night 6:00 p.m. don't go anywhere right now. "hardball" with chris matthews is up next. next head to roll? let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. throughout the campaign, donald trump promised he would solve washington's problems. that he alone cop fix things. nobody knows the system better than me. which is why i alone can fix it. >> well, now trump seems to be putting that statement to the test. in the past few weeks, he's been emboldened to go it alone,

literally. the president parted ways with his chief economic adviser and booted his secretary of state via twitter. the two join a growing list of staffers chewed up and spit out by this presidency. and it's about to get worse. "the washington post" is reporting president trump has decided to remove his national security adviser h.r. mcmaster, a person with whom he never personally gelled. according to "the post," trump is discussing potential replace ps. the news of the departure was first reported by nbc news march 1st. for weeks the white house is on edge over who may be next and staffers are gripped by fear and uncertainty as they await the next move from an impulsive president who enjoys stoking conflict. the "associated press" reports that the president has been consuming news with amusement, even jokingly asking who's next? according to news organization axios, the president's chief of staff john kelly acknowledged

the president himselves is probably contributing to staff chaos stories. publicly his press had to put the kibosh on reports of white house turmoil. >> the staff actually spoke to a number of staff this morning reassuring them that there were personnel changes, no immediate personnel changes at this time. >> mcmaster may live to die another day but the daily job of governing has turned into a reality tv program. tune in each day to find out who survives. as michelle goldberg writes, increasingly the people supposed to be the adults in the room aren't in the room anymore. the self-styled grown-ups are for the most part being replaced by lackeys and ideologues. for more, ashley parker from the west and an msnbc contribute ker, heidi president bow la,

michelle goldberg and dave jolly. a great group to talk about this. ashley, you guys at the post and the times are amazingly able to get into the thought process in the white house. these people seem to be turbulent to tell the news of how bad it is. >> well, the thing is, in this white house because right now in this moment, west wing aides and white house advisers don't know what's going on. they're sort of in their own way doing what we're doing, trying to figure who is in, who is out, what does this mean what, is he going to do next. there have been white house aides who will call reporters to ask what we're hearing. our information is as good as theirs. >> what about john kelly saying in a somewhat off the record but not success flit so the that the president is causing this by asking around who to get rid of inside and outside the white house? he's going what do you think of this guy, that guy, getting rid of this person?

>> it's no secret the president calls friends, he calls confidantes that's how he makes decisions. he likes to spitball. what do you think of sean spicer. how about mcmaster, how about this and that. the problem is -- >> you guys call it midnight to collect the honey after he's made the calls. i know you guys do. esit's what's going on. i've never seen a white house -- michelle goldberg in the column said is the staff people have been discharged or left should talk about what's going on. they're already talking, aren't they? it seems like a lot of talking is going on about the trouble. >> they're trying to figure out what is going on. in the process of trying to parse fact from fiction, a lot of it ends up leaking out into the news. >> michelle, tell me, i've never seen such a chatter box of disquietude. who keeps secret in the white house anymore. you say they ought to do more and come out with rhetoric about

the duty of the people to speak to the country. >> i think a lot of people are talking off the record, right? so you have a lot of leaking. i think that some of these people who have assured reporters that they are the adults in the room, that they are not complicity in this administration but serving the american people, you know, now that they're not there anymore, they i believe have a duty to the country, if they believe this president needed baby-sitting and that he was a dangerous fool and they stayed there to prevent the worst from happening, now that they're not there anymore, they should tell the rest of us what's going on and put their names behind it. rex tillerson thinks this president is a moron. he's now a moron who is unleashed, unbound who has kind of the guardrails are off. and we're in a lot of trouble in this country. these people who say that they went into service because they're patriots i think should take the risk of putting their names to the whisperers that they've been putting out there.

