nobody talked about it in the presidential campaign. first of all, donald trump is out there saying it's a bad deal. he says we are taking in illegal immigrants, talking about maybe potentially criminals here. tell people in the united states if this deal is now back on, what is the united states getting here? >> so essentially what happened was there was a deal struck between prime minister malcolm turnbull and former president obama to resettle approximately 1,200 refugees from the island state of naru off the coast of australia and bring them to the united states to be resettled. they would still have to go through the regular checks andens aboutand balances. but ultimately resettled here in the united states. if you woke up to the tweet i woke up to.

it was president trump saying this is a dumb deal. what i want to highlight for the viewers is australia is no saint when it comes to refugee resettlement. we may be thinking of the special relationship between australia and the united states as something that's now jeopardized but there is a case to be made that refugees here, the most vulnerable people in the world, are a victim of political football between the u.s. and australia in this example. >> what about, though -- what do you think when you see -- polls this week -- the issue this is intersecting with, president trump and the executive order banning temporarily all refugees. now they say this one is back on. there has been polling coming out saying on the topic of refugees philosophically, a lot of people say, yes, we should bring refugees in and there are a lot of people who aren't. does that surprise you? >> it does not surprise me so much when you think of refugees as the huddled masses.

people don't put the museumhuma to a refugee. when you think of them as people fighting the war in iraq or transla translators who could not come back or the vulnerable kid that we saw in the photos that enraged people. when you consider that by far the largest majority, over 99% of those who resettle are legitimate refugees fleeing persecution. human beings like you and i who want to work hard and make the world a better place. when you put those faces in places polls switch. when people see the human face of refugee they understand the importance of resettlement and immigration. indeed that was the foundation of american society. great people like steve jobs, you know, the -- the son of a syrian refugee, founded some of the greatest companies here in the united states. >> all right. hugh evans, global citizen. thank you for stopping by. appreciate that. more on the refugee issue.

house speaker paul ryan today making his strongest comments yet on president trump's executive order. >> this is not a muslim ban. if it were i would be against it. we are a tolerant, pluralistic country. we are and we will be. it's really important. >> some people, though, affected by the president's action think differently. they feel the order not only targets their religion but also their families. tammy leitner spoke to a family split by the executive order. she joins us from chicago's o'hare international airport. what are you finding there? >> reporter: this is becoming personal for many, the story line playing out at airports all over the country leaving some families wondering when they'll be reunited with their family members. she paints the life she has lived. >> sadness. lost her son and everything lost. >> reporter: the mother of four

fled syria, her son stayed behind and was kidnapped by isis. she says he was among the first to be publicly beheaded. >> i got to america for america's country, freedom. >> reporter: she eventually became a permanent resident in chicago. now she wonders will she really is free. after a recent trip to dubai to meet her granddaughter for the first time, she says she was stopped at the airport there and questioned for hours. similar scenarios played out in airports around the world after president donald trump signed the executive order restricting travel from seven muslim-majority countries for 90 days. >> not my fault i am muslim. >> reporter: protesters took to the streets in los angeles, boston, new york. pro bono attorneys at airports volunteering services for those detained. >> they may not speak english properly, they may not know about american laws and the rights they have. >> reporter: itab who has a green card eventually made it

back to chicago and was not detained, but now she and her family wonder if they'll ever see each other again. >> i don't want to think about it but i am afraid. >> reporter: she says for now the visits will have to happen over skype. all of these people here are attorneys. they are volunteering their time to help anybody who has been detained. they have basically set up camp and said they're not going anywhere until the ban is over. steve. >> tammy leitner in chicago. thank you for that. meanwhile, democrats who want to fight donald trump's nominee for the supreme court, they are pinning their hopes on one number. we will tell you what it is next.

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senate, then the problem lies not with the senate but with the nominee. >> the so-called 60-vote standard is simply not accurate. democrats are grasping at straws to block the confirmation of an unquestionably qualified nominee. i'll repeat, neither of the two supreme court justices that president obama put forward were subject to the 60-vote threshold. >> this is the debate right now. before the debate over noreil gorsuch, democrats are talking opposition. they want to stop this. that's why the number is out there, the most important number of the day. it is 60. democrats say it is a standard, supreme court nominees need to get 60 votes, not 50, to get confirmed. the white house, as you can see from sean spicer, are saying that's nonsense. why are democrats talking this way? republicans have the votes on paper in the senate. a simple up/down vote. if the republicans side together, you've got the votes to confirm.

democrats are talking about this idea of filibustering. if you want to beat a filibuster, you need 60 votes for that. democrats would, under tradition of the senate, have the votes to keep a filibuster going. is that really the standard? you heard chuck schumer say republicans insisted on it for both obama nominees for the supreme court. sonia sotomayor and elena kagan. yes, they both received over 60 votes but, no, republicans did not officially mount filibusters so the democrats didn't have to come up with 60 votes. they said they didn't because they knew they'd lose. how many times has a party actually launched a filibuster and forced the vote, tonly twic. sam alito and william rehnquist chief justice in 1986, both there were actual filibuster attempts. you had to come up with 60 votes

or in these cases you didn't actually have filibusters. there is actu 60 vote standard. every time there is a new nonee they get more partisan and each side really does invent new standards and precedents to suit its own needs whenever one of these comes up. that's the big challenge going forward with the supreme court nominations. it's our most important number of the day. it is 60. breaking news coming in just as i have been talking to you. i am hearing it in my ear. i'll tell you about it now. nbc news is learning that the u.s. could impose plans to impose new sanctions against iran as early as tomorrow. peter alexander joins us from the white house. what are you hearing about it right now? >> the caveat is always with this administration you can't say certain in terms of time line. we are hearing that plans are in the works to impose the new sanctions on iran entities, iranian entities as early as

tomorrow. two u.s. officials telling us the sanctions would be in response to the ballistic missile test and, more broadly, to the continued terrorist activities of iran. they say the trump administration insists that this does not violate the iranian deal. this would be separate from that. that was an important point that they made to us as well. as you note, steve, obviously this comes less than 24 hours after we heard from the national security adviser michael flynn basically saying that they were putting iran on notice in the roosevelt room during a meeting with harley-davidson executives. i asked president trump at the end of the visit if, in relation to iran, military action was off the table? he looked right at me and he says, nothing is off the table. for the moment we can confirm from two senior officials that they are, with plans existing right now, intending to impose new sanctions on iran as early as tomorrow. steve. >> peter, i just want to underline. you mentioned it there. again, the administration is saying that this would not violate the nuclear deal.

