moment? our great alliance. the nato alliance has been the bullwork of international peace and security. the secretary general and iad a productive discussion about what more nato can do in the fight against terrorism. i complained about that a long time ago and they made a change. i said it was obsolete. no longer is it obsolete. >> president trump with full throated support of nato. one of the shifts in policy we saw yesterday from the president have moved white house personnel issued in a new normalcy or is this just a hope for pivot that won't hold. good morning. it's thursday, april 13th. with us onsets, we have the president on council of foreign relations richard haass, "morning joe" economic analyst

steve rattner. >> ching ching. >> money. >> and former director for ted cruz's campaign and now msnbc political director rick tyler joins us as wealth. >> so great to have richard haass with us today, i want to talk about yesterday before we came on the air we were talking about whiplash. but if these policy shifts yesterday were whiplash, our neck was over here and now it's upright. whether it was on nato, tillerson was tough as nails according to william cohen and other trump critics, had a good tough meeting with putin and with the foreign minister ther:.

china, normalcy in that chinese relationship where we're actually lined up where we with work with them as a partner on north korea. a lot of shifts yesterday. i can't think of one thing that went in the wrong direction. these are all things over the past two years that have scared us and now a shift. it's quite a shift. >> >> a lot of stuff happened yesterday, you're right. china not being a currency manipulator, nato having a role, a fairly blunt talk with the russians. i think mika teed it up exactly right, whether that was yesterday's shift and tomorrow will bring something else, the only thing wrong with that is the mere fact you can have seismic shifts, you're right. we'd have a different conversation if the shifts were

going the opposite way. >> we're only looking at trend lines. it's a brief trend line. there's no doubt, willie, that donald trump is finally doing what we've been hoping and america has been hoping he would do, and that is work with the very able people that we appointed. you can tell, the national security council is not steve bannon's play yard -- play thing, it is general mcmaster's and general mattis, and they talked to the commander-in-chief and certainly in at least the past five, six days, we have really seen a studying of u.s. foreign policy. it's not a coincidence that donald trump's approval ratings have gone up from 35 to 41%. >> a lot of people yesterday accusing donald trump of flip-flopping, but what if he's flopping to the correct position, isn't that a good thing? i want him to flop off some of

the positions he was holding. donald trump getting in the room with somebody, when he gets one-on-one with somebody and he talks to them, he's not such a bad guy, maybe i like them. that happened yesterday. when he came out and said a couple times, he also inserted himself and said nato now fights terrorism because i put pressure on them, they're no longer obsolete. of course they've been fighting terrorism for a long time. >> only since 1980. >> same ching with china, not manipulating the currency. he said i put pressure on them so now they're not currency manipulation. it's like him in the end. if it gets us to the ends. >> in the words of john lennon, whatever gets you through the night, it's all right, it's all right. they called me yesterday, steve rattner, after bashing donald

trump, including us, for a year and a half for the positions that he took saying they were bad for america, bad for nato, bad for our allyies, if he's shifting to positions that everybody from james baker to henry kissinger to madeleine albright -- >> to hillary clinton. >> -- hillary clinton would take to stabilize the situation across the globe, i'm going to actually say good on you. >> ralph waldo emerson said the fool ishl consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. trump showing he does not have a little mind. of course having him move back to positions that are more sensible. richard ticked off the ones in the foreign policy area. there are someones equally

significant in the domestic policy area where he said, having said janet yellen was a terrible person and in hillary clinton's pocket, he's now saying maybe he'll reappoint janet gel lynn. he's now saying the dollar is probably too strong which he gets credit for, which isn't quite true, but okay. >> also, i can tell you on the xm bank, conseatives obviously don't like the xm bank. i'm tell you some of our major manufacturers like general electric, this is a key issue for general electric, they believe, to stay competitive across the globe. >> number one issue for boeing. during the campaign he called the ex-im bank, he's getting closer to the right place. there's still some things he doesn't completely understand when he says we're going to have a better trade deal with china, he does not seem to know we

don't have a trade deal with china actually. >> i think he said we'll have a better trade deal with china than if we move forward -- >> than if we put 35% tariffs on. >> let's go through the issues. president trump's steadfast resistance to criticize the russian president may have reached its end. the president took a far sharper tone toward russia in his news conference yesterday and even left open the possibility that moscow was aware of the syrian president's most recent atrocity. >> frankly, putin is backing a person that's truly an evil person, and i think it's very bad for russia. i think it's very bad for mankind, very bad for this world. >> right now we're not getting along with russia at all. we may be at an all-time low in terms of relationship with russia. this has built for a long period of time. we'll see what happens. putin is the leader of russia.

russia is a strong country. we're a very, very strong country. we're going to see how that all works out. >> was it possible that syrian forces could have launched that attack in idlib last week without the russians knowing, and have you been disappointed, surprised by vladimir putin's reaction since then? >> i tnk it's certainly possible. i think it's probably unlikely, and i know they're doing investigations into that right now. i would like to think that they didn't know, but certainly they could have. they were there. so we'll find out. >> president putin said yesterday of russia's relationship with the u.s., quote, it's possible to say the level of trust on a, woulding level, especially on a military level has not improved but rather has deteriorated. a sentiment echoed by secretary of state rex tillerson after he

confronted putin on several issues during a face-to-face meeting. >> we, frankly, discussed the current state of u.s.-russia relations. i expressed the view that the current state of the relations is at a low point. there's a low level of trust between our two countries. the world's two foremost nuclear powers cannot have this kind of relationship. >> did you present to president putin or the foreign minister specific evidence the russian government interfered in the u.s. election? >> as to the question of the interference with the election, that is fairly well established in the united states. that has been spoken to on the hill as well with the congress. it's a serious issue. it's one that we know is serious nuf to attract at dishl sanctions. so we are mindful of the seriousness of this particular interference in our elections. and i'm sure that russia is

mindful of it as well. >> wow. >> richard, that's what's so fascinating is you actually have the administration which has been pushing this off and is in the middle of this whirlwind actually using that bit of evidence as leverage against the russians, saying they did interfere in our elections. that was a good example of tillerson using every -- basically every diplomatic weapon in his bag to push back hard. i thought he did well yesterday. i know secretary of defense cohen thought he did a very good job, former ambassador to russia, michael mcfall who has been a pretty severe krit critic of donald trump was very possible. let's take a listen to what he said on greta yesterday. >> what do you think worries president putin the most tonight about the u.s.? >> i think he's worried about

that he doesn't understand president trump. trump is more mysterious to him today than before. nobody in moscow a couple months ago would have ever said donald trump, president trump or candidate trump would have struck assad for a human aaron intervention. that's not what he said as a candidate, not what he said back in 2013. i think unpredictability right now is their greatest worry. >> so, richard, vladimir putin has learned the same thing about donald trump that jeb bush and hillary clinton -- >> and some members of his inner circle as well, like michael flynn and steve bannon. >> he's unpredictable. there are times when that unpredictability can actually work to the benefit of this country. as david ignatius said, with china early on. but obviously that's only a limited play. how fascinating that vladimir putin, if he thought he was

going to influence politics in america, it hasn't turned out that way other than he's got ann coulter on his side. but other than that, not working out very well for putin. >> putin is a man, shall we say, of consummate predictability. >> and sean hannity. by the way -- >> putin is not a guy who encourages freelancing. he doesn't like things off script. this isn't what he bargained for. the administration got a sense of it in dealing with the russia krit sich. the question going forward is where do you go from here. we need russian cooperation in syria. right now our rhetoric is heated up big time. assad is not going to go any time soon. the only way he probably goes is if the russians decide they've had enough of him. i'm not arguing your basic point, this is an important day,

finally confronting russia. this is a country that used force in ukraine, violated the basic rule of international relation, thou shall not change borders with forced, interfered with america and their elections. the idea this is being confronted is a healthy day. >> several time i'll say, wait a second, this is kabuki theater. then i remember donald trump has embarrassed vladimir putin now twice on the international stage, one with the strikes in syria when putin is there trying to act tough and we just completely ignore his claims and just fire missiles in. and then tillerson yesterday going over there and showing no respect whatsoever. that's not part of an inside game that vladimir putin would ever be a part of. >> and all while this was going on yesterday, russia here in new

york at the un is vetoing a resolution that would have condemned the syrian attacks. >> even china abstained. ent interesting. let's go to moscow, nbc chief global news correspondent bill neely is there again this morning. good morning. this time yesterday we weren't sure if vladimir putin was going to meet with rex tillerson. the russian government was playing cow on that. putin did make tillerson wait a couple hours and then did take a meeting. >> reporter: i heard you talk about whiplash. the dizzying diplomacy continues. rex tillerson is flying out, syria's foreign minister is now flying in to have tks with sergey lavrov. on the tillerson-putin meeting, no readout yet because rex tillerson isn't talking about the meeting. there was no official photograph released, maybe neither side wants to be seen to be shaking

the hand of the other. the russians are talking about that tillerson-putin meeting. putin's official spokesman dimitri peskov said putin used the meeting to give tillerson his analysis on why u.s.-russian relations have reached such a low point. he also gave tillerson his views on the situation in syria. i bet he did. as we know, vladimir putin can talk for hours. peskov said the tone of the meeting had been fairly constructive. that almost seems like damning with fake praise to call a meeting fairly constructive. he said putin hoped his message would be passed on to president trump. they agreed to keep open the lines of communication between moscow and washington. but, says peskov, they did not discuss a future meeting between donald trump and vladimir putin. the earliest that could take place would be the g-20 summit in hamburg, germany in july.

it's difficult to know what was achieved here yesterday. there was no visible warmth between tillerson and lavrov as there used to be between love rov and john kerry. yes, they agreed to disagree. even as they declared relations at their lowest point, at the u nrjts, as you've been hearing, russia was vetoing a resolution condemning the syrian chemical weapons attack, its eighth veto. donald trump was welcoming month negro into nato, used to be an ally of moscow during the soviet era, part of the warsaw pact. no readout at all on the meeting between rex tillerson and vladimir putin. guys? >> bill neely live in moscow this morning. thanks so much. you remember all the concerns when rex tillerson was nominated for secretary of state, too cozy with putin, done a lot of business there, order of

friendship medal. it doesn't appear they were too cozy. >> we got our relationship with russia back where it should be, adversarial, tough and we're standing up to them which is what any other president would have done from the outset. >> i also heard some commentator say we got nothing out of the meeting yesterday, it was a failure. well, no, we talked. our leaders sat down and talked to their leaders. richard, you've seen several times when hostilities grow between two countries to such a degree that their diplomats can't sit down and talk to each other. i thought again it was -- actually i will say it. it was a win for the united states yesterday. we bombed syria. we have -- again, as richard engel has said, we embarrassed vladimir putin twice in the past week, and russia has been at the center of the investigation.

