on your cell phone. - ( phone ringing ) - get details on this state program call or visit that does it for our hour. i'm micolle wallace. "mtp daily" starts right now. hello, chuck. >> if it's wednesday, the president is predictably unpredictable. tonight, strategy, or winging it? from the hayley/custody low clash to the pompeo/kim jong-un meeting. >> i think mike pompeo is extraordinary. >> what can we decipher about the president's foreign policy plans. plus, the profile of a fixer. we peel back the curtain on the president's attorney, michael cohen. and later, remembering the wisdom and humor of first lady

barbara bush. >> they call me the enforcer. >> this is "mtp daily," and it starts right now. ♪ good evening. welcome to "mtp daily" i'm chuck todd here in new york city. the story of the first 14 months of the trump foreign policy doctrine seems to be that there really is no trump foreign policy doctrine. that probably season a surprise. that unpredictability is on full display today ahead of the president's news conference with japanese prime minister shinzo abe which is set to happen in half an hour. will be nom dated by north korea. is there just confusion at the white house? there is a lot of new people there, for instance, new national security adviser, no secretary of state yet. maybe it's that. no one is feeling the whiplash more acutely than the u.n.

ambassador nikki hayley who web on tv sunday to out the sanctions for russian for its role in the chemical weapons attack on isn't civilians in syria. only to be cut down by larry custody low. hayley's sons was succinct and blunt. with all due respect, i do not get confused. she was basically following what she thought was policy testimony policy was changed and she wasn't told about it. so she was in a box. interesting use of the term box. could it be that a whole lot of people were trying to box the president in on russian sanctions. that's not the first time that the team seemed to be out of the loop or that prescriptions seemed to change abruptly. several months ago, rex

tillerson was said to be quote wasting his time trying to negotiate with kim jong-un. and now pompeo, the nominee to be the next secretary of state met recently with kim jong-un. >> left north korea, had a great meeting with kim jong-un, and got along with him really well, really great. and he's that kind of a guy. >> the news of is that meeting just happened to leak at the same time as pompeo's confirmation is getting a little more complicated on capitol hill. could this be an effort into i the president to make pompeo seem too important not to confirm. pompeo was on the hill today holding meetings with several senators in an attempt to garner support. the white house even held a conference call, something they haven't done in a lon time on a confirmation process. four reporters and kellyanne conway, and republican senator tom cotton to talk up pompeo's call picks. on the hill, the reaction to

pompeo's north korean trip has been mixed. >> i think it speaks to the fact that president trump has a lot of faith in him. from my standpoint it's a plus. >> once you are nominated for a position, you don't go and begin to act as if you are in that position before you are confirmed. >> so was he sent there as the cia director or as the nominee for the secretary of state? >> i would rather have preparation than is so often the case in the trump administration where everybody flies by the seat of their fans. >> on russia, north korea, syria, it's sometimes not clear what the policy is, it's sometime unclear who speaks for the white house, other than the whouz. if unpreilkt dakotaability is the only thing that's predictable, how is the rest of the world to keep up. ambassador hill joins us. former ambassador to south korea. good to see you. >> pleasure. let me start with the news about pompeo, back channelling,

meeting with kim jong-un. one would assume if the president of the united states was going to sit down with kim jong-un that there would be some sort of intermediary meeting like this. what do you make it? >> first of all, i think they needed to be a meeting. and the concern that everyone had was there was absolutely nothing going on. so the fact that he accept what is probably his most trusted adviser out to pyongyang i think was actually a good sign. i don't think pompeo did it as the incoming secretary of state. that is, i don't think he was presuming his confirmation. i think he did it as the cia director. and those are the people that i think president trump has more confidence in. so i think it was probably a good move. the issue will come up, of course, pompeo in the meantime, after being in north korea, was talking to senators and obviously didn't breathe a word of it. and then when the president met with the japanese, he kind of had to tell them. once you tell the japanese, i think it's important to tell the american people so obviously this has been

ragged, as often these things are with the trump administration, but i think the general issue of talking to the -- of talking to the north koreans in advance and getting some notion of what this meeting might look like i think is useful and definitely something they had to do. >> what's interesting here about mike pompeo playing intermediary here is that in his role as cia director last year he was somebody that was hinting at regime change. i want to play a byte for you from him last summer and get to you respond to it. >> it would be a great thing to denuclearize the peninsula. to get those weapons off of that. but the thing that is most dangerous about it is the character who holds the control over them today. as for the regime, i am hopeful that we will find a way to separate that regime from this system. the north korean people i'm sure are lovely people and would love to see him go. >> if you are in for direct talks kim jong-un is not going to agree with regime change is on the table. why do you think there has been

