and got past some of the issues that have plagued them over the last few days. >> alex, julie, amber, thank you very much for joining us here. that does it for our hour hoar -- here on msnbc. from our perch, i'm hallie jackson. >> and it's a lovely perch. you have a fantastic rest of your morning. next on msnbc, wiretapping trouble. without offering any evidence, president trump claiming that former president obama illegally wire tapped trump tower. and scandal in the marines. the defense department is investigating potentially hundreds of marines for allegedly sharing nude photos of female soldiers online. and the supreme court said it will not make a decision on the

grimm case on gender bathroom issues. any minute we'll have details on the new immigration order. also, trump administration staff is standing by the president and his highly charged claim without offering any evidence whatsoever that president obama illegally wire tapped phones at trump tower during the 2016 election. the president's representatives standing firm on the morning shows today, even though a spokesman for president obama, his national intelligence director and fbi director james comey had all rejected the president's allegation. nbc news confirming that director comey is asking the justice department to issue a public rejection. >> the fbi director has said this did not happen. does the president accept that or not? >> reporter: the president wants the truth to come out to the american people and he is asking that it be done through the

house intelligence committee and that that be the process that we go through. >> he didn't say this is something we ought to look into. he said it happened. >> look, i think the president firmly believes that it did and all we're asking for at this point through the administration is that we get down to the bottom of it and see if it did. >> how does he know that his phone was actually tapped? >> let me answer that globally. he's the president of the united states. he has information and intelligence that the rest of us do not. >> peter alexander joins us live from the white house. a lot to address there, peter. let's start with the last thing we just heard, what kellyanne conway said. do we know the basis of president trump's claims? is there some sort of intelligence the president received that would lead him to this conclusion? >> it's not clear but it refers back to what was in effect a

conspiratorial rant that took place by mark levin, he was talking about what he described was a big scandal. take a listen to what levin said on thursday. >> we have a prior administration, barack obama and his surrogates, who were supporting hillary clinton and their party, the democrat party, who were using the instrumentalities of the federal government, intelligence activities, to surveil members of the trump campaign! >> reporter: in effect, this is the timeline of a conspiracy, that point made by mark levin was expected up by the conservative web site breitbart, posting an article online on friday morning. what's notable about breitbart is it was formerly run by donald trump's chief strategist, steve bannon in the past. it was less than 24 hours later that president trump then tweeted about this explosive

claim. ali? >> and by friday afternoon it was on rush limbaugh's show. the president had a twitter tirade saying this is "mccarthyism, this is nixon, watergate, bad or sick guy" referring to president obama. a spokesman from president obama did respond. railroads >> reporter: we have heard all sorts of individual rejecting this, from fbi director james comey, who want it to be refuted blei publicly, and specific to president obama, here is the statement that his spokesperson put out early yesterday. they wrote "a cardinal rule of the obama administration was that no white house official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the department of justice. as part of that practice neither president obama nor any white

house official ever ordered surveillance on any u.s. citizen. any suggestion otherwise is simply false." as for the others who are pushing back, among them the former director of national intelligence, james clapper, here's part of what he said. >> there was no such wiretap activity mounted against the president-elect at the time or as a candidate or against his campaign. >> you would be told this? >> would i know that. >> if there was a fisa court order on something like this? >> something like this absolutely. >> at this point you can't confirm or deny whether that exists? >> i can deny it. >> the bottom line right now the white house is calling for the senate and house intelligence committees to look into this further. as they say, if there was any truth to it, this would be a massive example of overreach by the executive office. >> james clapper there was the director of national intelligence, which is the agency that oversees all the

other 16 intelligence agencies. so when he said i would know, would you think that would be the case. peter alexander at the white house. peter made reference to fisa and secret courts. ari, i spent a lot of time thksd wat -- this weekend watching you on tv to get an understanding of the legality of all this. first, could president obama have ordered a wire tap on then candidate trump? >> it's possible but highly unlikely. unlikely and the obama denial from the spokesperson says we never did that on any case. it doesn't mean that there weren't intercepted conversations somewhere along the line for some legitimate potential purposes, it just means the president wasn't involved, aaccording to his

