For decisions. Under the leadership of secretary shulkin, the va has steadily delivering on the president s promise to fix the broken va system. Finally, before i open it up to take your questions, as youre all very well aware, i kind of love birthdays around here, and oddly, we have quite a few of them going on. Major garrett, happy birthday. But even more importantly, its im pretty lucky. I think i have two of the best parents in the world and its my dads birthday, so happy birthday, dad. And its my nieces birthday so i get to knock out a ton of stuff today. And with that i will take your questions. Steve. Sarah, there seems to be some acrimony between the president and the republican congressional leadership. How do you repair this relationship going into the fall. I think the relationships are fine. Certainly there are going to be some policy differences but there are also a lot of shared goals and thats what were folk you had on. Were disappointed that obamacare, they failed to get it repealed and replaced, but at the same time President Trump has worked with leader mcconnell to reach out to other members and to work on those shared goals. And were going to continue to do that when the senate comes back from recess. Will the president sign any budget bill that does not include funding for the wall . Look, the president has talked pretty extensively about this. He campaigned on the wall. He won on talking about building a wall. And hes going to make sure that that gets done. And well continue to fight for that funding and ensure that it takes place. Lets not forget that there were pay lot of democrat senators that also voted for Border Security and a border fence. And hopefully some of those same individuals will talk to members in their Current Party and maybe we can get a Bipartisan Group to support that and make sure it happens, because this president is going to see it threw. John. Sarah, its my older daughters birthday too by the way. Good. Well go ahead and cover that one too. Its my understanding that when the president meets with senator mcconnell beginning september when congress is back that elask him to take another swing at repealing obamacare. At the same time a judge in new jersey has said that senator robert men nen did he see cannot come back to the senate to cast votes. How does that in combination with what the president might want the Senate Majority leaders to do on obamacare factor into the balance of power and vote count you need to get a repeal bill through . Im not sure about the specifics of that case. I know theres still ongoing judicial process taking place, so im not going to get into that. But i can tell you that the president continues to be committed to repealing and replacing obamacare and making sure that america has Good Health Care and the health care that they deserve. Happened just before the august recess. Does he really have a chance in getting it through . Look, were committed to continuing to make sure that we have the best health care we can, and if we can do that in that direction, i think thats great. If we cant, we need to look for other ways that we can make solutions. John decker. Thanks a lot, sarah. Hurricane harvey it appears to be bearing down on the southern part of the u. S. , specifically texas seems to be in its cross hairs. There is no replacement yet for general kelly at the democratic of homeland security. First question, does the president plan to name a replacement for him anytime soon . And second of all, is this problematic in terms of dealing with hurricane harvey, the fact that theres no one at the helm right now at dhs. Theres certainly someone at the helm. Acting secretary elaine duke who is watching this closely, very involved in the process along with the acting direct for for peoplea. And again, i think we are in great shape having general kelly sitting next to the president throughout this process and probably no better chief of staff for the president during the Hurricane Season and the president has been briefed and will continue to be updated as the storm progresses and certainly something hes very aware of and will keep a very watchful eye on and stands ready to provide resources if needed. Sarah, the president promised over is it over again during the campaign that mexico would pay for had the wall, so why is he now threatening a Government Shutdown if Congress Wont pay for it. Look, the president is committed to make lg sure this gets done. We know that the wall and other security measures at the border work. Weve seen that take place over the last particular aid. Were committed to making sure the American People are protected. And were going to continue to push forward and make sure that the wall gets built. Why is he threatening a shutdown over paying for it . I mean, again, as he said over and over again, he talked about it on the campaign mexico is going to pay for the wall. He asked people, crowds chanted back at him, mexico is going to pay for it. And now hes pushing, threatening a shutdown of the government. Once again, the president is committed to making sure this happens, and were going to push forward. Matthew. Thanks, sarah. About a week ago on august 17th the president again referenced a fictitious story about general pershing committing a maximum execution in the philippines. A couple of questions on had that. Does the president know that the story is false, and if so, why does he keep repeating it . And why does the white house think its appropriate for the president to perpetuate this false story if he hasnt been informed that its not true. I havent had a chance to ask him about that, so i cant speak to it. Then on the broader point, so the president is spreading false information via his twitter account that seems to encourage war time atrocities. No one in the white house has thought to i didnt say no one had. I havent had a conversation so i wasnt going to speak to something i wasnt aware of. The u. S. Has withheld funding to President Trump praised presidency i back in april back when he was here. Why the change in tone now . Look, the United States has always been committed on human rights issues. Well continue to do that. And if i have further updates ill let you know, but id encouraged you to reach out to the state department. Sarah, two questions. On the economics of a goth shut down if the wall is not paid for, the president likes to talk about how the economy is doing well under his watch. If there is a Government Shutdown, people could be laid off for a moment or some people could lose their jobs. Talk to us about economics. What does he view the