>> there might be another chapter here. let's hold off. >> thank you very much. very important. i'd like to ask scott pruitt, who most of you know and are respect, as i do, just to say a few words. scott, please? >> thank you, mr. president. your decision today to exit the paris accord reflects your unflinching commitment to put america first. and by exiting, you're fulfilling yet one more campaign promise to the american people. please know that i'm thankful for your fortitude, your courage, and your steadfastness as you serve and lead our country. america finally has a leader who answers only to the people, not to the special interests who had their way for way too long, and everything you do, mr. president, you're fighting for the forgotten men and women

across this country. you're a champion for the hardworking citizens all across this land, who just want a government that listens to them and represents their interests. you have promised to put america first in all that you do. and you've done that in a number of ways. from trade, to national security, to protecting our border, to right sizing washington, d.c. and today, you put america first wroo with regard to international agreement and the environment. this is an historic restoration of american economic independence, one that will benefit the working class, the working poor, and working people of all stripes. with this action you have declared that the people are rulers of this country are once again. it should be noted that we as a nation do it better than anyone in the world in striking the balance between growing our economy, growing jobs, while also being a good steward of our environment. we owe no apologies to other nations for our environmental stewardship. after all, before the paris accord was ever signed, america had reduced its co 2 footprint

to levels from the early 1990s, in fact, between the years 2000 and 2014, the united states reduced its carbon emissions by 18-plus percent. this was accomplished not through government mandate, but accomplished through innovation and technology of america private sector. for that reason, mr. president, you have corrected a view that was paramount in paris that somehow the united states should penalize its own economy, be apologetic, lead with our chin, while the rest of the world does little. other nations talk a good game, we lead with action. not words. our efforts, mr. president, as you know, should be on exporting our technology, our innovation, to nations who seek to reduce their co 2 footprint to learn from us. that should be our focus versus agreeing to unachievable targets that harm our economy and the american people.

mr. president, it takes courage, it takes commitment, to say no to the men while doing what's right by the american people. you have that courage and the american people can take comfort because you have teheir backs. thank you, mr. president. >> thank you. >> unusual for the president to conclude his remarks and then have the epa administrator come up and add other remarks. on a sunny day in the rose garden, what could be defined and construed as a dark speech and as you go through it, more like four or five dark speeches in there. i couldn't help but notice matthew miller of the obama justice department just said on social media, "this is like watching a hugo chaves speech,

long, rambling, veering from topic to topic, prattling on about exploitation by foreigners." yes, a partisan view, but as content goes, ali velshi, interesting stuff. >> yeah. i mean, he started off with where we thought he would go. saying this is not in america's interest, it's stifling to american businesses, the call on america to contribute to this green fund at the united nations. america was going to contribute $30 billion. 10% of that fund while other countries not only didn't have to contribute to it, but countries like china and india, developing nations, are able to increase their carbon output. that's where we thought this discussion was going to go and he executed that within the first few minutes but then it became something about -- he made many references to u.s. sovereignty, about people being against the united states, about other countries not doing it. he quoted a widely debunked study by a group called nara con sh sulting commissioned to show

that implementing this deal would cost americans lots of money and jobs. the assumption in the study that he cited is that america lives up to 100% of its commitments, voluntary commitments, under this paris agreement, and no other participating country does anything. it's just a flawed study because you can't really find studies like that. i will aremind you, scott pruit, the secretary of the environmental protection agency, not very long ago said on cnbc, i would not agree that human activity is a primary contributor to the global warming that we see." so this was an unusual anti-global warming, anti-globalist speech. >> we are treading across the top of what is nicolle wallace's hour. she's in another studio waiting to take the baton. nicolle, several mentions of the cities and towns in kind of the springsteen belt from detroit to youngstown, pittsburgh got two references. one of which may be the lasting

quote from this. "i was elected to represent the people of pittsburgh, not paris." >> yeah, i wrote that one down, too. what's so incredibly cynical about that, first off, i believe the speech belongs alongside american carnage from his inauguration address and some of his convention speech was incredibly dark. this was that side of donald trump which is the one we've seen the most of in these prepared addresses, but it was an incredibly cynical look at our role in the world, and what's interesting to me is that citizens of pittsburgh were joined by citizens of paris after 9/11 who fought as our nato allies and died in afghanistan for the united states of america. so, it's a false read on history, and separating out citizens of pittsburgh from citizens of paris is just a cynical -- it sort of reveals a very shallow and cynical exploitation of the kinds of voters that think we have to choose between being citizens of a great american city, and citizens of the world. that is simply not what a

majority of people thought we had to choose between. i think people would like to believe, i think in their most optimistic visions of american leadership, it's about innovating our way out of problems, it's about finding a way to do both. to have our economy flourish without our children dying from asthma. i mean, it was one of the most cynical sort of prepared sets of remarks that i've heard from the president since inauguration day. really stunning. >> nicolle, thank you for that, and we'll be back to you and you can take it away right after he get reaction from steve kornacki. steve, his tone at one point he mentioned the green climate fund and as an aside, sarcastically said, "nice name." so, where do you take it from here? >> well, yeah, a lot of what nicolle was saying, this is how donald trump understands his base, this is how donald trump understands how he got elected president. name the cities that he cited there, pennsylvania, ohio, michigan. those are the states that made him president. and he understands in his mind, i think, the voters that flipped those states, these are all

