could end up having a major, major conflict with north korea, absolutely. >> that is the president of the united states yesterday. president trump saying while he'd love for diplomacy to win out, there is possibility of war on the horizon or as he just called it, major, major conflict. meanwhile, just 18 hours left until a possible government shutdown. good morning, it is friday, april 28th. joe and mika have the morning on. with us onset msnbc contributor mike barnicle. i'm starting to think you don't like that after eight years of it. >> former democratic congressman harold ford, junior is here, also donny deutsch. in washington, washington anchor for bbc world news america katty kay. senior writer at politico jake sherman and director of domestic policy studies at stanford university and research fellow at the hoover institution lan e.

chang. >> there's so much happening on capitol hill, i haven't mentioned the health care vote or lack thereof. will there ever be a health care vote? are they ever going to vote on this new bill? >> they say they will. i'm increasingly skeptical. as i left the hill last night i was talking to my colleagues. we wrote there's a simple thing emerging. some republicans don't want to repeal obamacare, and republicans were warning us about this back in 2010 and 2011 when democrats passed obamacare. they said, listen, this is a new benefit a lot of americans are getting. it's going to be tough to take it away. listen, i think they could and might get enough stroets pass this next week, bup it ain't easy. president trump's influence on the hill, he was pressing, personally pressing for a vote this week. his influence on the hill is not what he thought it was. that's a big problem. >> again no vote this week which

means no victory the trump white house was hoping for the 100-day speech in pennsylvania at the rally. back to the interview at reuters. president trump gave his assessment of north korean leader kim jong un speaking on how the democratic stater came to power. trump said, he's 27 years old, his father dies, took over a regime. say what you want, that's not easy. especially at that age. i'm not giving him credit or not giving him credit. i'm saying that's a very hard thing to do. as to whether or not he's rational, i have no opinion on it. i hope he's rational. trump said he would, quote, love to solve things in north korea diplomatically, but it's very difficult. >> there's a chance that we could end up having a major, major conflict with north korea, absolutely. >> in an enter knew with npr secretary of state rex tillerson says the united states still favors direct talks with north

korea and told fox news yesterday of kim jong un, all indications are that he is not crazy. he may be ruthless, may be a murderer, maybe someone who in many respects we would say by our standards is irrational, but he is not insane. katty kay, let me start with you, the with initial comment, president trump talking about a potential of a major, major conflict. big language coming directly from the white house on a potentially explosive conflict. >> he speaks in superlatives. it doesn't necessarily mean they're taking or considering taking some kind of massive action militarily against north korea. such a fascinating interview, alongside an interview in "the washington post" about nafta where we could see the president's learning curve in realtime. also in that interview he talked about the fact that he had been approached on a call about taiwan from the taiwanese president. but because he has a good

relationship with president xi, he'd like to consult with china first. this is a president understanding the limits he has and understanding the need to work with other leaders. he realizes now he needs the chinese. he can't do anything that would possibly alienate them at the moment. >> this is one of those moments in this presidency where it's very con serk. you have a president of the united states -- harold, you've been in washington and served in the house of representatives. when you have a president of the united states turning up the bunson burner on a situation saying there's a chance we're going to have a major conflict with north korea, absolutely. that's the president of the united states speaking. words have meaning. i don't know. i just feel uncomfortable that a president would be saying this in a situation so fraught with danger. >> you almost hope he would take the same position he took after the test of that missile went awry and there was some suggestion that maybe america

had a role in it. heidttweet, didn't say a word. two, it's slightly encouraging to hear tillerson align ourselves with china and say our goal is denuclearization. three, the thing that worries me most, this guy is irrational. >> who, trump or --? >> kim jong-un is irrational. for the president to take the position he is or is not rational, we almost have to get used to the way he talks. you can't invest totally in thinking that he's on the up and up when he talks. >> the problem with that, done any -- when katty said that, we all nodded. that's the way donald trump speaks, in superlatives. now he's the president of the united states and north korea is washing and listening. when he says that, they believe that's the posture of the united states government. >> interesting enough i'll defend trump which i rarely do. whether it is a country, whether

as an individual, a corporation, congress, we are learning, yes, he is president and he should not speak in those grandiose terms, but we are learning to decipher. if it was 99 days ago and he said that, we would all be going into our bomb shelters and whatnot. basically what he's saying is, yeah, of course there could be a conflict. we all know that. there's either this patience and somehow it works itself out or there will be a conflict. like it or not, he does speak that way. our job as both citizens and more importantly as the rest of the world is to kind of translate to what that means. we're learning to do that. >> lonnie, what followed from that statement is trump did say we prefer diplomacy. he talks about the chinese, how impressed he was with president xi since their meeting at mara lago. the jump-out headline is major, major conflict and north korea is listening to that. >> willie, the thing is, we're used to talking about foreign policy in very moderated terms.

you think about the last several administrations, this point that words matter, they do matter in the sense that administrations have conveyed foreign policy through nuance. that's nou not how this president works. what president trump was expressing is not a significant deviation with u.s. policy. we've always maintained that a military option would be on the table. what unusual, of course, is the tone and tenor he's taken in discussing the potential for that military action. it's important for us to separate out the tone from the policy. admittedly that may be difficult with this administration. let's recognize, not a huge change in u.s. policy, but a huge change in the way we talk about it. >> in the same interview with reuters, the president addressed the cost of american military protection for its ally, south korea. he said seoul should pay for a u.s. anti missile system that he prized at a billion dollars. he insisted on changes to a 2011

u.s.-korea trade agreement. >> it's unacceptable. a horrible deal made by hillary, a horrible deal. we're going to renegotiate that deal or terminate it. >> when? >> very soon. i'm announcing it now. >> the president's comments sent stocks tumbling in south korean financial markets which had improved with an increase demand in cars and electronics. on issues like free trade, the president told the "wall street journal" last night, quote, i'm a nationalist and a globalist. i'm both and i'm the only one that headaches the decision, believe me. >> katty, back to north korea, talking about defense there and also the trade deal that exists between the united states and south korea. what are the implications of the president of the united states saying that especially against the backdrop of this potential conflict with north korea? >> at the moment, the united states needs china, but it also needs to make sure it doesn't alienate its allies in south korea which is going through a very difficult political transition of its own at the moment. this is the kind of thing i

think where the president is saying i'm announcing now i'm renegotiating an important american trade deal a little bit in the way he said or floated -- the white house floated the idea it was thinking of pulling out of nafta a couple days ago. these things could have material consequences as we found out when the mexican peso and kh canadian dollar both fell. the president has to be careful not to be rash in the way he announces things. it is this weird, slightly off-the-cuff, i'm going to announce the policy right now in an interview in a way that didn't seem planned orr thought through or the economic implications of that thought through. that has consequences for america's allies. >> to katty's point, i don't necessarily disagree with done any. i wasn't trying to be too critical of him. he did recognize in the first part of his comments that north korea is a family business. and if we've ever had a president that understands a family business, president trump represents that. two, to lonnie's point, this president has a cabinet around

him and leaders around him that people respect. you have tillerson in the last day or two saying we don't want regime change in north korea which is a positive. the thing that's confusing, the last part that willie said, i'll take it to lanhee and get his reaction. when they talk about denuclearization of the peninsula and other aspirations and goals, they want us out of south korea. when you think about president trump, he thinks in terms of tweets. the presidt of china thinks in terms of centuries. as you think about south korea in the last comment, how do you put that in the context of your answer to what we should think about trump and his nuances and language. >> i think that's an excellent point you make. the chinese view is the long view, no question about it. the interesting thing about the xi-trump relationship is how much that's evolved already. you went from a campaign where the president was talking about how china was taking the u.s. to

the cleaners to a situation where you have the two leaders very much looking at a relationship based on pragmatism. that's what i'm watching for now. as these two leaders grow their relationship going forward, we're not just talking about the relationship between trump and xi, we're talking about the two most significant powers on the global stage today. that is certainly a big factor here. south korea is a factor in that as well clearly because one of the big issues you look at when you look at the asia-pacific are the economic issues. really trade is first and foremost. the u.s. pulling out of tpp, the u.s.-korea deal becomes that much more important to the koreans. >> i want to pick up on that nuance and something that feels very relieving. when i listen to the interview about north korea, notice when he's speaking now, he's speaking in much more hushed tones. it's a nuance, but there's not the volume to the voice and the

words himself, even the way he describes the north korean lead are, i'm not saying this, not saying this, presenting facts. there seems to be a more nuanced, rational -- restrained -- yes there's still political turrets. if you just landed from mars in the last two weeks and listened to this president in tone and content, you would say maybe there's a little bit more normalcy going on. >> that was an oval office interview. so you might expect that. tomorrow he has a rally in pennsylvania before you'll see trump from the campaign. >> you might see more nuanced, the volume will go up. whatever it is, the meds have changed, whatever it is, something has turned. >> no meds. >> no meds involved. that's kib bets.

>> we'll have more on that. let's move to congressional politics. leaders say legislators preventing a government shutdown before tonight's dead light. the senate will pass a short-term funding bil so a funding agreement can be drafted d shared with meers before consideration next week. the stopgap funding bill hit a roadblock yesterday after democrats threatened to vote know after republicans brought up a bill to review the affordable care act. despite that, gop leaders delayed the health care vote. in the absence of a funding bill, the president fired off tweets blasting democrats and accusing them of trying to force a shutdown. he wrote, i promised to rebuild our security and secure our border. democrats want to shut down the government. politics. he also wrote, what's more important, rebuilding the military or bailing out insurance companies.

a hit back said the shutdown tweets are desperate, unhinged and showing a startling lack of awareness for where the negotiations actually are. on capitol hill there was plenty of finger pointing on who is responsible for delaying the funding bill. >> the reason this government funding bill is not ready is because democrats have been dragging their feet. i'm confident we'll be able to pass a short-term extension. i'd be shocked the democrats would want to create a government shutdown because they had been dragging their feet. >> we don't want to shut the government down. we don't have the power. they have the majority, they have the president, they have the senate, they have the house. any shutting down of government, the ball is in their court. we have not done that. >> jake sherman, put this in plain english. a short-term funding bill that will be passed, that's just kicking the can down the road. >> i actually agree with nancy pelosi i think, because

republicans do control the house, the senate and the white house. it's incumbent upon them to keep government open. they're going to ps a short-term bill which funds the government until next week, and then these negotiations over a longer-term funding agreement, probably anywhere from a couple months until october will take place next week. donald trump's tweets in that house, chuck schumer's spokesman is right, that's not where the negotiations are or anywhere close. that's based laming democrats b on a couple peripheral issues. there's not going to be a government shutdown. it's going to pass, famous last words, but i do believe that to be true. there shouldn't be as much drama as there is. kicking this into next weaken sures these two weeks, these two weeks will be squarely focused on housekeeping, no proactive legislating for donald trump, no achievements besides keeping the

lights on. >> we were talking about tax reform, talking about repealing obamacare and having an entirely new health bill. at the end of the week what we're left with is just this short-term funding bill. tax reform is a long-term project that's going to go on through the year if it gets completed. what about the health care bill? do we ever come back to it? how do you cobble together the tuesday group and the freedom caucus and all these pieces who haven't been able to find common ground? >> very, very difficult. members of congress, as harold knows well, do not want to walk a plank for a bill that's going to have no chance of being signed into law. if you look forward to november 2018, if you vote to repeal the health care law and the senate does nothing, you don't have any of the political upside and you only have political downside. i think members of congress i'm talking to every day are looking at that dynamic and saying, look, we could do fixes to the health care law, do things on a bipartisan basis to fix some of the shortcomings or holes in the bill, but why would we vote to

