it's time to turn things around. lower your blood sugar with invokana®. imagine loving your numbers. there's only one invokana®. ask your doctor about it by name. good morning, everyone. i'm alex witt here in new york at msnbc world headquarters. it is 9:00 a.m. here in the east, 6:00 a.m. out west. here's what's happening right now. supreme court fight. congress gears up for a showdown over nominee near gorsuch ahead of tomorrow's committee vote. new revelations about former national security adviser michael flynn, just how much he was paid to give speeches. why two words in those papers are getting a lot of attention. >> we need to find out about russia. i want to know about the contacts. >> voters sound off about the russia probe at a town hall.

new poll numbers show just how much this story is resonating with the public. plus breaking news, a state of original in south america after an avalanche of water sweeps through a small city. and we begin with politics. u.n. secretary, ambassador to the united nations nikki haley today pushing back on critics who feel president trump has not been tough enough on russia. here's what she said in an interview airing later this morning. >> the president has not once called me and said, don't beat up on russia, has not once called me and told me what to say, has not once -- >> but he isn't beating up on russia. should he be beating up on russia? >> i am. >> so he doesn't need to? >> well of course. he's got a lot of things he's doing, but he is not stopping me from beating up on russia. >> meanwhile, a federal judge in kentucky is siding with three protestors who allege that that

candidate trump incited violence at a rally, rejecting motions to dismiss a lawsuit. citing one of trump's popular statements during one of those rallies. this is the basis for the lawsuit to proceed. >> we have another wise guy. go ahead, get him the hell out. >> one of the women in the lawsuit is an african-american college student who was seen in cell phone footage being pushed and shoved as she made her way out of that rally. besides president trump, three supporters are named in the lawsuit. and as the trump administration deals with the fallout over ousted security adviser mike flynn's request for immunity, nbc news is learning new details about his ties to russia. kelly o'donnell is at the white house. before we get to the subject of mr. flynn, do we know what the president is doing today ahead of another busy week on capitol hill? >> nothing on his official schedule, alex, but it's a beautiful day here in washington and so we would not be surprised if the president chooses to

leave the white house. he has been going to his golf resort that's not too far from here in past weekends for meetings and to play some golf. no official word yet but we do know he's already tweeting -- and i'll get to that in a moment. the president through his tweets has been clear about his irritation on the issue of russia and the investigations. and looking ahead to this week, certainly he needs more than just his twitter followers. he needs the republicans and the senate to get behind his nominee for the supreme court. and that's not going to be easy because democrats want to put up a roadblock. >> he has a sterling record -- >> reporter: searching for a victory. >> -- and it involves one of my most important actions as president. >> reporter: with a movie trailer style message, the president is making a glossy sell for his supreme court pick. >> judge gorsuch is incredibly qualified. >> reporter: but a major fight is ahead for this week's expected confirmation vote.

saturday, vice-president mike pence played the hammer and headed to ohio where he called out an ohio democratic senator opposing neil gorsuch. >> your very own senator announced that he and the obstructionist democrats in the senate plan to filibuster judge gorsuch's nomination. >> reporter: and made clear republicans will take a drastic step, forcing a change to senate rules if necessary. >> we will overcome the obstructionists and the united states senate will confirm judge neil gorsuch one way or the other. >> reporter: president trump did not leave the white house on saturday but used his twitter mega phone to bash media and the russian investigations. same fake news media pushing the phony russia story, a total scam. but newly obtained documents shed light on former national security adviser michael flynn and his business ties to russia. nbc news obtained two sets of

flynn's financial disclosure documents. he lists three russian companies that paid him for speaking engagements, and so did a turkish businessman with pro-government connections. an ironic twist, flynn also stated he earned at least $5,000 consulting for the fbi. the bureau is now investigating russian election meddling. overall working for dozens of companies, flynn reported income of close to $1.3 million. flynn has become so identified with the trump controversy, voters at a town hall meeting in south carolina asked senator lindsey graham to find out what really happened. >> we're going to talk about the flynn deal. it's getting weirder by the day, isn't it? >> reporter: investigators with the intelligence committee will begin doing some behind closed door interviews with the first of a list of 20 witnesses they've identified that they

