and rally up his base. >> sorry we didn't have more time. thank you for joining us. that's it for this hour. thanks for watching my show. "deadline white house" with nicolle wallace starts right now. hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. it's 11:00 p.m. in moscow where we're learning they spend a lot more time tweeting with the intent of sharpening the divide in american politics than we knew. twitter was on capitol hill today briefing the house and senate intel committees looking into russian interference in the presidential campaign. this news adds to the disturbing picture taking shape of u.s. technology, social media companies specifically, being easily and efficiently hijacked by russian agents to influence u.s. elections. facebook announced last week that it would hand over to congress 3,000 political ads linked to russian actors that it

sold and ran during the campaign. and "the new york times" is reporting today in a front page article that, quote there is evidence that twitter may have been used even more extensively than facebook in the russian influence campaign. all this while the president seemingly unaware of the now public information about russia's use of social media in this country to influence the political landscape largely in his favor tweeted this. facebook was always anti-trump. the networks were always anti-trump, hence, fake news. "the new york times" apologized and "the washington post" were anti-trump. collusion? question mark, end tweet. to decode it all, we have a truly all-star panel. nbc news foreign correspondent keir simmons, former rnc chairman michael steele, "washington post" political reporter philip bump and former chief of staff at both the department of defense and the cia jeremy bash. now an msnbc national security analyst. philip bump, let me start with you because you've gone deep

into donald trump's sort of supply chain of information, if you will. and i think it's safe to say that he is part of -- he is on the receiving end and the supplying end of the kind of information that was likely circulated and in some instances originated in russia. >> donald trump is sort of -- if you think of the prototypical concern who is a consumer of fake news, that's donald trump. donald trump was born of this media environment of falsehoods and insinuations that fed off the polarized moment we're experiencing. donald trump read breitbart. he sat down for an interview with infowars. that's donald trump. what the russians did here essentially if they had dropped 1,000 russian people into america to try and stir things up, we would have noticed. they basically did this virtually. but all they were doing essentially was taking advantage of the fact that americans were ripe for this sort of

disinformation because, from a polarized lens, that's what they wanted to see. >> and jeremy bash, i positted this low-tech example to try to understand the position that the social media companies have largely taken. if someone were mugged on my property, i wouldn't call the police and say, well, i just bought the lot on which the house was bought, not my problem. and their posture, they've hired lots of consultants and are doing lots of work to try to tell their story. their posture has been, we just own the pipes. it's not our fault everything that happens on the platform. that seems unsustainable in the climate where you have congressional committees investigating russian meddling and bob mueller honing in on the extent and depth of russian interference. >> i don't think these social media companies were looking for nefarious russian content. >> neerths was i, but it could have happened on my property. >> in your hypothetical, it's visible. you can see it in plain sight. unless you're looking for it,

you won't see it. i think the point is that twitter is a very alluring platform, though, because it is in essence people standing on the street corner with a megaphone saying listen to me. hear me out. and it's easy. you can create a twitter handle in about two moments. it is really a ripe platform for individuals to come in and participate under fake pretenses in our political system. but i think one thing is important is that it wasn't all just go trump. it was very subtle. this is going to require a lot of sophistication by our government and by our candidates to realize some of this stuff was meant to divide, meant to provoke divisive, racially divisive themes to weaken us. that is right out of the russian playbook. >> it's ongoing. some of these accounts are he helping to sow discord. they got involved in the debate that gripped this country starting last weekend with the president taking sides in the debate that has challenged the

nfl about whether or not players had the right or within their rights to kneel during the national anthem. so why can't we stop it? it's not just looking back. it's how are the russians still better than, frankly, democrats or republicans, at using social media to mobilize their goals? >> it's such a good question. one thing i would say, when you say the russians it makes it sound like it's a monolithic organization. it's not necessarily like that. the lines are blurred in russia between the government and individuals and individuals you think they are helping the russian government, not necessarily with the say-so of the russian government. >> has putin called some of them patriots? >> olook, he really has. >> he's not trying to stop them. >> let's be clear. president putin believes that hillary clinton intervened in his election so he'll take the view, at least privately and pretty openly that intervening in the u.s. elections is legitimate. let's be honest. this isn't the first time one country has intervened in

