ayman mohyeldin and louis burgdorf. "morning joe" starts right now. it's tuesday, april 4th. bloomberg is reporting that it was former national security adviser under president obama, susan rice who asked for the unmasking of the identities of u.s. citizens in raw intelligence reports that connect to the donald trump transition and campaign. the other is "the washington post" story on a secret meeting back in january between founder of blackwater and a russian close to president vladimir putin as part of an apparent effort to establish a back channel line of communication between moscow and president-elect donald trump. >> just another day at the office. >> amazing. >> the partisan roar around both of these stories is loud. we'll try to separate fact from fiction and lay out how the white use is haning all this. >> with us senior pitical

analyst for nbc muse mark halperin. president of the council on foreign relations and author of "america in world array" richard haass. columnist and associate editor for "the washington post" david ignatius with us as well. willie is back. welcome back. we missed you. >> missed you. did i miss anything? >> no, nothing going really hard. we're working hard to drum up something interesting. that's for sure. we we e begin with the new scrutiny on susan rice. reports from multiple outlets citing sources claim rice requested the identity of some u.s. citizens be included in raw intelligence reports about monitored conversations with foreign targets. typically americans' names are adapted. according to reports those identified were originally left

anonymous and had sources tied to the trump campaign. national security council ezra cohen-watnick discovered rice's multiple requests to unmask u.s. persons in intelligence reports that related to trump transition activity. according to the reports, cohen-watnick brought this to the attention of the white house general council's office who reviewed more of rice's request and instructed him to drop his own research into the unmasking policy. sources tell bloomberg this is the -- >> for one second here. mark halperin, this bloomberg report says one official familiar with reports say they contained valuable political information, not intel, but valuable political information on what the trump transition team is doing including who trump was meeting, who the trump team was meeting, what the views were of trump associates on foreign policy matters and plans

for the incoming administration. >> if that report is accurate, it begs a lot of questions about what was going on. people who want to dismiss it as routine are uncurious. >> what if dick cheney had asked for the unmasking of names for barack obama's incoming administration? it's a very simple question to ask the next time anybody says this is much ado about nothing. again, we don't -- there are a lot of things we don't know, a lot of questions we don't know. i do know this, though, i heard the hallejah chorus come immediately on queue last night saying nothing to see here, move along, move along. let's replace susan rice's name with dick cheney's name, the incoming trump administration's name with the incoming obama administration's name and willie, let's go from there. >> remember what the standard is

for unmasking, it's foreign intelligence value, not political value which is broad enough on its own. that can be used broadly, too. maybe what susan rice did was legal and proper under that parameterment i think also people don't fully understand just what unmasking is, in the collection of data, wiretapping evidence, someone can be swept up who is not the target of that fisa request or eavesdropping, their name is supposed to be redacted and blacked out and only under extreme circumstance, richard, would they be unmasked if there was foreign tlens -- >> p the idea is you're investigating foreign sources. it would have to be extraordinary to unmask u.s. citizens' names here. >> it would have to be. you have to begin with if the reports are true. the whole idea is to protect american citizens from unlawful

scrutiny, if you will. i think these are big questions. it also raises questions what people on the nsc mig be doing. the national security council has two jobs, coordine foreign policy and national security and there to be an adviser to the president, a foreign policy counselor. why people on the nsc are doing this kind of tactical work, this is not their job. >> can i ask you, richard, because you've been there. let's talk about the transition between george h.w. bush and bill clinton. could you imagine brent scowcroft, then the national security advisor sorting through political information, demanding names be unmasked of the incoming clinton administration and then distributing those names across government? i am not, by the way -- i'm not saying susan rice did anything wrong because we don't know, but since this news has come out,

we've heard enough people try to whitewash it as quickly as possible that we want to ask the question. you were there. is this unusual behavior? would this have october cord when you worked for george h.w. bush? >> i think your question is rhetorical. >> no. i need you to answer it for the meade saying oh, there's nothing to see here. >> no. it's not the role of the national security council. this is something that needs to be looked into because i can't imagine the circumstances, if this were to have taken place -- >> people in the obama white house were freaked out that donald trump had won. >> very. >> and concerned about what they were doing to plan new policies but also how he had won. that's the environment in which this activity allegedly took place. >> so susan rice has not publicly commented sainz the reports emerged.

but two weeks ago when chairman nunes made his claim that the president-elect and his team were at least monitored rice said this to pbs. i know nothing about this. i was surprised to see reports from chairman nunes on that count today. i really don't know to what chairman nunes was referring. he said whatever he was referring to was a legal, lawful surveillance and it was potentially incidental collection on american sints. >> david ignatius, what's your take, especially hearing her respond that way? >> we're going to have an investigation of this. the democrats on the intelligence committee, adam schiff and mark waern, have made clear in the last 24 hours they think this is a proper subject for investigation. so we'll begin to dig and learn

what the facts were, what was the context of these unmasking requests, if they were made, how many names were requested. was this unusual? is this something that this nsc or this national security adviser had done in other contexts, what was going on otherwise? we had a transition in which it's clear every government of note was trying to get to know people in the new trump administration coming back and forth from trump tower. inevitably there's collection of those people. did some of that get picked up. is that why we see incidents of non-russians talking to trump people surfacing and with somebody in the white house trying to figure out what's going on here. we just don't know the answers. i think the point is here, as with the larger -- i'd underline larger -- question of russian covert action against our political campaign, we're going have an investigation and get answers. the american people will have a better sense in some weeks or

months just what happened. >> as we said last week, this may be the 5% compared to the 95% russian story, but this 5% part of the story requires that we pay attention to it as well. david, i'm curious, i asked richard if this would hav happened with 41 or between 43 and 44. i'm wondering, do you have any examples of a national security adviser requesting the unmasking of several names and then spreading it across, as steve's report suggests, spreading those names across the government to other agencies. does this happen? has this happened before? >> joe, i did ask that question yesterday of intelligence professionals who had seen other transitions. they said, first, it is the case that other governments -- there's a scurrying to try to get information. they're all collecting, running

around. you pick that up and pick up their talk among themselves, about who they met. in terms of how frequent it was, was it different in character this time, did it have a political edge this time, i just couldn't get anybody who could make that comparison. i think the point is there is a context here where there was a lot of noise out there and people wanted to ask questions. >> i think you make a great point about sort of the atmosphere of this election, mark halperin, which could have played into this. it's hard to know at this point. >> wouldn't make it right if it were political considerations. >> absolutely not. >> and the fact they're freaked out and doing exactly what civil libertarians have been concerned about the government doing, like you said, that wouldn't make it right. >> although this does not necessarily have anything to do with russia, remember, there was probably second-guessing in the white house with people with a political bent, did we do enough to talk about russia was doing during the election because they chose not to, they chose to wait

until after the election. you could imagine feeling like, well, we have messed up on the russia stuff, maybe there's other stuff going on we should know about. >> again, some of these had nothing to do with russia, right? >> no. >> they're disseminating it across the government according to these reports? >> i think there was widespread suspicion within the obama administration about the incoming administration. >> arrogance. >> doesn't make it right. >> don't you unmask if you're the fbi or if you're -- >> that's my point. this is not -- >> what is susan rice unmasking names for and spreading them across the government? wouldn't that be the job of coy or the attorney general? >> if anyone is going to do it, it has to be under extraordinary circumstances. this is an intelligence law enforcement function. >> i'm not saying it excuses it. >> we're asking questions because it's so vexing.

i can understand why law enforcement would say we need to unmask these names. why would a political appointee do that and then spread it across the government. >> of private citizens. >> if the reports are correct. >> private citizens. i will say again, the definition of foreign intelligence value which is the standard they use thor unmasking, you need to know who these people are because it's important to the case, is very broad. the question of why she did it is a separate question from why she did it. >> can i ask one other question, why isn't it in the newspaper of record here? >> it's within a story. it's in there -- >> we've got bill o'reilly on the front page but we don't have nsc -- >> that's a big story. >> i'm not saying it's not a big story. >> a very big story. >> i would say that a lot of people would think that this, too, is a big story, not on the front page of "the new york

times." >> it's on a-16 in my hard copy. >> okay. >> prominent on a-16. >> the people rest. >> nbc news confirmed that blackwater founder eric prince presend donald trump at a secret overseas meeting convened by the united arab emirates in january. that's according to two intelligence sources familiar are the matter. >> hold on a second. that sort of thing happened all the time with george h.w. bush, right? happened all the time. >> standard operating procedure. >> come on. brent scowcroft -- this is how present and your dad did business, right, david ignatius? >> they were going to the seychelles islands every other week. >> when you first heard this story for all of us old enough to remember, did you not

immediately go back to iran contra. >> "the washington post" was first with the story and what they described as an apparent, quote, back channel line of communication between moscow and the president-elect. the meeting took place about nine days before president trump's inauguration in the seychelles islands in the indian ocean, and the paper reports that the fbi has been scrutinizing the meeting as part of a probe of russian interference in the 2016 u.s. election. the fbi declined to comment to the post. the meeting was reportedly aimed at persuading russia away from its relationship with iran including in syria. though prince had no former role with the trump team, he reportedly presented himself as an unofficial envoy to the president-elect to emirates. erik, quote, had no role in the

transition team. this is a complete fabrication. the meeting had nothing to do with president. why is the underresourced intelligence community messing around with surveillance of american citizens when they should be hunting terrorists. >> can i answer that zbhe. >> because he's not telling the truth. because he's lie chgt that's why they're doing it. and because anybody that knows what happened during the transition and knows the players of the transition, and this is all i will say, will tell you that he's lying. that's all i'm going to say. but it is obvious to anybody that knows what happened during the transition, so it will be obvious to the fbi, that he's a liar. >> my sense is -- >> by the way, uae, are they just suckers? do they set up meetings with guys? no, they are not suckers.

