thank you to jeremy bash and the reverend al for joining the panel. "mtp daily" coming up. >> game one is game one. lebron has survived plenty of game one losses. we'll see you single. >> if it's friday, we're about to hear exclusively from president putin. he pushes back denying the russian government meddled in the u.s. election. >> translator: even in those reports, there are assumptions, allegations and conclusions based on allegations. >> but it is one day after suggestingatriotic russian citizens were behind the hacks. plus, thehite house and a kremlin linked bank have very different explanations for a secret meeting between jared kushner and that sanctions bank

chief. >> please explain. we really do want to hear. if it was an innocent meeting, please just explain what happened. >> finally, a brewing storm. hurricane season upon us. so why is there no one in charge of the agency that handles national disasters? "mtp daily" and it starts right now. good evening. i'm chuck todd in washington and welcome to "mtp daily." once again the flood gates are open on russia with each day now come new allegations, new developments and new denials. and every time it seems we're left asking the same question, why? my new colleague megyn kelly sat down in an exclusive interview that will air in full this sun at 7:00 p.m. on the premiere. it comes a big news day already.

two former state department officials tell nbc news trump administration was gearing up to lift sanctions on russia when trump took office. of course, that ends one the question. why were they doing that? during transition, jared kushner met with russian businessman sergeally gorkov. the white house says it was a political meeting. the russians say it was a business meeting. oops, one of them isn't telling the whole truth or they mixed business and politics in which case they're not telling the whole truth. >> you're the subject of intense scrutiny in america because of the meeting with jared kushner. >> no comments about that. >> the thing is, there is some confusion. >> sorry. sorry. >> were you talking about business or were you talking about politics? >> please. >> if it's a business meeting --

>> mr. gorkov, if it was an innocent meeting with jared kushner, why don't you want to talk about it? if it was an innocent meeting, please just explain what happened in the meeting, mr. gorkov. >> i guess those magnetometers aren't working very well. no answers but more questions. putin made a shocking admission that patriotic russian hackers may have meddled in the tloek help trump. why? you could say that his answer creates more chaos for both of them. he was asked about the hacking today in st. petersburg by my come evening megyn kelly. >> all 17 of the united states intelligence agencies have conclude that had the russians did interfere with the election. republicans and democrats alike on capitol hill, including president trump's supporters and some are your defenders who have sustain classified intelligence report, and have all second this

conclusion. and even private naunl partisan security firms say the same. that russia interfered in the u.s. election. are they all wrong? >> you've been telling me now with the nonclassified versions. i read those reports. even in those reports, there is no specific evidence, no facts. just assumptions, allegations and conclusions, based on the allegations, nothing more. >> folks, these are just the latest developments. they don't include the other lingering headaches for mr. trump. the fbi directors is expected to testify next thursday regarding michael flynn. you remember he misled the white house. he also didn't disclose payments from russia, he didn't disclose meetings with russia. neither did jeff sessions, neither did jared kushner. in one of those, jared kushner, in every instance, we're always left with the same question

which only leads the suspicion. why? why did any of this happen? is it all coincidence? we're looking for answers, so is the public and now so is a special prosecutor. joining me, the ranking member of the senate foreign relations committee. welcome back to the show. >> good to be with you. thank you. >> your name was invoked in a big story having to do with this idea that state department officials early on in the trump, during trump transition again, as the trump administration came to be, were preparing to eliminate or at least reduce some sanctions. and supposedly these he warnings were brought to your attention. what can you tell me about this? >> well, first of all, it would be outtrigs give russia sanctions relief concerning their activities have only gottenore anti-american. what they're doing in syria, in ukraine, what they've done not only in the u.s. elections but the european elections. so there should be no sanction

relief. there should be additional sanctions imposed. there's strong bipartisan legislation that i hope will be considered when we return on monday in the united states senate. there has been some talk by the trump administration of returning some of the properties that were taken as a result of what russia's activities were in the united states. that would be outrageous. one of those pieces of property is located in my state of maryland. that would be the wrong signal. and i would very much encourage the administration to withhold any type of relief and to look at imposing stronger sanctions against russia. >> to go back to my initial question having to do with the reportedly state department officials contacted you. did they and if so, what specific when i they tell you what was going on? >> tstate department officials have indicated there would be no sanction relief.

