house, we are being contained with all of our ideas based upon a senate rule -- cyber trail, the hunt intensifies for whoever leaked the cia's cyber secrets. wikileaks founder julian assange claiming the leak came from a former private contractor. >> if i was the individual involved, i'd worry a great deal about the fact that ultimately they're going to be found out. and inside game. former national security adviser michael flynn, a high-paid lobbyist for turkey, while advising candidate trump on foreign policy, and the white house says it didn't know. >> well, let me say hearing this story today was the first i heard of it, and i fully support the decision that president trump made to ask for general flynn's resignation.

and happy friday, everyone. i'm andrea mitchell in washington, where the trump white house is trying to force feed its health bill to reluctant republicans doing damage control on the unsubstantiated wiretapping allegations against president barack obama and taking comfort today in the trump era's first monthly jobs report and it's a good one. more on that in a moment. joining me nbc's chris jansing at the white house, nbc justice correspondent pete williams. chris first to you. lot on the president's plate, we're about to have this pool spray. let's roll the tape, the president with house committee leaders. let's watch. >> hello, everybody. mr. vice president? >> mr. president. >> hi john. i want to thank each of the

house committee leaders for being with us today, your devotion and leadership has been amazing. i want to just applaud you and the diligent work of your committees to advance the obama cair repeal and replacement legislation that we've been talking about for a long time and that we've been running with, and i ran with and i can tell you, and that's what people want. they want repeal and replace. the bill passed just now through ways and means, and it will i think the committee just voted recently, right? >> yep. >> your other committee. >> energy and commerce. >> energy and commerce, and it was a very good vote, and congratulations. it was a good job, amazing. we must act now to save americans from the imploding obamacare disaster. premiums have skyrocketed by double digits and triple digits in some cases, ads an example arizona which i talk about all the time, 116% increase and it's going up a lot higher.

'17 would be a disaster for obamace. that's the year it was meant to explode because obama won't be here, that was when it was supposed to be, where it's as bad as it is now it will get worse. choices are disappearing as one insured drops out after another. one-third of all counties now have only one insurer on the obamacare exchanges and the exchanges themselves are a disaster. the house repeal and replace plan ends the obamacare tax hikes cutting taxes by hundreds of billions of dollars. it eliminates the obamacare mandate that forces americans to buy government approved plans. we all know that one. it provides states with flexibility over how medicaid dollars are spent, giving power from washington and back to local government, which we all want to see do a much better job and the plan and powers individual americans to buy the health insurance that is right

for them, not the plan forced on them by government. you all remember you can keep your doctor, you can keep your plan, and i know greg, you've never heard of that, right? it was said many, many times and it turned out to be not true. this is the time we're going to get it done. we're working together. we have some great results. we have tremendous spirit, and i think it's something that's going to happen very shortly, so thank you all very much. we're going to get to work. >> thank you, press. >> mr. president -- >> shouted questions were about the wiretapping investigation and you can see the president remaining silent, not taking the bait. >> where we did our markup, c-span. let me know if i can help your son on scouting. >> yes, thank you. >> thank you. thank you. >> thank you very much. >> as the press is taken out,

you can see that no answers to questions but questions were asked. chris jansing, no comments yet from the white house today about last night's meeting by fbi director comey with the so-called big eight, the gang of eight, the top leaders, the secret meeting on presumably what the latest is on the request for an investigation into whether or not there's any substantiation of the president's allegations last saturday in a tweet against president obama on wiretapping. >> yes, we're coming up on a full week as you well know, andrea. no comment yet from him. obviously he heard the question. he avoided the question. this meeting he's having today, the latest in a series, this is part of his strategy. he prides himself on the art of the deal so he's been calling people in. these are folks who are already on board in part he wanted to thank him and in part trying to drum up business essentially, because of the pushback. here's the president with his first big legislative fight and

he finds himself smack in the middle of these two sides. on one hand the leadership who are behind this bill, on the other you have those conservatives of the many things that have been raised here that are of concern, i think the one that a lot of people are focusing on is the medicaid expansion, which a lot of conservatives believe should be moved up from 2020 as it is in this bill to 2018. the problem is we heard it from kevin mccarthy, from speaker ryan, this bill is so tightly crafted that they don't think there could be any major change like that, and have it work. the message in a press conference earlier was that, look, is this bill perfect? no. but we also had to craft a about thal we felt could get through the senate. so right now at a critical time and it's made clear by senior officials he will be going out a bit and vice president pence is going out this weekend to kentucky, his focus is on meetings like this, on doing this kind of personal sales job, something he believes that he

