spending the weekend with republican congressional leaders, cabinet members and white house staff. now the purpose of the meeting, to decide what the gop's agenda will be in 2018 and where they could score more legislative wins this year. this taking place with the back drop of michael wolff's new book "fire and fury" in which he quotes white house aides questioning the president's intellect and mental stability. the president responding with angry tweets and when asked by a reporter why he need to address the characterization of his mental state. trump had this to say. >> only because i went to the best colleges or college. i went to a -- i had a situation where i was a very excellent student. >> let's go to white house correspondent jeff bennett now. jeff, the president took on all of the big topics today. >> hey, aaron. that is right and the president made some news. he still has confidence in his attorney general jeff sessions. the president said in his

records everything he did was, quote, 100% proper when asked about reports that he asked the white house counsel to persuade jeff sessions not to recuse himself from the ongoing russia investigation. president also said that he wants border wall funding in exchange for a protections for d.r.e.a.m.ers, the 700,000 or so young people brought to the country illegally. but the biggest topic that dominated the media gathering that frankly has dominated the latter half of this week is the fallout from the book "fire and fury." the white house and the president both joining forces to discredit the book's author and push back on the narratives that paint the president as being mentally, emotionally and intellectually unfit for the office. you heard the president say that because he went to a good college, a good university, made a lot of money in business and won the presidency, that is all the proof you need to show that he is fit for the job. the president giving voice to tweets sent earlier in the day. you oblige me. now that russian collusion after

one year of intense study has proven to be a total hoax on the american public, the fake news mainstream media are taking out the old ronald reagan playbook and screaming mental stability and intelligence. actually throughout my life my two greatest assets have been mental capability and being smart and hillary clinton went down in flames. i went from very successful businessman to top tv star to president of the united states. on my first try. i think that would qualify as not start, but genius. and a very stable genius at that. so that, aaron, is what had a proceeded this extraordinary moment of the president defending his own mental accruity and stability and his fitness tor office. >> jeff bennett at white house. thank you. now the president didn't shy away from his criticism of michael wolff and his book about the trump white house. in fact, he went a step further, slamming the author and claiming he didn't even know him.

>> i never interviewed with him in the white house at all. he was never in the oval office. we didn't have an interview. and i did a quick interview with him a long time ago, having to do with an article, but i don't know this man. >> let's bring in our panel to break down this story and some of the other highlights from the president's news conference today. aliza collins, gabby wrong ello from the washington examiner and and kevin from bloomberg news. kevin, what is your take on what the president said. what should we make of what he said. >> the suspension is over. the book is out and the bottom is that it sky rocketed to the top of the best-seller list but there are some factual errors to say the least in this book. most notably that michael wolff doesn't even get the commerce and labor secretary right in his own book. so that i think is pretty sloppy

in and of itself. now the problem for president trump and the administration is that this has led to something else which is that democrats are questioning his suitability for office. and should they choose to investigate that, that will be a real challenge for them. there is legislative in congress put forth by democrats right now, no republicans support, about house to remove someone from office due to sm-- someone mental stability and this is the type of attack that will continue from democrats for quite sometime. >> and i want to go back to that in a second. gabby, i want to ask you first about michael wolff disputing what the president said, claiming he said -- claiming that he spent about three hours with the president as he was working on had book. he said in an interview with the hollywood reporter about his interaction with the president, i'll quote it here, certainly he was very open with me, accessible with me. and then he started to talk. did he ever listen to me for one second? i never got that feeling. he just talks at you.

so that sort of brings up this question of credibility as we look at this back and forth. who do you find more credible here? the president or mr. wolff? >> well that is a tough question to answer. because i think there is issues on both sides. but if you go and look at this book, right in the pro long michael wolff states there were several, quote journalistic conundrums he faced during the process of writing this book. whether it was determining whether to take something that was said to him off the record and put it on the record, violating that sense of trust between him and his sources, or choosing whether to put something on the record that he wasn't sure was even supposed to be off the record in the first place. and as kevin mentioned, in addition to that, there is a number of just sloppy errors that -- whether they are spell, gam at cal or facture. michael wolff states in his book, steven miller, a top policy aide had no knowledge of policy and has been very limited

