>> people probably say, those two have no chemistry. >> he's always interrupting. you can see this guy at 3:00 and i won't be interrupting at all that hour, i promise. >> i don't think of it as interruption, i think of it as just -- >> it's a loving conversation. right now time for some news on "andrea mitchell reports." desperate times for millions in puerto rico still without water, food or power. the president lifts a law that's been slowing down relief shipments as criticism mounts for the federal response. >> we are here, we're pushing and we need america to unite around this rather than pointing the fingers right now. the bottom line is we are committed and busting our rear ends to do everything we can. >> the social network. congress says twitter may have been more involved in spreading russian propaganda than facebook. congress wants to hear from

facebook head mark zuckerberg. >> one of the reasons i don't believe they've done a thorough examination is the only accounts they identified were those ads that were paid for in rubles. come on, guys, i think the russian services know how to, like, maybe use dollars, euros. we've got more questions. >> mark warner here from the intelligence committee joining us here. and homecoming. [ applause ] >> steve scalise, who almost died on that baseball field, returns to the house using two canes with a heartfelt thanks to the two capitol police officers who saved his life, one of them in the visors galletoday. >> even after being shot both themselves continued to engage the shooter and ultimately got him down, which not only saved my life but saved the life of a

lot of other people that are here in this chamber today. crystal couldn't be with us today, but david bailey is with us. david, you are my hero. you saved my life. thank you so much. [ applause ] >> and good day. i'm andrea mitchell in washington where after a week of pressure, president trump today finally suspended a law preventing many ships from bringing relief to puerto rico. a protectionist bill requiring ships headed to the island to be american made. this despite the fact that that act, the so-called jones act, was waived quickly in the case of texas and florida after harvey and irma. this is the devastation in puerto rico is turning into desperation. food, fuel, water all in short supply. >> i traveled to puerto rico last friday, and i can say the situation was shocking. those images were burned into my mind. unfortunately, this

administration's response has been inexcusably slow and ineffective. we need someone overseeing the entire operation. one problem that they are facing is that there are 3,000 shipping containers sitting on the port. they don't have trucks. they don't have the manpower. >> that was the alaskan congresswoman, born in puerto rico, emotional, as you can understand. as of today half the island has no drinking water. fema said it has delivered 2 million litres of water and 1 million meals to the island but it's been a week. we're joined at the port of san juan. there are millions of water bottles there, fuel is waiting to be delivered. what are you seeing on the ground, mariana? >> reporter: andrea, those 3,000

containers she was talking about, they're sitting right behind me, supplies that puerto ricans desperately need. the water, the food, the medicine. i'm with the vice president of crowley, the main company in charge of the ports. jose, i can't imagine just the frustration of knowing there are thousands of containers here that you can't get to the most devastated areas. what is the problem? what is the holdup. >> well, as a domestic carrier, we complied with what we needed to do. we made sure the goods were delivered to the island. we maintained our contingency plan. you can see there is over 3,000 containers just in this port, without counting the 400 in this barge right next to us. overall, in the ports of puerto rico, there are 9,500 containers sitting in the yard. >> why are they waiting to be moved? >> there are many reasons. basically an interruption in the supply chain. when i talk about an interruption, we're talking about communications, the roads

are damaged, people can't get to their workplace. >> by "people," i've heard from folks that getting the drivers to pick these containers up, that is one of the major holdups. >> that's a big challenge for three reasons. employees, they haven't been able to get to their workplace. number two, if the equipment is in good order, it doesn't have diesel, they don't have fuel, and the other reason is how can you move a truck with containers attached in puerto rico right now. >> you heard it here. 3,000 containers not getting to people. is there anything the national guard can do to help the army get delivery to these people that need supplies? >> yes. we've gone just above and beyond

to right puerto rico. i must say the people on fema that are on the island are working pretty hard. but we need much more than that. this doesn't get solved are a wafr. there'sedicine on the island. so a waiver doesn't resolve the problem. we need more support, hands on. the president needs to send much more support, otherwise we're not going to be able to rebuild this by ourselves. >> reporter: how frustrating has it been for you as an executive of this company? people are starving, people need fuel, people can't take their children to the hospital. how frustrating has it been for you personally, how devastating? >> it's been very frustrating, just the fact of knowing there are so many people out there with so much theneed and here w have all these goods.

