its true colors and americans know it. >> thank you to jonathan cape heart, bill kristol, michael allen and carole lee. that does it for this hour. i'm nicole wals and "mtp daily" starts now. >> nicole, how are you? i missed you when you were gone. i hope you missed me when i was gone sbloo of course i did. >> see, i had to just force that out of you even if you didn't. thank you. well done. if it's wednesday, the art of the repeal fails again. >> tonight the health care debate. the repeal only vote fails. can republican leaders come up with anything that can pass the republican senate? plus, defending sessions. >> and i hope sessions doesn't quit, and if the president wants to fire him, fire him. >> republican senators forced to take sides in the trump sessions feud. and why did president trump move to ban transgender people from the armed forces today? >> she's very rude. >> this is "mtp daily" and it

starts right now. good evening i'm chuck todd in washington. and welcome to "mtp daily." thank you for watching while i was gone and thank you for being here when i'm back. we're following two major stories tone. one of them could unend the justice department the other could up end the entire healthcare system. that's all. and what happens next on either of them, right now anyone's guess. president trump has tovd the political landscape as we know it right now. he's publicly nothing his attorney general jeff sessions likely as a way to force his resignation, possibly as a way to fire special counsel bob mueller. today mr. trump blasted sessions again, this time he hit him nor not firing the acting fbi chief andrew mccabe because of his wife's old financial ties to democrats. so if you're scoring at home, the president is now on the record saying he thinks sessions, quote, shouldn't have recused himself, is damaging the presidency, should be

investigating hillary clinton's, quote, crimes, should be probing collusion between democrats in ukraine, isn't tough enough on leaks and should fire the acting fbi director. amid this onslaught sessions is keemg his own head down, but his former senate colleagues are not. >> i would fire somebody that i did not believe could serve me well rather than trying to humiliate them in public, which is a sign of weakness. i hope sessions doesn't quit. and if the president wants to fire him, fire him. you have -- >> do you think the president is demonstrating weakness by his handling of sessions? >> absolutely. >> jeff sessions is an honorable man. is he did whatible any ethical attorney general would do under the circumstances under the rules of the justice department. >> i think the attorney general is doing a fine job, and i think he made the right decision to recuse himself from the russia matter. >> boy, there was a tone in mcconnell's voice there, if you heard it, a stern tone. even though you know he's

monotone sometimes, you could detect that edge. the white house attempted to explain why sessions is still the attorney general. given the president's dim view of him. take a listen. >> if he is so frustrated and so disappointed in him, why doesn't he just ask him to resign or fire him? why does he continue to just tweet about him instead? >> look, you can be disappointed in someone and still want them to continue in their job. >> does he still want him to finance in his job. >> i think i made clear last week if there comes a point he doesn't, he'll make that decision. >> the president's legislative agenda hangs in the balance. you're looking live at the senate floor which is voting on actually more like voting down various pieces of health care legislation. if you're scoring at home after yesterday's procedural victory to start debate on repealing parts or all of obamacare or just simply reworking it, the senate voted on the gop's plan to repeal and replace it which failed. then they voted on a plan focusing on repeal only, replace sometime down the road. that failed.

then they voted on a plan to start over. that failed. now they're going to try for what's called -- what they're calling the skinny repeal as part of a free-for-all amendment process which is going to be riddled with potential land miens. today mcconnell acknowledged that there is a bumpy road ahead. >> ultimately we want to get legislation to finally end the failed obamacare status quo through congress and to the president's desk for his signature. this certainly won't be easy. hardly anything in this process has been. >> there's a right smile out of him. and as i said at the top of the show, what happens next is anyone's guess. i'm joined my msnbc's kasie hunt from capitol hill. casey, i want to start with you. it feels as if all of this health care debate, everybody knows all these different health care votes that are being held,

everybody knows the result. so they're banging their head against the west wall. then they're bagging their head against the east wall. then they're banging their head against the south wall. what's the end game here? at this point, chuck, i think the end game is to try to get something, anything that will allow them to move forward. they want to be able to declare a win. i'm not sure that anybody feels very confident that they're going to get to that point. look, what they're talking about is such small ball compared to what originally this started out to be. and they spent weeks doing all of these negotiations over medicaid and taking quite frankly so much heat in the public and making the affordable care act more popular than it really has ever been. and now it's looking like they think that they can get the votes for the medical device tax and it's unclear whether they can get the votes to repeal the individual mandate because they're worried if they do that, it's simply going to break the individual market. so there might not be enough republican votes there either.

