some might say, that the former president of the united states came by to say hello and they discussed their grandchildren. she did not have a major role in the hillary clinton campaign. this is a completely different thing. the reason we have been saying that the attorney general sessions should step aside and maybe should never have been confirmed is because he was a surrogate. he was a very important part, one of the first people in the congress to endorse president trump. and now we see that he -- although he has not told the truth about it -- had conversations with russian officials. which why didn't he -- if they were innocuous, why didn't he admit it instead of lying about it? this couldn't be more stark in terms of relationship to the campaign and who the attorney general was speaking to.

no, they're completely different, day and night. yes, ma'am. >> reporter: one of your members, congressman keith ellison, has released a statement that mentions that perjury is a felony punishable by jail time. do you think that's an appropriate piece of this conversation? >> an investigation would show that but the law has been broken. and what he was stating was fact, that perjury is a crime and there are consequences to it. it remains to be seen what the investigation -- what else the investigation will lead to. but perjury by an ordinary citizen is punishable in the courts. how much enhanced is that accountability for the top law enforcement person in our country. so let's see an investigation. i don't know what problem the republicans have with the truth. they don't want to know the truth about the russian

connection, they don't want to tell the truth about their affordable care bill that they have hidden in a basement someplace. they reject the idea that removing this from congress will have an independent commission outside the congress look into the russian connections, which are about attacking and undermining our democratic system. we should have that even if hillary clinton had won the white house. so from what you have said, i didn't see the statement, he was stating fact. and an investigation will take us to the next place. but an investigation of those charges -- of those actions is definitely warranted. definitely warranted. i remind you that this congress impeached a president for something so far less having nothing to do with his duties as president of the united states. yes, ma'am. >> reporter: why is it important that you see the cbo scores and

have you gotten the understanding they're not ready yet? >> i don't know if they're ready or if they're just keeping them secret. we've never been able to proceed why legislation of this magnitude without seeing the congressional budget office score and republicans have -- we both have insisted on that. we have no know what we're doing, what is the impact on the budget. especially if they intend to do this under reconciliation. the impact on the budget is essential to go forward. in terms of they did it outside reconciliation, it's still essential we know what we're doing. >> reporter: what kind of score do you want to see and what do you expect? >> well, i don't even want to see what they're doing because what they're doing is reducing benefits, reducing access and costing more from what we had seen. again, what it is is in a basement someplace. it like a houdini act or something, maybe it will free

itself or something, i don't know. but you know they have conference in their caucus about it. so what you're asking is the regular order. we have to know what it will cost. what we have always said, our goals, as i said earlier, our goals have been to lower costs, improve benefits and expand access. if they have a bill that does that, we're happy to talk to them about it. i doubt it from what we have seen so far, but they have tremendous unease in their own caucus about it. yes, sir. >> reporter: thank you. what can the american public expect of the house intelligence committee looking into the connections with russia during the campaign, and is it adequate? >> well, yesterday -- i don't know, has it been released to the press? it was released to the press that there were a proposal of scope for what the look into the russian involvement in our election.

that's a step forward. it's not a giant step forward but it's a step forward that in a bipartisan way, the chairman and the ranging member have signed this letter of -- is that whole thing in the public domain now? that it is in agreement. but the agreement goes into different categories, who they would call so that's something. i would hope, though, that in the scope document that they have, that that means that they would follow any trail, that they don't shut it down because it wasn't listed in that primary document. i'm not impressed, quite frankly. i think this is progress. it shouldn't have taken this long. both the house and senate committees should -- but it takes time. you want to see documents. i respect that. i'm an intelligence person myself. you want to see the documents,

you want to take the time, but we want to know that there's a path and not just an avoidance of it by killing time instead of using time. so we'll see. but as i had said, i think while it's important for the house and senate intelligence committees to investigate this, what we also have to do is have an outside, independent, bipartisan commission to look into broader than what i just said the impact of the russians on our election but the personal, financial and political connection between the trump organization and the russians. yes, ma'am. >> reporter: what does it say to you that many republicans, some are calling for senator sessions to recuse himself but are stopping short of calling for a special prosecutor? >> well, in all of this, all roads lead to the republicans in the congress. what are they afraid of? they have been afraid of the truth every step of the way. they don't want to see the

president's tax returns. when every president since gerald ford, every president in modern times has released his tax returns and candidates release their tax returns. so what is it? that would be a key indicator of their interest in the truth. so the question is to them what are they afraid of in the tax returns? what are they afraid of in the investigation of the russian involvement to undermine our democracy, to repeat that in other countries, to come back here and do that again. what does it say about them that their chief law enforcement officer, the top cop in the country, lied to his colleagues in the senate and to the american people, a person who himself knows about prosecution and knows about the law and knows about perjury and its penalties. so what is it about the republicans that they want to hide the truth from the american people? i call it stonewalling.

