where the optics can be problematic. i don't think just necessarily going golfing is problematic. >> thank you all for being with us. it's good to end on a little lighthearted note. we appreciate it. anybody going golfing this weekend? no. all right. thanks for watching. i'm chris jansing. have a great weekend. "hardball" starts right now. a trim for kim? let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. president trump faces rising tension on the korean peninsula right now. the question is what's his strategy to deal with kim jong-un? the world's attention is on north korea, which is celebrating the 105th birthday of its founder. it's morning over there right now, and some observers expect that the country which promised a big event will use the anniversary to test another

nuclear weapon, like right in the next few minutes. anyway, the pentagon ratcheted up pressure by sending an aircraft carrier strike group to the area. in fact, china foreign minister warned storm clos gathering over the peninsu there. well, for the past few weeks, president trump has toughened his rhetoric toward north korea. he said, quote, north korea is behaving very badly. it is looking for trouble. he referred to the menace of north korea, and he tweeted, i have great confidence that china will properly deal with north korea. if they are unable to do so, the u.s. with its allies will. usa. well, here's what he told reporters just yesterday. >> north korea is a problem. the problem will be taken care of. i will say this. i think china has really been working very hard. >> well, north korea's vice foreign minister responded to the president's rhetoric. he told the associated press today, trump is always making provocations with his aggressive words. well, meanwhile, japan's prime

minister shinzo abe warned there is a possibility north korea is already capable of shooting missiles with sarin gas as warheads. there is no more serious threat in the world by the way facing trump today. what does his reaction say about what kind of commander in chief he is? christopher hill is a former u.s. ambassador to south korea and former assistant secretary of state for east asia. he's in seoul, south korea right now. john palm fret is the former beijing bureau chief for "the washington post." max bacchus is a former u.s. senator and former ambassador to china. and kelly mag za men is a former senior pentagon official in charge of asia in the obama administration. let me start with ambassador hill over there. what are the options? let's start with the options of our president, president trump. what can he do to shake kim jong-un off the course of going to an active nuclear power for lack of a better phrase?

>> well, as everyone says, the options are pretty bad. the issue is not to choose even worse options. so i think what we need to do is to continue to work with the chinese. that sounds like, you know, an example of hopever experience. but clearly china has more leverage than anyone else. they'reoing some things, as the president suggested. the question is whether the things they're doing in terms of the sanctions, whether that train is going to move along as fast as the north korean development of nuclear weapons. so in china's case, it may be with respect to sanctions a little too little, too late. >> senator bacchus, do the chinese have the same intense interest in preventing north korea from getting -- using a nuclear weapon? >> i think that china at all costs wants stability in china domestically as well as on the peninsula. i think there's still time for a diplomatic solution here. china does not like instability on the peninsula. they don't like kim jong-un.

i've been in many meetings where president xi speaks very disrespectfully. i've spoken to the chinese ambassador to the six-party talks many times. they don't like him. they're trying to find a solution. my view, though, is that trump has kind of done the right thing here by stepping up the pressure. the carrier group and the signaling china with the strike on syria. but we have to take advantage of that pressure now and work with china to find a joint solution with north korea. china wants this solved too. there's no question about that. what we have not been sufficiently creative. i think the past practice of strategic patience was wrong. it was naive frankly. u.s. policy has been feckless. we haven't been focused on the real problem here. but now the strategic patience is gone. we're working on a new reality here, which is a new reality about kim jong-un. we have to take advantage of the tension now and the additional pressure, working with china to

find a solution. there's no solution to this problem without working with china. >> do all of these people clapping -- we're looking at stock footage here of all these people clapping like robots. is that the way they are, senator? are they robotic mentality people because they don't seem -- they all h a certain facial expression. they all have to act -- i mean it's frighteningly controlling. is this who they are or are they all fake something how would you describe the culture of that country? >> i think they're scared to death of the paramount leader. he's killed many people. he's assassinated many people. they know which side their bread is butters. they're scared. they're going to follow the line. >> in an interview last night with former secretary of defense leon panetta, here's what he told us about our options with dealing with north korea. let's watch. >> there are no good options here. you know, presidents in the past would have pulled the trigger a

