We talk tax reform, the economy and this. Could you see yourself maybe running for office with oprah . We begin today with the president reportedly insulting literally millions of people including hundreds of thousands of naturalized citizens who come from african countries, el salvador and haiti, what the president described as an shit hole nations. Well let the president have that word and well rise about it. With tweets that could pull the plug on the immigration deal, which actually affects all these people. I have a great team here. Nbcs Kristen Welker at the white house. Kristen, first, the immigration deal, beyond the president s ridiculous rhetoric, lets talk about the deal, thats what matters. Is it dead because yesterday it looked like actual lawmakers were making progress. There were a few moments there yesterday when it looks like the immigration deal was coming together. Jeff flake signalling that they were getting very close and yet you have the white house and conservatives effectively indicating they were not on board. Sarah Huckabee Sanders saying look, we think we can get to a deal but were not there yet. The reason why they felt it was too soft on those dreamers. Those nearly 800,000 young people who were brought here illegally as children. Let me read you the tweets this morning. As you point out, that is really whats ultimately potentially being sacrificed here. President trump making it difficult to negotiate because of his heated rhetoric. He said, was a big step backwards. Wall was not properly funded. Chain and lottery were made worse and usa would be forced to take large numbers of people from highcrime countries which are doing badly. I want a meritbased system of immigration and people who will help take country to the next level. I want safety and security for our people. I want to stop the massive inflow of drugs. I want to fund our military. It goes on and on. The president s vulgar comments about haitians and africans could potentially, based on my conversations with folks on capitol hill, make it very difficult for democrats to sit down at the table and try to get a deal done with him on immigration. Whereas yesterday, before all of this happened, they were ready to make a deal. Okay, lets walk through, though, what the president said, because this morning, he appeared to be denying, saying s nations, but yesterday and last night, he was on twitter. He said nothing about it. He didnt deny it. The white house didnt take it back. And those who were in the meeting who could come to his aid, a la lets say Lindsey Graham, we dont hear from. I dont believe President Trump has ever been to africa. I could be wrong. I dont believe hes ever been to haiti. How would he be able to weigh in on the state of those nations . Well, let me just tell you what hes tweeting this morning, in terms of that denial. Hes choosing his words very carefully. Let me read you his tweet. Lets do some analysis on the other side. This is what hes saying. Never said anything derogatory about haitians other than haiti is obviously a very poor and troubled country. Never said take them out. Made up by dems. I have a wonderful relationship with haitians. Probably should record future meetings. Unfortunately, no trust. Heres what he doesnt specifically put in quotes and deny, stef, that word that expletive that you quoted off the top. So not a direct denial about saying that. Yesterday, as you rightfully point out, the white house released a statement not denying the president made those comments. Instead, explain iing those comments. Certain washington politicians choose to fight for Foreign Countries but President Trump will always fight for the american people. Like other nations that have meritbased immigration, President Trump is fighting for permanent solutionings that make our country stronger by welcoming those who can contribute to our society, grow our economy and assimilate into our great nation. Stef, worth noting that at the backdrop of all of this, eight years to the day since that earthquake which devastated haiti, a lot of officials there instead of just being focused on marking that tragic anniversary now lashing out at President Trump and so are a host of other leaders as well as democrats and republicans. An earthquake that devastated haitians. People who have faced adversity beyond what most americans could ever comprehend. And the president of the luckiest nation in the world taking swipes and jabs. We should also point out that the president said he didnt say it and they should record these meetings. Earlier this week when there was that reported meeting on immigration where the president said to Dianne Feinstein he would be open to a deal on dreamers, the next day when the white house released that transcript, somehow, so odd, that portion of the conversation was left out. The white house has since corrected it. I want to bring my panel in. Brett stevens, msnbc political contributor and oped columnist for the new york times. Brendan greely, contributor to the economy Free Exchange blog. And midwin charles, contributor to essence magazines. And you know were all going to be watching him on tv tonight because its friday. Brett, to you first, whether or not the president used these specific words, im already seeing, well, maybe its conflated. The president may have used this term about some african countries, but not haiti. Lets take a step back. Lets look at the president s history. Housing discrimination. Central park five lie. Birtherism. Calling mexicans rapists and drug dealers. Banning muslims. Calling neonazis some fine people. Supporting roy moore who said the time in history he liked the most was the slave days. And here we are with referring to haitians or africans or the place they come from. Send them back to those places because theyre you know what. This is both the least surprising as well as the most outrageous maybe marker in his presidency. I think donald trump has become the typhoid mary of republican politics. He really needs to be isolated from