there's been more bashing of russia for good reason in american newspapers for the past six months. rex tillerson sat down with putin and with lavrov and maintained a tough line. >> plus two other things. the fact that the american president was meeting with the secretary general of nato. that's the way you set the table in russia for russian restraint, a stronger nato, a stronger u.s.-nato relationship. and the fact that china and the u.s. are working, we're not having a crisis with china over trade, over taiwan. two or three months ago the united states and russia were going to get close and gang up against china. that silliness was out the window. this was a gd day in terms of setting the table and creating a context in which now the russians understand that they can't do certain things in russia or the middle east and have the field for themselves. this is a good day. >> and think about the fact, the timing of these events.

you had tillerson meeting with putin at the same time trump was taking a strong stand for nato. >> almost organized. >> it was just like the bombing of syria was going on while the president of china, willie, was sitting down and they were eating. >> chocolate cake. >> the most beautiful chocolate cake. >> okay. we have to go to break now. >> the interview that aired yesterday, he talked about chocolate cake diplomacy. >> it's a top ten trump moment. >> we'll have more on the economic pivots as well. >> we need to do that. >> where you change the voice so it sings, auto tune. >> have cher sing something. >> the ladies were busy at my house and i have eggs for you. two blue ones for you. pass those to jen for me. still ahead on "morning

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. i was sitting at the table. we finished dinner, now having dessert. we had the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you've ever seen and president xi was enjoying it. i said, mr. president, let me ex-something to you, this is during dessert. what happens is, i said we just launched 59 missiles heading to iraq -- >> heading to syria. >> yes, heading toward syria.

>> first of all, he didn't know where they were going. stop. this is not funny. >> mika, stop. renew where they were going. >> i'm not going to be snarky. >> you think he really thought they were going to iraq. >> it's just -- willie, it's just -- >> vintage trump. >> a good reminder that even when normal see comes to policy we'll still be treated with some of the most colorful sound bites in recent american history, since abraham lincoln had the off-the-cuff statement after walking off the stage in gettysburg. >> he paints a picture. did you see how big the cake was, nine, ten layers. >> i will say the markets would much rather hear that, steve rattner, than hearing him say china is a currency manipulator and we're going to put 40%

tariffs on china. >> that is a fact. we'll start there. in the "wall street journal" interview the president talked about that, as well as the dollar, health care and china. >> there was a lot in that interview. a lot was a change in the position to things that didn't make sense to things that make more sense. china as a currency manipulator, the he said he's not going to brand them a currency manipulator. which is a good thing because ey stop manipulating it several yes ago. that was a good thing. secondly, he said he was willing to have a good trade deal with china. we don't have a trade deal at the moment. what he was talking about is he might not put all these tariffs on china which would also be a good thing. >> certainly great for american consumers. keeps prices low. >> great for american consumers. china is a trade manipulator.

they engage in all kinds of unfair trade practices. that wasn't the subject of his interview yesterday but you could certainly have a conversation about it. it was designed to give leverage for the discussions about north korea. before we get to north korea, domestically he said a bunch of really important stuff yesterday. we talked about the ex-im bank and also about the fact that he might reappoint janet yellen. that is a huge change for a guy who called janet yellen every name you can imagine during the campaign and said she was keeping interest rates artificially low. yesterday he said he liked low interest rates and liked janet yellen and she's okay. blade your head spin a lot. a whole other piece on health care he went into as well. >> rick tyler, i would guess that a lot of republicans breathed a sigh of relief yesterday when donald trump started sounding more like james a. baker, iii, than huey long.

>> nice to see america assert more leadership around the world and recognize putin is a bad guy. i think what we got out of the meeting with russia yesterday was back where we started, recognizing that we're probably not going to have good relations with russia as long as putin is in charge. i would like to see more appeal to the russian people to put pressure on putin the way go gorbachev game over walking the streets, looking almost like a populist. it is nd-boggling and head spinning. yellen is in, china is in, north korea is out, russia is out, free trade seems to be back in. i agree these are all in the right direction, but it is remarkable from where the campaign was in the bannon wing of the id logical trump. for all intents and purposes, bannon was let go the other day. trump basically said, his title is chief strategist.

he says i don't need a strategist, i'm my own strategist. where does that leave bannon? he's moving toward being a globalist, interventionalist, nationalist. those are things antithetical to what bannon believes brought him to the white house. >> in another view trump said, he's a guy who works for me. you've had three interviews back-to-back to back where he's trying to put steve bannon in his place. he doesn't like bannon has gone out an sold himself as trump's brain in the way that karl rove was bush's brain. >> bannon, most importantly, is completely isolated inside the white house. there is not a person inside the white house that has not gone to president trump, jared kushner, ivanka and said, hey, we just want you to know we're not with bannon on these attacks against you guys. we're with the president, not

with bannon. and that's up and down the roster. i don't care what any reporter says because they've all told me they've done it. >> if you're steve bannon, you're going around reportedly calling gary cohen globalist gary and giving slurs to all these people donald trump likes in his inner circle. it's not going to end well for you, particularly when those people are his daughr and son-in-law. >> tweet of the day had to be from tommy. did you see that one? said quite a day for the globalist cups, they're putting quite a few points on the board. tommy b. from three. >> steve, you mentioned health care, before we go to a break, there was comments from the president as well in that realm. >> yeah. the president is now saying he wants to get health care done ahead of tax reform. we're sort of back for that. we'll see how that works out. he's also trying to threaten the democrats. a whole set of subsidies in dispute that the prior administration had been paying

that he was threatening to cut off. now he's saying he might pay them. they really would have a huge effect on obamacare, whatever he decides to do about them. >> he's got to get a deal on health care, and he's got to use leverage. if he can't work with the freedom caucus, he's got to get 40, 45, 50 democrats on board and 170, 180 republicans. >> that will mean not repealing it, right? >> they'll never get 40 republicans and 40 democrats, rather, for anything that the republicans would support. >> he's going to have to because health care is going to go under. maybe they don't call it obamacare, maybe they don't call it trumpcare, maybe they compromise. >> you don't think there's any chance that the freedom caucus, that obamacare 2.0 is better than obamacare 1.0? >> no. that would go against everything they promised their constituents

that elected them to congress at a 65% rate, everything they promised them. the freedom caucus can't move, and they can't move because if they did they would be lying to their constituents. >> what about these town halls that we're seeing members of congress facing? isn't that part of this, where people are going to say, you know what, i actually don't want u to do that, i want you to keep it. >> let's see how many republicans in the freedom caucus lose, they're not going to lose. they're in districts -- the only way they lose is if they get primary. the problem is if trump -- and trump has learned this, i think -- if trump bends too much to the freedom caucus' will, he loses the entire senate. you're going to have to get something, if it's going to pass the senate, that is going to have to be bipartisan. you say you can't do it. there is no choice. health care is going up in smoke and they've got to come up with

a new reform. >> one, the exchanges are in trouble but they could be fixed with a few minor things -- >> they're not going to do that. >> i understand. i'm agreeing with you. the ex-changes are in trouble. in their present course and speed they will probably collapse in large part. trump said in one of these interviews yesterday that he would probably own that, as time goes on, health care becomes him and not obama anymore. we'll see how that works out. i think the chances of democrats who have hung together on every vote on this issue voting to do anything to diminish obamacare from what it is, i think they're zero. i think they're totally zero. >> we shall see. >> i also said china was a bubble. you disagreed. >> so far i've been right. >> right about what? >> you said china was a bubble. >> i was right. >> when were you right? >> when i said for five years that china was going to face problems economically.

>> okay. has that happened yet? >> yeah. you admitted that happened. >> i have? >> oh, my gosh. we're having a revision. >> i've got a man on my side. >> you're bullish o china again? >> oh,yeah. >> oh, my god. you change opinions as quickly as donald trump. >> oh, my god. >> that is like the worst thing you could say about me. why don't you just call me a child molester. >> whoa. >> can we talk about the eggs or something? let's get out of here. coming up, steve rattner, thank you. >> i don't even know where to go with that. >> blue eggs. >> health care, we'll see what happens on health care. >> we'll speak with "wall street journal's" carol lee who conducted that far reaching interview with the president. first, long-time ambassador nick

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president xi wants to do the right thing.

we lahad a very good bonding, i think we had a very good chemistry together. i think he wants to help us with north korea. we talked trade. we talked a lot of things. i said, the way you're going do make a good trade deal is to help us with north korea. otherwise we're just going to go it alone. that will be all right, too. going it alone means going it with lots of other nations. >> we heard those public comments from president trump standing next to the head of nato. but what happened behind the scenes? secretary general jen stoltenberg joining us live coming up on "morning joe."

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know this gentleman. i've spent a lot of time with him over the last two days, and he is the president of china. that was president trump yesterday choosing not to address whether his relationship has changed with president putin, instead pivoting to his relationship with chinese president xi jinping. joining us, frank bruni and former u.s. ambassador nicholas burns, professor of diplomacy and international relations at the harvard kennedy school of government. >> mr. ambassador, let's start with you. richard haass has been talking about whiplash. if this is whiplash, richard said, it never felt so good. maybe he didn't say that, but he did say -- >> in so many words. >> he said if he's going to be changing positions, he's picking the right positions to change to.

