around new year's eve and insisted on joining me? she was bleeding badly from a face-lift. i said no. the president's tweets were sent at 8:48 a.m., ten minutes before the program ended. criticism has poured in on twitter and on television. but deputy white house press secretary sarah huckabee sanders defended the tweets this afternoon in the briefing room. >> the president has been attacked mercilessly on personal accounts by members of that program. and i think he's been very clear that when he gets attacked, he's going to hit back. i think that the president is pushing back against people who attack him day after day after day. >> doesn't he have to meet a higher standard than cable news anchors? >> look, you can't expect somebody to be attacked day after day and minute by minute and sit back. look, the american people elected a fighter. >> there was a marist poll this week that said 68% of the

american voters said that the president's tweets were distracting. only 22% said they're informative. >> any time that the president can speak directly to the american people it's a good thing. look, everyone wants to make this an attack on a woman. what about the constant attacks that he receives or the rest of us? i'm a woman and i have been attacked by the show multiple times but i don't cry foul because of it. i think that, you know, you want to create this false narrative and on one hand it's like let's treat everybody equally and on the other hand they attack attack attack and he responds and apparently that's wrong. >> first lady melania trump who also defended her husband's punch launched her own campaign, combating cyber bullying less than eight months ago and the president's daughter weighed in on the political climate on an interview on "fox & friends" earlier this month. >> it is hard and there's a level of viciousness that i was not expecting. i was not expecting the

intensity of this experience. >> well, we'll get into this. but a quick look back at just how we got here. >> you have called women you don't like fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals. your twitter account -- >> only rosie o'donnell. she gets out and she starts asking me all sorts of ridiculous questions and there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever. >> donald trump said the following about you, quote, look at that face, would anyone vote for that, can you imagine that the face of our next president? >> i think women all over the country heard clearly what mr. trump said. >> one of the worst things he said was about a woman in a beauty contest. he loves beauty con tests, supporting them and hanging around them. and he called this woman miss piggy. then he called her miss housekeeping because she was latino. >> that person was a miss universe person and she was the

worst we ever had. she was the winner and, you know, she gained a massive amount of weight. and it was a real problem. i'm automatically attracted -- it's like a magnet. and when you're a star they let you do it. you can do anything. >> whatever you want. >> grab them by the [ bleep ]. >> before i open this up to my table a couple thoughts. one as a former communications director there's a single press strategy for this white house. it's called an apology. two, as a woman who was for nat enough to work in the white house as a public servant all the women collecting paychecks from the u.s. taxpayers, dina powell, kellyanne conway, elaine chao, betsy devos you should work behind the scenes to educate him about how offensive they are. three, as someone who once proudly called myself a republican the party will be permanently associated with misogyny if leaders don't demand

a retraction. as a woman of a son, how do you let a man get away with them can kristen welker was asking all the right questions. tell us what went down today. >> well, it was striking, nicolle, because this was one of those briefings that became dominated almost completely by a single topic by the series of tweets. sarah huckabee sanders, not apologizing at all which is striking because you go back to that "access hollywood" tape and the president did apologize. that's not the strategy today. sanders saying that the president is a fighter and this is an example of him punching back. but she did have to face a range of tough questions in addition to all of those which you played, i pressed her on the fact that the president has not been immune to engaging in this type of criticism himself. remember when president obama was in the office and he was the start of the birther movement,

he didn't think that former president obama was born here and then he conceded that he was of course. that was one of the key criticisms of the former president. and he was asked by hallie jackson, my colleague, about whether sarah huckabee sanders, a mom of three would effectively condone this type of behavior to her kids. strikingly, she said, look, the only person who is perfect, the only being that is perfect effectively is god. which we thought was very notable. she didn't revert back to this talking point, defending the president. but she answered a range of these questions and then sort of lashed out at us for not focusing on policy and i think that's where the problem becomes, sarah -- not sarah, nicolle. this is the problem, because this is the president stepping on effectively his own message. this was the day that started -- we're talking about the travel ban, we were talking about the president's meeting with the south korean leader. those were the stories that we were tracking when this day began and this is another

