dictated a misleading account of his son's meeting with the russians, contrary to white house claims. >> if that's true, then that was a bad decision by the president, which will make us ask more questions. when you get caught in a lie about one thing, and it makes it hard to say let the other stuff go. >> command and control. a new general in town. chief of staff john kelly's first order of business, firing the mooch after only six days in the communications job, following his vulgar tirade about his white house colleagues. >> look, the president certainly felt that anthony's comments were inappropriate for a person in that position. and he didn't want to burden general kelly also with that line of succession. >> and message from moscow, vice president mike pence and putin's backyard, with tough talk about the kremlin and pledge president trump will sign the russia

sanctions bill. >> president trump called on russia recently here and elsewhere to cease its destabilizing activities. very soon president trump will sign legislation to strengthen and codify the united states sanctions against russia. >> and good day, everyone. i'm andrea mitchell in washington where the washington post is reporting that president trump played a direct role in trying to obfuscate the meeting between his son and the russians. the question is, did the president know he was concocting a false account? and what are the ramifications? it happened on board air force one on the way home from germany. president overruling his staff, taking charge of his statement about don jr.'s meeting with that russian lawyer. that air force one flight took off one day after president trump's meeting with vladimir putin in hamburg. joining me now, kristen welker at the white house and carol ann, part of a post team that

broke the story. what are the ramifications of this, of the president taking charge, which is similar to the mo we have seen. he seems to be his own communications director. is this more important because it involved the russian investigation? >> absolutely, andrea. it is a lot of lawyers around town, including some of the president's own advisers, advisers to the trump team are scratching their heads because this was in the words of a person i spoke with unnecessary and it puts the president and his inner circle in more legal jeopardy. again, keep in mind this is the president directing family members and his son and aides to conceal a piece of information about the president's campaign and its contact with russians. and that is -- that effort to conceal is something that bob mueller, i'm told, will absolutely want to look at. anytime you mislead or attempt

to lie about something, a prosecutor who is looking at obstruction is going to want to know why and how that came to be. >> and to kristen welker, we know that john dowd, one of the president's newly hired, more recently hired lawyers, said in a statement that this was fake news, incorrect and misinformed of no consequence back when the whole thing started, when that story was concocted. >> that's right. and jay sekulow saying key details are wrong. here is the bottom line. neither of them are outwardly disputing the story. and it really breaks with and counters with what we heard from jay sekulow two weeks ago on "meet the press" when he said the president had nothing to do with drafting that statement. we have reached out to the white house for comment as well. they are referring all questions to the president's outside counsel.

bottom line, to the broader point here, this is yet another russia related headline. the last thing that this administration wants right now, particularly as they try to have a reset here at the white house. the president having his new chief of staff sworn in yesterday, retired general john kelly, who is making it very clear there is a new sheriff in town. he decided to oust the communications director, anthony scaramucci, in the wake of that profanity-laced rant in "the new yorker" against reince priebus and steve bannon. he wanted to reset the tone here. i think this is an unwanted headline at the time that they were trying to get on solid ground. so there will be fallout throughout the day. and, again, some tough questions for sarah huckabee sanders later on today. >> and, kristen, you know air force one so well. you look at the different compartments, the staff was trying to work on this, and was apparently recommending that it be just a clear cut statement.

and it was the president who got into it. why didn't somebody say, sir, you should not be involved in this. this is something that we want to insulate you from. >> based on my conversations, it is not abnormal for the president to want to be engaged in the details of statements that pertain to his family in particular. but white house statements that he feels are of this level of import. i was told at times in the past they have had to nudge him, explain to him, look, he doesn't necessarily need to be engaged in every single detail and in fact in some cases it is best if he isn't. i think that's part of the push and pull and that we're seeing exposed in this reporting by carol an her colleagues. >> and, carol, here it is, less than 24 hours after john kelly takes over. and when your story broke, it is, again, a leak. part of his commitment is to plug the leaks. >> well, i think kelly has a

bigger responsibility actually beyond leaks. scaramucci as you know famously said he wanted to kill all the leakers. and certainly the president doesn't like leaks. but kelly's role and job and responsibility is much bigger, which is order. getting people to be disciplined and as many advisers have said to me, the first person he has to bring in line is the president. in this instance, the president is going with his gut. every person we spoke to and it was a large team of reporters, every person we spoke to said this president believes he's the best advocate, best lawyer, the best publicist. and here he just decided he was going to make the call. and legally it is a bad idea and somebody needs to be able to communicate that to him and temper him and we'll see if kelly can do it. >> it is a big job. thank you so much. carol ann, from your exclusive story today and of course kristen welker, our colleague at