want to talk to as they're workg through their investigation on the russia ties. i mentioned that the president just tweeted in the last couple of minutes. not on russia but talking about the health care appeal. he says anybody, and then in parenthesis, especially fake knew media, who thinks that replace and repeal of obamacare is dead does not know the love and strength of our republican party. what's interesting about this is he has used his twitter feed to go after the freedom caucus to go after the most conservative republicans in the house who opposed the attempt to do the repeal and replace a week ago. there are also moderate republicans who were against it and all the democrats. clearly the president's mind is back on health care and suggesting that it's not over yet. at the same time, the white house has given us the signal that they do intend to move on to other agenda items and that's the same for house speaker paul ryan who says they're going to work on other things first, but he'll keep the conversations going about whether the repeal

of obamacare or other kinds of changes to the health care law can still take place. but this week, the focus will be on the supreme court nomination of neil gorsuch. >> that twitter feed, some mornings it's so darn entertaining. thank you, kelly, for that. let's bring in my stellar political panel. usa today washington correspondent paul singer and washington examiner and political reporter gaby rongello. good to see you first. we'll go ladies first, gaby. let's go to this federal judge allowing a lawsuit to go forward against president trump, accu accusing him of inciting violence last year at a campaign rally. let's take a look. >> isn't it crazy? isn't it ridiculous. forget about those people. get them out of here! incredible. incredible. >> president trump's lawyers are saying that's free speech but

then there's three protestors suing saying that they were roughed up as a result. gaby, do you think this could become a serious problem for the president or just one of many distractions? >> i tend to think that is going to be a distraction but we haven't even the arguments on this. if this is a lawsuit that's allowed to go forward, it will be interesting to see if there are others who may come out who may have been at campaign rallies at other states who witnessed individuals getting roughed up or beat up at campaign rallies where president trump was saying things like, get them out of here. i know up in new hampshire one of his favorite lines was confiscate their coats. so it will be interesting to see if this gives way to other legal challenges against the president. alex, i think this is just a distraction from more important issues that people are focused on right now, especially these connections between the trump campaign and russia. >> paul, distraction or something that could be the first of the start of potentially many? >> i think it's only a

significant distraction if there's a bunch of suits that follow. for the time being this is just sort of an odd outlier. the judge has already said let's talk about settlement or whatever else so this may not get very far. let's get right to it now with the supreme court nomination vote of judge gorsuch. gaby, to you first. if this makes it out of committee tomorrow which it will, there will be a huge senate showdown set for friday, filibuster entirely possible, republicans threatening the nuclear option. how do you see this going down? >> right now what's most important is to take a look at the democrats that are in states that president trump won during the election, looking at montana, indiana and then also in colorado where you have a democratic senator who hails from the same state as judge gorsuch who are all under pressure to forego the filibuster and support his nomination. i'm sure they're facing intense pressure from both author constituents and from other

democratic senators like senator joe manchin and heidi high camp who are urging a vote for him because they feel he's a qualified candidate. even if the administration gets those three senators on board, that still only brings them to five democratic senators and again they need eight in order to withstand a filibuster and get 60 votes to get him past, so this will be a showdown in the senate next week. >> implications, paul, long term if republicans actually trigger the nuclear option? by the way, there are those that say this is not the appointment to fight because you're replacing a conservative with a conservative, and let's face it, many of the decisions by the supreme court were of a moderate tone, let's say, with that particular setting, that down the road that's the one you have to really worry about. >> yeah, democrats have shown no real interest in that conversation. they want to go to the mattresses on this one and fight, fight, fight. they think that president trump at the moment is a little bit

back on his heels. they think if they have a moment to make a point with their base particularly, this is it. they're going to lose. i would have told you a year ago that i would have thought the republicans would not go to the mattresses because i thought there was some traditionalist republicans like john mccain and others who would say we don't want to go that far and basically break the institution. now that's not true. i think at this point even folks like senator mccain are going to say let's change the rules, go to 51 votes and by saturday i think judge gorsuch is going to be the supreme court justice one way or the other. >> which way do you think it's going to go down? >> i think the democrats are going to filibuster. i think the republicans are going to go nuclear and by saturday he'll be confirmed. >> the new a.p. poll showing more than half of americans support an independent investigation into the ties between president trump's presidential campaign and the russian government. where do you see this headed? >> i think that the chairman of

