political message with his white house budget out today. he's asking for a giant $8.6 billion for the border wall setting up another showdown on capitol hill. i think that he wants it for a political issue and to drive up the reality that there are problems in the border and he wants to try to solve them. >> grounded, china and at least two other countries are grounding the boeing 737 after the horrific crash in ethiopia killing all onboard including eight americans. should the faa ground them as well. the former chairman of the national transportation safety board says yes. >> my personal opinion on this is that the aircraft, the company ought to voluntarily itself ground these aircraft. >> and 2020 hopefuls descend on the capital for the south by southwest with whether the

hometown heavy weight will jump in the race. >> we've got to give part of this amazing thing in texas over the last two years. the last two years good day, everyone. i'm andrea mitchell in washington where president trump is sending a clear message to his base. the fight for more border wall funding is far from over. the new battle lines between the president are being drawn over the president's budget request for the upcoming fiscal year. it's a white house priorities set to congress. remember $8.6 billion. that's the request for additional border wall funding, an eye-catching figure and a big reminder to trump voters that the president is keeping that wall front and center. joining me now, nbc white house correspondent, kristen welker and msnbc and gene sperling and

jacob soboroff with his new reporting on migrant children separated from their families at the border. you're not going to believe it. >> well, first, the budget. kristen welker, this is dead on arrival and most budgets are and this one perhaps more than most with the first year of divided government, but now what we're seeing is $8.6 billion for that wall. what's the signal. >> democrats are being very clear, andrea that it is dead on arrival. as you point out, budgets are typically a list of the president's priorities, but this is a real shot across the bow. it's $8.6 billion is about $3 billion more than president trump's asked several months ago with the $1.7 billion figure and that's in the government shutdown for 35 days and the notion that somehow democrats would now agree to give him more than they rejected several months ago just isn't realistic

and this was a priority for me as a candidate and it is still a key priority even though we haven't gotten it over the finish line yet and it comes after he declared that national emergency to try to secure funding for his border wall and he's about to get a pretty sharp rebuke from some members of his own party. the house passed a measure to block him. now it seems that's poised to pass the senate with the support of at least four republicans. the president has said he will veto the measure and it doesn't appear at this point that congress has enough votes to override that veto, but bottom line there's clearly a real face-off over the border wall. the president's top officials are going to be holding a briefing today, andrea, the first in several weeks to try to map out some of the details of this budget which, by the way, also calls for an increase in defense spending and a slash to a number of domestic programs. so that is setting up yet another battle with congress, andrea. >> big cutbacks in some of the

domestic programs as well as foreign aid, anti-poverty programs, as well and the border wall, phil rutger is the issue here because it's firing a shot right at the house democrats. >> it really is the word that kristen just used, battle is what this is all about. it's a political document and for president trump it establishes his priorities and sets up a fight with congress that could go on for many months now and it's the fight that the president and his advisers would like to have. they think it works for them in a political context as he gears up for re-election and tries to draw contracts with democrats especially over immigration, but also on these other issues, too, on these domestic spending programs on the military and this budget is the president and his administration saying this is what i care about and this is the kind of money i want to allocate to these things and these are the programs that i want to cut and it draws a line in the sand as he thinks about

the re-election campaign next year. >> gene sperling, from an economic perspective. the one thing for conservative and republican administration, they're stretching out the time line where they've been talking about trying to bring down the deficit and bring the budget into balance. 15 years and not ten years out. so what's the message there? do deficits not matter anymore with democrats as well as republicans and where do you see the economic signals here? >> first of all, i think there are a few things that should be concerning. one is that by declaring the 8.6 billion you are also making the declaration that we are likely to have more government dysfunction and this time it could be not just the government shutdown, but actually the risk of default or debt default again by drawing such a line in the sand. that's one thing that should be -- that should be concerning. secondly -- >> gene, do you mean a

confrontation over this and a red line being drawn when it comes to a debt ceiling being raised? >> that's right. the next time that we have a big budget battle, andrea, it won't be on whether the government is shut down. it's going to be about whether we extend the debt limit and you now see the president digging in on this. from an economic view, people need to see more uncertainty and more chances of a shutdown or even the scare of a potential debt default issue. you also see more willingness of this president to break every sense of the separation of powers when he doesn't get what he wants and that's why he may be rebuked by the republicans in the senate today and third, i have to say that there's a degree that we shouldn't fall so much for this because a lot of this is meant to divert from where i think our very mean-spirited priorities that the american public doesn't support. nobody's covered that there is probably $1.4 trillion of