the white house. california senator dianne feinstein is the top democrat on the judiciary committee and joins me now. thank you very much, senator. good to see you. thank you for being with us today. >> good to see you. >> well, lindsey graham already spoke out on the "today" show saying this is really damaging, that in contributes to the impression that bob mueller will have to look at, that there was an attempt to cover up or mislead. we don't know how winning the president was. what do you think the impact of this is, if it in fact as reported the president was part of this misleading story, this misleading account of that russia meeting. >> if that proves to be true, and i think senator graham wouldn't say it without some strong indication that in fact it is true, and that he wrote -- he rewrote a statement to obfuscate the purpose, the real purpose of the meeting, that is a problem.

now, we'll have to wait and see. i have no clue what he said. but i do know this, andrea, i wish we could get away from these things. from my position, i see what is happening in the rest of the world. and i have deep concern about our inability to focus on real problems and real problem solving. >> and before you can get away and look at russia and north korea and all the other threats, which we're all really concerned and have been reporting on, you have this -- these distractions from the white house and the ongoing investigation. is there any legal issue that would arise from the president contributing to a false statement in contrast to what his lawyers were telling the public on "meet the press" and elsewhere. >> well, i can't answer that. but certainly it is one more fact of something that he should not have been doing. and let me say something about general kelly, he is an adult, he knows the world.

he has supervised 250,000 employees and a whole field of battle. i think he knows what he's doing. and one of my hopes is that in addition to being a chief of staff, he can be not a co-president, but a man whose advice is valued. the president mentioned to senator grassley and i, when we went in to see him over a course of how much he valued general kelly and what general kelly has done and general kelly's thinking on matters. so my hope is that general kelly will be more of a participant in some of the big things. russia, if it is true, russia is mounting troops on the border of european countries with a star tank division. we ought to know that. we ought to be doing something about it. we certainly ought to say the

time has come to talk to north korea and stop this and talk with the subject to no preconditions, but sit down and negotiate a solution. because everything i know is that there is no military answer to this. if you -- if for a moment, if you look at what the dmz is today, 750,000 north korean troops behind that hill line at the end of the plane, and those hills stunted with rockets, we have 28,000 troops there, and seoul is 25 minute drive to the dmz. there is no military solution. a war would mean the death of hundreds of thousands of people. and it makes no sense. so we and isolating a nation, in my view, and my study of history, does not work.

so a top notch team should reach out, and say we are ready to sit down and talk with you, north korea. and do this at the highest levels. >> and in fact, i wanted to share with you, something else that lindsey graham said on the program today, it is a lot of talk about a first strike. we know there are military plans. we have military plans for everything. and particularly for north korea. especially given new intelligence analysis from dia that we were two years wrong about when they might be able to put the warhead on that missile and miniaturize it. this is what lindsey graham had to say today to matt lauer. >> every military expert says there is no good military option. >> they're wrong. there is a military option, to destroy north korea's program and north korea itself. >> are you saying it is okay to use military option that immediately endangers the lives of millions of people in that region?

>> i'm saying it is inevitable unless north korea changes because you're making our president pick between regional stability and homeland security. >> i don't know your reaction to that. >> my reaction is that lindsey graham should get a classified briefing like the ones i have had. and sit down with secretary mattis, which i have done. >> okay. i think i understand, especially after interviewed the general last week what the implications are, because of the artillery, the millions of people, what the implications would be. >> there is more to it than even that. it is all classified. but we know much more about these weapons and where they are. and what the difficulties are. that's all i can say. >> one of the things i've been reporting not to put you on the

spot is that we're talking about tunnels here, we're talking about mobile launchers, we're talking about launchers that now -- missiles launched with solid state fuel, not liquid fuel, so they're not on the launchpad for so long. let me pause it, it is hard to target them, hard to take them out or know we're getting everything out. china may know more than we do. but we don't know a whole lot about what is happening underground. leaving that -- >> all i can say, andrea, is that you're correct. >> thank you for that. >> you're welcome. >> let's talk about russia, because the president has yet to sign the sanctions bill. it was a veto proof majority, 98-2 in the senate, he doesn't have a whole lot of choices here and vice president pence has been giving very strong, explicit speeches in estonia, in georgia, as he travels around the region. is there any question about what the president needs to do on the russia sanctions? >> no. and i think what vice president