the house intelligence committee, devin nunes, his actions last week and the week prior have certainly tainted the intel committee's investigation into connections between the president and his campaign associates and russian officials. so i was not surprised, needless to say, to see that this poll -- the that most americans do support an independent investigation, and i think that that's something that house intelligence committee officials are going to be under increased pressure to pursue. >> so what do you think happens as a result of all this, paul? how do you see this playing out? >> well, it's a tale of two investigations. the senate intelligence committee appears to be having sort of an adult conversation about what happened and launching a thorough investigation. the house intelligence committee at this point is throwing plates at each other and i can't figure out how that thing gets off the dime at all. keep in mind the fbi is doing a separate investigation. it's hard to see where a separate committee would come in here, particularly as long as

the senate intelligence committee is continuing to go forward with the investigation. at the moment i suspect that will be the focus of attention for a while while the house tries to get its act together. >> good to see you both. >> go heels, thanks a lot. breaking news from south america, in colombia, an avalanche swept through a small city killing nearing 200 people. hundreds remain missing. it happened near the border of ecuador. >> reporter: in southwest colombia, a desperate effort to get the injured to safety and to account for the dead. hours of torrential rains saw rivers bursting their banks, releasing an avalanche of water and mud. most homes no match for the deluge. entire neighborhoods were buried, homes destroyed, bridges collapsed. even the trees ripped from their roots. what's left is a blur of

devastation. there are fears of more to come. the threat of another avalanche terrified crowds as army officers worked to lead survivors to safety. >> terrible pictures there. former national security adviser michael flynn and his public request for immunity. coming up next, why the request was not done privately and what that might suggest. life. so when my asthma symptoms kept coming back on my long-term control medicine. i talked to my doctor and found a missing piece in my asthma treatment with breo. once-daily breo prevents asthma symptoms. breo is for adults with asthma not well controlled on a long-term asthma control medicine, like an inhaled corticosteroid. breo won't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden breathing problems. breo is specifically designed to open up airways to improve breathing for a full 24 hours. breo contains a type of medicine that increases the risk of death from asthma problems and may increase the risk of hospitalization in children and adolescents. breo is not for people whose asthma is well controlled on a long-term asthma control medicine, like an inhaled corticosteroid.

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it's far too early to even be talking about immunity. you're talking about a person who has misrepresented the facts already to congress, so what does he want immunity for, for potential lying to congress or what else. but, no, he shouldn't have the immunity. if at the end of the day after

he's prosecuted he wants to plea barga bargain, that's another story. >> nancy pelosi reacting to mike flynn's request for immunity in exchange for his testimony. flynn's lawyer described it as a request for assurances against unfair prosecution. joining me now, alex whiting, professor at harvard law school and a former assistant u.s. attorney and an editor for the website just security. good sunday morning to you, alex. i looked at the article you wrote with the title flynn's public offer to testimony for immunity suggests he may have nothing to say. unpack that for us. you don't think he has the information investigators want on anyone else? >> that's right, alex. i think that he may have the information but i don't think there's any indication that he's willing to provide it. and the reason i think that and i wrote about this on the just security blog, is if he had that information and he was willing to provide it, the place he would go is the justice department and the fbi, and the

way he would do that with his very experienced lawyer is he would do that quietly. the fact that he did this publicly and the fact that he's asking for immunity without giving any kind of a preview of the information that he has to offer suggests to me that he has another strategy in mind, which i can explain if you like. >> yeah, that's one -- and i want to say you made a comparison to oliver north. we don't have to get into his case, but it has something to do with tainting people's ability to stay away from the news, they will have heard about it. is that what it is? >> yes, that's correct. so i think that he is looking to follow the oliver north example and what happened there, if you recall is that -- without going into a lot of detail -- is that oliver north testified under a grant for immunity under congress. the independent counsel prosecuted him afterwards without any use of the immunized statements.

even though he was convicted, the court of appeals overturned the conviction because it found that the prosecutor had been unable to show that no witnesses had been tainted by exposure to the immunized testimony. in other words, if i think that flynn is looking to get immunity from one of the congressional committees which would enormally complicate a prosecution of him down the road because it would be very hard for the prosecutors to show that the case was not tainted by his testimony. >> lots of people, as you know, they're asking whether his request for immunity indicates some real criminal charges coming his way. the lawyers are saying this kind of request does not necessarily indicate that. can you explain why someone who's not guilty of a crime might request immunity? >> well, even though flynn himself and the president have both said that anybody who asks for immunity must be guilty of a crime, i would not go so far. i don't think that that is always the case.

