house. bloomberg politics, national political report. betsy, start with you on this. partial listing of pruit. you decide what you want to pull from from the bag of tricks here. pruit able to hang on in the white house, evidently the president saying,ir am going to hang on to this guy. >> pruit is lucky in the timing of the scandals, the white house has three cabinet vacancies, it is working on filling. the veterans affairs, and cia, he has to go through senate confirmation, and gina haspo will have a tough go getting through congress. you want to have someone with

senate confirmation running an agency as politically electric as the epa is. they don't want to get four confirmations for four slots, and before major election season, scrambling to have a cabinet that is functioning, trying to keep the seats warm. part of the reason he has been able to hang on as long as he has. as the shoe drops, there will be more pruit stories, it will make it tough to last as long as he has. >> emelba marcos here. >> he said this on air force one on thursday. >> i think scott has been a fantastic job. i think he is a fantastic

person. they lost scott pruit. they feel strongly about him and love scott pruit. >> coal and energy. reuters, 25% more industry leaders than advocates. add that to coal representatives. >> yes, i think that certainly, the politics of trump trying to revive the dying coal and energy industry plays into this. what is more important is what he said about scott pruit's effectiveness. the advocate shows how ineffective he has been. a lot of his actions tied up in the courts, the repeal of

obama's clean power plant, and the withdraw from the accord, that he pushed the president to do, can't be done until the day before the 2020 election. he hasn't done a lot to damage the environment y he has threatened to do so. put a lot of balls in the air. i definitely don't think that he is as effective as the president seems to understand. >> then, there is the interview he did on fox with ed henry. by many expert watchers such as the three of you, could have gone better. this president watches these sorts of interviews and makes big evaluations on his team based on those performances. if the performance wasn't good, that is another reason why mr. pruit may not be there that long. >> the president does watch these performances, one thing that filled other trump

officials is flying too close to the sun. getting too much attention and seeking the limelight, which president trump likes to preserve for himself. one thing is how similar scott pruit is to the arc of price. who was felled by ethics scandals, it start wide one, and kemt getting bigger and bigger, the white house went to defending him, to ultimately, he was fired. i think the president takes this stuff seriously. he is caught between a conservative base that very much likes scott pruit. and his work product, the way the white house put it likes the fact that he is moving forward with a deregulation agenda, as various reporters have raised. the senate calendar, is jam packed with executive and judicial nominees, an epa chief

that can get in a 51-vote republican senate will be a difficult proposition. >> that is what betsy was talking about, too. that is the question, with republicans starting to come out and say, this isn't good. gaudy, from south carolina, the u.s.- autohouse oversight chairman, how much energy is there behind the let's see how we can correct this pruit problem from the right? how much energy on the right is there? >> on the right in movement. conservative circle, despite all the headlines we have seen, there is broad deep-seeded support for pruit. i am not talking about voters, but conservative elite, the people who run organizations, the people who plan rallies, put together events, some of those movers and shakers, the c-pack,

they like his conservative, right wing, when it comes to environmental issues, upwards of 100 conservative movement people, prominent folks who run others and are involved, signed a letter supporting pruit. the president is getting phone calls, outside of the white house, saying stand by your man, scott pruit is only under attack, but there is a leftish conspiracy theory to try to take scott pruit down. there is a countering force, the staff in the white house themselves. they are frustrated with pruit. less than forth right about stories coming out about him. and the facts related to the scandal that is have emerged. the question is, which force at the end of the day, is the most impactful? the folks on the right in the white house frustrated by pruit. or the conservative movers who see him as one of their own.

>> 15 second, a new development, jonathan swan's reporting on john kelly, chief of staff. blowing up, unhappy, muttering or saying underneath his breath he may or may not quit. your reaction? >> i think that there is a lot of motivation on his part to leak that a lot of outrage in this white house. i take it with a grape of salt unless he is it willy willing to do it. >> president trump is his chief of staff and communications director all in one. the purpose of that job is to set up everybody, including the president of the united states follows, donald trump does not do that. kelly has threatened or suggested he wanted to quit. i would take it with a grain of

salt. >> thank you so much for trying to get all of that into the seven minutes at the top of the hour. good to hang out with you. >> new details this hour on breaking news from germany. police in the city of munster ruling out terrorism in this incident, a van blowed into a crowd, leaving three dead. 30 injured. police say the deceased suspect was a german-born citizen. as for a motive. the man was suicidal. looking for mental illness, and any ties he may have to a right wing extremist group. >> who threatened stormy daniels? her lawyer said there is a thug who scared her to keep silent. and what could help her case.

