if it's tuesday, pain relief for president trump, but none in sight. can they find more than temporary relief. >> we're don't have an agreement, but this is the kind of conversations we want. >> the unmasking. >> i leaked nothing to nobody and never have and never would. >> is this an attempt to distract from the rush why investn or is there more to know? it's the end of the world as we know it? >> we are moving forward with the gorsuch nomination that should be wrapped up sometime friday. >> the nuclear stress test and the break down of the u.s.

senate. this is "mtp daily" and it starts now. good evening from washington. welcome to tuesday's "mtp daily" the white house and the republican party are in need of political pain reliever to give them refrom president trump's two biggest headaches. the health care failure and russia. today they got some temporarily, but it doesn't change the fact that they have two major source of heartburn which is more than a little plop plop fizz fizz can cure. there was more smoke, but they jumped on the news that susan rice tried to unmask the identities of trump associates whose names appeared in intelligence reports. she denied allegations of wrong-doing. >> the allegation that somehow the obama administration

officials utilized intelligence for political purposes is absolutely false. i leaked nothing to nobody. i never have and never would. i would receive a report in which a u.s. person was referred to. nameot provided. just u.s. person. sometimes in order to understand the importance of the report, it was necessary to find out or request as to who that official was. >> it's possible this is nothing and possible they may have played a role. susan rice is a lightning rod on the right. republicans gladly teed off on her today. >> i believe susan rice abused the system for political purposes. >> susan rice is the typhoid mary of the obama administration policy. see seemed to turn up in the

little of whatever went wrong. >> we have to investigate it fully. >> that does not make the russia issue or fbi collusion go away. this is a temporary relief on a story that could get a lot worse depending on what the intelligence says about his associates. that's not all of the smoke today. carter paige revealed he was a target of russian spies. two sources said that blackwater founder eric prince, the brother of secretary of education bes betsy devos repped trump at a russian envoy. then the relief for mr. trump and the republican party on health care. the white house revives talks with republican critics, but some withinhe party are pouring cold water on a new deal being floated by the administration. they left a closed door meeting saying there is no deal and paul

ryan was quick to tamp down expectations. >> we are throwing around concepts to improve the bill. we want to make sure when we go, we have the consensus we have been looking for. >> a group of house republican leaders are expected to meet with vice president pence and a few others with more talks. the revival may give them some cover. it doesn't change the big picture that they are divided in both chambers like the russia cloud. it's a headache that is not going away any time soon. i am joined by mike lee of utah who told me on "meet the press" two sundays ago he hoped health care was not in the rear view mirror. i want to start with that.

what have you heard and what's your take on the situation some. >> this is consistent with efforts on both ends. republicans are trying to reach across within the party and the ideological spectrum and to try to find areas of compromise. i'm certain this is not behind us. we are going to get something passed, but what we mains to be seen is what it looks like. >> strategically here, is it better for the house to have a better understanding of what can pass the senate or do you think it's incumbent upon the house to produce something first? >> the plan thus far is for the house to produce something first. they ought to be taking into account the concerns when they have the constituentsconstituen. we have seen speculation of what may or may not pass whatever they can get.

then send it to us to see what happens. that's where we are moving and i think that's the direction in which things are moving. probably in a direction that results in something passing in the next couple of months. >> probably someat of an awkward question becau if the bill moves to the ideological right, less government involvement, that's something you can support, but doesn't that make it harder to get through the senate? >> the most important thing for me a& to see what will bring don the cost of health care. that was the concern by many. it didn't do enough to alleviate the burdens of millions of american who is found their costs skyrocketing since obamacare took effect. >> let me ask you about cost. there is two costs we are dealing with. the cost of health care and then

there is the cost of health insurance. what is this intended to do? >> the hope is to increase them to be able to go for obamacare that regulated the market in a way that resulted among other things in escalating premiums and deductibles that went through the roof. that's part of what we are focussing on. how to deal with the regulations that would bring down the cost. >> is there a way to bring down the cost of health insurance and not protect the companies in some way that part of the problem is that they don't want to go in the smaller and more rural markets.