everybody is i think a little bit worn out and worn down on this issue. and also, a little bit nervously watching the insurance markets which are having more trouble than they had previously because there is so much uncertainty. >> it seems as if, casey, they haven't been able to come up with the face-saving way to say they have to move on. is there any talk about what that looks like when they have to come to grips with the fact they're not going to have anything that's good enough to create a conference committee with the house and do what the house did? have they even thought about what that looks like yet? >> well, you know, they've also essentially started to dismiss a little bit this conference idea because it would be so messy, it would involve democrats, it would drag this process even further so they're talking about an informal conference. i think this is actually a place where the president has made it a lot harder. the way mcconnell has designed what we've seen over the last 24

hours is to essentially show the white house the support is not there. it's not there for repeal and replace, repeal and delay. you're right. they have to figure out a way to get out of this. i think it's going to look like whatever small things they can pull together in this quote unquote skinny repeal, which i will add is language that republican aides don't love. it's bad branding. >> yeah. >> so that's a whole nother struggle as well. >> bob, let me go to you for the take sort of from the white house perspective here. but i want to start with sessions. where are we right now on jeff sessions? >> chuck, it's a cold war between the long-time trump confident ant and the white house. you have attorney general jeff sessions really not on speaking terms with the president of the united states. we've reported here at the post that his chief of staff jody hunt has been sort of an elm saer to the attorney general going to chief of staff reince priebus that elnot resiep, has

no interest in stepping down. that's where we are. the situation where the president is doing everything he can to try to force his own attorney general to quit, but the attorney general just won't do it. >> i don't understand why the chief of staff for jeff sessions is going to reince priebus at this point when it's painfully obvious the president doesn't listen to him. >> there needs to be some point of contact and jody hunt, our sources tell us, has a relationship with priebus that he can at least make clear where the attorney general stands. the difficult situation for the justice department is they're pursuing all of these trump policies on law enforcement, on immigration, and they feel like this is his dream to stay there, and so they know that all these pressures from the white house is to quit, but they know personally he just doesn't want to do it. >> we saw today with the whole missouri brooks, one of the candidates to replace jeff sessions said, hey, if this is what happens, i pledge to withdraw. if everybody with draws with me,

and we'll get sessions basically his senate seat back. does that interest jeff sessions at all? >> i had breakfast with congressman brooks this morning, and at that breakfast he's struggling right now in the polls trying to make this run off in the alabama senate primarying. but mcconnell the majority leader and senator luther strange who has replaced senator sessions, they have a pretty tight bonld. they're spending millions hf dollars to keep strange snlt u.s. snalt. to there's talk in sessions world about maybe wouldn't it be nice if he could go back to the senate, but most people who are at the upper etch lon of power on both sides say that's not a realistic possibility. >> quite the drama on every -- i would just say on both sides of pennsylvania avenue but frankly it feels like every side street on the way between the white house and congress on pennsylvania avenue. kasie hunt, bob costa, thank you both r. appreciate it. joined now by republican senator mike rounds of sd. welcome back to the show sir.

>> thanks. appreciate it. sounds like you guys are going to have to get time and a half overtime. >> you've got some all nierts potentially ahead of you. explain to me this. if i'm a layperson, we get caught up in the process. you know the process well. i know the process well, and there's part of me that says, well, this is just what happens. you have to play all these scenarios out. so, yes, you do have to bang yourself against the wall a few times to do pointless votes. how do you explain this to the public? >> it's hard because in many cases a lot of us are still learning it as well. the idea behind it is it's what they call a privileged plan when we do reconciliation we're taking the house budget, senate budget putting it together and we do it with 51 votes, but since it's 51 votes, it means that every single proposal has to be scored to see what it does to the budget. we have to go to the ceo to cbo to get that done. then you have to have am 60 votes to put the amendment on this bill, and it makes the bill, then, a 60 vote.