having any kind of comment about politics. Hes an embarrassment for the country. And, by the way, the damage that hes doing to his own presidency, to his own party, to his own agenda, is just as great, which we may say is a terrific but his own party, theyre not mutes. Paul ryan where is paul ryan . Mitch mcconnell. Come on over, brothers. Youre welcome to sit down here every day. Theyre some of the most Senior Leaders in this country. They can speak for themselves. Lindsey graham is in the room. Radio silent. Look, about these guys who have to say you sleep with dogs, you wake up with fleas, to quote benjamin franklin. They have richly earned what trump is giving them in terms of the kind of moral for Mitch Mcconnell and paul ryans choices, they were republicans long before he was. Those are men who speak for themselves. They have fully made their bed with this president. And it is completely it is morally gutting, whatever remains of a sound Republican Party. Bob costa, the president talked about a meritbased system. And we know he said he doesnt want people from these countries. But frank lutz tweeted out today, remember, hes a republican pollster that 43 of people from african nations have bachelor degrees or higher, which is more than the overall american population. And twice as many nigerian americans have a graduate degree as white americans. You could go to a hospital in chicago and there are more ethiopian doctors than there are in ethiopia. So besides racist, its absolutely ill informed and, dare i say, flatout stupid. Stephanie, beyond the racial vulgarity at play here with these offensive comments, you see a real political problem for the president. He was talking about signing an immigration deal. Now because of these comments democrats on capitol hill tell me this morning they feel they have leverage in the negotiations on all of the issues you mentioned. That their base now is clamoring for them to get more gains in these Discussions Group see the white house really against the wall now. Trying to deal with the big public and political blowback against these remarks. Against the wall and theyll be no one to build it if the president doesnt let immigrants in this country because labor and labor markets are what help our economy thrive. Brendan greely, to you. Youve actually been doing a lot of work on trade. Steel for example. Does the president have an understanding of our position of power or lack thereof . Because when he talks about our position on the planet, it seems he doesnt actually know any of the facts. The president is stuck permanently in the 1980s. Dont get me wrong, it was a good decade. Are you talking stylewise . In terms of his assumption of american power. We could negotiate with the japanese in the 1990s. We had a market that the world was desperate to get into. There are other developed consumer markets in the world. Ours is not as important as it used to be. When he hold also out the stick instead of the carrot, look, well deny you access to our markets, thats not as significant as it used to be. Certainly not as significant as it was in the 1980s. When it comes to labor, you know, were talking about the deep offense of the statement. I think that everything brett said about that is right. If we look at the underlying policy, what hes essentially saying is we can decide which groups of people contribute and which groups of people do not contribute. I think particularly theres another issue right now which is theyre considering revoking the legal status of a large group of salvadorans who are in america. Theyve been here for 20, sometimes 30 years. I dont want to talk in vain a word i know brett takes very seriously. Thats an unconservative argument. Theres a huge number of salvadorans where i live. I know those who have come here. They started businesses. Theyre paying taxes. I was just talking to a salvadoran who started a chain of restaurants in annapolis, maryland about Economic Development for annapolis. I wanted his help. So theyre deeply enmeshed in society there. Salvadoran kids go to school with my kids. Salvadorans on my old man soccer team, right. I have to tell you, i have never met a salvadoran who does not work hard. So we dont know. They didnt come with ph. D. S. They didnt come because somebody decided theyd be good. They came because they had to. They have contributed a ton. How many people watching the show had grandparents or great grandparents who came to this country with a ph. D. In their hand . Exactly. My grandmother was a seamstre seamstress. My great grandfather was a carpent carpenter. The essence of this country is people come with nothing but ambition and a willingness to work hard and donald trump doesnt seem to understand that. Midwin, your parents came from haiti. I had a chance to go to haiti a few years ago and the resiliency that people from haiti had. They dont need President Trumps approval. What they had to go through every day to survive. The natural and political disasters they face are stunning. How will haitians take this . Well, i can tell you that the blowback has been incredibly crazy, you know, i think that most haitians are not surprised. Both my parents are from haiti. When my parents came here, they did so, like most immigrant, looking for a better life. Theyve done an extraordinary job in raising two daughters who contribute to american society. I think thats whats being lost here. Is this idea that immigrants come to this country and they do not contribute to this country. Let me just give you a little snapshot about what haiti is . In 1804, haiti became the first free black republic in the world. Okay. They kicked out the french and decided that they were going to have liberty. And they were going to govern themselves. And as a result, they became a beacon for other latin american countries. And the like for liberty and for democracy. And so starting with that, and culminating to today, which happening to be an eightyear anniversary of an earthquake that decimated the country. So this idea that a