i'm ari melber in new york. we have the next 100 days. the point on that tonight, the rules for resistance. after another weekend of protests against the trump administration, is it working? should democrats continue with these large rallies? also, the latest on the russia investigation. following the money trail and the lies about the money and who was involved. also, the point on paying for the wall. could extradited drug king pin el chapo be the key to funding trump's dream barrier on the northern border on the southern border of our country and northern border of mexico. one republican says yes. we'll explain that and more on the show tonight. governing ain't easy. president trump is not the first to realize this and won't be the last but is the deal-maker unable to close? that's been the story of his first hundred days. it's also exposed according to some a larger problem with whether republicans can govern at all. trump is the public face of a grid lock from a gop congress

stretching back six years as they move further to the right which plays to the base but is clearly killing deals as trump has been learning. house speaker paul ryan admitted as much when his health care bill failed. >> we were a ten-year opposition party where being against things was easy to do. you just had to be against it. now, in three months' time, we try to go to a governing party where we actually have to get 216 people to agree with each other on how we do things. >> there is another difference, experts say. obama is not here to be blamed. conservatives starting to look at their party in the mirror. andrew sullivan writing in new york magazine this week. obama predicted at some point the fever would break on the right. it never did. history is an ironnist. the bluff has been extravagantly called. businessman trump knows what losing a bluff means. in "the art of the deal," he

tells the story of a deal where neither side had very strong cards to play so both were forced to bluff. by that point he couldn't walk away if he wanted to maintain any credibility, he wrote. that could explain why this renewed attempt to pass obamacare is still being talked about. pressuring republicans to vote on it now twice. there was that second idea before the hundred days. andrew sullivan speaking to all this. it's one thing to rail against the disaster of amacar quite another, it turns t, to replace it. all the right's political power depended on being in permanent opposition and never having to actually implement something. they're caught between trump's desire to borrow even more to finance his tax cuts and the gop's resolute insistence throughout the obama years that the debt was an existential threat. trump expressing frustrations with congress today. >> it's just a very, very bureaucratic system. i think the rules in congress and, in particular, the rules in the senate, are unbelievably

archaic. and slow moving. and in many cases unfair. in many cases you are forced to make deals that are not the deal you would make. you would make a much different kind of a deal. you are forced into situations that you hate to be forced in. >> another word for that is compromise in a democracy. this is the democratic system that is testing not only the president but the republicans in charge of those two majority institutions after spending so much time being the party of no, the question is whether they have forgotten how to get to yes. and to a deal that is possible rather than perfect. and can both sides find a way to pass this test, or will the next hundred days look much like the last? joining me now is "huffington post" howard fineman, a long time reporter. michael ikoffnd conservative analyst kirsten hagland. nice to see everybody.

howard, i hate to make you sit through a review of facts that are so familiar to you, as a student of washington, but the president is learning some of these facts. what do you think happens from here? >> well, i think what he is learning is that, doing legislation is not like selling a vegimatic slicing machine at 2:00 in the morning. there is a reason why the founders set things up the way they did with slow-moving institutions such as the federal court systems and the congress. as you said, it's to provide deliberation. it's to provide examination. it's to provide fact-telling in a political environment. you can't do the quick-strike sale here. i think he is learning that. and he is learning it from his own party as andrew sullivan said. republicans realize that wiping obamacare off the books and not replacing it with something as good if not better is not only difficult but very expensive. and that's one of the problems donald trump has.

