epa administrator scott pruitt is forced to resign amid pressure from lawmakers and the sheer embarrassment factor of moments like this one. >> we deserve to have something about at the epa who does protect our environment, someone who believes in climate change and takes it seriously for all of us, including our children. i would urge you to resign hopefully before your scandals push you out. uncensored and unhinged. president trump praising america's adversaries while attacking nato allies as well as republican party icons in a fiery campaign speech. >> this november i need you to get your friends, get your colleagues, get your neighbors, and get your ass out to vote. they're going to say that was not presidential, watch. and rocket diplomacy.

secretary of state mike pompeo in north korea, expecting to see kim jong-un as the korean press reports he's bringing with him a cd of elton john's "rocket man" from president trump who rejects criticism of how he's handling the north koreans. >> he's going to cause a war, it's too tough! now they say, he's too nice! and good day, i'm andrea mitchell in washington, where the president is setting off political fireworks on multiple fronts. after months of financial jousting, a trade war with china is now a reality. beijing retaliating against the trump administration's $34 billion in new tariffs, setting up a clash between the two world's largest economies. and at a raucous rally in

montana, the president attacked fellow republicans george herbert walker bush and john mccain, challenged elizabeth warren to take a dna test to prove or ethnic roots, and praised vladimir putin while deridid deriding angela merkel and her european allies. scott pruitt, administrator of the epa, was forced to design amid federal investigations into his behavior in office. peter alexander and eric lipton join me, thanks so much. peter, pruitt's exit, long awaited. and the president stuck with him much longer than many said he should have. what was john kelly's role behind the scenes and how did he finally get forced to quit? >> reporter: the president says there was no final straw, speaking to reporters aboard air

force one yesterday, andrea. he insisted that the conversation started with scott pruitt a couple of days ago, in his words, that it was pruitt's choice. but you bring up john kelly. in the conversations i've had with officials at the white house, what struck me is there was almost nobody inside the west wing, certainly not in recent weeks or even in recent months, who was defending scott pruitt. it was the president himself who stuck by him. recently he said he wasn't blameless perhaps in some of those outside scandals that had been impacting him, but he stuck by him and reiterated the reason why last night on the plane, telling reporters he had done an outstanding job, referring to his efforts rolling back obama-era environmental protections regulations as being record breaking. and about andrew wheeler, the man who will replace scott pruitt, his deputy, a former coal lobbyist, he had nothing but praise for him as well, basically saying he's going to pick up where scott pruitt left off. in his words, he's a big believer, he'll do a fantastic job.

>> one other question that comes to mind also before we drill down with eric on the actual environmental issues at stake here, what about bill shine? he's the new communications director plus. he's a powerful, seemingly colleague, almost, and associate friend, if you will, of the president's. could he have weighed in? because it did coincide with his joining the white house. >> reporter: you know, that's a good question. i don't know exactly what role bill shine had specifically on this decision here. but he is going to be an influencer in this white house right now. you know the relationship is strained between the chief of staff, john kelly, and president trump. but bill shine comes in, i've spoken to him several times in the last few days before he became official as the president's sort of consigliere, his deputy in charge of all things communication. and he's someone who he told me he's spoken to the president multiple times in recent days, he's someone who the president

in effect reveres. they speak the same language when it comes to television and branding. shine has a close relationship with sean hannity among others. so i think he will be a big influencer going forward. >> eric, you've done so much work on scott pruitt. i want to ask you about andrew wheeler, his deputy, taking over as acting epa administrator. he's not only a former coal lobbyist but a lobbyist for murray energy in west virginia, the subsidiary was involved in that horrible mining disaster that led to the deaths of six men, six miners. where does wheeler stand? he won't be very different on policy, does he? >> i think they have a lot of agreement relative to the fact that they think the obama administration overreached, that the regulations are hurting the energy sector, and that there's a need to make changes in the clean power plan which was supposed to be fighting climb change and the waters of the

u.s., it's supposed to clean drinking water supplies and a number of other rules that will be targeted, including perhaps automobile efficiency standards will continue to be targeted. but i think there will be a change in tone. and i think that already we're getting signals he's going to be a more collegial player with safe. there's a sense of relief inside the epa. even among those who perhaps don't agree with the policies that he's going to continue to pursue, but that this is probably going to be a different agency, and more like what you traditionally see in terms of a republican where the pendulum swings policy-wise but not with as much scandal and fewer headlines. >> and i was watching a former deputy chief of staff at epa, a whistleblower, he's described himself. he was on last week i believe with lawrence or with chris hayes, probably chris hayes. and he was amazing. this guy is a rock-ribbed republican, a trump republican. and he said he had to quit