group of people come from a country that is a shithole, and im going to say the word because it is the word that the president of these United States has used, its outrageous, its degrading. I will tell you this about haitian people. You are not going to meet a group of people who are more resilient who are more educated who have more dignity, who are more hard working, who have more respect and who want to do nothing more than to contribute to this country and to this world. And, again, let me also make a point here. That donald trump makes a point about he doesnt want people coming from certain countries. I would i would beseech him to go out and read a book, get off the golf course, visit haiti, visit africa, and read that book and understand how history works. A lot of people come to this country because their countries have been destabilized by American Foreign policy, okay. In 1915, america occupied haiti, all right. So i think its incredibly important that the president of the United States understands the history of what it is that hes talking about. We got to share that i mean, first of all, thank you, thank you, thank you. Want to talk about a real american and what a real american looks like, its midwin charles. Well, guess who else weighed in. Senator dick durbin, a democrat, from illinois, hes now speaking out about President Trump comments. Why, because he was in the room. Lets listen to what he said just moments ago. Presentation, the president interrupted him several times with questions. And in the course of his comments, said things which were hate filled, vile and racist. He used those words. I understand how powerful they are. I cannot believe that in the history of the white house, in that oval office, any president has ever spoken words that i personally heard our president speak yesterday. Youve seen the comments in the press. Ive not read one of them thats inaccurate. To no surprise, the president started tweeting this morning, denying that he used those words. It is not true. He said these hatefilled things. And he said them repeatedly. When the question was raised about haitians, for example, we have a group that have temporary protected status in the United States because they were the victims of crises and disasters and political upheaval. The largest groups el salvadorian. When i mentioned that fact to him, he said haitians, do we need more haitians . Then he went on and started to describe the immigration from africa that was being protected in this bipartisan measure. Thats when he used these vile and vulgar comments, calling the nations they come from shitholes. The exact word used by the president. Not just once but repeatedly. That was the nature of this conversation. When it came to the issue of, quote, chain migration, i said to the president , do you realize how painful that term is to so many people . Africanamericans believe they migrated to america in chains and when you talk about chain migration, it hurts them personally. He said, oh, thats a good line. And then when i talked to him about the impact this has on family unification in a nation that values families with the flag as the most important symbols of our future, they scoffed at this notion. It was a heartbreaking moment. But i will tell you this, im not going to quit. I have a singular mission. And the mission is this. To give these dreamers and as many members of their families as possible a chance to be part of americas future in a legal status. I am convinced that theres a majority in both the house and the senate of democrats and republicans who support that concept. I know theres an overwhelming majority of americans who support that concept. So heres what were going to do. Were going to prepare our bipartisan agreement for introduction into the senate next week. If the Republican Leadership has a better alternative, bring it forward. If they dont, foregoness sakes, give us a vote. Ill be on the phone today with my republican colleagues and my democratic colleagues begging them to support this measure. Time is running out. We have to get this done. I thought we might get a bipartisan agreement approved by the white house, died yesterday. We have to do this and show leadership in congress to solve this important challenge. Because of the president s comments that right there is a wow. Dick durbin from illinois who was in that room straight up to cameras said the president is lying. He used that specific derogatory term multiple times and went on to say completely racist comments. Dick durbin is a democrat. So i invite Lindsey Graham who speaks to the press regularly, who uses twitter who went to twitter a few weeks ago to talk about what an excellent golf course President Trump has. Paul ryan who talked about President Trumps exquisite leadership when the tax bill was being voted into law. I invite you both and any other member of the gop leadership to come forward. And President Trump to clear this up. Because we talk about, you know, these countries that are banana republics when the president of the luck universiiest nation ind says these things and possibly lies about it, what does it say about our country . It says we deserve better. Brett, you wrote an oped last year about real americans. You said socalled real americans are screwing up america. Maybe she should leave so that we can replace them with new and better ones. Newcomers who are more appreciative of what the United States has to offer. More ambitious for themselves and for their children and more willing to sacrifice for future. Thats obviously a bit tongue in cheek. I just wanted to deport Tucker Carlson, thats all. Tucker carlsons someone who just said last night, well, i mean, isnt that what it is . I didnt know that Tucker Carlson had been to haiti. Id love to hear about that trip that he was on. But earlier today, jim ranacie said what a lot of people think. But what a lot of people think may be wrong or ignorant or biased. That doesnt mean that im a real american and theyre not. The president of the United