true. surprise, surprise. >> xavier becerra, thank you for coming on "the beat." >> thank you. >> that does it for our show tonight. i'll be live in washington tomorrow at 6:00 p.m. eastern with a lot of guests. "hardball" with chris matthews starts now. don't wall me a moron. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'll chris matthews in washington. it's been a wild day with a tweet this morning at 8:44, president trump fired his secretary of state. can you imagine george washington doing that to thomas jefferson? even if he could tweet? it came a mere hours after tillerson touched down at joint base andrews back from cut short five-country tour of africa. after the tweet, those reaching

out to tillerson himself, trump spoke to reporters and made clear he wanted someone in the state department who the wouldn't disagree with him. he found his man in cia direct ker mike pompeo. let's watch. >> rex and i have been talking about this for a long time. we got along actually quite well. but we disagreed on things. when you look at the iran deal, i think it's terrible. i guess he thought it was okay. i wanted to either break it or do something. and he felt a little bit differently. so we were not really thinking the same. with mike pompeo, we have a very similar thought process. i think it's going to go very well. i got along well with rex. but it was a different mind-set. it was a different thinking. i wish wretch a lot of good things. i think he's going to be very happy. i think rex will be much happier now but i really appreciate his service. but with mike, we've had a very

good chemistry right from the beginning. > actually, rex is not the name of a dog. it's the name of the secretary of state. rex tillerson seemed to be out of the loop on foreign policy. he pushed talks with north korea when trump was arguing for fire and fury. last week, tillerson told reporters america was a long way from negotiations hours before president trump deputized the south koreans to inform them he agreed to meet with north korea by may. tillerson never denied a report he had called the president a moron last summer. i think trump remembered that. today nbc reported the president could never get past that naming of him as a moron. he talked about comparing iq scores. the white house and state department seem to offer count ker narratives when tillerson found out he was finished. according to nbc chief of staff john kelly spoke with tillerson by phone on friday and told him trump intended to ask him to

step aside. kelly did not specify when the change might come. kelly called tillerson again on saturday expressing once again the president's imminent intention to replace him as secretary of state. a senior state department official told nbc tillerson officially learned of his firing when the president tweeted the news this morning. steve goldstein, undersecretary of state for public affairs said today the secretary had every intention of remaining and the stkt didn't speak to the president this morning and is unaware of the reason. hours later, goldstein was fired. josh letterman, the a.p. reporter who was on the plane with tillerson last night described the secretary's demeanor, let's listen to him. >> i have to tell you there were no indications from his behavior from that of his aides or other people on the plane this was imminent. if tillerson knew at that point that this was his swan song and that he would not appear

publicly much longer as secretary of state, he sure didn't show it. >> rex tillerson delivered a statement of his own today thanking diplomats, soldiers and the american people, but leaving out the man he served for the past 14 months, donald trump. the only mention of the president was a reference to the fact that he didn't hear from him till hours after the news had broken. let's watch that. >> i received a call today from the president of the united states at a little after noontime from air force one and i've also spoken to chief of staff kelly. i will be meeting members of my front office team and policy planning later today to thank them for their service. they have been extraordinarily dedicated to our mission which includes promoting values that view as being very important. >> correspondent jonathan swan national political reporter for axios and michael steele the former chair of the republican

national committee. andrea, this is amazing. you've studied this had foreign policy sphere for so long. has any president in history treated his or her secretary of state like a dog like this? ing. >> not that i can recall. alexander haig was fired arguably for cause. their chemistry was terrible between the two. there's no question that rex tillerson was on the outs with the president. but he had an ally in jim mattis, defense secretary. and many people in the government felt that he was at least retraining some of the president's worst impulses. he had always said that he would have to fire him to his face, that he was not going to quit. and in fact, what happened was he was fired on twitter and then that follow-up phone call as you point out from air force one. so there was no question that this was really a terrible way of executing the secretary of state and he was emotional in that appearance today. i've never seen him quite like that.

