Can. We are very, very close. 20 years. A month after my son passed we celebrated a 20year anniversary and extremely close. We lean on each other. You guys are working together on this. And she was talking to other people. She was at talladega. Using the platform. I have told my daughter and my sons what you said that second part which was, one pill kills. Thats such an important message. When a kid puts a pill in his or her mouth, prom queen or whatever, the valedictorian, that one pill, you have no idea. Looks like an innocent pill. Because of the agents thank you. Listen, i hope to can i give these quickly . Talladega. Roll tide, baby. Thank you. That does it for us. Stephanie picks up the coverage right now. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Im stephanie ruhle. Starting with questions but not any answers. The New York Times obtains a reported list of 49 questions that the special counsel wants to ask the president. One of the things that leapt out at me not included within the list. Does that mean that the special counsel is observing the red line the president tried to draw . And general discontent. Nbc news exclusive report paints a disturbing picture of chief of staff kellys actions declaring himself the only thing keeping the country going and mocking the president as an idiot. What we have found was this picture of someone whose public image is very different from the private manner. Hurry up and wait. After major threats, the president delays imposing tariffs on u. S. Allies for another month. Im not surprised that we saw the delay happen tonight because the president has bigger negotiations going on. We begin today with Robert Muellers reported list, 49 questions for the president that provide a roadmap to at least 1 big part of the investigation. Obstruction of justice. The president s response this morning, you cant get busted for a phony crime. Id love for the president to help me understand. How about the indictments . I have a great team to break it down. But first, lets go through the list. As we said, almost 50 questions that were obtained by the New York Times. Reportedly the questions mueller provided to the president s lawyers in preparation for a potential interview. They have not been independently confirmed by nbc news. That said, the questions cover four main topics. The tenure and firing of former National Security adviser michael flynn. The tenure and firing of former fbi director james comey and attorney general jeff sessions. His recusal and relationship with President Trump. And coordination of the campaign and you guessed it, rodriguez. The vast majority of the questions are obstruction allegations and nearly half of them deal with james comey alone. For example, they ask the purpose of two private meetings and two phone calls. Interactions which comey has said touched on the question of his loyalty to the president. Mueller also asks whether trump tried to get sessions to, quote, change his mind about recusing himself from the russia investigation. And he asks, what discussions were had about firing him, the special counsel . Heres the thing. Mueller may very well know the answers to all of the questions already. Hes already interviewed comey, flynn, sessions and several others referenced in the questions, including don mcgahn, Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort. This morning the president tweeted complaining the list was le leaked to the media and no questions on collusion. Thats not true. There are nearly a dozen questions that relate to collusion. One of the most interesting questions on the list this one. What knowledge did you have of any outreach by your Campaign Including by Paul Manafort to russia about potential assistance to the campaign . That is new and to this point theres been no reporting linking manafort to that kind of outreach making us ask the question, what does Robert Mueller know . We should point out that neither the president s lawyers or the special counsel are commenting on any of this. But somebody leaked it. So far, the president has not decided whether or not to answer muellers question. Heres a problem. If mueller has evidence of criminality and the president answers truthfully, it corroborates the evidence. If he doesnt answer truthfully, its a crime. The third is not answer the questions at all. Ken delanian, Steve Schmidt and daniel goldman. Mr. Schmidt, to you first. The president says this was leaked. I dont understand who exactly would have leaked this. Im not saying tell us the sources because you wouldnt know but trumps complaining it was leaked. Robert muellers team never leaks anything. Making us wonder could it be President Trumps own team . What do you think . Its like three kids, stephanie. One of the kids has ice cream frosting cupcake frosting on their face. You have a good idea which kid ate the cupcake. Nobody leaks from the special counsels office and all of a sudden Rudy Giulianis involved and the leaks began. It clearly is from the president s legal team. This information. These questions that have been put out there. And again, we see the president this morning tweeting, tweeting dishonestly, making all sorts of disparagements like this michigan, attacking the special counsel, attacking the intelligence community. Attacking the justice department. Denigrating the institutions that keep the country safe. At the end of the day what we know to be true is this. On every single instance back to the inauguration and the transition, every time that someone in this administration has been asked a question about russian involvement, about meetings with russians, any question of a russian, somebody in that administration has lied about it. And i suspect thats the case with