kind of following that same path, because, again, it's the same point. and it's an important point. and there's nothing machiavellian about it. the russians are view president trump as became the person is most likely to be constructive toward them, and so of course, they're going to want to do anything they can to help him as opposed to others perhaps in d.c. >> thank you so much. thanks for my panel. that does it for this hour. i'm nichole wallace. mtp daily starts right now. hi, katy. you've had a long day. >> hi, nichole. i'm ready for my vacation which starts in one hour. but until then, if it is friday, what we've got here is a failure to communicate. >> tonight, sean spicer steps down as white house press secretary as sarah huckabee sanders officially steps in. >> he understood that the president wanted to bring in and add new people to the team. >> and another long time trump

ally steps up. >> if you want to eat an elephant, you've got to eat it one bite at a time and sarah and i are going to do that together. >> how will anthony scaramucci change the messaging out of the oval office. >> it has been a very successful life experience for president trump to be president trump. let's let him do that. >> plus, the palace intrigue. >> i don't have any friction are sean. i don't have any friction are reince. >> how is it all shaking out across the borders of the west wing? >> we are a little bit like brothers where we rough each other one once in a while, which is totally normal for brothers. >> and pardon me, does the president believe he has the power to pardon himself? this is mtp daily, and it starts right now. good evening, i'm katy terr in new york in for chuck todd. welcome to mtp daily.

we begin tonight with chaos at the white house. press secretary sean spicer had has quit, so has the spokesman for mr. trump's personal legal team. the president said yesterday that he maybe should never have hired his attorney general. and a constitutional crisis may be brewing as the president looks for ways to potentially discredit or block bob mueller's met asizing investigation. this afternoon the white house's brand-new communications director anthony scaramucci tried to pull off a reset of epic proporngsz on his first day at the podium. when he spoke with reporters today on camera, he made it clear that his mission is to let trump be trump. >> i think we're doing an amazing job. the president himself is always going to be the president. i was in the oval office with him earlier today and we were talking about letting him be himself, letting him express his full identity. i think he's got some of the best political instringts in the world and programs in history. if you think about it, he started his political asent two

years and two months ago, and he's done a phenomenal job for the american people. >> this white house arguably needed today's reset because no one there has been able to effectively restrain this president's impulses. scaramucci insisted that the white house is on course. it isn't. he said the president is beloved. he's not. he said there's truth to the president's claims of massive voter fraud. there are not. and he claimed there's no friction between him and sean spicer. even though our reporting indicates his hire is why spicer is leaving. but with answers like those and like this, it isn't hard to see why the president likes this guy. >> i've seen this guy throw a dead spiral through a tire. i've seen him at madison square garden with a top coat on. he's standing in the key and he's hitting foul shots examine swishing them. he sinks three foot putts. i don't see this guy as a guy that's ever under siege.

obviously there's a lot of incoming that comes into the white house, but the president is a winner and what we're going to do is do a lot of wiping. >> scaramucci would not answer questions about the president's escalating are attacks on special counsel bob mueller. this comes after "the new york times" and the "washington post" had separate reports that the white house has begun to investigate the investigators. they're looking for potential conflicts of interest to use against special counsel robert mueller and his team to sully their work or perhaps build the case to have mueller fired. the "washington post" reports that president trump asked his advisers about his power to pardon aides, family members and potentially himself in connection with the probe. today the president's outside counsel john dowd called the post reporting, quote, nonsense. he also insisted that his legal team is not trying to discredit mueller's work, but in some -- but some in the white house, at least sure seem like they are. >> a lot of conflict. look, i think that's information

that the public should have, maria. they should at least know transparency, accountability, who are these folks, the money they donated, the conflicts they may. >> annually named white house press secretary sarah huckabee sanders said today that she has no reason to doubt that the president has confidence in mueller and his investigation -- has lost confidence, i should say. even though the president just two days ago attacked mueller's credibility in an interview with "the new york times." but here we are, once again, inel totally uncharted r waters if and yes it is a big if, but if the president is serious about threatening mueller's investigation and if he's serious about rendering mueller powerless by pardon ong anyone implicated, and if his communications chief is going to encourage this president's brash impulses, then what real consequences will he face? what would the republican congress do, if anything? and if we're veering towards a