example of the president stepping on his own message and his own agenda right at a critical moment when he's trying to get health care passed. it becomes a lot tougher for him to get some republicans on board with the health care plans when they say these comments are beneath the office of the presidency. >> i was struck by huckabee sanders by saying we get attacked day in and day out. we get attacked by russia day in and day out. and they want to hack into the public and the private sector and they do nothing, so why can't why this white house have the same degree of ire on russia, a known american adversary? >> and nicolle, i think that is the key question. that is one of the first questions that we're going to ask the president when we get to ask him questions again. why is it he's lashing out at a cable news host that he's lashing out at former president obama still, that he's lashing out at a whole range of people,

but not lashing out at russia. how angry is he about the fact that russia tried to meddle in the 2016 race, what is he going to do about it? we learned that he's going to meet with vladimir putin on the sidelines of the g-20 summit next week. so we'll be tracking that very closely. it is notable though that the president's going to hold a joint statement with the leader of south korea tomorrow. he's not going to answer any questions. >> thank you, kristen welker. thank you for carving out some time for us. we appreciate it. joining the table today, former rnc political director and former adviser to chris christie, mike due hail. michael steele, now an msnbc analyst along with national affairs analyst john howman and anita dunn. let me start with you, anita. as a message what struck me was that her defense of the tweets this morning was that donald trump is a fighter but when it

comes to putin he's a lover. >> he's a lover and he -- and he rolls over and plays dead while the russians effectively continue to launch cyber attacks against this country. it's really striking. as a former white house communications director this was energy week. >> that's right. >> and it was almost as good as infrastructure week. >> you don't think energy -- you don't think this fits with -- let me just read these again to see if you think this works for energy week. i heard poorly rated "morning joe" speaks badly of me. then how come low iq crazy mika along with psycho joe came to mar-a-lago? you don't think this happens with energy week? >> he called somebody low energy. and jeb bush was not out there this morning. it is really striking. you know, there's no surprise that they can't fill those jobs. can't fill the white house communications director job, can't fill the press secretary job because who wants that job of trying to get a coherent

message out supporting a president's policies when you're undercut every day by someone who by the way who obviously doesn't watch "morning joe" according to his tweets. >> you're often on "morning joe." your take? >> well, you know, mika is a friend of mine so i'm going to try to depersonalize this. it's kind of offensive on every possible level. >> but that's an important point. she wants us to cover this as a news story. she's my friend too. so i think that this is a news story because donald trump is the leader of the free world and spent his morning attacking a news anchor instead of promoting energy week or trying to get his caucus -- >> let me stipulate one thing which is for the record. we should all stipulate, not only offensive, but disgusting. >> yeah. >> so there's a human thing. there's a political thing. right, the human thing is just hearing anybody not just the

president of the united states, that somehow your -- the way you live your life is if i get hit i'm going to hit back ten times harder. that's somehow the way we want to live as people in the world, that's ridiculous, right? but then there's the political thing which is not something that people pointed out today, he could have been doing other things, this hasn't advanced his agenda. if you think back to the first presidential debate when donald trump's -- the presidential campaign was in the balance, alicia machado came up on the debate and he spent four days like trying to push himself into the buzz saw. fat shaming her, slut shaming her, trying to criticize her sexual mores. he did that for four days at a time of political peril, he acted in ways that were totally political suicidal and reckless. now we are here and the health care bill and the whole first

term agenda is hanging in the balance. not only is this a distraction, but there's a weird impulse he has to go to both misogyny, a grotesque form of it and a suicidal thing to do. there are women whose votes matter in the senate to getting this health care bill through. what is susan collins thinking when she hears this? what is lisa murkowski thinking when she hears this? it's not a distraction he could have spent his day doing something more useful. this looks like i want to strap a suicide vest on and do it in a way that will offend any thinking woman in america. >> and man. right? >> yeah, i think so. they're indefensible. i think from a personal nature as well, not because i know mika, but because i have a mom, a wife, and i have three sisters and a wife and a daughter. you can't be partisan in a -- this is where republicans have to stand up. >> how would you even be partisan? who would defend this? >> i think the issue -- i think