glp concierge. >> they know exactly what they're doing. this dude didn't just show up at the island where willie and i do all of our sort of -- >> gambling operation. >> didn't want to say anything. >> sean spicer tells nbc news that the white house is not aware of any meetings and erik prince had no role in the tran zbligs what he means by that, the actual building itself, because it doesn't have a conscience, the actual building itself is not aware of those meetings but everybody else is. >> while a senior administration officials called the suggestion of a trump-putin back channel ridiculous. >> if you mean by ridiculous true, yes. this was ridiculous. can i just say, mika, that is the only connection this guy has with the trump administration. i will bet this pen -- >> why don't you throw your pet

flock there. >> i've had this lucky pen since 1987. i will bet this pen there's no connection whatsoever beyond this, between erik prince and the administration. >> and your pet rock. put it in. >> not giving away the pet rock. >> erik prince is the brother of education secretary betsy devos. >> and a big contributor to the trump campaign. >> shear the pen. i never saw that coming. >> betsy devos. who are these people? who are these people? >> willie geist, who are these people? >> brother and sister. >> i'm saying the trump people in general. >> why not put out a statement like that, why not just say no zment. >> because he's stupid, that's why. he's stupid. these people -- it's like carter page. i love the quote from the russians about carter page. he's a blanking idiot. tell everybody what you told me

about these guys. it's from the '80s movie "spies like us." >> it's pretty good. >> jeremy scahill who wrote the book about blackwater, he reported in january that erik prince was advising the trump transition team on foreign policy, helping them understand the world. >> he wasn't official. >> he wasn't official. it's very close he had a close relationship. >> unofficial. >> there's almost nothing official during transitions. transitions are inherently the least structured, messy situations. >> read senator bob casey's quote. >> i love it. >> by the way, we're not 45maki light of this. >> an associate of the administration putting out feelers on foreign policy, is

that illegal, improper? >> there's only one administration at a time, only one government at aime. you've got to be really care 68 it's okay to have meetings. it's one thing to say we want to distance the russians from the iranian, not a bad thing. to start suggesting -- not saying it were done -- but if there might be sanctions relief, you can't conduct foreign policy. >> david ignatius, that's what everybody was concerned about at the time, not just the obama administration, but republicans and lindsey graham, too, that they were trying to offer a deal to lessen sanctions relief. again, this is one more building block that you just build up on one more contact with russia, one more connection that the administration or members of the administration lied about. you keep stacking these up, at some point they stop being coincidental and they're part of

a much bigger pattern. >> i do think this seychelles meeting probably tells us more about the uae's own diplomacy with russia which has been extensive, the leader of the uae went to russia ten years ago to begin exploring whether they could pull russia towards the uae away from iran. that is a major goal of theirs. it involved the trump administration in the intermediary, the russian in the seychelles was somebody who has also met with former obama administration senior officials within the month prior to this. i think it may tell us aittle more about that at of diplomacy. trump himself through jared kushner was trying various other back channel efforts in december and in to january. they finally decided why did we need a back channel if we've got rex tillerson, one of putin's

real friends, coming in as secretary of state. i think the action moved in that direction toward tillerson and the seychelles thing may be a secondary issue. >> we'll just walk through the front door. the thing is, richard haass, for the russians it's problematic because at this stage they've received so much attention that there is no hope that sanctions are ever going to be lessened. mccain and the senate will jump in immediately and codify it. >> if the idea was to somehow create a context in which you could begin to dramatically reshape relations with russia, it's hard to imagine a context that would make it less likely to do it because your motives are being scrutinized. and people would think you're doing it for the wrong reasons. >> if the hope was to have

better relations with the new president, relations with russia are as bad as they've been: in 2012 you had barack obama s whispering, i'm going to get re-elected and things will be better. donald trump has put himself and all his people in position about lying about meetings with russians that ey couldt do anything. >> we had a phone call with putin about the st. petersburg attack. interesting he chose that opportunity. >> still ahead on "morning joe," we'll talk to senator rand paul who just hit the links with president trump. the don't democrat on the democratic oversight committee, elijah cummings. nbc's kristen welker had an impromptu meeting with president trump at the white house. what he told her about the chances of reviving the republican push to replace

obamacare. first, bill karins with a look at the continued severe weather across the country. >> we have a dangerous day coming on wednesday. this is on the heels of what we dealt with, 15 tornadoes reported yesterday, most in sfral georgia. let me show you this picture in a parking lot camera in louisiana. this is a small narrow but intense tornado. look at that car. it picks it up and tosses that white vehicle. notice how narrow it was. the cars on the left and right were untouched. it was that small and that intense. that's why sometimes your neighbor's house can get destroyed and yours barely touched. what's left of the storms from yesterday is rolling through the northeast. a lot of heavy rain in boston, albany, philadelphia and d.c., a few showers throughout the day. for today, storms in oklahoma and arkansas and missouri. it's not going to be tornadic. then we start with the big outbreak we'll deal with late tonight and early tomorrow morning. we'rgoing to watch the storms in the southeast along the gulf

and then this will spread throughout the southeast and we go throughout the day on wednesday. in all for wednesday, 47 million people at risk of severe storms. this can be our worst severe weather outbreak so far this spring season. washington, d.c., i mentioned you had heavy rain last night, unfortunately it knocked down a lot of cherry blossoms. you'll be in for a decent afternoon with a mix of sun and clouds. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. except when it comes to your retirement plan. but at fidelity, we're making retirement planning clearer. and it all starts with getting your fidelity retirement score. in 60 seconds, you'll know where you stand. and together, we'll help you make decisions for your plan... to keep you on track. ♪ time to think of your future it's your retirement. know where you stand. ♪ tthe uncertainties of hep c. wondering, what if?

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so you'rhow nice.a party? i'll be right there. and the butchery begins.

what am i gonna wear? this party is super fancy. let's go. i'm ready. are you my uber? [ horn honks ] [ tires screech ] hold on. [ upbeat music ] the biggest week in tv is back. [ doorbell rings ] who's that? show me watchathon. xfinity watchathon week! now until april 9. get unlimited access to all of netflix and more, free with xfinity on demand. welcome back to "morning joe." sun is coming up over the white house. joining us from there nbc white house correspondent kristen welker. good morning. you had this impromptu meeting with president trump last night. how did it come togeth? >> willie, good morning to you. i was meeting with one of his senior officials. after that meeting wrapped, the senior official asked me to wait

in the hallway. it was a big surprise to me, brought me into the oval office where i met the president and was able to speak with him for a few minutes. this was completely impromptu. i started asking him about health care, about health care reform because he just had that golf session with senator rand paul who i know you're going to be talking to who, of kourks opposed the initial repeal bill. rand paul after that meeting came out and said the meeting was positive. i asked the president for his take. he said he felt the meeting went well. he said they talked about specifics, and i asked him if he's really making an effort to revive this push for health care reform. i tried to get a sense of how genuine this push was. he said, look, this is still an ongoing negotiation. he said he's serious about getting something done on health care. from his perspective, the effort never died in the first place. he also sort of batted back criticism he hasn't been engaged enough in the details. he said he's read in on every detail.

one more key headline, willie, i asked if he thought he could give with democrats, given the freedom caucus, the conservatives of his party rebukd him during that first go-round. he said he's looking to moderate republicans and conservatives to try to get a compromise bill done. we know vice president mike pence was on capitol hill meeting with moderate republicans and earlier in the day met with conservatives. they say they're making measured progress. >> interesting as the white house said they were ready to turn the corner and move on. nbc's kristen welker, thanks. a piece we were talking aboutn the atlantic, the repubcan identity crisis, these are confusing times to be a republican. for the past several decades, members of the gop mapped the ideological range into a fairly straightforward spectrum one that runs from moderate to conservative. with the rise of donald trump and his spectrum-bending kbrand, many long-time republicans are struggling to figure out where

they fit in this fast shifting philosophical land shake. for example, does being an outspoken trump critic make you a moderate rhino? does it matter if you're criticizing him for the health care bill or reckless infrastructure spending plan. who owns the far right now? is it constitutional conservatives like ted cruz or alt white white supremacists like richard specter. it's become obsolete in the age of trump. the question now is what to replace it with. what do you think? >> are they really going to still fight this battle? >> what do you mean? >> on health care, with kristen being brought in and being told that? >> i don't know. who knows. but as far as the battle left to right, donald trump seizes on conservative resentment, republican resentment by being temperamentally outrageous, and

yet ideological he's all over the place, he won't touch entitlements, won't touch 65% of the budget. he's going to take a $20 trillion national debt and turn it into a $35 trillion national debt. he's not a conservative, never been a conservative. his foreign policy isn't conservative. he has completely trashed every foreign policy treaty that we've had put in place by republican and democratic administrations post world war ii. this guy is not a conservative. >> exactly. he's a big government disrupter. you see the disruption in foreign policy, not a preserver. he's also very different from the neocon versus real lift debate. for a long time, the deb bet was whether we transform the world. the eting yesterday with the

egyptian president, it's hyper realism. we're not going to talk to you about what you're doing to your own people inside your country. he's very much outside the debates that have defined the republican party for a generation. >> if you were in the house or the senate and you're a republican trying to figure out where you stand with this president, how would you handle it, answering mckay's question he puts out there? >> for a real conservative, you can't measure yourself with this president. he's erratic on every front. on 11% of the budget he's a slash and burn cost cutter. on the part of the budget that's growing the fastest, 75%, 80% o of the president growing the fastest, he's mr. pork. he's not going to touch anything that's actually going to bankrupt this country. he's not a conservative. i look for places to agree with him on, but there aren't a lot. david ignatius even on foreign

policy, it's so inconsistent there's no way to measure yourself by donald trump because he was going to be a neo isolationist, yet at the same time, we hear he's a hyper real lift who is now looking to be even more aggressive in sending troops to fight isis. >> it's a jumble of different ideas, many of them in conflict. i increasingly think, joe, we won't with sure what the foreign policytrategy is of this president until we have our first real crisis. i think that's going to harden this group. it's going to show be rex tillerson is going to be a strong secretary of state or a fifth wheel. going to test general mattis at the pentagon. going to test h.r. mcmaster. they are trying to build a new strategy top to bottom. they're writing a document now. the idea is to take the america first idea and create a whole foreign policy architecture on top of that. that's a big job.

so far timbers going in every direction. >> coming up, republicans and democrats are stock shocked, stunned and saddened about erasing one of the last vestiges of cooperation in the senate. yet they're about to do it anyway. how the fight over the supreme court is about to go nuclear. various: (shouting) heigh! ho! ( ♪ ) it's off to work we go! woman: on the gulf coast, new exxonmobil projects are expected to create over 45,000 jobs. and each job created by the energy industry supports two others in the community. altogether, the industry supports over 9 million jobs nationwide.

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it was opening day in boston today for the red sox. quarterback tom brady brought his recently recovered super bowl jersey t fenway park with him. the jersey, as you probably know, was stolen from the patriots locker room after the super bowl, and both the crowd and patriots tight end rob gronkowski were very excited to see it. and then they made love. >> that was tom brady chasing gronk around fenway before the game. as for the game itself, red sox

rookie outfielder andrew benentendi got the five-run fifth inning with a three-run home run to put the red sox up. they won 5-3. >> jack and andrew went up. very special day up there. >> 62-0, what do you think? >> it's looking that way. come on, look at that. >> it's a beautiful day. beautiful opening day. >> in baltimore the orioles hosting the blue jays and a web jam for manny machado who makes a diving stop and throws for the out from his knees. >> you are kidding me? >> this come on. please. stop, stop that! stop that! >> oh, my lord.