>> i think richard is right. we need nato to contain putin in eastern europe. it wasn't mentioned yesterday, putin is still in crimea, still dividing eastern ukraine and stoking the flames there. nato is our alliance and we have lots of countries willing to work with us, troops deployed in eastern europe. that seemed right to me. we need china on north korea because kim jong-un, of course, is threatening south korea and japan again. this is a proper sequencing of american foreign policy. i thought actually it was a good day for the trump administration. >> frank, what's happening? >> i don't know what's hang. to me the big question here, are we watching president trump evolve? is he's solving or just playing erratic. i hear people expressing a great deal of satisfaction with some of the more reasonable stances he's taken lately which the idea that steve bannon is on the way out which seems to be the case. a loof people will say, okay, donald tru is settling into his presidency, the example of a

learning curve. he's been so erratic, we could be talking about an entirely different set of positions and comments yesterday. >> here is the hope that he's evolving. flynn is out, bannon is on his way out, called the walking dead at this point. over the past week he's been in the room with, surrounded by his foreign policy team. the way trump works, the last thing he heard is what he goes with. you can see it happening. you can literally see this met more sis happening, with the right people around him, he can make good decisions. >> i think something else is happening, too. a lot of things that he's turning away from were things that were great applause lines during the campaign. when you said them at these rallies, rallies attended by a certain kind of voter, they gave him the applause he loves. those same positions, same statements were not moving the needle on his approval ratings.

you can say he's constantly in search of affirmation. >> got him down to 34% over the last week. up to 41% just in one week's time. >> wow. >> he's also -- i don't know that he's figuring this out, but it would make sense. >> we can hope. >> if your biggest problem is north korea right now and you have to worry about north korea having the ability to deliver nuclear weapons to the west coast in the next three to four years, you can't bash china. you've got to sit down and work with china. if that means no longer saying they're manipulating their currency, if that means building a closer relationship with them because you're getting assurances from china that they're go into start dealing more seriously with the north korean threat, then you do what you have to do. if you were concerned about russia suddenly, you need a strong nato and you expand nato even and say the message to

putin, stay where you are. >> governing unlike campaigning is about priorities. when you campaign you can make everybody happy. when you govern, you have to choose, have priorities and discipline. if your priority is china, even if hillary clinton had won, that would have been the most pressing national security threat facing the united states. you can't choose your inbox. north korea is front and center in your inbox. you can't then pick a trade war with china. you don't want to have the two-china issue become an issue, talking about taiwan. you don't want to pick a fight over the south china sea. you want to focus your relationship with china on getting them to use the leverage they say they don't have but do have over north korea. this is what you have to do. this is governing and a good sign. >> ambassadorbus, let's talk about the day the trump administration had in relation to russia. rex tillerson meeting with put sergey lavrov and vladimir putin. he said among other things we know for a fact that russia interfered in our presidential election, condemned again the

attacks in syria and russia's support for assad. you had president trump back in washington at the white house suggesting perhaps that russia knew about the chemical attack before they happened. what's the implication of yesterday for the russian-american relationship? >> i think you have to go all the way back to the early 1990s to find a time when relationship wasn't as good -- was so bad. it's interesting, when the president was asked in the press conference yesterday to characterize his relationship with trump, he slid by the question -- with putin, he slid by the question. he still doesn't want to criticize vladimir putin. he quickly praised president xi jinping of china. they're clearly looking for a containment strategy with russia which is appropriate. i think most administrations would have done this at there time. i wonder about north korea, however, because we do need china's help to contain the problem, but the chinese are going to be happier with the status quo than trying to

leverage north korea to the extent that the north korean regime may be shaky. the chinese do not want to see an american led peninsula. i wonder if china is going to be that helpful to us at the end of the day on north korea. they supply the energy, they supply the food. it's in their interest to do that. the president's rhetoric yesterday on china is probably unduly optimistic. >> frank bruni, are we in a situation where the president is making decisions along with his team that even hillary clinton would agree with? >> regarding syria, absolutely, yeah. that's the new donald trump. >> i think what we have to worry about, though, is that -- there were people talking about the new donald trump after his speech to congress. certainly nobody around this table. three days later, four days later he tweeted about barack obama. >> right. >> it's day by day.

>> the constant here is flux. the difference here is the speech to congress was a speech. now we have some actual actions, some things he's done. so i guess you could have a little bit more hope and think it's more and think it's more substantive to talk about a change or evolution. >> and personnel shifts happening. >> and i was going to say, how often do you see this, personnel becomes policy? >> mcmaster. >> mcmaster and tillerson. >> gary cohn. >> and, of course, general mattis, who gave him some great options on syria? >> particularly in this administration you don't have a lot of experience. you don't have formal decision-making systems. the people around this president will make a real difference. it's a mix and it's changing. >> it's changing. >> if the bias of the mix changes, it will have an impact on the policy and how it's carried out. >> ambassador nicholas burns,

thank you. bashissue al assad gives his first interview since the chemical wea yasuko shibigaki yasuko shibigaki guaranteed. when you book direct at choicehotels.com. book now.

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you can't have america first if you don't have other allies with you. if it's america first, you can't be alone. that, to me, is a positive statement. >> what do you think worries president putin the most tonight about the u.s.? >> i think he's worried that he doesn't understand president trump. trump is more mysterious to him today than before. nobody in moscow a couple of months ago would have ever said that donald trump, president trump or candidate trump would have struck assad for a humanitarian intervention. that's not what he said as a candidate. that's not what he said back in 2013. and i think unpredictability right now is their greatest worry. >> president trump enjoying praise from many foreign policy experts. did you he that? >> what? >> drawi ining praise from many foreign policy experts after a number of shifts in rhetoric and

policy. has this ushered in a new normalcy or is it another pivot that won't hold? welcome back to "morning joe." it is thursday, april 13th. we have with us contributor rick tyler, president for foreign relations richard haass. and the chief white house correspondent for "the new york times," and jeffrey goldberg is here as well. >> who invited him on? jeffrey, smile. looks very grim. >> very serious moment in american history. >> come on. come on. it's the most predictable, boring -- this is like '55. ike years here. >> it was a big, beautiful piece of cake. >> it was. also, did you not hear? it was the biggest, most beautiful chocolate cake you've ever seen in your life. >> making chocolate cake great again. >> oh, my god. also with us, white house

correspondent for "the wall street journal," carol lee. great to have you on the show again, carol. >> thank you. criticized the russian president may have reached its end, far sharper tone toward russia in his news conference yesterday and even opened up the possibility ta moscow was aware of the syrian president's most recent atrocity. >> frankly, putin is backing a person that's truly an evil person. and i think it's very bad for russia. i think it's very bad for mankind. it's very bad for this world. >> right now we're not getting along with russia at all. we maye at an all-time low in terms of relationship with russia. this has built for a long period of time. but we'll see what happens. putin is the leader of russia. russia is a strong country. we're a very, very strong country. we'll see how that all works

out. >> was it possible that syrian forces could have launched that attack in idlib last week without the russians knowing? and have you been disappointed, surprised by vladimir putin's reaction since then? thank you very much. >> i think it certainly is possible. i think it's probably unlikely. and i know they're doing investigations into that right now. i would like to think that they didn't know, but certainly they could have. they were there. so, we'll find out. >> you know, there's some noise from the alt right, from the far right that this sort of stance of america not leading from behind, america not crawling into a cave and basically turning syria and, you know, the rest of the world over to whoever wants it, is somehow going to hurt donald trump with his conservative base. steve bannon would say that. but i don't know.

don't you find that our party is still a party that basically was formed by our experiences during the cold war and we actually believe that the united states does have a role to play in the world? >> i think most of trump supporters see the united states as a force for good around the world. and when the united states doesn't lead and doesn't engage in world events, that dictators and desperates will fill the void. and the world becomes a dark and bloodied place. the united states has moral leadership. there's a small faction which don't like the globalists leading the world. but i think it's small. when the world is more stable, there are more economic opportunities. a lot of trump supporters were really tied to, you know, jobs and opportunities. not so much foreign policy. and so i think the things he has done in the last few days is going to strengthen his support among supporters not diminish

it. >> i think it will, too. carol lee, you conducted an interview that made a lot of news yesterday. >> yep. >> were you surprised by the dramatic shifts? >> yeah. there were a number of things that were surprising in the interview. the president personally talked about a strong dollar, and how he thinks that -- he made comments about that, very unusual for a president to do, and move markets. he talked about janet yellen. he said he respects and likes her, starkly different from what he said on the campaign. he said he's not going to label china a currency manipulator, which is another thing he promised to do as soon as he got into office. and he also talked very kindly about president xi of china. he said they have a very -- what did he say -- good chemistry, and that they really hit it off when they met. one of the first stories he told us was about a conversation he started to have with president xi when they met last week when

he said it's easy for you to -- you can help us on north korea easily and president xi started to talk about the history of china and korea, and the president said within ten minutes into that, he realized oh, it's not so easy. so he changed his mind on that. it was a number of things where you could see him evolving on various positions he has had, various views he has had of world leaders or issues because he's now in office. and he said that one of the things that has struck him since he has come into office -- we asked him how he has changed. he said he's not necessarily different but that the magnitude of the office has struck him and the decisions are big and it's not just can he make a great deal. it's decisions about life and death. >> yes. exactly. wow! >> jeffrey goldberg, we were wondering six weeks ago how general mattis and then later general mcmaster and nikki haley

and even rex tillerson could be stating policy that seemed to be contradicted by donald trump. that all seems, at least over the last five, six days, with the departure of steve bannon from the nsc and sidelining him in the white house, that seems to be lining up. policy and personnel seem to be merging. >> right. donald trump seems to be joining the mattis, h aley and mcmaster administration and leaving the bannon administration. it seems he's evolving. he might evolve again. that's the mystery of this period. he is evolving in the direction of what you all are talking about as sort of classic republican skepticism about russia, classic republican ideas about america's indispensable role in the world, the use of military force to enforce norms,

behavior. so what you're seeing, of course, over the last couple of days is pretty conventional, at least compared to what we thought we might be seeing at this moment. >> jeffrey, you say conventional republican. it is conventional republican. over time, it certainly became with bill clinton's asengs to the white house, these also became understanding you have to deal with china. understanding the importance of nato. so, again, ihink you're exactly right. this is traditionally republican. over the last week there's not a lot of separation over what bill clinton would do as president, what george h.w. bush would do

