Transcripts For MSNBCW MSNBC Live With Craig Melvin 20170726

One that President Trump surprised a lot of folks with this morning. His ban on tratransgender peopl the armed forces. At this hour, senators debating republican ideas to repeal obamacare. A live look there. A vote that was supposed to happen a short time ago is now expected to happen roughly twoandahalf hours from now. Republicans still looking for a bill that can get enough votes to pass. If this latest plan fails, all eyes on a vote perhaps tomorrow on what is being called the skinny repeal. More on that in just a moment. Because the president , be again, surprising a lot of people today when he decided to relitigate yet another obamaera policy. This one on transgender troops. This is what he wrote on twitter this morning. Quote, after consultation with my generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States government will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the u. S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory, and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. And he ended with thank you. Hans nicoles, kelly odonnell, we are expecting an oncamera briefing at the top of the next hour. And kasie hunt is on capitol hill for us this afternoon. Hans, let me start with you. This new policy on banning transgender people from the armed forces. Were your folks at the pentagon caught off guard by any of this, or were they expecting this announcement today from the white house . Completely caught off guard, craig. No one here that we are talking to had any idea that this was coming. I just ran into a general, got an eye roll and a shrug from that general. Now, to give you a sense of just where it is, its not actually official policy. This is just guidance from the president s twitter account. To actually change policy, youre going to have to have an entire process here in trying to figure out what to do with the transgender individuals that are already serving. Now, theres a lot of back and forth on the numbers. The rand estimate, and this is a commission a study commissioned by the pentagon, basically says theres about 2,500. Some folks here inside the building are saying, a. , thats dated, and b. , thats a survey and an estimate. Theyre saying maybe hundreds is more accurate. But in a lot of ways, some of the challenge of this is trying to figure out who counts . Because each of the services are classifying army, navy, marine corps and air force, classifying individuals in slightly different ways. But pretty much all of them have people in active duty. Sometimes Forward Deployed that have raised their hand and said i would like to start this process, i want to identify with a different gender than i was born with. And the process is in place, and theyre trying to make it work. I think the overall take on this, craig, is that when social policy comes down from political leadership, the pentagon, the United States military, figures out how to implement it. And thats what they had been doing with this. They had been figuring out how to make it go smoothly. Thats been up ended by the president. He noted the cost. Essentially being burdensome. What do we know about how much it costs the u. S. Military . We dont have good estimates on that, in part because there have not been gender reassignment surgeries, which would be one of the big costs. Now they have indicated there is a willingness for that to go forward, and at least the army has very strict protocols on this. They basically you have to get some sort of approval from your Commanding Officer that youre not about to say go to a war zone. This isnt something where you can raise your hand and say, id like to get gender reassignment surgery. Theres a process in place. But, again, the numbers that im hearing are on the lower side of people that want to go through that. And until we get firm numbers from all four branches, including the coast guard, the coast guard now technically homeland security, until you get numbers on people willing to do this, the president doesnt have a good sense of what the cost will be. Because thats the main cost on it. So we need to figure out the numbers. Then we can get to the cost. Craig . Kelly o. , hans indicating the generals there have been caught off guard by all of this. What have you learned about precisely how it was the president arrived at this decision this morning . Reporter well, we dont have the background on that yet. Thats one of the Big Questions well have for Sarah Huckabee sanders, who will be doing a briefing here for the first time with the official announcement, calling her the press secretary, not the Principle Deputy press secretary, part of the communications shakeup here. But part of what this does politically is it drives energy in two different directions. The president has been under criticism from conservatives in recent days over his treatment of the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, who is a longstanding conservative, who has long ties in the conservative community. And there are those in that part of the Republican Party who have been dismayed by the president s conduct towards sessions. And so to give conservatives an issue where they may have a greater interest in this particular military policy might change the conversation there. It