States should lift us up and help us be the best versions of ourselves. Thats what brendan was saying. Immigrants started buys at nearly twice the rate of native born americans. Immigrants have crime rates that are a half to less than a third of native born americans. If we didnt have immigrants to this country, we would have zero population growth since 1970 which would mean if youre a conservative or a free market thinker, we would be in deep economic trouble. Immigrants, when most of the junior of the nobel, young nobel prize winners. Most of our ph. D. S at rochester or any Technical University in engineering or the Hard Sciences are immigrants. And anyone who doesnt understand two thing that this nation is founded on immigrants and its founded on immigrants who came from those socalled shole countries. Name me id like to know one of these guys who can name an and seccestor who was the duke marlboro or the baron, i doubt thats the case. Does this not put him in a corner . Hes become increasingly more friendly with the president even in the last couple weeks or so. Now that dick durbin has sort of dropped the gauntlet, what does Lindsey Graham do . Do what durbin did. You have a source in the room in senator dick durbin of illinois talking on the record to reporters, confirming the report from the washington post. And you see now will the portrait be painted by others . Will graham speak out . Hes going to be under pressure to speak out. The white house was slow to respond yesterday. Did not deny the comments at first. Now the tweet today, as christian was saying, is a little vague about whether hes acknowledging the comments or not. This story is not going away. Thats why it becomes a political burren not just for the white house but for the entire Republican Party. Facing a difficult Midterm Election already. Having been defeated in alabama and in parts of virginia. And theyre also trying to get an immigration deal without being burned by the democrats, but the democrats have leverage. Brendan greely . I think the other thing thats going on here is that were not being honest about the role that immigrants play in the u. S. Labor force. Brendan greely, were not even being honest about what the president said 14 hours ago. Exactly. Or that his comments and his deeds have been consistent since the day he rode down that escalator and announced his candidacy. We should not be shocked at this point. Birtherism, central park five, it was long before the escalator. Also the discrimination faces for not renting to black people twice sued by the federal government. I think its important to remember that this is not knew. What we should find surprising and shocking is we have a Republican Party that props up a president who is racist and who is ignorant. And theyre okay with that. So we need to as a country decide are we going to be a country where every two or three weeks a particular ethnic group has to prove their humanity . Is that where were going as a country . And we need to decide what are we going to do about it. I mean, we have an entire party that is okay with this. Thats what i always tell people who are trump supporters, who run around and say, im not racist. Im like, but youre okay with it. So what does that say about you . And what does that say about this country . When we want to be the beacon of democracy. When we want to be the leader of the free world. But here we are debasing an entire segment of the world. Why . Because of the color of their skin . You dont just have to be because of the economics of the country why i cant be a republican anymore. Until last year, 2016, i vote republican in every election. If you talk issues like tax policy or funding for the military, okay, we dcan have reasonable debates. What trump is doing is hes going to the core of what it means to be a liberal democracy. The basic problem that i have with trump is he doesnt really believe in what in the tenets of liberal democracy. Neither does the Republican Party youre talking about civilized humanity, not politics support him willynilly are signing up to that agenda, so great. My tax burden is 2 less than it was last year. Ill pay the extra taxes. I just want to remain a true believing american. Which is to say to believe in the foundational concepts written in the declaration. Isnt it exhibiting common decency . Doesnt that come above, you know, a political agenda that might benefit your wages . If we talk about wages, one of the things we arent being honest about first of all, i sign on to absolutely everything you say, it is just about decency and thats enough, right, just the argument about who we whether we exhibit basic human decency to everyone in the world. That argument is sufficient. I think even more than that, on top of that, theres this idea that immigrants are driving down wages. Thats the ostensibly policy goal behind this. Everything we know about the actual economics of how that works is that illegal, undocumented immigrants are what drive down wages and the reason they work for nothing. They cannot complain. They cannot go to the authorities. They cannot organize. They cant sue. They cant sue. So theyre trapped. They want to work. They want to send money home. Theyre undocumented. That drives down conditions for everyone. All these actual policy issues that were talking about, right. Do we make the dreamers illegal . Well, theyre not going to leave. Theyre just going to be undocumented. Which means that they have no rights. They cant complain. They cant go to authorities. Everybodys wages go down. Do we send salvadorans home after 30 years . No, theyre not going to go home. They have families and businesses. Thats going to push them out of the legal status. To your point, its not just about decency because what weve seen in the past year in this administration is that trumps belief, right, that certain people are inferior because of the color of their skin, drives policy. So this isnt just about decency, this is about law, this is about policy. He is fighting a muslim ban