economics of it with this wall for an average kmern that hes fighting for . Im not going to get into the weeds on that, but i know that the president is probably one of the strongest president s weve had on economic issues. Theres a reason that over a million jobs have been created since he took office. Theres a reason that the unemployment is at a 16year low. Theres a reason that the stock market is at an alltime high. Hes very committed to job creation, Economic Growth and hes going to continue to do that. There is a big back and forth about this hbc summit. Three of the organizations that are over top of the hbc basically represent them are saying this is not the time to have this summit because of charlottesville and the fact that some of the schools feel that they just did not get what was promised from this administration and there could be an alternate summit by a congresswoman. Talk whats going on here . Look, the hbcu summit has been going on for over 30 years. We have no intention of cancelling it. And as of right now the summit is at complete capacity with a waiting list. With that type of engagement, i think its best that we move forward. Can i see the list of schools and the names, because were hearing, i mean, from schools that are saying that theyre not coming and a lot of leaders. I can only tell you who is registered. And certainly that were at capacity for the Convention Center with a pretty lengthy waiting list in terms of whether or not we release that, id have to check on that and get back to you. What are the president s thoughts on the situation in cuba at the u. S. Embassy . We understand now that 19 americans have been injured. I know that they have been going through the process rf bringing the majority of those people back to have thorough testing and see what actions need to be taken and how best to move forward. At this point id refer you to the state department on anything further. Does the president believe that cuba is involved directly . I cant comment at this time now. Right now were under a thorough revow and as soon as we know something well let you know. The debt ceiling approval process is a mess. Is it . Is that accurate . Look, its our job to inform congress of the debt ceiling and its their job to raise it. And congress and the Previous Administration vch obligated trillions in spending and we need to make sure we pay our debts. Were still committed to making sure that gets raised. The debt ceiling bill . Yes. I was going to ask a followup question about that. The Health Attack thats going on as the secretary of state has deemed them, has the president been informed of this . Has he been briefed . Hes been briefed, but again, i think theres a thorough reviewing taking place and at this point id have to refer you to the state department for any further followup. Thank you, sarah. Im going to try a distance question for you. Utoh. Does the white house have any reaction to the ftc approving the acquisition of whole foods by amazon . Im not aware of that. Id have to check and see if theres an official administration response. Second question, i want to read the comment from senator bob corker. Im sure you have seen it over a week ago about the president saying that the president has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability nor some of the competence that he needs to demonstrate in order to be successful. He also said that hes not sure that the president understands the character of this nation. Do you have any response to that from a republican senator . I think thats a ridiculous and outrageous claim and doesnt dignify a response from this podium. Major. Just to followup on jonathans question. Since the president is going fullcourt press threatening a shutdown over the funding of the wall, does that mean he is abandoning any efforts to negotiate with mexico, any payment for construction of the wall . I certainly dont think any efforts have been abandoned. And an official happy birthday. Hold on one second. You mentioned in the opening remarks honorable and vehicle tri as the president did in afghanistan. Can you describe for the American People what both of those words mean to the president , honorable and victory, what does it look like . What does that mean . I think when he spoke on monday he laid out what the top priority was in this process and thats making americans safe and protecting the American People and moving forward with this strategy and making sure that afghanistan is never able to be used as a haven to attack the United States. I think those are certainly clear goals and part of that process. Does that mean, therefore, that u. S. Military personnel will be there as long as there is any type of terrorist activity or cell in afghanistan or pakistan . Look, i think when it comes to the strategy in afghanistan, theyre going to be focused on the conditions on the ground, which will be determined by the generals in the military on the ground and certainly through the department of defense and general mattis and his team and not arbitrary time tables. And hell be the one that can lay out those specifics for you and what that looks like. Im just asking, because youve mentioned terrorism. You mentioned threats. There are several Different Networks there, taliban, al qaeda, isis. Is the priority of this administration and the strategy that it will pursue until it is accomplished to eliminate all of those terrorist cells either afghanistan and pack tan and only then can victory be achieved and that be described as honorable . Im not going to get down into that. I think thats a question, again, best answer the by general mattis and the department of defense. What i can tell you is that the ultimate goal was a peaceful settlement between the government of afghanistan and the taliban that protects our interests and protects american lives. Thats the focus. And ill let secretary mattis determine and lay that out for you more specifically. Sarah, a followup on major about afghanistan. First of all, if what weve been doing in afghanistan has been working why are we still there and if it hasnt been working what are we planning to be doing differently moving forward. I think, again, one of the things that is different is the decision and whether or not when and mou to withdraw would be based on conditions on the ground not arbitrary time tables. And making sure that we have an integrated strategy that puts all of our american power, diplomatic, economic and military in a way thats sustainable and cost effective. And making sure we have that sbeg graifb process is a big key to this strategy. Adding troops