Unclear motive. Tracing the las vegas killers steps, trying to figure out what caused him to become a mass murderer. As some Top Republicans and even the nra consider a step to ban those devices that can turn semiautomatic weapons into machine guns. It takes a semiautomatic firearm and it makes it perform like a fully automatic firearm. It makes it function like one. And what the nra has said is, we ought to take a look at that, see if its in compliance with federal law and its worthy of additional regulation. Storm warning. President trumps cryptic comment at his dinner for military leaders and their spouses causing even his own aides to wonder, just what did he mean . [ inaudible ] and we have breaking news on the Obamacare Mandate that provides free Birth Control to millions of women. That coming up. Good day, everyone. Im Andrea Mitchell in washington. Busy friday. Reporting about the critical comments that Rex Tillerson made about President Trump has spent them into a tailspin. The president is furious with his secretary of state. The Vice President also fuming, putting tillersons longterm future at foggy bottom in serious doubt. Joining me now, Peter Alexander and political analyst john thrush. Peter, i want to go into all that, but i first want to ask about this new decision coming out of the administration about Birth Control for women, because it potentially affects millions of women getting Birth Control through obamacare. Andrea, thats exactly right. This has been released just an hour ago. Its now part of the federal register. To be clear on what this would do, it would roll back the requirement that was part of obamacare. Its one of the kia chooey achis by president obama, that would require employers to provide Birth Control as part of their health plan. This would expand on both religious and moral grounds. This is significant. The Administration Says this is to try to help americans get out from, as they describe it, under the thumb of the federal government as the president promised in an announcement back in may. He said, you dont want americans to have to choose between their faith and the federal government. The administration said this will not affect 99. 9 of american women. But the fact of the matter is, andrea, it really does open up a new door here where its not just small organizations like Little Sisters of the poor who had filed suit against obamacare but bigger organizations. Catholic hospitals and other institutions of that kind could say they want an exemption. Planned parenthooparenthood, th gynecologists expressing their frustration, saying theyre extremely disappointed by this announcement from the legislation, andrea. I want to pick that up with glen thrush. What are the chances that Rex Tillerson still might step down despite the fact he kind of fell on the sword the other day, the white house still angry at him. Now the report by Michael Allen that theyre even looking at the possibility of cia director mike pompeo replacing him. They went to the state department to try to resolve issues of a vacancy. Glenn . Weve seen Rex Tillerson more in the last two days than weve seen him in the last nine months, right . Thats been in the wind for a bit, but were still hearing nikki haley would be more likely, and that pompeo, if anything, would be more likely to be slotted into nfc if general mcmaster got his fourstar and was shipped off to somewhere else. Remember, Rex Tillerson is not the only member of the president s inner circle who is not in the greatest position. General mcmasters not somebody the president is crazy about being around. I think with tillerson, were looking at a situation thats not all that dissimilar to where Jeff Sessions is right now, in this kind of doghouse limbo where the president , i think, would clearly like to have both those folks out of the way, but there are all kinds of political and procedural reasons why that would be a big mistake. That said, tillerson is very much on thin ice, and i would be surprised if he lasted probably more than a year. If that long. In fact, one of the issues that i understand thats obviously a friend of mine for john kelly and for general mattis, peter. The president s big trip to china, north korea and iran next week. Most of the Foreign Policy against the decision to decertify, which ive been told is going to happen, but theyve sort of watered it down a little bit by kicking it over to congress. Well talk more about that in a moment. What about the fact the president said last night this is the calm before the storm . He had just spoken about north korea, iran and isis in a photo op about a half hour earlier. What is he talking about . What calm, what storm . Reporter well, theres been plenty of storms around here, but i dont think those are the ones hes referring to. Its not quite clear what hes talking about when he looked at the group surrounding him, military leaders and families, when he said, this is the calm before the storm. We reached out to the white house privately. Much of the administration we spoke to wasnt exactly sure what the president was referring to as well. Thats sort of the cliffhanger as we wait for Sarah Huckabee sanders at the briefing at 2 30 today to see if she can better answer this. Questions will be thrown to the president , im sure, on this topic as well. One thing to look at is the president who has been trying to deflect on the challenges hes facing with Rex Tillerson makes a headline like this one of those suspenseful statements and gets everybody to talk about it. Its not entirely clear what he was referring to, whether its north korea, iran, and specifically on the topic of tillerson, with north korea, the way this all intersects, with the president s trip to that region just weeks away. It was when tillerson was coming back, as you know, the