can pull off. andrea? >> thanks very much to you, and pete williams, down the newsroom, we've been looking into what did happen when james comey went to the hill lt night? he had reportedly, you've confirmed this, wanted the justice department to speak out and defend the fbi and say there was no illegal wiretapping and nothing by the obama white house. at this point, is that likely, what he told as well, told the top leaders on capitol hill, both parties, both houses? >> sure seems so, andrea with you we don't know. they're not saying, he's not saying. the fbi is not saying, the staff isn't saying but it seems likely. we did confirm he wanted the justice department to put out a statement saying it's not true, you know that james clapper said it wasn't true. everybody current and former government officials that we've talked to said it's not true. this was the so-called gang of eight, the leaders of the house and senate, the ranking minority

members and the chairman of the two intelligence committees. they have said that they want, the president said he wants congress to look into this, some members of congress say they will, so presumably that's what it's about. we assume that he told them it's not true but we don't know. >> there's also some indications that senator grassley, chair of the judiciary committee is not happy they are not getting briefed to the extent they want to be briefed by the fbi director, that the intelligence committees are having more access to them but the judiciary committees which have oversight over justice are not hearing from him. >> true, and it may be about the 73rd time that we have heard the objections like this from people who weren't on the intelligence committees. >> and then the hawaii and washington state challenges to the travel ban. it was rewritten and they took out a lot of the objectionable issues in terms of preferences for minorities like the christians against the muslims, they removed iraq as well.

people who are legitimate visa carriers and green cardholders, people who are in transit so they put that ten-day window in, but the objections still from washington state and hwaii now are that it still is a muslim ban. >> two arenas here. hawaii has filed its own lawsuit, they are starting from scratch here, they make some of the same objections the states did. in washington state, the question is, is the new executive order new enough? yes the justice department said look at all the changes we've made. we had the waivers, no one can say never. it's not going to happen. we have the ability to grant case by case waivers. so what the justice department says, they've told the court this week guess what, judge, we're going to start enforcing this on march 16th. washington state joined now by oregon, soon to be joined probably by massachusetts and new york, is saying hold the phone, it's not new enough. the old order issued on february 3rd that blocked the enforcement of the original executive order

should remain in place and should also stop this one going to go from going into effect because it's substantially the same, so those are the two arenas where this is going to play out for now. >> thanks to you pete and finally chris jansing, any word from the white house about what the vice president said on michael flynn, that that was one of the reasons that he was fired, first of all we were told he resigned. we now know that he was fired but it wasn't just the russia issue, it was also that he was a paid lobbyist for turkey when he was the national security adviser during the campaign, and up through the election. >> reporter: yes, what vice president pence said this morning this is affirmation of the decision in that president trump made when he fired michael flynn, but just yesterday, sean spicer in the briefing said he doesn't believe that anybody in the white house was aware that this had happened. if you go back, this is about lobbying for turkish, to the

turkish company owned by turkish businessman for which his company was paid $530,000, and then in an interview with the associated press, the head of that company said that, yes, flynn did eventually register that he had done this, but only after pressure from the justice department, as you well know, one of the things that the president ran on was cleaning out the swamp, and in fact, flynn was one of the people working in this government who had to sign a paper that said you won't work for a foreign government, so he can't do any more what he did then, but the white house says look, he was a private citizen at the time. he didn't do anything illegal, because this happened before he took office. >> but it did happen while he was getting access to the presidential daily brief, and while he was briefing candidate -- >> transition. >> once he became the nominee, donald trump did get access to all of that top level national security information. pretty extraordinary. >> reporter: yes and that's a

pretty extraordinary thing that believe me will get pressed today in the briefing once again and you're going to have to watch and see what else might come of this. the opinion here at the white house is he was fired, he didn't do anything illegal. >> thank you so much to both of you for starting us off. joining me michael steele, former republican national chairman and msnbc political analyst and sarah fagan, republican strategist and former white house political director. michael steele, first, taking it all from there, michael flynn, so he is a paid lobbyist for erdogan, the controversial ally, nato ally but also very edgy on subjects ranging from russia to isis, human rights importantly, and all this at a time when he was participating in those national security briefings for candidate donald trump. >> yes, and it speaks to the level of vetting that did not