right now in the courts. That muslim ban is a straight delivation of these racist believes. Its not just about decency, its about laws that i pact l s lives of americans. We remember signed the white house it was a scramble. There were huge fights after charlottesville. After President Trump made his remarks and then doubled down again. There was loads of infighting. People distancing themselves from the president. Gary cohen did that interview with the ft. Said he couldnt stand with the president s remarks. What are we going to see out of the white house now . The news comes that yesterday President Trump made those remarks. Yesterday there was a party for dina powell. While dina powell is no longer with the white house, shes going to be working with the white house, consulting on middle eastern issues. Dina powell certainly knows about the values of immigrants. Dina powell is an immigrant herself. Shes worked directly with female entrepreneurs from african countries. From other developing nations. Is someone like dina powell going to stand up and say, i cant stand with the president or work with the white house . Shes from an african country. Shes from egypt. Gary cohen who couldnt tolerate what the president said about charlottesville, will gary cohen stand with the president now . Stephanie, at moments like charlottesville, or moments like whatever we want to call this episode, this vulgarity, this racially charged moment in america yesterday, what matters, as a reporter, as an observer, so often as a reporter, people will privately confirm different information to me. But a major moment what you say on the record matters. If you choose to say nothing, thats a statement in and of itself. And that reflects a desire to stay close to the administration. To stay close to power. That is each persons respective choice. This is american politics at the highest level. And theres nowhere to hide from the national spotlight. You know, earlier i want to say thank you to my incredible panel. To that point earlier this week, the president s daughter, ivanka trump, took some criticism because via twitter, she said how much she appreciated and she supported those uplifting words from Oprah Winfrey bringing us together. This morning on instagram, ivanka trump featured a photo of herself wearing blue in her support today, wear blue to end human trafficking. So ivanka trump is happy to stand up and say positive things about what she believes in. Ivanka trump, i invite you to stand up and Say Something about this now. All right. I want to thank im sorry, my control room is trying to get me. We actually have a little bit more of the senator from illinois, dick durbin who shared his thoughts just a moment ago. We have more of that. Remember, he was in that meeting yesterday with President Trump on immigration. Lets take a listen. Disheartening for you, the fact you heard him say it or the fact that apparently a large portion of his base believes it . The most disheartening thing to me is my belief that that was the first time words that hateful had been spoken in the oval office. That of course, dick durbin. So were going to reset here. You know, this is amazing because it was reporting yesterday, i want to say from politico, that the president made these racially charged remarks. The white house said nothing last night. This morning, the president , you know, careful with his words but denying it and dick durbin coming out swinging. That looked like a senator who was dropping a match on the ground to burn it all down. If you think youre going to go back to the white house and hammer out some sort of bipartisan agreement, you dont say those words. You dont openly call out the president and say the word racist, right. You dont do what dick durbin just did. I also think, you know, brett, theres Something Interesting about whats going on. Which is weve watched this before, right. You get a gang of senators together. We call them a gang. They hammer out some sort of deal on immigration. It goes to the house. Its intolerable. That tension predates trump. One of the things about this debate is you have this deep layer of offensive comments and thoughts from the president. But underneath that, we havent completely changed the Republican Party. There is disagreement within the party, right about how to do this. Two days ago, you had republicans coming out in favor of one of the most restrictionist immigration bills. I want to put here in parenthesis. Saying were against illegal immigrant, not legal immigration. This would be a bill that would radically curtail legal immigration. I dont think this changes im sorry to say this, this doesnt change the Republican Party one bit. I think that the party has reached a point where its unshamable. And it wants as restrictionist a bill as possible. A restrictionist bill is this to anyone who believes in liberty, even the concept of a free market, and we now have a Republican Party that resembled the racist parties of countries like france. We dont have a Republican Party. We have a national front. It may as well be led by marine le pen. Thats where trump has brought us, has brought the conservative movement, has brought the United States today. Bob costa, then, before you move on, i know youve got to go, does this move one single vote . Does it mean what . Does this change a single vote in america . It certainly could, stephanie, because when you look at suburban voters in the past six months, they have started to turn away from the Republican Party for some of the issues that have been discussed by brett and other guests. And you see that choice. All voters will have to make this year. Will they be what the Republican Party that has changed its identity, aligned with the nationalism and these kinds of charged racial comments from the president or not. Im guessing what you had planned for washington week, thrown out the window and ill be tuning out tonight. Thats how it is every friday. They like to keep you on your toes. Look what time, 9 32, which means the market