i call it stonewalling. you'll have to ask them, though, why they're stonewalling and what they're afraid of. yes, sir. >> reporter: the trump administration called for some pretty big budget cuts, including almost 25%. what if anything can democrats, particularly in the house, do to push back against those cuts? >> everything is about the public. how many times have you all heard me say public sentiment is everything? abraham lincoln. the public has to know what they are doing to our future. we all agree that we want to have the military that we need to protect the american people. we take an oath to protect and defend our constitution and the american people, but our strength is not only measured in our milita our military might. the people are not only our investors and family -- people who grow family and community and build our country, they're

also our soldiers. so we see again a budget is supposed to be a statement of values. what the president is doing is quite outrageous. he is throwing out the window years of compromise in terms of parity, similar amount for defense as for domestic. at the same time, it's important to know that defense is defense, but domestic is also veterans, homeland security, the state department and all that is involved in our security in soft power as well as weapon sales and the rest of that are in the domestic side of the budget. so honoring our camp david commitments and the rest of it all in the domestic side of the budget. so in saying he's going to make these cuts, if he in fact increases defense this way, what is his mission? what is the mission? tell us your security mission that would justify this.

what is this? is this more contracts for contractors? is this more -- what is it? what is this money for, a? b, how can you possibly take that much money out of the domestic side? then they say, well, we're not going to -- we're going to hold veterans and homeland security, we're not going to cut that. well, if you hold them harmless, then you have even less to invest in education, research and development, 100,000 kid kicked off of head start, probably $3.5 billion cut from the national institutes of health. that's probably a thousand grants to scientific research that we wouldn't be able to do. for example, if they did a 10% cut across the board, the list goes on. it's tragic really. again, the budget is supposed to be a statement of our values, how we honor our responsibilities to the people, to protect them, to be number one in the world in terms of our

economic growth. the president also said when he was saying this that he was promising clean air and clean water. he's going to cut the epa. does he not know the connection between protections that are in an environmental protection agency and the air our children breathe, the water they drink, the safety of the food that they eat and the protection of their neighborhoods. what is he going to do to the justice function and the law enforcement function in the budget? because all of it will be subjected to cuts according to what he is putting forth. we haven't seen a budget. we've seen -- what do they call it, an outline, blueprint, mini mouse budget, mini me budget, whatever it is, it's not -- again, there's no there there. there's no there there yet. and what we've seen so far is scary, very scary. and in every respect, whether it's protecting our security and

not pandering to vladimir putin, not flirting with lifting our sanctions on russia for their aggression in eastern europe and not undermining our treaties on nonproliferation and the rest. what do the russians have on him? and then to turn around and say our strategic opponent here is russia, and i'm going to undermine our intelligence collection on russia because of what? we just don't know. we don't know a vision, we don't know a judgment about any knowledge associated with, it we don't know a strategic plan. all we know is a sales job. so we have to make sure we make those distinctions. but we'll have that type.

i'm an appropriator and intelligence person. appropriateors come together in bipartisan way to get the job done. it remains to be seen what the republicans will do to those decisions. and if the allocations and resources to certain subcommi subcommittees deal with health, education, jobs, our justice system, our transportation, housing, research and development, energy, science, it remains to be seen. we'll be making those fight and we will take them to the public inspired by abraham lincoln. public sentiment is everything and that is -- the public has to be vigilant, very, very vigilant, more vigilant than ever. thank you all very much. >> thank you. >> nancy pelosi unequivocal saying that jeff sessions needs to resign, that he lied under

oath and she said he is unqualified and unfit. good morning, everyone. i'm chris jansing at our msnbc headquarters in new york. and attorney general jeff sessions right now facing a wave of new calls to resign. did he commit perjury? key question there. all this after that the bombshell revelation by the waupt th "washington post" that he met with russia's ambassador during the presidential campaign not once by twice. something he did not disclose during this exchange with democratic senator al franken. >> if there is any evidence that anyone affiliated with the trump campaign communicated with the russian government in the course of this campaign, what will you do? >> senator franken, i'm not aware of any of those activities. i have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and i did not have communications with the russians. >> a sessions spokeswoman

