it for us. out with it. let's play "hardball." ♪ good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. attorney general bill barr says the mueller report will be released two weeks from now. thereby meeting the democrats' demand for transparency in the findings. in a letter to the committees, barr writes we are preparing the report for police, making the redactions that are required adding that the special counsel is assisting us in this process. barr also reveals the report is nearly 400 pages long, not 300 pages he reported yesterday. and this is amid new signs that attorney general's four-page summary of last sunday was not enough for the american people, clearly. a new poll by npr and the pbs

news-hour shows that 75% of americans say the special counsel's full report should be made public. based on what people have already heard, however, only 36% say they think the president is now clear of wrongdoing. that's about a third. a majority, however, 56%, say questions still exist. so most americans want to know a lot more about what happened in that report. in his letter to congress today, the attorney general also said the reports have mischaracterized the four-page summary he released last sunday. he says my march 24th letter did not purport to be an exhaustive recount of the special counsel's investigative report. it was a summary of its principal conclusions. there's a serious snag in that argument because he left the matter of obstruction of justice over the judgment. mueller did not decide on obstruction. attorney general barr did. i'm joined by dave cicilline who

sits on the house judiciary committee, julia ainsley, justice reporter, and david corn, washington bureau chief. barbara mcquaid, former u.s. attorney. barbara, i want to talk about the language here. what did you read in this report? the new one, the letter, the second letter from barr? what's he up to here? >> it seemed like a bit of a do over. he doesn't like the public messaging about what's happening. here's my summary and you'll get it in a matter of weeks. it appears he's pushing to get it disclosed a little bit faster and also clarifying what he meant, that it was only a summary of the principle findings and that there is more to come. the part that stood out to me was when he talked about the things that need to be redacted. like grand jury material and other things. but he also talked about executive privilege. he said while president trump has said he's not going to assert any executive privilege, look at this, he's deferred to

me, attorney general barr, to review this for executive privilege. it's a very strange thing that the investigator is also the same one representing the interests of the president in paring out the executive material. and i wonder how widely he will remove information, how much redaction there will be on account of executive privilege. >> let me go to congressman cicilline. how much do you want? what would make you happy in two weeks in terms of transparency? >> we'd like by april 2 the full report without redactions. congress has the right to see the full contents of the report. to the extent there are classified materials or sources and methods that needed to be protected, congress reviews classified documents all the time. we take an oath when we're sworn into office to protect classified and confidential information. we want to see it in the entirety. absent the grand jury proceedings which require a court order, but the attorney general should be working with

the members of congress to get a court order so we can see all the contents in the report, all the supporting materials. if there has to be redactions before it can be released publicly, fine. but we ought to see that report immediately. that's what happened in the past, that's what should happen now. the american people, even a majority of republicans believe the report should be made public in its entirety. >> there was a snag. he said that his four-page letter of last sunday, seems like a year ago, basically just talked about the conclusions. what he called the bottom line. it wasn't the bottom line. the bottom line of the special counsel was i haven't been able to decide on obstruction of justice there's a case for and a case against it. something's going on here. >> allergy season. >> even in here. what do you make of that. ? he wasn't honest. barr wasn't saying i'm just reporting on what mueller said. no. he decided to exonerate the president on obstruction, not mueller.

>> he doesn't have blinders on. he knows the public criticism here. so he's saying i'm just giving you -- i guess in journalism we would call the top line. if we were going to read a 400-page report and put something quickly for public consumption, we would do broad-stroke things. the bottom line ultimately became barr's because he had to make that decision. >> did he have to? could he have given it to congress? >> it came to him -- it was unexpected that it came to him undecided. he didn't have to make that decision. what he says is that the letter did not purport to be an exhaustive recounting of of the special counsel's investigation. he's trying to say don't blame me if you don't have all the answers. >> let's get back to what barbra raised. >> you've been studying this whole russian kabob for years -- cabalance for years now. is this attorney general who got his job and he has this power. and he has this power. and here he is in this letter

again saying i will work with the president in deciding what's executive privilege. that's the job of the white house counsel. that's not the job of the attorney general. >> it is. >> that represent the president. >> bill barr is taking a very expansive view of his own role in this. he's decided on the obstruction issue -- it may be in the report that it was robert mueller's intention that i don't have the authority to decide whether the president would be indicted. that maybe is something for congress, not for the attorney general. and now issue of executive privilege, it really does seem to me that that's a privilege that belongs to the president. it's true that barr works for the president, but attorney general has always been an odd position. you work for the president, but you oversee the investigative powers of the federal government.