so dems on one side are going to do everything they can to create this process in which it becomes 60 votes to get passed, which means it dies or republicans are doing everything to try to get their bill scored and proposed. i think this thing will move to a conference committee. i guess maybe i'm just an optimist, but -- >> what does this look like? that's what we're all struggling with here, those covering, you voting is, what does this look like? >> i think that's the reason why you saw a couple of votes yesterday just to kind rf take the measure to how close we would be to 51. the original senate mcconnell bill that replaced the house bill to zbin with along with the cruz proposal and the rob portman amendment were designed so that we could see the strength of that combination together. now you've also got a new one out there which is floating around and that's the graham amendment with bill cassidy, so

cassidy graham. and this one would basically block grant this money back to health care kofrmgz to the states and let the governors in the individual states with the resources they've got create and utilize the money to do what their people think is the best for health care within their individual states just as another although naib. but i think one of the reasons why we're not simply doing it in the senate is they have to be skortd. and right now we're in session. we're going to be in session basically without a break until such time as we're done with this vote aram a. >> let me just ask you fills so farically. do you believe the government has a responsibility to help provide health care for all americans? >> i think government right now accepts that they should be part of it. remember, insurance is a regulated industry, whether you do it at the state level or at the federal level. we also know that we have a safety net in medicaid, which has become a part of this, an integral part of it. but medicaid has expanded because of obamacare. and right now what we know is it is not sustainable in its current form.

so simply to say that we would do nothing is like admitting defeat because we're going to have people that get hurt. sd as an example has gone up 124% since 2014. it's going to go up between 20 and 40% next year alone s. that's not sustainable. i can't sit here and go home and tell everybody we couldn't get anything done, you're just stuck tw it. congress did this to people people s. now we've got to find a way to help people get out of it. it would be great if we had democrats working with us, but politically they see this as our waterloo and they're not going to help us at this stage of the game. >> i understand you want to pin the blame fully on the democrats here in the predicament you're in. i want to play a little bit from john mccain yesterday because he cast the blame on know. here little it is. >> we keep trying to find a way to win without help from across the aisle. that's been an approach that's been employed by both sides mandating legislation from the top down without any support from the other side with all the

parliamentary moves it requires. we're getting nothing done, my friends. we're getting nothing done. >> i guess, senator, call the democrats' bluff. as you know many democrats have said if you get out of this reconciliation process and say, look, at this point it's clear the best you guys can agree to is more of a reform of obamacare, not a full repeal and replace, which is where the democrats are, why not pull reconciliation and take john mccain's advice? >> because at this point we don't think that they're actually interested in providing us relief. and, look, we're talking with friends on the other side of the aisle. they've made it very clear that the first step has got to be ours. they recognize that this is a political opportunity. and even our good colleagues on the other side say there are certain things that you cannot touch of the you cannot touch medicaid. that's a nonstarter and we're looking at this saying, yeah, but it's not sustainable. this is an opportunity to actually start to reform

medicaid, to slow down the increases into the future. when they start laying these things out saying that's not a doable deal or if they come back in and say, and by the way, we want the concept of obamacare to continue on and our message is is when you don't have any competition and you've run all the competition off, that's not going to work. so, look, eventually i really do believe that republicans and democrats will find ways to fine tune it, but we've got to change the direction of health care in this country. i wish this was not on a partisan basis. it is. we're recognizing it. we've got to take the first stems. it's the best we can do right now, but we're running out of time because come january first we're going to have fewer markets out there under obamacare. everybody is recognizing that. we can't sit back and say we're going to wait another year. >> i've got to ask you about what's going on with jeff sessions. >> yeah. >> how do you think the president is handling this. >> you know, the president has a knack for choosing very, very

good people for his different positions. secretary of state, secretary of defense and the attorney general. i think the president made the right move when he chose jeff sessions. i have a huge amount of confidence in jeff sessions, and i want to see him stay on board because he truly does believe in the rule of law. and you may not agree with him on some of the concepts, but the one thing i guarantee you, elenforce the law the way its written. he won't try to write his own laws. >> let me ask you this, if the president fires him it's clear he's firing him over a decision to basically act ethically. do you find it would be your duty not to then confirm any attorney general nominee that the president pointed considering that the only thing he seems to care about is the issue of recusal? >> you know, the evidence right now suggests that the president clearly understands that he shouldn't be doing that because he has not done it, although he has the opportunity to do it. and so i'm not going to take the hypothetical and suggest of what we would do. allic say is this president made

a very good choice the first time around, and i think he should trust his own judgment. >> all right. senator rounds, i'm going to leave it there. as always, sir, i proosht you coming on and sharing your views. >> thanks. appreciate it. >> coming up, republicans in congress take sides in the trump sessions show down. you just heard another republican senator take the side of jeff sessions against the president. we'll be right back. what is your nationality and i would always answer hispanic. so when i got my ancestry dna results it was a shocker. i'm everything. i'm from all nations. i would look at forms now and wonder what do i mark? because i'm everything. and i marked other. discover the story only your dna can tell. order your kit now at ancestrydna.com. ♪ backpack, check. that's the family taking care of business. awesome notebook! check. but who takes care of them? office depot / office max. this week, these composition books are just 25 cents each.

