steve rattner? >> hey, chrystia. >> hi, steve!>> a big piece of our debate at the moment is over trade. you and i had a conversation about this literally two or three days ago. so here you are as a minister of trade watching us debate the merits of free trade and the impact of free trade on the average american. so how do you as a trade minister think both canada, the u.s., all developed countries should balance these issues? >> well, look, one message that i have and i think we have here today and one reason we're so excited about the state visit is it's an opportunity to talk to americans about one political relationship and one economic relationship, which i think is tremendously fruitful and that we don't think about that much and that is the relationship between canada and the united states. you know, we exchange $2.5 billion of goods and services across our border everyday. canada is the biggest trading partner for 35 u.s. states, nine million american jobs depend directly on exports to canada. so we have a great, healthy, f

steve rattner has some charts to better explain the role trade is playing in this election, how bernie donald trump are benefitting. steve, what have you got? >> just to start with the polls. to start from your exit poll numbers about the benefits of trade, and trump won those voters is basically the bottom line, both in ohio, a state he lost, as well as in north carolina. he did extremely well among those voters and so did bernie sanders. so they are appealing to people who feel trade is hurting us. but let's look at both sides of trade and start with the benefits of trade because trade does help the country as a whole. i don't think most economists would disagree with that. estimating the benefits is a little bit hard but there are numbers around the $300 billion to $500 billion range, putting that into perspective, that's about -- that could be as much as a thousand, the two thousand dollars for every american that they're better off because there is a trade. we have a huge number of jobs tide to trade. 20% of all jobs relate to trade and it's not just in things you might think abou

steve rattner is here with some charts to help fill in the blanks on that. america. but i think we're also going to go back and fill in blanks on some of the points richard was making at the beginning of the show and also i think elise maybe connect dots on why ted cruz is saying some of the stuff he's saying. but one of the things that i think we mentioned earlier that's worth noting is that the u.s. has quite a small muslim population, only about 1% of our country. and you compare that to what's going on in europe where you have belgium at 6% of the country, france at 7.5% and so on. so we have a relatively small muslim population and the other point that should be made is that our muslim population came from something like 77 different countries. n a very disparate way unlike in europe where algerians tended to go to france, moroccans to the netherlands and so on so you maintain these communities as they are. >> it also tended to happen gradually rather than in these short bursts like from algeria in france or syria in europe. over much more time so it was

former treasury official and "morning joe" economic analyst steve rattner. the council on foreign relations, richard haass. managing editor of bloomberg politics, mark halperin. and in washington, msnbc political analyst and former chairman of the republican national committee, michael steele, along with willie and me. good to have you on board. we have a lot to get to today. another busy news morning. we'll go live to brussels in just a momwh

. >> steve rattner. >> europe has real problems getting itself together to fight the terrorism. >> mike. >> generational war we're going to be at this for decades. >> and nicolle. >> and we will be at this for another long nine months. >> erika hill picks up our coverage live from brussels right now. >>> mika, thank you. good afternoon. live from brussels i'm erika hill as we continue our coverage of the terror attacks here. just a half hour from now there will be a nationwide minute of silence to remember the 31 people who died in the bombings earlier this week. we will bring that to you when it happens. it's now been more than 48 hours since those attacks and there are more questions today than there are answers. chief among them, how many people took part in the attacks, you how many are at large and just how deep is the connection between what happened here tuesday morning and the paris attacks that left 130 people dead last fall? nbc news has learned the two brothers who took part in tuesday's attacks also aided the paris gunmen. a u.s. counterterrorism official telling nbc news on

. >> it's okay: >> treasury official "morning joe" analyst huge fan of the flat tax steve rattner. >> taxation until the economy is choked to death. >> we've only had it for a hundred years. >> who needs reform? >> and managing editor of bloomberg politics mark halperin. also joining us, moderator of "meet the press" and host of "mtp daily" chuck todd. >>> let's go to the smart political guys first and start with you, chuck todd. talk about the debate last night. what was your big take away? >> i'm still sort of shell-shocked from the beginning of it where, i guess, donald trump decided not to be so presidential there in the first part of it. look, it was a -- i think it was a tough debate for donald trump that probably has no impact on h him. i thought tommy krizanoved cruz. i thought most of it was trump debating the moderators. it was different. it wasn't -- i didn't feel like the engagement between the four was as interesting as the engagement between trump and the moderators. >> so what changes the dynamics of the race? >> well, i think john kasich had a good enough debate that i