repeal the thing when the senate is not going to pass it? i think that's the overwhelming dynamic right now. >> jake is right. you had this under president obama. the house voted on a big energy bill back early in his term as president. it then got to the sate and it died. all the house members are on record voting to do something damaging to raise energy prices. the same is true with health care. there's not a moderate republican with a good head on his or her shoulders who is going to vote for the amendment that the house freedom caucus wants, fully aware that there's absolutely no way, if a bill comes back to the house, that any of them would be a part of it. it's worse in a lot of ways than the kind of political suicide you normally see in politics because republicans essentially might be giving up their seat for a republican primary and certainly would disadvantage themselves against democrats in hard right districts, hard red districts in the country if they do something like this. the thing i'll watch over the next few weeks, are there town

hall meetings in these republican districts and democrat districts saying you might not like everything he's done on taxes but we want a tax bill. if you see that energy come in the form of town hall meetings, i'm not saying what they put out a day or two ago. i watched gary and the treasury secretary and i felt bad for them because they couldn't answer questions. >> it was all on that document. >> in their hand. if you see voters say we want a tax bill, we want tax cuts, you could see the beginning of a coalition beginning to develop. if you ever hear chuck schumer say i think we can and then the sentence continues, you get a sense that maybe they can find something. we're ways from that. >> disappointed meacham is not here. i spent about seven hours going through that tax bill. >> i need a president historian to depfeiffer a lot of layers. >> perfectly fits, one page. >> seven hours. >> lanhee, going back briefly to

health care, this was part of the rationale for donald trump's election, was that obamacare was going to be gone, he was going to rip it up and repeal it and the freedom caucus said the same thing. we want full repeal. are they ever going to get to a place where they can agree within their own caucus to do something about health care? >> i think the challenge here is that there are some really fundamental differences to jake's point between republicans on issues around health care. theedicai example is perfect example of this. john kasich that opposes changes to medicaid. you have greg abbott and more conservative members of the house who want to significantly change the funding of the medicaid program. that's what's making this so difficult. what i don't understand about members who don't want to vote for the american health care act is many of these guys volted for obamacare repeal like 30 times. this is not like a new thing. it's not like we woke up today

and said we're going to go repeal obamacare, weave never done it before. we've done it 30 times. that's what i don't understand about the dynamic about these guys, particularly the mod rates opposed to it, these guys have all voted for it before. this is nothing new. >> lanhee, would you agree with one of the definitions of hypocrisy this week has arrived with the health care proposal on the one hand and the tax reform proposal on the other. so you get republican governors like greg abbott saying no medicaid expansion is going to bust the budget. the tax reform, the one-page tax reform proposal that's on paper would explode the deficit to a point where we'd be paying the deaf lit for like 100 million years ahead. what is wrong with these people? >> here again, this is the challenge. you've got some republicans who say we don't care about the deficit implications. we think this tax cut is going to pay for itself. optimistic estimates suggest maybe a third of the cut pays

for itself. that's opt mission tick. look, there are other republicans like paul ryan long taking a more responsible approach which is to say in order to actually cut the tax rates, we have to significantly reform the tax code. that's why they wanted the border adjustment tax to help pay for it. without that this will have deficit implications. the question is are republicans willing to look the other way? >> some $10 trillion. still ahead on "morning joe," the state department reportedly at odds with un ambassador nikki haley. why it wants to improve all her public comments on hot button issues. the fast moving developments on the investigation of michael flynn and payments he took from foreign governments. joined by the top democrat on the house intelligence committee, congressman adam schiff. we'll speak with chairman of the house freedom caucus congressman mark meadows and senator jeff merkley joins our conversation as well. you're watching "morning joe" on another busy morning. we'll be right back.

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i want to thank ambassador nikki haley for her outstanding leadership and acting as my personal envoy of the security council. she's doing a good job. does everybody like nikki? otherwise she can easily be replaced. no, we won't do that. >> nervous laughter fills the room. an off-the-cuff joke from the president may have had an ounce of truth to it. an apparent attempt to get american foreign policy on the same page, the state department wants to approve nikki haley's remarks before she speaks publicly. this is according to "the new york times." state department officials urged the aides to rely on building blocks written by the department and get clearance if they involve high profile issues like

syria, iran, north korea or the israeli-palestinian conflict and reclear remarks if they change substantially. haley has been one of the most outspoken members of the trump administration weighing in on key foreign policy issues. >> we now know the rusans wer behind the hack of yahoo, the dnc, they were meddling in our election. what should the president do in response? >> take it seriously. we cannot trust russia. we should never trust russia. i don't think we want anyone meddling in our elections. that's why these investigations are going to matter. we have to find out exactly how involved they were, and we should never be okay with that. >> i have had conversations with the president where he very much sees russia as a problem. >> that's in contrast from secretary of state rex tillerson who until recently shied away from the spotlight. tillerson and haley will appear together for the first time at today's un security council meeting on north korea. katty kay, let me go to you first on this.

is that unusual for the state department and the white house to try to get all the people who speak publicly and prominently on the same page when it comes to foreign policy? >> no, it's not unusual. the obama administration did the same and kept a tight rein on samantha powers. the fact this dispute has become public is striking. after the chemical attack in syria, the person who stood out in the administration as taking the tough line on rub yeah was nikki haley. the extraordinary moment where she stood up and held up the photographs and be readed the russian ambassador. you haven't heard anyone in this administration speak like that that critically of russia and vladimir putin. so it was kind of odd. she became the star of the moment. this is the state department trying not -- trying to rein her

in. it's interesting russia is not specified on that list. this is clearly about russia, when it comes to american foreign policy towards moscow, nobody is speaking out. >> hard to believe nobody at the white house or at state knew she was going to make that presentation at the un. >> katty is correct. it's not unusual that the white house would want to have more effective coordination between the ambassador to the un, the state department and the white house. what is really unusual is that the state department is ber refed of any coordination because there's no one to fill the slots. >> coming up on "morning joe" -- >> follow the trail of dead russians. there's been more dead russians in the past three months tied to this investigation who have assets in banks all over the world. they are dropping dead even in western countries. >> late last month, clint watts pulled back the curtain on russia's relentless push for power. the former rbi special agent was back on capitol hill yesterday with new testimony. he joins us next to tell us about it. "morning joe" is coming right back.

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if there's one thing i can emphasize, cyber influence is a human challenge, no a social one. america's obsession with social media has overlooked several

real world actors. useful idiots such as unwitting americans that don't realize they're using russian information for their political, part son or social issue purposes. fellow travellers, these are personas propped up against europe and the united states for alternative right positions that are anti eu and anti nato. the last part is asian pro vok tours which are people that create incidents so they can drive traffic online. if we look back to our experience with isis, part of the reason isis' social media campaigns did so well is because they were taking ground and establishing a caliphate. the same happens in the russian context. >> that was former fbi special agent clint watts testifying yesterday before the senate armed services subcommittee on cyber security. he joins us now from washington. also with us, dean of the school of international studies at university of denver, former u.s. ambassador to south korea and former secretary of state for far east asia chris hill.

gentlemen, welcome to you both. clint, let me begin with you yesterday off that testimony on the hill. elaborate a little if you will when you talk about useful idiots. >> we're talking about people ripe for manipulation and influence, people that take on partners or take on positions out of mostly opportunism. because of that opportunism a russian strategy can actlly place people, aides, advisers in policy positions aroun those individuals such that they unwittingly start doing russia's business for them. that's a very dangerous thing in a political context. those how you can slowly manipulate foreign policy if you're russia inside the united states. you take these people, provide them what they need to move forward and let them basically run with the football into the end zone. >> clint, let's pull that string a little more there. unwit inningly use people. how do you unwittingly use someone? what would the tactics be?

>> yeah, wikileaks is an excellent example. you put out information, selected information that tarnishes one party or political group versus another. you do that through hacking. what you do then is you line that information up, you release it and you're the first to pounce on it. so the russians knowing what secrets have been stolen are the first ones that can publish news stories on it, they can lead other mainstream media outlets and even political candidates with information nukes they can launch on their opponents. they used this strategy in the cold war era and still use to do. >> ambassador hill, let me ask you as the former ambassador to south korea about some of the comments from president trump in regards to south korea and north korea. although he said he obviously prefers diplomacy, prefers working with the chinese. he also said there's always the potential for major, major

conflict. what are the implications of words like that coming out of the white house? >> i think what the president is doing is saying he's making this a top priority, not sure where it will go. he's ready for anything. the most astounding thing he said is somehow expressing sympathy or maybe empathy for kim jong un, he's only 27, inherited this from his father, it's tough, et cetera. i think what he's doing, he's all over the map but with one very clear focus, he wants to see if he can get to the point where they can persuade north korea to give up nuclear weapons, a tall order. he's certainly full of flattery for the chinese to try to recruit them and make sure they're with him. we'll have to see how this plays out. >> how do you think he's going about this as compared to president obama or president bush or the many presidents who try to getality this north korea problem through china. what do you make of the approach of this white house? >> i think with respect to china, he's trying to put everything on the table. it's not just some careful

diplomatic minuet. he's even said i can't go after them as currency manipulators as long as they're helping on north korea. i think there's an all-in and very focused approach with the chinese to the effect that everything else is irrelevant. we'll deal with north korea. that's a little different. often when previous administrations would go to the chinese, they'd have a whole christmas tree of lists. you name it. uyghur rights, tibet issues, all kinds of things. he seems to be focused on north korea. frank frankly, i don't think it's a bad approach. we have to see if it will yield results. the north koreans have shown no interest in living up to their previous obligations to give up their nuclear weapons. >> ambassador, good morning. harold ford. building on those comments, how does this approach regarding north korea and china, how does it impact this president and white house's ability to deal with trade issues that he raised during thepaign and raised

since being elected? two, you indicated you're pleased with some of the things they're doing right now. what would you be advising differently if you were in the administration today? >> it's not so much differently, but what i would suggest, however, is to be very careful ability the situation in south korea. it's a very volatile country right now. they have their president having been impeached and sitting in a jail cell awaiting trial. they have an election coming up on may 9th. and that election will be interesting when one of the leading candidates is a kind of not -- i wouldn't say anti american, but certainly a lot less sympathetic to us than the previous administration. he's got to be very careful about that. he doesn't want to create a situation when, in this sort of effort to work with the chinese, there's a perception in the south korean public that he's going over the heads of the south koreans, doesn't really

care what they think, going right to the situation with china. he also needs to keep track of japan. but i think it's basically the right approach. let's say he gets there, which would again be an extraordinary development, i don't think it would be a good idea to pivot and say, now we'd like to talk about you being a currency manipulator. we would be in a whole new world with china. >> clint, it's katty here. we saw the huge live fire drill that the north koreans put on, the dig display of all their tanks on the beach earlier this week. how good is our intelligence of what they have, what they don't have on the conventional side, conventional weapons side? on the intelligence side, in terms of the sanctions and what the chinese might actually be doing to enforce those sanctions, how quickly will we be able to see that? >> clint, go ahead. >> i think in terms of intelligence, that's what i can talk to. i think we have really good

intelligence in terms of the technical collection platforms. where we'll be weak in north korea is human intelligence. we often don't understand or know how they're thinking about problems and what their decision-making processes are. >> i almost had people saying to me about the photos we saw out of north korea last week, how do we even know this is real? are these tanks all lined up, are they actually real tanks? >> exactly. we see those pictures, we see those images, they're known to do the strategy where they build up locations or build up mockups. if there's technical signatures, what we call measurements and signatures intelligence, we do very well. the key part we don't understand and we're always shocked about is when there's a change in foreign policy position by kim jong un, when he kills one of his own inner circle or when he as sass naets somebody outside of the country. we don't have real good insight on that human intelligence, and that's because it's a very closed off country.