pence has been doing is very helpful. he has stated the position clearly and distinctly. and he is in an area where the russians practice military intimidation and may be setting up to do so again. so i think his visit is very timely. i think that's one thing that is working. with respect to the white house, we really have to get away from all of this stuff every day. we really have to go to problem solving. and the best people should be brought forward to do that problem solving. and i think the president ought to really put together, if he hasn't already, some high level teams of people who are militarily knowledgeable, government knowledgeable, about what is going on in some critical places in the world

today. and fashion plans to deal with it. they don't have to be announced right away. but my sense is that this isn't happening. and i don't think anybody wants to, in this country, wants to be america caught when we're not ready for it. so i think almost day by day, i have the saudi ambassador in a few moments ago talking about yemen, where we had 10,000 children die from cholera. and that whole saudi advance is going very badly in that sense. and these are things that we ought to be concentrating on. and solving these problems instead of, well, you know, this meeting or that meeting and changing views and tweeting and creating an instability where there should be stability. >> speaking of stability, i want to ask you about jeff sessions.

you're the top democrat on the judiciary committee with oversight. the attorney general is going to be speaking publicly for the first time in a couple of days in atlanta, at a law enforcement conference. this comes after the president was rebuked by police chiefs for what he said on friday. suggesting that police ought to be tougher against suspects. and not observe the protocols against harming suspects as they're being arrested. first of all, jeff sessions, should he stay as attorney general? what about rumors he might be moved over to homeland or some other agency? >> well, jeff sessions has done nothing to deserve termination. and i don't always agree with him, that's true. but i really disagree using him as a political pawn. the president can transfer him to homeland security. but if the purpose is what many of us think it is, and that's to

stop the investigation of bob mueller and his team, that will not work. because i believe that will be something that none of us can condone. and it could well be the beginning of the end of the short presidency. i don't want that to be the case. but this is the red zone. and no president should enter it without knowing fully what the repercussions are. >> i think that could not be clearer. thank you very much, senator feinstein, always good to talk to you. >> thank you. >> coming up, the revolving door at the white house, it just keeps spinning. anthony scaramucci out after less than two weeks, actually six days officially. b bill kristol joining me next. but when family members forget,

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president trump, excuse me, again ignoring continued west wing turmoil, taking to his favorite megaphone, twitter, to tout stock market numbers and slam the so-called fake news media, writing stock market could hit all time high again, 22,000 today. was 18,000 only six months ago on election day. mainstream media seldom mentions. only the fake news media and trump enemies want me to stop using social media, 110 million people, only way for me to get the truth out. this after another turbulent day

at the white house following the ouster of his communications director when he tweeted a great day at the white house. joining me is bill kristol editor at large for the weekly standard. should we say we talk about the stock market all the time, our colleague, steffi ruhphanie ruh ali velshi, the stock market is not the overall economy. but it is an indicator and is a psychological boost, no question about it. maybe the market is going up because people are happy to see john kelly in there and order -- >> could be. the economy has been decent in six months and pretty good in six months since president trump took over. hard to believe it is the policies he's put in place pause there haven't been that many. but it helped keep his support at a decent level of 38 or 40%. i think political scientist view, 46% of the vote, stock market goes up 15%, 20%, unemployment 4%, where would you expect the president's approval

today? 55% maybe? he's putting a huge price. it is a big myth he's doing fine, voters don't care about all of this. they want a white house that is competent, honest, and rule of law abiding and doubtful some percentage of reluctant trump voters, he has his core base, some are reluctant, few democrats, looking at this white house saying this isn't the way we think a white house should be run. >> usa today and gallop had the numbers the last few days, he's underwater in pennsylvania, michigan, wisconsin, which he won by 77,000 votes to, you know, put him over the top. >> we're all obsessed with the hard core trump supporters. some are unusual republicans. worth looking at that. most trump spoupporters a lot we reluctant. they have a sense that is he governing at all? what is happening? and also the sense that you just

