you can't deal in china without tari tariff. they do it to us, we don't do it. >> if you put a tariff it's the good americans that pay it. >> you're looking at me? >> apart from the higher prices on consumers and people living paycheck to paycheck, apart from that there will be retaliation. so the soybean sales from iowa or how about boeing right here, if you think the chinese had a 45% increase on tariffs they wouldn't start buying air bus? of course they would. we need someone with a steady hand being president of the united states. >> so remember that during the campaign when donald trump threatened a trade war? he's doing it again and it looks like it's playing out just as jeb bush said it would. >> wait a second. what do you know, mika, jeb bush who -- i think of all the candidates we talked to -- >> we talked to them a lot. >> why don't you tell the truth. >> of all the candidates.

we interviewed, we're going to share everything. welcome to share everything friday between joe and mika. we're going to tell you something that happened yesterday. we interviewed jeb and after wards i said to mika, that's why i'm voting to the guy. >> he's most prepared is what i said. >> to which you said he's most prepared to be president and there's not a close second. so there he's predicting exactly what's going to happen after the campaign. >> and remember when trump veered wildly off script during carefully choreographed events. he's doing it again. falsely claimed that millions of people voted illegally. again. he is finally speaking out about the porn star who his lawyer paid to keep quiet. we'll talk about stormy. >> again, the lies that are repeated, you know, david, this

week we've been talking about talking a lot about the lies that donald trump has been telling and when i say lies there's no opinion about that. he says things. >> that are not true. >> that are objectively proven true. and it continues whether it was the post office or amazon or the washington, d.c. or you can go down the list. he continues this lying streak and we can call it a lie. it's not being biased. it's being a reporter. he lies about once again millions of illegal voters when there is no data. there is no evidence that he's done that and alex wants us to show it. let's show it and we'll talk about it. >> let's share. take a look. >> in many places like california, the same person votes many times. you probably heard about that. they always like to say that's a conspiracy theory. not a conspiracy theory, folks. millions and millions of people. remember my opening remarks at trump tower when i opened everybody said oh, he was so tough and i used the word rape

and yesterday it came out where this journey coming up, women are raped at levels that nobody's ever seen before. they don't want to mention that. >> you know, they don't want to mention it because it's a lie. like so many things that the president has said he's lying over and over again. and david, it is a conspiracy theory that he's spewing when he talks about all of these illegal voters. he's lying again about illegal voting. >> joe, if you took a really cynical look at this, you'd say he's trying deliberately to create a white nationalist backlash against a problem that the numbers show is not a serious problem, ordering troops to our border to deal with the supposed flood of immigrants who are going to grash the border, calling out the troops, that's pretty extreme. he's either doing it to distract people from other issues that are more important or he's doing

it in a more calculated way to try to build this electoral group that he thinks can power him through 2018 and 2020. >> he's being a general who's fighting the last war, fighting a war from 2006. we've -- record -- 46 years. lowest crossing -- illegal crossing from mexico. >> he will still step on the news by creating headlines that don't exist. with us here in washington we have associate editor for the washington post. nbc chairman of the republican national committee. and politics editor for the daily beast, sam stooin and up in new york along with our own willie geist, we have former treasury official and morning joe economic analyst steve rattner. let's dive right in. china is hitting back after

president trump appeared to raise the stakes. >> wait a second. i'm sorry. >> it's such a surprise. >> who could imagine that we would be put in this terrible position? president trump appeared to raise the stakes on a potential trade war. now they're hitting back overnight. chi china's commerce ministry said beijing is prepared to fight the just at any cost as trade disputes escalate. this follows the announcement last night that president trump is weighing $100 billion in tariffs on china. that's on top of the 50 billion in tariffs the white house announced on tuesday. issuing a statement from the president reading in part this, rather than remedy it's misconduct china has chosen to harm our farmers and our manufactures. in light of china's unfair retaliation i have instructed the ustr to consider whether $100 billion of additional tar rivers would be appropriate.

and if so, to identify the products on which to impose such tariffs. trump's latest move comes after china announced on wednesday that it would introduce tariffs on more than 100 american products including soybeans -- >> wait a second. jeb bush predicted that two years ago. low energy jeb or -- >> smart jeb who thinks and knows how to govern and cares about this country. that jeb. >> that jeb. >> yeah. anyhow, lawmakers including members of trump's own republican party are warning of backlash. republican senator of nebraska released a statement last night reading hopefully the president is just blowing off steam again but if he's even half serious this is nuts. china is guilty of many things but the president has no actual plan to win right now. he is threatening to light american agriculture on fire. let's absolutely take on chinese bad behavior but with a plan that punishes them instead of

us. this is the dumbest possible way to do this. he could not -- what ben sasse is trying to say is the president couldn't try hard to be stupider. >> i think the senator said it effectively enough. this is the dumbest thing he could do. >> it's just so dumb. >> willie geist, we always ask for republicans to speak out. we have a republican speaking out and actually telling the truth about the stupid ity of te tariff tax that hurts consumers across america, that hurts manufactures, that hurts the american economy. it's -- it ends up i guess that jeb bush was right, donald trump was wrong, these trade wars, they're not so easy after all. >> yeah, and this is not an abstract thing for these guys. this is not a debate club exercise. we heard the day before that from two republicans from the state of iowa that this has real

world impact and the people who live in their states and those of course aren't the only state hit by these. soybeans, pork, all the things these states live on would be hammered by these tariffs. the fact that jeb called soybeans to a t but he wasn't fun on the stage so they had to push him to the side. you know, it seems like a clip from a different lifetime where somebody could put out a policy. you could debate the merits of it and perhaps come out with a better answer, but where are these tariffs coming from in the white house? is it peter navarro, who is it? >> it's ross and navarro, i think there are for example larry cud low thwho's got extre views on the equation. >> he hates these. >> gary cohen when he was there certainly. i suspect steven muchen is no fan of this, but it's peter

navarro who is on the fringe of the fringe of the economics professional on this stuff. >> well, so steve, talk about the impact of another $100 billion from donald trump. it looks like it's again stacking one retaliatory move after another and talk about china can do this all day. they're in a position actually the way their government runs and functions when the chinese leader can stare down our leader in any trade war. >> well, while you've got a number of pieces that are all disconcerting. one is of course the volatility of the american policy. he announces a bunch of tariffs, the markets crash and they're not sure, there's a 90-day period where we're going to think about and the markets recover and another set of tariffs, the markets go down again. this is destabilizing to american business and our economy. the chinese do have many more levers.

we buy a lot more from them than they buy from us. but they control their economy and they have a lot of different pieces they can move around and even apart from the actual trade pieces, i'm not sure you want to go into a trade war with somebody that you owe $1.2 trillion to because there's a lot of stuff they could do there. the stuff they could do geo politically. david may want to talk about the south china sea. we're trying to get china to help with north korea. i don't think the nature of the chinese is to confront them and put them in a position where they can't lose face is a dangerous foreign policy and trade approach. you back them into a corner, they're going to strike back in any number of these ways. well, you know, milton friedmann time and time again, talked about extolled the virtues of free trade and he

said timeless wisdom is that free trade benefits all countries. and yet paul ryan i think paul ryan still is supportive of milton friedmann's views. >> you sure. >> i don't know because he's been silent in some of the midst of the most protectionist policies or at least a president who sounds more like herbert hoover than any president since, so i'm just curious, is milton friedmann no longer worth defending or the ideas no longer worth defending or the ideas of ronald ray goeagan no longer wo defending? because if you ask paul ryan or you ask any republicans on capitol hill who influenced them it is milton friedmann. >> yeah, that's what they say. >> buckley. all the people i grew up reading so how do you let a life long

democrat that converts to the republican party after he becomes a birther, how do you let him come into your party, infect your party day in and day out and in this way too become a protectionist and destroy the very tenants of free trade and not defend the ideas? >> i think that that's -- for me that's the lynch pin right there, defending the ideas because you figure at some point those ideas meant something. they stood for something. it's not just something that you said. it really was part of the economic belief system of the party because we believe in the markets and what the markets can do, not just for big business in corporate america but for the small and little guy and gal out there on main street that's trying to make their way. what this president has done is fundamentally cut them off. those -- those industries that are going to be impacted in the farming community, in the manufacturing community will see this real in their backyards and

their neighborhoods and joe, to your most important point, the silence of republican leadership who have not come forward and said, you know, mr. president we don't think this is a good idea, that can make the public statement and go in the back room and say no, brother we're not doing this. they're not doing it and that silence i think not just cripples the party, but it cripples the economy in a way that instills that kind of uncertainty that we've often, you know tried to avoid. >> and what about conservatism? what about you know, could you imagine if barack obama was engaging in this sort of reckless talk attacking free trade, the -- >> no, i first of all can't. >> he'd never do it but imagine if you will the number of press releases, the number of conferences, the number of

lectures we would hear every day from cato members, from the american enterprise institute, you name it, every single group and yet for a few republicans like ben sasse and a few writers, they just are lying down like lambs while the lion of protectionism races across washington, d.c. >> well, the one thing i think that is going on. there's two things. one is that elections -- these republicans staying silent are wondering whether or not their bases somehow still back donald trump. so if donald trump's voters are going to push back on the people that are representing them, if they take on donald trump, most republicans that i've talked to are not interested in a fight

with donald trump because of that reason because the people who put them in office and have to vote for them in the midterms aren't doing that. the other thing is -- >> people put them in their office to go with their gut and lead. >> well, there's the idea that people also realize that he was going to wing it and the second point i would make is that there are a lot of people around the country that i interviewed who see china as the boogie man who bought this idea that donald trump sold them that these countries are doing bad and taking advantage of us and they're unintended consequences of the people who voted him not understanding how free trade works and not only dealing with products actually being tariffs. but their workers. and then you have farmers in california saying i did vote for donald trump but i still need the workers here. well, sir, you voted for donald trump and he told you that this is what he was going to do. so i think that's what's going on and why you have this resounding silence from

republicans. >> sam stein, i don't understand though. it's always an either/or. they say well, he wasn't hillary clinton. okay. fine. why do you now support protectionism? why do you now support a president that's doing things that you've preached against for 40 years? well, he's donald trump and i don't want to cross donald trump. it's as if they are incapable of having a nuanced approach to politics and going to their town hall meetings and i'll just say, yes, i like x, but he's wrong here. he's spending too much money. his budgets are too big. he's driving us into deeper debt. yes, i like donald, yes i voted for donald trump, but i'm not going to let him destroy a half a century of conservative thinking on free trade. i'm not going to let him