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stormy daniels' attorneys attorney is taking a victory lap right now, following the president's first public remarks about his client. >> up until a few days ago, he showed great restraint and discipline. we knew that was never going to last. low and behold he cracked and made statementos air force one. we don't think there is any question, there is no agreement. >> this latest back and forth, the president broke his surveillance and knew nothing about his attorney's $130,000

alleged hush money payment to daniels. today, a major announcement in the coming days regarding the efforts of the person they claimed daniels. well, cohen said he used his own personal funds to make the pay out to daniels, neither the trump or trump campaign was involved. he dies threatening daniels. here to talk about this, jennifer rubin opinion writer for the washington post. and jennifer, what do you make of what he said, a victory lap, if you will, expect more to come. and the president finally saying something. if you watch the tape, which you have probably many times, he didn't seem comfortable answering that question. >> right, i think it was interesting that he seemed to almost be taken off guard.

he has studiously avoided commenting at all on the topic. it was interesting that he refused to xhenlt on the last question the reporter asked, that was, is there an slush fund for the hush money. that is something that many of us are interested to find out. was this a one-shot deal or has trump had many women s there a pool of money that michael cohen has presided over. as far as the promise of information on the threat, michael avonatti is a good public lawyer. good at getting in under the president's skin. and presenting the videotape as if we were going to get video evidence of the affair, for the 60 minutes interview. let's see what he has to say. if there is kexz to the trump

organization that is extremely serious. at this point, he is doing a good job keeping his client in the news and keeping trump on the defensive. >> screaming from the mountain tops, in this case. there is a question about the slush fund. where did the money come from. there is, according to a memo obtained by cnn earlier this week, regarding a payment from first republic bank. where did the money come from, what is the history? there is clear data behind every payment that flows from one place to another. add that to the pot here. >> nobody believes that michael cohen paid personally for this.

if there was an illegal campaign contribution from trump enterprises, from another place we don't know about it. it is an illegal contribution. if it came from trump business enterprises, that is where the problem is here. again. the other thing i want to make a point in says, president trump, yes, he did comment on this for the first time yesterday it is one thing if he lies to reporters and the media, saying i don't know where the payment came from. it is another thing if he is lying under oath in deposition. is he going to get to depose trump. >> thank you. >> u.s. and china. how the tariffs could affect the u.s. consumer.

>> welcome back to msnbc live. as trade tensions with china rock the markets, steel and aluminum, it was canada, the top exporter of steel and aluminum

to the u.s. hit the hardest. the president granted exemptions. largely targeted china. china responded with tariffs on $3 billion on goods, that is expected to trickle down to consumers. and the u.s. announced $50 billion on chinese goods, and china announced $50 billion in tariff, keeping the shoving match alive. some farmers expressed fears about the financial impact of the tariffs, many are economically vulner able. the trump mmpgz said it was considered $100 billion on chinese experts, no words on

what products would be targeted. china said it will fight as any cost. for now, u.s. stocks are taking a dive, the dow, s&p and nasdaq, all red. >> ambassador, thank you for being with us. when you look at what is going back and forth here, one has to ask, on the other side, who is ping in china, what does he want out of this. when you see his reactions to president's call for more tariffs, what are you seeing it? >> china is going to retaliate. china cannot be viewed as backing down or appearing weak. they have gained stature internally and internationally. they will hit back hard. unfortunately, in a trade war, both sides will lose. consumers and workers. it will be especially hard on

american consumers and american companies. >> when you look at what he may do next, he is an individual that can implement tariffs as he chooses, basically, the united states is different. although the president does have the ability, because of national security to implement the tariffs, congress can pass legislation to stop this ability. it is different there, in china. we will have to wait to see what the trump administration is imposing, in subject of the tariffs, a surcharge or tax on chinese goods coming into the united states. able to give back, they don't have to buy american products, if they levee tariffs on soy beans, they.

