this sunday, president trump's health care surrender. >> i'm disappointed because we could have had it. so i'm disappointed. >> i will not sugar coat this. this is a disappointing day for us. >> the president and his party's core promise promise for four straight campaigns broken. how did it happen and why are they giving up so easily? white house budget director mick mulvaney joins me this morning. plus can a deeply divided republican party ever figure out how to govern? i'll talk to two republican no votes from opposite ends of the ideological spectrum together. senator mike lee of utah and

congressman charlie dent of pennsylvania. >> and if health care wasn't bad enough for the president trump the fbi director confirms his agency has been investigating the president's campaign and its potel ties to russia for months. >> and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and russia's efforts. i'll talk to the leading democrat on the senate intel committee, mike warner of virginia. >> and the governor of the nation's biggest state with piece of advice for president trump. >> don't fight everybody. pick your battles. >> i sit down with jerry brown of california. joining me for insight and analysis are, tom brokaw of nbc news, joy reid, host of "a.m. joy," hugh hewitt and ileana johnson of politico. welcome to sunday. it's "meet the press." from nbc news in washington, the longest-running show in television history, celebrating its 70th year, this is "meet the press" with chuck todd. good sunday morning.

by any standard, that was the most consequential week in donald trump's young presidency in the span of just five days, mr. trump's credibility with voters and his clout for congress were dealt serious blows. mr. comey is investigating possible links between the trump campaign and the russian government. by friday, house republicans had to pull the bill to repeal and replace obamacare, an embarrassing acknowledgement that they didn't have the votes despite full control of the senate and the white house. in a short time in office, the president's travel ban has been blocked twice, the russian investigation is widening and his political capital is shrinking. despite several days of behind the scenes negotiating and arm twisting on health care, the president was lackluster in the art of the deal that didn't

close. >> i'm disappointed. i'm a little surprised to be honest with you. >> for seven years it's been the promise that united republicans repeated over and over again on the campaign trail by donald trump. >> the first thing we're going to do is repeal and replace obamacare. >> immediately repealing and replacing obamacare. >> immediately, repealing and replacing the disaster known as obamacare. >> but on friday, house republicans, facing a revolt by more than 30 conservatives and moderates pulled their bill to repeal and replace obamacare from the floor, leaving president obama's chief domestic achievement intact. >> we'll be living with obamacare for the foreseeable future. >> all week republicans promise that president trump's personal political capital would bring the bill across the finish line. >> the reason i feel so good about this is because the president has become a great closer. >> he's the closer. >> he is the closer. >> a tremendous closer.

>> now the defeat of mr. trump's first legislative fort raises questions about the negotiating skills that he promised would break through gridlock in washington. >> if you can't make a good deal with a politician, then there's something wrong with you. you're certainly not very good. >> and it damages the reputation of house speaker paul ryan. the self-described policy wonk that republicans drafted to push through conservative legislation, and it raises questions about the party's overall ability to govern. >> we were a ten-year opposition party where being against things was easy to do. >> quite frankly, we have a group of people that are no on everything. >> it is an early victory for grassroots activism on the left. after angry town halls put pressure moderate lawmakers to vote no. now obamacare's survival or collapse lies with mr. trump, a president who vowed to dismantle it. on friday he told "the new york times," quote, he was pleased to have it all behind him. it's enough already. though the president tried to

pin some blame on democrats. >> the losers are nancy pelosi and chuck schumer because now they own obamacare. >> mr. trump also implied he might eventually have to work with democrats to fix the law. it is unlikely to happen any time soon, eager to talk about anything else, the president spent his weekly address talking not about health care, not about tax reform, not about infrastructure, but about exploring space. >> this week in the company of astronauts i was honored to sign the nasa transition authoration act right into law. >> the blame game is in full swing. the president tweeted this just a few minutes ago. democrats are smiling in d.c., and the freedom caucus with the help of club for growth and heritage have saved planned parenthood and o-care while some republicans are blaming the white house and others are pointing at speaker ryan and still others like the president is pinning the fault on the freedom caucus.

joining me now is a former member of the freedom caulk us and someone tasked with helping to the president to close the deal, budget director mick mulvaney. the president himself will pin this on the club for growth, and the conservative caucus, and a caucus you were a member of just six months ago. >> there's plenty of blame to go around as we try to figure out what happened. what happened is washington won. i think the one thing we learned this week is washington was more broken than president trump thought that it was. what you have is the status quo wins and unfortunately, the folks back home lost. you can blame it on the freedom caucus if you want to and charlie dent, and it was the powers that be in washington that won. >> the republican party has not changed washington after taking over the house, and taking over the senate in '14 and over the white house now.

