the white house in more turmoil as it tries to promote its economic agenda, despite the personnel changes in the white house and more russia talk, the administration was hoping you'd remember this past week as made in america week. >> well, they didn't talk about it much. donald trump campaigned, remember, on being the businessman president who would get things done, but six months in, he still does not have a major legislative win. what america's ceos would do differently when it comes to the business of running a nation. >> welcome to "velshi & ruhle."

i'm ali velshi. >> and i'm stephanie ruhle. people always say it's talk russia, russia, russia with the media. how about immigration. the immigration debate hitting america's farms. we all know migrant workers have been the life blood of u.s. agriculture but most come from mexico, and now they are not coming. when farmers need them most, harvest season. >> meanwhile it was made in america week for the white house but for the rest of washington it was another week of battling over russia, white house staffing and, as always these days, health care. >> well, republicans in the senate despite fighting obamacare for so long couldn't even get enough votes to open trumpcare for debate. that is as key gop moderates defected on the case of senator john mccain rushed away for medical treatment. the talk has gone from repeal and replace to repeal only to just kill obamacare and back to rebeal and replace. president trump has pressured lawmakers. he's had some stuff talk, into

putting off their summer recess to try again next week. but the president can kill obamacare whenever he wants to. all he has to do is refuse to enforce the insurance mandate that cuts off subsidy payments to insurers. it would be horrible, that lower deductibles for low and middle income people. >> right. this is the part of it we haven't talked about as we discuss this. there's a provision in obamacare that the health and human services, which is part of the executive branch, so that's secretary tom price, they have to give subsidies to insurance companies. those insurance companies who worried that only sick people would get on the insurance rolls. if these subsidies don't go to these insurance companies, that's what's actually resulting in some of them pulling out of these markets. so the uncertainty about whether those payments will continue has already caused some insurers to back out and president trump still hasn't made a solid iron clad commitment to keeping those subsidies going. just so everybody out there knows, you don't actually have

to legislate it to kill obamacare. it's like a plant or a child, it needs food and water. if you don't give it to them, it will perish. >> president trump said he has his pen and is ready to sign it but when he did that interview with "the new york times" and talked about the way health care works and entitlements, he seemed confused. the dangerous game the gop is playing if they simply repeal, look at the cbo numbers, 32 million more people would be uninsured by 2026. 17 million by 2018 if you simply go with repeal. it's not just about, well, we told america we're going to repeal it. america doesn't care what it's called, they want health care they can afford. >> so they can keep on tweaking this bill and going back to the cbo. we discussed on this show that the cbo scores are the best bet to figure things out, even though they have not been entirely accurate on this. the bottom line is these scores are not going to get better. for those senators who say keep on submitting more legislation --

>> the bottom line is entitlements, medicaid. once you give people something, it's very difficult to take them back. so those freedom caucus members, good luck. it was officially made in america week. >> we now said it three times. >> and we've been saying it all week. trump spent the week pushing american-made products saying it's our patriotic mission to buy american products. >> when we purchase things made in the usa, the profits stay here, the revenue stays here and the jobs maybe most importantly of all, they stay right here in the usa. >> it's a good sentiment, stephanie, but it's a twofold problem. u.s. goods, because we have higher wages, and by the way the goal for many people are to have yet higher wages are pricey and elusive. americans want value. for years and years and years, we've enjoyed buying cheaper goods. for certain high-end products, say a boeing passenger jet or ford mustang, americans might

pay more for the made in america. >> the ford f-150 truck, pa is of the brand. >> right. but they're full of parts that are made in other parts of the world. >> they're made in americaish. >> yeah. so the other idea that the white house continues to promote or at least donald trump does and paul ryan does, this idea of a border adjustment tax. well, if you tax imports, in the end americans are still going to make -- pay more. so unless you can cause them to make more while they pay more, this is going to be a hard circle to square. >> consumers at the end of the day control everything. it's the rise of amazon. think about how sears has been languishing for years. sears announces they're going to have a partnership with amazon. we saw their stock go up 20% this week. at the end of the day, consumers do the talking. they spend the money. while they might like the idea of made in america, look how we shop. look how we buy. >> right. so the thing we have a struggle with is we have high wages