doesn't look like he's playing even steven if he's going to make those decisions. i know congress wants this report by august 2nd. i think if they can get this out with minimal redactions in two weeks, that's probably a win for the public. but the key word is minimal. there's a lot you can -- if you look at those four things in there, all the things they say they have to look at for redaction, you can see half the report being redacted if he sticks to this. depends how they apply this. >> we're talking about two weeks from now the chairman of the house judiciary committee, congressman jerry nadler of new york is sticking to his demand that the report be delivered in full by next tuesday, april 2nd. now there's also taking issue with barr's redactions saying rather than expend valuable time and resources trying to keep certain portions of this report from congress, he, that would be barr, should work with us to request a court order to release any and all grand jury information to the house judiciary committee as has occurred in every similar investigation in the past. congressman cicilline, here's the question. we're going to look at this report in two weeks.

if we see a lot of black, covered-over, whole pages, it would be all over the "nbc nightly news" and this program. it will look like coverup. >> right. don't forget mr. barr -- it already looks like coverup. he gives us four parts of a partial statements in an effort to shape the narrative. and he auditioned for this job by basically arguing a president can't be charged with obstruction because he's in charge of the department of justice. if reporters release that, it's completely redacted, i think the american people will not stand for it, certainly congress won't. we need the full report disclosed immediately to us so we can begin our work. and then we'll work with the attorney general to be sure we have access to the grand jury proceedings and to redacted whatever is not proposed to be released to the public. we have the ability to see classified materials, materials that involve sources and methods. members of congress ought to see

this full report immediately. we're going to fight hard to make sure that happens. >> here's the president late today reacting to the news from barr on the release of mueller's report. >> the attorney general said today he intends to release the mueller report in full to congress and and the public. do you agree with that decision? do you want the white house to take a look at it? >> i have great confidence in the attorney general. if that's what he would like to do. that's what he'd like the do, i have nothing to hide. this was a hoax. this was a witch hunt. i have absolutely nothing to hide and i think a lot of things are coming out with respect to the other side. but i have a lot of confidence in the attorney general. >> what do you think going to hide? what's your suspicion here? >> good news and bad news. for people who want more transparency, the bad news is this phrase, peripheral third parties because the attorney general thinks that people who were somehow on the fringe of

this investigation shouldn't have their reputations damaged. who do we count as on the fringe? jared kushner? donald trump jr.? the good news, however, is the line he says that there are no plans to let the white house review this for privilege because he has taken the president's public comments to say that it's all in barr's hands to mean that literally. what we read, if it's anything hasn't been scrubbed by the white house, but it has been scrubbed or put together under barr who believes very strongly in his powers. >> here's the question. if you start saying individual one and that legalese, we're going to know who these people are. you can redact their names up the cazoo and we're going to be able to figure this out by context, don't you think? >> yes, if only the names are redacted. as we just saw recently in the redactions of the michael cohen search warrant, it could be that

entire pages are redacted. if that's the case, we won't have the context to be able to figure out what's going on. i think the congressman's suggestion is a good place to start, which is to turn over the entire report to congress where we don't have concerns about privacy interests and grand jury interests and classified information with a court order as we saw in watergate and other matters with special counsels, a court order can permit the disclosure of grand jury information to congress when it has an overriding interest to the secrecy. that would be a good place to start and then the public sees a redacted version of that. >> do you think we're going to -- >> can i just say? one thing we have to really be careful about in this letter, barr seems to suggest somehow the president has deferred to him on the invocation of executive privilege. if by that he thinks he's going to look through the report, he's

sadly mistaken. that belongs to the president. he needs to evoke it and we should be careful he's not going to attempt to use that to scrub this report of damaging information. >> i know that law. it has to be the president who personally as chief executive seeks the executive privilege. why wouldn't barr know that? this is primitive information here. wouldn't he know that? >> he does know. >> he doesn't have power of attorney here. >> right. i think he does know that. i think he is acting in a way he was hired to act, to protect this president. he auditioned for this job and committed to a certain view of the evidence before he was sworn in. and i think he's delivering on that, which is why we have to be very, very clear. the full report must be made available to congress immediately. >> julian, the big question is what didn't he prosecute, was deserving of a charge? we know there was all kinds of meetings. >> mueller. >> involving trump people with the russians. what's stopped him from charging