confirmed he had those conversations but said it was in the role as the committee for armed services. >> that's remarks are unbelievable to me and facts. i don't have anything else to say about that. >> reporter: what about calls to recuse yourself from the agency's role -- >> i have said whenever appropriate, i will recuse myself. no doubt about that. >> reporter: do you think the time will come? >> these allegations are putting new pressure on republicans. >> i think the attorney general should further clarify and i do think he's going to need to recuse himself at this point. >> reporter: is this because of the meetings he had with the ambassador or because of what he said in his congressional testimony? >> because of how he answered the question in his testimony. >> i don't want to prejudge but i just think for any investigation going forward, you

want to make sure everybody trusts the investigation, that there's no doubt within the investigation. >> does that require his recusal, congressman? >> i think it would be easier from that standpoint, yes. >> you do agree with kevin mccarthy, with jason chaffetz that he should probably recuse himself? >> sure. if there's a legal investigation, absolutely, no question about that. although at this point i have to say i don't see much ground for an investigation, particularly if it's something that involves criminal intent. >> that's not the on brely brea news related to russia, the new york city reporting that the obama white house spent its final time in office scrambling to preserve intelligence of russian election hacking, that they were worried that it could be covered up or destroyed by the incoming trump administration. we have the lead writer of that "new york times" story. let's begin with peter alexander at the white house.

peter, i'm just getting this in to us. representative elliott engel, the ranking member of the house committee on foreign affairs says that jeff sessions should step down as attorney general. the president's been notably quiet so far. what are white house officials telling you? >> reporter: chris, you're exactly right. you can only imagine how bothered president trump must be right now by this story about jeff sessions now with republicans even calling for his recusal, specifically because it steps on what had been such a good 24 hours of a news cycle based on his widely viewed as a good speech, his speech before a joint session of congress earlier this week. it's a point that aides are now making to us not just privately but publicly. here is the statement from the white house on the record in response to the news as we've been covering it. they say this is the latest attack against the trump administration by partisan democrats, attorney general sections met with the ambassador in an official capacity as a member of the senate armed services committee, which is entirely consistent, they say,

with his testimony. it's no surprise senator al franken is pushinghis story immediately following president trump's successful address to the nation. there is that point about what had been a good 24 hours. the story has quickly changed. this white house yet to comment on camera. there is no press briefing scheduled on camera today because the president is traveling to virginia, where he will be visiting some of the shipbuilders behind the "gerald ford," an aircraft carrier there. we will have a chance to hear from sean spicer, his press secretary, later today. >> kasie hunt joins us live. even by the standards of this crazy, fast news cycle these days, you've been in a lot of places this morning. give us the sense of what you're hearing on the hills and divide between democrats and republicans and in some cases republicans and republicans.

>> reporter: it's already been a very crazy morning here on capitol hill back and forth between house members, senate members, republicans, democrats, we just most recently heard from nancy pelosi, who essentially said that bill clinton, a president, was impeached for less than what jeff sessions did when he testified before the senate judiciary committee and said that he hadn't had any contacts with the russians. we now know of course that he did have that one-on-one meeting in his office with the russian ambassador. i asked her about what one of her -- the members of her conference, congressman keith ellison, now the vice chairman of the democratic national committee, he put out a statement today calling for jeff sessions' resignation and said perjury is punishable by james time. i asked her about that and she said perjury is a crime. if you were a normal citizen,

you would face jail time for something like this. she went farther than her colleague jeff schumer, who is also calling for sessions to resign but would not go as far as to say he did commit perjury. schumer saying he is not an expert in the law in this regard, that he wasn't prepared to say that but that he certainly did mislead congress. now, those are the calls from democrats. from republicans we're hearing increasing pressure here. we have -- i spoke earlier this morning with the oversight committee chairman jason chaffetz in the house. he has said very clearly he thinks jeff sessions should recuse himself from any investigation into the trump campaign and their potential contacts with russia and now we have senator rob portman of ohio, somebody who has tried to steer very clear of a lot of these trump-related controversies. he stopped talking to reporters in the hallways in the capitol. he used to be very chatty in those circumstances. he's now saying jeff sessions should recuse himself. we're about to hear from the

house speaker paul ryan. this will be our first question to him. >> i have to say the people on the republican side who are calling for this are surprising to say the least. kas kasie, we'll get back to you a little long. i want to bring in tom perez, former labor secretary and newly elected chair of the democratic national committee. he is also former assistant attorney general for civil rights at the obama justice department. good morning. congratulations. >> thank you very much. it's good to be with you. >> are you prepared to call for jeff sessions to resign? >> absolutely. i had three tours of duty at the department of justice. each one was a privilege. i worked under republican and democratic administrations. and the rule of law is the rule of law. nobody is above the law. that's what jeff sessions said in 1999 during the clinton impeachment hearings. that's true. i totally agree with that. >> but what do you think he did that was above the rule of law? >> well, there are two meetings. and it's really interesting that one of the meetings that he had