compared to countries that make the stuff that we buy most of our stuff from. >> that's not going to change. >> the mexicos, vietnam, bangladesh, china. our wages are not going down. we want them to go up. so the stuff we make has got to be higher value stuff. we haven't figured that out. germany has done a better job than america has at it. but this made in america being ended up being a distraction. >> and if you bring those tariffs in, it will cause the consumers to spend more and remember, we also want to export. the president himself, ivanka trump, both make lifestyle goods, none of which or most of which are not made here. >> ivanka trump, 0% is made in america. >> and have zero plans to do so. like it or not, donald trump's entire presidency could be dogged by allegations of collusion between his campaign and russia. even people who support the president say enough is enough. that is why it is so remarkable for rupert murdoch owned "wall

street journal" ed board, the pro business to demand in an op-ed radical transparency from the president. in short, they say he needs to come clean on all his business dealings. they want him to. well, they want him to leave the country like a businessperson would with accountability and transparency. >> i've spent my entire life in business looking at the untapped potential in projects and in people all over the world. that is now what i want to do for our country. >> donald trump builds himself as the businessman president, promising to bring his private sector experience to public life. but this commander in chief doesn't always do the business of the nation the way chief executive might do the business of a company. try to think of it this way. when the president gives a press conference, he does not always take questions or he sometimes cuts them short. when a ceo holds an earnings call, he takes all sorts of

questions, even from hostile analysts. when the president's most recent poll numbers came out and showed a steep drop, he didn't address those numbers at any public event that day. but when a company's share price takes a nosedive, the ceo goes on tv to try to manage the market sentiment. when controversy struck this white house with the ongoing russia investigation, the president's press secretary disappeared for three weeks. but somehow information got leaked to the press. when a company gets hit with a scandal, the ceo deploys a crisis management team and tightly controls the messaging that goes out to the public. the ceos of america's larger companies are far more transparent than our president has been thus far, but they run public companies and they have got to answer to their shareholders. president trump ran a private business. the only person he had to answer to was himself. of course, he's probably noticed by now life's a bit different once you're in the white house.

>> just think about this, "the wall street journal" saying open it. if you want to get to this agenda, many people held their nose and said they question his character but they want to this moment for republicans to control everything and get something done. >> just stop with the open the kimono donald trump thing. >> you know what, you have to just clean it up. >> but it is interesting because while there's conservative media and liberal media and all these things, remember that in the world of what we call mainstream media, "the wall street journal" is that republican conservative voice. so they are saying that there will be short-term pain if you come clean with everything, but do it and move on. what we're actually seeing is the slow drip, drip, drip and this week that changed into attacks on robert mueller, investigations into robert mueller's legal team. >> jeff sessions. >> discussion about pardoning people. so we're going deeper and deeper into this pit and we're just not -- if there's nothing to hide, just come out and say it and let's move on.

>> the other thing that stood out, when president trump talking about health care said if it doesn't go through, it's not on me, it's not on the republicans, that is the opposite of the way a ceo would speak. when jamie dimon got hit with trading issues, he said the buck stops here. when you are the guy in charge, you are in charge of the welfare of that organization. >> we're not even sure as reporters that that isn't a little disingenuous when a ceo says something like that but they're on the record saying i'm the boss, it's on me. i'm not aligned to the strategy the shareholders wanted, i haven't delivered as expected. even the ceos we're most critical of, they know to say it. >> this could be why we've seen a shakeup this week in the white house. sean spicer resigning. and someone like anthony scaramucci coming in. a true salesman, former goldman sachs guy. a guy who built skybridge capital but like trump wrote a book. fake it till you make it, sell, sell, sell.