that as collusion or advancing a conspiracy by the russians? he does say we have to believe in this report. the russians were conspiring to hurt our electoral process? >> there were multiple efforts by the russians and they seem to know exactly how those efforts looked. and i think that's where a lot of these 400 pages go, i would expect. but the way mueller defines it, because there is no statute for collusion. he defines it as coordination and conspiracy. i don't think he didn't turn over enough stones. this was a very thorough investigation, 2,800 subpoenas, 22 months. he did not find evidence of that. i think we should you understand line that. we should take some confident in that. >> i would add to that, there are two issues here. one is where the crimes were committed and whether there was wrongdoing. they're not always the same thing. >> what would be wrongdoing to you. >> signaling to the russians we don't mind if you do something. we don't know what you're doing, but we'll have a meeting with you. >> in fact, we'll deny you're doing it. >> and then getting out in public when you know that they

want to do something. the interesting thing -- half a point. what we're waiting to see is to what degree mueller examined that and put those sort of findings in the report. so it's not just crime or no crime. >> congressman, can you get on this? what can be something that's wrong, even impeachable, if not criminal? >> i think if you watched chairman schiff go through the evidence, he said it may not bother the republicans that members of the trump campaign met with russians to get dirt on hillary clinton that they delivered polling data, they lied about that meeting. those are all things which evidence certainly wrongdoing. it may not rise to the level of a crime that can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, but this report will detail lots of things we would all condemn, want to prevent, discourage people from doing in terms of facilitating, encouraging, or not discouraging or not

reporting a foreign adversary attacking our democracy. >> i think it would affect the voter if they knew this was going on? >> absolutely. >> going to the voting booth if all this crap had come out back then and the average joe and jane said, wait a minute, are we voting for this independent person or someone who's working hand in glove with the russians? different question, different identity. thank you, everyone. david corn, my friend. barbara mcquade. david's book is coming out, russian roulette. >> paper back a few months from now. it's coming. >> coming up the conspiracy theories to the chief. that would be the president. he's at it again. >> all of the current and former officials who paid for, promoted, and perpetuated the single greatest hoax in the history of politics in our country. they have to be, i'm sorry, they have to be accountable.

[ chanting ] >> trump's performance last night showed us what we have in store for the next two years, don't you think? with friends like these, president trump pulled the rug out from under his own education secretary, betsy devos after she announced plans to eliminate funding for the special olympics yesterday. trump said he had overridden her and will fund it after all. a nice guy and he's so bad. as betsy devos' predecessor under president obama said, that must be the sound of a bus going over you. we have a lot more on that one tonight. people that work for trump are his pratt boys. stay with us. our grandparents checked their smartphones

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the president isn't just grachgt himself for escaping criminal charges in the wake of the attorney general's summary. he's condemning the fact there was an investigation at all. he seized on the information to push his own narrative to push a deep state conspiracy. in a rally in michigan last night, the president whipped up the crowd with vindictive rhetoric. >> the collusion delusion is over. the russia witch hunt was a plan by those who lost the election to try and illegally regain power by framing innocent americans, in thmany of them, wn elaborate hoax. >> sick, sick, these are sick people. >> they spied on me. they spied on our campaign. the democrats have to now decide whether they will continue

defraudling the public with this bullshit. their fraud has been exposed and the credibility of those who push the hoax is forever broken. and they've now got big problems. >> there's a word i don't think lincoln ever used. anyways, "the new york times" put it it was a calculated show of outrage by a president who decided to seize on the russia investigation to frame his ordeal as a conspiracy by his rivals to delegitimize him. joining is elina maxwell. let's talk about pr messaging. what's he up to in the next couple of days and has already been up to that he won't be able to do in two or three weeks? your thoughts? >> i look at this situation almost like the track and field runner that's running down the home stretch and they put their arms over their head and then they're crossed at the finish line. i feel like this feels like a