the president s tweets this morning. You know, the president i always want to remind us. He says no collusion. I have yet hto hear him say no money laundering. Im surprised that he laid out the questions in this much detail to the president. Maybe he didnt. Well, its odd for this extensive list of questions that are so consistent with the reporting that we have heard and are so consistent with what we know for it not to be tethered to discussions that the president had with mueller. I suppose youre right in some sort of Conspiracy Theory world the president could have made up the questions and then leaked them but my guess it is from conversations no, no. What i mean is the president or the president s lawyers might not have gotten 49 actual questions. Maybe they got the layout of all this. If mueller is laying out heres our themes, would he laying it out and asking the questions if he didnt know the answers . No. He certainly has evidence. Im not sure he knows the answers conclusively but he has evidence related to all of these questions. The interesting thing as you pointed out, steph, is that in my ten years i never, ever provided questions to a witness before interviewed them. As a prosecutor, thats just not something you do. You could talk about topics and so what this reads to me is that hes being quite favorable and deferential to the president whos a special witness sort to speak because hes the president of the United States. Certainly is. It debunks the theory that the president and others have tried to parry that this is an effort to lure the president in, to trap him, into lying. This reads to me as if mueller is being incredibly transparent about what hes trying to do and where hes trying to go and hes giving the president every benefit of the doubt in order to try to wrap this up, to get the president s input on the investigation which is i think a critical component to muellers role as special counsel even if it is not in the ordinary course that you would see. If thats the case, Steve Schmidt, put your gop hat on for a moment. If what dan is saying is that muellers making it clear hes not trying to trap the president. Hes laying out what he has and everything hes trying to figure out. We know that the president might send out disparaging tweets that attack the institutions because it works for his core base if he wants to blow the investigation up. But if you are republicans sitting in office who have no previous ties to trump and no ties to russia and you see where mueller is in this investigation does it not give you pause to say, hold on a second . Mueller really is flying straight. Things arent going off the rails. Well, too late. At the end of the day, republicans have tied themselves to the mast with donald trump. And theyre going to go down on the ship with him. When you look at the special elections that have taken place over the course of the last year, including in districts that donald trump won by 17 points, 18 points, a district that he is a 22point republican district, that the republican just narrowly defeated the democratic candidate in, you have 35 retirees in the house of representatives. What that says is republican members of congress are saying that we dont want to be in the minority. Were likely to be in the minority. We think were going to lose. And were getting out. But the Republican Party, you know, 80 of it supports this president. Hes consumed the Republican Party. The Republican Party i was a part of involved in the bush white house, the john mccain campaigns, the party of ronald reagan, that partys gone. Its dead. This is the party of donald trump today. And so, so the Republican Party is the party of trumpism. And in the election in november the American People will have their first opportunity to deliver a referendum on trumpism whether they like it or whether they dont. At the end of the day the evidence suggest that is they dont like it very much and that there will be a massive repudiation in november. I hear you. I just wonder does that Republican Party that 80 that stands with trump can they continue to blow off this investigation and say its no biggy when they see these questions knowing what dannys point that mueller knows the answers without needing trump to answer them . Does it start to make them say, hold on a second, we need to pay closer attention . Ken, one question in the New York Times saying, quote, what knowledge did you have of any outreach by your campaign, including pau including Paul Manafort, to russia about potential assistance to the campaign . I hadnt heard anything about that previously about manafort and russia. Is this new . It is new, stephanie. When i started to digest the questions last night, the first question i wanted to answer for myself is what can we learn from this about the Mueller Investigation . What is not made public. The answer is almost nothing except the information suggested in that question. It certainly worded in a way to suggest that mueller developed information that manafort or perhaps other members of the campaign were reaching out to the russians, talking about assistance and coordination. Theres been no evidence of that so far. We have evidence of the russians reaching out to george pop develop louse and not the other way and thats really interesting because, you know, to dans point why would mueller present the questions to a defendant . My sense of this is is because are crushingly obvious questions. Theyre for every one of the questions there are 12 detailed followups socked with evidence, emails, phone intercepts, classified intelligence to pin donald trump down to force a damaging admission or catch him in a lie. Thats what were not seeing here and not anything about potential