states that had been 30 years since they've gone republican, that flipped them to his column, that this is what they respond to. and i think one of the things -- just trying to understand the appeal of trump over the last year and a half, and even now, i'm not making any case here that he's extremely popular or anything like that, the only case i'd make is i think there's indicators that he still has the basic support now that he had when he got elected. i'm not saying he added anything to it. he may not for all the noise lost anything. one of the things we have to think about and maybe reckon what, what is it he's doing that are resonates with that base? i think one of the things strategically that he's doing is he's counting on the reaction that is speea speech like this generates he's counting on european leaders speaking out and calling him all sorts of names, counting on environmentalists being enraged, counting on liberal democrat s going to great lengths to condone dem him for that. he's counting on that, backlash

in places he's talking about, basically voters there in his mind, his calculation, those types of people who are offended by this, those voters he thinks feel have neglected them. seeing them angry is telling those voters, yeah, this guy is doing something different than any other president you've seen in your lifetime. he's making the people who've forgotten about you, look down at you, sneer at you, he's making them angry. i'm not saying that is what's happening, i'm not saying that's how they think. i think that is his strategy here and that strategy was very much evident in this speech today. >> steve kornacki thank you for that. to our viewers, our breaking news coverage continues now on "deadline white house" with nicolle wallace. >> thank you, brian. so we are coming out of this incredible set of remarks from president trump. one of the most bleak depictions of america's role in the world, as environmental partners and we're joined by josh earnest who was president obama's press secretary at the time this accord was reached. i want to read you something from your old boss' statement that he put out, just as news broke that we would be pulling

out of the paris accord. your old boss, president obama wrote "the nations that remain in the paris agreement will be the nations that reap the benefits and jobs and industries created. i believe the united states of america should be at the front of the pact. even in the absence of american leadership, even as this administration joins a small handful of nations that reject the future, i'm confident that our state, cities, and businesses will step up and do even more to lead the way. and help protect for future generations the one planet we've got." how do you think your old boss feels about the fact that this new president seems so intent on dismantling every one of our sort of global commitments? >> yeah, nicolle, in watching the statement from president trump, it was profoundly sad. he, as you pointed out, portrayed a very dark vision for the future of the country, and one that does not reflect the reality that most people are dealing with. in some ways, i think the pittsburgh example is a revealing one. in some ways, pittsburgh is a city that has done as much as any other city in america to

revitalize itself. pittsburgh is a city that was very closely tied to the coal economy and over the last 20 or 30 years, that city has focused on innovation, investing in education, investing in training its workers for a higher -- for a different kind of job that makes pittsburgh a remarkable, remarkably vital city in terms of attracting young people and changing their economy to capitalize on the opportunities that are there in the future. so i look forward to newspaper editors and television news editors sending reporters to pittsburgh to actually find out how that city would benefit from continued u.s. leadership on climate. the other thing that struck me about this, and it's important for people to understand, the paris climate agreement was nonbinding and voluntary. the united states is not bound by the expectations that are placed on us by the international community.

the united states assumed voluntarily a set of commitments, steps that we would take in this country, to reduce our carbon pollution in a way that would benefit our economy. and we were only willing to make that commitment if other countries were willing to make similar commitments that reflected their own commitment to reducing their carbon pollution. so, this is an element that was completely shrouded by some of the statements from that speech. this is a voluntary agreement where president obama and the obama administration made specific commitments, achievable commitments, that would improve our economy and improve the health of our planet's climate. >> josh earnest, former press secretary for former president obama. thank you so much for spending some time with us. our own andrea mitchell joins us now. andrea, do you think that on the heels of what was by all accounts a pretty disastrous nato stop on the nine-day tour -- >> exactly. >> -- that this announcement exacerbates our tensions with our closest allies?

>> absolutely. that's not who the president was playing to. as you know very well, when he talks about pittsburgh and youngstown, ohio, he's talking about the rust belt and misidentifying, obviously, where the jobs are. our own ann thompson is pointing out there are so many more jobs in removables right now. there are only 53,000 jobs in the coal industry as of a year ago january. and half a million jobs in solar and other renewable energy sources. so, he's misstating the economic benefits of proceeding with new sources of renewable energy. that said, that's not what people in the rust belt want to hear or expect to hear, and when he diminishes paris and says i'm choosing pittsburgh over paris, that certainly makes paris the enemy and exacerbated our relationship with our allies. it's significant, i think, at least i did not see secretary of