long time ago if there were easy options. the fact is we're dealing with a nuclear-powered nation. if we were to try to attack them, they would virtually wipe out seoul and 20 million people who live in seoul. and if it became a nuclear war, which is likely, millions of lives would be lost, and that's the reason we haven't pulled the trigger. >> you know, he's a great man, leon panetta. i've known him forever. he used the word pull the trigg trigger, an unfortunate metaphor. what happens if this guy over here kim jong-un gets nervous and he hears talks coming out of this country about preemptive strikes and says, well, there's my excuse. i'm going to release my artillery on seoul. this is my pretext for doing so. to me, that's scary. >> yes. so i think a lot of people right now are focused on whether or not north korea is going to do a nuclear test. >> tonight. >> tonight or potentially an icbm test. >> an underground test, the

sixth they've had. >> this would be the sixth test they've done. the last was in 2016. i think that is less of a concern than their testing an icbm successfully, a kn 08, for example, something that could reach the united states homeland. that is concerning to me, but also besides just, you know, demonstrations of their nuclear capability, the north koreans could also do a provocation, an actual provocation as you suggest, as somebody sending artillery over the edge or sending a naval force out to confront our navy forces. i mean there are other means, conventional ways that kim jong-un could test the u.s. alliance relationship with korea. >> john, how do you deal with the fact that you basically -- i'm going to use this phrase at the end of the show, grab the cheese without snapping the trap. i mean we want something done. we want this guy to get off his course. but it's very tricky. we've got to kim jong-un to do something he wants to do. we got to -- he wants to be the

big shot and have nuclear weapons that look like they're ready to go. how do we get him back from that sort of defcon one of his or whatever he'd like to be on? >> i think right now the only option we have is china. and clearly trump is putting all his eggs in that basket again. but he's also trying to be transactional about it. for example, he offered china a better deal on trade if the chinese would play ball in north korea. but it's very clear that he's put significant pressure on china and also that he used the strike on syria as a way to show the chinese that he means business. so from that perspective, i agree with ambassador baucus, that he's playing this relatively correctly right now. the question is whether the chinese take him seriously enough to actually put the added pressure that is needed to be put on the north koreans to get them to begin to change their behavior. that's a big question. >> let me go over to ambassador hill again. go ahead. >> sometimes it's important to think out of the box.

china very much wants kim to realize that there will be no regime change. if kim is guaranteed no regime change and if somehow we could figure out a way for us to guarantee no greater nuclear capability, nukes are frozen, or some way we'reore assured that the peninsula is going to be more stable, that mig be the beginning of a result here. if somehow we can guarantee that to kim, i know that's unconventional, but somehow if we could, at the same time make sure our interests are protected, that could be an approach. >> let me go to ambassador hill because a couple questions keep coming to mind. i've been thinking a lot and researching the cuban missile crisis, and the danger there was khrushchev decided to put in offensive weapons capable of reaching pretty much every capital in north america on cuba, not defensively. he saw it as a chance to grab the strategic advantage and equalize the two strategic arsenals by getting this close to us. he got it all wrong.

castro told somebody i know once, big mistake. why did he do it? so mistakes are made even by reasonable people like khrushchev. how do you find reason from kim jong-un? how do you get him to make a rational decision about the future of his country and his own life? >> well, first of all, as everyone said, the big problem is kim jong-un -- the big problem is kim jong-un, unlike his father, seems to have zero interest in negotiations. his father had some interest in it, and his interest was because he cared about the relationship with china. kim jong-un has essentially no relationship with china. they've never even invited him during his five years of rule. so there's a real problem getting to kim jong-un. i'd also like to point out that some of these -- the ideas of preemptive strikes, i think we need to remember that our relationship here on the korean peninsula is not with north korea. it's with south korea. it's with our ally.