such an about-face in trump's orbit on this issue? >> as people noticed in north korea for decades, there are not too many great options out there. and the idea that you would rather have regime change there -- look, i would like to have regime change in half the countries in the world, you know, make them all baseball fans and it would be easy. but the first question in regime change is how are you going to do that? and usually the advocates fall silent. and the second question is going to be and then what? who do you have in mine that's better? again, there is silence. it is a usually a non-issue, a kind of throw away line where you are trying to show how tough you are. >> right. >> at this point it's been kind of discredited. i don't think a lot of people paid attention to it. i think it's just a way of not dealing with the tough issues of north korea. >> let me ask you about the idea of choosing pompeo to do this. i had somebody say that in some ways the only way to have any sort of fruitful communication with the north koreans is through intelligence channels not diplomatic ones. >> well, we have a problem today

of having diplomacy without too many diplomats. so i'm not sure the option of going through the state department was really going to work. >> right. >> in the meantime, i think the cia has had contacts over the years in -- with the north koreans. and the cia, even the director of the cia, is able to move without a press end raj, without too much publicity. these kind of things have been done in the past, just not with north korea. i can under the logic of it. by the way we are getting within weeks of all of this and it's still not clear when this thing going to be or where this thing is going to be. >> right. >> but i think one question that has been answered is it's going to be. >> yes, it is going to be. obviously, the south koreans and the north koreans are going to meet first. we have already had kim jong-un and the chinese meet. let me ask you, it's interesting, the president yesterday seemed to give permission to south korea to negotiate the end of the korean

war. is the chinese going to give the same permission? >> well, i'm not really sure what the president means by that. for starters, the south koreans did not sign that armistice. we signed the armistice. so i'm not sure we can just say okay, over to you. i think we need to be a part of that process. and this issue has come up before. i mean, we discussed this back in 2005. and this is part of the idea that north korea would like to see a peace treaty to replace this kind of elaborate cease-fire that we have. i think it is a complex issue and it's doing to involve the u.s. directly at the table and china directly at the table. i'm not sure of this idea that we can say to the south koreans, hey, if you can sort this out, that would be great. >> we are hearing that supposedly the north koreans are willing to discuss denuclearization. do you believe them? >> you know, the problem is -- i

think they are willing to discuss denuclearization. but the question is the time frame. do they have in mind a concept of when the lions lie down with the lambs, that is at the end of days we'll do this. do they have a concept that we have to somehow congregate our alliance with the south koreans. time frame and what the u.s./south korean alliance would look like -- that's the issue when you talk about the definition of denuclearization it's really the cost or what they are looking for in return for denuclearization. >> as a former diplomat, what did you make of this spat between ambassador hayley and what she thought was policy then sort of debting pulled back and it was done in such a way that she clearly took it as an insuchlt i know ambassador sometimes get thrown under the bus a lot by bosses. >> yeah -- >> is that how you saw it? or is there something more

problematic here? >> i mean, ambassadors do sometimes get thrown under the bus. you know, it sound like a great job, except you do have a lot of tread marks on you from time to time. but i don't know, my reaction was not so much former diplomat. it's just, you know, go, girl, go. that was the right response, and she did it quickly and made it real clear she's not going to ahow them to pull that nonsense. it was terrific. >> i have a feeling that you might have had the same response to somebody. you are somebody that wouldn't have taken kindly to being thrown under the bus, i imagine. >> that's true. there are enough buses out there anyway. >> that's right. >> you just didn't need that one. >> fair enough. ambassador chris hill, as always thanks for coming on and sharing your reduce and expertise. mike rounds of south carolina is a member of the armed services committee. you want to continue this discussion on pompeo and then get to another story that's out there involving the syria, the defense stekt and whether there