constitutional crisis that pits mueller against trump, whose side are they going to be on? >> let's bring in some people who have been following all of the developments, nbc's peter alexander from the white house, peter baker, chief white house correspondent for "the new york times." he interviewed have the president this week. and roz lynn helder man, political investigations reporter at the "washington post." peter, let us start with you. how did we get up to this moment? bring us behind the scenes of the white house. >> assuming peter means peter alexander versus peter baker, i'll take this one and defer to my colleague at the new york times in just a moment. the bottom line here is today sort of punk waited what was an escalating feud that existed between different faksz associated and around this president. sean spicer and reince priebus, frankly, were very upset. they have for weeks expressed their dissatisfaction with the idea of anthony scaramucci even joining this team. it sort of came to a conclusion today with spicer basically at that ten clock meeting that took place in the oval office where scaramucci was there and he

offered the job, semd the job. sean spicer said it was a job he didn't think scaramucci in effect was ready for. he had no communications experience. and spicer was frankly concerned about what his own status would be in this system going forward. so what it does, though, is it quickly shifts the narrative here in terms of the wrapping paper, who is sort of delivering the message of the day, but what it's unable to fix, katy is their ability to sort of come up with a singular message and to stick to it which has been the challenge that has existed. it's a fundamental challenge for this white house, which is coming up with the product that the messaging team, the communications team is supposed to be delivering. so while today a lot of the focus will be on the smoothness, the after fablt as it were of anthony scaramucci, the bottom line here is the fundamentals did not change, and what remains to be seen is how truthful anthony scaramucci and his teammates will be as they try to represent the president going forward and frankly, whether he'll allow them to speak on his own behalf. >> peter alexander at the white house. peter, thank you very much. let's go to peter baker and ross

lind. peter baker, talk about whether or not this president realizes that even the idea of floating around whether he could pardon himself could be potentially extraordinarily problematic for his reception for his dealings with the congress? there was some republicans today that said if he tries to fire bob mueller, he's going to have a serious problem on capitol hill, and that's not just with the democrats. >> yeah. that's exactly right. i think the republican congressman was on andrea mitchell earlier stowed on your channel saying exactly that. that's a pretty stark message from a sitting republican member of congress. and i think that is one of the red lines right now that many members in congress have set at least in their own minds whether they would do something in that event weight. we don't know. there have been a lot of lines crossed, i think, in this administration so far, things that have been done that aren't normally done by most

presidents. but, you know, whether he would pardon himself, i mean, you know, we don't know how serious this was. >> yeah. >> he's been characterized as just sort of out loud thinking, what are the rules, how did it work, curiosity. what president trump doesn't understand it seems like is when a president asks questions, it is seen as being serious whether it is or not. we can sit around the water cooler and say how does that work, what's the deal with that, what's the limit of a pardon power and it doesn't really matter very much. when a president asks even in a casual way it's taken as a signal, a sign and it is in fact sending a message across town right now that's not being well received. >> rosin, the installation of anthony scaramucci, how much does that change the dynamic and does it affect how the white house deals with this ballooning russia problem? >> well, you heard scaramucci get asked a question about that in his first briefing today, and he said, you know, i haven't been briefed yet by the white house counsel's office about how to handle questions like ha that, and so i'm not going to answer that.

and i think that is in fact the answer rp answer that the lawyers would probably advice that he give from that podium. they have been trying and trying over the last few weeks to divide the whole russia investigation out into the -- you know, give it full responsibility to the president's personal legal team and take it out of the white house. and the reason they have not been able to do that so far is the president himself, who keeps talking it again and again, including in that amazing interview with peter earlier this week. >> yeah. and peter, let's talk about that interview. when you were talking to him in the oval office w what was your sense of him at that time? is this a man who feels like he's under seenl? is he a man that feels like his message is not getting hout there? does he understand the darkening cloud above him? >> no. this is not a person who seemed like he had a dark cloud over him. when we saw him in the oval office, he had just come from lunch with the republican senators, talk about how to revive a healthcare bill that most sh else thinking is dead. he sealed in a very relaxed, upbeat mood, the economy doing