undermine what adam smith was talking about back in the 18th century. i'm not going to let him repeat the mistakes of herbert hoover, but yes, i'm glad hillary clinton didn't win. you can say that in your district and you know what people say? they go, yeah, you're right i'm with you on that. >> well, i -- i agree with that synopsis. you know, there's a fascinating interview on vice news last night involving trey garty who's retiring. and during the interview he's talking about how he's taking on a lot of water right now among conservatives and particularly trump voters over his defense of robert mueller. he says we live in a culture now where i can agree with you 99% of the time but if it's that 1% where i'm not, that's what everyone focuses on. and to a certain degree i think that's what's motivating a lot of silence that you see from

elected republicans on this trade issue which is you cross donald trump there's potential you get hammered for it. i do think there's one other thing though. to a certain degree trump unlocked an electoral key for republicans that they fear they never would be able to do again. he showed a path to victory predominantly through the industrial midwest and in that part of the country, this stuff does resonate. you know, you talk to ohio steelworkers, there's reasons brown is supportive of a lot of these tariffs. that stuff resonates in that part of the country. now, is it smart policy? no. it's not. it's by the seat of your pants policy. obama did tariffs too, but they were much more thought out. what donald trump is doing is not t. but i think a lot of people look at it and say okay, trump was able to unlock this lock and maybe he was on to something. maybe he knows this political

formula that we just didn't get and so part of what's also motivating this. >> donald trump unlocks this elek trorl key actually was i think the sixth out of seventh popular vote, the republicans lost to democrats in presidential races. he -- he lost by over 3 million votes. hillary clinton never campaigned in wisconsin. so i don't know that he's really unlocked the electoral key. i would love for a politician say mr. president, so i get it, you're fighting a war with china alone. and you're using america's farmers as your shield when if you had not gotten out of tpp we would be fighting that war with

japan, south korea and eight, nine, ten allies on our side. >> you know, joe, there is a populous earthquake that's shaking america politics, shaking the republican party, most of all. i mean, it's wonderful -- or the jeb bush smart and thoughtful but he got swept up in that earthquake and that earthquake is -- is real. donald trump isn't different today than he was during the campaign. he said china's raping us. he had this extreme -- and then he became president and we thought well he's going to adopt traditional politics. general mattis as his defense secretary and rex tillerson seems -- and everybody thought okay rng okay, it's going to be -- and i would say to the style as he showed as a businessman his whole career and this is a guy, that's just the way he did business. he'd take it all away. you said 50, he said 100.

we're seeing that kind of process. >> let's not pay him. >> but as a businessman he drove three companies into bankruptcy. >> and didn't pay a lot of people. >> and people in the end they didn't want to do business with him. that's my fear. we're seeing the same problem of donald trump alienating countries, people who would trade with the united states. >> that could be the least of our problems. >> people did not -- you talk to new york business people, they just wouldn't do deals with him because he lied to them constantly. he didn't pay his bills. willie, it was constant, and we've all heard it in manhattan, people have been saying for years, said yeah, you know what, he seems like a fun guy on tv at times, but the guy never pays bills and also as david said, the guy just wings it. this is the headline from the usa today talking about how donald trump wings it and leaves his aides scrambling around

constantly in cleanup mode. >> yeah, that's the problem right there what you've isolated which is that for donald trump words have always been cheap. he can say something, he throws it out there, it's inflammatory. it got him some attention here in new york. it worked for him when he was a real estate developer and a reality tv host. the problem when you're president you say things like we're pulling out of syria, you say things like we're going to slap $100 billion worth of tariffs because it feels good to him. i'm going to send the national guard to the border without letting homeland security or the national guard know you're doing that. cheap words impact people's lives and that's why this is a problem that he doesn't get. he thinks this is still being the host of the apprentice or the real estate guy in new york city. the stakes are higher now and he doesn't seem to grasp that. so coming up, we have a lot more to get to. literally five separate stories about scott pruitt stacked in our rundown this morning. there are that many headlines

out today about his very troubled tenure at the epa. we'll get to that next. plus, we mentioned stormy daniels at the top of the show. president trump weighed in on the porn star yesterday and her lawyer loved it. loved what he had to say. did the president just hurt his own case? plus, paul manafort who's at risk of spending the rest of his life in prison appears to be in yet more trouble if that's even possible. new details on another search warrant. >> i don't know how that could be two lifetime sentences? >> you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

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you have been there. you have seen our troops that are so bravely and proudly protecting america's interest there and bringing stability to the region. tell us about being on the front lines. >> reading the news this week, hearing president trump say got to get out very soon, let's get out in months, you know, not years, just really wanting to be done with it, i just wanted to share with readers what i saw two months ago when i was in syria. i saw a woman army surgeon, lieutenant colonel who is spending all day every day putting people's bodies back together. she's the only surgeon in the raqqa area and she's just trying to save lives and i asked her, you know, what's the -- she said i feel so lucky to be here. we all want to use our talents in some way. >> and a line here, david, and

contributing to something greater than yourself, it is very important. i am honored to be here. >> that's what she said. this woman is a hero, as all these people who are doing this, it's not an easy deployment. but i heard over and over again, the sense from them we're getting something done, we're taking a part of syria that was a mess and restoring order. isis is gone and these are faces that we just haven't seen. i was writing in part because i think president trump doesn't really understand. >> no, he doesn't. >> what it is his military has accomplished and the people who are doing it. so i just wanted to share this morning some of the things that these individual soldiers, men and women told me two months ago. coming up amid calls for scott pruitt's resignation, president trump had been considering as recently as last week actually promoting him to replace jeff sessions. >> only the best. >> that would be fantastic.

>> only the best people. >> plus, does the president govern by bluffing? as axios writes this morning trump promises big things and then changes his mind. is this what we're seeing regarding the border, serious and tariffs? axios' cofounder joins us next. discover card.

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vandehei. i think scott has done a fantastic job. i think he's a great person. i just left the energy, they love scott pruitt. they feel very strongly about scott pruitt and they love scott pruitt. >> unfortunately he just is incredibly corrupt. corrupt. >> i've heard different stories. weird. on board air force one yesterday president trump said he would take a look into the ethics allegations against epa administrator scott pruitt, but praised the embattled administrator's work. meanwhile the new york times is reporting at least five

officials at the epa, four of them high ranking were either reassigned or demoted or requested new jobs in the past year after they raised concerns about spending and management by pruitt. you've been doing a lot of reporting on this including on the controversy over pruitt's rental condo, that's got some weird angles to it. where do things stand right now? >> well, they're not good for scott pruitt. they are -- you know, it's always tough to tell in the trump administration if someone has the ax over him, not over him, if it's going to fall, when it's going to fall. in this case, scott pruitt is being undone by a variety of factors. in the administration people are going warry of the continuous scandals. they had a phone call that they described as cordial, but our reporting says it was anything but that. chief of staff john kelly asked pruitt to make sure the scandal stopped. asked him if there was anything left to drop and shortly

thereafter a story came out that he was going around the white house to get pay raises for two close associates who he brought with him from oklahoma. i think the other issue here is that pruitt gets caught up in demonstrable lies. he said for instance that the lobbyist who was renting him his condo for a very low rate had no clients with business before the epa. i mean, we dug into the records we found at least four or five clients with direct business before the epa. this was just a demonstrable lie. he said he had no role to play in getting those raises for his associates from oklahoma. it's been reported that you know, naturally he of course knew they were getting the raises, so he keeps getting caught up in problems of his own making, but in the end it might just be that he is -- his egois a bit more oversized and that might business undoing. he's doing these media hits that he was apparently was told not to do and as we know for

president trump, that's the type of sin that could get you in real trouble. >> what's so interesting about pruitt is he said some really nasty things about donald trump during the republican primaries. he was not one of these people that fawned all over him. he -- he said he was ill equipped to be president of the united states. he has very little respect for him. donald trump gives him orders. he ignores them, says don't give your four friends from oklahoma raises. he figures out a way to give his four or five friends from oklahoma raises. let's bring jim vandehei and also the headline yesterday that there were actually epa officials that were actually warning of the very things that we're reading news articles about today, and they were fired or reassigned or pushed away. whistle blowers warning the white house of just how reckless and what bad news this guy was

and they were punished for it. >> and not one, not two, five. >> count them. >> including one was put in there by donald trump to keep an eye on the agency. i will say what's different here from mcmaster, from tillerson is that pruitt is id logically totally insync with the president. he's been effective in going after regulations that the president wanted to go after. >> can't he find somebody that can do that without being a member of the ethics violation a day club? >> one would think you can, but you'd have to get that person confirmed by the senate and you'd have to have the president give up on another person who's in this cabinet and admit defeat and he doesn't like to admit defeat and that's why he hangs on. he might get rid of him by the time we get off the show, but he definitely has a different relationship with him than tillerson. >> maybe he'll look up past statements and he'll be angry. >> michael, also a real problem,

the senate would be forced to confirm yet another cabinet member for the election they've already said the three, i think the three they have to do is -- i mean, already it's going -- every one of those things are going to be politically bloody. >> mcconnell is not happy about the line forming outside his door with pressure from the white house to confirm cia and secretary of state and these other positions at this point right before an election in a very volatile environment. scott pruitt's problems only exacerbate that. i think the clock has started on pruitt to be honest with you. i think that statement from that moment on that -- on air force one put about 24 to 36 hour clock on. >> was that like bless your heart? >> that's like bless your heart. exactly. and so the president is not concerned about mcconnell's problems in the confirmation process. he's like the line is there, go get in it.