>> we haven't been able to change washington if the first 65 days and if there's anything that's disappointing and an educational process to the trump administration is this place was a lot more rotten than he thought it was. and i thought it was. >> why couldn't you get them to yes? your former colleagues and you were a vocal member of this caucus. >> yeah. >> why couldn't you get them to yes? >> i have no yet. i really don't. let's step back and realize that probably half of the folks in the group were yes and half were no, but what i told the president what would happen is we'd go up to the last couple of days and the last couple of hours and they would make it better and for some reason that hasn't happened and i didn't realize this difficulty ran as deep as it was. >> you would have been a yes on this? >> without reservation and told the men and women in the freedom caucus that many, many times. again, many of them would have supported the bill if it had come to the floor. it was a bizarre combination of who was against this bill and some folks on the freedom caucus.

>> doesn't that tell you if the bill was flawed? if you can't win over conservatives and moderates who can you win? >> folks are paying attention to the wrong things. they're still paying attention to the special interests and being re-elected. what happened here is we got stuck with obamacare and the people have been telling people how bad this program is and how harming it is to folks back home are the ones who prevented it from being replaced. that's what's so frustrating. >> the president is glad it's behind him. white house press secretary sean spicer said the president left everything on the field. i want to put up a bill -- a chart here. this is how long it takes to get big legislative items done. obamacare from start to finish was 187 legislative days and medicare part d, 166. welfare reform was 56. and from start to finish on health care was 17 days. 17 days and you guys are waving the white flag?

>> it was 17 days in this administration. we've been working against it the -- >> what was the hurry? why didn't you have a bill that could pass in the seven years or why didn't you acknowledge that you needed more time? >> here is the hurry. there is a lot to be done. we needed to get rid of obamacare. we needed to fix the system so we could help folks back home and then move on to tax reform so we could help get the people back to work. the president wants toa lot of things and is not willing to do and the one thing i told him, look, this president is not like any other president that you've ever seen before. he will not do things the same way. >> he didn't sell it. he didn't give a major speech on it and he would do rallies and say health care, i can't wait to do tax reform. it was like a nuisance to him. >> chuck, no. you're just wrong on that one. the man worked and you said it yourself. we left everything on the field. >> how do you describe that as leaving everything on the field. president obama didn't give up

in the face of tough town halls. he spent another six months and he had a special election and they kept going, and i guess the question, and you saw i think it's phil klein in the washington examiner that said this is the biggest broken promise that anyone's made in american political history. >> we had 120 members of congress through the white house in the last couple of days. i myself, at one time on wednesday afternoon, we had 80 members of congress on the property at one time. mike pence was meeting with the group, and the president was meeting with another group, no stone left unturned. >> you're giving up after 17 legislative days and you're live giving up after 66 days. he wants to move on. clearly, you're not going to touch health care for what? the next 12 months. >> winter breaks? >> the winter break? >> no, when it breaks. that's what folks are starting to talk about and frustrating as we tried to help folks back home is the end result is that people back home will be hurt.

the democrats will be blamed for it because it's not trumpcare in this country, it is not ryancare. it is obamacare, they will get blamed. >> and you have no responsible that the law of the land, that paul ryan said would be the law of the land for the foreseeable future, does your administration have the duty to make it work? >> we had the duty to try to fix it. and we did everything we possibly could. >> do you have the duty to make it work? >> we have the duty to help people back home. you cannot fix a broken system. this is a system built on the idea that the government could force you to do something you didn't want and that that would make you happy. you are never going to fix that. the systemust be removed and it must be repealed and replaced system that doesn't trust people to do what's in their best interest. >> i keep coming back, why is it that a republican house and senate could put a repeal bill on president obama's desk so easily and you couldn't put a repeal bill on president trump's desk? >> we're asking the same

questions. we really are. i know the man in the white house is capable of governing. without a doubt, no question. if anybody had any doubts about president trump's ability to be the president they should have been -- >> really? can't close a deal? he said he was a big negotiator. >> this is what everybody said he couldn't do and he couldn't work with different groups in the republican party. no, this was the president being the president. what you saw this week were more rotten thing than we did. >> the president did a saturday morning tweet and he said this, to go watch judge janeane on fox news at 9:00 p.m. so we did. here's what she said. >> paul ryan needs to step down as speaker of the house. this is not on president trump. no one expected a businessman to understand the nuances, the complicated ins and outs of washington and its legislative process. >> what message was the president trying to send,