part of the issue with this, you have some people on the left who criticize everything he does no matter what it is. so when you criticize this -- >> we criticize everything that your old boss chris christie does. >> that's the point. to be credible we have to criticize where criticism is warranted and right now it's obviously warranted in this place. i agree with john. it's derailed where the party can get together. health care is hard to get together on and energy, a lot of that pieces of that speech that republicans could galvanize around, but nobody is talking about. that's a huge distraction and it will keep his agenda from going forward. >> where is the red line? i thought the "access hollywood" tape would be one. people unendorsed him and then they reendorsed him. have republicans lost all of their sort of moral bearings? >> no, i don't think so. i think it was very clear when the evangelical wing of the party decided that getting a supreme court nominee via donald

trump was more important than everything else that had gone before. i think the line was drawn when he made the statements on race that he did. that the leadership of the party said, yeah, that's racist, but i still endorse him. so there are no red lines here. so let's stop pretending that republicans are going to be suddenly outraged because they have decided for political expediency and the purposes of holding the house and the senate and maybe holding the winning races around the country that the value of being a republican or being conservative matters less, matters less than the man who is sitting in the white house. >> means nothing. >> if that is your value construct, then you get what you get, baby. because it's coming full throated. he's not stopping. that's no indication he's going to change. you can say put your big boy pants on and grow up all you want, it ain't happening. so let's stop this pretense as republicans this is going to be a better space for us with donald trump as president. >> all right. we'll going to hit pause.

when we come back the outcry from republicans has been swift and biting. jeb bush calling trump's tweet inappropriate, undignified and unpresidential. will anything change? also today the white house confirms that president trump will meet one-on-one with vladimir putin. will they confront him over russian attacking? and coming up a president who bullies you from bully pulpit. we talk to one woman who's been there. their experience is coveted. their leadership is instinctive. they're experts in things you haven't heard of. researchers of technologies that one day you will. some call them the best of the best. some call them veterans. we call them our team.

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we're not going to get along, but we have to treat each other with respect and civility.

and the president's tweet was completely inappropriate. >> i think it's inappropriate. i think it was wrong. and my tweet speaks for itself. >> should the president apologize? >> if it were me, one, i wouldn't have done it if were me. that's up to him. but if its were up to me i would. >> we're trying to improve the tone and civility of the debate and that doesn't help to do that. >> to say the least. the last time that many republicans condemned donald trump was on the they that "access hollywood" came out. philip, i feel like we have some of the same conversations but i don't think feel like we have had this conversation since that day that the tape came out. where as john heilman described his misogynist impulses are revealed and disseminated through his favorite form of media, twitter. can you put his history of lurking around backstage at

beauty pageants, of calling women pigs, of being obsessed with where they bleed and tweeting about it. can you put this in a context about what this white house has been trying or at least telling us they're trying to do? >> yeah, well, you're right. there's a long and well documented history of donald trump making the sort of comments and accusations dating back decades including on his appearances in talk radio, way back when. this is the first time we have seen it though in this form while he's president of the united states. and that's different. it's different to have him tweet this as president ahead of all of the things he's doing today as president than it was for example when he was with billy bush on the bus with "access hollywood." so that's a problem. it's something that the white house staff had been trying to wean him off of. they have tried to instill discipline. they like this fight he's having with the media. they think it's great for him to feud with the so-called fake