well, the markets doing well. he did not look like a% who was at 36% in the polls and he did not seem beleague erred. however, once we raised the russia question and of course we were going to do that, you know, he had some very sharp things to say. it wasn't like some of the public statement that are very fiery, but what he did talk about with his attorney general, with the former fbi director, with the current acting fbi director, the deputy attorney general and most importantly robert mueller were very sharp things to say. and i can't remember any president saying them quite as starkly as this one has. >> and so the president himself always feels like he's his best messenger and anthony said today that ultimately donald trump's instincts politically have been right on the mark. donald trump knew what he was doing in the campaign when he was trying to discredit anybody who criticized him. ross lind, is this the same thing that he's doing with robert mueller, just trying to at the very least say that no conflicts of interest are found, conflicts that would, you know,

necessitate the need to ous him? at the very least is what he is trying to do, does it boil down to let's discredit him so my base won't believe him if he comes back with negative findings? >> it certainly does feel like that and as well as laying a groundwork for a sort of leaving options open for the future, including potentially making a move against him. now, i know he has said many times, i think he said it to peter this week that he does not plan to ask for mueller to be relieved of his duties, but it's worth noting that in the department of justice regulations that set up the special counsel, one of the reasons -- one of the only reasons a special counsel can be dismissed under those regulations is conflict of interest. so all of this research they're doing about possible conflicts by bob mueller or his team, you know, one way to look at it is potentially laying the groundwork for making a move against him. >> so, peter, what's next? anthony scaramucci is in.

sean spicer resigns. he doesn't say it's in protest, but our reporting says oh resigns because scaramucci was brought in. who is the next to go? >> yeah, it's a great question. a lot of eyes today on reince priebus for the very reasons you've already talked about. he didn't particularly like this appointment, and it's now been made over his objection. that's a pretty untenable position for a chief of staff to be in. but, you know, look, people have been writing reince priebus' political obituary for months and they've been wrong. be careful about making any predictions, especially in this white house. but it does feel like it's a staff right now that's on edge. people we've talked to inside talk about sort of the poisonous atmosphere, the tribes that exist inside the west wing v how surprised and even disappointed that they are that a team that they felt had been pretty unified to some extent at least during the campaign now is so driven apart like this. so i think more shoes will drop. >> peter baker, ross lind hilder man, guys, thank you very much. i'm joined now by nate per

silly. he's a proffer at stanford law skoom. he was the research director at the white house's integrity commission under obama. he's also an expert on constitutional crisis and public opinion. what better voice to have today than you, my friend. so donald trump is talking about a red line for robert mueller. and it would be a huge violation for him to look into his finances. people point out that his finances are pretty close am -- could be pretty closely tied to whether or not meddled in -- whether or not russia meant to meddle in the election in the favor of donald trump. why that would do that. so if donald trump tries to push back on mueller or tries to fire him, walk us through the consequences of that. >> well, there are several steps that the president could take in order to curb this investigation. the regulations in the department of justice say that the attorney general is the one that would fire the special counsel. in this case it would be the

acting attorney general or his subordinate, rod rosenstein. so in theory the president could fire the attorney general, fire the assistant attorney general in order to get someone in charge who would then fire the special counsel. now, that is reminiscent of what happened during the watergate saturday night massacre, but it is within his constitutional power in order to do that. in the eept that happens, then the real check on the president is impeachment, and the question is whether congress, particularly the house of representatives, would stand up to the task. >> well, on that, will republicans draw a red line, and if they do, is it pardon ong an aid or a fraem member or is it trying to fire somebody like bob mueller. >> well, it's very hard to read the tea leaves because they're changing every day. it's perfectly conceivable that he might end up pardon ong either his family members or other people who are involved and subject to the investigation. when he does that, however, then

