And so at the end of the day, i dont know whether well pass. I think the longer the bills out there the more conservative republicans are going to discover that its not repealed. And president ial pivot. The white house plans for this week to promote americanmade products. It wont p long before we see the made in america displayed on thousands of new products all across this great land and exported all around the world. But the trump Family History of outsourcing has critics asking, is the president really the best messenger . And good day, everyone. Im Andrea Mitchell in washington where the white house is trying to change the subject from unrelenting headlines about russia. Another setback in the health care battle, and the president s slumping Approval Rating. Over the weekend, President Trump lashing out on twitter defending his son don jr. Amid growing questions about that constantly changing story of just who was present at the controversial meeting with russians during the campaign. Meantime, the fate of the Republican Health care bill now remaining even more uncertain after Senate Leaders were forced to delay a vote as senator john mccain recovers from emergency surgery to remove a blood clot above his eye. When it comes to russia, a special survey by nbc news wall street journal, has some interesting results regarding the president s base. A big hint, its holding. Joining me is National CorrespondentPeter Alexander, kasie hunt on capitol hill, and nbc news senior Political Editor mark murray. First to you, Peter Alexander at the white house, theyve tried to change the subject week after week after week. But theres so much reporting, you know, problems that theyve created for themselves by having this drip, drip, drip of new information every day about just who was present at the meeting and not characterizing the meeting as, you know, it turned out to be. Reporter yeah. Exactly right. This frustration isnt just from democrats. Its not from the media. Its also from republicans and some of those closest to the president himself, his former Deputy Campaign manager, a man by the name of david bossie today basically making the point as you just noted that drip, drip, drip is making it harder for them to get anything done here, that they need to let it all out there, put it all out there and just see where the chips may fall one way or the other. The bottom line is, as in the past with the energy week, infrastructure week, tech week, well, this is now made in america week, but the president , of course, the last 48 hours hasnt tweeted a thing about made in america. Hes tweeted five times about this russia topic and about his own son. Tights only tweet hes posted today, and that just sort of fuels this conversation again, the pushback and again raises more red flags. Theres the tweet. Most politicians would have gone to a meeting like the one don junior attended in order to get info on an opponent. Th thats politics. I talk to trump supporter, those i met on the road during the campaign, and talked to them again now. There are a lot of things about this president they like. They like the disruptive nature of what hes doing, the changes hes trying to put in place, the rolling back of regulation, one item they hope to highlight this week, but they get frustrated on his tweets specifically as they are off topic, seemingly personally motivated by hi own feuds and not by the larger topics that benefit americans. On the legal front, we saw jay sokolow, trying his best to change the subject also. But ty cobb now is not just going to be an outside lawyer. Hes also going to be on the white house staff . That seems a bit unusual. Reporter yeah. That was unusual, the statement itself by the white house was striking as we received it toward the end of last week. Ty cobb is a veteran d. C. Attorn attorney. Hell be working out of the west wing or the executive Office Building helping try to quarterback the legal response as it were from the inside. As youve noted in the course of recent days and week, one of the challenges has been these sort of competing views right now. Nobodys sort of it appears at least been in charge. One of the challenges that does still exist Going Forward is whether ty cobb would be able to successfully speak to the attorneys for the other clients in this case as it were, don junior, Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, and trying to keep them all on one page so as to avoid this drip, drip, drip from turning into a bigger gusher. Thanks to peter. Kasie hunt, health care. Let me just say a word here, a personal word about john mccain. Ive known him for decades. There is no one tougher and more resilient. But we all have him in our hearts and minds and prayers today as he recovers from this surgery which was a craniotomy, so it was minimally invasive were told but it was a blood clot that was found. Doctors, experts have speculated to the New York Times and these are doctors not involved in the case, that there must have been some symptoms for them to have done this exploratory surgery and found this twoinch blood clot. We know everything that hes gone through, the melanoma and how he survived so much. That is really a case where the personal and the political are at a crossroads. Youre of course, covering the political side of it, the delay now that Mitch Mcconnell has ordered obviously while john mccain it does indicate that every vote counts. We knew that from our own whip count youve been working so hard on. But just so say this is not just a political story, a story about a true American Hero sidelined for the time being, and he