and this is kind of like, he just went through orientation, if i can switch analogies. he is at college and now discovering how hard the classes are. how much reading is involved. how many papers he'll have to write. there is a lot of work ahead. if he is really serious, he can't keep announcing, denouncing and pounding the table and expect results. it doesn't work that way here. it just does not. you can use public pressure. you need that. ronald reagan did it superbly. barack obama did it cleverly and craftily when he had to. trump has that part of it down. he just doesn't have the inside game down at all, and he's going to have to learn it and so far he hasn't. >> kirsten, if howard is right, there is a bad sign in this interview. the president struggled to talk about what he learned other than the press is bad by

fact-checked, to be fair is not something he's learned if he's always felt that way. listen to this. >> one of the things i've learned is how diskonhonest is. >> surely you've learned something else. >> it was one of my disappointments. >> give me another thing you'll adapt and change. >> i think things generally tend to go a little bit slower than you'd like them to go. >> i am glad he recognized that things go a little bit slower. as you mentioned, governing is much different than a business deal. you cannot walk away from a partner that you may not like or agree with. on the hill as well there is a lot of dissatisfaction with house speaker paul ryan as well. some talk about the fact, is he all talk and no action. there is a lot of kind of, you know, uneasiness, generally, among republicans on the hill as well, not just among the president.

you know what is interesting is that, no matter how much division there is within the republican party right now, donald trump's base still loves him and supports him. if you look at the poll numbers recently. 46% of his voting base still approve and still support him. if you consider that he only got 48% of the vote innovember, that's only about two points of slippage. >> you are smiling while you say it. i can't tell if you think that's good or bad. >> as a conservative, i want republicans to succeed and to be able to find a middle ground between some of the house freedom caucus which were brought in in 2010 really on the sweep of energy much like the democrats are experiencing now and the moderates who want to work with some democrats here. >> is success just holding the line? because this is an opportunity -- >> no. >> -- of united government. you mentioned paul ryan. put up the numbers. at 34% in february. not great. he has fell down to 22%. a net of -18. that would reflect something going on in the country among adults about the job he is doing

or should i say not doing. >> people want results. i think a lot of republicans are giving president trump the benefit of the doubt right now, saying he is new to the game, right, he is new to working the inside scoop. he is learning how to negotiate with these people. but eventually they're going to want to see things get done, whether it's working with democrats which republicans probably wouldn't speak openly about, or it's getting the tax reform bill through. that is going to be a huge litmus test for whether or not they have confidence that he can get things done. they want to see results. >> michael, go ahead. >> well, i -- i mean, clearly, if this continues over time and we don't have a health care bill that pass ande don't have a tax reform bill that's in any nd of shape, i think at some point some of that hard-core support that has stuck with him is going to start to erode. at the end of the day he did promise certain things, and he cannot deliver them by executive order. he is going to need

congressional legislation. >> to that point, howard, if you support some of these things -- i have just referred earlier in the show to several rulings that didn't say you can't do this on immigration. the judges just said, you can't do this alone. you can't do this without congress because -- i'm going to simplify three years of law school here -- if it's a really big thing you usually need congress. some exceptions but a good rule of thumb. he was trying to do several really big things without congress. but he has republicans there. why not work with them on immigration to get something that would actually last? >> ari when i was doing the hundred days piece for "the post" i talked to chris ruddy, a friend of the president's, publisher from florida. i said, what do you think was the biggest surprise for donald trump? he said, i think it was that he discovered there was a congress. he has half joking. the point was, just because the president feels passionately about something -- you've heard,

by the way, jeff sessions basically say the immigration policy will go forward because the president feels so passionately about it. he cares so much about it. well, that's not the way it works. don't forget that donald trump covered the campaign from the beginning. he rangainst the republican establishment every step of the way. he ran against washington. he ran against the congress. he ran against the courts. he ran against the press. he had no interest in currying favor with the members of congress. most members of congress on the republican side ran away from him until the very end if they stuck with him at all during the fall campaign. donald trump doesn't like to be dissed. he loves to be loved. he didn't want to make the first move. i think he has done very little to develop real relationships with any members of congress. it's not just an outside game. it's not just publicity that then leads to a break or lose negotiation. it's an ongoing process with a community of people. and donald trump is sort of a loner. he is a brilliant loner who has

