That decision. Its a dramatic end for a man reportedly considered in recent times to be a candidate for chief of staff. As trump spoke this afternoon, a joint press conference with the swedish prime minister, there was an ominous sign in the room, gary cohns seat, there it is, was empty. Nbc news reported friday donald trump became unglued over the stories about hope hicks, Jeff Sessions and Jared Kushner. According to two officials he was angry and gunning for a fight. He chose a trade war. Well, early this morning, donald trump tweeted the new fake news narrative is that there is chaos in the white house. Wrong. People will always come and go. I want strong dialogue before making a final decision. I still have some people that i want to change. Always seeking perfection. There is no chaos, only great energy. That was the president s tweet this morning. Trump was asked about that tweet today, specifically who he wants to change next. Lets watch. Does that include your attorney general Jeff Sessions or either of your cabinet secretaries . I dont really talk about that. I just said that the white house has tremendous energy. It has tremendous spirit. It is a great place to be working. Many, many people want every single job. I read where, oh, gee, maybe people dont want to work for trump. Believe me, everybody wants to work in the white house. Its tough. I like conflict. I like having two people with different points of view. I certainly have that. Then i make a decision. But i like watching it, i like seeing it. I think its the best way to go. Yeah, there be people, im not going to be specific that change. Sometimes they want to go out and do something else. But they all want to be in the white house. So many people want to come in. I have a choice of anybody. Im joined by White House Correspondent kristen welker, msnbc anchor Stephanie Rhule and the former chair of the Republican National committee michael steele. There is Washington Post columnist dana milbank. A great first team. Chaos or not. Kristin, the fact that they had had the empty chair today, this to come out after the president said everybody wants to work here, you know, Everybody Loves raymond kind of thing and then have the guy walk out the two. I know the two people who dont want to work there, hope hicks and this guy left today. Not ofs clamoring to be there. He calls it the fake news narrative that ofs leaving even though everybody is leaving. Your thoughts. It was like a prebuttle this astounding visual. You have the ominous sign of the empty chair and the president talking about in his words, Everyone Wants a piece of oval office. He was essentially foreshadowing what would become true in a few hours. The timing also interesting, chris, because it happened after the markets closed. It was clear the white house wanted to stave off any type of Market Reaction today. Well be watching very closely overnight, asian markets and the u. S. Markets as they open up tomorrow morning. The stature of gary cohn inside this white house cannot can be overstated. This is someone who was not only opposed to the tariffs, chris, he was sharply opposed to the tariffs but hes a free trade democrat, someone not afraid to clash with the president with wilbur ross. Hes seen as a stabilizing force. So his ouster, his resignation will be a big deal for this white house. The question is, what will the ripple effects be within the broader economy, chris. Stephanie, he knows hes leaving at a time the president is in a chaos world. Everybodys talking about everybody leaving. One piece of the oval office he doesnt want is the chair. He wouldnt sit in this today. This is a weird choreography. Usually in the real world of politics, they used to say, well, jimmys leaving but joes coming or marys coming. There will be a new economic adviser to the president. This guy leaves an empty chair literally. You cant tell me thats organized. Is it. Its not. I dont know jimmy, joe or mary but i know gary. Gary cohn is a process guy. In january after tax reform got done, he went to the president and he went to general kelly and said, im only working at 20 capacity. I need something to do here. I can do more. He said to the president , im ready for a cabinet level position. I want to do something bigger. Could be something in the state department or the cia. The president said why dont you focus on infrastructure abgary was the one who drove infrastructure and has been waiting to work on that and hasnt been able to. Things got sigh lined with daca, things got sidelined after the shooting. Ideally sidelines because the president doesnt pay attention. He said im willing to leave and come back if a bigger role comes up down account line. Remember what happened last wednesday. They have tariff tuesday every week talking about it for months. You know the president s views for over a year. But things getting completely out of hand with wilbur ross and peter that var row who gary cohn has zero respect for and Peter Navarro is not respected by any mainstream economist and so suddenly, gary is saying you know what . If this is the process, state, treasury, no ones aware, im going to going. Mike, the way normally things when you take a job, take the job. Dont think ill get a raz later. Cut the deal then and live with it. He wasnt asked to be can of state or treasury. I was asked to be economic adviser for a president openly for protectionism. All the key industrial states he ran in, he said im going to screw our competitive partners around the world. Now he says i cant believe theres protectionism. Thats not true. Its a process. Why does he demand a big job when he didnt get a big job offer . He said, sir, i can do more. In this, the president is going to make a decision on tariffs potentially thats not in the best interests of the country. So garys job is to be there to focus on the economy. And he is not giving gary an opportunity to do that. Then whats the point of being there . What states did gae cohn gary . Excuse me. Im wondering who the boss is. Its not his job to set Economic Policy. Its the president s job. Yes, so gary has done his job with the president. If he doesnt work