aides. >> foreign intelligence secret act, fisa courts, it's another layer of protection. if anything there's more pressure from legal experts we've spoken to about whether donald trump has put himself in legal jeopardy. you can say almost anything in america because we have such robust free speech, especially in the political context. the legal requirement for libe libelling a political figure, it requires that it requires a false statement and that the person knows that it wasn't true. they're calling for an investigation after putting out that charge that, would seem to be reckless. an expert on def faamation is

saying that obama committed crimes and to say he committed a crime when it's false is defamatory. harvard professor lawrence tribe said this meets the "new york times" versus sullivan test, but obama is way too sensible to sue his successor for libel. not normal to have so many legal experts say that the current president is defaming the previous president. >> this is -- there's nothing normal about anything i've said since the beginning of this show. let's bring in the former assistant secretary s is secretary of defense fo for international security affairs. he know as lot about a bunch of things we're talking about this morning. good to see you. let's start with president obama's director of national intelligence, james clapper. this is the guy who heads the

agency that oversees activities of the 16 other intelligence agencies. he says it couldn't have happened. fbi director james comby said it didn't happen, president trump's allegations are false according to these guys. they also say there was no fisa court order. so president trump's people are saying he may have information because of his classification that we don't know about. is that snpossible? >> highly unlikely given what clapper has said, and it seems to me this is just another example of donald trump's fake news. unfortunately this has become textbook trump. it was only five or six years ago he was making the same kinds of claims about president obama's citizenship, saying that he had sources that were saying that president obama wasn't born in the united states and that there needed to be a full investigation of this and that turned out to be all conspiracy

theory and untrue. unfortunately the stakes are higher because he's president of the united states and he's asserting his predecessor broke the law by ordering a wire tap, which is not true as numerous officials have said. >> this fisa court is a secret court. how do we know it's not true? >> the idea that president obama ordered it outside of the law has been asserted and general clapper said it's not true. it's interesting, president trump could choose to declassify some of this information. if he actually believed this information existed and his white house council were to get it, he could choose to declassify if it in enact exists. >> president trump could have his justice department investigate this. the foobi comey has asked the

justice department to which he reports to debunk this, yet white house spokespeople are saying the house intelligence committee should investigate this. that seems unusual. >> it does. i think there's no question that this whole issue of russia's role in our election, possible connections between russian officials and the trump campaign should be investigated. it's being investigated right now but the house and senate intelligence committee. i think, though, all of this warrants an independent bipartisan investigation. i think there is a growing course on the hill for that. i do think that's eventually what we're going to get when this story ends. >> thank you for being with us. derek is a former assistant a second for international security affairs. >> president trump sought to ride the momentum to his speech to a joint session of congress last week on to find himselfin rag -- himself enraged by more leaks, finding himself angered

and frustrated by his staff members. ashley, she co-authored a remarkable author from "the washington post." these stories are remarkable in what they say. you wrote that the president was steaming, raging mad. those are the words you used. take us inside the president's fury this weekend. >> so, well, the first thing you have to understand is that mar-a-lago is sort of president trump's castle, as we wrote. it's his safe space. he's surrounded by familiar faces and friends and this is where he's normally most comfortable. so what was so striking to us was that he leaves the white house to go to mar-a-lago, he's with his daughter, ivanka, his son-in-law jared kushner, who are also sort of these typically calming influences on them and he gets there and he is just lived. he cannot believe this joint address he gave is being overshadowed by more russia news, by more infighting in the

white house, by his attorney general recusing himself from this russia investigation after the president had said he did not believe that jeff sessions ne needed to rekuz himself. that was sort of a slap in the face from his attorney general. and he's according to friends we talked to, he is just as we wrote, steaming, ragingly mad. >> you also talked about health care and i'm quoting from the article here, it says with health and human services secretary tom price on the road with vice president presence, a decision was made that mick mull veiny, the director of the office of management and budget would become the point person, though officials insist this doesn't mean price had been sidelined. >> this was an interesting news nugget we stumbled upon. keep in mind secretary price heads the department that in theory should be handling health care. when he was in congress, he was one of the people who was one of the chief architects of health care. so, yes, he was traveling with vice president pence but it was