medicaid cuts in here. over $200 billion in food and nutrition support and when you have a ten -- which i think it will be, not five, but 10% across the board that will hit everything people care about from cancer and alzheimer's research to headstart funding. so i think that also this is part of trump's strategy of diverting the shiny objects from a value structure that i think most of middle america may not support. >> those are very important signals and a very important reminder from you. jacob soboroff, let's focus on the policy behind the numbers regarding the wall about the administration continuing to separate children and their families long after the courts ordered them to stop. you've spent so much time, what are the facts here? >> andrea, i see this court ruling that came down friday evening as directly related to the president's budget request

of $8.6 billion for a wall, that's a six times the investment based on what the president got this year on a deterrent policy that we know doesn't work and deterrence got us to the man made family separation crisis that the trump administration put into place. we know 2800 kids who were separated officially during the zero tolerance period, but hhs pointed out how there might be thousands more children who were separated before the trump administration started that deterrent policy officially when jeff sessions announced it and now it turns out dana from the southern district of california and the judge down here has said that the trump administration must add those thousands of children to this list of the overall separated numbers. that could bring the numbers up to 3,000, 4,000, 5,000, 6,000 and we don't know because we don't have the accounting from the government as to how many children were separated in advance of the policy.

the judge was not messing around and i talked to the aclu this morning and they told us that the next step basically is to go back to the court and ask the government to identify each and every one of those children, where they are, who their families are so they can go through piecemeal and make sure they've been reunited with their family, andrea. >> kristen welker, back at the white house to you and phil rutger, where does the administration go from here and do we have any reporting on what axios was reporting that the capitalize again on the division among democrats by suggesting to mar-a-lago republican fund-raiser that in fact democrats don't like jewish people was the quote, not first hand. we have not confirmed it. have you been able to get anybody at the white house to talk about that? >> i haven't, but not for lack of trying, andrea. i tried to get some type of official response here to that reporting. here's what i can tell you.

i've been talking to folks who were there in and around that time who said it would aren't be surprising if he were to use that language and that's the type of thing he has said before and he's said comments not dissimilar to that and not going exactly that far. no one surprised by that reporting. again, as i said, there will be a briefing and i'll have a chance to ask sarah sanders and hopefully she'll answer. to the first part of your question, where does this battle go from here, andrea? it could shape up to be another government shutdown in october and that's when the government runs out of money again if the president is determined to push for this $8.6 billion which we know he's not going to get. it could be yet another stalemate that winds up actually causing the government to shut down, we'll have to see. >> there is the whole government defaulting if they don't go along with raising the debt ceiling or if the president vetoes whatever decision is made in congress on raising the debt ceiling. phil rutger, what about this briefing today?

this is the annual budget briefing so that is to be expected, but it is with the departure of phil schein. excuse me, bill schein. >> yes. bill schein resigned abruptly and under his time at the white house he cut back on the number of briefings. these press briefings used to happen every day and you remember that when sean spicer was at the podium, but now they occur every month, every six weeks and every two months and very infrequently and sarah sanders had gone her longest stretch now without giving a briefing and she's going to end that stretch today at the podium. it's budget day and she's hoping most of the questions are about the budget, but you know, it will not be. there will be questions about all sorts of other issues including some of the various legal complications surrounding the president. >> of course, as well, we'll be

getting to that shortly. kristen welker, gene sperling, good to see you again and jacob soboroff thanks for all of your reporting on all of these extraordinary developments regarding the separated children. >> thank you. a texas democratic congressman that serves on the ways and means committee joins me now. congressman, thank you very much. what do we know about -- first of all, your reaction to the budget, the $8.6 billion. is there any appetite in congress to approve that kind of money for a border wall? >> not at all, andrea. you know, the president is obsessed with this wall. he even claimed that in san antonio that i represent there wasn't a wall. it's an imaginary place. we can't find it anywhere and it's as imaginary as the crisis he's created. >> is there any money in the budget for this priority even if he thought it were a priority? >> well, unless you want to

