it is not being investigated. it is being reviewed. >> vee viewreviewed by the insp general for the epa. ethic people at the epa says, while he says it was cleared to rent this apt for $50 a night from a lobbyist -- >> people from the white house said this is particularly challenging from the president because the president doesn't have a lot of people anymore that he truly trusts because he trusts and likes scott pruitt. see how it plays out. >> thanks for watching this hour of "velshi & ruhle." i'll see you back here at 3:00 p.m. eastern. >> i'll see you back here at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow. connect with our sho shoshow @velsh show @velshiruhle. right now on "andrea mitchell reports," border wars. president trump orders national guard troops to the border with mexico creating an immigration crisis without showing any evidence. leaving the pentagon and homeland security scrambling to catch up. >> why today, not yesterday,

tomorrow. today, today is the day. today is the day we want to start this process. the threat is real, as i mentioned. status -- it's complicated. facebook now says most users should assume their profiles have been compromised as ceo mark zuckerberg runs damage control in a conference call with reporters. >> we didn't take a broad enough view of what our responsibility is and that was a huge mistake. it was my mistake. and the heat is on. the head of the epa caught off-guard when he's grilled on fox news about his ethics scandals. >> have you made mistakes? >> i think this is something that needs to be corrected. it was a mistake by my team -- >> so do you take responsibility? >> i'm fixing it. >> do you take responsibility? >> i'm fixing the problem. good day. i'm andrea mitchell in washington. president trump has ignited a border battle by ordering the

national guard to the southwest border. the president trying to show his base that he's tough on one of his signature campaign issues. this is the secretary of homeland security claims that replacing the existing wall qualifies as "the new border wall." >> we're building real time -- >> how much of the wall have you built? >> this is an important question. to us, it is all new wall. if there was a wall before that needs to be replaced, it is being replaced by a new wall. so this is the trump border wall. in many cases it will -- >> replacing current wall was count as new wall in your words. >> yes, it would. >> joining me now, nbc's kristen welker at the white house and david ignatius, "washington post" foreign affairs columnist. kristen, first of all, the whole issue of repairing the old wall now is a new wall and the scramble to do this. this is not unprecedented. presidents obama and bush have used the national guard but it's always been a well planned operation in response to a crisis. where is the crisis?

>> the president says there is a crisis, andrea. but if you look at the figures, border crossings are actually at historic lows. now the president says that's because he's been so tough on immigration. but look -- you're right, andrea, he has broken with precedent because he's unveiled this plan to send the national guard to the border without any details really and without coordinating with the various governors who need to weigh in on this. i spoke with dhs secretary earlier today asking her if they knew how much national guard troops will be going to the border, how much it will cost, will they be armed? how soon will they get there? no answers on any of those questions, andrea. although she did stress that right now they are having conversations with governors from the various states that would be impacted from texas, new mexico and california and trying to determine exactly what is needed. california, by the way, fairly non-committal in its public

statements about the president's announcement only saying they're reviewing the policy but the dhs secretary said earlier today she ultimately is confident that they will work with the administration on this, andrea. >> now, to you and david ignatius, both of you, the data from the "washington post," "the new york times," according to the "new york times" in particular, last year the number of illegal immigrants caught at the border was the lowest since 1971, said the united states border patrol. still mr. trump seized on what's become an annual seasonal uptick in central american migrants making their way north to make his case. arguably, david, this might be politically expedient for the president but when he talks about the caravans highlighted repeatedly by fox news, these caravans are normal migrations of hondurans through mexico, some of whom are going to resettle in mexico, and all of whom are going to go to apply for refugees status south of the border. that is legal immigration if

they're granted status. not illegal immigration. >> andrea, there's no evidence that i'm aware of that would back up the declaration that there is an imminent crisis requiring the deployment of military force to the border. if the president has that evidence, he is not offered it. i just would note, this is the kind of thing that the u.s. military, any military, likes least, where there is a big policy declaration without a lot of planning, logistical thinking, moving troops around is not an easy matter, and the military likes careful planning and structure. so i'm sure there are a lot of people scrambling trying to respond to what the president says without being sure just what their mission is at this point. >> apparently, kristen, there are going to be unarmed and their mission is a support mission so they are not in a military accepts but they are