news, it galvanizes and energizes his base. he was a big republican party fund-raiser last night talking about cnn and attacking cnn and for the white house that's sort of a win. but this is a whole other level and a whole other thing here what he's doing with mika and i don't think his advisers are too happy to see it happening. >> but again, i know i is you this all the time. can anyone change him? i'm told by a friend of his who didn't defend the move, but understand it. this is sort of the street brawler in him. >> yeah. >> the more low rent side of donald trump who thinks when you punch, punch back. who brings a gun to a knife fight. this is his character. >> this is exactly right. the people i was been close to talking to him say he loves these fights, he likes to get in the middle of it. he likes to fight back with news organizations when he doesn't like their coverage. he likes to attack cnn. he likes to go after "morning joe." i think it's bothered him all of the commentary that he's heard on the program across all of

cable news, but especially "morning joe" which has a much more chatty sort of atmosphere in the mornings that he doesn't feel like he gets the respect that he wants and thinks he deserves as president of the united states. and it's been gnawing at him and stews inside of him. it all sort of exploded in a really ugly way. >> my friend and colleague, katy tur, has joined our conversation. philip, stay with us as well. i want to ask you what you're hearing about how the people around the president dealt with the fallout this morning, which was immediate. >> well, phil was right. they are cheering on this fight that he's having with the media. the white house fundamentally believes that they are being treated unfairly. they feel like this president is getting criticized in a way that no other president has. >> my god, did they watch this network during the bush years? >> can i say something, i asked that very question because we had an anchor who asked him to resign every single night.

and i asked this question to somebody who was close to donald trump. >> so somebody called and said, does bush know that he's -- i hate that he calls him the worst person in the world. i said please don't tell him he's only at espn. i worked for a president who didn't watch. >> so the person i was talking to just a moment ago admitted, yeah you're right, bush did that. but they feel like obama got a pass from the press. and now they feel like they need to punch back even harder. i'm not saying it's correct, but this is what they're doing. so when they see a tweet like this nobody likes the idea of donald trump the president of the united states going after a colleague of ours in such a personal way. but they also fundamentally feel that he needs to fight back. so while this may seem like a storm of epic proportions outside of the white house, within the white house there is a feeling that it doesn't matter. we need to do what we have to do to maintain our integrity and

fight our position because we are under assault by the establishment and by the american press. >> but michael -- >> i don't disagree with that at a all. >> but they won anyway. so they are -- >> they're in the oval office. >> they aer the worst -- they're the worst winners. they act like losers when they win and they had a giant win in their big war against the media this week. the news organization fired three people. kellyanne conway has been calling for someone to be held to account since election day. >> yeah. >> i mean, why can't they sort of look dispassionately at the landscape and say, hey, that was a big deal. we want everyone to hold their reporters -- >> they can't because there's only one person looking at the landscape and they have to look at the landscape the way the president does. it doesn't matter if it's a bad tweet. it won't stop the next one. the reality for the president and this administration right now, do something other than this.

you've got legislation on the hill that's languishing. you have an opportunity next week to take it to putin on cyber -- >> take it to putzen? >> i'm just saying it. but i mean, show us you're ready to fight for us as opposed to with us and against us. and i think that's the frustration that's growing in this country. >> what is to be made of the fact that taking it to putin isn't anything that anyone thinks he'll do, but fighting with cable news hosts is what everyone watches their twitter feed to see who is next. >> what's made of it? >> is this it is this going on for four years? >> yes. >> what about the fact -- i mean, is the irony lost on anyone that melania's signature issue is cyber bullying? >> i don't think it's lost -- >> i don't think it's lost on anyone. it was pointed out by a number of people. >> who is she trying to stop from doing? >> i can't get inside the -- the dynamics of the trump marriage. i can't see its there, but you

know, look, i think it's -- we all have got to. i agree with michael steele about this. everyone has to accept the notion that these fundamental things are not going to change. they're not going to change. there's no wishing him to be -- the idea that we're ever going to have more conversations even today, like it's not presidential. he's not going to behave in any way that anybody has considered presidential before. he never has. he's not going to tomorrow or the next day. and the wishing won't make it so. so what we have is we have his behavior. we need to apply appropriate political and moral and ethical and social standards and we should treat him like the way we'd treat a ceo. no ceo who would still be the ceo of their company at this moment if they had said -- if they had tweeted what he had tweeted this morning. not one. look at uber. it took a few weeks, and the ceo of uber is out for doing a lot