josh letterman is absolutely correct. our producer abigail williams was also on the trip and said he was ebuttant in his briefing to the press corps overnight and in that final night, on the plane, he told them how much he was looking forward to leading being the point person for the talks with north korea. he went through a lot of the policy issues and then also went through a very tough criticism of russia for its role according to the u.k. in the attempted assassination by nerve gas of former russian spy and his daughter in the u.k. he took a very hard line against russia which the white house deliberately did not do hours earlier from the podium. there were so many disagreements. i think iran was the most profound one plus the lack of chemistry between the two. >> it tells us more about the president than the now ex-secretary of state. do you think he told him on friday? is there any way to get through

this? or he never knew till he heard the tweet this morning? which is the truth. >> john kelly is telling white house officials at the certainly gave them the heads-up. but this was only the last of so many -- so many times during the last 14 months when the president was threatening to fire rex tillerson. so tillerson did not take that to heart, did not think he would going to be fired. kelly, we've known in the past, has not always been straightforward in describing conversations. so all we know is from white house officials and white house correspondents that kelly says that he certainly gave him the heads-up on friday night and again at 2:30 a.m. on saturday morning. tillerson had been up for some 72 hours and then that was certainly a warning sign, but he thought he could repair it when he got back here. >> told on. let me go to jonathan. you get to the question of the president's behavior here. it's either personal, vindictive, city cruel? is he sadistic? does he like to fire people at

long distance or afraid do it man-to-man? because he seems to have this habit now of firing comey when he's on the west coast 3,000 miles away or reince bre bus when he's somewhere else. presidents i think -- i'll say this. they owe the people they bring to washington the courtesy of a man-to-man or face-to-face offer to -- request to resign. let the man resign with some class. what's the reason he has to humiliate them by remote control i should say. >> i can't psychoanalyze trump. the only context in which he's fired people is on television directly is the only time he's directly face-to-face told people they're fired. >> when he was on the "apprentice." >> this is the weirdness of working for donald trump. when you talk to people at the senior level of the white house, they will tell you in graphic detail about all the things trump has said in the past 24 hours about john kelly, his chief of staff. he opens the kimono, tells them

anything. then he must be ready to fire them. he'll bounce names off but it doesn't happen. this is the same inner shah. >> nbc reported tillerson called the president a moron after a meeting at the pentagon where trump proposed increasing the country's nuclear arsenal. the president told forbes magz magazine if he did that, i guess we'll have to compare iq tests and i can tell you who is going to win. this is trump talking last year. in an interview with cnn tillerson refused to deny using the word moron. let's watch. >> as a indicated earlier when i was asked about that, i'm not going to deal with that kind of petty stuff. this is a town that seems to relish gossip, rumor, innuendo. and they feed on it. they feed on one another in a very destructive way. i don't work that way. i'm not going to dignify the question. i'm not playing. these are the games of washington. i'm not dignifying the questions with an answer. >> tries try but the president

heard him say he was a moron. >> yeah. >> were his days numbered? waiting for -- >> from that moment on. i think there were problems with the relationship coming in the door. tillerson was not necessarily trump's guy, but it was reince and jared and others who really liked the idea of bringing tillerson in. and from that moment, that was it. i think the president was pretty much biding his time and to your first questions about his ability to fire people, he's never had to do that because it's all been scripted before. and now this is real life where to your point, the dignity of the office requires you approach those individuals with a certain amount of dignity and give them that. he still doesn't see that. he sees this as the end game. this is how i win. ultimately i trump your cards with this approach. >> let me go back to andrea. andrea, i'm wondering about foreign policy now. donald trump campaigned on kind of a mish mash of policies.

