good afternoon. i'm thomas roberts live at msnbc world headquarterses in new york. we have breaking news this hour.

russian president vladimir putin has ordered americans out, and out of retaliation for the bills passed in congress which tightened sanctions against russia which president trump does intend to sign. as this is unfolding a new chapter will begin in the west wing. john kelly is set to begin his tenure as trump's new white house chief of staff. what might his first week on the job look like? a pretty difficult one. we'll dive in. the health care hangover and president trump with strong words to republicans after the latest healthcare failure. what is next in the fight for republican health care reform? the growing threat for north korea. the u.s. military responding to their latest missile test that has heightened fearses about north korea's nuclear capabilities and we'll brief you with the exact information we have up to this minute, but we do want to start with this breaking news coming out of russia with vladimir putin continuing the kremlin retaliation plan in reaction to the new sanctions package announcing in an interview today

that he's throwing out over 750 u.s. diplomats from russia. putin saying he doesn't see relations with the u.s. changing for the better, quote, any time soon. nbc's matt bradley joins me live with the latest on this. that was a pretty long-ranging interview. dive in for us and explain what did putin have to say? >> thanks, thomas. it's fascinating about this announcement from russian president vladimir putin is the american sanctions bill hasn't even become law yet. he's made this decision before president donald trump has had that chance to either sign or veto the sanctions bill that just passed house and senate with near-unanimous support. it might be because the president is probably going to go ahead and sign it. the white house has indicated that they will be signing this bill and even if they did decide to veto there's more than enough support in congress to pass this law over the president's veto, but at the end of the day it is interesting, the timing of this may be because the president of russia, vladimir putin, is

trying to insulate donald trump from any criticism about these sanks being impose sanks sanctions being imposed. he won't be able to criticize donald trump's move, but let's be clear, this is a huge setback for russian-american diplomacy. putin said in this wide-ranging television interview that he would restore, quote, diplomatic pairity and by that he means expelling these dip the mas from russia would leave 455 diplomats and technical staff. that's the same number of personnel that russia has in the united states and that's what he means by parity and the 755 number is a dramatic number. the washington post calls it the largest expulsion of american diplomats from russia since the russian revolution and that was a century ago, thomas. even as he announceded this nearly unprecedented expulsion, putin blamed it for the

deterioration and they tried to improve relations in the face of american obstruction. we waited for quite some time that maybe something would change for the better that fueled such a hope that the situation would somehow change, but judging by everything, if it changes it won't be soon. and then he again, denied any meddling in the 2016 u.s. presidential elections and that was one of the main reasons that congress listed for ramping up these sanctions. this order was first made and announced on friday, but he didn't have that specific number, that 755 that president putin referenced today on russian state tv and that is going to include american missions in moscow, the capital, as well as st. petersburg and v lad vo stock, and rushal be seizing two diplomatic buildings and that's a long-delayed, retaliatory move after the obama administration seized two compounds outside washington and new york last december and thomas, if you remember that

move in december the obama administration expelled only 35 russian diplomats and that's a lot less than the 755 employees that putin announced today. even putin himself in this televised address said that he expected the american-russian relationship to deteriorate even further. thomas? >> our matt bradley reporting in london for us. matt, thank you very much. we turn to the other big story that was breaking through the week. it's health care, and if you thought that fight was over, it could just be beginning. a new reset with that with the president issuing this ult maimm for republicans in congress. trump threatened to end key subsidy payments. it's a last-ditch effort by president trump to get congress to try harder by hitting them where it hurts, but the threat didn't seem to affect senators as they spoke out today. >> with that kind of pressure change your vote? >> no, but the ball is really in our court right now i would turn

that around a little bit and say to the president of the united states that, yes, every single american in every state in this country should be able to get the health care that members of congress have. >> all right. so it is not just congress who is speaking out on this. we have the president threatening to end subsidies about the insurance companies he'll help pay for coverage for the poorest of americans and we have senior adviser kellyanne conway saying a decision could be days away now. >> repeal and replace, is that really what the president intends to do? does he intend to cut off cost-sharing reductions which lower the out-of-pocket expenses for people, lower income people? >> he will make the decision this week and that's a decision that only he can make. >> all right. so stay tuned. more to come with that tease from kellyanne conway. how can the president undermine obama care? a law this week that covers 23 million people? first, he could end the subsidies as we talked about and that could throw the markets into this chaos moment and