because it was so ethically disgraceful what was going on there, he could not stand what was happening, with one aide being forced to shell out $600 for housing for either pruitt or a member of his family during the transition, out of her own pocket, then covered by epa funds. i mean, that is really disgraceful behavior. >> that's what was surprising as this whole thing progressed. initially we thought it was, quote, the resistance, that pruitt was going to be, the career staff that presided over the changes that occurred during the obama administration, that that was going to be the roughness that pruitt encountered. but even among the people he brought oklahoma or the trump folks that came in, they were the ones who were going to have problems with what was going on. and the one you were referring to, to speak out publicly and

risk their careers and personal finances to say that what pruitt was doing was wrong. that's what was surprising and that's really hurt him. it was suggested the media had some vendetta against pruitt. if his own people, the true believers, were turning on him, you have to wonder was it pruitt himself or was it the media who had some reason to go after him, which certainly was not the case. >> i guess my personal favorite was the fact that he took a first class junket with staff to morocco with no intent and purpose other than a possible lobbying favor for friends because there was no business that epa had there, but managed to miss the flight from paris from the friday night overnight, so spent the weekend in paris instead and one day in morocco, all at the government's expense. that was beyond the description, that's only one in a series of offences, abuses i should say. in any case, peter, i know

you're busy out there, but i want to ask you about this decision today in federal court, the justice department asking for more time, basically, on that court ruling which said that by july 10th, toddlers under 5 had to be reunited with families and the rest within a total of 30 days, i guess by the end of july. >> reporter: july 26th, yeah. no, that's exactly right, andrea. this is basically the administration saying right now, we can't get this done under that timeline, effectively saying they don't want to unnecessarily delay the reuni reunifications. and then there's the issue of what do you do about parents already back in their home country, how do you get their children back with them. >> peter alexander with the president today and eric lipton

on the case with epa, thanks so much for your work, both of you. meanwhile, president trump took aim at one of his potential 2020 challengers, democratic senator elizabeth warren, mocking her heritage with a racially-charged nickname while making light of the "me too" movement. >> let's say i'm debating pocahontas, right? i promise you i'll do this. i will take -- you know those little kits they sell on television for $2? learn your heritage. and in the middle of the debate, when she proclaims that she's of indian heritage, because her mother said she has high cheekbon cheekbones, we will take that little kit and say -- but we have to do it gently, because we're in the "me too" generation so we have to be very gentle, and we will say, i will give you a million dollars to your favorite charity, paid for by trump, if you take the test and it shows you're an indian, you know. >> warren fired back in a tweet

saying, quote, hey, donald trump, while you obsess over my genes, your administration is conducting dna tests on little kids because you ripped them from their mamas and you are too incompetent to reunite them in time to meet a court order. maybe you should focus on fixing the lives you are destroying. well. joining me now, eugene robinson and ruth marcus, both from "the washington post." welcome both. this rally, i have to say, i've watched a lot of trump rallies. montana was as though someone had ripped the bandage off. he actually said, you know, at one point, as we showed earlier, get your blank out there and vote. and i know how to be presidential, they'll say i'm not presidential. >> he was right about that, he wasn't being presidential. and in a sense we are inured to

that. we are used to the fact that this president is not going to be presidential. but i think there are kind of degrees of unpresidentiality, if i may coin a phrase. last night we saw across the board, if he had a list, greatest offensive hits, from john mccain and george h.w. bush of all people, to elizabeth warren, to the "me too" movement. hello, why are you going there, what is the theory? >> and in fact you mentioned bush 41, john mccain again. and bush 41, ridiculing bush 41, two men in struggling health, one has just lost his wife. take a look at this. >> you know, all the rhetoric you see, the thousand points of light. what the hell was that, by the way, what did that mean? does anyone know? i know one thing, make america

great again we understand. putting america first we understand. thousand points of light, i never quite got that one. what the hell is that? has anyone ever figured that one out? and it was put out by a republican. >> yes, a republican. president bush 41. it was all about volunteerism. jon meacham, the bush 41 biographer, wrote on twitter, well, mr. president, since you asked, it was an image of a nation illuminated by our better angels, offered by a man who gave his life to the service of that nation. >> and to encourage, as you said, the best of america, volunteerism. america first is not just america first. it's putting our best face first and putting our better angels first. and to make fun of that was just remarkable. and that's a low adjective there. >> this president believes volunteerism is for suckers. >> exactly.