sometimes suspects, people under investigation, will seek immunity out of an abundance of caution. however, in this case, recall that flynn himself said that it's an indication of culpability and also the way that flynn and his lawyer have conducted themselves in this case, going public, seeking early in the investigation to get immunity, indicates to me that they may have some anxiety about flynn's criminal exposure. >> okay. senate intel committee has already said, nope, we're not going to offer you immunity. how about the justice department and the house intel committee, what do you think they're going to do? >> i think it will be the same thing. i don't think there will be any takers for this plea for immunity which i think was actually kind of a desperate move. the justice department won't grant immunity unless flynn has some really good information to offer and he gives a preview of that. i think the house intelligence committee won't grant immunity

either but -- >> but alex, can that happen? can he talk to them first and then they decide whether they give immunity based on the substance? >> yes. it's called a profiter session and his preview would be protected by another form of immunity and that would allow the investigators to assess how valuable his information was and his investigatferocity, to be h then they can make a decision about whether to grant him a more formal immunity. >> thank you very much for the conversation. come see us again. i appreciate it. >> thanks for having me. coming up, checking in with mr. wonderful. the advice the tv businessman and political candidate would give president trump about moving forward after all the trouble with health care.

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towns across trump country. this time we went to somerville, south carolina and we're standing by with the latest from there. let's get to some of the main concerns there and how trump supporters are viewing the president's performance so far. what did you find? >> reporter: yeah, good morning, alex. we stopped actually after lindsey graham's town hall over in charleston a few miles down the road yesterday and we came up here last name to somerville. i'm going to play you a little bit of sound. it's pretty mixed. you have some trump supporters and some people who did not vote for donald trump. here's their take last night. >> i think he's just a figure head just like any other political aspect of america and all it is is just, hey, i'm just trying to make money. he's collecting our tax dollars and making money for himself and building an empire for himself. >> he's making awesome changes and i think it's a complete turnaround. they're doing polls asking people if they want to work together and that's exactly what

we need. >> i think it's so early, we have a long way into the administration to go. i think support probably planning to make sure that everybody was in agreement before the health care bill was actually presented probably would have been better, but, no, i'm not giving up. i think he'll do something well. i think he is a deal maker and i think it will be for the best of the american people. >> reporter: aalex, i've been o the road since inauguration day and i think what that sound reflects is there's still very much of a 2016 undertone. to be honest with you, i have yet to meet a single trump voter across the country who actually regrets their vote. yes, donald trump is down to about 38% approval rating at this point. that fluctuates on every given week. but really what the number reflects is still nine out of ten republicans still support donald trump. there's still very much of a schism within the country and i think what you heard from that last gentleman was saying, sure, perhaps there was a better way to go about the health care deal in which maybe it took a little

bit more than three weeks in order to have the opportunity for the public to review what that health care deal did, but he said donald trump in his mind is still a deal maker and he still believes and has hope in donald trump. there's a reason for a lot of these places -- it may be different from south carolina to west virginia where i was two days ago at a joe manchin town hall. it used to be a democratic union town but ended up overturning for donald trump because they believe he's the one to fight and get their pension and benefits that they were obligated to get before the coal industry went bankrupt. yes, to a certain degree donald trump bears the burden in a lot of these places but comparing him to congress, who has higher approval ratings, it's donald trump compared to wisconsin where paul ryan is actually under water compared to the president. alex? >> it's so interesting. as your last interviewee said, we have to wait and see.

he still believes in him. we'll see what's coming. thank you so much from south carolina. the struggle for clear answers in the russia controversy, is the house investigation now all about politician and will republicans distance themselves from the white house over this? some answers next. tastes. honey, what do you want for dinner tonight? oh, whatever you're making. cheesy chipotle pork quesadillas? mmmm... ravioli lasagna bake? yeah, i don't know... grilled white chicken... grab something rich, sharp and creamy. triple cheddar stuffed sliders. sold! we aim to cheese! kraft natural cheese: we make cheese for how you love cheese. (i wanted him to eat healthy., so i feed jake purina cat chow naturals indoor, a nutritious formula with no artificial flavors. made specifically for indoor cats. purina cat chow. nutrition to build better lives.