here's my next nominee, let's get it done. and there's nothing mcconnell can do except get it done because you've got to put these positions in play. >> and you've got a guy that didn't support trump during the primaries. he said some nasty things about him and just revealed a day or two ago that donald trump and the white house gave him the direct order and he basically told them to go straight to hell and he figured out a way to do it behind donald trump's back and making him look weak and impotent as a leader. >> interesting to see president trump on air force one almost bend over backwards to defend him, but saying he's doing a great job and i think it's because of what jim said, he's getting all these regulations undone that trump promised but what you see is a state attorney general from oklahoma who is drunk with the washington power right now. he wants the $50 a night apartment from the family of the lobbyist. he wants his protective detail

to turn on the sirens so he can roll through traffic and that's not protocol and one of his agents is dismissed from his security detail. they looked into using private planes, he's got to fly first class. he came to washington and apparently feels he deserves and is entitled to and it may ultimately be his undoing on this. >> yeah, and you have -- you also have -- i mean, you've got these little napoleons that come to washington, d.c. and they're so -- >> like which ones? >> well, pruitt fellow, and then you've got. >> miller. >> and then there's that price fellow and then that zinke fellow. >> doesn't he have his flag? it's bucking ham palace. these guys are so drunk, give somebody a little bit of power and they just -- they're all

embarrassing themselves. >> well, there's a couple things going on with scott pruitt. the first one i think is that he walked into this job, saw all these people that could afford that lifestyle bike betsy devos who's paying for her own jet out of her own money. and what you're seeing is someone who's trying to be an elitist but doesn't have the money for it. if you wanted a nice apartment in washington, d.c. what you shouldn't do is get a $50 a night and what you shouldn't do is be late on your $50 a night rent. how is that possible that you had to be badgered by the landlord that's also a lobbyist. it's incredible headlines but i would go back to what sam said in that his undoing, he's going to be looking bad in the media. anyone who watched that fox interview where he said i didn't have a sweet heart deal, what are you talking about? that was a key moment and i think while the president is saying he loves scott pruitt. sarah sanders was like we're looking into it. all the people around the white

house who''s paying to speak for the white house are not backing scott pruitt and he has a staff that doesn't like him very much and these leaks are going to continue to get better. >> so jim vandehei, president trump leading by bluffing. go. >> we've seen it when he was in the private sector. we saw it when he was running for office and now we see it on almost every issue. i'm going to veto the spending bill, no i won't. i'm going to slap on tariffs with no carveouts. now there are carveouts. it's bluff, bluff, bluff. you're seeing a ton of volatility in the markets and i think the markets are correct. there's so much volatility in washington they should have that level of volatility and you have confusion inside the white house. a number of times you talk to people and what will he do next and the answer is who the the hell knows? that's friegtsenning if you're trying to do the policy planning. all this stuff that we're seeing, the pruitt stuff, none of this should be surprising to anybody in any organization all

good habits and bad habits flow down. so what you see pruitt doing, saying you know what, the rules don't apply to me, i don't have to have organization, that tone has been set at the top and because there's not clarity of purpose, there's not clarity of what we're going to do next and how, it is just created a level of confusion now that as you know is a way, way worse than it was three months ago. >> you know, you culould see th jim and i know you saw it across the hill. you could see that when you went to office to office to office and the 435 members and the 100 senators. if you had somebody who was rude to staff members, you could walk into their office and that culture permeated that entire -- that entire office. if you had somebody that was polite and respectful you'd walk into the office and you'd -- you could tell instantly, you could tell which members, you know, i -- some people we're talking

about running for president as senators. i'd walk into their office and it would be absolutely chaotic and i'd say, that's going to be a chaotic presidential campaign and sure enough it was. >> it happens instantly. you saw it with president obama and president bush. every person behaved like he did. they had the same view of loyalty and it seeps instantly and that's when people say you're nitpicking the president's style and he's doing something different, he's doing it the way a real business person would. no, he would never run a business. this is the second business i've been able to help run and when you run a business, you have to set the tone of what the hell you're going to do and why you're going to do it. >> it's all about culture, whether you're talking about apple, whether you're talking about amazon, the most successful businesses in the world or whether you're talking about a dysfunctional president it all starts at the top with the culture and spreads throughout the culture.

willie, i'm trying to remember, wasn't zinke the guy that got in trouble when princess diana died he refused to fly his flag half staff? >> the crown. he also wrote his -- i liked when he rode his horse into the first day of work. but the flag was something else. >> he's having a knighting ceremony, by the way later this afternoon. >> and medieval times in new jersey. >> fantastic. jim, thank you very much. >> have you been to medieval times? >> have i ever. recently, as a matter of fact. yeah. i have. >> what was the occasion? >> it was a birthday. it was a birthday. you know, i got an 8-year-old and a 10-year-old. but i would lightning highly re. they have a queen that addresses

the crowd and you're waving your flags and you get the meat and your turkey and you eat it with your hands. medieval times all day. >> if you are in the area tonight they have a special on mutton. they fry it up and actually stuff it in turkey. >> all right, you two. >> and fry some bacon and stuff that. >> fine dining. yeah. >> up next -- >> it's tur mutton. >> the outspoken former president of mexico fox talks to us. we're talking about the verbal bomb and we don't need to hear any f bombs on this show. after the president orders troops to the border and repeats his controversial comments about mexican rapists. >> how do you think this is going to turn out? >> i don't think it's going to be a glowing review, my opinion. "morning joe" is coming right back. this is something that i'm

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remember my opening remarks as trump tower when i opened? everybody said, oh, he was so tough and i used the word rape and yesterday it came out where this journey coming up women are raped at levels nobody's ever seen before. they don't want to mention that. >> nobody's ever seen before. >> joining us now, former president of mexico and author of the book "let's move on, beyond fear and false prophets" vicente fox, very good to have you back on the show this morning. >> mr. president, let me just toss the softball to you and ask what do you think about the president's remarks once again going back talking about immigrants being rapists and the deplore state of things south of the border. >> he lies, lies, lies, lies again to the american people.

this kind of event, the so-called caravan happens every year. as a matter of fact, close to 500,000 central americans cross the border into mexico and 400,000 of them are sent back. another 100,000 get into mexico or around there and they decide to come to the states but mexico is doing their jobs, sending the people back to their homes, with compassion, human attitude, not with a stick. so this caravan happens every year. now, he lied about the rapist level there. >> right. >> tell the truth to your people. don't lie to them everyday, that's not fair. >> so there's growing concern that donald trump lying about mexico and the mexican people is

creating a backlash against candidates who are pro free market, want to be allies with the united states, want to continue the policies that you began in your presidency that is actually seen and ushered in a generation of economic growth in mexico. >> you should know yesterday finally president pena stood up and he spoke strong. he told trump "don't play around with us, don't lie to people. we are doing our work and if you think you can just get mexico out of the way, you're not going to do it." congress in mexico, senate and the house also, all of them together know with all different parties joining in the four presidential candidates, same thing. so mexico says now enough,

trump. you must respect us, we're neighbors, we're partners and we have worked together throughout the time. you don't have the right to destroy what we have constructed in such a long trial that yes, what you say is true, mexico has been upgraded through nafta and today we're full employment, we have improve iing the people, t flow of immigrants has decreased. >> he says they're coming in and it's so dangerous. >> at almost 50-year lows. >> it is. >> david ignatius. mr. president, i want to ask you, you have an american president who's calling out the national guard just to your northern border. is mexico beginning to have to think about alternative ideas about security? you have the chinese who are interested in doing more with mexico. you have other countries who would like to be friends at a time when our president seems to be treating mexico as an enemy.

what about that? >> well, mexico is quite a secure place and we, for instance, the two armies, the u.s. army and mexican army exercise on the pacific, on the gulf of mexico every year to prevent whatever threats could happen so mexico's a solid partner of the united states in the case of security. >> so that hasn't changed. >> no. that's very strong in mexico. now the case of the rates of homicides that we have in mexico today because of the drug cartels for number one, drug cartels headquarters are here in the states and they are not mexican cartels. it's just cartels that buy the drugs, the hire those mexican cartels to bring in the drugs because the consumer market is here. so to stop that from happening, it has to stop right here in the united states and legalization should proceed since is being done with cannabis and marijuana

so we can take away money from the cartels. so there are a lot of well-sustained reasonable measures that we can take to work together where we have built this through nafta. now u.s. farmers, watch out. mexico buys from you every year over $40 billion worth of corn and now we went down south to buy that corn from argentina, from brazil. so you're going to be hurt. you better speak up because this guy is taking you nowhere and you consumers, you consumers, this trade war, you're going to pay the price for it. you u.s. american citizens consumers, you are going to pay the price. the price of avocados, the price of vegetables, the prices of automobiles through the steel tariff that he booked are going to cost you much more than what you're paying right. now is that fair? this guy is wealthy. he can buy cars with 40% more

cost but you are not so you need to stop him on what is going on. >> former president of mexico vicente fox, thank you very much. good to have you back. >> thank you, mr. president. and glad your voice is back. >> yes, you sound great. >> you can deliver those impassioned pleas. >> i got tequila when i went back. >> but that's a secret. >> that helps. donald trump's personal lawyer michael cohen is at the center of the stormy daniels scandal, coming up, there's another report that brurl is also focused on the president's fixer. we'll dig into that as trump brakes his silence on stormy. plus, u.s. markets are poised to open with losses as the president threatens china with $100 billion in tariffs. "morning joe" is coming right back. when trying to save for the big things in life, we tend to start small. less of this.

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help people find their way. fastsigns designed new directional signage. and got them back on track. get started at fastsigns.com. and got them back on track. nso let's promote our springsh travel deal on choicehotels.com like this. (sneeze) earn one free night when you stay just twice this spring. allergies. or, badda book. badda boom. book now at choicehotels.com. >> you know, we've seen prior presidential candidates who propose massive tariffs, you know, smoot-hawley led to the great depression. a tariff is a tax on you, the american people, but the response of that is that the

countries will put in their own tariffs. >> it's not a tax, but it will be a tax if they don't behave. >> welcome back to "morning joe." top of the hour. we're adding it up. if you're keeping score at home, jeb bush predicted two years ago that donald trump if elected president would enact tariffs that would lead to soybean farmers being hurt across the midwest. check? >> check. got it. >> also, you had ted cruz predicting the trump tariff tax two years ago. check? >> got it. >> let's hope that ted cruz the next time he's on capitol hill will speak out loudly, strongly, and aggressively just as he did two years ago against the trump tariff tax. >> right, right. well, next hour we'll check marco rubio and see how he's doing. >> i think marco is a free trader. i know marco also had to

criticize donald trump for the trump tariff tax. i'm sure marco predicted as well two years ago. so let's hope that he, too, returns to washington, d.c. will speak out loudly and strongly and aggressively. >> robustly. >> against the trump tariff tax and speaks to defend consumers, farmers, and the ideas of milton freedman and hayek and buckley. >> i know they're thinking about milton. it's friday, april 6, we're live in washington this morning at the top of the hour here. we have columnist and associate editor for the "washington post" david ignatius. former chairman of the republican national committee michael steele, joining the conversation chief white house correspondent for the "new york times" peter baker, and white house correspondent for bloomberg news, shannon pettypiece. good to have you on board. >> peter, let's do a wellness check on the white house. >> oh, no, remember we're not

allowed to do that, it's inappropriate. talking about mental health. >> i'm not talking about mental health. >> i think we should. >> just a wellness check. it seems that for a president who is prone to lying, the pace of the lies has accelerated over the past week, everyday it's something else, whether it's amazon, whether it's the post office, you just go day by day by day and yesterday he came out, he lied about once again rapes at levels never seen before with apologies to genghis khan and his swarms of invaders. and then, of course, he once again lies about the millions of illegal votes which, of course, the source of that? and i remember him telling me in realtime, he had a golfer friend in florida who supposedly said, hey, there were people voting illegally, nobody checked.