>> good-bye, home run! >> gatorade bath. trumbo's solo shot to walk off the o's, they win 3-2. >> david, are there pangs of memories of being -- if you're in washington, you had to root for the orioles forever. >> we've gotten over our orioles -- we have a great team. they won yesterday. the nats' bryce harper, a lot going wrong in washington, but go nats. >> harper hit a home run yesterday. >> it was a year ago last night that north carolina lost to villa nova in the final seconds of the ncaa tournament on that game-winner. well, this year they won it all. last night beating gonzaga. it was an ugly game through the second half. a lot of talk last night and this morning about some of the officiating. a lot of fouls called.

a choppy game that didn't have a lot of flow. north carolina gets the win. roy williams wins his third national championship with the tar heels, moving himself up into elite company just below mike krzyzewski, adolph ruff, things like that. >> i did not see it, but i heard some horrible reviews of it. >> not a lot of poetry in that game. >> terrible shooting, a lot of fouls calls. not a lot of flow, but north carolina is your national champ. up next, president trump was not in the handshaking move when he met with germany's angela merkel. not the case for egypt's auth authoritarian leader. >> actually reached over and kissed him, open mouth kiss. >> i still don't get why he didn't share her hand. >> in fairness, that's how you show respect in certain cultures.

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president trump is preparing to welcome jordan's king abdullah to the white house tomorrow amid a busy week of high-profile visits by world leaders. the president playing host to egypt's president el sisi looking to reset relations there. president trump drove home the new tone, keeping praise on president el sisi before offering an enthusiastic handshake with him. >> great to be with the president of egypt, and i will tell you president el sisi has been somebody that's been very close to me from the first time i met him. i met him during the campaign. we agree on so many things. i want to let everybody know in case there was any doubt that we are very much behind president el sisi. he's done a fantastic job in a very difficult situation. we are very much behind egypt and the people of egypt, and i

want to say to you president trump, that you have a great friend and ally in the united states and me. >> thank you very much. >> we're going to be friends for a long, long period of time. >> david ignatius. here is when he wa with angela merkel. everyone saying handshake, handshake, and he ignored her. >> picture aing effusive, picture b, chilly t.sisi meeting is a thing that an authoritarian leader around the world dreams of, to have the president of the united states say you're our friend, our pal. he'll take that home and it will help him enormously. >> what a difference between the strained relationship that

barack obama had. >> it will help el sisi in the short run. it will not help him in the long run because egypt is one of the most polarized societies, economy in deep trouble, heavily subsidized. and the kind of, you're with us or against us domestic policy of el sisi potentially sews the seeds of long-term stability. this is not a solution. >> we have ayman mohyeldin with us. you've covered egypt extensively. what's the significance of him expanding his hand and the meeting at the white house, something president obama did not run? >> validation. there was a lot of questioning when sisi rose to power after what some called a military

queue there. f some of the liberals that joined the ouster of islam mist president and some of the other young revolutionaries joined that administration with the hopes that sisi and the interim government would lead egypt to a more secular democratic path. that has not happened. they stepped aside, a lot of the respected, international members that have cabinet stepped aside. and for that reason, the united states was not willing to offer the support. that has ended, what happens happened in the past is done, entering a new phase with the united states. they're our ally and are willing to work with us on the issues, whether it's security or economy. >> later this week, china's president will visit president trump at mar-a-lago.

explain the many different dynamics there. >> that's the big -- >> that's the big one. >> dwarfs everything else. the critical relationship of the 21st century. right now a very complicated situation. the chinese, this is a critical year for them. late this year they've got the communist party congress. xi jinping wants to consolidate political power. he does not want a crisis with the united states, a trade war, a physical war. he will try to come here, give investments that create jobs. the president will press him on trade, on north korea. it will be a feel-good meeting. that will be the attempt. you won't have clarity coming out of this on the north korean side, that remains to be done. but i think you'll have some smoothing over on the trade front. >> on the egypt relationship, front and center is security for this white house, as richard said, just realistic on china, trade, economy, also security.

david ignatius, is there anyone in this administration who has a record of caring about human rights, press freedom? we don't see that as part of the agenda. >> you wouldn't say human rights is a pillar of the trump administration, foreign policy. >> right. the response was we'll get some wi and that's the way this administration still is looking at the basic foreign policy template. we don't win enough. we're going to win more. the question for xi is how to deliver enough for trump that he comes away, announces his win and the chinese save face and get what they want. >> interesting. one person talking a lot about human rights is nikki haley, permanent representative at the u.n. subsequent to that, she's the one person -- this month she's the president of the security council and her big issue is human rights. >> the other person in the

administration with a record or history of concern about human rights is mike pence. but i have not heard him speak out about china or egypt and a lot of people look at that photo-op and say where is america's concern in this administration about freedom? here is the cast of characters we have. founder of blackwater, confidante of president putin and officials from the uae. what a new piece in the washington post says about the trump team's back channel communications with the kremlin. flip the script. what would happen if it were a republican national security adviser accused of unmasking officials from president hillary clinton's team? we'll go through that as well. "morning joe" is coming right back. so tell us your big idea for getting the whole country booking on choice hotels.com. four words, badda book. badda boom... let it sink in. shouldn't we say we have the lowest price?

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welcome back to "morning joe." it is tuesday, april 4th. this morning, we're following two big developing stories. bloomberg is reporting that it was former national security adviser under president obama, susan rice, who asked for the unmasking of the identities of u.s. citizens in raw intelligence reports that connect to the donald trump transition a campaign. the other is the wasngn post story, and a secret meeting back in january between the founder of blackwater and a russian

close to president vladimir putin as part of an apparent effort to establish a back channel line of communication between moscow and president-elect donald trump. we'll separate fact from fiction here and ask the unanswered questions here. from nbc news and msnbc mark halprinciple, president of the council or foreign relations, columnist and associate editor for the washington post, david ignatius and former communications director for ted cruz's 2016 presidential campaign. now an msnbc political contributor, rick tyler. and publisher and editor of cranes detroit business, ron fournier. good to have you all on board this hour. we'll begin with that new scrutiny on susan rice this morning. the process you may have heard about known as unmasking. reports from multiple outlets yesterday, citing anonymous sources claim that rice requested that the identities of

some u.s. citizens be included in raw intelligence reports about monitored conversations with foreign targets. typically, americans' names are redacted. according to the reports, those identified were originally left anonymous and had ties to the trump campaign. sources tell bloomberg view that in february national security council senior director for intel ezra cohen-watnick discovered rice's multiple requests to unmask u.s. persons in intelligence reports that related to trump transition activities. >> so, mark halprin, why multiple requests from somebody on the nsc trying to get information on a transition? and we play this had game last hour. >> right. >> what if dick cheney had been demanding that the national security apparatus unmask names

of democrats in barack obama's transition? again, not in -- this wasn't the fbi asking to unmask a name as part of an investigation. this was a political appointee. and then spreading those names around the government. and then one of those names showing up on the front page of "the washington post." >> it's a civil liberties issue. there's a reason the names are masked so americans are not surveilled. we don't know what names they were, how they were disseminated or most significantly if it's true she did this, what her motive was. i think people who care about civil liberties, who care about oversight by congress should be asking, why did this happen? what exactly happened? if this were a different administration, i think there would be a lot of suspicion about what exactly went on. >> and part of a bigger problem,

again, they were disseminated -- these names were disseminated. then the unmasking actually, after several requests, then -- according to the bloomberg and other reports, these reports started to be written up in such a way that you didn't have to unmask. the reports stopped being written in a way that would protect the identity of u.s. citizens. so susan rice and other people in the obama administration no longer had to ask for an official unmasking, because it became obvious on the face of the document, obviously is a real problem with the culture. and then on top of that barack obama signs a presidential executive order as he's going out of office that civil libertarians should have their hair on fire, making it much easier to surveil others and unmask and then spread these names across the government. >> and the bloomberg piece says

specifically that susan rice unmasked these names because the information was politically valuable, which is not covered typically under unmasking where it has to be a foreign intelligence value. as i said the last hour it's important to point out that so broadly what foreign intelligence, she could have done this legally. >> political value whachlt did she learn, willie? one u.s. official familiar with reports said they gained valuable political information on whom the trump team was meeting with, views of trump associates on foreign policy matters and plans for the incoming administration. that has nothing to do with a valid unmasking. >> right. >> i didn't know they had any so -- >> the masking is important because it protects private american citizens from becoming implicated in these foreign surveillance operations where

the foreign surveillance target is fair game but a private citizen swept up in those conversations have nothing to do with the investigation. >> one is exactly that. the other is, obviously, you would never want to have -- i'm not making accusations here but you would never want legitimate intelligence information used for political purposes. there's issues here that have come up. i think they're legitimate. you have to follow this up now. that's the bottom line. >> wall street journal editorial board writes this. well, what do you know on the matter of who unmasked the names of trump transition officials in u.s. intelligence reports, we now have one answer. susan rice, barack obama's national security adviser. where are the civil libertarians when you need them? the columns support broad surveillance powers for national security but executive officials need to be accountable if those powers are abused. if congressional oversight of u.s. intelligence operations is going to be worth the name, then it should include the unmasking of a political opponent by a

senior official in the white house. democrats certainly raised a fuss during the bush years after edward snowden kicked off the debate about metadata. yet now that there's evidence that the obama administration may have unmasked trump officials, democrats couldn't care less. >> let's go to the -- >> is that true? this has just broken. >> let's go to the last paragraph, which touches on what david ignatius and i have been talking about in the last couple of weeks. none of this should deter investigations into the trump transition with russian relations. follow that evidence where it leads but the media have been running like wildebeasts after that story. americans deserve to know the truth about both. ron fournier?

>> i could not agree more. we have two stories that are connected with hypocrisy all around. they should demand and know whether their party was involved in under mining civil libertie and republicans should want to know whether their president was playing footsie with russians. until lawmakers hold them accountable we're not going to get anywhere. >> if these reports are true about susan rice in the context of the general investigation into donald trump's transition team, in his campaign and the russians? >> it would be enormous. you have an obama administration official. remember, this is susan rice. which makes me a little bit suspicious. she has now denied she is the one who has done the unmasking, but she was sort of a pariah as a right. remember, she was sent out as a proxy for hillary clinton, then

secretary of state, over benghazi, when she went out on each of the sunday talk shows and said that the benghazi attack was a protest that was sparked by a youtube video. that turned out later not to be true. so, it's just -- to the extent that susan rice would go out and cover for the administration, because she used an altered intelligence report which would tell me to the degree to which she would go out and cover for the administration. it looks like president trump was not -- or president-elect trump was not surveilled but was caught up in incremental collection. she may well have gone out and unmasked those names. it should be concerning to everyone. >> it should be. and you wonder what would lead to that. was it an arrogant entitlement because hillary lost and they just couldn't get their arms around it and they felt entitled to do these things? what was the impetus for this?