>> michelle, now that you're on the word moron which grabs attention, it's impossible to forget the use of the word by someone who is secretary of state and speaking about the president who named him secretary of state, referring to him as moron is unforgettable. is he willing by anyone's evidence gathering that he's willing to talk about the moron he says is in the white house now? now that he's free to speak? >> i haven't seen any sign of it. i think it's his and other people who have left, it's their patriotic duty. if they believe this president is unfit or at least unfit to rule in the absence of a bunch of people who are there to hem him in, it is really their responsibility to speak out. i mean, one thing that's happened over the last year is because you've had these people who tried to thwart trump's more idiotic whims or impulses, a lot of the country has been shielded from the consequences of having a man as unfit as him as

president. and meanwhile, we've all become ininto youred to this outrageous behavior so it doesn't seem shocking anymore when a president runs his white house as if it was a da sadistic reality show. things are really out of control now. now suddenly the people who were -- who purported to be protecting us from this president aren't there anymore. he's consolidated his power and learned how to transcend the lilts put on him. >> you know, i've been. >> just say i watch presidents of limited intellectual ability like q with walk into that office and be an balled at their lack of any kind of sophistication. the way you talk about it is frightening in its reality, not your comments. recently john kelly has fallen out of favor with president trump. "associated press" is reporting the president is still frustrated by an interview he gave to fox news nearly two months ago in which he suggested the president has "evolved in

his thinking about the need for a wall at the mexican border." the two have reached a temporary truce rather than a real peace treaty. the talk about a moron in the white house is amazing to me. we chuckle as the awful absurdity of it, not the humor. >> the most disturbing part of it is because the president apparently likes this chaos, it is his style. >> it's survival. >> that there is no indication it's going to come to an end. he says i'm finally getting the cabinet i always wanted. he's been in the white house for almost a year and a half. but there is a trend i think -- there's some threads of what's happening which is that the people who are being put out to pasture like rex tillerson are people who actually had some disagreement with him ideologically. rex tillerson was considered more of a moderate. >> on the iran deal and things like that and client. >> so the people coming in, there's twos things about them.

one, they're viewed as more hawkish, loyalist, more ideological and he's looking at these people, we see reports he's spending more executive time in the oval office like what he's doing is watching fox and recruiting new people. >> apparently recruiting this em right off the air when he sees their looks. congressman jolly, let me ask you about this. i doubt if you were ever called a moron. i always wonder why people continue to serve somebody they see as moronic. what do you make of this? this is the high of awful. michelle goldberg thinks the guy a columnist and has an opinion, he's unfit. terms like that can are dropped. unfit. that's a hell of a statement. >> look, he surrounded. >> he is not fit to the sit in incon's chair. >> whether you agree with the ideology, he's surrounded himself with a lot of praes who were fit for the office.

he's demonstrating what it means to be a boss or leader. instead of empowering people around him, inspiring, he's behaving like a boss. he's insulting his own team, pushing him away. the reality is that's bad for the country. as he pushes away the voices he needs, kelly, mcmaster, sessions, cohn, tillerson, go on and on, as he pushes them away, he leaves himself surrounded by those whose voices don't matter, d listers who accept mediocrity. >> mcmaster, the head of the -- isn't the only official on thin ice with the president. veteran affairs secretary david shulkin, secretary ben carson and epa administrator scott pruitt have garnered negative headlines for questionable spending of taxpayer dollars are considered at risk for termination or reprimand. let's go back to your reporting here. how does it look for the weekend? i'm serious. how many people defen traness t

the next couple hours. >> a lot of people you hear are in trouble, it may not be imminent. i learned not to predict about this president. but that he doeses in this process, he wants to have replacements lined up. one of the challenges for replacing cabinet secretaries is because of the midterms he doesn't want to choose someone from the house or senate open up a potential lis competitive seat. so there is some pause while he tries to do this in a slightly organized manner if he decides to make a move. >> heidi,' apparently showed mercy as a malignant king would. he was going to fire his secretary of state while he was in nairobi and stick him to the guy, hit him while he's on a foreign trip before the government of kenya and do it for fun. he was talked out of that exercise and saidism a term used earlier tonight by his chief of staff john kelly. he said you can warn him it's

come. let him down easy. let him sweat it out for the next 48 hours and then he gets fired when he gets off the plane. >> there were many humiliations along that road. just because the ultimate act wasn't executed doesn't mean rex wasn't regularly humiliated. overruling him on north korea and putting him in his place. that has been his style from the beginning with the way he fired comey. he didn't find out about it till he saw it on news reports. >> the this president is horrible at firing people. one thing he often does especially with attorney general sessions he tries to make their jobs as awful as possible to force them to quit. a lot of these people around him made a decision if you want me gone, you have to fire me. it leads to public humiliation along the way. they're not going to resign because the president is belittling them publicly. >> david, let me ask you about that process of firing.