i introduced legislation with senator mccain would have required a notification to congress on and an opportunity for congress to respond before sanction relief could be given to russia. we were assured that is not on the table. for that reason, that legislation has not moved. considering what we're hearing now, it might be ty for congress to take up that legislation. >> so did anybody from the state department foreign service side, nonpolitical side, did anyone contact your office about this? is this where this came from? >> no. there's been no contact made to us about seeking our advice on sanctions relief. we did hear press reports that the administration is considering -- >> so this report is wrong. dan free did not alert you or out of concern on this sanction front. >> are you talking about prior to the elections? >> prior to the -- no. this was about, after the

election, before the inauguration. >> we had gotten information from the committee -- >> i'm referring to a specific report in yahoo! that is reporting, let me get this right. that dan free who served as the coordinator for sanctions policy, until he retired at the end of february. according the yahoo! he contacted various people to pass completion would codify the sanctions. did this woorng this front come from the state department many is this report correct? >> i don't recall having any conversations with him specifically in regard to codifying sanctions. it introduced legislation with ten democrats, ten republican members of the united states senate that would not only codify the sanctions works provide additional sanctions against russia. so i had already made that determination that needed to be done.

not someone in the state department who asked me to do it. i thought it was important. as did 19 other members of the united stateser senate and that's why we introduced the legislation very early in the congress. >> you introduced the legislation. then it got pulled back. i know there was a deal with the republican side, that the republican bob corker, what happened there and do you regret now delaying it? >> i didn't want to delay it. i was always for moving it. i didn't have the support of the chairman of the committee and it was unlikely that the legislation would be brought to the floor. i've been working, particularly with senator groom get this legislation considered. two weeks ago we got a commit frmt senator corker that the legislation will be considered early in june. so we expect when congress returns on monday that sanctions legislation will be interested. additional sanctions legislation against russia. so we have that commitment. i've always thought that we should have acted more aggressively and earlier than we're acting. >> now you brought up the issue

of these two russians compounds that were seized during, after new sanctions were announced against russia. why do you believe they shouldn't be returned now if the russia government legally own this is property? >> this is part of the privileges of doing business in the united states. there has to be a price for what russia has done in attacking our krirgs our elections system, interfering with our elections, playing favorites during the election time. all of that. there should be a price. and part of that can be withdrawing the privileges of the use inhese properties. particularly when we believe that attacks against the united states were coordinated by the use of these properties. >> but does this mean seizing ownership, too, or is this the case where the russian government owns it so do we force them to sell? what happens here? is this something we pull in

perpetuity? >> it is owned by the russians. we do not allow them to use it for diplomat iic purposes becau they have misused it in the united states. if they change the way they do business, they can again get privileges back. if not, have been, 38 free to sell the properties. >> all right. sna senator ben cardin, thank you for sharing your views. joining me now, michael mcfall, an msnbc russian affairs contributor. always good to see you. >> thanks for having me. >> i have you on to be the putin whisperer for us. so there are things putin says and there are things -- >> you don't want no talk about the maryland property? it is a very nice property. i've been there. i understand why ambassador kislyak wants it back. >> fair enough. fair enough. it feels like it has been used

in the scene of the americans. but i digress here. putin was very careful in responding to the question. he said all you have is allegations and conclusions based on allegations. you don't have facts. but he didn't provide any facts to dispute the allegations. how should this be interpreted? >> you know, we should believe our own intelligence community. we don't need to believe putin for what he did to us. you can't see these things in the cyber world. our intelligence community came together to say this happened and he is being flippant, i think he is being playful. but we should believe our own people with respect to the facts.

