hits. >> got to go. thank you for watching. i'll see you back here monday night, 6:00 p.m. eastern. check out my facebook page and follow me on twitter @greta. "hardball" with chris matthews starts right now. 100 days and a north korea missile test. this is "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. north korea has test-fired what u.s. officials say was a medium-range ballistic missile. it's the latest in a series of provocations amid heightened tensions in the region. according to officials who spoke to nbc news, the missile test failed, exploding just a few minutes after its launch. in response, the white house released this brief statement late today. the administration is aware of the most recent north korean missile test. the president has been briefed.

that's it. this is the fourth -- actually the ninth north korean missile launch since president trump took office. four of those missile tests have failed, and it comes just after he warned of a potential major conflict with that country. nbc's kelly cobiella joins us now from seoul, south korea. kelly, what's the story? >> reporter: well, chris, u.s. pacific command said they first got wind of this missile launch at about 5:33 this morning local time. they said that's when the launch happened. that would be 6:33 p.m. eastern time. they say the missile was fired from the southwest part of the country and that it failed just a couple of minutes after launch. they believe it was a medium-range kn-17, the same type of missile which was test-launched back at the beginning of april and again on april 17th. they say that it failed, exploding in midair, did not reach the sea of japan and exploded about 20 miles from the launch site. they also say that the "uss carl

vinson" was not in the sea of japan at the time. its last known location as far as we're aware was the philippines sea where it was conducting drills with the japanese allies. the u.s. officials say that they were expecting something like this, and they were watching it closely, but it does come a day after this very fiery propaganda video released by north korea showing what appeared to be an aircraft carrier in the crosshairs as well as buildings in washington, d.c. exploding in this propaganda video. also within a couple of days of north korea saying that they would not bow to international pressure, that they would continue on with missile tests and a sixth nuclear test despite any sort of sanctions or reaction from the international community. as you said, chris, the white house coming out with a very brief statement simply saying that the president was aware and has been briefed. south korean military officials

say that they also are very aware of this latest what they call provocation and they're keeping an eye on it. chris. >> thank you so much, nbc's kelly cobiella, who is over in seoul, south korea. let's get reaction from the white house from nbc's kelly o'donnell. every time i see those pictures of those people marching, i am really scared. those people right out of 1984. those people all laughing at one time, all marching in step, anything to appeal to the dear leader. what do you think of the white house reaction, kelly? what do you make of it? >> reporter: well, this evening it's just 17 words, chris, and that gives you an idea that the white house is trying to de-escalate this in terms of response, at least in the way it's communicating with the american public because we have seen over the course of the trump administration when other tests have taken place, they have not wanted to put president trump and kim jong-un kind of on the same level by having the president make a statement about the actions of the north korean leader. so i call it strategic brevity.

they try to say as little as possible to not inflame kim jong-un. just by the response of the united states in terms of political rhetoric, separate from what the pentagon may be doing. so the white house is trying to emphasize that the president takes this very seriously, and in an interview with reuters, he said there is the risk of a major, major conflict. at the same time, we've heard the president with effusive praise of chinese president xi after they've gotten to know each other with personal meetings and phone calls. the president urging his chinese counterpart to use its considerable influence over north korea to tamp down these provocations. the great fear is that over the next few years, the capability of north korea could expand to include a delivery system that could get a nuclear weapon to the west coast of the united states. that's the fear. and right now, of course, there is great concern about u.s. personnel. 30,000 troops in the region and

our partners and allies in asia in the target zone for north korea. so from the white house tonight, we have been told that they did expect that there would be additional tests, and they would respond. but you see that they chose to do so with as few words as possible, not to have any criticism directly from president trump to president kim jong-un. >> thank you so much. nbc's kelly o'donnell at the white house. anyway, with president trump on the verge of completing his first 100 days in office, he's closing out a week's long push to rack up as many last-minute achievements as possible. but in a candid oval office interview with roeuters, the president revealed he may have underestimated the difficulty of the job of president, acknowledging that he thought the work of the presidency would be easier than it really is. >> i loved my previous life. i had so many things going. i actually -- this is more work than in my previous life. i thought it would be easier. i do miss my old life. this -- i like to work, so that's not a problem. but this is actually more work.

