Efforts to meddle in the u. S. Political system, including the upcoming midterm elections. Frankly, the United States is under attack. This is not going to change or stop. Yes, it is not going to change nor is it going to stop. We do need a u. S. Government strategy and clear authorities to go achieve that strategy. Were taking a lot of specific efforts to blunt directed by the president . Not specifically directed by the president. Reporter the latest bombshell to hit the white house. A longtime attorney for President Trump has told nbc news he paid a woman who claimed to have an affair with mr. Trump. Reporter President Trumps personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, now admitting that in 2016, he paid 130,000 out of his own pocket to adult film star Stormy Daniels. Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford in a statement, cohen said, neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump Campaign was a party to the transaction with miss clifford. The payment to miss clifford was lawful and not a Campaign Contribution or a Campaign Expenditure by anyone. You really cant make this stuff up. Okay. New and conflicting information is emerging on the white houses handling of abuse allegations against former staff secretary, rob porter. I just want to mention, remember, andy cardin said to you and i, stop focusing on this. Weve got big issues. Weve got the middle east. Weve got north korea. This isnt us. This is the white house taking us to day nine on this story. Unforced error. Nobody asked them to lie. Correct. And sources inside the white house are telling me that this is all about chief of staff john kelly. Yep. Not about rob porter. Not about President Trump. The chief of staff, kelly, and white House Counsel don mcgahn, knew the full story about the allegations about porter, but that it was kelly who knowingly signed off on Sarah HuckabeeSanders Press Briefing statements, saying the exact opposite. Unbelievable. And while the president may have his back, kelly is losing the white house staff he is supposed to be leading. All of this is fueling growing dissent inside the white house against kelly. And while there has been no official search for a new chief of staff, the former general is growing more and more isolated by the day. And now congress is getting involved. So what i want to know from chris wray is, what specificity did you learn . When did you learn it . And with whom did you share it . And when did you share it . Just so im clear, will the Oversight Committee be launching an investigation into this . We did last night. Well, there you have it. Now we are learning that congressman sent letters to director wray and chief of staff kelly. He wants more information on the porter timeline by the end of the month. And ali, the reason this is important, President Trump is el heffe, the king, when it comes to unforced error. Sarah Huckabee Sanders regularly lying at White House Press briefings. But if you ask suddenly why the white house is cracking and why theres leaks everywhere, its because john kelly and i learned this on a weekly basis says in Staff Meetings how lucky the staff is to have a leader like him who is supposed to bring order. So what a disservice he did to the president. Remember, it was andy card who said hes there to serve at the pleasure of the president. John kelly didnt need to make this a massive issue for the president. He did. He made the decision that rob porter was more important than his credibility. And so its stunning that this is happening now. Were going around saying, is Kevin Mccarthy getting the job . Gary cohn getting the job . Right now, theres not a clear job opening, but there could be because the credibility of john kelly, to say its in question, is an understatement. It is proved that he lied about fredricerica wilson. So the man is a liar. And saying immigrants are too lazy to get off the couch. Remember when Chuck Schumer supposedly had that handshake with President Trump on daca, its john kelly and Stephen Miller who had these extreme views. I also learned it was john kelly when talking about those special visas, from people from disaster situations like el salvador, like haiti. Its john kellys extremeright views who said, lets not review those visas. Yep. So even within the white house, you said the globalist faction, people are saying, this guy has gone over his skis. Yep. And this is a clear other example. So lets walk through what we believe we know. The fact is, we dont have honest timelines, because the white house isnt being honest. But the timelines we have dont seem to mesh with each other. We learned last week, for instance, that white House Counsel, don mcgahn, was first alerted to an issue in january 2017 about rob porter. Fbi director chris wray testified that investigation was completed in july. Chief of staff john kelly reportedly learned about the allegations by november, at the latest, when the fbi provided followup information, but he called porter a man of true integrity and honor last tuesday, the day the story broke. Okay, allegations of abuse were posted by the daily mail that night. Within two hours, tuesday night, the white house released statements, strong statements, in defense of rob porter. Communications director hope hicks reportedly helped craft the statement. Why is that interesting . She is the White House Communications director, after all. Well, she was reported to be in a relationship with rob porter. Overnight, now were into wednesday, a photo showing porters first exwife with a black eye was released. White house officials tell axios several people in the white house, including kelly, tried to convince porter to stay and fight. Later that afternoon, press secretary Sarah Huckabee sanders told reporters, rob has been effective in his role as staff secretary, and the president and chief