tens and tens and millions of followers on social media, but doesn't really have a lot of close friends outside of that circle that he talks to on the phone all the time. he is not friendly with any of these members. really in any real way. and you've got to get there to be able to talk to them. barack obama had some of these same problems, by the way, from time to time. he had some shrewd people on the hill on the democratic side who got it done for him. right now donald trump doesn't have the relationships or the skilled people to get it done. >> howard, you remind us of something that people sort of know but has been underplayed. we talk about the electoral college and the election results. but the lack of any early endorsements from his own party and in congress and, as you refer, the social tension is another sort of undercurrent to all of this that's interesting. howard finen, michael isikoff. kersten thanks for joining me. msnbc launched this broadcast as extended programming to cover news developments for the first hundred days of the new

administration. msnbc has decided to continue our coverage past this weekend's hundred-day work. we are excited to continue bringing you this program on sunday evenings, and we hope you'll keep tuning in for our original reporting and analysis. now, up next on "the point," the russia investigation, a power panel will look at the latest developments and the questions surrounding mike flynn. also, the white house correspondents' dinner roast of donald trump would not have been complete without, of course, russia. >> who is tweeting at 3:00 a.m. sober? donald trump because 10:00 a.m. in russia. those are business hours. [ applause ] this is the new new york. we are building new airports all across the state. new roads and bridges. new mass transit. new business friendly environment. new lower taxes.

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president trump has, of course, denied any role in the election hacking controversy. in the new interview, here is something we have not played yet. he appears to give russia some kind of wiggle room by way of china. >> you don't think it's funny that they, the russians tried to meddle in the elections. >> that i don't know. >> you do or don't know? >> i have a problem. you have podesta, who i understand, by the way, has a company with his brother in russia. hillary's husband makes speeches in russia. hillary did a uranium deal with russia. nobody talks about that. i don't know because -- the fbi was not allowed by podesta to go in and check all the records and th servers and everything else

you'd normally have t check. that's number one. number two. knowing something about hacking, if you don't catch a hacker, okay, in the act, it's very hard to say who did the hacking. with that being said, i'll go along with russia. could have been china. could have been a lot of different groups. >> it could have been, but to be clear in terms of the facts, that statement is at odds with what the u.s. intelligence agency said in their public findings, that they did finger russia. now, it comes as the trump administration is facing wider questions about how it handled the vetting, hiring and firing of michael flynn who allegedly took the payments from four entities linked to russia and declined to disclose them as required under u.s. rules. questions swirling about whether the senate investigation will move forward and subpoena the trump white house to get to the bottom of the russia story according to reporting from yahoo's michael isikoff. chief investigative correspondent howard fineman and samantha ingrad former adviser

to tom don lynn. >> michael, your reporting is that there is some lack of urgency if not commitment. explain. >> right. well, there certainly has been. by the way, i am a bit surprised to hear the president's comments to john dickerson in that interview this morning because he had previously accepted that russia was behind the hacking. that was after that january 6th assessment unanimous of all the u.s. intelligence agencies stated with high confidence. he had an opportunity to examine that and go into depth and ask for any of the backup material if he had doubts. he had previously accepted it and now seems to be slipping back. i do find that a bit puzzling. but yeah. the investigations have been going extremely slowly. the senate, which everybody thought the senate intelligence committee, were the adults in the room, they were going to do

this seriously and with bipartisanship, have -- it turns out that they haven't interviewed any of the key witnesses to date who can speak to the issues of whether there were communications between the trump campaign and the kremlin. they haven't subpoenaed the documents. they hadn't even, at the time i wrote the piece, which was last week, even requested to the -- those documents. and by the way, the documents would be e-mails, memos, phone records of everybody involved paul manafort. carter page, michael flynn and the trump campaign himself. we got a pretty good indicator of how the white house is going to respond just this past week when we saw the letter from the white house to the house oversight committee saying

they're not going to turn over any of their material on michael flynn. >> let me jump in. that's an important point i raise and a narror one which is, how did you vet someone they were so problematic thewere the fastest firing in national security adviser history. here was president trump's response on that today. >> in fact, i just heard where general flynn got his clearance from the obama administration. excuse me. when he went to russia -- i didn't realize this, when he went to russia it was 2015 and he was on the obama clearance. when general flynn came to us, as you now know, he already had the highest clearance you can have, i think the same clearance as the president of the united states would have. he had this really high clearance. and by the way, they are so devastated because this only came up two days ago. >> sam, you served for the national security adviser in the obama administration the president cites there.