bank fraud or deutsch Bank Subpoenas and anything on the president s personal business. A lot we are not seeing and most questions obvious except that one you pointed out about Paul Manafort and intriguing to learn what is behind that, stephanie. Last point . Well, to the point of manafort, remember, rick gates cooperated a couple months ago. Oh. He was manaforts righthand man for years and years. So you have to assume hes given every piece of information he knows about manafort, about his dealings on the campaign to mueller. And rick gates went to the long after manafort had left the team rick gates was hanging around the white house. All right. We got to go. Yes or no, boys . Within at a time. Steve, does donald trump end up answering questions with mueller . No. Ken . Absolutely not. Dan . No. Wow. There we have it. No across the board. Next, a nbc news exclusive report revealing some disturbing details about chief of staff john kelly calling the president an idiot and complaining in front of the president that women, well, theyre more emotional than men. Women are more emotional than men . Have you met the president . And women have a range of emotions. Trump has two. Anger and you remind me of my daughter. Badda book. Badda boom. This year, were taking it up a notch. 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I ask you to turn up the volume for this. Nbc news exclusive report detailing eroding support in the west wing for white house chief of staff kelly. Thats according to eight current and former white house officials who spoke with me and my colleagues here at nbc. Four officials tell us that kelly portrays himself as the saving grace of the country and has repeatedly insulted the president s intelligence and policy knowledge saying, quote, he doesnt even understand what daca is. He is an idiot. We have got to save him from himself. I want to bring in one of my colleagues on this story, nbc National Security and military reporter, courtney. Go through the white houses response because the white house has on one hand denied it and on another hand said, well, theres a group of people out to get john kelly and the president said the white house is running so smoothly, like a welloiled machine. How does that compute . How could you say things are running so smoothly if theres a group out to get john kelly and how could you deny it from happening if a bunch of people may have said that . You and i both know they did. Thats right. We do, steph. So, you know, there have been three denials but its the president has really fallen back on what he likes to do when theres story he doesnt like which is to call it fake news. He started last night with tweeting saying that this is the fake news going crazy making up stories that we are totally unhinged and that the theres a Great Success of the administration and that no one believes what theyre saying. He went on to tweet that the white houses running very smoothly despite phony witch hunts and theres great energy and unending stamina with a capital s and setting positive records. We actually asked chief of staff john kelly about the story last week and did not reply to and then last night he said that he spends more time with the president than anyone else and they have an incredibly candid and strong relationship and he went on to call our story total bs. I mean, steph, as you know, the story actually the headline has gotten a lot of attention is the idea that john kelly called the president an idiot. We have four people who directly heard him say that at one time or another. But theres actually a lot of other reporting in the story, as well. You know, john kelly came in to be the chief of staff at the white house to restore order to chaos. Unfortunately for him, President Trump likes chaos. He has said that time that time and again and a difficult order he had to take on. But we mentioned several different times in the story where john kelly was successful at that. One of them was several months ago when President Trump became frustrated with the large u. S. Military and civilian presence in south korea and he wanted to take all u. S. Troops out and the families and that john kelly was able to talk him down from that. Unfortunately, hes also in the course of all of this alienated a lot of staffers and we report on in the story, steph. We want to point out that john kelly who said that women are more emotional than men and that he was considered to be someone who cared about women, regularly in meetings he would say, no profanity in front of a woman. No profanity with a lady in the room. Point out within 45 minutes of our story printing john kelly sent a very emotional and highly charged response and he called it total bs and last i checked the s in bs stands for a foul word. So john kelly, it appears that you, my friend, are the one using profanity and you are the one whos emotionally charged. I want to bring my panel in. Jonathan capehart and ab stoddard and Steve Schmidt back with me. Steve, it is not unprecedented for people in an administration to think things about the president , to maybe think hes foolish or unprepared or egotistical. Whats wildly unprecedented that john kelly openly speaks about it to others. When i talk to people in the white house thats what blew their mind. Moments they were saying i cant believe this guys saying things like if it wasnt for me this guy would be impeached or we would be at war. Have you ever heard of anything like that before now . Of course not. Theres never been a presidency like this. Theres never been a white house staff that approximates the dysfunction of this one. We have a secretary of state at the pentagon who is credibly reported to have said that the president is an fg moron. We