less of what donald trump did today. at least we shown taking about -- should be talking about the fact that the president of the united states should be held to the same standard as a fast food joint. >> still ahead, we'll talk about what it's like to be on the receiving end of the president's attacks. that's next. >> a couple of the criticisms from supporters of the president have been that this particular tweet is beneath the dignity of the office. where does the president draw that line on the dignity of the office? >> look, i think that he shows that every day in the decisions that he's making, the focus and the priorities he's laid out in his agenda. but he's not going to sit back and be attacked by the liberal media, hollywood elites and when they hit him he's going to hit back. americans - 83% try to eat healthy.

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so we talk about the media, and by the way some of the media is terrific. but most of it's 70%, 75% is absolutely -- absolute dishonest

and scum. amazingly there's a media group that calls the media and they said what a lie it was from nbc. she's back there. little katy. she's back there. what a lie it was -- what a lie, katy tur. what a lie it was from nbc to have written that. it was a total lie and they did a story where -- i didn't know they had a group like this. where they actually criticized the media and they said it was a total lie. and i loved it. i loved it. i loved it. third rate reporter, remember that. third rate. >> third rate something. katy tur is still with us. what happens after a man with millions of followers on twitter and facebook, who's protected by men with lots and lots of earpieces says that in front of

his crowd of thousands? >> well, a couple of the men and earpieces and guns will walk that reporter to her car. in that circumstance, at least. that wasn't a unique moment. and i wasn't the only one he did go after. but when that does happen, the entire room will turn at you and they will boo as you heard. and they will yell and they'll scream and they'll call you names and some of them will linger and they'll wait for you. and it's a bit nerve-racking to say the least. the way that you try to defuse that situation at least the way that i tried to defuse it was by smiling and waving. because if you take it very seriously in the moment, then that only seemed to add to the anger. but it's unnerving because, you know, there's thousands of people in those -- in that room. and there's a couple dozen reporters that are protected i guess by a press pen.

we were never entirely sure why the press was relegated to the press pen and told we could never leave. was it for our protection or for the protection of the supporters? and that particular circumstances that was the day of the muslim ban, december 7th, 2015, i'm writing a book so i have all the dates on hand, and, you know that particular circumstance the press pen was certainly -- it did help to feel as like something of a protected enclosure, somewhat at least. but listen, the reason he did that during the campaign was because he -- during the campaign he felt he was being treated unfairly, number one. number two, he felt it was the -- the act of it was beneficial to him. to call the press scum, to say that we're liars, inok cue lated himself from criticism. it told the supporters i will go against everybody, the

establishment, the press, to fight on your behalf and i will never back down. just look, i'm not going to back down from my myself. i will do the same for you. you can argue whether or not that's true. but it is a -- an experience to have thousands of people booing. >> it's adult bullying. cyber bullying, textbook bullies. anybody with kids understands the definition of bullying. and i wonder if you ever worry about your safety. >> my mother certainly worried about my safety. those close to me worried about my safety and nbc worried about my safety. we all had security. we all had it at one point, except for cbs and fox. you try not to worry about your safety because that will make you act in a funny way. you think maybe i'm overblowing this, what am i going to do when i get home? you look over your shoulder, t but -- >> you do your job.

>> you do your job. and most people -- and a good portion of trump supporters are lovely. i don't want to paint a broad brush. >> i spent a lot of time on the road with the trump voter, this is about the man, not the voters. anita dunn, i want to play an interaction with another female reporter. seems to be a common denominator. this was an irish reporter in the oval office. >> come here, where are you from? we have the beautiful -- >> i'm from rt news -- >> oh. katrina perry. she has a nice smile on her face. i bet she treats you well. >> we have all of this beautiful irish press. she has a nice smile on her face. if you wanted to write a guide for how to objectify a woman, you might include those lines. what's wrong with him? >> you know, i think that probably requires a longer

