president s comments to fox news are any indication, we think he s unwilling to compromise. what must mexico do? what can they do to stem this massive tide, 140,000 people in may? when you re the piggy bank this everybody steals and robs from and they deceive you and they like they ve been doing for 25 years, tariffs are a beautiful thing. it s a beautiful word, if you know how to use them properly. republicans should love what i m doing. so our big question today is, can the white house reach a deal with mexico ahead of monday s deadline? joining me now, nbc news white house correspondent, kristen welker. new york times chief white house correspondent and msnbc political analyst, peter baker, and former chief communications adviser for paul ryan, brendon buck. kristen, is it possible for the white house to negotiate this with the president currently overseas? i don t think so. i just spoke to a senior administration official who s really playing the expectations game and s
and the president of the united states might look at it and say, no, that s not good enough. i think that s a trick anytime you re negotiating with this white house or this administration at this point, if you re a foreign government, how do you know a deal would stick, unless the president himself is in the room. that s a real challenge at this point. and the president oversees, as you were just saying with kristen, that makes it doubly challenging. so i would expect that, yes, they can make progress, yes, if they choose to define it as enough progress to hold off on the tariffs that they want or to delay them or to let the first round go into effect while they continue to goerkt in order to prevent any further ones, you could see some sort of an accommodation possibly coming out of this if they want that to happen. that s the real question. brendon buck, the president seems to think that republicans should just get with the program. that they don t know what s good for them. you kn
casey, i wa kasie, there are reports in december he s thinking about quitting and telling confidantes he s quitting and strenuous denials from brendon buck, one of the spokespeople, other spokespeople, scott walker even tweeting out. how did this go over today and what happened? well, chris, what else are you going to do to a certain extent in that situation if you re a staffer? these were conversations, it was no secret that paul ryan has been miserable in trump s washington. no secret at all. and you know, i ve covered the speaker for i guess five plus years now from when he was a congressman to his bid for vice president and now his time as speaker in the house after the 2016 elections. and you know, this is not a guy who he wears his heart on his sleeve. he does wear his heart on his sleeve. you could see that in the press conference today. people in washington knew that he didn t really want to stick around. there were a lot of rumors and
december he s thinking about quitting and telling confidantes he s quitting and strenuous denials from brendon buck, one of the spokespeople, other spokespeople, scott walker even tweeting out. how did this go over today and what happened? well, chris, what else are you going to do to a certain extent in that situation if you re a staffer? these were conversations, it was no secret that paul ryan has been miserable in trump s washington. no secret at all. and you know, i ve covered the
despite 247 votes in the house, the house republican caucus has seemingly been unable to do the basic work of government without essentially breaking party line and getting democratic votes. and into this vacuum of power walked, we thought, possibly, maybe, paul ryan. paul ryan you see there in that little bit of vo avoiding questions from reporters earlier today. paul ryan has said and brendon buck has been saying all along, paul ryan does not want this job. he wants absolutely nothing to do with this job. many suspect because a, the house caucus is totally ungovernable and b, because paul ryan quite evidently the former vp nominee of the republican party has aspirations for much higher office. many people believe probably rightly house speakership would be the terminus of any political career and therefore, kill those aspirations for higher office. joining us on capitol hill is luke russert. luke, brendon buck who s been a very busy man, a spokesperson for paul ryan.