state rex tillerson there, it was not on his official schedule and he was one of the advocates if sticking with the paris agreement. one caution, though, is the president did give himself an out saying he's willing to renegotiate it. i'm not sure how practical that is given his attitude and the influence, frankly, of scott pruitt, the very hardline epa administrator, who's already won an executive order in march canceling a lot of the emission controls for coal-fired plants that had been approved in the days of the obama administration. >> one of the big headlines after that nato stop last week was that the talks about climate and the talks about are russia had not gone well, according to our allies. and i wonder how you think it will be received that he's pitting now the people of pittsburgh against the people of paris, when after 9/11 people of france and other nato allies joined people of pittsburgh and other american cities, fought alongside our troops in afghanistan, fought and died after 9/11. >> and still are. and presumably, if there is a request on his desk very shortly

from our pentagon for as many as 5,000 more troops, he would also be picking up the phone and asking macron and angela merkel to increase nato troops, principally german troops, who are already and have been in afghanistan for 16 years. america's longest war and their longest war. the willingness will not necessarily be there. obviously there will be areas of mutual agreement and certainly russian threats in ukraine will be one area where nato wants to stand firm. they no longer feel, as angela merkel said, they can rely on donald trump, on this american president. it's really a dramatic change in 70 years of american leadership. >> angela merkel talking about a new world order. andrea mitchell, thank you for being with us. we're going to swing over to the rose garden where kristen welker has been covering this event for us all day. i'm guessing for you the headline might be what it was for me, "bannon's back." >> reporter: oh, that's right. there's no doubt that this underscores he's back. his strength. he was among those who was

lobbying the president to pull out of the paris climate agreement. of course, he's a nationalist. he's sort of the gut check on the president's populist base. but it's our understanding that reince priebus and stevphen miller also pushing him to pull out of the deal. he's casting it as a campaign promise kept. heard the loud cheer, clapping, when the president said he was elected to be the president of pittsburgh, not paris. i know you all are discussing why that will be controversial on the world stage, but for the president's supporters, that's the type of language they want to hear. take a listen to aly little bit more of what president trump had to say moments ago. >> one by one, we're keeping the promises i made to american people during my campaign for president. whether it's cutting job-killing regulations, appointing and confirming a tremendous supreme court justice, putting in place tough new ethics rules, achieving a record reduction in illegal immigration on our

southern border, or bringing jobs, plants and factories back into the united states at numbers which no one until this point thought even possible, and believe me, we've just begun. >> reporter: the reality check is, it will likely take about four years to fully withdraw from this deal and there's another reality check here, nicolle, which is think about how long it took president obama to get the paris accord negotiated in the first place. it happened in his second term. president trump today talked about the fact that he wants to renegotiate the deal. he wants to look for a better deal. the question is, what's the timeline for that? when will those negotiations start? with whom, who's willing to come to the table when you have close to 200 other countries who have already agreed to this accord? nicolle? >> kristen, i wonder, one last question for you, what this says about winners and losers, ivanka trump was known to have lobby on behalf of her father more time

to consider perhaps the benefits of staying in. we have another sort of factoid, another dot to connect between jared's mounting legal problems, maybe ivanka's waning political influen influence. do you think that's one of the outcomes or sort of new wrinkles, we understand, about this white house now? >> reporter: well, it's certainly striking. we know he does listen to his daughter and son-in-law, jared. they are two of his top advisers, his most trusted advisers. and they were urging him to stay in the deal. ivanka was not here today. we didn't see jared. i'm not 100% sure he wasn't here. but apparently it's our standing that they were marking a holiday. so that may be the reason. but it is certainly striking, we know that she set up a number of meetings for him with people who encouraged him to stay in the deal and yet he went in another direction. as you well know, nicolle, we have spent weeks if not months speculating about the future of steve bannon, a lot of people saying he might be on the outs. this is a sign he clearly is not

and clearly still very much as the president's ear. nicolle. >> thank rue very much, kristen welker, come back if you hear anything new and break in. my panel, rick stengel. former managing editor of "time" magazine. and my friend, donny deutsch, branding and markieting expert. i'm going to re-brand and market you. you just -- fan favorite. i mean, i guess let me start with you, are rick, what do you think about this sort of choice he laid out for the people of choosing between the people of pittsburgh and the people of paris? >> well, first of all, i'm going to get to that in one second. >> okay. the magazine editor edits the question. >> the paris accords are nonbinding. >> right. >> there's no -- >> why not just say i'm going to improve it, make it a better deal? >> i don't know why not. no infringement on our sovereignty, no legal liability. each country crafts its own numbers. i mean, we were going to reduce our green gas emissions 27% below the 2005 levels, something

very doable. we're a model for the rest of the world. we got china, the world's largest polluter, to be in it, an this pittsburgh thing which is a canard, by the way, my family is from pittsburgh. i went to the city of mayor's website. >> tweeting. >> "biodiesel, solar energy, wind energy, encouraging the people -- >> let me just add the mayor of pittsburgh had tweeted, he's now trolling the speech, he says "as the mayor of pittsburgh, i can assure you we'll follow the guidelines of the paris agreement for our people, our economy, and our future." the mayor of pittsburgh -- >> andrea's point which the secretary of state used to make, there are many more job in the renewable energy industry than the fossil fuel industries and by the way, the big commercial energy companies like exxon are for us sticking in the paris accords. >> donny? >> i have such rage and sadness. we just watched a dangerous little man give a very, very scary speech. you know, it's fascinating, you

