two full hours. allie will ali will be back in the chair tomorrow. in the meantime, my dear friend, star of the hour, "deadline white house" anchor nicolle wallace takes it away right now. >> with friends like that, wow. hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. one former senior u.s. government official today described the botched white house handling of the ronny jackson nomination as, quote, leading a lamb to slaughter. jackson, of course, is the president's pick to head the department of veterans affairs. and what began as an embarrassment for the white house has blossomed into a full-blown political and public relations crisis. here are a few of today's headlines jackson who served as top white house doctor before being tapped to run one of the largest federal bureaucracies. jackson known as candy man giving drugds to passengers, democrats says. another nominee, backed on

female employee's door during overseas trip sources say. va nominee ronny jackson facing hostile working environment allegations. in the face of the allegations the white house is just now digging in and starting to mount a defense of jackson. here's press secretary sarah huckabee sanders' attempt at that this afternoon. >> dr. jackson's record as a white house physician has been impeccable. in fact, because dr. jackson has worked within arm's reach of three presidents, he's had more vetting than most nominees. we are continuing to look at the situation. i can only speak to some of the personal accounts that those of us have as well as the records that we have that are substantiated through a very detailed and thorough background investigation process. >> but as with all things trumpian, white house aides are quietly telling reporters a different story with all fingers

pointing at the president's impulsivity. politico reporting jackson was chosen with little vetting, angering several white house aides including chief of staff john kelly. now a whisper campaign of allegations threatens to tank his nomination. the episode offers a window into how the president's impulsive decision making has created problems for republican senators as well as his own aides. also from politico, aides who have come to realize they can't control the president have taken to leaking negative information about advisors, cabinet members and cabinet nominees in hopes they can shape the president's personnel decisions or repeal them entirely through the news media. joining us with the late skpeft greatest from this white house some of our favorite reporters and friends from the washington post, white house bureau chief phil rucker. with us at the table, michael crowley, senior foreign affairs correspondent for politico. elise jordan, former aide in the george w. bush white house and state department, now an msnbc contributor. and journalist eli stokols, an

msnbc analyst who also covers the trump white house. phil rucker, let's start with you. 24 hours ago we marvelled at the president's statements alongside the french president where he said, eh, what does ronny need this for, all the haggling? run a hospital. today the white house digging in standing by their man, not only has he been vetted, he's been vetted better than anyone else in the history of vetting. what is up with their swerving and inconsistent messaging in this nomination? >> well, it has been inconsistent, nicolle. yesterday right after you were off the air, ronny jackson was at the white house meeting with president trump talking about all of this. there was a decision that they made to go forward, to fight back. jackson wants a chance to defend himself. he wants to be able to appear before the senate and answer these questions and talk about his own history and background and character and behavior.

and the white house has mounted really a full-throated defense to the. it is important to point out those background checks sarah sanders mentioned at the briefering were not related to his nomination to run the va. they were conducted earlier as part of the standard procedure for someone who is a presidential physician at the white house. it wasn't the traditional vet you would see before a cabinet nominee is officially made or officially nominated rather. that happened by tweet by president trump to the surprise of many aides. >> i want to put up a list of all the other people who are under ethics scrutiny. general flynn of course was fired and has now pleaded guilty. rob portder, scott pruitt, ben carson. vetting isn't something they're good at, phil rucker. what leg are they standing on when they say today as opposed to yesterday when the president's message was, he

didn't need this. they're defending him saying he's been vetted, by whom and to whom are they pointing to as an example of someone who was similarly well vetted? >> well, they're not pointing to michael flynn. >> anyone else? >> a year ago to say he had previously been vetted. there were background checks, three other background checks. they're saying there are dozens of witnesses who pointed out no problems in ronny jackson's background. they are notably not defending ronny jackson against specific allegations made, overprescribing the drulgz on the plane, the candy man allegation, as it were, and some of the other workplaceish eyes. they're not specifically addressing that. they are generally defending his behavior and his record and job performance as the physician. >> elise jordan, you and i both worked in the white house. each one of these allegations by themselves are enough to torpedo any employee, let alone a physician. and we should just explain,

having traveled with the president, the white house physician is always on duty. if the president -- i remember when president reagan died. it was the middle of the night. george w. bush was on a trip and, you know, you can be woken up for an international event at any time. and the white house doctor can't be passed out because he went out drinking. any single one of these allegations is serious for any single one of the president's traveling staff, not to mention his doctor. >> no, i do want dr. jackson to have a chance to defend himself specifically against some of the allegations. specifically the overprescribing allegation does bother me a bit because i went to the white house medical unit, got an a.m. by enprescription before i headed off to baghdad one time. i'm sure plenty of other people 8 did. those trips with the time zone differences. i think he should have a chance as a physician to defend his -- how he practiced. the other allegations, though, are more disturbing. the middle of the night banging on a female coworker's door,