can't -- he doesn't tell the truth. that hurts after a while. >> john kelly, who is the highly respected former homeland security secretary took over yesterday and within an hour or two scaramucci was gone. reportedly got in some trouble for his vulgarities, obscenities with ivanka and melania, something women as well as men don't like. ivanka tweeted a picture on her twitter feed, looking forward to serving alongside john kelly as we work for the american people. general kelly is a true american hero. interesting word alongside, rather than working for. i guess you have to assume that the daughter and the son-in-law are very special as staff people and not going to be saluting to john kelly. >> maybe. i'm a huge fan of john kelly. i know him some and respect him

immensely. i think he's doing this for the country. very struck with kelly's statement on friday. he was -- friday? so hard to keep track. it is unbelievable that scaramucci interview with the new york phone call with -- >> with ron lizza. >> seems like it was weeks ago. he didn't make it personal unlike so many other people in the trump administration where it is all about -- an honor to serve this president, donald trump, i'm a trump loyalist, reince priebus gets fired and i'm on team trump. didn't hear that from kelly. >> very good catch. >> he's going to do his best to preserve the institution. i hope he can. it is a tough position to be in. i was sort of half joking on twitter when i said it is like al hague who took over in the summer of '73. hague has a slightly spotty reputation. but people did a competent job

of trying to keep things together as the nixon white house melted down. 16, 17 months until nixon left. kelly may have to perform that role. that's an important role. got to keep the country working, got to coordinate defense, state, national security council, try to make sure things don't get worse, the president doesn't make it worse. it is a real challenge for him, though. >> let's just suspect there won't be more bullying perhaps of jeff sessions no matter how angry the president is. >> let's hope. the firing of scaramucci, the people think it is because of the vulgarity, maybe it was. also the fact, scaramucci said in the interview he had sicked his fbi, the friends in the fbi on other people at the white house. he had access to the digital footprints of other people's phone records. he was going to find the leakers. i assume he was making that up and lying and boasting. i think it is illegal for a white house staffer to try to get that information from the fbi. he has no right to that access, doesn't have a security clearance at that time.

even talking about it is a kind of -- i don't know if it is illegal, but inappropriate. if somebody came out and said we have the fbi to try to find out -- you would be fired. you can't invoke the notion that a white house staffer can deal on his own with the fbi because he feels like it. scaramucci said this after having dinner with the president, makes you wonder if the president was enkourmging h the fbi to find out who was leaking. did scaramucci try to use the fbi or not. that's a crime even if he's fired. today's washington post story, pretty amazing, trump -- we knew he intervened in the statement on behalf of his son, false statement, really, and now seems like the main player in doing that. he didn't know anything bheetinbheet i the meeting. that's going to be muller will

look into that. one thing kelly has to do, run the white house, help run the administration, totally segregate that as much as possible from all of the legal stuff. he needs to tell the president you meet with your lawyers, white house counsel will be involved, if jared kushner has his own legal issues, he deals with those. he has to prevent the whole white house from being dragged into the question of explaining what trump said when or what happened to meetings. >> that has to be job one. >> yeah. need to make the government work while this other stuff is going on. >> bill kristol, big jobs in two white house s. thank you very much. coming up, the north korea threat, top republican senator with a dire warning about possible military action. that's here right next on "andrea mitchell reports."

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every military expert says there is no good military option. >> they're wrong. there is a military option to destroy north korea's program and north korea itself. >> are you saying it is okay to use military option that immediately endangers the lives of millions of people in that region? >> i'm saying it is inevitable

unless north korea changes because you're making our president pick between regional stability and homeland security. >> my reaction is that lindsey graham should get a classified briefing like the ones i have had. >> senator dianne feinstein just moments ago trying to clarify what senator lindsey graham said about a potential first strike against north korea. joining me now, david ignacious and ambassador wendy sherman, former undersecretary state for political affairs and global affairs contributor. welcome both. ambassador, you've negotiated with the north koreans and know they lie, cheat, steal, whatever. they now have an icbm capable of reaching the midwestern united states, not armed. but is lindsey graham right, we should take some military action or is dianne feinstein correct, which is that we don't know where all their stuff is. >> the truth is, i think lindsey

graham was saying let's destroy the country and, of course, that's an option. but really terrible one. as you pointed out, as senator feinstein pointed out, that would be devastating to millions of people. and not necessarily take care of all of the risk that is here. i think that what senator feinstein was suggesting in terms of a high level effort, quietly, if possible, to really engage and see what's possible here while we put all of the rest of our tools to work, sanctions, military posturing, missile defense, intelligence, cyber, everything, and go at this problem in a serious way is a better path. >> david ignacious, what do you think? >> i think wendy put it well. we are now on the threshold of real national security crisis with north korea. it has been brought on by kim jong-un's reckless continuation of his testing program against the strong advice of china and not to mention the united states. and it is putting donald trump,