in his involvement in speech writing in the white house. which if you talk to anybody who has covered this -- >> anybody -- >> that is is totally inaccurate. so i think there is a level of credibility here that is being questioned. but also i think the president is doing himself a total disservice by continuing to talk about this book. >> and so let's go there. aliza, we go back to the claims about the president's mental fitness. he defended it in tweets and at that news conference today. what do you make of that? is he hurting himself by engaging in this or trying to help himself. >> i think every time president trump brings up the claims people will go to google and ask what is "fire and fury." they might buy the book. it is selling out of book sto-- stores and jumping on lists and people want to know what he's talking about. now his base, they believe him. and when he is saying that i'm really smart, they're agreeing and it is kind of a rallying cry. so that is probably who he's talking to. but do you think it is a

disservice to repeatle lid bring up something you don't want people to talk about. >> kevin, i want to switch topics. the president also spoke about that there are talks set to begin this week between north and south korea. listen to what he had to say to that. >> a lot of people have said -- a lot of people have written that without my rhetoric and without my tough stance and it is not just a stance, this is -- this is what has to be done. if it has to be done. that they won't be talking about olympics, that they wouldn't be talking right now. right now they're talking olympics. it is a start. it's a big start. if i weren't involved, they won't be talking about olympics right now. they would be doing no talking or much more serious. >> so kevin, the president giving himself a lot of credit here. is he right about that? >> well a couple of things. first and foremost secretary the state rex tillerson saying he will be with the administration for the entire year. now that of course comes as following at the end of last year tension between the twez --

tension and the sect of state and that appears to have dissipated. second point i would make is that the president using the united nations and nikki haley has been able to bring the chinese to the table in a sense to pressure north korea and this brazen 30-something dictator who has really got -- his brazen nuclear program over there, to really sanction them. we should know the relationship and close economic ties between north korea. 90% of the exports and imports, think about that, more than 90% of north korea exports an imfor thes come from china so they have to step up. and the president is right in the sense that last week for the first time in several years the north koreans and the south koreans utilized telephone communications in the middle ground zone along the border to test that communications and now they are talking less than about

a month until the winter olympics begin in south korea. >> aliza, one of the things we heard talked about in this little -- this news conference today was bipartisanship. we heard some talk about this going forward from both the president and senator mitch mcconnell. listen. >> we hope that 2018 will be a year of more bipartisan cooperation and the president's agenda much of which he just referred to are things we believe there will be a significant number of democrats interested in helping us accomplish. >> i think we're going to go bipartisan. i think we're going to have some great bipartisan bills. but we need more republicans so that we could really get the rest of the make america great again agenda passed. >> aliza, you spent your time on the hill. what is the reality here. >> the reality is they need bipartisanship. they are exactly right. because in the senate it takes 60 votes to mass legislation. there are 41 republicans and 49

democrats. so if even republican votes yes they still need nine more democrats. so they couldn't do a party only bill. and if they want to have anything to produce going into 2018, they need democrats to get on board. now democrats might not want to get on board and help republicans going into an election year. so we really will have to see what happens. president trump is saying they'll be bipartisanship on immigration but also demanding a wall. so -- and that is a nonstarter for democrats. so there are a lot of different things president trump wants, infrastructure but some of his own party thinks that is too costly. so there are a lot of things stopping bipartisan but if they want to get anything done in the soepts, they do need to be bipartisan. >> and do democrats have any incentive to try to work with republicans going forward? >> yeah. i think that they do. but i think the bigger issue here for republicans is that they need to be cautious heading into any bipartisan negotiations, whether it is on

immigration or infrastructure or even something like welfare reform which the white house has talked about doing this year. they want to make sure that going into the 2018 mid-term elections next fall that republicans can say that a lot of the red state democrats, people like joe mansion, people like claire mccaskill, if they were not able to come to an agreement and pass a bipartisan bill, we're not ever willing to eptser those types of negotiations with the whou-- wi house or republicans and not eager to cooperate with republicans. so it is a fine line that president trump needs to walk here. does he want to push forward a bipartisan piece of legislation and give democrats something they could use to run on heading into 2018, or does he want to continue pushing the narrative that democrats are obstructionists and not willing to work with him and don't want to negotiate with congressional republicans. >> we'll leave this conversation here. aliza collins, gabby mong ella and kevin, thank you.