but one of them was, i'm going to rebuild america and done infrastructure, something that appealed to me as a citizen. he also talked about stopping stupid wars which clearly was running against "w" and how he got involved with iraq especially. that was very attractive to working people, a lot of their kids have to fight these warses. now he's into the hawkish mode again on iran. if we don't have the this deal to stop them from developing nuclear weapons, we've got to have a some other method of stopping them. that means some sort of active war. why are we going back -- it seems trump is getting dangerous again. >> trump is -- he's very heavily influenced by netanyahu and by all of those trump supporters like sheldon adelson and other supporters who are really, really against iran. and certainly by saudi arabia. he went to riyadh first. this is the sunni arabs aligned against iran. that's the side he's taken. the counter argument which you

make and with a lot of diplomats and others make is that if you blow up the iran deal and there's another deadline approaching in may, what signal are you sending to kim jong-un and others with nuclear weapons but principally north korea that any deal negotiated with the trump administration will not be observed. not only is it a real breach as far as all of our european allies plus russia and china, the other signatories to the iran deal. it's not just a two-way deal. this was a six-party agreement bleszed by the u.n. and the eu. you blow that up just before you sit down with kim, not smart and very risky foreign policy. that's one thing. the other thing about dignity and what you were describing with jonathan and michael is, are there things that really upset tillerson? remember the boy scout jamboree? tillerson had only two or three days earlier been awarded a medal there at the boy scout

jamboree. he's a former eagle scout and characterize about the boy scouts. he's on boy scout board. to watch the president then go and give a really flagrantly political speech to the boy scouts with lots of curse words and other suggestions was really deeply offensive. i was upset by charlottesville. there's a side to rex tillerson which is a dignified person. he didn't understand the state department or the culture here. at the fired people or forced them to resign in dismay. two of the most prominent very recently in the last ten days, their vacancies. he hollowed out the department. young people are no longer take the foreign service exam in large numbers. there's a real problem which might it be generational. that said, this was a decent man and he was treated shamefully. >> thank you so much. you're the expert. it's great to hear your expertise on this topic.

you know every one of the people you're talking about. jonathan swan, i want to talk about the basic nuttiness of this behavior by the president. coming up, the russian investigation, roger stone, remember him, reportedly talked to the founder of wikileaks and knew in advance about that hacked democratic e-mails. it comes amid new reporting about a proposed meeting between candidate trump and vladimir putin. it's more damning evidence just one day after republicans on the house intelligence committee denied there was any collusion between at trump campaign and russia. nice try, gops. plus in less than an hour, polls close in the race for pennsylvania's 18th congressional district. democrats are hoping a win in trump country will late groundwork for a big blue wave come november. and trump's clearing his head, certainly clearing his head with today's firing of rex tillerson, the president sent a message if you're not on his decide be prepared to get out of the way.

imagine if mitt romney had taken the job. he would be humiliated today just like rex. let me finish tonight with trump watch. this is "hardball" where the action is. weeds. nature's boomerang. at roundup®, we know they keep coming back. draw the line. one spray of roundup® max control 365 kills to the root

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still yes! xfinity delivers gig speed to more homes than anyone. now you can get it, too. welcome to the party. welcome back to "hardball." in a stunning display of partisanship, republicans controlling the house intelligence committee have the shut down their investigation of russian interference prematurely clearing president trump and his campaign for what happened in '16. yet, we're already seeing at least one top republican on the complete, congressman mike conaway is having a difficult time explaining the report's conclusions. he said last night the full report would the "suggest that the extent that any russians acted on behalf of either candidate it was for hillary clinton." today, conaway is taking that back saying he misspoke. let's watch. >> you said twice yesterday that you actually believe that the

russians wanted to help hillary clinton. can you be clear what's in the report? >> twice yesterday. >> hurt hillary. >> yesterday, we when asked you twice, you said you believed -- >> i misspoke. nothing that they did remotely helped hillary clinton. there was no evidence to my view that they were trying to help her. i'm sorry if i misspoking. > after being left in the dark by the republican colleagues, democrats on that committee, the intel committee described the republican report as a sham and a capitulation to the white house. tonight, they released a report of their own summarizing their findings in the investigation to date. joining me is the ranking democrat of the house intelligence committee, adam schiff. thank you for joining us. what is the burning problem with the republican report as you read it? >> well, it reads like a elongated version of the nunes memo. it cherry picks information had, omits key facts and designed to convey a political narrative