of staff have full confidence and trust in his abilities. Interesting. But then she noted, he would be resigning, calling it a personal decision. This is wednesday. Were only up to last thursday. Deputy press secretary, raj shah, this guy here, Principle Deputy secretary, said chief of staff kelly had only become fully aware of the allegations the day before, despite kelly first leparning of the issue three months earlier. And l then were off to friday. Kelly said he took action to dismiss porter within 40 minutes of learning about the images, instructing staff to say the same. He maintained the final decision to resign was actually porters. But on monday, Sarah Huckabee sanders said a conversation regarding the allegations took place within those 40 minutes, saying his resignation was accepted, vaguely, within 24 hours. Thats an apparent contradiction to kellys statement on porters ouster. Were not done yet. Yesterday, at the hearing, under oath, fbi director chris wray told senators the fbi closed the file on porters background in january. Remember, thats after completing the investigation in july of 2017, without issuing porter a security clearance. Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters later yesterday afternoon that it was the get this the white house personnel Security Offices call. They had not made a final recommendation, shifting the porter decision on to career officials. Or what you might think of as throwing someone else under the bus. But a former senior white house official tells nbc news, it wouldnt be up to that White House Personnel Security Office to make a decision. They may make a recommendation on it, but that office simply doesnt make decisions on security clearances. Finally decisions are all up to white house political staff. So this is where it all breaks down. At some point, i mean, i know thats hard to get through, but the fact is, it is entirely contradictory. And even Sarah Huckabee sanders has already parsed her words, saying that the Communications Department has been forthcoming with the information that they know, but other parts of the white house might have other information. Well, guess what . John kelly signs off on everything Sarah Huckabee sanders says and does. And my other question is, even if the president , as wive learnlearn ive learned from people inside the white house, even if the president only learned of this last week, why not watch his hands of it. Why is the president , a, standing with john kelly here, and b, continuing to say little or nothing about rob porters its just one of those things. And one other question to you. Rob porter, surely, given his history, shouldnt have security clearance. Most likely shouldnt work in the white house. But he doesnt necessarily need to have his name and his situation become an international incident. And the person to point the finger at for making that happen john kelly. Is john kelly. This is a mess that didnt need to happen. Joining us now, the Weekly Standard editor at large, bill kristol, and pbs newshour white house correspondent, yamiche alcindor. Bill, let me start with you. Where it comes apart for me is when john kelly said he heard something in november that the security clearance was being held up, but he didnt get any detail on it. That is just not conceivable, not just of a marine general, who happens to be the white house chief of staff, but pretty much of any human at all, who says, hey, theres a problem with security clearance, its being but ali for someone to say, hey, whats the nature of the problem . Go through the timeline. Washington post on thursday, kelly learned in 2017. Raj shah on thursday, he became aware yesterday. Kelly on friday, 40 minutes later he was gone. Sanders on monday, within 24 hours of resignation, had been accepted. Its lie on top of lies and its the lies the that are causing the problem. I partly disagree with you guys. You are too focused you keep saying its an unforced error. Why is he lying . Well, people lie for a reason. Why is john kelly lying . Because john kelly knew a long time ago about the credible allegation s against porter. Why could kelly not clean that up . Because donald trump knew, i believe. I think it goes to trump. It doesnt go doto kelly. Youre being too nice to trump. Kelly made this horrible mistake. Trump didnt know anything how do we know trump didnt know anything . I dont believe for a minute the way donald trump runs his organizations and his white house, hes not interested in policy, hes interested in personnel. He was very close to porter. Mcgahn knew and told him. Trump knew and trump decided, lets put it the nicest way, you know, there are no legal charges, no criminal charges, no civil actions, i guess, a roadw restraining order, im going to let porter stay there. But trump has no decision that was trumps decision. And the reason they lied is because theyre covering up the fact that it didnt matter to donald trump that a wife abuser was in a senior staff position in the white house. And trump said, who cares, forget it, keep him on. Thats my view. If youre right, thats worse. Yeah, it is worse. It is worse. Than the way were looking at it. And i think kelly may be taking the bullet on this. Lets ask kelly. Lets see, did you never discuss this with donald trump before just this week or last weak . I dont buy that for a minute, the way trump runs that white house. Hope hicks is very, very close to donald trump. Hes just like not interested hes very interested in the personal relationships of his staff. Weve learned that over the years, right . So for me the problem is trump. Okay, so for me, its white house staffers have told me that the president didnt know and john kelly did. But, again, everybodys every source is motivated by something. And theres a lot of lying going on right now. So yamiche, lets say you take bills take on