>> my eyebrows were raised when he concede that had russian hackers, he called them russian patriots. is that his way of bragging about this? >> yes. i listened to it several times in russian. and he adds in there, at the government level we did nothing to interfere in elections. at the government level is the key phrase. that leaves the door pope nongovernmental actors closely tied to the kremlin may have done that. and that's the way the system works. he knows that we know that he did this. let's be clear. the people who are expert, there is no doubt about it. i think he's feeling rather smug right now. he is kind of playing with us. and in these comments that he's making.

>> by doing this, saying what he said yesterday, it was the closest thing he's gotten to an admission. he does donald trump no favors. all did he was make it look more suspicio suspicious, not less. if the goal is to sow confusion in the american system, mission accomplished yet again. but he's not helping donald trump at all. >> correct. and why should we expect vladimir putin to help donald trump? donald trump thinks it is in russia's interests -- putin thinks it is in russia's best interests. i think again, i've followed this guy for decades. he's feeling really smug. he can say these things. and remember, nobody is rebutting it. where is the white house outrage to these audacious things he's

said. why are they not pushing back on it? that is very striking and that for putin is a sign of weakness and he'll continue to do this. >> this was a surprising development coming out of kremlin. a report in the daily beast. apparently the russian governmented that the following. as sweden joins nato, we will interpret that as an additional threat for russia and we will think about how to eliminate this threat. this does not mean that we will become hysterical and aim our nuclear missiles at sweden but we will be object lined to undertake something because we see this as an additional threat to russia. sweden is one of these nonaligned sort of, they want to be partners in nato. they're thinking about it. but they're not in yet and they're not asking to be a member yet. boy, is that some strong language at sweden? will it be effective and b, what is he afraid of?

>> he's not afraid of anything. it doesn't affect the balance of russia. but he does want to stop nato expansion. that has been his goal. and as he said yesterday, he said very explicitly, i want to see the feuding between the west so that nato is eliminated. he said that. what he is doing here is that is a comment designed for the swede yi ish population, for the citizens to decide if they're afraid of that threat. and he is not afraid to make that threat to keep them out of nato. so he is playing in the domestic affairs of sweden. and i want to remind you, they were never thinking of joining nato until russia invaded ukraine. that was the eventhat sparked this debate in the first place in sweden. >> i know you don't like playing victor, or notstradamusnostrada.

how concerned are you that he may get aggressive with his in, say, estonia? >> you know, i'm not worried about estonia. i'm worried about the balkans. let me tell you. why we're always talking about the nato allies there. they did a good job to prevent and deter an attack on the balkan states. most americans don't even know which are our allies and which aren't. where they have a lot of influence. if i were worrying that the future, watch the balkans. >> a lot of history for a lot of americans. >> serve looking at their ma'ams now. where is macedonia? >> happy friday to you,

ambassador. thank you very much. >> all right. as we said, my colleague megyn kelly just wrap up her exclusive sit-down one-on-one. we're going to bring you some of that in a few minutes. and of course, you can see all of megayinl kelly's exclusive interview sunday night at 7:00 p.m. on your nbc station. we'll be right back. ♪ this is a story about mail and packages. and it's also a story about people. people who rely on us every day to deliver their dreams they're handing us more than mail they're handing us their business and while we make more e-commerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country, we never forget... that your business is our business the united states postal service. priority: you ♪ when a fire destroyedwith us everything in our living room. we replaced it all without touching our savings.

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shouldn't you be able to tell the american people whether or not trump thinks it is a hoax. >> as i indicate several times, there is enougho deal with and making an informed decision about this important issue. that's what our focus has been over the last few weeks. i've answered the question a couple times. >> what does the president believe about clilt change? did you he still believe it is a hoax? can you clarify that? >> i have not had an opportunity to have that discussion. >> while we do have a pretty good sense of what the president thought when he was candidate trump. take a listen. >> so obama is talking about all of this with the global warming and that -- a lot of it is a hoax. a hoax. a money making industry. it's a hoax. a lot of it. >> i think there is a change in weather. i am not a believer in man-made climate change. i am not a great believer. >> i believe strongly in clean water and clean air. but i don't believe that what

they say, i think it is a big scam for a lot of people to make a lot of money. >> but trump did sign global warming and its effects on build a seawall next on his golf course in ireland. we're not making that up. there's nothing traditional about my small business. so when it comes to technology, i need someone that understands my unique needs. my dell small business advisor has gotten to know our business so well, that it feels like he's a part of our team. with one phone call, he sets me up with tailored products and services.