prematurity victory lap, and i say that, chris, because the president doesn't -- apparently doesn't know what's in this report. we have four-pages of 64 words neatly parsed. and they don't say what the president is articulating. it doesn't say mueller found no collusion. it says it didn't establish there was a crime committed that could be prosecuted. the american public for the past week has been spinning along with the white house and this has been an intentional pr strategy and frankly, it worked. but this afternoon bill barr, obviously, for whatever reason, we don't know all that went on in the background, but clearly wanted to come out and clarify that his report was not to stand in place of the mueller report. and i think donald trump maybe did not get that memo. >> well, david, she caught me with the idea, the visual of the president of the united states, this particularly one running a 100-yard dash. i don't think that would be his event. might be something else. riding in a golf cart i think is

his event. what do you think about the timing here? i think it's a timing issue. remember george w. said he was president and then they had to go back over for months in the recount. this poor guy al gore is just a whiner. just because he established early on he won. this stuff works. >> we're going to hear a lot more of it. first, let's establish because it's a day that ends in why the president's behavior is disgusting and unbecoming of a president. the rhetoric he uses. that being said, i think what he is doing right now, he's on what i call a vind indicating and victimization tour. he's going out to his base saying, see, i told you. the swamp and the elites are out to get me. in his mind it's broken because they're out to get him. for those who opposite the

president, the wiser course here is not to play on his field. don't take the bait. yes, let's demand transparency from bill barr. let's see if barr's covering up something. don't take his bait on this collusion fight. let's focus on the fact that donald trump tried to take away health care. he's putting kids in cages and he's passing tax bills that favor the wealthy because we know that those are the issues that matter more at the ballot box. fight on that field. don't take the president's bait in this case. >> you think you can shift that 14 or 15% that's going to decide the next election away from this sense that they, the resenters, have been the victims? do you think you can shape that perception they have that they've been screwed by the liberal establishment, the democratic and republican establishment and they put trump in there for that reason to screw back at them? you think you can change that topic with them? >> i don't think you can. the grievance politics of donald trump will always be there. it's the very core of his base. the question is are there enough

within that constituencies to get him elected and what we saw is the answer is no. and remarkably in media -- and i'm guilty as well. we talk a lot about russia. what we saw is voters vote based on health care and taxes and immigration and other issues. >> on multiple occasions this week the president accused his opponents of treason. let's watch that. >> already a lot of people out there that have done some very, very evil things, very bad things. i would say treasonous things against your country. >> it was treason. it was really treason. if the republican party had done this to the democrats, if we had done this to president obama, you'd have 100 people in jail right now and it would be treason. it would be considered treason and that'd be in jail for the rest of their lives. >> we can never allow these treasonous acts to happen to another president. this was an attempted takeover of our government. >> did you see the tyrannical

aspect? first of all, he goes to his fbi director in the first months he's in office and says i want personal loimt. we know the history of that. personal loyalty you from as attorney general. and now he's saying any attack on him by the press, by anyone is treasonous as if he is the state. he is the country. >> he definitely envies dictators, envies that style of leadership. he wants to be the one and only person. he said at the convention i alone can fix this. he does something very strategic because he understands media. giving him credit here. the one thing he gets is how the media works, how headlines work. and so i remember, chris, when steve bannon joined the campaign in 2016 and hillary clinton did a speech talking about the so-called alt-right and white nationalism and donald trump that same day called hillary clinton a racist. and so the headlines were candidates trade barbs over racism. >> she's racist against -- how

can a white person be racist against white people? >> that's a good question but it doesn't matter in terms of the substance. the point is that donald trump essentially uses the words and phrases and descriptions of the opponents that are attacking him. i am not personally saying anything that donald trump has done is treasonous, but that language, even steve bannon described some of the behavior that way in fire and fury. i think this is a strategic move to use this word early so future headlines are simply candidates trade accusations of treason. when instead what we really should be focusing on is the thing david corn was talking about in the last segment, which is those behaviors that may not rise to the level of a crime that you could prove in court but that may be unpatriotic and disloyal to the country and the constitution and the oath he swore. >> let me go back to david. this will get me in trouble, but nancy pelosi is probably the