another country's elections. this has been happening for a long time. but social media has nuclearized the whole thing. it's extraordinary. somebody, a teenager with a laptop can sit, you know, hours and hours away from here and can intervene in the u.s. elections. a group together and be very, very damaging. what you do about it, that's the million-dollar question. and we are focused on russia, but we ought really to be much more broadly thinking about the fact that any country could do this and that we haven't even begun to think about how you deal with the issue of freedom of speech for these social media platforms versus the problem that the internet creates in terms of having a fair and democrat democratic election. >> why are leaders like angela merkel better at rooting out the russian interactions. >> we don't know they are. >> she turned over tens of thousands of fake accounts.

we've got 3,000. >> well, we know that the u.s. fell asleep at the wheel on this. that's the truth of it and we can get into why that is. but in terms of whether it affected her election, for example, you know, she was in a very solid position. okay. you know, she hasn't been elected with quite the mandate she has in the past, and that's where it gets really tricky. how do you determine the power of influence? it's not a science. and that's why we have a real challenge going forward. >> michael steele, i hear in donald trump's weird -- and i've asked facebook about this. i said do you feel weird that he's defending you in the same sort of inexplicable way that he defends russia. has he lumped in his mind together russia and what russia does on facebook in his mind? that tweet was weird but it wasn't squarely --

>> it wasn't weird. >> why did he condemn -- why does he think that he can't condemn anything russia does on social media? >> i can't get into that because -- >> what's your theory? you're a mind reader. >> yeah, right. there's clearly a personal link and we can put in parentheses, political, economic, whatever that interest may be, that link may be to putin personally. the russians generally that keeps him from actually going there like the rest of the country and the rest of the world looking at the behavior of the russians. but i think when you're looking at facebook and the russians, he sees this as one big kabal against him. the whole fake news concept is something that's about him. it's not fake news if there's something out there about you or something out there about keir. it's fake news because it's about him. that's his universe, his orbit. and so, yeah, facebook right now

is going to be another piece of that chess board he can move around rhetorically and maybe politically to make the point and to reinforce at least with his base -- >> who largely -- i went out and interviewed more than three dozen trump voters and, without being asked, you over and over again said they got all their news from facebook. his base turns to facebook for news about politics. >> this is the universe that donald trump knows about because donald trump helped create it. >> just to philip's original point. donald trump started with the burther narrative. that's the original fake news story. to just answer your question to michael y did trump defend this? because it benefited him? >> let me ask you about something that may not benefit him. twitter is on capitol hill in front of the house and senate intel committee staff. you used to be a part of that. how does twitter fit into the investigation into russian meddling and we've turned these

conversations into two categories. this i would guess is squarely the whether or not there were contacts or coordination or collusion between russians and the trump organization. >> the two companies we haven't heard a lot from are twitter and google. youtube is also a major social media site where people can post original content. i bet if you peel back google and youtube, you'll see a lot of russian activity. youtube videos are very popular. some of the most shareable content out there. twitter is a very vulnerable platform. vulnerable to russians, to many other nefarious actors. obviously, terrorists and isis have been using twitter. fake twitter handles can be created very quickly. this is a very easy way to get information into the american bloodstream. >> terrorism is an interesting one. after a terrorist attack, social media companies take down the suspected terrorists' account afterward. there is never any real obvious effort on the front end.

and i wonder if they are going through a culture change or the scrutiny of journalists like yourself, this intersection of politics and media, if you think that will change anything for them. >> we've seen just if you look at what mark zucker berg has done since election day. he sort of poo-pooed the idea that facebook could have had an influence. to use your analogy, the mugging, though, it's not as if they have a backyard. they have 3 billion backyards. and some of the backyards if you look at them and play close attention you can see there's going to be muggings there but that's a lot of backyards. >> it's not me in my backyard in my slippers. there are technologies that will screen these. i want to ask you one more thing about the investigation. one of the overlaps between the trump campaign and the potential investigation is the work of -- is it cambridge analytics?