telling his supporters to watch her and her lead editorial was to say house speaker paul ryan needs to step down. is that what the president wanted people to hear? >> i have spent more time in the last week with the president of the united states than i thought i would, than four years. i've never seen him blame paul ryan. not sure what that was about? >> why did he want people to watch her show? >> the people to blame were the people who would not vote yes and they would vote no and when senator lee is here. the folks who voted no are the folks to blame. >> he is want blaming paul ryan at all? there is no subtle campaign to undermine paul ryan? >> i've been in the oval office with the president and with the speaker more in the last couple of days than i ever out. i've never seen the president for a second try to blame paul ryan for this. >> all right. are you gog to repl and replace obamacare before the end of this year? >> my guess is we will move on. we really are. >> you are not touching health care. >> when it fails, and it may be may, and it may be the end of this year, folks will come back

and say, wow -- >> this is no longer a hundred-day priority. >> the president has things he wants to accomplish and he's not going to wait for congress to sit around and do the right thing. when it breaks and chuck, it's going to break, they will come back to us and ask us to take it up again. >> i will leave it there. as tax reform gets under way i'll see you there again soon. mick mulvaney, thanks for coming on. appreciate it. it was tanked by a revolt in the house, but it was facing steep opposition in the senate, senator lee of utah and charlie dent are about as far apart as you can get. but one thing they both agreed on, they weren't going to vote for this bill as it was written and they both join me now together. gentlemen, welcome. senator lee, let me start with you, the president is blaming the freedom caucus, club for growth and heritage for, quote,

protecting planned parenthood and obamacare. is that a fair read of what happened this week, sir? >> that is not at all how i see it. this bill didn't pass because it didn't deal with the most fundamental flaw in obamacare. the part of obamacare that has de health care unacceptable and unaffordable. until get a bill that actually brings down the cost of health care for hardworking americans we're not going to get something that passes. >> congressman dent, do you pin the blame? some people pin the blame on the moderates, it wasn't just the freedom caucus and the moderates helped tank this, too. what say you? >> well, i tend to agree with the president on that point. let's be very honest about this. a lot of the concessions the white house was making at the end of this process were to try to please and placate the hard right on essential benefits and other issues all to placate people who were not going to

vote for the bill anyway. by doing that, they ended up alienating more people on the senate right or moderates. that is really what happened. the bottom line, chuck, that in order to reform health care in this country we'll have to do it in a durable, sustainable way and bipartisan manner. we as republicans should not make the same mistakes that the democrats did in 2010 by muscling that law through. i voted against it. they muscled it through. we need to do this in a durable, bipartisan and sustainable way. >> before i go back to senator lee. i want you to respond to was out this morning and it's an anecdote about the president and you. according to an attendee, the president angrily informed you, congressman dent, that you were destroying the republican party and was going to take down tax reform and i'm going to blame you. is that -- is that what the president said to you and how did you respond? >> i listened to respectfully to what the president had to say, this discussion has been far too

much about artificial timeliness and arbitrary deadlines all to affect tax reform. this conversatn should be more about the people whose lives will be impacted by decisions on health care. we did not have much of a substantive discussion. i'm holding up a plan from republican governors from expansion states like mine, kasich, snyder, sandoval, hutchison. they wanted to be part of this process and they were not brought in. those kinds of issues were very important to me and to the people i represent and frankly, to a lot of the members of congress who are part of the senate right group who are very concerned about the medicaid changes and yeah, i can hold my ground. >> senator lee, you heard mick mulvaney said they're moving on. you heard the president say he's glad health care is behind him. first of all, what say you? is health care behind you? >> absolutely not. republicans have been campaigning for seven years. we need to do that. we need to do that very thing. we need to get back to the table and get people negotiating.

