thanks for watching this hour of msnbc. chris jansing hosts andrea mitchell reports. chris? >> thank you so much, ali. right now on "andrea mitchell reports," check it out behind me. blizzard watch. snow and ice and dangerous winds and snarling traffic and shutting down airports. >> it is a complete ghost town here at laguardia. >> sometimes in these snowstorms, we see kids out throwing snowballs and going down sleds. not with this storm. >> we've seen wind gusts up to 35 miles an hour. it's created lower visibility. >> the huge totals are through northern and central new england. >> we'll have the latest forecast and live coverage across the northeast. and all access, republican leaders try to push their health

care bill as a way to get access to health care despite the new numbers from the government sco scorekeepers which don't exactly give them a clean bill of health. >> you're saying that you agree with president trump that under this plan everyone will be covered? no one is losing their insurance? >> everyone will have access to the coverage that they want and there will be -- >> that's access as opposed to being covered. >> what we mean is that every single american will have access and have the financial feasibility to purchase it. good day. i'm chris jansing on another fascinating day in washington where we're following the latest developments on both the weather front and politics. we're going to get to those in just a moment. first, andrea is in tokyo, the first stop on secretary of state rex tillerson's agenda. what are we looking for? >> chris, here in tokyo, tensions are rising with north

korea threatening today merciless attacks if they infringe on their joint military exercises. there are signs that pyongyang may be readying another missile launch which threatens neighbors here and a threat of developing a long-range missile capable of reaching the west coast of the u.s. this will be rex tillerson's first major foreign trip as secretary of state in the midst of a lot of controversies over budget cuts and restrictions on press coverage. it will be a big test for him and we'll have a lot more coming up later on the show. now back to you, chris. >> we're looking forward to that. thank you so much, andrea. here in washington, president trump will discuss the way forward with health care with paul ryan this afternoon. this is after the release of the stunning report from the budget office casting big doubts over the health care bill promoted by the president. those cbo findings, 14 million people would no longer have health coverage in 2018 and then that number skyrockets to 21

million by 2020 and then 24 million by 2026. >> good morning from washington where, as you can see, according to the congressional budget office, it's sunny and 75. >> beautiful, warm sunny day. >> it's horrible out. >> it's sunny and 74 outside. >> according to the cbo, it's sunny and 75 degrees. >> 75, 74, 75. joining me now, nbc white house correspondent hallie jackson. capitol hill correspondent kasie hunt and here with me sam stein, politics editor at the huffington post. speaker ryan sounding, i guess, optimistic. >> reporter: yep. >> white house officials like mc -- mick mulvaney slamming the white house. >> reporter: i think you're seeing from what administration officials like the health

secretary and budget secretary are saying, that the cbo report is essentially wrong, that they disagree with it. that's been a line that the white house has been talking about. strenuous disagreement here. that said, the president has indicated privately, according to you aour reporting, that he' willing to compromise on some parts of this bill. the president is saying, to some of these skeptical lawmakers and republicans, tom cotton, we're going to do x, y, z and work with paul ryan on that to actually work on paul ryan on that, the two of them have a phone call later on this afternoon to talk about health care and the way forward and potentially try to get some more republicans on board. another option -- andre's no indication that this is happening yet could be that the president washes h hands of this, walking away and trying to craft something new. again, no indication that that is the way he's headed at this point. even within the last 24 hours, he's talked about the need to fix the health care system and to get more republicans behind his plan. >> we'll see if we get any

clarification there. there will be a briefing today. there was some question about it. >> i think there will, too. >> so in the meantime, secretary price talked to matt and savannah on the "today" show and made the argument that we've heard over the last few days, access versus coverage, trying to downplay this 24 million number that's made headlines across the country. can that work? >> not if you go below a small smidgen of the surface. if access doesn't come with coverage, how can you afford it? if you look at the elderly people, they will see that their financial help in purchasing health care is going to go through the roof. >> hence the aarp -- >> yes, coming out against the bill. they measure your financial assistance differently in this bill than they did in the obamacare and they charge older people more on a 5-to-1 ratio. the white house has tried to figure out a way to get around