hiking premiums and causing companies to leave state exchanges. tom price today wouldn't commit to extending the payments beyond this month. >> no decision's been made and i'm not able to comment anymore because it's a court case and as you know, the defendant in that case is price. it's house v. price. what i will tell you is the court has said that the house position was that the previous administration, the administration didn't have any authority to make those payments. >> all right. so the second way to undermine obama care? get rid of the individual mandate and this would cause the same chain reaction. costs would rise with less healthy people in the insurance poll. if it was abtajjed at all and implemented, price gave mixed signals on that. >> our job is to follow the law of the land and we take that mission very, very seriously, and so our goal is to put in place as well as the president's goal -- is to put in place a law, a system that actually works for patients.

you can't do that under the current structure. >> so what will come next? joining me now is bloomberg's sahi kapur and brian darling, former senior communications director for rand paul. >> great to have you all with me and a lot to talk about here, but let's talk about the political calculation that the president will be making if he really decides to throw the insurance markets into chaos. >> listening to tom price say we'll enforce the law and also enforcing the individual mandate. one thing that they've said they can do sneakily, thomas, is just not fine people and maybe they can't get rid of it, but if they don't enforce it and if they don't fine people, then people know that there's no penalty. so this is really dangerous. i think the political calculation is dangerous for them, though. the president has said repeatedly and some republicans echo him that if obamacare goes into a death spiral, which trust me, those two moves together will probably do that, that

they'll blame -- that the americans will blame obama and blame the democrats. this is absolutely false. the current administration and the republican party which hold both houses of congress will be blamed rightly. they cannot pass this back on president trump who has been gone for seven months. >> when we think about who holds the power structure in washington right now, congress, let me talk about that because the president has these options for trying to undermine obamacare, but they've kind of already gone through the motions on this. they sued against medicaid expansion and they have a limited risk insurance subsidies and state republican governors, and they halted aca advertising and sign up facilities in 18 cities were closed and the 2018 enrollment period cut in half and there was a strangulation of the aca already, and the gop was labeled obstructionist for obama, but with republicans in charge, isn't it their fault now and their failure to govern?

>> well, now you've also gotten to where the world is upside down. a republican president threatening a republican congress to hold back subsidies and whether or not to enforce mandates. i mean, this is something where, frankly, republicans have embraced left-leaning healthcare policy ideas. you know, one of the things we have to watch though, when the president suggests whether or not he will let obamacare implode, listen, this is the law of the land. that is like suggesting that president obama had forward deployed soldiers to iraq and afghanistan and now this president disagrees so he'll withhold ammo. at this point this president becomes an accomplice and those who lose health care as a result of these types of threats. the reality is there has never been a republican plan and without republicans first coming up with a plan and then working with democrats on a consensus that they can sell to the american people, then we will see nothing out of this more than just more tweets from the president. >> and we know one of the

biggest hiccups or lynchpins for the gop is the mandate and the individual part of that is they can look the other way on this, but here was tom price as he was talking about that very issue earlier. take a look. >> the individual mandate is one of those things that actually is driving up the cost for the american people in terms of coverage. so what we're trying to do is make it so that obamacare is no longer harming the patients of this land. >> so is price right there? is the mandate driving up cost, sahil? >> what the cbo said is the mandate has moved younger and healthier people into the system, and as a result what has happened is the opposite. it has driven down cost. what is true is a lot of them either by virtue of the fact that the penalty is not high enough or for another reason have chosen to fore go the mandate and paid the fine instead and costs have risen for them. what the secretary is suggesting is the administration to how the administration will handle this and i'm not sure the president has decided.