as a whole lot of people said the other day, as paul ryan himself said when this bill was going down the tubes. he said we came so close and he's right. they were not far away from a deal. they could have gotten to a deal. there were a few things that could have added to the bill to vote for it so that it would have passed. this is part of the legislative process and the process has to be allowed to play itself out and devoting 17 legislative days to a bill and then walking away from it because it hasn't passed within 17 legislative days makes no sense especially when this is something that we've been campaigning oren years and the american people are hurting. hardworking middle class americanacross this country are unable to afford health care because of this bill. we've got to fix that or we've got to repeal it. >> now that we have the two of you that represent the ideological polls of the republican party. i want to ask you both whether you agree with the following quote from a colleague of yours, senator lee. it's bill cassidy, republican of louisiana.

he has his own health care bill. he said this that now, quote, there's widespread recognition that the federal government, congress has create the right for every american to have health care. essentially, senator lee, he is saying the debate's over about whether government should be involved with this or not and now it's time to design a law that acknowledges this right, that people have a right to health care and the government's got to figure out how to do it for them. do you concur with that? >> in so far as he's talking about a federal right, rights are things that the government can't do to you. rights are not something that the government must do to you or provide for you. he's suggesting the federal government is key and the increased federal presence is somehow going to bring down the cost of health care. that's simply not true, and in fact, that's refuted abundantly by the last seven years by what happened since obamacare was passed. when this bill was passed and we brought the federal government into it with the promise that it would make health care more

affordable. it had quite the opposite effect. >> congressman dent, i would guess you are in more agreement with senator cassidy. >> i spoke with senator cassidy and senator collins at length and senator cassidy from a very conservative state. louisiana. we have a health architecture now, flawed as it is, i voted against it the and we need to make it market oriented and patient-friendly and patient-centered. that debate has already been settled. we have a national health program. our job is now to fix it and make it much better than it is today because it's simply not working for too many americans. >> senator lee, congressman dent i'll leave it there and i have a feeling that there say divide here on the role of government that hasn't been bridged inside the republican party and until that's done we still may have this debate to go on and on and on. gentlemen, i appreciate you coming on together. it's good to have you both. >> when we come back, how deep is the damage to president trump from the collapse of this health

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welcome back. panelists here, tom brokaw, grand puba of nbc news, joy reid, host of "am joy," and always a joy, and hugh hewitt, host of the salem radio network. all right, hugh, i'm going to start with you because this is what "the washington examiner" headline is, gop cave on obamacare repeal is the biggest broken promise in political history, and it was at the top of, i believe, phil klein's analysis. is he right? >> no. we had a great week with neil gorsuch and he'll weigh the balance of the supreme court and president trump had as a huge win to put on the table. it was a big loss, and i agree with the autopsy that director mulvaney put out, it isn't on paul ryan and it is on area 51 of the freedom caucus that believes in legislative flying

saucers that ignore the senate and senate rules and reconciliation rules and they own the loss. nobody else. >> tom? >> the fact t matter is the entire republican side of the house for seveyears has been screaming about repealing obamacare. so they come up with a plan that they do in the middle of the night and they shove it in front of the house and they say take it or leave it. the president buys into that with a creative circular firing squad and the command was ready, fire, aim and we're all involved in politics, but out in america today people with serious or even moderate health problems are wondering, where do i go from here? it is so broken in washington. it's not going to get anything done. >> we did some voter interviews over the last couple of days. there was one that really stood out to me, and i'll play it here from a woman in wichita. trump voter. listen to this. >> you cannot slam something so incredibly layered and complex together in that many days. i don't care how many people are working on it. you cannot do it. it took them so much longer to

craft aca and it still isn't correct. there has to be a balance. >> she gets it. >> one thing i don't think has been sufficiently appreciate is that the democrats expended an enormous amount of political capital to pass obamacare. it took 13 months to craft the law. president obama talked about it incessantly and mocked by republicans for pounding away at it. democrats lost 63 seats in congress and six seats in the senate. i don't know if republicans were mentally prepared if they cared about it so much to expend that kind of political capital and to know, okay, precisely because they're doing something unprecedented and taking away an entitlement. we might lose the house and the senate for doing this. do they care that much? i'm not sure. >> it was a regulatory process, and i thought the graphic you put up the number of legislative days devoted to previous legislate, where your time is spent that's where your passion is. the problem for republicans the 17-day odyssey and a lot of

people on the democratic side perceived and repeal and replace is about taking away obama signature achievement and affirmatively, what did they want to do? republicans have spent the last 30, 40 years of trying to replace this image of callousness toward the poor and callousness toward the elderly with the idea of compassionate conservatism. that was whisked away and there was a cruelty to this bill that was even apparent to conservative voters and republican voters who were shocked at the cruelty and the third thing and the president has hinted at this, too, this was a tax cut. this was an attempt to jam through a giant tax cut for the wealthy to set the stage for tax reform. >> charlie dent said that, hugh. he basically said this was all about trying to finance a $2 trillion tax cut hoping that they could make it deficit neutral. >> charlie, who is a friend of mine, lives in a marginal district.

