our white house correspondent kristin welker has the dollar and cents. >> reporter: tonight, triggering a trade war. the u.s. announcing harsh taxes on steel and aluminum imports, now the retaliation from some of america's closest allies already underway. mexico vowing to slap fees on american pork, fruit and steel. europe threatening tariffs on everything from whisky and motorcycles to denim and cigarettes and a dollar for dollar response and calling the u.s. move an affront. >> in particular an afront to the thousands of canadians who have fought and died alongside their american brothers in arms. >> reporter: and now, u.s. consumers and businesses bracing for impact. >> it could lead to higher prices on everything from beer to automobiles and that could mean job cuts at some companies. >> reporter: brent bible is a soybean and corn farmer in indiana whose products are sold in all of the targeted countries. bible supports the president but not this latest move. >> the farmer is being drafted as a soldier in the trade war. we're not really being given any weapon to use on the front lin

. >> kristin welker at the white use. thank yo >> thanks. >>> it is 6:49 right now.esults are in and the field is now set for the vember d-term election in virginia. voters in the commonwealth cast primary lots in the yesterday. we have full results on the nbc washington app. d.c. andls maryland have primaries coming up at the end of this month. district voters wil head to the poles on june 19th. maryland's primary is jun 26th >>> we have new information about the gas station explosion just outside of philadelphia. crews have pulled back efforts to find a worker missing for more than 12 hours now. theyre now calling it a recovery mission. the blast happened when two men worked on an underground tank. firefighters pulled one man to safety. he's in critical condition now. they say it's too risky to go underground. crews plan to search again though later owtoday. >>>o an update about the dancing fbi agent whose gun went off inside of a denver area nightclub. video of that incident you might recall went viral earlier this month. his gun falling out at that point after he

. >> kristin welker. to recap. justice anthony krend age 81 has decided to retire on this last day of the supreme court term. his resignation is effective the 31st of july. we'll have much more throughout the day on msnbc and nbc news.com and a wrap up tonight on nbc "nightly news" with lester holt. i'm david guerra, nbc news, new york. >>> our midday flews cast will continue in just a moment as well. we'll take a look at that forecast. >> we'll be right back. tomorrows coming to the south bay. what to know if you )re going to see him... or just trying to avoid a traffic headache. plus - rebate runaround. the appliance help one shopper needed - to get the reward he was promised. )today in the bay. ) 4:30 to 7. >>> we have been talking about the weather. warm, cool, warm, now cool. >> i'm just trying to make everybody happy. >> you're doing a good job. >> okay. you can still just drive a short distance to get the weather you like. we'll still have a wide range heading into the weekend. it is cool and if you are in h

joining us is kristin welker at the white house. roberta jacobson was the assistant secretary for this entire region. i want to fact check a lot of what the president said. you've lived this. you just were most recently in mexico but you dealt with a whole region for decades. the fact is there was no policies that required until it was ordered by the attorney joajoa general. >> first of all, thanks for having me. i think the important thing is when people keep talking about there being no policy of separating children, when you create a zero tolerance policy and you arrest every single person who crosses the boarder without documentation, then what results is the separation of families. it was absolutely predictable and whether you want to call it your intention or unintended consequence, it's predictable and that's what happened. when the previous administration faced unaccompanied children crisis or surge in 2014, many of these dilemmas were confronting that administration too. these were very difficult decisions. nobody considere

kristine welker is watching that twitter account. kristen, after we saw the lawmakers go to the white house 18 hours ago, now they're coming to here. they're coming to talk zte and china. it seems like it will be virtually impossible for immigration not to come up here. >> reporter: it seems like it would be impossible, pally. we're talking about 20 minutes mostly from the arms services committee. this is the topic that serve talking about in washington and frankly across the country so it's hard to believe that this wouldn't be a topic as well. and we know that republican lawmakers are getting concerned that this will have a political impact in the midterms. this is something they want to see end as quickly as possible. president trump, though, continues to dig in showing no signs of backing down or reversion his zero tolerance tosy. -- policy. let me read you a couple of his tweets from earlier today to give you a sense of his thinking. blaming the media and democrats, the fake news is not mentioning the safety and security of our

w nbte house correspondent, kristin welker, has the latest. >> reporter: good morning to you. former attorn, and will he cooperate with federal prosecutors? that's the questn. th president's current attorney, rguiliani, turning down the heat saying i have no informatio cohen is going to flip, ando there's information regarding the president so therefore i'm not concerned. investigators are still reviewing documents they seized from coh a's office residences in that dramatic fbi raid back in april. rn star stort before the 2016 election. the president tweeted in april that he doesn't think cohen will flip. mr. trump, just back from his trip to singapore, has no public events today. >> kristen, thanks. >>> the national weather service has sent >>> the national weather service investigating severe damage from a possible tornado. police and fire tweet from across t s regiont the evening checking for victims, lookingor gas leaks. so far they only reported minor injuries. >> now toig news in the enterta entertaimcent world. t is making a $65 billion cash offer for 21st centy fox. th