they went back and checked with the golfer who said that wasn't even true. >> is that dan scavino? was he golfing with dan again? >> no, dan is his caddy, i think. >> oh, got it. confused. wasn't he his caddy? >> i think he ran a club? >> again, that's not a lie, it's just a fact, dan was his caddy but it wasn't dan that said that it was some professional golfer that donald trump said allegedly said it and from that there were millions and millions of illegal votes. what's going on in the white house? >> he's returning to themes we've seen at the beginning of his presidency. the most animating force of his presidency has been immigration, the notion of the illegal votes is something he started from the very start, from the inauguration day on basically making this unfounded assertion. >> he was going to put a commission together. >> he did and the commission went away because there isn't

any evidence that three million people voted illegally obviously. >> so he lies about it after he loses to hillary clinton the popular vote by almost three million votes, says he's going to put a commission together. was saying that to us the first week he was in the white house, his commission is going to show x, y, z. the commission blows apart, it's a lie and yet he returns to the lie. what's going on? >> look at what we have. we're in april of his second year and there is no legislative agenda for the rest of the year. they got their tax cuts last year but that's it. there's nothing on the plate. no infrastructure bill of any consequence. there's no other effort for him to be pushing so what has he done? he's returning to the core theme, the core theme being immigration, be afraid, they're coming over the border, they're coming to get us. >> hey, alex, instead of trump makes bizarre false claims, can you say trump lies and then just

put in present these "again" close parentheses? >> got it. >> raw power. >> i just thought that was a little too -- >> trump at home -- >> look how quickly they did that. look how quickly. >> it was soft, alex. >> he'd like to call in and dictate headline. >> who's the best? alex is the best on the team. >> we call him a-cord. >> we have a proper lower third. so now go ahead. >> we're returning to themes that animated his base, animated his own political career from the start because we don't have other things to talk about. he doesn't have an agenda for the hill. he doesn't have -- beyond this north korea summit coming up he doesn't have a foreign policy agenda he's pursuing so we're returning to themes that get

people behind him. what's happening on the russia probe? does this mean he knows something is coming up and he has himself agitated? we don't know. >> shannon feeding into the access narrative it would be lies, bluffing and chaos is what's fuelling this presidency, especially if you just look at the past five days alone it's been staggering. >> i remember talking to people who worked on the campaign and many people said whoa, whoa, you went too far, don't go there and trump's instincts were the exact opposite of everyone else. he did not back down, he did not apologize, he went at it because the people around him on his

campaign said he saw the enthusiasm of that lit under his supporters. that was the moment that got him on the national stage and coming back to that i think is indicative of this idea of my instincts are right and everyone else is wrong. this worked for me once, it will work for me again in 2018. the republican establishment desperately wants to talk about taxes in 2018 and i know nothing is sexier than taxes so why not? but they finally got a win on something, they just want to talk about taxes in 2018 and this idea of moving into immigration, this talk of entitlements and making that become an issue, it's their worst nightmare for the establishment republicans. >> and going back, lying again about something that he couldn't prove with the commission, i just -- again, lying again about mexicans raping at levels never seen before, this caravan, again, i don't understand why

republican republicans can't speak truth to power. >> he is a populist, nationalist and he wants to keep the fire burning. this is his politics and the minute things calm down and get to normal space and you say what's your agenda? that's terrain on which donald trump doesn't have much to say. he's trying to keep the new movement going and he keeps trying to feed it with claims that -- such a crisis, we have to send troops to the border. what's he talking about? none of us have any idea what he's talking about. >> does it work? michael steele, he wants to keep this movement going. is it working? >> it is. it is. there's been no peeling off from the base, he's sitting in the high 70s, low 80s in terms of ground support by republicans across the country. that's why the house and senate leadership are frozen in their steps in not coming out and

speaking out on tariffs and other things and that's why donald trump feels he can effectively double down. his mo is very clear, throw the bright shining object up in the air, watch everyone chase it into a rabbit hole and he moves on to the next thing and that works for him right now. the real question i think still stands out there, mika come november, the day after that election, that wednesday morning and they wake up with nancy pelosi taking that gavel in the house and in -- any shrinkage in the senate, what does he do then? i bet you even in that instance donald trump doesn't care about the political opponents on the other side. he doesn't care if it's republican or democrat, he will continue to play this game. so republicans out there right now thinking the president is going to be their lifeline, their savior to help them keep the house, that's not his interest. that's not his interest so it's going to be every man and woman

for himself by the time you get to late july, early august and then to the fall. >> and in the end this just doesn't work. it would be like somebody running for mayor in new york city right now against crime rates when crime rates are at 50 year lows running against illegal immigration, against people crossing the border when border crossings are near 50-year low. donald trump is actually fighting a war that has largely been won. >> he's trying to have it both ways. on the one hand, he's claiming credit for having these border crossings go down, that's because of his tough rhetoric he says and that's a reasonable argument to make as a politician, i managed to secure the border because people know they can't come here anymore, i made it clear they will be punished or sent back. at the same time, he's trying to create an atmosphere of crisis, the caravan is coming, we much send troops. it's not unique to send troop, president george w. bush sent the national guard, so did barack obama but in moments of

crisis when there was a flow coming over. right now there hasn't been. a spike in march, no question, but that's a seasonal thing so it's a mystery to why he will need to send the troops given that things have been lower. >> it's a sales pitch. the problem is he sells things he doesn't do. president trump is breaking his silence on stormy daniels, that's one new development. it has been three months since the "wall street journal" broke the news that donald trump's lawyer michael cohen arranged a $130,000 payment for the porn star's silence about an alleged 2006 affair with donald trump. since then, she has sued the president to get out of the non-disclosure agreement and has told her story on "60 minutes." the white house has denied the president had an affair and he has avoided addressing the controversy directly -- that is until yesterday when after an appearance in west virginia he decided to take questions on board air force one.

>> reporter: did you know about the $130,000 payment to stormy daniels? >> no. >> reporter: then why did michael cohen make it if there was no truth around -- >> you'll have to ask michael cohen. michael is my attorney and you'll have to ask michael. >> reporter: do you know where he got the money to make that payment? >> no, i don't know. >> reporter: did you ever set up a fund of money that he could draw from? >> the president didn't answer that last question about setting up a fund. michael cohen's attorney released a statement saying this "this is an accurate assessment of the facts, this is exactly what i have been saying all along. michael cohen made the payment to protect reputation, family, and business. it had nothing to do with the election." meanwhile, stormy daniels lawyer says he is "ecstatic" over the president's remarks. >> we waited patiently and low and behold christmas has arrived. the president's comments on air

force one are serious for him, serious for michael cohen. how can you have an agreement when one party claims they don't know anything about the agreement? these guys are making it up as they go along. they don't know what to say from day in and day out and our case just got a whole lot better. >> i thought you had, like -- >> i don't understand. >> -- evidence. >> not to be difficult but i want to know what's on the cd. second of all, not to be difficult but we knew that before. that was trump and his lawyer cohen's position before so if that is in fact christmas then this is a man who is easily excited by jingling of bells. >> oh, you're talking about avenatti? he needs to go back on tv when he has something to say. >> i mean this, does anybody -- >> oh, david is going to protect avenatti. i want to -- go for it. we're all for it but -- >> what new that cohen and trump haven't already said? >> if the president denies he

had any knowledge of the payment of $130,000 -- >> it's helpful. >> that causes a problem for michael cohen because it was then a contribution to president trump that michael cohen made. >> but i'm saying didn't we already know that, though? >> we did know that. but the president himself hasn't said anything so what avenatti is saying here is basically the non-disclosure agreement that the president was supposed to be a party to for it to be valid can't be valid because the president says he doesn't know anything about it. >> but, again -- >> that's the only reason this i think is -- >> my only point is, though, i see nothing new here because avenatti and cohen's lawyer were screaming on cnn calling each other thugs and punks two weeks ago on this very point. >> and just because the president says he didn't know about it to the media is different than saying i didn't know about it in front of a grand jury or deposition. you can lie to the media and it's not against the law but if he was brought into court and

asked did you know about this agreement then his word would mean a bit more. i spend most of my days thinking about the mueller investigation so apologies for putting everything in the context of this but i -- >> oh, no need to apologize for bob mueller. >> when i hear this it makes me think of increasing risk around michael cohen and the noose tightening around michael cohen and is this an illegal contribution, could this get him disbarred? did he do something where he was not acting in the interest of his client which is what the lawyer is supposed to do. so if there is leverage around michael cohen which there hasn't been that we know of so far, that can give him, mueller, so pressure he could put on cohen to cooperate to some extent. i don't necessarily think michael cohen is the type that will flip. he's a loyal person but at least it would give some leverage to get cohen to cooperate to some extent. that's how mueller has gotten everyone else to help at all. you have to have something on

that. >> well, and cohen has already admitted, he's already made admissions against interest that he did this on his own. >> right. >> he did this to protect the president. he did this without the president's knowledge so, again, i'm not sure -- i don't think you're on the "new york times" washington bureau stormy desk but didn't you remember that is the case? cohen's already admitted this. >> well, he has but it is different to hear the president say it. the question, of course, is, it's not under oath, it's not with the precision a lawyer would try to nail down a more precise version of events. the questions you want to ask are how did you -- no idea about this? when did you learn about this? what was your involvement with this? >> but if it's an fec violation, then cohen doing this puts cohen in legal jeopardy if he was doing it to protect a candidate

two weeks before the election regardless of what trump thinks. >> absolutely. but whether the president knew or the president to be knew is an important question as well. why would an attorney take out a home equity loan or use a money with a home equity for $13,000 to pay somebody without the knowledge or involvement of -- >> can i answer that question? >> oh, gosh. >> he wouldn't. he just wouldn't. i've spent almost three decades around lawyers. i've never met one -- >> you never met one who volunteered -- >> i've practiced law, i've been around laws, i've been around lawyers my whole life, i've had friends in the legal profession my whole life. michael steele, i know you have, too. >> georgetown law. >> not one, joe. >> have you ever -- how many years have you been in -- i've been in the bar about 25, 30 years. >> that's right. that's right. >> so we have about 60 years between us being around a lot of attorneys. have you ever met one attorney

that would do what michael cohen did for donald trump because he was his lawyer? >> not one. in fact, there's a whole lass r cla -- class in law school telling you not to do that. >> maybe he skipped it. >> lawyers aren't about sharing that kind of love with their clients, trust me. so it's not believable. but i think avenatti's excitement extends around the fact that the president is now on "the public record" having spoken on this -- the matter he denied ever existed quite honestly there was nothing here and so now he's opened a door and i think that is what avenatti is talking about. the president opened a door yesterday and i would bet you a lot of the lawyers around him started cringing because they realized now there is a crack for avenatti to exploit and the president whether before a grand jury or not has exposed himself

in a way that he was not exposed before. before this was just cohen, now it's the president on the record about the nature of this agreement. >> almost like christmas morning. >> shannon pettypiece, thank you very much. peter baker, thank you as well. still ahead on "morning joe," despite its effort, russia has not broken american democracy. the kremlin did, however, do a pretty good job tearing about the house intel committee. the "atlantic" natasha bertrand has more on that. plus clint watts says that bob mueller's witnesses may be spilling secret. the former fbi special agent joins the conversation next on "morning joe." ♪ if you have moderate to severe plaque psoriasis, little things can be a big deal. that's why there's otezla.