who says -- said repeatedly, this won't happen, he'll stop this program in a situation where he's having to consider military options. i think what senator lindsey graham was telling us today in his comments on the "today" show was basically north korea needs to understand this is moving toward a confrontation point. senator feinstein's point, if i understood it was, if you listen to the briefings, heard the experts talk about this, you would understand there is no good outcome to this in terms of the u.s. and its allies. yes, it is true, the war would be fought far from the shores of the united states. but the loss of life for our key ally in south korea, and in japan, would be enormous. >> and as well as 100,000 american citizens, plus the 28,000 american troops in the region. wendy what about a cyberoption? it is considered military.

we have u.s. cybercommand. we were able to effectively with israel, we now know slow down the iran nuclear developments. >> i'm not going to speak to that particular project. but it has been reported in the paper, what i would say is we should look at cyber as a tool. we have to be very careful, though, as we have seen that these tools can come back and bite us. but i would hope there is a lot of work going on in the administration and, andrea, one of my greatest concerns about this and all of the other issues in front of the president and the national security of our country is we don't have the team in place that we need to do this work to make sure that the president has at his disposal all of the tools in the toolbox including cyber. >> what wendy is referring to, people, scoambassadors are tell us, they don't know whom to speak to. we are so lab icking. two assistant secretary positions out of 24 filled and those are holdovers and one

undersecretary position and you have a reportedly very effective new deputy secretary. that's it as far as what is going on at the state department. >> and, andrea, the state department is basically these days in liquidation. you couldn't have a worse moment to have no real diplomatic backfield, no capability to brief allies, to conduct discussions, to develop options. we have a real crisis ahead with north korea. and unless there is some way found to communicate messages to the north korean regime that this must stop, there must be some freeze in activity, we're going over the lip of the waterfall v to listen carefully to what senator graham was saying. the question is how do you develop the diplomatic options, speaking to what wendy was talking about, i wish there was a cyber magic bullet to deal with the north korean missile, nuclear threat, from what little i know there isn't one.

people shouldn't imagine there is some option. it really comes back to the question of diplomacy or military conflict and we need a strong state department and white house to figure out how to do that, what is possible, who to talk to, who to send. those are the issues i hope they're thinking about. >> david ignacious, ambassador wendy sherman, thank you, both, so very much. >> thank you. >> coming up, another deadly crisis on the home front, shocking new numbers revealing the number of americans addicted to opioids. that's next right here. stay with us. using artificial tears often and still have dry eye symptoms? ready for some relief? xiidra is the first and only eye drop approved for both the signs and symptoms of dry eye. one drop in each eye, twice a day. common side effects include eye irritation, discomfort or blurred vision when applied to the eye, and unusual taste sensation. don't touch container tip to your eye or any surface. remove contacts before using xiidra and wait at least 15 minutes before reinserting. chat with your eye doctor about xiidra.

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now to staggering new numbers showing the scope of the deadly opioid crisis gripping the nation. more than one third of americans use prescription opioids in 2015, that's 92 million people according to the national institute on drug abuse. 2 million say they're addicted. the white house says opioid commission led by governor chris christie is asking the president to declare a state of emergency. joining me with a lot more on this story is msnbc's jacob soberoff who has done extensive reporting on the opioid crisis in a series one nation overdosed and dr. john torres. welcome, both. first to you, dr. torres, we have the national institute putting out the numbers, is the premise here, the original premise that too many people are prescribed the drugs and then are becoming addicted? they're so highly addict of for

people suffering from pain and we have to come up with a new solution for pain therapy. >> that's what the study is showing up. up until now, we said there is an addiction problem, an epidemic, but this is the first study to give us hard numbers. one in three americans in 2015 used prescription opioid. of those, 11.5 million misused and 1.9 million were addicted. i mean, they simply use ed it outside of the directions of their doctor, took somebody else's medication, used it too often, used too much. and what this is showing us is that this addiction problem is definitely here and is serious and something that needs to be addressed. and i agree with governor christie, this is something that right now the commission is showing needs to have more money and more emphasis put into it to try to get it under control? >> and jacob, you've been on the front lines trying to illustrate this. i want to play a little bit from your series and talk on the other side.