the gutsy thing is to call the other person in the room with you and sit down across the table, we used to have a cigarette in the old days but have a cup of co-and say you know what, you've been a great colleague. it isn't working out. you know it and i know it. why don't we part way and face the press right now. you've got the person in your head to replace the person with. that would be the grown-up way to handle something. >> we've seen donald trump is not someone of immense personal mettle. it takes a very weak coward in leadership to not be able to terminate one of your most senior people face-to-face. chris, we're dealing with the highest office in the land, mat areas of national security. >> the only president we have. >> with the trade, he's the only president we have. the one thing i will tell you politically, and if he was smart enough to give him credit for doing so, perhaps we could. a lot of administrations, look, but for the the stormy daniels situation, we would be focused

on the improprietary at v and interior and hud and those would be campaign issues. i don't think he's doing this looking at how to improve the cabinet but how to improve loyalty tilt to him personally. >> sometimes i wonder which scandal he prefers us to focus on. there's always a lot to choose from. thank you so much. thank you very much, ashley parker, heidi ab-michelle goldberg. coming up, has vladimir kara-murza putin finally gone too far? i vladimir like i tanya? russia is obsessed with hacking our election systems and now our power grids. it looks like putin was behind the murder of a spy on british soil. he knows he can get away with it, that trump won't push back. those are facts. plus the other scandal encroa encroaching on the oval office, the attorney for stormy daniels

now says she's physically threatened to keep quiet about anything she had to do with donald trump. back to the white house, to plug the holes, trump is plucking people out of the fox news green room. to him, the real experts on this planet are the people who show up on television especially on fox. the experts. finally let me finish tonight with trump watch. this is "hardball," where the action is. ♪ "never been in love" by cobra starship feat. iconapop ♪ woo! yeah! it's good! it's refreshing. ♪ this is what our version of financial planning looks like. tomorrow is important, but she's only seven once. spend your life living. find an advisor at northwesternmutual.com.

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welcome back to "hardball." in addition to meddling in the 2016 presidential election, russia's recent actions show putin is taking more brazen steps to thumb his nose at the west. increasingly, his country's government is looking more like criminal enterprise. first there was the unprovoked attack on u.s. troops in syria by so-called russian mercenaries working for an oligarch next to putin. the sex-hour battle ended with 200 to 300 dead. no americans were killed. the clash marks the first direct military engagement between american and russian forces in decades. then there was the unprecedented chemical attack this month against a former russian spy and his daughter in salisbury, england. 19 others were treated for exposure to the banned nerve

agent there which moscow developed in the closing days of the cold war. british prime minister theresa may said it's the first attack of its kind in a nato territory and pointed the finger at russia. >> they have provided no credible explanation thaks could suggest they lost control of their nerve agent. no explanation as to why russia has an undeclared chemical weapons program in contravention of international law. instead, they have treated the use of a military grade nerve agent in europe where sarcasm, contempt and defiance. >> most recently, the u.s. identified russia as the culprit behind a series of cyber attacks against critical infrastructure here in the u.s. and in europe which took place as recently as last year. and most alarmingly, the department of homeland security released this photograph showing the controls of a power facility that will russia accessed making clear that russia, russian state

hackers had the foot hold they needed to manipulate or shut down our power plants. i'm joined by malcolm nance, msnbc terrorism analyst and david ignatius with the "washington post." david, i want to start with you. why is russia behaving like tonya harding like we can't compete with the russians, i mean with the americans. we're going to do all the dirty tricks we can pull to slow them down and humiliate them. >> putin has a chip on his shoulder, he is angry seeking to restore russia as a significant world power. >> by bringing us down. >> so putin experience is that every place he's pushing, he's succeeding. there's been very little to stop him. it's obvious absent that that stop putin keeps going. i think that's what's finally become clear to britain, to france, to germany, and to the u.s. >> is that implicit because they can't compete with us gdp and innovation and technology?