borrow more money which is the way he finances everything in the budget, there's not. i've come to the conclusion that the wall as indicated by his own experts that what trump really wants here is a permanent fight. he needs a crisis and he needs to be involved in a battle and that is all that keeps his base together with his anti-immigrant hysteria and his bigotry and that fight is essential to security, but the security involved is his personal security and not our country. he wants to protect himself by keeping a loyal base that can help preserve him in office. >> we saw a number of your fellow democrats challenging kirstjen nielsen last week about the separation of children and about the policies that she has overseen saying she is not responsible for what hhs does, and not because she's backing the basic policy, now we learn from this court ruling friday

night in california that there were even more children separated and not tracked and not reunited. is there anything at all that congress can do? >> it's just horrifying. one little child being torn away from their mother is so distressing and we know this administration has been so indifferent. probably some of these children will never be reunited with their families. we in congress can continue demanding accountability from the administration, bringing them up here and questioning them about this. trying to hold them to trump's phony promises that he was ending this and we can try to write in additional protections into the appropriations bill, but the ultimate solution as with some of the other problems in this country is to get a new president. >> well, we're certainly getting into the campaign mode. as you know better than anyone being up there with the members and senators already running. let's talk also about the tax returns.

>> yes. >> when is chairman neil going to demand the president's tax returns and what do you expect the response from the white house to be? >> i would hope that it would be very soon. he has been thorough and methodical, but to delay this further is to run right into a white house that doesn't believe in transparency and disclosure and will probably stonewall this so that eventually we may have to take legal action and if we ever get the returns it's a matter of having experts look at them in private to see whether any disclosure is justified. it's not a matter of getting the return and putting it on the front page of the paper and in your broadcast. i believe we may ultimately need to do that, but only after careful review, consistent with the legislative issues that we have in our committee. confidence in the tax system that had president with the disregard of taxes and his history of apparent fraud, it creates a problem for as well as the questions about saudi and

russian influence and investments in his businesses. so the sooner the better and the more comprehensive the better and it must include the business operations of the trump organization which appears from some testimony to be almost a criminal enterprise. >> congressman lloyd doggett from the state of texas, thank you very much. >> thank you so much. coming up, the search for answers. what caused the tragedy for the ethiopian airline crashed this weekend and other airline verse crashed in the past five months. a live report from nairobi next and our tom costello. stay with us here on "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc. . fidelity wealth management. if you have postmenopausal osteoporosis and a high risk for fracture now might not be the best time to ask yourself are my bones strong? life is full of make-or-break moments.

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several countries including china are already grounding the newest model of boeing 737, the max 8, after an ethiopian airlines flight en route to nairobi, kenya, crashed killing all onboard. the victims include eight americans and one of them -- one of those killed was also a student at georgetown law as well as 19 members of the united nations who were headed to a global climate change conference. today authorities found the plane's two black boxes. ground control lost contact with the plane six minutes after it

took off from the capital addis ababa. nbc's tom costello who covers aviation for nbc is in washington. sarah, first to you, tell us what do they know so far about the cause? >> reporter: good afternoon, andrea. well, several members of the national transportation safety board are assisting with the investigation. boeing is also sending a team to the crash site and we are learning more about the identity of the victims. this is a very diverse passenger list. at least 30 different nationalities onboard. you mentioned the eight americans. there were also at least 32 kenyans and one of them was a young student at georgetown law. his name was cedric asiawugu and a third-year georgetown law student from mumbasa, kenya. he'd been returning to kenya to visit family after his fiance's mother passed away.