rather than a fact finding mission. it's dramatically incomplete because they curtail the investigation when we still have dozens of key witnesses to interview. and lots of documents that we didn't even request. there are issues for example, involving trump campaign personnel reaching out to wikileaks and being inning direct communication with guccifer 2. we asked to subpoena twitter and get those messages. they were unilg to do it. allegations within the last two weeks that people who testified under oath in our committee may have testified falsely. but they're unwilling to pursue it. even steve bannon who they with great ceremony beat their chest and said we cannot allow him to stonewall and refuse to answer questions and he needs to be hauled before the court to answer if necessary, they've decided well, never mind. we'd rather not know. and that's the fundamental problem here. it's been a unserious effort, really an effort to give the

appearance of an investigation without doing a credible and thorough investigation. >> in the report you reed tonight, you suggested there might be more documentation of the president's interactions with former fbi director james comey that could represent obstruction of justice. "the minority has a good faith reason to believe that the white house does in fact possess such documentation memorializing president trump's conversations with director comey." tell us where that goes. do you think you've got strong or good evidence that suggests obstruction of justice by the president? >> well, it's hard to say because these documents that we requested, they haven't been willing to insist upon. . conaway and i wrote to the without on a bipartisan basis when the president suggested that he might have tapes of conversations with james comey asking for any recordings but not just recordings, any memoranda or other documents that reflect his conversations with comey that would shed light on the issue of obstruction of justice. the white house basically told

us that they answered our letter by tweet and when we took issue and wrote them a second bipartisan letter suggesting if they didn't comply we would subpoena them, they told us to pound sand. from that point till today, we haven't been able to get them to follow up with a subpoena. that would be a at tern representply indicated time and time again over the last year. when we got no for an answer, they said we're fine with that. >> the west is reporting trump's former campaign adviser roger stone told an aassociate in the spring of 2016, had he advance knowledge of the russian hacked e-mails that would up yend the election. he said he had learned from julian assange that his organization had obtained e-mails that would torment senior democrats such as john poe tes da, campaign chairman of candidate hillary clinton. the reported conversation occurred before it was publicly known that hackers had obtained

the e-mails of podesta and the democratic national committee. it the reporting appears to contradict what stone said last week on msnbc. >> i never had any advance knowledge of the content, the source, or the exact timing of the wikileaks disclosures. i never predicted that john podesta's e-mails would be hacked. i predicted that his business activities would come under scrutiny. >> congressman, what do you make of that defense by roger stone? we've heard about the time in the barrel, how bhoe podesta is getting his turn based upon what looked to be earlier knowledge by stone of what the russians hacked and who they're going to hurt with it. now he's saying i was talking about something es. now we're getting reporting he did in fact get advance word about wikileaks and what they're getting from the russians. what do you make of all this in terms of collusion? >> what roger stone has said before is his whole strategy is deny, deny, deny.

and indeed, that's a strategy that president trump also adopts. he repeated no collusion, no collusion, no collusion as a mantra. he credits roy moore when roy moore says i didn't do it. he credits rob porter when porter says i didn't do it. if you deny, you'll be fine in the president's world and in roger stone's. you're a loser if you admit to anything. we as a committee can't take roger stone's word for things. we need to get from twitter because we can't be confident weigh get them from roger stone any private communications he had, direct messages had he with guccifer 2 or wikileaks and other witnesses that contradict roger stone should be brought before our committee. we should find out who is telling the truth. the republicans would like to put out a report that essentially says we asked roger stone and he denied it and therefore, there's no evidence to the contrary. that's not at investigation. that's the facade of an investigation. >> okay. they don't look good.