>> russia in most ways is a declining power. russia is a one export economy. it's basically dependent on oil and gas trying to become modern but it's slipping further behind. this is not china. this is not a strong economic competitor. putin has one thing, this defiant willingness to use force and he's doing it again and again. finally he's gone too far and people have put up the stop sign. >> malcolm, it's been said the most dangerous animal is the wounded animal. if the russian republic is so wounded so angry, so much with a chip on its shoulder, they're to be watched at least. and perhaps curbed. >> well, certainly the chip on their shoulder goes further back than the soviet union, this is almost a russian trait, insecurity about how they position themselves vis-a-vis the west. vladimir putin sees himself as a renaissance peteert great which rejects the outreach to the west. is he trying to reengineer the

polar axis away from what they call account atlantis alliance into theuracious alliance which is europe held down by russia. russia is resurgent in the sense the united states must be brought to heel and turned into the third rate superpower with russia and china as the top two. that's the entire basis of what he's doing. >> even when confronted by the evidence, we've seen putin consistently deny responsibility for his actions. when asked by megyn kelly about the indictment of 13 russians recently who meddled in our elections he was dismissive. watch him. >> why have you decided the russian authority myself included, gave anybody permission to do this? nothing has changed since you and i talked last time in st. petersburg. some names have popped you. so what. >> so it wasn't the russians. >> translator: okay, fine, russians but they're not government officials.

so what if they're russians? there are 146 million russians. so what. >> if the 13 russian nationals plus three russian companies did interfere in our electionses, is that okp with you? >> i don't care. i couldn't care less. >> smirking like -- david, you write in your column this week he used the phrase so what nine times during the interview with kelly. that's his tell as we say. he thinks he can get away with it based on 18 years in power. when he gets caught, he throws up his hands. that was like a smirking kid from our gang comedy. >> we just watched mr. so what. i'm telling you, he thinks he can get away with it. he keeps doing it. his answer when pushed so what are you going to do about it? the answer has been nothing. >> malcolm, what do you make of that guy and that smirk? i don't know what he was doing there. he wasn't acting like a grown-up. he didn't think he had to.

>> it's not a question of acting like a grown-up. this man understands power politics. he understands that he is now in the driver's seat. he does not care how his hybrid warfare strategy affects the rest of the world except when he wants it to affect have an effect the way he needs it. and what he did with meddling -- attacking the united states, going after the french elections trying to reengineer all conservatism in the western world to be his, you know, to be his asset so to speak, he is essentially saying, he doesn't care. he has a plan in place and it's being affected and it's working. so what? >> i just think he's like a guy who can't afford a good car so he goes around keying all the other good cars he sees. let me key every good looking car, scratch them up so they'll look like hell and i'll feel better because i can't have a nice car. that's that simple. isn't that about it. >> cheese a malicious

mischievous. >> why does trump put up with it? >> that is the question of year. let's ask special counsel robert mueller why he puts up with it. >> because he's got trump by the taylor what? >> trump campaigned saying he wanted better relations with russia. that's a plausible architect to make. >> that was two years ago. >> what's the deeper part of this? we don't know the answer yet. i do think it's important that putin has i think has finally gone too far even donald trump has said i think putin's responsible for poisoning this former agent in salisbury, england and we finally have the imposition of sanctions by the trump administration against russia. so i think a small corner has been turned. the question is whether trump will stick with it. >> both of you know the underworld, that back alley world, dick cheney liked to talk about it we have to use. is trump -- has putin, trump's

friend, has he killed people personally? has he put people on contract and say kill that guy? take him out by a nerve agent. >> the k greg postell ballpark uses violence. the british accusation here is very direct. british prime minister has said of this was you know, a breach of international law on our soil. it was an attempted murder of somebody in britain. she's blamed putin himself. >> is he a killer? >> yeah, absolutely. this guy is a former kgb officer. you know, their mot taupe is once kgb, always kgb. he calls the fsb and the svr the new nobility of russia. nothing gets done in that country without a former kgb or fsb officer on your staff. he has personally ordered these attacks. he has killed people. he does not care whether we know about it. >> apparently so. thank you, malcolm nance. and david ignatius.

up next, disturbing allegations continuing to emerge from the stormy daniels scandal. daniels' lawyer now says the film actor was physically threatened to keep quiet about anything she had to do with donald trump. that has certainly escalated. this is "hardball" where the action is. about your brokerage fees. fees? what did you have in mind? i don't know. $4.95 per trade? uhhh. and i was wondering if your brokerage offers some sort of guarantee? guarantee? where we can get our fees and commissions back if we're not happy. so can you offer me what schwab is offering? what's with all the questions? ask your broker if they're offering $4.95 online equity trades and a satisfaction guarantee. if you don't like their answer, ask again at schwab.