support -- trucks and others who are needed as back-up for the border police. >> that's right. and that's something that dhs secretary nielsen reiterated today when i pressed her on that. she essentially said the expectation would be that they will be in some type of support role and that they will be helping those who are on the front lines already to protect the border. but again, andrea, so many of these details about when they are going to actually be deployed and what it will look like are still be hammered out. >> david, while you have you here with your expertise on syria and on the terror threat from isis and also al qaeda now migrating into syria to take advantage of the chaos there, the president had a real dust-up with his own national security team. as you know, the day before yesterday, about his determination to get out of syria and do it like immediately and the military pushed back and said it is going to take some

time. he said how long? it's months, not years. right. six months to a year, according to our reporting. so they persuaded him to wait a couple of months. but are we ready to pull out and cede that conflict zone, that battleground to the russians, iranians and others? >> our military would say no. i was just in that battle space in syria in february and i heard repeatedly from u.s. military commanders that there is a process of finishing the fight against isis who are still running pretty much free in the eastern -- most eastern part of syria along the iraq border, then stabilizing the area. my fear is that this announcement that the u.s. is leaving in a matter of months, the commanders managed to get the president to say, okay, have you some months to do it, but not years, will trigger a movement on the ground and

evaporate a lot of the gains the u.s. has made in stabilizing this part of northeastern syria. once it becomes unstable again, isis and other terrorists are going to move back and forth across borders toward europe. the problems that we experienced a few years ago come back. >> another quick point. the syrian kurds who are really the enemies of erdogan, he says, the turks, the syrian kurds have been among our best allies, the best fighters there. they're now retreating from their forward positions because they're under attack from turkey. so it is a convoluted mix there of different forces, and the president is relying on the saudis to bail us out and come in with $4 billion and take over. >> i think what troubles our commanders most, andrea, is trying to keep faith with the allies, the syrian kurds in what's called the syrian democratic forces who have fought this battle on the

ground, lost many, many hundreds of people in courageous fighting. what do you say to those commanders when they ask where are you going to be in six months? where are you going to be in a year? i'm not sure american commanders can give them a clear answer. and that's tough if you have really relied on a battlefield partner and can't give that partner good answers. >> david ignatius, thanks so much for your expertise there. kristen welker all over this story on the border. thanks so much for all of your interviews with kirsten nielsen. not everyone is happy about sending national guard to the border. in a veseries of tweets, ruben galleg tweeted -- using the national guard to do border security is very expensive. for what it would cost the guard to make just two arrests at the border we could give a homeless veteran permanent housing for a year. press secretary sarah huckabee sanders fired back in a daily

briefing on wednesday. >> i don't think you can put a cost on american life. the president sees securing the border as national security issue and protecting americans. if that congressman is so concerned, maybe he ought to show up and actually support legislation that would fix these problems instead of blaming the president who's actually trying to do something about it. >> joining me now is arizona congressman ruben gallego. you had the white house press secretary taking shots at you. you're a veteran, i know you can take it. but what about the politics of all of this? >> well, the politics of this is that the president essentially is using the national guard, creating this hysteria that there's somehow a national emergency, and using you are o taxpayer dollars to try to booster his low poll numbers, especially with his base. fact is, the president lost. he was not able to get his border wall. the congress in a bipartisan manner tried to give him actually a really good deal to have a border wall and will have

done a lot more of what he will do with his national guard and border security but him and his advisors don't know how to take a good deal. so he failed. now they're lashing out to do anything to get a life saver and survive. >> the fact is that your own governor, the arizona governor, obviously a republican, supports the sending of the troops to the border. so have other republican governors from the southwest. doug ducey tweeting washington has ignored this issue for too long and help is needed for arizona. it is all about public safety. so what do you say to your constituents? >> well, i would say to my constituents that i've worked with the governor, i've been in the state house for four years. i think he's not always true to his words. if you look at how often we are not funding our state troopers who are actually very important when it comes to public safety. we could argue about that. now, at the other end of this, i think any governor would like to

take any help, provided they're not paying for it. right now we have no clue who's paying for this? defense budget? coming out of the department of homeland security? who is going to be activated? how long it is going to take? any responsible leader would at a minimum ask these president. the fact that a sitting president could just on a whim just order the national guard to any parts of this country there actually being a verified threat or emergency should certainly concern us all. this is a precedent we don't want to see take off. >> there is a precedent before for sending troops to the border but it was during crisis periods under obama and under president george w. bush. >> absolutely. and it was explained. what's going to happen, for how long and for how much. >> what do you say when the white house claims that repairing old sections of the wall qualifies as "new wall." >> i think that they're trying to move us into a very orwellian