>> he doesn't believe in better angels. he believes in just win, baby. you know, there's an argument about whether he actually does win on a lot of things. but that's his belief system. as we said earlier, we become almost numb to this. yet if you look at that speech last night, it was just outrageous, not inappropriate, it was just beyond the pale for any major leader, any leader, anybody, much less a president of the united states. >> and you know, gene and andrea, it's not just the atmospherics of the speech and the offensive language. it's the substance. the way he talked about us and nato, for example. am i allowed to say this on msnbc? >> go ahead. >> that we're just a bunch of schmucks, helping to keep the

nato alliance together. >> which is an offensive yiddish word. >> indeed, it's unpresidential. but we're not schmucks to support nato. we're the leader of an alliance that has kept the world stable for seven decades. >> gene, you wrote about the implicit racism underlying a lot of his rhetoric. >> a lot of his explicit -- but certainly he has a lot of inputs. and his policies, his rhetoric, what he's been doing on the border, since the beginning of the campaign when he came down the escalator and started talking about mexican immigrants as rapists, as bringing drugs and bringing crime. he has a thing about dark-skinned immigrants from latin america. and that's the principal, most

frequent target of the racism, not just of the president but of his administration's policies. >> and something we're going to talk about in the next segment in terms of foreign policy, but also he's now very quietly the pentagon has apparently taken steps to cancel the contracts of immigrants who have signed up in the military, mostly in the army, in the military, volunteered because of the path to citizenship. and they have been among our best troops. >> how much do you have to hate immigrants to do that? >> when we need volunteers. >> when we need volunteers. and these people can bring language skills and cultural skills and other skills in addition to their willingness to volunteer for their country. but no. >> and we've spent a fortune training them. these are people who are already in. >> we don't want them anymore, apparently. >> basically that's the sign up on our border. >> keep out. it's not the country we grew up

in. >> the interesting thing is that half the people in polls identify the president of the united states as a racist. i don't know if that's comforting or sad but it's pretty telling. >> observant. >> eugene, ruth, thank you very much. it was quite a night. coming up, let's make a deal. the secretary of state travels to north korea to press kim jong-un on his nuclear program while president trump praises the dictator at a rally back home.

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secretary of state mike pompeo is in north korea today, trying to nail down the commitments made during president trump's singapore summit with kim jong-un. but at a manhattan rally last night, the president was praising the north korean leader, continuing to say he's living up to his promises, despite all reports that he's not. >> remember they said he's too tough, he's going to cause a war, it's too tough. now they say, he's too nice, he's too nice. he's too nice. i got along very well with chairman kim. i got along very well. that's a good thing that i got along well. we signed a wonderful paper saying they're going to denuclearize their whole thing. it's going to all happen. >> and there are reports that pompeo is even bringing kim

jong-un, if he sees him, a letter from president trump and a cd of elton john's "rocket man." that's the nickname of course that the president had for kim when mr. trump was still attacking him during the fire and fury stage of that relationship. asked about that, pompeo in pyongyang just laughed last night, but he didn't deny it. meanwhile as president trump gets ready to meet with vladimir putin in ten days, the president also lashed out at his critics who say he is being manipulated by putin. >> they're going, well, president trump, be prepared, you know, president putin is kgb and this and that. you know what? putin's fine. he's fine. we're all fine. we're people. will i be prepared? totally prepared. i've been preparing for this stuff my whole life. >> joining me now, ambassador michael mcfaul, the former ambassador to russia, and an nbc news international affairs analyst, the author of the book "from cold war to hot peace."

and retired four-star army general barry mccaffrey, a former arms control negotiator for nuclear, chemical, and bioweapons. welcome, both. mike mcfaul, is he prepared for vladimir putin? >> not to my knowledge. it doesn't seem like he prepares for these meetings. there's no evidence of that whatsoever. the way he talks about our bilateral relationships suggests he's not prepared. when he floats out there while traveling on air force one that he might look into crimea as being part -- annexed by putin in 2014, stolen from the ukrainians, to be clear. he says maybe i'll look into acknowledging that as part of russia. he's not reading his briefing papers, because i can't imagine a u.s. senior official i know, and i know many of them that worked in the trump administration, that would recommend he say such a thing. same with bringing them into the