those folks are not able to claim the fifth amendment privilege against self-incrimination. so, for example r done junior or jared kushner or any of the other people in the administration or campaign are pardoned, then are the special prosecutor could force them to testify and get information from them because they won't be threatened, say, with going to jail. >> so if he pardons them before any results are found and before he comes to any conclusions, donald trump does that before bob mueller comes to his conclusions, bob mueller can say, hey, listen, don junior or jared kushner, whomever, i want to know everything you know about your father, and they would have to be compelled to testify honestly? . >> that's right. i mean, because they're not going to face legal jeopardy at that point because essentially they can't incriminate themselves because they won't be subject to any kind of punishment as a result. >> got it. okay. so the republicans are not necessarily sending a lot of signals right now that they feel like he needs to back off. we did hear from one republican congressman today, but that's

about it. so there's talk about what that -- why that is. what is donald trump's magic power here, and ultimately people come back to his base and how his base never moves against him. so is this the issue? are you seeing republicans potentially putting party over country at this point in order to maintain a republican president? well, right now we are living in extremely polar iced times. and so democrats are and republicans have completely different views of this president and the presidency and how it's performed. so you get somewhere in the range of 80 to 80s five% approval among republicans, even though the aggregate opinion is only in the high 30's for presidential approval. he still has a considerable number of republicans in the mass public and he still has -- the thing to look for is to see if there are mass defections among members of the house of representatives who are republicans and to see what paul

ryan may draw as his red line in the sand. >> in the battle who wince, donald trump or robert mueller. >> well, they're going to win with different people am. they are people supporting the president and i would expect them to continue to do so and those opposing the president are going to side with direct tore mueller. >> thanks so much for joining us. >> thank you. >> and will there be more aftershocks from the shake up? our panel weighs in as the new communications head takes aim 59 reports of west wing chaos. >> we are committed as true policies to the team and the process of getting the administration's message out.

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buy one get one 30% off. hey you've gotta see this. cno.n. alright, see you down there. mmm, fine. okay, what do we got? okay, watch this. do the thing we talked about. what do we say? it's going to be great. watch. remember what we were just saying? go irish! see that? yes! i'm gonna just go back to doing what i was doing. find your awesome with the xfinity x1 voice remote. welcome back. in his first appearance in the white house briefing room the new white house communications director was effusive in his affection for, well, seemingly everyone. take a listen. >> the president has really good karma and the world turns back to him. i think there's been at times a

disconnect between the way we see the president and how much we love the president. i love the president. i obviously love the country. i do appreciate that about sean and i love him for it. and i love these guys. i respect these guys. i like the team. let me rephrase that. i love the team. you too, unnecessary er visits. and hey, unmanaged depression, don't get too comfortable. we're talking to you, cost inefficiencies and data without insights. and fragmented care- stop getting in the way of patient recovery and pay attention. every single one of you is on our list. for those who won't rest until the world is healthier, neither will we. optum. how well gets done.

i was playing golf a couple days ago... love golf. and my friend mentioned a tip a pro gave her. did it help? it completely ruined my game. that advice was never meant for you. i like you. you want to show me your swing? it's too soon. get advice that's right for you with investment management services. . welcome back. what a day at the white house. so let's go to our panel. dan, i want to start with you. i want to just tell me what you think of this past week. give me the big picture. >> well, i mean, we've said it every week, but, you know, it's hard to top this week for the kind of news that came out. i mean, we thought we had a huge week a week ago with the don junior meeting. this week we've had the collapse of health care, a remarkable public interview with "the new

york times" in which the president has said things about his attorney general and the special counsel that you would never have expected a president to say. and now we have a serious shake up in the white house staff operation. and who knows what more to come? so, i mean, i think the take away from the week, katy, is that this is a president who in one way or another still does not have what i would call respect for the constitutional structures of government and who is constantly prepared to up end everything around him in the hope that that will change it and that if he can put loyal people in the right positions, that that will in one way or another keep all these problems that so object ses him at bay. that may be a fundamental misunderstanding of the way government works, but it's clearly the way the president approaches these issues. >> ruth, if he can put loyalists in those key rolls, know his

voice and thinking a little bit better than sean spicer did, do you think that we can see something of a change coming out of this white house? does this ultimately matter? >> i don't think that's the solution. i think the scaramucci all you need is love approach is probably not what this president needs. i don't think he needs another person who is going to tell him how wonderful he is, not tell him when he's wrong. i thought anthony scaramucci set a nice job of setting a less combative tone with the press than sean spicer, but you do need -- sean spicer is right in the sense that you do need a communications professional in that role, which doesn't just mean somebody who is going to go out and be combative and assertive on behalf of the president, but somebody who understands how to marshall the forces that you need of surrogates out there and validaters making the president's case.