this by saying you have access to health care. access means nothing if you don't have help with the premium. and one more thing on the cbo element, the irony is that tom price put in place the person who is the director of the cbo, a guy named keith hall. >> hold on. i want to get in depth on that. i want to focus on an exchange that you had this morning with mick mulvaney by what we've been hearing from speaker ryan in the white house. let's play that. >> the president of the united states has been out there saying the opposite. he says we're going to take care of people, no one is going to lose their coverage. he said i will not cut medicare, social security medicaid. isn't he breaking that promise? >> what you heard people who have coverage but don't have care. the president is around to understanding allowing people to go to the doctor when they get sick. >> so kasie, from the hill perspective, how much room is

there and what's the strategy moving forward there? >> reporter: well, i think what we were talking about there is there is a big disconnect between what the white house has promised and the way they are approaching what has come out in the cbo numbers and what house speaker paul ryan wants to do, has to do is out there selling. this policy in this bill is something that house speaker paul ryan really believes in. it's something that he's been working on for many years. it's a set of conservative policies that he -- and you saw him roll-up his sleeves and explain it all to reporters and to our viewers watching on the air just last week. but it's clear that this is something that is encountering stiff resistance among conservatives in the house and, of course, the question is, and hallie raised this a little bit, is there a point at which the white house says we're not going to push forward with this because the cbo score, quite frankly, shows that the

president is potentially violating these promises that he made when he was running for president and even what he's said since then. the budget director was trying to say, look, the president has become convinced it may seem as though these people have health care coverage but they are not getting care. i do think sam touched on this briefly earlier. for these people, if they lose their coverage, they are likely to not have coverage or care. and so the argument starts to run a little bit in circles. i think that's why you're starting to see the increasing frustration on the hill. i still think that tom cotton's analysis of this is the most pointed he said over the weekend to members of the house. do not walk the plank. this bill is not going to pass the senate. that's a remarkable statement and a dynamic that underscores everything that members of congress are doing right now. >> and it's interesting, they seem to be putting a lot of their eggs in the basket of, well, let's convince people that the cbo is terrible in spite of the fact that many of the people criticizing it, in fact, have

said wonderful things about the cbo when it was to their advantage or criticized it when it was to president obama's advantage. >> sure. >> i want to play what chuck schumer had to say about keith hall, the cbo director. >> guess who chose the head of cbo. dr. price. guess where this man worked, funded in good part by the koch brothers. and now they are saying what he is saying isn't real. i mean, do facts matter anymore to our colleagues? >> well -- >> all right. i'll let you answer that question. >> so it's even more complicated than that. it's sort of a tradition that if the cbo gives you a bad score, you kind of ignore it but you don't often trash it to the extent that we're seeing right now. beyond that, they are only trashing certain aspects of the cbo study. for instance, paul ryan is out

today. the cbo study confirms what we wanted, it reduces the deficit, scales back the medicaid expansion. all of the scores he's highlighting when it comes to his own causes but when it. coulds to people who would lose their insurance and the possibility of premiums skyrocketing. they are cherry-picking little data points. chuck schumer is right, lost in the entire debate is the fact that the guy running the cbo was installed by the health and human services secretary who is now trashing the cbo score. you start to wonder where do we start getting our figures that we can trust and look at analyses, base legislation on these facts and i think there's something person neesh shous when you start this because you basically cherry-pick the data points that work for you. >> their numbers could be pretty influential, tax cuts, building

a wall. >> sure. yeah. remember, there was a minimum wage proposal a couple of years back that the obama administration was pushing, the cbo came out and said people will lose work. republicans ran to say, look at this cbo score. this confirms everything we said about a minimum wage hike. if they are doing this now, how can they turn around in two years and say the cbo is trustworthy? you just can't believe it. >> real quick, hallie, what else is on the president's plate today, particularly related to health care? >> reporter: he's got more calls with conservative lawmakers, chris, in order to try to sell this thing. he's also, we just found out, is going to be opening up about a luncheon within the next 15 minutes or so with foreign leaders. >> all right. that's good to know. thank you so much to all. and now to the powerful winter storm slamming the northeast, right now in new york city, mayor bill de blasio and top officials updating a response to this storm.