>> if you can extrapolate from the numbers you see here, in montgomery county, how many people across ohio will be killed by fentanyl this year? >> for our system, a fifth of the state of ohio, we're estimating about 2,000 overdoses this year. if that continues, that's about 10,000 for the state or more. >> how is that not a mass casualty? that's multiples of 9/11. >> it is a mass casualty event. this is no different than some kind of mass casualty event in any other form, just a medical event. >> a medical emergency. >> i believe so. needs to be recognized that way to bring some federal assets to help us. >> jacob, watching your series, i was struck by how were you affected by this reporting? >> it is completely overwhelming just to be there as a visitor. imagine what a coroner in a place like mound count ntgomery ohio, goes through . what you heard there from

coroner is what was echoed in this report. we talk ed about this being multiples of 9/11, again, referenced in the report. as dr. torres will tell you, the information in this report comes from the cdc and that data is oftentimes a couple of years behind why we are in real time. the facts on the ground what is happening in real time is even worse most likely than what is happening in this report because of this drug fentanyl, synthetic opioid, stronger than heroin, flooding in not just from mexico, china directly, so the thing to think about in this report is that the trump administration publicly and president trump particularly during the campaign talked about this as a national security threat. we need to build a wall with mexico that will stop the drugs from flowing in. that's not what this report says. this report says this say health problem that needs to be dealt with, using tools like medicaid, which we will all remember on the chopping block during the trump administration's debate over health legislation. >> as a consumer, a lot of us, i

know i had surgery, they prescribed painkillers and i tend not to use them because i don't like them. what did doctors and patients need to know about what your options are to avoid getting hooked on this stuff. >> what doctors need to do is sit down and talk to their patients about how addictive opioids are. we don't know when somebody could get that addiction. could be after a few doses, after a bottle, some people don't get addicted at all. it is hit and miss whether they will. but the main thing, more funds need to be put here, more medicaid help, because this is an epidemic and not just in ohio, across the country. this is happening other places and the study looked at opioid prescriptions. didn't look at the street drugs that are also causing the same thing. that problem is becoming bigger and bigger. this is one of those things that is going to take a whole nation getting behind to try and get this under control. >> dr. john torres, thank you so much. and jacob, thank you so much for your reporting on this. >> you bet. >> we'll be right back with the inside scoop. stay with us. to know who i am and where i came from.

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for her compassion and care. he spent decades fighting to give families a second chance. but to help others, they first had to protect themselves. i have afib. even for a nurse, it's complicated... and it puts me at higher risk of stroke. that would be devastating. i had to learn all i could to help protect myself. once i got the facts, my doctor and i chose xarelto®. xarelto®... to help keep me protected. once-daily xarelto®, a latest-generation blood thinner... ...significantly lowers the risk of stroke in people with afib not caused by a heart valve problem. it has similar effectiveness to warfarin. xarelto® works differently. warfarin interferes with at least 6 blood-clotting factors. xarelto® is selective, targeting just one critical factor interacting with less of your body's natural blood-clotting function. for afib patients well-managed on warfarin, there is limited information on how xarelto® compares in reducing the risk of stroke. don't stop taking xarelto® without talking to your doctor, as this may increase risk of stroke. while taking, you may bruise more easily, or take longer for bleeding to stop. it may increase your risk of bleeding if you take certain medicines.

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to homeland security, but if the purpose is what many of us think it is and that's to stop the investigation of bob mueller and his team, that will not work because i believe that will be something that none of us can condone and it could well be the beginning of the end of this short presidency. this is the red zone and no president should enter it without repercussions are. >> a heck of warning from dianne feinstein on this program about a half hour ago. let's get the reaction from the senior political reporter for "usa today," also an msnbc political analyst, and jeremy petrs, reporter for "the new york times" and also an msnbc contributor. she was laying it out there, no