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we are learning that within the last four weeks, the special counsel investigating russian meddling in the 2016 election recently obtained another search warrant tied to indicted former trump campaign chairman paul manafort. in a filing last night, robert mueller's team said the warrant is from march 9 and was produced in the affidavit that contains redacted information "relating to ongoing investigations that are not the subject of either of the current prosecutions involving manafort." it's unclear whether that means a broader investigation of manafort or someone else. the new warrant came two weeks after manafort's former deputy rick gates pleaded guilty and began cooperating with federal prosecutors. all together, manafort has been served with seven search warrants for his property, banks, a hard drive, e-mail accounts, five phone lines and a storage locker. joining us now, former fbi special agent and msnbc special contributor clint watt.

his new book "messaging with the enemy" comes out in may. and in washington, staff writer for the "atlantic," natasha bertra bertrand, she's an nbc news and msnbc contributor. clint, let me start with you in new york. put into perspective what we learned last night about paul manafort. looks like another problem for him and another door maybe to this investigation. >> this has always been the trap for manafort. you pursue them till that plead. if you don't plead to charges and start working with investigators they'll keep t trying to pile up and move up on the investigation and we've been looking mostly at white-collar crime and fraud. now what we've seen in february vander swann shopleas. van der zwaan shows up. this tells you they're pursuing this investigation and in a different way. there's been a news story out in the last two days about oligarchs getting stopped in the united states. this is the connection to

manafort we've been talking about so this investigation it's not only going more into white claar but this is the collusion angle. >> based on the information we have about this latest story, does this look like this new investigation that they reference is about manafort or something more broad in the russia collusion story. >> i don't know. but i think it could be both. i think it could be extended charges on manafort in a different direction and others involved around him and gates seems to be cooperating based on that plea agreement and the statements that came out in the van der zwaan sentencing memorandum, that very -- not surprising but strange place to put it was "was in contact with an agent as of 2016." that's a very damning statement and tells you where they're going with this investigation. >> meanwhile, new claims about the special counsel's probe taking action related to the president's business. mcclatchy is reporting that robert mueller's team recently showed up unannounced at the home of an associate of the trump organization who the report does not name but says

has been involved in overseas deals with the president's company in recent years. mcclatchy's unnamed sources familiar with the proceedings claim that investigators were particularly interested in interactions involving trump's personal attorney michael cohen and a former trump organization executive involved in deals in georgia, kazakhstan, and russia. cohen was central in pursuing a trump tower project in moscow during the first six months of trump's presidential campaign. it's a project cohen worked on with former trump associate felix seder who testified behind closed doors at the senate intelligence committee. so natasha, michael cohen, again, this seems to swirl around him even as it relates to russia. >> michael cohen is going to be a key in all of this because he, of course, have been trump's right hand man for the past couple decades. every kind of business deal that

went through the trump organization michael cohen manage sod if anyone is going to know about whether or not trump did business with the russians and eastern europeans, former soviet union countries, it's going to be michael cohen. he did sign this letter of intent to pursue this deal for a trump tower moscow during the election and, of course, that's going to be at the center of what bob mueller wants to know about is was this used as leverage in the russians over trump. >> so i saw and i think you were talking about this vice interview with trey gowdy. trey gowdy had this great interview where he talked about why he hated working in congress and he said i worked on benghazi but paul ryan knew that that wasn't a natural fit for me so he moved me to a non-partisan committee because i was going to leave washington. i wanted to leave. he said we'll put you on a non-partisan committee, the house intel committee. trump gets elected and he said it's even more miserable than the other committee he's been

on. you wrote a story about how the russians may not have undermined american democracy but they sure tore to shreds devin nunes' house intel committee. >> the russia investigation changed everything for the house intel committee. before it was launched, devin nunes and adam schiff, the ranking member and chairman, they got along well before devin nunes made this decision to go to the white house last march in this midnight run. >> he said that was the triggering event where he went over and stopped being the chairman of the house intel committee -- and these are my words -- and started becoming donald trump's courier. >> and that's what the democrats perceived it as after that so there was a breakdown in trust between the republicans and democrats on the committee and from there the republicans started getting angry about the extent to which schiff was going on tv and defending the investigation against the claims being made by nunes and his staff and then -- so there was just a back-and-forth that

devolved into leaks, press conferences on either side and the committee really has a lot of work to do to get back on track now because it was perceived of and initiated as a non-partisan committee and that was kind of the selling point of it. but now we don't know whether it will get back to that point. >> and welly, what a marked contrast between how badly devin nunes has handled this extraordinarily important investigation into whether american democracy was tampered with by the russians. you compare that to richard brr over on the senate side, a guy that i came with in '94. man, he's always been a tough no nonsense conservative. but it's clear that chairman burr is putting his country over partisan interests. >> and let's remind people, that's how it's supposed to work. chairman burr is doing it the way it's supposed to be done not the other way and, clint, when you read natasha's piece and you

know all we know about this collection of congressmen on the intel committee on both sides it feels like it was baked from the start, few republicans new the outcome and they wanted to give the results to the president before the rest of the committee knew about it. adam schiff goes on tv every time he gets a chance, we love that in the press, but it didn't ever appear from the beginning like the two sides were cooperating to find the truth. >> yeah, there was -- it was two teams fighting each other to get their agenda out there and it's fascinating to watch because they always make criticisms of the house as being, you know, too amateurish to handle these issues and they proved that out by how they handled it. >> exactly. >> and i've been to the senate intel committee, i've been to four senate committees in the last year and i have to say i was impressed with that senate intel committee and with democracy. i had hope and i'm pretty much a skeptic and a cynic on a lot of those things but if you look at the bill on election interference, that came out from harris and langford, republican

and democrat senators working together, that's exactly how it's supposed to work and i'm impressed with the report they put out on election security, so i have hope at times then i see this other winnowing down on that house committee and you look at how trump has used that as a lever to discredit the fbi or other institutions. it's really troubling. >> and no matter where your politics are, sam, election interference is something we should all be worried about. >> no. clint shouldn't have any hope. no hope. the thing is -- two things i'm struck by. one is there is a cnn report -- and i hate to mention them -- >> you can mention them. >> they showed up at the house intel committee for an interview and basically told the democrats to screw off, he used saltier language than that, as you can imagine, and nothing was done about it. and that got to me because there's an institutional prerogative. if you're a member of the house, regardless of whether there is a

partisan objective at play here, if a witness goes into the committee and tells your fellow colleagues to screw off, at some point you want to get your back up and say you know what? treat this committee with respect. and natasha, the other thing that's in here, the role that paul ryan played in all this because, yes, devin nunes was a bad actor it appears in this process but he wasn't the final actor. paul ryan could have at any point in time intervened and said you know what? you've scarred the reputation of this committee, you need to go and when he went and tried to come back with the nunes memo, paul ryan could have intervened there, too. but he's been very passive. and you talk to his office about it, i'm curious what your perception of the role that paul ryan played in all of this. >> in my conversations covering this over the last year since his investigation was launched, every person i spoke who was complaining about what nunes did always shifted the conversation to paul ryan. it was always, well, it's not only nunes, paul ryan has the power to stop this at any point.

he can ask nunes to step down from this investigation, to completely recuse himself, even to leave as the chairman of the house intel committee and he never did. >> could he have literally taken him off the committee as speaker of the house? >> yes. he could have just called him in. you see this happening from time to time, say mr. chairman, if you want to remain as chairman, stop. >> well, what we saw instead is that paul ryan sided with devin nunes in a lot of these fights between the fbi -- >> what is going on with him? >> why. >> that's kind of to be expected because paul ryan is always going to be on the side of the committee, he's always going to be on the side of the house in these fights with doj and fbi in favor of more -- >> but that's my point. the speaker of the house has to protect the institutions of the house at some point. >> this is crazy. >> one of my favorite stories, david, that mika has had to hear a thousand times had to do with tip o'neill tunnel and ronald

reagan's friend chip after the tragedy in beirut in 19282/83. >> i was there that day. i was in the embassy that day. >> wow. >> well, when the news that day hit washington, d.c., richard reid writes about it in his reagan book. tip o'neill tunnel called all the democrats to hc-5 and they all sat there and they were sure that this tough liberal speaker was going to be giving them talking points on how to attack the republican policy that obviously turned into this abject failure and cost the lives of 240-plus americans. instead, tip o'neill tunnel went up to the podium and he said "ladies and gentlemen, today we're not democrats. today we're americans." and if any democrat criticizes the commander in chief before i tell you you can criticize the commander-in-chief you won't

have ronnie reagan to worry about, you'll have tip o'neill tunnel to worry about. got up, walked out. they didn't say a thing. he put america first. that was a speaker being a speaker. and so when i hear paul ryan's people saying that he doesn't have that power, that is just not true. >> this committee is the place where america's biggest secrets were going to be held and the responsibility given to members of the house and senate intelligence committees is unique and to see it become this partisan war that natasha has described breaks something that was really important to congress. you cite the kind of baseline for it, people like tip o'neill tunnel who said we'll do the nation's business together. that just blew up. >> he's not wishy-washy. >> and there were so many times when newt gingrich, i had so many problems with newt gingrich, but when he was speaker of the house there were times, especially on foreign

policy issues where he would stand up and say, okay, that's a line we just don't cross. and most speakers -- liberal or conservative -- have had that understanding. that is gone in washington, d.c. >> that is sad. >> ryan will look back on this years now from and wish he had done something different. >> that's a shame. >> know that. >> natasha bertrand, clint watts, thank you both very much for being on this morning. and this programming note. this sunday msnbc's headliners takes an in-depth look at robert mueller. nicolle wallace narrate this is special hour, revealing what drives the man at the center of the russia investigation. >> what is interesting about mueller as we look at this guy, if i were donald trump i would be so angry at my attorneys for thinking that bob mueller is that much smarter than the president of the united states just because he went to st. paul and just because he was a

princeton man. for donald trump's lawyers to think he's too stupid to sit across the table from bob mueller is truly insulting to the commander-in-chief who went to fordham and then i think he ended up at penn. >> he talks about wharton a lot. >> yeah, i think he ended up there. so i just -- i don't -- mika i think it's insulting. i would not have people around know told me that i was too stupid to go toe to toe with the st. paul man, with a princeton man. >> they're afraid he's going to tip his little lands. >> they think he's too dumb. it makes me very sad. you can watch bob mueller this sunday at 9:00 p.m. eastern right here on msnbc. up next, former secretary of state william cohen on the trump administration's mixed messages on syria and the plan to send national guard troops -- former defense secretary. cohen was defense secretary. >> correct. >> troops to mexico on the