as president and what trump has done over the past week. >> the novelty of this past period was that there was undue sympathy, ahistoric sympathy for a russian dictator. >> right. >> to the extreme left of the democratic party and extreme right of the republicans, maybe you saw that from time to time. but that was way out of the norm. you're absolutely right. this is no -- mainstream democratic opinion, skepticism about russian behavior is not that much different from mainstream republican skepticism. >> we learned a long time ago to be skeptical of donald trump's pivots. when you look at carol lee's interview, not labeling china as currency manipulator, something he had done ten days prior. he said i'm not going to do it, because it's going to impact my ability to work with them on north korea. is that a president learning

diplomacy? or should we be skeptical of that? >> it does sound like a president who is learning. as an candidate it's so easy. this is the first president with zero political and zero military experience. first one in our history. there will be a natural education. is it evolution or is it erratic? we can't assume that this week's president trump will be next week's president trump. it's still a very early time in his administration. mcmaster, dena powell, jared kushner wing seems to be ascended. >> here is rex tillerson talking about russia and hacking the election. >> did you present to president putin or the foreign minister specific evidence that the russian government interfered in the u.s. election? >> that is fairly well established in the united states

and i think that has been spoken to on the hill as well, with the congress. and it is a serious issue. it's one that we know is serious enough to attract additional sanctions. and so we are mindful of the seriousness of that particular interference in our elections. and i'm sure that russia is mindful of it as well. >> so, peter, you've been writing a lot about russia and the trump white house's posture toward it. what did yesterday mean to the relationship between america and the united states? as you write, it puts to bed any conspiracy theories that there was some back channel relationship between the campaign and russia and even a relationship now. >> this has, of course, an interesting impact on both domestic politics as well as international affairs, right? we have these investigations going on. associates of president trump just to learn more about paul

mannefort in today's paper and congressional committees as well. the trump white house is saying how can we be tools in effect with russia if we can't even get our secretary of state in there to have a meeting with president put snin he didn't commit to a meeting until the last minute. it tells you the nature of politics. on the other side of the equation, deep cynicism about that. in all serious, people are wondering if this is all faint in order to dispel last year's -- are we having this because -- that's a very cynical outlook, but that tells you about today's environment. >> jeffrey goldberg you wrote an important piece about the obama policy back a year or so ago. is the obama policy dead? earlier this week you called trump an isolationist

interventionalist. you may have to even, over the past three days, may have to remove the isolationist label from that tag. >> right. >> because things are moving so quickly. >> right. he contains multitudes, as the poets said. >> we are legion as the bible verse goes. go ahead. >> look, his flexibility is to his benefit in a kind of way. he can be isolationist when he wants to be, interventionalist when he wants to be. people expect all of this kind of change in varigated policy ideas. is the obama doctrine dead? i think essentially, in my definition or part of the obama doctrine, it was stay out of middle eastern wars, right? and don't go to what obama called classic washington playbook of trying to solve your middle east problems with missile strikes. here, donald trump, in a flash -- that was sort of the

amazing thing. we all remembered watching, for months, the obama administration for years deliberate over syria and wring its hands and ultimately not do the thing we thought he would do. here, these guys almost on a lark said, you know what? he crossed the red line. we're going to give him a shot. those missiles brought about an end to what we would think of as the obama doctrine. >> to push you on a couple of things. but you don't think that james mattis or general mcmaster did anything on a lark do you? >> no, no, no. i'm not saying that thidn't have a plan. i'm not sure they have a plan for what comes next if assad does this again. this was on the shelf, ready to g i shouldn't say a lark. but almost insanian instantaneo reaction which we were not used

to with the obama administration. >> from john kerry to several others came out and were very supportive of donald trump and some even critical of how long it took barack obama to deliberate issues like this? >> i'm not surprised. the only person in the obama administration who didn't want to give bashir al assad a smack was barack obama. d dennis mcdonough was the only other one. obama took mcdonough on that walk because he knew he basically agreed with him. this was a pent-up frustration on the part -- these are people who love obama, by the way, but there was this pent-up frustration. it wasn't surprising they all came out and said it's about time. >> even their most loyal supporters. most loyal. you know what it reminded me of,

actually? you talk to the people that would kill me in the bush administration. every day. nasty e-mails in 2005, 2006, just pound away, saying i'm being too tough on bush, too tough on bush after katrina, they privately -- the facade broke and said okay, we can't defend this. it's heartbreaking. barack obama's most adamant, tough defenders basically told me, yeah, syria. wow! you can't defend that. >> syria. after ten meetings on afghanistan sing we're going to put more troops in, but then we put them on a calendar to take them out. a lot of people disagreed with that. obama was isolated in the administration in not doing more to help the people in ukraine with defensive weapons. it wasn't a one offing. one thing i'll disagree slightly with jeffrey here, there was the shot in syria but trump also said we're not going into syria.

it's important to understand the significance of what he did but also what we're not prepared to do. this administration will not jump in the syria civil war. their rhetoric is far ahead of their capability. people are talking about assad getting out of power. united states doesn't have the means. we don't have -- for good reason, we don't have the willingness to take that on. >> richard, that assumes a level of forethought and planning and deliberation that i don't know you can make that assumption. they might get in over their heads or might slip down the slippery slope. that's the issue we're facing. >> that would be the major policy change. what i'm hoping here, though, is also that some of the rhetoric toward russia gets modulated. >> it seems to be. >> but also we need to work with russia. russia is not as close to assad, i would argue, at the end of the day as iran is. if there's a chance, one way or another, to drive a wedge,

russia will be critical. i would keep that possibility. >> jeffrey, going back to a point i raised earlier, you said they could get in over their head. is it not far less likely that this administration will get in over their head when you have james mattis and henry mcmaster, who have seen the costs of war over the past 16 -- and general kelly, most dramatically, the personal costs of war the past 16 years? >> right. i assume on the one hand they function as a breaking system. they certainly function as a planning system. these are very, very smart guys. on the other hand, donald rumsfeld and dick cheney were smart guys. the middle east has a way to pull you back in. fwodfather style. just when you thought you're out. very kinetic place and the demands of engagement are huge. as the old saying goes, if you don't visit the middle east, the middle east will visit you. there are all kinds of temptations, traps and jim

mattis is extraordinarily smart and they all have experience in this region. i'm not going to make any sumpgs about whether or not they might find themselves in a little too deep for their own comfort at some point. >> i'm not making that assumption either. i'm simply saying it is less likely than, say, with dick cheney and don rumsfeld because they were not generals in a 16-year war. >> right. >> who lost a son, who understands that it's very easy to say we're going to go to war. we're going to show assad. >> these are bright guys who are not going to move into the middle east like that. on the other hand the middle east sometimes requires american intervention in an uncomfortable way. >> carol, we've been talking about whether or not these policy changes we've heard the past 24, 48 hours are lasting, whether they're things donald trump is saying in the moment, as has been the case in the past and they change again pretty soon down the road. what was your sense -- you were the only one of us at this table in the room talking to the man.

what was your sense of the way he felt about these things that he changed his views on? >> he seemed to have genuinely changed his point of view on specific things. you know, when you talk about the currency manipulation issue, if you want to take that one for a second. he said china is not manipulating its currency. fine. so you don't need to label them a currency manipulator. but he also said i need them on north korea. now wouldn't be the right time. so i think he genuinely meant that. and if you look at some of the other things that he has said yesterday, you ow,he's kind of thinking -- you could see him almost thinking through the issues and the dynamics and how if you move one piece on the chess board it affects a different one. and how all of it is sort of interconnected. and when he talked about syria, for instance, he did draw a red

line on chemical weapons and if assad were to use chemical weapons again, that could elicit another air strike for him. he left open the possibility of that also happening, the continued use of barrel bombs, goes to the point you all were talking about earlier. that could lead to a very slippery slope. at the same time, he said we're not here -- we have problems at home and we need to deal with them and we're not going to go all in. and he criticized some of america's -- gulf, saying that they need to do more handling the crisis that the syrian conflict has created. i asked him would he consider now changing his policy on banning syrian refugees and he said no, essentially. that, again, while chemical weapons is a red line, this is a country that america needs to rebuild its infrastructure here

at home and resettling refugees is not something that he thinks is the best use of our time. genuinely, he's thinking through all these things. we don't know where he will wind up on a number of them. but he's definitely going through a process here. >> carol lee, thank you very much. peter baker and jeffrey goldberg, thank you as well. still ahead on "morning joe" -- >> hold on. hold on. jeffrey, it's just not that painful being on the show. >> yes, it is. >> can you give us a smile? >> it's very painful. >> joe, i told you, these are serious times and i'm a serious person. >> he has that -- >> the grimacer. >> still ahead on "morning joe" -- >> smile cowboy. come on. >> president trump said he would talk to nato's chief about money he claims is owed to the u.s. for defense. did the topic come up at the meeting yesterday at the white

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[ horn honks ] hold on. don't wait for watchathon week to return. [ doorbell rings ] who's that? show me netflix. sign up for netflix on x1 today and keep watching all year long. i would love to be able to get along with everybody. right now, the world is a mess. but i think by the time we finish, i think it's going to be a lot better place to live. and i can tell you that speaking for myself, by the time i'm finished, it's going to be a lot better place to live in because right now, it's nasty. >> wow, okay. joining us now from washington, general stoltenberg. >> thank you very much for being with us.

what came out of your meeting yesterday with president trump that was the most significant for you and nato? >> it was a good and very productive meeting. he and his security team reconfirmed their strong support for nato. because a strong transatlantic alliance as nato is important for europe but also the united states, especially in times over uncertainty, unpredictability, as we see today. it's even more impor to have a strong nato alliance bonding north america and europe together. >> how did this meeting come about? obviously for those of us who want russia to receive a strong message that nato is intact and stronger than ever, the timing seemed either serendipitous

or -- >> we are preparing for a meeting of all the 28 leaders of nato allied countries in brussels in may. this is part of the preparations for that meeting. the important thing with nato is that we are a successful alliance because we have been able to adapt to change, and the world is changing. now we see more turmoil with isil, terrorism and more assertive russia to the east and nato is adapting, implementing the biggest reinforcement of collective defenses since the cold war but at the same time stepping up our fortunates to --