program and a different set of guests. >> but seriously, he has a press staff. there was a press staffer in the room because there was press in the room. do you think that anyone tells him how inappropriate that was? >> nicolle, it's not clear that anybody tells him how inappropriate anything is he does. they have to make sure they're not getting stabbed in the back at any given time and the last thing they do is clearly disagree with him at any given moment. what's wrong with him in terms of how he treats women isn't just a him problem in terms of the disgusting way he thinks about women. it plays out in terms of policy. i think that this is something that down the road becomes a real problem for republicans as they negotiate health care bills with 13 men in the room and they shut out collins and murkowski. as they defund planned parenthood and all of this leads to the -- you know, to the broader perception about how this president, how the republican party thinks about women.

one other quick point though which is, you know, i think that's a lot of discussion about how trump thinks this helps him with his voters and there's this core group of republican voters as you know who really like this kind of tactic. they go back to richard nixon and spiro agnew and nattering nabobs -- >> i never met a single one who likes it. >> what works for you as a candidate doesn't necessarily work for you as a president. they have different standards for you as a president. they want to see you get things done. at the end of the day, when his own base says, no, too much. >> right. up next we're going to thank katy tur and let her 11th appearance of the day. the issue that should have been front and center at the white house briefing today. remember this? health care. we'll do live to capitol hill where more and more republican senators are peering across the aisle.

i have not spoken to mitch mcconnell and i have heard him say that the democrats don't want to work with him. that's not factual and it's not accurate. i am one -- i'm one that wants to work with my friends. i have been reaching out and shelley and i have been speaking and dean heller and i have been speaking and we want fix this thing. >> democrats might be the republicans' best chance to get a health care reform bill that can pass, but president trump is showing no signs he'll invite them to the table. kasie hunt is joining us. kasie, give us the state of play over this bill that this time yesterday was very much on life support. >> i think that we are not that much farther away from yesterday

when we last spoke, nicolle, but that's for lack of trying. mike pence came up here again, he tweeted a couple of photos of him speaking to those from both sides of the aisle. but everybody right now saying that that i don't think that a deal -- among the republicans is likely to happen by tomorrow at this point. >> and kasie, what i heard was that the tweaks they were making were not designed to win over members like senator murkowski, senator collins or dean heller. they were made to win over members like ted cruz and rand paul who i had heard were ungettable to begin with. >> well, the tweaks that we know that they have been strongly considering that i think are actually aimed at the moderates are considering keeping an obamacare tax on wealthy investors essentially is a 3.8% tax on wealthier americans on their investment income and expanding that pool of money for opoids that could get senator portman. but we have been hearing that

that is not necessarily enough. that if they were going to do those things they'd want to make sure that all of the people that you named, heller, collins, murkowski, portman would be yes votes and the broader strokes of this are moving more towards paul and cruz and lee. so it really feels like we're in this same impossible position that we have been in for the last 72 hours on this. >> robert costa, bring me up to speed about how helpful or harmful this white house has been to the process of trying to get a bill done. >> the president's engagement has been somewhat limited on the senate side. however, the white house does carry some political capital with conservatives in the house. so the thing i picked up in my reporting, nicolle, is that steve bannon and reince priebus and others remain in close touch with the house freedom caucus, with house speaker paul ryan.

whatever shoots ott of the senate has to be passed in the house and get that freedom caucus stamp of approval. >> so in the game of janga how do you do anything -- i think there were more votes lost in the moderate or the conservative wing. how do you do anything to win over collins, murkowski, capito, and how do you hang on to the guys in the freedom caucus? >> i think this bill is on political life support an when i talked to house conservatives today and yesterday, look, if the medicaid funding is tweaked so that governors, democrat or republican, are guaranteed to have medicaid funding at several levels should medical costs increase, if they get that guarantee and the conservatives get a guarantee that states can have real flexibility with waivers for pre-existing conditions and other medical things, if the states have that flexibility on the right, and the moderates are comfortable with the medicaid, you could see a compromise. it hasn't gotten there yet. but that's what it would look