sadly, his classmates are now mourning his passing. the united nations include 21 of its staff were killed in this crash. those were humanitarian aid workers and many of whom were on their way to a big environmental conference here in nairobi that began this morning. sadly, they didn't make it. andrea? >> sarah harmon in nairobi, thank you so much and tom costello here. what are the chances that the faa will make a big decision which is to ground the planes here? >> well, they're under pressure to at least get all of the facts and here's why. we've got several county roos around the world that are grounding the plane. they include china, as you mentioned and that's a big country with more than 90 of the max 8s in service. indonesia, ethiopia and cayman airwaves. they're only got two and two smaller countries joining the list, morocco and mongolia. here is a list of the countries -- or rather of the airlines that are flying the 737 max in north america and they

include air canada, american, southwest, united, by the way flies the max 9, not the max 8. the max 9 is a longer version of the 8, westjet in canada and sunwing in canada. i've been on the phone with many of these airlines today and for the most part they are standing by their aircraft. they believe that the 737 max is a good aircraft, it's reliable, but as you know, the controversy is could there be any sort of similarity for what happened to the indonesian plane that crashed back in october and if there is any similarity at all, then that's going to really add pressure to the faa to take action and maybe follow on china's lead to ground the 737 max until they get answers. what brought this plane down we simply don't know right now. it could be any number of things and that was a systemic issue in the earlier crash where pilots may not have been alerted properly or adequately that

there was a need to override the system and a mechanism to override the system. >> so the preliminary findings from the indonesian crash, the indonesian crash, i want to stress is there was a bad sensor or the sensor providing bad data to the computer, the onboard flight computer suggesting that the plane was going to stall and so the plane's computers automatically put the nose down to pick up speed, but the pilots were not aware of this new automated system and they tried to pull up on the nose and they were fighting the computer that was pushing the nose down. there was a way to disengage that system and the pilots didn't know that this system existed and they're fighting a system that they may understood. you simply disengage the automatic trim. however, if you are in an emergency situation you're not that high up in altitude, suddenly the nose is pointing towards the ocean and you're panicking, a lot of airline pilots have said to me, listen, i'm not even sure that i would

have the presence of mind in that situation to reach down and disengage the auto trim and as a result we've now had at least one plane, indonesia, they went down as a result of that. the question is whether this has happened again. we don't know. >> correct me if i'm wrong, but wasn't the other plane also shortly after takeoff or close to landing. >> both minutes. after takeoff. >> very low altitude. >> both of them were low altitude. both pilots reported they were having trouble controlling the plane. in the case of the most recent one. erratic indicators on the ascent and after declaring an emergency, both planes were lost. >> and would you want your -- would you fly one of these planes right now or want your family to fly one? >> i'll tell you that the experts say in the united states if you are on one of these american, united, canada, whatever, these are great airlines, great pilots. the concern is really, first of all, we don't know what the problem is, but might this be a

problem in other countries where the training isn't as great as it is in the united states or canada or europe? we just simply don't know right now, but the airlines are standing behind their aircraft. >> tom costello, what a big story. huge concern. >> thank you. >> you bet and sarah harmon, thank you. >> coming up, defiant new reports that north korea is invading nuclear sanctions. stay with us here on "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. mitchell reports" on msnbc want preventive screenings for things like

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a u.n. team of international experts is expected to report today that north korea is cheating on sanctions designed to pressure the regime to denuclearizing. according to "the wall street journal" who got an early copy of the report this comes despite top claims from the administration officials that they're exerting maximum pressure kim jong-un. at the same time another commercial satellite image over the weekend shows extensive rebuilding of a launch site, a suspect site that kim had promised president trump last june that he was going to dismantle. former secretary of state for political affairs and global affairs contributor who has a lot of experience in the frustrations of negotiating with

north korea, wendy, thanks very much. your takeaway. this u.n. report, a highly credible report will show smuggling, we suspected this, but this is definitive that over the past year or two they've seen that they've been smuggling oil in and smuggling exports of coal out. that would certainly indicate cooperation from russia and china. >> indeed. this is an incredibly serious report because it also says that they've been selling arms to the houthis in yemen, among other places. so i think this is quite a discouraging report out of the u.n. you don't always see this much detail about how they're doing it, positioning diplomats to, in essence, be bankers against the sanctions all around the world. so i think when you add this together with the site that we're seeing in the overhead intelligence, with what happened in hanoi and now we're hearing