and when my advisor is focused on my tech, i can focus on my small business. ♪ >> very quickly, is there an expectation the president will try to invokes executive privilege? at least gum up the works? >> i think reasonable people on both sides of the aisle privately say they think that there's not really grounds for him to do it. he talked about it publicly.

but i do think there's a sense the unpredictability of this president goes farther than anybody ever thought it would. kind remarkable regarding the experience we had with donald trump but members of congress are continually surprised. i think democrats and republicans want to hear from comey. >> there is that aspect. you would think, it is an good idea to invoke executive privilege. but politically, wasn't good idea to fire james comey and it didn't stop the president from doing that. there is an argument to be made that he needs to show that he will fight this on all levels all the time. if he doesn't fight on this, then why aren't you? >> i suspect argument is going to weigh heavily on the president himself. possibly beyond its actual merits. cause i think that is the psychology of this president. but i have to think that congressional republicans, whatever they are worrying about in terms of what kind of circus atmosphere there will be, they understand blocking it would be

worse. when comey was fired, it was almost instant that congressional republicans and congressional democrats said, we need to hear from him. >> all right. you're on this beat a lot when it comes to trying to unpack what did russia do, what did we know, what don't we know? what did you take away from it? >> he knows absolutely that russia was involved. the intelligence agencies have concluded that. this is not the first time that russia has intercepted american communications, broken into government systems. this is what they do. they're quite good at it. and these operations go back many decades. >> and they justify it because they think we do it to they will. >> sure. and it is a tool they have to gain leverage. are i think there's a lot to argue that russia got more than it bargained for. i don't think they expected trump to win and there's a

blowback effect on this now when you have this hanging out there. not only over trump but in the u.s.-russia relationship. it feels, guys, and everybody jump in, that you're now going to have congress ready to codify these sations and it may force the government's hands. >> they're going to need some help, the one thing we have not seen move very far is republican leadership, paul ryan and mitch mcconnell. they've been reluctant. sometimes they've made comments that could be interpreted one way or the other. but they have not so far sided with the hawks in congress and said we're going to put legislation like the on the floor of the congress. that is potentially the prediction trump faces. if he does something like try to invoke executive privilege and really stick his thumb in congress's eye. >> in the very big picture, the net effect of the last year has been to make both the public and

the democratic party more anti-russia and less inclined to have some kind of alliance or moves toward friendship. in that send, they've overplayed their hand. they have strengthened the anti-russian sentiment. >> i think putin's admission that maybe some russian patrons are involved, correct me if i'll wrong, that's the closest thing to a smoking gun we've got. bragging about it. my gut was, i think this is putin's way of bragging about it to the world. it follows like, yes. >> the way these operations work in russia is that you do have organizations and criminal groups acting somewhat independently but withhe blessing, maybe not officially. this is how it works there. for them to say patriotic hackers, that is a very accurate description of how it may have gone down. there may be multiple groups. we know at least two groups got

into the dnc and were competitively. i read that from putin as very much a description of what likely happened. >> you know what was fascinating about yesterday, yesterday all the attention of paris, to me, besides putin admitting the russian hackers, the other big story is that jared kushner and sergey gorkov had two different explanations of their meeting. that in itself comes across as if, okay, somebody is guilty here. >> i think that's been the danger all the way along. it has been the thing, ever since we first started talking about this, months ago, since the beginning of the trump administration. it has been a question of what is that one small little fact ultimately will open this wide open. and i think the more of these different times of things pile up, the harder it gets for frankly republicans in congress the continue to stay behind the scenes, there's no there, there. >> in this gorkov contradiction, that one needs a lot of