nobody is ignoring this story, at least on this set. >> certainly "the new york times" did today, and "the washington post." i don't think it's still on the front page of "the washington post." state of mind. nobody is suggesting any crimes have been committed here because it's written so generally that you can justify doing this legally. >> you can talk your way around it. >> it's a matter of judgment. mark halperin, you do have to go -- i'm talking the unmasking, quote, for national security purposes. but you were talking about the mind-set at the time. and this was the administration that you said last hour was, quote, freaked out. >> right. >> from the top down, president obama, vice president biden looked at the election of donald trump during the transition and said we have a lot of concerns about trump on domestic policy but donald trump is commander in

chief. his team is coming in, running foreign policy with so much going on around throughout the world. within the white house during that transition. it's not surprising they were greatly interested in what's this going to be like? who is he going to pick? what policies are they going to pursue? >> ron fournier and david ignatius wanted to get in before we move to the next story. >> they had all kinds of evidence that there was connection between the trump people and the russians. there could have been a legitimate reason to look into this incidental surveillance. but that's why we need to find out what really happened. we can't be assuming nothing happened and we shouldn't be over hyperventilating, assuming there was corruption here. let's have an independent investigation to both these stories. they're obviously connected. >> david ignatius? >> this investigation is now where it belongs, before the house and senate intelligence committees. what we know is that president

trump's allegation that president obama illegally wiretapped him is false. there's this other issue, which will be explored. the point roju made is the final key point. at the time that these events were happening, our intelligence agencies were reporting a massive russian effort to interfere in the u.s. presidential election. and what was going on? if you're a national security adviser, part of your job is to figure out what's going on. what's happening here. we don't know what she did or whether it was proper, how much of it. but that was the context, something we haven't seen before. and it's not surprising to me that people in the white house and across the government were worried. >> the other big news story this morning, nbc news has confirmed blackwater founder, eric prince, represented donald trump at a secret overseas meeting convened by the united arab emirates in

january, according to two intelligence sources familiar with the matter. "the washington post" was first with the story. what they described as an appare apparent, quote, back channel line of communication between moscow and the president-elect. the meeting took place about nine days before president trump's inauguration in the seychelles islands in the indian ocean. the paper reports that the fbi has been scrutinizing the meeting as part of a probe of russian interference in the 2016 u.s. election. the fbi declined to comment to the post. the meeting was reportedly aimed at persuading russia away with its relationship with iran, including syria. prince had anh no formal role with the trump team. he reportedly introduced himself as an unofficial envoy to the president-elect to high-ranking emirates. a prince spokesman told the paper, quote, erik had no role

on the transition team. this is a complete fabrication. the meeting had nothing to do with president trump. why is this so-called under resourced intelligence community messing around with surveillance of american citizens when they should be hunting terrorists? >> mike halperin, why would he put out that statement? >> if you take it sentence by sentence, he didn't actually deny it. i don't know. it's not the last we'll hear about this meeting. >> no. sean spicer tells nbc news the white hse is not aware of any meetings and erik prince had no role in the transition. >> both true. >> uh-huh. >> while a senior administration official called the trump/putin back channel ridiculous. one other nugget to the story. >> what else could it be? it means nothing. >> erik prince is the brother of the education secretary that many felt was perhaps not

qualified, betsy devos. rick tyler? >> rick tyler, what do you make of all of this? >> it's interesting to me that i understand what the united arab emirates wanted to get out of it. they wanted to split russia from iran. but what did the trump transition team want to get out of this meeting? clearly these meetings don't happen by accident. somebody blessed prince to go over there. why the leaning forward? what was the leaning forward for the united states to engage with russia so early during the transition? donald trump is a deal maker, he wanted something out of the russians, why shouldn't he hold back? >> richard, why? >> russians are interested in reduction of sanctions, and low oil prices have put the squeeze on the russian economy. the question then would be, obviously, is there potential quid pro quo? we would reduce sanctions in exchange for russia taking a slightly diversion path from iran, going forward on syria? >> and ron fournier, certainly

nothing would be wrong with an administration trying to separate russia from iran. that would be in america's best interest. but why would you hide it, first of all? secondly, is igoing to be one more example of trump officials lying about meetings with russian officials that otherwise wouldn't have raised an eyebrow? but because they lie about their meetings with russian officials during the transition, suddenly one story stacks on top of another story, stacks on top of another story and leads us all to the inescapable conclusion that they're hiding something much bigger here. >> the flip side of the susan rice issue. we can't trust any of these folks. we have to have an independent investigation as to why there were so many and so many unusual back channels between the trump campaign and russia and what did the obama -- outgoing obama administration do about it? we can't trust the word of either one of these camps.

so, we need to have an institution outside of congress because we obviously can't trust, certainly, the house investigation, to figure out what was really going on here. >> it's true erik prince was not on the transition team. that's a fact. you can't stress enough how supportive he was of donald trump early on, how much money he has given to the trump campaign, republican causes. according to jeremy scahill's reporting, who wrote a book about blackwater, although not officially on the team, advising the trump team about potential picks for state, defense, and talking to them about the world and the way it lays out. >> all right. ron fournier, thank you very much. we want to mention your great book "love that boy." it's out today in paperback. >> great book. >> it is, ron. congratulations on that. >> thank you, guys. take care. still ahead on "morning joe." "sorry not sorry," the response from the chairman of the

democratic party. chairman tom perez joins us live this hour. >> senator rand paul and possible health care compromise. member of the senate judiciary committee, shelden whitehouse on the democrats next move if mitch mcconnell goes nuclear to confirm the supreme court nominee. first elijah cummings. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. t, but there will still be pain. it comes when your insurance company says they'll only pay three-quarters of what it takes to replace it. what are you supposed to do? drive three-quarters of a car? now if you had liberty mutual new car replacement™, you'd get your whole car back. i guess they don't want you driving around on three wheels. smart. with liberty mutual new car replacement™, we'll replace the full value of your car. liberty stands with you™. liberty mutual insurance. for patients like lynn, advanced genomic testing may lead to

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it's been a busy few weeks for the president. every day he gets to work, rolls up his sleeves and gives a new job to jared kushner. so far he is in charge of brokering mideast peace, tackling america's opioid epidemic, fixing the department of veteran affairs, and dyeing the eggs for the white house easter egg hunt. i'm worried this might be too much for one guy.

he might need some help. a back-up son-in-law. tiffany, no pressure, but hook somebody. >> joining us now, ranking member of the committee on oversight and government reform, elijah cummings of maryland. great to have you on board this morning. let's start with the russian investigation and former national security adviser. are you feeling comfortable that all the information will come out, regarding general flynn especially, and the russian investigation? >> i think if we allow the investigations to go forward. my advice to the president is to do everything in his power not to try to interfere with these investigations. by the way, this is very unusual where you have an investigation and the subject of the investigation is me dddling, to some degree, with the investigation. that's highly unusual. i would advise the president if he doesn't have anything to hide, threat go. let the investigators do their job. let it go.

period. >> are you concerned that the president -- he seems to be tweeting, look over here. look over here. he seems to be getting involved. when you said, you know, it would help if the information was just allowed to come out and the investigations were not ddwith. isn't the president himself meddli wh these investigations when he tweets about them? >> yeah, i do think so. i practiced law for over 30 years and i've never seen anything like this. usually when you have a client and that client is being investigated, your response is simply as a client and as a lawyer, we are cooperating with the investigators. period. nothing less. nothing more. >> wow! >> and then there are people that really believe that all of this is a distraction. that when the president finds himself in some difficulty, then he moves the shells, like a shell game and say let's move

over here. and all of that seems to point to, first of all, deception. and then the question becomes why is there deception? and all that does is make fbi agents and others work even harder because they feel like something is being hidden. and as i said to the president when i met with him recently, i said mr. president, you need to concentrate on not just the 43% -- back then it was 43% of the people that were with him. you need to concentrate on the entire country and do some things that are positive for the entire country. and not forget about the other 57% as you seem to be doing. >> willie? >> congressman cummings, it's willie geist. good talking to you this morning. >> good talking to you. >> do you have confidence that president trump can do the job for this country? you obviously were sptical early on. you said you would giveim a chance but did voice your skepticism. we're three months into this

thing. how are you feeling about president trump? >> i am still very skeptical. let me tell you why. when you have someone who does not always tell the truth, it's very, very difficult. when i sat there and i met with him for an hour, i enjoyed the conversation. i really did. but while i sat there, i could not help but think about the daca kids that i met that were crying the night before at a church. couldn't help but think about all the epa employees that are frightened to death that they can't do the science that they've been trained to do. i'm thinking about the churches. when you go to churches and the churches are filled. do you know why? people are in fear. one of the things i shared with the president is that you cannot lead a country where 67% of the people are fearing you. that is horrible. and so i think he has to get away from this distractive

activity. i think he has to concentrate on the entire nation. i told the president. i said mr. president, in the -- the people that i represent, and it is a cross section of diversity, i said most of the people tell me that they -- they are fearful of you and they don't -- they don't like where we're going. and it seems like everything you're doing is negative. and so hopefully, you know -- so to answer your question, the jury is still out on that. but it gets harder and harder every day. as the man said to me in church the other day. he said, cummings, you know, president trump does something every hour and says things every hour that would put most presidents out of office if they did it in six or seven months. so, you know, that's that constant bombardment of the

tweets and whatever. it's so distracting and life is so short. >> congressman, as you know well, today is the 49th anniversary of the assassination of martin luther king up on the balcony at the lorain motel in memphis. as a backdrop, what you just said about the country right now, what is the state of dr. king's dream? >> i think that we are in a -- i think if dr. king were here, and i guess that's the best way to answer that, i think he would be a bit disappointed. in a way he would have been pleased to have seen the first african-american elected president, to have seen many doors opened for people like me and others who now have opportunities that would not have had them back then. but at the same time when we see a guy like bannon who is, as far as i'm concerned, a white supremacist type person, sitting in the white house, sitting in the white house and i'm paying his salary, i think he would be very disappointed. i think he would be disappointed

with all the hate talk that we are hearing now, and the climate that we find ourselves in. but at the same times a preacher, i believe that he would have a sense of hope because he would realize that we've been through these battles before. but i can tell you that as i get older, i'm tired of african-american people and others fighting the same battles over and over and over and over again. just the right to vote being attacked. i think he would be very upset about that. i mean, we thought that battle was finished. as i said to president trump when i met with him, please stop talking about voter fraud. it does not exist for all intents and purposes. concentrate on voter suppression, mr. president, please. i had a conversation, by the way, with the vice president. he had the vice president call mehe next day and i said don't do an investigation. you can't do a vote -- investigation on voter fraud when it doesn't exist, when

you've got people who can't even vote, african-americans and others. come on, man. so, we haven't heard too much more about that voter fraud investigation. i don't know if you noticed that. >> congressman elijah cummings thank you very, very much for being on this morning. great to see you. >> okay. >> is eroding to the point of no return? we'll talk to sheldon whitehouse. "morning joe" is back in a moment.