secret service having to stop him. seems like if there was a i.g. report for a cabinet nominee position they would have come forward now. they haven't vetted anyone. andrew kaczynski, facebook, twitter, islamophobic posts. this white house does not vet. >> phil rucker, you made a good point yesterday. they get to the nitty-gritty bottom of everyone's political associations pretty darn well. >> they care a lot about loyalty and what you have said and not said about president trump in the past. and if you've had a tweet where you've, you know, criticized him or backed another k57bd dcandida primary, that comes up in the vet. there is an attempt to try to scrub your social media postings. >> eli, what's humorous is sort of the way they're willing to strain their credibility and say, you know, he's going to be

vetted so well. he's going to be the best vetted, most vetted, that's humorous. lives are at stake. i don't know that there is an agency that touches the lives of more people who deserve the best that this country has to offer, and i think there are questions before this debacle about whether that is mr. jackson. and i want to read you something from the republican chairman of the va committee who warned the president not to make this change. also from politico. president donald trump could have avoided the fire storm over ronny jackson's fire storm if he had taken advice. the senate veterans affairs chairman mounted a strong defense of va skull kin. he was canned a few days later and jackson was quickly nominate today take his place. obviously shulkin had his problems. i don't know on what grounds isaac son was arguing to keep him. this isn't the kind of agency that can be run by someone who is learning on the job.

>> and he has no management experience -- >> none. >> -- whatsoever. the inspector general report that came out says the command climate under him was terrible, was terrible. and so that has to be concerning to veterans. i think what's different here, this president was elected kind of to change things up, right? to drain the swamp and to be a bull in a china shop of washington. i think people are willing to accept -- maybe people supporting trump, anyway, hey, you're going to put somebody like scott pruitt who is undermining the mission of the agency. ben carson cutting holes in the safety net. >> raising rent. >> with veterans, that is a constituency, huge constituency which this president campaigned to specifically and said i'm going to take better care of you. this president has support from a lot of the veterans across the country. to casually put somebody you feel comfortable with you feel will be loyalty to you to lead

that agency, without so much as the simplest of vet. it's not that they didn't do their homework. they don't do any homework to know the i.g. report is coming and this person, just because the president is comfortable, will be able to run this agency that has bedevilled so many other people more experienced at running it. you would think would be of big concern to that constituency of veterans. but, you know, a lot of times it's hard to know what the actual consequence in the real world are. >> it's interesting. your news agency had all that great reporting. so much of this speaks to the white house dysfunction and the former very senior u.s. government official said we've seen this before. this isn't on ronny jackson completely. all he did was say yes which is certainly the mind-set of many men and women in the military. this falls on the president's impulse to see a guy in a uniform and put him in charge of health care for people who once wore a uniform. it speaks to the weakness of the

chain of command at the white house. john kelly's decreasing -- he has abandoned trying to manage the president. all he is in charge of is staff and process. this seems like a failure on both those fronts. >> absolutely. first of all, let's not lose sight. you touched on eli. this obscure of the va. they were not prepared for the wars we went into in the early oos and the way times are excruciating and -- >> people die. >> people are dying. there is a kind of washington spectacle here. >> we're having a political conversation, but people suffering from ptsd or tbi who can't get a bed or can't get to a va facility that specializes in either of those things are epidemic levels, certainly unprecedented. there are lives in the balance. that is an important part of this. >> absolutely. there is a farceical quality to

this. you're also right, people want to serve and probably when they're asked to take a job by the president, their first impulse is great. what's different is other presidents would save people from themselves. you know what, we found some stuff in your background. this is going to be pretty ugly. our advice to you, you may not be aware how big an issue this particular thing is. you may not know this is out there. you're great, we'll find something that's more appropriate. come on down to the meat grinder. nobody is looking out for you until a crisis and can't solve that. >> who should do that? john kelly is out of the loop. the president is playing a game called icing, i had to google. counsel's office, who should do that? >> you just named all the people, but they're not doing it. it's collaborate between all those people. i would say fundamentally the personnel office oversight chief of staff, with the counsel's

office, congressional affairs office how things are going to play on capitol hill. last quick point i would make, amazing reporting with we had today. people in white house gunning down the nominees. usually presidents and their aides, the politics of character assassination are disgusting. it's like the call is coming from inside the house. >> i know. phil rucker, you must be able to speak to this. and jennifer rubin writes in your paper, the ronny jackson episode features character defaults and deficiencies that have made this the most chaotic scandal in incompetent president in recent memory. trump doesn't know or care what top government officials do so he has no sense of who can succeed. i heard that essentially from two white house staffers today. >> yeah, look, this is part of the concern inside the white house and there is one other character trait of the presidents that i think is worth pointing out here. it is his unwillingness to accept any sort of political defeat or acknowledge that he might have made a mistake in