tons of millions are in the path of the nor'easter that could still dump two feet of in some areas. it goes from pennsylvania up through maine and wind gusts up to 50 miles per hour. bill karins is here. what are we seeing? >> we're just about done from new york city southward but areas to the north are getting hit hard. one report of 18 inches of snow and mt. pocono, just to the northwest of new jersey, 23 inches of snow. so some areas have been hit hard but you're not hearing those big numbers in d.c., baltimore, trenton or new york city because too much sleet moved in during the overnight hours and this morning. everywhere in purple, blizzard conditions right now, poughkeepsie, albany area, the winds are i can approximating up and quarter mile visibility or less in those areas and the mass

pike is not a fun drive right now. this white band in here that just kicked to the north was producing epic amounts of snow as it traveled through connecticut, massachusetts and now there's another heavy band coming up here through the hartford area and just north of the providence area that may have some sleet mixed in it with it as the transition begins on cape cod. you go over to rain and in boston, heavy snow to sleet and over to rain. additional snowfall forecast, we're just about done from new york city southward but this area of pink is still a foot of snow to come all areas of northern new england, boston still into the 4 to 8. providence, 2 to 4 left for you before you turn it over. hartford, 6 to 10. the jackpot area is the albany area and another 8 to 14 on top of the 8 inches that have already fallen. later on this evening, the heaviest snow and winds move into areas like portland, maine, and all of the mountainous regions of northern new england are goingto see a thumping with

this storm this afternoon ending by midnight tonight. and here's the winds. new york city at 35. montoc at 30. it's moving into long island. the leaves are not on the trees yet. that certainly helps. 50 mile-per-hour gusts and in cape cod, it's 60 to 70. cape cod gets hit with big storms all the time. some trees will come down and 5:00 p.m. on tuesday, this afternoon, new york city, the winds die off. time for the clean up there. albany, 41 and blowing and drifting. stronger winds will be up towards the coastal area. we're three-quarters of the way done with our storm. we've yet to see any blizzard criteria for any one location. at this point, we're still dealing with a strong nor'easter. >> i never want to hear that phrase again, epic amounts of snow. i feel sorry for my friends in

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we're back with the powerful storm that is a messy mix of sleet and snow. several areas are under states of emergencies and schools

closed across the northeast. we have full coverage starting with anne thompson in boston. it does not look like fun. >> reporter: i'm doing fine, chris. we're expecting 8 to 12 inches of snow before the storm is all over. i'm in boston common. if you look behind me, that is park street right behind where the truck just passed, normally at noon hour, that's a very busy corner in this city. all kinds of people coming from the statehouse going to lunch. none of that is happening today. the statehouse is closed. boston public schools are closed. people have been asked to stay home because this storm they think is just going to be too powerful. we can tell you in t last hour, the snow, the rate of snowfall has really picked up. we're expected to get two to four inches and then you're going to add two to four inches an hour and on top of that, 40 to 50 mile-per-hour winds and that's already causing trouble

here in the state. some 24,000 power outages already. many around the city of worcester in the middle of massachusetts and it's one of the places expected to get hit the hardest. there's also some power outages down in plymouth county south of boston on the way to the cape. now, those winds along with the high tide are expected to create wave ace lo waves along the coast here and it could cause flooding. so this is a storm that has all kinds of aspects to it but so far the governor of massachusetts, charlie baker, he just held a press conference and said he's really proud of the people of massachusetts. they have learned, they have stayed home and they are staying safe. chris? >> boston knows how to handle this kind of situation, as nasty as it is. anne, thanks to you. blake mccoy is in ridgewood, new jersey. what are you seeing there, blake? >> reporter: it's been a true evolution throughout the day.

it started as blowing and drifting and whiteout snow and then thick, heavy and wet snow and now it's an icy, sleety mix. look at that sheet of ice we found around one of our car as few minutes ago. we have eight inches of snow on the ground here in northern new jersey. i spotted john and greg walking. tired of being home? >> yes. >> reporter: what do you think about the snow? >> love it. >> reporter: what do you think about school? >> i'm happy it's closed. >> reporter: new york city turned out to be a bust but here we have a decent amount. >> it's a good storm. >> reporter: where are you headed? >> the seball shop. >> reporter: the rest of the area is a ghost town. the plaza has done a good job of keeping up. new jersey transit has said they have 80 car accidents they've been responding to since the early morning and they are urging people to stay off the road. the sleety mix continues.

chris? >> i think if you made the effort to open your store, you get a plug. so bagel shop it is. and where are you and what are you seeing, erin? >> reporter: we are in nyack, new york. and you can see high snow berms on the side of the road. we have strong winds out there as well. the community is doing an amazing job of clearing the roads. you can tell they are coming through every few minutes. we saw a couple kids walking across the street with all of their sleds so they are having fun for the day with school being out. we're going down main street and you can see most of the shops are closed. one or two is open which is huge for us. otherwise, it's really quiet. most of the people are listening to the warnings. you can see it for yourself. you may be able to see the kids sledding right in front of us.