he has to be careful with every vote. half of the freedom caucus who killed this live in a safe, red district. obamacare is the time share that the democrats bought that they cannot admit the cost of, that they keep telling themselves was a good idea. it is in a death spiral. joy and i have had many disagreements about that. >> it's not the definition of an economic death spiral? >> it's not the definition. >> we'll point out the president of aetna and you will lose coverage and that's a death spiral. joy disagrees and i know she wants to jump in here. >> i appreciate her reticence. >> we know aetna lied and we've had a federal judge say aetna lied and they pulled out for other reasons and insurance companies raised premiums and it's what they do, and the congressional budget office made it quite clear the affordable care act is not, not collapsing and not in a death spiral. it's not. >> i want to quickly get to paul ryan here because it is -- is there a subtle palace intrigue

campaign going on with some people in this white house to undermine paul ryan? >> i don't know about that, but i was stunned who paul ryan who had been in this town in a long time say at the end of the process, well, there is a difference being an opposition party and a majority party and it's their fourth term in progress and he also said it's really complicated, health care. to come to the american people in 60 days in this administration and say it was complicated and by the way, we didn't realize the difference between being an opposition party and being a majority party. i think that takes a lot of his credibility away from him, quite honestly. >> can we comment on mick mulvaney essentially sayine tea party which is what the freedom caucus is, they're the establishment? that's odd. >> when you play the blame game here you talk about paul ryan and it's important to note. how does he roll out a bill that not one conservative health care policy expert supports? this was a bill without a core

constituency of supporters behind it which i think was its essential problem. i know he wants to blame the tea partiers, but how do you explain that. >> no, not the tea partiers, the area 51 i will never vote for anything that isn't perfect people. it doesn't exist. >> i think that's hard to reconcile. >> i'll close the loop here with just one comment which came from a strategist quoted in "the wall street journal," ryan is probably safest as speaker because nobody particularly wants to be henry the viii's ex wife. i'll pause it there. can a bipartisan investigation into russia's efforts to interfere with the 2016 election survive in the trump era? i'll ask the top democrat on the senate intel committee. i never miss an early morning market.

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welcome back. last monday the house intelligence committee held its first open hearing on russia since president trump's inauguration. the result, the bombshell confirmation that the fbi is indeed investigating the trump campaign's potential ties to russia. and a chaotic back and forth between the committee's top two members after the chairman briefed the president whose campaign his committee is supposed to be investigating and all of this calling into question over whether the house can conduct a credible investigation, and it appears now that investigation could be falling apart before our eyes. so this week the senate intelligence committee will get its turn to prove that someone in congress can credibly investigate this in a bipartisan way. >> senator mark warner of virginia is in the committee. welcome. >> good morning.

>> look, i want to get right to getting your reaction to what fbi director james comey said when he testified that they are indeed investigating ties between the trump campaign and russia. >> well, chuck, i want to talk about russia, as well, but we just saw the first half of this show talk about the failure of trumpcare take place. the reason was nobody talked about the details of the bill. it would have cost 24 million americans their healthcare, it would have raised prices for seniors, it was a major tax cut for the wealthy and an $800 billion cost shift for the states to pick up the medicaid and it was an awful bill and i think people across the country revolted against it. sometimes the substance actually matters. in terms of russia, this is -- i've said before, this is the most important thing i've ever done in my public life, and what i know now as i get more and more into this, i will double down on that statement because it's extraordinary. we have the fbi director

admitting there are investigations going on. we know the russians massively interfered with our elections and we had 1,000-page internet trolls that flooded the zone with fake news, and we have a series of people that are closely affiliated with the president who have had extensive ties with russia including the fact, 60 days into the administration. we have both the nsa director and the national security adviser that had to resign and the attorney general had to recuse himself because of those ties. >> how much does an active investigation in the fbi hamper the senate intelligence committee's ability to do an investigation? isn't it plausible it can't turn over these materials because we're not done? >> there were prior examples. think back to watergate. there was a doj going on. along with a congressional investigation. >> you'll do both? >> i talked regularly with director comey. there will be times when we'll have, i'm sure, brush-ups and we start our process in terms of open hearing this week and we