this. That the president did know. Was there a different way to handle this . Because as stephanie and i have experienced from the Business World, when people get in big trouble, its usually not for the underlying thing. Its for the coverup and the lies that go on. Now trey gowdy is getting involved and hes going to get everybodys sworn testimony. The Business World it doesnt have a good end. Alis being too generous. The Business World. The schoolyard. My children are champion liars, coveruppers. Business world. Hes being generous. Well, i think that this white house could have done a couple of things. One, they could have said, as soon as this came out, you know what, this was something that we had talked about. We didnt know the extent of these allegations, and as a result, we have terminated him. John kelly said that within 40 minutes of learning about the allegations, he had had a conversation with rob porter, and he could have said they could have said that on tuesday, and said, you know what, this guy is gone. And maybe they could have even admitted that people knew about this, but they just didnt understand that. This could have at least been a line, a narrative coming out of this white house. Instead, what they did was continue to make it seem as though people werent going to understand what the underlying thing was. They acted as if the fbi wasnt going to be able to say, actually, we gave you two reports. And then we asked you for follow up in july and we gave you more information. I think i agree with bill in that john kelly is the person that a lot of people are focused on. Its true, ive talked to staffers in the white house who say theyre very focused on john kelly, angry at the fact that he came to the defense of rob porter. I think this does go back to donald trump. Even today, he has not tweeted and said, i believe the women. I believe rob porters wife. Im i believe Domestic Violence victims. Hes had Sarah Sanders claim that the president dictated that statement of support for Domestic Violence victims to her. But we know that the president tweets about everything every day. If he felt strongly, with he would have tweeted. But he stayed in the corner of rob porter. This is a brilliant point. For Sarah Sanders to say that the president has dictated his support for the president. The president says whatever the heck he wants and says it on twitter. He has no need to go through Sarah Huckabee sanders on most thing. He says it on twitter 24 7 and he certainly hasnt done it here, bill. Why do you think thats the case . Good point. Because we know what he thinks. He thinks these charges could well be false. Didnt he say that in a tweet . He didnt reference porters name, but he said, you know, a lot of these allegations are false and some are true, some are false. And its terrible. Peoples careers are ruins. He said that publicly on friday. Lets focus on trump to the cameras. I think it was the end of the week, right, hes a good man, hes served us well. Not a word. Not a word about the women. Incidentally, the Michael Cohen story which is also very interesting. People are saying and i myself said originally, cohen paid the 130,000. Cohens statement says he facilitated the personally the payment of 130,000. It makes me wonder, orwin kerr, a very smart lawyer, caught this on a blog post. It makes me wonder if hes parsing his words. He dont know it was cohen. Maybe it was donald trump, obviously. So really, what this white house im not telling you anything you dont know. You have to be super suspicious of everything thats the sad part. And then they just lie. Theres just too much lying. The Washington Post had it earlier had it last night and it pblew my mind. Where a white house insider said, when asked about john kelly being untruthful or could be more transparent with the public, they said, its not in this administrations dna. This is our white house. And we mentioned it the other day, the 130,000 to Stormy Daniels. Well, Kellyanne Conway said the president privately has given a lot of aide to women. I guess thats their idea of what aide is. 130 grand to a porn star. You could call that aide. I want to make a quick point here. I think everyone around Donald Trumps orbit ends up getting kind of sully and their credibility starts to shatter. And the president has started to be teflon in this way, because you have people blaming steve bannon for why donald trump was winking at the altright. People are blaming steve miller for the hard immigration line. Now theyre blaming john kelly for how this rob porter thing is handled. But at the end of the day, donald trump is the one whos the captain of this ship. He is someone who definitely is driving the way that this white house is handling things. Thats a great point. I think its too easy to just say that hes someone off on the side and doesnt understand whats going on. That is a great point. Buyer beware, power suckers, those who are drawn to this white house, look at President Trumps business over the last 50 years. He burns everyone who gets anywhere near him. So you could say all day long, he didnt know this, he didnt know that. He is the guy that the American People voted for. Hes the one who was voted into office. If theres blame to go anywhere, youve got to point the finger at the president. All right, bill, thanks very much for joining us. Yamiche, both of you, appreciate you giving us good perspective on this to think about this. While were focused on john kelly or don mcgahn, the fact is, the president s both of their bosses. Im focused on 130 grand. If you want to give it to me for no reason. For no reason at all. Folks do that all the time. Sign it here. Venmo. Ill send it to them. You dont have venmo. I owe him 4 and hes on me to send it. He wouldnt send it on facebook or on venmo. Ill bring it tomorrow. Our intel chiefs say russia is already targeting this years midterms, but President Trump doesnt seem to care. Yet another unforced error that i dont understand. All right, coming up next, were breaking down evidence to show you how russia has interfered in american elections and what can be done about it. Stay with us. Youre watching v ining velshi live on msnbc. [boxing bell ding] [applause] sucthey read more. Have one thing in common. How do they find the time . With audible. Audible has the Worlds Largest selection of audiobooks. For just 14. 