president really undercut the secretary of state saying, in effect, stop wasting your time. Indeed. Thank you for this breaking news, glenn thrush and Peter Alexander. Hes the author of a world in disarray. So well named, so impressioned. Your book holds up day by day, richard haas. Alas. Lets talk about the iran deal, first of all. What ive been told today and its now being reported elsewhere as well, if this holds, and the president can change his mind, hes not going to certify that iran is complying with the spirit of the deal. The cia, i understand, does say iran is complying with the letter of the iran deal and hell kick it to congress to see whether they can impose new sanctions, which is unlikely, and also whether they can renegotiate to extend the deal, to eliminate the end dates and put more muscle in it, all of which is opposed by the other parties to the deal, russia, china and even the european allies. Is that what youre hearing and maybe fill in the gaps. Pretty much. The president has been uncomfortable with the fact that every 90 days under the legislation, not under the deal itself, he has to certify iranian compliance. The problem for him is that hes choosing the one area of iranian behavior where the iranians are actually behaving. I understand why people have real problems with the deal, so do i, but it is the agreement the United States subscribed to, and its an area that iran is essentially complying with. So were choosing the one area of iranian behavior thats basically consistent with the obligations, and instead we should be focusing on Everything Else iran is doing in iraq, in syria, in lebanon, in yemen, so on and so forth. The administration is in some ways i understand their discomfort, but theyre going to make a difficult situation worse if they go ahead with this. What are the allies likely to say . Theyre going to say, youre on your own, buddy. And if congress does introduce new sanctions, theyre not going to support them. And if those new sanctions ultimately go after the allies for doing business in iran, we will transform this into a tranceatlantic krcrisis or a u. S. Russia crisis, iran will get off easy and it will be the United States that pays the price. I get that iran is doing all sorts of things propping up iraq and syria, but the president was silent about the other big player in the room, russia. How can he blame iran for all of this bad behavior in syria and not even mention what russia is doing . Fair enough. They have been partners there and the Syrian Regime would not exist right now were it not for the two of them. I do think that one day russias role will wind down. Irans wont. Its an imperial country, it seeks to recast big parts of the region in its image, and this is the iran of the revolutionary guard and so forth. This is a really capable country that has become a middle Eastern Power to be reckoned with. Again, though, what were choosing in this whole decertification thing, the focus is off. Were going to make ourselves the issue. By the way, andrea, this goes way beyond iran. This is implications for north korea, this is implications for u. S. Credibility across the board. If were going to start revisiting agreements simply because weve decided we no longer like them, why would other countries then enter into agreements with the United States . A great power has to be consistent and reliable, and mr. Trumps whole preference for disruption, i would argue, is inconsistent with the United States being an effective, great power. Richard haass, thank you so much from the council on foreign relations. To further drill down on all of this, joining me now is democratic senator jack reed, the top democrat on the Armed Services committee. Thank you for being with us today. I understand a number of senators have been briefed by h. R. Mcmaster on what is going down here if the president agrees with the plan that has been given to him and that has been worked out by mcmaster, mattis and the others. At this stage, from what you know, how will this be received in congress . I think it will be received with mixed emotions. I think there are some of my colleagues that agree with the president , but i think a significant number recognize that this is more of a political maneuver than a strategic decision. I think the points that Richard Haass made are excellent. This undermines our credibility, creates potentially a conflict with our allies. It also could have ramifications with the russians and the chinese, and then it also misses the point of our greatest crisis of the moment, the north korean crisis. We are supposedly pursuing diplomacy, but if theyre looking and seeing us abandon an agreement we just entered into a few years ago, whats the incentive for diplomacy . I think that logic, i hope, is persuasive in the congress. One of the arguments that some of our european allies are making is that once it gets to congress, you could get into a bidding war with everybody trying to pile on and prove how tough they are against iran, which is not that popular in congress on both parties. I think thats correct, but i think, again, there are people who are on both sides, i hope, that are thinking very carefully about the longrun implications of putting the president off again. I think the president is thinking this is a free ride, he can do this, he can act tough with his agenda moving forward and congress will essentially ride to the rescue. I hope thats the case, frankly, because i think abandoning the agreement would be a mistake, but its going to introduce, again, uncertainty, and its also going to create an issue of when do we do this . Hes got multiple objectives. Tax reform, we have to get our budget done, et cetera, and we have 60 days under legislation to make a decision. Its a privileged motion that has to be called