>> richard haass. dealing with potentially the russian challenge. is the trump administration fully supportive of the initiatives that were begun under the previous administration and endorsed by the european members of nato to strengthen, in particular, the baltic nations? do you feel that's enough to deter russian thinking of the use of our military force? >> the current administration, the president under security team, they are very supportive of the adaptation of nato, which includes more nato forces in the eastern part of the alliance. we are now seeing, for the first time in many, many years, an increase in the number of troops in europe and we are increasing the number of nato troops in general, in the balticountries and poland. and i welcome that very much.

at the same time, what we do is proportionate and defensive and we consider it sufficient to keep up a strong deterrence in the eastern part of the alliance. >> you have big elections coming up in france. how concerned are you that if someone like marine le pen becomes the next president of france that this could be the biggest threat to the alliance in 28 years? >> democratic societies vote or select different leaders. with different political views, different political perfect speexpect ives, but the strengtf nato is that we have proven again and again that despite different political backgrounds we have always been able to meet the core task, that we are there to defend each other. one for all and all for one.

that has defended the peace and stability in europe and north america for decades. and i'm sure that will continue after the elections in france. >> do you feel confident after your time with him that this president, president trump, appreciates the value of a strong nato? >> yes. that has been a consistent message from him in all my conversations with president trump. he stated that very clearly when i spoke to him on the phone just after he was elected. we spoke again in january and now when i met him at the white house, he expressed strong support for nato but also stressed he would like to see nato do more in the fight against terrorism. i totally agree with him. and increase defense spending across europe and canada. i agree with him. many european allies have to invest more in defense and i'm

pushing that very hard because we need to invest more in security when tensions are going up. >> mr. secretary, rick tyler. obviously the president went from saying that nato was obsolete to yesterday saying it was not obsolete. he seemed to point to some policy change. do you know what that discernible policy change on nato that changed his mind? >> the important thing for me is that i welcome his strong support for nato and i welcome his support for making sure that nato continues to adapt. we have strength in our capabilities when it comes to fighting terrorism. we have established a new intelligence division, which enables us to share and understand intelligence in an even better way. i think that's important when it comes to fighting terrorism. and we are also stepping up our support for counter isil collision with more training of iraqi forces. so, i welcome the strong support

to nato from the united states. we have to remember that a strong nato is important for europe. it's also important for the united states. invoked our collective article 5 was after terrorist attack on the united states 9/11/2001. >> mr. secretary it's willie geist. there are people in the yunited states who wonder why the united states should send troops to latvia or other countries. >> two world wars and the cold war have taught us all that stability and peace in europe is also important for the peace, security and prosperity of new

york north america. nato has been a successful alliance not because we have provoked conflict but we are preventing conflicts in europe and thslso the security interest of the united states. as i mentied the only time we have invoked our collective defense clause was after the attack on the united states. hundreds of thousands of european and canadian soldiers have served in afghanistan and more than 1,000 have paid the ultimate price in the military operation in defense of the united states. >> little context there. jens stoltenberg, thank you for being on the show this morning. >> thank you for coming. we greatly appreciate it. richard, in usa today you write why should u.s. taxpayers be interested in ukraine? that's what secretary of state rex tillerson reportedly asked

at a recent meeting in italy. nothing stays local for local in a global, interconnected world. what comes from or happens out there will quickly come here, for better or for worse. president trump campaigned on the theme of america first. and it is, of course, true that this country faces enormous internal challenges. but inadequate health care and poor public schools cannot be fixed by doing less in the world. americans already spend more than most others on education and health care. the problem is how we spend it. ignoring what goes on in ukraine or elsewhere in the world will not make us smarter, healthier or richer but it will make us less safe. >> what's your key point to voters who want to know where their money should be spent? >> caring about these things. >> caring about the ukraine, spending weapons to the resistance or moving troops into poland. >> world war countries invade

one another with regularity, we won't be safe. our interests won't be safe. the world where nuclear weapons proliferate is not a world where we will be safe. >> nuclear weapons, we will protect your border. >> budapest memorandum in 1994. >> willie and i actually -- >> they were there. >> we basically said if you give up your nuclear weapons, after the breakup of the soviet union, we'll look after you. we were told that we did not. our word has shown to be a little bit empty. but think about it. north korea didn't give up its nuclear weapons. they haven't been attacked. ukraine, libya, iraq gave up its nuclear. all three of them were attacked. what's the lesson that people like kim jong-un learned? nuclear weapons can be useful.

>> and what's the lesson that iran has learned? >> nuclear weapons can be useful. >> you had moammar gadhafi do a 180 reversal, giving up his nuclear weapons and he ended up dead. that's why the ukraine matters. it sets a precedence. we don't want the russians to think they can just go in there and attack. same thing when saddam hussein invaded kuwait. we can't have a world where borders don't matter. this is to deal with americans. to get them to understand that what we spend on national security is good for us here at home. >> willie was smiling. >> budapest. don't. >> it's once again another peace treaty we helped draft because willie wanted to go to budapest because there was a new bar. >> yeah. >> tapas bar.

hookah lounge. it was a combination. >> we should call the nobel peace committee. coming up, congressman michael mccaul straight ahead. dear predictable, there's no other way to say this. it's over. i've found a permanent escape from monotony. together, we are perfectly balanced, our senses awake, our hearts racing as one. i know this is sudden, but they say: if you love something... set it free. see you around, giulia ♪ except when it comes to retirement. at fidelity, you get a retirement score

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i'm concerned you don't know how medicaid works. i'm not sure what you do in your office. >> constituent work. >> but you don't allow constituents to come in. >> some of us have a grave concern about transparency as it relates to donald trump's taxes. >> the one thing that is not in the law is tax liability. tax returns. so i would support that, certainly, going forward. but not just the president. the president, vice president, all political parties and every member of congress ought to put up their tax returns. you cannot change -- you can't change the law. you can't do that. >> congressman mike coffman.

it was his first town hall of the year. there were rules. the ap reports, quote, it was one of the most exclusive tickets in town. only 800 were made available and those lucky enough to score one had to show photo i.d. at the gate where they were issued a wrist band and number. coffman wohl rolled up his sleeves and answered pointed questions for twice as long as his scheduled time. he also called for sean spicer to leave his job as press secretary after spicer's comments about the holocaust. wow! we haven't talked about that yet. >> if you're a member of congress, rick, i'm sure you would agree with me. you've got hostile crowds. what you do. >> part of the job. >> is you hold -- i'm dead serious. you hold a town hall meeting every day you can hold a town hall meeting. you open up the doors and you answer questions and then you answer one on one. if you have to stay there five hours a day, i promise every one

of these members of congress, by the end of five days, people will respect you for listening to them and letting you know that you've heard what they've said. you will synthesize it with everything else that's going on. a one-off doesn't work. you know mark sanford. >> i was just going to say. >> he threw himself at the mercy of his constituents. i screwed up. i made a mistake. he would sit there. if three people wanted to talk to him for five hours about his personal life and his failings, heould do it. >> tt was part of the job. have you to earn the respect of your constituents and you're exactly right. we teach this in campaign schools about candidates. it's more important that the voters believe that you're listening to them than it is to actually agree with your positions. they'll say i don't agree with what he says but he understands

what i -- and it's that relationship. i give mike credit for doing it. >> absolutely. >> but you have to keep at it. it has to be an everyday thing. >> no one is saying he isn't, by the way. >> but, again, one meeting, 800 tickets, wristbands. no. you go to the high school. you open the doors. you say hey, we're here. and i'm going to be here as long as you guys want to be here and, willie, if you guys don't get all your questions answered tonight i'm going to cancel events. i'll be here tomorrow night, too, and the next night, and the next night. and as long as you guys want to talk to me i'm here to talk to you. >> to use the sanford example again, a month or so ago he was back in his district. the gym was too full. he said i know a lot of people had to wait outside. i'm going to go outside and lean against this car and talk to you one on one. it make ace big difference among your constituents. chris murphy has two choice

words. buckle up. why fawning over the syrian air strike looking for clear answers for your retirement plan?

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and the bill you need to pay? do it in seconds. because we should fit into your life, not the other way around. go to xfinity.com/myaccount joining us now is a member of the foreign relations committee, democratic senator chris murphy of connecticut. good to have you on board this morning. >> hey, chris, always great to have you on. we've been asking everybody, foreign policy experts this morning, what they thought -- what they're thinking about the past 24, 48 hours of policy shifts from the trump administration. what are your thoughts? >> it's dizzng, and ihi the only thing that' consistent about trump's foreign policy so far is its inconsistency. just wait a few days, and it's going to change. i was heartened to hear

president trump say this week, just in the last 24 hours, that he's not planning on major military action inside syria, but i don't think we can take for granted the fact that this strike last week was the beginning and the end. we've got 500 to a thousand troops inside syria right now with a really undefined mission. i think a lot of us worry about what the future of our policy is in syria because it has shifted so rapidly and so consistently over the past week or so. so our allies are hyperconfused right now. members of congress aren't sure what we should be authorizing and what we shouldn't be authorizing, and i'm not sure that it's going to settle down any time soon. >> senator murphy, it's willie geist. you said that the air strikes add to the chaos, as you put it. it adds to the carnage. it won't tip the balance one way or the other. do you think president trump's strike, his response to the chemical weapons attack from the assad regime is not preferable

to the precedent under president obama where the red line was drawn and nothing happened when the line was crossed? >> i've been pretty clear that i think that the president has to come to congress to get authorization first, and so i think that makes it difficult for a u.s. president to draw red lines to the extent that you have to get authorization from congress, probably should have chilled president obama's enthusiasm for making that so clear rhetorically. but the fact of the matter is this strike was illegal. it has to be authorized by congress. to the extent that there's a broader coherence about our syria policy that's why congress needs to come to the table to straighten this out. are we at war with assad? what is our mission in and around rah ka. are we helping them retake that town or hold and fight off a variety of factionat try to get in. that's why congress has to weigh in here that's in part why i -- >> do you think it was the right

thing to do so strike assad in a response to the emkiccal weapons attack? >> i don't think it was, in part because you cannot be adding to the chaos inside syria when you have a policy of locking those same children inside. if you going to launch military strikes in and around the sensitive areas, then you have to have humanitarian policy to help rescue them. so simply due to the inhumane refugee policy that this president has, i don't think it makes sense. and ultimately i just worry they don't have a plan to deal with the inevitable escalation that will come. if you don't know what steps two, three and four are, when the russians and the iranians step up their attacks in response to your missile strike, then the strike itself can't be effective. >> do you have confidence, senator, in this foreign policy team, though, to deal with the inevitable? >> i have more confidence today than i did a few months ago. i think the most important thing that's happened for u.s.

