(jessica) i love beneful healthy weight because the first ingredient is chicken.

(riley) man, this chicken is spectacular! (jessica) i had to start hiding the bag because he would try to put his face in it all day. yeah you love it, don't you? you love it so much! i feel like when he eats beneful, he kinda turns into a puppy again. it's protein. it's vegetables. it's grains. i mean, like that sounds like a dinner i'd make for myself, right? (riley) hey it's a big bag. just have some of mine. (vo) try beneful healthy weight with chicken. with real chicken as the number one ingredient. healthful. flavorful. beneful. hi everybody, good morning, i'm thomas roberts here at msnbc world headquarters. at the top of the hour here is what we're watching for you. new reaction from president trump this morni firing back at a seattle jge who issued a naonwide sweeping order blocking virtually every aspect of executive order on travel restrictions. in one of president trump's tweets he said the opinion of this so-called judge which essentially takes law enforcement away from our country is ridiculous and will be overturned.

his tweets follow a statement from the white house last night vowing legal action, saying at the earliest possible time, the department of justice intends to file an emergency stay of this order and defend the executive order of the president, which we believe is lawful and appropriate. so this so-called judge, he is a george w. bush appointee, sided with the attorneys of the -- the attorneys general of washington and minnesota in a lawsuit that seeks to overturn the ban, so the ruling temporarily shuts down the 90-day ban on citizens from seven mostly muslim countries and the indefinite ban on syrian refugees as well as the 120-day suspension of the refugee program. meanwhile the president is touting a new executive order he signed yesterday to begin undoing the financial regulations put in place after the 2008 economic crisis and here's what he said during his weekly address this morning. >> we also took significant action to roll back the massive regulation that is devastating our economy and crippling

american companies and jobs. that's why i've issued a new executive order to create a permanent structure of regulatory reduction. this order requires that for every one new regulation, two old regulations must, and i mean must be eliminated. it's out of control. >> all right. so there we have his weekly address pretaped. now we go to florida and president trump and the first lady, melania trump, are spending the weekend at their southern residence, mar-a-lago. nbc's kelly o'donnell is in west palm beach. kelly, we know that the president has taken to twitter, not only going after the judge who leveled this order from washington state but after the media as well. >> reporter: the media and a further defense of his underlying policy. so a series of tweets this morning from the president just about 8:00 a.m. eastern time taking to his favorite mode of communication to reach directly to the public. you read one of them so let me touch on a couple of the others.

here's where president trump tries to, again, explain his policy and why he believes it's necessary. when a country is no longer able to say who can and who cannot come in and out, especially for reasons of safety and security, big trouble. he then goes on to say interesting that certain middle eastern countries agree with the ban. they know if certain people are allowed in it's death and destruction. he doesn't say which countries. so today this is an opportunity for the president to use twitter to communicate on something that is fast moving, as we've seen. when the news broke late friday night with the court taking action, then the white house in an official way responding and we don't yet know how this will play out in sort of a practical way with the customs officials, with airlines and so forth. so there are many people asking what's in this and what comes next. making his first visit as president to his florida home. donald and melania trump will share a palm beach weekend. but like all things trump, it

likely won't be quiet. late friday, a seattle-based federal judge dealt the trump white house a blow. that court blocked the u.s. from enforcing president trump's seven-country travel ban with a temporary restraining order after two states, washington and minnesota, challenged it in court. >> the law is a powerful thing. it has the ability to hold everybody accountable to it, and that includes the president of the united states. >> reporter: after 10:00 p.m., the white house press secretary pushed back with a statement. the department of justice intends to file an emergency stay of this outrageous order, insisting the president's order is intended to protect the homeland. ten minutes later, an updated statement. the white house took out the word "outrageous" that had described the order. trump's executive order had already prompted days of protests around the country. tom senate democrat, chuck schumer, was quick to get out his own comment, calling the ruling a victory for the

constitution, adding this un-american executive order will not make us safer. in his new weekly address recorded before the court acted, president trump defended his order to stop the entrance of foreign nationals from seven mostly muslim countries. >> the executive order establishes a process to develop new vetting and mechanisms to ensure those coming into america love and support our people. that they have good intentions. >> reporter: trump also tweeted friday we must keep evil out of our country. waund thi and one thing, thomas, that is notable when we saw the white house removing the word "outrageous" that happened quickly and it suggested they took a pause and thought about it and were hesitant to directly criticize a co-equal branch of government, the executive and the judiciary. then today the president referring to the seattle-based federal judge as a so-called judge. so kind of back and forth

