there's a lot going for him here. however, he's going to campaign for this certainly, if thing goes awry, could imagine him turning the fire back at congress and putting it on their shoulders for the next election. >> all right. the vote in the house, we are a week away, major tampa bay rays, caitlin, betsy, thanks. mtp daily starts now. if it's wednesday, who knew health care so was complicated? tonight, who's plan is it anyway? the gop's identity crisis seeps into the health care debate. >> i'll call it trumpcare if you want to. >> this is a team sport. surgeon turned republican senator john barrasso joins know discuss. political chess. we'll talk to chess master gary casperroff. and awkward double date, guess who's coming to dinner at the white house? this is mtp daily that starts

right now. good evening. i'm chuck todd here in new york city. and welcome to mtp daily. folks the republican health care plan already has an identity crisis because the republican party still has an identity crisis, at least when it comes to ideology. the health care fight is exposed the growing divide between the party's old fashioned movement conservative base and it's new nationalist president. right now the white house and gop leaders are aggressively trying to unite those two warring factions and in fact in just a few minutes at the white house, president trump is scheduled to meet with conservative groups who are bashing the current plan to repeal and replace obamacare. some on the right are slamming as trumpcare, others are slamming it as ryancare. no matter what they're calling it, others call it obamacare-lite. they don't like it. it seems as if the republican party isn't quite sure what the bill is supposed to do. why? because the party isn't quite sure what it's supposed to be in this new era of trumpism.

their political goal is clear, keep the promise to repeal and replace. the policy goal, unclear. is the goal to cover more people in the mold of a nationalist or to lower cost in the mold of a conservative? there are some health care experts who say this plan won't do either. or, is the goal merely to keep mr. trump's campaign promise to do something? that seems to be house speaker paul ryan's argument today. here's the problem, right now the conservative opposition to this health care plan appears to be hardening. >> the bill is written is not going to pass the senate. >> this is smoke and mirrors when we suggest that we're going to dupe the american people. this is just obamacare with a different label. >> is this proposal dead? >> yes. it's dead on arrival. this is not what conservatives want. >> appears to be the largest welfare program ever proposed by republicans in the history of our country. >> and if you recall brooks began that answer by telling me he was undecided on the bill. when house speaker paul ryan held his press conference today, he was insistent that

republicans will get on board, but his argument didn't seem to be rooted in policy, instead his message boiled down to one word, promises. >> i have no doubt we'll pass this because we're going to keep our promises. every house republican, every -- i think every republican in congress, including the president of the united states, made a promise to the american people. and the promise we made to the american people is we're going to repeal and replace obamacare. because we made that promise, i am confident we're going to make good on that promise. >> there you go. here's the other big question right now amid the conservative backlash, who owns this bill? when house speaker paul ryan met behind closed doors with his caucus today, his message was clear, according to to the source who spoke to nbc news, the message was this, this is the president's plan. but yesterday at the white house, president trump was clear, this is the house plan. according to to the associated press, vice president pence just said, the house proposal can be improved. and there is disagreement inside the white house about how

willing they are to stamp this as certified trump when it comes to this plan. >> how does the white house and you feel about the label trumpcare? >> oh, i'll let others provide a description for it. i prefer to call it patientcare. >> trumpcare if you want to, but i didn't hear president trump say to any of us, hey, i want my name on that. >> here's the big problem. the party doesn't have the luxury of time to figure this out. they've created urgency on the issue of health care. so it's either now or never. i'm joined by john barrasso of wyoming. who is a member of the republican leadership on the senate side. serves as the republican policy committee chair. also a medical doctor, senator barrasso, see, i had a lot of introductory titles for you there, so my apologies. >> thanks, chuck. good to be with you. >> senator, i know you are -- you came out yesterday supportive of this plan. you are well aware of where many conservatives whom you share a lot of views with many of these conservative senators, but not on this issue.

what do you say to rand paul who says, this plan is dead on arrival in the united states senate? >> rand has a lot of good ideas. all of these members have a lot of good ideas that we're considering and working through and chuck, i will tell you, the reason there's a sense of urgency is obamacare is collapsing. in my home state of wyoming, they're basically down to one choice for buying insurance under the exchange, and it continues to go up over 25% last year, the year before, the huge double digit increases with huge co-pays and by next year, there's going to be places all around the country where nobody is selling on the exchange. obamacare is collapsing, we need to do something. that's the sense of the urgency. >> well, some would argue, senator, that it's a chicken and egg thing, if you believe it's collapsing, it's because many insurers hear that you guys are going to repeal and replace it. so let's set that chicken and egg -- you guys have made it, you have to do this first.