smartest politician in washington and her only rival is trump, crazy as a fox, but wily. she decided months ago, don't focus on impeachment. get away from it. talk about health care issues, like you were saying, and other key issues to the democratic constituency. why did she do that? because she saw what happened to bill clinton. they impeached him and the he looked really good afterwards and the republicans looked terrible for kbreechg him. could trump be try doing the same thing saying i want the democrats paid the way the republicans paid for going after clinton. turn it on them, make them look stinky pie as the republicans day to day back in '9. your thoughts? >> he certainly is which is why nancy pelosi -- and i've questioned her decisions but she's made the exact right decisions based on a political calculation. i do think in terms of the institution, the speaker has an obligation to visit whether or

not trump being named in the scion sdny in that case already entered into judgment demands on impeachment investigation, that's not to say he should be impeached. she's making the right calculation. what it shows is the president is constitutionally and historically incompetent and speaks to a sociopathy and a man who always has to play the victim. it's how he keeps his base in line and keeps going every day. >> up next, president trump's once again threatening to shut down the southern border unless mexico, the government of mexico, stops all undocumented immigrants from trying to before the u.s. we're back in a minute. any one. any one. why accept it from your allergy pills? flonase relieves your worst symptoms including nasal congestion, which most pills don't. flonase helps block 6 key inflammatory substances.

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we're going to have a border or we're not. and when they lose control of the border on the mexico side, we just close the border and we have a very powerful border. >> they come over here, we're going to apprehend them and close the border. that's not been done to the extent i've been doing it because i mean it and i'll close it for a a long time. as far as trade is concerned, that's okay because mexico, frankly, has been very well with trade and the united states. >> i'm telling you right now we will close the damn border.

>> welcome back to "hardball." president trump has made a habit of threatening to shut down the border without actually doing it. this week faced with a dhs report that over 75,000 migrants passed the border in february, the highest in 12 years, the president threatened to close the border once again, but this time he put a date on it. next week. he wrote if mexico doesn't immediately stop all illegal immigration, i will be closing it, the border or large sections of the border next week. while in florida, the president was asked if he was serious about the threat. >> would you close the border to trade? >> mexico is making absolutely a fortune with the united states. mexico, they make so much money from the united states and so many other things, so many other assets, they have to grab it and they have to stop it. >> according to "the washington post," closing ports of entry would wreak economic havoc, costing nearly $2 million in

commerce between the u.s. and mexico. sources have told nbc news that officials in the white house have pushed back on the idea of closing the borders, noting it would hurt commerce and lead the legal challenges. i'm joined by jacob soboroff. you're the audience's expert now. what is different about what's going on right now that might justify something being done, not closing the border, but something? >> we should be really clear, chris. like during the obama administration, we're seeing a legitimate surge of families coming to the southern bored, and those numbers are at record highs. the numbers across the board of people crossing are not at record highs. but the groups of families coming in are at record highs. but the idea that the president is pushing, which is closing ports of entry would solve that problem or at least help alleviate that problem is not accurate. if you talk to people who are dealing

with with migrants who cross the border every single day. would do what this administration is already doing. stop people from illegally -- legally claiming asylum at the ports and further exacerbate the problem because these folks would move towards the places that are having the most trouble right now, and that is in between ports of entry. so the idea that closing the ports would help is bizarre quite frankly. it's only going to make the problem worse. >> i was reading the paper the other day. have we're so overloaded in the detention areas that are awful to look at and certainly to live in. they're letting people applying for migrant status or asylum to just come into the country out any restraint. that what's going on now? >> they use the phrase catch and -- >> is it true? >> yes, it's possible to come in to the country and get released. by the department of homeland security and customs and border protection. it's not that they don't know who you are. they obviously take that information into account and you go through an initial credible

hearing once you cross the border, but you're not going to go into i.c.e. detention. the homeland security secretary asked congress in a letter for the ability to indefinitely detain migrant families to seek asylum until their immigration hearings are done and again quite frankly people who deal with the migrants say that is an inhumane way to deal with people who come legitimately seeking asylum. that's why they separated families, in order to try to force that change in the asylum process. it didn't work then and i don't think it's going to work now. >> what would a normal president be doing right now about this surge? democrat or republican? >> the obama administration did have a surge and they were forced to confront an unpleasant situation. thousands of unaccompanied migrant children coming into the country who were detained in situations like we saw at the texas border under those blanket and you have to figure out what to do with the children. in this case get them in the custody health and human

services if they're unaccompanied and make sure they have space for those children. with families, the administration wants to turn around the unaccompanied children instead of letting them stay. it's a matter of resources. if you have enough immigration judges, enough officials to process the asylum claims at the ports of entry, you wouldn't not be seeing the number of people crossing in between ports of entry that you are seeing today. all you have to do is look at the numbers. that's just a fact. jacob, you're great. jacob soboroff reporting to us from los angeles. but he's the border expert. up next, president trump says he had to override his people, his people to restore federal funding for the special olympic. he threw somebody under the bus. it's not the first time he blindsided a cabinet member. leading to confusion who speaks for this administration day-to-day? who's talking?