>> well, trump's remarks seemed out of character for the man who repeatedly said on the campaign trail that being presidential and accomplishing his many agenda items would be, quote, easy. let's watch. >> it's so much easier to be presidential because i don't have to use any energy. >> you know, being presidential is easy, much easier than what i have to do. >> you're going to have such great health care at a tiny fraction of the cost, and it's going to be so easy. >> there's never been a country that's lost jobs like we do so stup stupidly, so easy to solve. >> the wall is peanuts. that's going to be one of the easy negotiations, believe me. >> a lot of politicians said you can't get mexico to pay for the wall. i said, oh, it's going to be so easy. >> and it's so easy to stop the globalists, and it's so easy to stop. we're going to stop it. >> i just love doing it. i just -- it's so easy. it's so easy. it's like four, five minutes of

calls. >> so many of these things are so easy to fix. >> we're going to make america great again. it's going to be easy. >> the president's comments suggested to many that trump recognized he might not have been ready for the office to begin with, his words bear a striking resemblance to something he once told me on this show 16 years ago. here's trump in 2001 about whether he could ever see himself as a president. >> i'm not sure that i'd ever really enjoy the life of a politician, chris. >> what is it that scares you or offends you or just turns you off about sitting in that oval office and dealing with the press, et cetera? >> well, it's not so much that. i think that you're just on all the time. by the way, no easy job. this is really tough stuff. it's just something that i don't think would suit me very well. i don't think i'd enjoy it very well. to do something really well, you really have to enjoy it. as vince lombardi said, you've got to love it, and you do have to love it. >> the reuters interview also

revealed the president is still fixated on the results of the november election. quote, midway through a discussion about chinese president xi jinping, the president paused to hand out copies to the reporters of what he said were the latest figures from the 2016 electoral map, handing out a copy of the map to each of the three reuters reporters in the room. the press went on to point out that the states in red were the states he had won. on a more serious note, the president thought -- i think he thought that was serious, also told reuters that his biggest global worry right now is north korea with tensions mounting in that region. he said there's a real possibility of war, especially if kim jong-un is willing to risk the survival of his own country. here he goes. >> there's a chance that we could end up having a major, major conflict with north korea. absolutely. is he willing to destroy his country, and is he willing to destroy millions and millions of lives and people? >> yoing me right now is eugene

robinson, howard fineman, and katherine ram pell. thank you all. let's go in order now. gene, i remember the greatest bragger of all time -- well, babe ruth was a bragger. he pointed to center field and hit the ball over. muhammud ali was going to take down liston, who was unbeatable. this guy brags but he doesn't do it according to his bragging plan. >> i mean it was going to be easy to do the wall. he can't even get $1.4 billion for the wall, which is a measly sum. you know, it was going to be easy to do health care for everybody. we're going to have health care for everybody. it was going to be great. >> you remember the ken berry song, one, two, three. it's easy, like taking candy from a baby. >> yeah, right. well, the baby ain't giving up the candy. >> how come when he talked to me he knew this was a tough job like any school kid knows and then he went back to like

selling a car again? >> that's because as a salesman, his whole pitch during the campaign was, i'm a great businessman. i'm a great deal-maker. i can see the simple essence of things that the bureaucrats and politicians can't. i know how to get in there and seize the thing by the throat. and in four or five minutes of phone calls, i'm going to get it done. that was his pitch. people who were upset with government, upset with washington, upset with the nagging complexities of modern life in america and its unfairness thought, okay, this is the thunderbolt who can do it. that's how he sold himself to those people on that map that he was showing the guiys at reuter. >> i wonder whether no drama obama and his ability to do everything without any obvious sweat may have allowed the american people to fall into the absurd notion that being ceo of america is easy. how do you explain why the voters thought it would be easy? >> well, they didn't actually. if you look at the polling, throughout the campaign there was no point during the campaign