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i don't think we are ready to stop the debate on the floor. frankly, think we don't have a cleacoitment yet fm the republican party that they won't change the rules, that they won't change the rules on this nominee or the next nominee. as you heard from many of my colleagues and from myself, we are still very angry over what happened to judge garland. >> so, mr. president, we can go back and forth and blame each other, but in the recent history of the vacancy cause d by justie

scalia's death, we both lost. we lost merrick garland because of the majority leader's unprecedented blockade and republicans will lose on judge gorsuch because we're doing something that we think is reasonable in asking that he be able to earn 60 votes, as so many others have. we think the two are not equivalent, but in either case, we both lost. >> is this the beginning of the end of the senate as we know it? >> yes. yes. >> how so? >> because it's a slippery slope. next will be the legislative 60 vote. >> why is that? >> why? because it's a slippery slope. >> what does it mean for the senate? >> it means there's no reason for us to be bicameral. save the taxpayers a lot of money. >> hamilton is rolling over in his grave. i'm sorry we got here. but we are where we're here --

we are where we are. i'm not going to be part of the senate where democrats get their judges and a republican can never get theirs. that's not what it's all about. >> lawmakers pointing fingers at one another over the vacant supreme court spot, which brings us to our new segment on "morning joe." it's called -- >> what's it called? >> hypocrisy abounds. >> we need to come up with sportier name. >> i like hypocrisy abounds. senator ted cruz, criticizing his democratic colleagues for being obstructionists. >> we saw today was the position of the modern democratic party as they are opposed to donald trump appointing anyone to the supreme court. if they will filibuster neil gorsuch they will filibuster any nominee from a republican president. that is the reason why if the democrats persist in this foolish filibuster, the senate majority will have no choice but

return to the standardhat has prevailed for over two centuries in the senate, which is to confirm by a majority vote. >> that is the same ted cruz who suggested that they could block hillary clinton from filling justice scalia's seat indefinitely, had she won. and senator tim kaine suggested that they would use the same nuclear position to get merrick garland confirmed. >> if they think they'll stonewall this vacancy then a democratic majority will say we will not let you thwart the law and we will change the rules to uphold the law. >> you're predicting follow through on what has been a

subtle, veiled threat to change the filibuster rules for the supreme court? >> if the republicans continue to stonewall, i think that will happen. >> i've never seen sam stein's actual office. can we take a look at that? >> it's in his frat. at dartmouth. >> sam, this is where he fills out his seven. >> in hanover, new hampshire. >> fantasy football league squads. >> some people have leather-bound books. sam has kegs in the backdrop of all his interview. >> dartmouth. >> do you know what that is -- not to pick on sam. i've been the subject of -- we're going to interview you in this brewery. it's going to be different. what they end up doing is doing the same interview they would have done. >> let's not do that. sheldon whitehouse of rhode island. good to be with you, senator. >> good to be with you. good morning. >> good morning.

>> senator, how does this all end up? >> the original sin was the president deciding that he needed to pick somebody off a heritage foundation approved list for the supreme court. there is absolutely nothing that prevents a president from standing with the majority leader and the minority leader and announcing a consensus appointee to the supreme court. they decided not to do that. they are pushing for gorsuch's nomination and a lot of politics led to this along the way that can't be explained by judicial philosophy. >> good morning, senator. it's rick tyler. in the end, republicans will argue that the supreme court, which is often not part of a political campaign, but it has been because the supreme court decided the outcome of obamacare. so, it was definitely part of the campaign, and trump won. shouldn't trump be able to pick the nominee that aligns ideologically with the right as the democrat, i assume, hillary clinton, would have picked someone that the republicans

would have been ideologically opposed to on the left? >> that's why there's advice and consent as a check on a particular impulse by a president. it's a particularly important check when you have a court that at last had five political appointees went on a wild corporate shopping spree from citizens united, voting right cases and all the ways in which employees, customers were limited and able to bring -- and the cases were all 5-4. we've been looking at a court that looks a lot like it's been captured by big corporations and their billionaire owners. and that, i think adds a flavor to this appointment. if he's going to go back and make that 5-4 majority again, look out, human beings. here come the big corporations. >> david ignatius? >> senator, this is a little bit like watching a car wreck. i just want to ask you before the senate fundamentally changes the rules under which it operates, is there something you

can do as a senior member of the judiciary committee to head this off? >> i don't think that this is going to fundamentally change the way the senate operates. i may be in the minority in that feeling. the real jump would be if we go to allowing nuclear option on legislative matters. and i don't think there's any taste for going there. we've already broken the rules with respect to the lower court judges and the cabinet appointees. we've learned to our peril that you get some really rancid cabinet appointees when you go that way and the stars align so that you can bring in people like that. and now it's going to affect the supreme court as well. but i honestly don't think this is the end of a collegial senate nor where 60 votes is the threshold for any legislation. >> it's willie geist. good to see you this morning. one of the arguments we heard against judge gorsuch is the

merrick garland argument. senator feinstein laying out what happened to merrick garland, that he couldn't even get a hearing. the argument seems to be democrats couldn't get their guy. why should republicans get theirs? did that play into your vote as well? >> no. there's more to it than that. it's not just a tit-for-tat thing. it's to look behind the curtain and wonder why it is that the republican party was so desperate to shut off merrick garland even at a time when it was a long shot that president trump or any republican would be elected, even when it was a long shot that they would maintain their majority in the senate. so, even though the odds were really long and even though the political penalty was immediate, they played that political card. why? they played that political card because they want to rebuild a 5-4 court that will do the things that their big donors want. that is the only explanation that makes sense in all of this. it's not just the tit-for-tat

but the why that makes you think. >> that's not the only political explanation. people have different judicial philosophies than you and different judicial philosophies than ruth ginsburg and barack obama. some of us have a different view of what the supreme court could and should and would do. i don't give a damn about donors and big corporations. guys in hedge funds and women in hedge funds should pay more than 14% taxes, minimum 30% taxes. at the same time -- >> none of that happens in the senate because of the power of these people, which the supreme court gave to them in the citizens united decision, unprecedented and very poorly reasoned decision. >> this all started with citizens united? did you support hillary clinton or did you support bernie sanders? i don't know the answer to that question. >> i supported hillary. >> hillary, can you think of a major democratic candidate in the history of nominees that

have closer ties to wall street? >> no, i can't -- >> not to be difficult. most of the people i know -- most of the people i know -- >> come on. >> -- that run wall street, and you know it's the truth. >> goldman sachs by trump. >> you don't want me to finish -- >> you go and then he goes. >> wel it's hard to when i can't finish a sentence. you and i both know that wall street wanted hillary clinton to win a hell of a lot more than they wanted donald trump to win. >> oh, please. they were spending money new hampshire for bernie sanders. >> oh, please? okay. so you're on national television, i want you to know that. and everything you are saying is going down on transcripts. i'm going to ask you again. is it your position here, based on everything you've said before -- that's why i'm asking you this question -- that people that ran wall street preferred donald trump over hillary clinton in the 2016 election?

>> probably not because he is a potentially dangerous and very unpredictable person. >> i agree. >> but they did not want hillary clinton to win. that is why wall street money supported bernie sanders in democratic primaries to take her out because they thought she would be the stronger candidate. you can't pretend that didn't happen. >> i can pretend that can't happen because the clintons -- >> you are then. >> -- had an extraordinary close relationship with wall street and they have for the past 20 or 30 years. >> nothing like the republican party. not even close. >> oh, my god. republican candidates running for president would love -- >> not even close. >> -- to have the relations with wall street that the clintons have had over the past 30 years. >> yeah, right. she gave a speech to goldman sachs and he has put three goldman sachs people into the cabinet. come on. >> it's a shame. i can't even believe i'm having -- we're even having this discussion. the clintons never put people from goldman sachs in their cabinets. i don't even know how we got here. >> we'll never know, will we?

>> i'm talking about bill clinto >> right. >> and everybody does. anyway -- >> buthe bottom line is that the court has become politicized and everything having to do with the court is so political. if we had a court that called balls and strikes i don't think there would be this concern. it's that simple. the court has become so politicized that every political angle gets attached to an appointment to the court, particularly when it's the tipping vote to rebuild the republican 5-4 majority. >> i agree that it has become political. seems to me it started with robert bourk in the late 1980s but we'll probably disagree on that as well. just for the record, for people viewing, i thought it was disgusting what the republicans did to merrick garland. i said that before. i'll say it now. it would also be a shame if -- >> same thing -- >> -- we can't get an up or down vote on this justice. >> senator sheldon whitehouse. >> senator, we look forward for

you coming back on items that we can agree more. >> just a disagreement. still ahead on "morning joe" -- >> now trump wants his name on everything. trump towers, trump states, but when it came to health care, he didn't want trump care. what do we call it? trump care, ryan care? i'll tell you my idea. because you know what embodies their program? i don't care. [ bleep ]. >> i can't understand what he said but -- >> that was dnc chairman tom perez speaking friday. he joins the conversation straight ahead.

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all right. the trump administration is

working to reach a new health care deal with republicans following their failed legislation a week and a half ago. vice president mike pence met with moderate republicans of the so-called tuesday group at the white house before going to the hill last night with other members of the trump administration to meet with the conservative freedom caucus. the administration is trying to find a compromise on insurance regulation. pence presented an idea that would allow states to use a waiver process to opt out of some obamacare requirements. last night the president told nbc's kristen welker he's looking to republicans to get something done on health care and is not eyeing democrats for a deal at this moment calling relations with them raw. >> we'll get something that will make republicans feel better about working with their

democratic brothers and sisters. seriously, the '84 olympics, ata recent dnc event. >> chairman of the dnc, good morning. >> good morning. >> good morning. >> tom -- >> a payday -- >> so, tom, you don't really think that all republicans don't give a hoot, as you said, about people, do you? >> well, you know what i was talking about, joe, and the quote had it right there. the affordable care act repeal affects 24 million people. >> right. >> i met folks for whom the affordable care act was a lifesaver, not a job killer, a lifesav lifesaver. >> right. >> the reason it failed was simple. seven and a half years of lies reached a collision course with the reality on the ground. >> my question was, though, i mean, republicans would rather kill the bill for whatever reason, but i go back to the

question. i mean, do you really believe that rublicans don't care about people? >> i thought the republican leadership was heartless in how they dealt with the affordable care act. >> right. >> look at the budget, the so-called skinny budget, it's heartless. robert kennedy said america is a strong country. it's a great country. it's an unselfish country. it's a compassionate country. >> right. >> looking at the skinny budget -- >> again, mr. chairman -- >> low income home energy assistance -- >> i don't -- >> low income -- look at what they are trying to do -- >> i just -- >> budgets are moral documents reflecting the value of government -- >> so -- >> when you tell people who -- >> specifically who doesn't care about people, you're saying president trump doesn't care about people, the republicans in congress don't care about people, or just generally republicans don't care about people? listen, i don't like the budget either. the cuts to nih, research, cuts to the state department, they

are short sided. we can agree on that. i can say the republicans who are very short sided in the budget, and i don't think it's that they hate people. >> i was talking about the republican leadership. as you know, you know, in the affordable health care act, we help 24 million people get access to life saving health care. we helped senior get access to prescription drug relief. we're helping people addicted to opiods get the care needed that's a lifeline. in the context of the president's so-called skinny budget, really a heartless budget, you have people who are relying on meals on wheels so that they can stay in their home. not only is it heartless to cut funding for that, but it's stupid because you know what happens if these people are able to live? they are going to a nursing home, joe, and it's far more expensive to go to a nursing home on medicaid than it is to stay at home. so that is heartless. you know -- >> okay. >> so many people who --