is just prolonging the withdrawal. Is that what that is . No, again, were not doing this based on a timetable but conditions on the ground and making sure that were protecting american lives and defeating terrorists. I think that its very clear when the president laid that out on monday. Hold on. Wait. I have a second question to that. Whatever the final objective is, is it really worth the reported trillion dollars that it would cost . Isnt there anything better we might be able to spend to that. I dont think you can put a price tag on american lives. One more question on afghanistan. The president talked about putting more pressure on pakistan to play a p constructive role. But he also talked about having a Strategy Partnership with india which is pakistans prime antagonist. Why does the president think drawing closer to india will prompt the pakistanis to play a more constructive role rather than becoming more defensive and playing more into a strategy of giving harbor to extremists . We think its important that theres a regional approach, and part of that is developing and strengthening that relationship and partnership with india. Theyve been making important contributions towards afghanistans democracy and their stability, and we think its important to condition that effort. Is he seala. On this threat of the Government Shutdown if congress doesnt secure funding for this wall, how is that not a concession from this white house that mexico isnt actually going to pay for this wall and american taxpayers will . Again, this is something the president is committed to. Hes committed to protecting american lives and doing that through the border wall is something thats important. Its a priority. And were moving forward with it. Noaa. But hes not saying that mexico is going to pay for it. He hasnt said theyre not either. They have. They have. Thank you. Incompetent weve had enough outbursts from that side. The president s ban on Transgender Service in the military, how close is the white house to p sending guidance to the pentagon on that and the policy itself, how much discretion will be given to the pentagon on implementing it had . When we have an announcement on that, ill let you know and well be sure to answer those questions at that time. John giz zbli. Thank you, sarah. Two questions, please. First, beginning of may the great fan fair the president signed religious liberty executive orders. In the last few days the head of the beck ket funneled, the group that fights for religious liberty in court complained that the executive order dealing with the johnson amendment, the tax exempt status for churches, whether they deal in politics, and the Affordable Care acts contraception clause were both still being enforced in spite of the president s orders that they not be. What is the president doing about this and is he aware of these complaints . Im not sure if hes aware of the complaints or any specific places where thats being ignored. So id have to look into that. Probably talk to our friends at hhs specific to the contraception thing and get back to you. My second question is, in russia the major story there is that the the theater director, who is a wellknown figure in the russia Entertainment Industry and an opponent of the putin regime has been arrested and being tried on trumd up charges regarding his finances. There are massive demonstration. Does the administration have a comment. I cant make a statement at this time but ill circle back with you. Fred. Sorry. Youre over there. I thought i saw you in the back. Yeah. Two questions. One, given the rift with president and congress, is there an right now for Vice President having been in pengs speaking both lgsz in terms of working with congress or willing to negotiate the budget and so forth . The Vice President plays a key and pivotal role in the administration in the white house. I think hes certainly always going to be an important part of the process of moving legislation forward on whatever that circumstance is or whatever the matter is. He is probably one of the best advocates here at the white house and certainly somebody that the president has a great deal of trust in and is happy to have him on his team. Sarah, is the role elevated, though, concerning that there seems to be a rift between i think that the Vice President is the second in command, so its a pretty high role where he is and certainly, again, a key member of this administration and somebody who plays a pivotal role every single day in the white house no matter what the sirngsz are. Then sarah theres been some increased criticism from conservatives about commissioner kos kin anyone and the irs have a report came out that there were 213 employees that were rehired after committing some offenses and including some crimes. I was wondering if you can revisit about why commissioner kos kin anyone is still part of the administration and if the president has any plans putting in place to replace him when his term is up in november. When we have personnel announcement on that front, ill certainly let you know. Two questions on pards, if i could. One on sheriff arpaio. Is the president seeking a recommendation from the Deputy Attorney general or the pardon attorney or is he asking for an fbi background check in his consideration of that pardon . I would imagine they go through the thorough and standard process, and when we have an announcement on what that decision is after thats completed, well let you know. And more broadly, beyond arpaio, there are 2,200 other pardon applications pending. Does the president have any pardon policy, pardon philosophy any particular way that he would like to use his pardon power during his term in office . I havent had a specific conversation with him about that, but i know that his the white House Counsel plays a big role in that and would certainly be involved in that process and any deliberations on that. Alexis. Sarah, the president has been cleefr that in the past he wanted to get started on tax reform, but we dont say that much about it. The politico talked to a White House Correspondent and published this week that the president has an imminent announcement about tax reform of the can you describe how he wants to kickoff the Fall Campaign to get that accomplished this year and are we going to hear from him this week . Next week . What would you expect . Tax relief and the focus on tax relief for middle class americans is a huge priority for this administration. Its certainly going to be a big focus in the fall. And were going to look at a lot of different ways in which to talk about that and