have terms of reference and we have incredible access to information at the cia and we'll have to get more information and we've started interviewing witnesses and we've got a long way to go to get this done and we'll get it done in a bipartisan way. >> you had the house intelligence chairman devin nunes claim that he has now seen some raw intelligence reports that perhaps confirmed that there was at least some inadvertent surveillance of folks connected to the trump campaign. have you seen any of this material? what is he referring to? >> i am totally mystified. i've talked to my chairman. i've talked to democrats on the committee. i think it's fairly mystifying if not outrageous that he makes these claims and then goes to sit down and briefs the white house and i know adam schiff, the lead democrat wants to keep the investigation bipartisan. i don't think mr. schiff even knows today what those documents are.

>> we have talked a couple of times and you have hesitated on dorsing thidea of an independent commission, john mccain has been the biggest champion of this saying at this point mae it can't bdone inside of congress. what do you say to that? >> listen, if we can get an independent commission, that means you have to pass a bill and the president will sign it. >> that's moving -- you were not there even two weeks ago. >> and then you have to debate about who will be on it. i think we have a committee. i have tom cotton on the committee and ron widen and we crossed all of the political divides and frankly, we have bipartisan support, serious republicans, marco rubio, susan collins all saying we'll go where the intel leads. >> i want to ask you about richard burr and your trust and faith in him. the white house used -- asked both devin nunes and richard burr to essentially help push back against one of these new york times stories and they both did in some form or another. does that call into question senator burr's ability to be bipartisan in this and do you trust him?

>> we've had some bumps, but i am working very closely with him right now? >> you trust him? >> i trust him that we will get this done and we have a list of witnesses that i think you will see that is comprehensive and we'll talk to everybody involved. >> is paul manafort apparently made a statement that he's willing to testify before the house and the senate intelligence investigations. when would we see somebody like paul manafort? >> what you have to do first is you have to get your information, and raw intelligence and build your case. you only bring in those kind of witnesses at the appropriate time. and we will bring them in. >> is that like a three-month, six-month, outline the time line here. >> what we'll do is have the public hearing and we'll continue to do as much as we can in public, but we have more raw intelligence that we have to go through because when we bring in people like mr. manafort, we want to know not some spectacle. we want to ask the right questions. >> as you know, you brought up adam schiff and he's the ranking democrat in the house intelligence committee. he said there is more than just circumstantial evidence and that

there is some -- some evidence of collusion that's going to come out. is that -- >> i'll simply say what i said at the outset. weeks ago when i was first getting started with this and i said this is the most important thing i've ever worked on. with what i know now i doubly believe that. it has to be done bipartisan and we have to get the facts out to the american people. >> you keep saying there is more smoke? >> there is more smoke. >> do you think there is a fire there? >> time will tell and what we know is the russians massively intervened and they're doing the same in france and germany. >> before i let you go, neil gorsuch, is it worth filibustering him, or do you believe he should have a vote? >> bright guy, but i was very disappointed with his answers. he was not even to acknowledge the bedrock cases like brown versus board of education are part of our existing -- >> there's voting no and preventing a vote. where are you? >> time will tell.

i want to review more of his cases. >> you have nomade a decision on filibustering? >> i have not made a decision yet, and i am not pleased with his answers. personally or at the committee level. >> senator mark warner, we'll see you later this week. thanks very much. appreciate it. when we come back, california governor jerry brown on how to run a deep blue state in the era of trump. yeah, at first i thought it was just the stress of moving. [ sighs ] hey, i was using that. what, you think we own stock in the electric company? i will turn this car around right now! there's nobody back there. i was becoming my father. [ clears throat ] it's...been an adjustment, but we're making it work. you know, progressive.com makes it easy for us to get the right home insurance. [ snoring ] progressive can't protect you from becoming your parents, but we can protect your home and auto. [ chuckles ] all right. i'm bushed! i've been on my feel alyea me too. excuse me...coming through! ride the gel wave of comfort with dr. scholls massaging gel insoles. they're proven to give you comfort.

