hands of my colleague kristen welker, filling in for andrea mitchell. >> here it is, the national emergency declaration. right now on "andrea mitchell reports," false alarm. president trump makes the unprecedented move of declaring a national emergency to build his border wall, setting up a massive legal fight. >> we're talking about an invasion of our country with drugs, with human traffickers, with all types of criminals and gangs. i could do the wall over a longer period of time. i didn't need to do this. but i would rather do it much faster. setting the barr. it's day one for the new attorney general who now controls the future of the mueller investigation. >> our know attorney general sitting in the front row, please stand up, bill. such an easy job he's got. he's got the easiest job in government. i want to wish our new attorney general great luck and speed and enjoy your life.

suicidal. after a week of attacks from the trump administration, the iranian foreign minister punches back in an exclusive interview with nbc's richard engel, issuing a stern warning to the united states. >> at the end of the day, in some sense we'll prevail and people will find out that it's suicidal to engage in a war with iran. and a very good friday to you, very busy friday. i'm kristen welker in for andrea mitchell in washington, where president trump tossed the tell he prompter aside this morning in his address from the rose garden. among the sunts bjects he tackl his decision to declare a national memoremergency. >> i'm going to be signing a national emergency. and it's been signed many times

before. it's been signed by other presidents. there's rarely been a problem. they sign it, nobody cares. i guess they weren't very exciting. but nobody cares. they signed it. for far less important things in some cases. we're going to be signing today and registering a national emergency. and it's a great thing to do. >> reporter: in the past when president obama tried to use executive action as it related to immigration, you said, the whole concept of executive order, it's not the way the country is supposed to be run. you said you're supposed to go through congress and make a deal. will you concede you were unable to make the deal you promised in the past and the deal you're ending up with congress is less than you would have had before you went through the 35-day shutdown? >> i made a deal with congress. i got almost $1.4 billion when i

wasn't supposed to get one dollar. but i'm not happy with it. i was successful in that sense. but i want to do it faster. i could do the wall over a longer period of time. i didn't need to do this. but i would rather do it much faster. i think that, uh, i just want to get it done faster. >> joining me now, nbc's kelly o'donnell at the white house, she was in that press conference there. nbc's gadi schwartz along the border in san diego. msnbc chief international security and diplomacy analyst james stavridis and former security commander and jeremy bash, formerly of the cia and the pentagon. kelly, you were in that wide ranging, free-wheeling press conference. and i want to drill down with you on what we just heard, that remarkable exchange with our colleague peter alexander. and you heard the president

acknowledge, i didn't need to do this now but i wanted to do it faster. talk about your takeaways on the politics of what we just heard, kelly. >> well, the president is sort of making the best of a bad situation, using unilateral power of his office to bring some extra money to this mission of his to have a border wall. he readily acknowledged the 2020 implications, in one breath saying he's already done enough on this issue of a wall to satisfy his base for reelection, using money from military defense contracting, also using money seized by the treasury department, and bringing together this power. but the overwhelming takeaway was, this is something that the president didn't appear to be very enthused about. it took him 15 minutes or so to actually get to the point of this event to say he was signing a national emergency. he talked about a lot of his other priorities. the sense is the president is doing this with a full understanding it will be challenged in court, its

prospects unclear. yesterday he said this was a way to speed things up and to demonstrate that he can deliver on the wall more quickly. it was a day of the president showing emotions on a range of subjects and also letting it be clear that this might not have been his first choice. >> admiral stavridis, let me go to you. you were the head of the southern command. i've read what you've written about this, you say it's not the right way to go. why do you say that, why do you think this is essentially not the right strategic move by the president? >> yeah, during the time i was commander of the southern command, i had authority and accountability for essentially all military operations south of the united states. i know the border extremely well, i know the region well. the problem here is first of all there is no national emergency on the border, certainly not a national security emergency. these caravans are small,

they're asylum seekers. there is no overwhelming rush of people trying to get into the united states. this idea of an invasion is just ludicrous. and all the statistics show that the number of people coming across that border illegally is at the lowest point in decades. the drugs comes through normal ports of entry. there's really no capability or necessity for doing this. and the problem is, kristen, to conclude, is that it's the opportunity cost of spending that money where it's really not needed. and oh, by the way, we deployed 5,000 troops to that border, again, without real necessity, the opportunity costs of their lost training is another aspect to this. it's just not a good policy. >> and admiral stavridis, you map out so many of the reasons you're going to see some real legal challenges. democrats are already talking about it. jeremy, you have various states