either during the primary or the general when a majority of americans thought that trump would be prepared for the presidency. so i think to a certain extent what trump was doing was he was trying to knock away those concerns about his lack of experience. and the question is to what extent, when he was talking about how easy it would be and how simple it would be, was he lying to the american public, and to what extent was he just lying to himself? it appears it may be a combination of the two. >> while trump pointed out the danger of north korea, for example, he appeared to show a degree of empathy in this interview for dictator kim jong-un, saying he's 27 years old. his father dies, took over a reevangelical. so say what you want but that is not easy, especially at that age. i'm not giving him credit. i'm just saying that it's a very hard thing to do. as to whether or not he's rational. i have no opinion on that. i hope he's rational. >> i don't know. this is rambling. it's a rambling conversation by the president of the united states. >> so if you really want to be a

pop sipsychologist and put him a couch, another young man who sort of inherits the empire of a powerful father and has to try to live up to that. >> like sheep head's bay in brooklyn and on to new york city. >> so maybe that's his thinking about kim's thinking. that's pure, you know, unsourced anything. >> go ahead, gene. >> you can look at it -- >> that's what scares me right there. those people marching in regimental form right there. americans wouldn't do that. we're more independent. >> i also think donald trump has an almost comically or scarily depending belief in his own charm and his ability to connect with anybody who is also a great strongman around the world, you know. it's putin first. now he doesn't like putin. it's the tremendous bond he's made with that great guy, xi

jinping in china after having spent a day with him. >> fdr thought he could do that with stalin. kennedy thought he could do it with khrushchev. >> bush that he had done it with putin. [ overlapping voices ] >> that is what makes him a politician, and he thinks he can do it with this guy somehow. you know, i doubt it, but that's how he thinks. >> go ahead, katherine. take over here for a while because i think so many people think if they think they're doing -- i watch people and these inaugural dances they have every year. the last couple generations, they don't know how to dance. they go out and do a couple steps and don't bother to take any lessons, but they act like they're dancing. everybody applauds. but thinking you're doing it, thinking you can do it is not the same as doing it. you actually have to know how to play the instrument. you actually have to learn it. you can't just think you're doing it. these guys lately, i think w. did it too, and obama did it. anyway, the lack of training -- >> that level of confidence is

what helps people win elections, right? that sort of faking it till you make it. the question right now is has trump sort of been humbled to any extent now that he seems to be acknowledging that things are more difficult? and if he has been humbled, will he be willing to and capable of learning? and it seems like he acknowledges that he needs to do some learning. i just don't know if he has the disposition and the patience moreover to do the kinds of heavy learning that he needs to be doing. >> let's go through this. >> the comment about kim jong-un and his effort to sort of play nice to -- >> he has to do that. >> i know he has to do that, but that's more exemplary of his thinking, which is this is still easy. >> let me ask you about something tricky. during the campaign he did what a lot of politicians do. they promise they'll move the american embassy to jerusalem, which sounds like right because we're friends of israel and that is their capital. the reason is because we saved a whole area of jerusalem.

then the game's over, no more negotiations. you can't do that. he seems to have just learned that, something we all grew up with knowing how tricky that would be. then he says, well, i'll tell you in a month. that's what he said in the interview. a question from the reuters reporter, which is a british organization, was are you going to identify israel having the whole capital area to themselves? and that's even a bigger stretch. >> yeah. >> and he said, i'll tell you in a month about that. does he even know what that means when you say something like that? that's a dangerous thing to say over there. >> this isn't clearly what he's been following in detail all his adult life. it isn't, right? so he learns this stuff. so, you know, he's going to rip up nafta except, no, actually he's not going to rip up nafta because you know who that would hurt? that would hurt a whole lot of those -- >> farmers. >> agricultural states, right? he is learning. >> you mean with export as well

as import? >> imagine that. >> these are things kids learn in high school. >> on that point, i talked to a bunch of his good friends, the people he kibitzes with around the world. i asked chris ruddy from florida, what's the biggest thing trump learned that he didn't know. and he said, that there is a congress. he was sort of joking, but he wasn't really joking. >> it's called article i of the constitution. >> that there's a congress, and just because you're president, you don't get to run that. >> okay. >> you know, it's pretty basic. >> it explains why he has no accomplishments, because our way of judging the first 100 days scorecard has always been legislative. fair or not, if a president gets a bill through, that's a victory. president obama had to contend with the great recession when he came in. he went moving on that pretty lickety-split. trump's done nothing. >> he has no major legislative accomplishments. he does have a supreme court pick in place, but to be fair -- >> that was a shotgun marriage. >> that's because it was robbed