reports that xi jinping may not come to mar-a-lago because he doesn't want to find himself in the same place where kim jong-un was which was surprised and not get a deal. >> on the trade front, as well, as you point out. so these are complicated relationships, but the concern doesn't seem to be reflected by administration pronouncements. john bolton on television all saying that the summit was constructive and that the maximum pressure and economic pressure will bring kim back to the table and prevent him from doing anything drastic and there was no sign that he's about to test and that is derived by this report that he's not feeling the pressure as much as the u.s. claims. >> absolutely. it is belied by the report and i've just returned over the weekend from tokyo and seoul, and there is not agreement between tokyo and seoul about how to proceed here and we know that in south korea they really

want more engagement with north korea. they think opening the door will make more progress than these heavy sanctions and they'd like some waivers and tokyo is happy with where things are and both country, to be fair, believe if the deal was just that onbyon be closed and that probably wasn't the right deal to be taken, but we're in a tough place, and i agree with you, john bolton was very circumspect yesterday, leaving all his options on the table and leaving all of the president's options on the table, but awfully optimistic and rosy for a situation that seems to be increasingly of great concern. >> and there are reports now that an indonesian woman accused of killing kim jong-nam, the half brother of kim jong-un, was freed from jail. is there any reason why she should have been freed from jail for this assassination, successful assassination in the main airport in kuala lumpur? >> i think this was quite an

extraordinary story and may have more to do with malaysian-indonesian relations than it has to do with the facts here. what was said as a result of them dismissing the charges was that the relationship with indonesia was important, but that they had fewer facts for this young woman and her part in this assassination, but it is all quite curious and i think has probably more to do with diplomatic relations than it has to do with the facts on the ground. >> very interesting, indeed. ambassador wendy sherman, thank you so much. boeing has just released this statement about the safety of their 737 max 8 aircraft in the wake of the ethiopian airlines crash this weekend, quoting from boeing, safety is our number one priority. we are taking every measure to fully understand all aspects of this accident, working closely with the investigating people and all reg lulatory authoritie involved. the investigation is in its

early stages, but at this point, based on the information available, we do not have any basis to issue new guidance to operators, and so we await further word from the regulator, but boeing is not issuing new guidance or suggesting a grounding of this plane, and we'll be right back. nd we'll be right back. our car insurance with geico. we could have been doing this a long time ago. so, you guys staying at the hotel? yeah, we just got married. oh ho-ho! congratulations! thank you. yeah, i'm afraid of commitment... and being boiled alive. oh, shoot. believe it. geico could save you 15% or more on car insurance. that guy's the worst.

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out what was going on. somebody just won an election by defining us as being scared and small and afraid, and so we just -- what are we going to do? and out of that conversation came this idea of what if we ran for senate? nobody asked us to do this, so we have to keep that in mind and that's how it started and we'll have to continue it. a revealing new hbo documentary that appeared over the weekend at south by southwest gives an inside look at beto o'rourke's star, and it revealed rougher moments including the congressman's harsh treatment of his own staff all of this as campaign email hints that the democrat is planning to jump into the 2020 race. this weekend he told reporters at south by southwest i want to make sure to do it the right way so i'll be doing that. i've got to be on this time line

that works for my family and for the country and so that's the time line we're on. >> joining me now is charlie, editor in chief of the bullwork and the washington post editorial columnist and the washington post opinion writer and our msnbc contributors, but first, before we talk about 2020 let's talk about the democratic national convention and charlie, you're there in milwaukee, do you have enough hotel rooms for us? >> that's tricky. i'm sitting two blocks away from where the convention will be held and an awfully interesting choice considering the importance of the upper midwest for the 2020 election, but it's going to be a challenge for milwaukee. i'm biassed and delighted, and i think they made exactly the right choice. >> we all love milwaukee we're excited, as well. the dnc officially has chosen milwaukee. >> thank you, charlie. you know, i think there's always a risk in over-imagining the

impact of something like choosing where a convention is going to be, but since the convention is going to be some place, by definition you might as well hold it in a place that could be helpful to you and also could have enough hotel rooms, let's hope and so it makes perfect sense to do this in milwaukee. hillary clinton should have gone to visit wisconsin. she should have won wisconsin and certainly had a reasonable chance of winning wisconsin. it will be important for whoever is the democratic nominee to win wisconsin, so i'll say let's go to milwaukee. >> let's talk about beto, biden and all of the speculation about the two hamlets in this race so far. beto, every indication and certainly that email that we all got last night from this campaign indicated that he's getting in. >> and i think a lot of people would say okay, finally do it and there are folks who were wondering has the wave crested