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i'm glad you're education secretary. are you? >> i am indeed. >> good. >> yes, most days i am. >> most days. not this week. welcome back to "hardball." that was education secretary betsy devos early today in washington. it was a tough week for her as she defended the trump administration's plan to eliminate all federal funding for the special olympics. every dollar. and yesterday faced a grilling from illinois senator dick durbin. >> did you personally approve -- i think a yes or no will do, the $18 million cut of the funding for special olympics? >> no, i didn't personally get involved in that. >> i want to tell you, whoever came up with that idea at omb gets a gold medal for insensitivity. >> let's not use disabled children in a twisted way for your political narrative.

that is just disgusting and shameful. >> what? a few hours later president trump seemingly pulled the rug out from her with this major 180. >> the special olympics will be funded. i heard about it this morning. i have overridden my people. we're funding the special olympics. >> i'm overriding my people. in a statement released just minutes after the president spoke, devos came back with this. watch this line. i am pleased and grateful the president and i see eye-to-eye on this issue and that he has decided to fund our special olympics grant, our. this is funding i have fought for behind the scenes over the last several years. she stuck it back at him. but president trump's blind siting is far from his most egregious treatment of a cabinet official. all that is coming up next. is t

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they're tool free and they hold strong. oh, rustic chic! an arrow angled to point at rustic chic. hmm, may i be honest here? let's take that down, damage free, with a stretch, remove... and look: no marks, no mess. like a pro. command. do. no harm. welcome back to "hardball." president trump may have undercut education secretary betsy devos by reversing course this week on cuts to special olympics. he zeroed it out originally, but devos is far from the first cabinet official president trump's thrown under the bus. you may remember when rex tillerson told reporters the u.s. was in direct communication with north korea back in september of '17. the very next day the president tweeted i told our wonderful secretary of state that he's wasting his time trying to

negotiate with little rocket man. save your energy, rex. we'll do what has to be done. like he's a dog. this isn't nice. this isn't nice. devos, whatever you think of her. >> trump has had a skeptical view of devos for a while now. he's nicknamed her to aids. >> what's her name? >> ditzy devos is what he's called her. he has a hard time also sort of allowing officials to do stuff. he didn't want rex to do the negotiating because he wanted to do it. he didn't want to let the faa announce they were grounding the planes because he wanted to do it. there's a report today he didn't allow the troops in the field in syria who say they erased the isis caliphate. he ran out and announced it it. in terms of having a cabinet and

empowering people, he has never done that. history the one who wants to take credit and he's very quick to get upset with people when they do things that generally come back to him via television. when people make news that's negative, which is what happened in this case, he comes out and says, i'm overriding that person. >> i'm thinking of who's really responsible for the initial statement they're going to get rid of funding for special olympics. that's usually the pod person in charge of that pod that covers education. makes these decisions at omb. their cabinet secretaries say make the cuts. and i just wonder whether devos, i don't know who made the call. someone said among the cuts cut out one of the most popular programs in the country. >> zero line, like no funding. and she came out and said, well, i didn't do this. who did? someone in the white house. which means trump in some way knew this was happening. they would not send their

secretary of education, i don't believe, then again it is this white house, out there to defend something that the public would be in complete outrage over. and just a tyrannical form of governance. >> you're on to something. >> he has to be the leader. he has to be the one on the world stage making all of these decisions, no one can be smarter than him. on the campaign trail he said i'll hire the best people. what have we seen? i don't think we've dean the best but people who he undermines and that's a dangerous way to govern. he has a complete lack of confidence in those he hires and that should give us as americans a very, i think, troubling picture of what is going on. >> you didn't vote for trump. >> no, i did not. >> let me ask you about what he's also done. this man against the machine. this image he does, very good at this iconic imagery. i'm not just a republican, i'm against all government.