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with less pain, i can be more active. ask your doctor about lyrica. i can be more active. experience exciting offers on sales event is here. our most thrilling models ever. get up to $2,500 customer cash on select 2017 models for these terms. experience amazing at your lexus dealer. welcome back. when jerry brown first became governor of california in january 1975 the number one song on billboard was elton john's

cover of the beatles lucy in the sky with diamonds. i sat down with governor brown in the 21st century. he was here in d.c. for his first visit since president trump's inauguration and he didn't get a meeting with the president or anybody in the west wing. in his second go round as governor, he is the top official and in a state, a deeply blue one who is sharply at odds especially when it comes to immigration and that border wall. >> the wall to me is ominous. it reminds me too much of the berlin wall. when i see that 30-foot wall i worry somehow are they trying to deep me in or keep them out? i really think people ought to be careful because there's a lot of odor here of kind of a strong man, a kind of a world where you want the ultimate leader here to be doing all of this stuff, and having a wall, locking the people in is one of those characteristics. i think america ought to be very careful when we make radical

changes like a 30-foot wall keeping some in and some out. >> no, i understand that, but you have essentially, you could take the government to court. you could stop this and will you pull out every stop from keeping the wall from construction? >> i don't like the wall. to the extent it violates law i will enforce that. >> we're not going to sit around and play patsies and do whatever the hell you want and deport 2 million people. no, we're going fight and we'll fight very hard, but we're not going to bring stupid lawsuits and running to the courthouse every day and i would do the right, human and christian thing from my point of view. you don't treat human beings like that. trump's supposed to be mr. religious fellow, and i thought we had to treat the least of these as we would treat the lord. so i hope he would reconnect with some of his conservative evangelicals and they'll hello him that these are human beings and they're children of god and they should be treated that way.

>> needless to say there is a lot more to my interview with governor brown and we spoke about where the discussion went and where he's willing to work for the president and his advice for mr. trump since he governs more people than any other democrat. >> of course, the health care implosion on friday meant we didn't have as much time as we wanted to have with him and all of this is on our website, meet the press.com and we'll have much more with governor brown on meet the press daily. you know where to find that, on msnbc. when we come back, not one, but two politically devastating gut punches this week. where does president trump go from here? devastating gut don't let dust and allergens get between you and life's beautiful moments. flonase allergy relief delivers more complete relief. flonase helps block 6 key inflammatory substances that cause all your symptoms, including nasal congestion and itchy, watery eyes. flonase is an allergy nasal spray that works even beyond the nose.

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welcome back. panel is here. you know, this week began with the first gut punch which was russia and the fbi. where is the state of the trump presidency, tom? here we are -- tomorrow is day 67. we had the travel ban. it's been blocked twice, healthcare can't get done, now he wants to do tax reform and russia is expanding and this is not a presidency that will have a hundred days' event that will feel good. >> there is a huge difference between standing before a crowd in kentucky as he did ten days ago ask repeating campaign promises and governing from 1600 pennsylvania avenue and getting things done. i think we can see in the next week or so that mitch mcconnell will begin to take control on the senate side of some of the

issues, deregulation and taxation, for example, getting gorsuch through. those kinds of things will begin to lift, but it won't be trump who is getting that done for him. i really think that this has not been fatal for trump. no question about that, but how nimble he's going to be and whether he can change. we haven't seen much evidence of that in his private life or in his public life, and i think that's what we have to watch. >> it's interesting to me, his instinct is to want to work with democrats. there is an excerpt of the great robert draper piece on trump, and he wrote this and based on an interview that he did. trump seemed much less animated by the subject of budget cuts than the subject of spending increases. this is trump. spend money to make money in the future and that will happen, a clearer keynesian liberalism, is that your party now? >> i think he's done with the right wing. >> i think he's done with the right wing. >> if you buy stocks, one of them is the supreme court, that

went up 400% this week and one is health care and it bankrupted and you have the military, the tax bill and the infrastructure and he'll bank on the other four going up and the supreme court went with -- i think you had the 2020 nominee here in mark warner. long time. >> he can't be the democratic nominee and not support a filibuster. >> that's it. exactly. that's why he's running for president and he's going to go with chuck shuchumer and the re rule will break the filibuster. >> he'll move to the left. s he wants to do infrastructure, he wants to do a big thing on it. he singled out mark meadows and total told republicans, you're going to lose, i'm going to campaign against you. people said to me, it wasn't the

best means of persuasion. but when he moves to his left, he gets to sell people on things and say, i'll give you things you're going to like. it will be interesting to watch him. i think that's much more the mode he wants to be in. it didn't work for him to incriminate people and pound them over the head. i think he'll be more effective when he's heading out goodies. >> the democrats right now, the grassroots of the party, which really stepped forward and extinguished this president trump care bill, the party is now allowing the grassroots to lead them. but i will tell you, there is only one member of congress in either body that donald trump really actually personally knows and it's chuck schumer, and knows well. he became a republican, but if you recall, back in his own roger stone days in the '80s, he was railing against ronald reagan for being too tough on the soviet union. he's odd figure without a fixed ideology. he's a guy in business who is used to spending other people's money, borrowing it and not paying it back.