subsidizing the companies to come into the smaller markets. how do you incentivize them? >> when you unlock the power of federalism and the laboratories that did exist, you will have experimentation that results in competition. what we know about the increased competition, it brings down prices and increase quality. the problem with obamacare is it resulted in more consolidation within the health care industry. this is one of the reasons where we haven't seen the o liveiation. >> the elimination of the filibuster, i want to not get into the finger-pointing game. is it good or bad if they

continue to be weakened overtime? >> many of us are concerned about what happened in 2013. when they decided to go nuclear on the executive calendar. we don't want it to happen. the nuking of the executive counter did occur in november of 2013. it is in place. the logical implications of that decision in november of 2013 still applied today. they apply with equal force with respect to supreme court nominees. all the same arguments. what we need and what i hope will protect against is the spreading on to the calendar.

i don't think it's going to lead to that. >> you know how many folks said it wasn't going to happen? it happens. do you admit that both have joined hands and going down the slope? with the post nuclear executive calendar. we are where we are. it is our job to protect. >> some conservatives argued that another part is the idea that you need 60 votes to bring legislation to the floor. people forget this. you need 60 votes to bring legislation to the floor and 60 votes to close debate and actually vote on the legislation. where are you on that? >> that makes me nervous. i'm not eager to get rid of it

and you are talking about the motion to proceed. closing debate essentially. each loses power when we move away from the 60 vote standard. that would cause me great concern. there is nobody actively com paining for that and if they are, they are not catching momentum. >> what is your concern here in the debate about susan rice. is it what she did or what could be? what do you think should matter more? >> i want to focus on the sectio702 of the surveillance act. this is something i have been warning about for six years now. i have been concerned about the

possibility of abuse. whether you are talking about a republican or democratic administration, technology being what it is and human nature being what it is, unless we have tight controls on how the powers are used, they are going to be accused eventually. i devoted a portion of my book to this topic. they were abused and illegally tapped. we need similar reform with respect to the technology that is utilized. the allegations whether they proved to be correct or embellished or untrue, they are the kinds of concerns we ought to have about the modern surveillance apparatus and the potential for rampant political abuse. >> i get that and plenty of people have gotten off because of misuse by the criminal

justice system or things like that. should this overshadow the substance of what could be in the intelligence reports? >> certainly not. the evidence needs to be followed wherever it may lead. my point is in pursuing that evidence, looking into it and figuring out the implications, we also shouldn't lose sight of the section 702. neither should be neglected. >> let the record show you have been one fighting on that for quite sometime. republican from utah, thanks for coming on. let me bring in don't's post for politi politico. the bigger picture here if you are the trump white house. you at least found them a& you

brought somebody up that the right love to hate. >> it's ironic to see democrats who were up in arms over the nsa collection of meta da brushing off concerns over the unmasking of the identities of american officials. what's the standard for the unmasking? i don't know what it is. to brush aside the merits of having a debate about this or whether no question what she did was legal, but should she talk about what the standards would be and what they were during the obama era? >> on the big picture, really for the first time they managed during this moment and with the

issue at hand with russia collusion and interference in the election to and you were very good and the senator i thought was very good in terms of talking about the remaining fundamental issue. from the point of view from the trump white house which has not had good days, this was a better day than most. >> that's why we compared it to getting temporary relief. they made the pain go away today. susan rice is a subpoenaed witness in front of the senate intel committee can talk about what's in those. we have a cross cutting scandal allegation and not just one size playing offense and playing defense, but both of them are in different universes and in the right world, the story is

illegal legitimate and improper against the incoming trump administration. in the other world, trump ties to russia. there is noeaso they can't both be ue. >> the word unmask and i will talk about what it does. it doesn't mean it was made public. the word has been a beneficial word to the trump white house because it sounds like they are leaking. >> americans's personal privacy thrown to the wolves. >> the language here is very big. >> in the case of michael flynn, it was made public. they have the talk of that and it makes it seem that way. it is noteworthy with andrea mitchell, they got the

distinction when she said i never leaked anything. she didn't say i never unmasked the names. you saw her when she said i never leaked anything. you are exactly right. there was confusion. >> at the end of the day, if you believe a foreign power intervened, was she operating out of bounds or not? >> we have no idea. isn't it her job to figure out these things? >> it would be ought to figure it out if you can only imagine one side of the conversation and sort of guess about who they are talking to. we needo make sure we don't jump ahead to his credit, he has