also serves to drive democrats to want to be supportive of the Lgbtq Community, and to make it an election issue, which in certain states and among certain voters, that is a wedge issue, which will either drive people toward the Democratic Party or make it harder for democrats to make the economic case against republicans or the president , even, if it goes as far as a reelection time. So its potent politically in both ways. And that is one way to view how the president has changed the conversation here. He also tried to appeal to the Lgbt Community as a candidate. Many said, because of his history in the new York Community of being more supportive of lgbt rights, that he might take that into the presidency. Others have looked to his daughter, ivanka, who has been outspoken in support of that, thinking she would have an influence. To remember how different it was, just one year ago in june of 2016, campaign time, heres the president in new hampshire. Ask yourself, who is really the friend of women and the lb and Lgbt Community . Donald trump with actions, or Hillary Clinton with her words . I will tell you who the better friend is. And some day i believe that will be proven out bigly. Reporter so there have been statements like that from then candidate trump. The president over time led people to believe he would be supportive of lgbt rights. This is a more narrow lane within that, and military service. But it has certainly set people back in terms of views of what the president s outreach would be. And as we said, a lot of political fallout from this. And it was a surprise tweet, as so many are. But this one really touches a nerve. Craig . Kasie, lets turn to health care. Where are we in that process this afternoon, as it stands . 1 08 00 p. M. . Reporter we expecting votes to start around the noon hour. Now looks closer to 3 30 this afternoon. And, again, this is essentially setting up to fail. And this is the repeal and delay is a straight repeal of obamacare. It would put off replacing it for two years. And this has been a demand that conservatives have had. Rand paul demanded this in exchange for his vote on that motion to proceed to start this debate yesterday. So thats kind of what this means in context. But the reality here is, we are very far from knowing what it is republicans in the senate might suggest or pass that and how it will affect Americans Health care. In the meantime, you have the president continuing to push in ways that, you know, quite frankly, make republicans on the senate side pretty angry. Hes gone avid senators like dean heller already. Today its Lisa Murkowski, voted against that motion to proceed. Tweeted, really let republicans and our country down yesterday. Too bad. I caught up with Lisa Murkowski today to ask her what was her response to this tweet. She was pretty tough on the president , i would say. If not entirely direct or using his name. Take a look at what she had to say. John mccain told you yesterday that you did the right thing with your vote. He did. He did. You know, we excuse me. We were down in not down in the well, but good job. He did the right thing. So makes me feel good. Reporter she also pointed out to me she does not face reelection until 2022, and said that republicans should spend some time governing, and that everybody in washington should focus on governing instead of winning electorally speaking. And, of course, thats an implicit dismissal of this threat from the president. Of course, some conservative groups align with trump, pressuring her also on social media. So that battle continuing to play out here, craig. Kasie hunt for us there on the hill. Hans nichols at the pentagon. Arizona senator john mccain, who chairs the Armed Services committee, he issued a statement on the Trump Administrations new transgender policy announcement. And that Statement Reads in part, quote, the president s tweet this morning regarding Transgender Americans in the military is yet another example of why major policy announcements should not be made via twitter. We should all be guided by the principle that any american who wants to serve our country and is able to meet the standards should have the opportunity to do so and should be treated as the patriots they are. Here is some more reaction from capitol hill. Some did he riding the plan. Others the way in which it was delivered. At the end of the day, i want a strong, vibrant military, but i want to be fair. And the best way to do this is to have a hearing, not a tweet. The president is sanctioning discrimination. Our nation is not safer when we sanction discrimination. We ought to be thinking about one thing. And thats readiness. And every debate we have about whether or not somebody can serve because theyre transgender or not takes away from the debate. Today the president of the United States american soldiers in the eye and dared to question their patriotism. Their courage. Some do support the plan. Congressman brian mast of florida is a veteran, also a double amputee. He issued a statement that reads in part, the commander in chief and our top jens have determined that having transgender individuals serve in our armed forces could negatively impact our militarys readiness, and i strongly believe that following their guidance is in the best interest of our national