have the white house chief of staff credibly reported having called the president an idiot. We know when we watch this president speak whether its with president macron, with chancellor merkel, whether its at a table with cabinet secretaries next to him, he borders constantly on incoherence. He has no idea what he is talking about on issues ranging from korea to tariffs and i have no doubt about the efficacy of the story. Its not news that this white house is dysfunctional, that this white house is a snake pit. We have as the staff secretary an unvetted credibly accused wife beater. We have the shenanigans around the va secretary nomination last week with dr. Jackson. This is the most shambolic administration in the history of the country and this report is entirely consistent with that reality that we see playing out in front of us on tv every day. In fact, to believe this is not true means that you have been successfully gaslighted by this administration because everything that you see in front of your face supports that, in fact, this is certainly true. Jon kelly openly wondering when and why rob porters exwives havent moved on. Thats a lot to swallow. A. B. One of the things that stood out to me in our reporting that the president so didnt want to meet with his National Security adviser h. R. Mcmaster, didnt like the style and the little facts in the presentation that john kelly had to go to extraordinary measures to reschedule things so the president wouldnt have to see mcmaster at a time when we have got massive National Security issues. And he had to talk President Trump out of withdrawing our allied troops out of south korea . 25,000 on the eve of the winter olympics. It is no wonder john kelly is burnt out and exasperated and saying things he used to keep inside. Lets look at these things in two compartments. Him being an oldfashioned chauvinist who thinks women are fragile, the things of congressman wilson, hes lost terrible credibility in a terrible episode of rob porter i look at the things separately from the fact hes a grownup and whats left of a crumbling wall of bulwark as he describes between losing alm semibrablanc. And this is really concerning to a lot of people, the idea of a white house without john kelly. With President Trump playing not only Communications Director but chief of staff himself. He is already sidelined john kelly. It is very clear. And the fact that john kelly whens still beloved by the way by many people in the west wing who want him to stay not surprised hes blowing a gasket. What is your take . It seems as though secretary mattis at the department of defense is probably going to be the last grownup. If general kelly leaves as chief of staff then the countdown clock i think will start on general mattis. This is a president who says great things about people until he no longer likes them. So far general mattis stayed in the good graces of the president. Maybe because hes across the river in virginia at the pentagon. And has a distance between himself and the president. Look. When i interviewed michael wolf for fire and fury in january he said then he was worried how long john kelly would last and thats before all of the stories started to come out and probably even then john kelly frustrated and trying to figure out how to deal with a president who doesnt know how to be president , doesnt want to learn to be president and is unfit to be president. I mean, if youre chief of staff kelly and you used to keep these things inside, once you start verbalizing these things, it is as if hes trying to cope, trying to reach reaching out for help from people just trying to say to people, look, im doing all of these things. It is like in airport 77 when karen black is the stewardess up in there trying to fly the plane. I mean, i can understand why john kelly feels like he is the last person standing between chaos and keeping the plane in the air. But its also clear from your reporting that there are people who want him out. Definitely are. Steve, whats your take on a. B. Point and jonathans that john kaelly may be extraordinary frustrated . There was reporting that the way john kelly was trying to get information to the president or how he wanted Kerstin Nelson to take a more senior post and may have been his goal and motive but maybe to protect us from not having chris kobak in the seat. Is there an argument to say the spth the root of this . Of course there is. Ive been critical of john kelly as white house chief of staff on a number of different occasions but that is fourstar general in his 40plus career 40year plus career in the United States marine corps, there was never a negative word spoken about john kelly ever. This was someone known for his probative, rectitude, excellence, commitment to the country. And of course, working for donald trump has stained all of that for this man. The source of the chaos is donald trump. It is not john kelly. We know as a retired marine corps fourstar general that the chaos must be anethma to him. The dysfunction in the white house as chief of staff he partly owned it but the driver, the cause of it is the president of the United States. Not the staff secretary. Not the chief of staff. Not the deputy chief of staff. Its a completely unprepared, completely incompetent, extremely emotional president of the United States who revels in his ignorance, who revels in his unpreparedness, he doesnt know the first thing about anything. And im certain thats frustrating to someone like john kelly who knows that we cant pull our forces out of the Korean Peninsula one day after theyve been there for 60 years just because the president saw something about it on fox friends. Its become the the republicans have become the party of