you've made is statutorily that you have to deal with this first. so i guess walk me through how you're going to get these factions together at this point. especially since i think you have to do this without a single democratic vote. >> well, first of all, this was collapsing way before the presidential election. so either whether hillary clinton or donald trump was elected president, we would be having to do this right now, no matter who won the presidential election because insurance companies had sold out, young people were not buying, and half of the people that were thought to have been ready to sign up by last year, only half of them actually did sign up. so this has been an ongoing problem with obamacare. so we believe we have a responsibility, and i have a commitment to try to provide affordable health care for the american people, and that's what this is aimed at doing. i think this is a monumental shift away from obamacare. it's a significant improvement over obamacare, is it perfect? no. are they going to have debate,

discussion, amendments? absolutely. >> you know, one of the critiques on the right has been this is an obamacare-lite. and the argument is this, senator, i understand there's many parts of it that change, but that the architecture is essentially very similar to obamacare because frankly, if you're going to have this mix of a public private partnership, it's going to be structured, at least, you know, from 30,000 feet, somewhat like this. do you accept that -- one might say critiques, others might say a compliment, that z this is a form of obamacare-lite? >> this is lights out on obamacare. the opportunity to actually reform, update, modernize, medicaid, and entitlement program, that is dysfunctional, but has been what basically obamacare man all about because over half of the additional people covered under obamacare got that way by being on medicaid. this is our opportunity the first time in 50 years to do

fundamental entitlement reform, and i want to embrace that opportunity and get the job done. >> is the goal of this bill, is what? is the primary goal to lower costs, is the primary goal more coverage? >> it's affordability, so that more people can actually get coverage. many people have been priced out of the market under obamacare, even with the subsidies, people weren't signing up because they felt it was a bad deal. so many people that had obamacare coverage, the co-pay was so high, they said, i have coverage, but i can't go and actually see a doctor. it was coverage without care. the networks were so narrow. so my goal is to provide access to affordable insurance so they can have affordable care, and that that way you want more people to be able to have it. >> you say access to it, but it may come with less dollars to buy it. >> well, if you actually are successful in lowering the cost of care, no one would need as

many dollars to buy it. >> senator, that's a promise that seemed to be a reach when president obama made it, and frankly -- when has any prediction that somehow the cost of health care is going to go down, based on some intervention by the government, when has that prediction ever come true? >> that's why i'm trying to get the decisions chuck, out of washington and to the states. get this out of government control and into patient control. make -- let people at home make the decisions that's best for them, and part of that is letting them buy what works for them and they can afford. you know, under obamacare, people have had to fwhie so-called essential health benefits chafs huge basket of insurance for many people. and certainly i hear about it every weekend in wyoming, i heard about it at a health fair in buffalo, wyoming, this past weekend, they said look, it was insurance, i didn't want it, couldn't afford, didn't need, it was too much, it wasn't right for me.

the president said i had to buy it, but, it wasn't right for me and my family. and we to want have people have that choice. >> let me close with this, the bill in a you pass through the senate, are you going to be able to promise the american people that it means you can get more insurance for a lower cost? >> well, you could get insurance that's better for you at a lower cost. that's the goal, but we've got to see what comes out of the house, comes to the senate, get passed the senate and put on president trump's desk. but i am committed to long-term solutions for affordable care. that's what i want to work on as a doctor, as well as a senator. >> senator john barrasso, member of the leadership and the senate side. from wyoming, always a pleasure, sir, thanks for coming on. >> thanks chuck. let me bring in tonight's panel. katie tur, of course has been covering the trump now white house and campaign throughout the last couple of years, and joel benson was a senior

strategist to hillary clinton's presidential campaign and now an analysis. welcome all. charlie, this is your party. and so, we looked at this health care -- that it feels as if it's exposing the identity crisis -- look, both parties have identity crisis, one's in charge, it's the republicans, and this is exposing it. >> yeah, you didn't know better, you'd think that after eight years in opposition, they don't have a governing philosophy that being in charge is harder than being in opposition. but yeah, you are seeing that. and i think you're going see this push/pull come, you can call this ryancare, call this trumpcare, and i would suggest keep your eye on all of that because we're in early days now. a lot of what the senator had toe say 12 true about obamacare. the problem is it's unclear, does the republican plan, does the trump/ryan plan, will it fix it or make it better? nobody's knows what's in the plans. they're going to be trying to ram it through in three weeks. at a time when people are going looking over their shoulder and going, okay, this is real stuff.