take place when bringing certain people into that inner circle, particularly as you wound down in the campaign and it was very clear that donald trump was going to be the nominee, and had gotten all the trappings that come with that from the white house, but then particularly those briefings and other things that average folks wouldn't have access to, and so it really speaks to two thngs, one, donald trump's sense of loyalty to someone who has been with him to the point of almost being blinded by the problems that they potentially bring on to him, because of their associations outside of trump world, and i think this is a good example of that. they handled it very quickly, relatively speaking. the president was a little bit frustrating and certainly begrudgingly released flynn. i think he still wanted him around him because he valued his counsel but i suspect there may be others as this thing unfolds

that find themselves tripping over this kind of wire. >> this is what the vice president had to say when asked about it on fox today. >> well, let me say hearing that story today was the first i heard of it, and i fully support the decision that president trump made to ask for general flynn's resignation. >> and that was fox news last night. sarah fagan, he did run and a lot of his supporters really liked donald trump saying we are agetting to drain the swamp, we're going to get rid of exactly this kind of thing, the lobbyists. >> conflict of interests. >> saying nothing of goldman sachs and a lot of the others and surrounded himself with billionaires and now this kind of thing. >> this is really a problem, mostly for general flynn. he's no longer in the government, so i think while it was a huge conflict of interest on the campaign and certainly in the early days of this administration, this is something you don't want following you around washington, d.c., and he didn't handle it properly.

he didn't disclose it to the white house at least that's what it appears like, and he's out of a job, and mid part because of this maybe. >> and sara, i want to ask both of you about health care. we saw the president reading from his script with the house committee chairs. >> right. >> these committees have already voted so he's preaching to the choir. it's the freedom caucus and the others who may welcome along. what is your prognosis looking at the kind of squeeze play he's within the budget hawks, among the house republicans, and some sete repcans and the more moderate republicans particularly in the senate who want to save medicaid expansion. >> the medicaid expansion while certainly problematic from a lot of policy perspectives has put people is getting people health care and i think the senators you're right are going to fight for that. john kasich said he'll fight to keep that in. republicans are in a challenging position. part of what is required here donald trump has to leverage his relationship with the base of

the republican party to get this done, and what we see when you talk to voters now, you know, as you're 50 days into this administration, they still really trust him and if he sayisays this is good they're likely to believe it. he hases to put his muscle behind this. the other thing that i think is important as we cover this and watch it is it's been a long time since we've had debate on the floor, since there's been real amendments offered, changed, and i think republicans you got to give paul ryan credit for putting something out there and taking all the fray, but republicans have a chance to amend this. they have a chance to debate it, to change it, to make it something that the entire party can get behind and pass and republicans have to pass something. they have to. >> well michael steele, one of the things that we saw was what happened during recess, and a classic case would be tom cotton, you know, the rising star from arkansas. >> yep. >> he just was blasted at a town

hall meeting by people who want to keep these health benefits. they don't want repeal without knowing what the replace is, and that's what switched him to join some of the others who had already been criticizing it. >> yes, i think that that speaks to what sara was just saying about it plays not just republican leadership but the republican members find themselves between their constituents who are themselves divided quite hoesy, for everyone that you find saying keep my medicare expansion you'll find one that says no, we need to get rid of it. so they have to craft this thing very carefully. i think that the bottom line though really boils down to the point that sara made about donald trump, can the president leverage his relationship with his base in a way to bring them along, and basically say to them, guess what? we're going to do obamacare-lite because that's ultimately what this is going to be. it's not a full repeal.