thinking about the possibility of taking legal action. i just want tof take a step bac and talk for our viewers about past national emergencies. we saw former president obama do it during the swine flu, we saw president george w. bush take that action in the wake of 9/11. this was responding to things that you couldn't necessarily anticipate. let's take a listen to what president trump had to say about why he thinks he's going to win this legal fight, then i want to get your analysis on the other side. >> the order is signed. and i'll sign the final papers as soon as i get into the oval office and we will have a national emergency and we will then be sued and they will sue us in the ninth circuit, even though it shouldn't be there. and we will possibly get a bad ruling. and then we'll get another bad ruling. and then we'll end up in the supreme court. and hopefully we'll get a fair shake. and we'll win in the supreme court. just like the ban.

they sued us in the ninth circuit and we lost and then we lost in the appellate division and then we went to the supreme court and we won. i think what will happen is, sadly, we'll be sued, and sadly, it will go through a process, and happily, we'll win. >> is he right about that, jeremy? >> he may be right. courts tend to defer to presidents. but the court would have to find that this is a national security emergency. and there is no emergency because of course the president has had this very situation on his hands for more than two years since he was inaugurated. he had a republican congress. and of course he didn't get border wall funding during that time either. so of course the courts will say, what emergency? second, on the issue of a national security emergency, the analysis will run along the lines of what admiral stavridis posited, which is that there is no national security issue with vans of 8,000 people wandering the border in flip-flops. they will say, mr. president,

you have posited something which is fundamentally fear longmonge. they'll look at the imprisoning of japanese people in world war ii and they'll say this is fundamentally an abuse of power. >> you heard the president say, i didn't need to do it now, i just wanted to do it more quickly, an acknowledgement that all the pressure he was getting from conservative comment taillighte ecommentators was starting to build up. >> when you have the national security community explaining to everybody that there is no national security issue and the analysis that the only reason the president is doing it is to satisfy a political issue -- and by the way, we should stop saying he's fulfilling a campaign promise. the campaign promise was that mexico would pay for it. he's actually breaking a campaign promise. >> clear that american taxpayers are footing the bill first. gadi, i want to do the fact

check with you at the border because we all heard the president yet again paint a very dire picture of what is happening at the border. is that consistent with your reporting, the fact that our own fact check is that most of the drugs that are coming in are coming in through legal ports of entry, and that illegal immigration is actually down at the border, right? >> during the president's speech there, we asked 19 people who were crossing the border here, coming in from mexico and going to mexico, what they thought about this idea of a national emergency here along the border. and the majority of them said that they did not think that there was an emergency here on the border. however, every single mexican that we spoke to that was crossing into the united states said that there was an emergency on the mexico side. to break that down, we found a little bit of a nuance, because we also asked them about that question yesterday that was posted to beto o'rourke about what he would do about the border in el paso. we asked them what they thought would happen if the fence here

in san diego disappeared tomorrow. all of them except for one, so 18 people, said that they thought there would be chaos, they thought people would be rushing the border and crossing into this side. so really interesting to hear that from people of all political spectrums, from all different places here in tijuana, san diego's border, at the busiest port of entry. that's one of the things we've heard. if you talk to border patrol here, they say there is a state of emergency because they're unable to protect the border from people coming over with drugs and smuggling humans. >> admiral stavridis, can you weigh in on what gadi is reporting and this notion that people do concerned that if there weren't that fencing there, that barrier, that you would start to see, as gadi puts it, chaos? >> i think it's unlikely that building a massive wall -- and let's hypothetically say,

kristen, that we could build a wall 30 feet high from the pacific ocean to the gulf of mexico, the entire 2,000 miles. it would be fabulously expensive. but here is a news flash. i'm going to make some news here on this friday. you can build that wall, right to the left of it is an ocean. people will find a way to go around that wall. they'll go under that wall. so the point is, yes, we need to control our border. i completely agree with the president on that. but the way to do it is not a massive wall. it is a combination of enforcing the border patrol, giving them the resources they need, increasing their manning, using unmanned aerial vehicles to monitor it, using artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, to track these convoys. there is so much we can do intelligently. but this idea of building a massive wall is going to do nothing for us other than cost us a lot of money at the end of