judgment. so, you see it with sticking by jackson and wanting to fight and defend him. you also see it with his pretty extraordinary decision to continue to stand by scott pruitt, the administrator of the epa, after weeks now of revelations about ethical blunders and all sorts of examples of prove la gat spending. most senior officials would like to see pruitt gone. any other president would have fired him by now. trump doesn't want to give his enemies a scalp, if it were and so is continuing to defend pruitt. >> does the white house see this nomination going forward, do they think ronny jackson gets confirmed and serves out as the va secretary? >> you know, i think as of right now they're hopeful that it will go forward. but a lot can change in the next couple days. there could be more revelations. i think the difference with jackson is that a lot of the white house staff know him personally and feel like they want to believe him. they want to defend him. the descriptions in these allegations do not match their personal experiences with him

over the last year at the white house. and so there is a real willingness to get behind him and to defend him right now. that could all change by tomorrow. we saw how much it changed in the last 24 hours, nicolle, but for right now they're hopeful he'll make it through. >> and just real quick, elise, i heard what phil rucker just described, i think david axelrod has a quote on the record, people in the white house we served, the same kind of character testimony for ronny jackson. there are a lot of questions about these allegations. they don't ring true to the people who knew him. so, it does seem like an investigation either in the committee or from an inspector general does need to take place before this can proceed. >> exactly. that's why i am giving ronny jackson the benefit of the doubt just because he was so beloved within the bush white house. and i've talked to veterans who think that, hey, maybe it's not the worst thing to have a young enthusiastic admiral who has the president's ear and actually understands the military health care system and what they are

doing there that's better than what's happening for veterans care. so, i think he should have his hearing. >> all right. phil rucker, thank you so much for staying free at 4:00 every day this week. we keep leaning on you. we're so grateful to have you. when we come back, it was one of the most divisive chapters of the trump presidency, his constant attacks via twitter and rallies on an nfl player's right to silently protest during a national anthem. brand-new reporting how one of the president's closest allies really feels about donald trump's presidency. spoiler alert. the president isn't going to like it. lgs also ahead, the president lets loose on fake news and nationalism. the swamp is at capacity. we'll bring you the latest report on the swamp monster. stay with us. s not a cloud. s not a cloud. this is a car protected from storms by an insurance company that knows the weather down to the square block. this is a diamond tracked on a blockchain -

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when everything's connected, it's simple. easy. awesome. wouldn't you love to see one of these nfl owners when somebody disrespects our flag to say, get that son of a bitch off the field right now, out, he's fired. he's fired! >> for the president that was the exclamation point on what had been a week's long all-out assault on anthem protests in the nfl. weeks after that outburst, a small group of the league's players, executives and owners including trump's billionaire buddy robert craft, owner of the new england patriots met in new york to talk about a solution. what they said in that meeting was private until today. and it's what craft said that's sure to get under the president's skin. in a secret recording obtained

mysteriously by "the new york times," craft addressed what he called the, quote, elephant in the room, the kneeling. craft insisted, quote, the problem we have is we have a president who will use it as fodder to do his mission that i don't feel is in the best interest of america. it's divisive and it's horrible. after one player said it was difficult to trust the owners because they supported mr. trump, another owner jeffrey lury of the eagles who still hasn't scheduled a white house visit for his super bowl winning team, by the way, took exception saying, quote, another fact i want to throw out there, many of us had no interest in supporting president trump. yes, there are some, there are some players who do, too, but this is not where you bran dish a group of people because they own assets in a sport we love. supporting what many of us perceive as, you know, one disastrous presidency, he said, using a vul garregarity we can' here. then adding don't quote me. joining us former nfl player,

and "the new york times" magazine. can i say it? you have a book coming out on the nfl. >> it's perfect. i have a book about the nfl i've been working 0 not the last thr -- on the last three or four years. i'm a political reporter in my day job. >> you're here with us. >> colliding all over the place. i can use profanity. >> you can use it here. give us a minute to -- actually, we might need it for our other guest, actor and comedian d.l. hughley is here. let me start with you and the reporting. take us through what you reported today. you talked about worlds colliding. understand the president's almost translucently thin skin, bob craft, as a famous friend he loves to claim along with his famous player tom brady, this is going to hit the president where it hurts. >> it probably will. robert krafcraft, who has been