this is not them tryingo invalidate the deal. is that right? >> reporter: that's exactly right. a lot of people will obviously draw conclusions based on the way that they are addressing the relationship with iran given the way the obama administration viewed that relationship. obviously, those two things are in conflict right now but they do reinforce that point that the sanctions about which they are speaking would not, they insist, conflict with that iranian deal. >> peter alexander at the white house. thank you. quick break. still ahead, chris matthews on the other side of the break. he'll talk about his new interview. you see it right there, with kellyanne conway. the two of them just sat down inside the white house. we've got some clips to show you. and the man himself, chris matthews, he's going to join us, stay tuned.

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all right. the countdown is on. just a couple of hours from now, from the campus of american university in washington, d.c., chris matthews, a live town hall meeting on donald trump's first days in office. that's going to be 7:00 eastern time right here on msnbc. and in the runup to tonight's town hall event chris got a chance to talk today with counselor to the president kellyanne conway. he asked her about trump's controversial decision earlier this week to fire acting attorney general sally yates, she defied trump's executive order on immigration. here is what kellyanne conway had to say.

>> does the president have a right to insist people work for the federal government agree with him? >> does he have the right to insist? >> insist that they agree with him? >> he has the right to form a team. >> from the public service. civil service. >> agree with him on what? it's not agree -- he is the president. he is enacting policy on behalf of a nation. in this case he is calling for extreme vetting from seven countries that president obama first identified. all he did was take his lead. he didn't even add to the list. it's the seven countries previously identified by president obama as being high-risk, as being states that either harbor, train or export -- and/or export terrorism. these are nations narrowly prescribed and also temporary. >> chris, you just finished the interview today. what are your impressions? kellyanne conway, is this somebody who is, in your view, is she executing a plan right there with donald trump, or is she responding to stuff that she

is as surprised to as the rest of us are? >> i think she is with him a lot. she is counselor to the president. that's a pretty high level position. her job is to back up the president. she is doing it. saying sean spicer was right when he talked about the foreign service officers who signed the petition complaining about putting the list together, the seven countries we don't want people coming from for three months. she said, when spicer said our way or the highway, she went along with that. here is the president of the united states and his people saying if you work for the federal government. you better get in lock-step with the president's thinking. if not, split. get out of here. i thought it was pretty strong. pointed out, even under people like president nixon and president reagan. you had liberals and others working in the federal government their whole careers. they stuck around and did their

jobs. now they're saying if you don't do it our way you shouldn't be here. it doesn't work that way. they take their oath to the country, not the president. >> it seems like so much has happened, it's hard to believe it's only two weeks. i wonder what you make of the political strategy, their approach to the presidency. it seems to me, my read early on is this is not an administration that is thinking about how we can get our poll numbers to 60% or 70%. it's how to heighten the coalition. >> it's an interesting coalition that trump has put together. when i asked her about this sort of heads-up to the iranian government, this watch we put them on, we are watching you kind of thing from the national security director the other day with regard to the missile they launched. it was all about israel. i think they are very aware of their constituencies in this

political world. they know who voted for them. the hawkish people voted for them. they're supporting the hawks. there is also a great irony. they ran against a president's record, w.'s, of saying we shouldn't get into stupid war. some who voted for him are war weary and some more hawkish. i think we have a couple constituencies out there. i thought it was interesting on the education front. i asked about the senators who said they won't vote for betsy did devos of education. kellyanne was careful, saying they came to the decision because of their own beliefs, because of the testimony they heard from the nominee herself. it was very respectful, even kind even. and i was struck by that. which makes me think, although she said the vice president would break the tie if it comes to 50, they are not at all sure it will be 50-50.

i'm not sure they have all 50 of the 52 potential republican votes. i am not sure they're very ready to go whole hog on this nomination now. that's my reading between the lines. she said the vice president would break the tie if necessary. she also said we don't know what the vote will be. that clearly means it could be worse than 50-50, when it comes down to it. are hearing some issenting voices clearly. she said that. >> we have about 20 seconds left. bringing the college tour back tonight? >> to me it's the blues brothers, steve. this is the blues brothers. i have been doing this for almost 20 years. nothing more fun than walking into a college place and in front of college aged young people. politically active. they'll have a lot to talk about. a lot of the show will be driven by the students in the audience. they'll be red-hot. i don't think it will be, thank god, like berkeley. it's not going to be burning up

with that kind of trouble. but i hope it will be nice and i fully expect a lot of excitement. 7:00 to 8:00. from people who have strong feelings about the possibility of this president opening up an east-west war with the ban on travel from those seven countries, the signal it sends. it's not the media sending the signal. it's the fact that the executive order itself going throughout the world saying we don't want people here from seven arab countries. they don't like it. >> two hours from now. thank you for joining us. "mtp daily" starts right now. if it's thursday, watch out for that first step, secretary tillerson. it's a doosy. tonight, welcome to the state department. rex tillerson. >> i am on the job. hi. >> how the trump brand of traditional diplomacy is complicating the new