>> ambassador hill, let me ask you about that enforcement of sanctions. how quickly would you expect to see something on that? >> i think the chinese are doing more than they've done before. we have to see how they're doing with trying to close off their financial sector to the north koreans. that's going to take a while to see whether it happens. the problem with sanctions is it's a much slower train than the north korean nukization train. north korea is moving very fast, it tests this new generation of missiles, to have a nuclear warhead that can be fitted on a missile. they've got a ways to go. they clearly are working very hard on that, and as with other countries that have gone this route, the response to sanctions is, look, we'll let our people eat grass if that's what it takes. we're going to go forward with this. i think the problem with sanctions, it may be aittle too little and too late and what we need is much more direct pressure on the north korean

regime to understand this is not the way to preserve it if they continue on this course. >> insight from somebody who has been in the middle of this, ambassador. great to have you with us this morning. former fbi agent clint watts, thank you as well. still ahead on "morning joe," quote, i thought it would be easier. that's what president trump told reuters about his expectations pour the job as president. ahead, we'll speak with the white house correspondent for reuters jaef mason. we'll be right back with more "morning joe." let's go, she's a dog. [ whimpers ] find ping-pong. okay, let's go. find your awesome with the xfinity x1 voice remote. that's amazing!

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two u.s. military service members were killed fighting isis in eastern afghanistan on wednesday. it happened in the same region where the military dropped the mother of all bombs just two weeks ago. nbc news pentagon correspondent hans nichols has more. >> reporter: the nears fire fight happening overnight. u.s. special operations forces joined by the afghan army attacking isis insurgents,

killing around 40. in the battle two u.s. special operators were wounded, medevacked out alive but later died. a third was grazed by a bullet, staying on the battlefield. all of it happening in the same isis stronghold in eastern afghanistan where the uflt s. dropped a 21,000-pound explosive, the so-called mother of all bombs two weeks ago, collapsing terrorist tunnels and caves. afghan officials say roughly 100 isis combatants were killed by the bomb. defense secretary jim mattis claiming not to care about numbers. >> frankly, digging into tunnels to count dead bodies is probably not a good use of our troop's time. >> reporter: more than 100 extremist groups in the region. >> i don't see how afghanistan doesn't devolve further into endless civil war. >> that's nbc's hans nichols reporti

reporting. the top commander in afghanistan told congress he wants to add several thousand more troops into the fight to break what he calls a stalemate there. mike barnicle, i was at an event two nights ago with admiral mike mullen and he expressed frustration that he said the wars were over, politically over, over in the minds of the american people. here another example, 16 years almost after 9/11 americans are still dying in afghanistan. >> willie, we, and not just us here, every network and newspaper has spent endless hours and in print talking about the first 100 days of the trump administration. we've been at war for over 16 years in afghanistan. less than 1% of the people in afghanistan have a family members fighting in afghanistan. two more special operators died yesterday on the border with pakistan, a terribly unreliable ally, pakistan, fighting isis in

afghanistan. god knows how many tours they have served before they died in afghanistan, but 16 years an internal war that we have invested afghanistan. eternal war we've invested thousands of our soldiers lives in that country over, i would bet, $1 trillion. >> easily. >> easily, correct. >> i'm not convinced if you were to grab -- members of congress will be on here shortly. if you were to ask them, what are our goals, what is the state objective right now in afghanistan, i guarantee you, an overwhelming majority of them cannot lay out -- if they did, there would not be any consistency. >> right. >> take the members of the armed service and intelligence committee away. average congressman not serving in those committees could not tell us why. i might even venture to say president trump couldn't tell us what our stated goal is. >> that's a given. to pick up mike's point i wonder if you did a survey of people in

this country that said are we in afghanistan? >> they don't know where afghanistan is, they never encountered a family member of someone serving in afghanistan throughout their day. >> should we send troops to syria, there are troops in syria being shot at today. serving all over the world. as we are reminded with those two deaths on wednesday, still in harm's way. ahead, starting new comment s from the president about north korea. we will bring in the reporter who interviewed him. plus julie pace who had her own interview with the president that generated one headline after another. and bob costa, covering all the twists and turns in the health care fight. and later, historian michael beslos. after expanding our fiber network coast to coast. these are the places we call home.

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seen before. >> that is donald trump with reuters yesterday. correspondent for reuters jeff mason, current president of the white house correspondents association, and the annual white house correspondents dinner without president trump is tomorrow night. good to eyou all. jeff, you're in the oval office with the president. what struck you most as you spoke to him? >> well, it was very interesting interview with two other colleagues of mine from reuters. we walked in, there were a couple other friends of president trump's sitting in the oval office. we sort of joined them for a visit for 15, 20 minutes. >> like advisers or -- >> no. personal friends. >> who was there? >> that was off the record so i don't feel like i can say who it was, but they were friends of his. >> fair enough. >> they left and then we proceeded with the interview. and it was wide ranging. you guys have talked about a lot of it from north korea to taiwan

to his feelings about being in office and what he misses about his prewhite house life. >> so, speaking of how the third generation, dictator of north korea came into power, trump said he's 27 years old. his father dies, took over a regime. say what you want but that's not easy. especially at that age. i'm not giving him credit or not giving him credit. i'm just saying that's a very hard thing to do. trump said he would, quote, love to solve things diplomatically in north korea but it's very difficult. >> well, there's a chance that we could end up having a major, major conflict with north korea. absolutely. >> so, jeff, as the president talked about north korea and then south korea, talking about making them pay more for their own defense, our trade deal with south korea, did you get the

sense he was making it up as he spoke to you or did he come in, expecting to announce those policies with south korea? >> neither. i don't think he was making it up but he wouldn't have known what we were going to ask him. he was prepared in so far as we asked him the questions and those were his answers. but particularly on south korea trade, that is something that the white house is prepping and in the middle of prepping right now. he told us that when we asked him. as for north korea, clearly, it's an issue they've been working on for some time and particularly this week when they had the meeting with the senators at the white house. and then president trump really emphasizing the fact that in addition to his desire to solve the problem diplomatically, they're obviously considering military responses and that was very clear in the use of language that he did. >> jeff, donny deutsch. i was surprised to hear the president say he anticipated his job would be easier than his previous life. i don't know what would lead him to believe it. did you dig any deeper there?

that was stupendous that he thought this would be easier. >> i thought that was interesting, too. that was towards the end of the interview. we didn't have more time to dig deeper. we talked about things that he missed. he said he missed driving. he was surprised by how little privacy he had, and that he felt like he's in a cocoon. sort of talked about the constraints of secret service protection and not being able to go out as easily for dinner. he emphasized a couple of times that this job was harder than his previous life and that was certainly an interesting observation. >> i use ed d to see him up andn fifth avenue with his chevy impala, driving back and forth. i'm not surprised. >> and the drop top. did you pick up frustration from donald trump about perhaps his inability to get some things done? he's a ceo his whole life. pounds his fist on the desk and gets things done. running up now against courts and congress and not being able to push through the things he

talked about doing during his campaign. >> truthfully, willie, i did not pick up frustration. he was very confident in the accomplishments that he has made in his first 100 days. the election is clearly on his mine. he reached out midway through our discussion about china's president xi jinping and handed us paper maps of the electoral college in the united states that he has won. the election is still high on his mind. he's happy about that victory. and he's happy about the other victories that he feels he has made legislatively and policywise since coming into office. >> as we continue our conversation, it's the top of the hour on this friday, april 28th. i'm willie geist. joe and mika have the day off. we're talking with jeff mason from reuters about his interview with the president yesterday. >> i want to talk to you about the overall environment. you talked about his friends being there in the oefbl office as well. in the interview you mentioned and described a scene where he

press aid button and asked for a coke in the middle of your interview. can you talk about the other people that may have been in the room, some aides? in past interviews reporters have been surprise btd lack of formality and the ins and outs of people coming back and forth into the oval office, something they haven't seen in previous administrations. did you see that as well? >> yeah. i mean, it was certainly formal because we were in the oval office and the president was sitting behind his desk. but there was also a casual element to it insofar as vice president pence walked in and visited with the president briefly and said he had something to tell him but told him he would come back. his chief of staff walked in and visited for a little bit. he had a press aide and personal aide who was there during the interview, which was certainly standard for an interview like that. but it was -- yeah, there was certainly a comfortable, casual flavor to the fact that people could just walk in and out while he was conducting this. we, in fact, as i said before,

kind of walked in on a meeting that he was having with friends as well at the start of the time we were supposed to have our interview. so it was relaxed, shall we say? and for that, also very interesting. >> the exchange on the red button was amazing. a lot of people get worried when i hit the red button on my desk, joking to you all. here is what also the president told you, jeff, and your colleagues about the fight to defeat the islamic state. let's take a listen. >> look what's going on. we have to be very careful. yours is the best -- it's the toughest question. at what point does it end? but we can't let them come over here. i will say, there is an end. and it has to be humiliation. there is an end. otherwise, it's really tough. but there is an end. we are really eradicating some very bad people. when you take a look at what's going on with the cutting off of the heads, we haven't seen that since medieval times, right?

>> so, jeff, off that presidential response to you -- and this is maybe a difficult thing for you to read or for anyone to read, sitting there in the oval office. but did you get the impression that perhaps the weight of the office is now sinking in on a daily basis to donald trump? >> i think the sheer number of things that he has to deal with, certainly abroad but also domestically, weighs for sure. i didn't get the impression to willie's question earlier that he was frustrated or overwhelmed in any way. i think it was just a surprise, to some extent, how much he would have to deal with as president of the united states. and we talked a lot about north korea. and he sort of identified that as the top foreign policy challenge that he was facing. but clearly the fight against isis, which you just referenced with the quote there, is a very important and very big one as well. and he had sort of general

comments about that in terms of wanting to end it through humiliation. but, yeah, i think it would be fair to say it weighs on him but in a way that is just something that he wasn't expecting when he ran for office. >> as i mentioned, tomorrow night is the annual white house correspondents association dinner. president trump, of course, will not be attending. traditionally the president shows up, does a stand-up routine and some comedy in front of the press. here is what he told reuters about why he would not attend this year's dinner. >> i would come next year, absolutely. look, i'm treated very unfairly and very dishonestly by the press and i thought it was inappropriate to go this year. if i were treated even slightly fairly by the press, i would have gone. but, i mean, i'm -- look, they're writing stories about how unfairly i get treated by the press so i thought it was inappropriate. i thought it would be very disingenuous if i went i thought it would be, actually, in a certain way dishonest if i went.