by the minority majority leader. I dont know what theyll do. My sense is they dont want to touch this but it might be thrust upon them. There is at least one report on reuters, were checking into it, that iran is open to talks on the Ballistic Missile program, which was not part of the nuclear deal. Would that be helpful if iran were willing to negotiate . I think it would be very helpful, and the point that was made by richard, this is the one area where we have them complying. We have cut off a significant existential threat in effect if they had Nuclear Weapons, and this would be a much more complicated world if we were looking at them racing to Nuclear Weapons as well as the north koreans simultaneously. I think, though, the president and were all sort of focused on their disruptive behavior including missiles, including surrogates in many different countries. That we should concentrate on. Let me ask you about Rex Tillerson because uyou have thi major decision on iran, you have north korea, you have what some would argue is a selfinflicted dispute that theyre right in the middle of it with mixed signals in all directions, a continued war in afghanistan and your chairman john mccain telling administration witnesses the other day that they still have not come up with the details of this new plan on afghanistan. What do you do if the secretary of state is either fired or quits . Regardless of his tenure, i think the president created a dysfunctional situation. The capacity of the state department has been reduced. Their budgets have been threatened. Many positions havent been filled. We do not have an ambassador in south korea, which is right at the point of our most significant immediate challenge. Nuclear weapons in north korea, we dont have a confirmed secretary. This is really dereliction in terms of what the president should do to build up and have a coherent relationship with the secretary of state. You cant have a coherent relationship with the secretary of state while he is overseas delivering a message that you didnt approve. I dont think Rex Tillerson shoots from the hip in terms of saying things. This is just an example of the impulsive and disfuysfunctionad. It injects more uncertainty and miscalculation. Many of the crises weve witnessed in the past, and particularly when were dealing with weapons of mass destruction, miscommunication, error, misperception are critical factors and we have to have a better, more organized state department and joint effort. Right now we just saw a picture. Speaking of the state department, we dont usually see a lot of these ceremonies. Hes speaking to swear in some Foreign Service officers so theyre trying to convey we didnt just see him when he was making that apology the other day. He is now at work. But the fact is, with him being so undercut by the president , should he resign . Would the president be better served by mike pompeo or another replacement . I think this is one of those factors where people in the white house are considering, and im sure secretary tillerson is considering, whats in the best interest of the country. The disruption, the secretary of health and Human Services was just dismissed a week ago. Theres been a long, long record of people being fired. If the turmoil is so great, that sends another image of dysfunction dysfunctionalty. I think thats what theyre weighing. I dont see secretary tillerson staying through the entire term. I dont think he has that relationship with the president , obviously, but the question of when he goes is what theyre trying to weigh at the moment. Thank you for being with us. Coming up, well have the latest on the Las Vegas Shooting investigation. What the fbi is learning about the killer as mourners continue paying tribute to the victims. Youre watching Andrea Mitchell reports on msnbc. If charles were standing here right now, i guarantee he would look at us all right now and tell us not to be sad, to celebrate him, because all he wants to do is see smiles on all the faces he touched. He doesnt want to see us crying, he doesnt want to see us hurt. With my advisors help along the way, its finally my turn to be the host. When you have the right financial advisor, life can be brilliant. Ameriprise trust 1 doctor recommended dulcolax. Use dulcolax tablets for gentle dependable relief. Suppositories for relief in minutes. And dulcoease for comfortable relief of hard stools. Dulcolax. Designed for dependable relief. Turning now to las vegas, dramatic new video capturing the heartpounding scene, concert goers running for their lives as the gunman shoots from his perch up above. Now more on the shooter and the investigative trail that investigators are hoping will lead to the motive of the largest u. S. Mass murder in history. Bring us up to date, pete. What leads, if any, does the fbi have . Reporter lots of leads, andrea, lots of directions theyre going. They want to know if he was with anyone else, they want to know if anyone else was in the room. They say they dont have established that someone else was in the room, but they want to look at the time people used keys to get into his room, whether this was could be housekeeping staff, whether it was room service, so they have a lot of things still based just on the room itself. What was in the room, could anyone else have brought it in. They still want to make sure that he was the only person involved with this. Not to say that anyone else was involved, but there are a lot of Little Things that have to be cleared up as often happens in investigations like this. So thats one big question. Just the room itself, his movements, was anyone else involved . There have been these accounts that weve heard of before that he was seen with a woman before the shooting, what was that all about, so thats all part of that. The secon