so for us to get into a kinetic strike against north korea without full understanding, full consultations with the south koreans could create a lot of problems especially if north korea were to fire back in retaliation. so i think we need to be very close to the south koreans. right now we have no ambassador we have no ambassador in the pipeline. i think there's a real problem in terms of our ability to communicate out here. finally i'd like to say that i understand why some people say we ought to freeze in return for something that we would give the north koreans. i'd be careful of that stuff. we did a lot of that. in fact, we set out a whole agreement in september '05, a whole issue of giving them assistance, of assuring mutual recognition, and they walked away from it. it's clear they want nuclear weapons, and i think we need to be very tough on this issue. i worry, however, that sending a carrier strike force up there and then having it come back

without having done anything may also create the impression that somehow kim was somehow tougher than we are. so we have to be very careful. you know, big powers don't bluff as they say. so we have to be very cautious about that. >> kelly, let's talk about the problem that was just addressed there by ambassador hill. >> right. >> that is if he wants true reciprocity, he wants mutual assured destruction basically to the extent he can do it, that he wants to be able to reach us with an icbm because he feels that's the only way to protect himself from being invaded. that seems to be on his brain. does that sound right? >> that's right, but it's not just hitting our homeland. it's also hitting our allies in the region. >> he seems to think he needs that to protect himself or is there some other goal? >> i think he certainly feels he needs that for self-protection and to demonstrate a capability that cannot be undone and to give him a better set of negotiating if he was going to negotiate. >> part of our promise to get missiles out of cuba, then going back to the cuban missile crisis was to promise not to invade cuba again.

>> right. >> can an american president promise the durability of the stability of north korea, a country we really have no respect for, and say we will never try to unstable you -- destabilize you? >> well, destabilization has never been our objective certainly. >> chris, could i jump in on that? >> just one second. go ahead. >> sure. so denuclearization has been our stated diplomatic objective, but i do think there is something to what ambassador baucus is saying in ter of taking a look at what might be necessary to engage on short of denuclearization. is there something we could live with on the peninsula that our korean allies could live with. i don't know if there's an answer to, that but i think looking creatively at a diplomatic road map of negotiation is worth the shot. i think donald trump is clearly running a play here. he is going to double down on the china play, which is something frankly that the obama administration did quite a bit in the last two years. i'm deeply skeptical that the chinese will really, really engage the way we need them to with north korea, and i also

think there are questions about whether or not china really does have the level of influence over kim jong-un -- >> we're going to find out very soon. go ahead, sir. >> i might say i was over there the last few years. we did not pressure china as strongly as we could have. this is our strategy, american strategy, a strategic patience was really no strategy. you won't believe the meetings i attended where it's kind of like a drive-by. we talked to china about north korea earnestly, but it was not well thought through, not creative. now we have an opportunity to do so. >> thank you. >> also to ambassador baucus' point, there were a panoply, an enormous number of chinese companies would were involved in helping north korea break sanctions. and under the obama administration, i think only one of those companies was sanctioned. that should be clearly on the table and, under trump, for better or worse it is. so i think you see the trump administration putting significantly more pressure on the chinese on this issue than

the obama administration has. >> it's going to be interesting. it looks like trump's aggressive strategy may be a real change from the past. we'll see if it's safer. anyway, ambassador christopher hill over in seoul, john pom fret, thank you. senator max baucus. by the way, i call you senator because you were elected to that. ambassador is for guys who haven't been elected for that. and kelly, thank you very much for joining us. coming up, president trump has shown a willingness to use military force lately. remember what he told me last rch our "hardball" town hall. watch this. >> look, nuclear should be off the table. but would there be a time when it could be used? possibly. >> okay. the trouble is when you said that, the whole world heard, they're hearing a guy running for president of the united states talking of maybe using nuclear weapons. nobody wants to hear that about an american president. >> then why do we make them? >> why do we make them if we don't want to use them? the political dangers of trump's new, well, interest in fire power. that's next. plus progressives are fired up. democrats are i raing record

levels of money actually, and republicans can't escape those angry town halls. wait till you see some tonight. the latest one happened last night in arizona where republican senator jeff flake, a fairly reasonable guy, got hammered over obamacare. and tonight a real treat. actor john lithgow on the trump effect in the movies. he plays a guy like trump in this new movie. alec baldwin's trump, by the way has become must see tv on "saturday night live." now lithgow plays a very trumpian character in that new movie and he's with us tonight. finally let me finish tonight with trump watch. this is "hardball," where the action is. he's on holiday. what do you need? i need the temperature for pipe five. ask the new guy. the new guy? jack trained him. jack's guidance would be to maintain the temperature at negative 160 degrees celsius. that doesn't sound like jack. actually, jack would say, hey mate, just cool it to minus 160 and we're set. good on ya. oh yeah. that's jack.