from obama, so normally a president wouldn't have the option of filling a seat this quickly in the term in their first 100 days. but, yeah, i do agree that trump -- his rhetoric throughout the campaign indicated that he thought that he could just, you know, kind of like barrel through, implement his agenda, have no problems. he's used to running a business, right? and he repeatedly said that his experience running a business was going to translate to running the country, but the dynamics are completely different. >> yeah. >> and the kinds of like multi-party negotiations you have to do are also completely different. you have to answer to basically shareholders, which is the public. you have to deal with members of congress. if you're running a family business, it's completely different. and, yeah, you kind of get why he didn't understand the dynamic going in. >> the other thing is in politics, you can't sue -- you can't intimidate people by threatening to sue them, which is a lot of what he did in business. >> and you can't make choices too. i mean if you don't like dealing with bank of america, go deal

with citi. go deal with jp morgan chase. you can't deal. there's no other congress. >> too much bureaucracy when you have your daughter and your son-in-law to deal with. anyway, thank you. that's why he brought him along. makes it less bureaucratic. thank you. coming up, it's safe to say we've never seen 100 days like this we've seen from president trump. we're going to stack this president's difficult first 100 days up against his predecessors, i mean all his predecessors with two top presidential historians. plus one big accomplishment of trump's 100 days is he's turning the late night comedy shows into must-see tv. let's watch. >> while it's a controversial executive order, trump really believes in it. >> sometimes i look at some of the things i'm signing. >> sometimes he looks at the things he's signing? sometimes? just randomly? not all the time? has anyone tried putting a lez ig nation letter in front of him? it's worth a shot. >> we'll look at some of the

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welcome back to "hardball." president trump is waving off claims that the first 100 days is of any real significance, telling the associated press the other day, i think the 100 days

is, you know, it's an artificial barrier. it's not very meaningful. the press keeps talking about the 100 days but we've done a lot. when asked why he shouldn't be held accountable for the first 100 days plan he campaigned on, trump said, somebody put out the concept of a 100-day plan. the somebody who put out that concept was none other than donald trump. let's watch. >> what follows is my 100-day action plan to make america great again. think about what we can accomplish in the first 100 days of a trump administration. >> i propose a contract with the american voter. it's a set of promises for what i'll do in my first 100 days. >> today i would like to provide the american people with an update on the white house transition and our policy plans for the first 100 days. >> well, with a pivotal marker coming up tomorrow, how will history judge trump's first 100?

joining me right now is michael beschloss and doris kearns goodwin. doris, i don't know how you give historic record or score keeping to someone who lives minute by minute in the most phenomenal way. he forgets the minute before he's on to the next minute, but that doesn't really count because the only thing that matters is this minute. it's like the guy keeps erasing the blackboard. i'm going to give you a wide open question. how has he done so far? where is he projecting toward if you can see, if anywhere? >> i think no one promised more and delivered less, you could say, somehow paraphrasing churchill. i think if you looked at pure legislative achievements, obviously he didn't get what he might have hoped. executive orders have dismantled rather than built. where does he go from here? the only way you can predict that, you got to look to the views of the people around him because he seems to be susceptible to what they're

telling him. i think if you're looking for mystery, go find detectively, as a media, what are these people thinking? what are their views, the ones who are close to him? otherwise, there's no way of knowing where he's going. the only fair thing about the ridiculousness of this standard, all the presidents have hated it. jfk said, i'm sick and tired of hearing about this 100 days, yet tried to put out a list. nobody can match what fdr did. urgency, a sense of need so the country comes together. in some ways, i understand why they all get upset by this marker that we put on them. >> this has been like the petrified forest, the first 100 days of this administration. there's nothing there. but i just wonder what do you make of it because i thought -- you know, i think doris raised a great point because this guy sort of picked a brain trust around him. i love the idea of presidents who pick people who are smarter than them to help him. he's clearly done that. >> and it's so untrumpian