took place at the republican convention. i don't think that the republican ambassador was meeting side bar with clinton surrogates at the democratic convention. so one of these meetings took place at the republicans convention. in addition, chris, when you are nom dmatinated for a cabinet position, you fill out a questionnaire. let me read you the question that jeff sessions was asked. i want to be clear. "have you ever been in contact with anyone connected to or any part of the russian government about the 2016 election either before or after the election." mr. sessions was asked this question. he gave a one-word answer -- no. that is false. >> he said he thought that the question was specifically about meeting about politics, that it want about what it was about. i want to play for you, if i can, and i'll get your reaction to this. i should say a strong majority of members of his committee

avoided any contact with the russian ambassador during the campaign season, he did not. but people on both sides of the aisle are saying you can't assume something nefarious here. let's take a listen and we'll get your reaction. >> the notion that there was something somehow wrong with a senior senator on the armed services committee meeting with a foreign ambassador, i think that's a nothing burger. and the testimony jeff should have been more clear. >> if facts are there that he met with them the same that other officials meet with them, meet with different people all the time, there's nothing wrong with a meeting. we talk about official business. is there a pathway forward, can we build a relationship so you don't start pushing buttons and shooting missiles at us. that's part of our job as armed services. >> short of knowledge of exactly what was said inside those meetings, is it a step too far perhaps to call for resignation at this point? >> absolutely not. the attorney general is the chief law enforcement officer of

the united states. you have to have that moral authority. and, you know, there's this process in the confirmation proceeding where you can correct the record. if you said something that was incorrect. he unequivocally said in his written questions that, no, i had no contact whatsoever. and so you had that opportunity to correct the record and he didn't. i mean, sally yates got fired by donald trump because she upheld the law. and jeff sessions is being defended when he is undermining the rule of law. the world is being turned upside down. jack nicholson was right. you can't handle the truth. donald trump doesn't want the american people to see the truth. and what's also missing from that clip was it's important for the american people to understand how close jeff sessions was during the political campaign. sessions and flynn were two of the now president's closest surrogates in this campaign. >> we're almost out of time. i want to ask you really quickly.

>> that's a really important part of this unfortunate story of deception and perjury. >> let me ask you really quickly because nancy pelosi just brought up that ultimately a lot of these things are moved by the american people, especially if you're in the minority as the democrats are. the president hasn't commented on this but he did tweet one thing early this morning and he talked about the stock market and consumer confidence hitting a 15-year high. and so do you believe that questions about jeff sessions, what he may or may not have said when he met with the russian ambassador will resonate with the american people as opposed to say the bread and butter issues that famously were said, it's the economy, stupid. >> both are important. it's the national security of our country, stupid. that's also as important as it's the economy, stupid. and this issue and senator sessions and flynn and the vice president and perhaps the president, this is all about preserving our national

security. when one of our principal adversaries around the world drk make no mistake about it, putin is a strong man. he's not out to help the united states. he's out to undermine the united states. he's got the good on the united states. we can't allow that to happen because that undermines our national security. that's why this is a big deal. that's why we need to know the truth. that's why he needs to resign. that's why we need a special prosecutor who can be independent. >> chairman perez, it's good to see you. thank you so much for coming on the program. >> thank you. >> let me bring in nbc news justice correspondent pete williams who has been following all of this. pete schumer talked about attorney general sessions saying he needed to recuse himself. here's what he said. >> it's a matter of department of justice guidelines that i've read to you several times that are very clear. the information reported last night makes it clear beyond the

shadow of a doubt that attorney general sessions cannot possibly lead an investigation into russian interference in our elections or come anywhere near it. with these revelation, he may very well become the subject of it. >> so straight forward question, what are the guidelines that chuck schumer is talking about and are they clear about what they say? >> well, there are recuesal guidelines that govern department of justice employees and that would include the attorney general. it's the same sort of thing that governs the appointment of a special counsel. when there's a conflict of interest, it would be in the public interest. those are the touchstones of recusal. the torattorney general, it mea he would take himself completely out of the investigation of russia's influence in the election, he wouldn't be briefed on it, wouldn't make decisions

on it, he would become a complete stranger to that investigation. it's been done in the past. attorney general john ashcroft recrui recused himself from the leak of an fbi agent. attorneys general do interest from time to time. whether he'll do so with partisan push or he won't do it at all, we'll have to see how that plays out. >> pete williams, thank you. appreciate it. i want to get the "new york times" report that in the final days of the obama administration, white house officials scrambled to preserve intelligence about possible contacts between associates of president-elect donald trump and the russians. the paper cites more than half a dozen current and former officials. one of the authors of the report joins me live, matthew rosenberg. matthew, a story that is drawing atremendous amount of attention. i guess the key question, what