>> i'm actually surprised. one thing about trump that you have to give him is that he has the most genius sense of the press and how to use, manipulate, twist. i think he's making the wrong mob mo move. i think him showing up, making fun of the press, making fun of himself, almost defusing a little bit, to me, would be very clever. i think the reason he's not doing it -- because it's such an obvious thing to do -- then he does have that same club to use anymore. on the one hand, it would be a way for him to go in there and very self depricatingly bring those worlds together. it tells me that he actually doesn't want to do that. >> have you ever heard him be self depricating? >> good point. fair point. >> jeff mason, remarkable interview by you and your colleagues at reuters. have fun at the dinner. >> my pleasure. >> jeff, thanks. congressional leaders expect to pass legislation to prevent a

government shutdown before tonight's midnight deadline. the senate will pass a short-term funding bill so that a final agreement can be drafted and shared with members. it hit a roadblock yesterday after republicans threatened to vote no. gop leaders have delayed that health care vote in the absence of a funding deal, president trump fired off six tweets over the course of three minutes yesterday, blasting democrats and accusing them of trying to force a shutdown. spokesman for chuck schumer said they show a starting lack of awareness for where the negotiations actually are. and plenty of finger pointing over who exactly was responsible for delaying the funding bill. >> the reason this government funding bill is not ready is because democrats have been dragging their feet. i'm confident we'll be able to pass a short-term extension and i would be shocked that the democrats would want to create a

government shutdown because they have been dragging their feet. >> we are never going to shut government down. in fact, we don't even have the power to do so. they have the majority. they have the president. they have the senate. they have the house. any shutting down of government, the ball is in their court. we have not done that. >> let's bring into the conversation political reporter for washington post, msnbc political analyst and moderator of pbs' "washington week" robert costa and julie pace, also senior writer at politico and co-author of "the play book." jake sherman back with us as well. an incredible panel we've got. bob, let me begin with you on the doings in washington on capitol hill this week between tax reform, health care bill, government shut down. what does it all add up to? a short-term bill will kick us into next week actually. what's going on in congress?

where does this all lead? >> i was at the capitol last night talking to lawmakers in the house and senate. most republicans told me they fetal too much was on their plate. that the white house, especially top officials there, were pushing for a health care vote, pushing to keep the government funding, talking about taxes. it was all too much for congressional republicans dealing with their own facts here on this side of washington. so they said to the white house we don't really have the votes yet on health care. let's shelve that and keep the government open is often a challenge for republicans and doing that now is what they want to do today. >> i asked jake this last hour and i'll ask you now, too, bob. do republicans believe within their own caucus that there is a way, a path to repeal obamacare as president trump promised to do, or create a new health care system different from obama care? >> publicly you're going to hear

a full throated call for repeal. but privately most republicans who are in the know so that even getting legislation through the house will be difficult. if these members go home in the coming month and have more backlash about going after the affordable care act, those moderates could be hesitant about moving forward. then you're dealing with the senate with a very narrow republican majority. best case scenario most republicans say privately is passing something through the house that they can talk about and give president trump action to speak about. in terms of an overhaul, that will be a reality for all americans. i don't see that happening at this moment. >> julie pace, we just had jeff mason on. and he, at reuters, had an extended interview with the president yesterday. you had an extended interview. it was fascinating, reading the transcript. your impression of donald trump as president at this moment, the weight of the position, the

daily, the hourly issues and problems that arise. has it sunk in? >> it's interesting. you see the president kind of go between a bunch of different emotions in the course of an interview. i talked to him for about an hour. and for much of the interview, it felt very much like the donald trump that we got to know during the campaign and at the start of his presidency, where he's supremely confident in his decisions. he's supremely confident in the way that he views the world and his ability to change washington. on the other hand you have these moments of, i think, pretty rare reflection where when i talk to him, he said, you know, one of the big differences for him is that as president, you are making decisions that actually impact people's lives. and he talked about ordering the air strikes in syria and he had to think, this is actually death this will actually cause people on the ground to die. and it's interesting to watch him go through this process of really learning the weight of

the job. i don't know if it's sunk in, in that it's changing him. it's too early in his tenure to do that. but the implications of even a small decision as president are just so huge in a way that running even a large and successful business just could never be. >> jake, harold ford again. who would have thought that government wouldn't be funded acres few hours away from it not being funded? taking a second crack at health care and congress has pulled it. to an extent, he was apologizing for kim jong-un, at least understanding how challenging his life must be after inheriting this job from a family office in some ways. and some of the key places.

clearly wouldn't have thought how this might be. how can it improve? how did they see congress -- helping him to improve in the next 100 days? >> it's interesting. paul ryan had a news conference on capitol hill and he was peppered about questions about his health care bill, keeping the government open. he said i've been talking about this as a 200-day agenda. he was sweeping aside the construct of the first 100 days and i think the most interesting thing to me, and bob alluded to this a couple of seconds ago. president trump is surrounded by aides who have no idea how washington works in any way, shape or form. reince priebus, jared kushner, gary ohn have never been involved in passing anything. even people in the white house

have never been involved in things like that, recognize that and are very frustrated with the slow pace and what one white house aide described as malpractice. that's something to keep an eye on as time goes on. we don't have anybody who knows how to drive the car. and trump is learning on the job when it comes to legislating. when it comes to tax reform. laying out principles. people on capitol hill are looking warily, saying thanks for the advice. something that keep an eye on. i'm going to hear it's the greatest 100 days in the history of viflization. if i talk to chuck schumer, i'll hear it's the biggest blank in american history. of all your reporting, all the inside people, not publicly,

when they bare their souls to you, how would they grade themselves on the 100 days? when you really get down to the grit, in that building, how are they really, really feeling? >> when it comes to legislation, i would echo jake in the sense that you see the president having a diet coke in the oval office, being wistful about how challenging the job is. one thing they tout -- this is why the president is talking about trade at his rally in pennsylvania. they believe in spite of the learning curve they have on capitol hill when it comes to executive authority, trade and immigration action, trump has remained trump. he has kept to that populist, nationalist core. everything beyond trade and immigration has been an obstacle, a frustration and that has really rocked the white house in many respects as they hit this 100-day mark. they have both chambers of congress and they're looking -- they were looking a few days ago at having a shutdown from a republican congress on a republican president. they have to figure out a way to

figure out the math in congress to get anything through. >> julie, as republicans continue to kick health care down the road, the closer we come upon the midterm elections, we've seen what's taking place at republican town halls. i'm curious to know your thoughts on whether or not it was a mistake or is it going to be more difficult to sort of appease the more moderate republicans, given that they've caved in to the freedom caucus the longer they stall on this and can't get an actual bill they could pass? >> that's a great question. one of the things that you can't forget in all of the conversation about health care is the calendar, the political calendar. so, one of the benefits of trying to move something through quickly even when it's complicated is that you do it when your lawmakers have some distance from their next election. and the longer that this goes on, you're going to see, in particular, moderate republicans who are going to be going back to their districts, who are going to be under a lot of pressure and have to make a

decision that perhaps this is not good for their own political future. we talk about all this wrangling in the house. it's pretty stunning, the amount of political capital that the white house is doing to get something possibly through the house. if that bill does get through the house -- that's a big if -- if that gets to the senate we're talking about a much more complicated situation there. don't forget to look at the political calendar. the longer this gets into the summer, certainly if we're talking about the fall, political reality starts setting in and it will be extremely difficult to imagine moderate republicans in districts that hillary clinton won, in districts where barack obama was quite popular putting down a marker in favor of an obamacare repeal. >> robert, presidential hour could encompass nafta, taxes, health care, syria, isis and afghanistan. do you have any sense about the discipline of the president's

time and the allotment of the president's time to specific issues in terms of priorities? >> he's balancing, i'm told, but also is pulled in a lot of different directions, wanting to talk to the media, talking to aides. we're seeing typical trump as president. i i picked up a fascinating story yesterday. we're hearing about the tuesday group, tom macarthur. he said actually i've known the trumps for a long time, m macarthur said. i used to go along with fred trump. he was an insurance salesman in the day and used to settle claims with fred trump and he and the president have been talking about these old days where he would drive around as a very young man, settling insurance claims with fred trump. that was the way he was able to connect with this president and

so few people in washington have been able to form a personal connection with president trump because they don't know him. he is this character from reality tv. macarthur has that one in and that's helped him cut a deal. >> fascinating. we know that president trump values those personal relationships to the extent he has them in congress. bob costa, julie pace, jake sherman, thank you all. by the way, if you haven't read julie's interview with president trump from earlier in the week, go check it out. guys, thanks so much. still ahead on "morning joe," republicans will not be able to repeal and replace obamacare within the president's first 100 days after all. we'll be joined by house freedom caucus chair mark meadows, whose group is on board with the latest plan but many moderates are not. what is mark zuckerberg up to? he visited a swing state auto factory amid speculation he may be interested in running for office, as the media giant is taking on fake news.

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. it is a tough job, i've got to tell you. and he works so hard. this man has tremendous strength and energy and he with works into the night every night. but it is a tough job. my job is a 12-hour a day job also, i've got to tell you. it's exciting. it's thrilling. you feel like every now and then you're making a contribution to america and i'm sure the president gets satisfaction from that. >> that's attorney general jeff sessions a few minutes ago, across the street on the "today" show here at nbc. joining us now from capitol hill, chairman of the house freedom caucus, member of the oversight and government reform committee, republican congressman mark meadows of north carolina. congressman, great to have you with us. thanks for being here. >> it's great to be here. >> you supported the second bite of the health care apple under president trump. >> sure. >> you couldn't get some of those moderate votes to come over with you. why did this vote fall apart?

>> it hadn't fallen apart. the deadline that the media and everybody had, obviously, we would have loved a vote in the first 100 days. i was on the phone until almost 11:00 last night. we're just a few short. we're going to continue to work today and tomorrow. i fully anticipate that we'll have a vote in the coming days. but it's obvious that we represent different districts. and so, you know, my district is different than, perhaps, some in new york or pennsylvania. and so it's all about making sure that we represent our constituents in the best way possible. i'm very optimistic we'll have a vote in the coming days. >> there may be a vote in the coming days. what changes between now and then? there are things in there that moderates have said i just can't go for. for example, medicaid expansion rollback, giving an opt on those kind of things. what changes for them that allows you to continue to support it? >> yeah. i don't know that there will be necessarily a lot of fundamental changes. part of this is that the tax,

many of them only saw in the last 24 to 48 hours. and so i can tell you that we're having individual scoring to show how premiums will come down for us. that was the number one factor. if premiums come down for americans, then we have succeeded. so it's making sure that those pre-existing conditions get protected and yet make it affordable for all americans. this plan does that. and so as we look at going forward, it's all about just informing and helping educate our members so that they can make an informed decision. >> i want to underline something you said. in the case of some of these moderates it's not the fact that they didn't like what was in the bill. they didn't get to review it properly and when they do, they may support it? >> i think so. i'm not suggesting that that is uniform. those have come out and have read it, made their decision based on their district and they're going to be a no. i can tell you, we're just a few votes shy. i've got information that i'm

trying to get to some of our members today. i know tomorrow macarthur is doing the same thing, trying to really thread the needle. you're talking about a waiver. if a governor of new jersey wants to keep obamacare just like it is with the very few exceptions that were in the base bill, they can do that. but a governor of another state, whether it be texas, nebraska or florida, can waive out of some of those things that drive up premiums. it's the best of both worlds. it's a compromise. it's not a perfect bill. it doesn't fully repeal it. in talking with the senators in the upper chamber, some dozen or so different senators, there's some great ideas that are coming there. i'm going to be sharing that with some of the amendments that will be offered in the senate that will make it better. >> congressman, katty kay has a question for you there. >> the bill, as it is, doesn't look like it's going to get through the senate. you've moved to but for the members who are still no and

don't like elements of the bill, you're asking them to sign a bill, and agree to a bill that doesn't have a chance getting through the senate and they're on record as having said yes. how does that work? >> i can tell you that, as i was saying, i probably have talked to more senators on health care than any other member on the hill. for the last four or five weeks, going to more moderate senators and conservative senators and trying to find that. senator thune is working very hard on a tax credit issue that will actually lower premiums for those in the 50s and 60s. doing real good work there. and so that's an amendment that some of my colleagues, i'm trying to help them with. additionally, ron johnson is working on a couple of things that will actually make sure that premiums stay lower for those with pre-existing conditions. so, when we see that, it's trying to make sure that you inform 435 members and make sure we have 218 votes and based on my conversations, i do think

that this bill will provide a good foundation with a few amendments in the senate and ultimately will be signed into law by the president. >> but those amendments could risk taking it in a direction that could then lose conservative support, right? >> but in doing that, i've talked to both moderates and conservatives. i think, you know, we have to understand the diversity of our conference and in doing that, that s this particular amendment that tom macarthur put forward, was to do that. i would have preferred something that was more conservative. i can tell you the president and vice president are all hands on deck. this will get done. it's a matter of weeks, not a matter of months. so i'm very optimistic that it will be signed into law. it's a valid point that you bring up. >> congressman, harold ford. good morning to you. >> good morning. >> fundamentally, the question i have is does the freedom caucus believe that the government should play any role in helping to make health care more affordable for more americans?