what's the context here? >> first off, ari, thank you for having me. i also was very disappointed to hear president trump's ambiguity regarding russian interference in the u.s. election. there is no ambiguity. the entire intelligence community has agreed that russia was responsible for interfering in the election. and any politicization or additional politicization of this issue doesn't help anybody other than vladimir putin. we need to move on from the issue of who was responsible. with respect to the flynn question, ari, it's entirely appropriate that the pentagon is now investigating this iue and there is bipartisan support for that investigation. we saw sean spicer indicate that this was an appropriate investigation. so at this point, what's best for u.s. national security is to let the investigation proceed while concurrently hoping that the white house national security council under general mcmaster can do its job and focus on protecting the nation.

>> howard, what is the theory of the case, that general flynn is sloppy? that he wanted to hide business activities because he didn't want anybody to know about them? or that there was greater collusion or links to foreign powers? >> i don't know the answer to that. i think the theory of the case that the democrats are pursuing and that a lot of the intelligence community is pursuing is the idea that the russians were not just in there to -- in the election process to leak damaging information about hillary clinton but they were more actively in cahoots with and cooperating with elements of the trump campaign and the trump inner circle. whether they're going to be able to prove that or not i don't know. it's important to say that they have -- the intelligence community has made no such assertion at this point, that if you're going to look at ties, general flynn is a place to begin looking. by the way, i wasn't clear -- i want to know if sam thinks that

it -- if it does matter that flynn had top clearance under president obama. is that a relevant fact or just a distraction by president trump? >> thanks for asking. i think it's a distraction. i think that the issue under investigation right now is whether flynn took foreign payments after he had left the white house and failed to declare them. i think it's a distraction. and to my earlier point, i think this just feeds into vladimir putin's global bullying campaign. the more that we are distracted looking at these issues and pointing fingers and that sort of thing, the less that national security professionals and legal professionals are focused on the fact that vladimir putin is trying to fundamentally reshape the global balance of power to fit his interests. that's the real issue. >> just to mike then, how much does all this matter in the context of flynn seeking

immunity? >> it could matter a lot. just a couple quick points. first of all, i think that one question about that security clearance that was renewed in january of '16 under the obama administration is whether michael flynn disclosed everything he should have disclosed in order to get that security clearance. >> right. >> if he deliberately concealed the payments from russia from r.t., that would be a relevant factor as to whether or not he got the security clearance properly as well he should. also, as far as the vetting is concerned, he was being -- it's one thing to get a security clearance. it's another thing to be named the white house national security adviser, presumay the vetting would be a little higher for that than anything else. look, at the end of the day, i do think there is a reasonable chance that the congressional committees will want to give flynn immunity, if only to hear what he's got to say.

it's going to be very hard to write a final report on this and reach conclusions about what the trump campaign knew and what signals or communications it had are russians without hearing the full story of michael flynn. >> at least limited immunity. you raise the point that it's possible that he misled two administrations instead of one. that would still be on him if it was misleading by omission or comission. thank you all. i appreciate it. coming up, you know what time it is. opening the inbox, taking your questions. you can always e-mail me @ar @ari@msnbc.com. later, the weird proposal by senator ted cruz to have one of the world's biggest drug kingpins foot the bill for the wall. he is talking about el chapo. how feasible is it? we have a superpanel to break down the scenarios.