trump. Hes got 80 gop support. Yet it seems that people with extraordinary track records are touched by trump and then theyre torched. Exactly to your point and steves, john kelly has an extraordinary record as did h. R. Mcmaster and rex tillerson. He has to be sitting somewhere in texas going, how in gods name did this to happen to me . Remember, a month ago he said it tongue in cheek and john kelly said Something Like god is punishing me and why i have this job. Can you speak about the trump touch . Thats the amazing thing. I wrote about nikki haley in a column recently how she was the only one able to push back essentially call the White House Team a bunch of liars trying to scapegoat her recently on russia sanctions because she is physically in new york. James mattis to deal with the relationship of trump staying quiet, no interviews. And hes sort of still retains obviously the respect of the president. And then, actually gina powell made it into the administration and out quietly and effectively without staining herself either. Every single other person straight back to goldman. It was her junior year abroad and most people join the administration, they leave to go on and do bigger and better things, not a junior year. He managed to leave unsinged and a rare exception and seeing general kelly sullied by this is incredible and hes literally staying for a higher purpose. This man just as steve described served the country with an unblemished record. Hes lost his son to service. He love this is country and he has a commitment to the constitution i dont know the people in the west wing likely understand and i think hes staying for a higher reason and i dont obviously looks like he is going to leave and that will be really unfortunate. A. B. That is an excellent point. You might not like his personality, might not like his sensibility but what hes done for this country and who he is cannot be forgotten amidst the chaos created in the white house. Not by general kelly but, of course, by President Trump. All right. We have move to forward. 106th straight month of expansion. Extraordinary and also it didnt start a year ago. The last eight years are now tied for the second longest span of uninterrupted growth in the countrys growth. It is tied with the boom of the 1960s and behind only the tech bubble years of the 1990s. Heres the question. How much longer can we keep it up . To help answer it, im joined by my friend from cnbc, steve liesman. Are we putting our party hats on saying the good times are here to stay or should we be looking at history and warning signs . Party hats and confetti. I love them all. We need here. Theres a lot going for the economy right now. We have low Interest Rates but rising a bit. We have low inflation and going up a little bit. We have a big fiscal stimulus coming down the pike as well as the tax cuts so the thinking among most economists is we may stretch it out to be the longest expansion. 106 now. 120 to break the record. And that brings us to 2019, 2020 when there is now concern about the economy and thats interestingly enough because of the very things i mentioned, the fed raising Interest Rates, maybe inflation starts to boil up. And then a lot of debate about this fiscal stimulus and the tax cuts. The idea that this was put together and put into an economy that was already at or near full employment and running at capacity. On the tax cuts front, we need to separate the tax cuts and what they do for the stock market because the tax cuts are certainly a great win for corporate america. You will see that in the stock market because thats how companies do so well bah as far as the American Worker and trickle down economics, im stunned to see marco rubio going after the tax cuts saying theyre not helping the American Worker when just a couple of months ago marco rubio stood with the president , voted for them despite loads of Empirical Data saying this aint going to help. Trickle down doesnt really work. Ill leave the politics to you all there but i find it interesting that the administration is already taking credit for the tax cuts working even though the tax cuts were only enacted back in december. And the very theory of the case of the administration is one where the tax cuts if they do get down to helping employees happens over a longterm process and ill walk you through that quickly. The idea is that companies have not been investing because taxes are too high. Theres doubt about that. But okay. Grant that. What would happen if they would go and buy machinery and equipment and commuters and enable them over time to raise wages. You wouldnt see it right away so i think the administration is probably politically doing itself some good by claiming credit for the tax cuts working already but its not a very good economic argument and not the one that they made when they supported the tax cuts. But to the president s credit, regulation and deregulation is a win for corporate hurricane and the last administration, if you asked c eos what was holding them back from investing, it was the regulatory threat, the unknown that regulation that they were going to get hit with, even if industries arent deregulated at this moment they feel confident that President Trump wont hit them with more regulation and wasnt the case in the last regulation. I think you put that really well, stephanie. First of all, you see Business Confidence higher. You see Business Executives talking about deregulation. But i think the key to the way you put it is this. Not that they necessarily been deregulated but that under the Obama Administration of a sense there was no actual upper limit to deregulation. Thats a key psychological factor. Whether or not that ultimately leads them to