should have been congressional approval. let me ask you about mike pompeo. there seems to be a full-court press. only 39 republican votes. rand paul appears to be somebody that is going to vote against him. does it bother you that he can't get a majority out of the foreign relations committee? >> it doesn't really bother me. i guess the way i've looked at it is it happens every once in a while where a committee won't have full support on one side of the aisle. in many cases, particularly with a gentlemen as qualified as pompeo you will have folks on both sides of the ail that will consider his nomination favorably. he got 14 democrat votes to be director of the cia. i think when the president takes look at mike pompeo, i think he thought that, you know, our democrat colleagues would probably look favorably on him to begin with. so i'm still optimistic. i think we will be able to get there. >> right. >> and most certainly, senator

paul has his own reasons for why he is disagreeing on this particular case. >> right. >> but i really thought there was a good chance that we would get more than one or two of our democrat colleagues the come in on this nomination as well. >> i don't think that vote count was done. i'm curious what some of the red state democrats might do. senator menendez among others is concerned in that they don't think pompeo expressed willingness to be independent stuff at the state department. is that a concern of yours? >> it is not. mike pompeo first of all is a man of principle. i think he understands he does work with the president of the united states and areally, for the president of the united states as long as he's in that position. but that doesn't mean that he won't he can press his own point of view. and i think he's a strong enough man to where he clearly will be able to go back to the president, tell him when he disagrees with him and the direction he thinks he should

move. i think you will find the president appreciates his view already or he wouldn't be making this nomination. and he does come with the background that says he does understand the need to have a strong position, which is something the president has always suggested as sfwheel i want to go to this issue of defense secretary mattis and the all members briefing you got yesterday on the syria strikes. is it your understanding or not -- did secretary mattis say he preferred congressional approval for this or not? >> say that again. >> did secretary mattis make it clear that he thought there should be congressional approval for these strikes or not? >> let me begin by this. i'm not going to go into the discussion we specifically had but i will tell you i received no indication personally that he felt that that was a necessity and in fact in a broad sense the discussion that we had was very clear their understanding about the specific security needs of the united states. >> right. >> and the need to respond to a chemical weapons, and the need

to recognize that as being this the interests of the united states' long term. because we can't have chemical weapons on the battlefield. that part i think was made very clear by the discussion. >> for what it's worth the white house has put out a statement saying that secretary mattis urged the president to seek congressional before last week's syria strikes are categorically false. the president appropriately ordered the strikes under his constitution authority. look i'm not going to get into whether there is a parsing here of the specifics of how she is answering this question but let me ask you this, had these strikes been wider then in your mind would the president have needed congressional authority? what's the line in your mind where you think you need to cast a vote to give the president authority on strikes this syria? >> i think your question is a really good question. specifically, if this would not have had chemical weapons in it, i think that that particular

issue would have had to have been part of the discussion. if you are talking about regime change as an example, that's not part of the current aumf in my opinion. there is going to be discussion about an aumf and whether or not it should be expanded, changed and so forth. it's going to be a healthy discussion to have, it's one that should be updoppler radared. but the aumf we have got now, fighting terrorism and so forth we have about 2,000 folks in the country right now, not in that area but in syria that are fighting terrorists. clearly that's covered under the aumf. but in terms of our national security interests and the fact that there had been chemical weapons used -- and there is no question in my mind there were chemical weapons used on more than one occasion. in this particular case we could clearly identify it is something we had to respond to. >> why are deaths via chemical weapons more disturbing to us and make us act versus death by

carpet bombing? look to the person on the ground who died, they don't know the difference. i know i'm -- why do we draw that distinction? >> i think this is where we go to begin with. back in world war i when the use of chemical weapons was very active, there was a discussion among all of the civilized nations about whether or not this should be something in war as well. at that point, the countries decided that absolutely we are going to eliminate chemical weapons from the battlefield. when that decision was made, it was accepted, and it has for the most part been honored. when you go against that ban, and you start doing that, think about the atrocities that can occur if other rogue nations decide that if one can do it others can do it as well. we may be talking about the fact that yeah if you are dead from a carpet bomb versus a chemical bomb, neither one is good ask. neither one should be acceptable for civilians. but none -- and we do our best

not to impact civilians wherever possible. but the fact that you use this chemical weapons which does not know the difference between someone in uniform and someone not -- the civilized world has said it's not allowed. >> we did not eliminate the chemical weapons threat with syria. we damaged it but we didn't eliminate it. do you think we should have? >> the difference on this is that chemical weapons can be reconstituted. they can rebuilt. but i will tell you, we did significant damage to theirable today to -- their ability today to deliver chemical weapons. >> thank you for coming on. appreciate it. >> yes, sir. up ahead, a look at the man who has been at donald trump's side for more than a decade. who is michael cohen, really? his many connections are raising a lot of eyebrows. go get to know what they are right after this.