opened just moments ago after closing at another record high yesterday. And boom, its only going up today. I want to bring in cnbcs dominic chu. Dom, the market again pushes whatever words aside and continues to go higher. Earnings are looking good. Earnings are looking good. The overall picture for Corporate America is somewhat stable. Were obviously still feeling some of the effects of the tax law changes. Many companies at least early in the game for earnings reporting season are citing some of the benefits of the tax legislation that was just passed. As we watched the market move higher, its many of americas big blue chip industrialtype companies are seeing some of the bigger benefits here. Youre seeing record highs for the Dow Jones Industrial average and the s p 500 as well. I got to ask you about walmart. Just yesterday walmart announced employee wages. We heard about these 1,000 bon bonuses. We should note 1,000 bonuses are only for the employees who have been with the company for 20 years. On the same day, theyre announcing closing some of their sam club stores. Apparently some of those employees had no idea. They got in their cars, filled them up with gas and showed up to work and there was no work to go to. Theres a little bit of controversy about walmart about this. On the one hand, it was a roller coaster ride because early on today you got the headlines out of walmart saying they were going to give out these big bonus checks, 1,000 checks. Also raising their minimum wage to 11 bucks an hour for the employees already covered there. The sam club locations, 63 of them, and what theyre trying to do is lump this in together. A lot of folkings are criticizing walmart because theyre saying theyre using the cover of the hourly wage increase, as well as the bonuses, to hide the fact theyre closing 63 stores. What theyre saying about the stores is perhaps theyre not performing well financially. The Population Centers are not supporting the sales. What they could be saying is the facilities, the real estate, could end up becoming ecommerce or online fulfillment centers. Theyll also provide help for employees to find jobs at other walmart locations. Still, a lot of criticism about walmart with regard to whether or not theyre using these kinds of headlines to kind of cover the fact theyre going to close these 63 stores. It may have been a pr win but at the end of the day what this country needs is jobs and wages to go higher. You can have all the pr strategies you want. You might win the day. But this is long term. Americans wont forget. All right, dom chu, you sound stuffed up, you better rest this weekend. I will. Coming up, the confirmation of President Trumps comments by a democratic senator in the room, dick durbin. But first, i just want to share this with you. Because President Trump often compares himself to president reagan. I want to take a look at president reagans own words on january 19th, 1989. Do you see trump in here at all . Quote, and since this is the last speech that i will give as president , i think its fitting to leave one final thought, an observation about a country which i love. It was stated best in a letter i received not long ago. A man wrote me and said, you can go to live in france, but you cannot become a frenchman. You can go to live in germany or turkey or japan, but you cannot become a german, a turk or a japanese. But anyone from any corner of the earth can come to live in america and become an american. Those are the words of Ronald Reagan. We could go down this waterfall, honey. What do you think . Whooo yeah mmmmm. Want some . Its good, its refreshing. This is what our version of Financial Planning looks like. Tomorrow is important, but shes only seven once. Spend your life living. Find an advisor at northwesternmutual. Com. What a day. It is time now more money, power, politics. My exclusive sitdown with former new york city mayor Mike Bloomberg where we hit on everything from tax reform to the economy and the current administration. I started by asking him about a growing problem that many people hold democrats and republicans will be able to agree on, the countrys crumbling infrastructure. I dont think its any question we need to redo our infrastructure. But how . I can tell you how to do it but you have to go ahead and do it. The first thing you do is you dont pass a tax bill that takes away all the money we need for inf infrastructure and gives it as a tax break to wealthy people. Now, theres no money left to do infrastructure. When it comes to infrastructure, you dont just talk about it, you have to have a real plan. The problem with infrastructure is the announcement of the fact that youre going to do it is good. You have a press conference. Elected officials love those, okay. Gets them reelected. Then comes the next stage. Where youve got to tax people to pay for it. Nobody wants to do that. And then the third problem is if im going to put up with dealing with people complaining about taxes, i want to be around when its delivered. Except infrastructure takes a long time. So chances are i wont be in office when it gets delivered. So i get a little press conference. The public hates me because i raise taxes. And i dont get any credit when its done. Somebody else steps in and says, i did it. Short termism is the root of all evil. Youre somebody who runs a private company so you dont have to worry about shareholders banging down your door. Jeff bezos runs a Public Company and he tries new things all the time. Hes got the guts to stand up and say, if you want to buy the stock, this is the kind of management im going to have. Is the stock market the same thing as the economy . When President Trump and people talk about the booming economy, an economy is doing so well, does that actually help the country . Because in addition to being a businessman, youre one of the greatest fill lan thphilanthrops country. Is the country going to benefit from the stock market . The stock market comes after the economy. The economy is doing better. That justifies