>> well -- >> it seems that's where the pivot is. you have some moderate republicans mo may have disagreed with obamacare from the outset, including governors, who see the benefit of medicaid being expanded somewhat because it allows for people with mental illness and others to get coverage. and it seems like some of your members -- maybe not you, but some of your members in the freedom caucus simply don't believe in that fundamental premise that government should play a role. if that's the case, how do you reconcile with the congress or for that matter with democrats? >> it's interesting you bring that up. government should have a limited role. yet here we are today, talking about a bill where the amendment that actually protects pre-existing conditions provides for a high-risk pool, was offered by two freedom caucus members for that exact purpose. so when we look at it, do we believe it should be limited? yes. but do we see the federal role to make sure that there's a safety net?

yes, we see that as well. when you put those two together, that's interesting. two freedom caucus members put that in for the high-risk pool to make this better, to make sure that pre-existing conditions stayed down in terms of their premium costs. and so, again, it's all about trying to negotiate in good faith. i think they're doing that. the president and vice president continue to weigh in, in a personal way. they're working at midnight and again at 5:30, 6:00 in the morning. and so i'm very optimistic that we'll be able to find that what works for my district, or district in california, new york or in between. >> mark meadows, republican from north carolina says health care reform not dead. in fact, there may be a vote, as he said, in the next couple of days. thanks for your time. we appreciate it. >> thank you. >> senator jeff merkley was not impressed about the white house briefing on north korea, saying

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i think he's prepared but

carrying out those to execute change in america is a real challenge and it is frustrating, i'm sure, for businessmen on occasion, who is used to getting things done quickly. >> more of attorney general jeff sessions on the "today" show this morning. joining us now from capitol hill, member of the foreign relations committee, democratic senator jeff merkley of oregon. senator, good to have you with us this morning. >> thank you. good to be with you. >> you and your colleagues attended the meeting two days ago now, bus trip from the capitol over to the white house where you were briefed in some way about north korea. yesterday, last night, president trump gives an interview to reuters where he goes into some depth about how south korea must pay to defend itself, re-evaluating our trade deals with south korea and there is the potential for what he called a major conflict. is that reflective of what you heard in the meeting with the white house two days ago? >> we didn't hear any details that would enlighten us more

than what we've seen in the press. the big question is, have we worked through a pathway in which we understand what we're looking for as an outcome without creating a major war? after all, realize, seoul is 30 kilometers from the artillery of north korea. and if they were to test a missile and we were to respond to attack north korea and north korea, within seconds, could attack seoul, you could have tens of thousands of people dying in a very short period of time. and so this is a very -- i don't know. a very dangerous situation. >> so how do you believe the trump white house is sort of prosecuting this case against north korea in some of their conduct? ambassador chris hill on the last hour saying trump is doing it the right way, working with china, saying the right things publicly about china. how would you evaluate this white house as it relates to north korea? >> what they're doing is beating the war drum and then trying to

convert that into china applying pressure to end the nuclear program in north korea. but just freezing the program is not enough for the administration. the administration has said they must eliminate their nuclear weapons. that is a very difficult thing, to force a nation to do. so the question is, how do you succeed in doing that? and that's where both the war drums and the chinese pressure don't ultimately result in a coherent sense of how you get to that goal. >> senator, we heard the president was putting more pressure on south korea, saying that though they're our sixth largest trading partner that they've acted unfairly and they, in fact, should be paying for the missile defense program. when it was originated the agreement was that the u.s., in fact, would pay for t do you think it's the right strategy to cave in to china a bit more, at least publicly, while putting more pressure on a very

vulnerable south korea right now? >> a strange additional element when south korea is extraordinarily nervous, to raise issues that have been negotiated between the united states and south korea in the past. it seems completely the wrong moment to be raising these particular issues. and if they're doing so because china is asking us to do so, that is very -- it's something we need to dlib raeliberate a l >> senator, the addition of general mcmaster to the national security team and his voice within the administration, has that given you an additional level of confidence in the direction of this administration is going in? >> i think several folks there that are very capable of calm deliberation and i certainly hope that the options are being thoroughly worked out. but it's really hard to tell. i thands t

i understand that the administration doesn't want to disclose a lot of details about what they're doing but that leaves us with a lot of uncertainty about how you have an off-ramp to achieve the goal of eliminating the nuclear weapons from north korea would you please tell e-- without ending up in a nuclear war. >> they've been talking about health care. trying to put a stop to potential government shutdown. we haven't talked a lot about the senate side of this. obviously, you would vote against anything that would approach repeal of obamacare. do you sense that there's an appetite fo-to-vote for health care reform even if it somehow made it out of the house? >> i tell you, i think my senate colleagues are largely praying it never comes out of the house and they don't have to vote on it. >> why is that? >> it's a proposal that will eliminate health care for millions of americans. the new considerations coming out of the house actually make it much worse because there's been a big emphasis that they

would absolutely protect pre-existing conditions. most americans when they're 55, 60, they have a pre-existing condition. the idea that if you have any possible break in coverage, you now can't get coverage or be charged such extraordinary fees that you could never secure coverage. this is a complete violation of the promises the trump administration put forward. you have a very terrible plan made worse. and it's a bad vote no matter how you frame it for my republican colleagues. >> are you pretty confident, senator merkley that despite a republican president, house and senate that obamacare as it exists today will remain in place? >> i think the odds are that the core elements will remain in place. i tell you, of course, there will be a tremendous amount of arm twisting and leg breaking should it come over to the senate. you know, there's power in the presidency in that. and we'll have to weigh that shortly if it happens. >> jeff merkley of oregon, always pleasure to talk with you. >> likewise.

great to be here. thank you. another investigation into president trump's former national security adviser, retired general michael flynn. we'll go live to the white house for the latest reporting and speak live with the ranking member of the house committee adam schiff. meanwhile mark zuckerberg looks like he may be testing the waters for a different line of work. is the billionaire really eyeing a run for public office? that's next on "morning joe."

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but we've got the get tdigital tools to help. now with xfinity's my account, you can figure things out easily, so you won't even have to call us. change your wifi password to something you can actually remember, instantly. add that premium channel, and watch the show everyone's talking about, tonight. 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 trump is still struggling with his approval rating. i heard of an anti-trump bar that opened in new york city where all the profits go to -- >> anti-trump bar in manhattan is giving patrons a chance to put their money where their politics are. the founders of coup say the space is a response to

republican president donald trump's administration. >> i think i noticed something in the background. can we go back to the bar and zoom in? yeah, that's it. their best customer. >> who doesn't love a fishbowl margarita? come on. >> facebook is cracking down on fake news after facing backlash for its role in spreading fake news in the 2016 presidential election, recently shutting down tens of thousands of fake accounts and internal document reveals just how extensive the problem might be. joining us from washington, nbc correspondent gabe gutierrez. good morning. what's facebook doing about this? >> hi, willie. good morning. it's not only shutting down those accounts but putting more effort into new bogus accounts and facebook is now acknowledging what the intelligence community has been saying for months, that fake news is all too real. information operations that are trying to manipulate public

opinio opinion. >> waging war against fake news. >> a bunch of fake users with online lives that you manage, right? >> the growing problem straight out of the show "homeland." >> vacation's over. a new set of talking points in your folders. get outraged. >> the real battle for truth may be even stranger than fiction. >> known as the white paper most bogus facebook accounts are run by people. the goal may not be to promote one candidate or cause but to fuel tension and create chaos. >> the white paper that facebook relays today is all about tracking down the sources for these fake news. they're looking at not only the source but the distribution methods that these actors are using. >> the report says the problem goes beyond posting fake news story bus amplifying them with coordinated likes to boost their

reach, leading to malicious software. the stakes are global. facebook says it suspended 30,000 fake accounts before the first round of france's election just days ago. coming months after u.s. officials revealed russia used a sophisticated propaganda machine to influence the 2016 election. and following this warning by then president obama. >> if we can't discriminate between serious arguments and propaganda, then we have problems. >> reporter: at the time, critics zeroed in on facebook with ceo mark zuckerberg originally dismissing the idea at a conference. >> personally i think the idea that, you know, fake news on facebook of which -- it's a very small amount of the content, influenced the election in any way, i think, is a pretty crazy idea. >> reporter: in its new report,

facebook maintains that the impact of fake news was marginal during the election. still they say they're taking action to ensure authentic debate in the future. but this raises questions about his political ambitions in the future. he was visiting a ford plant in michigan, even signed an inspection sticker and he says it's part of his new year's resolution, to connect with more americans. yeah, certainly raising a lot of questions about what he may be planning in the future, willie. >> never too early to start running. gabe gutierrez, thanks very much. the trump administration continues the rollout of the tax plan, sean spicer created some confusion when he was asked yesterday whether or not retirement accounts would lose their tax exempt status. >> the secretary of the treasury and director cohn yesterday both talked about that the current plan right now, both protects charitable giving and mortgage interest and that's it. >> the white house quickly worked to clarify spicer's

comments there, reportedly saying 401(k) plans will not be targeted under the tax plan. that had caused a little bit of panic among americans on wall street and all kinds of of plac >> clearly within the white house as well. >> yeah. they got out quickly to fix that one. >> especially with me. >> that's what happens when you don't unveil a lot of details. you get confusion and of course he's the spokesperson so he's going to be asked questions that the director mnuchin and cohn were not asked the day before. >> that's right. still ahead, the pope heads to egypt today. we'll go live to keir simmons in cairo. plus. >> he's asking them to vote for a bill that is wdly unpopular in the country, is the wrong thing to do first andforemost, is going to be doodoo stuck to their shoe for a long time to come. with terrible consequences to the american people. >> democrats savoring republicans' inability to get through a health care overhaul bill.

and new warning over north korea, more on president trump saying the u.s. could be headed toward a major, major conflict. we're back in just a moment. excuse me, are you aware of what's happening right now? we're facing 20 billion security events every day. ddos campaigns, ransomware, malware attacks... actually, we just handled all the priority threats. you did that? we did that. really. we analyzed millions of articles and reports. we can identify threats 50% faster. you can do that? we can do that. then do that. can we do that? we can do that.

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take a look at this. ♪ [ laughter ] >> i think they all got something going for them. >> they got it going on. >> president trump was set to mark the 100th day of his presidency by announcing he was pulling the united states from the north american free trade agreement, but instead of keeping one of his highest profile campaign promises, the president abruptly reversed course. >> while i was going to terminate nafta as of two or three days from now, the president of mexico, who i have a very, very good relationship, called me, and also the prime minister of canada, who i have a very good relationship and i like both of these gentlemen very much, they called me. and they said rather than terminating nafta could you please renegotiate, i said i

will hold on the termination, let's see if we can make it a fair deal. nafta's been a horrible deal for the united states. if i'm unable to make a fair deal for the united states, meaning a fair deal for our workers and our companies, i will terminate nafta. >> "the washington post" reports that members of trump's cabinet, including commerce secretary wilbur ross, jared kushner urged president to hold off on the termination. and agriculture secretary purdue brought a map of the united states to the oval office to illustrate which areas would be hardest hit by the decision, noting many of them were trump country, communities that voted for the president in november. the ptd telling "the washington post," quote, it shows i do have a very big farmer base, which is good, trump recalled. they like trump. but i like them, and i'm going to help them. formal nafta negotiations will likely begin in august. so this was one of those -- this was in the span of about six or seven hours this change where

they said -- trump said he was going to get inside of nafta, blow the thing up and the white house quickly later in the day said we're not getting out of nafta. >> after a crash course from some of his advisors. what he probably learned is canada and mexico are second and third largest trading partners that a lot of industries are integrated, whether automobile or retail between the three countries and it's a lot harder to pull out than it actually is to go out on campaign trails and say we're going to be doing this and it's going to impact a lot of his voters and voters that have jobs in these particular sectors. so renegotiate is one thing. one has to wonder if he could have gone about this a bit easier as opposed to creating this mess. >> it shows he's capable of making u-turns. they're uncomfortable, sometimes painful and thankfully at this moment doesn't seem as damaging as it could have been. but i agree. the thing i was most curious about was a map being brought over and reminding him of how his supporters would be hurt by this. hopefully if they do begin these negotiations in august, that we

have a credible plan in place as opposed to just reactions or being reactionary. >> and probably told him that these countries could in fact retaliate against the u.s. if in fact we followed through on this. >> and donald trump probably thought he was living up to a campaign promise to stop the flow of jobs out of this country, which is one of the themes he hit again and again, but he's reminded by some advisors this week anyway it's a lot of the same people he thought he would be helping would be hurt. >> "the washington post" reporting is fascinating. you have to ask yourself how he got today almost 100 without his advisors already telling him there were problems for american workers and american manufacturers if they pulled out of nafta in totality. also shows how much close relationship, personal relationships really matter to this president. we've heard him already talking about his relationship with xi jinping in the reuters interview, here with trudeau and pena nieto.