g-7, same with looking into whether we should reduce our troops in germany. all these are signals of concessions, and nothing in return. he beats up on our allies, he makes demands of them, and yet with people like putin, he doesn't seem to be asking for anything other than a good meeting. >> i want to talk to both of you about north korea as well. let's expand this and follow up on what you just said about nato, because last night, the president was just going after angela merkel and our nato allies, general. and you and i both went through the whole period of those arms control talks, back during the reagan years, in fact, when you were probably a young officer but i was a white house correspondent, and we've seen the evolution here. and what both reagan and george herbert walker bush accomplished with one arms control treaty after another, finally, once reagan got started. and now a lot of this is at

stake. putin is already violating the imf, the intermediate range missile agreement for europe. let me play you a little bit more of the president talking last night about nato and angela merkel. >> i'll see nato and i'll tell nato, you've got to start paying your bills. the united states is not going to take care of everything. they kill us with nato. they kill us. germany pays 1%. 1%. [ audience reacts ] and, you know, i said, angela, i can't guarantee it, but we're protecting you, and it means a lot more to you than protecting us, because i don't know how much protection we get by protecting you. so they want to protect against russia, yet they pay billions of dollars to russia. and we're the schmucks that are

paying for the whole thing. and by the way, i have to say this, since i came, which is a year and a half, almost $33 billion more is projected to be paid by those nato nations. but it's not enough. do they ever tell you that? no. no. >> general mccaffrey, your reaction when you see that? >> well, i think probably the most frightening aspect is the roar of the crowd acknowledging these observations. look, you know, a lot has been lost already. i just had the privilege of listening to ambassador mcfaul in a small group lecture. one thing we should put as a data point, the russians are magnificent people. physics, mathematics, ballet, literature, soldiers. they're superb people. they're being the first victims of pute and in his kleptocracy, the former kgb guys. the place is impoverished. it's a tiny economy compared to

the united states, never mind western europe and the united states. they don't have much strategic military power. all they have is a bunch of nuclear weapons, and oil and gas. so putin has isolated them. he's frightened his neighbors. and for the president of the united states to not understand the power of our defense and economic relationships with europe and nato, the european union, is simply preposterous. >> and the language that he uses to describe this policy or lack of policy. ambassador mcfaul, what are the risks of his going one on one with vladimir putin, especially after we saw that scanndalous, think, only-republican bunch of senators going to moscow and playing up to foreign minister lavrov, not taking any democrats with him, no one from foreign relations, no senior people from the defense committees. appropriators who don't know foreign policy, trumpeting the president's policy of make nice

to putin. >> well, first, andrea, on nato, it's an example of what we were talking about earlier. he hasn't done his hydrochlorom has this notion that they need to pay their dues. that's not what it's about. it's about their own defense spending. when he says they've done nothing for us, that offends me as an american because we were attacked on september 11th. germany wasn't attacked on september 11th. yet they sent their soldiers to fight alongside our soldiers in afghanistan. and if i'm not mistaken, 54 germans were killed in afghanistan fighting for us. so he just doesn't understand the nature of the alliance. he also doesn't understand peace through strength. he should study up on ronald reagan. by being strong in europe, we avoid war in a place in the 20th century that has disastrous wars. that's also in america's interests. therefore when he rolls into that meeting with putin, i just

worry he doesn't understand basic facts about american national security, and he personalizes our diplomacy about him and his, you know, his good chemistry with kim jong-un and maybe with president putin. this is about american national interest. he was hired to defend us and advance our interests, not just for him to have a good meeting with putin. >> and general, back to north korea, where there is likely going to be a meeting between secretary pompeo and kim jong-un, what are your concerns about that, given the fact that north korea has yet to deliver on the promises of singapore? >> well, look, i remain hopeful that secretary pompeo, who is a very astute fellow, very experienced, has longer term ambitions, won't want to look like an idiot in the longer term. having said that, andrea, i've done a lot of arms control negotiations. step number one is a full declaration of your nuclear

program, followed by a willingness to allow verification. if he doesn't get that, nothing else matters. whether or not, you know, they'll eventually denuclearize in a year i think is laughable. but step number one is can you get a full declaration, and the agreement to verification. so the president, to come home and say, look, the problem is over, you can sleep well at night, the nuclear threat is gone, i cannot understand what is going on in his mind to make that kind of laughable statement. >> and general, before we let you go, your reaction to the fact that apparently the pentagon is canceling contracts and dismissing soldiers, immigrant soldiers who have signed up because of the path to citizenship, and who, according to everything that i've ever been told, have been exemplary soldiers. >> well, we need to get some good reporting out. i don't understand what's going

on. clearly -- you know, i was a company commander in vietnam. we actually drafted foreign students who were here in the united states and sent them off to fight in my company and they were great soldiers. in every war we've ever fought, we've had immigrants. it's a great path to citizenship. my pakistani driver, green cardholder, i helped get one son in the air force and another in the navy. so i can't understand what's going on. i'll bet this is not supported by the department of defense in any way. >> i can imagine it's not. i remember talking to leon panetta about how great these soldiers were. i've been to a naturalization ceremony in baghdad with joe biden. >> very moving. >> very moving. that was before daca, but these are great people. thank you both. a lot to talk about, a lot to worry about. thank you, ambassador, general. coming up, race against time