world claiming something old is new and something new is old. this presidency is more worried about the pr towards people watching fox news and reading breitbart than they are actually accomplishing true border security. again, we could give you some really good border security measures if you work with congress in a bipartisan manner. but walls or fake walls, what the president has right now, is not going to do it. not only is it not going to do it, even his own base does not believe the semantics they're playing with right now. >> thank you very much, congressman, for joining us today. new troubling details from facebook as fallout from its cambridge analytica scandal grows, the social media company now says the number of users who may have had their information shared with a data firm is up to 87 million people. 87 million. ceo mark zuckerberg spoke to reporters during a conference call wednesday as he prepares to testify before congress next week.

both the senate and the house. >> it's not enough to just give people a voice. we have to make sure that people are not using that voice to hurt people or to spread disinformation. >> nbc's jo ling kent is outfacebook headquarters in menlo park, california. you were on that call, jo. was he persuasive? >> reporter: mark zuckerberg apologized on the call. what really stood out in this q&a with us reporters was whether or not he is still fit to be the leader of facebook, this company that has about 2 billion users. he definitively said yes. he was also asked whether his board of directors may be doubting his leadership and he said he had not heard of any such thing. he says it is his company, he needs to lead and he needs to get through this. he also mentioned that this is going to be a very long process to fix that's what happened at facebook. he says it is not a three to six-month issue here. it is really the first of potentially three years of repairing privacy policies and

going back and seeing what exactly happened. as you know, mark zuckerberg is going to be testifying before three congressional committees next tuesday and wednesday. pressure will be on for him to provide even more solutions. i've been talking with early investors of facebook and they say they are still not satisfied with what he has rolled out so far for users. andrea? >> jo, from your analysis, are these fixes enough so far? they've taken a number of steps. they've been publicizing those i guess to set the stage before the testimony next week. >> reporter: yeah. what's really remarkable is they've been proposing some solutions to problems that we did not even know existed before. for example, the scraping of your personal data. they just yesterday disclosed that almost every sing sl facebook user should assume that they've had their personal data scraped by malicious actors so they're going to disable that feature on facebook. but again, another major, major problem within the platform and they're just now disclosing that

it's happened and they're trying to fix it. there is a lot on their plate right now. >> jo ling kent, thanks so much for being with us. tomorrow on "today," facebook's chief operating officer, sheryl sandberg, sits down with savannah guthrie for a morning show exclusive interview. coming up -- paying the price. farmers in trump country are worried about a trade war with china. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. he's trying to tell us something. let's see what forensics thinks. sorry i'm late. what did i miss? wanna get away? now you can with southwest fares as low as 49 dollars one-way. yes to low fares with nothing to hide. that's transfarency. are made with smarttrack®igners material to precisely move your teeth to your best smile.

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the president's new top white house economic advisor, former cnbc commentator larry kudlow, taking aim at china's long-criticized practices of unfair trade. >> it's done daniel to our economy. it comes from china's restrictive practices. i mean my thought on that, blame china. they've been doing this for decades. don't blame trump. trump is doing what everyone in the world said we should be doing. there's this grand co-lalition t there and you'll see more on that going forward. our intention is not to punish anybody. our intention is to open markets and investments and lower barriers. that's the deal. >> this as the white house faces criticism from red state farmers who are not happy about the prospect of a trade war as a result of the knew trunew trump.

an indiana farmer says trump's retaliation against america's soybeans and corn by china costing him $20,000 per year. >> less money to accepted kids to college and less money to save and re-invest in our farm. >> joining me, former director of asian affairs, victor cha, now an nbc news analyst. this fight with china has been brewing for many presidents but this is the first president who's simultaneously taken action against china having already withdrawn from the tee pp which gives china a lot of running room with our other trading partners because they are no longer in that trade preference group with the other asian countries. >> yeah. well i think that's right. first thing we have to say, does china have unfair trade practice -- the answer is yes. they always have. this is an effort at corrective.