because his whole point was i'm always successful and i do it by adapting to situations. and i do that by hiring people who know what they're doing. instead, he's got a chief of staff, wonderful guy, reince priebus, but he had never been in the white house before. chief strategist steve bannon, who had never been in politics before. these are the two guys guiding the inexperienced president. so he blows two opportunities -- >> what about the cabinet? they're a little better. mcmasters and -- >> a little bit. as you well know, if you've got a staff who is not guiding you, the cabinet cannot clean up the mess. >> doris, you pick up on this. you're president of the united states, and the think that would scare me, you know, sometimes i wonder who to do next when i'm on a project. what's next? should i put this? should i do more research? should i do more writing? should i do some polishing? what am i doing here? presidents have to decide what to do with every minute of their day. then they also have to be able to relax sometimes, do something to get it out of their heads so they're fit to make the big decisions so they can sleep properly. who tells a president -- i mean

harry hopkins was a troubleshooter. jim bakk jim bakk jim baker was a great organizer. what's the job of a reince priebus? how do they tell him what to do every day, who to meet? >> i don't think they can tell him that fully. a president has to set direction. you think about lincoln's team of rivals, in the end he wasn't waiting for consensus from them. he decided once he learned from them, he's the one who set the policy. ronald reagan had people around him, but he's the one who decided he was going to go for economic recovery no matter what in those first 100 days. i mean there's a sense in which unless he can figure out how to relax -- i mean you say something really important. all the presidents that i've studied knew how to take time off so they could replenish their energy. he said, i'll never take a vacation. i'm working all the time. none of that's going to prove true, and only he can decide that. we have to hope that he self-reflects, that he learns, that he grows, the thing we've been hoping for ever since the

beginning of the campaign. >> i wonder about just his eating habits and stuff like that. it's none of my business except he's president. barney franklin said you got to lose a lot of weight before the campaign because you're going to gain 40 pounds during the campaign. when you're nervous, you eat a lot of hamburgers. >> that's exactly right. he really needs a manager. james baker was able to tell ronald reagan, who had been a great governor in sacramento for two terms, this is what you do to deal with congress. this is how you sequence legislation. and because there hasn't been someone like that, you know, trump totally blew this opportunity, this first 100 days, not only to get key bills passed, which he has not done, but also to build relationships in congress to carry him through the next -- >> let me try both of you because i know doris is a baseball nut. i used the reference the other night because i'm trying to be positive. people around me aren't so positive, my wife, nobody. i'm always hopeful because we only have one president. i used the sandy koufax example. koufax as you know, his first

half dozen years were terrible, crazy wild pitching. losing records every year. and then the next six years were unbelievable. he got 27 wins a couple years. he was unbelievable. he fixed a couple things in his pitch. is it possible, can you imagine it? i know you're a liberal. can you imagine trump straightening out his pitch and getting it right the latter part of his term? >> well, look, we look at other presidents. as michael knows so well, the bay of pigs was a disaster for jfk, and yet he learned from that experience. he said it's a hell of a way to learn from failure. we've just got to hope -- and i'm with you, chris. we've got to have some optimism about this thing right now. he is the president. maybe there's been some humility in these last couple days in saying what he doesn't know. maybe there's some sense of learning that's going on. if that happens, then the next 100 days can be better than these last 100 days. >> doris, you're the best. thank you up there in concord, massachusetts. and michael beschloss, down here in washington, where we all have fun together. up next, 100 days of komtd.

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before we begin, i know that myself and the president have gotten off to a rocky start. all right, all right, all right. in a sense, when i say rocky start, i mean it in the sense of "rocky" the movie because i came out here to punch you. >> "wall street journal." are you okay? >> take it. take it. take it. take that! >> well, welcome back to "hardball." that was just one of the many times this year where "saturday night live" secured this white house. late night television has done some laughing out loud at president trump, ranging from his flip-flops to his gaffes, to his tweet storms. let's watch. >> trump has ignored a lot of presidential traditions, you know, like releasing tax returns or working on the weekend or knowing about government. but even he has been all about

the 100 days. >> just think about what we can accomplish in the first 100 days. >> and none of it is actually going to get done. >> as we come down from the dizzying high of women's history month, let's appreciate a woman who's blazing trails right now. >> there's a new sheriff in town. her name is ivanka trump. >> wrong. sheriffs are elected to their jobs. maybe you were confused by her statement necklace. ivanka's new job is, i don't know, her father already gave the hand of the king job to her husband, jared right after he took president's landing. >> while it's a controversial executive order, trump really believes in it. >> sometimes i look at some of the things i'm signing. >> sometimes he looks at the things he's signing? sometimes? just randomly? not all the time? has anyone tried putting a resignation letter in front of him? it's worth a shot. >> it is at this point like a law of physics for every trump action, there's an equal and opposite trump clip.