it's something other leaders around the world should be watching closely. >> more proof we are living daily through an ad lib presidency. >> yes. >> as we hit the top of the hour, the next hour of "morning joe" continues right now with the president's comments to reuters about north korea. >> well, there's a chance that we could end up having a major, major conflict with north korea. absolutely. >> that is the president of the united states yesterday. president trump saying that while he'd love for diplomacy to win out, there is a possibility of war on the horizon or as he called it, quote, major, major conflict. good morning. it is friday april 28th. joe and mica have the morning off. msnbc contributor mike barnacle -- >> stop it. >> i'm starting to think you don't like that after eight years of it. former democratic congressman harold ford jr. here, also donny

deutsche. and in washington, washington anchor for bbc world news america katty kay, jake sherman and research fellow at the hoover institution, lonhi chen. good morning, all. i want to go to you, real quick, jake, will there ever be a health care vote? we know it's postponed and there won't be one today. >> i'm increasingly skeptical as i left the hill last night i was talking to my colleagues and we wrote in playbook this morning there's a simple dynamic emerging that we're beginning to see 20% of house republicans simply do not want to repeal obamacare. they don't see it as politically advantageous and republicans were warning about this in 2010 and 2011 when democrats passed obamacare. they said, listen, this is a new benefit that a lot of americans are getting and it's going to be tough to take it away. listen, i think they could and they might get enough votes to pass this next week. but it ain't easy.

and president trump's influence on the hill, he was pressing personally pressing for a vote this week. his influence on the hill is not what he thought it was and that's a big problem. >> again, no vote this week means no victory that the trump white house is hoping to have for that 100 day speech tomorrow in pennsylvania at the rally. let's go back to that interview with reuters first. president trump gave his assessment of north korea's leader kim jong-un. speaking on how the third generation dictator came into power, trump said, quote, he's 27 years old. his father dies, took over a regime. say what you want, but that's not easy, especially at that age. i'm not giving him credit or not giving him credit, i'm just saying that's a very hard thing to do. as to whether or not he's rational, i have no opinion on it. i hope he's rational. and trump said he would, quote, love to solve things in north korea diplomatically, but it's very difficult. >> well, there's a chance that we could end up having a major,

major conflict with north korea. absolutely. >> in an interview with npr, secretary of state rex tillerson says the united states still favors direct talks with north korea and told fox news yesterday of kim jong-un, all indications are that he is not crazy. he may be ruthless, he may be a murderer, he may be someone who in many respects we would say by our standards is irrational, but he is not insane. katty kay, let me start with you with the initial comment president trump talking about a potential major, major conflict. big language coming directly from the white house on a very explosive conflict potentially. >> yeah. i mean, at some point we have to start asking ourself ss this just the way that donald trump speaks. and he speaks in superlatives. doesn't necessarily mean that they're taking or considering taking some kind of massive action militarily against north korea. such a fascinating interview alongside an interview in "the washington post" about nafta where we could see the president's learning curve in

realtime on north korea. because also in that interview he talked about the fact he'd been approached on a call about taiwan from the taiwanese president, but because he has a very good relationship with president xi he would like to consult beijing first. this is the president realizing the limits of what he can do and how much he needs other countries to try and get things done. north korea, that's example number one, right? he realizes now he needs the chinese, so he can't do anything at would possibly alienate them at the moment. >> you know thrks is one of those moments in this presidency where you -- it's very concerning. you got a president of the united states -- harold, you've been in washington and served in house of representatives, when you have a president of the united states really turning up the bunson burner in a situation saying there's a chance we're going to have a major conflict with north korea, absolutely. that's the president of the united states speaking. words have meaning. i don't know. i feel uncomfortable that a

president would be saying this in a situation so fraught with danger. >> you almost hope he would take the same position he took after the test of that missile when awry and there was some suggestion that maybe america had a role in it. but he didn't tweet. he didn't say a word. too, it's slightly encouraging to hear tillerson align ourselves with china and say our goal is denuclearization. three, the thing that worries me so much, this guy is irrational. >> who? trump or -- which one? >> for the president to take the position that he's not rational or is rational, i think to katty, almost have to get used to the way he talks. and you can't invest totally in thinking that he's on the up and up when he talks. >> the problem with that though, donny, i think when katty said that we nodded this is the way donald trump speaks in superlatives, but now he's the president of the united states and now north korea is watching

and when he says that, they believe that's the posture of the united states government. someone like kim jong-un does. >> interesting enough and i'm going to defend trump which i rarely do and pick up what katty is saying, whether it is an individual, a corporation, congress, we are learning, yes, he is president and he should not speak in those grandiose terms, but we are learning to decipher. so if it was 99 days ago and he said that, we would be going into our bomb shelters and whatnot. basically what he was simply saying is, yeah, there could be a conflict, we know that. there's either this patience and somehow works itself out, or there will be conflict. like it or not he does speak in that way. our job as both citizens and more importantly as the rest of the world is to kind of translate to what that means. we're learning to do that. >> and what followed from that statement about a major, major comment is trump did say, but we prefer diplomacy, he talks about the efforts of the chinese, how impressed he's been with president xi since having their

meeting at mar-a-lago, et cetera. but the pullout quote, the jump out headline this morning is major, major conflict in north korea is listening to that. >> willie, we're used to talking about foreign policy in moderated terms. >> right. >> think about the last several administrations, this point that words matter, they do matter in the sense that administrations have conveyed foreign policy through nuance. that's not how this president works. you know, what president trump was expressing is not a significant deviation from u.s. policy with respect to north korea. we've always maintained that a military option would be on the table. what is unusual of course is the tone and tenor he's taken in discussing the potential for that military action. so i think it's important for us to separate out the tone from the policy. now, admittedly that may be difficult with this administration, but let's just recognize here not a huge change in u.s. policy. >> right. >> but huge change in the way we talk about it. >> meanwhile n that same interview with reuters the president addressed the cost of american military protection for its ally south korea, which was a frequent topic during his

campaign. he said seoul should pay for a u.s. anti-missile system he priced at $1 billion and insisted on changes to a 2011 u.s.-korea trade agreement. >> it's unacceptable. it's a horrible deal made by hillary. it's a horrible deal. we're going to renegotiate that deal or terminate it. >> when are you going to announce that? >> very soon. i'm announcing it now. >> the president's comment sent stocks tumbling in south korean financial markets which had improved with increased demand in cars and electronics. as for divisions in his white house on issues like free trade, the president told "the wall street journal" last night, quote, hey, i'm a nationalist and a globalist, i'm both. and i'm the only one who makes the decision. believe me. katty, let's go back to north korea talking about defense and the trade deal that exists between the united states and south korea. what are the implications of the president of the united states saying that especially with the backdrop of this potential

situation with north korea? >> at the moment the united states needs china but also needs to make sure it doesn't alienate allies in south korea going through a very difficult political transition of its own at the moment. this is the kind of thing where i think the president is saying i'm announcing now that i'm renegotiating an important american trade deal a little in the way he said or the white house floated the idea it was thinking of pulling out of nafta a couple days ago. these things could have material consequences as we found out when the mexican peso and canadian dollar both fell. so the president has to be careful not to be rash in the way that he announces things. it is this kind of weird slightly off the cuff, here we go, i'm going to announce a policy right now in an interview in a way that didn't seem planned or thought through necessarily. that has consequences for america's allies. >> to katty's point, i don't necessarily disagree with donny or you, i wasn't trying to be

too critical, he did recognize that north kprorea is a family business. if we ever had an organization that understands family business, president trump understands that. this president finally has a cabinet and leaders around him that understand. so you have tillerson saying we don't want regime change in north korea, which is a positive in many ways. the thing most confusing is the last part of what willie said that quoted the president, take it to lanhee and get his reaction is the president invoke south korea. one thing want talk about peninsula and other aspirations and goals, they want us out of south korea. president trump thinks in terms of tweets. the president of china thinks in terms of centuries. as you think about south korea in that last comment, how do you put that in the context of your answer to what we ought to be thinking about with trump in terms of nuances and his language. >> i think that's an excellent point you make that the chinese view is the long view, there's

no question about it. see how much has evolved already in the course of the first 100 days of trump's presidency and you went from a campaign where the president was talking about how china was taking the u.s. to the cleaners. now to a situation where the two leaders very much looking at a relationship based on pragmatism. that's really what i'm watching for now as these two leaders develop their relationship going forward. really we're not just talking about the relationship between trump and xi. we're talking about the relationship between the two most significant powers on the global stage today. that is certainly a big factor here. south korea is a factor in that as well clearly because one of the big issues you look at when you look at the asia pacific are the economic issues and really trade is first and foremost. the u.s. pulling out of tpp now. the u.s.-korea deal becomes that much more important to the koreans. you can understand why they're concerned. >> still ahead on "morning joe," the upside is congress may pass a bill to keep the government running past midnight. bad news, the spending plan would last all of one week

before they have to do it all again. we'll break down where the negotiations stand right now. also ahead, congressman adam schiff, ranking member of the house intelligence committee, joins us live. a lot to talk to him about from the investigation into michael flynn to his new push to get congress to actually vote on the use of military force against isis. but first, bill karins has a look at the weather. >> willie sorks many things to talk about this weekend with weather. a lot of issues especially in the middle of the country. the first risk this afternoon and this evening, we have 24 million people at risk of severe storms, large hail, damaging winds, everyone a few isolated tornadoes, oklahoma through southern missouri, st. louis, louisville, lexington, peducah all included. bermuda high pressure pumping warm air up the coast and moisture right up into areas of louisiana, east texas, arkansas and missouri. we have a flash flood threat, torrential rain, maybe three days in a row here. that's going to cause significant flash flooding and

river flooding into next week. here's our rainfall predictions. this is through sunday. that's five to seven inches of rain. remember, we just got two inches of rain two days ago, so the water's already saturated, river's already up and that's going to be an issue here locally eight to ten inches too. how about colorado, wyoming, it's snowing this morning. snow in denver three to six inches friday night into saturday morning. there are leaves on the trees. power outages are possible throughout this region. a lot of issues out there in the middle of the nation. west coast looking good this morning and up the eastern seaboard get ready for taste of summer today. d.c. to new york temperatures in the 80s and possibly warmer tomorrow. to washington, d.c. we had a gloomy start to your week and we're going to end it in a full blast. today 84, tomorrow 92. you're watching "morning joe." david. what's going on? oh hey! ♪ that's it? yeah. ♪ everybody two seconds! ♪