like if it happens. >> what's the degree of exasperation on capitol hill? i want to hear from both of you. kasie, you first. with the president branding this bill as mean and heartless before they even got around to deal making with the different wings of their own caucus. >> i don't know that exasperated is quite the right way to describe it, but i think there is general fatigue and dismissiveness around how the president has been talking about this. i think republicans are fed up with it. i think every time he tweets or he talks about this it -- a lot of times it causes a great deal of damage. they're tired of us chasing them down the hallways and asking them about what the president has done or said today. whether it relates to health care or whether it relates to something else. i think -- i know that some of bob costa's colleagues at "the post" have done extensive reporting on this as well. there's a sense of being a little bit over it when it comes to president trump. >> so your paper had a great

story in the title yesterday or today. i'm a little fatigued an exasperated. it was who's a afraid of donald trump? i want to ask you, flip it around and say, who does the white house think they can get for mitch mcconnell? >> they're trying to work senator paul because he's played golf with president trump and he has a rapport with the president. i'm told that because kentucky was a heavy trump state in 2016 maybe he could come along. you saw him have a one-on-one meeting with the president on tuesday. but when my colleagues wrote that story about who's afraid of president trump, it was based on a reporting that a lot of republicans privately and some publicly like senator graham say they don't fear president trump in the way -- in the past many senators have feared presidents in their own party. they see the president with respect, but they see him as someone who is somewhat separate from the republican party,

separate from their identity politically and ideologically. >> all right, kasie hunt and robert costa, thank you for spending time with us. up next he left a job leading one of the largest companies in the world to run the state department and now he's barely able to hire the people he wants to hire. and he often appears out of step with the white house. new reporting on secretary of state rex tillerson's growing frustrations in washington. >> i have a great relationship with the president. i understand what his objectives are when i'm not clear on what his objectives are we talk about its. but i am devoted to helping the president achieve his objectives, helping him be successful. i understand i have to earn his confidence every day. is not always easy. it's a long-distance run. and you have the determination to keep going. humira has a proven track record of being prescribed for nearly 10 years. humira works inside the body to target and help block a specific source of inflammation that contributes to symptoms. in clinical trials,

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secretary, are you satisfied with the revisions of the state department. >> no, i would like to go faster, thank you. >> that was restrained public response from secretary of state rex tillerson after a blow-up behind closed doors, that's what politico is reporting today, saying tillerson has grown frustrated by negative press coverage and delays in appointing staff. last week unleashing his anger in front of reince priebus, jared kushner, and others. politico's isaac eisenstaedt co-authored the piece. isaac, this is very much in line with what i picked up from sources since the story earlier in the week reporting similar things, but not your incredible detail about this blow-up.

what happened in the oval office, if that's where it happened. >> what basically happened is this, rex tillerson, the secretary of state, was at the white house last week. he had a meeting with some of the aides you mentioned, including jared kushner, reince priebus were there too. and what basically happened is tillerson yelled at destefano. he basically expressed a lot of frustration over the slowness and the pace of the hiring. tillerson is overseeing a really understaffed state department right now. it's taking a long time to get staff in place and he yelled at destefano. and he basically said, look, i want to have greater control over the people that join the state department. and what happened after that, basically, was that jared kushner approached one of tillerson's top aides and basically said, look, secretary of state tillerson can't behave this way. he can't act this way, it's inappropriate and they needed to find a solution moving forward. what i think this whole incident really underscores, though, is the degree of frustration that the secretary of state feels right now about just how things

are going for him in this administration, about how hard it's been for him to hire people. >> a grown man taking marching orders from an inlaw of the president, john heilemann. >> well, yeah, certainly, look. he ran a company that was the equivalent of a country. exxon is more important in the world than in terms of its own foreign policy, it's a massive entity. he's one of the most important business executives in the country. he left that job and came into this job. he walked in the door and wanted to appoint his deputy. wanted eliot abrams to be his deputy. that was the first warning sign when the white house overruled him and didn't let him pick his own deputy. >> and remind us why he wasn't allowed to do that. >> i still don't know exactly why he wasn't allowed to do it, but possibly because abrams had criticized donald trump in the course of the nomination fight. it was seen as a personal insult, a personal slight, so he was blackballed from the