invest more, i have doubts about whether or not that what really held them back was tax level out there. At the margin maybe some. Deregulation created a confidence psychology as well as a sense of, you know, were not really going to be i think scott mckneelly said the water torture is over and democrats could have suggested to support the free market, tren pentrepre excellent point. One i think that democrats can look back and learn from. We were in a period where the last administration with the exception of new technology and that sort of business was not the Obama White House was not super business friendly. If you go across to fortune 500 ceos and elizabeth warrens perspective is not free markets and open to big business. Thats certainly impacting the way they thought. It did. The stock market did quite well under president obama and i think that a lot of the things he said were demonized by the republican side as being more antibusiness than they actually were. I think thats on one side. On the other side, when you read speeches of democrats about how theyre about the economy, Chuck Schumer had a piece in the New York Times about the democratic plan for growing the economy and it began by saying were going to raise your minimum wage which by the way is well supported and maybe reasons for it but its not the typical way i think americans think about it. They support the private sector and room for the democrats to improve there. At the same time, you have to you cant talk about deregulation on just one side. Yeah, good to get rid of rules and other stuff on the other side where ultimately if youre protecting the environment, protecting health, ultimately protecting the economy and the economic potential of the economy. We need to remember regulation is put in place to protect us. Thats such a thing as too much or bad regulation and there for a good reason to start with. Steve, thank you so much. Maybe the answer is we need to start listening to each other and find our way to the middle. Up next, money, power politics. President trump files a lastsecond reprieve for allies of controversial steel and aluminum tariffs. Why . Remember all that talk, all that chaos in the white house, now where are those tariffs . Y moderate to severe Crohns Disease. Then i realized something was missing. Me. My symptoms were keeping me from being there. So, i talked to my doctor and learned humira is for people who still have symptoms of Crohns Disease after trying other medications. And the majority of people on humira saw significant symptom relief and many achieved remission in as little as 4 weeks. Humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. Serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened; as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. Before treatment, get tested for tb. Tell your doctor if youve been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if youve had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flulike symptoms or sores. Dont start humira if you have an infection. Be there for you, and them. Ask your gastroenterologist about humira. With humira, remission is possible. So we know how to cover almost weve anything. St everything even close claws. [driver] so, we took your shortcut, which was a bad idea. [cougar growling] [passenger] what are you doing . [driver] i cant believe that worked. I dropped the keys. [burke] and we covered it. Talk to farmers, we know a thing or two because weve seen a thing or two. We are farmers. Bumpadum, bumbumbumbum in todays money, power, politics, after tough talk, President Trump postponed the controversial steel and aluminum tariffs for some allies and tariffs to come into effect today now wont happen until at least june 1st. Already in place against a number of countries including china, russia and japan. But the European Union which lobbied hard against the proposal will have a few more weeks to convince President Trump to change his mind. Despite the delay, the president tweeting this morning, quote, delegation heading to china to begin talks on the massive trade deficit created with our country. Very much like north korea, should have been fixed years ago. Not now. And same with other countries. Great potential for the usa. Back with me, jonathan, a. B. And joining us sam natapuf. A. B. To you first. The president is not saying i met with merkel, macron. Maybe reconsider and what people thought would happen and other people in the white house who have had their heads spun with the president saying tariffs, tariffs, tariffs, are we all bark and no bite . President trump doesnt want us to know and merkel and macron to know and hes impulsive anyway and hes going to give an extension and then he is going to dangle the concept of a permanent xerpgs but theyre not going to know and so it might be something thats decided after mnuchin and gettis back and if e response is we knew he was just joking around for friends and not that tough, then he might get tough again in a couple of weeks. You cant bank on what a final decision is going to be. I bet this goes 30 days, 30 days far while. Is this an effective strategy or brexit complicating things or i saw on fox news last night the president has other things to worry about. Whats going on . Donald trump just threatened to punch the European Union in the face and wants to see if they will fight back and they wont but china will. Again . Donald trump said i want you to change your policies. You need to give up to me in public or else im going to mess with your economy. Now, steel and aluminum, 2 of u. S. eu trade and french and germans allies for 75 years. They dont want to fight but china did. Thats why they threatened a 25 tariff on soybeans. 