his authority is limited, but these tend to be on an individual case by case basis. the president and the republican congress are at a real crossroads right now on what to do with health care. they tried every which way to get something through the house and they succeeded there and they've tried to get something through the senate and the senate has rejected repeal and replace and it's rejected a stripped down version of repeal that includes the provisions of the aca that the republicans despised most. if they can't do that, then they have a gut check moment. polling finds by a 2-1 margin, by virtue of the fact that they control the white house and congress, will be blamed for problems and on this path there will be problems especially if there's continuing uncertainty about the cost sharing reductions and they don't really know what the future is going to be. >> if we look at the numbers on this, of the 11.5 million marketplace enrollees nationally, 16.3 live in

republican districts and 5.2 live in democratic districts and we think about what the president is thinking on this, by brian, let me ask you, conservative groups are sending this warning shot saying don't give up on this issue. the president saying that, as well. conservative groups want to say that these senators that voted no against the skinny repeal are sellouts. do you agree with that? >> yes, i agree that they're sellouts. republicans for seven years fhae promised to repeal and replace obamacare and they failed to do it. democrats unified and not one democrat voted for any of these replacement plans. so i don't know how you can blame democrats for this failing system that we have which is obamacare. you can blame them, and i know that everybody's going to want to point to these insurance bailouts and money that the federal government -- billions that the federal government hands over to insurance companies and the fact that many americans are forced to overpriced insurance they don't want and the fact that president

trump wants to do something about it, but you know what? ultimately, this is obamacare and president trump's signature law. he is to blame and the democrats who be on jukted change are to blame, too. >> so as we know about how republicans are having a struggle to try to fix obamacare, and with tom price saying today if we can only replace it, then we talk about the different numbers here. what brian was just referring to, the money that's going to different insurance subsidies and we have lindsay graham in a tweet saying that i agree with president donald trump. obamacare can't be repaired and it's fatally flawed. it must be replaced, but is there really evidence that suggests it has to be replaced as opposed to updated or amended? >> thomas, it depends on how you define these things. technically, you can repeal the affordable care act and replaces it with one word. there are word games that have been played in the politics over

the last seven years. one of the reasons republicans are having a hard time uniting this is there are provisions in the law that they actually like. you know, a lot of them like the medicaid expansion and senators from states like susan collins of maine and lisa murkowski in alaska that will not go away and people don't like the pre-existing protections and nearly as robust for consumers and restrictive on insurers as to what they can do. there is now a real divide in the republican party. senator mcconnell, shortly after the bill failed gave a speech on the floor and he does not sound like a man who would bring the repeal and replace bill up again and he talked about democrats and he put forward their ideas and he put warning signs out there as to what he is and isn't going to accept and we spoke to a number of house freedom caucus members. this is the be all and end all of the political life for them. they came here to repeal this law and they cannot envision

going forward without it whereas you have seenior house republicans who say they agree with senator mccain and it's time to start from a clean sheet of paper. this is the opposite of how the bill came forward and no committee hearings and no mark-ups and no real, i guess, amendments to the actual bill on the floor before it was passed. so, you know, there's a division there, and there are a number of republicans who want to move in a good direction. he controls the purse strings on these legally ambiguous cost-sharing subsidies and his hhs can decide to whether they can make the case that the law is failing and people shouldn't sign up or to try to make it work. >> and we know, joan, that jeff flake and john mccain of arizona, they're asking to go back to regular order. >> right. >> the proposal by senator graham would send bloc grants and something the white house is pushing to get 50 votes on -- 50 votes on, co-sponsored by bill

cassidy and dean heller. i just want to point out, jeff flake has a new book out coming out, "conscience of a conservative," they played to a broader audience that we accomplished something and we decided that putting party over country is okay. flake voted yes for the skinny repeal and mccain voted him out by voting no. what kind of message are they sending? >> their republican governor didn't want them to vote on any of this. >> the message they're sending is a very mixed message. i think senator mccain did the right thing and i don't see him coming back for something that did not meet the criteria that he set out that it works with democrats and has hearing. senator mccain and cassidy think they're stepping out into the breach. i don't see john mccain leaving his sick bed for a vote like that. i have to reply to brian briefly. democrats were not asked to be a part of this process. second of all, this is an enormously popular program now.