administration. and tillerson not only lost that fight, but lost it without putting up much of a fight. and that sort of, again, signified to me that they not only had much power, but didn't understand what kind of battles they would have to wage in order to have the kind of autonomy they wanted to have. and it's all been downhill in some sense from there. and now he's dealing not just with the fact that the white house is overruled him, but jared kushner, when everyone thinks about him, who knows about as much about the world compared to rex tillerson as i know about higher physics. compared to stephen hawking. sort of an irrelevant kind of comparison. >> i keep thinking, so mike gral lo o is now the lead attack dog against the entire russia probe and he was also very critical of this president. but when there's someone that can do a service for this president, they're willing to overlook it. when there's someone when might strengthen a peer, they won't have it. >> right. it is an interesting dynamic that if you are -- if you have

been critical but now are more massaging of the president's agenda or the president himself, you are going to get much more of a pass. and the reality is, there are a lot of folks outside the administration who were critical during the campaign, because they were with another team or whatever, who have been kicked to the curb. who have been loyal, dedicated republican servants. i can think of a former governor of a state. >> yeah, we all know -- >> comes to mind. >> right. >> who took the bullets that unnecessarily, in my view, but that's how they are rewarded. and that's not lost on folks and why it's hard right now to hire people to come in. because they don't want to get caught in those crosshairs. >> mike, you and i had a conversation about, if it was 11:00 one night last week, how we wouldn't advise any of our mutual friends to go and be part of this press operation. but working at the state department and press department seemed like an entirely different calculation. we have mutual friends at the state department. and i've heard this for months,

how it is impossible to get any names through the white house to staff up this state department. and the state department basically can't function. >> i think there are people who want to go in and serve the country in positions like that and want to do the right thing for the country. but i think when it comes to secretary of state tillerson, you have to know what you're getting into with this president, or any president, for that matter. the secretary of state does not set foreign policy for this country. hillary clinton did not set foreign policy. he made decisions about who was going to be at the secretary of state's office, as well. i think this is not uncommon. you have to understand, you work for the president. that doesn't mean staffing shouldn't happen. >> but there's no parallel to the obama -- you're not suggesting that there was anyone like jared kushner during -- >> i'm not saying -- i'm not saying that, i'm just saying, to think you're going to have complete autonomy. >> i don't think tillerson's asking for autonomy. i think he's literally home alone. he's asking to hire some people he knows. >> i think he should be able to do, but to have complete autonomy, it doesn't happen here, it didn't happen the last presidency or the presidency

before that. >> but nobody's talking about -- >> they want a we cakened state department -- >> right. >> isaac, you've got us all riled up here. thank you for your reporting and spending time with us. we're going to be right back. i'm only in my 60's. i've got a nice long life ahead. big plans. so when i found out medicare doesn't pay all my medical expenses, i looked at my options. then i got a medicare supplement insurance plan. [ male announcer ] if you're eligible for medicare, you may know it only covers about 80%

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steele, anita dunn. i'm nicole wallace. "mtp daily" starts right now. hi, chuck. >> hi, nicole. this is usually my happiest moment. this is not a happy day. so, thanks, nicole. if it's thursday, a new twitter storm casts clouds over republican health care talks. tonight, could a tweet by president trump hurt his chances of getting a repeal of obamacare? >> what we're trying to do around here is improve the tone, the civility of the debate. and this, obviously, doesn't help do that. >> despite the tweet, does mitch mcconnell have enough legislative magic to get health care done in the senate? plus, are we about to see the rex tillerson rexit strategy from the state department? >> are you satisfied with your staffing? >> no, i would like to go faster. thank you. >> if tillerson isn't allowed to run his own state department, could he be asking, what's the point of staying? and later, reflecting on some words ofm