the day. >> kelly o'donnell, you were among the correspondents there in the rose garden, you had your own remarkable exchange with the president when you pressed him about the pressure that he has gotten in recent days, in recent weeks, from his conservative allies, some of his conservative detractors. i want to play that exchange and get your reaction on the other side. >> reporter: could you tell us to what degree some of the outside conservative voices helped to shape your views on this national emergency? >> i will talk about it. look, sean hannity has been a terrific, terrific supporter of what i do, not of me. if i changed my views, he wouldn't be with me. rush limbaugh, i think he's a great guy. ann coulter, i hardly know her, i haven't spoken to her in way over a year. but the press loves saying ann coulter. probably if i did speak to her, she would be very nice. i like her. but she's off the reservation. but anybody that knows her,

understands that. >> kelly, what did you make of his response to you? >> i wanted to ask him about it because we know that republicans from capitol hill were advising him against it, so how did we get here? and we saw so much pressure being put on the president through tweets and comments and the audiences that those conservative influencers have. and then at times it seems like the president sort of tacks in their direction. i was curious if he would expound on it. once i handed back the mike, there was another moment where i sort of shouted out to the president, "but should they be making policy?" he disputed, saying they are not setting policy. i think that is something that is worth looking at and worthy of debate, is the president influenced by people who don't have any accountability except to their audiences and their sponsors in whatever media they are working in versus the president, who has responsibilities under the constitution and relationships with capitol hill that will be

important for all kinds of issues, not just this moment. so i thought it was striking how he described each of those influencers and did not dispute the fact that they have some impact on his thinking and some relationship, as we often see, those who give the president praise get his attention. and he described that in talking about hannity and limbaugh and so forth. >> congratulation on a great exchange, kelly. i want to shift to foreign policy, jeremy, the president talked about a range of foreign policy issues, everything from china to syria and north korea. he's just weeks away from his second summit with kim jong-un. this is what he had to say about former president obama and how close he thinks he was to some type of military interaction. let's take a look. >> and i said, what's the biggest problem? he said, by far north korea. and i don't want to speak for him, but i believe he would have gone to war with north korea. i think he was ready to go to war. in fact he told me he was so

close to starting a big war with north korea. now, where are we now? no missiles, no rockets, no nuclear testing. >> is that accurate, jeremy? as someone who actually used to be a part of the administration? >> that is a ginormous presidential lie. president obama successfully deterred north korea and we maintained our military exercises on the korean peninsula. when president trump came into office, north korea in 2017 did five things. two icbm tests, a nuclear test, and two flyovers over japan. it was only after kim jong-un realized, wait a minute, i can play rope-a-dope with this president. and what has happened since the june summit? not a darn thing. the north koreans have the no taken any meaningful steps tode

nuk l denuclear l denuclearize. >> two very different strategies for dealing with north korea, that is for sure. jeremy bash, thank you so much. kelly o'donnell, admiral james stavridis, as well as gadi schwartz, really appreciate the fantastic conversation. we want to say as we go to break that ann coulter is taking a swipe at the president today, saying that the only national emergency is that the president is an idiot. that's a quote from ann consult ann coulter. coming up, a changing of the guard at the department of justice. what will it mean for the muller investigation? ice. what will it mean for the muller investigation? egy. the only fda-approved 3-in-1 copd treatment. ♪ trelegy. the power of 1-2-3 ♪ trelegy 1-2-3 trelegy with trelegy and the power of 1-2-3, i'm breathing better. trelegy works 3 ways to...