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welcome back. today in meet the mid terms w less than three weeks to go before the primary in ohio, that state's governor's race is getting rough in both primaries. on the democratic side, richard cordry's campaign is slamming dennis kucinich after he revealed a $20,000 speaking fee for a pro-syrian group, pro-assad group. cordry says kucinich has a track record of defending assad. his campaign tells nbc news when kucinich conducted an interview with assad on behalf of fox news in 2013 he was quote pretty tough in grilling him with chemical weapons. on the republican side, dewine is attacking mary taylor with this spot. >> take career politician mary taylor. she claims she's conservative.

but taylor refused to endorse donald trump for president over hillary clinton. >> there it is. the definition of conservative is supporting trump in ohio. folks, if you were wondering where the republican party is in a bellwether state like ohio, there you go. that's how that republican primary, an attorney general. and an incumbent. and it's trump that the race hinges on. back in 60 seconds. this is a story about mail and packages.

and it's also a story about people and while we make more e-commerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country, we never forget... that your business is our business the united states postal service. priority: you welcome back. let's bring in our panel. familiar face who everyone watches on our show on mondays and of course at other times on msnbc. katy tur, princeton professor, eddie bloody glove, and jake pot. jake, i'll start with you. because i know you care a lot about international affairs, foreign policy. it's sort of why commentary one could argue exists. >> right. >> what do you make of the

president in the last 48 hours? >> i think we have a kind of -- fran tarkenton the quarterback. >> scramble. >> would scramble. >> a fran tarkenton reference is tough in the 21st century. '70s quarterback for the minnesota vikings. >> he would run 30 yards back and if he turn and evaded people he could get a four or five yard gain. >> skpeld make a gain. >> he would make a campaign. trump is like in the backfield running around. nobody knows what the hell he's doing, including his own team. he is approving sanctions, he is cancelling sanctions. you though, he is sending weers messages about tpp, the trade promotion pact, whether he will go in or stay out of it of. and he is sitting there with the japanese prime ministers. katy mentioned in the back stage that she gets sick on the tea cups rite ride at disney world.

abe must be on the tea cups ride. >> abe has his own political problems at home. >> yeah. >> he is like in in weird place like this summit can't fail for him or he could be out. he has real -- >> that's the problem with diplomacy in the era of donald trump. i' not about the allies. it's very much about donald trump. it's not about his cabinet or his advisors, it's about donald trump and what donald trump can do to further donald trump's image. i'm going to profess i don't know anything about the football analogy you just proposed. >> she knows fran tarkenton from i think selling morgue a.j.s. >> if donald trump can get one yard, five yard despite everybody else and he is frantic or whatever you were saying, he is going to do that. that's his foreign policy right there in a nutshell. >> unmoored. unhinged. unplugged. >> how do you really feel? >> i'm just thinking about it. there are ways we can operationalize what you mean by

scramble. the word that comes to mind is sheer panic. the cuss words that are hurled at the teflts when nikki hayley made the announcement suggest this visceral emotional response to what was being said. i think it's sheer pan snik well, there is something about that issue, john that has me convinced -- i have seen this before, it look like they were basically trying out a policy on the president or like that was their goal was to get him to more sanctions on this and they thought they had him there. >> well, they are a a meeting -- who knows, ridiculous speculation. we will put this in place, do this, do that, are you okay with that, mr. president? yeah, sure. when she announces it that's not what i meant? he was not really paying attention and when he sees it he thinks that's stronger than i wanted to be. >> there is no way she went on sunday before the u.n.an and said we are imposing new sanctions without believing that that was -- that was a policy

that they were going to approve by the president. this no, sir way on earth that happened. >> she's not sort of a rogue person. i never thought of her as somebody who goes rogue. >> how could you go rogue on that? that is literally an act of -- like desperate insubordination and it would be unnecessary. >> john, if she announced that steve mnuchin would announce the sanctions on monday. >> yeah. >> right. >> that's not rogue. it is not going rogue. it was something planned out. >> clearly they had a process in place. now, we are talking about sort of the way trump operates. but russia portion of this, i mean, his -- the news about him and how he has handled russian sanctions over the last 82 hours has to be -- like it only raises yellow flags. >> it raises more questions. >> yeah. >> there was a time period a week and a half, two weeks ago where i started thinking maybe he is coming around -- >> on russia. >> on russia. where he was tweeting and maybe we haven't given him enough credit. and maybe -- maybe this is part of a bigger strategy. you caught the and you question