why does the senate committee work in such a bipartisan way and richard burr works so well with mark warner? whereas the republicans on your committee don't look on the level? to use an old political term they look like toldies for trump. >> the leadership comes from the top. the leadership on our committee even during periods when he said he was recused comes from chairman nunes. he has seen his mission as carrying the water for the white house rather than doing a credible investigation. that, of course, put us in the position of either going along withing that charade or speaking out. that was no choice at all. >> thank you very much. u.s. congressman adam schiff of california. a new book out today an provides a captivating account of russia's unprecedented influence campaign during the 2016 presidential campaign. russian roulette by david corn and michael isikoff puts together many of the pieces central to the special counsel's

ongoing investigation. one of the new details in the book, the report focuses on a meeting between trump, jeff sessions and the campaign's foreign policy team. they reveal when foreign policy adviser george papadopoulos said had he foreign contacts who could arrange a meeting with putin, he received at least tacit approval to proceed. "papadopoulos later told investigators he believed trump gave him encouragement according to sources familiar with papadopoulos's account. trump said the idea was interesting and looked at sessions as if he expected him to follow-up and sessions nodded in response." i'm joined by david corn and michael isikoff, achieve investigative correspondent forria ha of yahoo news. let me start with david and go to michael. what was the juiciest stuff in your book that people should enjoy because it makes a point historically? what is that to look for? >> how much time do you have? >> start with the biggies. >> you just mentioned one of the

biggies. that was an indication from an eyewitness from a person in contact with the russians for five months first trying to set up au meeting between trump and putin and when that didn't seem possible, setting up a back channel off the record connection with putin's own office. he was doing this throughout the summer after it was publicly reported that russia had hacked the democratic e-mails and had dumped them. so we knew there was an information warfare campaign against the united states from moscow. i think that's pretty significant. we also talk about a secret source in the kremlin in 2014 giving a u.s. official sort of heads-up that putin was planning a massive information campaign and there's a great opening scene in the book, of course, in the opening chapter in which donald trump is briefed by jim comey on the steele dossier which hasn't become public yet, given a two-page summary of that and trump thinks, looks at comey

and says, after he gets the memo, walks out and tells his aides, comey is trying to set me up. this is a shake down. trump thought it the whole intelligence community was trying to tell trump we have something on you. you'd better do what we want. so the whole paranoia that prevents trump from dealing the issue of russian med ding in the election and maybe in the future elections sort of came from that very dramatic moment. those are just a few. mike has his own. >> let me ask you about another career i have. i've watched politics since i was a kid. i've never heard a presidential campaign so tied up with russians. russians here and there. everything, all these weird characters from carter page to roger stone. all russian connected. all the russian names you can't pronounce all these meetings. why? did you ever -- what is this weird russophile loved by the

trump people? your thoughts. >> it goes back to where we start the book actually opening chapter which is the miss universe pageant in moscow where trump's primary goal was a business deal with an oligarch close to putin, air ras agalarov to build a trump tower in moscow. trump is obsessed. >> why? who wants to go to russia? let's like last on the list of anyplace anybody wants to visit. >> to solidify himself as a global oligarch. this was something had he thought about, talked about for years, made numerous efforts. he was coming close. but in order to get close, for that deal to go through, he needed putin's approval. that's where you see the birth of the pro bromance between trump and putin. we have fresh reporting on this, trump is obsessed with the idea of meeting it putin during that trip. he keeps asking everybody around

him. is putin coming? have we heard from putin yet? he's expecting a phone call. has putin called? ultimately he does get a phone call not from putin. it's from pes could be, the press spokesman who tells him sorry, the russian president is tied up, isn't going to be able to make it. putin follows up, sends trump after that trip this gift in a black lack cored box including and a personal note. talk about the things that the house intelligence committee didn't get in its investigation what was -- >> i can't hear, michael. what's going on here. let's take a break. we'll be right back with david corn and michael sissy cough. nng that's going on in the company. get it for jean who's always cold. for the sales team, it and the warehouse crew. give us the data we need. in one place, anywhere we need it. help us do our jobs better.