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scandal. this morning her lawyer michael avenatti told "morning joe" that the adult film star was physically threatened to remain silent about her alleged relationship with trump. let's watch it. >> was she threatened in any way? >> yes. >> was she threatened physical harm? >> yes. >> what do you mean by that? was her life threatened. >> again i'm not going to answer that. people have to tune in to 60 minutes. >> can you tell us whether it came from the president directly. >> i'm not going to answer that. >> will you deny that the president of the united states threatened your client. >> i will not confirm or deny. >> like the old what's my line. mika, good for you. good props for getting that question at the date live there at the buzzer. and notty also said daniels would offer more details on her upcoming interview. they're hyping this on cbs' "60 minutes" reportedly scheduled for the 25th the sunday after this. daniels' attorney said he was unaware of any specific legal

challenges to prevent that interview. cbs is not vulnerable. she might be. the west reports powerful figures can slow publication by threatening legal action. some see legal peril for daniels. the white house denied allegations of the relationship all together between daniels and the president. i'm joined by jill wine-banks, an msnbc legal analyst. i don't know what to say, but the physical danger, what do you mean? i guess there's a couple ways, somebody called up and say you'd better be careful, lady. you might be in danger. what do you think it meant to say physical threat? >> it's always hard to know with the president or with michael cohen exactly what was an meant. but i take it as a serious threat of bodily injury. and it could void the contract depending on whether the threat preceded the contract or was after the contract. we don't know but it's a crime

in and of itself to threaten physical harm to anybody. so whoever made that threat could be in legal jeopardy just for making the threat unrelated to the fact that there is a nondisclosure agreement. >> well, what would the nondisclosure agreement do to that? if it preceded the agreement, you would be covering up not just the sexual relationship if it occurred but also the threat posed at you. you would be covering up a lot for money, right? >> i don't think that a threat of physical harm would be covered by the nondisclosure agreement especially if it happened after the agreement was signed because that couldn't can be covered by a pre-existing arrangement. there is a question is to whether the document is enforceable because it wasn't signed by donald trump or dd. and i would say there's another reason why it might not be enforceable. it seems to be a completely inequitable agreement where all the benefits flow to dd who we

assume is donald trump and all of the obligations are on the part of pp who we know is stormy daniels. >> but she's gets 130k out of it. there is money for her if she had a case here. she got the pone. >> yes, she got $130,000 and agreed in exchange to do a lot of things and all of the things she agreed to included $1 million in liquidated damages each and every time she will revealed anything that was prohibited under the agreement. $130,000 is not enough for anybody to knowingly agree to pay $1 million in damages. that seems inequitable right there. and he had no obligations other than the payment of the money. except to sign the agreement which apparently he did not do. so there's some serious questions about whether it's enable. >> just back to the question, if she was threatened by one of his

agents or henchmen or whatever before she signed or agreed to this nondisclosure, would that tell you anything? how would that affect this whole thing? >> if she was threatened before that? it would totally void the contract because it would have been signed under the threat of the physical harm. >> right. >> that would make it not a freely agreed to document. even though the document might say we did this treely and fairly, if you were threatened that's not a free and fair agreement and could not be enforced under any law. >> so we have to infer it came afterwards if it happened the physical threatening? >> i'm assuming that if it happened before, that would have been alleged by her lawyer who said it's not enforceable because it wasn't signed on the line it was supposed to be signed by donald trump. but also. >> you lawyers have your uses. you know? you're really good at this. thank you. a lot of it doesn't come to mind to those of us who weren't lawyers. i never thought of the fact but

if she had been threatened obviously she couldn't honestly, neither party could say this was done out of free will of either party. thank you so much. >> exactly. >> up next, trump's staff looks familiar, it should. the president is doing most of his recruiting his hiring from what he watches on fox news. so much for experts. trump wants people good at arguing his case on the tube. you know these people. he knows them the same way you know them. watch him during his executive time, that means watching television. that's what presidents hike him and there's only one like him do. you're watching "hardball."

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welcome back to "hardball." call it the green room cabinet. the west is reporting president trump may hire multiple cable news personalities as part of

his administration's staff shake-up. trump's reportedly considering replacing national security adviser h.r. mcmaster with bush administration hawk, did i say that loud enough, john boldin. he frequently appears on fox news and defended the president on russia investigation. let's watch yawn bolton. the fact that president trump opened the meeting by talking about russian interference in our election and according to secretary of state tillerson pressed it several times should be the end of the allegations about collusion with the trump campaign. of course, it won't be. just for reality's sake, that was important. >> pete heg seth military veteran has been floated as a possible replacement for secretary david shulkin. he's a co-host of "fox & friends" weekend. a fierce advocate of the president for the president. here he is defending trump's attacks on nfl players. >> i have to ask you, what are