>> we have a lot of people around the table who want to ask questions. >> it's fair to say and fair to be passionate about it. i don't -- i actually -- i don't think there's an argument here that the budget or even the health care bill that was a failure before it started was cruel on many levels. no. i have no question. i'm just agreeing with tom perez completely. sometimes you have to say it. >> that republicans hate people? >> no. that it was a joke and cruel and the budget is fairly cruel too. >> joe, let me be clear. i was talking about the republican leadership, and you know what, i grew up in buffalo, new york, and in buffalo, we're blunt people, and i -- i have four siblings who are doctors, and you know what, i had to promise never to be a plaintiff personal injury lawyer. that was my promise, joe. >> i understand. >> when i think about health care i was in the emergency room

with one of my sib liplings in boston city hospital talking to a treating psychiatrist there. she was telling me how the affordable care act enabled them to help so many people. i believe that anyone who wants to vote to repeal the affordable care act should be required to spend five hours in an emergency room watching what the affordable care act has done in their community across the country. or if you live in a rural area, go to that rural hospital in kansas that was forced to close because they didn't -- >> we get that. we get that completely. >> it's leadership. >> we get that completely, but it does need some reforms. go ahead. >> sure. mr. chairman, it's willie, we knew what you were doing, but one of the central arguments from the democratic party in the campaign against donald trump was his rhetoric was divisive, crass, commercials, what about

the children listening to this stuff. any regts what you said the other night? >> i don't. because here, willie, here's the bottom line. what i have regrets about are all the people who are scared to death as a result of the first 60 days of chaos an carnage in this administration. the children who got dropped off at school and literally saw their father, you know, half a block away getting arrested by i.c.e. you know, the person with a disability who relies on meals own wheels so that they can stay in their home. the people -- the 24 million people who are relying on health care, so i got a lot of passion, and one of the reasons i ran for the job is because i want to make sure that everyone who works hard and plays by the rules can afford to live the american dream, and right now, this divisive administration is doing things that are unnecessary. they don't make our nation any stronger when you initiate the muslim ban 1.0 and 2.0 and

republican and democratic judges strike it down. it doesn't make our nation stronger when you propose to cut meals open wheels or low income home energy assistance for people in buffalo in the winter or people in the south in the summer. that's not who we are as a nation. we can do better. >> all right, thank you, dnc chairman, tom perez. >> great to be with you. >> people are nervous about what was mentioned and nervous about the fact that washington can't work and democrats and republicans can't work together. nbc poll said something like 79% of americans expect their leaders to compromise for the other party to get things done, and nothing's happened. certainly, this administration makes it extraordinary difficult for democrats to work with republicans, and i personally think what the republicans did with garland and what what they are doing with gorsuch make it more difficult.

still ahead on "morning joe." >> oh, somebody stop me! >> who did the unmasking? >> what was that? come on, seriously. don't make that tease. don't do it. we have a lot more straight ahead. new report that it was actually president obama's former national security advisers who did the unmasking. trump officials swept up in surveillance, breaking that down and promise never to show you the image flashed before your chirp's eyes at breakfast next on "morning joe." like centurylink's broadband network that gives 35,000 fans a cutting edge game experience. or the network that keeps a leading hotel chain's guests connected at work, and at play. or the it platform that powers millions of ecards every day for one of the largest greeting card companies. businesses count on communication, and

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good morning, it's tuesday, april 4th, and this morning, following two big developing stories. bloomberg reporting that it was former national security adviser under president obama, susan rice, asking for the unmasking of the identities of u.s. citizens in raw intelligence reports that connect to the donald trump transition and campai campaign. the other is the "washington post" story on a secret meeting in january between the founder of blackwater and a russian close to president putin as part of an apparent effort to establish a back channel line of communication between moscow and president-elect donald trump. >> just another day at the office. >> no. >> the partisan -- >> it's amazing. >> surrounding both the stories

is loud. we'll separate fact from fiction and lay out how the white house is handling all of this. >> with us, we have senior political analyst for nbc news and msnbc, and president of the counsel on foreign relations, and author of "a world in disa: american foreign policy and crisis of the old order," and editor for the washington post with us as well. willie is back. welcome back. >> hey, willie. >> missed you. >> missed you. >> did i miss anything? >> no, nothing at all. >> nothing going on at all. we are working hard here to drum up something interesting, that's for sure. all right, we begin with new scrutiny on susan rice this morning and the process you may have heard of known as unmasking. reports from multiple outlets yesterday cited anonymous sources claimed that rice requested that the identities of some u.s. citizens be included in raw intelligence reports about monitored conversations

with foreign targets, typically ameran names are redacted. according to thereports, those identified were orinally lt anonymous and had ties to the trump campaign. sources tell bloomberg news in february national security adviser director for intelligence discovered rice's multiple requests to unmask u.s. persons in intelligence reports that related to trump transition activities. according to the report, cohen brought this to the attention of the white house general counsel's office who reviewed more of rice's requests and instructed him to drop his own research into the unmasking policy. now, sources tell bloomberg this is the reason -- >> just for one second, this report says that one official familiar with the reports say they contained valuable political information. not intelligence, but valuable political information on what the trump transition team was

doing including who trump was meeting, who the trump team was meeting, what the views were of trump associates on foreign policy matters, and plans for the incoming administration. what would -- i don't understand. >> if that report is accurate, that begs to question what was going on. people dismissing it as routine are uncurious. >> what if dick which icheney ar the unmasking of names for obama's administration? that's a simple questn to ask any time they sayhis is many ado about something. again, there's a lot of things we don't know. a lot of questions we don't know. i do know this, though. i heard the hallelujah chorus come because there's nothing to see here, move along. replace rice's name with dick

cheney's name, the incoming trump's administration with the obama administration's name, and then, willie, go from there. >> remember what the standard is for unmasking. it's foreign intelligence value, not political value. it's foreign intelligence value, which is broad enough on its own. that can be used broadly too. so maybe what susan rice did was legal and proper under that parameter. i think also people don't fully understand just to remind what unmasking is. in the collection of data, wiretapping evidence, someone can be swept up who was not the target of that request or that'ves drthat eavesdropping. if there was, again, foreign intelligence. >> again, if the idea is you're investigating foreign sources. >> right. >> it would have to be extraordinary to unmask u.s. citizens' names here. >> it would have to be.

all the conversations, if all the reports are true, but the whole idea of this is privacy. the idea is to protect american citizens from unlawful scrutiny. if you -- i think these are big questions. it also raises questio what people on the nscight be doing. they have two jobs, the national security counsel, coordinate foreign policy and national security and you're there to be an adviser to the president, a foreign policy counselor. why people -- if this both sides, doing this kind of tactical work. it's not their job. >> i have to ask you because you've been there. talk about the transition between george h.w. bush and bill clinton. could you imagine brent, then the national security adviser, sorting through political information demanding names be unmasked of the incoming cle iin

administration and distributing the names across government. i'm not, by the way, i'm not saying susan rice did anything wrong because we don't know, but since this news has come out, we heard enough people -- >> it's okay -- >> try to whitewash it as quickly as possible that we want to ask the questions. you were there. is this unusual behavior with if this occurred when you worked for george h.w. bush. >> the question is rhetorical. >> no, answer for the people immediately saying, oh, nothing to see here. >> no. it's not the role of the national security counsel. it would not have happened. this is a legitimate area of inkwir ri. this is something that needs to be looked into because i can't imagine the circumstances if this were to have taken place. were it to have taken place. >> people in the environment were freaked out donald trump won. >> very. >> and concerned about what they

were doing to plan new policies, but also how he had won, so that is the environment in which this activity allegedly took place. >> so susan rice has not publicly commented since reports emerged, but two weeks ago, when the chairman nunes made the claim that the president-elect and his team were at least monitored, rice said this to pbs. >> i know nothing about this. i was surprised to see reports from chairman nunes on the count today. i don't know to what account chairman n urgsunes was referri but he said it was a legal, lawful surveillance, and that it was potentially incidental collection on american citizens. >> david, what's your take? especially hearing her describe and respond that way. >> well, we're going to have an investigation of this. the democrats on the

intelligence committee's, adam schiff and mark warner made clear in 24 hours it's a proper subject for investigation, and so we'll begin to dig and learn what the facts were, what was the context of these unmasking requests, if they were made. how many names were requested? was this unusual? is this something that this national security adviser had done in other contexts? what was going on otherwise? we had a transition in which it's clear every government of note was trying to get to know people in the trump administration, coming back and forth from trump tower, inevitably collection of the people. did some of that get picked up? is that why we see incidents of nonrussians talking to trump people surfacing, and was somebody in the white house trying to figure out what's going on here? we just don't know the answers. i think the point is here as with the larger, and i'd

underline larger question of russian covert action against our political campaign, we're going to have an investigation, and we're going to get answers, and the american people will have a better sense in some weeks or months just what happened. >> right. as i said last week, this may be the 5% compared to the 95% russian story, but this 5% part of the story requires that we pay attention to it as well. david, i'm curious, i asked richard if this happened between 41 and 44, and i'm wondering, do you have any examples of the national security adviser requesting unmasking of several name, and then spreading it across as reports suggest, spreading names across government to other agencies? any -- does this happen? does this happen? >> so, joe, i did ask that question yesterday of the intelligence professionals who

have seen other transitions, and they said, first, it is the case that other governments is a scurrying to get information, all collecting, running around, and you pick that up, pick up the bear talk among themselves about who they met, but in terms of how frequent it was, was it different in character this time? did it have a political edge this time? i just couldn't get anybody who could make that comparison. i think the point is there is a context here where there was a lot of noise out there, and people wanted to ask questions. >> still ahead on "morning joe," senator rand paul is with us, why he's now tweeting support of president trump in the fight against his health care bill, but first, reports of new trump team and russia, only this time on a tropical island in the indian ocean. how the founder of blackwater factors into the back channel of communations. you're watching "morning joe," and we'll be right back. hey allergy muddlers