unpacking. >> a lot of norms and protocolser to years are to prevent wrongdoing but also to keep people out of trouble. if you're not care wfl these meetings, they have a way of metastasizing into scandals and then revealing further scandals. this is agreeful flouting of this brings scrutiny. >> let's say, it seems to me, the best explanation is they talked business and politics. >> let's remember, too, that gorkov represents is not just any bank. >> this is not sun trust or citibank. >> it has been used in the united states and new york and its branch is an unofficial cover for spies, including one that was convicted in a u.s. court and a spy ring trying to recruit carter page who was an adviser to the trump campaign. these are dots pushing together. when you have conflicting

explanations from the russians and the white house about what they were talking about in this meeting at a time when certain business interests in new york might really want to see russian money flowing back into the united states. that's a problem. >> all right. i'll leave the conversation here for now. you guys are sticking around. still ahead, another giant story that got overshadowed this week. the opioid crisis. should drug companies be blamed for drug problems the way tobacco coibac tobacco companies? hey. pass please. i'm here to fix the elevator. nothing's wrong with the elevator. right. but you want to fix it. right. so who sent you? new guy. what new guy? watson. my analysis of sensor and maintenance data indicates elevator 3 will malfunction in 2 days. there you go. you still need a pass.

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we're going to have more. scott pruitt, form he secretary of state john kerry and former vice president al gore will join me. al gore's first appearance on "meet the press" in about a decade. all of that is this sunday. up next, the legal fight against open yoids but first it's jobs friday. >> thank you. stocks hitting all time highs despite a weaker jobs report. the dow up 62 points. the nasdaq advancing 58 points. the economy added 138 nonfarm pay roll jobs in the month of may, fall short of expectations of 185,000. the biggest gains came in the

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welcome back. i'm obsessed not just with hypocrisy and politics, but the intersection of hypocrisy and grotesquely bad taste. by now you've heard of kathy griffin's severed head fiasco and all the criticism it enagendaered. truly it's disgusting. so why are republicans running pictures of it over and over for the race of the open georgia congressional seat. if you're truly disgusted by it, if you believe it is so utterly inappropriate for children, like his 11-year-old son baron to see

this gross thing of his father, how can you defend making sure that as many 11-year-olds as possible will see it in the atlanta media market? where's the outrage from speaker ryan. and it is be limited to the republicans. remember how offended democrats were about candidate donald trump's language sf so offend that had they decided dozens of times that you need to see those ads for hillary clinton repeat his disgusting language. make sure more 10 and 11-year-olds heard this. donald trump said these things once. the clinton campaign repeated them thousands of times. so republicans, don't tell me you're so outraged by what kathy griffin did. admit it. you are thrilled because you get to use it against all democrats. you get to use it to hold a seat in congress. that's what's wrong with american politics today. they can tell what i'm thinking, just by looking in my eyes. but what they didn't know

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time for the lid. let's do a little debrief here on paris. and sort of, is there domestic political fallout from the paris decision? i think everybody agrees, there's international political fallout. and we're not quite sure how severe it will be. domestic political fallout. >> sure. you're saying the mayor of pittsburgh coming out and saying don't call us a dirty city stuck in the past.

we're standing with paris. you had ceos pleading with donald trump to stay in. there's a huge domestic fallout. many of these people are in his constituency and they're not happy with pulling out of this. and internationally, of, he's handed everyone to hit us with. >> i approved of the decision. i was against the paris accord. but i think politically all it does is heighten the polarization. i think the people who were already against him are against him and it shores up his support among republicans and conservative leaning. he is not on the minority and not doing much to broaden his support. >> i think it is a generational issue. maybe how quickly we saw a change on lgbt rights. i think people of a certain age feel it is a no brainer.