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after being confirmed by the senate thursday, bill barr showed up for his first day as attorney general this morning. taking the reins at the justice department and even appearing at president trump's rose garden address today. he'll take charge of the mueller investigation and will decide how much if any of the report will be made public. barbara mcquade and joyce vance are both former u.s. attorneys, thank you both for being here, i really appreciate it. joyce, let me get to you first, obviously the big question that looms over the newly-installed attorney general is, will he make the mueller report public,

will he move to do that. d do you anticipate that he will do that? because he was noncommittal during his confirmation hearing. >> he was noncommittal during the confirmation hearing, and he was careful to say that to the extent it was released, it would be consistent with the law, which means there are a couple of big restrictions. he won't be releasing any grand jury material, that remains secret. and there will certainly be carve-outs for anything that's national security seckurecurity. but ultimately what barr releases could be a narrow report, if anything. the expectation seems to be that mueller will write what prosecutors call a process memo, explaining charging decisions, why you decided to charge, why you decided not to charge. that could be a far narrower report than people are expecting. >> let me read this tweet from

matt schlapp, a conservative commentator and the husband of one of the top communications officials in the white house. he tweeted that tomorrow, meaning today, will be the first day that pump will have a fully operational confirmed attorney general. let that sink in. mueller will be gone soon. barbara, what do you make of that and does that undercut robert mueller at this critical moment? >> i think what he's suggesting is that now that trump has someone who is his hand-picked attorney general in place supervising robert mueller, he can decide whether to fire robert mueller, whether to clip the wings of robert mueller, whether to reject any investigative steps that robert mueller wants to take. so he certainly has a lot of power there. i don't know that i agree that william barr will be quite so drastic in his actions. i think that he is someone who has served before with honor as the attorney general. he has some gravitas there.

and so i am hopeful that he will respect the institutions and allow robert mueller to complete his work. but he no doubt does wield a lot of power now as the supervisor of robert mueller. >> i want to turn to some of the revelations in andrew mccabe's book. among them, that there were serious discussions about potentially wearing a recording device, other revelations that there were serious discussions about removing the president from office. today in a new statement from andrew mccabe's spokeswoman, this person says, certain statements made by mr. mccabe in interviews associated with the release of his book have been taken out of context, misrepresented. to clarify, at no time did mr. mccabe participate in any extended discussions about the use of the 25th amendment nor is he aware of any such discussions. joyce, what do you make of this statement in the wake of what we heard on "60 minutes" which is that there were very serious discussions about potentially removing this president?

>> well, it sounds like mccabe's people want to make sure that we all read his book from cover to cover. it's been difficult to know what to make of this, because what mccabe appears to be saying in the excerpts that we've seen is directly contradicted by mr. rosenstein's statements. rosenstein is sort of known inside of justice for having a very dry wit, and it's possible to see how he could have made statements that he intend sarcastically that could have been perhaps taken seriously by people. so it's hard to know if this is an innocent misunderstanding or if there's something else here. >> i want to play something that one of our other colleagues, chuck rosenberg, had to say yesterday about some of the revelations in this book, and barbara, i'll get your reaction on the other side. >> i like andy. he's a friend of mine. i respect andy. and i had the privilege of working with andy. he was fired 26 hours shy of his 50th birthday when he would have earned his pension.

andy is not a perfect man. he's made mistakes. in the future he may have to account for those. but he's a truth teller. he's telling the truth about what he saw, he's telling the truth about what he heard. >> barbara, what do you make of what chuck rosenberg said? >> i don't know andy mccabe, but i think there are ways to reconcile what he is saying and what rod rosenstein is saying. rosenstein says they never discussed the idea of the 25th amendment. regardless of the details of who said what and when, i think the bigger point is that everybody was very, very alarmed that president trump may have been compromised by the russians, to the point that it was necessary to appoint a special counsel. and even rod rosenstein agreed with that upon the firing of jim comey. i think one thing to remember is there's an awful lot of information that is publicly known about why that special counsel was appointed. but the fbi also, and the doj,

has access to a lot of additional information from the intelligence community and from surveillance intercepts that likely went into that decision. so i think the fact that they were extremely concerned about whether the president had been compromised is something that they would all agree on. >> all right. barbara mcquade, joyce vance, thanks to both of you, appreciate it. coming up, emergency operation. did president trump alienate his own party with today's border declaration? the inside scoop, next right here on "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc. essential for pine trees, but maybe not for people with rheumatoid arthritis. because there are options. like an "unjection™". xeljanz xr. a once-daily pill for adults with moderate to severe ra for whom methotrexate did not work well enough.