95 a month. You get a credit good for any audiobook. And you can roll your credits to the next month if you dont use them. Audible members get free no hassle exchanges. And use the mobile app to listen anytime, anywhere. Start a 30day trial and your first audiobook is free. Listening, is the new reading. Text audio22 to five hundred five hundred to start listening today. You know whats not awesome . Gigspeed internet. When only certain people can get it. Lets fix that. Lets give this guy gig really . And these kids, and these guys, him, ah. Oh hello. That lady, these houses yes, yes and yes. And dont forget about them. Uh huh, sure. Still yes xfinity delivers gig speed to more homes than anyone. Now you can get it, too. Welcome to the party. Back with velshi ruhle. A look at where we stand in the wake of what we now know about russias ongoing efforts to interfere with our elections and our efforts to stop them. Startling revelations as the heads of americas intelligence agencies testified yesterday at a Senate Hearing and sounded the alarm. Frankly, the United States is under attack. There should be no doubt that russia perceive that its past efforts as successful and views the 2018 u. S. Midterm elections as a potential target for russian influence operations. We do need a u. S. Government strategy and clear authorities to go achieve that strategy. Has the president directed you and your agency to take specific actions to confront and blunt russian influence activities that are ongoing . Uh, were taking a lot of specific efforts to blunt russian directed by the president . Not as specifically directed by the president. Not specifically directed by the president. Before we get to what more we could be doing to stop russias interference, heres what has been uncovered. On june 14th, 2016, the Washington Post reported Russian Hackers got into the Democratic National committee servers. It is the first public report about that breach. Then, on october 7th, 2016, the department of Homeland Security and the office of the director of National Intelligence declared the Intelligence Community is confident the russian government directed the recent compromises of emails from u. S. Persons and institutions. On january 6th of 2017, the office of the director of National Intelligence released a declassified version of its analysis into russian interference, which included assessments from the cia, fbi, and National Security agency. It said, quote, putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016, aimed at the u. S. President ial election. Russias goals were to undermine public faith in the u. S. Democratic process, denigrate secretary clinton, and harm her electability, and potential presidency. On june 5th of 2017, the intercept published a leaked nsa document, showing how russia carried out Cyber Attacks on a company that supplied software for Voting Machines in eight states. No evidence was found of any votes being changed. On june 21st, a department of Homeland Security official disclosed during a Senate Hearing there was evidence that russia targeted electionrelated systems in 21 states during the president ial campaign. On november 1st, also at a Senate Hearing, facebook admitted that more than 150 million americans were exposed to russialinked propaganda on both facebook and instagram. During that same hearing, twitter announced it found more than 37,000 russiatied accounts, which generated 1. 4 million electionrelated tweets, which received about 288 million impressions. And just last week, the department of Homeland Security official in charge of protecting u. S. Elections from hacking told nbc news in an exclusive interview, we saw a targeting of 21 states and an exceptionally small number of them were actually successfully penetrated. However, Officials Say there is no evidence registration rules were altered. All right, joining us now is nbc news intelligence and National Security reporter, ken dilanian. Ken, youve been digging into this. Obviously, you knew a lot of what was presented yesterday. But there were some startling comments at the intelligence hearing. Were you surprised at the candor there or were you expecting it . No, i wasnt surprised. In answer to a direct question, these guys are intelligence professionals and theyre going to Tell Congress the truth. Particularly, senator jack reed of rhode island was very artful in the way that he pinned them down to get them to admit that the president of the United States was not asking them to do anything about the issue of russian meddling. I was somewhat surprised, though, how explicitly the written document, the worldwide threat statement that is issued, which is a statement on behalf of all of the intelligence agencies, how explicitly that addressed the issue of russian meddling, in a way that it really hadnt before. And i was wondering if this was a way for them to get the message to the boss, who is clearly not engaging with this problem that, hey, this is one of the top threats facing the United States. Okay, so amidst all of this, russia sanctions against russian were not reupped by this white house, despite congressional support on both sides. Yeah, thats right. So thats an example of where we can have all the cybersecurity in the world and its not very good, by the way, we can get into that. But we are not, right now, deterring the russians