can you talk about the questions that have been raised about whether or not the work that was, i believe, largely overseen and something that jared kushner was proud of in coordination with came bribridge analytics. there's a question about whether cambridge analytics was coordinating or targeting some of the facebook ads. >> it's hard to do this so i'll take my time. the russians apparently did, to some extent, target places where they could influence the vote most effectively. for example, swing states. communities within swing states. that's something political campaigns do as well. we know, too, bloomberg reported shortly before election day the trump campaign was specifically doing what's called suppressive work on facebook. essential lie, they were trying to show anti-clinton ads to black voters in particular to get them to not come out and vote. so by doing that targeting on the campaign side and seeing these signs that maybe the russians were also doing targeting, the question is, was

there information being shared? was the campaign saying, for example, these are the places we really need help in trying to suppress the vote or turn out the vote? did the russians take that information and act on it? i have not seen evidence this has happened. i'm not privy to -- >> and i didn't suggest that, but this is a question. and i think "vanity fair" reported on it. would this be a typical tactic of the russians? >> absolutely. yeah, of course. russians want to to use anything they can find. we're talking about a country economically and militarily far, far lower, less than the u.s. but what cyber does for russia, and it's not just on facebook and twitter and those places. it's also cyberhacking. what it does, it enables them to change their power position in relation to the u.s. levels the playing field. so i think, you know, are they prepared to do it? yes. are they going to keep doing it? yes. and other countries will be looking and saying, we'll be doing that, too.

this is the nature of espionage. the problem -- the question really is, it's not just about what's happened but about how you deal with it going forward. it isn't an easy answer. >> do you think that the russians see in donald trump someone who isn't interested in doing something about it moving forward? >> i think -- i believe in the kremlin. i'm pretty confident in the kremlin. they still view president trump as on their side. whether right -- >> why wouldn't they? so do i? >> well, they -- they uls believe that -- >> we only have his body of public statements and if that's -- >> we dont know what has been said in some closed door meetings between the president of the united states and the president of russia. that's definitely what the russians think right now. you know, they believe that around president trump are a large group of people who are opposed to russia. >> that's probably true. mike mattis and -- >> so the question is, at what

point does president putin change his mind on that, or does he continue to have faith in that strategic view of the politics in washington? >> and it's hard to change your mind when you've got trump with a foreign minister lavrov talking about jim comey being nuts and the firing of him. so again, judgments made just on his public comments. keir, thank you for stopping by. when we come back, the crisis widens in puerto rico where critical supplies and provisions are stuck in shipping containers while citizens boil over with frustration about the inability to distribute that aid across the island. also ahead -- donald trump's crony cabinet. the president who promised the very best people. now it's a cabinet full of rich guys who like to fly private on the taxpayer's tab. gop meet roy moore and his teeny pistol. you'll get asked about him over and over and over. get used to it, michael steele. you're laughing. we'll be right back. the morning walk was so peaceful.

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more than 9,000 shipping containers have arequired at the ports of puerto rico. yet that's where they remain. supply chain problems ranging from damaged roads to not enough fuel for trucks have prevented supplies from reaching those most in need. nbc news's gadi schwartz visited the town a little less than an hour from the island's capital to see the conditions firsthand. >> reporter: this whole area has been cut off from the rest of the island. there's a critical road down here that was washed away by mud

slides and debris that came down the mountain during the hurricane. but this is what people are now trying to escape. this type of living situation with no power, no food. no water. no access to gasoline. there's going to be a mass exodus from places like this down to san juan, puerto rico, or possibly to the united states. >> let's go to msnbc's mariana atencia where many today are trying to leave the island. >> exactly what we're seeing here. thousands of people trying to get on this royal caribbean ship behind me. these are the last folks in line. and i might add that i'm in a gated area with security guards. people lined up all day to get aboard this cruise ship with their families, with their pets, elderly parents. the last stop on this trip will be tuesday. it's going to ft. lauderdale, florida. we were also at the airport in the morning. we also saw desperate people, hundreds of them trying to board

any flight they can trying to get off the island and away from that nightmare scenario with the no fuel, no water, no cell service and very little food. so it is what we're seeing. you're seeing it here behind me. it's not easy to get off the island at the moment. this is san juan. the cities in the southernmost part of the island and those people haven't even begun to flock here to san juan to try to leave the island. >> mariana, do you have any explanation from federal officials or local officials about why they can't craft a solution for getting some of those provisions, i'm guessing in some instances, those are going to be life-saving supplies of clean water and food and perhaps medicine. why can't they get more resources, helicopters or whatever it is that they need to start to move those supplies around the island?