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here is a look at what's happening at the white house at this hour. the president is expected to announce a new plant to be built in the state of wisconsin for the taiwan he's technology splooir fox con. republican governor scott walker and house speaker paul ryan, since its his home state are both in attendance. getting ready for the president. fox con produces iphones for apple and has been under fire in the past for its labor practices. the company announced that seven u.s. states srp being considered for new splay panel

manufacturing plants. president trump told the wall street had promised to build, quote, three big beautiful plants in the united states. apple declined to comment on what the president said. it's unclear if they are involved with the white house announcement today since it is apple related. effort way, this is the president doing a little jobs announcement at the white house, sort of your smart messaging political strategy. any way, more "mtp daily" in 60 seconds. 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. prevagen. the name to remember. and it's also a story mail aabout people and while we make more e-commerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country,

we never forget... that your business is our business the united states postal service. priority: you welcome back to "mtp daily." while president trump is leaving his attorney general's state in limbo, many are coming to the attorney general's defense, but the way the president is openly venting his frustrations brings up a fundamental question of the trump presidency so far. what is the red line for republicans? are they reaching a point where they say enough is enough and choose character over party? let me bring in tonight's panel.

mr. steel, i'm going to start with you. this is your party here. you've got your finger on the pulse. >> such as it is. >> such as it is. where are we -- this sort of like -- the sessions trump feud is just a head scratcher in so many ways. >> it's ridiculous, yeah. >> because when you think about the core issue that put trump on the map, immigration, there is nobody that he's more mind melded with and nobody has more bone afee did he see with the crowd than jeff sessions. this to me is a terrible base move. >> and the one guy who ostensibly been carrying out the president's agenda since he came in office. so you want to take him out which leads everyone into the corner of belief that, well, this is really about the russia thing and wanting to control that process inside the fbi that touches on the things that may touch on trump. having that said, republicans by

and large, and i think the president got a strong whiff of it this week, have a very, very bright line that they have drawn when it comes to someone like sessions. he's our guy. he's there for you. he's helping you. hands off. you heard rush limbaugh saw it, mark le ven saw it. other conservatives poet politically and in the media make it very clear this is not the pathway you want to go down. >> and when did president trump do when he saw all that he hit him again today. >> a story about going right to your point about how where the trump administration is even undercutting sessions on his other big issue, which is criminal justice reform. he has been working within the justice department to roll back a lot of the obama era work on criminal sentencing. sessions thinks we need to get tougher on mandatory sessions.

the obama administration defendant's exhibit. kushner doing their own meetings saying maybe we'll roll those things back the things that sessions is talking about. and it's directly attacking sessions on the issues he cares deeply about. it's one thing to go attack him on twitter and attack him on russia, about ut on the things that he cares most deeply about and he actually has been the most ideologically connected to, immigration and criminal justice reform, if he gets undermined on those, that's what is making his life even tougher than the stuff with the tweets. >> you know, ken, i've been having my own flashbacks to the 90s when it came to bill clinton. it was an open secret in washington, if janet reno would have resigned, they would have popped champagne korks. they were desperate, because of the ken starr appointment. in the same way this president is out of his mind about the recusal, the ken starr decision is something they -- i don't know if they will ever forgive. but they didn't neighboring it

public. it was an open secret,

he's bucking the trend. >> jeff sessions, while people personally like jeff sessions, he was sort of on his own on

immigration. >> absolutely. >> he was sort of an island in the senate. >> and on this criminal justice stuff he was on an island. he has the best job he could ever have that he wouldn't have gotten in any other administration. >> i feel like we haven't done health care here because right now we should be split screening and you're seeing -- it is -- we know that whatever they come up with isn't going to last, isn't going to be lasting. what are we doing? >> i mean, it's really an impossible situation that, you know, that they're not getting any support from trump and trump is out there saying they and calling out specific republicans by name instead of doing the types of things that might bring them along. i think the ship has saild. i think that mcconnell is trying to salvage something from it, but it's a no-win situation at this point. >> and how much is this -- i think the sessions situation, it certainly doesn't help. i think it hurts. do you? >> oh, i think it does. i think it puts -- >> health care. >> approximate puts a pause in the health care argument.