very striking that basically control or at least being the point person of this overhaul was taken away from him and given to mick fumulvaney, who ds not have nearly as much experience. we're told that it needed to have someone there to organize these agencies that seemed to be working at cross winds and needed someone to push it over the finish line. they cast it as a time calculation but it was interesting that health care moved this way. >> kind of incredible. ashley parker is a "washington post" reporter for the white house. >> breaking news now, a big setback for advocates of transgender rights this morning. the u.s. supreme court rejected the appeal in the case involving a virginia student and bathroom access. nbc's justice correspondent pete williams has more on that story. what happened? >> reporter: the obama administration's policy on

transjend egender right was chay the trump administration. the supreme court asked lawyers on both sides what should we do? they both said you should go ahead and hear the case but the supreme court said, no, we're not going to hear this case. but in a further setback, it also said at a lower court ruling in favor of this transgender student from virginia would be wiped off the books. this transgender student, gavin grimm, that you're looking at there is now a high school student in gloucester county, virginia. when he announced he was transgender, he wanted to use the boys bathroom. the school said he could. then the school board said he couldn't. grimm appealed and the fourth circuit court of appeals ruled in his favor. it relied on title 9, saying schools can't discriminate on the basis of sex and the court that issued that ruling said that the department of education had written a policy letter interpreting that law and said

discrimination on the basis of sex is basically the same as discrimination on the basis of jnd a gender identity. that was the issue coming to the supreme court. the trump administration rescinded that letter that the appeals court had in part relied on so now it goes back to the appeals court, which i suppose could send it back to the trial court. gavin grim will be long graduated before this issue gets back to the supreme court. it could stay alive. the issue is still a relevant one and there a handful of cases in the lower courts that raise a similar issue. this case is probably coming back to the supreme court but for now it is a setback. the aclu, which represented gavin grimm, called this a detour but not the end of the road. >> we'll follow it closely. back to you. pete williams. >> the president has asked congress to investigate his unsubstantiated claim that president obama wiretapped trump tower.

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u.s. marine corps. the defense department is investigating potentially hundreds of marines after nude

photos of their female colleagues were discovered on social media. miguel almaguer has more on this. >> reporter: ali, good morning. despite its morning, the few, the proud, the marines may be anything but proud this morning after a scandal that was first brought to light by a former marine himself. mistrust rocking the marine corps, following troubling allegations of cyber betrayal, pictures of more than two dozen naked women surfacing on a private facebook page called marines united with almost 30,000 followers. the network allegedly solicited photos of female service members who were identified by their full name, rank and duty station. some of the photos apparently taken without the women's knowledge. more than 2,500 comments, which

c contained graphic language. brennan found the pictures on facebook. >> seeing a woman i knew, a woman i'm friends with inside of that google drive was what sent it home for me. >> reporter: a marine corps spokesperson said it's deeply concerned about this behavior, that it eruds trust and degrades the individuals. >> this is a select group of criminals that are sexually exploiting people. >> reporter: but according to brennan, this may be just the tip of the iceberg. active duty marine lance corporate melissa woytek said her photos ended up on marines

united and other other sites on multiple occasions. >> it's disgraceful, people who are willing to die for this country is such disrespect and disregard. >> reporter: the marines say they are investigating. that facebook page has been taken down. >> thank you. breaking nuews now, president trump just signed a revised immigration order. we'll have more on that right after this break. americans - 83% try to eat healthy. yet up 90% fall short in getting key nutrients from food alone. let's do more. add one a day 50+ a complete multi-vitamin with 100% daily value of more than 15 key nutrients. one a day 50+.