did the obama white house do and why did they do it? >> the idea here was that they were afraid if this information were contained -- the smaller group of people this information was contained among, the harder it would be for investigators to found it. they're learning in november and december a scope of what had happened and the sense that this really big russian meddling campaign and of possible collusion and contacts between the trump campaign and the russians. it's still uncertain what was going on in those meetings. so there was this last-minute race to process the information and spread it out, giving it to congress. at the same time, this includes names and sources, methods on which they're listening in on people to the kremlin. that's the crown jewel for intelligence. there are people who are really afraid that this people could be

exposed, that these assets to be compromis compromised. so they're trying to bury this as tightly as possible into channels that only intelligence officials would be able to see to keep political appointees or political operatives from being able to see this material. >> is it clear who was driving this? did the president know this was happening? >> they say he didn't. we were speaking to people who were driving it. at that point i probably don't want to say anymore about it. >> let me ask you then about some of the things that were in the background here. allied information was a part of this as well? >> that's in the summer, they started getting information from european allies about meeting in london and the netherlands, stuff coming in from czech and intelligence services. there's this whole atmosphere that law enforcement themselves to deep suspicions and a deep fear that there was something very untoward here.

>> matthew rosenberg, thank you for coming on the program. >> meantime, breaking news come from the middle east. hans nichols is live in newport news, virginia. that's where the president is going to be speaking on the military. what can you tell us about these strikes, hans? >> al qaeda has confirmed that an al qaeda leader has been killed in a strike. he's an egyptian national and he's al qaeda. it appears that this was an intelligence strike, perhaps operated by the central intelligence agency, not the pentagon. when you think of the budget battles between the -- >> i need to interrupt you, hans, because the house speaker has gone to the podium. let's listen to paul ryan.

>> also, the president has already signed three bills into law that block harmful regulation, protecting control country from rules that would have wiped out thousands of good paying, family-supporting jobs. this is the first time since 2001 that congress has reversed harmful regulations under the congressional review act. the house has already passed another ten of these bills. so more relief is on its way. we're also making progress on our work to repeal and replace obamacare, working very closely with the trump administration, we will soon introduce legislation to help lower costs, increase choices and give people more control over their health care. we are united and we are determined to rescue people from this collapsing health care law and to keep or promise to the american people. lastly, i want to take a moment to echo the president's strong condemnation of the recent anti-semitic incidents that have been taking place across the country. across this country we've been

seeing vandalism, acts of desecration and bomb threats. in white fish bay, wisconsin, right outside the dkt i servist serve, there have been two threats on the jewish community center there, a community center i've been to, within as ree rk,s february 20th. to think about parents getting those calls in the middle of the day, it makes your stomach turn. these threats and attacks on jewish americans are vile and disgusting, rooted in an ideology of hate and must be wholeheartedly rejected. on behalf of every republican and every democrat in congress, on behalf of the whole house, i want our friends in the jewish community to know that we stand with them, we stand with you. we may -- we've got to stand to help root out this evil wherever surfaced. these are disgusting acts of

violence and bigotry. >> reporter: did the attorney general mislead congress and -- >> first of all, i would check the transcript and all of that so i can't speak to what the judiciary committee transcript is. frankly, i haven't read that. should he recuse himself? i think he answered that question this morning, which is if he himself is the subject of an investigation, of course he would. but if he's not, i don't see any purpose or reason to doing this. let's take a step back for a second here. number one, we know that russia tried to meddle in the election. why do we know this? because we in congress and the intelligence community did an investigation after the election which discovered russia was trying to meddle in the election. this is something we all well know. here's another thing. we have seen no evidence from any of these ongoing investigations that anybody in the trump campaign or the trump team was involved in any of

this. we have been presented with no evidence that an american was colluding with the russians to meddle in the elections. this is something we also know, we're still doing investigations. in the house and in the senate, the intelligence committees have been investigating this, the intelligence community itself, not the committees, but the community did an investigation after the election and it gave us the results of that investigation before the inauguration. the house intelligence committee just finished coming up with its oversight plan to continue investigations. we will always make sure that we are making -- that we are protecting our sources and methods and getting to the bottom of any of these things but we have seen no evidence, been presented with no evidence that anybody on the trump cam p -- campaign or american was involved with the trump campaign was involved with the russians? >> reporter: [ inaudible ].