with respect, if we want to not buy shoes at macy's or nordstroms, what is our choice? buy $500 shoes made in italy? all microwaves are only made in china. what choice do we have? eat the cost, pay more out of their pocket, which means less money for vacations, retirement, buying an automobile, or saving for college education. >> why did china target soy beans? looking at the back and forth. if the united states, if there is improvement for opportunity on center, is tht right way to go about it. with the negotiations this is largely done behind the shiny bright spaces we are discussing

now, trade. >> they know that soy beans, are grown by the supporters of the trump administration. hitting hard, agriculture. backers of the president. and pressure on the trump administration. i come from the state of washington, eastern washington is have they openly discussed the dismay of what tariffs will do to their backers of president trump. china does not have to buy american soy bean, brazil has hey surplus. they can buy from brazil. the ta rives won't hurt the chinese economy. they can find substitutes. tariffs on goods coming from

china, that american consumers will have to pay. there aren't many substitutes. american consumers will have to pay more, and many are used by american companies in manufacturing, and building. their final product will be more expensive. marking it hard to sell in competition with canada, germany or australia or uk. whether they try to sell it here or overseas. former commerce sect lock, thank you for stopping by. >> you have been talking about this for weeks, i should say. n now. right now, two leaders are saying this. if you do this i am going to do this. >> there has been an argument this is part of a fully thought out strategy. i don't think wall street

believes that like myself, don't believe it is tackical, it is quite impulsive. that is three times the economic harm his own administration leveed on the u.s., that is in violation of world trade rules, i don't think the president cares about that. when you publicly humiliate an asian leader, it is more forceful than if you have a negotiation. >> they came in in private negotiations, heavy handed to start. that set the tone. >> you are an expert of market, you saw the three arrows going down, babounsed back up. by the end of the week. >> yes.

>> how real is this? >> it is there is a possibility relations deteriorate with canada and mexico. and nafta. and some fear the u.s. may pull out. the far left leading candidate in mexico, if he won the presidential election in july, building become adversarial. >> one word answer, no wins in a trade war. who wins more in this back and forth here? >> i saw one paper said that we would lose 1.3 gdp, the rest of the world would suffer, everybody loses it could mean global recession. >> the high priest of this sort

of stuff. >> president trump is sending members of the national guard to secure the border. who is funding all of this?

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border, tweeting, we are sealing up our sournl border, the people of our great country want safety and security. it has been a disaster on this very important issue. mary jennings combat veteran and democratic candidate for congress in texas. mj, what do you make of this call for 4,000 national guard working along with border patrol agents? >> hi, richard. i think it is disturbing on a couple of levels, many pointed to the fact that it is a waste of resources. there is not an army intending us harm. it is manufacture a humanitarian issue. i was called up for a number of missions, hurricane relief, three towers in afghanistan.

it is largely will people with full time jobs and families. we stand ready to answer the nation's call. what we expect in return, in that willingness to leave our lives behind is that those decisions are made in critical situations, where there is no other option. >> how does from your understanding in talking from other national guard personnel, how does the national guard coordinate with border patrol and ice with a presence there. >> three years on the task force in california. i think that military works well with lawsuit. we always are uneasy, when there is demilitarization on american soil. i think there is a hes tanzy to, especially going into something that is open-ended the way this s i have heard things from

national guard troops there until a wall is built, that has not been funded. we are sick of being called up for suspicious missions with open-ended time lines. >> you are running for congress, are you one of the 309 women running, all-time record in our great country. tell me what your view is on the national guard politically, what you would like to see if you had a direct line to the president right now? >> there is no coincidence we have a record low record of veterans serving. they bring something unique to the table. women bring something unique to the table. the veteran number of veterans, in number to the record number of record, should make the powers at be how they deploy

people in uniform. we are voting more. we need to have more veterans in congress, we understand the cost of war, deployments and security, and the fact that there are some things worth fighting for. >> mj, thank you so much for all of that perspective. >> thank you, richard. >> a push from student activists, it is called town hall for our lives, urging congress to get series about gun control. this is a live look at a town hall in staten island, new york. with me now. the senior at majory stoneman douglas high school. what are you hearing?

>>, i mean, there are a lot of things going on. we had our town hall with representative, we are push it. we have seen a lot of representatives that ignored hosting or appearing as a town hall. we are seeing the people who don't want to work for us. they are public serve achbts declining our offers to do their job. >> some of those lawmakers said they had other things on their schedule. unable to be there. in those situations, those who decided not to answer or go, there are empty seats sitting there. what is the point you would like to make by doing that? >> see, i look around social

media, seeing who will get people on to show up at town halls, it is those posting pictures with them at constituents at gun rallies things like that i don't think they have other event, i think they know that they are probably going to get chewed up at this town hall, they are afraid. >> moving on to, if you are saying that will get chewed up and afraid, then they are looking towards the election, the mid tefrmt are you part of a voter drive, trying to get voters who are turning 18 to register. what are you hearing from them as you register them, about the common sense gun laws we are in phase two right now, trying to get everywhere, trying to get student, like me, to register to vote. get out there and follow through with it. like i said many times in the