generally speaking, not too bad. we're still seeing snow and sleet mixing in throughout the area. it's transitioning right now and the low is sliding to the north and we're getting a little bit more of the sleet that we saw in new york city because we drove up here about an hour or so ago. but you see the kids, they are having fun and there's a good side of the storm after all. right, chris? >> are you dying to get out there and join them? >> reporter: you know i am. >> i know you are. >> reporter: just a few minutes to join everybody. i'm the only person that loves this stuff. >> i don't know. i remember when i was a kid and we used to get cancellations all the time, we loved the snow. thanks to you. but there are obviously some serious ramifications of this snow and a state of emergency has been declared in several states, including new york. in the capital city of albany, they are expecting up to a foot of snow and winds up to 40 miles per hour. joining us is the mayor of albany. madam mayor, how's the situation looking right now?

>> well, i am cityisitting in c hall. it's snowing really hard and it's incredibly dangerous. we've done all that we can to prepare for this and we knew it was coming and fortunately most people are staying off the roads but we can't stress enough how dangerous it is out there. >> you're used to this weather, obviously. i am, too. i lived in albany for 20 years. what's the greatest concern right now? >> for people to stay home and recognize how dangerous it is. you know how we think up here in albany, we can get out there and handle any snow but it's really slick and buses are getting stuck although they are out there and trying to get people to where they need to go. it's really that people sy at home. >> one of the terrific things about that area is that you have some major hospitals, really good hospitals there. i wonder how much concern there is about keeping the roads clear for emergency vehicles. >> reporter: well, as i said, we're used to this.

we're prepared for it and those are our priority roads. we're home to three major hospitals. and we have to make sure that emergency vehicles can get to those hospitals. we've also deployed some extra emergency crews in key areas in the city so our response times aren't impacted by the roads and the weather that we're having. >> mayor sheehan from the beautiful city of albany, what you can see of it at this moment, thank you for taking the time to talk to us. >> thank you. up next, secretary of state rex tillerson will depth afternoon for his first high-stakes international trip. he's going to japan, korea, china. andrea mitchell is back with us live from tokyo, next. stay with us. there's nothing more important to me than my vacation. so when i need to book a hotel room, i want someone that makes it easy to find what i want. booking.com gets it. they offer free cancellation if my plans change. visit booking.com. booking.yeah.

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we're back with "andrea mitchell reports" and we're watching the weather here in war washington and up and down the east coast. however, andrea is in tokyo. what are you watching for with rex tillerson's first big trip as secretary of state? >> a lot of things. and i got away from the snow so

that's a great deal. rex tillerson will be traveling to south korea and chin fa and japan. north korea is preparing for another nuclear test and the northeast threatening action against the u.s. and south korea for their joint military exercises that started today. you can see that plane taking off today off of the "uss carl vincent." also, a new announcement that the u.s. will station armed drones in south korea as well. today, because of all of this, north korea is threatening merciless attacks if the u.s. or south korea infringes on their military exercises which have been going on for 40 years but tensions are indeed high. joining me now is max baucus, a former u.s. senator.

ambassador baucus, first to you. china is very angry about the droe drones and missile defenses which it sees as infringement into its own territory. what do you see china doing now because we've been relying so long on china to restrain the north a north. >> we have no choice but to seize this opportunity and to lead. we are expected to provide leadership due to kim jong-un's irresponsible actions there. we have to stand up. i hope secretary tillerson and i expect secretary tillerson to do so and, more importantly, when the president xi visits mar-a-lago, i suppose this will occur this next month, it's very important that president trump make that -- give that message

to the united states is leading, countries want us to lead. the fact of the matter is, china can't solve north korea issue alone, neither can japan and neither can south korea. it's only the united states working with those countries that we're going to find a solution. >> do you think that the new administration should consider bilateral talks with north korea, something that the obama administration refused to even consider, given their missile launches? >> no, i don't. i do not think that at all. this is a concerted solution here. that is, we have to work with south korea and with china because china has so much influence on north korea and with japan. we should not enter to talks bilaterally alone with north korea. that sends a very weak signal. >> and howhamrung are we by the fact that we don't have ambassadors at any of these places, that one has been nominated for china but no one is in place and that there is no deputy, no undersecretaries, no