been worried about this for years before we sign. this is a concern. you put this information in the wrong hands or it takes one rogue operator and it feels invasi invasive. you can't help it. >> i understand why there is concern about this. >> you can have this incidental collection where it's the purpose for real of the surveillance and maybe you are just unmasking it. there are all kinds of potential are fist abuse. >> i'm sorry. i'm inflating. i know. >> i used to have that with west wing. >> if the public sort of thinks, i watched it on tv, it is half true. >> somebody noted to me, a "wall street journal" article from 2015 where the national security agency was eavesdropping on benjamin netanyahu for legitimate purposes and he came

up with the conversations with members of congress. they refer to the moment that they could have been accused of spying. that's where it gets tricky and it could be where it was not about trump. what is the policy for the incidental collection of intelligence and unmasking of american citizens in the process? i want to get to health care. you guys will stick around. coming up, throwing traditions out the window. can they avoid going nuclear. the longest serving democrat in the senate right now. patrick leahy will join me.

the timing couldn't have been worse one week after the trump administration said they

are no longer ousting assad. they perpetrated one of the deadliest attacks in years. the pictures are very disturbing. at least 83 people including 25 children have been killed according to the relief agency. 350 more that are injured. the department official said the weapons attack looks to be a war crime. they blamed the obama administration saying it cannot be ignored and the actions are a consequence of the administration's weakness and resolution. they slammed both administrations for the lack of action and called on trump to speak out against assad. >> the hearing said they would arm the syrian army and dedicate ourselves to the removal and will not sit by and watch

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>> senate democrats will support a filibuster and it's all but certain connell will deploy what is dubbed the nuclear option. supreme court nominees as well as lower court nominees as well as cabinet picks can be approved with 51 votes rather than allowing them to be filibustered with 60. in the senate world, this is a big deal. a lot of blame to go around and neither side will budge. >> if he is willing to be

reasonable, we can avoid the nuclear option. >> it appears as if they will not be invoked, but we will find out on thursday. either way, we will be moving towards confirming judge gorsuch on friday. >> republican senator john mccain tried to move to avoid this change, but to no ark voil. he had tough words for anyone who said this change could make the senate better. >> after 200 years, at least 100 years of this tradition where the senate functioned pretty well, they think it would be a good idea to blow it up. whoever says that is a stupid idiot who has not been here and seen what i have been through and how we were able to avoid that on several occasions. >> just hearing that makes me think we can confirm that audio

with him. he said he will vote against gorsuch and support the filibuster. senator leahy, welcome back. >> before we go into this, i couldn't help but hear what was being said about syria and assad. the typical fashion that happened the last 24 hours. they are blaming it on the obama administration months ago. assad is a war criminal. he has been aided and a betted by mr. trump's friend, vladimir putin. he is a war criminal. that should be the policy of this country to treat him as a war criminal and to go after him as a war criminal. >> okay. that means by any means necessary? >> that means that they you have

to figure out how to treat a war criminal. >> president obama's policy was regime change, but the main criticism was it was all talk and not backed up to anything. how do you back it up? the thing he is trying to find who you back. the point is that we have to have the position of being the united states to be considered however this comes out. he is a war criminal and he will be treated as such when his fortunes are being transferred. >> i will follow-up with one more on this.

that goes to the issue is if you recall, we cut a deal with the russians to get rid of assad's chemical weapons. obviously that deal fell through. a lot were removed and we know that for a fact. that was certified by the russians. >> there are arguments being made that said you know what, the folks have been around the senate and are overly protective of the rules and this is a different time. there is a different set of expectations by the public and how the senate needs to work this way better.

we might be headed to the elimination of the filibuster or narrowing it more. did you guys make a mistake and republicans are making a mistake now? >> i think blocking things for the sake of blocking things is a mistake. the senate worked better when you had leaders in both parties who would sit down and work together. not be a winner take all. senator daniel patrick and they worked on something. trent lott and tom daschle did it.