why they would participate in repealing it and starting over is ridiculous. there's lots to be fixed about it -- >> because it's not working. >> chuck schumer has reached out to john mccain other ands and said let's fix the things that aren't working, but they were not invited into this process. so to blame them for anything that's happened at this point i think is a little bit unfair. >> well, the democrats were on the single-payer system and democrats and chuck schumer himself has been calling for a massive bailout and wants to work with republicans to bail out insurance companies and that's going to be a band-aid. it's not going to fix the systemic problems that's been caused by obamacare. >> single payer. i support single payer. >> of course, you do. >> thanks for being derisive. >> single payer is great because it doesn't bail out the companies. >> it will ruin our system and it will be a government takeover even worse than we have now. now we have a de facto government take over -- they

don't. >> yes, they do. they buy extra plan, but they love it. try taking it away, brian. >> congressman, do you miss washington right now? >> no. >> not yet. >> and look, it's not enormously popular. it did just cross the 50% threshold, so it is more favorable than unfavorable and that is not enormous. here is the basic problems right now. there are three constituencies when you look at a health care bill and the first is those that received coverage with pre-existing conditions and there are those who received conditions through medicaid subsidies and the exchange. there are victims who saw their plans disrunned and prices go up. the problem is republicans are only speaking to the third constituency. democrats are only speaking to the first two and until the parties realize that, we will not have an enormously popular solution. >> congressman, thank you very much. we'll leave it right there, thanks for joining us, joan, thanks for being here on the

set. great to see you. coming up, the u.s. is responding to north korea's grave warning this as president trump calls out china for not doing enough to keep north korea in check. we will brief you on that after this. craftsmanship and innovation. today we're bringing you america's number one shave at lower prices every day. putting money back in the pockets of millions of americans. as one of those workers, i'm proud to bring you gillette quality for less, because nobody can beat the men and women of gillette. gillette - the best a man can get. i'm proud to make dog chow in (vodavenport, iowa.an. dog chow's been a part of my family's life for over 40 years. my grandfather made it and now i'm making it. as a micro-biologist i ensure that dog chow leads with high quality ingredients.

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finally, gig for your neighborhood too. we believe china should do more. i think the president -- the president's been clear about that, that in his conversations with president xi that while china has taken unprecedented steps to begin to isolate north korea economically and bringing diplomatic pressure which we believe china has a unique relationship with the regime in north korea, and has a unique ability to influence decisions by that regime. so there we have the vice president mike pence earlier today calling on china to do more to stop north korea's provocative actions in the region. the u.s. responded with its own show of force today.

american b-1 bombers and south korean fighter jets flew over the korean peninsula and the u.s. military says a test of its missile defense system thaad was successful. the system was designed to track and intercept missiles before they reach their targets. weapon experts fear that the latest launch of this intercontinental ballistic missile believes that north korea now has the capability to threaten major u.s. cities. i am joined by msnbc contributor steve collegeons who is editor-at-large for "the atlantic" and author of "a nuclear showdown," north korea takes the world. good to have you here. let me begin with you because you heard the vice president saying china could do more. what are we asking them to do more than we already know? >> first of all, we're asking china to stop the flow of money into the north korean regime. we're asking them to stop money laundering for north korea which the banks are doing, and the one

thing we haven't asked and what we should be doing is saying to the chinese, look, stop the flow of ballistic missile technology and equipment to the north koreans because this is, of course, critical with these issues today and we're not talking about these things. >> no, that was a great read. i was looking at the article that you put together about chinese technology that's going into these weapons that we're covering right now and talking about. that would be a good start, a logical start. steve, we repeatedly heard there are no good options. so let's talk about the fact that there's so much distraction from the white house. the real test is going to come for president trump and his team at a crisis moment. is north korea going to be that moment? >> i think it is. unless another natural disaster of some sort comes along first, but north toria is turning out to be a defining moment for this administration. i agree with everything that gordon just said and to a certain degree, it's too late. north korea's absorption of key strategic technologies that has

moved its missile system forward is already in place and the launch of this latest rocket flew 45 minutes and a 10,000 kilometer range. it has now reached a level that the defense intelligence agency now says we're looking at a six to 18-month window when north korea could actually directly attack the united states potentially with a weaponized warhead on top of an icbm and that's not to talk about the fact that it has hostages in its neighborhood that are close allies both south korea and japan. i think what's missing from this white house which seems unable to organize a plan around this is not just to berate china in the press. china is incredibly important, but you need a framework much like we did in the iran deal where you have china and russia that were partners with us in that and you also need south korea and japan and you need an intensive process and you need a show of muscle which, of course, donald trump seems to be good at. all of this comes together in a