present that to the American People working with congress to make sure that that happens. And well keep you guys posted when there are specific announcement. I think that you can expect some of that to take place in the very short order, probably next week and following through to the fall. Sarah, its customary for president s to get annual physicals, physical exams at walter read. The president i think his last released information approximate his medical condition last fall during the campaign. Can you tell us whether the president intends to utilize the federal facilities at walter read this year to get a physical and then release that information to the public . Ill let you know if thats going to happen. Trey. On tuesday President Trump said if we have to close down our government were building that wall. Does he stand by that statement . Look, i think the president has been clear that this is a priority protecting american citizens is a priority. As ive said multiple times today hes committed to seeing that through. Is he going to force a Government Shutdown to get that built. I think ive answered this question several times. Two questions for you. First, the president at the rally mentioned that he was he seemed to inclined to be pulling the u. S. Out of the north American Free trade agreement. His comments came after the first round of National Negotiation talks last week. Were those comments informed by the status of those negotiations last week here in washington when he said he did have some pulling the u. S. Out. The president is being kept uptodate on those negotiations. I think hes certainly been clear about how he feels about nafta and making sure that we get the best deal for the American People. Hes committed to that. Well see how the negotiations go and then go from there. Thanks so much, guys. Have a good day. Sarah Huckabee Sanders finishing off a press conference. The First White House brief briefing in three weeks. It started much later than expected. This is normally katy terrs turf. But lets talk about what we just heard. Garrett headache has been listening kafrlful with me. Hes taking a break from his time on capitol hill. Where is gather retd headache today . He is right next to me in the newsroom here in new york. Kristen welker is in that Briefing Room in the white house. Shes getting ready to join us right now. Garrett, what did you take away from that conversation . I mean, there were a lot of interesting things because we havent had one for a while. There was a question about the relationship between plut and key members of coming. Thashs been a lot of reporting the last few days about how hes feuding with all of them. Sarah Huckabee Sanders answered a question about the president s relationship about Mitch Mcconnell by saying he was fine. And all i could think about the theme of the dog and the Burning House saying this is fine. Thats sort of where they are right now. Not a lot of love lost between the two. Theyre interests still very much aligned. As long as thats the care i dont think youre going to see open warfare. You did see this escalation between the battle between the white house and the senate. Bob corker, the chairman of the Senate Foreign roelgsz committee, an extremely powerful person. Just for context bob corker was thought of as a Vice President el candidate and he was mentioned as a possible secretary of state. This is a guy that the campaign and donald trump thought very highly of. Goes out of his way to be if not a full time ally of this administration, at least to work with them in a congenial way and constructive way whenever possible. Last week corker expressed his frustrations candidly about this white house. And today the White House Press secretary said those comments were ridiculous and outrageous and not worthy of a response from this podium. So whats bob corker going to do the next time they need him. I dont know that that necessarily makes things worse. Senators are used to this kind of language i think at this pointed, but i dont see a lot of fence mending going on. Kristen welker is with us from inside that room. Kristen, it didnt get a lot of play because sarah Huckabee Sanders sort of shut the line of questioning down pretty quickly about the relationship with members of congress. But the fact is certainly in the senate they dont have a lot of room for error and the president seems to have gone out of his way both privately and in the reporting weve seen on the phone and on twitter in criticizing some members of the senate. Reporter thats right. Congressional leaders taking aim at Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell, House Speaker paul ryan. He said theyve already mishandled the debt ceiling fight. So setting up some tensions over that in the fall. Thats already going to be difficult to accomplish. That always causes a lot of tensions on capitol hill. The president sort of lobbing this preemptive strike at them over that. And then, of course, continuing to threaten to shut down the government over his border wall. You heard him get a number of questions about that today and effectively to the point of has he abandoned his promise that mexico will ultimately pay for the wall . Why is he in effect going to shut down the u. S. Government . Sarah Huckabee Sanders pushing back against that quite vigorously saying that, look, it is still the president s intention to have mexico pay for the wall even though mexico says it absolutely wont pay for the wall. But she was pressed over and over again on the acrimony, the tensions between the president and congressional leaders. Take a listen to how she responded. There seems to be some acrimony between the president and the republican congressional leadership. How do you repair this relationship going into the fall . Look, i think the relationships are fine. Certainly there are going to be some policy differences, but there are also a lot of shared goals, and thats what were focused on. Were disappointed that obamacare, they failed to get it repealed and replaced. But at the same time President Trump has worked with leader mcconnell to reach out to other members and to work on those shared goals, and were going to continue to do that when the senate comes back from recess. Reporter and ali, i think whats interesting is you dont get the sense that the president really wants to mend fences. He may see this as a strategy to strong arm them, to call out congressional leaders on twitter. After all, if you look at polls, hes actually more popular than members of congress. So he may think that this is a way of forcing them to get something done. But