but i wouldn't call it a trade war just yet. we're in a sort of quasi trade war right now because both sides have staked out their positions but nobody's actually acted yet, even though markets have been roiled and people are starting to panic. we're still not there yet. >> that's what larry kudlow has been trying to explain after the last few days after wilbur ross, secretary who is a hard-liner on china, said yesterday something like a shooting war is not that different from a trade war and the markets immediately went down hundreds and hundreds of points and kudlow came running out and tried to fix it -- did fix it, senior heads prevailing. but there are hardliners not only on asian trade but nafta and other negotiations. now you don't have gary cohn or other counterweights. >> yeah, so that's a real issue. i think we see on the one hand

mnuchin and ross, on the other hand, lighthizer and navarro. they've given themselves about six months now before they have to actually execute some sort of trait action. but there is a ceiling as to how far they can go at least on the tariff side because things china can do in terms of tariffs on the united states hurt china just as badly as they hurt the united states. >> china has complained to the world trade organization that we're violating -- the administration is violating trade and we have filed a counterpoint so we're in that arena. right now the argument is there are still months ahead, they don't quick in for six more months. within that period of course is the north korean summit. what about taking china on for its unknown trade practices at the very time we are trying to persuade china to get tougher,

and they have been on fuel and other exports to north korea. >> what we want in this big summit between trump and kim jong-un is chinese cooperation behind the scene. it is going to be difficult to do that when we are in the middle of a trade spat that could escalate with china. the chinese have been compliance for the most with the u.n. security council sanctions. they hosted north korea recently and might have given some gifts which might have been a violation of sanctions. but from the trump perspective, it is pressure to get them to the table and china is a key piece of that pressure so they need chinese cooperation. >> you have worked in the ns eche -- nsc. we're already see iing everythi backfire. . this could become a bad issue. >> the chinese know what they're doing.

they go after soybeans and farm states that trump won in the last election. but the thing we have to remember is that china export five times more to the united states than the united states export to china. if we get into a tariff war, china doesn't have as much to work with as the united states does. >> we still have a lot of rev laj. though they hold our debt so that's another whole question. victor cha, it is always great to have you around when things get complicated. coming up, red alert. mitch mcconnell forecasts a hurricane could hit his party in november. stay with us on "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. mom? dad? hi! i had a very minor fender bender tonight in an unreasonably narrow fast food drive thru lane. but what a powerful life lesson. and don't worry i have everything handled. i already spoke to our allstate agent, and i know that we have accident forgiveness. which is so smart on your guy's part.

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- there's a common thread i see every time i'm in the field. while this was burning, you were saving other homes. neighbors helping neighbors and strangers alike. - this is what america's about. - sometimes it's nice to see all the good that's out there. bringing folks out, we have seen it in community after community. some potential red flags for the gop ahead of the fast-approaching mid-terms. that is not stopping republican candidates in key primary states from tying their fate to the commander in chief. many are battling over who is more loyal to president trump, and they're making that point loud and clear. >> i'm todd reputa and i'll proudly stand with our president and mike pence to drain the swamp. >> i get team work.

that's why i backed president trump's agenda. >> pat morrissey will back president trump's agenda. >> hoosiers are ready for america first. >> at the same time some democratic candidates are also tying their fate to opposing president trump. there is just key difference, they are battling over who is toughest against him. >> donald trump is an embarrassment. donald trump is an example of a bully. i see it as my job to stand up to donald trump. >> i've taken on bullies my whole life. donald trump is hurting nevada families. he wants to take health care away from 200,000 nevadans. he wants to break up families by deporting drooe ining d.r.e.a.m. >> joining me, host of the daily standard pot cast, charlie sykes. former senior advisor to jeb bush and former spokesman for michael boehner, michael steele. welcome, both. charlie, out there in normally red -- i guess it is not always red -- wisconsin -- >> purple. >> -- purple wisconsin, let's talk about the trump factor.

it is fascinating both parties are filtering everything true trump, just obviously taking different sides. >> yeah. we are a bellwether state here in wisconsin. that supreme court election earlier this week was -- we're way past a wake-up call now this is a frickin' red flag for republicans. because there is no question about it this national trend which democrats and liberals are more motivated is showing up in these elections. i'll tell you, there are a lot of folks who are saying that on the freak-out scale of 1 to 10, that this is a 10. again, the irony as you pointed out is that even while this is happening, even while you have liberals more motivated and republicans losing some of the independents, particularly in the suburbs, what's happening is there is so much pressure on republicans in primaries to become more trumpist will, again, play to the base but will alienate the voters who are going to be turning out in november, unfortunately. >> and michael steele, take a