the president -- physically, this president wants to be zone communications director, and as long as he insists on filling that role himself, we're going to see this kind of ka reasoning car that we saw this week and last week as the administration can't realistic to its message. >> matthew, with sean spicer out now, that is many believe really undercutting reince priebus and that reince priebus might not have a tenable position in the white house any longer. reince priebus, sean spicer, those are the lie sons mostly between this white house and capitol hill. what does this mean for republicans on capitol hill? does this mean that they're losing influence or losing allies in the white house and their goals, their agenda might be more at risk without them there? >> well, remember, you still have mike pence, the vice president and mark short, who is really -- >> do you think mike pence is really in the loop on things? >> in terms of the legislating, lobbying for the president's agenda on capitol hill? i do.

i think reince priebus and sean spicer were more of the rnc apparatus, definitely a tied to republican donors and some involvement on capitol hill. i was struck by scaramucci really talking about the relationship he's had with priebus going back to the 2012 election. i was also struck about the answer he gave about his relationship with steve bannon. it didn't strike me as quite as friendly as his remarks about priebus. so that would be another white house staff member i'd be watching. >> yeah. so that's the reporting that i had out of the white house last night, which is reince priebus is really pushing back on this, dan, but so was steve bannon. steve bannon didn't think he was qualified for this job. there was also -- there is rumors and whichers about whether if reince leaves, is chief of staff ultimately what anthony scaramucci is ieg? what's the significance of that? >> katy, are you're several ches moves ahead of me on some of these things. i think that there's no doubt

that even though scaramucci and priebus have a friendship and have gone back awhile, that his arrival does in some way or another undercut reince priebus as the chief of staff. i mean, priebus has now lost two key allies that he brought into the white house with him, sean spicer today and earlier katie walg who arrived as the deputy chief of staff and who was priebus's chief of staff at the republican national committee. so he has fewer strong allies in that operation than before. and one thing we know is that this is a white house of fooers rival riz and different camps and shifting alliances. it's not that on one day people who are rivals are going to be rivals forever, but it does put priebus in a more precarious position. i think peter baker made a good point early yir, which is that there's been talk about reince prieks being pushed out or

forced out or resigning for months and he's still there. >> that's a good point. >> so i think you have to keep that in mind also. but this is a volatile white house, and i don't think what happened today makes it any less so. >> so it's also a white house that doesn't necessarily like playing by the norms of politics, the political roles, but ultimately politics in washington will run the same way it always has, especially when is it comes to an investigation of the president. so if the president is going out and he's trying to tarnish the special counsel, ruth, what are the consequences of that? and what about those who say that this special counsel, robert mueller, is running amuck in the same way that ken star did during the clinton administration? >> well, i lived through ken starr and the clinton administration, as did my friend dan who is always many ches moves ahead of me. and let me just say this. judge star just wrote an op ed for us, but bob mueller is no

ken starr. ken starr came to that job without the kind of prosecutorial in the trenches experience that bob mueller has. bob mueller is also operating under a different statute than ken starr did, but it's still -- not statute. he's operating under justice department regulations. he has done nothing so far that i am aware of that in any way calls into question his legitimacy, but you see this case starting to be built by the president and his allies, his lawyer jay sekulow on sunday, the sort of glimmerings of a case against mueller and against his legitimacy because of comey. and that makes me very nervous. i think it should make republicans on the hill very nervous, because they know bob mueller is a reasonable person who is going to do a reasonable investigation. and i wonder when the president