from engaging in this behavior, which is why you see the Intelligence Community saying, theyre doing it now and theyre coming back for the 2018 midterms. And hey, this morning, nbc news is publishing a database of 200,000 tweets that twitter has tied to malicious activity from russianlinked accounts. Were psychologicaling throu ig through them right now. This is that database. Each is an individual tweet and there are 200,000 of them. What can you tell us about this . Hats off to our colleagues for prying this information out of people who are familiar with it. Because twitter did not put this out, explicitly. But i think what it shows is what we sort of already know. Which is that these Russian Hackers and bots are exploiting divisions in american society. And theyre using twitter and other social media platforms to do that. And we saw its been successful. We saw it with the release of the memo campaign. Russian propaganda accounts fueled that hashtag. They werent exclusively responsible for it, but they tweet at altright people, they tweeted on the left, too. And they are basically sewing division and its a problem that the United States and that the social Media Companies have not really come to grips, guys. And its sort of a separate part of the problem that our officials are going to have to figure out how to deal with and are trying to. Ken, thanks very much. Great to see you, as always. And we are following the money in the Stormy Daniels case. Trumps longtime lawyer says he paid the porn start out star of his own pocket, 130 grand, after he had an alleged affair with President Trump. Next, what we know about the payout and any connection to the Trump Campaign. Youre watching velsvelshi r live on msnbc. Oh, manatees. Aka the sea cow oh theres one. Manatees in novelty ts . Surprising. Whats come at me bro . Its something you say to a friend. Whats not surprising . How much money matt saved by switching to geico. Fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more. Thereswhatever type ofhe end of eweekender you are,ton. 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Happy valentines day. Welcome back to velshi ruhle. Here are the top stories we are watching right now. Any minute now, President Trump will be meeting with members of congress to further discuss infrastructure. Trump said yesterday that he would be hoping to change his infrastructure plan after it received criticism for not having enough federal funding. The white house wants to use 200 billion bucks in federal funding to work on a 1. 5 trillion plan on improvements over the next ten years. That would really be an inversion of the way it normally goes. But guess what, if he says hes willing to play ball, maybe the 200 million was just his first but you know he doesnt have 2 tur 200 million, right . Its not even there. Apparently im more on an optimist. The fbi is investigating a shooting today at the headquarters of the nsa that they are saying has no known links to terrorism. And the nsa said that several people were transported to area hospitals, but their injuries may not be connected to the gunfire. The suspect is in custody and the white house confirmed the president has been briefed on the shooting. And President Trumps personal lawyer is acknowledging for the first time that he, in fact, paid an adult film star, thats a porn star, right before the election. Michael cohen says he made a 130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels out of his own pocket. Heres the thing. He doesnt want to say why. What do you think people would think when you said, adult film star, like a film star who happened to be an adult. Just in case. My mom watches. Shes not a porn aficionado, so. Okay, good thing its a taped show. In a statement, cohen writes, neither the Trump Administration nor the Trump Campaign was a party to the transaction with ms. Clifford, thats Stormy Daniels real name, and neither reimbursed me for the payment, either directly or indirectly. He continues, this is the lawyer, continues. The payment to ms. Clifford was lawful and was not a Campaign Contribution or a Campaign Expenditure by anyone. Keep in mind, cohen released a different Statement Last month, that he claimed was from daniels. In it, she denied any sexual relationship with the president. She, in fact, has walked that statement back since then. The white house and President Trump have always denied there was ever a sexual encounter between trump and ms. Daniels. Which just begs the question, who gives somebody 130,000 for nothing, not connected to them . Im looking for friends like that. With us now is michael rothfeld, who helped break the story for the wall street journal a month ago. And before we get into the great journalism and reporting that youve done on this, isnt it just weird . It is pretty weird. You know, Michael Cohen worked for trump for a long time. His rationale is, ill do anything to protect mr. Trump. And so, i just made this payment, because she was going to say some bad things about him. So hes making the argument, even what she was going to potentially say wasnt true. And with an hour to go excuse me, with a month to go before the election, he wanted to pay her to silence her from a tabloid, untrue story out there. Thats right. Do we buy that . Well, she we know shes told multiple people that she did have an affair with him or that she had sex with him after a Golf Tournament in 2006. And, in fact, in touch magazine, after we published our story about the payment, came out with a whole spread that they had held since 2011. That was the being spanked with a Forbes Magazine with the president s face on the cover . Numerous other things, wat watching shark week together and all other kinds of details like that. So the concept that someone pays someone nuisance money. That happens all the time. The act of the payment doesnt