joining us now is white house communications director jen psaki. like to straighten out the signal here in terms of why our ships are there and do they have orders that if in fact, they're concerned about these weapons in transfer can they take action? >> let's not get ahead of where we are at this moment in time. we have ships in the region for a purpose. there's a troubling history we've seen in terms of iranian support for the houthis in yemen. that's something we're closely monitoring with the international community. i don't have a new assessment for you today. obviously that's something we work behind the scenes. we don't frequently talk about publicly. >> we're confused because over the last couple of days people in the pentagon senior defense military officials have said the warships were sent there to prepare the intercept the iranian ships. then you have marie harf over at the state department saying they are not there to intercept the iranian ships. which one is it? >> well, listen, we always have contingency plans, that's what the unite

. >> today marie harf former boss jen psaki at the white house was asked about the remarks.r didn't provide much clarification. >> we always have contingency plans. that is what the united states does. we have the best military in the world but we also don't get ahead of predicting or laying out what we may or may not do. we're watching this closely. we're monitoring this closely. we have a range of abilities but we're not going to predict what will happen. >> well, so, you know, i guess this is a mixed message but we're at a delicate point andrea with negotiations with iran right now. at the same time we have to keep the strait open. at the same time we have leader not so tacitly supporting our allies saudi arabia and yemen is embroiled in pretty much a proxy war over there now. so it's a mess. so can you really blame the state department and white house for not having a clearer message on this when dealing with some balls up in the air? >> this is not the first time they have been sing off different song sheets and i do think it is a bit of a problem. if we're going to sen

>> i'm good. >> we're going to be asking jen psaki about yemen.e negotiations and the framework going on. do you think that's going to hold? >> i obviously they want it to hold. i don't know. this has been the trickiest part of the entire iran deal right? it's not just that here we are actively potentially in a hot military confrontation with them. i mean at least now saudi arabia is saying that they're done with their air campaign, but their air campaign was being supportedgistically by the united states and at the same time we're supposed to cut a deal with them and convince the american public you can trust them on this deal. it adds to the political kept schism that this deal -- that iran will hold up this end of the bargain. that's the problem. >>> joining us now, director of communications at the white house, jen psaki. >> good morning. >> would you agree we that, jen? there's already a lot of skepticism for this framework. lack of trust as iran being a fair player in this now you have this yemen intervention. >> well, mika, as the saying go

bill: jen psaki refusing to say exactly what the ships are doing. >> the u.s.e clear the iranian supports of the houthis is unacceptable. i'm not going to lay out what actions will or will not be taken. that would be irresponsible. bill: explain nuts big picture why are folks talking past each other? >> the great shiia-sunni civil war has come to the united states. we are not shooting bullets but we are shooting words. you have got an amazing disagreement between the pentagon and the kerry and administration chasing this nuke deal and unicorn notion that we can have a grand reconciliation with iran. so what you have got basically is the pentagon trying to hold together the old alliances and the -- the administration just abandoning them and pressure can the saadiess to stop their bombing campaign against the iranian-backed houthis because the administration doesn't want to do anything to alienate iran to the point where it's now doing iran's bidding. bill: if we are worried about surface-to-air missiles going into yemen are we willing to stop that? it doesn't a

jen psaki said on "fox this morning" we're not sure if they confront them.fleet of ships there, including the uss roosevelt. now the iranians responded by sending more ships themselves. i think the iranianian iranians have no fear of fighting in yemen. am i wrong? >> yeah. i don't think so. here's why. a woman speaking for the defense department isn't the department of defense. we got rules of engagement. but have been good to bad for 14 years. i don't think we got warships out there to let them pass into yemen. yemen is a failed state. iran has turned out to be a super power in the middle east. we can't allow this. but at the same time that that ship is there to allegedly block access to yemen, we're given 10 to $50 billion back to iran. it's a terrorist nation for a new deal we would not, i don't believe we will put navy guys in harm's way in the middle without aggressive rules of engagement. they won't allow those iranian ships to come into yemen. i don't think they will. >> they will in a fired shot. the iranians are sending warships themselves if i can,

let's bring in white house communications director jen psaki. d morning. >> how does that title sound to you? white house communications director. >> it's pretty exciting. it's great to be back at the white house. and obviously it's a beautiful day here. so looking forward to you know engaging over the next year and a half. >> well congratulations on your new position. >> thank you. >> it's great to have you there. so honeymoon over. let's get to all of the tense topics. >> i thought it would be short, alisyn but go ahead. >> just a few seconds. all right. we need to talk about what's going on in yemen and what saudi arabia has put out this statement that frankly seems hard to believe this morning. i mean they put it out with their partners including the u.s. and basically they are saying mission accomplished in yemen. they're saying they've accomplished all of their military objectives. how can that be true when we see the chaos on the ground in yemen? >> well, alisyn i think there's a few important things to remember. one is that we support our

fox news confirms pentagon spokesperson admiral john kirby will replace jen psaki as state department't get the job. >>> check out the big board stocks, meandering the dow up 39 points in that range all day long. oil continues to flat. no effects from middle east tensions that continue to ratchet higher. gas was up overnight to $2.47 a gallon. the price of regular is up the past eight days. >>> yesterday we told you about migrant boat that capsized in the mediterranean, 27 people were rescued out of some 900 passengers. prosecutors have arrested the captain and a crew member. joining us is one of our favorite europeans veronique. they know if they can get there, they are home free. we talked about the military things that may be forcing them out of countries. these are interesting enticement drawing them as well. >> i think you are right for the immigrants who leave their countries for economic reason and though the fact that many of them go to germany and sweden, where the economic conditions are better than italy or even france it tells me that actually they're willing to work and t

. >> we had jen psaki who is a communications direct for the white house yesterday.granting special status to on daka she said this. >> we look into the backgrounds of individuals. i don't have more details on this particular case. overall, the overarching purpose of daka was to put more people on pay rolls, to put more people paying taxes. >> to put more people on the pay rolls, to have more people pay taxes. to get more voters some might say. we thought -- didn't you, that the government was looking into the backgrounds of the people we're allowing to stay? >> well no. i never believed that because i've done a lot of research into what's been going on. you would think that would be the case. you know when you talk about a background check, how do you do a background check on somebody you have no idea he or she is. you have no idea where they came from but you're going to go a background check? you don't know what they did in their country of origin. here's a perfect example of this. it's not just this guy, they're admitting to at least 20 others. they did a backgro