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overnight, a tragic setback in the rescue operation to save the boys' soccer team trapped in an underground cave in thailand. a former thai navy s.e.a.l. died while trying to help the rescue effort. he reportedly ran out of oxygen in his tank while delivering oxygen to the cave. pressure is mounting on thai authorities to come up with a plan before oxygen falls to below-viable levels. janis mackey frayer joins us from thailand. >> reporter: there are tough decisions being made, calculated risks on how they're going to bring the boys out, when they're going to bring them out. and then of course this troubling development overnight with the death of the diver, a reminder of the sort of risks that are at stake here.

the oxygen level in the cave system is deteriorating. and this is posing a new wrinkle and a new concern. last night they were taking in hoses and trying to pump in air to increase or to improve the environment there. but with the number of divers who have been going in or out, there's only so much air in that controlled system. so they believe that it's becoming more and more unstable. there is the sense that there's going to be a decision imminently because the conditions, frankly, are never going to get better and they can only get worse. they've continued to pump water out of the cave system. millions of gallons have gone out now. it's to the point where at least a third of the journey is walkable, and then there are other parts of it where the boys would be able to float with the help of the navy divers, or at least be able to keep their heads above water. but there are still those sections where they need to dive, andrea, that's causing a

lot of concern. >> and just briefly, how long would it take theoretically to to actually drill another entry way, an exit, if you will? >> reporter: they would have to find it first. there have been hundreds of people walking in the hills and the forests around here. there have been helicopters that have been brought in. they've been using drones. they've been trying to evaluate the landscape to see if there's anywhere that presents an opportunity, a crack, an access to a chimney, a place where they could drill, somewhere they might be able to drop ropes and pull the boys out. this in the opinion of a lot of the divers i've talked to in the last several days, would be the safest option. it's not at this point the most realistic, it's not the easiest, but it would be the safest, to bring the kids out, because they would be surrounded by air and not by water. the concern is less about teaching the kids how to swim.

they say, you know, kids have no fear, they have a lot of emergency and gusto, so they're not afraid of the kids actually getting into the water. they're just afraid of that margin of error for panic, that once they get into these tight passage ways, even though they're tethered to these divers and they're being guided through to the best of their ability because these are very narrow passage ways, that some of the kids might still panic. and there is a lot of discomfort with that possibility, andrea. >> janis mackey frayer, thanks so much for that report. coming up, tricks of the trade. the potential global impact of new u.s. tariffs on china which take effect today. stay with us. (vo) i was born during the winter of '77. i first met james in 5th grade. we got married after college. and had twin boys. but then one night, a truck didn't stop. but thanks to our forester,

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end either. and so the challenge that we have right now is the u.s. and china are both going to spiral out retaliation. the president has said if it china retaliates to the overnight tariffs, which it has, that the u.s. will impose additional tariffs and then china will likely retaliate again. where's the off-ramp? the off-ramp likely lies in how can we find something palatable for both sides. with rhetoric as it is in both countries, it's tough right now. >> was there a deadline that required the president to take this action now rather than continuing to negotiating? >> there was. and so the section 301 that ustr actually conducted an investigation, found that indeed the chinese had harmed u.s. economic interests through its intellectual property practices, forced technology transfer, data localization. >> and that has long been the charge. >> absolutely. the business community not only

in washington, in europe as well, as well as leaders there, are saying, yes, china has manipulated trade rules through its intellectual property policies and other market access restrictions. however, what do you do about it? in prior administrations, i think that the action was, let's take china to the wto. the benefit of that is the u.s. usually wins, and we do when we sue china at the wto. the cost is that it's slow. and so i think the trump administration rightly is saying, we need to do more to stop chinese bad behavior. the tariffs that were just imposed were punishment for those intellectual property abuses. >> meanwhile he started this trade war with canada, with the eu, he's disparaging allies, blowing up nafta. he's basically fighting on all these fronts. >> yes, i think the u.s. chamber of commerce is referring to this as retaliation week.