will be back, we know that. Kasie . Reporter thats right, andrea. I have not known senator mccain for nearly as long as you have, but i can tell you halls of this place would not be the same without him. I think he is very much a force and a presence that makes a real difference around here every day in a lot of different ways. So obviously i think everyone here both sides of the aisle very much holing him in their thoughts and prayers as he recovers from this. One other word about him. He has been working nonstop. This Armed Services chairman has taken on himself with some of his colleagues to circumnavigate the globe in the last six months just to try to reassure allies that this new president is not as uncertain about, you know, military and Foreign Policy as he sometimes signals on twitter. So he has been a reassuring influence around the world for months and months since this election. Reporter and absolutely indefatigable as well. Ask lindsey graham, a much younger man, what its like to keep up with john mccains schedule when he goes overseas. He is relentless and doesnt stop. As you point out from a political perspective, he is obviously important to the overall plan to try to push health care through. He was irreverent about it before he left. He was quoted as saying about the vote coming up, well, looks like were going to vote next week. Yay. Some sarcasm. He knew how hard it was going to be. He put out a statement saying he has concerns about the bill but that he wanted to put amendments on the floor. That is the critical step here and everybody is watching to see if Mitch Mcconnell can get this to the floor. Theres a sense that its tenuous until they actually open that debate and they cant do it without john mccain. I think the speed with which Mitch Mcconnell and the Republican Leadership reacted to the announcement from senator mccain that this had happened tells you something about the seriousness of it and the seriousness with which they are taking it. There are a lot of examples, you know, of senators who have been very ill or sick, who have come out onto the senate floor for a critical vote like this. But, you know, its clear that that is not something thats in card right now based on how they reacted and saying, hey, look, were just going to put this off. So mcconnell of course working furiously behind the scenes. I think on the one hand there may be a benefit of more time to convince some reluctant senators and to let the bill be in public a little bit more, but on the other hand, its also more time for those governors to call and complain. So always a risk in dragging this out. Andrea . To kasie and peter before, and thank you all so much. With all this talk about russia, a survey of states where donald trump surged and did better than mitt romney in 2012 by nbc news and the wall street journal shows that he is holding firm with his base. Mark murray joins us now. Mark, lets talk about the numbers here and what you found in this very unusual study that you did of some of these red states. Thats right, andrea. We take a unique look at the different kind of counties that fueled Donald Trumps president ial victory in 2016. There are two types of counties, one, the ones that he flipped that went barack obama in 2012 and then for donald trump in 2016, and then those county where is there was a big surge where he way outperformed mitt romney in 2012. Andrea, overall, you end up having Donald TrumpsApproval Rating at 50 in these counties, 16 states, more than 400 of these counties, 16 states, ones that are very competitive ones. So thats a much higher Approval Rating than we ended up seeing in the washington post, for example, that had Donald TrumpsApproval Rating at 36 . Theres an interesting story inside these number, andrea, and that is those surge counties i was telling you about, think carbon, pennsylvania, coal country in pennsylvania, where donald trump did really, really well, better than mitt romney, his Approval Rating is at 56 in those search counties. But when you talk about the flip county, its 44 , and, again, thats wilkesbarre, pennsylvania, for example, a place that barack obama won in 2012, but donald trump won in 2016. And andrea, one more piece of data. It shows there has been a little bit of erosion for donald trump in both counties, you know, on the surge, donald trump won by a combined 65 to 29 against Hillary Clinton as i showed you. His Approval Rating there is now at 56 . Then in the flip counties, you end up having donald trump winning those areas by a combined 51 to 43 . And of course as i showed you his Approval Rating in those places is now at 44 . Mark murray, fascinating data. Thank you so much. And joining me now from the capital is democratic senator chris van holland. Thank you very much for being with us today. Great to be with you. There you see the numbers. The base is holding and outside of, you know, the washington northeast corridor, perhaps the west coast, this russia controversy, which many of you say is so fundamental to our democracy, is not penetrating with the donald trump voters. I think the erosion you are seeing, primarily in those places, is primarily do to the debate over the socalled Health Care Bill. This Health Care Bill is a betrayal of everything that donald trump said on the campaign trail to his supporters. You recall that tweet when he said he would not cut medicaid at all. Well, they have huge cuts to medicaid in order to provide tax breaks to big corporations, pharmaceutical industry. So i do think that the erosion youre seeing in those arias is primarily due to questions being raised about