and second da, that was an of t to keep it alive or, b -- >> i think democrats are lighting their hair on fire to get you to cover this story to keep repeating the same story. i think they're trying to get this coverage going and there's nothing new we've seen here. and we'll make sure we leave no stone unturned and that's why our intelligence committees are conducting the investigations. you have to protect your sources and methods of intelligence gathering, which is why we have intelligence gathering in the first place. >> reporter: is that what you think they were doing, the democrats? >> i'm not going to speak to the motives of the i.c., the intelligence community, their motives. they did an investigation, intelligence community wide, many of us went down and got the briefing from clapper and brennan and never have we seen any evidence presented to us that an american or member of

the trump campaign was involved or working with the russians. >> the defense preparations bill filed today, will that head to the president by itself or will it be with other measures? >> i would have to defer to the senate on that one. we're passing that bill off on the floor of the house, whether or not they can take it up, that's more of a senate question. for senator mcconnell, his problem is calendar. it takes them a lot longer to do things over there than it does us. so he's got to manage his calend calendar. >> how about approving bills ins house -- >> we're moving our bill. will we have 11 bills for fy-17, and we moving defense first.

a continuing resolution is uniquely bad for the military. they have to buy exactly what they bought last year this year. that's not how the military operates, whether it's munitions or supplies, they need to have the fl the flexibility through a munitions bill to buy what they need. now somebody from the back. >> reporter: two questions, one on the attorney general. i want to make sure i understand your position. you're saying there's nothing new here. i understand you're deferring to the committee transcript but we now know he did meet with the russian ambassador and at least implied and some believe he stated he had not spoken to the russians. >> do you think there's no questions to be asked there? >> sure, ask the question.

i did a reception with about a hundred ambassadors last year. i don't remember who was there or who i spoke with. that happens all the time. as to the rest of it, i would just refer you to jeff sessions and senate judiciary committee. >> reporter: on the issue of immigration, there have been reports of immigrants who are in the country illegally but who are otherwise long-time residents living law abiding -- >> don't have criminal backgrounds? >> reporter: right. being caught up in the raids. notably there was a case yesterday of a young dreamer down in mississippi who was arrested and detained right after a press conference where she was speaking with clergy and others about her concerns about immigration. is there any role for congress to step in and take a second look at president trump's executive actions or --

>> no, no, i think there's always a role for congress under every instance and administration to conduct oversight of the executive branch and how they perform in all of these cases. i can tell you this, the priority of the trump administration and we've spoken with this -- i spoke with secretary kelly a couple days ago about this is to secure the border and deport criminal aliens, people who are not just here illegally but people who are here illegally who are violent criminals. that's the goal. you saw this kind of thing happening in the obama administration as well. sometimes they -- people slip through the cracks, but the priority and the goal is to not go out there and deport dreamers. the goal is to secure the border and deport people who are violent criminals who are making our communities less safe. >> reporter: mr. speaker, if there really is nothing there there on the whole russia issues, why not just allow a

special prosecutor -- >> first of all, we don't have that law -- >> reporter: but you could pass a law -- >> you have to protect the sources and methods of our intelligence gathering communities, especially with sad ver s -- adversaries like russia. just so you know, manu, they've been doing an investigation for some time now. they just recently added more scope to that investigation on a bipartisan basis. you have adam schiff, the ranking member, devon nunnes, the chairman, agreed to an investigation going forward, that is exactly where from the congress standpoint that investigation should occur. remember, at the end of the day, we have to protect our intelligence assets. we do not want to compromise our sources and our methods of getting intelligence from any adversary, let alone russia. >> reporter: do you oppose a special prosecutor? >> we don't even have the law? >> reporter: do you poe pooppos

legislation? >> who are you? >> daniel from feature story news. >> where? >> from feature story news. i'm sure some of my colleagues will feel it will cross the line and create insecurity among journalists. can you talk about how you think that -- >> sure. leaking classified information is a crime. and if we have evidence that somebody in the executive branch is committing a crime, we should prosecute that person. >> last question. >> reporter: i wanted to ask the wife of the freedom caucus leader this week saying republicans to hound your office and kill ryan care because it's not real repeal and replace. what are you doing to get them on board? are you concerned about this?

does the white house need to tell them specifically point blanc they're behind your proposal if that is the case? >> let me give you a quick refresher of history. we have been running on repealing and replacing obamacare since 2010. in 2016 the house in a bottom-up way set a working group together, the ways and means committee and any other member of congress who cares about this issue participated in a working group to come up with a plan for what we will replace obamacare with. much of it was modelled off the tom price legislation, which we as conservatives have seen as the gold standard for replacing obamacare. he's now the secretary of hhs. that is the plan we ran on in 2016. we told america here's our vision for how we replace obamacare after we repeel obamacare. that's the bill we're working on right now with the trump administration. we're all working off the same piece of paper, the same plan.