then you delve into the practical alts of it. The fact that House Speaker ryan says hes not going to support a Government Shutdown. So how will President Trump try to force that to happen if he doesnt get the border funding . That remains a big open question as does how is he going to get congress to take up another bill to overhaul buk. A lot of questions, a lot of potential fights on the horizon as we head into the fall season. And garrett headache, you were just compensating because you spend your days at capitol hill on the mechanism by which there be would be a Government Shutdown could happen as early as october first. It would actually require some active work on the part of the white house, the administration to shut the government down. Right. Because the president cant just flip a switch and say im shutting the government down. You would be in a situation where you would have a spending bill passed potentially out of both houses of congress that the president would then have to veto. So he would have particular unique ownership of a shutdown. And it was interesting because you saw reporters in the room try to ask huck abesanders that question in a couple of different ways and she wouldnt commit one way or the other to saying we will absolutely veto a bill. But thats essentially what it would come down to. Its a very dangerous game of chicken. But thats where the president has control just on sort of that choke point at the very end of the process. Garrett, good to see you. Kristen welker in the white house. Thanks to both of you. Lets turn to the pentagon which is awaiting guidance from the white house on transgender individuals from serve is in the armed forces. A Defense Department official said that guidance could come as early this week. According the wall street journal a two and a half page memo being finalized by the white house is going to call on the pentagon to ban transgender individuals who are not in the military from joining rt military, to cease spending on surgeries and medical treatments for Transgender Service members, and to consider the deploy ability of transgender individuals in determining whether they should be removed from the military. The guidance will reportedly give defense secretary jim mattis six months to prepare to fully complement the new ban. I want to bring in former under secretary of the u. S. Army eric fanning the first openly guy under secretary of the army. Eric, thank you for joining us. Thank you. We had a reporter ask sarah Huckabee Sanders about this and she was noncommittal about whether this instruction is actually come. But when the with tweets went out from President Trump, all the branches of the military said we dont have any such instructions and were not taking any action on it until we do. At this point its come down to cost and deploy ability. I want to just discuss what this concept is of deploy ability. The idea is that the defense secretary is going to be able to determine whether someone can be deployed, a Transgender Servicemember can be deployed. What does that involve . Well, i think it means two different things. The first is is the servicemember going through any medical procedures that will prevent him or her from deploying. And we dont have huge groups of Transgender Service members who are undeployable now, nondeployable now for that issue. Service members all the time find ways to schedule their personal needs, medical requirements around deploy wants. They join to serve. The second issue, and we have answered this repeatedly. Weve done the studies and analysis on it is are there ongoing medical treatments as a part of being a Transgender Servicemember that could prevent deployment, and there arent. All right. So the ongoing medical treelts is important. In other words, if you are in the midst of transition, that requires medical care and that may affect deploy ability in the same way many other medical conditions would affect deploy ability. Absolutely. If you are pregnant, if sewer sick with cancer, any number of medical issues. And we see Service Members do what they need to do to schedule that around, if at all possible, their commitment to serve. When one is not deployable and maybe that is something that is going to be over a long period of time, what normally happens . Do they get an Honorable Discharge from the military . It depends on the condition. It depends how long its going to take. But the fist reaction is we get them the medical care this they need. We dont withhold medical care from Service Members who have made the commitment to serve their country. Lets talk about the cost issue. There are a lot of numbers floating around, but according to rand corporation, which is a sort of a widely cited study, the added military cost of transgender care is about 8. 4 million per year, which pales in comparison to the general military budget and the Health Care Budget of the military. But there are numbers floating around that are much, much bigger. Ive seen numbers in the billions and tense of billions of dollars. At some point i would assume that the military that has a handle on what things cost, would know what this cost is and would be able to determine whether or not its incremental, its small, its big, its relevant or not relevant. Billion, first of all, that 8. 4 million number is the high end. It could be as low according to ranld as 2. 4 million. Rand has done two studies on this. Theyre by far the most credible. I have seen no analysis whatsoever that supports any numbers in the billions. It just seems completely implausible to me. The rand numbers show that maybe 29 to at a high of 129 Service Members will want transgender medical treatment while theyre in uniform. What i saw and just to be fair, it was the idea that if word gets out in the Transgender Community that the mill thats true is paying for these things, its going to become a magnet for people to join the military so that they can get their hundred dollar,000 transition surgery paid for. First of all, i cant imagine an individual saying i want to go through a transition and id like to add the complication of boot camp on top of it in order to get the medical treatment. Theres no evidence of that happening anywhere in the civilian world in any industry that allows that offers these benefits. That theres a waive of people trying to get them. Secondly, the asessions policy that was put into place last says you need to be stable in your target gender for 18 months before you can joinl. So you cant join to do that. Eric, good to talk to you as always. Thanks very much. Eric fanning is it is former under