security. Im joined now to talk about the new policy, as well as the outlook for the Health Care Debate by shannon petty, a White House Reporter for bloomberg. Kevin aaron, msnbc contributor and josh barrow, senior insider, also an msnbc contributor. And josh, i know youre working on a piece about the new transgender policy. It surprised a lot of folks this morning when the president took to twitter to announce this new policy. In part, because, again, it seemed to have come out of nowhere. There are some who have suggested that this could just be classic trump attempting to change the conversation. Well, i mean, this had been on a wish list for some social conservatives. And i think, you know, the attacks that donald trump has made on attorney general Jeff Sessions has alienated certain parts of his social conservative, anti immigration, et cetera, base. The Ideological Coalition that elected him. This is some red meat he can throw out there to please them. And i think to the extent that its that kind of base politics, this may work. And i think he will look for other opportunities to do that. I think the broader politics of it i mean, i havent seen a lot of polling on Transgender Service in the military. Im sure well see it in a week or so, now that this has come to the forefront. But the polling on those local laws on bathroom rules and saying that people have to use bathrooms that match their sex at birth, there is a bare majority that opposes those sorts of laws. It seems the public is broadly open to the idea we should be inclusive and people should be able to live the lives they want. And i think the message democrats will be able to put out about this, people who want to serve their country ought to be able to do so is a popular message, the reason were seeing it from some republicans like john mccain. So i think that, you know, this solves a constituency problem or helps with a constituency problem for the president but i dont think its a winner with the broad public. Orrin hatch put out a statement taking issue with the president s new policy. Kevin, going back to what we heard from the lawmaker there, what do we know about how banning several thousand people from the armed forces, how that might affect readiness . Well, we dont. And the word readiness is really a red herring to stall any debate. Look, i want to make a couple points. I think there is an issue of the politics of the military. Its an issue of what the law says and what congress has the ability to do. And also the potential for lawsuits to block this on the back end. On the politics in the military, what im most what strikes me the most is how this comes down completely the opposite way that the dont ask, dont tell repeal went down. So i covered the pentagon through the years when secretary gates was there. And he told us early on, he did not want obama to get the credit or blame for the dont ask, dont tell repeal. He didnt want it to be pinned on obama because any opponent could just say, ahha, it was his thing. So it took a couple years. And the Gay Community was not happy with it. But it took a couple years for gays in the pentagon to have a full yearlong study by the general counsel, jeh johnson at the time, a fourstar commander from europe, and saying weve done the research, there seems to be no worry. With the full buyin the military. They still needed congress. It was up to a really remarkable speech by admiral mullen that changed the mind of congress and got it through. What happens today is the complete opposite of that. So trumps tweet is still not policy. But it basically gets all of the generals in the military and secretaries offer the hook. We dont know what they think, what the army thinks, what the marines think, what the Service Secretaries think if this continues forward. It still is a process. Were already hearing way more pushback on capitol hill than support. So it still might get blocked. Who knows. Its not like president says it and it changes things. There are still at least hundreds, some level of thousands, as hans said, of troops right now standing their posts. Manning drones. Manning cyber warfare, manning vehicles around the world who have to do their jobs, no matter what we talk about in washington today. Theyre still in the military, theyre active duty, and theyve got to get up and defend the nation, just like they did yesterday. Shannon, we heard that sound bite from President Trump, be then candidate trump, from last summer. Now i want to read a tweet from the president , as well. This is from last year, as well. Thank you to the Lgbt Community. I will fight for you. While hillary brings in more people that will threaten your freedoms and beliefs. How does a president how does a person flip like this so easily on such a major civil rights issue . Reporter this presidency has really been full of these types of contradictions, though, all of the times you can go back and say candidate trump said this. Businessman donald trump said this. And then its a complete change of course. And i mean, really, throughout his entire life, hes flipped back and forth on various issues. I mean, i almost feel like this is just one more example. To the point earlier made, it is a play to the conservative base, which is he has gotten a lot of blowback from because of the you know, attacks