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i don't think he should do that. i think it's a bad precedent. >> we've got to be very careful about endorsing broad uses of executive power. >> it would just be another erosion of congressional authority in this particular area. >> the real concern that i have is the precedent that this then sets. >> i think that's dubious from a constitutional perspective, and i hope that the president will not go that route. >> despite mounting opposition from his own party, president trump's move to bypass congress and declare a national emergency

to fund his long-promised border sparked a bipartisan rebuke as democrats promised immediate action to block it. let's get the inside scoop from michael steel, former adviser to jeb bush, and shauna thomas from vice news. thanks to both of you. michael, let me start with you and what we heard from republicans. a lot of backlash, which we don't typically hear. what type of position does that put establishment republicans in who feel that this is overreach? >> so the background here is, president obama said 22 separate times he did not have the constitutional authority to protect the dreamers and recipients of daca. he took executive action and did it anyway. firestorm of criticism from the right, well-deserved. that's the backdrop to what we see here from president trump. it's short term gain, get the president to sign the funding

bill, take the off-ramp, move on to the next thing, with a big potential for long term pain as a future liberal president could use this precedent to do all kinds of things that republicans would consider anathema. >> is that the biggest concern for the establishment? >> the biggest concern is the appearance of hypocrisy, once we get past the embarrassment of the day, having to deal with the president on this thing, the real worry is, yes, you could have a medicare for all emergency. you could have a climate change emergency, usher in the new green deal, nightmare scenarios for conservatives, could be possible under this precedent if it's allowed by the courts which i don't think it will be. >> i think it's worth noting that daca is still being litigated in the courts currently. on a practical level, you already had republicans come out very strongly against the president using this tactic. you had mac thornberry, now ranking member of the house armed services committee, saying this is not the right way to do this, you shouldn't take military money and build your wall with it.

lots of republicans who have lots of constituents who are in the military, who have military bases, are going to come out and say this isn't proper. the larger philosophical issue is, what is the role of congress? the role of congress is to appropriate funds. they decide how the money is spent. the president has the decision, yes, great, i'll sign this bill, or no, i'll veto it. this less ens some of their power. you'll hear republicans talk about that as well as every single democrat in congress and every single democrat on the campaign trail. >> and i think, shawna, that's going to be the crux of these legal battles. the border network for human rights already says they'll hold a news conference this afternoon and announce legal action. i want to play a question from kellyanne conway, get your reaction on the other side. this is about paul ryan. take a look. >> we had a little disappointment for the first year and a half, people that should have stepped up did not step up. they didn't step up and they should have. i will tell you i'm very

disappointed at certain people, a particular one for not having pushed this faster. >> reporter: are you referring to speaker ryan, sir? >> let's not talk about it. what difference does it make? >> michael steel, the president didn't want to talk about it, but it's no secret, he feels former house speaker paul ryan was among those who let him down when it came to this critical fight from his perspective. >> right. the former speaker has always been very clear that he supports improved border security as part of a larger, more comprehensive package that deals with legal immigration, that deals with people who are already here, that protects the dreamers, that the wall in and of itself, as a slogan, is not an issue in and of itself, and that's a smarter way to deal with this. the president is frustrated with that, i understand that, but it's a smarter way to deal with this issue. >> and there was a bigger deal on the table last year that dealt with those issues and gave the president more money for his wall.

he didn't make a good deal. he didn't even make a good deal in comparison to what happened at the end of last year. >> that becomes the question, what was achieved. >> people didn't get their paychecks for a month, that's what was achieved. >> let's look at how the democrats are already dealing with this. we know this is going to be a big issue in 2020. we have a look at how the democrats voted on that spending bill yesterday. you have cory booker, kirsten gillibrand, kamala harris, elizabeth warren, who all voted no. the yeses, amy klobuchar, michael bennett, jeff merkley of oregon. you're already seeing this sharp divide, who is in the more progressive camp, who is in the more establishment camp. how will democrats use this on the campaign trail? >> lucky for them, shutdown or not, the bill got passed, the government is funded, at least for now, and that's good. the thing that president trump has sort of handed them but they're also handing him, the

wall fight will be a legal one and it will go back to the straight up political arena. the president will say, i'm now trying to build my wall, i'm doing everything i want, and the obstructionist democrats, whether it be the house democrats or the california attorney general, they're stopping me from building my wall. and they'll say, it's our job to stop him. who voted for the shutdown bill and who didn't gets pushed aside, it's too nuanced an argument. >> it's sign in the democratic field right now, people who want to govern and break through the obstruction and people who want to run on burning everything down, tearing everything down this president is associated with, and energizing the liberal base and their white hot hatred of the president. >> it's going to energize the president's base, nothing fires them up like the border wall. >> exactly. >> thanks for being here, great to see you both. coming up, top target.