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president trump's explosive allegations over the weekend claiming that president obama ordered trump tower bugged in october just prior to the election has set off a firestorm of controversy. it's not the only contentious issue this embattled white house is dealing with today. any moment now the white house is expected to roll out its revised travel ban order. we believe the president has signed it. let me tell you a little bit about that now. the order we believe goes into effect on march 16th. that's been widely reported. we heard president trump's

adviser saying that today. that's a slower roll-out than the instant enactment of the last order. the white house was defending the fact that any roll-out allows people a window to take advantage of it. it also removes the preference for religious minorities in the original ban. that was language used by critics and legal opponents that practiced religious discrimination. green card legal residents are reportedly exempt from this one. that was also an issue of confusion. most importantly, it keeps the temporary ban on six of the seven countries named. it does not include iraq in this, and that's because there was a lot of criticism that that hurts the u.s. efforts fighting isis in iraq. there are a lot more details which we'll get to you as soon as we have confirmation and as soon as we see that reporting or the announcement from the department of homeland security. let's talk about that and a number of other issues with the

president of voter latino and msnbc contributor norm ornstein and richard painter. maria theresa, let's start with you. we're expecting secretary of homeland security john kelly, secretary of state rex tillerson and attorney general jeff sessions to unveil the details. we're standing by live. green card legal residents are now exempt. that was a major objection to the original ban, though that really fizzled with even the white house saying they didn't mean to make green card holders part of this thing. >> i still think there's a lot of confusion. the fact that iraq is not longer on the list shows that the list was more or less cobbled together willy nilly. more reports of why iraq is no longer on the list because the

iraqi government did a full court press saying by putting them on the list, one of our largest allies when it comes to fighting isis was going to be much more vulnerable. i understand you had tillerson and mattis going back into the white house saying we need to take them off because you're going to destabilize a relationship that we have been trying to firm up. i can tell you right now there's a lot of chaos. just 13 minutes ago, the nigerian government basically told their countrymen if they're planning on traveling to the united states, they should only do so if they really need to because a whole plane full -- several niegerians were turned away at the airport, even though they had visas. there's still chaos. >> it keeps the ban on six countries and removes iraq from that. "the iraqi ministry of foreign

affairs express its deep relief for the executive order of the u.s. president concerning lifting iraqis from the travel ban. such a decision is considered an important step toward promoting the strategic alliance between baghdad and washington." do you think it's important they lifted iraq from this? >> it's very helpful. we've spent almost $1 trillion on the war and to establish a stable government in iraq. to turn our backs on them like president trump did in the first executive order is outrageous. so that's very helpful he's done that. the six other countries, however, all of them are countries where there is no trump hotel, where the trump organization doesn't do business and then we have countries like saudi arabia and united emirates

where terrorists have come over from those countries and they're not on the list. i'd like to get a lot more information about how this list was put together, other than it being based on where the trump organization has their financial interests. and furthermore, a travel ban, a blanket travel bean like this i not really the best way to deal with a terrorist threat. terrorists come into the united states from all over the world. we need to not single out or protect their countries. >> norm, let me ask you about this question of james comey, who we know asked the justice department to reject the accusations that president obama had ordered a wiretap. the white house still sticking to the president's claims without any evidence. listen to this. >> just so we're clear on this one specific point, is his information that president obama tapped his phone based solely on something he read in the media? yes or no?

>> i haven't had the chance to have the conversation directly with the president and he's at a much higher classification than i am. he may have access to documents i don't know about. >> he's the president of the united states. he has information and intelligence that the rest of us do not and that's the way it should be for presidents. but given, if we don -- again, know, let's find out together. >> i have a couple of reactions to that. pt preside the president has access to information, it sound like he's getting secret information coming from mark levin in the fillings in his teeth. beyond that i would say the president is calling for an investigation. it's time for an independent investigation with an independent prosecutor to look into all of this. it seems obvious to me that beyond the sort of rants based on a cable or a talk radio host rant, that this is also designed