on both sides of the aisle. you see the younger people said hey, the republican party needs to get more progressive on climate change. but u have people from, it is the same base of trump voters that we spent so much time talking about. the public party is really afraid of as well. >> why is that it other conservative movements in other democracies haven't been so ant anti-this climate issue. not in canada, not in france, not in germany. >> i think the more conservative movement is more than elsewhere. it is true on health care, for example. that conservatives in america have been much more resistant to national health care systems than canada or brit an. this is part of merge exceptionalism. the american right is different from other kinds of rights. >> how much of this is the old strain of the anti-u.n., the

anti-global. >> they don't like that barack obama said i'm here representing the seconder largest pollution emitter to take responsibility for what we did. and having to apologize to the europeans. >> it is fascinating a single, the white house has been seblding out praise for the paris decision and it has been nothing but trump appointees or elected republicans. do you know what i didn't see? not a single ceo. i didn't see an industrial company ceo or an energy company ceo. if there's any big ceo in favor of the decision to pull out, they won't say it. >> right. and the secretary of state lobbied against pulling out. what did he used to do? he ran exxonmobil. this is a fossil fuels company that knows the future is in the products. >> it is interesting, too, that if anything corporations have

become much more sensitive to political correctness. >> so you view it as political correctness decision? >> i think it is probably a combination of the two. green energy is still a relatively small portion of the overall income for a lot of these companies doing it. it is a sector that's growing but not necessarily currently dominating. however, yeah. you have seen i think time and time again over the last five to ten years, whether it is the ncaa putting pressure on mike pence or other business groups. >> prime time and fox news. >> they do have to cater to these broad audiences. that's a sharp difference from where the republicans were five years ago. >> just one point about the voters. i think the universe of voters who would have voted for a congressional republican but are now not going to because of paris is basically nonexistent. >> i don't know if there will be initial domestic fallout. could be in 2020.

if it is part of a larger leadership issue. >> it is not a top issue for most voters. the ones who are are well ensconced. >> generically the country is in favor of climate change. but what's your priority? the priority goes down. >> whoever the democratic nominee will be running on, i will put us back into the paris accord. now he's now made that an issue. >> it adds to the pile will get democrats really excited. and i think that will be the questionn 2018. if the house will be in play, put this on the li. >> all right. thank you. we did it things a little out of order. but coming up next, the issue of the opioid crisis. hey, i'm the internet! i know a bunch of people who would love that.

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bid a lawsuit filed. they are suing drug makers for causing the state's drug crisis. they are saying the companies looked patients on drug medicine just to make profits. according to the suit, they knew the drugs with addictive and they downplayed it to doctors. then the suit argues those patients sought cheaper stronger drugs like heroin or synthetic op opioids. and ohio is not the only state to do this. the same year in kentucky, two big drug companies settled two big lawsuits for millions of dollars. and as we noted on wednesday, these suits might sound a lot like the 1990s tobacco lawsuit. er big pharma is borrowing a page from their page book. now from dayton, mr. attorney

general, good to see you, sir. >> hey, chuck, thank you. >> let me start with the basics of the lawsuit. you do compare it to back in th. do you have specific evidence already that allowed you to feel comfortable filing this lawsuit? >> you know, chuck, taking on five big pharma companies is not something you just wake up some day and decide to do. you know, we looked at this long and hard and, frankly, we believe that the evidence is going to show what we have alleged. and there are certainly some similarities. what really happened here is this, and this is the history. you know, historically these pain meds have been used for short-term acute pain. someonha their wisdom tooth taken out, the take it a day or two or three or four. also, at the other end of life,

terminal illness, cancer, they're used for that. what we think the evidence will show is that the pharmaceutical companies made a decision they wanted to go after a much, much bigger market and that market is people who are having continuous pain, but it's not terminal, it is not cancer. so, in the late 1990s they really kind of put together this program. and here's where you see some of the similarities. one of the things they did is create some what i would call front groups that had pain in their name and they sounded like they would be impartial and fair, and they were giving them money. basically what they did is kept the party line of the pharmaceutical companies. they hired doctors, paid doctors to go out and do seminars and they would give that doctor the slides. they would give them the talking