on Jeff Sessions. Though, i thought when i first saw this tweet today, okay, hes trying to change a topic from sessions. Ask then a few minutes later, of course, there was another tweet questioning why sessions didnt, you know, remove Andrew Mccabe and getting back into the whole sessions thing. So i thought, well, so much for that theory. But it does change the subject. It is a way to play to the base. But its also changing the subject away from things that the white house wants to be talking about. Theres a jobs announcement expected later today that the president was hoping to get some capital good Political Capital out of. That is an area where he is strong, where he is receptive with those voters in ohio and michigan and pennsylvania that helped push them over the line. Jobs, the economy, thats a message that does well with the swing voters. Hes deciding to play to the base. But i dont know if thats where he needs to be focusing right now, especially the fact that put this all in the context of health care, that were trying to bring the white house is trying to bring members together in congress, in the senate. The president needs as much Political Capital as he can get. He burned some on Jeff Sessions, and now another divisive issue for not only the public, but, of course, members on the hill, as you have been hearing. Josh barrow, kevin baren, shannon, thank you. You mentioned Jeff Sessions. Still slamming sessions. The attorney general Holding Meetings at the white house this morning just as President Trump launched yet another series of twitter torpedos at his a. G. For are a Third Straight day. Whats really behind the president s attacks . Also, thousands of Transgender Americans currently serving in this countrys armed forces. New reaction from one transgender vet and congressional candidate. For yo. Your joints. Or your digestion. So why wouldnt you take something for the most important part of you. Your brain. With an ingredient originally found in jellyfish, prevagen is now the number one selling brain Health Supplement in drug stores nationwide. Prevagen. The name to remember. Im proud to make dog chow in vodavenport, iowa. An. Dog chows been a part of my familys life for over 40 years. My grandfather made it and now im making it. As a microbiologist i ensure that dog chow leads with high quality ingredients. President trump today lashing out on twitter once again, against attorney general Jeff Sessions for the Third Straight day. Mr. Trump in a pair of tweets saying, why didnt a. G. Sessions replace acting fbi director, Andrew Mccabe, a comey friend, who was in charge of the clinton investigation, but got big dollars . 700,000 for his wifes political run from Hillary Clinton and her reps. Drain the swamp. John mclaughlin, former cia acting director, msnbc acting security analyst and paul butler, former federal prosecutor, also an msnbc analyst. John mclaughlin, let me start with you, sir. First of all, what do you make of these attacks by the president against his own attorney general . Well, craig, you know, its really deeply regrettable. I see three implications here. Theyre going to tell us a lot about this presidency. First, how this turns out will tell us whether President Trump can learn anything. Hes got the entire world telling him, stop this. Apparently even from within the white house. And if he goes ahead, it will show that he cant take advice. Second, its symptomatic of what i think is a dangerous attitude toward the judiciary generally. Call his comments sometime ago about belittling socalled judges, and his tweet the other day criticizing the attorney general for essentially not prosecuting his election rival. Thats the sort of thing you see in, you know, tenpot dictatorships around the world when an authoritarian figure wants to destroy his opposition, not just defeat it in an election. And third, i would say this is a terrible leadership style. Does he connect what hes doing here to the likelihood that people will not want to work in an administration where he turns on his most loyal supporters . Those are all sort of elementary things that disturb me about his course of action here. Paul, this is this is just part of what the president said yesterday about Jeff Sessions. I am disappointed in the attorney general. He should not have recused himself. Almost immediately after he took office. And if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me prior to taking office, and i would have quite simply picked somebody else. I told you before, im very disappointed with the attorney general. But we will see what happens. Time will tell. Time will tell. Paul, it is the most biz thats probably an overstatement. Probably not the most bizarre thing we have seen from this administration so far. But certainly one of the most bizarre things. A head of state in the rose garden standing next to head of state from lebanon, railing against his own attorney general. At what point does Jeff Sessions just say, you know what, you can take this job and shove it, mr. President . This aint worth it . You know, craig, the president s beef with attorney general sessions is that he recused himself from the russian investigation, which he was required to do. The investigation is of trumps campaign. The attorney general was a highlevel supporter of the