if they are willing to go along with it, it does break that code. >> this one and the last one were out in the white house too much? i would hope they look at the senator appropriations committee. this is the chairman. we have already begun to work quiet quietly to work things out. it is not as easy, but what it does for the american people is significant. in this case they have a problem because the white house did not follow the usual procedure where they sat down with republicans and democrats and talked about

advice. here the president said i will take a list from an efficacy group and they will tell me who they will nominate. the president would say who he would nominate. >> there is nothing that said that is wrong. >> i like following the constitution. the president shall nominate and advise and consent. president obama nominated the chief judge and in the senate where every one of us took an oath to uphold the constitution and said sorry, we are going to ignore the constitution or not advise and consent. we will give you a year long

filibuster. back during the clarence thomas hearings, there was a reason the nomination cut a larger deal on other -- what was democrats wanted something on another bill and republicans said don't filibuster him and there was an agreement that happened. you made your share of deals. is there negotiations to prevent this filibustering of course? >> i'm not involved in one. i wish we could have. how distressed i am to reach this place. a lot of fiction that goes on and i'm not aware of the clarence thomas one. i thought he did not tell the truth. i thought that others did.

robert bourque lost in committee, but we said he should be allowed to have a vote on the senate floor. he would have been confirmed with the republicans that voted for him. a large number voted against him. at the same time when the republican president was trying to get himo withdraw his name. >> an important addendum there. thanks for teeing up the conversation. there was nothing wrong with that. >> take care. >> still ahead on mtp daily, understanding this word. unmasking and what it really mean and whether it should matter. stay tuned. you don't let anything

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welcome back to "mtp daily" if you are confused by the experiences and leaks that has grown into russian interference of the 2016 election, you are not alone. president trump's claim that president obama wire tabbed terror added to the corn fusion and distracting from the larger issue of the russian investigation itself. for weeks, the white house has not backed down on that tweet and repeatedly changed the meaning of what the president accused him of doing. >> when i said wire tapping, that's old fashioned stuff. that covers surveillance and many other things. >> he meant surveillance and incidents have occurred. on march 4th, the president raised questions about

surveillance practices including whether the transition team was being improperly monitored for political purposes. >> now the waters have godden mud muddier and a scandal of improper masking by her when she was national security adviser hoping to perpetrate the claim while pinning the leaks on rice and the previous administration. >> the notion that some people are trying to suggest that by asking for the identity of the american person, that is the same as leaking it. it is completely false. there is no e 85 lens of masking and leaking. >> we know some of you won't necessarily take the word of a partisan here on this so we weech

reached out to the nsa and a senior adviser to the director during the years of the obama administration. thank you for coming in. whose names get masked first? >> masking is a fancy way of saying redacting the names. >> over that is a generic term. >> it will sometimes come into the initials. what would prompt them? >> there are two reasons why someone can request the unmasking of a name. unredacting. the first reason is necessary to understand the foreign intelligence and the second reason may be it could be evidence of a crime. >> what grants this request? who do you have to make the requests for? >> the agency that wrote the report and the handful of

officials at the top of that agency. the director and a few others. >> which agencies do mask? was it just those two and are we also talking cia and dia? >> it could be any of those in the u.s. community. >> you get this information. >> what is the the legal you get it? thlega requirement now for the official that has gotten this information. she makes a request to see what the person named in this report. she gets the name. what is her legal requirement to protect that name going forward? >> there was more than one person involved. the requester and the granter. they are only granted to the

person who made the request. it's not like the name is unmasked for lots of people, but only the person who made the request. that person is then obligated to treat the information only for an authorized purpose and only using it for what the job duties require them to. >> let's use the example here. she said she didn't link the information. that doesn't mean she didn't brief it, but anybody that can have the clearance to receive this information? >> any recipient of an unmasked name or intelligence has a suite of obligations and those are attended here which is using it for those purposes for which their job requires. >> it's very likely she could have passed it along to other senior officials in the o bam

administration. >> even t key leaders. >> en more requirements. >> in this case, there are extra requirements. what is that? >> any classified information that is sent to the hill. you would have to get approvals from those who had the classified information. >> we can find out if something was done off the books or different. what is the requirement of them in particular of keeping track of every request for an unmask something. >> there are requirements not tonal keep track, but record the justification of why a name was unmasked. they imposed them to report the number of times names were unmasked? >> how often does congress say let he review this and let me see it? >> for various committees on the hills and it won't be for a

number of months. >> it gets a semi annual report. they are responsive all the time. >> they are asked to investigate getting the roersd. >> easily verifiable. >> i have a feeling that is coming next and how this went about. and that does not mean it's made public. >> correct. up next, why i obsessed with how a baseball legend spent opening day. stay tuned. blood pressure.