kristin welker with the latest. morning to you. after landing this morning the president said it was a hr great days, and tweeted there's no longer a nuclear threat from north korea. the sales pitch now under wayn air force one, the president spoke with the leaders of south korea a japan. vicee resident mpence tried to rally lkepticalawmakers on tuesda while north korea admitted to complete denuclearization of the peninsula. mr. trump offered a major concession that stunned allies and the pentagon, halting yearly joint exercises with south korea. the administration touting all of this as a critical first step in a long process. >> thank you. >>> house republicans reached an agreement last night to vote on two different gop immigration bills next week. moderates andat conserves were agreeing to the support. difference is overboarder security. the fate of undocumented dreamers brought to the state as children.ew >> big this morning. world cup soccer is returning to the unite states. fifa voted this morning toward the 2026 world cup t

kristin welker with details on that. >> reporter: good morning to you. the fbi director and justice department's inspector general facing tueghions about the 500-page report that blasted james comey and the inspector general m cinglear his work is not finishedet. fbi director christopher ray. >> the report makes clear that we higeficant work to do, and as i said, we are going to learn from the report and better as a result. >> testifying before the senate judiciary committee on monday, michael horowitz said there was no political biainsidehe fbi to tilt the election to hillary clinton or donald trump, still rae cticized james comey for breaking protocol. >> horowitz acknowledging the conduct of one agent wcould hav cast a shadow. >> we found the implication to beeeply troubling. >> despite president trump's claim the report exonerates him in the russia investigation. >> there was collusion. report to show that. >> reporter: the inspector solution. report did not address that. we d not look into collusion questions. >> reporter: as the president continues

kristin welker is in canada. >> reporter: president trump has spent this morning escalating his war of words with the very leaders he's going to meet with today. some of america's oldest and closest allies. before leaving, making headlines on a range of hot button topics. president trump speaking out before the g-7 summit. >> i may leave a little bit early. it depends on what happened here. >> reporter: on everything from tariffs. >> we have massive trade deficits with almost every country. >> reporter: to preparing for his meeting with kim jong-un. >> i've been preparing all my life. i always believe in preparation. but i've been preparing all my life. >> reporter: to pardons. >> i'm thinking about muhammad ali. in fact, we're doing right now recommendations. >> reporter: during the more than 20 minute off the cuff q&a with reporters, the president spoke out about reports breaking overnight that a long time staffer was arrested on charges of lying to investigators about leaking classified information. >> it's very interesting that they caught a leaker. and a very important -- it's a v

let's go to kristin welker. instigator for him, kristin? >> it could be, chuck, and certainly when you look at the range of pardons he's granted so far, one of the inferences is he trying to send a signal to martin. the president has pushed back against that but you certainly have to think that is a possibility. chuck, when he was asked about this earlier today during that remarkable scrum on the white house north lawn, he did try to downplay the length of time he served on the campaign calling it a short period of time. but it was a critical period of time, and paul manafort was his campaign chair, so it's increasing difficult to do that. thesident steppin up his attacks agast special counsel mueller particularly in the wake of the doj reported we got yesterday that was sharply critical of former fbi director james comey. the president today pressed on whether he's going to suspend robert mueller. that's something that his attorney rudy giuliani said has happened. he said no and he doesn't have plans to do that

then she followed up when kristin welker said, you are releasing the pictures to the government, yourdn't know and i will look into it. so, the answer we have gotten so far is a pitiful picture of a bunch of teens, a handful of teens seen from behind their backs sitting in an auditorium and one baby. what we are trying to follow here and the question, to repeat it again, for those who don't hear the questions that americans want the answers to and certainly the press does, where the girls, apparently 2300 kids in qstion who have been separated from their parents. where are the babies and exactly how are you going to keep track of these children and reunite them with their families. they are very simple questions. >> simple questions and what's interesting is the noise machine that is churned up against those who are trying to get those answers, you said this morning, we all said, we would love for ivanka trump to get under the border and make a difference. >> there are articles criticizing ivanka. >> she is being attacked again on fox news website. it's like, it's really in realtime,

welker has been working overtime. kristen, i know you just spoke to this individual just a moment ago. yesterday, you asked kristin nielsen over and over where are these toddlers, where are these young girls? and why she has almost 12,000 children under her care, she didn't have an answer. what are the answers today? because we're here in texas and we're looking for them. >> stef, absolutely, i did speak with mercedes shlap just moments ago to start right there on what specifically the administration is going to do about this crisis and to reiterate the great points you have been making, this is a trump administration policy, that zero tolerance policy. i put that to mercedes shlap. i said, look, the president does have the authority to reverse this himself. she went back to her talking points, said, look, we want a broader solution to the immigration problem. take a listen to what she had to say. >> obviously this is a strong message that is being out there, which is if you're coming and we're simply enforcing the law. if you're coming illegally as an adult, crossing the border illegally, then you will be prosecu

now is kristen welker, white house corpse, also the author of that letter to the president, texas house speaker joe strauss and terry mcauliffe, former democratic governor of virginia. kristin, what broke the trump's back on this? >> well, i've been talking to senior administration officials. they say he has been speaking to his advisers and his family members, chris, about in this in private conversations, the first lady ivanka trump essentially saying they were very disturbed by the images at the border. and i think ultimately the personal and the political pressure just became too much. in terms of when officials here learn about it, they say they learned this morning that the president would be signing that executive order. and remember, last night, senator hatch gave him a way out, gave him this executive order idea to essentially allow him to get out of this crisis, which as you pointed out, he created by enacting that zero tolerance policy. so i think all of those factors bubbled up, chris, and that's why he made this decision. but look, the political pressure has been mounting for days. you and i have been talking about this, this is a former reality tv star who kno