he's been a great surrogate. he ias slick as slick gets and slick is what the president seems to want. coming up, millions of dollars of food in america is rotting on the vine. why the immigration debate in this country could be landing right in the middle of your dinner table. and what if you could get from new york city to d.c. in less time than it takes to watch this very show. well, we're going to discuss the latest announcement from elon musk and why it has travelers both terrified and elated. >> she means i chose the wrong mode of transportation. it's not like a physically went the wrong way. >> i just think he should have taken the train. why did he have to take the shuttle. >> she's right.

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to let 15,000 more foreign workers enter the country under temporary seasonal visas. this, of course, is meant to take the pressure off of companies struggling with a labor shortage. >> but there is one group that it won't help, farmers. farmers who are desperate for people to harvest their fields. the visas are strictly for nonagricultural work, the ones that were passed. in the meantime, food is literally rotting and farmers are losing millions of dollars. nbc news reporter jolene kent explains from california. >> reporter: as the sun rises, the harvest is set to begin. >> we have other ranches that we've had for, oh, 90 years. >> reporter: this year his 1,000 acres of balk choi, kale and broccoli are not guaranteed to make it to your dinner table. >> over the last couple of years, we haven't been able to

harvest between 15% and 20% of our crop. >> reporter: every week on monday mornings, he worries if he'll receive enough workers to help pick the fields. he's not alone. farmers are struggling to find workers at harvest time. >> this year it really hit hard. on a daily basis it could mean in a harvest crew of 16 people, i may get all 16, i may get 9 or i may get anything in between. you never know how many people are going to show up to work. >> reporter: the labor shortage is so severe that farmers have no choice but to leave these fields unharvested. in fact this crop of bok choi was supposed to be picked a week ago. 68% of u.s. farm workers were born in mexico and almost half of those are not authorized to work in the country. research also suggests more mexican immigrants are now leaving the u.s. than are arriving. >> there are better economic opportunities in mexico now than there were 10, 15, 20 years ago. and it's become a lot harder to

cross the border illegally. it's not worth the risk and expense and the difficulties of coming to the united states without legal status. >> between 2009 and 2016, the obama administration deported 3 million undocumented immigrants. the current trump administration has conducted a surge of arrests. the national bureau of economic research says removing all unauthorized farm workers would hit u.s. agriculture with more than $19 billion in losses. that's a 9% decline in output. >> we're going to continue to need immigrant workers to continue that reality, otherwise we're going to be importing more and more of our food. and that could both raise prices and put us in jeopardy of food security in the long run. >> reporter: for family farmers it's about securing the future for generation to come. >> my hope is that my son as well as my nephew can take this

operation and overcome the challenges in the future. >> reporter: jolene kent, nbc news, oceano, california. let's think this through for a moment. if that farmer couldn't get enough workers to harvest, he could increase the wages that he pays for those but everybody has to do that otherwise this guy's bok choi will be unusually expensive. let's say they all raise the wages. then whatever it is we consume becomes more expensive. so then the option becomes to import them or to buy more expensive goods. so again, when we talk about made and in america and talk about keeping immigrants out, it's all a great conversation but along with the extra work comes extra cost. >> when your average person is in the produce department of a grocery store and is bok choi is more expensive than kale, people will go with the kale option and that's what farmers have to be aware of. i want to talk about an experiment really in georgia. just a few years ago, they put

in a law, they put in regulation where they said we are not going to use immigrant workers this year. guess what the losses were in that year alone? $140 million, a 40% shortage of workers. there simply aren't americans available or willing to do such jobs. >> part of the reason americans aren't willing to do those jobs because we have a social safety net for american citizens which does mean that the money you get from social welfare programs is greater than the money illegal immigrants are prepared to work for in the field. so these are all economic issues that one has to consider. sure, there are people who are illegally in the country and they are doing -- >> who can't get welfare. >> that's right. they don't get the welfare so they work for lower wages than americans will work for. this is just all things you have to put into the mix to determine whether or not you want to build that wall. >> and in defense of how difficult things are for our government, you have to factor all of those in. so those who are idealists, once