higher prices because youre going to have greater earnings. Im not so sure thats what we should really be worried about. We dont need more earnings. We need more jobs in this country. We have a fundamental problem. Its a problem not just here. Its a problem around the world. This we are having a rich poor differentiation that gets greater and its based on education and our Education Systems are not getting better, theyre getting worse. Its Something Like 3 million empty jobs in this country. And theres 3 Million People looking for jobs. And you say, all we got to do is get them together. Wrong. The people that are looking for jobs generally dont have the skill sets that the people who have the jobs need to fill those jobs. And so they turn towards more automation. And that takes away the jobs. Macks the handful of people working more productive. Gives you better products at lower prices. Consumers are benefiting from this. But were not solving the fundamental problem. And i wouldnt even describe it as income inequality. Thats certainly true. I would describe it more as an education diversity or education failure. Whats the biggest win this administration had during the last year . Because they would say taxes. You would say thats a big loss. Let me phrase it this way. I think the great failure of this administration is not building a team of people to address the problems day in and day out. Big tax bills or immigration bills or any of the stuff, they get all the headlines. But the real job of government is to, what i call, run the railroad. To manage the government. Its half a joke that my inner crowd tells me, you cant do something. I say im going to do it. The next day, each of them comes to see me separately and says you cant do it. I say im going to do it. Then i get back to my desk and theyve taken my phone and keyboard away so i cant do it. You have to have people around you, stephanie, who will tell you you dont have any clothes on. What if he picks up the phone and calls you and says cabinet position, get on board . I dont think theres any danger of donald trump calling me and making that call. What if he did . Never say never. I dont deal in hypotheticals. People have asked me, if they get that call, what should they do, and my answer is as an american, i think you have an obligation to help this country. But before you were to take that job, youd have to be assured, and i dont know how you get the assurance, that you would be able to affect nonpartisan good policies. And even in tough times, not be criticized by the administration. 2020, oprah and mike . Sitting here in a room, this room, two months ago, at a dinner. We had a great dinner together. Shes very talented. Shes very smart. Shes a business person as well as a a business person well, shes more of a star than i am. Could you see yourself maybe running for office with oprah . Would we do it alphabetically . I just want to make sure. Could you run now, mike . Oh, i suppose you could. You have to be 35 years old. Im older than that. You have to be a citizen. Im a citizen. You have to be born in america. I was. But i have no plans to run for president. All right, mike, thanks for your time. Happy to do it. I dont know, im going to quote jim carrey in dumb and dumber, so youre saying theres a chance. Democratic senator dick durbin confirming President Trumps comments calling haiti and some african nations shit holes. We are working on getting other reactions, including Lindsey Graham. 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That, of course, is democratic senator duick durbin of illinois confirming the president call iing the dictato shit holes. Theres the lineup on the screen. You can see across the top you have dave purdue, tom cotton, dick durbin that we have heard from. And you have dave perdue from georgia. His background is Corporate America. If you were a ceo, if jaime dimon, a close ally of President Trump, uttered anything like this, they would lose their jobs. They would lose their investors. So i wonder, dave perdue, given daves background, what a difficult position this puts him in and what he thinks about it. Look, the only possible moral position they can take is to utterly and publicly denounce the president. But what they have to do is separate from the president s sea itself. Because what republicans have become great experts at doing is saying, well, those comments were, as paul ryan said, textbook definition of racism. But this doesnt prevent him from working with him, praising him, flattering him, showing up at his events. So as you were saying, they are all complicit. We keep focusing on the word. The only outhouse in today is the president s brain. But the issue is not the word. The issue isnt even saying that a lot of countries in the world are poor and backward and have terrible problems. The issue is the failure to understand that 99. 9 of americans came from desperate backward places or what those countries were at the time. And the essence of america is this astonishing faith we have in ordinary human beings, core human beings brought here against their will. People brought here against their will to transform themselves and the world. And if you dont believe that, you dont believe in america. That is what the president s problem is. Well, also, i think it is important to point out, what is the impact of this . You have the president of the United States, a leader, this is the person who leads the country. This is the man who represents us on the world stage. What does it say to people who are from these communities that hes targeting this week . Because next week it will be somebody else. What he does is, he makes people from haiti, he makes people from african countries a target for hate crimes. He makes those people vitrial. We cant just talk about this, he said the pads words and they are just terrible. No, no, no. We have to look at the impact of the words. And people who are brown, like me, feel the impact of his words every single day. We can feel it. There is a difference