take ceos of companies like dow and exxon and unilever to progressive companies like apple and tesla. all the ceos dramatically, passionately came out, we need to stay in this ace cord. >> talk about that a little bit. elon musk is the ceo of one of those companies and happen to be on the president's economic advisory council. >> said basically he'd resign from any economic connections with this office. these are ceos of very disparate types of companies. i name them for a reason. there's a reason they believe in this. there's so much economic falter to what he said. when you look at this president, you look at three things that drive him. four things that drive him. particularly in this instance, he's always thought climate change is a hoax. anything the previous administration has done, he's out to destroy. anything basic global treaty goes against him. i said before, this is the first president in my lifetime, say, possibly, richard nixon, and george w. bush i disagree with, but he like clinton, like obama, like jimmy cartoer, sat in the office, felt as an american, what is right for the 3 million americans they represent? what is right for us as leader

of the world versus what is right for me? you saw a man up there with a vision of one. what is right for me. i'm going to protect at all costs my 38% to 42% of my base, regardless of what this country is about. we, in my lifetime, have been leaders of the world. everything this man does walks that back. it'sscary. people start to have -- we react were -- >> elon musk tweeted, you just mentioned him, he tweeted he's departing the presidential council. climate change is real, leaving the paris accord is not good for america or the world. so there you have it. >> this is a guy who's run a company that has to do business in america and the rest of the world. i don't think donald trump understands the ceos are thinking about their global companies. they're not saying, what is best for -- he is such a backward man. he's such an uneducated man. and the fact that, to your point, steve bannon has risen again. and i also, my more cynical

viewpoint, the more dramatic he got today, the less we talk about russia. interestingly enough. >> right. >> had he gone any other direction, and by blockrussia. >> we're getting back to russia in block two. let me bring in my friend, matt sh lap, tweeted earlier today you were invited to be at the rose garden speech. i take it you have a different take on this news. >> completely. it's like there are two worlds out there. i think whether or not the elected democrat leaning mayor of pittsburgh agrees with this or not, there are a lot of people in states like michigan and pittsburgh and ohio and wisconsin, my home state of kansas, a lot of people across this country who have felt like they've been struggling. one of the reasons they feel like they're struggling, they don't feel the economic prospects of the recovery thereat we've seen over the last several years. they vbt sehaven't seen an incrn their take-home pay. every piece of concrete legislation on climate that has tried to be pushed through the

congress, the one thing that's enduring is that energy prices will increase and that it disproportionately hits the working class and there are less of those types of jobs available for those folks. i think the american people want the responsible things done on questions like climate and energy usage and not being wasteful, but they're tired of having to shed their own economic opportunity for somebody else's environmental ideal. in america, we're much more practical. i think we should approach this from a very practical standpoint. >> matt, i want to ask you, though, do you think it would have been a viable political route for this president to simply get up and say i'm going to make the paris accord great again, i'm going to make it a win/win, i'm going to make it something that the country can stay in, but aisle goii'm going it good for the people of pittsburgh. do you ever worry that he just takes this dark, bleak view, he creates false -- why should any american have to choose between being a citizen of pittsburgh and being a citizen of the world? i mean, is that it?

is that -- do you see the choices that stark? >> no, i don't. actually i agree with all the commentary that this is nonbinding. so i kind of wonder why there's all this hyperbole over this agreement. i think it is more symbolic, where people felt like all -- >> matt, that's the point. if it was symbolic, why pull out? if it's symbolic -- >> because it's so -- >> all this guy did was stick his name on buildings. why not just leave our name on an accord that makes us look good? that's my point. >> why? it's so phony. >> that never stopped donald trump before. good lord. >> or other politicians. many th in this case, barack obama. >> is this an authenticity moment? >> the real question when itle to comes to questions like the goals in paris, it has to be followed on with changes in our domestic policy which have to go through congress and at the end of the day, nicolle, they result in two very basic things. the price of energy goes up and we have fewer jobs. i'm not for either one of those. i don't think it's stark to fight that. i think it's wonderfully positive. i think there are a lot of americans like myself across

this country who believe we can be much smarter in how we approach these things than president obama was. >> do you think -- do you believe in climate change? >> i believe that the climate fluctuates, absolutely. sometimes we go through periods of time when it gets warmer and sometimes we go through periods of time when it gets colder. i do not believe that these carbon caps, taxing carbon and constraining carbon will result in much difference on the temperature gauge and i think every scientific study shows it. all of these -- all of these goals, if you actually look at the impact on the temperature, they are so slight and why are we shedding our jobs for tiny, tiny possible improvements in the temperature? >> matt, first of all -- i'm sorry. >> please. >> even tiny improvements, if we go 3.6% warmer, the world ends. so tiny increments -- >> that's not true. >> that is not true. >> that is not true. >> matt, by the way -- >> donny, you sound like a crazy christian preacher saying the