look at what mitch mcconnell said to local kentucky paper. he was -- we know wind is going to be in our face. we don't know whether it is going to be a category 3, 4 or 5. so it is a hurricane warning. >> it is definitely a hurricane warning. that was before the prospect of trade war which turned these hurricane winds into gale-force winds. the chinese are not dumb. their wisconsin cheese, kentucky bourbon. democrats are having the inverse problem, who hates the president more, who can be tougher on the president. as the democratic campaign committee has already warned that doesn't appeal to the middle of the road voters in these swing districts where they need to work. they need to promise to work with the president to deal with the country's problems and they're pulling themselves further and further away from being able to do that. >> so bottom line is, charlie, both parties are playing to their wings. that's not where november

elections are won. >> no. the november election though is going to be a measure of intensity. there is just no question about it who is more intense right now. by the way, michael is absolutely right. these -- this -- the tariffs and prospect of a trade war is not going to work in the favor of the republicans, particularly in the upper midwest. this is a real pocketbook issue. i'll tell you, this is not playing well here right now. especially when republicans -- the biggest thing they have going for them right now is the economy. and a trade war would blow that for them. >> one of the things we are seeing is a lot more women are running. this isn't a congressional seat but rebecca dowd just won by 12 points the state supreme court seat in wisconsin, charlie. tell us about her. i want to play a little bit of her last night from lawrence's show. >> i spoke out against the special interests that have really bought our courts -- or appear to buy our courts for the last decade. the message really resonated with voters and i was certainly

hopeful that they would turn out, which they did in great numbers. >> so, you were referring to that as another red flag or warning sign for republicans in wisconsin. >> right. these are the kinds of elections that republicans and conservatives have been winning, even though it is non-partisan. she ran as an unabashed progressive so this was a proxy fight between the left and right. this is the first time a liberal has won one these supreme court elections when they haven't been running as an incumbent. again that's a huge red flag and an indication of what's happening in the intensity wars here. again, these are the kinds of things that scott walker and the state republican party have essentially been geared up to win. and so for democrats on the left to sort of pick the lock of these spring elections in a state like wisconsin is a very big deal. >> michael steele, we were talking off camera about paul ryan. he is the biggest bellwether of

what's going to happen on the house side and he has not yet declared whether he's going to run. >> i think he will. this is the usual time for him that he always does, talking with his wife. look, he never wanted the job. he's been in washington probably longer than he ever thought he would be. at the same time he's doing the job, out there selling benefits of tax reform, raising money for the team. he's campaigning all across the country and he's putting together the legislative agenda that will take us through the end of this year and into the mid-terms. >> not a very big legislative agenda. >> no doubt the biggest left will be the tax cuts and jobs act. there are still opportunities to get things done for the american people and they're looking for those opportunities right now. >> he's still sleeping in his office and hasn't moved here. he is still the man from -- >> home is janesville. always will be. coming up, the president of planned parenthood has a new mission. is politics in her future? richa.

see seal cecile richards. cecile richards.

this time, it's his turn. you have 4.3 minutes to yourself. this calls for a taste of cheesecake. philadelphia cheesecake cups. rich, creamy cheesecake with real strawberries. find them with the refrigerated desserts. after planned parenthood became a major issue in the 2016 xa campaign, ended up on the losing side, how has the organization survived under president trump? now the lock-time head of the organization, cecile richards who's stepped down has written a new memoir about her

experiences. she joins me now. "make trouble, standing up, speaking out and finding the courage to lead." congratulations on the book. it is great to see you here. >> good to see you, too. >> what is your mission now? as you've written in the book anned a you see yourself somewhat freed from the obligations of -- >> the day to day -- >> day to day obligations of running an organization. you're your own person in every way now. >> i've been so proud to be at planned parenthood for 12 years. we have more supporters now than ever. we've beat back the efforts of this president and the congress to defund planned parenthood, they were completely unsuccessful last year because of the outpouring of women all across the country. as i transition out i'm really focused on the november elections and making sure we do everything we can to make sure that women are registered to vote and that they go to the polls because i think women are shaking the foundation of this country in every way and are a

powerful political force. >> how do you shake the perception that it's democratic women rather than all women when it comes to freedom of choice and family planning? >> it's not democratic women. of course at planned parenthood, 1 in 5 women in the country have been to us for health care. that includes women of every political stripe. women don't come to planned parenthood to make a political statement. they come because they need affordable health care. even i saw last week, fox news' own poll said that planned parenthood is now the most popular organization in the country. so that includes a lot of conservative women. >> how have they -- how have clinics which provide health care -- this is not abortion. this is about basic health care -- particularly in rural areas. >> that's right. that's right. >> as clinics were being closed, women in texas and other places were having to drive great distances. >> that's right. >> but how have women been affected in terms of their other health choices?