>> so, nicolle, i've spoken to three different sort of departments if you will, to try to solve this puzzle. number one, the folks from the company that controls 40% of the ports here. they tell us that the biggest bottleneck is the drivers. the drivers that aren't reporting to work that aren't getting these supplies off these ports and onto the most devastated areas. i've spoken to the communications person for the ports. he told me it was access to fuel. that was their biggest sort of worry creating this bottleneck. on top of that, i spoke to the director of econo, one of the biggest supermarkets here who tells me the food isn't getting to his shelves because there's fear these fuel trucks will get looted so then there was an additional concern because of security and telecommunications. 91% of the island does not have any cell service. so going back to what i think is the crux of the issue, these

drivers that need to get these supplies onto those devastated areas. they can't even reach them at many points and the island's infrastructure completely devastated. what it took our gadi schwartz to get to, which is more inwards and not on the coast, it will take you around six hours, if you can get there. so it's almost the perfect storm after the storm that has created this growing desperation in puerto rico. and what is the most frustrating it is the fact the supplies are here but according to the folks at crowley, the folks at the port, they are not able to deliver those life-saving supplies. >> your body of reporting there in mexico city and hurricanes irma, probably too extraordinary for you to even catch your breath and look at but we're very grateful you're there now and grateful that you spent some time with us. >> jeremy bash, you were chief of staff at the pentagon.

one of the organizations that could figure ot a strategy because they land in the middle of deserts and set up bases where they have to install coms and towers and bathrooms would be the military. we've got some brand-new nbc news reporting that -- from kep d'alenian that says u.s. officials acknowledge the trump administration was too slow to involve the military in puerto rico response. >> nobody can do logistics like the united states department of defense. i was in the pentagon during superstorm sandy. it was the military, dod, that really led the effort to get relief to new york. what your reporter just laid out is really a hauntingly familiar scenario which is the people can't get to work because they don't have fuel in their cars because the gas stations are closed because there's no power and everything compounds on itself. what we need to do is land a massive logistics force on the island and do the land distribution that the white house talked about from the podium today. i don't know whether or not the military was engaged.

i don't know that we have those facts. the president was distracted. he was tweeting about the nfl. he was not apparently focused on getting relief to the island as the storm was hitting. >> he could have, based on "new york times" reporting today, left it to the russians to sow all that division about the nfl. they were working on that. and he could have been focused on his cabinet laying out a worst case scenario pattern. he was quick to compare himself favorably to the government response to katrina and he was right to do so, but this is now a slow motion catastrophe where there are lives very much at risk. >> that's very much true. we'll see what the scale of this is but it's a lot more people than were affected in new orleans in 2005. our dan lamont with "the post" has said there were two navy vessels near puerto rico at the time of the storm. they were already there helping the virgin islands. they swept in and were able to be there. but that was it. and donald trump and his team have said, well, it's an island.

you can't send trucks. >> let's get that right. it's an island in the middle of a very big ocean. >> which is true. >> you can't send trucks there. but you can send cargo ships and tankers. they could have sent those the day the storm hit and they would have been there nearby. we knew the storm was coming. we knew it was going to be big. irma had just brushed past puerto rico and this one was coming. we can say with pretty much certainty here this was preventable in the sense they could have had resources there beyond just the two ships in port. >> and we knew this was going to be -- this storm came down on the island exactly as it was forecast. this was the biggest storm to hit puerto rico in 90 years. with all that we knew was going to happen, we predicted they'd be without power. what's the possible excuse for not involving the military in puerto rico response? >> i think that's going to be a

question worth exploring down a little on because my sense is that there were two different perspectives on this. one was, well, we can't do anything until we get the word from the white house to do something. and the white house, as was already mentioned, was preoccupied on other things. and then caught up and said why haven't you done this? and i think it's a lack of understanding given the preparation that we already knew should have been in place that no one really appreciated, we really do have to get these things set up and ready to go. like anything you don't just snap your finger and it happens. >> we'll stay on this. philip bump, thanks for spending some time with us. when we come back, donald trump's hedging his bets on tax reform. after laying out his plan yesterday, reports have already surfaced that he's hazy on the details and not married to the plan largely cooked up by congress and his own economic advisers. any of this sound familiar? think again.