secretary of the u. S. Army. Setting aside issues of inclues sift for a moment, it rye mains unclear what specific military strategies our commander in chief spends to take when dealing with global conflict. This is in spite of that speech he gave earlier this week. For more on that i want to bring in chris fos sill. It always gets a little intimidating to have one of them on the set with me. Hes also the author of one mission, how leaders build a team of teams. Thanks for being with us. Thanks for having me. There were some questions about this in the White House Press briefing. It remains unclear what success is supposed to lk auto like now in afghanistan. In fairness to President Trump, it has looked unclear for a long time. Thats very hard for members of the service and military leaders to sort of do something in a theater somewhere where its not clear what success is supposed to be. Thats not new. We felt that years ago when we were first on the ground post initial invasion you got into this question of what does suggestion look like. It was a rushed out of the gates to get in there and get into the fight. And this is a longterm effort. We have yet to really cross that this is a cultural transition that were trying to be part of or not. But to say that its going to end in 12 months is, you know, weve never been able to reach that out r sort of so a lot of military leaders are happy with that part of what donald trump has done. Dont give us a date. Dates usually end up being a disaster, right, because theres things on the ground. The question here is have we abandoned the idea that either there is victory to be had in afghanistan or we are creating enough institutions of states so that one day we can leave afghanistan . Have we set ourselves up for this middle ground there may for a very long sometime for decades be a u. S. Military presence there . I think we are moving down weve been on this path for years to say, look, if were going to commit to what we set out of the gates which is iological approach to say this is a hot bed for extremism and we need to control for that, then that could be a multigenerational sort of approach of the numbers dont necessarily to be as high as i think the conditions are right in the United States to ramp back up to where we were five or six years ago, but are we going to be present there for a longer time than most of us are mobile comfortable with . Yeah, i would argue so. Is this a good a result as you can imagine having come from the president . He initially said we dont need to be in afghanistan. I think hes got some sound advisers, obviously and i think hes lichks to sound advice from people who have been on the ground. And fully withdrawing as we were talking about during the campaign would have been a very significant strategy error. Good to see you. Thanks for being with us. Thank you. Coming up, the tweert in chief no more. Former cia agent valerie blame wants to kick trump after twitter. How she wants to do it. Youre watching msnbc. Certainti. Wondering, what if . Certainti. I let go of all those feelings. Because i am cured with harvoni. Harvoni is a revolutionary treatment for the most common type of chronic hepatitis c. Its been prescribed to more than a quarter million people. And is proven to cure up to 99 of patients who have had no prior treatment with 12 weeks. Certain patients can be cured with just 8 weeks of harvoni. 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Gocentral from godaddy. The internet is waiting. Start for free today at godaddy. 40 million americans are waking up to a gillette shave. And at our factory in boston, 1,200 workers are starting their day building on over a hundred years of heritage, craftsmanship and innovation. Today were bringing you americas number one shave at lower prices every day. Putting money back in the pockets of millions of americans. As one of those workers, im proud to bring you gillette quality for less, because nobody can beat the men and women of gillette. Gillette the best a man can get. All right. Weve got breaking news. Hurricane harvey has been upgraded from a tropical storm. Packing 80mileperhour winds, but thats going to get a lot faster. Its forecast to become a category 3 hurricane when it makes landfall late friday or early saturday morningment residents in texas are being asked to prepare as the storm is expected to bring lifethreatening flooding. More on the potential risks that this has and its serious, steve. This is a big situation and its only gotten bigger here in the last couple of hours. And the reason why is the intents it with this storm. Think of it as an athlete on steroids. This one went from being a weak system yesterday a tropical depression to now a category one hurricane and the problem is its not done just yet. You can see the storm is off the coast of texas. This is the coast of mexico. And all signs are for this storm system to continue to intensify. Water temperatures you need about 80 degrees for hurks to maintain or increase in intensity. Water temperatures here are 86. The fuel is certainly there. Theres no kind of environmental conditions to tear this thing apart or make it veer out to sea. So everyone along the texas coast line, you need to be making your preparations today. This is the real deal here. This could be the first major hurricane to strike the United States since wilma back in 20005. The projected path, now, dont get too concerned about the lynn. Its more about the cone. The storm can make some wobls, but anywhere in this cone from north of brownsville to the south of the houston gal very ston area you need to be ready for a landfall, possibly cat 3, not out of the question cat 4 here. Wow. Theres a lot of problems that come with that. More than just wind. Youre talking about storm surge, 20 to 30 inches of rain possible. And this is the low country of texas. So remember, it collects the water like a bowel. Theres nowhere for it to drain off. Here are these just epic rainfall amounts and unfortunately we dont see anything to change the storm off course right now. Be prepared for up to 30 inches of rain. You need to get your emergency kit ready. You need to have extra prescriptions on hand. You need to make sure that youre not in a vulnerable structure, a trailer or, you know, a weak structure like this a. Get to your local evacuation center. Of course, check in with your local news as well. Theyll have all that stuff posted. And you need to do that today. Cant wait until tomorrow. This happened so fast. In 24 hours this storm blew up. Tomorrow probably stronger. And its hot in the gulf and the