we just need to find a way to restart the distribution around the island. >> thank you so much, juan. a broken supply chain here in the situation is growing desperate by the. where is the airlift, where are the c-17s? where is the american military. this is. i believe that the national security adviser for homeland security, tom bossert, i speaking. >> secondl we've got an augmentation business plan here that's a little proactive. instead of providing assistance to the governor, we're providing assistance not only to the governor who is doing a tremendous job but also to the

municipal leadership. i talked to the mare. she understands now the business molgd we're employing. she has a fema person standing with her that can help augment her staft capacity shortfalls. we're also augmenting the state. they have been here identifying needs and meeting them from the federal perspective. that is a new business model. we put it in place, though, on saturday. on sunday -- saturday morning we upped our planning assumptions by over 50%. on sunday we changed that business model. on monday the distribution system became a question of security-enforced presence. so what we did was we put a forced security presence model in place so they can supply water and diesel fuel to those

who need it without feeling unsafe. that has come to a great success for us. we'll keep that model in place. >> also, the hosp in the place o start taking people who were down. that required a lot of airlift support and that was in place at confide confide -- and confident in the northeast. four of the 69 are ready to take 69 back patients. definitive care is being provided at this point and remaining hospitals are being assessed right now. as you see pictures, some of them are dated. as you see data, some of them are out of date. it's not necessarily wrong or right. the frustrations of the people, though, are being amplified, so i encourage you to check the

data of the currency that you report. this is about saving the people of puerto rico, relieving their pain and sustaining their lives. they're absolutely showing every degree of compassion and composure. it's inspiring. the people of puerto rico have every bit of support from president trump that he gave to the citizens of every other state in this country. i spoke with morning to mayor de blasio as well. he's impressed with not only our update but how we've changed the business mod and he's pledged to help. we have fema, too, providing relief to mexico. >> tom bossert at the white house defending the administration's approach to all the relief efforts. what we've been seeing, the backup at the port, and the supplies that are not being

dli delivered to the interior. joining me, the congresswoman of puerto rico. thank you for joining me. i believe you're traveling with the president on tuesday to puerto rico so he can see for himself firsthand. but we've just had a report, 3,000 at least, containers at the port with supplies that are desperately needed in the interior. because of the failed infrastructure, they can't get from there to the people who need them. i'm wondering where is the airlift, where is the u.s. military? why weren't they there right away? why wasn't the -- supposedly leaving tomorrow. what was the failure of the last week? >> it's not the failure, it's the magnitude of the disaster. you saw it, the water and supplies are there but there's not enough logistics to move and

transport those supplies to the people. we need more trucks, we need more personnel to get those waters and supplies from the port to the people in the island, to the center of the island, and then that's the main request. the major question. i just heard tom bossert said and he he wonder what they're. all the water rkt the generators and the rest of the food that is needed across the island. that's the most important thing because we don't have enough manpower, enough resources to send srp. >> we hope that now with general

kim there helping out in that area, all the efforts that have been dealing with hospitals, and that's one of the areas that concern me most, that people who are dying in the hospitals because there is a lack of generators, a lack of power can be moved. can we seen treatment? we're talking about people receiving chemo or dia dialysis. those are what we're dealing with along with the five hours in line just to get om gas. >> there was plenty of warning this was going to be bad, this is going to happen. it just seemed as though the air lift decided to go sooner. . our correspondent was saying, with great request on the t

people, and they're having meetings in the air-conditioned meeting room but they're not out in the field. they're air-conditioned, they're in comfort, and it's more than 100 degrees there. how do you explain the bureaucracy that now seems to be centered in san juan? >> the main problem is at that time, i was there, too, there was no power on the island so the only place, all the federal officials, all the local government, all the pilots that were there was in that center. so that is the operational center for the disaster that has been happening on the island. there had they been working to move all the resources and equipment, there were more than 5,000 people in the island at that time and now there are