fired jim comey, it had more of an effect than he expected, more of a firestorm, but i'm wondering if he's under estimating really seriously the impact of firing of bob mueller. >> well, matthew, what would republicans do if he did try to fire robert mueller? >> well, i think a lot of republicans would protest very strongly. the question is what they would do after they registered their protests. >> yeah. >> ask the truth is they don't really have many tools at their disposal to check the president. >> they have impeachment. >> right. and i don't think that's the tool they're going to use in this case. >> what would be the line for impeachment, matthew? >> for republicans? >> yeah. it's very hard to say. as long as they're in charge of the congress, i mean, as one of your earlier guests is saying in these polarized times and republicans are sticking together, they also agree with trump in some respects in the sense that the russia investigation is a distraction. so he has kind of support among republicans, and certainly his

voertsz, on that case. so i think there would be major protests. i think a lot of republicans would caution the president not to fire bob mueller. but after that, i don't think they have many tools at their disposal. >> dan, last question to you. if they don't do anything if the president tries to fire the special counsel, where does that leave this democracy? >> well, i mean, it depends on when and what circumstances would provoke that. i mean, if it were to happen today, there would be one reaction. if it happens in six months, there might be another reaction, depending on what more we know about what has come out through the investigation, not just bob mueller's, but what's come out through the senate intelligence committee investigation. you know, i think that the issue really then begins to fall on the political impact on the country, what kind of reaction there is particularly among republicans that could affect the 2018 elections. if republicans were to lose the house of representatives, then you've got an entirely different

situation here politically that the president would have to face. so, you know, there's so many unknowns, katy, it's just -- i'm looet to jump too far ahead. but he would be certainly playing with fire in all sorts of ways if in one way or another he tried to provoke a clash with mueller in what looked like a way to shut down the investigation. >> bathing himself in fair maybe. stay with us, guys. still ahead, we're going hienld the scenes at the white house, how will today's white house shake up impact steve bannon's influence. for your heart... your joints... or your digestion... so why wouldn't you take something for the most important part of you... your brain. with an ingredient originally found in jellyfish, prevagen is now the number one selling brain health supplement in drug stores nationwide.

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. next on mtp daily, bloomberg's joshua green joins us with an inside look at what's happening behind the scenes at the white house. and where things stand with chief strategist steve bannon. but first, hampton pearson has the c nbc market wrap. >> markets finished the day mostly flat. the dow down 31 points. the s&p off by a single point, the nasdaq losing two. exxonmobil is suing the u.s. government owe a $2 million fine levied by the treasury department. the treasury says the expect's joint venture shows reckless disregard of sanctions on russia. exxonmobil calls the fine unlawful. and delta customers can now use their fingerprint ats a boarding

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welcome back to "mtp daily." today's sudden resignation of white house press secretary sean spicer is only the latest breaking news headline out of a west wing in near constant turmoil. over the last six months we've become accustomed to leaks, back stabbing and high profile exits. one of the names that's on which a topic of intrigue is steve bannon. some days he's haled as the wizard behind the curtain. other days sources swear he's been did you tell out of the president's orbit and is bracing forth an ouster. just take a look at this headline today. steve bannon's disappearing act. while he's stepping back in an effort to save his job in the white house. joining me now is the bannon expert, joshua green.

he's a senior national correspondent for bloomberg business week and also the author of the new week delve's bargain. steve bannon, donald trump and the storming of the presidency. you laughed, josh, but that's why you're the expert on steve bannon right there. great book, first of off. congratulations. i know how hard it is to crash something like that and get it out as quickly as you did. talking about today's headlines first, spicer's resignation, is this good news or bad news for steve bannon? >> i think it's bad news for steve bannon, because bannon had fostered -- despite all the early drama and headlines, ban on had fogs erred a pretty good relationship of the rnc crowd of sean spicer and reince priebus who he supposedly was battling early on. so the fact that this move was made apparently over his objections i think is definitely bad news for him. >> so is he in jeopardy right now? >> everybody is always in jeopardy in trump's inner circle. >> good point. >> it seems like to me.