we kneeling for. you talk about social injustice. this is the least sexist, least racist, most free, most equal, most prosperous country in the history of humankind. free peoples governing themselves. we can't even now stand together for i don't know, what is it a minute and a half, two minutes for our national anthem. >> that's the divisive action. >> that's called freedom. then there's cnbc analyst larry kudlow trump tapped as his new chief economic adviser. >> i've known the president a long time. we have mutual admiration society. the president likes me as a media communicator. i'll be more than happy to oblige. >> president trump may love tv personalities but doesn't feel the same way about policy experts. coming up next with "hardball" and our roundtable.

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mess. we've helped to make it a mess. >> welcome back to "hardball." that was trump during the campaign dismissing anything -- well, experts. them. while trump may not value policy expertise he likes a good tv permanent. given the candidates who are being considered for jobs in his administration. let's bring in our roundtable. share michael singleton, stephanie president of emily's list and alicia roscoe from reuters news service. shermichael, does he like fix his own teeth when he has a cavity. >> the maybe. >> does he fix his own plumbing? if he does like certain kinds of experts but not the big kind. >> there is value in having people with experience and knowledge in certain subject areas. those individuals have guided previous presidents and leaders across the board how to make the proper decisions for organizations and countries. it's interesting when you

observe trump, he's almost a case study on pseudotransformational leadership. he makes short term goals without thinking about long-term repercussions. >> that's scary. >> it is very scary. i don't disagree with you. it's not a good thing. >> like if we do a surgical bombing of north korea, something might conscious sequenceal. how does he know this stuff without having an ambassador to south korea? >> he doesn't feel like he needs one. >> shermichael -- so much more nervous now. >> stephanie, you're up. this guy doesn't want to defend. >> i mean, it is undefendable. it's undefendable. i often think about it from my perspective. i run an organization. i have 100 staff. i actually think about. >> featherbedding. >> bringing in staff who

complement me and question me and push me. and i do the same thing. and that's how we get the best work done. i was senator jon tester's chief of staff. i think how great of an organization he put together as a senator and that he wanted people with different ideas so you got to the best idea. >> what's trump want? >> he wants yes people. he seems to want yes people. >> what's he want? >> i don't know that he even wants yes people. but he wants people that are going to do what he tells them to do ultimately. i think that for the first year that he was in office, he had these people, they weren't necessarily the usual experts because a lot of them didn't have a lot of washington experience but they had some expertise. they tried to manage him a bit. now he just wants to do what he said he was going to do. he wanted to put tariffs on stuff, he's going to slap tariffs on stuff. he wants people that will execute that. now we'll have to wait and see what happens. >> the west points out installing cabinet or cable pundits in decision making jobs

has not worked out well for him thus far. k.t. mcfarland was nominated to be the ambassador to singapore. her nomination was withdrawn after implicated in the russia probe. monica crowley was nominated to be on the national security council. her nomination was withdrawn after alleging plagiarism. the trouble with picking your people from over the transom, people looking for jobs because they don't have employment opportunities is you get some people that aren't exactly ready to run country into chris, people would get solid -- with good solid experience would not want to work in this administration. to your point when you think -- >> you're laying down on me here. >> you wouldn't do it, chris. >> i want to ask you another question. what can trump do to fix this problem? >> hire qualified people. it's simple. >> but even when you talk about hiring qualified people and you say he's bringing in tv people. we see how he's influenced by what he sees on fox. even with the people that he's

hired, if you get on "fox & friends," you'll get more of a response from president trump. >> remember. >> that's absurd. >> remember the peter sellers movie "being there," where all the guy knew was what he saw on television. he's living on u street. this guy -- >> this is now how you run a company. he doesn't even run a company. >> he has executive time when he's watching fox. he doesn't meet people. he only meets what's on fox. when it comes time to replace people, i know this guy on fox. it makes sense. executive time it's called. >> i don't know about that. i don't know about that at all. look. i think if the president. >> let me tell you about it. it's called executive time. >> it sounds great. it's not on my schedule yet. >> running for president because i'm a great executive. i have these experiences. that's not the case. >> i think what is becoming more upsetting to me is like the chaos is exhausting. voters find the chaos

exhausting. but where are the republicans in congresses? like i want to see some folks stand up and say enough. this is way too important to have this behavior. >> i hate to think what this sounds like our conversation in russian. as putin finds out this guy is scary. our president right now. up next these people will tell me something i don't know. you're watching "hardball." get an extra day by the pool get to spend more time together get more moments to remember there are some things you can only get when you book with us. get more from your spring break getaway with exclusive hilton offers. book yours, only at hilton.com fthere's flonase sensimist.tchy and watery near pollen. it relieves all your worst symptoms including nasal congestion, which most pills don't.