you get down to practicality. >> ideally nobody should be in the country who shouldn't be in the country. everybody should apply. it is something that has to be considered in its entirety. how about jobs you don't want to jobs you dream of. when we come back, what if you were offered your dream position, but on the condition you never, ever leave the company? what if they said that to ali, he had to sit next to me forever. would you take that job? >> i would. >> why one state is grappling with that very problem. >> i'm not moving from this seat. and by the way, what if you could catch a train that went from washington to new york city in just 30 minutes? let me tell you last night i could have used a train like that. would you get on it? you might be faced with that reality sooner than you think. we'll be right back right after this. chances are, the last time you got a home loan,

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ruhl ruhle". every day thousands of employees leave their jobs for a better opportunity somewhere else. but if you try that in idaho, you could be in big trouble. thanks to a state law, if you want to leave your job, you have to first prove your departure won't adversely affect your company. it's like a noncomplete clause on crack basically. it was designed to help companies grow without having to worry about losing their best talent. but it might do just the opposite. in fact experts say not having noncompetes actually fosters the growth. they point to california and the explosion of silicon valley. >> you remember there was talk of agreements between the big tech companies in silicon valley about how they wouldn't poach workers from each other. it goes against everything america is and meritocracy is. we associate that with other countries. when we talk about h 1 b visas, if i import you from india, you

don't have freedom to leave. >> imagine that i had to prove to the company, listen, i'm leaving but i stunk, i was lousy, i was a loser, you didn't want me anyway. >> if that's true, then the day before you quit, they shouldn't have had you so that's a bit of a silly law. i got stuck in some traffic this week. i took an airplane from washington to new york. i shouldn't have done that. >> and he didn't have to do that. >> but i did it. can you imagine being able to take that trip, which took me about three and a half hours on a plane that's 40 minutes long in just 29 minutes. you can't even get from 30 rock to lower manhattan that fast in rush hour. but elon musk, who's always coming up with crazy ideas, which are sometimes not that crazy, says it's not only possible but he's received verbal approval from the government to build a hyperloop train from new york to the nation's capital. it would travel at speeds up to 700 miles per hour through tubes

like these. plans are in the works for a hyperloop from los angeles to san francisco and one in texas. >> the question is do you get through the red tape, green tape, blue tape to do something like this. cities like philadelphia, boston, baltimore, interesting ideas. can you actually make this happen? >> that's incredible. >> you can read all about elon musk and his projects. guess where? and including his venture into space in our new mock vertical at nbcnews.com. just this week we launched the making of an astronaut series. it's amazing. it provides a rare look into the lives of astronauts. get your kids in the mix. photography, video, you can view the making of an astronaut series now on nbcnews.com/mock. >> and that, unfortunately, is it for us. you can catch us both together every weekday at 11:00 a.m. eastern. >> you can find me monday through friday also, msnbc live at 9:00 a.m. eastern so you've got 9, you've got 11 and a third

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dad: flash drives? yup. that's dad taking care of business. laptop setup? yup. but who takes care of dad? office depot, office max. this week, all hp ink, buy one get one 30% off. ♪ taking care of business good day, everyone, i'm alex witt here at msnbc world headquarters in new york. it is 1:00 p.m. in the east 10:00 a.m. out west. an ever evolving number of story lines coming from the white house, including the president commissioning a new aircraft carrier, but only after he delivered nearly a dozen tweets in minutes. we'll get the reaction to that. changing of the guard at the white house. the fallout from the outgoing press secretary as the new communications director tries to set the tone. >> i think there's been at times a disconnect between the way we see the president and how much we love the president and the way some of you perhaps see the