assistant secretaries for the regions that basically rex tillerson is on his own? >> i think the deeper answer to your question, andrea, is we have to engage these countries, especially china, fully. that's at the ambassador level as well as various other levels as secretary of defense and other cabinet officials. it's an engagement that keeps china engaged with us and we're more likely to find a reasonable solution with china. yeah, we need our ambassadors, right away. it's important to remember, too, that the u.s./china relationship is not just an ordinary bilateral relationship. this is china. a rising asian power. in the united states, the largest country in the world established power. and we've got to make sure that when we get more interconnected and intertwined, that we do it in a good way and right way. it's critical that the united

states spent more time speaking with and engaging with china and i hope president trump is able to begin to do that when president xi visits remembering that there's going to be a crisis in the world. who knows what it's going to be. it will happen. it may involve north korea. i don't know. but president xi and trump have to have trust in order for them to work out a solution to that kind of a crisis. so it's very important that secretary tillerson help establish that when he's there and also when president trump visits president xi and the two of them understand each other, too. i believe mar-a-lago should be a two or three-day event. i don't think president xi plays golf but they should spend time together, two presidents, get to know each other, ask questions of each other and get to know each other better. >> and rex tillerson is the point person coming and how well

armed is he for the high-stakes diplomacy. that first threat was going to be from north korea and we may see that unfolding as we speak. >> well, i think, andrea, that we're about to find out. i'm going to join you there in seoul when he gets there. as you know, he's not taking any reporters on his plane which is why you and i are flying around in this sort of odd way. i think the question is what is he prepared to actually to describe as a trump administration strategy here? and there have been a lot of meetings in the white house, one of which was yesterday, to try to go figure that out. my guess is it's going to have three immediate sort of tactical elements to it. you mentioned one, which is the buildup of the thad missile system and the drones in south korea. my colleague bill broad and i

wrote about another one a week ago which we discussed at the time which is increased cyberattacks on the missile systems and i think the third part is what combination of pressures can they put on the chinese. because if the chinese were going to do what ambassador baucus rightly laid out, which are the steps that they need to take, they would have done this years ago. they are not going to do it until they believe that the price of not doing it is higher. and my guess is that you're going to end up seeing some combination of threats by the u.s. to have increased missile defenses which the chinese despite. they think they are really aimed at them, not the north koreans, and some levels of increased economic sanctions against financial groups that do business with north korea. and i think the trump administration is grappling with these for the very first time. >> and david, there was even a

report that among the things that they are considering is regime change, some kind of covert action. is that even possible and wouldn't that be more destabilizing? wouldn't china be even more concerned about that? >> they would. regime change is one of those things that particularly when you get fairly conservative governments that come in like mr. trump, easy thing to start the meeting off with. then the question comes, how do you operationalize that? >> how do you do that? >> the government collapses, this is a family business with a seat at the u.n. and you've got some number of loose nuclear weapons wandering around why we try to figure out who the next person in charge of north korea is. so my guess is, i don't know what happened to that discussion but my guess is that you hold that for a little further dow the line, because they have a lot to go figure out. anwhe the chinese don't want

a collapsed north korea that brings us and the south koreans up to their border, what they really don't want is a bunch of loose nuclear weapons when no one is sure of where they are. >> exactly. briefly, what about this new secretary of state, an unusual background, he knows the world from the oil executive's perspective but he has missed every opportunity for public diplomacy. >> he sure has. and a good part of the job of being the secretary of state is being the chief spokesperson for american foreign policy. and so far, he has certainly not done that. and, you know, he's turned out every opportunity to answer questions, including from you, andrea. he certainly hasn't sat down to talk to the traditional media outlets that you usually would and i wrote a piece on sunday that said this might be strategic. he might be trying to make sure he doesn't get out ahead of the white house that is still trying to figure out it's overall strategies. but it may also be that he is

sort of uncomfortable in the spokesperson role. he didn't have to speak a whole lot that publicly, at least at this level, when he was running exxonmobil. >> david sanger and ambassador max baucus, thank you both very much. and back to chris jansing in washington. chris? >> andrea, thank you. she and david going out to see secretary of state rex tillerson. we'll see if they get answers. coming up, grounded. hundreds of flights canceled across the country and an update from what is usually one of the country's busiest airports. this is "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc. looking for clear answers for your retirement plan? start here. at fidelity, we let you know where you stand,