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iran's foreign minister is responding to tough talk from the united states after the administration called for

european allies to pull out of the nuclear treaty with iran. if an exclusive interview with nbc's richard engel in munich, sharif said it's time for the u.s. to stop being obsessed with his country. >> if you look at the rhetoric out there, do you think there's a risk there will be some sort of war, some sort of military clash between iran, the united states, israel? >> certainly some people who were successful in creating a war last time are hot at it again. but i think at the end of the day, some sense will prevail and people will find out that it's suicidal to engage in a war with iran. >> powerful words there. joining me now is nbc's chief foreign correspondent richard engel who is at the munich security conference. richard, tremendous interview. thank you for joining me. let me get right to the questions. your interview comes just a day after vice president mike pence accused iran of pursuing another

holocaust and after the prime minister of israel told our andrea mitchell, the host of this show, that no options are off of the table. what were your key takeaways from your interview today? >> reporter: well, if you take a look at those two statements combined, vice president pence at a conference in poland that was designed to pressure iran, said that iran is not only trying to seek -- pursue another holocaust, but also the means to carry out another holocaust. and then you had the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu talking to andrea mitchell about a possible conflict. he had talked about in his speech war, how the u.s. and how the arab allies and israel have a common interest potentially in having war or confronting iran. none of that is lost on iran and the iranian foreign minister today sounding the alarm. i also asked him, does iran want to find a way out of this

situation? president trump is going in a short while, a couple of weeks to meet with the leader of north korea. certainly a piece of unorthodox diplomacy. i asked him, would iran be interested in doing something similar? and he said not really. >> fascinating. >> president trump has said he's open to meeting one day with your president, the iranian president, potentially to renegotiate the iran deal. >> why should we renegotiate a deal which we spent not just a couple of hours meeting, but 13 years to negotiate? and we negotiated with the united states. it was probably the longest negotiations that the u.s. secretary of state personally had, and the iranian foreign minister, plus five other countries. why should we trust president trump that he would abide by his own signature?

>> reporter: so, kristen, i would say there were three takeaways from this interview. one, iran is warning that it is hearing the drum beats of war again, and that the same people who led to the iraq war are at it one more time. two, that he's not interested, iran is not interested in relitigating a deal with president trump because it doesn't feel that president trump has credibility. and three, something of a headline here, if you remember a few days ago "the new york times" reported that the trump administration had accelerated efforts which had been stopped when president obama reached the iran nuclear deal, that the trump administration had reignited efforts to sabotage iran's missile systems, and recently iran had two failed missile launches, and the foreign minister said that iran is now reinvestigating those launches to see if they may have been caused by american

sabotage. >> richard engel, clearly one of the most difficult foreign policy issues this administration and past administrations have faced. thank you so much for your reporting and congratulations on the interview, we appreciate it. coming up, bidin' his time. is former vice president joe biden about to get into the democratic race? we'll take a look. the democratic race? we'll take a look. i was just finishing a ride. i felt this awful pain in my chest. i had a pe blood clot in my lung. i was scared. i had a dvt blood clot. having one really puts you in danger of having another. my doctor and i chose xarelto®. xarelto®. to help keep me protected. xarelto® is a latest-generation blood thinner that's... proven to treat and reduce the risk of dvt or pe blood clots from happening again. in clinical studies, almost 98% of patients on xarelto® did not experience another dvt or pe. xarelto® works differently. warfarin interferes with at least 6 of your body's

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if joe biden doesn't run, and this is interesting, he and bernie sanders are also still deliberating, if they do not run, they'll spend their lives in a balcony heckling the muppets.