where not just china but mexico, the eu, canada, are all putting in place retaliatory tariffs against u.s. products going overseas. and collectively, this could really start to impact our economy. >> is our economy so big and so overwhelming that we end up winning in the long run because we can outlast them? >> i do believe our economy right now of course is very strong. so we're in a good position right this minute. and certainly 75, $100 billion worth of tariffs will have a very small impact on the economy. the president, however, is talking about potentially $550 billion worth of imports being tariffed into the united states. that's when we start to see real damage to our economy and also investor confidence is going to start to flag if we don't see, like you said at the beginning, what's the next step, the off-ramp to actually tamp down tensions. both sides right now are digging in. it's going to be tough. >> amy, thank you so much.

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. with just three days to go until president trump's primetime address addressing his supreme court nominee, the spotlight is on the top three contenders. all judges with strong

influential conservatives and republican lawyers, the judicial records are now coming to clear view. our nbc news krcorrespondent, pe williams, is examining their writing. >> let's talk about them. and came amy cohen barrett is controversial and reymond kethled kethledge, he was confirmed through both of the committee and summit by voice vote. last year he and an army veteran cowrote a book on the importance of thinking problems through on your own. he said when he was at supreme court, with anthony kennedy,

he'll often walk around the u.s. capital think through difficult situations and he says now as a judge, he retires to a barn that he has near his house which has a view of lake huron when we can write complicated court decisions without being bothered by the internet. he married his childhood sweetheart. they have two children. he wrote two widely praised by conservatives blasting the irs and one strange -- he put his name up, it is kethledge on the screen. before 1993, his last name w was -- he said the c was silent. he said it was quite a story but

he did not say what the story is. >> we'll have to dig into that if he's the nominee. 9:00 on monday night we'll have a lot to talk about between now and then. thank you so much pete williams. >> this is an uphill fight with republicans in charge of senate rules for the confirmation hearing. democratic strategists are mobiling on the left. republicans susan collins and lisa murkowski could be swing votes blocking the nominee. >> former secretary for hillary clinton's campaign and in charge of this effort, brian, first of all, are you also going to mobilize lobbying campaigns and indiana and west virginia and north dakota where you got three democrats incumbents who are vulnerable and voted for

gorsuch. >> it is true that the democrats don't have a majority in the senate. we do have majority in the senate on two key issues that'll define the consideration of any tru trump's nominee. they don't want to see roe v. wade overturned. and so you are going to hear when trump makes his pick on monday night, a lot of biographical details including some that pete told us about kethledge, he likes to hunt and fishing. we want to know about how they're going to rule on the issues and their views on these critical issues. all three people on trump's short list has to past his litmus test, he says he'll pick people that'll over turn roe.

every one of these have a record that backs it up. we want to communicate the stakes for the affordable care act. they have been solidly supported of the aca. we frame the choice of the frame of the affordable care act and protection for preexisting conditions, it will be much easier for red state senators to oppose the pick. >> we ask him to do the bio today because we had not. he's been drilling down. >> pete is the best. >> he's an encyclopedia on everything they ever written which brings me to some of the ways that these confirmation hearings that i have covered in the past don't get to the issues. >> right. >> because a nominee would say i believe in the present and it will be left there. and the chairman may say your time is up, senator, you can't

ask another question. >> this confirmation is up for a vote and that can well be 50 or 49 with the absence of john mccain or something with democrats putting them over the top. >> right. >> you can't drill down on roe v. wade and did you want to ask about casey and where states have upheld shorter time frames and shorten the time for a minute of abortion. how do you deal with the question of new technologies on aborti abortion. those are very important in medical questions. >> no lessen authorities in the supreme court than linda greenhouse, the former reporter that have covered this for decades, the supreme court hearing has become a joke. there is no legal pointed headed lawyer reason why these justice issues should be able to evade answering questions on their

personal views and settle cases. this is the year where the gloves come off. there is no longer adherence to rigid idea that nominee can sit there and evade and wonderful. i think you are going to hear questions about these judges views on the issues of roe. there is an opt-ed today from the university of maine from professor richard chang. >> more to come, we'll be right back. begins t o ange which may cause trouble with recall. - learning from him is great... when i can keep up! - anncr: thankfully, prevagen helps your brain and improves memory. - dad's got all the answers. - anncr: prevagen is now the number-one-selling brain health supplement in drug stores nationwide. - she outsmarts me every single time. - checkmate!

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