>> tonight i'm obsessed with the dodgers. the broadcaster signed off calling games for the brooklyn and los angeles dodgers. the last opening day without vin scully was in 1949. they beat the cross town rival giants 10-3. without him behind the mike, they laid a similar beat down and this one is the san diego padres notching a 14-3 victory behind the greatest living left-handed pitcher whose name is not koufax. what was he doing during the game? throwing out the first pitch.

maybe following at home with his family. i asked vin about his plans in november. >> what are you doing on opening day? watch baseball or be in the i won't be in the stands. may or may not watch baseball. >> well, vin was right. yesterday he told the l.a. times this. i was engaged in that other national pass time, paying bills. and i went to the post office to mail them and now i'm just leaving the post office. by the way, he added, and this is just vin being vin, right? i'm aware that i'm not where i've been for about 60,000 years. but i'm just where i want to be. vin, come on, those of us wish you were in dodgeers stadium yesterday behind that mic. we'll be right back.

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deal yet. i think they are trying to get a deal and i think that right now even though the story has been about the house freedom caucus, the most conservative members of the house and their alleged intransjensen, it's the moderates who don't want to budge any further from where they were before. they don't want to meet the house freedom caucus. they don't want to talk to the house freedom caucus. >> ruth, how much of this do you think is about calming the waters during the recess so that they can sake, hey, look, we're still trying? we're not done yet, don't give up on us. the word two weeks ago was they were done. >> i think last week a decision was made. this is not just about getting through the recess. this is about getting through 2018. there is a lot of fear among the house leadership that if they can't deliver on this fundamental promise, the voters are going to have a reason to boot them out. >> which fear is worse, that the change will be unpopular or not doing anything will be unpopular, right? >> you know, arizona's trent

franks who is one of the most conservative members of the house told my colleague rachel something very interesting. he said, you know, we went into this and we didn't get a deal. if we get a better deal in future negotiations, we will have made the right calculation. otherwise we overplayed our hand on this and i think that really it was very telling and it said a lot. they do want another deal and they realize they could have miss calculated on this first deal. >> i want to move quickly to the court. it's a foregone conclusion, right, ra mesh? >> it is, it's one that's been building up for several years. part of what is going is mutual distrust. you talk to democrats and you say, don't do this, you could hold the filibuster for next time. they'll get rid of the filibuster whenever they need to do it and if you talk to republicans, if we don't do it, they take the senate, they're getting rid of it. >> the most fascinating thing patrick leahy said to me, he was alluding harry reid made this

mistake and mitch mcconnell is making the mistake. don't do the bid in the senate. it's too much. >> it's interesting. i've been talking to senators in both parties over the last few weeks and one of the things -- and including republicans who are anguished about the move they're about to make. no one wants this to happen. it's ininhe havable. >> not the end of the story. patrick leahy and robert bank of new york. if republicans voted for bork, he's too short. >> not exactly right. though i did want to skip the senator's age wrong made him ten years older. so, i may not be the best fact checker. it's amazing to recall, judge bork had 58 votes against him, six republicans voted against him in addition to -- there were two democrats who voted for him. it was stay different bipartisan age. >> that's for sure. thank you all. we'll be right back with something you missed.

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well, in case you missed it, while senate republicans were criticizing democrats, republicans seemed to be taking a sledge hammer to a different question. mcconnell gave a brief statement then walked away. his fellow gop senators walked away, too. reporters weren't very happy. >> thanks, guys. >> hey, whoa whoa whoa! >> senator, come back.

this is a press conference. >> well, to their credit, mcconnell himself did come back 20 minutes later. >> sorry, i wasn't dodging you guys. i had to do something on the floor. >> all right. in a week where a lot of senate rules and traditions are going out the window we're glad at least one particularly when it comes to the press attacks seems safe these days. that's all we have for tonight. for the record with greta starts right now. greta, take it away. >> thank you, chuck. and tonight president trump blaming president obama again. this time for a shocking atrocity happening halfway around the world. i must warn you, this video is gruesome and heart wrenching. strongly suspected gas attack, chemical weapon sending death and destruction throughout syria killing innocent civilians including children. the death toll is rising by the minute. one syrian medical relief group reporting so far 1 14u7b dead, 400 injured and it gets worse. there are 25 children murdered in this horrific attack. tnesses describe an exp