stop playing around and acting like it is. it isn'tisn't. the money isn't there to do it that way and be honest who will be in the health care system and who is going to be out the health care system. that is what a lot of people are going to be watching over the next few weeks and whether or not the president can make that case and bring those voices to the table with him to back up what he wants to do will be a real test in his first term. >> well you're going to see mike pence going to kentucky and to rand paul's territory. >> yep. >> he not in favor of it, and if they're going to do what you say, michael, and be honest about it, i got to tell you, their hhs secretary has to have answers that are quite different from what his answers were on "morning joe" today when he was just completely dismissing the suggestion from brookings that as many as 15 million people might be knocked off and he was basically saying the equivalent of you can keep your doctor saying that nothing was going to change. >> the one thing donald trump in his opening comments was right about is that people are really

frustrated with obamacare. it's not working in a lot of places in this country and there is real demand to get something done differently, but for years republicans have campaigned on the need to replace and repeal this, so it is incumbent on the party to do something. there's value in doing something, even if it's not perfect. >> yep. >> but it is more complicated than a lot of people campaigning on slogans had suggested. >> it is and there's going to be pressure to get this done quickly but really what will matter is that it gets done so if they slow the process down, it takes a few more months, the have debate, they make amendments, ultimately that's gointo be important for donald trump. >> that's exactly the point right there. i think sara hit it right on the head. you can survive almost anything if you do exactly what she just said, slow the process down, open the blinders a little bit so people can see it and bring them along. >> michael steele, sara fagen, great to have you both. thank you. >> all right. and coming up, tracking the culprit. the founder of wikileaks

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the central intelligence agency lost control of its entire cyber weapons arsenal. this is a historic act of

devastating incompetence to have created such an arsenal and stored it all in one place, and not secured it. >> julian assange's bombshell claim from london, more questions about just what has he exposed and what more could come? joining me is juan zarate, former deputy national security adviser and nbc and msnbc senior national security analyst. juan thank you very much. >> great to be with you, andrea. >> well, thank you. and to drill down on what do we know what he really put out? he says he is holding back the specific tools. how bad was this breach? >> well, i think it's very bad andrea, in terms of volume in what assange is claiming he has. of course we haven't seen all of the documents and as you just mentioned he's claiming to be holding back in terms of more technical details as to what these cyber tools actually are,

but it looks like a major breach of data security for the cia, certainly in the wake of the nsa leaks, this looks very bad for the intelligence community and certainly the cia is going to be looking very closely at not only the security of its systems but also the potential for insider threat, the inside leak problem, contractors who may have had access to this information, and certainly whether or not there are foreign services that may have been catalyzing or facilitating this leak. so all of this is not good news for the united states and certainly wikileaks is taking full advantage of the documentation it has. >> late yesterday i talked to leon panetta, former cia director, why there are so many contractors because there are thousands of people, more than a dozen contracting firms who deal with developing these cyber tools for the nsa and now for the cia as well. this is part of what leon panetta had to say. >> you do take a chance with contractors. there are people who are not

working in the inside. they may or may not have the same loyalty to the mission of that organization, and the fact is that these people don't always go through the same grueling process of really trying to determine just how secure an operator they may be. >> it's clear that the clearances, the security procedures that they go through, these contractors, are not as rigorous as someone who is going to be hired to be in the cia, so why not grow your own, have your own cyber experts, why rely on these firms to the extent that we do? >> i think that's been a major debate. i think the preference of course is to ve the internal capability to have people who are loyal to the mission, loyal to the u.s. government, and presumably that you can control better on the inside doing these kinds of services. the problem of course andrea is, you can't always have these

capabilities ready quickly. you can't always on board as much as you want, and certainly in the cyber domain there's a cyber arms race you need capabilities quickly that off in the private sector and private contractors can provide. this isn't just the intelligence community. it's the military, other parts of the u.s. government that relied on contractors for security, for cyber capabilities and other capabilities and for the most part they do a great job or at least serve the mission. the challenge of course is you've got a lot of them, not all of them are as committed to the mission as possible and when you have cases like snowden and potentially this one, where contractors are potentially the source of the leak, it's a real danger in terms of insider vulnerability. >> there is some indication from at least one source that we've been speaking to that already some damaging information is turning up in the criminal sector that criminal elements now that a lot of this is out there thousands of pages, are already beginning to utilize some of the techniques that

they've now learned from the cia. >> that's right, andrea, and i think this is both part of the danger of this disclosure and also frankly the hypocrisy of what julian assange is claiming to do on behalf of privacy and civil liberties. the reality is the disclosure clearly gives the potential targets, the enemies of the united states a road map as to how to defend against the type of collection that the cia wants to do. of course this revelation doesn't suggest mass surveillance. it doesn't suggest any violation with respect to american citizens, and more importantly given your question, it gives the bad guys a road map as to how to actually use these tools against us, and not just against the cia or the nsaor the department of defens but against you and me and american sit stcitizens so this idea tha revelation of these issues are good for civil liberties really does, you know, it's hugely hypocritical given the fact that