this is real life. this is, you know -- there are real winners and losers in all of this. this is going to be a real test of political clout and whether there's any principle left in the republican party. >> joel, let me go -- get on the partisan side before i bring katie in which is, i go back to, i hear the promises that the republicans are making about health care. and i'm sorry, i heard the same promises from the obama administration. you know, there's this belief -- and i have to say, there were a lot of cynics going really, you think you're going to cover more people and bring the cost of health care down and all of this. yes, i saw, oh you bend the cost curve over time and we'd hear all that. and now i hear reasonables now in leadership trying to twist themselves into a pretzel, making the same claims. that are probably not true. >> look, wung thing we do know obamacare did, it reduced the number of uninsured by millions of people, 11 to 12 million more people got coverage under obamacare. bending -- >> criticism, mostly medicaid. >> okay. but then let's take medicaid, you can see the difficulty that senator barrasso has.

giving states block grants in medicaid doesn't expand health care coverage. what it does, it expands emergency room use in all of these states which are going to drive up the costs even more. no one would sit here, i certainly won't, and say obamacare did everything it needed to do in six years on bending the cost curve, we didn't. the cost is still too high. this was a bill, it was difficult to pass, took 14 months. i love when i hear republicans say it was jammed down people's throats and now have committees voting and here's what you know about the weakness of this plan is. they want people to voten to before the cbo scores this on how much it'll cost and how many people will lose coverage. >> katie, i want to get at a topic that you know well which is trump's level of patience for all of this. and this is patience, not the patients that's the doctor, but other patience. first i want to play a montage of all the promises that candidate trump made about health care. >> universal health care. >> i am going to take care of everybody. i don't care if it costs me votes or not.

everybody's going to be taken care of. much more than now. here's where i'm different. i don't want people dying on the streets. i they all the time. if somebody is sick and really sick and they don't housing and they don't have -- becan't let them die. >> all americans will get health care. >> we're going to take care of them. we have take care of them. >> katie, he is not where the house conservatives are philosophically. that is clear. the question is when does that -- -- >> when does that clash? >> when does that clash? >> that is unclear. if you watched the white house briefing today, sean spicer said this, we shouldn't be talking about how many people are covered, we should be talking about the quality of the coverage that is being offered, which seems to say, we're going to realize that -- >> lose in a number's game. we're going lose in a number's game. we're not going to cover as many people. and the talk about not letting people die on the streets and he was certainly more on the -- i guess you could say liberal end of the spectrum when he was talking about health care on that regard on the campaign trail, with their taking away

certain a. coverage and if you're -- there's no mandate for requiring you to pay in if you're not going to get health care, but if you suddenly need health care, the money that you're going to need to pay if there is some sort of lapse is astronomical which will be completely prohibited. people will end up going to those emergency rooms, they will end up not being able to afford those bills, and that will end up being put on the backs of everybody else. >> and what does he do when the cbo score does come and showing what 10 to 15 million people are going to lose health care? >> the white house discredits it. >> yes. that would be -- >> which is what they did today. >> also, this is something that you have to watch, and this is why i would suggest keeping a close eye on the conservative media, with the breitbarts and the drudges to the extend to which they try to separate trump to give him an escape hatch. he is clearly not i'd logically committed to this plan because he's not i'd logically committed to anything. >> breitbart has been referring to it has it as ryancare. that's a tell. >> that is very much a tell.