i mean, if the president is willing to go after someone like sessions, why would we expose ourselves in any other way? why would we go out on that limb to what end. >> he's going to blame us for any problems and take credit for -- >> exactly. so the they're going to sort of step their way through this thing. i said it at this table months ago. next year obamacare will be the law of the land. the year after that it will be the law of the land. and republicans will eventually come to the spot that pretty much everyone is at right now and john mccain said it very clearly yesterday. you're going to have to come to that spot with bipartisan ship. >> the medical device tax is now being held up as the great reform that they're going to make. guys, you guys are sticking around. later in the broadcast we are going to talk about when president trump announced today that the u.s. military will no longer accept or allow transgender people in the military. was he simply trying to distract

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sessions controversy and heal sessions controversy and heal s it's now time to report the best news of the day. lou congressman steve skal he's is out of the hospital. the congressman was discharged from med star washington hospital yesterday and will begin a period of in identify parent rehabilitation for the injuries he suffered. the hospital said he is in good

spirits and looks forward to returning to capitol hill following his rehabilitation. great news on had that front. up next on "mtp daily," what does president trump mean when he warns of big, big problems for iran regarding the u.s. iranian nuclear deal. first. >> thanks, chuck and welcome back. we had stocks closing higher on wall street today following strong earnings. the dow gaining 97 points. the s&p added a fraction of a point. the nasdaq closing up by 10. boeing jumped 10% its biggest gain in almost nine years after reporting strong second quarter earnings. facebook also reporting better than expected sales and profit growth. the social media giant says two billion people use the site each month. the federal reserve says the central bank will keep interest rates unchanged and will soon start reducing its 4 1/2 trillion dollar balance sheet.

that's it from cnbc, fist in business worldwide.

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the iran deal, which may be the single wos deal i've ever seen drawn by anybody, if that deal doesn't conform to what it's supposed to conform to, there's going to be big, big problems for them. that i can tell you. you're going to see that. >> welcome back. that was president trump last night in youngstown, ohio, and he wasn't just playing that up for the ground. an interview with the wall street journal earlier that same day he floated the idea that the united states might not continue to move forward with the iran deal the way the country has so far. it's important to remember, every quarter the administration has to notify congress whether or not iran is -- has complied with its obligations in the nuclear deal. in the write up of the president's interview the journal says, quote, when certification comes up again,

mr. trump says he believes iran will be judged not compliant with the agreement. he said he would be prepared to overrule his own advisers in proclaiming that iran hasn't met the terms of the agreement. quote, we've been extremely nice to them in saying they were compliant. mr. trump said permanently, i have great respect for my people, but if it was up to me, i would have had them noncompliant 180 days ago. president trump said this on the same day that the house overwhelming passed a bill that imposes new sanctions not just on iran, but russia and north korea. and after weeks of back and forth, it did finally pass, and it passed overwhelmingly, 419-3. it looks like there still might be a little bit of a hang up in the senate. we're going to get to that as well. harm of the house foreign affairs committee and he's the one that's been shepherding this bill. >> chuck, good to see you. >> let me start with the president's comments on the iran deal. what's interesting to hear him say it and the way you've described it before is you have said, yes, they may be compliant, but you thought the deal was badly worded. let's set that aside. you and the president inca gree

on that aspect of it. what is the ramifications, though, if the president overrules its own advisers who they technically are abiding about i the deal, even if you spiritually don't believe they are? >> well, hooer is the difficulty. right now we've lost that leverage, right, the 150 billion arguably somewhere in that neighborhood of relief has already gone into the kofrs of the iran revolutionary guard core because they own most of the companies in iran. so at this point the toothpaste is already out of the tube in terms of any leverage we have on that. so i guess that's the conundrum. >> you can't get them to renegotiate. >> right. >> right. >> so if you can't get them to renegotiate -- look, we change parties in our leadership all the time. >> right. >> if we start-up ending agreements that a previous party does, what does that do down the road? what is the unintended consequences. >> exactly.