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we had a technical difficulty at the end of that block. would like to thank david and mike. great reporting for coming on the show. we'll be back to you in a few days. that's a hell of a book. you want to know more where "russian roulette." it's election night in southwestern pennsylvania. 30 minutes away from the polls closing. republican rick saccone faces off against democrat conor lamb to fill it the vacated seat in the 18th district in the southwest. republicans are desperate for a win hoping to avoid an embarrassing loss in what some see as a key litmus test of president trump's popularity ahead of the 2018 midterms.

that said, a republican with knowledge of the race tells nbc news tonight we're not feeling good. according to the pittsburgh post ga set voter turnout was high. he i'm joined by charlie dent from pennsylvania's 15th district. congressman, that's jack murtha country. conservative democrat country or republican country. it's and parrish lannian, poor, white in many ways. a little bit sophisticated suburban but generally rural and seen as very much trump country. >> well, correct. >> 20 points he won by. >> the south hills of pittsburgh are more suburban and more moderate. the rest of the district is deer hunting country, coal, fracking, all that. look, trump won this district by 20 points. i don't believe it's a 20-point trump district. a lot of people were anti-hillary. it's actually tighter. clearly, recent polls show a tight race, monmouth had lamb up

by six today. >> in a surge model. >> intensity and energy seems to be on the democratic side. at the moment. >> if it's up around six, we're all predicting now, polls close at 8:00 eastern, what happens if lamb wins big? does that tell you that the delegation in pennsylvania could end up beinging about 9-9 instead of 13-5 as it is now in terms of the proportion of democrat and republican members of congress. >> under the new map it could go on a great night for democrats it could go 10-8 democrat, 9-9. >> they could pick it up five seats just in pennsylvania. >> in the southeast. under the new map, there are seven guaranteed republican seats, five guaranteed democrat seats and six competitive seats. the democrats if they run the tables in eastern pennsylvania and they could do that, that could take. >> do you think your district's going for the demes? >> right now it's been redistricted, a slight lean democratic seat. plus one democrat.

it could -- it's the same district i won four times. >> i can see four going democrat that the haven't been before. >> that's possible. >> let me ask you about trump. is he going to carry pennsylvania next time? is that he ran on the first time worn out already. >> it depends on who the democratic candidate is. >> they're not going to run pelosi. >> a lot of people supported donald trump were anti-hillary. that was a big part of it. >> who wins, trump or elizabeth warren. >> >> i believe trump would win that. >> how about him against bernie? >> well -- >> how about him against biden? >> i think it would be tough to beat biden. i think he can appeal to a lot of folks that maybe bernie or. >> who would you vote for? >> that's a tough one. >> who would you vote for trump or biden, come on, make news. you would vote for bide. >> and i don't know yet. we'll see. that's a long way off. these two guys that are running in pittsburgh, both could be congressmen in november. >> i know. >> that's going to happen.

>> i'm predicting, you're predicting lamb tonight? >> right now slight edge democrat. >> looks about four. congressman charlie dent, today's firing of rex tillerson shows the president is willing to get rid of anybody who doesn't agree with him 100% of the time. he's the boss. i ain't no lincoln. trump is no lincoln. big surprise. you're watching "hardball." ow ♪ ♪ ohh ♪ crawl inside ♪ wait by the light of the moon ♪ ♪ come to my window ♪ i'll be home soon ♪ ♪ i'll be home, i'll be home ♪ ♪ i'm coming home ♪ ♪ come to my window ♪ ohh applebee's to go. order online and get $10 off $30. now that's eatin' good in the neighborhood.

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welcome back to "hardball." president trump today told reporters that rex tillerson will be much happier now he's out as secretary of state. but it might also improve the president's spirits now that he's showing who is boss. according to reuters, today's announcement shows the president's "growing impatience with his initial set of hand picked advisers who he vieweded as slow walking his favored policies." david ignatius writes tillerson

was ousted in a way that reinforced the humiliating treatment he received from trump since the beginning given only a warning by white house john kelly." the sacking of tillerson is from a man famous for firing people face-to-face on television. he fired james comey while he was traveling in california. 3,000 miles away. and he announced the departure of reince priebus from air force one while reince sat on the tarmac outside the plane. who is the next high profile departure from the white house? we'll get to other staff shake-ups raising eyebrows today next with the "hardball" roundtable.