>> but interesting here, joel, at some point, i feel as if -- i could picture joe manchin and rob and portman and cher record brown going to him and saying with don't block grant medicaid. my states that voted for you are not going to like that. and i think that can have an effect on trump. the question is, is when does that moment happen? >> well, and i don't know if that moment ever happens. i think they're hearing that loudly and clearly from a lot of folks who are in medicaid states where they expanded it and it's helped coverage. but i think it's going to be difficult for trump to separate himself from this at some point, only because he's the president of the united states. there's this guy named harry trueman who had a sign on his desk that says the bus stops here. >> didn't president obama try to blame -- there was a moment they were like oh it's congress is holding this up. the congress health care plan, no, no, no, buddy, it ends up on the president's desk. >> i'm going to disagree. we haven't seen a circumstance where he has been blamed for something that did not work,

among his supporters. and among those who want to see him succeed. he also campaigned on congress not being able to do anything. so -- >> if he's having a bill, katie, he has to take ownership and put something out there. he said in all of those clips, we're going to cover everybody -- >> but he -- >> if he wins, he owns it. >> shoots this down -- >> and i haven't seen political gravity apply to donald trump yet and i will be surprised the day it does. >> she makes a fair point. >> approval rating sink well after first term president -- >> campaign were certainly high then. >> i understand, but now you're comparing him to previous presidents. >> i understand. >> health care is different. it's personal. there are winners and losers. it affects people's lives. it's not like a debate about the border tax or about infrastructure which is intellectual. this goes right to the heart of his constituents. and you're right, we haven't seen it yet. what happens when you have people in rural ohio begin to realize, okay, this is my health care. this is the uncertainty -- and

there's a reason why everybody's been destroyed when they touch health care. >> and i have to tell you, i'm going to stop it here, wait until phase two and phase three, you're like, i heard that from the obamacare world. once you dhang, it's yours. charlie, you are here for the hour. it's no secret the russians were thrilled to see donald trump elected. they wanted him to win afterall. but what does vladimir putin now want? i'll ask russian chess grand master when become back. my business was built with passion... but i keep it growing by making every dollar count. that's why i have the spark cash card from capital one. with it, i earn unlimited 2% cash back on all of my purchasing. and that unlimited 2% cash back from spark means thousands of dollars each year going back into my business... which adds fuel to my bottom line. what's in your wallet?

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well, yeah. if you're one you're looking live at what we expected to be a bipartisan group of senators making a coordinated foush condemn rooub for meddling in the election, but it's been going for about an hour or so. and we've only so far heard from democrats. no republicans yet. >> russia attacked the united states of america. and our free election system. that's not something to any

dispute today. they attacked america. they interfered with our internal affairs. they tried to influence our election. >> just yesterday, house intel chair devin nunes announced the first public hearing will be march 20th. they've invited james comey to testify. comey told a cyber security conference at boston college today, quote, you're stuck with me, unquote, pointing out he has another six and a half years on the job. that first public house intel hearing by the way will happen the same day as the first confirmation hearing for president trump's nominee to be the u.s. supreme court justice to replace antonin scalia, neil gorsuch. i wonder if that timing was coordinated. it's worth considering whether it is an attempt to bury the russia stoiry a little bit. what vladimir putin's end game may be. one of the most outspoken critics when we come back. in july of '98. i did active duty 11 years. and two in the reserves. our 18 year old was in an accident.

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before the break, the cloud of russia continues to hang over president trump's first month and a half in office. though in russia, his election was mostly met with fanfare, at least in kremlin-run media. recent lay it honeymoon appears to be coming to an end. whether or not vladimir putin could turn on president trump and what happens if he does that? joining me now is gary casperoff. a russian pro-democracy leader and a former world chess champion. he's run for the presidency in russia. he's also author of the book "winter is coming" why vladimir putin and the enemies of the free world must be stopped. always a pleasure, sir. >> thank you. >> let's start with that. we've all determined it seems like the large motivation of vladimir putin to mess with western elections is simply to destabilize the west. fair? >> absolutely. >> what is -- >> and america is not, you know, an exception. so he has been doing it and still doing it in europe because he wants the undermine the council of democracy. those for people in russia and outside.