10,000 and we expect to have more. >> thank you very much, congresswoman. obviously our concern, our sympathy to all of your family and friends and our fellow americans there. >> we have been crying for that help. believe me, people in puerto rico are suffering, they're dying, and this is a dire situation, and we kexpect our federal government to stay on top of these issues. >> thank you for your help with these issues. a lot to talk about here. peter, clearly the president who congratulated himself on how well they were doing a few days ago is facing some political heat now. as we see, the pictures of human suffering from puerto rico and the fact that so many supplies are there and can't get to the people who need them. >> andrea, i think you're exactly right. we heard from the president, who

requiredublic response. you've been speaking of government officials. we've been on the ground there and there is great dissatisfaction of the pace. >> forgive me, steve scalise, he know how he almost got killed on that baseball field. the other one is not there, she's recovering from her wounds. he's about to walk by, i believe. i'm not sure, that hallway may have been cleared by security and garrett hague was still there. but peter, we all watched what happened when that baseball game

almost took steve scalise's life. he was always a popular member, but never more so than with his heroic return today. you can see how painfully he's walking. he's suffered so many surgeries and who knows how much physical therapy to come. peter? >> walking gingerly on two canes. the doctors and surgeons said he suffered the imminent risk of death. but today as he spoke before the chamber, members of congress gathered to celebrate him. he told the gathering and americans watching that he is a living example that mirles do happen. in an interview of recent days, he said, of the doctors that put him back together -- let's take a listen. >> can you talk a little about how it felt in that moment? >> it felt incredible just to feel the love and warmth of my colleagues and being back and working with them. >> been praying for you. >> welcome back. >> thank you for the prayers. >> thank you for your service.

>> thank you. appreciate it. >> andrea, i'm not sure if you can hear me. >> hello, congressman scalise. >> you can see how hope he is. he says he's walking. peter and garrett, i don't know if you can hear me because you were just there asking him how he was doing. but as he's going through statuary hall, there's the cameras trying to follow with him his first day back. peter, you know these halls well. we've all walked through them, but there's applause from tourists, from others, from staff as the republican whip returns to work. let's listen again. >> reporter: andrea, can you hear me? >> garrett, i can hear you. i saw you got a question to the whip as he walked by. talk about how emotional this

day is. >> reporter: the whole day has been emotional, andrea. when you first tossed to me, i was not speaking because this entire room, probably a hundred journalists, and maybe that many tourists, had fallen completely silent watching steve scalise work his way down this short maybe two or three-foot-long ramp, trying to get out here. just moving ever so slowly, clearly in pain on his crutches, and people had stopped talking, stopped breathing audibly in respect watching him come back into the room, sort of a capstone to what was an emotional, truly general feeling bipartisan moment on the floor where he was introduced by the speaker, he was praised by nancy pelosi. he spent maybe half an hour receiving his colleagues on the floor, democrat and republican who wanted to come up and wish him well. andrea, i covered that shooting. i was at the hospital the next day where these doctors said his

condition was so much worse than people realized, so much blood loss. and to see him working his way down this hallway after a few months, in obvious pain but in obvious pride at being back here and being able to see and talk to his colleagues again, it truly was an emotional moment all the way through, but especially walking him walk down this hallway. >> i apologize to you because we had no way of knowing, obviously, from a distance. but it reminds me of gabby giffords' return. it's these rare moments in congress, and that's a family, and especially when one of them is injured. there were others injured and shot at that day. it was a transformation, as you know from being there, a brilliant, sunny day and a happy occasion of bipartisanship to true horror. garrett, is scalise going to be able to, do you know, do his

full duties? is he back but still -- clearly he's in physical therapy, but i assume he's going to ben a reduced schedule. >> he is still in physical therapy. i think that's right, andrea, but i talked to congressman charlie dent, republican from pennsylvania, a little while ago, and he told me scalise called me from his home where he stays in washington while he was recuperating, to whip him on an issue. so while this was his physical return today to congress, he has been doing some work behind the scenes already and i suspect that will continue. so doing his job by phone and e-mail as best he can, even when he can't physically be here. >> garrett, thanks for coping with all of that and for conveying the true emotion of that moment. our thanks to peter alexander as we talk about what's happening in puerto rico. we'll be back with more from capitol hill, puerto rico, and my colleagues here on the set.