to shore up trump support in a tribal way among republicans, core republicans so that the republicans in congress who are his last line of defense as the news tightens and all of this news about russia will stay in line because they're fearful that the base will turn on them and that trump will get breitbart and talk radio and sean hannity to go after those a ap apostates. >> let me bring in senator koons. senator, thank you for being with us. what do you do about had wiretapping accusation? when you get into your office on monday morning, where do you even start? what do you? >> well, first, unfortunately, i reflect on the president's long

history as a candidate, as a private sicitizen on spreading baseless accusations. he dateedicated a long time of saying president obama was not born in the united states and he demanded an investigation which i remind you the republican congress has not picked up. so when i see a series of early a.m. tweets that are outrageous and suggest something unprecedented, i have to look at the history of this president and ask myself whether he has a well deserved reputation of only making allegations that are well founded in truth. he doesn't. that's unfortunate. that puts all of us at risk. it's my hope congress will act

in a deliberate, bipartisan way to get to the bottom about all of the allegations of russian interference in our election and the possibility of collusion of trump campaign's involvement in the collusion. >> the problem as journalists, we have to deal with obamacare, immigration, tax reform, with this russia stuff and now the republican chairman of the house and senate intelligence committee say they'll investigate this. it becomes a bandwidth issue after a while when new fires are lobbed in and congress is taking up doing that. how on earth do you separate this? do you include this obama trapping trump in the investigations or do you disregard that? >> i think any time that a sitting president of the united states makes a deeply concerning or alarming allegation, we need to have it investigated and cleared so that the millions of people who voted for him have

some reassurance that we are doing responsible and thorough oversight, even though i personally think this is a base list allegation. i do think it distracts from our ability to govern. look, ali, i left a meeting earlier today in philadelphia where a whole series of ceos of major corporations and hospitals and universities to give a quote about these tweets. it is distracting us from making progress on the issues that average american families want us to be working together to address. >> what do do you about it? it's frustrating. do you take this as a piecemeal matter or do you as a caucus come together to say this has reached a level of absurdity? what do you? >> in a republican-controlled congress where republicans have the levers of power in both the house and senate, i reach over to my friend, senate

republicans, and say you have a responsibility here to work with us in a nonpartisan way, to speak to the general public about this ongoing and very disconcerting practice by the president to give sort of balanced here's how i intend to govern speech on tuesday and then by the weekend have all of us running around giving answers to questions about an ungrounded and, frankly, alarming accusation. i think the only folks who can really move us forward in a constructive way would be the president's core advisers, who might be able to persuade him to stop tweeting in the middle of the night and the leaders in the republican party in the house and senate who need to step forward and say we're going to get to the bottom of all of these russia allegations and do it in an effective and thorough way rather than stone walling on some element of the investigation that needs to be done. >> senator chris koons is a member of the senate judiciary committee and foreign

committees. maria, let's start with you. to the point that the senator was making, you get it. you're talking to the converted when you talk to the people who you work with, but at some point there is the stuff we have to deal with critically like health care, like tax reform, like immigration, and then there's this stuff that seems like a distraction, to use norm's words, seems to have come through teeth fillings. how do you deal with this? do you get involved in it? do you fight back? do you stay with the stuff you're dealing with of substance? >> i think the administration has demonstrated time and again that they use -- they deeply believe in this theory of distraction. it interesting -- >> maria theresa kumar, rex tillerson is at the podium today. >> signed by the president earlier today protecting the nation from foreign terrorist entry into the united states. it's a vital measure for

strengthening our national security. it is the president's solemn duty to protect the american people and with this order president trump is exercising his rightful authority to keep our people safe. as threats to our security continue to evolve and change, common sense dictates that we continually reevaluate and reassess the systems we rely upon to protect our country. while no system can be made completely infallible, the american people can have high confidence we are identifying ways to improve the vetting process and thus keep terrorists from entering our country. to our allies and partners around the world, please understand this order is part of our ongoing efforts to eliminate vulnerabilities that radical islamic terrorists can and will exploit toward destructive ends. the state department will coordinate with other federal agencies and implement these temporary restrictions in an