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. . welcome back to "hardball." as a candidate, donald trump campaigned against what he deemed pointless wars and predictability. >> we must, as a nation, be more unpredictable. we are totally predictable. we tell everything. we're sending troops, we tell them. we're sending something else, we have a news conference. we have to be unpredictable. >> as a country, we have to be more unpredictable. everything we do, they know. >> i'm the most militaristic person in this room. i am all in. but i don't want to have wars. >> eight days ago, in response to syrian president bashar al assad's deadly chemical attack on his own people, trump ordered a targeted tomahawk assault on

the syrian airfield that was the home to the airplanes that carried out that chemical bombing. let's watch. >> tonight i ordered a targeted military strike on the airfield in syria from where the chemical attack was launched. years of previous attempts at changing assad's behavior have all failed and failed very dramatically. >> trump's foreign policy about-face won him positive reviews from some. they called his actions decisive and presidential. i senior administration official tells axios news group that this was the beginning of his leadership week, in quotes. well, yesterday, in an even stronger display, the united states military dropped the -- i can't stand these phrases -- the mother of all bombs on a network of caves used by isis in afghanistan. >> did you authorize it, sir? >> everybody knows exactly what

happened, so -- and what i do is i authorize my military. we have given them authorization, and that's what they're doing. and frankly that's why they've been so successful lately. if you look at what's happened over the last eight weeks and compare that really to what's happened over the last eight years, you'll see there's a tremendous difference. >> the associated press reports the trump administration is now exerting maximum pressure to engage with north korea so that they can give up -- actually their push for nuclear weapons. we talked about that last segment. taken together, all this shows the evolution of president trump's military posture. the question is does he have the ability to pull it off? i'm joined by jonathan capehart, opinion writer for "the washington post," and ned ryan, ceo of american majority, a former speechwriter for george w. bush. i guess the concern here is the guy is commander in chief with tremendous authority, even in decision-making about attacks on countries. he can always pick his country. we saw that with afghanistan. we saw that with syria.

i'm not saying he has an itchy trigger finger. no reason to believe that yet. but during the campaign he talked rather loosey-goosey about nuclear weapons. he seemed to have the idea that you have this ordnance to use it, not as deterrence, but to use it. now there seems to be a growth in his willingness to use it. we'll see. i see syria. i see all this talk about north korea. i worry about the dots connecting at some point with activity. >> the thing here, though, is what's it all going to lead to? >> what's theansw? >> but that's the question. real what is the foreign policy underpinning >> is he getting more -- he ran as an anti-mill tarrist. he ran against going to war in stupid wars. >> he said stupid wars, but he also said on the campaign trail i'm going to bomb the blank out of them. >> the crap out of isis. >> put that together, ned. how can you be dovish on on the

ground troops but hawkish on air power. >> he definitely knows how to draw a bright red line in syria. dealing with isis, i'm going to bomb the crap out of isis. he's been saying that for two years. also realizing that do we really want a crazy fat kid in north korea with nuclear weapons? >> why don't you keep calling him name easy. that's going to help. >> i'm merely quoting senator john mccain here. i think what i'm seeing is a lot of trump supportsupporters, we want to -- >> like everybody in this country, americans are pretty similar about this. they like neat, bite-size wars, quick in and out, accomplish a goal, send a message, and get out. but sometimes they're sticky situations. you start bombing something, they might start bombing you book. vietnam is an example. >> i think what we want to see here and what we are seeing up to this point is a reset of america, coming back to the