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welcome back to ari's inbox. virginia asks what's happening with michigan governor snyder and flint's water? are the pipes being changed. this weekend was the third anniversary of the crisis. state lawmakers voted to send

$100 million to flint to be used for the pipe replacements. water meters will also be replaced and there is an engineering study in the works. before this, the state legislator approved one policy reform from the crisis, a bill to ensure residents are notified more quickly if lead levels in the public water supply exceed safety requirements. also doing the detroit news reported, the glacial paste sproitd reforms and spurring republican governor rick snyder to pursue changes through administrative rules rather than legislative changes. ryan cas on twitter asked if the white house refuses to hand over michael flynn documents can they be subpoenaed to do so? the short answer is yes. we talked about this a little bit in the show. we asked brad moss, a security lawyer, about this. he says they can be subpoenaed by congress assuming the white house even has them. the white house might be able to invoke certain privileges to fight the subpoena.

executive privilege has been invoked by many presidents over the years and it's a lawful power to shield materials relating especially to national security or maintaining the privacy of internal deliberations over official government matters. it was recently and famously or infamously used by president obama in the "fast and furious" inquiry trying to use the privilege to withhold documents relating to the operation that was supposed to dismantle drug cartels but resulted in the tragic killing of a border patrol agent. the documents ultimately turned over by the obama administration. a quick history lesson. the final question from c.s. harper asking about one of the trump's executive orders. can the current president overturn president obama's declaration of monuments. i thought the federal law gives the president the authority to identify new monuments and national parks. >> the antiquities act does not

give the federal government unlimited power to lock up millions of acres of land and water and it's time we ended this abusive practice. >> president trump this week there signing that one of his new orders. the antic witties act was passed by congress and gives him this authority. his latest order is a direction to review the monuments which could lead down the road to eliminating some of them. it could happen but it's not happening yet. e-mail me or tweet me @ari melber the point. as donald trump touts his success, the resistance shows no signs of slowing down. thousands in the streets nationwide in the latest show of force opposing environmental policies from trump. have democrats built a foundation, or do they need more reforms? we have two progressive experts here next to break it down.

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♪"my friends know me so well. they can tell what i'm thinking, just by looking in my eyes. but what they didn't know was that i had dry, itchy eyes. i used artificial tears from the moment i woke up... ...to the moment i went to bed. so i finally decided to show my eyes some love,... ...some eyelove. eyelove means having a chat with your eye doctor about your dry eyes because if you're using artificial tears often and still have symptoms, it could be chronic dry eye. it's all about eyelove, my friends. we are headed into the minute month of may. this weekend donald trump partied like it was october, gathering supporters at a campaign-style rally in pennsylvania. his fans were not the only people in the streets, though. a reported 150,000 were gathering around the country including in washington for the climate march, calling for political action to combat climate change. marchers just one measure of civic participation. other metrics suggest trump's

administration is galvanizing a new resistance. >> he has succeeded in mobilizing the america people against what he is about. >> that mobilization appears to have an impact. voters confronting republican legislators about obamacare at town halls. democratic legislators have gone from speculating about deals they might cut to uniting against trump in opposition. politico reporting that after surveying party leaders this weekend. should the resistance continue this approach or branch out. that's a big question for a movement without a single leader years away from the next presidential contest. an expert on framing and a prominent progressive thinker says we repeating protests and arguments against trump is critical, saying all ideas are physical, embodied in neural circuitry. the more the circuitry is activated, the stronger it gets, and the more deeply the ideas are held. he argues that the many different marches about women,

the climate, taxes are all linked by a liberal focus on care, a positive framework he says rebuts trump's self-interest. democracy is more than voting, he writes. democracy and citizenship require us to care about each other. the man behind that advice is here. linguist george lakoff and drew west, joining us from emory university. george, what do you mean by a framework of caring, and how does that translate to holding these protests over and over and over? >> well, first, you don't have democracy without care. as lincoln said, democracy is of, by and for the people. "for the people" means democracy has to care about the people. and that is crucial.