national security is the replacement of michael flynn with general mcmaster. i think it looks as if some of our foreign policy's reverting a little bit to the norm because of his experience. president obama did not have a workable policy inside syria and president trump doesn't have a workable policy. that's all in part because of a general hubris that both administrations have had about our ability as americans to affect the balance of power on the ground. i think we are going to have to step back and exercise some restraint militarily understanding the limits of the blunt force of military power there, so i have more faith than i used to, but yeah, the way in which we're pitching back and forth between wanting assad to go, not wanting assad to go, signaling deeper military involvement, drawing lines in the sand as to what we'll do, it should be worrying to everybody watching this. >> senator, one of the reasons people like me are skeptic ale to go to congress for an

authorizatn to useilitary force in syria we tnk the odds are getting consensus are close to zero and people would be saying all the things we can't do. so rather than sending a signal of american resoluteness, it would send a signal of american weakness and division. what confidence do you have that you and your colleagues could reach any sort of meaningful consensus? >> well, i think we could. we did on the foreign relations committee when president obama asked for authorization. we passed authorization for military force that didn't ultimately get to the senate because the deal with the russians came in and took precedent, but if we didn't, richard, you know, that's for good reason. that's because our constituents are very wary of military action in the middle east. the president doesn't have the power to make war without us, just like he doesn't have power to change the tax rates of the nation if congress doesn't give him the authorization to do it. just because it's hard to get a measure passed through congress doesn't mean that you can go

around us. my constituents are very wary of u.s. military intervention in the middle east again. they support this limited strike, but they don't support an authorization that perhaps gives the president open-ended commitment which is why it would be hard to pass. just because it's difficult to get something done in congress doesn't mean you can go around us. that's not what the constitution says. >> senator murphy, thanks for being on the show this morning. >> thanks a lot. >> nato is not obsolete. low interest rates are good and getting along with russia might not be that important. the president pivots on several key issues and many are saying that may not be a bad thing. much more "morning joe" in just a moment. (deep breath) ♪ (phone ringing) they'll call back.

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secretary general stoltenberg, it's a pleasure to welcome you to the white house especially at such an important moment in our great alliance. the nato alliance has been the bulwark of international peace and security. the secretary-general and i had a productive discussion about what more nato can do in the fight against terrorism. i complained about that a long time ago, and they made a change, and now they do fight terrorism. i said it was obsolete. it's no longer obsolete.

>> president trump yesterday with full-throated support of nato, one of the many of shifts in rhetoric and policy we saw yesterday from the president. have moves in the white house personnel ushered in a n normalcy or is this just another hope for pivot that won't hold? good morning, everyone. it's thursday, april 13th. with us on set we have the president of the council on foreign relations, richard haass. >> richard. >> and economic analyst steve ratner. >> ching ching. >> that's the money. and former communications director for ted cruz's to 16 presidential campaign now an msnbc political contributor reirick tyler joins us as well. >> so great to have richard haass with us today. before we came on the air, we were talking about whiplash. >> well -- >> but if these policy shifts yesterday were whiplash, our neck was over here and now it's

upright. whether it was on nato, an embrace of nato, just absolute -- i mean, tillerson was tough as nails, according to william cohen and ambassador mcfaul and a lot of other trump critics, had a good, tough meeting with putin and the foreign minister there. china normalcy in that chinese relationship where we're actually lined up, where we can work with them as a partner on north korea. a lot of shifts yesterday, but i can't think of one shift that actually went in the wrong direction. these are all the things he said over the past two years that have scared us and now this shift. maybe it's a day shift, but it's quite a shift. >> more foreign policy happened in a day than back the congress of vienna would happen in a year. a lot of stuff happened yesterday, right, all in the positive direction.

china not being a currency manipulator, nato having a continuing important role fairly blunt talk with the russians. so this was, you know, whether this is -- you're exactly right. whether this was yesterday's shift and today will bring you something else or tomorrow something else, and thenly thing wrong with that is the mere fact that you can have such seismic shifts in itself is a little unnerving. but these are shifts going in the right direction. we'd have a different conversation if the shifts were going the opposite way. >> we're looking trend lines. it's a brief trend line, but there's no doubt, willie, that donald trump is finally doing what we've been hoping and america has been hoping he would do, and that is work with the very able people that he appointed. and you can tell the national security council is not steve bannon's play yard -- plaything. it is general mcmaster's and general mattis and they talked

to the commander in chief and certainly at least just the past five, six days, we have really seen a steadying of u.s. foreign policy and it's not a coincidence that donald trump's approval ratings at least in gallup have gone up. >> you had a lot of people yesterday accusing donald trump of flip-flopping, but what if he's flopping to the correct position? isn't that a good thing? i wanted him to flop off of some of the positions he was holding. i think what you heard yesterday was donald trump getting in the room with somebody. this happened with japan, with china and nato. when he gets one on one with somebody and he talks to them, he says, huh, he's not such a bad guy. maybe i like them. so that happened yesterday. when he came out and said a couple of times he also inserted himself when he said, well, nato now nights terrorism because i put pressure on them to do that. so they're okay now. they're no longer obsolete. of course, they've been fighting terrorism alongside us for a long time. >> only ins 19 80.

>> the same thing with china. i put pressure on them so they're not currency manipulat r manipulators. it's about him in the end, but i'll take it. >> in the word of john lennon, whatever gets you through the night, it's all right. this could all change tomorrow, we all understand that. so write your crappy pieces about -- >> now now, come on. >> no, this is one of the things -- >> i know. >> that dogged me yesterday, steve ratner, after bashing donald trump, including us bashing donald trump for a year and a half for the positions thatingi they were bad for america, they were bad for nato, bad for our allies, if he's shifting to positions that, you know, everybody from james baker to henry kissinger to madeleine albright. >> and hillary clinton. >> and hillary clinton would take to stabilize the situation

across the globe, i'm going to actually say good, good on ya. >> so what if ralph waldo emerson who once said that the foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. >> we wanted him today, withy couldn't get him. >> trump showing he doesn't have a little mind. of course having him move back to positions that are more sensible and richard ticked off the ones in the foreign policy area but there were ones equally significant in the domestic policy area where he said that having said that janet yellen was a terrible person and embarrassed was in hillary clinton's pocket he said maybe hilla hillary appoint janet yellen. he says the dollar is quite strong, which he took credit for. >> and on the xm bank, conservatives don't like the ex-im bank.

general electric, this is a key issue for general electric, they believe, to stay competitive across the globe. >> a number one issue for boeing which is equally big or bigger with them. during the campaign he called the ex-im bank benefited big companies like ge and boeing, now he has a different position. that's fine. he's getting closer to the right place. there are still things he doesn't completely understand. when he says we'll have a better trade deal with china, he does not seem to know that we don't have a trade deal with china. >> i think he means we'll have a better trade deal -- >> than if we put 35% tariffs on. >> president trump's steadfast resistance to criticize the russian president may have reached its end. the president took a far sharper tone toward russia in his news conference yesterday, and even left open the possibility that moscow was aware of the syrian president's most recent atrocity. >> frankly, putin is backing a

person that's truly an evil person. and i think it's very bad for russia. i think it's very bad for mankind, it's very bad for this world. right now we're not getting along with russia at all. we may be at an all-time low in terms of relationship with russia. this is built for a long period of time. but we'll see what happens. putin is the leader of russia. russia's a strong country. we're a very, very strong country. we're going to see how that all works out. >> was it possible that syrian forces could have launched that attack last week without the russians knowing, and have you been disappointed, surprised by vladimir putin's reaction since then? thank you very much. >> i think it's certainly possible. i think it's probably unlikely. and i know they're doing investigations into that right

now. i would like to think that they didn't know, but certainly they could have. they were there. so we'll find out. >> president putin said yesterday of russia's relationship with the u.s., quote, it's possible to say that the level of trust on a working level especially on the military level has not improved but rather has deteriorated. a sentiment echoed by secretary of state rex tillerson after he confronted putin on several issues during a face-to-face meeting. >> w frankly discussed the current state of u.s./russia relations. i expressed the view that the current state of u.s./russia relations is at a low point. there is a low level of trust between our two countries. the world's two foremost nuclear powers not have this kind of relationship. >> did you present to president putin or the foreign minister speck evidence the russian government interfered in the u.s. election? >> as to the question of the

interference with the election, that is fairly well established. in the united states i think that has been spoken to on the hill as well with the congress and it's a serious issue. it's one that we know is serious enough to attract additional sanctions. and so we are mindful of the seriousness of that particular interference in our elections and i'm sure that russia is mindful of it as well. >> wow. >> yeah, see, richard, that's what's so fascinating is you actually have the administration which has been pushing this off. and it's in the middle of this whirlwind actually using that bit of evidence as leverage against the russians saying they did interfere in our elections. that's a good example of tillerson using every -- you know, basically every diplomatic weapon in his bag to push back

pretty hard. i thought he did well yesterday. i know secretary of defense cohen thought he did a very good job. former ambassador to russia michael mcfaul who has been a pretty severe critic of donald trump nonstop has been -- let's take a look at what ambassador mcfaul said on greta yesterday. >> what do you think worries president putin the most about the u.s.? >> i think he's worried about that he doesn't understand president trump. trump is more mysterious to him today than before. nobody in moscow a couple of months ago would have ever said that donald trump, president trump or candidate trumpould have struck assad for a humanitarian intervention. that's not what he said as a candidate. that's not what he said back in 2013. i think unpredictability right now is their greatest worry. >> so richard, vladimir putin

has learned the same thing about donald trump that jeb bush and hillary clinton -- >> and some members of his inner circle have as well. like michael flynn and steve bannon. >> that he's unpredictable. there are times when that unpredictability can actually work to the benefit of this country. with china early on. but obviously that's only a limited play. but how fascinating did vladimir putin, if he thought he was going to influence politics in america, it hasn't turned out that way. he has ann coulter on his side, so he's got that. >> whoa. >> but other than that, it's not working out very well for putin. >> putson a man of -- >> oh, wait, sean hannity. >> oh, good. >> but go ahead. >> putin's not a guy who shall we say encourages freelancing. he doesn't like things off script. this is not what he bargained for. the administration got well in a

sense dealing with a lot of the russia criticism. the question going forward is where do you go from here? we do need potentially some russian cooperation in syria because right now our rhetoric is heated up big time. we seem to put the idea that assad must go a little bit on the front burner. he's not going to go any time soon. the only way he probably goes in the long-term is that the russians decide they've had enough of him. i'm not arguing your basic point. they dealt with a lot of the domestic political problem implicitly by finally confronting russia. this is a country that used force in ukraine. violated the basic rule of international relations. shall not change borders with force. they committed arguably war crimes in syria and they've interfered with the american and other elections. so t idea that this is now being confronted is a healthy day. >> still ahead on "morning joe" we'll get a report from moscow to see how president putin's meeting with rex tillerson is playing out there. in just a bit, the top house republican on homeland security,