>> joining me right now is ted johnson and liz winstead, part of a group of comedians and writers who advocate for reproductive rights. thank you so much for this. i don't know. it would kill me to be imitated by melissa mccarthy. i mean it is such a perfect put-down. she's manic. she's crazed, and she's moving around on this sort of automatic lectern of hers that travels into people. i mean it's over the top satire, and yet it's a riot. ted first. >> i have to say, it's such an inspired choice. you know, making jokes about trump or the trump administration, you would think would be really easy. but the challenge is actually not to do what everyone else is doing. >> when you thought of something, then you'd realize somebody else thought of it too because it's all on the surface. >> it may not even come from other comedians. it's come from a host of websites. trump says something, and within an hour you have all these jokes

spreading through the sbt. so the challenge is to come up with something unique that people are surprised about. that's why you thought instantly when you had melissa mccarthy has sean spicer, you saw people talking about it on twitter. it's actually what the show wanted. >> i love the fact it's not only sean spicer. it's kind of if sean spicer starred on the wizard of oz and was in munchkin land, which is this added level. >> that high-level voice too. >> and i also really like the fact that with the way that women have looked at how they've been treated by this administration, to have women taking on these roles and knowing -- >> that's a get even. >> right? and knowing that trump -- oh, my gosh. and just knowing that it's like he can't take it makes it everything. >> imagine accusing trump -- having a woman play trump. he would come over and arrest people. i think the interesting thing is we try to figure him out every night, sometimes comedically,

most times seriously. nothing he says has any reality to it. it's just flowing in the wind. the next minute he'll say something totally different. how do you hold him to what he said an hour ago? i mean these things about the -- we've just shown all night here the 100-day thing he's been bragging about. i'm going to do this in 100 days, 100 days. next thing is 100 days doesn't matter. who came up with that idea anyway? he knows the tape exists. he knows we're going to do this, the collages we show. yet trump's forward. he just keeps moving forward, ignoring anything that happened an hour ago. >> well, i mean nafta just this week. >> he's now going to keep nafta. >> it looked like he was going to get rid of nafta and now he's going to keep nafta. >> what about nato? he was going to get rid of everything. >> i think he just found out there was two koreas about ten minutes ago. i don't think he understood that. >> how about jerusalem? politicians have been saying, i'm going to move the embassy because it's politics. we know the politics of it. they all know they can't do it, so when they get in office, of course that's off the table. he had to be told you can't do

it. >> right. well, and i think too the thing that's tricky for satire is you can satirize politicians in the best way possible when they lay out a policy that you can satirize. like you said, when he's a piece of cottonwood blowing in the wind, it's really hard to grab the there there. so what you have to do is kind of watch a pattern and then satirize the weirdness of the pattern. >> you think when he does that hair thing of his, that hire style, if he cared what anybody thought, he wouldn't have done it. he doesn't care. he's going to put on the show with the hair and everything. he says, this is going to be a new kind of performance art. they're going to have to pay attention to it. the only people have one choice right now, dump them. in the next three years, dump them, for somebody we don't know yet. >> i also think there is something about his goofy hair, his weird tan. he's got a lot of money and power. >> the tie. what about the tie? it's like a giant bib. he wears it -- he has his coat

open for his paunch, and then he has this tie that's like three feet long. >> it's a drool catcher. >> everybody else is buttoned up. they have thin ties. it's some kind of a statement of power. >> that's right. it's the f-you. >> i can do that. i can walk around like this. >> look at my hot wife. i have this cooky hair and this money. >> there's such a contrast to the first 100 days of obama when comedians were struggling. with trump, this week in l.a. at one of the comedy clubs, they had like a, you know, trump impersonators and a ton of people showed up. he's easy to mimic. part of me thinks that trump kind of likes it. he likes the fact that he's an easy -- >> baldwin makes him vicious. baldwin makes him a bad guy. he's not funny when baldwin plays him. he makes him look menacing. by the way, you know the great