how do you get compliance on this agreement while we turn our attention to what is maybe the more veksing long-term problem with their development now of intercontinental ballistic missile. >> do you think you can do both? >> yes. i think you keep them compliant with agreement. meeting with technological expertise that they could deploy into the nuclear weapons program. but we just try to stay on compliance, hold them accountable. but then we need to address, i think, and we do this with this new legislation, bipartisan legislation as you said that will focus on their missile program, because that's where they're rushing forward at the moment. >> all right. but i want to go back to the initial question. if the president essentially overrules and did that where, you know, secretary of state said they were compliant technically, but he simply doesn't like this agreement, what is the ripple effect of that? >> well, i think the difficulty

here is what's to be gained by that approach, having already lost the ability to deploy pressure internationally. that's been given up in the original negotiations. >> you think it's better leverage to just enforce the agreement as strenuously as you can. >> at this point that's what you have to do, and at this point you look at the other long-term problem which is this agreement will expire at the end of 12 years. at that point in time what do we do if they have a hundred icbm's. we have to prevent them from developing the icbm's. >> all right. i want to move quickly first to the russia aspect of this new sanctions bill. the white house has not said whether they're going to sign this yet. do you think the president will sign this bill? >> i think the president will sign it. >> why. >> because of the strength of the vote you saw on the house floor. 419-3 is a very strong margin ip and 92-2 in the senate.

the important point is to get this bill up and out of the senate soon. >> let me ask you this, if he did veto this, you guys passed this with veto proof voters, they would override that. >> yes. >> so he's in a no -- he almost has to accept it. >> correct. there is a little bit of a occur if you feel between you on the house side of things and senate foreign relations chairman bob corker who doesn't like what you did on the north korean sanctions front which is the senate would like to have congressional oversight before the president could pull back sanctions. the house bill doesn't do that. what's going to happen here? do i have this right? i'm trying to get this right. >> no. i think the main argument here has to do with north korea. i think you've identified that. and i think part of the problem is close to three months ago we passed a north korean sanctions bill into the senate. we passed that one on the house floor 419-1. and so the senate has had three months to look at this. in the meantime, we had a negotiation, two week we sat down with the representatives of

the senate and the house. republicans and democrats. we worked out the legislation that we passed yesterday into the senate. the senate has had input there. and the reason north korea is in that bill is because north korea, we found out yesterday, has fast-forwarded their icbm program and are now rather than years away, are a very short time away from being able to launch and hit the united states. >> so you added north korea. >> yes. >> is this going to go to conference or does the senate now need to pass your bill? >> the senate needs to pass this bill back to the house and they need to do it at the end of is this week. >> so you don't have to conference. >> exactly. we can wrap this thing up right now. and i think we're very close to getting that done. >> and this gets on the president's desk next week. >> yeah. i think maybe friday. >> all right. thanks for coming down. >> thank you very much, chuck. >> appreciate it. up next, the strangest thing has been happening in alabama. flsh what's with him?

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>> month brooks even refused to endorse donald trump for president. >> a lot of people who have supported donald trump, they're going to regret having done so. >> month brooks attacked president trump, siding with them, not alabama conservatives. >> but here is the problem. strange examine brooks are running to replace the man who left the senate to become the attorney general for president trump, a man named jeff sessions, the same jeff sessions who is being belittled, humiliated and cyber bullied right now by president trump. so what do you do now if you're luther strapg or month brooks? do you still go with a plan a and click to a president who is extraordinarily popular in alabama or do you switch to a plan b and stand by your man whom you elected four, count them four times to be your state's u.s. senator. well, month brooks has one answer. today after condemning what he called president trump's public water boarding of one of the greatest people alabama has ever produced, unquote, brooks made the following offer. i alluded to it earlier.

he'll withdraw from the senate race if his opponents do the same and allow sessions to return to the senate. all right. seems like a smart play. your move, senator strange. this is a story about mail and packages. and it's also a story about people and while we make more e-commerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country, we never forget... that your business is our business the united states postal service. priority: you

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but who takes care of them? office depot / office max. this week, these composition books are just 25 cents each. ♪ taking care of business welcome back. see, time for the lid. panelists is back. and i want to talk about president trump's announcement today that the u.s. will no longer, quote, accept or allow transgender people into the military. i have to add admit when i read the president's tweet this morning, try talking about this and sure enough, all of cable in those first couple of hours faukd about this. but the stunning aspect of it is i want to get at that aspect, but there's a rebuke of this policy announcement a a set of republicans that ang are from orrin hatch and joni ernst so