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all right. stop me if you've heard this one before. the president says he's for a policy and then invites congress down and invites the press to say just how into the policy he is. then tweets against the policy. then for the policy then gets everything back on track and delivers the teleprompter speech and tries to stick to the script. that was the health care nightmare. tax reform is off to a bumpy start. so bumpy that bob corker says it will make health care look like a piece of cake. and jonathan swan of axios joins us. exclusive reporting on what axios is calling gop's nightmare scenario. also stuart stevens, the chief strategist for the romney campaign and a best selling author to boot. and bill crystal, founder and editor of the weekly standard. jonathan, let's start with your reporting on tax reform. what do you know? >> well, when donald trump,

there was some very tense moments on monday. so think about this. the speech was scheduled for wednesday in indiana to present the big sixes tax document and word was spreading to the hill that donald trump was not exactly thrilled with this document that had been worked on behind closed doors between republican leadership and two officials, gary cohn and steve mnuchin from his own administration. specifically, he didn't know why they settled on the corporate rate of 20%. he wanted to come out with 15% and so the art of the deal negotiating you always start with the most extreme position. where are we starting where we're going to end up with, the 20%. and he saw the political risks of reducing the top income rate which he didn't want to do and raising the lowest income bracket from 10% to 12% at -- yes, that's canceled out by doubling the standard deduction

largely, but trump was more concerned about the opts ioptic this and was very, very tense sort of six to eight hours and eventually by the end of the day, people were nervously of the view that, yes, the big guy is going to go through and give this speech. but it really was not a smooth operation. >> and you report that tax reform is now an extensial issue for house speaker ryan and mcconnell. if they botch this as they did health care, both chambers could lose their republican majorities. is the president aware of the stakes, or is he simply looking for a win for himself? >> well, the president will never -- it is life and death. i don't think any republican on the hill would dispute this is life and death for mitch mcconnell and paul ryan. if they go into the election at the end of next year as one republican lawmaker put it with me with the only two accomplishments being a bailout for insurance companies which is some fixes to obamacare and a

massive amnesty plan which is, their words for a daca kind of immigration, gang of eight style bill, no tax reform, no health care, they could easily lose the house and senate. trump is never going to pay the bill or take personal responsibility. he'll always blame paul ryan and mitch mcconnell. so i think that, yeah, sure, donald trump wants to get this done. he wants a big, historic win but they'll have to pay the bill for this one way or another because trump will just say it's all their fault and probably 30% of republican voters will believe him. >> stuart stevens, weigh in on which of these three you think reports the biggest threat to getting something done. one, donald trump's ambivalence on the specifics of policy, two, donald trump's lack of understanding of the specifics on policy, or three, donald trump's disdain and distrust for paul ryan and mitch mcconnell? >> well, that seems to be

increasing, that disdain. i do think that there's an inherent advantage that the president has in this discussion that he didn't have in health care. he knows more about taxes because he's dealt with taxes as a business person than he does about health care. health care is incredibly complex. most people don't understand it. so i think, if he chose to be, could be more persuasive with members of congress on this subject because he's more knowledgeable. >> do you think that's his desire? do you think he really -- we've got tons of reporting from members who go down to the white house to talk to the president about the health care bills and they came away with the impression, as you said it is complicated, but he is the president. do you really think that if they walked him through the specifics that it's going to be a specific policy hangup he's going to have or do you think it's just the fact he can't press a button and get congress to do what he wants them to do?