clown, ringling bros. barnum and bailey was emmett kelly. there's something about that big tie. there's something clownish about what he does. >> wait, chris. are you saying they're something clownish about donald trump? is this what i'm hearing? breaking news. somebody break -- i hope that the next show -- >> you funny women comedians. anyway, thank you. up next, resolutions and reversals. trump might be learning on the job, you might say, but more and more except an attitude, his decisions don't sound much like a guy to ran for president. remember him? you're watching "hardball," where the action is. whisperer? why do they call him the whisperer? he talks to planes. he talks to planes. watch this. hey watson, what's avionics telling you? maintenance records and performance data suggest replacing capacitor c4. not bad. what's with the coffee maker?

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i don't think there's ever been anything like this. it's a false standard, 100 days, but i have to tell you i don't think anybody has done what we've been able to do in 100 days. >> welcome back to "hardball." for candidate trump, the campaign trail was full of

promises. >> i am not and i have never been a fan of nafta. >> i said nato's obsolete, and everybody smiled, and they said it's not obsolete. then they realized i was right. >> we are going to label china a currency manipulator, which is what they're doing. they're taking our business. they're taking our jobs. >> but for president trump, some things are more challenging than he expected. yesterday trump told "the washington post" he was ready to end nafta, telling the post, quote, i look forward to terminating it. i was going to do it, but he backpedaled after some members of his team told him it would hurt his base. anyway, the evolution comes weeks after he said nato was no longer obsolete and that he would not label china anymore a currency manipulator. the one thing that has been consistent during trump's first three months, he's running the country the way he ran his campaign, unconventionally. i'm joined by ashley parker, white house reporter for "the washington post," ken vogel, chief investigate everybody reporter for politico, and sa heel ca por, national political

reporter for bloomberg politics. let me go to ashley. i'm just going down the list. nafta was a big issue with this guy. nato is one of the general anti-establishment things he said. no good. he was going to go to war with china. nothing. >> i guess the only thing he's been predictable on is when he also said he was incredibly flexible. and on all of these, he's shown sort of that willingness to be non-ideological, a pragmatist, and basically do a total flip-flop on some of these issues. but it does fit in line with his flexibility, his desire to get a deal, and his sort of instinct to often listen to the last person he heard from. >> that's the key. i want to get to that. you know his voters out there, do they care about issues, or do they care about attitude? as long as he's anti-establishment, as long as he's against us, if you will, as long as he's the alternative to everything else, they like him. according to the numbers, they do. >> and he just channels that anti-establishment feeling from

nato or from nafta to the press or to the opposition party in -- >> anything that's made up of initials, he's pretty much against. >> right. anything that -- it is consistent that he is railing against what he sees as the washington establishment. that's what the voters really liked about him. that's why they're willing to forgive him according to these polls, some of these shifts that seem to be really anathema to his positioning, his america first positioning during the campaign. >> what about effectiveness? when is that going to hurt him, lack of it? he can't get anything done. >> that's right. the only legislative accomplishments he's had so far are deregulatory measures, basically undoing what president obama did in his final months. that's hardly the stuff of a signature achievement. his hopes of repealing and replacing obamacare died a third death this week. tax reform is just at the very beginning stage of something that may or may not go anywhere. it's far from clear. i think the real problem is there are three distinct camps in the white house that don't agree on a lot of things. they're the economic

nationalists. there's the ideological conservatives and the pro-business new yorkers. very little that they agree on. >> the pro-business guys, i was impressed by gary cohn this week. he's a very persuasive, simple talker. you knew what he meant. he would impress me if he was selling me a car or a business, i'd say, i like that guy. maybe because he's a new york democrat. >> trump is really listening to him on something like taxes so we'll see where that goes. >> the flexibility can be helpful. >> you agree with me it doesn't matter that he flips but if he flips on something that bugs people, people who voted for him don't like illegal immigration. he can't flip on that. he can't say, i like illegal immigration. >> yeah, that will hurt him not just with his base of voters but also with republicans in congress whose support he needs to get -- >> so what are the principal pillars that are inkrucorruptib on the part of trump. >> there's the things he's had consistency on since the '80s.

one is certainly immigration. one is probably trade. i guess you could argue he sort of flipped on nafta but not entirely. he said we're going to renegotiate, we're going to get a better deal. >> we're going to screw south korea and who else? canada and the saudis. look around for our friends. anybody who's been friendly to us for the last 400 years and nail them. that's what he did this week. >> eventually he's going to be judged on results. for the trump voter right now, being for him is such a hallmark of a cultural identity that they're sticking with him. only 2% regret it. >> if he leaves carried interest, he's in trouble. >> that's another flip-flop. the round table is sticking with us. we'll be right back. us. we'll be right back. work to tell them when and where to water. so that farmers like ray can compete in big ways. china. oh ... he got there.