imply necessarily that there was wrongdoing. But the concept of a third party paying it, without any notion of reimbursement, the reason Michael Cohen has come forward with this is because somebody went to the Elections Commission and said, is this a Campaign Contribution . And he was saying, no, it wasnt, it was just me making the payment. Thats right. And the law says that a payment that is meant to influence an election, and this occurred right before the election, as numerous women were coming out with stories about trump and sexual issues, if youre trying to influence the outcome, then that is considered an inkind Campaign Contribution. So an Advocacy Group asked the federal Election Commission to investigate and cohen said he responded. He didnt make his response public, but he put out this statement saying, yes, i paid this money. By the way, no, the Trump Organization didnt pay it, the campaign didnt pay it, and i didnt but the distinction is really important. If they determine it to be an inkind campaign donation, oftentimes these things are determined after the fact. In other words, someone feels like they didnt make a campaign donation, but if they did something that benefitted a candidate, the Election Commission could determine that that was a contribution. They could. I mean, he had to have paid he paid her for something to protect the president s reputation and his reputation was important for how people were going to vote a month later. Thats right. And thats the argument. But he says this was a private transaction. It certainly looks like it was related to the campaign, based on the timing, that it happened, you know, right before the election. So who makes that determination . Will the federal Election Commission do something about that . If they decide to investigate, and their investigations are confidential, then, yeah, they would make that determination. Common cause, the group that file ed that complaint, also asd the department of justice to investigate. However, both of those, we have trump as president. And he names commissioners to the fec. Some of them are positions are vacant. So, you know, its unclear what they will actually do. And is there any sense of if they ruled it were a Campaign Contribution, what the consequence of that is . There would be some fine fin. Its not a significant fine. The more serious consequence would be if the Justice Department investigated, you know, he could be prosecuted under some laws for violating some Campaign Finance laws. Michael, thank you. Thank you. Michael rothfeld from the wall street journal. Okeydoke. Stocks moving this morning on inflation fears. Next, were going to take a close look at what exactly is going on. How your money, money, money is faring in these spate of wild market swings. I think when you started this morning, it was down. It was. Now its sort of hovering around the breakeven point. Youre watching velshi ruhle, live on msnbc. You might take something for your heart. Or joints. But do you take something for your brain. With an ingredient originally found in jellyfish, prevagen is the number one selling brainhealth supplement in drug stores nationwide. Prevagen. The name to remember. On the only bed that adjusts on both sides to your ideal comfort your sleep number setting. And snoring . Does your bed do that . Right now during the ultimate sleep number event, our queen c2 mattress with adjustable comfort on both sides is only 699, save 200. Ends soon. Visit sleepnumber. Com for a store near you. Im never gonna be able ill take a sick day tomorrow. On our daughters birthday . Moms dont take sick days. Moms take nyquil severe. The nighttime, sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, fever, best sleep with a cold, medicine. We are back. It is velshi ruhle. And it is time to look at your money, money, money. Do we have to say that all the time . We do. This morning, its like how the genie comes out of the bottle. Your 401 k is likely to be on another wild ride, so stop looking at it. The dow started the morning actually in negative territory, now its a little better than flat. The s p and nasdaq are, as well. The market dipped a little bit this morning, partially because the government reported Consumer Price index increases. Thats the inflation rate that was higher than expected last month, jumping 0. 5 . Thats a weird graphic. Its not 1. 5, its up 0. 5 . And thats versus the 0. 3 increase that was forecast. Now, that has been what weve been talking about, for more than a week now. Its fueled fears of inflation and if you have inflation, then Interest Rates go up. And the fed hikes Interest Rates maybe more than expected. Okay, joining us live, msnbc contributor, host of the insana insights podcast, ron insana. The reason this sticks out to me is because cpi, things costing more money is going to have a more negative and Lasting Impact for everyone across the economy. People who worked at walmart for 20 years, who get a 1,000 bonus, less than that after taxes, thats a onetime kiss. But if everything in your daily life starts to cost more money, thats a recurring kick in the keister. Yes, to put it in an old suburban buffalo polish expression, yes, thats exactly right. Having grown up in an italian polish neighborhood, i recognize that word immediately. Yes, it is. And it comes at a time did he just call me an old suburban polish upstate new york. But he said youre from buffalo. Im from toronto. So thats kcool. Walmart also raised wages to 11 an hour, which is 21,000 a year for for a lot of people. So if inflation does go up, it cuts into their disposal income, when gasoline prices have gone up, food, apparel was one of the big jumps in this months report. Even bigger is it accelerates the feds plan of action, to the extent they have to raise Interest Rates that ali indicated earlier, faster and more frequently this year than they have. Thats why weve seen this adverse reaction in the stock market. The yield on the tenyear treasury this morning got as high as 2. 