>> thank you. tomorrow on nbc "meet the press" with chuck todd, an exclusive interview with michael wolff as he continues to share details from his book "fire and fury." for more on wolff's reporting and reaction from the white house, head to nbc.com/book. and the president insisting the russia investigation is dead while trying to turn the focus back to hillary clinton and the dnc. plus standing by jeff sessions, what the president had to say about the attorney general following a report that he was asked not to recuse himself from the investigation. i realize that ah, that $100k is not exactly a fortune.

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top republicans on the senate juddishary committee have asked the just is department to consider criminal charges against christopher steele. the former british intelligence officer behind the dossier on president trump's alleged russia connection. he was asked about the russia investigation during the press briefing at camp david. >> if robert mueller asks you to come and speak with his committee personally, are you committed still to doing that? >> just so you understand, just so you understand, there is no collusion. there has been no crime. and in theory, everybody tells me, i'm not under investigation. maybe hillary is. i don't know. but i'm not. but there's been no collusion. there's been no crime. but we have been very open. we could have done it two ways. we would have been closed and it would have taken years. but sort of like when you've

done nothing wrong, let's be open and get it over with. because honestly, it is very, very bad for our country. >> joining me now frank figurelussy and direct your for counter intelligence at the fbi and jeff yard at george mason university and adviser to bob corker. frank, i'll start with you. this phrase bad for our country came up today, do you think as we look at the mueller investigation, that that quote from the president bad for our country applies here? >> you know, what i think looks bad for our country is when the president continues to bash the institutions that we hold dear. the department of justice, the fbi, when he implies that the rule of law and the fact that a free and open democracy is allowed to investigate its leaders and he doesn't like that, i think that is what really begins to look bad for

our country. not that we're adhering to our laws and our way of government. >> jamil, there is a senior official told nbc that multiple staff pressured jeff sessions to recuse himself. we've talked about collusion and obstruction, is this evidence of cob instruction at th-- of on construction at this point. >> i don't think so. whether he recused him san francisco or not and so does the white house counsel and it looks like the white house counsel if you believe in the book, was simply talking to the attorney general for the possible reasons and times of his recusal, not whether he needs to recuse at the specific time. it is not clear that is a problem. what is a challenge here is the fact that you have these ongoing stories. the president is tweeting about it and talking about. it he is keeping it in the news and that just seems like a bad play. the idea here should be let robert mueller do his investigation and whatever comes

tv but keeping it in the news cycle isn't helpful to the president. >> and jamil, we heard the president talk about jeff sessions and voice his support for jeff sessions out loud. do you believe his job is safe? >> well, look, the president is concerned about this recusal issue since march and there was a lot of back and forth a while become. b -- jeff sessions is a serious guy. and rod rosen steen, this is a justice department full of serious people and they should do their job and move on. >> we heard from chuck grassley and lindsey graham saying that christopher steele should get the same treatment as michael flynn, george poppa lop dus, the same charges of lying to the fbi and that not charging steele would show partisan political interests. what do you make of their statement and whether charges might come forward like that. >> they need to flesh this out.

there has to be more substance. what would they assert that chris steele is guilty of and would merit investigation. the fbi is an intelligence agency and a law enforcement agency. it works with assets informants and sources and it sometimes pays those individuals for information. and sometimes those individuals provide information that is extremely helpful and on point. and sometimes they don't. they need to come out and say exactly why they think there is a reason for investigation of chris steele. otherwise they appear to be basically doing this for political reasons themselves. >> and jamil, we heard this week from paul manafort filing a lawsuit against mueller, against rod rosenstein, the justice department saying that the charges against him had nothing to do with russia meddling in the 2016 election. does his lawsuit have any merit, does it go anywhere? >> it is hard to know. it is going to come before a judge. it doesn't seem like it is very sensible play. typically you bring these issues

up in the actual case against him directly. to try and prevent the evidence being used against him or the like. but this is an interesting move by the manafort team. they are trying to move the story off of the actual investigation itself. and the big question is, is paul manafort going to try to cooperate and reduce the charges or what is going on. and that is the interesting question going forward. >> and what does michael flynn say during his cooperation? >> always the question about michael flynn. we appreciate your insight. thank you. next, will democrats have to give into the $18 billion border wall to save daca? i'll speak with a former d.r.e.a.m.er who is the fir to be elected to congress about what is at stake. i've seen wonders all around the world