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nbc's gabe gutierrez is now at the port of the san juan where hundreds of people are lined up to get on the caribbean cruise liner, trying to get a path out.

gabe, tell us from your standpoint. >> reporter: good morning, andrea. we're here at the cruise port. these are almost live pictures reporting on a bit of a delay. we don't have a strong enough cell phone to transmit, so these picture are on a bit of a delay. but as you can see, the line here sin credible, hundreds of people trying to get on the cruise line. a cruise line announced they had canceled cruises and would start taking people back to the mainland. they'll head to st. krcroix and st. thomas before heading back to the united states. there are some people desperately trying to get out. one couple from oregon, incredibly they had gotten married here in puerto rico in the last several days. we spoke to others in california, florida and one from new jersey who has been here for several days desperate to get

out of puerto rico. they didn't expect it to be this bad, but again, as we've reported, the vacation challenges here have been simply incredible. many could not get ahold of loved ones to tell them they're going back to the u.s. this is something we've seen in the past days at the airport but this is the first time we're seeing this here outside the cruise terminal. they are set to get on this ship at some point in the next few hours, i'm not sure exactly when, and again, andrea, right now the breaking news is the royal caribbean, this ship, the capacity is about 3,000 people, but they're also going to take a few evacuees to st. croix and st. thomas before going to the mainland. this morning they are just so frustrated at the situation. 3,000 or so ship containers in the port of san juan.

they say they need more logistical help to come in and distribute those supplies throughout the island, andrea. >> gabe gutierrez, thanks for the hustle. we have wind noise, you're out in the port and we can see this drastic rescue mission by the cruise ship, as gabe points out, which will also go to st. croix and st. thomas and the american virgin islands as well. for ways you can help puerto rico recover from hurricane maria, please go to nbcnews.c / nbcnews.com/puertorico. this morning diane feinstein from the intelligence and judiciary committees holding a meeting with staff members scheduled for today. >> obviously we hope to learn facts of what has been done, what has been published, who is

doing what in this. there is a lot of talk that is still going on in different ways. if so, what? so an investigation is really necessary. now, whether you can permeate the depth of this because it's complicated is another subject. >> diane feinstein speaking about what they're about to do today, and this as susan page and sam stein join me. we have learned that twitter may be more complicit or more abused by the russians than facebook, even. twitter may have been more of a vehicle that the russians used, susan. >> that's true for facebook, the $100,000 worth of ads. i think it's entirely likely there were a lot more aspects through the way facebook was used. and now twitter, and the ability of twitter to try to stir up racial resentments and other problems. the social unrest in this

country is quite remarkable. that was a tool of the russians. this is something we'll be talking about for months and months. >> the latest reporting, for instance, posts about black lives matter, sam, were used, were sent specifically to people in ferguson and baltimore where there was unrest over police interactions and violence in between police and citizens and that that helped stir up or potentially stir up some of the protesting. >> what's confounded investigators on the hill about this is the level of sophistication in which these russian bots were using these tools to essentially microgroup promoters. for instance, at "the daily beast," we just published a story about how russian bots were proposing what looked like a russian group, and in reality it was a group meant to turn voters away from hillary clinton

with someone targeting conservatives. so there was a sophistication to this operation that has been discussed, but it hasn't really been exposed, and i think that's where snenate and house investigators are now looking. >> and the fact that president obama after the election in peru at an apec summit meeting took mark zuckerberg aside and warned him this was a bigger problem than he was understanding. and he actually apologized for not seeing it. >> these platforms have become such a powerful part of the life in this country and around the world should there be disclosure requirements when there are ads, for instance, on facebook. this is a debate that i think really gets fueled by a feeling that facebook and twitter did not take this serious enough while it was happening. >> i want to also talk about the politics, what has been going on since the alabama election

results, the president's setback with that and health care. he was asked the question whether he could really trust chuck and nancy, his new democratic partners. take a listen. >> when you start negotiating with democrats, do you feel like you can trust chuck schumer and nancy pelosi? >> it's not a question of trust. i have a nice relationship with them. it's not really trust. if we can do a great health care bill, bipartisan, i'm okay with that. pete, we have the votes to get it done. you can't do it when someone is in the hospital. >> that somebody in the hospital -- >> it's just a lie. >> he's talking about thad cochran who is not in the hospital. >> it doesn't matter, anyway. they lost the votes. >> the president has a difficult time with the truth on occasion. in this case he is not telling the truth.