9 in the last three weeks. That has been the trigger for a stock market selloff. So before the market even opened, the dow was up 150, down 300 in the futures market, dow has meandered between those two levels. I was on the new jersey turnpike yesterday in stephanies great home state. I was running an errand and i wanted to go to harolds to get a corned beef sandwich. Dont like harolds . Never been. I was there and see an ad on a billboard for 2. 75 if you want to go into a an interestbearing account, a checking account. Were getting to the point thats a lot, actually. Its very high. We havent seen those kind of numbers in a while. And were getting to a world where we might see a 5 30year fixed mortgage. A lot of people think thats jarring, because you could get a mortgage for 3 and change a little while ago. But getting 2. 75 in your savings account or paying 5 for a mortgage is not a world we havent seen or even a crazy world. No, and by historic standards, those are extremely low rates. But were coming off zero. So embedded in the Financial Markets first is a certain amount of leverage thats highly sensitive to moves and Interest Rates. And embedded in the real economy will be the sticker shock that you get from going from a 3 30year fixed Rate Mortgage to potentially a 5 mortgage. That will slow things down. Plus, you have to remember, that the tax reform bill, as you both know, eliminates deductibility for certain aspects of mortgage interest deduction. Its been lowered, state income taxes and property taxes are all capped at 10,000. That makes housing more expensive for the average person, as well as for any other. Its kind of a double whammy right now. What do you think about this drop in retail sales . Unexpected drop in retail sales, down 0. 3 . A 0. 2 increase was expected. I mean, i suspect its a pretty volatile number. And you know, theres so much going on in retail right now. We see whats happening with the Amazon Effect and knocking certain retailers out. Sears may be focusing on product rather than stores. Theres so much dislocation going on in the Retail Sector that its hard to take a onemonth number and say, listen, you know, retails just falling through the floor, when the economy is running at full employment and people are spending but the one thing to think about, though, the Amazon Effect. The power of amazon, the numbers are staggering. Its Something Like amazon in the last few years has paid 1. 2 billion in taxes. Youve seen a walmart pay more like 64 billion. When amazon takes over the world, and we know amazon pays such a small number in taxes compared to its peers or smaller retailers, you think about the smaller guys that get squeezed in the Amazon Effect. And its not just the fact that Internet Sales are not taxed in the same way that traditional retail sales are. Amazon has only shown a profit one quarter in the last 20 years or so. So as long as they continue to reinvest the proceeds back into their business, they are not paying taxes, but they are squeezing everybody from health care now to whole foods to grocery delivery. Some of that is disinflationdisinflatio disinflationdisinflatio disinflationary, which is net positive for people. For consumers. Positive for consumers, but not for your local grocer or local retailer. But that is the tough problem in our society. We want low prices. We enjoy low prices. And sometimes that costs us jobs. Youre right. So the consumers are going to like it. The question is, regulators, government. Are you going to look at these numbers and step in . Ron . That one i dont have an answer for. Thank you, my friend. And thank you for the regional reference there. And thank you for having new jersey to give us such good sandwiches. By the way, who runs an errand in new jersey and is like, i better get myself a corned beef sandwich. Youve got to try this harolds place. Im not a corned beef kind of person. The things you learn about a person after working with them the sandwiches are so big, i cant even they are the size of both of our heads one on top of one another. They are huge. And hes got a big head. The senate is taking up immigration this morning and weve got news of a bipartisan bill that could be introduced as early as today. Well take a look at whats next in the fight as hundreds of thousands of dreamers remain in limbo. Youre watching velshi ruhle, live on msnbc. Its easy to think that all Money Managers are pretty much the same. 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Tripadvisor helps you book a. Hotel without breaking a sweat. Because we now instantly. Search over 200 booking sites. To find you the lowest price. On the hotel you want. Dont sweat your booking. Tripadvisor. The latest reviews. The lowest prices. Were just learning so many things about each other today. Stephanie doesnt like corn beef. His dogs are named oreo and snow flake. Love it. Love learning about you. Is one black and one white . Both sort of mixed. We have been keeping a close eye on capitol hill. The senate is finally doing what it promised it would do, taking up imgrimigration reform. We learned of a bipartisan bill that could be introduced as early as today. Bipartisan is what we like to hear. A group of democrats and republicans were behind closed doors. They called it their most productive meeting so far. They will not give any detail but are optimistic their plan can pass. President trump is threatening to veto any immigration deal that does not include what the white house called common sense view. Problem is the white house view of common sense is at odds with what everybody else thinks. Good to see you. Ive been learning more about a lot. Even words i didnt know about. Lets talk about involvement