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i'm aaron gilchrist at msnbc headquarters in new york. bitter cold is gripping the east coast, temperatures plunging below freezing today. in mt. washington, new hampshire, the windchill expected to reach 100 below zero. more than a dozen people have died this week due to severe weather. farther up north in canada, two jets collided at toronto peerson airport sparking a small

fire. dozens of people were evacuated. airline officials say everyone is safe. and basketball great julious dr. j. irving was rushed to the hospital. the 67-year-old nba legend became sick after being honored at the 76ers game and he is being evaluated and expected to be released. president trump just a short time ago said he wants to fix daca, the deferred action for childhood arrival program, but insists there is no fix without other policy changes. >> the wall. the wall is going to happen or we're not going to have daca. we want to get rid of chain migration, very important and get rid of the lottery system. we all want daca to happen but also want great security for our country. so important. >> now daca was an obama era measure that extended temporary status to so-called d.r.e.a.m.ers. thousands protested last month. if they work out a deal to

extend it, nearly 700,000 undocumented immigrants stand to lose their work permits. joining me now is delania epaiyat and the first undocumented immigrant to serve in the u.s. congress. we appreciate you being here. the president is not backing down from what he had to say about this promise of building a wall, asking for $18 billion to do that. democrats have said that is a nonstarter. is there room for negotiation here? >> it is sad that he's holding hostage the future of 800,000 people that are doctors and teachers and members of the armed forces and contributing to the well being of this nation. i think it is sad that he's doing this and wants to build a wall, a symbol of division and exclusion. by the way, it won't be that easy. the last time the wall was built, remnants of a wall, there were issues of imminent domain, a plan had to be -- land had to be purchased from multiple owners.

the so price tag could be much higher than the $18 billion. he's also asking for $33 billion as a whole. including 5,000 new agents. so what he's saying is young people, come in and you could stay, but we're go out and deport your parents. is that the way to run america? to fracture america. i think this is malpractice against family values. >> but there is this notion in politics that it was about compromise. if the president said i want this and democrats want that, is there a place where you could say let's work it out, are you willing to make room for a wall if it means getting daca? >> i believe that there is a way to have a mutual agreement on the 18th, the sequester aspect of the budget kicks in against military spending, the republicans and the president want the significant increase in military spending. we want to see an increase in domestic spending. in programs like community health clinics, in c.h.i.p. and the d.r.e.a.m. act.

that is a fair exchange. but a wall is a nonstarter. >> done deal. >> done deal. >> you would walk away if he said wall. >> a wall is nonstarter. >> okay. another one of the demands from the white house and the idea that federal grants end -- to sanctuary cities go away and is that also a nonstarter. >> let's get this straight. this is what they are saying. new york city would -- which is the biggest safe city in the country gets grants from the federal government to train police officers in anti-terrorist tactics and money from the feds to ensure they get paid over time to, buy equipment and to make us the safest city in the world. republicans tout how big they are on national security, yet they want to pull funding and put new york city population at risk of being a target for a terrorist attack. i think that is a strong contradiction and again it will -- it will contradict what they feel they stand for. so a nonstarter.

and i believe sanctuary cities are not cities that harbor harden criminals, they allow a mom to take their child to school without fear that the principal will call i.n.s. and allow a senior citizen going to the hospital without feeling the doctor or nurse will call authorities. that is what a sanctuary city is. it is a place for people that are down and out and need our help. there was a poll that skegt p suggested that more -- suggested that more americans are feeling a flound. >> 80% of americans that these young people, d.r.e.a.m.ers, should stay in our country. even some of his supporters feel the d.r.e.a.m.ers are a good thing for america and they should be let in. so to hold their future hostage because you want to build a wall, come on. >> but so no conditions on -- in -- do you want an immigration system that doesn't create any