everything as a reporter. and you wonder if the way you see things is the way things actually are. and you know, every time i go back and do that, every time i start to doubt the way i view donald trump, i am corrected by my original views -- >> you are corrected by donald trump. >> by donald trump him, because he will go out and he will want to pull back. this is a lot of reporting out there about -- our own reporting about how he doesn't want to be as strong on russia as his administration is forcing him to be. and he is railing against it inside the oval office, screaming at his advisers saying why are wed a hard? i can't be charming, i can't be presidential if you doernlt let me. >> so the story that was being floated to defend him was that he said -- he watched the russian response to the syrian strikes. and the fact that they were measured, they didn't attack them, they didn't counter, they didn't respond in any way led him to think that we should be more measured instead of

imposing sanctions. that's the story that was being let out by i assume the national security council in his defense. the one problem with that is that it suggests a strategic view of what's going on in syria. you do this, the russians -- you do this to the russians but you can tul back if the russians respond x, then you take path y, and he is being improvisational and his people were too dogmatic about pushing the point through on sunday. but that does not comport with the donald trump that we know. >> right. >> he's not a strategic thinker. he is not saying if they do x then we will change field and do why. if he were, nikki hayley wouldn't have announced sanctions. >> one question that emerges for me is what is the trump doctrine? seat by the pants. >> i asked him on the campaign one day and he looked at me blank. he had no idea what to say. >> seat of your pants diplomacy what is the trump doctrine. >> reactionary.

react in the moment. i think he wants to -- i mean, don't you think he wants to be more of an america first guy, but i think he's getting pulled into basically being a conventional foreign policy -- >> right, these doctrines, the bush doctrine, the clinton doctrine, the reagan doctrine are not enumerated not by the president but by us. >> president president obama and i got into an argument about this actually. what's your doctrine. he said, you will decide. >> we don't know what the trump -- i would be astonished if we got to a point where we could develop the trump doctrine. one thing you can say on the one hand he does not moralize in foreign policy. >> that's right. >> that is the one thing he believes -- i wouldn't say amoural foreign policy. and in this case that means if you are going to impose sanctions on russia for doing chemical weapons maybe you don't impose sanctions. >> it's the me doctrine.

>> there you go. >> i'm going to pause it there because if i don't get a break they will get mad at me. up ahead, the legacy of barbara bush. so many great aspects of it. a powerful matriarch. and she had a razor sharp with it. sharp wit. tologist about a medication, this is humira. this is humira helping to relieve my pain and protect my joints from further irreversible damage. this is humira helping me reach for more. humira has been clinically studied for over 20 years. humira works for many adults. it targets and blocks a specific source of inflammation that contributes to ra symptoms. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened, as have blood, liver and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common,

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welcome back. he's been called president trump's fixer. the ultimate loyalist. even consignaturely airy. but who exactly is michael cohen. >> they say i'm mr. trump's pit bull, that i'm his right hand man. i mean, there's -- i have been called many different things around here. >> and he once even suggested to "vanity fair" he would give his life for president trump. i'll the guy who protects the president and the family i'm the guy who would take a bullet for president. now, after more than a deck ate at president trump's side it's cohen who is in the spotlight. he had questionable business ties before the fbi raided his office last week. a new report today titled the company michael cohen kept they

write the following, many of the peep who crossed paths with cohen who he worked in queens and brooklyn were disciplined disbarred, accused or convicted of crimes. cohen worked on a deal in moscow with a real estate developer who was convicted of assault and securities fraud had widely reported connections to the russian mob. and from the '70s to the '90s at least the russians in the russian mafia ran their operations through a catering hall run by cohen's story. associations are just that, associations. but it does help paint a picked of motorcycle. joining me now, peter berg who himself has reported extensively on michael cohen. mr. rudenberg welcome back to the show. >> thank you. >> let's talk about michael