extremely -- what is he quoted as saying? >> i'll read it one more time. the problem we have is we have a president who uses his fodder to do his mission that i don't feel is in the best interest of america. >> right. >> it's divisive and it's horrible. >> the president will take notice of this. he obviously, like you said, is translucently thin skin. he is obsessed with the nfl. he's been obsessed with the nfl a long time. they are sort of part of his, you know, roster of unreturned affeca affection. he's wanted in the nfl a long time. they're almost all guys, almost all white. in fact, they are all white, except for -- >> one exception. >> jacksonville. >> jacksonville. yeah, the president keeps score of this stuff. seven of the owners i think gave to his inaugural, four of them were in the meeting. robert craft like a lot of these guys is a politician and they

will not always be the same in public as they are in private. >> but did even the private comments go far enough in terms of -- i mean, trump was playing the race card from the bottom of the deck and it really never abated. the season ended. >> i think he speaks -- there are a lot of people in this country who feel if you're black and you've a eascended to the heights they have, shut up, be grateful. that was a reality show. i'll say this. it's funny, it's not too much different. trump does what a lot of people do. he wonders why black americans that play football will be worried about injustice and brutality when they're rich. but the very physical attributes that get you draft ed in the nfl, you're big, you're black, you're strong, you're aggressive, that works great on sunday. on monday it's the reason the grand jury won't indict. they have a vested interest in what goes on in the communities. and donald trump made the

quintessential mistake of disrespecting the crowd. if cotton could talk, they would be doing what they do. they're saying we have a vested interest in this and the owners are saying, you're messing our business up. you can't make these people feel like -- you can't pit people against them and make them feel like they're maligned. it dee values our product. >> chris, let me bring you in. i'm guessing you're more at liberty to speak freely than some of these players. they did bring up colin kaepernick. one of the players said basically he's good enough to be on somebody's roster and that he's not is in and of itself a sign of the divisiveness that plagues the league. is that an accurate description of the situation with colin kaepernick? >> that's why he doesn't have a job. >> do you want to take a stab at that? >> it's pretty much every player that commented on it, colin kaepernick is a good enough quarterback to be playing in the league. this isn't talking head analysis. these are players that are out

on the field that are playing the game, that know how well he can play the game. and so essentially they're the experts on this matter. if all the players are saying, and i am one of those who is saying, colin should be on a team. he's not the best quarterback in the nfl, but he is by far one of the top 32 quarterbacks in the nfl and he should be playing. >> chris, in your opinion, mark's reporting goes on to say the reporters kept returning to one bottom line issue, large numbers of fans and sponsors have become angry about the protest. boycotts have been threatened and jerseys burned, ratings declining. do you think the nfl is doing as good as the nba syncing up the view of their players? the nba does a better job hearing their players than the nfl does. this secret meeting and what we learned about it doesn't do anything to change my impression. does it do that for you? >> no, i think what we're seeing is that america still has a very huge problem with racism and a

lot of fans of the nfl are also happen to be racist. this is something that we're not going to fix overnight. but we do have to address it. we do have to try to fix it. i think the key take away here is that the owners were not interested in acting on any of the players' concerns. the owners were only interested in trying to get good p.r. so, they can say whatever they want. they can say they're against trump all they want. but until they take actual action, put kaepernick on a team, police brutality against african americans is a huge problem, their words are meaningless. they're not backing them up. >> you were laughing. >> it's laughable. the nfl has murderers that play football. men that beat their wives, drug addicts. but a man who knelt in protest -- the mistake the nfl is making they think the ratings were down because white people were upset black people were protesting. it was just as much down because plaque people were saying -- i know for me, i would not watch the nfl game until he is given a

fair opportunity to play. so, it's just not white people who are in control of this. the bottom line, if black people didn't play football, it would be rugby. that's what it would be. >> not just colin kaepernick either. there is a whole generation of protesting players. eric reid, colin kaepernick's teammate, very good defensive back, played safety, five year starter, free agent now. there is no question he's good enough to be a starting defensive back or certainly a playing defensive back in the nfl. he's not getting touched. and there is a reason. he knelt. he is colin kaepernick's best friend. >> why is the nfl so weak? here's my question. coach kerr -- i'm an unapologetic warriors fan. steph curry says i'm not going to the white house. coach had his back. i don't remember anybody protesting warriors games. why is the nfl so weak? why is the nfl so afraid of donald trump? they're like the paul ryan of sports.