between the white house and the president and how they should approach this from a matter of tone. usually there's a hesitation to criticize the judiciary because it does operate separately and they are going to be in one form or another, we understand, going back to the courts to try to seek relief from this temporary ban. so an interesting approach to go after the judge. we'll see how that plays out as the day continues. now, there's much more on the president's schedule today. a working saturday was planned for this weekend in florida, including some world leader calls and we have seen how those have gone from the customary to at times newsworthy in and of itself. today on tap speaking with the leaders of it issy and ukraine. >> kelly, this is not first president trump has gone after a judge. it would be the first time as president -- >> yes, judge curiel of course. >> for his mexico an heritage, saying that he was biased in the trump university case. we'll see if the so-called judge

gives a response today. kelly, thanks so much. kelly o'donnell reporting in west palm beach. for more details on this legal order which temporarily blocks the travel ban, i want to bring in nbc news chief correspondent pete williams. pete, let's talk about how this ruling came about and how it counters the completely different ruling from a massachusetts judge. >> well, it appears that the government is abiding by this order to stop enforcing the president's executive order on immigration, and we don't know that from the government, though. we know that from the airline industry. because almost every airline that flies people from the seven countries that were covered by the executive order to the united states has issued a statement saying anybody with valid travel documents from those seven countries can now travel again. that's thing one. thing two is that the industry group that represents airlines, the international air transport association, has sent a memo to its member airlines telling them

that the cbp officials, customs and border protection has told them that the situation is as if the executive order never existed. the one big question was what about the visas that people were given -- these are the affected airlines. what about the visas that were given before the executive order to come here. the state department had said that as soon as the executive order went into effect, those visas were no longer valid. so the question is, okay, now that the executive order is not in effect, are the visas valid again. we've been asking the government that question for the past 12 hours or so and still don't have an answer, but the answer appears to be yes, they are. let me quote from a memo that the international transport association sent to airlines. quote, cbp officials said on a conference call that in keeping with the seattle judge's order, the state department has rescinded its revocations of visas. so what that means is that if you had a visa before the

executive order went into effect, you can come now. and if you're a student here in the u.s. and you were worried about traveling overseas and coming back, you can do that now. now, we have to say there's a big asterisk on this now because we don't know how long the judge's order is going to be in effect. the justice department will go to the ninth circuit court of appeals and try to get a stay of it. in other words, there's an on/off switch on the executive order. the judge in seattle has turned it off. the government wants the ninth circuit to turn it back on again but there are in essence nine other on/off switches potentially because that's how many lawsuits have been filed over this. you mentioned boston. a judge there yesterday said the order was just fine and allowed it to stay in effect. more lawsuits are going to be filed next week. so we could be in this situation for several more weeks where juj judges say, no, you can't, yes, you can. so we'll have to wait and see how it works out. >> pete, from local observers, any reactions coming in because

this is such a far-reaching verdict by this judge, is there any judicial overstepping, especially when we consider this is not just for a district, this is for the entire country? >> well, you know, when district court judges issues orders and say it applies to the entire country, that's always somewhat controversial and the justice department tends to resist those. but the government is treating this as having a nationwide effect. so i don't think that's where the legal action is going to be. the big question here is the government argues and argued quite forcefully before this judge that federal law gives the president the authority explicitly to bar the admission of certain classes of aliens, that's the phrase that's used in the law, for national security purposes. so the government says that answers the question here. but the legal issue is, is it unconstitutional to single these

groups out, is it unconstitutional to give a religious preference to minority religions on the refugee question. those are the big issues i think that are going to work out through the courts in the coming months. for now, the legal action will be will the ninth circuit stay this judge's order. will the execuve order go back into effect again. and, you know, that's going to be rapidly moving, it just hasn't happened yet. >> we will follow this closely. our pete williams breaking it down. always great to have you on, sir, thank you for your time. >> you bet. joining me is yamiche and mike. yamiche, let me begin with you. as we consider the back and forth, what type of strong message do you think the trump administration has received from this opposite and equal branch of government? >> the message is really that you are going to have to prove that you are abiding within the constitution and there are going to be judges all over this country who are going to be pushing back against what donald