thad cochran is not in the hospital. in the bigger picture, working with chuck and nancy, i actually think trump is aware that this is the most viable path forward for him to resuscitate his approval ratings. before coming on set, i was looking at these new polls about the daca deal, and it's outstanding how -- it's amazing how they poll well when he's talking about doing a deal with schumer and pelosi to protect d.r.e.a.m.ers. i have to think people in the white house see these numbers, see that there is a viable path to resuscitate his approval ratings, and it does come through forging these compromises. >> just the vote but it's not going to help him with his voters. here's a question for donald trp. will he do a deal with democrats on daca, on the immigration bill he denounced, the proposal he denounced during the campaign and then turn around and bolster

the health care act. >> i talked to them on the hill about the same thing, how he can do a deal on daca but not the affordable care account. they told me that's one line president trump can't seem to cross. it's so personal to him after several attempts that he just can't stomach it. >> and a deal on the d.r.e.a.m.ers, if roy moore is elected, this is a man who didn't know what daca or the d.r.e.a.m.ers were but is still running as the republican candidate for the senate in alabama. we'll have to leave it there for now. coming up, the top democrat on the senate intelligence committee, senator mark warner joining me. this is "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. morning on the beach was so peaceful.

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can cause a serious slowing of your heart rate. common side effects of harvoni include tiredness, headache and weakness. ready to let go of hep c? ask your hep c specialist about harvoni. executives from twitter today were briefing staff members about the senate and house intelligence committeess part of the investigation into russian hacking into the 2016 election campaign. joining me now is senator mark warner, democratic senator.

now we're hearing reports that twitter may have been more involved, more exploited, if you will, by the russians than even facebook. what do you know about this? >> i haven't gotten a readout from the staff briefing yet, but we do know that fwitwitter has different face model than facebook. twitter doesn't try to screen the identity as much. there is acknowledgment that 12 to 15% of the twitter accounts may be phony accounts. that's more than 40 million active accounts. we also know twitter has been manipulated by computer-driven bots, so it makes some sense that the russians may have used some of these fake twitter accounts to push more stories and more fake news in an even greater way than facebook. and so what we're trying to do is not only look back and make sure the american public knows what happened in 2016, but how do we make sure on a going forward basis this doesn't happen again?

>> as you pointed out, it's an important business model and how do you control something twitter has struggled to control, which is these fake accounts? >> again, twitter, as we said, hasn't really lately welcomed anonymity over the internet. facebook says if one says they're mark warner, they are mark warner. there are russians pushing stories liking different facebook pages or groups in a way that was done in a way to manipulate our political process. so t goal here is not to call out any individl company, but it is to make clear so americans know what happened, and also on a going-forward basis, i think every american, regardless of where they fall politically, ought to know if advertising coming across their account is paid for by foreign agents and if people are pushing news or

fake stories and if they're representing themselves as americans and they're not americans, we ought to know that, and we ought to be able to look at that content. >> are you thinking about some kind of regulatory regime? because this didn't just happen in 2016. we are now learning that as recently as last week, the social media platforms were being exploited on the issue of the nfl and the controversy. >> andrea, i think we're looking at the future of political advertising. there was an over 750% increase between 2012 and 2016 in digital advertising. there was over a billion dollars spent. your ability to target by individual, by demographic group is so much greater on social media. and all we're saying, and i'm working with senator klobuchar from minnesota, is let's make some of the same rules about disclosure that apply to ads that are run on msnbc or run on

fox. let's have those same rules apply to ads that run on facebook, twitter, as well as the ability for people to look at the content even if we're not exactly sure who sourced it. >> do you believe, not based on evidence because i know you're not going to disclose what you know from intelligence, but is it conceivable that these targeted posts, these bots, were done without some help from some american political brain at some level? didn't there have to be some collusion with the kremlin for them to be as specific in the way they stirred up ethnic and racial divisions during the campaign? >> i might call that a leading question. >> it is. >> it is. listen, i don't want to draw conclusion until we get all the facts. but that's the million-dollar question. the russians clearly have the technical knowledge. did they have the political sophistication to target some of