>> that to me is interesting. listening to the three hours of tape and players -- >> can you tell us anything else? >> there is a ton. >> tell us. >> it's basically a lot of the owners are cowering essentially at what donald is going to do next. >> and that's their fear more than racial insensitivity? i want to give the benefit of the doubt -- >> i can't speak to what's in their heart. it is clearly the thing they're worried -- the thing that is lurking. how do we, one, get the plaryer to stop kneeling -- >> when is it about their first amendment right? >> it's ticking off a lot of fans. >> the president and his supporters? >> people are calling for boycotts, they're booing players who kneel. this is the most republican and militaristic and patriotic of sports. >> patriotism is expressed by protest. i'll say this. look at the difference between the nfl and the nba. if lebron -- you could never do that to lebron james. the players are more in charge of the nba. the nfl is more like actual slave owners. they actually -- they are

actually inbred in that mentality. the nfl, the owners are clearly the most powerful. the nba the players are -- lebron james can go anywhere he wants to go. he sets -- >> he fired his teammates four weeks ago. you're right, you're right. >> he can do whatever he wants because the power structure, the structure of the nba is so much different than the structure of the nfl. the nfl is so much more like men -- when you -- i don't want to call it slavery -- >> structural racism? >> it is -- >> go ahead, chris. >> i was going to say the nfl is disposable labor. at most you're going to get maybe 3, 3 1/2 years on average. so, the players, as you said, really don't have any power. whereas nba players, you're playing 10, 15, 20 years. >> let me get you in here on what the president thinks. did the president think by the end of the season he had won? >> yeah, the president sees his ability to drive this wedge and to divide people generally.

that's how he won the election effectively and he sees this -- this is an issue he started. he's not reacting to the news. he's on stage at a rally calling colin kaepernick a son of a bitch. that difficult vivides people. we talk about players in the nfl are weak. it reveals the weakness of the owners nine of whom donated to donald trump's inauguration committee. bop craft supposedly a friend of him. they'll sit there next to the players and they'll say things about donald trump that are more critical that they just won't say publicly. why is that? >> just like republicans in congress. >> they supported him financially, yet they feel like they don't have the standing to stand up and criticize him. that's pretty weak. >> you know what you'll never see? stephon clark was shot in sacramento. the owner of the sacramento kings and the players made -- they protested and said we're all together. when a black -- if there is a prominent case where a black man has been brutalized in a community that has a huge affinity for its football team,

that owner will never say nothing. he doesn't -- listen, you think nfl players would care about black men getting killed in the streets. they're probably shooting at first round draft picks. but it's clearly doesn't register to them. they clearly have a different mind-set than a lot of other sports. >> let me give you the last question then we have to take a break. we have breaking news from your paper again. the eagles haven't scheduled a visit to the white house. is that imminent? >> not that i heard. i know there were discussions. >> do you think they'll go the way of the warriors or last year's winners? >> there is a lot of noise around visiting the white house. the patriots visit was noisy. there were players vocally not going. tom brady blew it off at the last minute for whatever reason. the eagles have some of the most vocal players in the league. chris long. >> do you think they'll go? >> in some form i think they go. >> chris, mark, thank you so much for joining us. breaking news on the story we just talked about, accusations about the president's nominee for va secretary just got worse.

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we've got some breaking news on that story we started with, new and potentially damaging allegations against ronny jackson, the president's pick for va secretary have just been released by democrats on the senate veterans affairs committee and first reported by "the new york times." let me read these to you from the piece. dr. ronny jackson, the white house physician nominate today lead the department of veterans affairs provided a large supply of percocet, a prescription opioid to a white house military office staff member, throwing his own medical staff, quote, into a panic when the medical unit could not account for the missing drugs. according to a summary of questionable deeds compiled by the democratic staff of the senate veterans affairs committee. a nurse on his staff said dr. jackson had written himself prescriptions and when caught he asked a physician assistant to provide the medication. and at a secret service going

away party, the doctor got intoxicated and, quote, wrecked a government vehicle according to the summary. the summary, as we understand it, as the times is reporting, was put together to flesh out the three categories of accusations, prescription drug misuse, hostile work environment and drunkenness, the kinds of things that threaten to derail his nomination. elise, i know your position is that he deserves a hearing. but it certainly seems like the question has just got a little more pointed and mounting evidence that the investigation that any committee would undertake before bringing in a nominee now some pretty detailed accounts of abuse of his medical license, of conduct that would get any white house staffer fired, and it sounds like there was a car accident involved. he wrecked a government vehicle. >> no, he needs to step down and pull himself from consideration. this is rising to the level of potential opioid abuse. and drunken behavior that has