56 went to china of our exports. They can say no problem and get them from the south america. Some. But what xi jinping is doing is sending a message, make my day. The places where you get soybeans are north dakota, indiana, west virginia, tennessee. All of these are states which have 2018 contested u. S. Senate races so the interesting thing is Donald Trumps tariffs focused on 2016. Rewarding the rust belt states and chinas sending a message saying were much more interested in 2018 elections. We wont hack your elections but were considering involving ourselves. Xi jinping has the gift of time. He will be in the seat forever. Is he playing a smart game here . Which one . In terms of xi jinping or President Trump . President trump. No. He is not playing a smart game at all. Yes, president xi has the gift of time. What President Trump doesnt understand is it says, though, hes got all of these things in buckets to use the word we were talking about in the break. Hes got tariffs in this bucket. And hes got north korea in this bucket not realizing that both tariffs and north korea are in the same bucket. You cannot have a fight with china over here on tariffs and then expect china to work with you to solve the north korea problem. He does this in all of these things, whether its europe, whether its the Korean Peninsula. He acts as if i can take the discrete actions and one doesnt have an impact on the other. They absolutely do. What do you think . Chi nas willing to make movs to make donald trump feel better. Boom. Talk about this. They said theyll open up the electric Vehicle Market in china in four years. Well see how real that actually is. But that doesnt mean they want the americans to come there and actually set up markets. They want american knowhow and capital to come there and theyll be other controls not strictly on electric cars so xi jinping has the luxury of time and the luxury to see the whole board. Donald trumps attention is a little more fragmented. How do you think this china trip is going to go . Is xi jinping going to give tiny little winnings for them to come home and run some victory laps with but theyre playing tiddly winks and hes playing three dimensional chess . Xi spent more time in iowa than donald trump has. Spent several weeks there in 2012. Xi jinping did . The president of china spent where . Muskatine, iowa, for weeks. What was he doing . Studying agriculture. Talking to grain producers. He was he went there on a trip for the chinese government. The president of china spent more time in iowa than the president of United States has so he understands the need for donald trump to come back with something. He isnt going to get what really matters because xi jinping understands what he wants. And he understands what donald trump needs. So xi jinping spent more time in iowa than donald trump has. Donald trump spent more time in it than Hillary Clinton has. And here we are. Wow. Xi jinping, it sounds like you may have won the day. All right. Well leave it there. Up next, more than a decade at the helm, seseal richards steps down as the president of planned parenthood. A better dog thats what oscar mayer does every. Single. Day. Our dogs are totally free from artificial preservatives, any added nitrates or nitrites, and we waved byebye to byproducts. And were taking those better dogs to the ends of the earth. The top of the world. And everywhere in between. Why . So you can get back to eating them, scratch that, back to loving them. Oscar mayer. For the love of hot dogs. car horn so allstate is giving us money back on our bill. Well, that seems fair. We didnt use it. Wish we got money back on gym memberships. Get money back hilarious. With claimfree rewards. Switching to allstate is worth it. Most people come to la with big dreams. We came with big appetites. With expedia, you could book a flight, hotel, car, and activity all in one place. President trump reportedly weighing whether to slash planned parenthood title 10 funding. And axios report says Kellyanne Conway went to see President Trump on friday to try 10 to sure he follows through on his Campaign Promises to end federal funding for planned parenthood so long as the organization continues performing abortions. I want to bring in the one and only steele richards. Shes the former president of planned parenthood. Yesterday was her official last day on the job of a decade with the organization. Shes also the author of the new book make trouble whats your reaction to this latest report . President trump wants to slash funding and again all about abortions. Itsly its even more yoout outrageous than that. Basically what theyre trying to do is take the National Family planning program, which is the twha many women with low incomes get access to Birth Control at planned parenthood and other places and make it impossible for so many Healthcare Centers to provide that Birth Control by basically enacting a domestic gag order. This would say that any Healthcare Provider could no longer inform women, not just not provide safe and legal abortion, couldnt inform women of their rights or referrals. And it is its the most outrageous attack ton Birth Control that weve seen in my lifetime. Why dont we realize that . There are people who simply want to continue this narrative and it works. That planned parenthood is the abortion store. I want to pull this argument we hear over and over. Republican candidate for the house says why shut legislators force a person who has a belief that life starts with conception to subsa died and use their taxpayer dollars for somebody elses abortion. Is there an argument to be made simply do something to put an end to this . Is it a pr issue . How many more extended family meals destroy to go to arguing thats not how