>> so now that he's watching the first month and a half of this new president trump, and on one hand, he thought, this is great. because foreign policy wise, he's a nationalist, i'm a nationalist. but now word is, he's turning on him. why would he be? >> no, he's not turning on him. russian propaganda, it's russian media they call under total control of vladimir putin is viciously anti-american. despite being anti-american, they do not criticize donald trump personally. >> they separate him. >> exactly. >> they go after obama, obama's loyalists, they harshly criticize the deep state, fbi, cia, i mean, all the forces in the united states who are according to them, conspireing against donald trump, preventing donald trump to make bargains with vladimir putin. coincidentally, this is the same line taken by breitbart and eventually, you know, it's used by trump and his supporters. >> there's always been this other concern that i think that that perhaps folks close to the

president trump have never accepted -- which is this idea that, look, putin was going to destabilize any presidency that happened. his goal was to destabilize our democracy regardless of who won. >> absolutely. >> so in that respect, if he -- is this a case where if trump gets too stable in the job, he'll try to undermine him? >> well, look if trump wanted and still wants relations with putin, why to lie about all russian contacts? because it's always russia and all the news about ties between russia and trump and his staff met with counterattacks with lies and denials. it's always russia, not saudi arabia, not china, not brazil, it's always russia and lies and denials. now trump is blaming obama. for everything that went wrong. and i meet him half way. that i believe obama. >> reporter: you were a tough critic. you thought he was way too weak on putin. he may think that now. >> maybe, i think this is -- obama's weak policies, one of

the main reasons why u.s. elections has been hacked and we have an american administration with more russian connections than ever. and, you know, if you like this consistently, it means you have something to hide and trump lied about him not being involved in changing over support of ukraine. michael flynn lied about speaking about russian ambassador about sanctions. jeff sessions lied about meeting russians, page doesn't remember his own name. so, why lie all the time? i think, you know, we have to insist, you know, on a full investigation of these ties. because otherwise, you know, we'll never find whether there was something, you know, much more sinister than simple, you know, emu which will admiration of two leaders. >> we were showing earlier, and there is bipartisan criticism of vladimir putin in the united states congress. and there is a good chunk of the republican party that was with you for the longest time.

in fact, would champion your criticism of barack obama being too weak on putin. has this oddly backfired -- was putin too successful in some cases and now the reaction to trump, the fear of being seen as too close to russia, that it's actually is now going to make it harder for putin ever to find allies in the united states? >> you know, it will have temporary success. as always, you know, dictators, they do much better tactically, it was a tactical success for putin. strategically it's his loss. now bipartisan correlation and sooner or later, we'll see the united states changing it's policy quite dramatically and, you know, countering putin's efforts to destabilize the world. >> what you're seeing in europe right now with what he's doing in france. what is happening in germany, what is next for him? is this going to continue to be this strategy? >> no, actually the -- what's next for putin depends on what happens here. because, right now, people in the baltic states, in ukraine,

eastern europe, western europe, they all, you know -- they all contemplated what u.s. foreign policy is. is it what serious guys like general mattis are saying to eu, european union and nato on the weekday? or is what donald trump tweets with four exclamation marks at 6:00 a.m. on saturday? >> i want to get your expertise on something here. over the last few months, there have been a ton of mysterious deaths of high-ranking russian officials. some of whom may -- is this a coincidence? there have been heart attacks, natural causes -- but it all seems to be inside -- >> this time -- >> connected to the united states. >> yes. >> what do you read, the whole list -- there's no direct connection, is this a coincidence or are you suspicious? >> i always say, i do believe in coincidences, but i believe in kgb. we're dealing with vladimir putin and his ruthless

organization that is willing to do anything to protect their lead percent. >> the total cynic would look at that, look at this list of mysterious deaths in the last and say huh, i wonder if this is them getting ribd of anybody that was involved in this operation. >> you know, again, if we're in a court of law of course, you know, you can disregard everything as big conspiracy. but there's too much circumstantial evidence. you look at the conflicts between trump and his people and russian authorities. then look at all of these dossiers, and as you mention now, talking about this mysterious death and russian officials. so when you start adding it up, you know, it's a very, you know, disturbing picture. and again, you know, united states congress, united states must start a full scale investigation. but it's american national interest. it's a fate of democracy, not only in this country, but worldwide. and unless we go to the bottom of that, you know, we all, you know, be there. >> we have heard the ambassador

that russia's ambassador be described as a spy master. is that overdoing it? >> i don't know. it doesn't matter. definitely he has been reporting to back to moscow and if he has another spy master in embassy doesn't change the equation. and is that vladimir putin and by the foreign minister. >> wanted to punish the united states. >> which is normal diplomatic practice. you said of 35 guys from washington would do the same for moscow. putin didn't do it which is highly unusual for a strong man because he cannot show weakness. that's against putin's nature. putin's dictator's rule, he did it which means to me, there's only one thing. he trusted michael flynn. michael flynn spoke on behalf of donald trump and he expected to trump to do something, lifting sanctions and improving relations. >> it's clear, you know a lot