there are a lot of actors including criminal groups, terrorist organizations, and states like russia, china, north korea, iran, that really have no care in the world for legal limits and no care in the world for privacy and civil liberties. so i just think julian assange is doing huge damage and utterly hypocritical when he tries to paint himself as the vanguard and guardian of american civil liberties and privacy. he's done the exact opposite with this revelation. >> and his connection to russia, we know he's taken money from russia, that he was on the payroll of russia's rt television, the propaganda arm. so he has a very close connection to russia, not just the fact that he is linked to the investigation of russia's hacking of democrats during the campaign. >> that's right, andrea. if you view this as a campaign to undermine american capabilities interests to sow a lot of dissension within the american public, within the intelligence community as well, this fits right in line with the

russian intelligence m.o. this is an attempt to not only degrade the cia's capabilities, the nsa's capabilities, but to give advantage to those that are trying to undermine u.s. interests. that's in my mind what assange and wikileaks is doing. they're not spending a lot of time revealing what the russian services are doing. they're certainly not explaining how china surveils its citizens and journalists and is doing things in hong kong. they're certainly not revealing what iran does in terms of surveillance. so you just have to wonder what actually is the motivation here, and i think at its core, it's an anti-american agenda that's trying to undermine u.s. interests, and frankly this plays to the interests of those who want to sow dissent and affect our capabilities like the russian services. >> well, a lot to worry about as we try to assess the damage and obviously the i in its counter intelligence investigation tries to find who did this. thank you so very much. thanks juan zarate.

disturbing reports that the nude photo scandal shaking the marine corps could be much larger extending throughout the military. according to business insider today the practices of sharing photos of female servicemembers goes beyond the marine corps to an image sharing board featuring dozens of message threads and another facebook page with more than 3,000 members. lawmakers including republican congresswoman and former fighter pilot march ththa mcsally are demanding answers. >> when i first heard i was deeply disturbed, disgusted and infuriated. this needs to be investigated. people need to be held accountable for their behavior, and crimes that were committed. there also needs to be support to the victims, and there needs to be really addressing the culture that brought about this behavior in the first place. >> and the commandant of the marine corps will hold a news conference on this very issue in a little over an hour. we will of course be on top of that, they'll be briefing

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secretary of state rex

tillerson is lunching at the white house today and heads to asia next week, visiting japan, china and south korea, where protests broke out overnight from supporters of president park after a court upheld her impeachment removing her from office for corruption andiness lens peddling. new election will be held within 60 days. south korea and japan are bracing for the next provocation from north korea which fired off four missiles in a test this week and threatening to launch more. christopher hill is former assistant secretary of state for east asian and pacific affairs negotiated with pyongyang and former u.s. ambassador to south korea and dean of the joseph korbel school of international studies at the university of denv denver. ambassador what is the real challenge for the new secretary of state as he heads to asia at a critical time? >> you're absolutely right, he'd headed to asia as an extremely critical time. it's a off of the soh korean elections they were not expected to happen uil the end

of the year except the president has been impeached and now convicted. there might be criminal charges filed against her soon so it's a critical time internally in korea. if there is a new party that comes into power, say the left of center korean party, it could be more difficult relations with japan and frankly more difficult relations with us because we're getting to a no kidding moment with the north koreans who have shown zero interest in negotiation, zero interest in getting rid of their nuclear weapons and seem to be going full tilt on a test program. i suspect they will not want to test in the text few weeks. when they do that tend to help the side of the korean electorate that wants to take a tougher stand on them, so i suspect they may want to throttle that back a little, but who knows with kim jong-un and meanwhile the chinese are pretty upset about the deployment of the anti-ballistic missile system the u.s. is, has been