so we are in sync. the house, the senate and the trump administration because this law is collapsing. and you can't just repeal it and i am perfectly confident because every republican ran on repealing and replacing and we're going to keep our promises. >> reporter: why is the plan under lock and key? >> we've seen this divide between the republicans clearly coming in along with people like senator ted cruz who called these accusations a nothing burger, what we heard from the speaker, that there is no evidence that anybody involved in the trump administration or the trump campaign had anything to do with this, that there's no new information. very different from what we heard from some other key members on the republican side like kevin mccarthy and jason chaffetz. let go to one of the questioners

there, kasie hunt, once again there for this briefing. what's your headline out of it? >> reporter: hey, chris. so the distinction that paul ryan is making here, he says that, yes, jeff sessions should recuse himself if the department is investigating jeff sessions, that he couldn't participate in that kind of investigation, but he did not call for sessions to recuse himself into investigations of trump campaign potential contacts with russians or with russian officials. that is a very different position obviously than where democrats are falling on this and different from where many other republicans, even in his on conference are falling. the house oversight chairman jason chaffetz has already called for jeff sessions to recuse himself from these investigations. i also think it's remarkable that he said, quote, there's nothing new here, end quote. so he is dismissing the story that has prompted all of this. there are reports that jeff sessions did in fact meet with the russian ambassador, even though he told the committee

during his confirmation hearings that he had had no contacts with the russians. so a distinctly different tact from the house speaker here, gives you an indication of where house and senate leadership might be going on this but there are still substantial cracks among the republican conference here in the house that i think have the potential to widen depending on what we learn over the course of the next hours and days. >> i felt when you talked to jason chaffetz this morning and let's make no mistake, he hasn't been somebody who has been tough on this white house about the question of russian influence, you followed up with him with the question about was it about what he said essentially to al franken, right? >> reporter: right, i said why do you think the attorney general needs to recuse himself, was it the meeting with the ambassador or was it the comments that he made in the committee hearing? and jason chaffetz, the chairman, told me that this was about the fact that what he said

in the committee hearing did not line up with what actually happened. and the house speaker actually dismissed that out of hand at the top of this news conference. he said i haven't looked at that transcript, i'm not an expert, don't ask me about that. so he kind of dismissed that immediately and then went on to say, nope, doesn't have to recuse himself. >> kasie hunt, thank you for that. thank you for your reporting. we want to go back to the story we interrupted to hear from the speaker, the breaks news from the middle east. hans nichols is live from newport news, virginia. we'll hear from president trump there a little later. >> reporter: al qaeda is confirming there's a strike taking place in syria, it is the number two in al qaeda. what's interesting about this is the reminder that al qaeda is still very active, still presents a threat in addition to the threat that isis presents. you know, we are here in the langer bay -- hangar bay that's

going to be one of the four super carriers. president trump will be landing here later today on the decks just above me where inside the hangor bay, chr hangar bay, as loud as it is, it gets even louder when f-18s are landing on this deck. this carrier is late. two, it's expensive. these ships cost about $13 billion. if donald trump wants to up the number of carriers from 10 to 12, he's going to need to pay for it. there have been cost overruns and time overruns. this carrier can do a lot more with less. you only need about 3,000 sailors, the current ones need about 5,000. this will go through a lot of testing before it gets sent out to sea. we'll see trump behind us in a little bit. this is a strike in syria taking

out confirmed by al qaeda, we do not have confirmation yet that the number two in al qaeda has been killed in this strike. one final note we just heard from the pentagon, in addition to these strikes, there have been some big strikes happening overnight in yemen, drone strikes, a remind they are is a multi-front campaign. >> hans nichols with more on they very busy new days. coming up, one day after the dow's record breaking rally is down. what it means for your finances. we're live from the new york stock exchange. or fill a big order or expand your office and take on whatever comes next.