cohen's world outside of trump. he has been a taxicab guy for years. what does that mean in new york ci city? >> it's funny because it sounds very small time. but what michael cohen specialized in was owning taxi medal ons. those are the licenses taxis have to be operating on the streets of new york city. and they are worth a lot of money. their valley has gone down but we are talking at their height hundreds of thousands of dollars. so it was a very cash-rich business. that's something investigators are looking at now how he came to have all those medal ons. >> whenever you keep looking at cohen's past there is a lot of people that come from eastern europe, a lot of russian -- those folks with ties to the old soviet union. look, they are just associations. nobody knows for sure what they mean. but there's quite a few of them. walk me through some of them. >> well, he does have a

ukrainian family background, right? and so that's key. >> his father-in-law emgrated from ukraine, correct? >> yes. he has natural associations. you mentioned the satter deal. i don't know if you remember last friday when he was shown outside, when he was supposed to be in trial on friday. he didn't go to court. he was outside with some friends. one of those people has been identified as being connected to a russian oligarch. that's kind of the world he lives in. that's part of the new york that michael cohen was operating in. but we also know that it happens to be a world that investigators are looking at in relation to what they are look at mr. trump's campaign regarding any connections to russia. >> this is an interesting story how michael cohen got on donald trump's radar. it is a very trumpian people of how he got on the radar. tell me the story. >> the story -- i'm going to say one caveat is this is the first known interaction, reporting

continues. >> fair enough. yes. >> but there is a big interaction where donald trump had a revolt on a condo board in a building where michael cohen also owned apartments and his family owned apartments. and michael cohen, rather than sticking with the condo board, sides with then citizen donald trump, helps undermine this sort of condo board uprising. by the way, this city is known for dramatic co-op and condo board politics but not like this and happens donald trump quash this rebellion and forever solidifies him as loyalist for donald trump. >> the other thing is what i assume has investigators interested in michael cohen is it seems as if donald trump had a habit -- and others can decide what the motivation was -- but he doesn't run away from doing business deals with people that may have questionable backgrounds in the past. and michael cohen would be the person that would interact with that. it seems there are a string of people like that.

>> exactly. i want to know, interestingly, you think about it this way. donald trump has to use very serious lawyers -- or used to have to use them throughout his real estate empire. you can't just hire a street brawling guy like michael cohen to figure out a complicated bankruptcy or a complicated real estate deal. so for all the lawyers that donald trump had, he needed someone like michael cohen who isn't one of those people, who can work in those grayer areas, which any real estate titan has to have at least a great understanding and facility with. >> how concerned is michael cohen about this investigation? do you get the sense that folks around him are very concerned? i mean how -- he says he would take a bullet for the president. at the prepared for where this could head? >> right, the question now is would he take an dime for the president? >> right. >> and that's a big question. there is -- all reporting -- all

reporting has it he is very concerned. the president is very concerned and the president around the people are concerned because for everything we are talking about, he is a keeper of the secrets, the keeper of the part of trump's empire that's in the shadows, that's not public. >> michael cohen, though, he has -- he seems to have escaped -- escaped or not gotten -- or not done anything illegal enough to get caught in the past. why is this time different? or has he just gotten lucky? >> it's one thing when you are doing things as a new york guy, kind of wheel asking dealing. it's an entirely other matter when your client is now the president of the united states or even at one point the republican nominee for the presidency. the stakes are just so different. we are seeing this throughout the part of the story that i am reporting is people who operated again in the shadows, maybe cut some corners. maybe worse. there wasn't really scrutiny on it. now it's as much scrutiny as you could possibly have in the geyer

world. >> it's scrutiny he never had to worry before before donald trump became a politician? >> scrutiny he could swat away or threaten away. >> right. >> and now you have bigger -- someone you can threaten, uncle sam. >> fair enough. i think a lot of us who covered donald trump over the years have been on the receiving end of a michael cohen phone call. we know what that is like. jim ruttenberg, "new york times," thank you investment. >> thank you. come up, will red state democrats come to mike pompeo's rescue? ♪ ♪ this is what getting your car serviced at lincoln looks like. complementary pickup and delivery servicing now comes with every new lincoln. i won. giving you, the luxury of time. that's the lincoln way.