is this guy really with us after all. Probably one of the reasons theyre trying to pivot to this made in america subject of course there, it would be nice if the president led by example and first daughter led by example because we know that almost all the products that they sell are imported from abroad. So it would be nice to see a lead by example there. I want to also ask you about the russia investigation. Sergey lavrov is calling it robbery in broad daylight, that those compounds, including one in maryland, your state, being held back from the russians as punishment for election hacking. What is your reaction to that . What if theres any move by the administration . And we know that tom shannon at the state department is meeting today with a top russian official. Any move to comply with Vladimir Putins demand that those compounds be returned . Andrea, we absolutely should not return those compounds to the russians. They were using those to spy and it was one of the steps president obama did take in december to penalize the russians for interfering in our electi elections. Giving them back would be at the same time giving the russians a green light to attack our democracy again. We were talking about john mccain and we all wish him a very speedy recovery. Hes been one of the people leading this bipartisan effort, United States senate, to pass the russian sanctions bill, which we did. Its in the house now and the Trump Administration is trying to deep six it. Theyre trying to undermine it. And when President Trump essentially winks at the russians about their interference in our elections, its a very dangerous signal. And it just says do it again. So we should not give those compound back. The legislation that we passed in the senate would essentially prohibit the president from undoing those sanctions unless there was congressional support for it, which there is not. I just also wanted to remind people of what the former head of intelligence, general clapper, had to say to me just the week before last about that compound in particular. Vladimir putin today says return our compounds in maryland and long island. What would you say to President Trump . Why . As a reward for what . The compounds, particularly the one in maryland, that was a major intelligence operation, collecting intelligence against us. And so i dont see what the russians have done that would merit the return. Certainly general clapper is making it clear what the Intelligence Community thought about what was going on in that compound. It would just be rewarding putin for both the spying at the compound and undermining or attempting to undermine our elections here. That would be outrageous. It would also tell all our allies overseas that were not serious about protecting our own democracy and so theyll question our commitment to protecting theirs. And the president tweeted today about don jr. s meeting with the russians that most politicians would have gone to a meeting like the one don jr. Attended in order to get info on an opponent. That thats politics youre a politician. Is that politics . No, its not. Look, this is one of those time where is big flashing lights should have gone up and said full stop, you get an email saying that the russian government wants to help donald trump win this election and theyre going to send some emissaries with information about Hillary Clinton, that is not a meeting anybody should take. They should report that to the fbi. Ive heard this excuse that donald junior should have known better. I disagree, but even if that was the case, they had Paul Manafort there, their campaign manager. A person whos had very suspicious dealings in some cases with russiansupported ukraini ukrainians. They should have said no and reported it to the fbi. The fact is Jared Kushner repeatedly omitted Important Information from his security clearance process, which is also a serious issue. And in terms of north korea, let me quickly a ask you this, because theres talk now from south korea that they are going to launch negotiations. Is this a good idea . Is this something the white house should sign on to is bilateral talks between north and south . And should we have talks with north korea given how poor our military options are . Well, i think talks are okay. But you have to back up your talks with real leverage because the North Koreans have a history of talking but not delivering on the commitments theyve made, which is why ive teamed up with senator toomey, a republican senator from pennsylvania. Were introducing north korea sanctions legislation to get serious about enforcing the sanctions that are in place on north korea. There was a report back in february from a u. N. Panel of experts saying there was lots of leakage in that, lots of companies, Financial Firms around the world are violating that, doing business with north korea. So were sending a very simple signal. If you want to do business in north korea, youre not going to get access to the u. S. Financial markets. That was very helpful at getting the iranians to the table. That secondary sanctions legislation says makes it so that the United States is leveraging its own Market Access to make sure that people comply around the worrell. And i should say, you know, north korea did cross a very significant threshold. They continue to develop Nuclear Weapons. And of course recently they tested an icbm that most people believe can reach alaska and on that trajectory, they will have one in a matter of years that could also hit the mainland United States. So we need to ratchet up that economic pressure on north korea. So, yes, talks