>> well, this is what's upsetting, andrea, of course, by the effect that this administration is now trying to deny women access to breast cancer screening and birth control. in texas what we saw is the efforts to shut down planned parenthood resulted in shutting down other health centers. women went without birth control, without their basic health care and we saw maternal mortality rates rise. i think that's a large part of why we're seeing women so active now. we're seeing record numbers of women running for office, twice as many running for congress. women have had enough of saying we're at the point of every attack in congress and by this administration. i think obviously as you just showed, they're winning elections no one ever thought they could win. >> want to ask you about an exchange with jared and ivanka with the trump-kushners -- i believe it was in bedminster, j

new jersn new jersey during the transition -- or just after the inauguration, rather. they were negotiating with you in terms of we'll give you the funding if you step back from providing abortion services, which you do but not with the federal money. >> correct. >> it was an uncomfortable meeting, to say the least. >> and it wasn't a negotiation because i wasn't there to negotiate. i was really there to talk to them about the incredible importance of what planned parenthood does. i talk about this in my book, i'll go anywhere to talk about the importawork of planned pare. it goes for breast cancer screenings and birth control. not abortion. what jared kushner said to me if i can get a headline that says planned parenthood discontinues abortion services i could probably guarantee your funding. i said we will never do that, we will never abandon women. we provide the full range of reproductive health care in this country and we're proud to do so.

>> i want to ask you about your mother because you write about your mother in the book. i knew your mother. >> yes. >> famously, let's talk about what she said. let's show what she said as she was keynoting -- i believe was she the keynote speaker at the convention? >> that's right. in atlanta. >> the democratic convention in atlanta. >> that's right. >> he's like columbus discovering america. he's found child care. he's found education. poor george. [ laughter ] >> he can't help it. he was born with a silver foot in his mouth. [ laughter ] >> she was such a natural politician. >> she was. >> it wasn't logical that a woman would be elected governor of texas. >> absolutely.

and i mean you knew her, andrea. she was -- as she said, you had to take her, warts and all. she was a recovering alcoholic. she was divorced. she was a progressive. and yet she was elected in texas. so i think of her a lot these days as we see women running in elections and winning elections that no one ever gave them a chance of winning. of course, no poll ever showed mom winning that race but she did because of the outpouring of grassroots support. i think we'll see a lot of that this november. >> what about you? is there elective politics in your future? >> who knows. never say never. but i do know there are a lot of folks right now who are asking for help and support to get elected in november. women are really the most political force in the country right now and i just hope that in addition to marching and calling congress and doing all the things that we do, that people go out and vote because that's when you really change the direction of the country. >> well, cecile richards, make troub

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welcome back. epa administrator scott pruitt not trying to save his job as new questions are arising about how he may have covered up some failing to disclose important details about that cut rate condo rental. pruitt was questioned by fox news. >> draining the swamp, renting an apartment from the wife of a washington lobbyist? >> i don't think that's even remotely fair to ask that question. >> okay, so why did you then accept $50 a night to rent a condo from the wife of a washington lobbyist? >> let's talk -- >> let's get the inside scoop from our white house correspondent for pbs news hour. and "new york times" political reporter jeremy peters. both msnbc contributors. welcome. yamish, scott pruitt, what is your reading of the tea leaves? we're hearing at the white house they're not comfortable with the fact he's even done these

interviews. he went on fox, which maybe he thought it was going to be a safe place and they acted like journalists. >> well, first of all, the interview of scott pruitt was kind of incredible to watch. ed henry pressed him saying is this a sweetheart deal. he said no, it's not, $50 a night in washington, d.c. only when you're sleeping there is obviously a sweetheart deal. getting back to the white house, just what they're saying on the record means they're not uncomfortable. sarah huckabee sanders saying the president is not okay with this arrangement that they had. that they're now investigating. she didn't defend him. she didn't say we're confident in them. which is what they said even when they fired people in the past. then another white house spokesperson saying that they're not concerned about scott pruitt's future. even on the record, the white house is saying they don't know if scott pruitt is going to be there for much longer. in the background of all this, the white house has been urging, according to "the washington post's" reporting and others, they did not want scott pruitt to go on fox news and then this interview happens and it's terrible, so scott pruitt