international stage, saying you will accommodate us. you will accommodate our interests. i think the real breaking point will be, though, if for some reason we go towards this, we're going to send in 10,000 troops for a regime -- >> muhammud ali said he floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee. that's great policy if you can do it. >> look, if you think about it, the obama administration was all about covert action. we'll send s.e.a.l. teams in. >> drones. >> s.e.a.l. teams, drones, and president trump is all about the big ostentatious show of power. >> big hands. >> yes, 59 tomahawks,oab, mother of all bombs. but the question is here what comes after that? what's the policy after sending in 59 tomahawks, after dropping -- >> these other sides are not disarmed nations either. they have the ability to wreak havoc the other way, and i just wonder, north korea has got enough conventional fire power along the 38th power to

eliminate south korea. they could just -- they could just start -- you've seen these pictures of all those guns firing at once. they could just do it and they could do it because we said the wrong thing in a press conference. >> or a tweet. >> yes. >> there's a certain amount -- you know, this unpredictability -- >> you like that? >> i do like it because i think it's throwing our enemies off balance. [ overlapping voices ] >> take a look at the other guy on the other side. do you want to confront him with unpredictability, that guy with the haircut? >> well, here's the deal. he's off balance. we'll see what happens. i think -- >> would you be unpredictable with a person you thought was off balance? >> no. no, you wouldn't, ned. >> right now i think we're throwing him off balance. i think -- >> guy is standing with a gun pointing at you. would you call him a fat kid? >> if he had a gun pointed at me, of course not. >> that's what we're talking about. >> he's taking a strong stance. china is going to have to be a part of this. [ overlapping voices ]

>> the experts seem to say that china, under max baucus, who was our ambassador for three years, they're not really willing to go all the way and put the pressure on. there's a lot of skepticism that they want to take on their communist ally in north korea and really push them. >> but i think trump is pushing it to say we have to deal with this now. we know that he has nuclear weapons. we know he has not gotten to the point of putting those -- >> okay. >> so we've got to stop it right now. >> ned, tell me something i don't know. is he smart to gin this up? to heat it up rather than the slow, strategic waiting thing that went on before? is it better to push this thing now before they get strategic weapons that can reach us? brinit h now. force the reckoning now rather than wait. what's better? now or later? >> we've taken eight years. we've tried that path. let's take this path and -- >> john, where are you? pressure him now or wait? >> it's a gamble. look, we're pressuring him right now. >> what would you do? >> i would still keep -- i would ratchet up the pressure a little bit, not like he's doing now. but here's the one thing we have to keep in mind, chris.

in the last interview that susan rice as national security adviser with journalists, the wednesday before inauguration, she was asked what's the number one thing president trump is going to have to worry about? north korea. >> we all know that. i mean we're all reading the papers. it's scary because we don't have a khrushchev or bresch nerve, somebody on this side who might an ideologue. we don't know what kim jong-un's interests are. >> do we deal with them now before -- >> i think it might be the right point. >> it's scary. >> it's a scary point. >> who wants to wait for him to have his full arsenal? >> exactly. >> all you need in that gun is one bullet, chris. >> frighteningly true. john unanimous capehart, that's why you write the big stuff. ned ryan, thank you, sir. up next, republicans back home are facing angry town halls. catch 22. if you have a town meeting, they come and attack you. if you don't have one, they come and attack you. watch this.

[ crowd chanting, "you work for us" ] >> that's senator flake, and he's fairly reasonable compared to some of these other guys. you work for us. jeff flake taking the heat last night in arizona. the round table joins us next. look, he's got his hands down. he can't even talk back. this is "hardball," where the action is. microsoft and its partners are using smart traps to capture mosquitoes and sequence their dna to fight disease. there are over 100 million pies of in every sample. withhe microsoft cloud, we can analyze the data faster than ever before. if we can detect new viruses before they spread, we may someday prevent outbreaks before they begin.