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well, the campaign is long over, but donald trump it still calling people names. today as he addressed the nra convention down in atlanta, he said this about potential 2020 presidential rival elizabeth warren. >> i have a feeling that in the next election, you're going to be swamped with candidates. but you're not going to be wasting your time. you'll have plenty of those democrats coming over, and you're going to say, no, sir, no, thank you. no ma'am. it may be ma'am. it may be pocahontas. >> with that speech, trump became the first sitting president to address the nra since reagan back in '83. we'll be right back. ♪

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one key relationship that made a big deal is jared kushner is incredibly close with the foreign minister of mexico. they talk all the time, and that was sort of a back channel of pressure that ultimately got to the president. >> jared rules. >> always. >> we broke a story today about the former senator from south carolina being forced out of the heritage foundation. >> was he too far right or -- >> he aligned himself. my sources tell me this is all about him aligning the heritage foundation too much with donald trump from the perspective of some of these heritage foundation board members. >> the purists didn't like it. >> exactly. we hear there's going to be a purge there of many of the top -- >> so he gives up a senate seat to go to heritage. he can't go back to the senate. >> you would think it would be very difficult much like it was for ross fine gold. >> we have a story on bloomberg this afternoon that fred upton, the michigan republican who was the point man for republicans, dozens of dozens of obamacare repeal votes for six years is now not comfortable, he says, with the obamacare replacement bill. he says he's worried about the

costs going up for people with pre-existing illnesses. if the republicans can't win him, who can they win? >> thank you. i love that stuff. when we return, let me finish tonight with trump watch. you're watching "hardball," where the action is. hi my name is tom.

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trump watch, friday, april 28th, 2017. donald trump turns 100 tomorrow. that many days in office for the unexpected president about whom nothing can be expected. i think the safest thing to say about the past 100 days or the november election itself is that this man was elected for what he was not, which explains why 96% of his voters are still with him. he's still not part of the country's governing or media establishment. he is not, to use the language of his people, one of the reviled and resented them. i think a lot of the reason people refuse to get trump even at the end of this 100 day starter period is they do not get why people hate the ruling

class trump ran against, refusing to fathom why people saw hillary as the symbol of that ruling class makes it impossible to see why someone who vote for this guy, root for him now and perhaps into the future. look, the fact is the political class trump defeat san diego obnoxious to a lot of people. they don't like the contributors, pressure groups and perennial candidates that make up both parties. they don't like the look of a system that gets people to pay for your campaigns, the tv ads that destroy your opponents and leave the voters stuck with nothing to vote for but them. they don't like seeing politicians celebrating themselves. they don't like hearing or seeing celebrity-packed parties they're not invited to. as long as trump bashes this world of self-congratulations, the more his people will stay aboard his wobbly wagon train to who knows where. if the political establishment is listening, please listen up to this. when understood begin you begin with the regular people and less with the paying customers of the

pressure groups, the better chance you'll have of getting back into the country's heart. if you want to know how bad things are, think of this. 100 days of trump, and the old political establishment still doesn't look all that desirable. and that, i believe, is the dreariest news as we reach this particular 100-day landmark. that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. "all in" in chris hayes starts right now. tonight on "all in." >> are you disappointed with how the republicans have handled these big issues? health care went down the first time. >> yeah, i'm disappointed. >> disappointment for the president as he laments his job is harder than he thought. >> this is more work than in my previous life. i thought it would be easier. >> tonight, as the president revives a favorite slur. >> it may be pocahontas, remember that. >> 99 days of trump with filmmaker michael moore. plus about that swamp. >> i said drain the swamp. they went crazy. >> why the president's