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welcome back, everyone. i'm alex witt here at msnbc world headquarters in new york. here's what we're monitoring for you. new reaction from congressman adam schiff just days after seeing the documents surrounding devin nunes. here's what he said moments ago about the role he thinks the white house played. >> it certainly is an attempt to hide the origin of the materials. the question is of course why. and i think the answer to the question is this effort to point the congress in other directions, basically say don't look at me, don't look at russia, there's nothing to see here. you know, i would tell people

whenever they see the president use the word fake, it ought to set off alarm bells. >> also new reaction from senate majority leader mitch mcconnell on president trump furthering his wiretap claims. here's what he told my colleague chuck todd on "meet the press" moments ago. >> have you gotten any intelligence information that indicates the obama administration somehow applied -- asked for surveillance of the trump transition, the trump team, any trump associates? >> no. >> under nothing, not even a hint of this, not anything? >> not yet. >> do you believe that these allegations are worthy of investigation that the president has made or that they're a side track? >> i don't know how many times i have to say it. the committee is going to conduct an investigation. you asked me if i knew anything about alleged wiretapping by the previous president. the answer is no.

>> so, for more on today's top political headlines, let's bring in marjorie clifton, democratic strategic and ceo of clifton consulting and robert train, a former bush/cheney senior adviser. robert, i just want to get your reaction to mitch mcconnell there. he just sounds plumb tired of the whole thing, frustrated. >> i think the reason why he's frustrated is he keeps getting asked the same question and the answer is the same. a, he doesn't think there was any wiretapping of trump by president obama. two, the looks like the senate ethics committee or intelligence committee will take a look at this. and three -- and i'm putting words in his mouth, i don't think he actually said this. he's not sure where the president, meaning president trump, is coming up with this information about some type of wiretap. again, this is where the president of the united states, meaning donald trump, made an accusation, and the facts as we know it as of right now do not bear truth to that. >> okay, we'll move on from

wiretapping now. overnight we learned that michael flynn did not initially disclose the speaking fees he received from three russia-connected companies. how many more revelations like this can come out before this administration is irreparably damaged? >> i'm a little surprised that the secret service or the fbi or whoever does the background check did not find that. it is troubling to your question, alex, because what else is out there. and then the question becomes why does the general kind of float the immunity thing out there. because using his own words, he says if, in fact, you do that, you perhaps may have done a criminal act out there. so, there's a lot of questions that need to be asked. i take the president for his word here where he says that general flynn should be transpare transparent, testify before congress, get it all out there, but we do have to get to the bottom of this because it is very troubling. >> the official russia investigation is now partisan t

tit for tat. nunes sees the documents on surveillance, schiff lobbies to see them. how political has this become? can you put it in context? >> it's very political and troubling because usually in issues of national security and especially when it comes to the intelligence committee and others that we're seeing as third party and objective, when you have what seems like and looks like collusion with the white house, it does make the entire thing not so much an objective investigation but a political strategy. it was very odd last week having nunes actually show up at the white house escorted by white house staff to look at documents. the criticism from the get-go was can he be objective, can he actually look at this issue in a way that we know is being fairly assessed, and that criticism has come from republicans and democrats alike so it's not just unique to the democrats crying out for heads on a stake. but then you add onto that --

again, the white house is finding themselves constantly on the defense. now you've got michael flynn saying, look, i want immunity. if you find anything out that can be prosecuted on my part. and you know, these revelations like that of the money that he made that wasn't reported. ivanka trump all the by the way having made $1 million to $5 million just since january from her interest in the trump hotels which is conveniently down the street from the white house. so there's not a lot that looks really clean in this administration in terms of separation of powers. >> can i ask you quickly though about the ivanka trump role. does this put to bed the ethics concerns that some people have had about her role in the white house? i mean, now she's official. >> right. i think, look, they took care of the technicalities so she now can get her security clearance. she is now -- can officially be part of the staff in some capacity, but there's still these anti-nepotism -- look, he's got jared kushner and ivanka trump both as his closest

allies in the white house. the recent departure of the deputy chief of staff and now there's rumors that there's another from the legislative staff that's about to leave who came from the rnc which is sort of again trump bringing in his inner circle and pushing out anyone who somewhat served as objective parties who were part of the republican institution. the doesn't look clean. >> it's a good thing that ivanka trump is on the federal payroll. here's why. she now has to use official e-mail. she now has to fill out ethics forms. she now has to uphold the constitution. as a white house staffer you do take an oath. i actually think this is a good thing because it forces her, willingly forces her, to be even more transparent. now, you can make the argument that she may not be qualified for the position because she's the president's daughter and she only has executive experience in the private sector, but the