deploying in recent weeks and will finalize very soon. so the chinese have been very worried about that. they believe the so-called terminal high altitude area defense system is really aimed at their strategic arsenal rather than the north koreans so we've seen an unprecedented, not unprecedented but a rather difficult period between china and korea, as china begins to try to put economic pressure on the south koreans. so all of this into this mix comes our brand new secretary of state who is still pretty much home alone without too much staff, without too much, too many advisers around him. so i hope he does well. >> he does have a challenge. he's having lunch with the president we're told today but at the same time he did not meet with the mexican foreign minister who went to the white house, instead med with jared kushner, med with ga kohn, economic meetings. this is unusual. he doesn't have a deputy. he will be away again when a

foreign leader is here, angela merkel coming next week. there is a real vacuum now, they got rid of all of the veterans like dan freed, a 40-year veteran, top ambassadors and roert diplomats. >> to call this usual is a good diplomatic phrase, but frankly it's -- >> be a little more blunt with me then. >> it's really unprecedented, and i won't say dangerous, but i will say deleterious to our fromfrom interested. we need people to advise the secretary of state. foreign policy is a team sport. yes, you have someone at the top of that, the secretary, but you need people around him to be providing the kind of advice and you know it's complex, and moreover it's so complex, part of what a secretary of state needs to do is explain what we're trying to accomplish to the american people.

it's hard for the american people to follow what the chinese attitudes are, what japanese attitudes are, how the left of center korean government may regard the japanese. this is complicated stuff and you need to be able to explain this to the american people and normally you try doing that through the press. >> and/or through speeches and other kinds of public pronouncements from the briefing room. >> yes. so what we're getting, what we have now is clearly a state department that seems to take its cue from the white house, but at the same time seems to not be trying to kind of lay out its own positions so that we have a defense department led by a capable secretary of defense, in fact, jim mattis has already visited korea and japan, so it is high time the secretary of state gets out there, but you know, there's no sense of you know, what will be the follow-up, what will be the overall message. we have a president who has talked about our enduring

relations with south korea and japan but hasn't explained about the threat from north korea and i might add that, you know, we are going to see a deliverable nuclear weapon in the coming years from north korea, and a good question coming from the american people would be what have you done about this? >> we're going to have to leave it there. i'll be on the road next week so we'll talk to you from south korea and japan. >> okay. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. >> thank you, chris hill. and coming up, big changes impacting schools coming from both the education department and now congress. we'll take a deeper dive next with former education secretary john king. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. when that pain makes simple errands simply unbearable... ...i hear you. i hear you because my dad struggled with this pain. make sure your doctor hears you too. so folks, don't wait. step on up. and talk to your doctor. because you have places to go... ...and people who can't wait for you to get there.

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welcome back. in a move strongly criticized by civil rights and education advocates, the senate has voted along partisan lines to scrap obama era regulations holding schools accountable for student performance. the new law will sweep aside key parts of the every student succeeds act, one of president obama's final legislative achievements. senate democrats fighting to keep the regulations fear this will increase betsy devos' power over the states. joining me is john king, former education secretary. welco welcome. the gipbeginnings of a cold so powering through today before we can get some rest. tell me about this act particularly. it was a 50-49 vote, party line vote in the senate with one

switch i guess, and what does this mean when you get down to the school level to the local level? >> the key thing is every authorization of the original act of 1965, civil rights law and the federal role in education has always been to protect students civil rights to keep a focus whether or not all students are getting access to opportunity. by removing the regulations, we're jeopardizing that civil rights legacy. congress has made it easier for states to ignore the performance of low performing students, made it easier for states to avoid intervening when schools are struggling and providing the supports that are needed. so now it's incumbent on all of to us make sure that we are vigilant and getting organized in states insisting states can't ignore the success of students who are most vulnerable.

>> what is the justification for doing it? is it budgetary? or philosophical? >> largely philosophical. the claim was there's no need for a federal role. leave it to states and districts and they'll sort it out but you know, having taught high school history i can say confidently the history of the united states is not that states rights and civil rights travel together. in fact quite the contrary, and so there is an important federal role to make sure states aren't overlooking students at risk. >> what are you hearing from inside the department from the career people as betsy devos has taken over and she was a controversial nominee? >> well you know it's clear they've been slow to get organized. they've not filled many of the senior political appointments. they've had some mishaps along the way over the first few weeks, some insensitive remarks around historically black colleges and universities, but you know my hope is that she will spend time visiting public schools, talking with public