conditions for becoming or being a citizen or staying here. >> the d.r.e.a.m. act proposed for the d.r.e.a.m.ers to have a temporary legal residentcy for eight years. and then after three more years they'll be able to apply for citizenship. they have to take a medical exam and can't have any past criminal record, they have to be vetted by the government and so this is a very lengthy -- it will take them ten to 15 years to apply to become a united states citizen. i think this is a lengthy and stringent prospect for america and we want the d.r.e.a.m. act. >> the president said he would like to work with democrats on infrastructure funding. what is a starting point for democrats on that? >> i think there is room for negotiation and talks. i think america needs a boost of infrastructure money and a shot in the arm and we have a

decaying and archaic infrastructure that cl-- includ roads and bridges and our housing units are infrastructure. they are publicly owned, by us, the federal government. schools are also part of the infrastructure. so let's have a broader discussion about infrastructure, that is not just a traditional roads and bridges and tunnels. i think there is room for job creation but we have to be smart about it. we could sit down and talk about that. >> thank you seven. >> my pleasure. the president fired back after a bombshell tell-all raises questions about his mental health. next could his response reignite discussions about whether he is fit for office?

president donald trump is refuting speculation about his mental state brought up in michael wolff's new book "fire and fury." >> only because i went to the best colleges -- or college. i went to a -- i had a situation where i was a very excellent student. came out and made billions and billions of dollars and became one of the top business people. went to television and for ten years was a tremendous success, as you probably have heard. ran for president one time and won. and then i hear this guy that doesn't know me, doesn't know me at all, by the way, did not interview me for three hours in the white house. it didn't exist okay. it is in his imagination. >> now in the book, wolff claims that the president repeats himself many times within short

periods of time appears to suggest that the president also struggles with reading. to dive into the claims about the president's mental capacity, let's bring in historian alan lichtman and scientist from columbus university, jeffrey lieberman. allen, the president said the media is covering his mental fitness like they did president reagan's, and the post points out that may not be the basketball strategy saying the news media did question his mental health but questions were validated by the 40th president's alzheimer's diagnosis in 1994 and his claims in 2011 that he displayed symptoms of the disease while in office. so the question to you, allen, do you agree with this? >> i do agree with that. and of course i'm not here to debate psychiatry with the good dr. lieberman. but let me say what i find significant about the fact that some of the most eminent psychiatrists in the nation have

come out to question donald trump's mental health is that they chose this time and this president to break a 50-year-old rule and this isn't politically motivated. they didn't come out the same way in the same fashion against other conservative presidents like reagan or george w. bush. now look, i'm a historian and political analyst. i've studied carefully donald trump's 40 plus years as a business man and his presidency and leaving aside psychiatry, i feel it is my obligation to tell you from my observations the way i think this president really is a clear and present darveg -- danger and democracy and national security. i see a man who cares only about himself and looks at other people as tools for his glorification and his advancement and his enrichment. i see a president who not only has been documented to lie repeatedly on a daily basis, but shattered reality itself.

he's brought us into a world of alternative facts where the president can say with a straight face that he really won the popular vote because somehow 3 to 5 million illegal voters mysteriously appeared to vote for hillary clinton and then equally mysteriously disappeared without detection. this is someone who cannot stand the slightest slight or insult no matter how small, but who has to lash out and respond. i was appalled by the exchange between kim and trump about who has a bigger button. could we trust trump in a modern day version of the cuban missile crisis or even something lesser to respond with the cool deliberation of a kennedy. i'm very worried. >> i want to turn to dr. leiberman. you were shaking your head while allen was talk. let me offer you this. there is a yale psychiatrist dr. bandy lee who briefs lawmakers about the president's mental

state and the editor of a book tielted the "the dangerous case of donald trump", that book includes testimonials from about 27 psychiatrists and mental health experts trying to assess the president's level of dangerousness, went on to cite behaviors of the president as you heard from allen, the book talks about him going back to conspiracy theories, denying things he admitted to before, he's being drawn to violent videos and goes on to say we feel the rush of tweeting is an indication of his falling apart under stress. le get worse and become uncontainable with the pressures of the presidency. so what do you make of her statement? what do you make of what allen had to say here? >> well first of all, bad behavior doesn't necessarily prima fascia mean you are mentally ill. there are other leaders in the country that behave very badly and if they subjected to a medical evaluation, they probably wouldn't have a diagnosis. the authors of the book