caused the wrecking of a government vehicle, and that's just simply not going to pass muster and get confirmation. >> go ahead. >> he has wife beaters, he had people that abused women on his staff. why not a drug dealer? >> the serious part of your point is they don't vet anyone. >> here's the serious part of my point. it's that two weeks ago we had a president saying we will -- we should put drug dealers to death. it's a good thing he didn't because he'd be short a doctor. it's ridiculous. if you told donald trump his lawn looked nice, he would make you secretary of the interior. it's ridiculous that we're running a country like it is -- like it's the apprentice. he doesn't vet anybody. >> that's how he's doing it. >> specifically, nicolle, these are allegations that i'm just seeing the story for the first time, but opioid, we were talking earlier about these pills. >> yes. >> ambien. there was an alertness people were given. people who served in the obama administration were given

sleeping pills or pills to make them more alert on long trips. opioid has such a broad resonance, a high priority for president trump. i think that puts it in a whole new category of radio activity. this if true -- >> where is kellyanne conway? where is chris christie? they are running the opioid issue for the president. there are web pages on the -- official white house website about the president's commitment to the country's opioid crisis. he has now made fools out of the people who on his behalf are working to address the opioid crisis. something that actually has some bipartisan support in this country. he now has a nominee who, at least in an investigation by the democrats on the committee, provided a, quote, large supply of percocet to a white house military office staff member. >> this is a huge issue facing people in every corner of this country. so far the white house has basically when they felt the need, felt some pressure they've gone out and done an event. they've done a speech, put in

some remarks. they held a round table. but there is not a whole lot happening. then to have something like this, it just further lays bare just how disingenuous that commitment is. we talked all about the vetting. i don't know the president has ever really accepted that his style, his management style is responsible for a lot of the problems that he's creating for himself, his administration, his aides. it's not just with personnel. it's not just this nominee, not just scott pruitt and the drip, drip, drip of allegations. it's also the policy agenda he's trying to implement. there is another story in the news we're probably not going to get much time to talk about today, but that's the travel ban being in the courts. that was never sufficiently lawyered. it was just thrown out there and that is the reason that is not being implemented. so there is across the board on personnel, and policy, on everything else, the knee jerk sort of impulsive go with the gut style of this president is hamstringing his own administration, his success unless the only goal is to create drama every day. >> you get to the heart of it, that his standard is he or she who flatters him.

>> it is so insincere. it really is, it's insincere. i watched him build a temporary monument to the people, to the victims of the opioid crisis. when people on crack were put in prison. we have a drug problem in this country that he really has no connection to. it's only fitting that it should visit him in such an embarrassing way. is this the best america can do? like literally? like, america -- is this the best that we have? we might as well stop the experiment right now. >> but that is such an important point you make about how prisons were built for victims of the crack epidemic. and you look at jared kushner claims that criminal justice reform is his signature initiative, and what are we actually doing? >> nothing. >> when it comes to criminal justice -- >> jeff sessions wants to make marijuana -- he wants to up sending people to prison -- >> he's going toe to toe with boehner who is going to help.

[ laughter ] >> it's 4:41. we now have some more terrible headlines about his nominee. how long -- put you all on the spot. do you think ronny jackson is out of contention by the end of the hour? >> i don't know about by the end of the hour, possibly by the end of week. >> it depends if ronny jackson doesn't feel personal shame. this could go on for months as we've seen with scott pruitt. >> isn't there a question whether ronny jackson can continue to practice medicine if this is true, the white house nomination physician provided a, quote, large supply of percocet, a prescription opioid to a white house military office staff member, throwing his own medical staff into a panic when the medical unit could not account for the missing drugs. i mean, that gets you fired from any rural hospital or doctor's office, and we are now talking about the possibility that he might not be out by the end of the hour. are you kidding? >> i don't know about the hour. i just can't see him still being in by morning the only thing i

can think of we thought scott pruitt was minutes away from being fired. michael cohen's office god raided, we bombed syria, more crazy stuff came down the pike. everybody forgot, it saved pruitt's job. in this case jackson has to be confirmed. pruitt was able to slide through the news cycle unnoticed. so i don't see how jackson -- >> i don't know if slide is the right word. well slicked, well greased, slipping through it. like you said, we had an eight-hour war in syria. that got another weekend. and macron was here. but this is, this is how we are rolling as a country. and i guess my point in putting you all on the spot, whether ronny jackson is still standing as the nominee at the end of the day or not isn't the point because he's not going to pick someone in a different manner. >> right. i'll tell you what, ben carson and betsy devos are looking great right now. it's his style. you pick a guy -- >> why doesn't he care about

competence? >> this is a tv show to him. i'm not trying to be funny. you have to look at what we have. i watched stormy daniels say the president of the united states had unprotected sex with her. that makes me question -- if you're a 60-year-old man and you don't care about gonorrhea, how can you worry about north korea? literally -- [ laughter ] >> seriously, that's the most disturbing part of that story, not getting spanked by the magazine. that to me was that guy is going to negotiate with kim jong-un? >> you're 60 years old and you're playing crap with your sexual organs. that's a mistake young football players. that's the man eight years later is a president. >> i at least thoughts he was a germophobe. >> are you going to elevate us here? >> i just think -- >> we're from california. >> adult conversation, safe sex