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now back to that major winter storm barrelling across the northeast dumping snow and packing winds. schools are closed in major cities across the northeast. hundreds of flights have been canceled and several areas are under a state of emergency. tom costello is at laguardia airport where things are at a standstill and jim cantore is in snowy massachusetts. first to tom. we're used to laguardia being packed. nothing like that now. when will we see flights back up and running? >> reporter: yeah, when is the last time you saw laguardia looking like this? >> never. >> reporter: it is empty. the whole airport is empty.

let's look outside live right now to what is going on outside on the ramp. this is an all-out effort to clear the snow so the planes can get in and get to the gates. you can see there are no planes out there right now because there's no planes at laguardia, period, or if they are, they are on the other side of the terminal. let's look at this realtime sense of what is happening and new york is all red. we have 5,900 cancellations system wide and the most affected airports, no surprise, it's jfk, laguardia, newark, up in boston as well. all of the airports in between. philadelphia to our south down into washington, d.c., where they are starting now to resume flight operations ever so slowly. but here in the big apple, they are talking about not being able to significantly resume operations until midday tomorrow because that is a lot of work. here's the problem. you don't want to have a plane sittinout on t ramp in the

middle of the snowstorm because you have snow piled up on top of it. they flew all of those planes out and you don't want to bring one in in the middle of a snowstorm because you don't want to have it iced over. it cost a fortune to deice. that's part of the calculus here when they figure out when to bring planes back in and when to get things moving again. chris, back to you. >> were people showing up for their flights? >> reporter: we had hardly anybody here. interestingly, chris, the few people who were stuck here who spent the night or who are still here, they generally are not native english speakers and therefore, somehow, didn't get the word that nothing's happening here. >> there you go. tom, thank you so much. i've never seen anything like that at laguardia. meantime, jim cantore is in auburn, massachusetts. you know the question that we all have. any of your favorite thundersnow? >> reporter: yeah, we've heard a couple of reports this morning.

they are slowly starting to come in. we haven't even gotten to the worst part of the snow. what was interesting, i was listening to tom's shot and i can't see where he is because i don't have a monitor but i can hear from the echo how nasty it is there. same thing with logan. we're going to get a lot more snow than they are at laguardia up here in boston. you can certainly see interior sections. i'm about 45 miles as the crow flies west of boston right now. and you can see, we are in blizzard conditions. the snow is horizontal. it's coming down. you can see the road looks pretty good here. cars are moving off and people are getting out of this. i've got to be honest with you, i think governor baker giving that area, governor malloy as well are happy with how the travel ban has gone and with governor baker asking people to stay off the roads. the mass pike was as quiet as

tom's shot in laguardia this morning and that's usually packed on a rush hour heading into boston and we didn't see hardly any vehicles at all. just hunker down and ride this one out. we'll deal with it in the next several hours. we'll see some of the snow changed to rain, even sleet in boston which will cut down on their totals. here in worcester, mass, which is close to auburn, we'll have the most snow of any single day in the month of march here in worcester. notice the trees, they are budding out because it was so warm in february. for some reason, chris, february and march decided to pull a switcharoo. >> we're having trouble adjusting psychologically. i am curious when the worst will be over where you are? >> i think we've got until about 7:00 p.m. tonight with this. here's the other thing, too.

the worst of the wind is still to come. we'll have winds gusting higher than this. so will boston. power outages i think going forward will be an additional threat to this area because the low is still south off of jersey shore right now. >> tom costello, your 15-second advice to people whose flights have been canceled. >> reporter: the good news is, you can change your ticket without a change fee. i met a couple here from chile who weren't being rebooked until friday. they are driving to miami hoping to catch a flight from miami to chile. >> wow. tom costello who is at an empty laguardia airport, jim cantore where he's happy to be, this i know about you, all of us say one day we'll have a job where we can stay home on a snow day. you're happy to be there. in the white house now, we're getting our feedback from the pool spread that just happened,

the meeting with the kingdom of saudi arabia and defense minister. let's listen. >> very nice people. >> we hope so. >> guys, thank you so much. >> i said thank you. thank you so much. >> ah. as we go to the bars. andrea mitchell, really quickly from tokyo, the significance of this meeting. >> this is a very big deal. this is the deputy crown prince in his 30s. he's the big reformer changing the saudi economy, trying to move it from an oil-based economy because of declining oil

prices into other kinds of foreign investment that he's seeking. they are going to sell 5% of aramco, the royal armed-owned oil company. they are going to go public and it's a very big change that he's trying to engineer. whether they can pull it off remains to be seen. this is one of the biggest meetings that president trump will have. >> andrea mitchell, thank you for that. we'll be back with more on "andrea mitchell reports." can a toothpaste do everything well? this clean was like pow! my teeth are glowing. they are so white. step 1 cleans. step 2 whitens.