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flonase sensimist helps block 6 key inflammatory substances. most pills only block one. and 6 is greater than 1. flonase sensimist. welcome back to "hardball." rex tillerson was the biggest name to be ousted from the trump administration this week but not the only one. his spokesman steve goldstein was left go after contradicting the white house account. the white house account of tillerson's firing. on monday, trump's personal assistant john mcatee was sacked and escorted from the white house premises and not allowed to get his coat. nbc news reports he is under investigation by the secret service for serious financial crimes. and his security clearance had been revoked. how does that make him different? elgin trump's 2020 re-election campaign as a senior adviser even though they walked him out of the room.

let's bring in adolpho franco, rnc surrogate, donna edwards former congresswoman from maryland and anne garrett, white house correspondent. also a candidate for county executive in prince george's county, not to be called pb county in nearby washington. okay. anybody wants to start this. what does this say about trump the way he sacked his secretary of state? >> go ahead. >> he has no class. you know, and you obviously you have to be either a sick cofant or son-in-law to keep your job in the white house and you bet your look for your resume. >> the president has used tweets before and gotten used to tweeting. i think people are read too much into this. they keep saying you're fired. at the end of the day, all these individuals you mentioned including the secretary of state knew that his the chief of staff has said of the white house to john kelly, it's imminent. wait till i get back. he waited till he returned.

>> how come the reports say him coming back on the plane last night he had no idea it of coming? >> he gave an interview -- he came back and talked to the reporters traveling with him on the plane and not only did he give absolutely no sign that he was about to lose his job, but he talked about long-term plans. he was in a good mood. >> he did. >> he gave not only a retrospective of the trip but said here's what we're doing going forward. he said he would be part of the north korean discussions. he e good job faking it. >> let's be honest about this. the big story would be if he would remain on the job. we were talking four, five, six months whether he would -- >> the moron comment was made months ago. >> do you think the president should have forgiven the moron comment. >> i think he did. it was made eight months ago. there was talk about his departure in december.

why does the big story -- >> secretary of state and he was sack bid tweet. >> it's because of the wayet did it. shameful. >> our program here is about form over substance? just the way things were communicated? >> is this the planet of the apes? >> no, but i think we're talking about rather than policy. >> okay, i'll talk policy. >> talk about iran. >> it is the secretary of state. the president has a right to have the people around him that he wants. but the question is how you do some things. president has ended up creating a news story that he didn't need but maybe at trump the news story of stormy daniels knocked off the pages, he does that, too. the president, go ahead. the president has a right to have the people he wants. >> we're overthinking this. to a point, this was an anvil waiting to fall. at the same time, do you do it this way? he was actually fired while he was overseas.

>> i'm not sure he's afraid. >> it's about not having the upper hand. >> why doesn't he call the guy in the office and say it's not working around. >> i think he likes to muay humiliate people to elevate himself. it's been clear he's done it over and over again. >> i have to disagree. i'm not sure getting a text or a tweet that was broadcast to the entire american people saying you did a terrific job, thank you very much for what you've done is a humiliation. i really don't. the difference is we. >> are you watching his face in the room today? >> don't start firing your employees by tweet. >> we have a north korea summit potentially looming of which there were sharp differences of opinion between the president and the secretary of state. >> what was the difference? >> i think you said three or four times at many important junctures when the president was applying pressure to north korea, it appeared as those mr. tillerson was putting that pressure off. that was the perception that was created. >> but in the end --

>> the president didn't like it. he has said the secretary of state on news programs that he has differences of opinion. on north korea and iran. >> no. >> on north korea, the secretary of state actually. >> what do we do in iran right now if we kill the treaty, anne? >> the president shows every sign of planning to walk away in may. that was the clearest policy disagreement he had with tillerson and it's not one he has with pompeo. presumably pomp pamio will be on the side now apparently the winning side of arguing to the president that he can whack away from the deal without blowing up alliances and without risking. >> how do we pull out? >> consistent with what he ran on as president. >> he said no more stupid wars. >> he also said this was the worst deal. >> no stupid barpz what's coming now, a war netanyahu would love us to do some bombing over there. >> i don't know if the war is coming. > so would saudi arabia.