these ads, to promote some of these stories, to promote certain of these groups in a way that was really cutting edge modern politics? that's one of the things we want to find out. i want to continue to look at some of the intersections between what was a very active, and frankly, very successful trump social media campaign and whether there was any intersection with some of these russian efforts. >> and finally, a complete curveball because you were a leading businessman, you were governor. you know about this stuff. the president ciming -- a we're going to be talkingbout the tax proposals -- claiming they are helping middle class people, that it's aimed at the lower class, the middle class, it's not helping the rich, people like him. that broad claim by the republican leaders -- >> first of all, i agree we need tax reform. we've got a way too complicated system, yet out of the 34 industrial nations, our total

overall revenue generated, we fall 31st out of 34. so we don't collect enough revenue but we have a very complicated system. unfortunately, what the president has laid out is a plan that would very much disproportionately benefit those at the top and not give the right, i believe, incentives for businesses and others, for example, to do additional training for low and moderate income people. i also believe we have accumulated as a nation $20 trillion in debt. both parties have been guilty in accumulating that debt. and if we add trillions in additional debt based on this tax cut plan, that is going to suppress economic growth, because just the interest on that debt will squeeze out other governmental investments. >> senator mark warner, thank you so much. you perfectly teed up our conversation. now joining me, maya mcguinness, president of the policy budget and lonnie chen, fellow at the

hoover institution. let me go first to you, maya. the essential claims that the wealthy don't benefit from the plan when the estate tax repeal is on the table that trump won't personally benefit from the plan. we acknowledge we think he's rich, but we don't have his tax returns, who knows. and that every person's tax will decrease. >> we don't have enough information to know the facts. there is a lot of thiinhe tax pl that would help to grow the economy and increase competitiveness. we don't have enough of the details yet that would really show the distributional impact, but i will say it's hard to imagine that the bulk of the gains will go to the middle class when so much of this effort is to get rid of things like the estate tax. and there is a big debate on how much of the corporate tax improvements, which i would say we do need, but how much that far will be transferred to the different interest grums.

and the final answer, the multi-million-dollar question, this program is not close to paid for. we've been promised over and over again. tax reform will make the numbers better, not worse, but they have a 2 trillion-plus hole in them and the question is how do we fill in death tails and actuthey pay for this, because if you want to grow the economy, you can't also grow the debt. >> he got taxed sealed and signs by june, six months into his presidency, so you knew how to work the congressional piece of this and get support for it. in the end was that a mistake, though, because it did, some would say, blow a hole in the deficit. >> i think you have to ask yourself what a tax reform or tax cut would be. big difference between tax reform, which is what this effort is trying to be, and tax cut, which is what the bush effort ended up being.

the problem with this, andrea, is they just went through a bruising bust on health care repeal. can they go to the wheelhouse and talk about what the next several months will look like? when you talk about specific deductions, specific exemptions, specific groups, it gets defensive. everybody is defending their turf. they like certain deductions, and are they going to be okay part ingwi parting with those? >> they're trying to ram this through. what about, as lonnie was just suggesting, some of these deductions? state and local taxes. that deduction is critically important to a lot of blue states, california, connecticut, new york. >> and they love every tax break in the tax code. but if you want to make this tax

reform, which really does have to be the goal, because we need to grow the economy. we're struggling with growth that's not as high as we'd like because we're a population that's aging. if you want to grow the economy, you have to get rid of some of these tax breaks. keep in mind there are 1$1.2 trillion of tax loss every year because of deductions. people love them, but if we want to figure out how to bring the rates down, we will be able to grow the economy. the hard part is this has been sold aseasy. oh, we're going to give you low rates and here's the things we promise not to touch. until we have world leaders who talk about how we're going to pay for this, we risk being incredibly fiscally irresponsible. if it does add to the debt we already have, that's a slow growth at a time we need to increase growth, and hopefully the political leaders are going to insist on figuring out ways to make this real reform. >> this morning on "morning joe," kevin brady heading the

tax writing committee made the promise that this is going to give everybody a decrease in taxes. in fact, the facts seem to indicate otherwise. let me play that. >> they found that for individuals as a whole, there was actually a tax increase based on what we know so far of about 300 million, $300 billion over the next ten years. >> they're wrong. >> excuse me? >> they're wrong. they're not really looking at both the brackets which have yet to be filled in, haven't figured in the doubling of the standard deduction. no objective announcements of this does anything but recognize lower taxes for every income level. >> so does he have a point, we don't know what the details are? >> that's the challenge. we know what the rates are, we know where they want to do it, standard deduction, what they want to do with the personal deduction, but until we start filling in those blanks, it's going to be very difficult.