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i think it's fair to say that cbo kind of missed it when it came to the number of people being enrolled in obamacare and they missed it in terms of the actual escalation in cost. having said that, i don't think this is particularly good news. if they're half right, that's still a large number of people uninsured. overall, i think we should take the cbo report and see if we can make the bill better. >> creating skepticism from, as you see, some senate republicans. bill kristol is editor at large with the weekly standard. the president tweeted jobs, jobs, jobs. we thought we were going to be on health care, health care, health care.

what is the future of this bill? >> i think the president feels the economy is doing well, deregulatory stuff that is helping a little bit and he must think, let me stick on that message and not get distracted by the health care bill. a big southeast virginia district, a republican district said he can't vote for the bill. when you start losing establishment republicans as well as the conservatives and moderates and senators worried about medicaid, it's got too many conflicting sort of vectors of opposition to make it through. >> let's talk about the wiretapping accusations and new spin from sean spicer. let me play this from the briefing room. >> he doesn't really think that president obama went up and tapped his phone personally. i think there is no question that the obama administration,

that there is a widely reported activity that occurred back then. the president used the word "wiretapping," to mean broadly surveillance and other activities during that. >> when he says something, can we trust that it's real? >> yes. >> so it's now broad surveillance. is that why the justice department wants an extra week to investigate and give their findings over the intelligence committee? >> i don't know. but it's made worse, not better, with this attempted humor. what is he really arguing about? he's saying that president obama ordered, i suppose, the head of the fbi to order subordinates to do wiretapping. spicer is saying that the intelligence committee, is complicit. that's pretty terrible, right, that a whole chain of people did

something they knew they shouldn't have been doing. literally, what evidence is there of that? it was clearly the russian ambassador, so forth, but no evidence that that was inappropriate or the stories have been about going to a fisa court which is the legal way that you wiretap. i think spicer is making it more irresponsible, not less so. >> we haven't heard from the president in the ten days since he made his first claims and sean spicer is, however, going to have the briefing at 2:00. so many things come out in the course of a day these days. let's go to the audio released by breitbart and it's this conference call. we haven't authenticated it. it sounds like paul ryan he had with members of the caucus after that "access hollywood" tape came out. >> look, you guys know i have real concerns about our nominee. this is going to be a turbulent month. but with respect to donald trump, i would encourage you to

do what you think is best and do what you feel you need to do. >> again, we want to say that we haven't independently verified that. this takes on a new impression when you actually hear the words. why is it coming out now? >> and coming out in breitbart. >> yes. >> it was reported at the time but not the audio. breitbart was ran by steve bannon. not really enamored of having the man he helped get into the presidency. now in on a paul ryan project, ryan has devised it and i wonder whether -- they are putting up stories of bannon getting along with people at breitbart. so i think if you want to be conspiratorial, which is not always a bad thing, this is steve bannon reminding donald trump through the media, through breitbart, why exactly he is on

board and something that he didn't campaign on. can't campaign on repealing obamacare but what he means by that turns out to be pretty general. a pretty good friend of president trump has outlined this morning, here's a way to get yourself out of the health care mess. >> such a shocking suggestion. bill kristol, we'll end on that note. great to see you. thank you so much for coming in. that's going to do it for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." what do you have going on with rex tillerson? >> there have been military exercises, as you know, new threats from the north and it's tit for tat. chris? >> andrea mitchell, up until 2:00 in the morning for us. remember to follow us on facebook and twitter. you can find me on

twitter @chrisjansing. craig melvin is up next on msnbc. >> good to see you, my friend. craig melvin here at msnbc headquarters in new york right now, health careless? gop lawmakers on the defense after the cbo report reveals that tens of millions of americans will lose coverage on their plan. i'll talk to a gop congressman who does not support that bill. new audio leaked and defending then candidate trump last fall. what does it mean for the republican party rift? and winter wallop. the northeast still getting pounded by a late winter storm. we've got reporters fanned out to bring you the very latest. al roker will also join me to update us on the latest path of the storm. but at the top of the next hour, a white house briefing. it comes after that damning report from the congressional budget office on a republican health care bill. we should note the nonpartisan