campaign. The president s mad because sessions wont call off the fbi and special counsel investigation of the campaign. Well, thats not how the Justice Department works. Its loyalty is not to the president , its to the rule of law. Its client is the United States of america, not President Trump. So when hes making all of these blatant calls for sessions to resign, hes calling for impeachment, frankly, because that sounds like obstruction of justice. An attempt to impede an investigation. Paul, while i have you here, the news of the day, the announcement of the ban on transgender people serving in the military. From a legal standpoint, the likelihood that the president s decision faces some sort of legal challenge . You know, absolutely. So if the reports from the pentagon suggest that transgender folks can serve their country honorably, there would have to be some kind of legitimate reason to discriminate against them. You cant discriminate on folks based on who they love. So the Supreme Court hasnt considered this exactly in the context of transgendered folks in terms of lesbian and gay folks, and its ruling on marriage equality. It strongly implies that lgbt people have the same protection under the constitution as racial minorities, as religious minorities, which means that the president is on dangerous constitutional ground. Well have to leave it there. Paul butler, john mclaughlin, a big thanks to both of you this afternoon. A new threat from north korea. Officials warning another missile test could happen as soon as tonight. Has the u. S. Intelligence Agency Reports north korea could could have a missile that could hit the United States with Nuclear Capabilities as soon as next year. Is there any diplomatic route to slow down pyongyangs nuclear progression . Phone with our allstate agent, and i know that we have accident forgiveness. 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Officials now believe pyongyang could strike the u. S. Mainland with a Nuclear Armed missile as early as next year. Thats two years earlier than expected. Also, u. S. Intelligence believes that north korea could be getting ready to test the missile once again as early as tonight. Im joined now by steve clemens, editor at large for the atlantic, also an msnbc contributor. He is in paris. That is not a green screen. He is in paris for us this afternoon. Steve, just last week, the official estimate was that it would take three, perhaps four years for north korea to develop this technology needed to reach the u. S. How was pyongyang able to accelerate their time line . Well, they have absorbed technologies, craig. Ask whats happened is the official estimate still remains 2020. But what happens is the Defense Intelligence agency has done a very important assessment based upon the july 4th launch and other tests that the north koreans have recently done these past 18 months. And seeing north korea very quickly acquire technologies that they thought would take the north koreans a very long time. So they are now within 6 to 18 months of becoming a major transcontinental icbm Nuclear Capable power. And its very disconcerting. How does this news change the calculus for this administrations policy toward north korea . Or how should it . Well, it ratchets up the tension a lot. One of the only possible pathways out of this mess is to get the regional players, including russia, china, japan, south korea, United States, as well as the European Union and other parties, as happened with the iran deal, and try to create such leverage and such pressure on north korea that they see their existence basically put into doubt if, in fact, they dont somehow come into some negotiated solution. But donald trump has done everything he can to kick the heck out of the iran deal, and thus its not a compelling model. So all youre left with is potential military action, mostly from the United States. And its not clear that we would have support of the region. So its a real problem. It gets messier and messier, raises the prospect we would have to have something immediately in place when none of us can see what that option is from this white house. Where do we stand on our Missile Defense technology . Should there be an attack . Well, of course, there is Missile Defense technology and the United States has conducted recent tests of that technology. One of the tests was successful, one of them not. We have been promising to sell well not sell to install for the south koreans the thaad Missile Defense technology. But its simply not enough. The Defense Intelligence estimate actually says something quite striking, which is that not only are they far away closer to the capability of having an icbm launched a nuclear warhead, but theyre just a short period away from being able to have an Assembly Line steve, were having some technical issues there with our feed in paris. Our apologies to steve clemens. If we can get him back, well get him back. Steve clemens from paris there. Thousands of active and retired transgender military troops reeling from President Trumps reversal on a policy that allowed them to serve. Ill talk to one of them. And the transgender attorney who represented chelsea manning. Well talk to both of them about how theyre planning to fight the president s latest ban. Also some live looks here inside the White House Briefing room. That is where the newly minted press secretary, Sara Huckabee sanders, will be holding todays briefing on camera. That will happen roughly a half hour from now. 