storm is moving slowly which lets it church and church. Worst Case Scenario ub folding here. Lets hope that an eye wall replacement happens or the storm jogs or weakens a little bit. Not looking good. Thank you so much for your reporting on. Twitter the president s favorite way to communicate in the world. Its got him in plenty of trouble whether its attacking a fellow lawmaker or opponents or an fi director or the media or threatening nuclear war with provocative tweets about north korea and kim jongun. When 2013 was invented i bet mean they didnt imagine that it would one day lead us to the brink of nuclear arm aged done. There have been plenty of calls for twitter to ban the president or suspend his account. That hasnt happened. Now theres a go fund me to try to buy trir to stop him that way. As of right now more than 43,000 have been raised in just over a week. While thats pretty good, the goal is a billion dollars. The page was started by someone you may know, Valerie Plame, the former cia spy whose identity was revealed in the New York Times back in 2003. Shes also a member of plow shares fund and global zero groups aimed at reducing the world of nuclear womens. And shes a bestselling author. I have read her books. And Valerie Plame joins me now. Valerie, thanks for joining us. Youve obviously gotten the president s attention be because the press secretary released a statement saying her ridiculous attempt to shut down his First Amendment is the only clear violation and expression of hate and intolerance in this equation. Its an interesting point. There are pay lot of people who say shutting him down on twitter would feel like, if not actually be, a violation of free speech. Hi, ali. Good to be with you. Thank you for having me. Well, thats an absurd claim, the First Amendment dent work like that. The First Amendment is written to protect the people from the government. And furthermore, not all speech is protected. The famous case you cant yell fire in a crowded theater. Look, trump has weaponized twitter, and i became particularly concerned with his increasingly impulsive and reckless and really heated rhetoric around the Nuclear Issue and north korea. I dont want to see hour impulsive leader accidentally set off a nuclear war with north korea, who is also led by a reckless leader, kim jongun. Do you so i dont know what the latest valuation on twitter is, but it would probably need about 6 billion to get a majority stake in it. Obviously the billion tlars is the idea that that would make you the biggest shareholder or the go fund me campaign the biggest shareholder on twitter and that would be able to influence things. Yeah. Thats the idea. Its a very ambitious goal for sure, but the whole point is to shine a spotlight on how dangerous this can be. People who follow this, this is what i used to do in my old job at the cia, my former leagues now. We know that we can accidentally stumble into a nuclear war with this sort of careless talk. And i also wanted to give people the feeling, the notion that wech dont just have to stand by as trump tweets like this. So even if you get a controlling share you bring it up at a shareholders meeting, there can be some momentum behind this. Have you had any conversation with twitter about this . No, i have not. This is their own rules. They explicitly prohibit hate speech or language that insites violence and im pretty sure that a nuclear war would fall under violence. And you are largely focused on the tweets in which he threatens, you know, the locked and loaded with respect to north korea. Thats what you say crosses the line in Donald Trumps case. Yes. But, i mean, i find the fact that our president tweets at all somewhat demeaning and humiliating. The truth is no matter what you care about, if you want mexico to build the border wall, repeal and replace obamacare, cut taxes or want full reproductive rights for Womens Health care. It doesnt matter. None of those things will matter if you dont get the Nuclear Issue right. And this is very serious. I mean, its were trying to do this to draw attention to what global zero is doing. As you mentioned, i work with them. Im on the board of plow shares fund. And this is a way that people can feel empowered to get the president to tone this down. All right. So theres a lot of weird things the president tweets. He retweeted somebody this morning and its since been deleted. It was a guy that said he doesnt like the way jews drive. But more importantly he also tweeted again just this morning about former director of National Intelligence head James Clapper, insulting him. The president has taken aim at the community to which you once belonged, the Intelligence Community, sort of from day one. I just want to get inside i have read your books and i know i love them and i love the stuff that you know about, the Intelligence Community. But take me inside the head of intelligence operatives across the america who do most of their work in private, in secret, and are not recognized for it. Is there some sense of what the president attacking them results in . Its never good when theres daylight between the Intelligence Community and the president. It is not good for our national security. It undermines it. I would say my former colleagues are deeply concerned. Clapper was talking the president s stability and tempment among other things. But when you get down to whats happening on the street, you try to recruit people to provide critical intelligence to senior policymakers. Right now the United States is its leadership is seen as so inconsistent and chaotic, it is that much harder to try to recruit someone to say, okay, i believe in your formful government and how youre doing it. We have managed to lose the moral and political and economic high ground. Valerie plame, good to talk to you. Thank you for being with us. Thank you. Well keep an eye on that go fund me campaign. After the break this guy has interviewed everybody kings to pauper, bearing witness to history, shedding lights on cultures and societies across the globe and Nicholas Kristof will join me next. My bladder leakage was making me feel like i couldnt spend time with my grandson. Now depend fitflex has their fastest absorbing material inside, so it keeps me dry and protected. Go to depend. Com get a coupon and try them for yourself. Go to depend. Com this dive into the classicbster. Crab lovers dream or new dueling crab legs with dungeness and snow crab. Only during crabfest. Now this is seafood. And hurry in to enjoy our new crab melt, part of our seafood lovers lunch weekdays just 9. 