question what she believes. she's been orb working closely with chuck grassley. >> what will they do if they don't fire him? what if they move him to dhs or shuffle him around the administration? it is within the president's prerogative to hire whoever he wants for his cabinet. at the same time, he has clearly said that the only reason sessions is in peril is not because of the job that he's doing or supposed to be doing at the head of the justice department, because he views him as an obstacle potentially on the way to firing mueller, which certainly would be viewed as potentially trying to obstruct justice in this case. >> and what she said was specifically if he wants to move jeff sessions to dhs with the purpose of getting at muleer, then that would be entering the red zone, jeremy. that's a pretty important line she's drawing. >> exactly. that's a big bright red line she's drawn there. setting aside for a moment if we can the newfound warmth that the democrats in the senate seem to have for jeff sessions after

they vigorously opposed his nomination as attorney general, this is a bipartisan disgust with the way he's been treated by president trump. chuck grassley himself, chairman of the judiciary committee, said, sorry, mr. president, our schedule is full for the rest of the year, no time for any new nominees so this is a widespread problem that president trump has. it goes beyond the senate too. don't forget last week an unprecedented rebuke of the president there were over 100 conservative leaders who sent a letter saying that to remove sessions would be detrimental no the agenda of president trump. this runs deep. >> you've been writing about health care and the attempt to revive ut and all the other challenges they've got. bob corker, the foreign relations chairman, was speaking to our own garrett haake. let's play that. >> what should the republican party do about health care now? >> i think we're moving on. there are a couple of senators who have an idea that it's interesting to a lot of people and it's a massive block grant program and that's lindsey

graham and cassidy. so i think it's up to them to show that they can get 50 votes and if they can, then we take it up again, if they cannot, we just keep moving on. >> i think bottom line is, heidi, moving on. >> the third way is working with the democrats. there are bipartisan groups springing up in the senate and the house and they have real ideas on how to shore up the markets and right the ship of obamacare. but as you heard from corker and unfortunately as you're hearing from the leadership in both chambers, there is no interest in that. they want to move on to tax reform. you and i discussed in the break a little about whether that's possible because there were tax savings in obamacare that they would apply to tax reform, but it appears if there's no appetite at the leadership level i don't see this going anywhere. unfortunately, house is in ressz until labor day as well. >> and jeremy, you've been reporting on this. ron johnson was take some health proposals to the white house today. >> what's the definition of

insanity? they saying to the same thing over and over gn and expecting the same result. i don't see how health care happens. they have to keep going through motions in order to make it look like they're trying. there's no single issue that had been more galvanizing for conservative base than health care. they have taken hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars from their constituents over the years. both houses of congress on the promise that they would repeal. they haven't done it. but you know what, the white house is already moving on. mark shore, the president's legislative director, was briefing members of the conservative americans for prosperity saying yesterday, look, we're going forward with this and this is going to be better than health care because we're all on the same page this time. >> talking about tax cuts. >> tax cuts. well, they say reform, exactly. what does reform really mean? kind of one of these -- >> in the eye of the beholder. >> it very well could be that they don't undertake a wholesale rewriting of the tax code. it ends up being just a tax cut to the corporate and individual

rates. >> about all you can do with 51 votes, right? >> all we can do with two or three seconds here. heidi, to be continued, jeremy, thank you very much. and more ahead. it's "your business" of the week. baseball may never be the same. jesse cole, the owner of the savanna bananas and gastonia grizzlies is reinventing the long game. from pep bands to a dancing first base coach, the circus-like atmosphere in the stadium has fans entertained from the start. so that's the idea. what do you think? hate to play devil's advocate but... i kind of feel like it's a game changer. i wouldn't go that far. are you there? he's probably on mute. yeah... gary won't like it. why? because he's gary. (phone ringing) what? keep going! yeah... (laughs) (voice on phone) it's not millennial enough. there are a lot of ways to say no.

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that does it for this edition of "mitch many reports." follow us online and on facebook and twitter. chris jansing is up next. hello. >> hello there. thank you so much. i am chris jansing in for craig

melvin at msnbc headquarters in new york. changing the subject. explosive allegations that president trump himself californiaed his son's original and misleading explanation about his meeting with a kremlin-linked attorney. what could be the legal as well as political fallout? trmp temperature, a new lawsuit alleges president trump personally signed off on a fox news story about the death to of a dnc aide that was later retracted. and taking on trump. one of the gop's own larking out at his party for the rise of donald trump. will more republicans join the revolatility? we begin today, the first full day for the new white house chief of staff, sworn in just yesterday to right the ship and once again the trump administration is facing more chaos after a new report in "the washington post." that story says that the misleading statement about don junior's meeting with a russian lawyer was actually the work of the president himself.