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rated pg-13. [ screams ] before the break we were talking about the major shifts in policy and tone from the president and the secretary of state especially when it comes to russia. joining us now from moscow, nbc news chief global correspondent bill neely. good morning. what are you hearing after yesterday's meetings? >> good morning, willie. i heard you talk about whiplash. a dizzying diplomacy continues. rex tillerson is flying out, syria's foreign minister is now flying in to have talks with sergey lavrov. on the tillerson/putin meeting, no readout yet because rex tillerson isn't talking to the media about that meeting. interestingly there was no official photograph released. neither side wants to be seen shaking the hand of the other. but the russians are talking about that tillerson/putin meeting. putin's official spokesman

dmitri peskov said this morning putin used the meeting to give tillerson his views, his analysis on why u.s./russian relations have reached such a low point. and he also gave tillerson his views on the situation in syria. i bet he did because, as we know, vladimir putin can talk for hours. peskov said the tone of the meeting hadden fairly constructive. that almost seems like damning with faint praise, to call a meeting fairly constructive. he said putin hoped his message would be passed on to president trump. they agreed to keep open the lines of communication between moscow and washington, but says, peskov, they did not discuss a future meeting between donald trump and vladimir putin. the earliest that could take place would be the g-20 summit in hamburg germany in july. so look, it's difficult to know what was achieved here yesterday. there was no visible warmth beeen tillerson and lavrov as

there used to be, i ink, between lavrov and john kerry. yes, they agreed to disagree, but you know, even as they declared relations at their lowest point, at the u.n., as you've been hearing, russia was vetoing a resolution condemning the syrian chemical weapons attack. its eighth veto. and was welcoming montenegro into nato. montenegro used to be an ally of moscow during the soviet era war saw pact. no readout on that meeting between rex tillerson and vladimir putin. coming up the market's react to donald trump's assessment that the u.s. dollar is too strong. we'll talk to cnbc's sara eisen and the dean of the dartmouth school of business, matthew slaughter. "morning joe" is back in a

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. >> early this morning we talked

with the secretary-general of nato who talked to the president on a day that brought major pivots in policy. >> how did this meeting come about? obviously, for those of us who want russia to receive strong message that nato is intact and stronger than ever, the timing seemed either serendipitous or very positive for supporters of nato. how did it come about? how long had it been planned? >> the meeting has been planned for several weeks because it's a regular thing that the secretary-general of nato meets heads of states, presidents in the different nato countries including the united states. and we are preparing for a meeting of all the 28 leaders of nato allied countries in brussels in may. this is part of the preparations for nato at that meeting. the important thing for nato is we are a successful alliance because we've been able to adopt

to change and the world is changing. now we see more turmoil to the south with isil terrorism and we see more assertive russia to the east and nato is adapting by implementing the biggest reinforcement of our collective defenses to the cold war but at the same time stepping up efforts to fight international terrorism. >> richard haass. you just referred to what nato is doing in terms of dealing potentially with the russian challenge. is the trump administration fully supportive of the initiatives that were begun under the previous administration and endorsed by the european members of nato to strengthen in particular the baltic countries? is that going ahead as planned? and do you feel that's enough to deter any russian thinking of use of military force? >> the current administration of the president on the security team they're very supportive of

all the adaptation of nato which includes more nato forces in the eastern part of the alliance. and we are now seeing for the first time in many, many years an increase in the number of u.s. troops inurope and we are increasing the number of nato oops in general in the baltic countries and poland. i welcome that very much. at the same time we are not seeking new cold war. we want to avoid a new arms race. so what we do is proportionate and defensive. and we consider it sufficient to keep up a strong deterrence on defense in the eastern part. >> jens stoltenberg. thank you very much for being on the show this morning. >> thank you for coming, sir. we greatly appreciate it. >> coming up, from syrian strikes to united's embarrass g

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we are learning new details about that deportation force donald trump first talked about during the campaign on our show in new hampshire. take a look. >> and i'm not just talking mexico. they're coming in from asia, they're coming in from all over the world. >> conceptually i understand what you're saying and what you're describing, but still tell me the how. are you going to have a massive deportation force? >> you're going to have a deportation force, and you're going to do it humanely. >> how are you going to pay for this? >> it's very expensive. >> will they be rip out of their homes? >> if they came from a certain country, they'll be brought back to that country. >> according to an assessment obtained by "the washington post," the government has already identified 27 potential locations to house 33,000

detained undocumented immigrants. dhs is also considering doing away with polygraph and physical fitness tests to make it easier to hire hundreds more customs and border agents and the rio grande valley has been mentioned as a possible place to begin construction of the proposed border wall. the plans are preliminary and congress has already signaled a fight over funding. joining us now the chairman of the house committee on homeland security republican congressman michael mccaul of texas. good to have you on board. what have you heard about these plans? >> well, with respect to deportation, i know i.c.e. has prioritized that to apply to criminal aliens, fungtives and persons who re-enter the united states, which is a felony. i have not heard anything about a mass deportation of millions of people. so i'm not sure how accurate that reporting is. i think he's carrying out a campaign promise he made to get

rid of criminal aliens out of the united states and it's a public safety issue and i think he's delivering. >> mr. chairman, what's your reaction to the president's shift of positions on russia, nato and last week syria? >> well, i think it's been a very positive shift. we have a commander in chief that's not leading from behind but now leading. i think this doctrine of strategic patience is now over. and overall, it projects strength against our foreign adversaries. so this sort of unpredictable nature of president trump actually can be one of his best assets because it puts our foreign adversaries on notice, ones like iran, russia, north korea, china to some extent and isis that he's not afraid to take action when necessary. and i think in this case particularly the humanitarian crisis of killing civilians in that hospital was very much

justified. >> chairman mccaul, it's willie geist. good to see you this morning. just to follow up on the point you made about the humanitarian crisis, the attack on a hospital with chemical weapons, where for you is the line? and we've asked this of many elected officials over the last week or so. where the united states should intervene. obviously the use of chemical weapons is banned, there are treaties, international laws against it. isn't it just as big of a humanitarian crisis when a hospital full of children and women is bombed with conventional weapons? should the united states intervene in those cases? >> we, it was a violation of international law. assas been getting away with this for the last eight years, red line's been crossed, nothing, no consequences to that action. i think the president showed decisive action here. i think the broader question, to your point, is what is our strategy in syria? i've advocated that we cannot resolve this conflict, this civil war as long as assad remains in power. he's a magnet for the jihadists. he's created this civil war which has also led to the

formation of isis and the creation, this refugee crisis that we're seeing with millions of people fleeing out syria. so it's really the epicenter now of so many problems and i don't think you can just ignore it. pu have to come up with a strategy to plan for syria and congress has a role to play in that. >> chairman of the house homeland security committee michael mccaul, thank you so much for being with us. now let's bring in the dean of the top school of business at dartmouth college, matthew slaughter. we know him. and with us editor of commentary magazine and columnist for the new york post john fedoricz. he's also editor of the daily standard. he said the dollar is getting too strong and he won't label china a currency manipulator. >> not naming china a currency manipulator is a big change. >> is it a positive change? >> positive change.

every central banker, you get to direct and try to control the price of something. that's the art of central banking and having some impact on the economy. to the extent that china is a currency manipulator then janet yellen and the fed are manipulators. moving away from that language, intellectual property, those types of issues will be a plus for the u.s. >> he's now talking about the possibility of reanointing her. is that -- do you see that as a positive development? >> i think it's a positive. appointees of the fed should be based on their credibility and their talents and understanding of markets. janet yellen has done a lot of good thins as fed chair. knowing that the president's thinking about the qualifications for that position and what she's done rather than making an assumption at the outset is a plus. >> dizzying turns yesterday. many positive. >> you just had this story about the deportation force. by 11:00 this morning trump is

going the announce that he's an open borders guy and there's a total amnesty. >> and we'll want more refugees. >> i think they've achieved a head-spinning degree of ideological inko heerns here. i take it as very positive. >> that's what i was going to say. >> if you can flip your positions today, you can flip them tomorrow. >> except his flips are matching the moment. so let's just take a second before we, you know, start churning over how hypocritical it is. the flips are matching the moment. and we're seeing personnel changes. we're seeing who he's spending his time with. and all of the flips are matching the moment and the people, are they not? >> do you think it's about the personnel? as mika was saying, is personnel finally matching policies? >> and he's made those decisions, so they're good. >> i don't know. in in sense if you're trading the bannon wing for the kushner wing, you're trading, you know,

the sort of ideological nationalist camp that at least is ideas based although i find the ideas noxious to a home spun family business where the people who are closest to you who have their own predilections and interests start whispering in your guy and suddenly you were a nationalist last week and you're a globalist this week. >> aren't you trading in bannon for mcmaster. jared's not on the inside saying this is my view of h montenegro -- that's the thing about bannon. bannon actually did come with a set of nationalistic, some would say offensive policies that he was trying to hoist on trump. >> well, it's very hard to evaluate what happens when a guy spending a year and a half attacking nato. >> right. >> on the campaign trail and then in his first major sort of discussion of nato sounds exactly like every other