end is near. >> you sound like a crazy trump advocate who drinks whatever he sells. that's what you sound like, sir. >> matt, isn't -- >> let's go to the folks. >> let me -- let me -- i want to bring in peter baker who's going to write the story that's going two be on the front page of "the new york times" tomorrow. i respect a difference of opinion. you know that. you and i have been fighting over politics for 20 years. >> yes. >> i just have to ask, do you think the future of our party lies in denying climate change? i talked to governor kasich's senior adviser who said yesterday the governor suggested staying in but simply improving it. would you have supported staying in the accord but making it better for america -- >> let me be clear with what i'm for. i'm for being responsible and all these questions about how we use energy, and i'm totally fine with increasing the role of renewab renewables, as long as they're economically viable. what i'm not for is the government -- >> you think it's a choice, you don't think our economy can thrive and our air can be clean for your five babies and my one? >> yes, i do. you know this, nicolle, this is one thing i love about america,

when things are produced in america, they're produced the cleanest on the globe. we have a great track record. one of the reasons we have that track record is over the last two decades we've made tremendous improvements. what i'm not for is the government coming in and with its political hands saying, this form of energy is better than another. let's face it, guys, we are the fossil fuel leaders. people say this is the war on coal. it's really not. in the end, most of these climate alarmists, they don't want to use any fossil fuels. they think we can get by with windmills and bikes. it's silly, you know what hurts, it hurts the poor in undeveloped world. they have the right to use fossil fuels to be able to compete with us and get to a level where they can have a decent life for them and their children. >> peter baker, save us from ourself. tell me what stood out for you in terms of what this says about where the white house is at this moment. a lot of people are talking about how steve bannon used -- being sent home from the foreign trip early to his advantage. he built support first decision. he built support in and out of the cabinet.

he defy a lot of president trump's former peers and maybe friends and admirers in the business economy and i think he gave the bleakest speech since his inauguration and before that the second bleakest speech was his convention address with his comments today. >> well, look, it does suggest that the reports of steve bannon's political demise a few weeks back were premature, you know, we see in donald trump's world, you know, advisers tend to have ups and downs and they become more influential and less influential. they come in closer in the orbit and further away. this clearly seems to be a big moment for steve bannon. he did win this fight. i think his argument is interesting, it's a political argument, essentially, that while polls show vast majority of americans prefer to stay in the paris accord, one poll showed something like a margin of 5-1, even trump voters, even republicans, more often wanted to stay in than not. the calculation here, it's important to the base, it's important to those voters who brought him to the white house

in the first place and rather than try to broaden the president's political support to people that steve bannon argues can't be won over, stick to the people who brought you there, cultivate that base, worry about their concerns, make sure they see you fighting for them, and that in the end, they are wagering, will be a political winner. >> peter, you and your colleagues, glenn thrush and maggie haberman have been reporting for the last several days about some of the sort of winners and losers over the intensifying investigation into ties between trump's orbit and russia. and i wonder if you think that this is going to be used against jared kushner and ivanka who were widely seen as being moderating forces or maybe that's a fantasy all together. i know that's another conversation for another day and different beverages. but do you think suggests that they're just not as able to sway their father with the sort of onslaught and political power that steve bannon has in holding the power of the base over donald trump at an hour of

pretty dire crisis for this white house? >> bewell it is is interesntere didn't win this fight. brought in corporate executives like elon musk and so forth, make sure the president, ivanka's father, jared's father-in-law, had other voices in his ear, not just steve bannon's voice. it didn't succeed. now, they did -- i think they would tell you they want sort of a concession prize or whatever, a consolation prize, in the promise to renegotiate to try to re-enter paris or negotiate a new pact. what we don't know is how serious that really is. was that just thrown out there to basically satisfy those who lost this particular policy fight? or was there going to be a serious effort to try to find some face-saving, game-change v the pact that can be revived in a year or two and give president trump a political win while actually still committing to some of the goals his daughter and son-in-law would like him to

commit to? that's going to be the real question going forward. >> rick stengel, i'm guessing it depresses you to hear this already reduced to a political who's up and who's down. this was a pretty important achievement of the obama presidency. >> well, it does depress me a little bit. it is a political decision. one of the things wrong with the conversation, what matt said about energy prices, energy prices are at almost historic low. crude oil has been going down. the u.s. will be -- will exceed saudi arabia as the largest energy producer of the world in the next few years. that's why energy prices have gone down. coal has been marginalized by cheap natural gas. this is why the u.s. economy is thriving and doing better. has absolutely nothing to do with donald trump and he just missed that completely and deceived the audience an scared people about that. >> matt, let you respond to that, matt. >> i promise not to deceive the audience. i'll take all the challenges. as you know, there are many inputs that go into the cost of a barrel of oil or unit of natural gas, and the fact is the number-one reason why our supply, our prices in america