trump thinks is his authority to possibly discriminate against people. i was listening to pete williams talking about this idea of an on/off switch and this idea of it being unconstitutional to have a preference for christians. at the end of the day we're talking about people that have their families stranded in places, people who have visas that were waiting for years and have paid thousands of dollars to try to get to the united states and these judges are in some ways saying we have to really take a pause here and really consider when we say we're panning these people, who are we banning and what does this mean so this shows that donald trump will have a lot of push back from the other branches of government. >> we know donald trump has been tweeting about this so-called judge. he was tweeting after saying it's bad and inaccurate coverage of me the fake news at "the new york times" is still lost. what did you do today? >> what did i do today? i think what we do at "the new

york times" every day is to seek the truth and then report the truth. i think that that's probably also what's going on at msnbc, cnn and "the washington post." this is a president that has sought to delegitimatize journalists all over the country and i think that's what has him upset. i can't use the term so-called judge because i think it is in some ways derogatory. there's no such thing as a so-called judge. this is a judge that is making an order, that he thinks is nationwide. now of course it will go through the systems to figure out what's going on but i think what we're seeing on twitter is president trump going after people in a way that even the white house in taking out the word "outrageous" from its statement is trying to push back and be a little more presidential. this is kind of donald trump showing that we are still getting the raw emotions of donald trump and when he feels as though people are pushing back on him and pushing back on his power, then he's going to in some ways go to really attacking

and trying to delegitimatize anybody coming after him in this case calling a judge a so-called judge. >> it's really kind of a catch-22 because i have to read certain tweets about discrediting the organization in which you work for, discrediting the organization in which i work for, and say different things that would undercut and undermine our ability to be fair and accurate and to do our jobs with great honor. and that's disturbing. but we still have to do it. mike, i want to get your reaction to this "washington post" article that reveals a dispute in the trump cabinet over the immigration order. the writer talks about a conference call taking place saying in part homeland security secretary john kelly, defense secretary jim mattis and secretary of state rex tillerson who had not been confirmed had talked about and complained about the process of this but also discusses the influence of steve bannon. so do we understand how much steve bannon really has in the

operational outcome of this executive order? >> well, you know, it's kind of the million dollar question. who has trump's ear, who has it last and how much is that swaying what he does not only on immigration but on all these executive orders. you know, john kelly came to the capitol this week and we were out there talking to the lawmakers who were talking to him and the message was, you know, he's defending something that trump has done. they thought it was indefensible least the democrats did, but there was also a sense that he didn't know it was coming downhe pike. so the question is if the homeland security secretary doesn't know this thing is coming, if he wasn't briefed, then who does have his ear an is that the best way to make policy of the even the republicans were even critical of how it was rolled out, how it was implemented. there was chaos at all of these airports and of course a lot of people got turned away who ultimately when they reversed the green card stipulation were

able to come back in. so all of these things point to kind of amateur hour in the white house and that has angered not only democrats but republicans and at least anecdotally it angered john kelly at the dhs and he wants to fix those sorts of things. he is respected on both sides of the aisle, so even democrats think that he's the guy to do it, but at least in the early stages, we've seen a lot of glitches. the question is will they continue or can the cabinet get in there and kind of have trump's ear and ensure that these things don't happen again. >> and we know because of the freshness of this administration, certain hiccups are going to happen. but we know from the left and democrats are using every rule and will within their power to slow down the confirmation process for certain cabinet picks like betsy devos for secretary of education, you wrote about this talking about the two prominent republicans who oppose her nomination. how much of a blow is that to where the count stands right now and is it really going to fall

down to mike pence to have to be a deciding vote here? >> at this point it is going to have to fall down to mike pence. mike pence is going to have to break the tie because they have had now two republican senators say that they are too concerned about the fact that betsy devos doesn't have enough experience in public education and has been too involved in alternative forms to public education to believe that she has their best interests in mind. i will also say those senators have been hearing from thousands of constituents who are teachers, who are parents, who are union activists, who are telling them this is going to be a problem, so i think there's also this political calculation that they're making to not support her. however, if the democrats can't convince another republican to come over to their side, then betsy devos is going to be confirmed on monday. >> we will wait and see. thanks so much for being here. appreciate your time. we know one member of congress is likening the president's travel ban to the

united states calling it interment camps of japanese americans from world war ii. i'll ask her what she's doing from her position on the hill to fight this executive order straight ahead. if you're searching other travel sites to find a better price...