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there have been plenty of shakeups in the trump administration, but someone still firmly in the job, defense secretary jim mattis, joining us now, someone who held that very same position under president clinton, williams cohen. his latest novel "final strike" is now on sale. we'll talk about that in a moment. congratulations. >> thank you very much. >> always fun. >> and by the way, ignatius. >> do not compare me with ignatius. >> but before we talk about that, you know so much about china and you just returned. tell us your impressions. >> well, there's an african expression, when elephants fight, only the ground suffers. this is true in this particular case. the chinese now have this attitude, it's very confident,

they don't want a trade war but they're not afraid of it. so there's a new attitude now in china, they feel they have groan dramatically in the past 40 years. they still say they're a developing country, they're pretty highly developed right now. but they feel they can inflict as much if not more damage on us if we choose to go that route so it was a different attitude i detected this time. they feel much more confident. >> how much of a difference is the consolidation of power by president xi have on how china runs? >> i think a big difference. now that he has no political opposition, contenders in the future, they are all going to certainly accept whatever he dictates and he won't have -- there's no plan for succession so in the short term that will work well for him. long-term i think it's dangerous because you have the personality cult that's being developed right now. >> david, it sounds like the same problem -- the same fear so

many foreign policy analysts have with russia. you have putin, but what happens after putin? do we see russia fall into sort of a political and a social anarchy like they did in 1992/1993? >> russia has such terrible corruption problems. xi has been trying to curb those and strengthen the party. if i might, because i am a spy novelist. >> oh, here we go. >> i want to ask secretary cohen about his new book and i want to ask you mr. secretary, it's heahard to be a novelist when real life is so preposterous, but tell us about this book. >> this is a sequel to the previous one which deals with the issue of asteroid mining. this is not science fiction, it's real, in the sense that there are at least eight private companies now gearing up to mine asteroids for their minerals which are worth trillions of dollars.

we have russia, china, the united states also with space programs to mine asteroids so space is the new frontier and you have a gold rush taking place in order to get them. what i posit in the novel is what happens when you start moving asteroids out of their normal loop as such. there are roughly 700,000 asteroids in our solar system. about 25,000 of them are bigger than a mickey mantle home run, 450 feet and larger. if you have one that's 450 feet in width that hits the earth, you'll destroy a city. it's called a city buster. if you have one that's half a mile and bigger it will destroy the planet. so the question is what do we have in the way of technology to deflect asteroids? and we have to have a mentality, we have to find them before they find us. >> what do we have? >> we have a very limited

capability. >> you -- >> we have bruce willis. [ laughter ] >> and liv tyler, i knew you were going to go there. >> you get on a ship, go to the asteroid and blow it up. >> here's the problem with that, bruce willis gave his all for planet earth. >> right, there was a second asteroid. >> who develops this technology? >> who develops it? you have private entrepreneurs who are actually developing the technology. luxembourg, tiny luxembourg, has a major program under way to mine asteroids so you have to move them into a sublunar orbit and when you do that do you run the risk of putting it through a gravitational key hole bringing it close to the earth? now the issue is if you find them far enough out in space, millions of miles away, you can in fact deflect them. but we've had testimony by the former nasa chief.

he says if you tell me we have three weeks of notice, it's time to pray. >> hold on, i'm petrified of nuclear war on the planet. i'm -- >> well, maybe call asteroid trump. >> am i allowed to ask. >> come on, sam, jump up. >> then there's the issue of china, tariffs, nuclear war. what baffles me about what trump is doing now with this weird ramping up of a trade war with china is that we are also simultaneously trying to negotiate a nuclear deal with the north koreans and there should be some high-profile summit happening in the next month, month and a half. why is -- to what degree does activity on one front affect the other? and my guess is it's not a very positive effect if you're

alienating the chinese at the same time you're trying to court the north koreans. >> or alienating the south korean president who's been called an appeaser or imposing trade sanctions that may hit south korea as well as it hits china or more so. so there's no positions. interesting that kim jong-un was in china at the same time at the same place that a lot of us were. i have two readings on that. one the chinese want to make sure that kim jong-un is not prepared to cut a deal that doesn't include their interest. number two, it's a segment of the united states. chance on the possibility it's going to happen. you put the percentage chance. a lot depends on i think to talk

about a deal with north koreans. if you're worried about having some kind of verification scheme. don't want to think about it with north korea. i'm open to purr situation. if it could take place, great. if we could have it in a way that would satisfy us. i don't think that's possible. i'm open to be persuaded. >> thank you so much for being on. the book is final strike available in stores now. david is going to go buy one. >> absolutely. >> coming up, what the president just said about the likelihood of americans feeling pain as a result of the trade battle with china. we'll have that ahead on "morning joe." ♪

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i want the country to go in. i want to continue to build a country based on everyone think and compassion and generosity. and goodwill. i want to be in a nation benefit of the doubt. where we have open arms. we've got to fight for that vision. just doesn't happen. michelle obama speaking out at a leadership conference in boston. wall street is set to as the president rach brings up conce a trade war. plus it's jobs reports friday. a log weighing on the markets this morning. that plus bob mueller once more find out what trump campaign chairman paul manafort and the president's personal lawyer michael cohn just a tad bit

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with a double palm grab. who has the upper hand now? start winning today. book now at lq.com. if the mexicans don't pay for the wall, will you start a trade war with mexico. >> i don't mind trade wars when we're losing 58 billion a year. we're losing so much with mexico and china. with china we're losing $500

billion a year. people say don't we want to trade? i don't mind trading. i don't want to lose $500 billion. i don't want to lose 58 million. they're taking our business. i don't mind. >> about the trade war, i don't understand because your ties are made in mexico and china. you're going to be starting a trade war against your own ties and constitutes. >> 6:00 hour, jeb bush predicting exactly what was going to happen. 7:00 hour, ted cruz predicting exactly what was going to happen. just now, marco rubio warning us exactly what was going to hamilt happen. retirees. how all americans were going to be hurt. so i guess there are worse things than being low energy on the campaign trail.

little with two ds are lying. ted cruz. i do hope ted cruz and marco rubio carry that same vigor to the hill next week whenever they return. and keep going after the prosecute. >> and calling him out on lying a selling out the ideas of free enterprise and free trade and milton freedman. you name it. i certainly hope marco rubio and ted cruz, a life long democratic who switched to republican party in 2011 when he figured out birtherism would help him do well. i hope ted cruz and marco rubio next week will be just as strong. defending conservatism as they were when they were on a debate stage with donald trump. >> i'm wondering why they have

to wait until next week. the press operations i assume have been working this past week. >> i tell you, it would be great. >> a little text or e-mail or sglm . >> it would be great in they did what ben sass did last weekend. to defend free trade. defend free enterprise. defend the ideas of milton freedman. defend the ideas of william f buckley. defend the ideas of ronald ra reagan. to defend ideas that have held it together for 50 years. this isn't going to hurt ben sasse. people are going to thank him for telling the truth. and defending american conservatism. along with joe and me here in washington: we have tv's willie geist in new york city. holding up the fort there. and also with us today, columnist and associate editor

for "the washington post," david ignatius and join the conversation. >> david, hold on a second. let me ask you, alex, did we not ask you when we put ignatius in that room to give him a paisley smoking jacket. can we go back to that shot. >> all ready for the paisley smoking jacket. >> bring it on. >> on loan right now to meacham right now. >> thashl bonational book award >> he wearing that thing everywhere. >> senior writer of political mri repo. washington bureau chief for usa today, susan page. thanks for being with us. a short while ago a local program in new york aired interview with president trump. president continued to make headlines in regarding to the potential trade war with china. the interview was recorded before the president's event in

west virginia yesterday. take a listen. >> we don't have a trade war. we've lost a trade war. for many years, whether it's clinton or the bushes or obama, all of our presidents before have for some reason they just it just got worse and worse and now it's $500 billion in deficits and a theft of $300 billion in intellectual property. you can't have this. now we -- the easiest thing for me to do would be just to close my eyes and forget it. if i did that, i'm not doing my job. so i'm not saying there won't be a little pain, but the markets gone up 40%, 42%. so we might lose a little bit of it, but we're going to have a much stronger country when we're finished and that's what i'm all about. >> top things off, president trump retweeted his own tweet from wednesday which states in part we're not in a trade war with china. >> but we are and he says a

little pain. i wonder if that's what herbert hoover said before he became a republican. >> forget the pain economically is important, but if you look at the electoral map. donald trump is what, eight months, six months ahead of an election. seven months and the places that are going to get hit are the places he needs to win, iowa, throughout the midwest that's going to get killed if there's a trade war of any sort with china. from the people i've spoken to, he doesn't seem to understand what will happen on the other side of republicans losing the house of representativies which is more of a probability every day. his presidency as he knows it is not going to continue. he will likely be impeached by democrats and that's the reality that he's going face in a very short amount of time. forget spending bills that he doesn't like a couple things in. his entire political world is going to change.