are so low are because we have been aggressive with technology and we have plentiful supplies of these fossil fuels and that's a positive thing. if you add all of these climate regulations that people want to, we would not be able to produce at the numbers we are because quite frankly, it would become uneconomic. that's a fact. >> and the expansion, matt, happened under president obama over the last eight years because he made that happen. >> despite everything he tried to do to stop it. he wanted natural gas. that's true, but as we all know, at theen end of the day, natura gas is a fossil fuel as well and the main central thrust of climate change activists is to get us off all fossil fuels including natural fwas. >> i'm going to break up energy today and let donny deutsch get a word in. this sort of idea and this sadness that supporters of president obama might feel, just this very bleak and rather abrupt dismantling of what was probably to him one of his proudest accomplishments. >> you introduced me as a

branding marketing expert. i want to talk about the american brand as i see it, what leaders do as countries and leaders. donald trump, use one of joe's terms, is purely a day trader. even if we can go back and forth in the economics and the climate issues and line up 100 scientists. even if we are contributing more in many instances, the rest of the world, that's what leaders do. it's the same argument in health care. it's donald trump's point of view that, no, if you have more, that doesn't mean you contribute. that means maybe 20 million people can die on health care. the simple argument of health care is people who can afford it contribute more for the greater good. that's what leaders do. that's what -- the basic premise, what donald lost here, is the same thing in nato, same thing we lead 145 other countries with the exception of i guess syria and who's the other one? >> nicaragua. didn't think it went far enough. don't lump them together. >> that we lead that way, for the greater good for the next 20 years, 50 years. it's not a day trade. this is so beyond that and it's certainly not a trade to your political base. that's ha he missed and that's what the sadness is. that's what barack obama saw.

>> we have exclusive reaction right now from former secretary of state john kerry who spoke with our own an degrdrea mitche moments ago. >> my immediate reaction isabdi american leadership, shameful moment for the united states to have unilaterally walked away from an agreement which did not have one other country requiring us to do something. it was a voluntary program. we designed the program. the president was not truthful with the american people today and the president who talked about putting america first has now put america last. together with syria, which is in the midst of a civil war, and nicaragua, which thought the agreement didn't go far enough. this is an extraordinary moment of fake news because the economy he described is not the economy of america. america has been gaining jobs in solar. solar has gained 17 times the

rate of our economy. there are 2.6 million jobs in our country in clean energy. half of them are in states that donald trump won. so he is not helping the forg forgoting american. he's hurting them. their kids will have worse asthma in the summer. they will have a harder time having economic growth. he's made us an environmental pariah in the world. and i think it is one of the most self-destructive moves i've ever seen by any president in my lifetime. >> so, i actually think that the former secretary of state made the most powerful counterargument, and i think there's going -- i think matt's right, there's going to be a lot of hysteria about pulling out of the accord, but he made -- the best articulation i heard of the economic argument, that he presented a lie, basically to the american people, that we have to choose between, you know, pollution and jobs. >> well, he has said it so eloquently, and he said it for the last couple of years, the renewable energy market is a

trillion-dollar market going down the road. it's going to dwarf the old markets that exist now. and the other thing is, it's very, very shortsighted. yes, maybe there's a few jobs that wild l be lost not but you want your children -- >> it was nonbinding. this president could have said if there are jobs lost, i'll evaluate it case by case. i mean, to me, what confounds me is the president with some affection for branding, i guess i don't know if i should call it success, that he didn't use it as an opportunity to rebrand the paris accord. call it, you know, 2.0. >> well, unfortunately, america first means little america. an america outside of the global order. it's like great britain became little england. the united states will become little america. he's withdrawing us from the world where we lead, sometimes by sacrifice. we made great sacrifices in world war ii. we started the marskrhal plan. all of these things. >> nicolle, i tell you why he

didn't re-brand it, i've met a lot of ceos in my lifetime. ceo sociopaths. they come in, whatever is there, it's wrong, has to be destroyed and that's the only way they can validate their existence. that's why he would not re-brand anything or retool anything because it was all wrong before i got there. i worked for those ceos and they're very dangerous. >> all right. we're going to take a short break. when we come back, comey under oath and answering questions about trump's request for him to ease up on flynn in the russia investigation. when he testifies a week from today. and house hunting? these compounds might be taken back by the russian. news that the trump administration is considering returning these homes seized by president obama in the closing days of his presidency. it's time for the "your business" sbrup near entreprene week. a detroit bottled tea business. local customers love her product but she wants to go national. she asked for a "your business"

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regardless of recommendation, i was going to fire comey. knowing there was no good time to do it. and, in fact, when i decided to

just do it, i said to myself, i said, you know, this russia thing with trump and are sha are russia is a made up story, it's an excuse by the democrats for having lost an election. >> wow. so the countdown is on. fbi director james comey slated to sit in congress one week from today in his first public testimony since his firing. our panel is back. joining the discussion, msnbc's chief legal correspondent, my tutor, ari melber. and from washington, rob zarati. thank you for joining us. a i've been dying to ask you this, is there any scenario in which president trump tries to prevent comey from testifying by invoking privilege, conversations among his staff and advisers would be privileged? >> yogi berra said it's hard to make predictions especially about the future. i've always agreed with that. >> i don't want to give him any ideas. >> especially about this president. what i can say legally is there are strong executive privilege arguments, white houses have