some of the more moderates. are you surprised. >> well, you remember, the house had a vote on something similar i guess it was a weeks ago about gender reassignment surgery that about 25 about 25 republican supported this against the wishes of a lot of conservative republicans. you already knew this was not going to be as clean cut as a d versus r liberal issue at the get-go. we thought this was going to be a distraction issue. right now the president is standing with fox con at the white house. if he really wanted to have a good distracting issue, jobs. jobs, jobs, committee. not this. if that was really all about distraction, this would have been a much easier one. >> there's been some reporting that indicates the house leadership was frustrate d this di vvide about what to do. it's literally we've seen a rand

corporation study. this is really neglgible. was this a sustain bannon let's some cultural war. >> i think it was both. there were some conservatives in the house threatening, making noises about with holding their support if this was an address. trump addresses this and trump throws a bone to the republican base on a issue we should note was not one he campaigned on. he said he would be better for the lgbtq community than hillary clinton and a way it disturbed a lot of republicans. nonetheless, here we have him sort of reaching out to them with this piece of red meat. >> i wonder if the white house is taken aback at some of the backlash they got from the senate side. take a listen to senator hatch.

>> they don't choose to be transgerunds. they are born that way. why should we hold that against them. they are human beings. many of them are extremely talented human beings. we should be open to everybody. >> from the conservative at a time of utah, reminding his constituents that transgender folks are born that way. >> i think there's a growing sentiment in the republican party over last few years that has moved away from some of the old thinking in this regards. a lot of it comes from the fact that it's a family member, someone in the neighborhood i know. this idea that now we're going to revisit don't ask, don't tell for transgender community is just sort of stunning for a lot of people. this is the fifth, sixth distraction in the last few days this administration has thrown up. what's unfortunate about this,

it goes to what ken was saying. this is not where the president was in the campaign. it's not where the president has been in the past. it's not believable. >> the first time i heard any major presidential candidate, nominee use the q in lgbtq was donald trump. >> at the convention. >> republican national convention. >> a lot of folks in the gay and transgender rights community said don't believe it. it's not believable. now obviously, they can say, he wasn't going to be somebody that was going to be very pro-lgbtq rights. that's the way he campaigned. >> there's a lot of disappointment in that community not just towards him but jared kushner and ivanka trump who were seen as a progressive influence on him in the campaign and administration. they came out and scuttled what was a proposal that didn't

materialize that related to the lgbtq rights. now you have the full reversal. >> i can't help but think this is part of the old roger ailes play book. things aren't going well on s substance, let's throw a distraction out there. the democrats will come running, the coast is out of touch. >> the old deal cultural war divide which the president did well in exploit in 2016. the difference right now is that he has a whole bunch of other issues while you might be able to distract for kaupa couple of minutes, they're not going to go away. we can talk about this today. tomorrow we're going to talk about health care. we're still going to be talking about russia. >> he'll still going to be talking about jeff sessions. >> rex tillerson said he's not

going flianywhere. he was rattling a cage. >> he was sending a signal i'm with sessions. >> what is it going to lead to. does that means he will get people he want in place in the state department. >> we're going the find out pretty soon. thank thanks fs for helping me way back in. after the braeeak, marking an important date in the history of law enforcement. your brain is an amazing thing. but as you get older, it naturally begins to change, causing a lack of sharpness, or even trouble with recall.

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in case you missed it, one piece of sensitive information the fbi is not redacting, its birthday. it was founded on this day in 1908. it was the brain child of teddy rooseve roosevelt. he wanted to use the doj to crack down on crime and corruption but only had a couple of agents at his disposal. when the justice needed investigators in the field they would borrow agents from the secret service. they thought it was a power grab so it banned the practice. with roosevelt's blessing he hired his own force of investigators and placed them under a chief examiner. they were charged with conducting investigations for the justice department. the fbi stems from the department of justice despite what you may have heard. we expect the senate to confirm christopher ray as the fbi

director before the august recess. he'll be the one to blow out the candles next july. that's all for tonight. we'll be back with a lot more mtp daily. the beat with ari starts now. for the first time i hand the baton over. how are you, sir? >> i'm good. before i let you go, chuck, given all the administrations you've covered and the biggest story in town in washington, do you think there's a part where jeff session goes into the oval and says are we good or do i need to go? >> i don't. i don't think he will offer his resignation. i think he's going to make him fire him. >> which is significant. that's what we're going to be watching. thank you for the hand off. i appreciate it. donald trump says he will sign just about any bill on obamacare but republicans just failed on a vote to send him any bill on obamacare.