focused, concentrated way run by diplomats and by the way, we don't have any in the state department that are actively engaged with us and we have a secretary of state who is reportedly taking some time off. so it's bizarre that something is boiling at the level that it is right now. it is not top of mind to this white house. you do not have either the pentagon nor the state department focussed in a concrete way and we have this berating of china which will be completely ineffective. >> there was no mean tweet about the president about ivanka trump getting these trademarks out of china. the most diplomatic thing we've seen between the u.s. and china under the trump administration, but the president did tweet that china could easily solve this problem. >> the chinese economy is dependent on selling things to the united states. our economy is not dependent on selling things to them and also, we're the trade deficit country, so we don't worry about trade wars as much as a trade surplus

country like china. chinese president xi jinping is in a sensitive period. just a couple of months before the communist party in either october or november. this is a period in which he could lose his position. the united states has a lot of say whether he stays or goes and we should be trying to exercise that leverage over china right now. >> to make sure that we have someone there that is a willing partner in what's going on. but, steve, with the fact that north korea has advanced and you said that it's gone too far in terms of what they've been able to accomplish, should we cut china out as the middle country, so to speak and have direct talks with kim jong-un and their diplomatic representatives about this? >> i don't think one should cut china out. china is, i think, basically a smart cal braibrator. they have this notion that china will just do this for us. that was a ridiculous notion which you and i talked about

many months ago. it made no sense back then, but i think absolutely, yes, we should drop the preconditions and we should make very clear privately to them what the range of consequences are if they proceed to this next level of weaponizing icbms, and i think that that is something that people on the right, on the left are calling for right now, but this administration has been pretty immune to that, and it doesn't make any sense because right now we are on a march to a train wreck with north korea and china's going to let it happen because it sees it in its interest. i don't think we have much leverage on china. i don't think the economic leverage matters and we saw in the g-20 where china was the comfortable country for the g-20 nations and not the united states. you have the rest of the world looking at china as the promoter and protector of global markets and as the promoter and protector on the deal on market change and they're emerging as the easier partner on global

affairs than the united states and what we can't do is perpetuate that. north korea has to look at the united states as in charge as the conductor of a great alliance of interest to basically compel it to drop these ambitions and right now it doesn't look like the united states is a great conductor of any global relationship that it can bring to bear in this situation. >> we have thousands of military personnel within the korean peninsula and while steve points out the left and the right can't coordinate on what to do, south korea, our ally, would really like an answer because they have been in harm's way for a very long time to this threat. what do you think that the u.s. is communicating with them right now? >> well, the south koreans right after that launch of the missile on friday asked the united states to renegotiate the 1979 agreement that restricts south korea from launching ballistic missiles. it restricts the type ofs of missiles that they can have, range and payload and the united states agreed and this was a good thing because what we've

been doing is restraining taiwan, japan, south korea in the hopes that we could get restrain from china and north korea. well, we haven't. what we have to do is increase the pressure on china, and we do have a lot of leverage over the chinese from a number of different perspectives and we have to exercise the leverage and it looks like we don't have it, but in fact, we do. >> the other country, whether china or north korea, would pick up the signals of what's happening in south korea by osmosis about the de-escalation? >> they would pick up signals from the united states. we saw the trump tweet on saturday. nikki haley said no u.n. security council meeting. dia dianne feinstein talking about frustration with china. this is frustration across the political spectrum and that is indeed, a signal to beijing and i'm pretty sure they're worried about what the united states might do. >> great to see you, sir. >> steve clemmons, thank you. appreciate it. we have trump's tweet, the call to ban transgender military

people or people, rather, from serving in the military has sparked a waive of criticism including military leadership saying no. not going to do it and this isn't a directive or policy and republicans like orrin hatch is speaking about it and we'll hear what the lgbt community is saying now. ♪ expedia gives you the world in your hand, so you can see more of it. ♪ expedia. because my teeth are yellow. these photos? why don't you use a whitening toothpaste? i'm afraid it's bad for my teeth. try crest 3d white. crest 3d white diamond strong toothpaste and rinse... ...gently whiten... ...and fortify weak spots. use together for two times stronger enamel. crest 3d white. the uncertainties of hep c. wondering, what if? i let go of all those feelings.