more about what's going on than many people in this country. >> never ending story. >> for sure. always a pleasure. thank you. stay with msnbc. by the way, special edition of the rachel maddow show, taking a closer look at russia's influence in american politics. it's titled the russia connection. and it airs tonight at 9:00 p.m. eastern. still ahead here, consider these two facts, fact one, donald trump campaign promising clean air and clean water. fact two, called for the largest cuts ever in the epa. how do you square fact one with fact two? i'm going to ask a former administration, kristen todd whitman when we come back. special edition? because, actually there's five. ooohh!! aaaahh!! uh! hooooly mackerel. wow. nice. strength and style. it's truck month. get 0% financing for 60 months plus find your tag and get $5500 on select chevy silverado pick-ups when you finance with gm financial. find new roads at your local chevy dealer.

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welcome back. if you haven't been on social media. then you probably don't realize this, but today is international women's day with events worldwide calling for equal rights and attention to women's issues and you are looking live right now at the day without women march in new york city. it is part of a nationwide strike of sorts. organized by the same people who put together the massive women's marches the day after president trump's inauguration. still ahead, where president trump's campaign promises on the environment nothing but hot air? but first, here's hampton pearson with the cnbc market wrap. >> thanks chuck. we had stocks closing mostly lower. oil posting it's biggest decline in more than a year. dow down by 69 points. s&p off by five, the nasdaq up by just three points. a win for chipotle with a judge dismissing a lawsuit claiming the chain defrauded

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welcome back, president trump's budget blueprint plans to cut a lot from domestic programs. washington post reports today that the white house is planning double digit cuts to the coast guard, the tsa, and fema to pay for his proposed border wall. and that's just a fraction of what president trump may have in store for the environmental protection agency. according to reports from ap and reuters, epa could soon see a 25% budget cut including removing 3,000 staffers. the budget for the chesapeake bay clean-up project would go to $5 million. the great lakes clean-up project would lose 97% of funding. also on the chopping block,

funding to cut greenhouse gases and 30% of the budget for giving grants to state governments to better air quality. now, president trump says he wants clean air and clean water but wants to dismantle the regulations that help clean some of the air and clean some of that water. take a listen. >> we want clean air. and we want clean water. and other things, but it's gotten to a point, people are making a fortune off of this stuff. and our businesses are being hurt, our manufacturers can't compete, china is over there right now laughing like hell at barack obama because we're stopping our plants from functioning and making it so expensive and not any better pollution wise. >> well, joining me now is a former epa administrator under former president george w. bush, governor whitman, nice to see you. >> always a pleasure. good to see you -- well, i don't see you -- >> fair enough. good stare at you in a camera. let me start with responding to

the president's critiques there. forget -- before we get into the details of the epa budget, did you generally agree with that critique that the epa was too bloated, to big, too much and environmental protection was too much of a priority in the obama administration. do you accept that? >> no, not the whole ball of wax as he said. i mean, we have seen over time that we can grow our economy, grow our energy demand, see our population increase and still double our gdp. i mean, we see that, we have facts that show that. so it's not environmental protection or a clean, green environment or a healthy growing economy. we can do both. and we've got to do both because quite frankly you can't have a healthy economy if you don't have a clean and green environment. if people don't have clean air to breathe and clean water to drink. you need to have all of those things. and while you can see the obama administration certainly used the executive power more than in the past, that's true. and you need to take a look at

that. that's okay. there's nothing wrong with that, but to go in and say i want clean air and clean water, but i'm not going to give the agency any money to do that, and i'm not going give the states any money to do that, when i want to send power back to the states and do more, but i'm going to give them a lot less. just doesn't compute. >> you know, it's interesting when looking at the proposed budget cuts of epa, it feels like it was a political strategist that made the budget, right, and say okay, you know, you'll never be -- you'll never make a conservative mad by just whacking at the epa, and it also feels as if it's not serious. that it was such a whack at epa's budget that it's almost designed -- they know that it's never going to be accepted, but they really want 20 or 30% cuts, so they're going to ask for some extreme number like 97%. do you think that's what this document's about? >> um, i don't think entirely. certainly they're sending a