planned parenthood works . Well, actually, i mean, most people in america know thats not how planned parenthood works. We brait operate just like every other hospital and Healthcare Provider. Federal funds dont go for abortion. They go for Birth Control. You could argue as i have many times, we do more to prevent unintended preg unanimous sand the need for abortion than any other organization in this country. I was just looking at fox newss most vent poll. Even they had to say that of all the organizations in the country, planned parenthood was the sing the most popular. Because most people in this country see planned parenthood not as the problem back up as the solution. But thats the argument that we hear when funding does get cut or the threat, well, you know, its the Pro Life Community that doesnt support it. So why not make it more clear . I mean, i think we do. And i think thats one in five women in this country go to planned parenthood for healthcare. They know very well why its important to them to have Affordable Access to care. And the kinds of things this administration is going or trying to do is going to make unintended pregnancy rise. I can guarantee the rate of abortion will rise in this country as well. Its incredible. And right now were at the lowest rate of teenage pregnancy in the history of the United States of america. That should be something we should be celebrating and doing more to get access to affordable family planning. A lot of women in positions of influence like to say that they stand up for women, they stand up for women. But in order to stand up for something, youve got fight and youve got to face adversity. Youve done it for your whole career put leave planned parenthood now. Your book, the title make trouble thats what its all about. Right now were seeing a Record Number of women run for election. Thats right. Are you going to be one of those women next . I dont know. Maybe sometime in the future but right now im really focused on getting twon vote in november. Right now women are the most important Political Force in this country. I think its important to rep remember its not just Democratic Women purt talk about standing up for women, and we see susan collins, republican in maine standing up for planned parenthood, for womens right to affordable healthcare. Think this is an issue that crosses party lines and youll see this november a lot of women voting on the issue of Healthcare Access. Then could Healthcare Access be the unifying issue that gets people net cent people in the center to rise up . I think thats what we saw this last year where the administration not only people with the Affordable Care act get rid of maternity rights for women. It is igniteding women all across america. You put out the bat signal and women are coming out wanting to know what can they do to make a difference. What have you learned on the book tour . Whats been your Biggest Surprise or takeaway from all the women thats come to see you . What i think thats been interesting is women from 18 to 80 are coming out and saying i havent been involved before, i havent really been politically active have now i have to be so what can i do . Thats why i wrote the book. Maybe theyre doing it not for politics theyre doing it for healthcare and decency. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you joining me. Good luck with the new book. You better read this thing, its excellent. Before we go, you know how i end this show, no matter what, theres always good news somewhere. Weve got to end on a heigigh n because good news rules. Today, right outside charleston the Police Department s. W. A. T. Team. The officers dressed up at super heroes and rappelled down the side of a local hospital. As you can imagine, the kids inside that hospital were thrilled. They spent the day visiting and taking pictures with superman, spiderman, and the flash. That is extraordinary and those are some great americans spending a day making those kids day a little brighter. Thats wraps us up for this hour. I will see you again with my own super hero alli velshi at 11 00. Right now, more nows with my friend hallie jackson. Youre my superhero, girl. Thank you for that. Well see new an hour. Good morning tufl you and happy loyalty day. It really is by official white house prock clo medication. What you wont see officially from the white house are statements about how the president s feeling. But thats clear from his twitter, right . Hes furious firing away at the special counsel after that explosive story in the New York Times is revealing what questions Robert Mueller wants to skask. Why some allies think thats a trap. And the president s not happy with nbc news either seeming to slam our exclusive reporting calling fake news bonkers after multiple sources told us his chief of staff john kelly called the president an idiot. Plus, were heading back to the border. A handful of people in that Migrant Caravan have now been let into the country. Dozens of others seeking asylum. Still waiting for an answer. Were going to talk about what they should expect. Alberto gonzalez is here life. You do not want to miss that. Were going to get to in a few minutes. First to nbc Peter Alexander over at the white house. Peter, this new report is not sitting pretty with President Trump, hes slamming it on twitter, hes upset about the questions and hes not totally accurate on what his pushback is, is that fair to say . Reporter i think youre exactly riemtd. The president no surprise, teeing off as you noted on twitter. He wrielgts so disgraceful that the questions concerning the russian 1 of hunt were leaked to the immediaty, dmo no questions on collusion, he says i see you have a made up phony crime, collusion that never