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new this hour, president donald trump is firing back at the federal judge who overnight suspended his executive order on immigration calling the decision ridiculous and vowing to overturn it. the president also promised, quote, big trouble when a country is no longer able to say who can and who cannot come in and out. i want to bring into the conversation michigan congresswoman debbie dingel. congresswoman, it's great to have you with me. you represent dearborn, sometimes called the arab capital of the u.s. more than 40% of the population there clas arab heritage. how do you think this ruling is going to be perceived and represented for you and the type

of relief it may provide for certain constituents. >> good morning, thomas. obviously last night's decision which had national implications, but court decisions which really began within 24 hours of the issuance of the executive order have made people feel better that their constitution is being protected. but i think people here in dearborn are scared. they're afraid someone is going to knock on their door at 3:00 a.m. and deport them. i'm talking about people who are american citizens who have been born here, people with legal green cards. it's been a realtime of fear and panic in this community for the last week. >> and we know that a federal judge in detroit yesterday did send a ruling down that green card holders should be protected through this and kind of taking apart that piece of donald trump's executive order. with this judge in washington state, though, has a much more far-reaching verdict which goes

after every aspect of this executive order. how can you challenge this policy with your colleagues on the hill? what can you do? >> you know, i've been doing a number of things. i've joined with all of the democrats to ask that this executive order be overturned. i want to make it very clear that we all care about our national security. it is one of the most fundamental responsibilities we have, to keep this nation safe, but protecting this nation and keeping it safe and protecting our heritage also means that we need to protect the fundamental pillars of our constitution, which is freedom of religion and freedom of speech. and this executive order has targeted people because of their rnl. i think that's been one of the most concerning things. we've introduced a resolution to overturn this executive order. quite frankly i'm working with a number of my colleagues, many of them from michigan, who are uncomfortable with what this means to the constitution and what can we do to make sure that we are protecting freedom of religion and keeping this nation

safe. they are not opposed. yes, the president is right that we should be able to say who comes into this country, but we already are. we have a vetting process. people with those legal green cards have gone through a process that takes up to two years or more. i've got people at casework before this happened that have been trying for four years. we have biometrics. we have a process in place that we've got to make sure we continue to protect. but don't target people because of their religion. >> congresswoman, let me ask you about this, though. your opinion on the president's pick for the supreme court because there are many legal observers that say that this is a legal battle that will go all the way to the supreme court once and for all. but a legal expert saying to politico that he might not necessarily be a bad thing for democrats arguing about gorsuch is that he's principled and seems to have enough backbone to stand up to trump. we could use that on the court.

do you agree with that, especially when we're having this type of conversation about what it means to be in this country, freedom of religion and freedom from religion? >> i think that this is going to end up in the supreme court, there's no question about it. that's why each of these court victories is important, but all it's really doing is adding confusion and anxiety. you're going to see more demonstrations and rallies in dearborn today because people are scared. i think the supreme court nominee will be very important. i have not heard him talk about freedom of religion. i hope that in his hearing he will be questioned very strongly about the constitution. i had a good discussion with our attorney general here in the state of michigan and said we have to protect the constitution. that's what we all have in common. three branches of government or a check and balance on each other. the courts really matter right now. >> and do you think that democrats will give gorsuch a fair chance? >> i think that everybody is going to give him -- let's hear where he stands.

i think we've all got a responsibility to that, but he's got to answer some tough questions and if they are concerned that the protecting of the constitution isn going to be there, you're going to s them vote their conscience. >> great to have you on today, thank you very much for your time and we do appreciate it as always. >> thank you. thank you. so the big challenge for airlines around the world is to ensure the nation's safety right now as the president and the courts battle over this immigration ban and, yes, airports have a new directive today about what it means for visa holders, green card holders that are traveling to the u.s. from those seven majority muslim countries. back in a moment.