past. there are hundreds and thousands of people who just give up their civic duty to vote. what happens, we get these people who don't want to do their job in office. ultimately, they fail us. >> april 20, your movement would like to have another walk out. what do the expect? >> the national school walk out april 20th uwe trying to get every student who sits behind a desk to walk out of school and take a look and reflect on the event that is have gone through the years mass tragics and murders occur. we are not going to take it any more. we will say no going to school if we don't get a change. you can't put us in a place where we are not going to be safe. spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on metal detectors

don't work. we need to focus on the thing that is will stick and going to make us safe, not just as schools but in movie theaters, malls and airpts, getting the rifles off the streets. >> senior at majory stoneman douglas high school in parkland florida as well as an activist. thank you. >> thank you, too. >> you bet. >> paul manfort's attempt to toss out evidence seized from his storage unit. this is your new house. and a perfectly inconspicuous suv. you must become invisible. [hero] i'll take my chances.

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. welcome back, the u.s. issued new sanctions friday against wealthy russian tycoons, punish for what secretary called maligned activity around the globe. the russian foreign ministry said that they won't go unanswered, and a russian company supplying weapons to syria. and manfort feeling the heat in the mueller investigation. this week, court documents revealing that mueller was granted seven wards for search and seizure against mannafort.

>> a former cia officer who ran operations in russia. joi, start with what we learned on friday. those new sanctions. against the 12 companies they own or control, and the senior russian government official, what do you read from that? >> well, in doing this, the white house was taking a positive step implementing sanctions congress passed late last summer and ordered that white house put in place by the end of january. they were tardy in bringing this on board. there has been concern that increment of time, gave the algarts time to move money around and hide it a real problem that we have to look at here is how the sanctions will be implemented. with a wakened state department and lacking to people who are

experts in the area, will there be follow-through to make sure the ankzs have teeth or go the way of the recent order of 60 russian diplomats where we later learned that they would have new diplomats in greater numbers with all things. >> what do you make of the sanctions and the friday development. >> i agree with her. i believe the sanctions, in and of themselves will have a limited impact. i don't think that mr. putin cares about the diplomats. there is a crony criminal system there in moscow that he controls, and the they have the ability to move their money around. i do applaud the administration, this is a signal. this sends a signal between us and our allies and willing to start to take this seriously.

if it is important to putin, it is the signal of seriousness. mr. putin smells out weakness and focuses on that, and pushing at it. so f we show seriousness and continue along this line, i think it will send a strong signal to him. >> one of the algarts, known for his connections to paul mannafort that is a development that we learned late friday as we were looking at this joyce. mannafort's attorneys, filing a motion to suppress evidence, this is related to more evidence that is coming about because of mueller pursuing paul mannafort. th manafort. >> it is early to think about him flipping, if it happens, i think it will happen closer to the trial date. >> what do you say early? we look at others who have moved

over to the mueller camp, why do you say it is early? >> what happens typical with criminal defendants, it is not always true, there are exceptions, either someone comes in early, postindictment and a plea is worked out. or it tends to linger on until closer to trial. it is possible someone would decide to plead along the way. the next big incentive to conclude a deal with mueller is looking at the trial in place. right now, he has a motions practice, he can possibly get charges dismissed along the way. he will want to be in the strongest position he can be in, if he decides to go in with mueller for a final round of plea negotiations. >> from what mueller was requesting, the motion to suppress that came from paul manfort's team. what is the story heave is

putting together around paul manafort? >> mr. mueller is looking at obstruction of justice, collusion, and financial crime, mr. manafort, essential two of those. collusion, if anybody in the trump campaign knew what the russians were up to is paul manfort. you can't make tens of millions in the cesspool of russian -- the final crimes, he has been charged with the financial crimes, i understand that he is trying to follow all of the legal things to the end observe he does a deal with mr. mueller. he is the key player here, as far as i am concerned. >> we got more information about what bob mueller is doing, based on a rosen stein memo that came out. as you read through it. and saw large, black boxes in

it. which, those who are big brains like yourself joyce are saying ros ros rosenstein, expanding the scope. that scope bleed many people have been accusing him of. >> the most interesting thing about that memo is the fact that large parts of it can't be read. and so what we're really the most interested in is learning now about more of what's going on in those large black blocks of text that we see on that page. the most important detail that we can take away from this is that rosenstein actually gave bob mueller an extremely specific scope of conduct to gait. for paul manafort, we see two specific areas. as one colleague pointed out yesterday, by a a semicolon. said there is more conduct of paul manaforts that mueller is

able to investigate under the grant from rod rosenstein than what's been made publicly available. >> there's a lot of meaning behind a semicolon. also a very difficult piece of punctuation for everybody. joyce, john, thank you both. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> tomorrow, msnbc's headliners takes a look at robert mueller. revealing what has shaped and what drives the man of the russia investigation. don't miss it, sunday night, 9:00 eastern. up next, president trump's secret battles with his own military over a pullout from syria and who benefits most if that happens.