>> i think this is a very deeply emotional issue for a lot of people in congress and i think the president needs a win. i would guess they will get some kind of tax cuts passed. i think there are a lot of political problems with this bill and just taking -- forgetting any merits. taking corporate from 30% to 20% when you're raising the bottom, that's something people are going to pause on. and i think the orange home deduction is going to be a key issue in this debate. >> bill crystal, can you weigh in on sort of the optics? there's a lot of rumbling on social media this is a whole bunch of rich guys crafting a tax reform bill that would benefit all of the rich guys' bank accounts. >> i think donald trump is right. this is not a sentence i've said many times in the last year or two years. in worrying what he was presented this wonderful compromise between paul ryan whom i like and admire but i wouldn't say has great political judgment. mitch mcconnell who -- >> you don't think paul ryan has

good political judgment? he was the vice presidential m nominee of our party. >> he believes strongly in certain economic doctrines which he thinks will generate growth and good things for lots of people. the real world politics of this, capital has done well, labor hasn't done well. they've devised a tax bill that's good for capital. we're raising the bottom rain from 10% to 12%. how much revenue are they getting? they aren't dumping the standard deduction. an awful lot of middle income families can lose money under this bill. it's a capital friendly bill. let's get rid of the entire estate tax? really. you can't just take the exemption up to $20 million but still have some tax for people with estates of $100 million, a billion? there's some things in the bill -- >> it's hard to sell that as a tax break for the middle class. >> i think trump's instinct that he should have -- in my opinion,

for policy reasons and optic political reasons with a more populist bill. >> you think he'll start tweeting attacks against -- >> i don't think it's a mistake to say this is a draft. congress writes tax policy. white houses submit bills. >> we have normalized the president talking about policy. all right. all right. >> because i don't think he'll be able to manage -- serious people helping him work with negotiating to do a bill. obama had rahm emmanuel and serious people working on their bill. i would say -- i think gary cohn and mnuchin are as tone deaf on this as trump is not very knowledgeable on this and i don't see how that combination gets a tax bill through. i'm not confident they'll get anything much out of this. they may have to dial it back and say let's take some simple things everyone can agree on. that would nobt a bad outcome. >> simple is good. we have to sneak in a very quick break. when we come back, breaking news about one of donald trump's cabinet members who has been

under fire for his penchant for private air travels.

i think so, yeah. we're going to work through this, and as i think we've still got the confidence of the president if we continue to work on important issues like flu vaccination. >> i am going to see. i'm looking into that very closely. i am not happy with it. >> would you fire him, sir? >> doesn't sound like something that a flu shot is going to fix. tom price on very different pages about his job security. in light of the reports that price has spent $400,000 in taxpayer money jet-setting across the country on at least 24 private flights. the president is, quote, fuming

and considering firing him straightaway. the secretary's office insists that everything was above board. but just in the last few minutes, tom price has apologized and says he plans on cutting a personal check to pay for those flights saying, quote, the taxpayers won't pay a dime for my seat on the plane. the panel is back. michael steele, i'm just blown away by, i guess, one, how low the bar is. when richard painter was george w. bush's ethics reporter, they couldn't have bought me a coke without -- >> a lot of paperwork. >> i bought my own cokes. the idea this is where the bar is and i think he's writing a personal check because he got caught and because it garnered bad press for the president not because any moral or ethical questions were asked by anybody. >> or whether or not there's sufficient checks and balances within the system. for this administration. you know, you can look back at

the bush administration and the obama administrations and you can see where those bright lines are. we don't know where they are here. start with the white house itself. they are very blurred in terms of the crossover of what is your professional responsibilities are and what your personal responsibilities are. and, clearly, the secretary thought that it it was okay to do this and there was no one down stream to go, wait, hold up. red flag. it gets leaked out, to the press and there's egg on the face. the president is like, oh, i'm upset or mad about it. what policies are you putting in place to make sure this doesn't happen? that's the key thing next to see what happens. >> stuart, we worked for a guy who got criticized for a lot of things but sort of the personal ethics of the people that work for the government on his watch were not one of them. can you just talk about the slippage if you will, in terms of what flies in the trump administration? >> the whole thing is very disturbing. it's disturbing to see a

president out there publicly scolding a cabinet member instead of deal with it. i remember in 2004 when then secretary of hud, mel martinez, ran for the senate. he got some flack because after a back operation, and the guy is like 6'5", he took first class on a couple of trips. >> that's right. that used to be a scandal. now it's 24 ned jet flights. >> that was where the line was that a guy who is 6'5" and had a back operation wasn't expected to take first class. now we're into these private planes. it's sort of an overall -- these things command and control. these things you should just know these things. i don't know how staff would allow this to happen. >> let me ask jeremy -- >> that's a good point. you were chief of staff at two giant bureaucracies. the pentagon, the cia. can you weigh in on just the lack of -- i think you're both speaking to the lack of controls