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welcome back, everybody. transgender members of the u.s. armed forces are used to coming under fire, just not from their own commander in chief. this week, president trump banned them from the u.s. armed services, but instead of improvised explosive devices, the president laid the trap on twitter as part of a surprise attack. the top military brass whom trump had excluded before issuing his social media edict, it was too much even for lawmakers in trump's own party to deal with. take a listen. >> but when it comes to an issue that has widespread implications whether it's health care or the transgender issue for our military, i just don't think a tweet is the right way to go. >> maybe not. all right. so some disciplined an order in

the west ring. in spite of this chaos, trump's team landed a one-two punch against transgender americans. we had lawyers for the department declaring the 1964 civil rights act signed into law by president lyndon johnson does not protect employees on the basis of sexual orientation. this decision erodes the rights of the entire lgbt americans. this all of this directly contradicts what we heard in last year's election because it was in those days that trump was saying he would have an open-door policy for gay and transgender american, fighting for lgbt rights and now he seems to be in this lockstep with maybe some alt-right members who have a different point of view. so joining me now is u.s. army captain jennifer piece. sue fulton is a member of sparta, a group of lgbt people who have served their nation in uniform and also a former u.s. army captain and joan walsh is

back with me, msnbc political analyst and affairs correspondent for the nation magazine who has covered the arc of marriage equality and lgbt rights and with me here at msnbc for, gosh, from the beginning of time. >> yeah. let's begin with this. sue, you have a stored history serving in our nation's military. you married your wife at west point. >> yes. >> what does this mean the directive from the president coming via twitter? is it laughable or something serious? >> well, no one knows exactly how this is going to play out and there's no implementation plan and no time line and the chairman of the joint chiefs has been clear, we're looking for guidance on this. i think the issue is that this is a massive readiness issue. in our organization alone, we have over 600 active duty transgender folks and there are thousands, some say 15,000 in the military and we don't know what their status is now, but you don't take 15,000 trance -- excuse me, 15,000 trained

military service members and just pull them out of the organization and not affect the mission. >> as you talk about military preparedness, captain, let me ask you about this, as an active duty member of the army, and someone who came out with your gender identity to not only your family, but to those you serve and work with, how do you feel about what the president is now saying about the honor of your service to this country and what it means for the future? >> my biggest concerns are both for me and my family, and my fellow soldiers. we kind of woke up to the news to a bit of confusion and panic trying to understand exactly what had happened and where that left our family especially having served two years openly as transgender. i have two combat deployments and 13 years of experience and when you multiply that by 10,000 or 15,000 other trained soldier, what does that look like if we have company commanders, combat

medics and pilots, sub mariners and so many other people that are serving honorably, how does that not impact the unit readiness if 15,000 of those soldiers and other service members are suddenly no longer serving? it's concerning both on an individual level for me and my family, but then service wide and how we continue the mission without vacuum. >> let's take a look at this because it's a very interesting witness -- thing to witness the evolution of certain members of the gop especially in utah, senator republican orrin hatch. take a look. >> i've said, look, people who are transgender, they don't choose to be trance gender, they're born that way, and why should we hold that against them? >> orrin hatch, he gets it. >> he gets it. >> why do you think that that type of sentiment from someone who is so well known for being a

well-known republican and certainly with conservative views can have that statement about members of our military and our president can't? >> because he's actually met people and because of the work of people like sue and jennifer who have gone out of their way to introduce senators as well as active commanders in the field to soldiers who are putting their lives on the line and want nothing more than to keep doing that, but be treated fairly. so orrin hatch has come along and i admire him greatly for that, and i also have to say, thomas, when i saw those three horrible, cruel tweets what also occurred to me is he's having a problem with his base. he's been roughing up jeff sessions who is probably the most popular senator, now a cabinet member, attorney general, with that christian right base that donald trump courted even though he's not a member of the christian right and doesn't adhere to a lot of their moral values. he's getting roughed up and jeff sessions is getting roughed up. the base is angry, and so you