but that's been true since the beginning. from the beginning we had the private depending upon public resources. from roads and bridges to all sorts of things for both business and private life. public education, national bank, interstate commerce. you know, on and on. lots of things like that that supported both business and private life, and more recently, all of science. where do you get computer science from? the n.i.h. where did you get satellite communication from? nasa and noaa. where do you get cellphones and gps systems from? the defense department, with satellites depending on switching circuits that go in nanoseconds, billionths of a second. if they're a millionth of a second off the cellphones are hundreds of miles off. cellphones are needed all over our country and the world and our public resources are supporting not only our economy

but the economy of the world. this is crucial. we need to understand that, because we have care for each other, for our benefit and for, you know, just national security, for well-being and for freedom, you're going to need public resources. >> how is that communicated by these types of resistance? do you think that folks who are mobilized against trump have more or less gotten it right and they can take some credit for what's been blocked in the first hundred days? a lot of folks surveying this weekend and saying trump hasn't done as much as some might have predicted a few weeks ago? or is there a next step to the evolution? >> the next step is changing public discourse and changing the way the public thinks about politics and understands it. for example, trump has said he wants to get rid of three-quarters of the regulations in the government why are regulations there? to protect the public. if he had said he wanted to get

rid of three-quarters of the protections, it would have sounded very different. this is true on many cases. take the issue of jobs. companies don't just give jobs because they're nice. they give jobs because people who work for them are profit creators. people who work for them should be calling themselves profit creators and asking for a fair share of the profits and to be treated well. this is -- these are just a couple of major things. what is a pension? a pension is delayed payment for work already done. if a company says, we can't afford our generouspeions, the answer is they're stealing your money. this is something that needs to be said. you need to shift the viewpoint of public discourse from corporate life and from the powerful to the people who are affected by the powerful. >> let me bring in drew with a focus on political psychology. what's the lens you bring to some of what george is saying and the protests? >> i think that whomever -- one

of the important things we are seeing and is always true is whomever controls the narrative controls -- controls who is going to -- who is going to direct where things are going to go. so that, every time that donald trump says, well, we're going to change the tax system in this particular way, democrats should always be saying, well, let's take a look at who us and them is here, because he is saying i am going to cut your taxes. well, he may not mean your to his country club friends but he doesn't mean it to you. two or three things -- couple things i would add to what george said. one is that journalists -- you were talking before in a prior segment about how do you deal with this post-fact universe, you know. journalists have sort of allowed that to happen in the same way that democrats have in that they've forgotten that, when you go to journalism school, you learn that you tell a story, and you know, you are a lawyer.

and i don't know if you have been a litigator. if you have, you know that you tell a story -- >> yeah. >> -- and you hang the facts on the story. but if you don't tell that story well, it doesn't matter what facts you have. you know, so that's one of the biggest problems for the democrats is that they haven't created the story on which you can hang the facts that makes people feel compelled by your story. >> i love that. i totally know wha you mean. and yes, ifou are before a jury you have to give a story. george, what is the story of the resistance today? >> it's not the resistance. it's the persistence. it's going through and saying, here is the story. that the private depends on public resources, as we have said. that democracy involves care, and that means that citizens care about others, work through the government as an instrument to provide public resources for the well-being and freedom of everybody. and you are not free if you don't have health care. you are not free if you don't

have an education. you are not free if you are in a situation where you can't get decent wages. you know, the idea of a story is exactly right. that's what the story is. >> drew, briefly, what do you think is the most effective piece of messaging donald trump has done? >> i think it's one that -- i asked my students the other day in their last class, so what was, in a word, lightning round, what was donald trump's central message? they all said make america great again. lightning rod, what was hillary clinton's central message? the room was silent. eventually someone said, uh, third term of obama? there you go. >> wow. >> exactly right. over a year ago i had analyzed trump, come up with trump's not only central message but how he, as a supersman, uses your own brain to his advantage. and i predicted he would get 47%

of the vote. he only got 46%. >> 46.5. we're out of time. i would love to have you both back on "the point." george lakoff and drew westin. president trump said mexicans will pay for the border wall. there is a proposal to have one to do the funding. ted cruz calling for drug lord el chapo pay for the wall. it's a real piece of legislation. what does it mean? we have a special panel to break it down next. or fill a big order or expand your office and take on whatever comes next. find out how american express cards and services can help prepare you for growth at open.com.