of the system. >> it's hard to say no to the boss. but that's what staff go sd. and that's when they have to stand up and say, mr. secretary, if you want me to serve you well, you got to listen. we're not doing it the right way and you have to get the general counsel and the other professionals in the office to weigh in. now in this case, i don't think this was close to the line. no reason on god's green earth why an hhs secretary should have to fly on a private jet. he's not in the chain of command. doesn't have to have secure communications with the white house. no rationale. this is a secretary who during his confirmation was questioned about his own personal stock trades on drug companies that were before him in congress. >> let me get to jonathan really quick. do you have any reporting about the president's state of mind at this hour with the apology now sort of in the news cycle? the president doesn't like bad press and he's getting a lot of it for his crony cabinet. >> i don't have his hourly mood update, but i do know that --

>> don't sell yourself short. by the time you get off, i will make this prediction. axios will have a report by 6:00 about the president's state of mind about price. >> what i can tell you is from people who have observed the two of them interacting over the last eight, nine months, the president has not ever really gelled with him. there was a meeting in the roosevelt room early in the administration on health care. republican leadership in the house and senate. reince priebus, tom price. the president asked two questions about health care. is this the best deal we can get, and will it pass? reince priebus emphatically said yes. tom price backed him up. so did the leadership. they all lost a lot of credibility in donald trump's mind over that. he's the guy in donald trump's mind that should have got health care done. he failed. he's the health care guy and now he's getting him bad press. the two come together. i don't think it's very complicated and they don't have a personal rapport. all those things combined, donald trump is appreciating torturing him. >> my free advice to donald

trump. fire price tomorrowing, a, and, b, say he's overrules his wealthy advisers n he's going to have a payroll tax for every american. i'm serious, what if he did those two things tomorrow. >> i think it would be huge. >> donald trump, you got some advice from bill crystal. up next, congressional republicans are getting to know the man from alabama who may soon be their senate colleague, roy moore. and an incredible scene on capitol hill this morning as house majority whip steve scalise returned to the house floor for the first time since he was shot during a congressional baseball practice back in june. >> you have no idea how great this feels to be back here at work in the people's house. the thing that really overwhelmed us from the start was the outpouring of love and warmth and prayers.

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do you think that roy moore should be in the senate? >> i said, i supported his opponent. that's -- >> [ inaudible ]. >> i mean, it's not -- it's not for me to say that he can't serve, but i can stand and say, i don't agree with these positions. i don't think that that's right. and i think that when we

disagree with something so fundamental like that we ought to stand up and say, that's not right. that's not our party. that is not us. >> that was republican senator jeff flake criticizing republican senate candidate roy moore for his support of the conspiracy theory that former president barack obama wasn't born in the united states. among others too offensive to play on tv. today on capitol hill, some republicans are claiming they've never heard of him, or the controversy that surrounded him for decades. the chances are moore will win the alabama general election in december and join the ranks as a colleague in the senate. i want to read a tweet from you, because -- i read all your tweets and retweet them all, but you tweeted a few hours ago, it's increasingly clear trump in rationalizing trump corrupts. conservative was ready and willing to be corrupted. i think tra describes the dynamic here, and what i think

put our party on a path to extinction. >> jeff flake said quite fivingly thefiving -- movingly, that's not us. that's not our party. ed sat thing, to a large degree, 90% of the senators will support roy moore, not draw a sharp line and say he's beyond the pail and when others, they won't do much to stop them i'm afraid. began with trump, but i think the trump -- look, tramp rump r he wanted to change the republican party. what's depressing -- >> the reason we can't run -- we can't run any of roy moore's comments because when he talks about homosexuality he uses words outside the bounds even in the time of trump are civilized and acceptable public discourse even on cable news. talks 9/11 and newtown it advances conspiracy theories.