including dr. lee are not what i could call iminnocent psychiatrists. first of all, i would it is a kong con -- conglomerate and they are not the best in the field and if the government or the media wanted to avail itself of the highest level of kpeert he's to weigh in on the health of the president, it could be done. but the constitutional mechanism to do it is the 25th amendment. to make arm chair diagnosis is reasonable to form hypothesis or speculate but it can't be used as evidence for somebody to be removed from office. concerns can be expressed, but this can in no way considered to be a legitimate basis for establishing a medical diagnosis. and let me say one last thing. the reason i'm not a trump supporters, i was on hillary clinton policy for health policy but the reason i'm concerned is

that psychiatry in some ways is suffering from a checkered history, and bad things have happened earlier times in terms of the way to diagnose people, homosexuality and lib oeb ott m for treatment and it is to suppress dissidents and other people undesirable by the government, witness soviet russia and the people's republic of china. so if we want to get serious as leveling for a reason for the president's limitation and mental stability and possible illness it could be done. in 48 hours all of the tests that we need to say yes or no and get this off the table could be completed definitively. >> and i have to ask if there is anything observation based, something outside of a psychiatric examination, is there anything that people could see in this president that would allow them to make an assessment about his fitness for the job? >> yes. >> i'll allow you to raise your index of suspicion. no one raised this for barack

obama because there was no reason to. because of trump and unconventional and life long self important narcissistic and braggadocios behavior, people are commenting on this and i understand that. it is a basis for it. but it's not a base for establishing a diagnosis. it would be irresponsible and a basis for medical malpractice. >> allen, how do the questions about the mental stability stack up historically? have other presidents faced the same scrutiny. >> other presidents have faced that and president coolidge suffered from depression after the death of his child but i think it is significant that never before have mental health professionals come out with this kind of dramatic warning about a president. >> this is not a responsible manner -- this is not patriotism. >> i didn't interrupt you dr.

lieberman. >> i'm sorry. >> i didn't interrupt you. >> go ahead. >> i won't engage in bickering with dr. lieberman who is a great psychiatrist. all you need is eyes and ears to see what is going on with this president. just one of scores and dozens of this president's lies and unhinged tweets would have sounded the loudest alarm bells with any other president. we should not allow donald trump to diminish our standard, to lower the bar, to the point where behavior should be unacceptable or any world leader would be acceptable for him. >> gentlemen, i thank you for your your insight. we've run out of time. we appreciate it. >> i like your predictions. next up, they are the majority of his president trump's base but stand to lose most from his tax bill and other items on the gop agenda so why

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agenda passed and so i will be actually working forrin coup in and anybody else that has my kind of thinking. >> president trump today at camp david confirming that he will campaign hard for republican candidates for the mid-term elections this year. and a large part of the gop platform will be centered on the budget, what they call welfare reform. in 2016 trump won by riding a wave of support among white working class voters. will those same voters show up for republicans come november? that is the question posed as part of a three part series from polli pollico titles does the white working class vote against its own interest. joining me now is josh ziets and are with us adrian el rod with hillary for america. josh, i want to start with you and this piece. walk us tlus the basis for this reporting. why would the white working class vote against policies that

may not work for them. >> i'm a historian so the column is part of the history department column for politico. and we were looking at a question that web debois, the q that the path-breaking socialiologist and scholar noted in 1935. he was looking at the post civil war south. he noted they had a tendency to vote against their own interests to place their identitys as white people above their identities as working class people, so the natural thing for them to have done would have been to forge alliances with ex-slaves who were working-class, small farmers like they were. but what they ultimately did in most situations, most contexts, was that they formed political allegiances with wealthier white plantation owners, who didn't have their best political or economic interests at heart. what deboys suggested was that there was a tendency for white

working class people to accept the psychological wages of being white above material wages. so the piece looks at other contexts in which this has also been the case. part of the argument is that whiteness does, in other historical context, pay material wages in the forms of preferential housing and employment markets. and that white working class voters have, in many suspects, over time, voted in ways that we would very actionable, but that are not irrational. while there are psychological wages that are involved in associating yourself as being white rather than working class, it is not always against the material interest of a white working class voter to think that way. >> so, josh, as you look at history and you look at the reality of today, have you been able to drill down on what it is that attracts white working class voters today to donald trump, specifically? >> i think we're living in a time that's somewhat analgous to