used them for a very long time. >> have they ever included an fbi director, though? >> they have included senior officials who might want to talk on the argument that there are things that seen your officials say to the president that go to his inherent authority. so the question of is there a legitimate version of this argument? yes. is it vidiated as the lawyers would say, reduced or extinguished by a loquacious president who's always talking and tweeting? that would hurt him. how secret is it? how privileged is it? privileged means basically legally secret if you're the one who's already been talking about it. >> we know comey wrote all these me memos. after he met with president trump, he took copious notes. do you think the memos could see the light of day or captured under executive privilege, too? >> i would not expect to see the memos any time soon. we know reportedly special counsel mueller cleared this testimony, it's going to be interesting to see what comey talks about on thursday, i don't think he has any interest in a

paper trail getting out that touches on aspects of the investigation. the distinction being a substantive one, a former official, jim comey is right now private citizen, his ability to speak to the congress relatively unfettered is there as long as he doesn't break any of the big rules, myse s he's not going toe any classified information. anything that's a memo could be considered potentially investigative. the fbi usually keeps a tight lid on that. >> i want to bring you in, you know jim comey well. last we saw him as the viewing public was i think doing some yard work and sent out a note to his staff saying i'm fine, i'm going to be okay. but he's going to be before congress testifying under oath and the last things that this president said about him were to the russians, he called him crazy, and trump called him a nut job and told russian foreign minister lavrov and the russian ambassador kislyak that removing comey would release pressure on trump to deal better with the russians. is this picture getting more bleak for you, the trump white

house, and russia? >> well, every moment seems to add additional clouds and suspicion around the russia connection, but, again, there's a lot of smoke here. we're just not sure what the fire may look like. to your point about jim comey, i think this is isa moment he beg bit of redemption. a bit of a moment where his integrity is restored, perhaps. but he is going to be constrained. he's constrained by the confidentiality of his prior work. he's going to be constrained by what robert mueller, the special counsel, is now engaged in. as ari was just mentioning. and he may be constrained ultimately by executive privilege. and so he may not be as free to articulate his point of view or at least all the information he would want and it may be that we are left with still a lot of questions and doubts about an unfulfilled investigation where there seems to be some smoke, but no yet evidence of collusion or conspiracy of the type that a

lot of folks have speculated about. >> so, donald trump, though, has retained a private lawyer, marc kasowitz. jared kushner has had one for a little while. we now have a picture of a white house, we know there have been a lot of reports how they'd like to step up, replace people who resigned. their communications director resigned and hasn't been replaced yet. what is the impact of donald trump calling an fbi director crazy and a nut job to the russians and tweeting all night? forget about the typos. let's take the things he spells correctly and just focus on those. but constantly tweeting about how comey lost the confidence of everyone in washington, republicans and democrats alike, w when things calm down, they'll be thanking me. donald trump sort of serving as his own one-man war-room. how does that impact what should be a deadly serious investigation into whether russia impacted the 2016 presidential election? >> well, i think there's several effects to what the president's

been saying and i think part of the advantage of bringing counsel in is to quiet the waters, perhaps calm the president and not have him talk as much or tweet as much about this. but given what he said, i mean, first of all, there's a problem of poking director comey. director comey can be incredibly formidable and you don't want to create another enemy, more so than you need to. and so the fact that he's saying things to put jim comey potentially in a corner is not a good thing. he's also potentially aggravating the fbi. you don't want to do that when the fbi is helping the special counsel is investigating these issues. why in the world would you want to poke the fbi? you don't want to do that. you also undermine the institutions that americans have to have faith in. the fbi, the intelligence community, the very institutions that the president, himself, relies upon for information, analysis and assurance. that's incredibly important. finally, you don't want to

disparage and undermine the credibility of your own people and institutions in the face of foreign counterparties, especially those that are rivals and may be guilty of trying to attack our very systems, our electoral systems. so just up and down the line, nicolle, it is not a good idea, i think, for the president, especially now, to be throwing fuel on the fire and to be adding to the weight of suspicion around the russia connections. i thing thatk that's why you ha counsel coming in no doubt counseling the president to say less and to be less provocative and certainly that's why you see i think more of the questions and more of the dialogue moving into those channels. >> matt schlapp, do you think there's any prospect that these efforts that juan zarate describes as being needed could be successful with a president trump? >> you mean the proper legal precautions and the change in

behavior that should take place that juan described? >> we. >> yeah. i agree with juan 100%. you know, if they're not guilty of anything, quit looking like you're trying to hide something you did. you know, the bottom line is here, you have an investigation going on. nicolle, you've been a part of this on a presidential team. when the investigation's going on, it's hands off. you have to fully comply and participate. and it's inappropriate to try to do anything that would color that investigation. now, there might not be anything illegal about these types of things, but politically, it's unwise because people can surmise that there's some smoke there and so i, as a political adviser, i would say back off, mr. mueller's a fair guy. let him do his job. if you did nothing wrong, just relax and quit acting defensive. >> ari, you very clearly articulated where comey cannot go. explain to me where he can go next week. where are the areas he can go? he obviously cannot produce the memos. can he reiterate any

conversation that he's had? technically, he was fbi director, so that would -- my layman's terms fall into the same things. where can he go? >> it's fashionable to quote fidel castro on your show, he said within the revolution, anything. outside the revolution, nothing. that was an idea of loyalty. that's what the investigation is like. anything inside the investigation, who were they talking on? what records did they have? what banks have they subpoenaed? did they send someone to the caymans or not? all that stuff inside the box, nothing. he will hold that line. and he would hold the line even if he left service normally and naturally. to give one specific example, a person was asked about a fox news inquiry. and he said, i have no comment on the investigation if there is an investigation. so they don't get anywhere near that. that's the black box.