republicans can't say i urge you to vote for the democrat in this case? i watch too many sorkin mothers to hope someone in our party can say people of alabama, don't send this guy to the senate? >> i ran a race against roy moore when he was running against governor riley. working 0en that campaign, and governor riley beat him 2-1. i think roy moore was beatable. you had to really focus the argument on who would do the most for alabama instead of who was the most angry and the most like donald trump. i think senator flake as usual is dead on, on this. if republicans don't call him out, they accept it. those who -- are -- >> other than given him a lobotomy, how do you change him before he gets to washington, jonathan swan, and how does he sort of not contaminate -- the notion he's going to get to washington and sort of go along and get along on policy is ludicrous. why don't republicans pick this as a fight? >> well, they tried to. >> i'm sorry.

let jonathan weigh in and come back to you, stewart. >> how much do they spend? was it $30 million they tried to spend to defeat him? mitch mcconnell threw absolutely everything at this and what was telling is how much mitch mcconnell's name is now invoked as a boogeyman and very effectively. i saw this moment. it was, didn't get much play, but dr. sebastian gorka left the white house spoke at this rally for roy moore and said there's only one thing to need to know about luther strange. lowered his deep voice and said -- he's supported by mitch mcconnell. and everyone just went completely feral. it was completely feral and this is going to be a play book now for all of these races. they threw everything at this and they lost and lost really badly. >> let me see if i can get to something quickly. ten seconds to react. "new york times" reporting republicans are con kfronting a

insurrection, and loathing leaders in washington the same way it detested president obama. true? >> listen, i think that republicans have to go out and make the argument that what they're giving the people is better than what they're going to lose. we went through this with ed cochran versus chris mcdaniel in mississippi in 2014, a very tight race. for senator cochran we made a very traditional argument which is, he can do more for mississippi. take states like mississippi and alabama, they're states that get a lot more from the federal government than they give. that's not fashionable to say, but people tend to hate ensightsmenen entitlements in general but like it in specifics. make that argument particular will in those states this is a person that we need who can do more for my family and that fight if you fight t. jeremy, weird to ask a democrat. can you weigh in on the idea now the republican base hoets its own leaders in washington the way it detested president obama? the president you served under?

>> to your point and i'm the least qualified, i'm the non-republican at the table, the party is, in fact, going in the direction trump is leading them. what's that old quote? erudite bill crystal basically revolutions always eat their leaders and here we have a situation in which the leadership of the republican party is being gobbled up by revolution they started. >> and put you on the spot. how long does mitch mcconnell have his job? >> at least until the end of the year. >> how long does mitch mcconnell want his job? >> may want to give it up tomorrow. yeah. i think -- no. mcconnell's going to be fine. he will weather the storm because he knows how to weather the storm. >> why does he want to? why run a caucus with roy moore in it. >> things worth fighting for. >> what? >> things to get done as majority leader and work as hard as we can to get it done and has a lot more obstacles than he imagined he would have. i've known him a long time and

worked in tight quarters with him. he's going to be okay. he's going to work his magic the way -- >> it's not therapy. we're all going to be okay! >> bottom line. >> speak for yourself. speak for yourself, nicolle! >> and i've been in therapy for 18 months, the quick broader line to everything said, the principles that we adhere to the values that we supposedly purport, the things we said matter, stick a fork in it. when roy gets to the senate, the whole game changes. >> wow. gave me chills. do you think democrats take back the house? >> likely. latest poll up nine in the generic ballot. more wins a different problem. i think every republican senator and every challenge against this, comfortable with roy moore? in the first bush white house, supported edward edwards, bankrupt democrat for governor of louisiana because the runoff between him and david duke. he's not quite david duke, to be fair but not out of leaders of the party, i'm sorry, a bridge

too far. >> leave it there. he's not quite david duke from bill kristol. my thanks to you all. that does it for our hour. i'm nicolle wallace. "mtp daily" starts right now. hi, chuck. big news for your cavs, right? trade? you happy? >> my kaivs? >> cavs? >> bandwagon. does that fit on a bumper sticker? ask krystal that, will you? all right. thank you. it's the thursday, it's promise, promise on taxes. tonight, a taxing situation there will be no tax, absolute tax cut for the upper class. >> why the president's promises on tax cuts don't seem to add up with his actual plan. >> just seems like another big trickle down tax cut. >> plus, the white house says it's taking kash of puerto rico. >> wee getting a lot of supplies through. it's perhaps misreporting. >> not everyone agrees. >> 3.6 million of our