>> i don't know if a war is come. we can put the pressure on iran. >> should we bomb iran? >> do you think it's a good idea. >> you know what, i think that option on the table and i have to be honest with you, i think that option on the table is an important option. >> it's an act of war. you want to go to war with iran. >> israel bombed iraq. >> do you want to go to war with iran. >> i'm not sure. i'm not sure that's the only option. >> if you bomb them they'll think they're at war with us. up next, these three will tell me something i don't know. and tiny. and this is laura's mobile dog grooming palace. laura can clean up a retriever that rolled in foxtails, but she's not much on "articles of organization." articles of what? so, she turned to legalzoom. they helped me out. she means we helped with her llc, trademark, and a lot of other legal stuff that's a part of running a business. so laura can get back to the dogs. would you sit still? this is laura's mobile dog grooming palace and this is where life meets legal. could michaela deprince

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before discovering nexium 24hr to treat her frequent heartburn, claire could only imagine enjoying chocolate cake. now she can have her cake and eat it too. nexium 24hr stops acid before it starts for all-day, all-night protection. can you imagine 24 hours without heartburn? we're back with the "hardball" round table. adolpho will tell me something i don't know. >> what you don't know. i think the democratic party has blown it with respect to daca. i think they played their hand with a schumer shutdown. they lost. it's gone to the back burner. i think the latino community won't show up in the numbers that democrats were expecting. > what should we do with the kids? >> they should be part of

comprehensive form. i think the kids should remain here but not without a wall. >> look. >> we need a wall. >> we need a wall. >> you've written a lot about 1968. this is women's history month. shirley chisholm was elected the first black congresswoman in 196 and she said woman should be revolutionary and if you don't have a seat at the table, bring a folding chair. that's why i keep one in my trunk. go ahead. >> the attention on foreign policy was obviously elsewhere today but the white house held an unusual six-hour session with gulf arab states, israel and others related to the shelved mideast peace deal what to do in gaza and one hopeful sign about the peace process is they had this meeting at all. and put saudi arabia and israel and others in the same room. a sign of what's wrong with the process is that the palestinians

didn't show up. >> when are we going to have 50/50 in the house and senate, men and women? >> 2050. >> i think it's coming. it's working that way. adolph foe franco, donna edwards and anne guerin. let me finish tonight with trump watch. he won't like it. you're watching "hardball."

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trump watch, tuesday march 13th, 2018. donald trump promised to stop stupid wars.

we knew or thought we knew he was talking about wars in the islamic world. three of which we had had under the bushes all three of them backed by too many.democrats including the clintons. you see the political establishment seemed dwrints on one issue, these stupid wars trump was promising to stop. so someone should explain now why the man who ran against stupid wars is stirring up trouble again with iran. let's be serious. there were two ways to stop iran from pursuing its nuclear weapons program. one was the deal we got with the world to stop them. the other was bombing the them the way being pushed by the hawks here and in the middle east. what the does donald trump think is going to come come of tearing up the treaty with iran now? what's his from stopping them. if it's bomb bomb iran, that is precisely what people voted against who voted for trump. war has been the political establishment's answer in the mideast. what the americans voted against

every since w. it's what an awful lot of trump voters voted against when they listened to him attack stupid wars and voted their agreement with him. whatever happened to that, donald trump? that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. "all in with chris hayes" starts right now. tonight on "all in." >> i wish rex tillerson. >> the secretary of state fired with a tweet. >> he's fired! >> tonight, donald trump's sudden firing of rex tillerson. >> glad you bless america. >> and why the president's overhaul may not be done yet. >> we're getting very close to having the cabinet and other things that i want. >> then another massive breach of security. >> they all want a piece of that oval office. >> why the president's personal aide has been fired and escorted off white house grounds. plus, new reporting on roger stone's contact with wikileaks. >> i actually have