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for skin that looks younger than it should. fact check this ad in good housekeeping. olay regenerist. ageless. we're back with the roundtable. shermichael, tell me what i don't know. >> i think that conor lamb who just won the seat in pennsylvania will have a very difficult time running again nine months from now in november. he's running in what will be the 17th congressional district. >> more suburban. >> against a republican who beat a democrat in 2012. think about this, 2012 when obama was on the ballot and -- >> the better opens up outside in a few minutes. come around to the betting window.

go ahead. >> emily's list had a good night in texas ten days ago with five of our primaries going through. we've got five more in illinois on tuesday. and this is just ten of dozens and dozens of women that are running to take back the house majority. and i have to say one last thing. we lost a great, great congresswoman today in lew ez slaughter. i feel like we got to deliver the majority for louise now. >> work. >> i mentioned tariffs earlier and the european union right now is preparing to or taking the first steps on putting tariffs on u.s. products. if president trump doesn't give them an exemption next friday. so they released a ten-page list of american products from rice to orange juice to motorcycles that they would put tariffs on and right now they're seeking comments from their industries. >> let's keep the border open between northern ireland and the republic.

thank you shermichael singleton, stephanie and aisha ras co. let me finish tonight with trump watch. you're watching "hardball." we may be one of the world's most familiar companies, but we make more than our name suggests. we're an organic tea company. a premium juice company. a coconut water company. we've got drinks for long days. for birthdays. for turning over new leaves. and we make them for every moment in every corner of the country. we are the coca-cola company, and we're proud to offer so much more. the lsave up to 50 percent onon hundreds of your favorite items. jym. cellucor. force factor. mega men and women's ultra mega. only at gnc.

trump watch march 16th, friday march 16th, 201737 this week we saw two very different messages democrats could deliver heading toward the congressional

elections had november. one was the message sent this week by the person donald trump outscored in the electoral college in 2016, secretary hillary clinton. if you look at the map of the united states, she said, there's all that red in the middle where trump won. she said that in a speech in india. i win the coast, i win illinois and minnesota. places like that. i won the places that represent two-thirds of america's gross domestic product. i won the places that are optimistic, did i verse, dynamic moving forward. his whole campaign was looking backwards. clinton described what she said was the motive of those who voted for trump. he didn't like black people getting rights, you don't like women getting jobs. you don't want to see that indian american succeeding more than you are. whatever your problem is, i'm going to solve it. that is one way to address the voter who voted for trump in 2016. you would like that vote for you, a democrat voting for congress in 2018. the other way is the way conor lamb talked to voters in pennsylvania this week.

he beak told them programs like social security and medicare are popular with people for the basic reason they are for everyone. he reminded voters many who vote ford trump they have an interest in the programs democrats created for americans just like them. this is to me an acid test for democrats this year. you can probably win with simple resistance, attack trump and by dangerous implication attack those who voted for him. in other words, tell people they made a mistake driven to that by their prejudices or as lamb put it, appeal to their basic economic interest and values. people who made one judgment one year and another this year. you'll never get anyone calling voters racists you see as below you and expect expect them to support you in the election that follows. bet on lamb's approach. i think he gets it. thanks for being with us. have a happy st. patrick's day tomorrow.

all in with chris hayes starts. >> tonight on "all in." >> i have no deals in russia. >> as the mule ter investigation officially enters trump tower, a long-time figure in president trump's circle joins me live. >> i was working on a bunch of real estate transactions with donald trump of all people. >> tonight, my interview with felix sater on his time working with donald trump. the russia investigation. and his double life as an american spy. then explosive new allegations from the lawyer for stormy daniels. >> was she threatened in any way? >> yes. >> was she threatened physical harm? >> yes. >> as the president played reality show with his cabinet -- >> i read where maybe people don't want to work for trump. >> the incredible new scandal for his secretary of defense jim mattis when all in starts right now. >> good evening from new york. i'm ch