reality is that if she's going on the government payroll, that actually is a very good thing in terms of transparency and ethics. >> i want to ask you about lindsey graham and i have to ask you quickly but i have to say payroll is a funny word to use because she said she's not going to take a salary, but she has to go on it for the logistics reasons and file all the forms, exactly, okay. lindsey graham, talk about rowdy there. it was quite the bit town hall, shall we say, in his home state of south carolina. he faced all those questions about michael flynn. here's what lindsey graham had to say. >> okay, let's look at flynn. the working for turkey. i don't know how they missed that. so that's something we'll look at, right? manafo manafort, let's take a look at him. let's see what kind of business dealings he has. >> robert, do you think we're going to see republicans distances themselves from the

administration and the president? the longer these kinds of questions continue, is that what we're seeing here? >> i think it depends on the state and the polling data. the reality is that a lot of republicans are scared to death that they're going to be primaried to the right come 2018 if in fact they're up for re-election, particularly in the house. there's two things here i think are very important. one, lindsey graham has always been a critic of the president. he's a straight shooter down the line. he was that with president obama and clearly is that with president trump. secondly and this is a small point but i think it's an important point. south carolina is a pretty conservative state but north charleston which is a big college town is actually a little bit more liberal than the rest of the state so i'm not surprised that lindsey graham was kind of speaking truth to power to that crowd. >> guys, i'm going to have to call it a wrap there. we'll talk about gorsuch again, for sure. we didn't get to it this time. meantime, mr. wonderful of "shark tank" joins me next to talk about the next step the president needs to take after the failure to reform health

care. hi, mr. wonderful. then our next hour on "am joy," selling your online data without yo without your permission.

president trump is giving more signals he might be ready to re-open talks on health care. in one of his tweets this morning saying, talks on repealing and replacing obamacare are and have been going on and will continue until such time as a deal is hopefully struck. yesterday he appeared to signal that either party will follow through with health reform. joining me now, kevin o'leary, co-host of cnbc and host of "shark tank." kevin, first of all, what do you think is happening here? do you think this is some sort of a diversionary tactic? do you get the sense that trump has been working behind the scenes to pick up the fight again? >> both sides know that by may the existing obamacare will be

under financial stress again so this issue isn't going to go away. what's paramount now, you have to choose one of three options. number one is obviously repeal and replace which has been the dialogue that failed recently. number two is to upgrade or modify the existing obamacare. but there's also a third that people don't talk about a lot. it's simply repeal and do nothing, which gets us back to where we were prior to obamacare, which is an an usual place but there's a constituency out there, particularly the thaetea party, that would like to do that. you can't go forward until one of those is the chosen direction and that's why we're staallled t right now. >> how much do you think was an education for donald trump? >> i think he left it in the hands of ryan and that was a mistake for ryan. he advertised himself as a deal maker. republicans didn't really have a fully baked offering and they

came in too quickly. everybody realizes that now. i'm quite amazed at how little damage that did to his reputation. it's amazing. what he should do actually is leave this agenda item alone and go close something is. >> like tax reform? >> yes. >> take that up now? >> i actually think so. you have a much more balanced -- everybody wants tax reform, both sides want that. the discussion is between 20 and 28%. this is an area close to my heart because the whole market is moved on the assumption that tax reform, all the companies domestically that make their money and distribute it to shareholders after tax are going to be making more money after tax reform. if this doesn't get delivered in short order, we could have a significant decrease in the stock market. >> is the trump administration

ready to take on tax reform? when you look at the last time anything was done on this significantly, 1986 under president reagan, and they worked on this for months and months and had a huge bench of people working on it. is that the case? >> we've got three major agenda items that donald trump was elected on. number one, deregulation, that seems to be going forward through executive orders, so there's momentum there. the other two big ones are health care and tax reform. if health care is going to be as complicated as it looks like it's going to be, why put that forward again. >> kevin, isn't that with what exactly happened with trying to repeal and replace obamacare. it was too soon. something that had been worked on for quite some time, finally got passed seven years ago. do you think it would be a good learning lesson for the trump administration? we understand you want to get some political chops and have victories and do it in time for the elections next year but do

it when it's ready to be baked and go. >> i agree with that but why not start full heart, full strength on to tax reform because that's a bipartisan issue. you really have a target that you can land in. depending on who you talk to, you've already got discussions going on what the target price should be. 20%, 28%, 25%. the point is both sides know america is not competitive to all its neighbors. >> including canada. >> canada also. >> you're canadian. talk about that. >> canada has lower corporate taxes than most of its provinces but it's a global competition. canadians compete, mexico competes against all the european countries, ireland, the u.k. you have to have a harmonious tax rate to attract capital and that's the biggest problem. all the contortions going on in corporate america, all these structures trying to get around the fact that the corporate tax rate is 10% to 15% too high.