i'm against all these people. they're all a bunch of app ra apparatcuks. she's another functionary out to get me. >> there's something of a self-fulfilling pross si whephe you're basically lyinging all the time so the media is always fact-checking you and say the immedia media is negative about me. that's what we see from this president all the time. >> he trolling us. >> when you have no process in the white house, you have a lot of things that happen that -- they wouldn't happen in a better functioning white house and the president sort of benefits from this because there are always these crises and he comes out, creates the crises and then says he's going to solve it so whether it's imposing tariffs, starting a trade war whenever he gets a deal he'll say i fixed

it. separating families at the border and say now we're not doing that, look, i fixed it. he's claiming last night at this rally in michigan that he's getting -- that he's going to do the funding for the great lakes cleanup and doing all these thing, the special olympics. he said last night don't let any of the democrats take the credit for funding this thing. they wanted to do it for a long time. they haven't done it. that's the inverse of what's true. they've actually been doing it for a long time and he's just trying to take the credit. >> nbc news learned the president and his altitude mexico supported a court decision that would destroy the affordable care act over the objections of vice president pence and even his attorney general bill barr isn't on this one. axios reports it is standard operating procedure. quote, president trump has constantly and publicly tormented his fed chair, jay powell, ditto jeff sessions and the intelligence community. these people must really get mad

at him at night. i imagine him going home at night talking to their spouses about it. >> imagine kellyanne conway. >> it is an abusive relationship in some of these. i do not understand why some of these people would stake their entire career on this white house. i mean, i can't make sense of that. now, to another extent, though, we can go through the list, john kelly, sarah sanders, rex tiller son. he does whatever he wants and he does not care who is in his way because no one is in his opinion. again, it's a dangerous way to govern but his supporters eat it up. they think everybody is in his way. >> what happens -- >> enemy number one. >> you're a politico strategist. what happens when he dumps mike pence for nikki haley because he's facing a woman candidate? is that loyalty? >> in my opinion it would not be smart of her to be on that ticket and everyone always says, well, she is so savvy in how she

handles it and came out unscathed in this administration which is pretty neat in my opinion, however, she goes against trump in any way or she forges her own path, he will throw her to the curb. so the fact that mike pence has stayed, he's got to ride it out. >> quick enough with loyalty to drop pence like a bad habit and put in somebody that will get him pennsylvania or wisconsin. thank you, eli. ashley, you know a lot. disturbing new details about the killing of journalist -- this is a gory story -- khashoggi. we're getting new details from david ignatius about this, it's really frightening stuff. stick around. it's important to know. ♪

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there's some really disturbing new details about the killing of the "washington post" columnist jamal khashoggi. it's contained in a report just posted by his colleague david ignatius. "the washington post" reports there's evidence his killers first hoped to take him back to saudi arabia. it comes from a saudi transcript of audio recording of the killing itself. you're coming back with used leader demands, no, i have people outside waiting for me, khashoggi insists. you're coming. the when a bag is then placed over khashoggi's head he calls out, i can't breathe. i have asthma. don't do this. well, that is how it ended. that is what was done to a

journalist who dared speak out for freedom in his own country. "the post" contains chilling details. after his death the transcript describes a buzzing noise perhaps from an electric saw has his body was cut into pieces this. is all just six months ago. and what has been the trump administration's response to it all? one is the business as usual meeting here in washington yesterday between secretary of state mike pompeo and saudi prince khalid bin salman. that is the younger brother considered responsible for khashoggi's death. "the post" says it was khaled that lured him into that consulate where the murderers were waiting for him. as for further assurance life goes on between the two countries, the u.s. confirmed rick perry has authorized an export of nuclear energy technology and services to saudi arabia. meanwhile, mohammed bin salman enjoys, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and that's

"hardball." coming up next, congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez sits down with chris hayes. that starts right now. america prides itself in doing big things, stretching a railroad across the continent, storming the beaches of normandy, landing a man on the moon, building highways and the infrastructure for the internet. our politics today seem incapable of producing change on that scale. we face a civilizational challenge right now and the clock is ticking. if we don't radically transform our economy away from fossil fuels in the next decade, we're courts climate catastrophe. >> we're facing a national crisis. this is about american lives. >> the green new deal is a vision for reinventing american