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nbc news con foifirmed that blackwater founder remitted donald trump at an secret overseas meeting in january. that's according to two intelligence sources familiar with the matter. the washington post -- >> hold on. that sort of thing happens all the time with george hw bush, right? that happened all the time? >> standard operating procedure. this is how, i mean, this is how brent and your dad did business, right? >> they were going to the islands every other week. >> i'm sorry. when you first heard the story for all of us old enough to remember, did you not immediately go back? this is so -- >> the washington post was first with the story, and what they described as an apparent, quote,

back channel line of communication between moscow and the president-elect. the meeting took place nine days before the election, and the paper reports that the fbi has been scrutinizing the meeting as part of the probe of russian interference in the 2016 u.s. election. the fbi declined to comment to the post. the meeting was reportedly aimed at persuading russia away from its relationship with iran, including in syria. prince had no formal role with the trump team, he reported by was an unofficial unvoi for the president-elect to high rankings involved in setting up the meeting with the putin confidant. they told the paper, quote, erik had no role in the transition team. this is a complete fabrication. the meeting had nothing to do with president trump. why is the so-called under

resourced intelligence community messing around with surveil lapse of american citizens when they should be hunting terrorists? >> can i answer the question? >> uh-huh. >> because he's not telling the truth. because he's lying. >> and sean spicer tells -- >> that's why they are doing it because anybody that knows what happened during the transition and knows the players of the transition, and this is all i will say, will tell you that he's lying. that is all i'm going to say, but it is obvious to anybody that knows what happens in the transiti transition, obvious to the fbi, that he's a liar. >> my sense is that -- >> by the way, let me ask you, uae, are they suckers? do they just set up meetings with guys? do they -- no, no, no. they are not suckers. they know exactly what they are doing. this -- >> okay. >> this dude didn't just show up at the island where we do all of

our sort of -- >> all right. >> gambling operations. >> sean spicer tells nbc news the white house is not aware of any meetings, and erik prince had no role in the transition. >> what he means by that, the actual building itself because it doesn't have a conscious. it's not -- the building itself is not aware of the meetings, but everybody else is. >> well a senior administration official call the suggestion of a trump-putin back channel ridiculous. >> if you mean by ridiculous, true, yes. >> one final -- >> this was ridiculous. now, the thing is, can i just say, though, the only connection this guy has with the trump administration -- >> one thing thing for you -- >> well, erik -- i will bet this pen that -- this is -- >> throw your pen rock in there. >> your lucky pen. >> had this pen since 1987 and bet this pen there's no

connection whatsoever beyond this between prince and the administration. >> and your pet rock. >> not giving up that pet rock. >> erik prince, by the way, is the brother of education secretary betsy devos. >> here's my pen. give me the rock. >> betsy devos? who are these people? who are these people? >> she's qualified. >> willie, who are these people? >> brother and sister. >> no, i didn't say the trump people in general. >> why would he put that in the statement? just put no comment. >> because he'sstupid. that's why, because he's stupid. these people, it's a quarter page. i love the quote from the russians about carter page. he's a blanking idiot. >> all right. >> these are -- remember, tell everybody what you told me about these guys. >> no, no. >> it's from the '80s movie,

"spies like us," they are idiots. >> not my line, but it's good. >> the book about blackwater, he reported in january that erik prince was advising the trump transition team on foreign policy. helping them understand the world. >> not official. >> not official, but it's clear he had a close relationship. >> unofficial. >> nothing official in transitions. they are inheritly the least structured, messiest situations. a lot of things -- >> we have to read senator bob cas casey's quote. >> i love it. >> by the way, we're not making light of the episode. anything wrong with during a transition, a week or so before they take office with an associate of the administration putting out feelers on foreign policy? is that illegal? improper? >> feelers on foreign policy -- there's only one administration at a time, only one government at a time. you have to be careful.

it's okay to have meetings, but you can't say what you do. for example, it's one thing to say you want to distance the russians from the iranians, not a bad thing, but to suggest it, not saying it was done, but if there's sanction relief, you can't do that in foreign policy. coming up on "morning joe," an impromptu meeting with president trump in the oval office, what he told her about his tough priorities and the potential for working with democrats." morning joe" is coming right back. what powers the digital world. communication. that's why a cutting edge university counts on centurylink to keep their global campus connected. and why a pro football team chose us to deliver fiber-enabled broadband to more than 65,000 fans.

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a source for information at the white house yesterday, the president himself. what did he tell you? >> reporter: good morning to you. an impromptu meeting that lasted a few minutes, but in the conversation, president trump said he's serious about reviving health care reform and disputed reports he's not engaged in the details, saying he's read in on the nuances. when i asked if he would work with democrats, he says the republican colleagues hold the chance for compromise citing raw relations over the nomination of gorsuch. an hour after the conversation,

the chief of staff and budget director meat with members of the freedom caucus, the seam conservative group that derailed the effort to repeal and replace obama care. the leader of the freedom caucus spoke to reporters and stroke a note of optimism and one republican source says a potential compromise is coming together would allow states to waive certain regulations if they could prove they are lowering the price of premiums, but it is still going to be a tough road to get republicans on board with a repeal and replace measure. still, willie, the message out of the white house is these are ongoing negotiations. the president telling he thinks he can get it done. willie? >> nbc's kristin welker, thank you. coming up, to testify before congress about unmasking members of the trump team. the kentucky republican is next on "morning e."

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there is a troubling direction this is going in, but we're going to let this review zbgo on. i'm surprised one set of developments versus another set of developments. >> that press secretary sean spicer yesterday responding to reports that former national security adviser under president obama, susan rice, was the one who unmasked the trump transition officials who were incidentally monitored. let's bring in the hosts of the bill press show, the great bill press. good morning, good to see you. >> good morning. >> commentary editor for the washingt examiner and visiting fellow at the american enterprise institute, tim carney. tim, starting with you. wow, what a shot that was. >> hi, okay then, hi there. looking good there. >> like a flashback i was having. talk about, putting in context

the story we talked about, which is the reports of susan rice unmasking private american citizens, why she would be the one to do is and to what end. what do you think? >> well, it certainly does -- it is worrisome, right? this is the republican my libertarian friends and i get worried about the surveillance state is because not you think, oh, well, these terrorists, and that were extra worried about spying on them, but because government officials can abuse the power and use it for political purposes, and that's what on the surface right now this story looks like, and sean spicer, you know, he's always trying to tell us what story to cover, which is annoying, but in this case, he has a point. is it a big deal if a political official uses surveillance powers to unmask people for -- >> yes. >> even just out of curiosity -- >> right. >> or spite. that's a story. that's right. it's getting ignored. >> that's the thing, it's not

just someone in position of law enforcement or the fbi, for example, but the national security adviser, susan rice. where does this pit into the bigger russian-trump conversations. >> the national security adviser is not a political animal, a political person. it's her responsibility, and mcmaster's responsibility to protect the american people. i have to say, back up just a little bit. what's happening here, this is another attempt to get us off looking in a different direction. in my opinion, adam schiff says, donald trump is good at saying, look over here, but don't look at the charge that president obama ordered a wiretap of trump tower. no evidence of that. even if everything we say is true does not prove donald trump's assertion. the fact susan rice, if i'm a national security adviser, our country, which we do, is doing ordinary surveillance on foreign agents that are here, and suddenly, they are talking to

the same americans, masked americans, i think it's my job to say, who the hell are they talking to, what are they talking about? it is legal. it is done often. there is no evidence at all that she told anybody else, certainly nobody in the hillary campaign, sort of assumed here, who these names were. she did her job. >> could there be a legitimate reason she did this? >> yes. >> what was that? >> well, first of all, russia is a foreign adversary, and so we are spying on foreign nationals here all the time. we know that. michael flynn should have known that. she sees on the calls that there are many, many conversations, multiple conversations within these foreign adversaries and certain americans. she has to know what the hell is going on. aga it's part of the job. >> our next guest disagrees whole heartedly, senator paul,

great to have you on, sir. >> thanks. >> you said yesterday it's a smoking gun, and why do you disagree with bill press? >> well, for years, both progressives and libertarians complained about the back door searches. it's not that we are searching maybe one foreign leader who they talked to, but we search everything in the whole world. there were reports years ago that all of italy's phone calls were absorbed in a within month period of time. we were getting merkel's phone calls, everybody's phone calls, and by rebound, we collect american's phone calls. if you want to listen to it, you need a warrant, the ol old-fashioned way. but a secret warrant by a secret court with a lower standard level because we're afraid of terrorism is one thing for foreners, and both myself and a progresve had been warning about these backoor searches for years, and that they could be politicized.

the facts come out with susan rice, but she should be under subpeona, and did president obama know about this? this is similar for eavesdropping for political reasons. >> totally different. >> come on now. >> the idea that the president of the united states -- >> good one, though, senator. >> the president of the united states ordered wiretap of donald trump, trump tower, just did not happen. did not happen. >> that's very different. >> well, the idea -- >> the problem with trump's tweet was that it was false. what we have now is just a story that seems to be true, which is, again, what senator paul is saying, they have the ability, if you make any -- if you have any contact with overseas, if somebody you don't know are overseas contacting you, then our government has that ability to come after us is chilling, precisely because it can be used for political purposes, and when

bill is saying, oh, the national security adviser's not political, it's somebody who serves at the pleasure of the president. we know susan rice and her history. we know that she's brought us into the libya war, and people who lead us into war are not looked as political assets. this is a scary thing that's happening. >> if i may, listen, the secretary of state serves at the pleasure of the president. the fbi director serves at the pleasure of the president. >> political hires. >> not political animals. >> distinguishing career intelligence people. >> the other thing that senator paul is, again, they were not spying on these americans. i got a problem with all of blanket nsa spying too. they were listening to conversations of foreign adversaries from russia in this country. we spy on them. they spy on us. that's the way it works. those conversations, they picked

up all these trump people that were talking to them. >> senator paul? >> the objections that civil libertarians had to the program is that you lowered the standard. we'll spy on foreigners at the drop of a hat. we have no standard of the fourth amendment at all, and some of that i can agree to, but by rebound, we're collecting millions of conversations of americans that should be protected by the fourth amendment, and, frankly, i think bill sounds more like a politician for the democrats here than he does about someone concerned about the fourth amendment and americans -- >> senator, you called it a smoking gun, which proves this is a collusion, perhaps, between the trump campaign and russia? what is it a smoking gun for? >> the smoking gun is that president trump said he was wiretapped. we don't have wires in our phones anymore. nobody actually literally taps a wire. they might on occasion, but for the most part, we used the term "wiretaps" to mean eavesdroppin we know that someone in the

obama administration was eavesdropping and specifically searching a data base -- >> did you know that? >> no. >> do we know that? >> senator, the difference you know between incidental surveillance, what this was, and ordering wiretapping on an office. i think -- >> i think it's a mistake -- >> disprove donald trump -- >> it's simply a mistake to down grade this and say, oh, it was just incidental. it's no big deal. it is a huge deal that we are collecting millions of americans' phone call, and that someone can go to a keyboard -- >> no, no. >> put your name in, search you without a warrant. this is an illegal warrantless search. this is the kind of stuff rye for abuse from either party, and joe had it exactly right when he said, if dick cheney did in the obama administration, bill and every other leftist on the country would be on the other side. it's not a partisan issue. >> senator, but you know what? it's very, very different thing to say someone in the obama administration was surveilling,

was listening to specific conversations. we just simply don't know that. >> here's the thing is, you can order the specific, you know, listening device, or you can say, you know what? we already have it. it's amazing reverse targeting, and we have millions of people in a data base, and i can be susan rice, go down, type donald trump or general flynn into a data base, and, boom, up comes all the information. >> do you know that? >> is that not the same of ordering surveillance? they know exists. every international businessman or woman who talks overseas is in that data base. do we want political officials to type in the name of a bill gates and find out they have a deal going on in europe? >> those things -- >> we do not want that to happen. >> that's the point. >> i believe susan rice abused the system and did it for political purposes. she needs to be brought in and questioned. >> you believe that, but none of us here, including senator, with all do respect, know that.