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welcome back to "hardball." this is amazing. republicans may be home for spring break, but they certainly don't get to relax. those who have chosen to hold town halls continue to face the consequences of having control of the government. they're being held responsible. trumpcare is one of those hot button issues out there with members of both parties concerned the trump administration wants to kill obamacare. we're talking about constituents of both parties, not members. let's watch. >> i'm a registered republican in your house district. i'm sorry to say i was shocked that you declared your intention to vote for the american health care reform act, so-called trumpcare bill and to replace the affordable care act or obama care. that's not the way we do things here in colorado. the affordable care act is the law of the land now. please tell me specifically what you're going to do going forward, what you intend to do

to revise, strengthen, and bolster obamacare so that it will support the health care needs of your constituents here in house district 6. >> politicians are also facing anger from the left on judge neil gorsuch's nomination to the supreme court. actually his confirmation now. >> if neil gorsuch was the first to be filibustered, what happened to merrick garland's vote? [ cheers and applause ] >> meanwhile congressmen hold town halls so they can have face time with voters. they can also run the risk of saying something unfortunate on camera that provides fodder for future attack ads. let's watch oklahoma congressman markwayne mullin yesterday. >> bthe way, if i chooseot to get insurance, i take that risk. that's my risk. guys, i get that. but it's still my decision. i want to make that decision.

>> you said you pay for me to do this. bull crap. i pay for myself. this is a service. no one here pays me to go. i do it as an honor and a service. >> paz you to go where? >> this is a service for me, not a career, and i thank god this isn't how i make a living. >> let's bring in the "hardball." clarence page, ginger gibson, and washington correspondent paul skinger. this is unbelievable, ginger. i think these guys are earning their pay. they're getting whacks. >> markwayne mullin made a big mista mista mistake when he said they didn't pay him. and he clearly got complacent. he walked into a room that looked like constituents. it was mostly senior citizens and he thought he was going into a friendly territory. it's the biggest risk many of these republicans are making going into these events.

>> is that going to hurt him, that scene? >> that scene is likely to get played over and over again. he's in a fairly safe republican district, got elected by big mar jinz. no downtown that will haunt him for a long time. >> the fact of the matter is mullen already had a problem with the ethics committee because he made his money working for his family plumbing company which he was advertising for while he was still a member of congress. he's got other issues beyond this. >> clarence this is a catch 22. do you go out and meet your people and get slammed in the face? by the way, republican congress people have democrats in their districts and senators definitely do. >> this is the problem. if you're in a swing district, then you've got to really be brave to go out there these days. the town hall project.com, they surveyed members of congress in the swing districts. they found only two republicans, congressman leonard lance of new jersey and ryan costello of pennsylvania, who were going to have town halls with live people there. the rest have found other things

to do during easter break here >> it's a district work period, isn't it? >> yes,hat's right. >> the important thing to remember, this is how they campaign in off years is holding town hall meetings. it's the way they get face time with their constituents, and everyone who is not out there holding town hall meetings, they're in effect delaying their re-election campaigns and that could come back to them next year. >> let's take a tricky issue like abortion rights. it could be trickier as a moral issue to a lot of people. if you take a position and you stick to it, people will respect it. if you say, okay, excuse me for living, but i'm pro-choice or excuse me for living, i just value life. once you say that to the voter, there's not much they can do with it. they can yell at you, but they can't debase you. >> part of the problem that the republicans are facing now is that their answer on obamacare particularly is so murky. i'll be interested to see -- >> chicken you mean. >> congressman palmer down in alabama has got this problem where he's a member of the freedom caucus and he opposed the obamacare repeal bill. >> what is his position? >> his position is it was not

conservative enough. it was not a full -- >> did he say that? >> that's what he's going to say. let's see what his constituents say about that answer. >> that's the freedom caucus position. they say ryan's plan is still obamacare. they want even less support. they want to get rid of it all. >> one thing this has taught me is people don't ask about korea or what's happening in mesopotamia, they care about what's happening on their table, when they got to pay the bills. so this is all about usually disability payments, social security checks, medicare problems, am i eligible for this? notch babies. this is the real politics in real politics country. >> and it's personal problems. you're talking to people who are talking about what directly affects them. it's their health insurance, their social security. it's not talking points, and it's not nameless, faceless people you can tell some reporter on the hill that you may have met at one point in time. it's actual people. >> you know what there aren't anymore, applause lines. these are too cse to the gut. the round table is sticking with us. up next, they'll tell me