in how we are treated. And so we cant walk away from that. These words mean something. So this is what is so interesting about that, because the people who we hearsay all the time, watch what trump does, not what he says, are not the people who feel the impact of this. You see big Business Leaders, when i was on christmas break, when i was on vacation in florida, there were people saying, listen, we know donald says crazy things. We dont like it. But the policies will be good for the country. Put that aside, we can argue about the policies on one side, but to those privileged, extraordinarily Successful Americans who stand by President Trump, you know, i think about a great businessman, someone who celebrates immigrants. I think about Steve Schwartzman who is one of the best philanthropists in new york city. These individuals have the benefit of stepping back to say, is this the right thing . Should we think about the impact of President Trumps words . Because we know the administration walks us back, look at the market. The market ignores the president s words because they say, oh, it is just rhetoric. I think the thing that i would want from Business Leaders is simple honesty about the role of immigrant labor in this country. We pretend in this country all the time that we can just kick everybody out, those jobs will be fine and go to americans, that is not how labor is constructed in this country. This is a devastating article out from business week last week that looked at the subcontractors to meat packing plants. And then they subjected them to harmful conditions. Thats part of the labor force. Those companies are listed on the new york stock exchange. This is business, right . So what i want from business is not just to say a platitude about how immigration is important to america, which of course it is, but lets talk honestly, who on your payroll is undocumented . What will do you with that labor if you can get them undocumented . What if everybody leaves . They cant, it wont happen. And if we pursue more rigid immigration policies, all that does is drives people out of documentation. It makes their status illegal and it makes them even less powerful. And you dont get their tax dollars. And you dont get their tax dollars. So if you are conservative, i dont know how you can understand a position on antiimmigration or antimaking these people be legal. Because it is not conservati conservatism. It is racism. Thats what it comes down to. Lets be clear that the immigration policies we are talking about, that trump is talking about, is immigration from certain countries. Because we know he likes norway. Right . To that point, someone on twitter just said to me, how can the liberal media possibly say, you know, immigration from one country is racist and not from another. I mean, no pun intended, it is black and white. If you are saying, those from black countries, i. E. Haiti and african nations should go home, but norwegians, come on over. Smart asians, come on over. Thats rooted in re schism, right . Of course it is. Thats hypocrisy. And ignorance. Exactly. You can go back 110 years when congress was beginning the restrictionist impulses in congress to stop immigration, which had made america the greatest country in the world by the end of the 19th century. All of it is rooted in the idea that certain kinds of immigrant, whether the chinese, thats why we had the chinese exclusion act, or people from central or eastern or Southern Europe were inferior people. That, of course, led to the restrictions of the 1920s and the tragedies of the 1930s. And this is like a recurring virus in the conservative movement that never goes away. Great republicans like Ronald Reagan were the ones who stood, spoke to eloquently against them. Thats why you read that beautiful quote. But what trump represents is that nativist wing that goes back to the restrictionists of the 1920s, to the knownothings of the mid20s century. If you look at one sector of the job market where you have seen the increase, its Home Health Care workers. People are living longer lives. And you know who takes care of Senior Citizens . Immigrants. You know who takes care of the children of households with working mothers or single working dads or two working parents . Immigrants. Try to find a College Educated nativeborn american to do that. You cant find those people in the workforce. And i think to go back to what bret just said, right . Well look back over the whole history of america making arbitrary decisions about what is a good kind of immigration, what is a bad kind of immigration. Nobody at this point in the entire 150year history could have said, that group will be good and that group is bad. Because we have turned out to be wrong every single time. Theres no way, theres zero way to look at any group and say, youre going to do good here and youre not. Heres the thing, the president of the United States does hold the highest office in the land. And an office we respect and admire. And we want him to do better and do the best for this country. But the good news is, that this country is filled with Extraordinary People doing extraordinary things every day. And every person matters, and every voice matters. So please, stand up and speak your mind. And lets all try to be our best sever selves. Thank you, guys, especially this woman, she was the standout. Ill be back at 1 1 00 a. M. Wit my partner, alli velshi. We are going to be violating fcc standards because of something the president of the United States said, reportedly and repeatedly. But that is where we are right now. With the parental warning for you, from the president , defiance and denials. And now from a democrat in the room and on the record confirmation that donald trump did, in fact, use the vulgar language, he says, to describe african countries. Not once but again and again. Were going to hear from him and from another gop leader joining us and only us, Ohio Governor john kasich will be here exclusively in just a couple minutes. Plenty to discuss on tho