orderly manner. our embassies and consulates around the world will play an important role in making sure that our nation is secure as it can be. and the state department will implement the provisions in this order that allow for the admissions of refugees when it has determined they do not pose a risk to the security or welfare of the united states. upon the president's initial executive order issued on january the 27th, the state department's counselor of affairs and diplomatic security offices immediately undertook a review in coordination with the department of homeland security to identify additional measures that would strengthier our vetting of those seeking entry to to the united states from seven named countries. those early efforts were concentrated on iraq. iraq is an important ally in the fight to defeat isis. with their brave soldiers fighting in close coordination with america's men and women in

uniform. this intense review over the past month identifies multiple security measures that the state department and the government of iraq will be implementing to achieve our shared objective of preventing those with criminal or terroristic intent from reaching the united states. i want to express my appreciation to prime minister al abaddy of iraq for his positive engagement and support for implementing these actions. the united states welcomes this kind of close cooperation with countries in every region of the world who share our commitment to national security. this revised order will bolster the security of the united states and her allies. now, we've spent the morning briefing the congress, the press and we will continue to talk with key stake holders this afternoon. experts from the department of homeland security, the department of justice, and the state department hosted an hour-long call with the media on

this topic this morning. our collective teams will continue throughout the day to follow up with the congress, the media and stakeholders to answer your questions. i'll now turn it to the attorney general for his comments. >> thank you, mr. secretary. and good morning to all of you. one of the justice department's top priorities is to protect the united states from threats to our national security. therefore, i want to discuss two points. firsts are the national security basis of this order and, second, the department of justice's role in defend being ting the lawful of the president of the united states. first, as president trump noted in his address to congress, the majority of people convicted in our courts for terrorism-related offenses since 9/11 came here from abroad. we also know that many people seeking to support or commit terrorist acts will try to enter through our refugee program.

in fact, today more than 300 people, according to the fbi, who came here as refugees are under an fbi investigation today for potential terrorism-related activities. like every nation, the united states has a right to control who enters our country and who keep out those who would do us harm. this executive order seeks to protect the american people, as well as lawful immigrants, by putting in place an enhanced screening and vetting process for visitors from six countries. three of these nations are state sponsors of terrorism. the other three have served as safe havens for terrorist countries, countries where governments have lost control of their territory to terrorist groups like isil or al qaeda and its affiliates. this increases the risk that

people are admitted here from these countries may belong to terrorist groups or may have been radicalized by them. we cannot compromise our nation's security by allowing visitors entry when their own governments are unable or unwilling to provide the information we need to vet them responsibly. or when those governments activity support terrorism. this executive order responsibly provide as needed pause so we can carefully review how we scrutinize people coming here from these countries of concern. second, the department of justice believes that this executive order, just as the first, ti executive order, is a lawful and proper exercise of presidential authority. this department of justice will defend and enforce lawful orders of the president consistent with the core principles of our constitution. the executive is empowered under

the constitution and by congress to make national security judgments and to enforce our immigration policies in order to safeguard the american public. terrorism is clearly a danger for america and our people. the president gets briefings on these dangers and emerging threats on a regular basis. the federal investigative age y agency, the intelligence community, the department of o homeland security and the united states military report to the president. knowing the president would best possession such extensive information, our founders wisely gave the executive branch the authority and the duty to protect the nation. this executive order is a proper exercise of that power. now i will turn things over to

our able secretary, john kelly, of the department of homeland security. john? >> like the secretary of state and the torattorney general, i welcome you here today. last week the department of homeland security celebrated its anniversary opening its doors in march of 2003. on september 11th, terrorists turned a beautiful and ordinary day into a nightmare. those attacks taught us we could not take our nation's security for granted, that homeland security must be our top priority and that we needed to overcome our inability to connect the dots and make them into a more comprehensive picture of america and our way of life. though more has changed in the