>> bring her in and ask her under oath. >> i'm not defending susan rice. >> ask her whether president obama ordered this or whether he knew about it. that is a big deal. if the outgoing administration was actually literally sifting thu things, and part of the administration said we were going to scatter and get much as information, scatter it out there publicly to try to harm the trump miniration. this was a witch hunt that began with the obama administration, sour grapes on the way out the door, using the intelligence apparatus to attack trump, and they did. >> senator paul, you had an audience with president trump at a golf game, recently a couple days. >> happened to be sounding like this. intere interesting. >> who won between the two of you, sir? >> the president is very good, and -- >> oh, my god. >> he probably was the best of the foursome, but there was a wager, and the president was my

partner. the wager was, if our team won, i would be on board, throw outs everything i said over the last month, and i would be all in for the plan. but as it were, the match wound up tied, and since we were tied, i'm still wanting it to happen. i still offer new al tern tefs, new ways of thinking about it because we are still at an impasse. i think they still think they are pound a square peg in a round hole, and that's what's still going on. i've offered them a way out of this that i think pleases moderates and conservatives, and the way out of this is not to try to put all the things that moderates want to retain in the bill. simply leave them as a little bit of obamacare that we don't get rid of, although i'm for getting rid of all of it, i would promise leaving some in place, but what i don't like and conservatives don't like is repeal all the subsidies, but replace them with republican subsidie subsidies. if you want subsidies, repeal

80% of the obama's, and conservatives might with that. >> you confirm with the conversation with the president that theresident is not done with health care as the white house said a week and a half ago. they want to come back to a soon, sounds like. >> my impression is no one's given up on this. i have not given up. the freedom caucus has not give up, and neither has the white house. i can't characterize what was said a week ago, but from this weekend, my conversations with both the president, the budget director, as well as the chief of staff is is everybody's wanting to do what we promised to do, which is a repeal obamacare. >> all right. >> senator rand paul, i learned a lot here. susan rice needs to be -- that good golf, this is what i learned today, good golf is when you pick the ball up and walk across the green and put it in the hole. i didn't know that. uni i didn't know that, a kick when no one's looking, and pick it up and put it in the hole. if you told me that, you could

have saved me hours when e played once. >> that's the way we do it. >> president trump does. tim carney, final thoughts this morning? >> well, rand paul's right on the health care thing, that every aspect of the republican party is moving through this as quickly as possible. they want to pass is is under budget reconciliation before they have to pass a budget when reconciliation runs out, so when you say, oh, obama 13 months, which is what we say at the examiner, the counter argument is we have to pass this before may so we don't use both reconciliations. we want the second one for tax reform. they are heading with this as quickly as they can this spring. >> bill? >> i'm taking a counterintuitive approach. donald trump is making a big mistake going back to health care. >> yeah. >> ultimately lost. you're not going to make it this time either. paul ryan will not get the votes. a sec loss on top of the first one. just do what he said, just move

on. >> all right. bill, thank you, tim, thank you as well. >> thanks. >> let's go to cnbc now, boeing signing a multibillion dollar deal with an iranian airline? >> that's right. we are talking about the airlines in iran, looking to buy at least 30 boeing jets here, and the price tag is $300 billion. many teems the deal is less due to discounts applied, but boeing said it's currently just a memorandum of agreement and not yet a hard contract deal. government approvals needed here. notably, though, this is the first deal with boeing and iran since president trump took office. also in the immigration front. the department of momentland security said they would put policies in place to crackdown on fraudulent use of visas. those are those travel permissions issued to foreign skilled workers allowing them to be employed in the u.s. future immigration investigations are going to target things like which companies have higher

percentages of use, and many technology related companies use this program to hire engineers, computer scientists, that sort of thing. right now, 65,000 worker visas issued each year in a lottery system. staying in the tech side of ings, guys, verizon moves ahead with yahoo!'s core internet business. when said and do, yahoo! is merged with the aol brand and verizon named the new business unit oath, like an oath of office. the yahoo! brand is not, guys, expected to disappear. it's going to stay alive, and one thing, a fun one, guys, if you're a cherry coke fan, live in china, love warren buffet, get the best of all those worlds, selling cans with his face on it going forward, and, of course, warren buffet's got an ax to grind here, guys, coke's biggest shareholder with $17 billion stake. >> wow. >> i guess he wants success there. >> cherry coke. okay. sounds to unhealthy. all right, thank you.

appreciate it. up next, taking a page out of the "get smart," former trump associate mixed up with russian spies years ago? we'll talk about that. keep it right here on "morning joe." i mean wish i had time to take care of my portfolio, but.. well, what are you doing tomorrow -10am? staff meeting. noon? eating. 3:45? uh, compliance training. 6:30? sam's baseball practice. 8:30? tai chi. yeah, so sounds relaxing. alright, 9:53? i usually make their lunches then, and i have a little vegan so wow, you are busy. wouldn't it be great if you had investments that worked as hard as you do? yeah. introducing essential portfolios. the automated investing solution that lets you focus on your life. hidden in every swing, every chip, and every putt, is data that can make the

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hey rk can we stop? >> what's the matter? >> i have to take a leek. >> these guys are not our legitimate contacts, they are kgb special branch. >> oh, come on. >> don't tell me to come on. i know the origin of every time piece. that was a time exdigital. >> we walked right into the enemy hands. >> that's so funny. the latest chapter in the ongoing trump/russia connection saga could be ripped straight from the spy comedy. buzz feed news splashed a big headline reporting a former trump adviser was recruited in 2013 by a russian spy ring. carter paige, reportedly met with a russian intelligence and

documents with the energy business. it was later charged for acting as a foreign agent without properly registering. it happened years before paige was aligned with the trump campaign. paige confirmed to buzz feed news, he was the so-called male one identified in court transcripts that included a colorful transcript in the recruiting of paige where they refer to him as an idiot. he says it did not have anything sensitive. >> male number two would have been degrading. he was male number one. >> was an idiot. >> thing one and thing two. >> that information is made public. the russian spy ring was seeking information on u.s. sanctions and american efforts to develop alternative energy.

>> i want to ask real quick, we have been doing this since '47-'48. the kids came back from the war and we did this. before that, i missed the rand paul interview. >> oh! >> what happened? >> he went golfing with trump and trump smothered him with love. he sounds like a trump surrogate now. amazing. >> i'm serious, he did not say, as i'm hearing -- >> he got rolled. he did. >> he did not say that proves -- >> he called it a smoking gun. >> oh, dear lord. at least he didn't play attorney general and say susan rice -- >> should be subpoenaed? he did. he just had golf with trump. there's no connection. he did not get rolled or smothered by attention and get rolled by it. >> i get your point. i don't recognize -- i'm serious, i don't recognize rand paul and i haven't for several

months. he's such a suck up to donald trump. >> he was dug in. the fact is, we can't prove trump is a target. >> i'm talking rand paul in general. have you been surprised what you have seen in him over the next several months? he's become a glorified surrogate for donald trump. >> i just put it out there. all this leads to the new segment. >> not a new segment. how long have we been on this? >> since 47. swhak if they did it? >> what if they did it? ♪ >> we haven't changed the music since '68 because "laugh in" was big at the time. msnbccontributor, mike. we have been asking you this question all morning, though,

about susan rice. what if dick cheney unmasked, you know, asked several times for intel agencies to unmask the name of obama officials? >> it would be a huge storm, okay? >> yeah, it would. >> i agree with mr. tyler, susan rice is a pretty convenient bad actor in this thing because she fulfills a lot of criteria to the right so -- >> but, at the same time, she did, apparently, if you believe bloomberg, she was the one that asked for several names to be unmasked. >> you always flip these things. if it were president hillary clinton and her national security adviser had done with general flynn is accused of doing, what would people say about that? >> probably nothing. >> no, no, no, no, no. >> they ran him out of town. >> i guess, mike, the question

is, people are glad, most people i know are glad general flynn is gone, right? >> yeah. >> what if it had not been general flynn? what if it was somebody as beloved and respected like colin powell who was unmasked, then run out of town? >> everything you have been talking about i agree with. there's a huge civil liberties issue at stake here. i want to find out more about the story. the stuff about flynn, we know enough about flynn to make a determination about what we think he did and who he is. >> and did we learn about that properly or improperly? i ask this question, again, saying this is 5% of the story, the russians 95% of the story. i'm saying, though, i think we all were so fearful of how flynn would be running the nsa as national security adviser that we overlooked how he got run out of town. that somebody may have been properly unmasked his name and

improperly leaked it to "the washington post." >> but, do you buy into anything about karma here? that this guy who is the pep boy for lock her up last summer now is pan handling for a -- >> he was not near to the campaign at all. >> listen, i agree with you. i will say on tv, i'm glad he is gone. >> absolutely. >> i thought he was a clear and present danger. >> dnidn't want him there. >> he was too close to russia. i guess i'm not making my point. just because we don't like him doesn't mean we can't overlook -- >> the way the two sides are entrenched. rand paul couldn't concede that president trump was not a target of the surveillance, right? they wanted to have -- both these stories are true. yes, names were improperly unmasked. we should get to the bottom of that. yes, there were strange contacts with russia, we better get to

the bottom of it. >> we said four or five times this morning, under the rules, foreign surveillance is the parameters to unmask the names. it may have been done perfectly legal. the way the rules are written. >> the rules are written so broadly. very clear, i would be shocked if she did something illegal. >> yeah. >> as general as the laws are written. >> convenient. >> you wish the rule books of sports moved in. >> speaking of sports, your new book "point guard" is out today. your books are amazing. >> -- this is value about a girl who won't be deterred from playing on the boy's team. >> i love it. thank you >> jack scarborough reads these before going to bed every night.

>> so cute. >> it really is. it's fantastic. after we got through the second one -- >> he hasn't met mike yet. >> never meet your heroes, right? >> we won't let him. >> it's okay. it's fine. >> that does it for us this morning. >> can you be on tomorrow morning? >> sure. >> we need to talk more with mike. >> that does it for us this morning. stephan stephanie ruhle picks up for us. >> good morning, i'm stephanie ruhle. look where i am, live from washington, d.c., overlooking the white house. this morning, there is much to cover. secrets and spies, a bombshell new report alleging a secret meeting involving a billionaire and an arab prince, maybe trying to set up back channel communications between the trump administration and russia. reporting that trump campaign associate carter paige was targeted by a russian spy before joining the campaign as president obama's nation