get these three tweets that play to the base rather than do anything to improve military readiness, morale, chain of command. i saw it that way. very, very cruel and reflecting what he said last year during the campaign didn't mean to him at all. >> and he used the fact that during his business representation of miss universe and miss usa, he ran on that as kind of exposure to why he is, you know, for protection of lgbt rights. this is a big surprise, but sue, you probably followed his twitter feed and it would be a guilty pleasure if he wasn't president because it can be so provocative. >> yeah. >> is he really, as we think about this, this isn't policy. is this a grenade being thrown

out as a distraction of what's really going on in this white house and not really an indictment of military readiness? >> well, this is the commander in chief and we are taught to recognize the commander's intent and to carry it out. that said -- right. so the pentagon's reaction was, all right, we'll look as we always do. we look for written guidance. we develop that into an implementation plan and dweevel a time line and there's not even the initial phase of written guidance and that's why we get the reaction that we'll do what we'll do which is business as usual and one of the great things we've seen. remember, our folks have been serving over a year openly. one of the great things that we got to see when our folks to work wednesday, their soldiers and their battle buddies coming to them saying we've got your back. there was a guy who had never said a word to me and he came up and said this is wrong. i hope you fight it.

>> captain, for you, the reaction that you've been receiving from fellow service members that you know, has the reaction been mixed or supportive? >> it's been overwhelmingly supportive, over the last two years since i've been out and over the past few days i've gotten dozens of messages, e-mails, phone calls and peer, superiors and subordinates that i haven't spoken to in months and years just reaching out and saying, hey, look. we are so sorry this is happening. stay strong. anything we can do for you, we're here for you no matter what and so it's in a way it's been very affirming and it's really helped me see how much we stick together, and si think the diversity in our strength comes from our diversity and so we all have to support each other in this. >> captain, tomorrow business as usual for you? >> absolutely. i'll be out on the p.t. field at 6:00 in the morning ready to start a fresh work day. >> think of us when you're out

there that early. don't call. just think of us because i'll try to sleep in. captain, jennifer peace, thank you for your time and service. sue fulton, thank you. joan walsh, thank you. see you soon. >> we turn to the unrest in venezuela and this after months of violent protests and the state department asking families of u.s. diplomats ahead of a major vote that some are calling a power grab by president nicolas maduro. back with more after this. wow. that's cool. how much is it? oh, it's free if you have a discover card. i like free! yeah, we just want you to be in the know. ooh. hey! sushi. ugh. i smell it! you're making me... yeah, being in the know is a good thing. know if your social security number is found on risky sites. free from discover. when heartburn hits fight back fast with new tums chewy bites. fast relief in every bite. crunchy outside. chewy inside. tum tum tum tum

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welcome back, everybody. in venezuela president nicolas maduro is moving forward with a vote today which the opposition says is a play to consolidate more power. more than 100 days of protests have claimed the lives of more than 100 people and maduro is holding the vote to create a new constituent assembly to rewrite the country's constitution. the new assembly will bring peace to the struggling country, but critics at home and abroad say the whole thing is

illegitimate. the trump administration called for venezuela to cancel this vote and placed sanctions against current and former venezuelan officials. maduro's sham election is another step toward dictatorship. the venezuelan people and democracy will prevail. this was just coming out in the past hour. a florida senator marco rubio has been a very vocal critic of maduro and called on venezuela to reject the fraudulent assembly and encourage sanctions against the maduro regime. i want to bring back steve clemmons. we started with this tweet from ambassador haley saying this is another step toward dictatorship. the venezuelan people and democracy will prevail. a tweet doesn't do much other than put out an encouraging word or a statement, rather, in 140 characters or less, but what is the stance with maduro and the

sanctions that have been put in place to try and stop it? >> well, i mean, nikki haley's tweet has the right sentiment and none of it has the kind of muscle or leverage that you would hope we would have with venezuela. we don't have deep relations with venezuela now. we have been uncomfortable with that relationship for a long time. it's a country that nonetheless sends us 700,000 barrels of oil a day and we've been maintaining despite the other political noise on top, we continue to be both dependent and purchasing that oil. a lot of it is sent to low-income people in the united states and the oil industry has told the trump administration that if it tried to sanction that oil industry it would create much higher prices for americans here. so there's some difficulty in doing this, but right now, the other thing about nikki haley's tweet which i agree with is another step toward dictatorship. they'ral read there and what he's about to do is throw out the national assembly and