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a kborder wall and a notorious drug king pin. what if there was a way to fix these problems? >> the famed mexican drug lord is convicted, his criminal business is worth $14 billion. the estimates to build a wall range from 14 to $20 billion. my legislation provides if those assets are forfeited, those assets will go directly to building a wall and securing the border. >> how about that. nice proposal from ted cruz.

might even remind you of that hot second bromance of the presidential primaries. is this a serious legislative proposal or indulging some of the campaign's toxic nativist anger trying to make a big dea out of the arch villain. cruz' office put out this weird $14 billion bill, pointing out that el chap poe would pay for the wall. the legislation would be more complex than he says, and potentially less productive than he promises. the cartels generate up to $40 billion. they don't just deposit all the employees in a regular bank account and leave it there. following the money is good advice, this may be harder than it looks in this case. we wanted to take this idea seriously, though. inside the hunt for el chap poe.

a journalist who has accused the mexican government of being complicit with the cartel. what do you think of this proposal and is it possible to get a significant amount of el chapo's assets? >> well, first if you let me comment, i don't think a wall would resolve the issues that senator ted is thinking about. >> we cover that all the time i want to start with the time we have on this proposal. el chapo's assets and this proposal. >> well, first, the u.s. government have to find this morning. i mean, i have been talking about this with sources from the dea and ice. they think that this $14 billion

is not real. they think that this is about collection. but even if we think this money exists. i mean, no one. it would be almost impossibl to find it. impossible. >> go ahead. >> yeah, i mean el chapo had been seized -- and no one has confiscated this money until now. what makes senator ted cruz think he will be able to do it now. >> malcolm, what is your take on that. where the money is, and if el chapo, the extradition has been controversial and long in the making. are these funds gettable? >> i think they are. and i think we have to look at the difference between the so-called el chapo act and what

already exists. i haven't had a chance to read through the fine print of the bill that senator cruz has proposed, but if my understanding is correct, already assets seized within this country. as well as in mexico go toward law enforcement and effectively border security in some cases, i think what he's doing is just sort of trying to make a more formal point of, we need to make sure this money goes toward security rather than just gets left aside, left in the doj's asset department. the wall obviously is a contentious issue, and as an bell -- she's absolutely right. you debated the wall, there's no point getting to that argument. i think one thing worth questioning is, how much is he really worth? in my book, i believe an bell has researched this, probably more than i have. in my book, the last narco, i

try to -- through estimates of what he's -- you know, what he owns, whether it be properties in colombia, mexico, allegedly in eastern europe, really, what is he worth? how long will it take to get that money toward something useful? you know, then you end up in a debate whether mexico should take some of the funds, whether the united states -- >> did you find it to be billions? >> if i were to calculate the property, it would be billions. >> i never calculate -- >> that goes to what you document in your book which is someone who could operate this way. speak to how problematic the situation was with mexico's government, if he could operate openly with that much money and proper property. malcolm? >> that's for me. i'm sorry. yes, i mean, well, yeah, the

corruption is rampant, we know that. it's -- when i was there, look, i haven't worked in mexico since 2012. but during the calderon administration, he did go after corruption. you have to give him that. but it was a sort of -- if i remember the analogy correctly, he overturned the law, the termites sort of came out. that was his words. chapo has assets all over the place. they would like to find out how extensive it is. >> a lot of these questions, a lot of money, and a lot of lives affected in the u.s. as well. appreciate you both joining us. we are out of time for the point. appreciate you tuning in, if you have further questions, tweet to me at #the point. stay tuned, "meet the press" is next. ses for days!

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this sunday, president trump promised to change washington, but is it possible washington is changing him? >> this is more work than in my previous life. i thought it would be easier. >> the president fights to meet a 100-day deadline he calls ridiculous, with an outline on taxes. >> we are going to cut taxes and simplify the tax code. >> that faces stiff opposition. another attempt to repeal and replace obamacare. >> we think it is a really good step in the right direction. >> that is still short on votes. and a promise to get rid of nafta.