for him that maybe he's waited too long. my own mother just sent me a text message on the way to the studio asking who is o'rourke and what did he do to make himself a big star in the democratic party? >> what's your answer to your mom? >> well -- i didn't respond to her, but i tell her right now, mom, i cop ed and pasted your text message and then i tweeted it out to see what the responses were. there are a lot of beto o'rourke fan, but to me it's terrific that he ran against senator ted cruz, gave it a good try and had some really incredible amounts on the campaign trail where he spoke to the heart of the democratic party, but i'm not sure beyond that where does he want to take the country? what is his message? anyone watching the town hall that mayor pete buddegeg and the

one thing beto o'rourke has and others except for bernie sanders don't have is this enormous online fund-raising appeal. charlie, he has and the contributions did can be made by a little-known congressman who may be running against someone he wanted him to beat, ted cruz. >> before november if he won in texas he would be at the top of the list for 2020, and he did not win. jonathan's mom is asking exactly the right question. okay, so he had this star turn down in tex, but it is moving to a much, much bigger stage and it's moving from aaa ball right to the major leagues and as we're seeing this is going to be a harsh and a tough, hard fought primary campaign and people have to ask it, is he going to be ready for that prime time and we

don't have an answer to that yet. >> and we'll pass over the biden speculation. he is going to be with his base. again the firefighters here, the labor union and that's tomorrow in d.c. and two appearances and we'll wait and see about joe biden. that's a generational divide, as well, between beto o'rourke and joe biden. i want to ask you about senator gillibrand who has been less covered in the race and now she has an issue that sexual harassment was not handled properly on her staff from a staff member and this woman complaining that it was not handled well. she's been anonymous so we can't confirm all of this with her. senator gillibrand has put out a statement saying when allegations are made in the workplace we must believe women so serious allegations can take place, we can learn the facts and there can be appropriate accountability and that's what happened every step of the way

last year. i told her we loved her at the time and the same is true today. the reason why this is an issue is also because she led the way against al franken and she was a leading voice on armed services against sexual harassment and assault in the military. senator gill you get in trouble for politics not only for what you do or don't do, but for whether it's consistent with who you hold yourself out to be. so we don't know. we should start by saying we don't know enough facts yet and the facts are that senator gillibrand's office did an incredible job investigating and something came out later that they didn't know or couldn't have known at the time and perhaps that they didn't do as thorough a job in investigating this and we have to wait and see that, but this is particularly treacherous for her given not just her prom nervous on the subject with military sexual assault and her conduct with

respect to senator franken, and you know, you've got to practice what you preach. we don't know what she did or didn't do, but it's clearly something that needs to be looked into. >> what i was wondering about is the rough treatment of his aides, beto o'rourke, is there a double standard here with the way amy klobuchar's been tagged in a leading new york times story with her treatment, her tough treatment of her staff? >> short answer, yes. to charlie's point, if beto o'rourke gets into the race you better believe that his treatment of his staff will be a big story. actually, all of the candidates will probably have to answer -- and it will be the nice primary. >> true. it does say something about the character of the person and it doesn't matter whether the person is nice or not. >> i agree with you. i kaunt discounting it. >> senator klobuchar says i have

high standards and i expect my staff to work hard and meet those standards. that's not unreasonable. the question comes in is does it cross the line into being -- >> abusive behavior? >> that's what i was looking for. >> two things could be happening, and it could be true that senator klobuchar has been less than kind and crossed the line in the treatment of her staff. it could also be true that she is getting more dinged for this and getting marked down more for this than the male senator or male candidate would be in the same circumstance. >> we'll have to see how people respond to this documentary when the full documentary is out showing a lot of these incidents and the other side of beto o'rourke or more about beto o'rourke than we had previously known. >> thanks. i hope your mom is watching. >> we'll find out. charlie sykes, and speaking of milwaukee, coming up, mueller time? will the next five days reveal

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to have been a mistake considering we have so many questions about who -- whose testimony should you believe, michael cohen's or donald trump's? >> yes, i think it is a mistake. and i've said all along that i don't think bob mueller should rely on written answers. when you get written answers from a witness, it's really the lawyers' answers as much as the client's answer. and here you need to be able to ask follow-up questions in real-time. >> house intelligence committee chair adam chiffon "meet the press" sunday with chuck. as we are still waiting for robert mueller to turn in his report to the attorney general, join being me now former deputy assistant attorney general elliott williams, elliott lobbies for law works an organization advocating for the importance of the special counsel so we know where you stand on that. let's talk about this week. adam schiff was also asked by chuck about this interesting -- interesting interview on al-jazeera with erik prince. let's watch. >> august 3rd, 2016.