but i don't think he's directly in jeopardy. and the odd irony of this move as the news started to break last night and i thought about it, scaramucci is actually more of a bannon guy than you might think. he's an outsider with a chip on hids shoulder. etel bannon didn't want coming in, but he seems like the kind of guy that he would click with. >> hold on, josh. he's also a wall street guy and a bit of a globalist. >> he's a globalist, though, who has morphed into a trumpist and there's a difference there, an important difference and as we saw on the podium today, he made this elaborate show of obese ens this trump and made his punishment and ribbing for having called trump names in the past. so he is a guy who is very much with the trump agenda skpiet the fact that he has a wall street background, which by the way steve bannon does too. >> family, so the family was behind the urban erg in of anthony scaramucci. he's really close eye vang.

he's close with jared. he's close with folks that have been in trump orbit for a long sometime. bannon's relationship with the family, where does that stand right now? >> i never know for sure. it's been hot and cold. it was pretty wonderful during the campaign when trump was under attack and i tell all the stories of the various ways that bannon alied with them to help defend and help him win the race. but after the election, once trump got gnawing rated and things went off the rail a bit, i think jared kushner in particular held bannon to blame for the miss fornts that befell trump early on in his presidency and kind of turned against him. but the fact that kushner and ivanka were pushing this move and were successful in making it happen over bannon's objections show that they're the ones very much back in power right now, and it at least today steve bannon isn't. >> let's talk about your book. you really lay out why donald trump was drawn to steve bannon,

why steve bannon was drawn to donald trump. give me a brief explainer for our audience. >> well, bannon basically was this outsider, populist. he worked at breitbart news. very passionate taker of sides who was never taken seriously by anybody in washington because as chairman of breitbart, he attacked politicians in both paerts and nobody really liked him. but for trump, who was this outsider and a punch line early on in this campaign cycle, he didn't really have a lot of people to choose from when it came to political advisers, but bannon was more than willing to do it. and every time trump got in trouble during the campaign, even before bannon was his manager, steve bannon was the guy who kind of ran to his rescue and fought his battle is, so after trump made his announcement speech in which he called mexican rainists and drug dealers and came under all sorts of attack, bannon was of the guy who helped organize a trip to

lor a dough texas to the mexican border so had that trump could double down. and his advice in the campaign, keep going further, don't ever apologize, don't listen to the establishment. and that was a winning formula for trump as a candidate, if not trump as a president. >> don't back down. josh green, the book is incredible. i suggest anyone who wants to understand donald trump and what's going on in this white house right now, in this relationship, pick it upel. it's certainly worth a read. congratulations, buddy. >> thanks so much, katy. i appreciate it. ask approximate coming up, there's republican chaos on both ends of pennsylvania avenue today. we'll explain next. ♪ ♪ award winning interface. award winning design. award winning engine. the volvo xc90. the most awarded luxury suv of the century.

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a long time. then it's a fortune. i told you we had a fortune. get closer to your investment goals with a conversation. welcome back. as kay os and confusion grip the west wing, there's not. more clarity at the other end of pennsylvania avenue. senate republicans are scrambling to reach a consensus on health care, but without really knowing what they're supposed to be agreeing on. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell says a vote will happen next week, maybe as early as tuesday. but it's unclear if they will be voting on a straight repeal of obamacare or a repeal with a replacement or something else entirely. but no matter what they're voting on, it doesn't seem like republicans have the 50 votes they need to pass anything. >> you know, it's a little bit dynamic. and frankly, the story has changed over the last 24 hours as things have changed. and so i can't comment on that

because we haven't had our group meeting. i would just have to wait until then to sort it sought. >> i'm prepared to volt for a vote to repeal, repeal and replace. >> we've probably got i would say 45 or 46 yes, sir now. we're close. and it's just -- it's a handful of nos right now. but i think that they're going to get to yes. even a coupe soup. [woman] so beautiful. [man] beautiful just like you. [woman] oh, why thank you. [burke] and we covered it, november sixth, two-thousand-nine. talk to farmers. we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ how to win at business. step one. point decisively with your glasses. abracadabra! the stage is yours. step two. choose laquinta.