replace it with 545 people and his wife and closest supporters and completely throw out the government. dictatorship is here now and so it's notnow. it's not something i think new pressure at this moment, get something to take a different turn. the question is, will there be a revolution or a revolt or such a protest that the region begins to somehow come in and intervene in venezuela's domestic affairs. >> as you say, the stranglehold is already in place. this is more of a consolidation of power for maduro. here marco rubio would like to see economic sanctions, as you point out the enormous amount of oil produced in that country coming into this country. that would impact americans if economic sanctions went through that directly hit oil. do you think that is even a possibility on the table for this administration to consider moving forward? >> well, i think people like marco rubio are making it a possibility. and the president's own position and where he's basically

signaled this sham election, these steps are something he wouldn't tolerate. but we don't know the difference between action and just pontificating from this president. so, my sense is, yes, there's a possibility, in fact, that if we see -- we had an opposition leader killed in venezuela today. an important leader. we've had other killings of politicians that were running and trying to basically oppose the government there. and so, as greater public awareness builds of this, i think that maybe the sanctioning on the oil side and oil import side could actually happen because venezuela is such a thuggish regime right now that it's uncomfortable no matter what our dependence. analysts say that could contribute 15 to 25 cents a gallon at the gas tank. and i would say in the scheme of things, like that does make an impact, maybe that is exactly the right price to pay for something like this. >> as we know, the country of venezuela, its people, they're one of the largest

asylum-seekers for the united states. the international monetary fund said the inflation right in that country is expected to shoot up by 720%. if we consider what that means for asylum-seekers trying to come to america for a better life, are we ready for that type of humanitarian crisis -- >> no, we're not. right now we have such inconsistent policies when it comes to asylum seekers, refugees of any kind. and the fit filter we put up to do this is very inhospitable at the moment. john kelly, who i respect, has been trying to sort this through. i give him credit for trying to create a humane way to think about some of these questions. he's now leaving his position and going to be white house chief of staff. i don't know how his own position in the white house, whether that will help or hurt trying to create a humane way of treating refugees and asylum seekers from venezuela, but i think right now it's one of the elements. people talk about storms and the

world. well, it happened to us. we have to have plans and procedures and policies that make sense. right now we don't have any of that. >> steve, great to see you. we'll keep everyone posted about what happens with the voting that's taking place in venezuela. appreciate it. stay with us. we'll be back with more right after this. you're not taking that. you're not taking that. you're not taking that. mom, i'm taking the subaru. don't be late. even when we're not there to keep them safe, our subaru outback will be. (vo) love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru. is everything ok?adt, i could hear crackling in the walls, and my mind went totally blank. all i remember saying was, "my boyfriend's beating me" and she took it from there. when a fire is going on, you're running around, you're not thinking clearly, so they called

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coming up inspect next half hour, more reaction to the expectation of the white house shakeup with general john kelly, officially starting, as chief of staff there tomorrow. we'll break down what the first week looks like as we know it on paper as opposed to what could be organically happening via twitter. we see what's happening next in health care and the russia's retaliation to congress's sanctions passed this week. ♪

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great to have you with me. welcome to "msnbc live" coming to you from new york city. i'm thomas roberts. we know this weekend there has been a lot of discussion about the palace intrigue at the white house and it looks a lot more like "game of thrones," that's coming up tonight, than "the west wing" because heads rolled with the president firing his subard nants, almost at the same rate as he's bullying them. first on the chopping block is sean spicer, that's when the tv cameras were on, or if he was actually talking to reporters from the white house shrubbery. next up, reince priebus, who rejected to the appointment of anthony scaramucci as communications director and priebus swiftly found his way out the door. perhaps the biggest head to roll would be that of acting attorney general, jeff sessions, a far-right conservative from alabama who was one of the first elected officials in the republican party to endorse and