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repeating the breaking news that the number two in al qaeda has been killed in a drone strike in syria. in the meantime this morning, there is a big question about the fight against isis, the u.s. army general in charge of the operation says russians as well as syrian regime forces bombed u.s. backed fight evers on tuesday and that american forces were just about three miles a y away. it happened in a group of villages near the turkish border. the lieutenant general says he believes the bombing was a mistake. joining me, "washington post" military writer who wrote about the incident and has the in-depth details. let me start with this raid and why the general says it was a

mistake. >> reporter: this came out at a briefing at the pentagon with the general speaking to the press corps from baghdad. on tuesday, there were a number of bombings in the area south and southeast offel bob, which is a city that was recently captured from the turks, and taken back from isis at that point. isis had moved out of the villages south and east. and and turkish had moved back in. and russian and syrian planes -- there is some confusion will, bombed those fighters. >> we talked to officials about how they would like to talk with russia about air operations over this part of the world the try to avoid these kinds of things in iraq and syria, including mid-air collisions. where does that stand right now. >> reporter: you are referring to dedone flicks is what they referred to it.

the general mentioned that the channel that's set you be, an american colonel and a russian colonel was used w the americans calling the russians saying hey you are not bombing who you think you are. in this case, the individuals stopped the bombing. general townsend's take was that the channel worked. with that said, there is significant concern given the dynamic nature of this war, given the way there is increasingly smaller areas where all the bombings and forces are concentrated that more talks are needed and it may need to be done on a higher level, perhaps with some general somehow involved. >> we used to talk about the war against al qaeda, the war against isis. the president certainly mentions it and talks about it in torms of national security. we don't talk a lot about what is going on on the ground. what did you hear about that yesterday? >> reporter:el bob is the

confluence of the turks coming in from the north, the u.s. fighters from the east, and the russian backed syrians coming in from south. as they meet here we have a lot of potential for problems and potential for mistakes. they are trying to get at that and trying to make sense of it. as the situation change examines as territory changes hands, what works, i think, is still a question mark. >> dan, thank you so much. appreciate it. >> reporter: thank you. mean tooil amid all the questions about the trump administration the dow in the red, down almost 40 points pulling back after that record breaking run. president trump hasn't responded himself to the russia news but he did tweet this morning about the markets and consumer confidence being at a 15-year high. msnbc senior business correspondent ali bell shy joins us from the floor of the new york stock exchange. let's talk about what is happening today, do we know what this is a reaction to.

>> reporter: it could be because it was going up for long time. the market was up 15% at the open since donald trump was elected. it's lower 40 points root now. that's not really of any consequence. it is a busy day. snap, the parent company of snap chat has just gone public. it's up 47%. the market is distracted by something else right now. i will say this, the market was betting on donald trump reiterating the things he said he would do, bringing in an infrastructure program and reducing regulations. he basically said the same things in his speech to congress last night the market liked that and it soared. there are some questions whether this continues to go up. it's up 15% n. an average year, chris, the stock market over time does about 7%. just since the election we are up double the average here. that's something for people to think about. >> we are just letting people know, ali, that the video we are seeing came back to u.s. just

moments ago, the president who is going onto marine 1, to newport, virginia, where he is going to deliver a speech on the military. i know this question is fraught and politically charged, but the question a lot of folks have is how much of what we're seeing gets laid on the plate of donald trump? he wants people to believe that the reason that the market is going up is because of him. >> reporter: that's a good question. the market was going up before donald trump got involved. in fact, while everybody thought that hillary clinton was going to win, the market was going up gradually. then what happened as the polling started to turn and it looked lie donald trump was going to win, the marketed started going down a little bit more. on election night the futures indicated it would be bad for the market. but by the time the market opened on election morning investors and traders figured out there is a way to make money no matter what becomes president. he said he will low taxes, bring an infrastructure program in and

lower regulation. they figured out how to make money on that. and banks, infrastructure companies, investment companies, they are the ones leading this market ahead f. you have insurance stocks they are not doing as well because there is insecurity about what is going the what happen those companies. donald trump gets to take some credit for the remarkable surge since he has become president. i think the market would have gone up regardless, but wouldn't have gone up this much. >> those things seem to override the conventional wisdom that the market doesn't like uncertainty. and you see what is happening with general flynn, jeff sessions, those kinds of things in the past might have had a different impact, right? >> reporter: yes, that's correct. but the type of political uncertainty that would unsettle investors is the type that suggests donald trump won't be able to get the things done that he wants to do. if all of a sudden word comes in that he wants corporate taxes

cut to 15 or 20%, and he is only going to be able to get it down to 30% that's the sort of thing the market aren't going the like. the business about jeff sessions is not playing through to the markets because it doesn't indicate that donald trump won't get things done. if republicans start turning against him on economic policy that's where you will see it go down. the type of uncertain we are seeing right now is not the type of stuff that bothers investors so much, but there can be that type of uncertainty, and the market can turn on a dime. thank you for w567ing msnbc live. right now, "andrea mitchell reports." thank you chris jansing. right now on msnbc reports, breaking news, democratic leaders calling for attorney general jeff sessions to resign. and now key republicans saying he should recuse himself. a firestorm afternoon after the "washington post" reporting that then senator sessions met with rs's ambassador while a key