past 14 years, in the world that is more dangerous and dhs, which is much better. our minutes often use our own freedoms and generosity against us. the executive order president trump signed this morning will make america more secure and address long overdue concerns about the security of our immigration system. we must undertake a rigorous review and are undertaking a rigorous review and cannot risk the process of a benevolent system to take american lives. this focuses on prevents foreign nationals from the sixes dig na -- six designated countries. nothing affects permanent

residents with current authorization to enter our homeland. unregulated, unvetted travel is not a privilege, especially when norfolk is at take. the white house worked with the department of homeland security and department of justice to create an order that protects the homeland and every one of our citizens. the men and women of the department of homeland security like their brothers and sisters throughout law enforcement are decent men and women of character and conscience. they are no less so than the governors of our states and territories, of our senators and members of congress, of our city mayors and various advocacy groups. these men and women are sworn to enforce the laws as passed by the united states congress and would be in violation of the law and their sworn oaths if they did not do so.

we do not make the law but are sworn to enforce it. we have no other option. we are going to work closely to implement and enforce it humanely, respectfully andhuman respectfully and with professional but we will enforce the law. i thank the president for his leadership on this issue and for his steadfast support for our important law enforcement security and counterterrorism mission. as previously mentioned i have spent much of the day today on the phone with members of congress, the leadership, explaining the ins and outs of this. there should be no surprises whether it's in the media or on capitol hill. thanks very much. thanks for your time. >> is this an acknowledgment that the first order was flawed in many ways and not well thought out? >> mr. attorney general have you spoken to fbi director comey today? >> there you have it.

>> and there you have it. the attorney general jeff sessions secretary of state rex tillerson and department of homeland security secretary john kelly leaving after announcing the new travel ban without taking questions from reporters. some substantial changes but essentially it remains travel ban similar in nature to the initial one that was issued on january 27th. i want to go right to the white house, chris jansing is standing by, having listened in with us. we've got our whole team there, no norm, pete williams, and ari melber. chris, start with you. >> reporter: the most important thing that we didn't hear is what we heard on that call, they referenced a one-hour long call, emphasizing the fact they believe there is nothing wrong with the law that they put out, legally with the first travel ban. having said that they made these

changes, significantly don't make major changes but there is one thing it affects when you look at the revised immigration order, you see it's 90-day hold on issuing visas, 120 days on refugee admissions worldwide. what they don't answer is what the strategy is going forward, how you present this to congress. already even while they were still speaking chuck schumer puts out a statement saying "a watered down ban is still a ban." they did make the point that the white house is going to be repeating throughout the day the rightful authority of the president to keep american people safe. having said that, then why they were asked why is there this delay until march 16th? you remember the president tweettweet ed back in february "the security of our nation is at stake" and before that reince priebus asked on "meet the press" why it went into effect so quickly without any warning. he said "you don't want people to do bad things to americans."

>> right. >> reporter: there is the argument the white house will continue to make but we won't see the president today. we did not see him sign this executive order. although there will be questions asked of reince priebus later they will not be on camera, ali. this has been a full week since the white house press briefing has not been on camera. >> of course we did hear this might be happening last week, and then there was a delay to that. >> repeatedly. >> senator chuck schumer also said delaying its announcement so the president could bask in the aftermath is an interesting point. let's go to pete williams our justice correspondent. pete? >> well a couple of things, ali. first of all, we had a graphic that shows how this is different from the old one. it also no longer contains a preference for certain religious minorities among refugees based on their religion. very important legal point is that there is a section in the new executive order that specifically revokes or rescinds

the original executive order that was signed by the president on january 27th. now, it was that executive order that gave rise to a number of legal challenges, most importantly a lawsuit filed by washington, joined by minnesota, that was upheld. their claim was upheld by the ninth circuit court of appeals that blocked enforcement of this just a few days after it was issued. now the legal question is, well, what happens to all those court holds? as a purely legal matter, that original one that's the subject of all the lawsuits is gone. so presumably the stay that's now in effect on enforcement, the original stay issued by the budge in washington state would evaporate, would be my guess, based on the fact that the original order is rescinded. there's nothing now to stay enforcement of. it would be up to the challengers here to go back to the court in washington state, and say, you know, let's get the same order again, because this