>> willie, good trivial pursuit question if you wanted to talk about modern politics would be to name barack obama's greatest legislative achievement in his last six years as president of the united states. when republicans took control of congress. >> are you asking me? is this a pop quiz. >> can you answer. >> yes, absolutely. it was probably the trans-pacific partnership getting the trade deal done which was sheparded by republicans opposed by many democrats and done by paul ryan and john boehner. trade deal and nothing else. >> it's a very short list and that is what awaits donald trump on the other side of just a electoral trouncing that donald trump seems to be doing his best to facilitatfacilitate. >> i'm reading through this morning's newspapers in iowa and nebraska. this is not going over well.

china is the biggest exporter for nebraska's goods. soybeans and all these other things being attacked. that's why you're hearing ben sasse of nebraska said hopefully the president is blowing off steam again. if he's half serious, this is nuts. china is guilty of many things, but the president has no actual plan to win right now. threatening to light american agricultural on fire. let's take on chinese bad behavior with the plan that punishing them instead of us. this is the dumbest possible way to do this. joe, it's not just ted cruz and marco rubio and jeb bush. those clips we're playing all morning. you know who hates the idea of tariff program, the president's own chief economic adviser. he spent much of march railing against the president for even entertaining the idea. he wrote a march 1 clip in the "wall street journal" and went on for weeks hammering the president on this. he's gone out of his way the

last couple of days as we've seen him walk up the white house driveway and talk to press and say, well, the idea of proposed tari tariffs. it's just negotiating tactic. we want to drop the hammer on skmoo china and bring them to the table. right some of the wrongs. in the meantime, markets are clap collapsing. people in nebraska and iowa are worried about livelihood. you have this push in the white house with people like wilbur ross and peter vying for the president's attention and their opinion and their argument to win the day on tariffs. >> susan charles telling news max that these tariffs are a, quote, cancer on the american economy. >> learning what john kelly has learned the hard way. there's limits to your influence with president trump. even if you're there in the inner circle. i grew up in kansas. no greater free trader than wheat farmers.

farmers in rural areas understand how important international trade is to livelihood. hurts them as jake was saying not just in key states. it also see the effect on the markets. if president trump had one political strength during his t tenure is the economy. if that gets undermined. true catastrophe for november. >> that could change. interesting you mentioned in the last hour, joe, about the response from republicans to all of this. and two thoughts came to mind. one is the president never mentioned that in all of this winning that there would be pain. so enough with the winning. does we don't want the pain. the second is when you're looking at organizations out there and how they're responding coming up this morning from the heritage foundation, quote, tariffs are a tax increase on american workers and their families. the decision to impose tariffs is disappointing.

and counter productive. >> further. arguments that tariffs are necessary for national security reasons are not compelling. in the from james the new president of heritage. so clearly there's some default lines beginning to be drawn on this issue to your point where republicans hopefully they will follow the lead of heritage and others who are going to step out and say something like ben sa e sasse, david ignatius, as we said last hour, jake brought up tpp, but donald trump apparently cannot grasp is that if he had not blown up the trans-pacific partnership, then we would have seven, eight, nine other allies working with us in concert against china instead of going in alone. >> joe, i think that's exactly the right point. donald trump is not wrong to say that there's a structural problem in the world economy,

but there's a huge imbalance between what we import from china and what china imports from us. the tpp was an attempt to change the rules, the terms of trade. the basic framework for asia so that china would eventually be forced to join into a system that would be much fairer and would leave better balances afterward. wunts once he blew that up, he marched into this process of ever escalating rhetoric and put 3 billion, 10 billion. 50 billion. waiting for the choke point, but the problem is real. he had a solution to the problem and rejected it. now he's in this world of unintended consequences. let's wait and see what the markets do today. if they get hit as badly, you've got a real problem for trump.

>> then there's this news, scott pruitt's leadership at the epa is coming into question following new reports on allegedly controversial decisions by the agencies administrator. according to cbs news, the lead agent in charge of pruitt's security details was reassigned to anew job within the epa. move came two weeks after an incident in which the agent, a 16 year verteran, denied the request by pruitt running late to use his vehicle's lights and sirens to cut through traffic and get to that appointment. >> good lord. did this guy just fall off a turnip truck and land in washington? where did he come from? they fly flags when they walk into buildings. they tell their detail to turn on the light and make a lot of

noise as they're driving through washington, d.c. pull over traffic. it's like tom hanks in the back of the limousine willie geist in big. like playing with the windows and playing with the sirens and seriously this guy with all of his ethics violations gets called out and people trying to warn the white house about what he's doing and the "new york times" reports yesterday that they get fired or reassigned. >> there's so much more than just trying to blow the lights and having protective detail and saying no we can't do that and the agent reassigned. the rent on the apartment. the exploration of flying exclusively on private jets which they didn't do ultimately, but he does fly first class at great taxpayer expense. "new york times" meanwhile reporting that at least five officials at the epa four of them high ranking were either reassigned demoted or request new jobs in the past year after they raised concerns about the spending and management of

pruitt. the times sources who work for or with the epa and have direct knowledge of the situation say the concerns included unusually large spending on office furniture. here we go again with office furniture and first class travel. >> what is wrong with this. >> are these people never been allowed to go to pottery barn or restoration hardware and go buy furniture. is this the first time they again fell off the turnip truck and land in washington, d.c. and, but also ex. >> explores the use of bulletproof desk and not only an suv with lights, he wanted an armored suv with run flat tires. >> are you serious. >> in case he was getting shot at. >> well. >> and he also explored using jets which is hundred of thousands more expensive than first class. all that and he can't keep up $50 a night worth of rent. i don't understand.

>> i'm confused. >> and his secret service has to come over to his house because he's nonresponsive and kick down his apartment door. >> stop. stop. >> and susan page, donald trump tells him he can't pay his buddies from oklahoma. can't give them a raise. ignores donald trump, the president, the white house and gives them a raise. how could this guy still be sitting in this position? >> that is the question. has anyone survived this torrent of news that just makes -- ends up making fun of him as well as raising questions about his fiscal responsibility and everything else. there is a campaign on the right to protect scott pruitt. i got e-mails this morning from conservative commentators making the case. he's doing the right thing at the epa rolling back regulations. remarkable to me when president trump came back on air force once late yesterday and did not want to talk about the stormy

daniels case. he did want to talk about scott pruitt. fantastic man. doing a fantastic job. so at least at the moment, he seems to for whatever reason in the in the president's good graces. >> there are conservatives in washington, d.c. that share the president's view on the epa overreach. regulatory overreach that could actually do the job without having -- without the embarrassment. without the corruption. without the misuse of power. >> you're absolutely right. and it's a good solid group of individuals who the president could elevate to that position. . what susan said back to the evangelicals. conservatives yet again skews princip principle. skewing the philosophical orientation of this party for over a generation on free markets for the purposes of oh, yes, he's throwing out bad

regulations. >> busting the budget: one of the biggest spending bills ever. one of the most reckless spending bills ever. fastest increase in the federal debt. one of the fastest ever. >> so all of that stuff doesn't matter. as long as you know the president is giving supreme court justice. we can ignore the personal behavior. as long as your scratching through those regulations we don't like. we'll ignore the abuse of office. and the waste of taxpayer dollars. if that's where the republican party finds themself going into 2018, you're not going to like 2019, baby. trust me. >> porn stars, protectionism and pruitt. >> oh, fantastic. that's our day. letter of the day is p. all right. jake sherman, thank you very much. question, are republicans finally ready to start speaking out about president trump's excesses. trey gowdy is one of them. we'll play forry what he said

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to the extent men judge themselves based on what that do for a living. i don't have a lot to show for the last seven years. >> the president of the united states, leader of the republican party called you a loser. depending how you judge the purpose of the benghazi investigation, inni think a lot people would say i was a loser. >> then you endorsed him. you endorsed the man that called you a loser. >> he's the nominee. >> you were just saying we're doing this in a party political way. >> i also knew a lot about the other candidate too. >> that was republican congressman trey gowdy reflecting on his decision to

leave congress at the end of his terms. joining us now nbc news chief white house correspondent holly jackson. good morning. >> good morning. what are you looking at today. >> couple of things. doing a lot of reporting on scott pruitt. talking about that. that is a real hot mess. frankly the president loves him and loyalty and loves what he's doing at epa. real concern about whether pruitt can hang on. reminded of tom price. all these things are happening that are still parallel. price defenders. president has my back. you heard that from scott pruitt. coming out and calling him a fine man. really good guy. same thing with scott pruitt here. writing on the wall for tom price. other thing we're looking at that we're talking about is learning that the president is not going to be attending the white house correspondence dinner this year. that is set for april 28. thanks for the eye roll on that one. >> i just shared that as it was

coming to you in the last four minutes. >> exciting event anyway. that we shouldn't have. >> it is a fascinating interview by trey gowdy. talk about why washington doesn't work. why it hasn't worked for a very long time. this is a guy that thought when he went out of the house intel committee, he was getting out of the line of fire and it's only getting more intense. >> hard to see how this turns around. one reason we're seeing a lot of people choosing not to run again. especially republicans. he is saying what does he have to show for being here seven or eight years. if you run for congress, it's usually because you want to do things. not because you -- for most not because they want the office. they have things they think would be good for the country or good for the district or good for the state to do.

now very hard for anybody on other sides as we get paralyzed and can't. >> it's been a problem for some time. you heard people complaining about how democrats and harry reid never allowed bills to go through and regular order. hardly doesn't happen now either. it's for some reason they haven't had regular order where you come up with an idea for abill. you get people working together with you. they cosponsor. take it to a committee. talk about the bill. that's how it works. schoolhouse rock. that's how it worked for 225 years. it's just not working that way anymore. so more and more people want to

go home. >> i hate to say it, if you want to be congressed. watch the full trey gowdy interview on vice. it's extraordinary. he's not coming back or running for re-election. he's dropped all his walls. we complain from the outside about the process as we watch it as people who report on them, but to hear it from the inside say a guy i was a prosecutor. i stood in courtrooms. i could make my case in a statement in an hour. here you've got to talk in 30 second sound bites. i'm one of 435. i don't have power to get things done: just one man's view. a view from the inside. an indictment on the political process right now and the partisanship and all the things he's seen and viewed as part of that with benghazi investigation. it's an enlightening one, but don't expect to come out the other side feeling good about what happened in washington right now. want to make one more note. the real star of this segment is your half eaten lumber jack breakfast sitting right in front

of you there. >> oh. and before you go. need some flap jacks willie. ordered 12 of them. >> question for holly jackson. do you go to the white house press briefings. >> daily. >> so i only see snip it snippets of them. are they valuable in any way. >> i'm dead serious. >> here's a serious answer. i think from a journalistic perspective and curious to hear you take. you get an administration officials on the record saying something is important. she says things on the record. >> does she say things. she says things. not always necessarily accurate. >> that's not helpful. that's not valuable if she says nothing, but you get them on the record. >> saying nothing. >> then you sort of -- it's a try angulation. that's what this reporting it. figuring out you're saying this publicly. i have four other people saying

x. for example on twitter and trey gowdy. the mood of the president right now, they obviously put out a public face. listen. every administration does that. to this accident i don't think we've seen this. i don't know. you didn't cover president obama or bush: i only covered president trump. i do think the other alternative is that the press briefings just go away. i'm not sure that's useful either when it comes to things like statements. getting them on the record saying things, even if it is inaccurate. >> even if it's a lie. for instance, some conservative websites said joe scarborough goes off and claims sarah huckabee sanders lied about what mcmasters said. it's not me going off. it's again objectively verifiable. you get a master statement and get what sarah sanders claim he said and she lied. i think that is a story the white house is willing to lie

about general mcmaster in a way that it's on obvious lie. shows their desperate. >> let me speak up for white house briefing. important to hold our government accountable. one way we do that is to be able to in a public forum ask questions of the representative of the white house. and if their answers are inaccurate, our job to point that out. >> by the way. >> i think you hear a lot of push back coming from reporters. well, mcmaster didn't say that. >> i think it's important by the way for them to have coverage every day. that has gone away for more than a year. >> stand alone news conference. the president in the news conference without a foreign leader there who took questions from the reporters who covered him every day. that's important for government accountable. people get upset when you say that. president has not done a solo news conference. that is a factual trooultuth.

you often hear from conservatives and go why do you always rail against the president for not doing solo news conferences. gives you access in the office. there's a big difference between screaming over the marine chopper on the south lawn to ask about some hugely important story of the day and being able to do so in a thoughtful and reflective manner. >> right. fascinating. nbc haley jackson. thank you very much. see you right here on msnbc. up next, breaking news on the economy. monthly jobs numbers just crossing the wires. bring you the headlines next on morning joe. how do you win at business?