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now to the threat of a government shutdown. congressional leaders say they expect to pass legislation to

keep the lights on before tonight's midnight deadline. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell said the senate will pass a short term funding bill so a final agreement can be drafted and shared with members before consideration next week. the stopgap funding bill hit a roadblock yesterday after democrats threatened to vote no if republicans brought up a bill to repeal the affordable care act this week. despite pressure from the white house, gop leaders have delayed that health care vote. in the absence of a funding deal, president trump fired off six tweets over the course of three minutes yesterday blasting democrats and accusing them of trying to force a shutdown. he wrote, quote, i promise to rebuild our military and secure our border. democrats want to shut down the government. politics. he also wrote, what's more important, rebuilding our military or bailing out insurance companies? ask the democrats. a spokesman for senate minority leader chuck schumer hit back at president trump saying the shutdown tweets are desperate, unhinged and showing startling lack of awareness for where the negotiations actually are. and on capitol hill there was

plenty of finger pointing over who was responsible for delaying the funding bill. >> the reason this government funding bill is not ready is because democrats have been dragging their feet. i'm confident we'll be able to pass a short-term extension. i'd be kind of shocked that the democrats would want to create a government shutdown because they have been dragging their feet. >> we are never going to shut government down. in fact, we don't even have the power to do so. they have the majority, they have the president, they have the senate, they have the house. any shutting down of government, the ball is in their court. we have not done that. >> all right. jake, put this in plain english for the rest of us we can understand what exactly is happening here. short-term funding though will be passed, that's just kicking the can down the road, right? >> exactly. i actually agree with nancy pelosi, i think. republicans do control the house, senate and white house. so it's incumbent upon them to keep government open. so they're going to pass a short-term bill which funds the government until next week. and then these negotiations over

a longer term funding agreement probably anywhere from a couple months until october will take place next week. and donald trump's tweets chuck schumer's spokesman is right, that's not where the negotiations are are or anywhere close, that's just blaming democrats based on a couple peripheral issues. this is mostly tied up. there's not going to be a government shutdown. the long-term funding bill is going to pass. these are famous last words, but i do believe that to be true. and this shouldn't be as much drama as there is. but what this does do, kicking this into next week ensures that these two weeks, which the house is in session and then goes away for, these two weeks are squarely focused on housekeeping, funding the government, no proactive legislating for donald trump, no achievements besides keeping the lights on. >> so there was this hustle and bustle on capitol hill all week. we were talking about tax reform. we were talking about repealing obamacare and having an entirely new health bill. at the end of the week what we're left with is really just this short-term funding bill.

tax reform obviously is a long-term project that's going to go on through the year if it gets completed. what about the health care bill? do we ever come back to it? does anything get passed? how do you cobble together the tuesday group and freedom caucus and all these pieces who haven't been able to find common ground? >> very difficult. very, very difficult, especially because members of congress as harold knows well do not want to walk a plank for a bill that's going to have no chance of being signed into law. so if you look forward to november 2018, if you vote to repeal the health care law and the senate does nothing, you don't have any of the political upside and you only have political downside. so i think members of congress that i'm talking to every day are looking at that dynamic and saying, listen, we could do some fixes to the health care law. we could do some things on a bipartisan basis to fix some of the shortcomings or some of the holes in the bill. but why would we vote to repeal the thing when the senate is not going to pass it? and i think that's the overwhelming dynamic right now. >> coming up on "morning joe," president trump fails to push a health care vote in his first 100 days in office. but is it really a legacy buster

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let me start with a simple question. was michael flynn properly vetted by the trump transition team before being named national security advisor? >> they work hard on vetting. it's impossible to know everything. i don't know what they did in that case. and i'm not aware and i'm not involved in studying it. i would expect not to be involved in this one. >> you would recuse yourself from any decision dealing with general flynn? >> yeah. i don't know whether there's an investigation or should be. and we don't confirm investigations, you know, in the department of justice. >> real quickly, his attorney says he has a story to tell and they've asked for immunity in exchange for testifying. should he be given immunity? >> we'll see. the people who have the authority to decide that would be the people to decide that. >> that was attorney general jeff sessions earlier this morning on the "today" show. joining us now from the white

house nbc news national correspondent peter alexander. peter, good morning. what more can you tell us about the investigations into general flynn? >> reporter: you just heard from jeff sessions there, we also posed this question to the president yesterday briefly brushing off those yelled questions about ousted national security advisor michael flynn. flynn now being investigated as we just noted by the pentagon's inspector general for accepting foreign payments without prior approval. the payments include money received from the kremlin-funded tv channel rt, a pentagon spokesperson says was in potential violation of the law. yesterday the top democrat on house oversight committee, that's elijah cummings, the maryland democrat, released a six-page partially redacted letter to flynn from the defense intelligence agency pointing to its warning about receiving advance approval for these types of foreign payments. attorney for flynn said he'd briefed the defense intelligence agency before and after flynn's trip to moscow. cummings says the committee hasn't received documents showing flynn asked for that

kind of permission. and he's accusing the white house of covering up for flynn that triggered this response from the white house press secretary sean spicer. >> general flynn was a career military officer who maintained a high level security clearance throughout his career in the military. his clearance was last reissued by the obama administration in 2016 with full knowledge of his activities that occurred in 2015. all of that clearance was made by the obama -- during the obama administration and apparently with knowledge of the trip that he took. why would you re-run a background check on someone who is the head of the department of the defense intelligence agency that had and did maintain a high level security clearance? >> reporter: to be clear, nbc news has learned from sources close to the investigation the trump administration and actually the white house did do its own background check on flynn and hired him any way. white house officials tell us that that sort of cummings news conference as they describe was ludicrous and politicizing this

issue. they're accusing cummings in their words totally circumventing the process for seeking information from an administration. it's notable, willie, even as the president tries to prepare to celebrate 100 days in office as it were, they're still in effect deflecting questions about what happened on day 26 when mike flynn was pushed out of his position here behind the scenes, willie. >> nbc's peter alexander at the white house for us. peter, thanks. joining us, democratic congressman adam schiff of california. congressman, good to see you this morning. >> thank you. >> let's take up sean spicer's argument yesterday there in the white house briefing room that general flynn was worked under the obama administration, he was vetted by the obama administration including in 2016 after these payments took place. he says the obama administration knew about it. what do you make of that defense that it was the obama administration's responsibility and not that of the trump administration? >> well, i think it falls the pattern of the trump administration which is to blame obama for everything and every mistake they made. the reality is he was fired by the obama administration.

and i haven't seen the security forms that he filled out to determine whether general flynn in fact filled them out accurately and disclosed these trips. if he didn't, that's another problem for general flynn. but none of this lets the trump administration off the hook for not doing adequate vetting. they obviously knew about this trip to russia. and i'll tell you, when i read this op-ed that flynn wrote right around the time of the election urging the united states to hand over gulen to erdogan, this cleric that lives in pennsylvania, that struck me as so peculiar and so odd. now we know why, he was paid essentially half a million dollars to write op-eds like that one. there should have been red flags going up during the vetting process. and no amount of shifting blame towards barack obama lets the administration off the hook for this. but it obviously is also adding to the troubles for general flynn. >> your colleague, congressman elijah cummings, has expressed his frustration this week not

getting access to documents he says he thinks the white house has that might shed some light on general flynn and his relationships with foreign governments. what's your greatest frustration with the trump white house right now as you try to conduct your investigation? >> well, you know, thus far i think it's the effort at deflection. it's the i think overall unwillingness to accept the seriousness of what russia did in the election and an attempt to distract and point fingers and point attention in other places. that i think has been the biggest problem that we've confronted. but nonetheless, you know, we're keeping our eyes on the ball. what the public has charged us to do. and that is figure out each and every way the russians interfered in our election. and do so in a very matter of fact way and follow the evidence wherever it leads. >> congressman, prior to his white house service, prior to his election hearing last year on behalf of donald trump, general flynn served as head of the dia, defense intelligence

agency, and prior to that for a period of time he was stan mccrystal's intelligence officer in afghanistan and received glowing, glowing grades from everyone he encountered and who encountered him. some called him the best intelligence officer of his generation. now, this might not be a question that you could adequately answer. i don't know. but i'm going to ask it any way, do you have any sense during the course of your investigations what happened to michael flynn? >> you know, i can't answer that in terms of the investigation. i can say that i think, you know, my understanding quite separate and apart from the investigation is that when flynn was in theater, when he was working with general mcchrystal, he was in the right place for skill set where he was highly thought of. when he took a management position where he had

supervisory, very acute management problems quickly materialized. there were also problems with what people apparently called flynn facts, his penchant for reaching conclusions and then sending out the intelligence agency to try to justify them. that resulted ultimately in his firing. so i think he rose to a position where he was not well suited or well skilled. that was a real problem. i can tell you this, my closest interaction with him prior to this time, prior to the investigation was during the benghazi investigation. and i remember bringing him in as someone who had castigated susan rice and hillary clinton for in his view misrepresenting what happened in benghazi. and i asked him about his claims that intelligence was politicized because some of that early intelligence that suggested benghazi began as a protest came from his own agency when he was running that agency. and his answer shocked everyone in the room. and this transcript has been released so i can talk about it when flynn said it did begin as

a protest. and it was shocking because of course that was no longer the understanding. it was only the understanding in a very few short hours after the attack and that he would be so misinformed and have said such contrary things for the last year and a half i think struck everybody as very bizarre. so i don't know when his career wept off the rails. but i suspect it was after he left that job with general mcchrystal. >> congressman, donny deutsche, obviously hopefully some of these questions will be answered. just common sense sanity check for me, obviously so many questions going forward is how much did the president know about flynn's relationships, connections with russia. trump was running on basically very early on a bromance with russia, wouldn't one think from a common sense point of view that flynn would have been blabbing ad nauseam about everything he had, knew, connected with russia to almost curry favor with his boss? that's a guy who ran a company common sense to me.

does that make sense? >> well, it may, i don't know. but i think one thing we have seen that's very much in the public record is after the president felt necessary to fire michael flynn, and we still don't know all the details and we look forward to having sally yates among others testify to shed light on this, nonetheless the president praised general flynn. and that was, i think, the president's way of saying that what mike flynn did was perfectly fine with him. he was upset for the press -- at the press for forcing him to fire flynn. but what flynn was doing apparently had the approval of the president if not preapproval certainly the president was approving of his conduct. so that does raise questions whether there was any distance between the president and michael flynn. but we simply don't know the answers at this point. >> congressman, it's biana, a couple weeks ago one of your colleagues on the intelligence committee said something that raised a lot of eyebrows when he said what he'd been privy to and

the information he'd seen convinced him that somebody from the trump administration or trump team would end up behind bars at the end of the day. given what we now know, the new revelations about general flynn and what you've learned over the past few months, do you agree with him? >> what i've said is i think we should follow the facts and not predetermine where they lead. and i would say that generally about the investigation. certain certainly there's enough in the public domain to suggest that mike flynn has some serious legal jeopardy in terms of whether he took money that he had no right to take, whether he disclosed or didn't disclose as he was required to do on his security forms and through the vetting process of these payments he received from other countries. and whether he made any false statements that would be subject to legal liability. so there's obviously a legal cloud hanging over general flynn such that he wants immunity. but beyond that what's in the public domain i really can't

comment. >> congressman, it's katty here. just to be clear and step back at the moment, there is no evidence that ties anyone in the trump orbit or the trump campaign to the russians in a sense they were deliberately trying to work with the russians to change the outcome of the american election. that's why these investigations are so important. a lot of people are starting to ask what's happened to the investigations, why are they taking so long? is it the white house that's stalling the process or is it your republican colleagues on capitol hill who are making this go so slowly? >> well, you know, i would give you really a different explanation and that is this is a massive undertaking, this investigation. it's global in nature. it's not only document intensive but witness intensive. and those witnesses are all over the globe. so while we all feel a real sense of urgency about it, it simply isn't the kind of investigation you can conduct overnight. so i know people are asking, you know, why isn't the investigation over already and i think people really need to understand, and i say this as a

former prosecutor handled large white collar investigations, they take time to do. and if we're not going to do it thoroughly, people aren't going to be able to rely on the results we come up with. so people are going to have to be somewhat patient. i know how hard that is, believe me, i'd like to get this done yesterday. but it is going to take time to bring all these witnesses in, to review all these records, to look at financial transactions that may span the globe. none of this can be done overnight. >> briefly, do you have a sense of how long? >> i really don't. that's probably the most difficult question we get asked. and i don't think we can put an artificial constraint on it. i will tell you this, one of the biggest constraints we have is woe simply have a small staff, both our committee and senate intelligence committee. but i will also add i think we are moving forward. we obviously have run into a lot of road bumps on the house side. we've now overcome those. mike conoway and i are working extremely well.

we've agreed on initial witness list, we are moving forward with hearings. i think we are very much now full speed ahead. >> all right, congressman adam schiff, ranking democrat on the house intel committee. congressman, thanks for being with us this morning. >> thank you. coming up next, one of the koch brothers calls on the president to think about big businesses. and the pope arriving in egypt after a deadly year there for christians. a live report from keir simmons in cairo when "morning joe" comes back.