probably has a lot to worry about today. >> speaking of terrible interviews, let's show a little bit more of it. ed henry from fox asking scott pruitt to explain these raises, extraordinary raises which went around white house guidelines. let's watch. >> if you're committed to the trump agenda, why did you go around the president and the white house to get two pay raises for two staffers? >> i found out about that yesterday and i changed it. >> you don't know who did this? >> i found out about this yesterday and i corrected the action. we're in the process of finding out -- >> hang on, both of these staffers are friend of yours, i believe from oklahoma, right? >> they are staffers here in the agency -- >> they're friends of yours? >> well, they serve a very important person -- >> you did not know they got the pay raises? >> i did not know until yesterday. >> one thing they did was take the money from the clean water act provisions to pay for these pay raises of some $37,000-plus which is more than a lot of

other people make. and people like dan killdy, the democratic congressman from flint, michigan, are outraged, as are a number of republicans about this. >> that's exactly right. it's not exact lly draining the swamp when you're not only engaging in behavior that is unethical by taking sweetheart deals but you're moving money around from one pool to the other when you shouldn't be. i think one of the problems that scott pruitt has, and this comes through very strongly in the ed henry interview, is the sense of entitleme entitlement. you saw this with the private jets that he took and that he tried to take, but then eventually decided not to because somebody told him maybe this wasn't such a good idea. you see this with the accepting the condo at a cut rate. i mean, these are not the behaviors of a person who is taking the ethical responsibility of their job very seriously. it smells like to me is somebody who came into this administration from outside and

saw the excesses of the wealth inside trump's white house and in his cabinet. and said hey, you know, i want to live like that. that's what he did. now he's paying for the price for it. >> the sense of entitlement is extraordinary considering he was the statewide elected attorney general of oklahoma. the legal officer of oklahoma. with aspirations to replace jeff sessions. and being really pushy on that -- in that regard. >> one person this reminds me of is tom price. he was also somebody who saw maybe someone like betsy devos who is paying her way, paying for her own jets to fly around privately. he said, okay, i don't have that money, but what i can do is drive to dulles and take a private plane to philadelphia which everybody who lives in the washington, d.c. area knows is insane to do. >> it's faster -- >> scott pruitt was saying his arrangement with this lobbyist's wife, or the lobbyist, yes, the lobbyist's wife, was like

airbnb. no, it's not like airbnb when you're living in the home of someone who's married to a lobbyist. you have someone who looks really bad on tv, and that's probably going to be the undoing of him. when we talk about a president who is motivated by what he sees on television. if he's watching fox news and watching this ed henry interview, scott pruitt's in a lot of problems. not for anything that he looks like a deer caught in headlights in that interview. >> federal rules, guidelines, maybe they've changed in this administration, but you cannot even take first class travel and pay for it yourself because it creates the appearance of imp impropriety. >> the sense of entitlement that really comes through. thinking you are going to replace the sitting attorney general is pretty stunning. that's i think unbelievably egotistical. not only that, it's a fantasy. the idea that he would be confirmed by the senate.

show me the voice in the senate who would ever a propprove scot pruitt, especially now. >> the president is going to west virginia for a short day trip to talk about infrastructure. remember he tried to talk about infrastructure how many times. >> several weeks. >> he's boarding air force one. we'll be right back. t alert. i'm your phone, stuck down here between your seat and your console, playing a little hide-n-seek. cold... warmer... warmer... ah boiling. jackpot. and if you've got cut-rate car insurance, you could be picking up these charges yourself. so get allstate, where agents help keep you protected from mayhem... ...like me. mayhem is everywhere. are you in good hands?

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and that does it for this

edition of "andrea mitchell reports." remember, follow the show online on facebook and on tw twitter, @mitchellreports. border build-up. president trump orders the national guard to the southern border. with border crossings down and few details about how the guard is going to be used, what's really the driving force behind this decision? also, pruitt's problems. the epa chief with expensive travel and cheap rent is now the subject of a new review and there are new reports that the white house is not happy with how he is handling this controversy. and status update. things seem to keep getting worse for facebook. millions more user's data compromised. ceo zuckerberg set to answer questions on the hill. how much responsibility does the government even have to protect