other moments in history where working class whites have felt the world they grew up in slipping away. this was certainly the case for a lot of working class voters in 1968 who gravitated towards george wallace. they see a changing economy that doesn't necessarily work for them. they're reacting not irrationally to some of the changes wrought by globalization, so i think for them, what donald trump offers is a type of revanchism, the promise of the recovery of a lost world, in which white was up and black and brown were down. it's very unrealistic, historically speaking, for these types of movements to deliver on what they're promising. but the type of promise that donald trump has delivered to white working class voters is very much in step with the type of message that has been offered them over the decades by politicians in moments of great change. >> and i want to bring in evan and adrian on this. we talk about this.

the president's talked about jobs, jobs, jobs, the economy. this is a part of that conversation, really. i want you to hear what the president and speaker paul ryan had to say today about the economy. >> it's going to be tough to beat the year we just left because what we had last year was something very special, especially to cap it off with the tremendous tax cuts ask tax reform. >> we have people who are sidelined in so the that need to get out of poverty and into the workforce. >> so the question, the congressional budget office projects that many middle and working class families will see tax hikes ultimately. how does the gop sell that to voters this fall? >> well, right now, we are seeing that many voters are getting tax cuts and they're getting wages raised by different companies. i think at the same time, the president is banking on the economy being able to save us republicans in the mid terms. the economy is very strong. but how did that help us republicans in november 2017? do we have a senator roy moore,

a governor elect ed gillespie, no. we have three democrats, who won big races and democrats sweeping across the country. as a republican, i'm concerned. we'd already lost the messaging war on the tax reform package, because we were saying it's really going to help the middle class, but more and more americans believe it helps the uber wealthy than them. >> adrian, how much focus do democrats put on economic issues in 2018? can the democrats win without the white working class voters? >> well, first of all, we are winning with white working class voters. we've already seen a major rise in some of the districts in particular that hillary clinton did lose to donald trump by losing white working class voters, in some of the special elections. so we are siphoning off a lot of white working class vorltters. but the tax plan is something that we will focus very heavily on in the mid terms. evan just put it very succinctly, the fact that

republicans really messed up the messaging on this, in part because the bill helps corporations at the kpeexpense middle and lower class families. that's something we'll run on. and back to evan's point, the economy did do well in 2017, in large part due to president obama's policies, but democrats still won a loot t of seats. people are looking at trump bei, saying, he's got going to deliver on the promises he made. they don't believe him, they don't have the trust in him. i think that will continue to prevail. >> another problem, every four years, we lose 2% of the white working class in america. and over that same period of time, we lose 4% of non-college-educated whites, and that's the gop base. we've relied on them extensively to help us win elections. but we've got a demographic wave coming in, where the entire face of the country is completely different. it's very black, it's very

brown, it's asian americans, it's hispanics. and republicans haven't been able to offset the losses and that's a big recipe for disaster in the mid terms and we've already seen it in 2017. >> we've run out of time. we thank you for your perspective on this, josh, adrian, evan, thank you. more at the top of the hour. president trump defending his mental state. we'll discuss, next. eel that thy have to drink a lot of water. medications seem to be the number one cause for dry mouth. dry mouth can cause increased cavities, bad breath, oral irritation. i like to recommend biotene. biotene has a full array of products that replenishes the moisture in your mouth. biotene definitely works. it makes patients so much happier. [heartbeat] trust #1 doctor recommended dulcolax. use dulcolax tablets for gentle dependable relief. suppositories for relief in minutes.

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hello, i'm aaron gilchrist

at msnbc headquarters in new york. we start this hour at camp david with president trump defending his mental stability during a weekend strategy session with republican leaders. this morning the president responded to reporting about his mental fitness in michael wolff's book "fire and fury," with a series of angry tweets. when asked by a reporter why he felt the need to address the book's claims, the president said this. >> well, only because i went to the best colleges, or college. i went to a -- i had a situation where i was a very excellent student. >> let's go to nbc news white house correspondent jeff bennett. the president took on a wide range of topics today. tell us more about this q & a session he had. >> that's right. the president is huddled at camp david with members of his cabinet, top congressional leaders, really trying to hash out a legislative and political agenda for the rest of the year. as you pointed out, i think it was the fourth question the president got from one of the