president has for 60 years. >> didn't you say that was obsolete. it's not obsolete anymore. can we get john some chocolate cake please? >> a very large piece. >> that's a beautiful cake. >> sound like my grandmother. such a beautiful cake. i never saw such a cake. >> have some. >> i knew he was a new yorker. go ahead, rick tyler. >> well, look, john is right to be skeptical and i remain skeptical, but i really do detect a departure from the crazy lounge here. i really do. and trump's poll numbers have gone up and he's had a good run at it despite the challenges. and i think this will be reinforcing for him. i'm -- call me a skeptic still but i think this is a very positive shift, and i'm guessing that he'll keep moving in this direction. >> so dean slaughter lost in all the conversation about foreign policy and the changes is the message that donald trump was elected on which is to bring

jobs back and to provide jobs for parts of the country that have lost so many over the last 40 years and he promised to bring them back. he's touting jobs numbers, more than half a million added since he was president of the united states. does he deserve credit for that and where is the economy under donald trump? >> the economy creates jobs through the magic of the market. you've got 30 plus billion companies in america. what the president can do is really set a policy agenda that hopefully is going to facilitate better jobs, good jobs with good wages. the sense that the global economy and innovation isn't working for everybody. not every single worker and community and company benefit from all of this. so moving away from conversations about currency manipulation and starting to focus on ts like how are we going to actually create the skills and bring the kind of companies together with those kind of skills, that will matter a lot. >> at the end of the day, though, it really was about jobs. the one in five obama voters

that went for trump, they weren't voting that way because of nato. >> and he sold a very simple plot line that is totally contrary to what dean slaughter is saying here, which is he said the problem is external. there is a war on us, an economic war that's being waged largely by china but by others and including, you know, mexican immigration and that sort of thing. so he was going to stop -- put a stop to that. if in april three months after his election he's discarding the ready-made one size fits all solution that he prom ilgated for, you know, for the year and a half to get himself elected, i think it's a very positive thing in some sense, but the durability of it, you have to question whether or not this is the thing that he's going to say three weeks from now. >> all right. we need to -- we'll get back to dean slaughter in just a moment, but we have to go to business. let's bring in cnbc's sara eisen

live from the stock exchange. how is the market reacting to president trump's comments about the dollar. >> big market reaction to those comment, very unusual to have a sitting u.s. president directly talking about the value of the dollar. it's actually not the first time president trump has done it and still the dollar slid about half a percent, lost half a percent of its value against other major currencies when president trump did say the dollar is getting too strong, saying that it's hard to compete when you have a strong dollar and other countries are devaluing their currency. but it was a short lived reaction because this morning the dollar is actually a bit stronger again. and i think what that highlights is that it's one thing to talk and to so-call jawbone where you want the markets to go, but it might have to be backed up by policies if president trump is serious about wanting a weake u.s. dollar. for instance, he wants infrastructure, tax reform,

deregulation, all of that bodes well for the u.s. economy, jobs and also the strength of the u.s. dollar. will the policies back up the rhetoric? that remains to be seen. in terms of other noty headlines that the markets are paying attention, the reversal on labeling china a currency manipulator. china's currency had actually strengthened over the last few years. that's the right call according to economists and we'll be watching shares of boeing and general electric who could get a bump up in business from president trump's new committeement to the ex-im bank. >> you were going to follow up on what john said before, but we can throw in the ex-im bank and other economic items that the president moved on yesterday. >> so sara's exactly right. what ultimately drives the value of the dollar is demand for u.s. assets and all the related policies that the u.s. government puts in place to make those assets attractive to

investors. take the ex-im bank, president trump voices concern about how workers are able to compete. the reality is most sovereign governments around the world have these export-import bank. and those really matter for especially small businesses to have the opportunity to compete in global markets and generate new customers abroad. the ex-im bank has long supported businesses in america. so the change in tone about how we're going to think about trying to create good jobs in america. >> dean matthew slaughter, tuck business school at dartmouth. go big green. >> go big green. thank you. >> hannover is a dog town. everyone has dogs. >> we have two dogs. >> every store has a little dog wl in it. >> totally. the dogs are happy as are the people. >> that's true. what do all of the president's shifts in policy say about the shifts of steve bannon? we'll consider the words of newt

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>> full-throated support of nato. >> i can't think of one shift that actually went in the wrong direction. >> is he evolving or just plain erratic? >> here's the hope that he's evolving. flynn's erratic. >> heres the hopes evolving. you can e it happening. >> donald trump is finally doing what we've been happening, that is work with the very able people that he appointed. >> the unprecontradictable of donald trump is an as et. >> i think the only thing consistent is his inconsistency. >> you had a lot of people accusing donald trump of flip-flopping but what if he's flopping to the right decision. >> it's decisions about life and death. >> donald trump seems to be joining the mattis administration and leaving the

bann bannon relation. >> the russians understand they can't do certain things. >> we need nato to contain putin so this is a proper sequencing. >> you stay where you are. >> we are a successful alliance because we have been able to adapt to change. >> are we in a situation where the president is making decisions along with his team that even hillary clinton would agree with. >> regarding syria, yeah. that's the new donald trump. joining us now author and columnist and contributor mike l lupica out with his book called "point guard". >> my son is into it. he picked up the book when i first brought it in first time.

>> your latest column for the new york daily news looks at the u.s. policy towards syria. >> yes, it does. you write, does trump have to send some kind of message after what the world saw from bashar al assad, his chemical attac on his people, yes, he did. you still have to say that we've dramatically lowered the bar in this country on shock and all. trump had to respond, but a response is not a strategy, nor a military success. the killing continues in syria, killing that has gone on for years in that country while this country did nothing meaningful to stop it. so it's a start. but it's not a strategy. >> it's a start, but you have think -- i'm not the first person to say that. it's a little counter intuitive

to say we care about what assad is doing to his own people while they're there, but if they can get out of syria, then the same innocent children are on their own because we don't want them here. >> i think that one is related to the other. in other words, if you want to pursue a strategy to end the migrant crisis in syria, you have to get rid of bashar al assad. the problem of the trump strategy and the entire west, including barack obama, was you don't europe flooded with millions of refugees or a refugee crisis in the united states. so you have to do something to prevent the flow of people. this could be the way that you prevent -- you prevent a refugee -- the refugee crisis from going on forever. in that sense it is an answer to the problem, not a contradiction. >> john, do you believe that this air strike is actually the

beginning of the removal of assad, because if not, then how much better off are we than we were eight days ago? >> we're not, although except for the fact that there needs to be -- there needed to be a response that this couldn't go on forever, that assad could tr trammel international norms. >> we are better because assad has been put on notice in a way that he wasn't put on notice before if you gas your own citizens, we will go at least after another air base and another. you don't have a blankcheck. >> rex tillerson has said over the last couple of ys, and he's apparently not a man given to wild overstatements, we are seeing the coming of the end of the assad regime. i take that to be a meaningful thing. he's there. henry mcmaster and mattis is

defense and these are strategic thinkers and they're not just firing tomahawk missiles at syria. trump may be and he's the decision maker. >> there were 59 missiles. that was a profound warning shot. >> right. >> if he does it again, that will be another warning shot, but at some point what's the end game there? do all these warning shots remove this -- a guy who is an international gangster from office? >> we have international gangsteres on the other signed of the country. if we take assad perhaps we help strengthen isis and more people flooding in to the country because of isis wi. right now we're squeezing isis in the eastern part of the country. we're sending a message to assad in the western part of the country. who knows where it ends, but it

seems to me our best hope, which is what i'm hoping, and it sounds like what you're hoping for and americans should be hoping for, we at least make the eastern part of that country manageable enough that we can have safe zones, no fly zones and set it up so refugees can return to their country. >> right. so all i'm saying in a rare moment of defense, if you -- if your strategy is to end the migrant crisis, you have to change the condition on the ground in syria so people don't have to flee in leaky boats by the millions. >> it's hypocritical for donald trump to not care about syrians whhey're out of the country, but care about them when he's in the country just like it was hypocritical for obama to condemn the world for the refugee crisis while do nothing

to stop 5 million people from leaving the country. >> the other part is the removal of assad from power relies on russia assisting in that. >> we don't know what that syria looks like. four years ago we had a better idea of what that syria would look like without assad, but we don't know. we're going to jump from the new york daily news to the new york post. >> is this i don't date hot women anymore? >> is t is. >> i've been married 15 to a hot women. life is beautiful. >> okay. we get it. >> slow clap right here. >> this is about the declining faith in our country's institution, something we've talked a lot about. the decline of public faith in our institutions is among the most serious crisis of our time.

the shocking man handling of the passenger on the flight is horrible, but it was the insulting behavior of the chief executive that turned it into a corporate meltdown. how about the man who is supposed to be the foremost extricater in america? sean spicer almost cannot speak a correct sentence and the fact he got the job despite the obvious liability is the mark of national decline. what was missing from the behavior of both these men and our institutions is in general is ldignity, a dignity that arises that people ought to fill when they fill roles of great power and influence in our society. >> that dignity, you were talking about when we were watching judge gorsuch, even though you didn't agreeith a lot of what judge gorsuch said, we were looking at him and she

was saying the dignity that he's showing. >> don't you think that eventually bannon will be removed from the white house the way the man was removed from that united plane? >> i hope it doesn't come to that. that's terrible. >> they just seem to be -- he's like hanging there like -- he's just hanging there. >> it's useful. >> while people walk back and forth as his -- >> now they're walking by him like this. >> i think, by the way, the story here is not just that people are behaving badly, but that we get a real sense that the leaders of the country don't know what they're doing, that the head of a major airline, the third largest airline to the world and the press secretary to the president do not know how to say a word to calm a crisis or to not get themselves trapped in rhetoric hell and that's very

depressing. >> the sean spicer moment was a rough one for all of us, i think. really rough. all right. that does it for us this morning. it ends right here, "morning joe". we're done. no one talks. thank you. live in washington, d.c. overlooking the white house. this morning, worldwide whiplash, president trump with unprecedented reversals on multiple issues all in the past 24 hours from nato. >> i said it was obsolete. it's no longer obsolete. >> to his position on china. >> president xi wants to do the right thing. we had a very good bonding. at this hour syria's president g