is a good message. >> a big part of the story of this presidency is the submission of republicans in congress to this president, even with the incompetence just all over the tvs 24/7. and mitch mcconnell this week said, well, we're waiting for a signal from this white house what's going to happen with the jackson nomination. some democrats john tester and others have raised these concerns publicly. this may break the dam for more republicans. for leader mcconnell to get on the phone and tell the president, i don't think this one is going to fly. >> i believe we have nbc's chief white house correspondent hallie jackson joining us from the white house with the latest. ronny jackson standing by is that right? >> reporter: i just spoke with him along with a small group of other reporters including my colleague kristin welker. forgive me if i'm out of breath. i ran from the west wing. >> thank you. >> reporter: dr. jackson was coming up, walking past an area, you know well, upper press. we had been waiting for more information regarding the

allegations that i believe you've been talking about on this show, the allegations put together in a summary by democrats on the veterans affairs committee. we asked dr. jackson about this. my first question was, did you wreck a car? that is one of the allegations here, he actually wrecked a government vehicle. he said, no, that should be pretty easy to prove. he dismissed some of the other allegations against him as reporters were yelling questions. and when we pressed him on whether he will still move forward, he said we are still moving forward as planned. so, i think that says just about everything here, that ronny jackson wants to move forward. i will tell you this is a situation in which jackson could have simply not answered questions, kept walking, said, no comment, because it's not as though reporters could have chased him all the way down the colonnade past the rose garden, nicolle. he chose to stop and at least briefly talk a little bit about the accusations against him and that jibes with everything i've been hearing behind the scenes from my sources in the administration which is that jackson wants a hearing. he wants to be able to try to clear his name. he does not want to step aside now with these allegations out

there against him. where are these allegations coming from? according to democrats from the committee, it's roughly two dozen current and former military members that have come forward now with some of these stories. the white house argument is that this is politically motivated. you heard the legislative affairs director say that, why would these military members go first to democrats in congress first. doesn't that explain or doesn't that prove the point, in their view, that this is playing politics. but i think at this hour, at this point, a defiant ronny jackson wants to continue moving forward. and i will tell you in a 30-second interaction, i don't want to read too much into it, but his body language -- he obviously didn't want to stay and hang out with reporters. who would in this political climate. but he did want to be able to say, no, i didn't do x, y and z, and yeah, i'm still moving forward as he thanked us and walked away. >> let me follow-up with you on two things. there is some reporting that the republican chairman was also warned the president against making a change at va. so, the concerns -- not the

specific reporting about jackson, but the concerns about making this change were bipartisan. and ronny jackson is someone known and beloved by democrats and republicans. so, i'm having a hard time understanding the partisan overlay. david axelrod from the obama white house defended him as a lovely white house doctor. so did jim mussina, deputy chief of staff, a lovely white house doctor. he certainly has plenty -- he was known by people in the white house in which i worked which happened to be a republican white house. so, he's not someone who has right/left support. these allegations are so severe and so different from the story he's telling. i'm having a hard time understanding the gap. >> reporter: so, and i think that is where some lawmakers are, too, frankly, nicolle. when you look at what we're hearing from folks over on the hill, from democrats and republicans, many of them seem to be saying, we need to know more about this. is this true or not? what is going on here? and on the heels of that question is the second one, which is why in the world

wouldn't the white house have known about this or given us a heads up or figured out how they were going to respond to this sooner in some kind of crisis management rather than allow these things to come out drip, drip, drip and have to deal with these headlines one at a time. i will just tell you there was not a coordinated push to get behind jackson ahead of his nomination, ahead of his hearing. it is not as though there are backgrounders being distributed from the white house which in some instances you might actually see. i think that's a question that a lot of people on the hill are asking. there is certainly frustration within the west wing how this is being handled. at this point people seem to be kind of trying to rally around jackson, at least for now. i can't stress that caveat enough. i feel like i say it in every story, but as you know, there is one person who makes the decisions in this administration. that person is donald trump. at this moment in time, i am told that he truly wants this to be up to jackson, that what he said yesterday was actually legit, he wants jackson to be able to make this decision. i'm not sure jackson has allies