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monthly jobs report. cnbc joins us now with the numbers. what do you got. >> what's it look like? usually want to be around 200,000. been higher than that. 102,000. joe and mika. 10 102. expectation was 178. >> lower than we thought. average hourly earnings came in what we expected. unemployment rate unchanged at 4.1. february numbers revised up. january revised down.

combine everything january and february. revised our numbers down by 50,000 and march was a bit of a miss. labor force participation at 62.9%. a little bit of a softer number. manufacturing added about 22,000 jobs. that's good. retail just continues to can't get out of its own way. toys r us bankruptcy is going to cloud some numbers. retail lost a few thousand jobs. every toys r us in america shutting down. a lot of people put out of work. retail was week. manufacturing good. overall the number on the soft side. >> little on the soft side. what do you think caused the softening of trump's economy. >> can you repeat the question? >> you said the economy is soft. why. we were expecting more than this. >> i think is the economy soft, i don't know. the jobs number came in a little softer than expected. we still added jobs which is positive. i think the concern going to be this. i know you're talking about the trade stuff and tariff stuff a

lot. here's the thing, retail, okay. we've had 20 some major retailers go bankrupt in the last six months thereabouts. we are overstored probably 5 times the number of retail stores we need in this found country of aurours: talk about s and economy diddle around the margins. and we can talk about trade wars. look at retail kmoentil compone biggest single employer is retail stores. retail is in trouble. i think when you talk about a soft economy. don't get might be some retail help, then perhaps we will have a softening economy. >> what's driving that. >> you could point to a lot of different things. some people point to amazon. some people point to -- i know the president has views on that company. some people would point to walmart. some people point to the fact

private equity bought too many retailers and saddled them with debt and can't exist with weakening sales and debt slapped on by private equity. most of the bankruptcy have been retailers that at one point were bought by private equity firms. loaded up with a pile of debt and couldn't get out from under that. either way the united states has a multiple times square footage space devoted to retail than the next highest nation. there's a starbucks inside of a starbucks on many town corners. from a weakening, retail. overall the number a little bit soft. what you said was the trump economy. >> all right. i was repeating you. >> cnbc brian sullivan. >> do you think it's the amazon effect. >> speaking exclusively with facebook about the major scandal. what she said about the company's plan to address the problem and as we go to break, a look at how president trump wrapped up his gaggle are reporters before air force one

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president saying he's going to take a look at amazon's rates with the the post office. apparently looking into a lot of things. >> i will be looking at the potential of the federal government bringing major lawsuits against bad actors. >> we're looking seriously at peace and maybe ultimately peace in the whole of the middle east. >> i've been looking at the

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a cynic would look at this and say facebook could have done all of this, every single step, a long time ago and not until stocks started tanking did facebook start taking it seriously. you care about privacy now because it's hitting the bottom line hard. >> we cared about privacy all along. i think we got the balance wrong. i think we were very idea lilis and not rigorous enough. what we're focused on is making sure possible use cases catch up. i'm not going to sit here and say we're not going to find more because we are. >> could you come up with a tool that said i do not want facebook to use my personal profile data to target me for advertising? do you have an opt out button. please don't use my profile data for advertising. >> we have different forms of opt out. we don't have opt out at highest level. that would be a paid product. >> that was part of today's exclusive interview with

facebook chief operating officer cheryl sandberg. with us now, technology journalist and co-founder of recode. kara swisher. sat down with msnbc chris hayes and talked about digital privacy and the cambridge analytica controversy. that special is on tonight at 8:00 p.m. on msnbc. and all kara did, she did nothing more than start a hot nasty war between facebook and apple. tell us about it. >> the hot nasty wars i start. >> that's any job to start hot nasty wars. i'm one of ttim was saying whatf people think. where was the responsibility here by facebook. i know now they're being very i'm so sorry. so sorry. about the russians so sorry about this and that. tim was pointing out we wouldn't have been in the situation to

start with if they had privacy rules in place and apple just pointsing out the obviously. very few leaders in silicon valley will throw each other under the bus in that manner. tend to not say anything actually. >> we had a discussion earlier this week after the federal government came out and said what we're all slowly beginning to realize that americans use our smartphones that governments are using those and third peters are using those to spy on us to listen in to our conversations to lift or texts. silicon valley has been using apps to data mine our most personal information and spread it around. is there a growing understanding not only at apple, but across silic silicon valley this is going to be possibly a crisis in the coming years for them. >> depends on what company you are. like tim said in this interview. silicon valley. apple has a very different set of rules.

just the tulles people use the apps on. they have an app store too and have to monitor the apps in that store. certain businesses like google and will facebook specifically are centered on advertising. they're entire businesses are advertising. they've sucked up most of the dollars in the digital advertising space. to the detriment of a lot of other media organizations actually. and so they have a great responsibility. and one of the things they do is, you know, i did an interview with mark last week about, as these things started to grow and grow and this call to appear before congress. and he literally said i don't want to sit at my desk in california and make these decisions. i was sort of like, well, you built it, so you sort of have to make those decisions. and i think they're very loathe to take responsibility for their platforms. and now that's coming home to roost. >> some of the information we're getting from facebook is that they will be notifying people who had their information harvested, however you want to describe it, and they're going to work -- they were a little naive in the process of getting

to this point but they're going to work to fix the problem. >> yes. >> is that easy? >> no, i shouldn't -- don't think the problem -- i'm with tim on that one. i know they're saying this. literally a year ago, i have been talking to facebook executives, arguing with them in public forums about these things. they're very -- they're now sort of saying we were too idealistic. i think that's the line. but they should have understood the implications of these technologies very early on. it's very clear these things can be easily hacked or easily abused. in this case, the information was given to cambridge analyt a analytica. they misused it, but they weren't policing it. you can't create a town and then not have police. that's what's really happened. they can tell you all you want about your data was misused but you're not getting it back. it's not coming back. there's no way they can go back. he said this in an interview, and get it for you and protect it again. it's unprotect and out there. the question is what are they going to do now to close all

these loopholes which are everywhere, all over the place. >> and you give your data. look, people want a free service, they give their data for it. you got to think hard about what you're doing and what you're getting in return for what you're putting out there. >> yep, yep. >> cara, this is david ignatius. it's a special pleasure to talk to you because i was cara swisher's editor when she worked for the -- >> wow. >> -- "washington post," many years ago, she was a great reporter then, great reporter now and we both happily survived it. i just want to ask you, you understand the value, you really have your finger on the pulse, do you sense a sort of fundamental move away from the kinds of social media businesses and business models that we've seen to something else? if you were talking to somebody in the valley about what's going to be super hot tenures fryears now, would it be a different set of technologies?

>> yes. >> so what are they? >> i think ar, augmented reality, and vr is an interesting area. still in its nascent stages. there's pervasive computing around you all the time. the idea it's within your body. i know everybody made fun of google glass for many years but the concept is a big one. i think transportation is enormous. and we're not even thinking of the implications of that and what it does to jobs and how we live and work. there's some really big -- ai obviously is an enormous thing, artificial intelligence. robotics. automation. some of the stuff amazon's doing around robotics is mind blowing. in terms of, again, jobs and how we work. there's some very big enormous things coming down the pike that we also have to be thinking about from a social point of view. what does our world look like when there's no -- there's no drivers. what does it look like from an insurance point of view? parking garages, stores? it's only going to become more

important that regulators and government and citizens of these companies think really hard about -- >> it's important we're engaging on it. thank you so much, cara switcher. thank you. the discussion with apple ceo tim cook airs tonight. must watch. 8:00 p.m. eastern on msnbc. and learn more at msnbc.com forward/revolution. cara, thank you. up next, the u.s. government takes new tougher steps against russia. will the president lend his voice to the effort? the latest on a new round of sanctions, next on "morning joe." 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. like fact that they'll just... forgive you...

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all, for a smoother tasting cup of coffee. green mountain coffee roasters. packed with goodness. all right, this just in. the trump administration has announced long promised sanctions on 38 russian officials, oligarchs and entities including vladimir putin's son-in-law, luc oil and the head of gasprom. as a result, their u.s. assets and business deals are frozen. >> in the words of aristotle, that ain't nothing. >> that's a big shoe to drop. the question of when the u.s. and i think others will follow will go after the personal assets of these people around putin has been a question we've been asking. these are significant steps. >> right. >> they will hurt. these people have their money outside of russia. they have extensive homes,

businesses, investments. so i think this just got tougher on the -- >> also, some russian news, the ex-spy in britain recovering very quickly. we're looking forward to that press conference. >> final thoughts? >> you talked about the trump effect on our democracy, on journalism, on the economy. this morn, we considered the trump effect on novelists, spy novelists, mystery writers like david ignatius because these days truth is stranger than fiction. >> i was taken by sandburg's comments if you don't want us to, you know, use your information, then pay us for it, essentially what she's saying. >> sam stein, whose wife worked for facebook, go. >> dartmouth, sam stein, go. >> back to the asteroid, i think we need bruce willis out of retirement. strap them into a rocket ship and go blow up another asteroid.

>> dude, dude. bruce willis died at the end of "armageddon." >> bring him back to life. >> i hope i didn't ruin that. >> the show is over now. we will see you -- is it friday? >> i think it's friday. you know what, every day i say it's friday. today i think it's actually friday. listen, we want to thank you guys for watching us this week. also, alex tells us that because of you we had our highest rated quarter ever, just ended -- >> very blessed. >> we're so blessed, because you watch every day, in spite of me. also, alex, really quickly, show the room, if you will. we have -- you can't do that? okay, he's yelling at me even when we're having this warm fuzzy moment. >> he's telling us we have to go to stephanie ruhle. >> stephanie, i hope you'll forgive us. >> stephanie ruhle. >> i want you to know, stephanie, alex has been screaming at us to go to you so -- >> right now. >> congratulations on your continued success, joe, mika. bruce willis