good morning, everybody, welcome back. i'm thomas roberts here at msnbc world headquarters in new york. at the half hour here is what we're watching for you. the very latest from london. a big protest happening over there. thousands gathering to demonstrate near the u.s. embassy against president trump's travel ban.

now, the plan was for protesters to rally at the embassy and then start marching toward prime minister theresa may's residence at 10 downing street. meanwhile here at home, there are marches expected as well and the white house is saying that it's going to move immediately to stop the lifting of the immigration travel ban. overnight a federal judge said that the executive order violated the constitution. right now visas are in the process of beingeinstate and people with those visas are being allowed on u.s.-bound flights. nbc's tom costello is in washington for us. tom, break down what this means for airports around the country and also you're in place for a march that is anticipated for early this afternoon in washington. >> reporter: yeah, we should explain why we're just a block or so from the white house. that is because we are expecting this rather large protest rally at about noon or so and then starting at about a block down the road here at the white house, moving up to the capitol building and then ultimately the supreme court. all of that protesting the talk

of building a wall, but also this talk of a, quote, muslim ban, which has got so many people concerned. as you discussed, the big question at this hour is really what about people who had visas issued before the president's temporary suspension went into effect. are those visas now valid again. if it's confusing for you and for me and legal scholars, imagine if you're the airlines trying to navigate through all of this. let's remind you of the seven countries affected by this suspension of travel that was issued by the president a week ago. those being sudan, libya, syria, iran, iraq and yemen. and now following the judge's order yesterday, which is a temporary restraining order against that suspension or ban in the vernacular, we have the following airlines saying they are going to now allow people to fly from those countries immediately. egyptair, american, british airways, air france, etihad

airlines, virgin atlanta and qatar airways. a short time ago qatar airlineways said nationals of the seven affected countries with a valid unexpired u.s. visa or green card will be permitted to travel to the united states and will be processed accordingly upon arrival. egypt is saying there is no stopping any passenger if they have a valid visa. the images are of protesters across the country and around the world protesting that suspension of travel that came from the president a week ago and also the talk about a, quote, muslim ban which the white house denies it has anything to do with religion and also the talk of building a wall on the southern u.s. border. so all of that has been fodder for protests over the last week. it's going to be more fodder for protests again today here in the united states we expect, starting in washington with as many as we're told 7,000 to 8,000 people, possibly taking to

the streets here. the president, by the way, is not here at the white house, he's down in florida at what they're now calling the southern white house on a rather cold weekend in washington. it's about 25 degrees here, but it's a nice, sunny day and that will be greeting the protesters when they arrive at about noon or so. thomas, back to you. >> so the sunny outlook, still cold, bundle up. tom, thank you, sir, appreciate it. we'll be talking to you later. the president has said he wants to be unpredictable when it comes to foreign policy, so how are american diplomats explaining this to the countries in which they serve? i'm going to ask a former u.s. ambassador to the united nations after this. when did mixing food, with not food, become food? thankfully at panera, 100% of our food is 100% clean. no artificial preservatives, sweeteners, flavors, or colors. panera. food as it should be.

thousands of protesters have hit the streets of london today to take action against president trump's travel ban. they first garner -- gathered here the u.s. embassy and are moving towards the british prime minister theresa may's residence at 10 downing street. here's how a travel ban protest

looked at jakarta, indonesia, a country not subject to this ban but the activists demonstrating peacefully while calling for the indonesian government to fight president trump's executive order. for reaction to the suspension of president trump's immigration order, i want to bring in former ambassador to the u.n. it's good to have you with me. we know president trump tweeted this morning several different tweets, one specifically saying when a country is no longer able to say who can and cannot come in and out, especially for reasons of safety and security, big trouble. so in your estimation, professionally, are we less safe or more safe because of this judge's order which has lifted the ban? >> i think that's an interesting question. in the short term obviously there are people who think the president can snap his fingers and decide things and in our country we've got separate and equal branches of government. i think they're surprised that a judge in washington state can effectively temporarily overturn the president's policy. that said, there's also some negative repercussions to the