unanimously inside the west wing but that's where we stand. >> hallie jackson, thank you so much for running. sorry to make you run. glad we got to talk to you. >> i hate running, nicolle. >> running and talking is very hard. running and talking is ve hard. people have no idea. >> this idea that they are standing by him even if this is strew is nonsensical. if it is true as the "new york times" is reporting this hour that ronny jackson provided percocet to a white house military staff member -- the idea is we are going to get to the bottom of this. even their defenses don't add up. >> right. instead of acting deceasively and seeing this report and verifying it and telling ronny jackson you have to draw, this is a president that takes his cue from the press. we may need another several

hours of this news cycle for them to gauge whether they can beat this as partisan stress. it may take a while for the president to assess that. with ronny jackson, earlier this week he was saying there is no i.g. report. now we are seeing an i.g. report. he has diminished his own credibility. excel press he didn't wreck a car but the "new york times" is reporting he wrecked a car. and it may take a while -- >> we have a president who calls the "new york times" fake news. he thinks the news media -- i think he exage rates what he really believes. still, i think a lot of what comes out he thinks is made up and assumes that are fabrications and smears and somehow that the truth will come out. i don't think that's how it works. >> a dude named ronny shun be a member of the v.a.

he should be a member of new kids on the block. and of course everybody likes him, i like the dude who sells me weed, too. >> we'll be right back. don't juggle your home life and work life without it. ♪ ♪ don't skip that office meeting for a board meeting without it. don't keep it real... keep it going... or simply keep it in the family without it. and don't turn that business trip, into an overdue family trip without it. ♪ ♪ the more you live between life and business, the more you need someone at your back. the powerful backing of american express.

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incident. let's face it. there is no planet b. i'm sure one day the united states will come back and join the paris agreement. to protect all democracies we have to fight against the every-growing virus of fake news, which exposes all people to irrational fear and imaginary risks. >> where was that guy yesterday? that was french president emmanuel macron's address to a joint meeting of congress earlier. a striking rebuke of just about everything donald trump stands for. but it stood in stark contrast to yesterday's warm touchy personal diplomacy. it begs the question, what was going on? you and i talked about this before we came on. and i understand that there is personal diplomacy. i worked with george w. bush with whom most world leaders had

vast differing opinions on. i never heard someone say one thing in his presence and then go in a different room and rebuke everything he stand for. >> he sounded like hillary clinton or barack obama in that address. he clearly has fundamentally different views -- >> on climate, on fake news. >> the international order itself, american leadership in the world, the iran nuclear deal, trade. you could tick off about think eight things that are massive issues. so how are these guys back slapping and hugging each other and paling around like this? the interesting question is who is playing who here? in france, some people are saying macron is brilliantly playing trump, keeping him close, keeping a line into trump so that the transatlantic relationship isn't ruptured. but trump looks like a statesman. i doesn't look like america is alone andel isolated. the french are classy and he will gap so he gets to have a big dinner.

melania gets to wear high fashion. i think the biggest test is what is trump doing on the iran nuclear deal. macron wants him to stay it. trump has been trending that he is on his way out. macron may feel like he overdid it yesterday. some of the pictures of trump leading him by the hand almost like a toddler are cringe worthy. was he trying to make up some ground back in france where trump's approval ratings are like 10% and signal to them i am not all in, i am playing a lint of a two-step here. >> a source told me that to the president, iran is a campaign pledge, he is likely to split the baby to stay in the deal but make it better because there is not a deep understanding of that policy and that he will want to keep one of his few friends on the european world stage at

least close. >> yeah. >> what do you make of the two macrons? >> and also the looming time line of may 12th and when the summit going to happen with north korea? and pulling out of that nuclear deal right before you are trying to show that you will keep your word with another nuclear deal that you hoped to achieve wouldn't be the best plan. i think that macron has a tough journey back home to france if he doesn't have deliverables. not only is it the jcpoa and the iran nuclear deal and wanting trump to agree to a side package, but he has to -- he wanted aluminum and steele tariffs, the may 1st deadline, he wants that extended. is donald trump going to give up his trade war in concessions for france and the europeans? that remains to be seen. also for united states are we going to keep troops in syria. two or three weeks ago donald trump said we were out. then we had an eight-hour war and we are back in. what did macron manage to

convince trump to do. >> only a couple minutes. >> i don't know if melania is going to love trump again. but i thought yesterday macron michlt i naught it was a butt budding romance. >> my thanks to you for joining us. that does it for our hour. i'm nicolle wallace. "mtp daily" starts right now. hi chuck. >> happy wednesday i'm told it is. i'm told it's wednesday. i'm still figuring it out. if it's wednesday, democrats have the momentum but did they now just get a message? tonight, fun raising arizona. a massive republican cash flow kept the blue wave from sweeping the special election in the desert. but can anything stem the tide in november? >> i think the special election results reinforce that challenge. plus, senators sound off on