. >> and he gets richard haass and steve rattner and others who say "i hate to say this, trump is on to something." i wouldn't go so far to say he's right on the policy. i think it's more accurate to say he gets a kernel of policy truth. >> it's more than a kernel. i'm not saying he's right about the entire hinge but just like with the border, like we need to look at our security, there should be a robust debate about the role of nato. it would not happen if it weren't for donald trump and now i think it will. >> you'll be in one of his tweets today. the congratulations, "the great mark halperin says i was right." eugene robinson joins us from washington. gene, there are two schools of thoughts when a terrorist attack like this happens during this presidential campaign about donald trump. someone that it helps him because he projects strength, he'll crush isis. the other is these are serious times and he's not the man for the job. where do you think this shakes out? >> well, i think maybe because he i guess projects strength or makes a lot of noise. to that extent it helps him certai

stephanie: joining us later, steve rattner. we do have what we already covered.e julie a check at the markets. we have the pound pretty much hanging near its highs of the session. little delay, we see the pound high -- to the higher recession. a leg up even though it is not a seeing theheless increase. the fed talking yesterday implying it wants to keep the dollar at this level -- let's see what is going on on , dovishollowing the fed by the market. you can see all three of the major average futures. you look at what happened overnight heading into the morning, we saw a mixed market in asia, strength and some of the other major market including shanghai. earlier, we saw strength the european markets as well. more of a risk off scenario happening today, look at assets that are perceived as more safe. well.s strengthening as the youths push lower to 1.8%. oil has been seeing a strong as finally we are getting a date set for a meeting of opec nations. stephanie: it certainly does not mean anything will happen. oil just creeps higher. even if something happens, you a

jonathan: steve rattner is sticking around. the opening bell is one hour and 20 minutes away.ghtly negative. down by about one point over in europe, snapping a five-day winning streak. ♪ julie: herbalife plunging even though they have trimmed clients by almost half. it says it overstated the number of new customers last year because of database errors. the company is investigating her of -- herbalife for allegations it runs a pyramid scheme. felld-quarter profits short at costco. income fell almost 9%. shoppers are not standing as much after recent declines in the stock market. estimate.ed the 4.9% goldman sachs will probably join the list of u.s. banks who agreed not to sell russian that according to a person briefed on the situation. the obama administration has urged wall street to stay away snail, saying it is counter to the u.s. strategy. stephanie: all about valeant. confirming this week it is under investigation, further spooking investors after the company can't monday's earnings call and announced plans to reduce forecast for the year. return from a two-month medical

>> joining us now to talk about all of this is the co-founder of the foreign policy initiative steve rattnert your guy, i'm sorry he was your guy. >> was my guy. what happened? bet on a long horse here? >> look, it's a political environment that no one could have anticipated. rage and anger is ruling the day and if you're someone who has a sort of a positive optimistic party expanding message that marco had it didn't have the purchase that many thought hit. >> now that it could be trump and you said terrible things about trump. >> i have. >> would you vote for trump if he's the -- >> so let me say two things. i'll try to answer your question directly. but first let me say one thing before i do that. if you look at trump's numbers so far he's getting about 40% of the vote consistently in each of these contests. that tells you there's massive resistance among the gop electorate. when mitt romney was at this stage in 2012 this exact stage he was well on the path to become nominee. he was scoring over 50% of the delegates. trump is not. it's true trump is winning but he's not winning in big numb

bush nicolle wallace and sam stein and mike barnicle and former treasury official steve rattner. and david ignatius is joining us too. david, let me start with you. we know from what the belgians have been saying over the last few days, ever since the arrest of salah abdeslam that they were anticipating the prospect that there could be a retaliatory attack, that you take one person off the table and another cell group pops up again. is this now starting to be a pattern? are you seeing this in counter-terrorism operations? >> certainly what we've seen from isis over the last year is that, as they've been hit harder in iraq and syria they have developed external attack capability, most clearly in paris last november. i was just in brussels, returned on sunday. i heard the belgian foreign minister talk about their recognition that -- with the capture of abdeslam there were multiple people in a much broader network that they were going to try to hunt down. that network clearly is what struck in this terrible attack this morning. it's clear as we look at the evidence that the tradecra