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u.s. troops will stay in syria for now, but if president trump gets his way, they could be home in the paul. the white house insisting there's no official timeline for withdrawal even after trump made it clear he wants the u.s. out of syria in the next five or six months. >> i want to get out. i want to bring our troops back home. i want to start rebuilding our nation. think of it. $7 trillion over a 17-year period. we have nothing. nothing. except death and destruction. it's a horrible thing. so it's time. it's time. >> the frustration with trump's mixed messages becoming more evidence with one special forces commander, telling nbc news we're on the 2 yard line. we could literally fall into the end zone. we're that close to total

victory to wiping out the isis caliphate in syria. we're that close and now, it's coming apart. joining me now, retired army colonel, jacobseke jacobs. you see the general on the ground saying we have accomplished something. which is it. >> i think it's the latter. we have accomplished a great deal. isis was building a caliphate and that means they have to control terrain and they're no longer controlling very much terrain at all. so we're really close to wiping out isis as a caliphate. from the area. at the end of the day, however, it's important that not that you take the objective, but that you hold on to it and holding on is what it's all about. getting out very, very quickly is not going to accomplish that. >> then five or six months. if that's the time frame, what is the best scenario of reducing the amount of u.s. forces there because as has been said by you and others, there's iran and

russia just waiting for that to happen. >> we have to think about what we are doing there and how many troops you need to do it. we're providing air support among other thing, which we're not going to provide if we don't have air controller, people on the ground to make sure the air strikes go with this. where it's supposed to go. people developing intelligence so that we can use them against isis. if we pull troops out, even a small number, we only have a couple of thousand there. we pull them out, before we have an opportunity to consolidate gains, all will have been lost. >> it's five or six months enough, colonel? >> no, no. >> to solidify this 2 yard line comment? >> we've got to think about what else we're doing. we're not only fighting, but we're training indigenous forces to be b able to defend themselves. that means the kurd sz. almost more than anybody else. and that's a long-term exercise. talk to anybody who has some experience in that kind of

warfare, stan mcchrystal and others who have been doing it for a long time, say it takes decade. 2,000 people is not a lot of te people to do that for a long time. >> the commentary in the same report was that cukurds in taki on the training have done extremely well. he has not seen in his time, such a good collaboration. when the trainers are removed and the air power, which i know you want to comment on, is also gone, what will be in for these kurds? >> they're on their own and they're not only isis is against them, but more significantly, one of our allies, the turks, who actually have been bomb iin the kurds, will probably step up their activity against the kurds and then whatever gains that will have been made will be lost. >> what does iran and russia want in 30 seconds? >> it's interesting. they're allies there. they're against us and they have different objectives, but

they're complimentary. iran wants influence. they want to gain and maintain influence. russia wants ininfluence, too. but they find it easy to coales with the iranian to get that done and therefore, they're alleys of al assad. that's an unholy licenalliance i've seen one. >> then there are the turks. >> yeah, they're after the kurds and they're difficult to, we're not going to be able to control them. not going to control the terrain. we're quoing to lose whatever influence we have over them in the region. >> all right. always great to have you here. >> thanks. >> thank you, sir. that wrap us up this hour for us here on msnbc. stay with us for updates and breaking news here as it happens. you can follow me on facebook, instagram and twitter. "hardball" is next. you have a great saturday.

the pruitt through it? let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews. in washington at the end of another wild week at 1600 pennsylvania avenue. the president ordered troops down to the border. he forced a game of chicken with with china over possible trade war. without giving evidence, made another startling comment about women immigrants getting raped at levels never seen before. in all this, amid all this, trump has reportedly shrined his chief of staff and is publicly standing up to his living it up epa director, scott pruitt. pruitt is facing mounting questions about ethics and spending habits. there's his reported fataste fo luxury travel that he often sits in first or business class. pruitt said he needed to because of unpleasant interactions with other travelers.