message to the base. this is one of the easiest places to go because everybody hates regulation. causing them to spend money or change behavior -- >> they hate regulation until there's lead in the water -- >> they like the outcome. >> exactly. they like the outcome of regulation. so it's one or the other. but they do know that a lot of programs will be restored. congress will not let it go through this way. it's their home district. you talked the chesapeake bay, the great lakes clean up, those are things that are important to a whole bunch of constituents of a number of those who are in the congress today. and so, they're going to push back. they will restore, let the magnitude of the cuts that they're putting in with this budget means it's still going to be a largely crippled agency, and it sends you a bit of an understanding of what they're going to do even with what they have left. which is to draw back on reinforcement, probably no new regulations, and they are still going to go after the clean power plan. >> have you met with the new epa

administrator, scott pruitt? >> no. no. i'm not exactly on the list. >> well, i guess -- as a former epa administrator and he doesn't have any experience, as much experience as you had doing it, and you know, here he's got -- in your opinion a republican administration and some at the time thought you weren't pro-business enough because of what you were advocating at the epa. what would you tell scott pruitt to say you know what, this is what you're going learn what the epa really is. you may think it's x, but it's really y. what is that y that you would tell scott pruitt? >> well, the y is it's really about public health and the environment. and what he needs to do as i've said repeatedly is just take a deep breath, get to know the agency, get to understand how much the agency is controlled, what it does by the laws that established it. that congress wrote. i mean, the epa has to consider certain things relative to clean air within certain time frames. they don't have a choice. and on the clean power plan, as far as carbon goes, that's been

adjudicated in the supreme court. and the supreme court found in fact it's called a finding of endangerment, they found this was bad for human health which triggers a responsibility on the epa's part to do something about it to set a regulation. so, he has to understand, truly understand, that the people there are not all wild tree huggers who can't stand, isn't enough regulation for them fir. there are people who want to do their job. they want to protect public health. they want to protect the environment. they'll do it the way you want them to do is as long as they're convinced you're trying to make things better. they understand budget cuts. they've been through it before. they understand the challenges we face, but when they seem so broad-based that there's no thought behind them, that's when you're going to get real pressure. >> what do you hear moral wise in the agency? >> it's pretty low. it's pretty low. they're scared, they're not entirely sure what to expect. and they're not particularly happy with where they find themselves now. >> all right.

kristene todd whitman, former epa administrate. nice to see you through a camera lens. appreciate you coming on. up next, why i think some of our friends at the nation's biggest colleges need a geography lesson. then next tuesday, austin, who doesn't want to be in austin? some days of the week, right? we're going to south by southwest because nobody does that anymore. i'll be hosting a discussion on whether big data is destroying the u.s. political system. if you're in austin, we'd love to see you there. stop by, we'll be right back. ♪ why do so many businesses rely on the u.s. postal service? because when they ship with us, their business becomes our business. ♪ that's why we make more e-commerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country. ♪ here, there, everywhere. united states postal service priority : you

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welcome back tonight i'm obsessed with geography or the integrity of geography when it comes to college athletics. it's of course conference tournament week in college basketball. a solid appetizer for the upcoming feast of march madness. and the atlantic coast conference, the acc, king. college sbaubl holding it's tournament subway ride away from here at the barkley center in brooklyn. you probably are assuming that's why i'm here today. my feelings about new york city are well known, but i'll concede that it is a great basketball town. hard stop. let's be real, brooklyn has absolutely nothing to do with the acc. we're in brooklyn do you find tobacco road? is cameron indoor the name of a warehouse bar? none of the colleges that play basketball in the acc are within 200 miles of new york city. the closest one is not even in new york state. it's boston college.