>> as you said, a lot of the candidates and potential candidates will be in iowa and new hampshire in the next few weeks. joe biden is in that primary state, munich, germany, over the weekend. he has some public events. these are not overly political. he's been calling a lot of

officials, senators, key players in the democratic party. one of the things he's doing is giving them percentages of how likely it is he's going to run. 80/20 is the number i've heard a lot. you've lived through this. >> i sure did. deja vu. >> as one former biden staffer put it to me, he could be at 90% sure and still say no at the final decision. there are a lot of factors he's considering. >> what an important point. we know who's reaching out in the final days of deciding not to run. >> he had an announcement speech written, he didn't give it. >> jim,right. jim, i want to get you on this, because dianne feinstein, we know, has met with joe biden. she said this. i have a great respect for his integrity, as well as his ability and i think experience is really important at this particular point. where our world is today, i was asked who i favor, and right now it's joe biden. do you think it would be a game changer if he got into the race? and do you expect he will? >> oh, i think he's definitely going to run. he spent parts of the last 20

years running. as you know, he's run in '90s, he ran in 2008 in the primary before he lost to barack obama and then became his vp. i think he very much wants to run for president and i think he should. we had the deepest field we've had in a very long time. unlike four years ago when we kind of all wrapped our arms around the presumptive front runner. this time people are going to fight it out. to mike's point, i don't think he needs to make his mind up very soon here, right. there's no real first mover advantage. i spoke to -- at a conference last week with 100 biggest bund letters in a democratic party. only four in the 500 people in the room had committed to a presidential campaign. people are going to wait, they're going to see who is in the race. they're going to wait for biden, for beto, for bullock. they'll sit back and let them fight it out. i think in a general election, it's donald trump. we are stronger if we do that. >> and you are echoing what i've heard from so many within the

democratic party who say it is a good thing we have a crowded field. the more crowded, the better. and we know that several candidates are out on the campaign trail. this weekend, you have kamala harris in south carolina. kirsten gillibrand, bill well dipping his toe into the race is in new hampshire and the list goes on and on. i want to play something amy klobuchar said because it was a not so subtle swipe at hillary clinton. take a listen. >> i think we're starting in wisconsin because, as you remember, there was a lot of campaigning in wisconsin in 2016. with me, that changes. >> mike, what do you make of her remarks? it's clear that she is saying, we have to do things differently this time. >> it's always interesting to hear how quickly the party has moved on from hillary clinton. to have a candidate, potentially the next nominee disparaging her as she clearly was there which is interesting. that is the core argument for amy clone char, she could hear

the midwest. it's not surprising she could win there. it does lack somebody from there. the centrist figure, that's the lane she clearly sees it and wants to own. >> jim, of course, former president obama thought that was key to winning as well, to be essentially campaigning everywhere, including some of the voters who you thought you couldn't win over. to that point, nbc -- msnbc, telemundo going to be hosting the first democratic debate in june. what are you going to be watching for? >> look, i think, you know, i managed president obama's reelection campaign, as you know. amy is right. we have to go back to the traditional places and compete in places where democrats have not won. and i think it's very, very smart. my worry about this is we're spending a lot of time kind of not being hillary clinton and all the other candidates are doing, taking what i call the crack of donald trump, which is you can hammer donald trump every day and raise money and do tv. but the thing i'm going to be looking, kristen, in the first

debates, is who has an economic message that can move these swing voters and excite democrats because there is this debate in the party, should we excite democrats or should we move swing voters? and i think if you look at barack obama and bill clinton, the two candidates who have won the presidential race in my lifetime, they both could do both of those things. and i'm going to look for someone who has a real economic message who can excite democrats and really appeal to those voters that senator klobuchar was rightly focused on. >> time and time again comes down to the economy. all right, fantastic conversation. mike, jim mussina, thank you, and we'll be right back. a hotel. so even when she grows up, she'll never outgrow the memory of our adventure. unlock savings when you add select hotels to your existing trip. only with expedia.

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talk to your doctor and visit botoxchronicmigraine.com to enroll. thanks for watching, everyone. handing it off to ali velshi in new york. hey, ali. >> thank you, kristen, have a great afternoon. >> you, too. >> i'm ali velshi. stephanie is off. let's get smarter. >> i'm going to be signing a national emergency. it's been signed many times before. we have an invasion of drugs, invasion of gags r gangs, invasion of people and it's not acceptable. everyone knows that walls work and there are better examples than el paso, frankly. you take a look almost everywhere. nancy knows it, chuck knows it, they all know it. it's all a big lie. it's a big con game. you don't have to be very smart to kn