that's got to get fixed and i think that's an easier fix. when you're new in the administration, don't do stuff you can't get done. get one major victory and move on from that. i say the major victory can be tax reform. >> i want to go to your election bid here to lead the conservative party in canada. may 27 is that leadership vote. you were cited in a "washington post" report pushing to beef up the security on the canadian side of the border when it comes to asylum seekers. how much of an appetite is there for this in canada? >> we enjoy the most successful border on earth. it's the largest, friendliest, no militarization on it. it's been great for 100 years plus. right now we have two distinct problems. number one, there's people from all around the world getting an american visa, landing at laguardia or san francisco, spending 20 minutes in the united states and taking a flight to canada, showing up at the border and asking for a

hearing to establish refugee status, even though they should have pursued that first in the united states. but the biggest problem is the porous 49th we've had for a long time. only two countries in the world that have this. but all of a sudden, we've got these really discerning images of people crossing the frozen border, finally getting into canada and losing their fingers from countries like somalia, et cetera, that have not processed their claim in the united states. they have not gone in front of an independent judge in the u.s., which is their right. if they came into a border crossing at canada, the agreement we have would turn them back. all we're asking for is to make that rule the same anywhere on the border. >> all right, kevin. thank you very much for talking with us, mr. wonderful. >> take care, bye-bye. >> the new push to find out the comings and goings at mar-a-la o

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a big promise this week from president trump at an event rolling back obamaera environmental regulations. assuring coal miner his actions would mean they are going back to work. but is there anything mr. trump or anything the president could do to boost the coal industry? here's nbc's an thompson. >> i made them this promise. we will put our miners back to work. >> president trump's signature campaign promise in today's market may be much harder to keep. 90% of american coal is burned to generate power, but its future here in michigan and elsewhere is bleak. jerry anderson is ceo of the state's largest electric utility. >> we have reached a decision it is time to move to new generation sources. >> and you have done that for business reasons? >> it is for business reasons, yes.

>> the multi-billion dollar expense of replacing aging plants like this one is why they are turning away from coal. >> we are going to build natural gas and renewables for the foreseeable future. >> natural gas surpasses coal as the nation's top energy source. to see the changing energy landscape, anderson took us for a ride, flying over some of their 600 wind turbines. >> how often do these turbines make energy? >> a little over 40% of the time. they are spinning. >> with costs dropping 50%, wind is now competitive. while president trump's order to kill the clean power plant, capping carbon emissions might help, anderson says it is not enough. >> one thing that removing regulations can't do is make my plants younger. >> the president is fighting market forces more powerful than political ones. but experts say there is one option. >> i think the only hope for the u.s. coal industry is to boost our exports because like it or

not, the rest of the world is going to be consuming lots of coal. >> exports may not bring back coal jobs, but wine stein says they could stop the slide as they go green to make green. ann thompson, nbc news. >> those on capitol hill want to know the comings and goings at the white house and mar-a-lago. new legislation demanding public disclosure of visitor's log to the president's club, the white house or anywhere the president resides. ever since, the white house page publishing the visitors and who's who of visitors has been down. perhaps it is being updated. however, those sponsoring the bill certainly want to mandate its return. that's going to do it for me. thanks so much more watching. don't go anywhere because the ups and downs of donald trump's bank account and real estate

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and bloating fast. huh, crisis averted. we know from the filings that were dumped by the white house on friday that general flynn failed to report the money that he received from that rt propaganda arm under the kremlin as well as two other russian entities. >> good morning and welcome to a.m. joy. that was adam schiff of the house intelligence panel earlier today on the new revelations again about michael flynn and his ties to russia. this time financial filings that show payments to flynn from russia linked entities that he had previously failed to disclose. the new filings are part of a friday white house document dump detailing the financial holdings of top administration officials in the form that flynn first submitted in february, he failed to disclose a paid sec