and that is at least a four and a half hour drive without traffic. look, we already sacrifice a lot when it comes to geographic integrity in college sports. colleges in three states that don't border the atlantic ocean and only one of the three touch salt water, pennsylvania. big east, college in nebraska, and the big ten, four members and big 12 has ten. and play in a city with maybe the tiniest bit of connection to your colleges. or at the very least, somewhere relatively nearby. may even gate few more people in the seats for the weekday afternoon games. that said, acc, there's acc tournament and there's everybody else. we'll be right back. way to say this. it's over. i've found a permanent escape from monotony. together, we are perfectly balanced. our senses awake. our hearts racing as one. i know this is sudden, but they say...if you love something

set it free. see you around, giulia

time for the lid. panel is back. charl charlie sykes, katy tur, joel benenson. let me wrap up, you enjoyed a little time off camera, heard what he said, look, katy, he's

pretty sure exactly how putin operates and more definitive about what happened in his mind probably because he's witnessed russia doing these things, oh by the way, he's had his own life threatened by putin over the years. there isn't that definitiveness in the united states on this yet. >> no. >> there is a lot to glean from him. >> there's not that definitiveness. a lot of smoke, so far no fire. one group of people say, listen, with all this smoke, by now you should have found a fire. you can't keep saying is and saying and saying it. >> the best spin the trump people have right now. >> there's a whole other group that says, listen, you can't have all this smoke without something going on and if there is all this smoke, why would the trump campaign not go above and beyond to be as clear about their connections to russia as they possibly can? and there are others who say but a thebecause there is so much confusion, people like fbi director james comey, need to come out publicly and say we are doing an investigation, we are not doing an investigation. here is what we know, here what

we don't know. trust has been degraded across the board. >> lindsey graham almost spoke to that very point earlier today. take a listen. >> i want to find out was a warrant issued against the trump campaign for illegal legal activity? that's not too much to ask. the answer is either yes or no. if the answer is no, then i think we can move on and say that there was no surveillance by the obama administration through the warrant process, then the question is did they do something illegally? i highly doubt that. >> now, joel, jim clapper on sunday on "meet the press" said, made it about trump tower. said nothing that was associated with trump tower. some people have said is he drawing a distinction there or not? and it seems as if lindsey graham thinks there's a distinction there. that i find -- i think that's worth noting, some people read what clapper said to me as a total, there's no warrants, there was nothing, no surveillance. lindsey graham is hinting he still thinks there may be some surveillance of something or someone. >> i think the issue was about

trump tower. that's what donald trump raised himself. >> correct. >> i think mr. clapper, jim clapper, was being very careful. he was addressing only what was put out there. and you know if you're in any kind of enforcement, intelligence agency, you don't go beyond what you have to deal with in that moment. i think he was very very careful. as for the point about whether there's so much smoke, you already know fire, i think that's baloney. we are at the tip of the iceberg of something unprecedented whether it's true or not here. there are enough things out there this will take time, it will take an investigation, someone with subpoena power to get to the bottom. >> you know, charlie, there was a republican operative quoted if the axios mike allen, i think last week, i love this quote, he says you don't know the smoke is the fire, the way they're handling it, they actually created a fire with all the smoke. >> none of it makes sense if there's nothing there. why did they lie about their contacts? why has nobody come forward and say, yes, we did meet with the russians, told them, stop hacking. what is going to be going on

here? also, why does the president escalate this is a constitutional crisis level by accusing the previous president of committing a felony? so if he wants this to go away, they're doing it in the worst possible way. >> katy, who's spinning the president up on this? somebody intentionally wanted him to see the levin/breitbart stuff. they could have kept that from him. >> i had a conversation with somebody who spoke to donald trump over the weekend about exactly where he got this information. and the person said it was -- it was the breitbart article and he brought up levin and asked what do you think of this, is donald trump -- was barack obama wiretapping me? i don't think it's anybody. i think he woke up on that morning and did his google search, found that breitbart article. >> all right. >> voila. >> there it is. one way to govern. joel, charlie, katy, thank you very much. after the break, love, hate and a dinner date, all at the white house.

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in a string of meetings between the president and his rivals, not just as he called him lyin' ted, on friday, little marco hopping on air force one as they sf flew from d.c. to florida. just yesterday, 1% lindsey graham had lunch with the president and it was so good, lindsey graham gave him his new cell phone number. how about that? we'll see, though, how heidi and ted handle tonight. that's all for tonight. "for the record," though, with greta starts right now. demanding answers. now it's both parties calling for proof from the fbi about president trump's explosive claim that president obama wiretapped him. will the fbi talk? well, they might have to and sooner than you think. also, he rolled his eyes. not reporting on president obama's reaction to trump's twitter accusations. we'll tell you what the former president is reportedly really worried about. also the right hits back. kpr conservatives defy gop lde