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back with the round table. clarence, tell me something i don't know. >> well, financial times had an interesting story today about the fbi is going to set up a special office to deal with the russia investigation because it's gotten so vast, and people tell me this means this could go on for years actually. >> we did an analysis of census data looking at congressional freedom caucus members and found their constituents have about the same health insurance rate as the rest of their colleagues, so they're not dealing with a different population, the same realities of people would are uninsured. >> the congressional prayer caucus is concerned that perhaps mr. trump is not moving fast enough to make moves for religious freedom, particularly appointing someone to run that office of faith-based programs. >> where is the religious freedom issue cutting right now? >> right now they see it as we need to make sure that we are

tting vernment money available to churches, particularly through school vouchers, that that is being protected and the government is not going to try and exclude churches particularly from being involved in social programs. >> wow. anyway, thank you all. we'll be right back. thank you all. my insurance rates are probably gonna double. but dad, you've got... ...allstate. with accident forgiveness they guarantee your rates won't go up just because of an accident. smart kid. indeed. it's good to be in, good hands.

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welcome back to "hardball." from terms of endearment to the sweet smell of success on

broadway, actor john lithgow has proven himself in a range of diverse roles. in his latest film he plays alongside salma hayek in beatriz at dinner which is out june 9th. it's a dark comedy critics have called the first of its kind in the trump era. the story pits beatriz, a physical therapist who immigrated from mexico against a brash real estate developer whose top concern is his bottom line. let's take a look. >> this is my dear friend beatriz. >> hi. nice to meet you. >> beatriz is a healer. >> i do massage, sound therapy. >> this woman is a saint. it's like birds fly out of the sky and land on her shoulder. >> it's like snow white. >> can i get another bourbon, hon? >> oh, no, dad. this is beatriz. she's staying for dinner. >> oh, you were hovering. i just figured you were part of the staff. >> do i know you? >> doug's famous. he's been on the news. >> i don't know why. i think i know you. >> ever dance in vegas? >> i would just like to say

thank you for having me. when i first came to the united states a long time ago -- >> did you come legally? >> yes. >> this tenderloin was amazing. >> it's true what they say. those animals would basically be gone if it wasn't for the manhunting. >> i don't consider it murder. it's like this original dance of man and beast, the struggle for survival. >> are you for real? you think it's funny? i think it's sick. >> the world does need your feelings. it needs jobs. it needs money. it needs what i do. >> the world doesn't need you. >> doug is a great philanthropist. >> shut up. >> okay. you're done. >> i'm joined by legendary john lithgow, who also stars in the hit nbc comedy "trial and error" as well as "the crown," which everybody loves on netflix in which he plays sir winston churchill. it's an honor to have you on. i saw the movie this afternoon, and i have many thoughts about it. one thought was you're a very likable bad guy.

that's my thought. >> mm-hmm. >> was that your purpose? >> when i play a bad guy, i never consider him the bad guy. i always consider him the good guy. everybody else thinks of him as the bad guy, and that's particularly interesting in this film. yes, he's almost irresistible. a man who is completely self-satisfied, confident, has absolutely no doubts and no conscience. it was fascinating to play it. it makes you kind of sick to your stomach watching him, but he's not sick to his stomach. he's perfectly happy. >> the sort of trumpian themes here, a guy who is sort of a real estate developer, what we used to call in the '60s a pig, up against this absolute, true-believing, somewhat humorless good person. you capture the humanness of the bad guy. she doesn't capture exactly the humanness of the good guy. it's interesting. it's an interesting counterplay.