school educators and get clear on the important role that public education plays at the undationf our democracy and long-term us is of our economy. >> has she reached out to you as her predecessor or you to her? >> we had one conversation before she was confirmed. i stand ready to try to be helpful to the extent that the administration is looking out for the kids who are most vulnerable. >> are you concerned about budget cuts as outlined in the president's budget proposal, there would be drastic cuts in discretionary spending to help pay for $54 billion increase in defense. >> i'm very concerned about that. it's a huge mistake to take resources away from early learning, take resources away from our most needy schools, to take resources way from students trying to get a higher education to have better opportunities in the economy to redirect those resources to tax cuts or to defense spending, so my hope is

that congress will do the wise thing and continue to make investments in education. our long-term future depends on it. >> john king, we'll have to leave it there. thank you so much. good to see you again. >> thanks so much. coming up, much more ahead right here, we'll be right back. or fill a big order or expand your office and take on whatever comes next. find out how american express cards and services can help prepare you for growth at open.com. it illuminates our world and connects us. adaptive lenses® with transitions® you'll live the good light. they block uv rays. plus they help protect from harmful blue light. both indoors... and out.

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and it's time for"the daily x." "washington post" political correspondent anne gearan, former white house and state department correspondent now trying to get answers from the state department. >> yep. >> have you found anyone to answer the phone? >> no, it's like our voices echo down the halls there. there's no one around and although we did have two briefings in person this week and one on the telephone, so that's some progress. >> this week the first answers to questions, but the fact that the secretary of state is leaving for asia without taking the press corps and it really isn't self-serving, it is basically the only way to travel to keep up with this kind of visit because of schedule changes and flight changes and all the like. >> yes. >> he's going to korea at a very troubling time, not only because of the north korean threat but right now there's no government for him to talk to.

>> right, park geun-hye impeached today, and he'll be essentially walking into the middle of a giant constitutional political crisis and upheaval in south korea at the same time as that country is feeling even more so than usual under threat from north korea and that will definitely be interesting, and he'll go to china and there the fact that he does not have an american press corps with him i think is symbolically important. he's going to a country that has been cracking down and restricting what were already very few and far between press freedoms, and he will not have with him fully with him the reportsers who know the issues best >> this only reinforces the failure of the state department to have any physical presentation of the human rights report a week ago which is

always done with the secretaries on camera. >> right. >> these are the projections of soft power and of american values that are front and cter at the state department going back to you know, the 1950s. >> yes. there's a reason that congress mandated the human rights report, many reasons. it's actually the barometer by which other countries often judge what they think they can get away with, and what american tolerance for their behavior will be, and when it has been used as a kudgel in the past it can be effective and other secretaries of state have seen it to be not only in their interests, but part of the job description to make that case in person, and to talk about u.s. commitment to human rights as a fundamental value and part of what the power america wants to show around the world.

xi joining ping can be forgiven for thinking that rex tillerson coming to visit him is less interested in that for that reason alone. >> to be continued. we'll be talking to you along the way. thank you so much, anne gearan and more ahead. we'll be right pag. perfect. only one egg with more great nutrition- now with 5 times more vitamin d, 10 times more vitamin e, and 25% less saturated fat. only one egg good enough for my family. because why have ordinary when you can have the best. eggland's best. the only egg that gives you so much more: better taste. better nutrition. better eggs. better nutrition. the search for relief often leads here.s, today there's drug-free aleve direct therapy. a high intensity tens device that uses technology once only in doctors' offices. for deep penetrating relief at the source. aleve direct therapy. parts a and b and want more coverage,

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and that's it for this week of "andrea mitchell reports." remember follow the show online on facebook and twitte twitter @mitchellreports. i'll be reporting from asia next

week. katy tur is up next. >> i'm katy tur in for craig melvin at msnbc headquarters in new york. critical condition, the republican health re plan facing more opposition from outside the beltway. the president of the american medical association shares why his organization is rejecting the plan. and jobs, jobs, jobs. february a huge month for hirings according to new employment numbers released today. can president trump though take credit for job growth in his first full month in office? epa backlash. scott pruitt getting a lot of heat for saying carbon dioxide does nothing to global warming. nbc's al roker is here to respond. but we start with health care, a short time ago president trump met with top republicans in the house about the bill. >> this is the time we'll get it done. we have some great results, we have tremendous spirit, and i think it's interesting that's just going to happ