>> you? >> an israeli dude, a back channel to the emirates, stephen miller. >> we're here to talk about iran policy. >> here to talk about iran policy? that's something to disclose on house intelligence committee under oath. >> i did. >> there's no mention of the trump tower meeting august 16. >> they got the transcript wrong. >> they didn't get it wrong. the transcript is what it is. he did not zdisclose this interesting, to say nothing of suspicious second trump tower meeting. >> and material fact. under the law it was a lie knowing and willful. here's the thing. when you are bickering about whether the transcript is correct, you have a credibility problem and that's what he's got. maybe we'll find out, maybe it was an honest mistake. but i doubt it. >> erik prince is part of this very wealthy family. his sister betsy devos is the secretary of education, and he

has been lobbying heavily to take over afghanistan from the u.s. military with private, private soldiers responsible to him. >> right. so he's certainly new -- he ought to have known who he was talking to, what the penalties for not being honest would have been in front of the senate -- the house intelligence committee. so it's striking that he said, well, i might have forgotten or might not, or the transcript was wrong. again, this gets back to credibility. and if they can't believe him, which it looks like they don't. again, investigators, as i know this through law enforcement, always have more evidence and information than we do as the public. so he's in pretty bad shape here, i think. >> now let's talk about what's happening this week, because you've got manafort, the sentencing in d.c. >> right. >> on wednesday, that's going to be a huge thing. and then roger stone on thursday has to face the judge and explain the book deal, the book that's come out and whether or not it violates her partial gag order. >> it's all these colorful characters coming in front of

judge amy berman jackson. she has expressed her frustration thus far with their behavior. now, manafort will be seeing how -- whether she'll go consecutive or concurrent with his sentencing. >> she's already revoked his bail that time. that's why he's been in jail. >> for being untruthful. and again, judges and she takes this very seriously. and she ought to because lying to the court and lying to judges is a very serious matter. >> so we don't know if she'll max out. it's 10 max and we don't know whether it's concurrent or consecutive. >> it's more likely to be consecutive now only on account of how small the sentence was. >> another thing happening this week, today is your birthday, so happy birthday. >> i'm aging in 2019 years now, so -- >> as are we all, waiting for mueller. >> yes. >> thank you so much. >> thank you. >> and we'll be right back. so chantix can help you quit "slow turkey." along with support, chantix is proven to help you quit. with chantix you can keep smoking at first and ease into quitting so when the day arrives,

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and thanks for being with us. that does it for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports" on a monday. remember, follow the show online on facebook and on twitter at mitchell reports. and here is chris jansing for "velshi & ruhle" in new york. >> great to see you, andrea. hello, i am chris jansing in for ali velshi and stephanie ruhle. today is monday, march 11. let's get smarter. this weekend a number of 2020 hopefuls flock to austin, texas, to get some face time with young voters at south by southwest. >> the system is rigged. the system is corrupt.

and every american must understand how fragile this moment is. >> looking at these people who work at these companies, can you explain to them why you want to break up the place they work? >> it's a little like baseball. you can be an umpire, a platform, or you can own teams. that's fine. but you can't be an umpire and own one of the teams that's in the game. >> last week the vice-president was reportedly at 95%. i know you recently spoke with him. is he moving closer to 100? >> he is moving closer. he's someone who i am confident is going to run. i'm optimistic he's going to run. >> do you think vice-president pence would be a better or worse president than president trump? [ laughter ] >> his interpretation of scripture is pretty different from mine to begin with. >> new border lines. president trump's budget just delivered to congress, asking for more than $8 billion bucks for his southern border wall,