idea that america isn't a country that welcomes immigrants anymore or refugees. but of course the white house is trying to do the right thing by preventing people who may be linked to islamic terrorism from getting into the country. >> how do you think that there are, you know, service folks, career service members of the state department or working within the u.n. and how they have to try to explain or break down not only the direction of this white house but the feelings of the american people that would elect this president to do such things that he campaigned on? >> well, fortunately people in the world and at the u.n. where i served are used to america changing its position and reinventing itself every four or eight years. this isn't new. we had carter to reagan, we had bush to obama. this is new. we have the first president who hasn't served in government before. and so i think there is a lot of uncertainty out there, but they're used to it. they understand america is a place that they need a few

months to get this administration kind of into a rhythm. >> and it's -- i guess it's funny for us as americans, as we go through this peaceful transition of power as we cover this, yes yeah, we go through this all the time and we kind of forget that there are some growing pains that happen in the very beginning. but i want to ask you about some remarks that the president had made from the white house saying iran is playing with fire. michael flynn putting iran, quote, on notice and this is before rex tillerson was sworn in. obviously as secretary of state, rex tillerson has a big job ahead of him. do you think that they made his job a little bit more difficult by using that kind of language in a country where we currently have a nuclear pact and we want to continue that type of access? >> well, i think, fstf all, re tillerson is going to be a fabulous job and in some ways they made his job easier because he can play the diplomat and he has to keep the allies, the nuclear deal together. the white house, you notice the

statement came from the national security add vierkvisor and tha the white house the ability to have a forceful message to keep the iranians guessing that this administration isn't going to sit back, whether the ballistic missile was a nuclear drill or whether it was a conventional one, it doesn't matter. this administration is going to be on it every time the iranians do something. >> so is that what you want when you think about, okay, we have a rex tillerson to have the gravitas of the diplomat, but you want the folks on the other side of the table concerned about the characters that they don't know? >> absolutely. you know, you have to -- within reason. you have to have a tool kit in diplomacy and you have to use the various tools that are applicable at the time. speaking with our allies and reassuring them about our intentions is one thing. general mattis is in japan doing that right now. >> and so when we think about this administration surprising a lot of folks this week by calling on israel to stop plans to build settlements and vowing to maintain sanctions against

russia until actually there is control of crimea returned to the ukraine, we know that president trump has a call scheduled with the leader of ukraine coming up later today. do you think that these positions are more in line with obama or he's striking out his own path? >> i think there are two different issues. on israel you saw the language was much softer. yes, there was a statement about this might not be helpful to a deal and of course his son-in-law, i think, is going to be working on that deal. but the issue there is the comments were much softer than the president -- president obama's comments. secondly, on russia, yeah, you know, nikki haley made a very forceful statement, but on the side they have also eased up on some of the ability of u.s. support for some of the russian security services that need certain kinds of equipment. so it is -- it's the world of reality hitting the aspiration of wt one says one will do.

>> fro your position of knowledge of being at the u.n., nikki haley's introduction of saying, you know, we're paying attention, we're taking names, did you like that? or what did you think? >> within the u.n. itself, they always say one of the most effective tools is called naming and shaming. the u.n. is a body, an elected body, it's a discussion body. it does have peace keepers but at the end of the day it's pointing things out. i think you'll go back to a little of the gene kirk patrick days if you remember those. >> fun times ahead. thank you for your time. we had covered the berkeley protests and the campus violence there this week, the fires that were started as they were objecting to a campus speaker. but there are now new questions about free speech. and then in the next hour on "a.m. joy" senator richard blumenthal of connecticut tells joy why he'll use every legal tool to prevent neil gorsuch for becoming a supreme court justice. stay with us.

so violence on the campus of uc berkeley, how it's testing the idea of free speech. plus, who are the people who incited the chaos ther coming up next, we have some new insight.