in this issue. One might argue this might get done faster if the president didnt keep on moving the goal post on what he thinks is acceptable. Im not sure is president is moving the goal post. I think theres just a Communications Problem and weve seen that in other things coming out of white house on this. I mean communication as far as to the legislators about what exactly theyre willing to negotiate on. Its been pretty clear since that meeting that the president televised last month with all the legislators that he and, as you reported a little while ago, hes not going to be shifting on the four issues that he thinks are fundamental for him. The problem is, can any group of senators or representatives of the house of representatives find something, something that can be probably uncomfortable for both sides but have enough in it that the president would agree on and at the same time do something so important. Remember the fifth of march is the cut off for daca. Every single day more than a hundred dreamers lose their daca. Think about that. Its happening every day. John kelly said the other day, we dont know what to take from john kelly anymore. He said after march 5th, dreamers will not be high priority for deportation. A lot of them have jobs that are considered instatus. As of march 6th, they wont be instatus. Theres a lot of employers who say i like you but i cant pay you. This was in the Washington Post yesterday, just 2017, there were more than 37,000 arrests of undocumented immigrants that had no criminal record in this country. Come march 5th, daca people will become undocumented immigrants and there were 37,000 arrests last year of people with no criminal report in the United States. They say its not going to be a priority, talk to the 37,800 people that were detained and were a priority. Its not just those 37,000 people, its the millions of people who care about them. Yeah. Thats right. Thats absolutely right. Every day 122 kids, young people, Daca Recipients lose that privilege. Whats your sense . Do you think a deal is achievable, jose . I think time is running out. I think probably and im just what ive been researching, probably nothing really out of senate that can get 60 votes and the president agree with. Maybe in the house. Not anything that has been publicized yet but maybe there can be a last minute bipartisan effort in the house of representatives to break this stalemate. Its a very long shot. Is the hold up for the white house or for the president funding for the wall. Its the build the wall. Give him the dough for the wall and hell say yes. Yes. I think theres been schumer talked about it before the shutdown and even louis talked about it. They were willing if there could be something in run to fund the wall. Its just what it is that the president is willing to give on. The four principles he talked about including the pathway to citizenship for Daca Recipients. I understand that democrats have to play ball here. Youre never going to get everything you want but isnt it fair to say funding an actual brick and mortar wall is so difficult for people to get over because even republicans in border start states say things like this is a third century solution to a 21st century problem. We have to focus on smart border security. Were talking about billions of dollars. I think the president thinks the wall can be built in one year. I think that the president believes that wall can be built in one year if he gets the 25 billion. Out of what . The fence, excuse me and the hadar thats two feet taller than the wall can be built in one hour. Well, look, this discussion is one that is fundamental. I still think that if the wall were the only issue, funding for the wall that this could be reached some agreement could be reached. Its the other issues. The issues of the visa lottery. The issue of family reunification. Those two issues are going to be very difficult to solve in a bipartisan manner even though in 2013 in the senate bill they were able to reach some agreement but we know that went know where in the house. In the interest of us getting to know each other better, do you like corn beef . Not a big corn beef fan. Youve had the cuban sandwich here . Thats good. I dont love a cuban sandwich because im not so big on thick meat and its a bit thick. A corn beef just too tall for me. Its like this. Thats what im talking about. I love a turkey sandwich but corn beef, cuban sandwich, not so much. A mojito. I love you guys. At the white house, let geese to the cabinet room where the president is meeting with members of congress. People that are working very hard and weve really accomplished a lot. Weve been having meetings with different members of congress. This is a priority thats shared by members of both parties and shared with the American People and by the American People. I have laid out the principles for the biggest and boldest initiative in at least a half a century. This frame work will lead to a 1. 5 trillion investment in american infrastructure. A faster permitting process that takes two years instead of ten years and maybe less. Were looking to get it down to one year if possible. When the money goes out, we want them to spend the money. Not wait around for many years while they get their permits. Rural communities have not been treated fairly. Were going to spend 50 billion on Rural Infrastructure and Internet Access which is so important. A Work Force Initiative that invests in our most valuable resource, the american worker. Were doing a lot of that. We had a meeting. I had a phone call this morning with Prime Minister abe of japan. I suggested that he invest more and open up more plans. He announced a number of plans are coming to michigan and other states. We want them to bring in more. They will do that. He said they will do that. We expect to have some announcements pretty soon