>> it's very interesting. mike white is a very ingenious writer. he wrote the screenplay. miguel arteta directed it. ewo of them work together quite often. man is best known as a comic writer. it's a very witty screenplay, but he's also a very smart writer who is after bigger game here. >> yeah. >> when he set out to conceive this film, he wanted to write about class divides, the economic inequality, the d degradation of the environment, the future of the human race. big, big ideas, but he reduced it to this group of seven people at a dinner party. and it begins very funny. you almost think you're seeing a comedy, and it just gets darker and more -- >> it sure does. >> it is an unsettling film

mainly because what's happening all around us right now. >> exactly. i thought you throw that phrase big game in there usefully because one of the obnoxious scenes in there is your character posing with a dead rhino, and as many times as i've been to africa on safari and have loved it every time, i despise big game hunters and i know all the arguments about the economics, and they bring it out in the movie. i don't like the fact that trump's kids, ai don't like the posing with big game they've killed either. here's your widely praised scene that depicts sir winston churchill on "the crown." >> is your health better now? >> it is. >> good. >> but is it sufficiently better? fit for office better? i would ask you to consider your response in light of the respect that my rank and my office deserve, not that which my age and gender might suggest.

>> i look at you now, and i realize that the time is fast approaching for me to step down, not because i am unwell or unfit for office but because of you are ready. therefore, i have discharged my duty to your father. >> wow. well, i'm trying not to cry. that is one of the great scenes ever, and you passed muster with the palmmys, i guess, huh? they liked you. >> they've nominated me for a bafta award. >> unbelievable. >> thank you so much, chris. and i'm acting there with claire foy, who is just a radiant, absolutely superb actress. she really makes the entire

series sing. i'm very, very proud to be a part of it. >> you know, i think very little has been said about the second premiership of churchill, the part that wasn't so glorious, that was difficult for him. he was getting old. he had stayed on too long, you know. he left a -- he should have stepped down, and you played staying on till the end the wonderful thing that he did to raise the queen. great stuff. >> it's an unexplored moment of history really, the early 1950s, in britain in particular, a nation that supposedly had won a war and yet they felt like a defeated country. and churchill was the old victorian, the child of empire, and the empire was slipping away. that's his particular drama. you know, the series has like six concurrent stories. his story is the man who is growing old and is hanging on too long. >> well, i have to congratulate you on everything you've done. i have to tell you we all loved terms of endearment when we first met you in that safeway

checkout counter when you were desperate for sex. i thought that was one of the great scenes ever about a guy. and i also loved your audio recording of bonfire of the vanities. you did all the -- >> oh, my goodness. >> no, you did all the ethnic accents in new york, every accent. you did, you know, ed koch. you did everything. those great lines from the guys in the street. >> that's wonderful. i never get a compliment for that, chris. >> you deserve more than that. >> i was very proud of that. thank you. >> thank you, john lithgow. great movie coming out. thanks for coming on "hardball." >> it's a real pleasure, chris. when we return, let me finish tonight with trump watch. we've had a hint of it there in the movies. you're watching "hardball," where the action is.

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trump watch, friday, april 14th, 2017. how does the united states get north korea off its dangerous course toward nuclear weapons, and how do we convince kim il-sung personally that he should pull off that course? the enterprise is nothing to take lightly. we get kim nervous and he could attack south korea with all his conventional fire power. we do nothing, and he keeps heading towards having deliverable nuclear weapons. what we need is a way to grab the cheese if you will without setting off the mouse trap. that will take cool nerve and experienced finesse. both are rare. a combination of those two, rarer still. the smart move may be to build an enduring alliance that the

north korean leader can see will brook no use by him of a nuclear weapon in any way whatsoever. it's not to do anything crazy ourselves as well. it's as simple as that. that's "hardball" for now. "all in" with joy reid in for chris hayes, and that starts right now. tonight on "all in." >> with her, you'll end up in world war iii. she doesn't know what she's doing. >> with heightened tensions from syria to north korea, a foreign policy novice -- >> what i do is i authorize my military. >> -- surrounded by generals and fans. >> well, one of my favorite things is watching bombs drop on bad guys. >> tonight i'm joined by the congresswoman calling to curtail the president's use of force. then the russia probe. >> i don't remember. we'll see what comes out in this fisa transcript. >> warnings with trump campaign linked to russia that came from u.s. allies in 2015. plus, a show