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Your initial reaction to the president s announcement today on twitter, and the decision he apparently made without giving much of a heads up to the pentagon. Sure. Thanks for having me. It was shocking. But this has been since day one of this administration. Systematically, he has been erasing us, lgbtq americans, from the fabric of america. It started on day one when he erased us from the websites. Then he moved to the 2020 census and deleted us from the census. Then he went to the older American Survey and deleted questions about lgbtq people from that. And now today he announces that he wants to create a witch hunt and a purge of 15,000 Transgender Americans who simply want to serve their country. Chase, the president s decision, we should note, it did have the support of some lawmakers. This is what alabama republican bradley byrne, sits on the house Armed Services committee. This is what he told our Hallie Jackson a few hours ago. The president s commanderinchief of the armed forces of the United States. He gets to make that decision and only he gets to make that decision. Let me say this. Over the last several weeks, we have had testimony in our committee, we have had hearings in the rules committee this week, about some of the complications of trying to care for transgender people after they have had or going through gender reassignment surgery. To the first part of what the lawmaker said there, chase, isnt it the president s decision alone to change this policy as it relates to the u. S. Military . Well, the president is not able to change policy via twitter. And the reality is that the well thoughtout policy based on the expertise of military officials, doctors, policy institutes that was implemented beginning last year is still in effect. And what President Trump announced this morning is completely out of step with what we know about science, what we know about experience, and is absolutely susceptible to legal challenge. We are prepared to fight back on behalf of the over 15,000 transgender individuals currently serving in the United States military, risking their lives, and who are now subjected to this cruel and unfounded attack that really appeared out of nowhere after years of study implementing the policy last year. Chase, are you announcing on behalf of the aclu that a legal challenge is being launched . What were announcing is that were monitoring whats going on from the tweets, which are as of now just tweets, and making sure that Current Service members know that they can contact us, and we are absolutely going to explore all options to ensure that the rank discrimination that were seeing from this administration will not go untested. Misty, we could not help but take notice that it was, in fact, 69 years ago today to the day that president truman ordered the desegregation of this countrys armed forces. Our military has in so many ways been at the forefront of reforming social policy in this country. As a veteran, whats your take on the decision this morning . Well, youre absolutely right. That, you know, the military is often the forefront at a lot of this. Frankly, as a veteran, i think its kind of insulting to our military, frankly, to say our military is not capable of doing this. We are unable to do this in our military, which many of our allies around the world have already done, and our troops have already fought alongside those troops and worked alongside those troops. So this isnt something thats new. And its always the same arguments that get made. And theyre completely baseless. You know, and this time theres the addition of the medical care argument, which is also we spend almost 50 billion a year on medical care in the military. And youre talking about something thats maybe a few million dollars. Sarah, House Minority leader nancy pelosi, talking with the transgender quality task force, calling for the president to reverse his policy change. Are you at all optimistic that this is an administration that might have a change of heart . Im not, unfortunately. He hasnt been a friend of the Lgbtq Community from the onset. And this reopens a nonexistent issue and makes it an issue again. And thats what were most upset about. And also, were having a rally today at 5 00 p. M. In times square to oppose this, as well. But this is this is, as was stated by other panel members, a solution looking for a problem. There are no problems. This is being implemented for the past 13 months successfully, and without incident. And so this is outrageous that this is being brought up now. Sara kate ellis, shannon, chase, thanks for joining me on short notice. Appreciate it. Thank you. A big vote expected on a Senate Health care plan. Some republicans think can make its way back to the house. Well talk about the skinny repeal. What joaquin castro. And a look at the White House Briefing room, where Sarah Huckabee sanders will be holding an oncamera briefing. These arent as common as they used to be. So we are watching and waiting with bated breath. Well have that for you live here at the top of the hour. Ry , 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. 