it's interesting to watch most of the republicans, except the freedom caucus, going along. >> the freedom caucus, do these fiscal conservatives in congress go along with an infrastructure bill because they're giving the president leeway in his first hundred days? we saw in health care, it's not likely. but i think it's because the president didn't know the policy details and he wasn't able to persuade them. can he do it on infrastructure is an open question. >> we've known him for a long time in his new york days and now in the campaign. the attention span is about that big. >> that's why he's glad it's in the rearview mirror, i guess. we'll do a quick 45-second break. end game is coming up. and a very public and unfortunately-timed thank you to republicans. stay with us. key nutrients from food alone. les do more. add one a day men's complete with key nutrients we may need. plus heart-health support with b vitamins. one a day men's in gummies and tablets.

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back now with end game. before i get to our fun tease there that even you were

intrigued about, i want to quickly ask. palace intrigue here. does the president reorient his west wing staff? has there been any of that? does reince priebus stay? >> the president needs to ask director comey and anyone in the white house is under investigation, and if they are, he has to go. but reince priebus and paul ryan need to stay. they need to start listening to mitch mcconnell. >> new presidents usually bring in people who know the town. this is what happens when you staff the west wing with idealogues. >> i think the problem is a lack of experience on capitol hill. for the president, it's, you know, he doesn't understand the policy details. for paul ryan, i think it's been the story that's been told is, he didn't sell this well. he didn't talk to journalists

beforehand or the policy community. and i think that was perhaps the biggest flaw, and the biggest mistake. >> t biggest knock you hear on paul ryan, and it rings true, tom, an incredible policy wonk who hates politics and he took a job that was all politics. he knew he wasn't as suited for it as others wanted him to be. >> i think he's been really wounded in all of this, quite honestly. he'll obviously continue as the speaker, nobody else wants that job. i'm quite surprised by, i hesitate to use the phrase, naivete on his part, gosh, we didn't know it was hard. the best line i've heard all week is from a very prominent senator saying, a day without a tweet is a very good day. >> no matter how good a politician you are, it's hard to sell the idea of taking 24 million people's health care away. that is not sellable. >> in ryan's defense, i don't

think he's saying, gosh, it's harder. i think he's trying to tell his conference, governing is different than being in the opposition. i think he's well aware it's much harder. >> the bottom line at the end of this week is, health care is 18% of our economy, it affects everyone in america in one form or another. this is not a political game. this is not monopoly. they've got to find a way to get it settled. in the reagan administration they put together pat moynihan and aa alan greenspan and solve social security. >> take that sting that we need to take away this thing from obama. if you have problems with it, fix it. legislating is for. march madness is known for heartbreak, which could be applied to republicans and health care. one pac was so sure that repealing obamacare was such a

slam dunk, they ran ads thanking republicans for replacing the affordable care act. the ad seems to have been a victory lap for a nonexistent win. by the way, barbara comstock who was shown there, came out against the plan. >> she busted her own bracket. [ laughter ] >> i don't know if anybody had a worse friday than paul ryan. i asked paul ryan about his bracket pick last week when i interviewed him. here is what he said to me. >> speaker ryan, do you have wisconsin in your final four? >> yes, i do, actually. i haven't gone all the way. i have a rematch with kentucky. but we win this time. >> so friday at 3:30 he pulls the bill on health care, no more repeal or replace, hugh. friday night, this is how wisconsin's season ended. >> my goodness! >> speaker ryan.

>> you're kicking him when he's done. >> he and i love the packers together. it was a tough night. >> but don't forget, neil gorsuch, kneneil gorsuch, neil gorsuch. we'll be back next week, i promise you, if it's sunday, it's "meet the press." and let me hope one final four team survives for me, kentucky. we'll be back. one final four team survives for me. we'll be back. ♪ ♪

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