there is an instance for margin marginal rates. what happens when you change those marge althouinal tax rate people pay, you'll be stuck where so that everyone does pay less and that gets complicated. and if you have a revenue loss, how are they going to make that up? >> i don't want to get into a fight over dynamic scoring. but is there a goal of getting this economy moving again that justifies it being not revenue neutral? >> to the point we were talking about there are two goals of this tax bill, which is to grow the economy. but if you want to lower burdens for middle class families, that's a different goal. there certainly is an argument which i believe we'll be able to grow the economy. the problem is we'll fill in this gap of 2 trillion or maybe

1.5 trillion of growth. dynamic gains are likely to be able to generate if we do smart tax reform, 300 billion, 400 billion. the president said they were going to originally use that to bring down the debt. i think that's the preferably policy. if you want to count dynamic games, as long as you score thn be made for them but trillions of credi in dynamic games i don't think are preferably. >> we'll have to leave it there. thank you too much. >> we got it through it without being too nerdy.

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. as more details are uncovered about russia' co certificate social media opation to influence the 2016 election, i was asking that question of mark warner who is constrained by the vows of secrecy from the intelligence committee. can you speck slaulate from wha know whether this could have been done without u.s. help? >> it's impossible to know. what we do know is there is a

very expensive campaign to be present on social media, to warp and distort the debates during the campaigns and penetrate the data and lelecto l electorals of our states. it was effective. we've got to have a national commission. the president should have ordered this nine months ago to look into all aspect of this. it should be bipartisan because nothing is more important to us than the credibility and sanctity of our elections. whether or not the russians had help in the united states, that's for the fbi and of course the special counsel to determine. >> what is so striking is that in the president's speech to the united nations and other comments that he's made, comments that secretary tillerson made, there is sharp

criticism, probably justd, against iran for its meddling in syria, its sport for the assad regime, its arming offighters yemen and syria and iraq. and again, the president is still never criticizing russia. >> i still find it shocking. i worked for about democratic and republicans and i can say any of our post world war ii presidents in the information age of the last 25 years would have ordered an immediate investigation, would have worked on a bipartisan basis and put every resource we have to determined what happened and how do we prevent it from happening again and it wouldn't have been politicized under president obama or president reagan or president nixon. you would have had a major effort to do this and you don't

have it in the case of president trump. it's mystifying. i testified before senator werner's committee earlier in the summer. i said if the president is unle -- unwilling to exercise to defend the united states against our strongest adversary, congress must. you saw the 92-0 vote to enact sanctions. if the president won't act, both parties need to act. >> we just got an answer from the president. monica alba was invited to attend the 70th anniversary of the national -- this is monica asking the president about steve

scalise's return to the house. >> he's a great man, a special friend, so excited. what happened to him, we are so happy. >> tom price says he has your confidence. is that true, mr. president? >> nick burns, we've been around washington a long time. tom price, the h.h.s. secretary said today he has the confidence of the president despite those charter flights. you saw the president's reaction. and now you see him talking to newt gingrich and others. when monica asked him "do you still have confidence in tom price?" and he turned and walked off.

>> it speaks volumes, the president had an opportunity to say something positive and he didn't. it's great to see congressman scalise back after what happened to him. i think everyone welcomes him back to the white house. >> that's all for . chris jansing takes over. >> good afrnoon. i'm chris jansing in for craig melvin. two top stories to lead off with, the latest on the humanitarian crisis in puerto rico, which is affecting millions of americans. democrats are asking for more action after the president lifted a restriction on nonamerican ships delivering aid. those affected say the aid is still not getting to those who quickly need it. and