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take a peek at this. there was a lot of violence and fire protesters gathered on the college campus of berkeley over a writer who some claim has a history of making outrageous, inflammatory remarks. the uc berkeley campus was forced to cancel the speech. president trump took to twitter and threatened to withhold federal funds from uc berkeley saying it does not allow free speech practices. joining me nbc analyst and columnist for the daily beast and matt welsh editor-at-large for reason magazine. good to have you with us

jonathan. i was watching this earlier in the week at night and flipping back and forth and seeing how it was being covered. the atlantic right and people on the right were furious that the protesters were hypocrites. that they would clamp down on someone who was brought on campus by a conservative group and has access to free speech. is that hypocritical of the protesters to show up and try to to stamp out someone's free speech? >> you have to make a distinction thomas between the anarchists, the violent protesters for whom there's no excuse at all and playing into the hands of donald trump and the critics and students nonviolent students exercising their own free speech rights to say that they object to this gaia peering on campus. i don't happen to agree with those protests because i'm a bit of a first amendment purist. i think anybody can say anything

they want. it's not that some people claim that what he says is inflammatory and disturbing. it is the it is hate speech. but i would protect his right to say anything he wants. the response should be from students to just not go. to boycott the speech and make sure that he has a very small crowd. now, of course, he'll have a big crowd wherever he goes, unfortunately. >> it certainly feeds into public interest, people that are getting flagged at whoever this person is and why it would cause such a stir. matt is that the bigger lesson out of this. the fact that this is really helping propel this young man to greater name recognition and maybe greater reaction, which is exactly what he's going after? >> yeah. i've seen a lot of people online just bemoan the fact that the media is even covering this and giving it more oxygen. maybe don't burn down a bunch of stuff on the campus that birthed

the free speech movement. that would be a good start here. it's amazing that this is in reaction to actually just a speech or a talk. as opposed to a government policy. when i was in college, it was all about apartheid, south africa and sanctions. before that it was the vietnam war. this is serious government policies here. this is to some jack ass talking. this is kind of amazing. it speaks to a cultural degradation that we have seen increase overt last few years on college cams even though who knows who the protesters are, if they are even students. objectively speaking, degradation of the free speech culture on campus. a lot of people get to public life through there and they should be able to have a debate, not just a talk. debate the guy. see what happens. i think you'd find that he would wilt a little bit under the

harsh glare of point/counter point situation. >> that's the thing. people try to figure out exactly what he is setting out on purpose of by having that type of debate to hear. >> there is no purpose. i've met this guy. he is a self-promoter who is just trying to say the most offensive, most racist things he can in order to get a reaction. i wanted to ask you about that. what the black law tactics were. there's an article out in "today" that talks about the black blocks out -- in portland following trump's election win. this is said to be the -- going against what the folks, 1500 demonstrators at berkeley were demonstrating peacefully. there were 50 to 75 people using these black bloc tactics.

back to president trump's tweet and jonathan's point. if we could put that back up about the intimidation factor of losing federal funds on the campus of uc berkeley. is this the way that we're going? we see people trying to exercise free speech. other people try to thwart free speech. the president threatens federal funding if free speech isn't accessed to that campus. jonathan, you first. >> he's just stirring the pot. there are several things wrong. not surprisingly, with what the president is saying in this situation. the tweet suggests that the administration at berkeley is somehow responsible for preventing this joker from speaking. that is not true. the administration was buying. let him speak. it was these black bloc anarchist who is prevented him from speaking and then the police, not the administration, the police said it's not safe

for this speech to go forward. so the issue is not with the administration of berkeley, which should absolutely not suffer at the hands of the federal government. on top of that thomas, the president has no power to cut aid to berkeley. to cut medical research projects. what they do, they fund at this university, great university and many others are cures for cancer. other important research. it's the congress that decides whether to do that. >> matt, the bigger point here. we had an ambassador, it's the name and shame part. this is the president naming and shaming the campus. >> he's personalizing everything in politics as we've seen today with so-called judges and their orders here. we're all adjusting to a new standard of decorum from the white house. i think it's important when

assessing that to work backwards from what he can actually do. we can all just shriek every single day if that's what we choose on a man's twitter stream. doesn't seem to be productive. he does not have the power to arbitrarily do this. if he tried to do anything like it, it would get shot down so fast by the courts, his head would spin. but i mean, it's worth pointing out. that's a silly tweet. and then moving on and talking about not just, you know, preventing anything like that happening from the federal government, but also working proactively to improve these, both the legality and the climate for free speech on campus and off campus. >> growing pains with all this. speaking of growing pains, i'm growing into the next hour where joy is going to be very mad at me. gentlemen, i have to say thank you. that's going do it for me on msnbc live. joy is coming up next. stick around. that ride share? you actually rode here on the cloud. did not feel like a cloud...

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