that's the revolution, if you will. >> i love you for bringing castro up. >> anything with swirls around that, sure. he says that was nonclassified comment. >> we'll have to hit pause. we have breaking news and new developments on the story that brought us on the air when we come back. de out of gingerbread. de out of gingerbread. being quite hungry, they started eating the roof. the homeowner was outraged. luckily the geico insurance agency had helped her with homeowners insurance. she got all her shingles replaced. hansel and gretel were last seen eating their way through the candy cane forest. call geico and see how easy it is to switch and save on homeowners insurance.

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upper respiratory tract infection, and headache. tell your doctor about all the medicines you take, and if you're pregnant or planning to be. ask your dermatologist about otezla today. otezla. show more of you. we're back with some breaking news. the nations of france, germany, italy have responded saying the paris climate accord can't be renegotiated. joining us right now, reporting from the "washington post," i have been carrying around with me all day, the senior national

security correspondent. you wrote a stunning story about how those compounds that were seized in the final days of the obama presidency as part of that packages sanctions and consequences for vladimir putin and russia, that trump might give them back. >> they're negotiating right now. this was something that came up last month between secretary of state tillerson and russian foreign minister lavrov. this was just prior to lavrov's meeting with president trump in the oval office. the united states tried a couple days before this saying the russians could have the property back if they would give on a proposal of the united states to build a new consulate in st. petersburg. this is something that has been frozen for several years. a sort of previous dispute. on the day when secretary

tillerson met with lavrov, he said they would drop that tie. it is not a done deal yet. the americans are still reviewing it. they are seeing if there's any way to put restrictions on these compounds. remove their diplomatic immunity. but they're heading in that direction. >> i read your story four time with a pen and i've marked it up. it feels like this has been reduced to a real estate swap. we'll give you back your house if you let us build a new one in st. petersburg. >> well, that linkage no longer exists. they're saying you no longer to have give us that property in st. petersburg for to us give you back your compounds. the one in new york just outside new york city and the one on the eastern shore of maryland on the

other side of the chesapeake bay from washington. i think this started out to be from the u.s. side, at least, a sort of desire to kind of clear the decks of what they thought were kind of diplomatic disagreements and long time squabbles dating from the obama administration, that would allow them on get down knitty gritty of talking about policy. the russians have said a long time that the seizure was an illegal act, it was against diplomatic protocols and treaties, and when the proposal of a swap was made, by the trump administration, the russians said no. give us back our property. a couple days later, the u.s. says okay, it doesn't have to be a swap and they are discussing just letting they will have it back. >> form he secretary of state

john kerry spoke. >> they would merit that, have they solved the problem of syria by dealing with assad, i mean, what is that it suddenly promise a reward to russia? >> karen, quickly, what is it? >> well, that's a good question and i don't know we understand the answer to that. beyond i think it was a desire, as one official told me, to clear the decks of these diplomatic embassy consulate disagreements and then get down to the real policy issues. but of course it only clears the deck on one side. it doesn't solve the problem in st. petersburg. >> thank you for joining us. this was stunning to me. with he get nothing. this was one of the more dramatic days of the final weeks of the obama presidency which was dramatic for a bunch of reasons. one, nobody thought he would be

handing over the country to donald trump including donald trump. but two, this was something he waited and waited to do which was to offer some sort of sanction or set of pickup truun. it included expelling diplomats, sanctions, and it included seizing these compounds. now we're giving it back to reboot the relationship? >> you can make 27 different facts, starting with donald trump jr. in 2008 saying, a disproportionate amount of our money is coming from russia and everything starts and goes back there. donald trump is beholden to vladimir putin. every act he has taken demonstrates that. we just don't know how deep and where and when. >> just a bad business deal. he is getting back pennies on the dollar. we thought of much more severe punishments besides these two places. and it was a minimum of what we did. we got nothing back in return. remember in december, donald trump tweeted, congratulations to vladimir putin for being --

>> he praised him. >> let me ask you legally corks these little bread crumbs of affection and warmth toward vladimir putin become evidence points in a legal capacity? >> i think that the special counsel will look at the leaks we're seeing as well as what is the there, there? are there accounts? things of value? federal election law makes it a felony to give money to a foreign campaign. >> we've gone long and that's because you're going for lebron and not my warriors. i'm nicole wallace. "mtp daily" starts now. >> you coastal elites can go root for -- i'm going to be with the working men and women of ohio. >> talk about elites. oh, please. we'll have this fight