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It is always hard in lights of light of north korea and their testing of nuclear weapons. I think i saw this morning they want to have a weapon by early next year that can reach the eastern United States. Now is not the time to back off on sanctions for north korea. The vote happening there, the most recent vote scheduled to happen in half hand our from now. The goal being to send this back to the senate and House Committee where they can rewrite the bill, whats your take on the effort . Are you surprised its still alive . Im not surprised. Im not surprised their trying to move something forward. Im surprised that by and large theyre supporting Health Care Legislation that would dumpin this indication, 15 Million People and in the worst Case Scenario 32 million off of health insurance. I say that as someone that comes from texas that has the highest percentage of people that have no health care coverage. So which ever of these bad choices that go for, theyre going in the wrong direction for the United States. As a member of the house intelligence committee, you heard more than three hours of testimony from jared kushner. There was any lingering questions that you have about his testimony . And does the Committee Plan to talk to donald junior or Paul Manafort. I would like to hear from month of them. Jared kushner yesterday did stay for an extra hour with us. He was forthcoming in his answers. He could not answer every question we had, and based on his testimony other questions have now come up. We will likely want to see him back again some time in the next few months. Other questions came up as a result of the testimony yesterday, questions like . Ill have to put that off for now. I cant get into the classified stuff, but the witness list is extensive, and each person is really a piece of the puzzle. His testimony, of course, opened up the questions about the actions of others including people like Paul Manafort and donald trump junior. The president continues to go after his own attorney dprl, and public statements going after Jeff Sessions. Do you think that Jeff Sessions should resign . You know, i was asked this question yesterday on morning joe. The answer to that question has become very siflt for many americans. I said he never should have been offered the job in the first place, i later said he reshoush resign because of his conflicts of interest. It is clear through his prodding and bullying at this point and public humiliation of Jeff Sessions that Donald Trumps goal is to really just control the investigation into the russian interference and any involvement that he or his Campaign Associates may have had in the 2016 elections. I dont want to allow him to control that investigation, and that is why im very conflicted on all of that. That being said, i dont see him lasting very much longer in this job with everything going on between he and the president. You think he is out as a marked man . I think so. It has got ton a very awkward and bizarre point. He has taken every opportunity to suggest that Jeff Sessions leave. The other thing i can think of is that this is a pr game that the president and Jeff Sessions are playing on the american public. I dont believe that is the case, but it has goaten very strange. It would be something to make Jeff Sessions seem like he is more independent from the president than he really is. I dont believe thats the case, but it is very strange for an attorney general to stay on the job when the president doesnt want you there. Even stranger for a president who doesnt want his attorney general there to not fire him if he doesnt want him there. So as with many other things, it has gotten very bizarre. Joaquin castro, thank you for your time. Again, were just a few moments away from the Daily White House press briefing. We say daily, but its not every day, but today will be on camera. With the newly promoted Sarah Huckabee sanders. Well bring it to you live when it happens. Thankfully, the breakthrough in prevagen helps your brain and actually improves memory. The secret is an ingredient originally discovered. In jellyfish. In clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve shortterm memory. Prevagen. The name to remember. Going somewhere . Whoooo. Heres some advice. Tripadvisor now searches more than 200 booking sites to find the hotel you want and save you up to 30 . Trust this birds words. Tripadvisor. And that will do it for this hour of msnbc live, kris jansing is with us for the next hour. It is 2 00 p. M. In washington, any minute now Sarah Huckabee sanders will hold a briefing and the cameras are l be on. No shortage of questions as the president continues to tear down Jeff Sessions. Where does he stand on his attorney general, what was behind his surprise twitter announcement, and how does he feel about the efforts to repeal and replace obama care . Mitch mcconnell and republicans failed to pass a repeal and replace vote. Expected to vote and fail on a repeal only next hour. That brings us to our world of the day which is fail. One Health Care Vote in about two hours is expected to fate, another later this afternoon, also expected to fail. After that, who knows as the g. O. P. Looks to avoid a final fail on their