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interviewed today and he says when i have to do what i think is right for montana. nobody gives me -- expletive deleted. it seems, i guess, you could say twos a pattern here but today the red state democrats going with the i'm going to be politically incorrect, maybe that's a way to connect with that working class trump voter. >> perhaps. we still are living in the kind of effects of a changed election and you're running against d.c. and then there's the reality of d.c. and there's no reason to identify with it. so i don't know if it's so much as trying to identify with the trump voter i think as trying to identify with americans who are catching hell and d.c. isn't doing anything for it. >> that is an incumbent trying to escape. >> one of the interesting things about our extreme polarization is in a more normal political atmosphere, joe mnuchin would be one of the most powerful people in america. he is a democrat if a red state who's voters want him to do

things the democratic party doesn't want to do and he could bid and he could bid -- he could buy and sell his vote for west virginia in ways that -- >> bob burton used to do? >> yeah. any purple state. any state like that and the nature of our politics now is that he can't even really do that. he can't quite do that because he would go so cross-wise of the democratic base that they would put a target on his forehead and that actually hurts his state. >> right. >> i think that's a good assessment and a really sober assessment of the current state of things. i think a lot of these folks are just being honest about what is clear to everybody. it does not look fun to be a lawmaker right now, it does not look fun to cover politics right now. a lot of it is having to respond to the whatever the president tweets on a daily basis, it's all reactionary. there's nobody allowed to get

along with each other. say you reach across the aisle, you have hell to pay with your political base. it's not a place where anyone seems to be looking out for the good of the entire country. it's the good of their political future or their political base and what extreme they need to be on at any moment. >> this polarization issue, mike pompeo could become a victim of it. we almost didn't get a -- do the red state democrats bail out mike pompeo? >> no, they probably don't and that's in part because he'll get confirmed any way. the balance of the senate would be 50/50 even pence would break the tie. >> there's one senator who's not voting these days, mccain and rand paul is not voting either. >> it is astonishing to me the pompeo thing. he was confirmed. he's been cia director for more than a year.

no complaints about him ethically. there's no sense that he's been untoward. people like him at the cia. he seems to be a respectable person and yet every -- i believe every democrat in the senate vote against his confirmation. >> i guess i'm not convinced. i think that 95 -- >> 95% of them. >> if you're heidi heitkamp this seems like an easy vote. >> i don't know what the political cash value is. it just seems to me -- >> is that enough of a sell to her? >> i don't know. you're right. i don't know if it's worth it at the same time what's the case to deny the president his secretary of state? >> well, i think it has something particularly with pompeo's views. so we've talked about it. regime change in north korea. he's one of the hawks. what does it mean to have him in state and bolton.

>> that was usually the standard by which you would deny somebody confirmation. >> you can't deny the political environment they're in. it's a feeling of i can't give this president a win. i've got to -- >> they make it primary. >> they need to hold some power over him. this is a little leverage that they have left. >> barack obama and hillary clinton voted against john roberts because they were worried about how it would play in a democratic primary. it's possible that any democrat thinking of running for president can't even sniff at the idea of giving somebody on the other side of the aisle just a confirmation vote. >> which is why washington sucks right now. >> they don't want to be on the wrong side of that wave. it might be blue or red but they don't want to be on either side of it. >> i am shocked at how much problems they're having with

pompeo. >> anybody else that might have to appoint with a confirmation might be in trouble. >> all right. katie, eddie, john. thank you very much. and i'll be right back. at&t provides edge-to-edge intelligence, covering virtually every part of your retail business. so that if your customer needs shoes, & he's got wide feet. & with edge-to-edge intelligence you've got near real time inventory updates. & he'll find the same shoes in your store that he found online he'll be one happy, very forgetful wide footed customer. at&t provides edge to edge intelligence. it can do so much for your business,

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right? makes for more interesting television for you. >> that was a fair observation from the center of the newsroom. on that note, we're watching several stories breaking right now and we are awaiting as we mentioned president trump's news conference with the japanese prime minister at the mar-a-lago resort in florida. we'll show that to you live. there's a lot of reasons people are interested in that but this breaking story right now i'm reporting this for the first time on air. the former playboy playmate motdle, she has won tonight. she is victorious winning her legal fight to do what she says she's wanted to to this whole time, tell her story about interactionwise and alleged affair with donald trump. karen mcdougal has reached a positive settlement with the national enquirer's company. her silence was bought during the campaign that was reportedly orchestrated by, guess who, the man under criminal investigation by the fbi and the self-pro-claimed