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only tylenol® rapid release gels have laser drilled holes. they release medicine fast, for fast pain relief. tylenol® if he fired bob mueller, i think he'd see a tremendous backlash from democrats but house republicans. >> welcome back. time now for the lids. the panel is back. that was congressman mccall talking to andrea mitchell. do you think he's a bellwether for republicans? >> we could be. he's a prominent member of the

house. he is well aware of the consequences of trying to shut that thing down. if he is right, there would be that kind of a backlash. i think it goes back to what matthew said earlier, once the protest occurred, what's the next step? what tools do they employ to do something in answer. that's still unanswerable. >> you said the republicans didn't have anything they could do. they could pass a law that would reenstate the special counsel. >> i think the chances of them doing that are zero. they just don't want this -- they don't want to do anything to jeopardize the president as the republican party. they think that the russia investigation is a disdrtractio. they think that special counsel, much less an independent authority could get into areas not directly related to russian

interference. should it lead to a democratic takeover in 2018, then you're absolutely right. the democratic could move immediately to re-enstate the independent counsel. >> the chess board changes if that were to happen. touching on health care real fast, you heard ted cruz saying there's only a handful of people, republican senator who is are hold outs on voting for a repeal or a repeal and a replace. how likely is it, cruz is optimistic, how likely is it they move over and say yes to passing something? >> i think that the pathway is getting narrower and narrower. the fact we have not seen movement in that direction and movement away from it suggests how difficult it's going to be to get there. since we can only talk about bob

mueller and the investigation. if the president were to fire bob mueller, that's not necessarily the end of the investigation. i've been wallowing in watergate. when watergate special prosecutor was fired on the famous saturday night massacre. on monday morning the prosecutors in his office came into work as justice department employees. there had been an investigation going on previously. they continued that investigation and then a new prosecutor was named. you'd have to kill off really more than just bob mueller. you would have to kill off a criminal investigation that actually proceeded bob mueller's appointment. that would be a very extraordinary thing for a president to do especially investigation involving himself. he might have the power to do it but it's never happened before. >> not to mention the investigations going on on

capitol hill. there's a number of investigations there. i like that you said wallowing in watergate. you know how us tv people love i illiterations. thank you for that. calling a vote. what does that say? >> it may say more about mitch mcconnell's sensibility. he may be at the end of his rope with his own members. he's done everything he thought he knew how to do to try to get this to a positive outcome. so far has not been able to do it. i think he wants to put people on the record. that would give people who want to vote for a repeal and repiea and replace the opportunity to say they were able to do that. it would bring some finality to this chapter of it in the senate. i think he just wants some sense

of closure, positive or negative on this whole matter. >> what a markable turn of events. seven years of promising to repeal and replace only to have it potentially not go through on the floor if he does call for a vote. guys, thank you very much. happy friday. after the break, another reason to hate bringing all of that sand from the beach home with you. this is a story about mail and packages.

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in case you missed it, like

sand to the hourglass, so are the days of our lives. time is running out for one of the most precious natural resources. the world is running out of sand. we first heard about this from freelance journalist vince on npr this morning. it will affect more than your beach vacation. stick with us here. sand is used in a lot more than you think. it's the basis for cement. roads, bridges and buildings. glass is made from liquid sand and so are is silicon chips in your phone. where does all that sand come from? it's mined. soon all the sand in the u.s. will have to be imported. last week the california coastal commission approved the closure of the last sand mine in the main land u.s. by the end of 2020 for environmental concerns. here is whiy it matters. we're using more sand than ever before with major construction booming in places like china and

india. we're using it faster than it can be created. if you're going to the beach this weekend appreciate the wonder of the sand in your toes and then do us all a favor, leave it where you found it. that's all for tonight. we'll be back on monday with more mtp daily. have a great weekend. they can't blame the messenger anymore. sean spicer resigning as white house press secretary. late today president trump with this. >> with your staff shake up? can you change what you're trying to accomplish? >> make america great again. we're getting there. >> spicer resigning after unsuccessfully trying to block the appointment of an no thi as white house communications director. sarah huckabee sanders will take over in august. holding the first on