is substantially the same order. it's i think going to make it a little harder for the states to make their case, though, because it narrows, it specifically leaves out green cardholders which seem to be a problem for the ninth circuit and may make it harder for the states to make a claim that they're injured here but we'll see how that plays out. we've asked the attorney general in washington what he thinks of this and we haven't heard back yet. >> let's bring inry in, dealing with the green card issue and religion issue and to pete's interesting point rescinds the old order. what do you make of this? >> to echo what pete was saying, section 13 the old travel ban is "revoked as of the effective date of this order" that means essentially in ten days when this starts the other one is completely revoked and that will be fought over surely in court as to what to do about that. couple other big highlights here also echoing the point on the change religious language, this is somewhat unusual to see in an

executive order but there has been unusual developments, this new order basically tries to make the case that they were never trying to help only one religion or only christians in the original order and there is factual support for that, depending on how you would apply it. the brand new order "that previous travel ban was quote not motivated by animous toward any religion but instead to protect the ability of religious minorities, whoever they are and wherever they reside to avail themselves of basically potential refugee status." translation, this wasn't a muslim ban and the fact that we're changing it cording to the administration's arguments a further reinforcement of their willings to try to go above and beyond to show it's not a mumz li muslim ban. that's a point of contention. another quick point how this is so different, the original order and this was a problem in court, didn't really explain why they picked these countries. here i'm looking at a description of each of the six countries and data and information that the

administration says supports it. so i will tell you this. in many way this is is similar in bulk form to the original travel ban, but it has been done in a much more professional manner at least. >> norm, it also says that department of homeland security is meant to release information on the threat posed by immigrants every 180 days. every six months we're going to prove our point that immigration from these countries is dangerous. >> and so that opens up the door for yet another executive order with another travel ban or other things to take place. it may also be designed to counter at least a little bit the leaked story of homeland security document that said there was no reason to pick on these particular six countries. you know, one other thing about that rollout the comments by secretary kelly which didn't just talk about the order but defended the department of homeland security and the people in the immigration and customs

area, saying that they were all wonderful people trying to dot right thing. they would enforce the law and do it humanely. that's obviously in part a response to the erratic and sometimes utterly cruel behavior that wre have seen at the bordes including things like interrogating mohammad ali jr., an american, about his religion, including separating families and blocking people from countries other than those six. there's some defensiveness there and appropriately so. we'll see if he actually does change the behavior of people who are working for him who aren't doing this the right way. >> final comment, maria, i cut you off as this thing was getting started. you were in the middle of a thought. i'll let you finish your thought. >> i think what norm said is right. the fact that secretary kelly came back saying that we are enforcing the laws, but we will do so humanely also gives a

little bit light into the department of homeland security may not be completely on board to this. the fact that 12 days ago ap basically leaked a document saying that the homeland security had found that there was no significant threat by any of these seven countries listed demonstrates maybe they're not lock step and center with the administration but feel they have so because they have to enforce the laws. >> maria, thank you so much for that, norm, thank you as well. ari melber and pete williams and chris jansing for helping me out during this hour of "msnbc live." you can find me on twitter, facebook and instagram and on snapchat. right now on msnbc, "andrea mitchell reports." >> thank you very much. breaking news, travel ban 2.0. just moments ago the white house rolling out a new version of the president's most controversial executive order. but this time without the president in the room, no pictures of him at all signing

it, and key members of the national security cabinet are in the loop. >> it is the president's solemn duty to protect the american people, and with this order, president trump is exercising his rightful authority to keep our people safe. >> this executive order responsibly provides a needed pause so we can carefully review how we scrutinize people coming here from these countries of concern. >> unregulated unvetted travel is not a universal privilege, especially when national security is at stake. >> explosive charges. the president unleashing a storm of controversy accusing president obama of tapping the phones at trump tower before the election but providing no evidence to support that claim. now fbi director james comey wants the justice department to clear his agency of wiretapping mr. trump. the nation's top spy at the time