99 for the most part, honestly, these are really, really dishonest people. And theyre bad people. And i really think they dont like our country. You would think theyd want to make our country great again and i honestly believe they dont. I honestly believe i. The media, specifically the mainstream media, were the president s favorite target. He labels us fake news and elites who dont know what the real people want. One of his favorite targets is the New York Times he likes to refer to it as the failing New York Times. Despite the baseless nicknames and attacks he continues to grant the New York Times access. They reminded the president that in fact journalists are not the enemy. It was written by Nicholas Kristof, hes won two Pulitzer Prizes for his coverage of the Tiananmen Square and darfur. Tiananmen square had coverage, and darfur didnt until you got some celebrities in there. And bearing witness, to show that things are going wrong. You have covered places where such media doesnt exist. And i was frankly offended that President Trump was questioning the patriotism and integrity of all kinds of colleagues when i was lost colleagues and im sure you have as well in places like syria. In liberia. Yeah. In iraq and elsewhere. Look, i absolutely invite President Trump to provide media critiques. There are so many things that people can justly criticize us for and we should have our feet held to the fire, we should be held to account but hes hot just trying to hes not trying to critique us, but delegitimize us and trying to do that with every institution thats constraining him as president. I think, you know, i wrote this its a little awkward for a journalist to say, hey to make yourself the story. Thats not part of your history. Not something you do which gives you the ability to do it every now and again and jump out. But this concept of delegitimizing is important because he doesnt have to like the media. We have had numerous politicians come out and tell you the nasty things that various media have said about them, but the importance of having an institution or various institutions that hold power to account. That speak truth to power. Thats what we exist for. Thats right. And i mean, every president complains about their coverage and often justly. It is true that there are an awful lot of people in the National Media who have profoundly different views than President Trump. But what hes been trying to do consistently, not just the media, but its undercut it and thats true of the courts, thats true of the legal system. Thats true of prosecutors. Thats true of the media. You know, i think that we in many ways fail the country in 2016 during the election. I think we were much too busy chasing after shiny objects than providing the kind of accountability that we should have. There are people who voted for donald trump who feel we have not told their stories. We do it as features every now and then. There are a lot of people who dont feel we represent we missed an awful lot of the pain across the country. You know, opioid epidemic, we were far too late to. Public health, all kinds of things we cover badly. But we do play an Important Role as part of the checks and balances as part of the country. When i see a president who is really trying to stir up hatred against the media, to undercut its role, then that seems to me an entirely different line of attack than media critiques that the other president s have engaged in. You mentioned that the president lashes out against things he thinks constrain him. Ie, the courts and the media. But its a perspective issue. We shouldnt be thinking of either courts or media in america at least as being constraining. Yeah. Its a set of checks and balances, a system. And it becomes particularly important when you get a president who tends to who wants to test those rules. And, you know, like the New York Times and the Washington Post have scrutinized President Trumps statements. The Washington Post came out yesterday and said he had made 1,000 more than 1,000 lies since taking office. Now, thats obviously upsetting if youre the president to have that kind of accountability. But its also critically important in a democracy that somebody be examining every single statement that the president makes and when he says false that it be that accountability be provided. We are not turkey or the philippines, two countries that the president often talks fondly about or at least their leaders but both of those are examples of countries that wouldnt have called themselves Something Else a few years ago but are cracking down on media and the free press. This does happen in countries that have had a relatively free press that things can turn and that press can become less free. And one of the things i have learned in my career of reporting when a Robust Free Press is undermined then you get more corruption. You get more abuses of power. You get a whole litany of dysfunction across society. And you know, for all our faults in the news media, we do provide that kind of transparency at our best and makes a system you know more efficient. And it becomes really painful to see the white house using its platform to try to undermine all that we do and represent. You made a quick comment in the break, a president can be thinskinned but so can we. And we should invite reader and audience criticism. We can do a better job to precisely fulfill this role. All right, journalist Nicholas Kristof, thank you for joining me. You know what, as he says, email me, tweet me. Do whatever you want. Come and criticize us. We have to take it. Thats what we here for. Well see you back here at 11 00 a. M. With Stephanie Ruhle and then at 3 00 p. M. Eastern. You can find me on twitter, instagram and facebook. Give me your criticism. Deadline white house with Nicolle Wallace starts right now. Hi, everyone. Its 4 00. Somebody woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, and reached for his phone and tv remote and instead of heading to sunrise yoga. Donald trump started his day by lashing out at clapper on twitter. He on tuesday night had Donald Trumps fitness for the office and expressed concern about trump possessing the Nations Nuclear codes. The president also took to twitter to offer his own review of his erratic responses, ostensibly because of the media talked about the stark contrast in tone and he saved some of his harshest words for Republican Leaders in congress. Just after 9 00 a. M. , the president tweeted, quote, James Clapper who famously got caught lying to congress is now an authority on donald trump. Will he show you his beautiful letter to me . And he weighed in on the pss