points. their real target was your family doctor. they really didn't target the specialists in pain. they targeted the family doctor who most of us would go to, you know, if we have some problem. that's where certainly we would start. and they targeted those doctors and they told those doctors that these pain meds were not very addictive. they minimized the danger. they exaggerated the things that could -- the good things that could happen. they created, even, a new name, pseudoaddiction and basically what they would say is if the doctor had a patient and that patient was showing signs of addiction, they would say that may not be true. what really may be true is you just don't have enough of the drug so you need to have more of the drug. this has caused a huge, huge spike in the prescriptions that are sent -- in ohio, for example, a couple years ago there were 68 pills for every man, woman and child in ohio. >> right. let me ask you this, though.

why now, why not -- you saw mississippi do it. you've been there awhile. this is a crisis. why wait till now? do you now wish you had done this two years ago? and i ask this because, look, some people say, hey, you feel politically pressured to do this, that others have been pushing you in this direction. >> well, you know, that's not how i operate. i'm a former prosecutor. i want to make sure i've got the evidence before i file something. and this is a civil suit obviously. but that's my attitude. and it wasn't until recently frankly that i felt that we had enough evidence. i mean, there is only one other state that has taken on quite the way we have. there have been other settlements. in a comprehensive way, mississippi was the only state. it's not like every state is jumping out there and doing it. but, you know, i have lived through this crisis in ohio and i see it every single day. i got to -- frankly, reached the

conclusion that, you know, on my watch, i needed to bring this lawsuit. >> i would just say this feels like a very important lawsuit to have play out in public, to see the discovery. let me ask you this. are you going to pledge not to settle? >> no, i don't think that would be responsible. but what we want to do is get an agreement -- i mean, one of the things we asked for is an injunction to stop the drug companies from continuing to do this. you know, they really put enough money and they did it artfully, that they changed the culture. they have changed the culture of prescribing. and while in ohio we've gone after bad doctors, we've eliminated -- we've taken the licenses from over a hundred, but that's not who they were really targeting. their target was the good doctors. what they did is they made good doctors believe that these pills were not very addictive.

and they lied to them and they misled. and i think these pharmaceutical companies need to be part of the solution in trying to spend some money to take that culture back, you know, somewhere in the middle if it's rational. >> mike de wine, i want to take more about this but i'm out of time for my hour. 9 attorney general republican from ohio, thanks for coming on. i appreciate it. after the break, is a big vacancy at fema a disaster waiting to happen? when this bell rings...

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in case you missed it, hurricane season is now officially underway. any good south floridian knows that well. we don't have a fema administrator. it is their job to respond to natural disasters like hurricanes. brock long used to head up alabama's emergency management agency. i can tell you any time you get somebody from the gulf coast it's a good idea. long senate confirmation hearing is scheduled for next week. that's good news. he wasn't nominated until april 28. you can't blame this one on the senate. took trump nearly 100 days after taking office to nominate someone for what is essentially among the most criticalosts that interact with the american people. oh, by the way, there is also no noaa administrator either. you know, the folks that talk about -- that have to predict the weather. the president hasn't even nominated someone to head up the agency that over sees the government's weather forecasting. look, here's the thing. the last adds more stepped down

january 20th as is standard for political appointees. he wanted to go and ready to move on. he also served under florida's governor jeb bush. make it a nonpartisan post, and if president trump asked him to stay on, we all know this guy. he would have stayed. then we wouldn't be twisting slowly, slowly in the wind. this is an unforced potential political error by this white house, let alone the actual problems of cleaning up after natural disaster. anyway that's all for tonight. by the way, if it's sunday catch meet the press on your local nbc station. kerry, gore, pruitt. the big show for the record with greta starts right now. go greta. >> chuck, you're going to need two hours with that lineup on meet the press on sunday, or three. >> i know. i'll take it. three hours, please. >> if you can't watch liech, dvr because that's going to be a big show. thanks, chuck. we have a big show including my interview with sir richard branson, hitting president trump for his controversial decision to pull the united states out of the paris climate