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welcome back to "morning joe." pope francis arrived in cairo, egypt, earlier this hour amid an uptake of terror attacks against coptic christians in that country. joining us live from cairo, nbc foreign correspondent keir simmons. keir, good morning. tell us about the pope's trip. >> reporter: good morning. well, he just landed here in cairo around an hour ago. and he was taken straight through a meeting with the president of egypt. to give you a picture of the

security along the 12-mile route from the airport to the city they've posted security every few hundred yards. that of course because isis here has threatened to slaughter christians in its own words in propaganda videos. and the pope himself today will go to a church where an isis suicide bomber attacked just before christmas. and there were two churches attacked by suicide bombers in the last month. all of this the background to all of this is the pressure on christians in this region. here in egypt coptic christians make up around 10% of the population. but the story is of a fear of christians leaving the region because of these kinds of threats from isis in particular. the pope hoping to counteract that with a message of peace and friendship meeting with muslim leaders. he will be here until tomorrow. and, you know, despite all of

that security threat he won't be in a pope mobile, but he won't either be in a bullet proof car. >> wow. quite a security presence there behind you there. keir simmons in cairo. keir, thanks so much. let's bring in cnbc's dominic chu with business before the bell. bad headline for the trump administration on the gdp number. >> this is the first reading we got on economic activity in the first quarter, one that starts of course donald trump's presidency. it comes in at a growth rate of 0.7%, if that sounds small, it is. it's not growing a lot at all and a lot of economists were expecting a more robust growth rate, about 1% to maybe 1.2%. the real issue is consumer spending. because people apparently just aren't spending as much in this past first quarter. only up about 0.3%. the reason why it is important, willie, is because you've got basically 70%, more than two-thirds of the u.s. economy

driven by us going out there and buying things. and that's just not happening as much as people thought it was. that's going to be a real key going forward, although i will point out it's not a panic situation. typically the first quarter of the year always ends up being a little bit slower than the other ones. >> dominic, this mike barnicle, willie will be back in a moment. why is the first quarter like that? >> it's seasonal. you have a lot of stuff happening in the fourth quarter, people spend around the holidays and whatnot, so you see a little bit of a pull forward kind of event. and then there's a lot of seasonal anomalies that happen with the way people count how many days are in certain parts of the reporting periods. what it comes down to is we are expecting better economic growth in the coming months ahead. i mean, this current quarter we're expecting maybe closer to around 3% growth. when it all balances out you're talking about treasury secretary steven mnuchin and gary cohn at the economic council looking for growth above 2%, hopefully maybe

3% at some point. >> okay, dominic chu, thank you very much. charles koch has a new op-ed in "the washington post" and writes in part, trump's policies must not benefit only big businesses like mine. on the plus side, the president has taken a thoughtful approach to regulatory reform. at the same time i've used some actions of this administration as counterproductive. these include broad travel bans, discouraging free trade and tendency toward rhetoric that too easily divides americans instead of uniting them. also writes the administration should bypass border adjustment tax and make room for tax cuts by encouraging congress to reign in wasteful spending and reduce corporate welfare provisions that benefit big business at the expense of families. a tax code that champions main street is vital for economic growth and innovation on these issues -- >> mike, i want to jump back to those. >> we want dominic's take. >> i'm sorry, i thought dominic was gone.

dominic, i'm sorry. i threw you out. my bad. >> no worries. i mean, this is a huge op-ed coming from obviously one of the biggest business leaders in america. he runs the biggest private company out there. and he also is a huge republican donor. i mean, yes, he did say he was going to support hillary clinton during the campaigns at one point. but he also talks about this idea that health care legislation could be back on the table, right? if you take a look at maybe changing the laws, letting states have more autonomy in the way they operate within medicaid, also within the existing structure for obamacare. that's big too. what i also thought was interesting, guys, the criminal justice system he talks specifically about the idea that we should revamp and relook at the way we treat non-violent criminal offenders. he believes in the second chance. if you did not create, if you did not commit a violent crime and you've somehow been able to rehabilitate yourself, you should get another stab at being able to be a productive member of society. all of those things part of the conversation. >> dominic chu, thanks very

much. again. >> i want to bounce one off you, one of the first jobs numbers trump took a victory lap, we know jobs numbers are not happening in realtime. that's the result of obama. he will clearly say these fourth quarter numbers on obama's watch are his rults but ironically they're not, post consumer spending are very tied to what people are feeling at the moment. is my theory true? >> you are true in part because a lot of uncertainty lies in these numbers as well. consumers not knowing whether or not they're going to get the tax cuts they were promised, not know whag to expect from this administration whether they're going to be more protected or expand on trade, what have you, because this president changes on a daily basis. i want to go back to the op-ed from koch because it seemed the president heeded his advice at least when it came to the border adjustment tax because he said that's not going to be part of any sort of deal he's going to make for taxes. >> do you sense that, you know, the economic numbers are one thing, but low growth rate that was just announced, that's another thing, but there's like sort of a sea of uncertainty

that surrounds nearly everything coming out of washington these past two or three months. that has to be -- >> well rkts it resonates. we've spent so much time talking about wall street continuing to hit new highs because of all of these hopes that the president puts out there, but again, one question is whether or not this is a bubble, whether or not wall street is reacting too much to what they're hearing right now. because obviously we're hearing words and not real action. >> okay. up next, donald trump has spent 99 days in the oval office, but he's still got over 1,300 to go, so how much can you really judge the president on these opening months? historian who better to tell us about that, he comes up next right here on "morning joe." the. it comes when your insurance company says they'll only pay three-quarters of what it takes to replace it. what are you supposed to do? drive three-quarters of a car? now if you had liberty mutual new car replacement™, you'd get your whole car back. i guess they don't want you driving around on three wheels.

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i know that many of you have noted the robust pace that the president has kept during these first 100 days so it's just a glimpse of some of the action he's taken and some of the key priorities he's made to the american people. despite the obstruction by senate democrats he's worked with congress to pass more legislation in his first 100 days than any president since truman. >> we will find out more about that right now joining us chief legal correspondent ari melber and in washington, michael beschloss. start with you. we don't want the tv to explode as we do fact checking on what sean spicer just said -- >> may happen, mikele. >> we've been talking about the

100 days for 100 days. first of all before we get to the fact checking does the 100 days seem like it's dog years to you? >> yeah. it seems like a really long 100 days. maybe the longest seeming 100 days in a really long time. but normally you do not see presidents and the people who work for them saying, you know, this has been the biggest 100 days in history and all these, you know, things coming out of congress. usually presidents try to tap it down. as you know well john kennedy, in his inaugural said, all my goals, all this will not be finished in the first 100 days. barack obama on election night 2008 when he was accepting victory said it's not going to all happen at the very least during the first year, so at the same time donald trump has been saying it's a ridiculous measure, at the same time he's trying to sort of puff up what this record has been. >> ari, what's your sense of the way it's been covered? i mean, it's really worn on a lot of people.

it's now 96 days, 98 days, getting close to 100 days. >> well, you know, they say it takes two to have an annoying media narrative, so maybe the government and those of us in the media have participated. i don't think michael is out of a job as a historian even though we've had a lot of white house aides try to play historian and put out the numbers. you played the sean spicer clip. we looked at every bill that have been signed 28 total, but most of them have been agency regulations from the obama administration that were basically trying to nullify that. another 9 were ceremonial bills, naming federal buildings, for example. only six are laws of any legislative substance. the women in entre me nurship act, for example, and most don't have any major funding or policy attached to them. by any legal standard it's a thin legislative record so thin as to be difficult to see would be one way to put it. on the flip side, that's legislation. in executive actions we can say

that president has been very active, more executive actions in the last two -- than the last two administrations. the travel ban, whether you agree or disagree, it was, of course, a big move blocked in the courts right now, move on sanctuary cities, move on deregulation. what we've seen with president trump is him leaning into the executive powers. we saw that more in the waning days of the obama administration and that's an area whatever you think of the content they've been more active on the legislative side. he doesn't know how to work with congress even in his own party. >> there are 400 complete lies or misleading statements, 400 in 100 days. that's about 4 1/2 a day coming from the president. let's give him where credit is due. he is setting records. >> it's katty here in washington. >> hi. >> to what extent does history suggest we can judge the success of a president on how the first 100 days go? >> usually means very little. that's exactly the point because if you look at past presidents

and say, did the most important things in their administration, for instance, happen during the first 100 days, they rarely do. john kennedy's cuban missile crisis happened late in the second year. johnson's vietnam escalation happened about a year and a half later in a big way, you know, 9/11 for george bush, very late during the first year, george w. bush, so, you know, from the standpoint of donald trump if he wants to take some comfort from all of this, it is that, you know, the judgment ultimately of a president usually doesn't depend on this measure. >> michael, it's bianca. >> hi. >> how many presidents in the past campaigned on their first 100 days accomplishments? it seems something this president did a lot on the trail? >> he sure did. he said, you know, right before the election most mem morebly, elect me and you will have 100 days of action, all these important bills coming out of congress, beginning with health care reform and on other

occasions, you know, we'll have so many victories your heads -- your head will spin and you will be asking for no more victories. you'll be so filled with them. the big surprise to me has been that, you know, given that fact and given a fact that his party controls both houses of congress as paul ryan has called it, united republican government, i think it was fair to expect that during this first 100 days, you would see major pieces of legislation. health care reform, tax, you know, maybe on the border wall, other things, and it has really been very, very little, just as ari has said. >> ari, first you and then michael. do you have any sense of when the media coverage, framing up this first 100 days, began? >> my understanding is that fdr having passed 76 bills in 100 days during that big era for economic recovery set a standard that then, of course, the media later in the tv era glommed on to. one more thing as we look at this closing down the program, foreign travel is an area where

you see a snapshot that is telling. if you look at this, obama went to nine countries, was repairing the u.s. relation with the world. bush went to canada and mexico, common to work with our bordering allies. donald trump hasn't left the country in 100 days. >> he's gone to mar-a-lago. >> but this is another place where yes, it's just a yardstick but it does tell you something. is he a home body president or america first president, debate whether it's good or bad but a chance for the country to say wow, he's not leaving or talking to other countries and that tells you something about the orientation of his foreign policy. >> and could i also throw in one other thing. >> quickly. >> i still can't -- maybe some historian can explain this, why on earth are such an overwhelming number of top positions in the executive branch still empty, not nominations. i can't understand why that has happened. >> well, neither can us. or we can't either. michael -- >> glad i'm not alone.

>> thanks very much. that does it for us. ali verb she picks up the coverage right now. >> thank you, sir. good morning. i'm ali in for stephanie ruhle live overlooking the white house on day 99 of the trump presidency. breaking overnight to the brink, president trump startling new words on north korea. >> there's a chance that we could end up having a major, major conflict with north korea. absolutely. >> the secretary of state chairs a special u.n. session on it this morning. health care halted. republicans hit the brakes on obamacare repeal and replace in a last minute attempt to avoid a government shutdown as they attempt to scramble to get the votes. >> the bill in its original form was not ready for prime time. plus reality check, president trump opens up about his new life and what he's learned in 99 days in office. >> this is more work tha