anymore, hes happy to go. I think its chaos. It is. By the way, you usually wait for somebody to replace you before you take french leave. I think gary has been telegraphing his displeasure and inclination to leave for some time. Certainly what happened this weekend was for hip the fim str final straw. The white house didnt have time to put someone in place for gary because theyre not thinking that far ahead. Theyre not reading body language of their own people thats telling them about the dissatisfaction and the concern they have over policy. Its a big deal. For the economic adviser to the president of the United States to leave over this particular issue. Particularly given that he doesnt have the kind of support right now among House Republicans at least, senate republicans, as well, and how this plays out with the broader business community. Just on the reporting from the white house, whats it feel like there when you have hope hicks, a close confidante of the president walks out of nowhere and gone, in guy leaves his chair sitting empty. Im sorry, i can accept what stephanie said about the qualifications of the guy and hes for Good Government and good economics but trump is running the place. It looks like a ship thats sinking and people are jumping. This is what it looks liking. It feels like, you can see real concern in the eyes of the people who work here. In part, from a practical standpoint, theyre concerned about the workload that theyll now shoulder with the fact that can hope hicks is leaving. What is that going to mean for rest of her Communications Team . There hasnt been a new communications advise named. More broadly for chick policy, this is a significant significant departure and again, i think what a lot of people here feel is the president is losing i accounter balance to how he views Economic Policy and how so many of those close to him view policy. Theres a real concern that some of the forces that were stabilizing him are now departing. What will that mean not only for the messaging here at the white house, some of the 2003s he sends out, for example, early in the morning but what will it mean more broadly for policy and for them to be able to actually get stuff done. Steph makes the point of infrastructure. That was one of the issues that the president really wanted to focus on. Of course, thats gotten completely offtrack. How do they get back on track with what was supposed to be a key priority for this president. Im going to end the show tonight by talking about peter king. Like a guy playing a pinball machine. As long as the ball keeps moving, youre winning. I dont think trumpcares where anything except everyone knows the boss. Doesnt want any challenge. Gary cohn looks like the kind of guy in the room has to be taken seriously. I dont think trump likes that. He has achieved the effect of dominating headlines at all points. You cant even argue the question of chaos. We have numbers as of last week, with hope hicks according to brookings tally, 40 of senior white house positions had turned over within a year. Now its approaching one in two have left. More coming the president says. This is double or triple what it is. Theyre not just leaving because ive done my job and leaving, theyre being destroyed look what happened to gary cohn. Hes standing at trumps side during did the charlottesville disgrace. Hes passed over for the federal reserve. Hes hanging on just to try to keep him from going in a protectionist direction after a year he gives up that at all. Theyre getting chewed up. Who wants to come into the white house and do that. Stephanie, i understand there was a meeting planned, maybe in your note. Theres a scheduled meeting for was scheduled two days from now on thursday where theyll hear the rebut to this protectionist notion. Now that cohn had no confidence that meeting would take place. Is that true . It is true but it also speaks to exactly the point that was just being made. We know gary was angry with the president after charlottesville. But he didnt leave. One could say why would he leave over this . Because hes there specifically to work on issues of economics relating to trade. If he cannot get the president s attention, you said before hes leaving over policy. Hes leaving over process. The president made this big plan about the tariffs and did not have the White House Legal Team signing off. He said this was an issue of national security. The White House Legal Team has not approved that. People are going, well, trump goes i like when theres two different opinions wilbur ross versus gary. This is still President Trump versus his own white house counsel. He didnt have clearance. For a process guy, if hes not going to get to lead the process, hes saying forget about it. You are exactly right. President trump is an i and a loan guy. He doesnt want to go to maralago and say really glad garys there, good for the markets. Thats not what he likes. I love that. Let me go back to chris on this. Thats the point i want to get to the which is personnel. The warring tribes in the white house. Youre much better at this than anybody else. Ivanka, jared, goer cohn. That was apparently one of the tribal groups, one of the gangs if you will. Now that dang gangs under assault again. Cohns gone. Jared is on the opposite of the ondeck circle. Hes not going to go to bat. Whats going on in terms of the warfare inside of the white house . First of all, youll recall steve bannon called that group you just talked about the west wing democrats. Thats how closely aligned they were in terms of policy and alliances here. Youre right. Jared kushner has lost his top security clearance. He was the guy spearheading middle east peace. What does that mean for his ability to carry out that task . Ultimately what it means is that right now, john kelly has been emboldened. Whats so interesting abouting thatting is just several days ago we were talking about the fact maybe he would be on the chopping block in the wake of the rob porter incident. Youre seeing power alliances constantly shift. I want to make one point what steph was saying which is not only was President Trumps announcement on trade and tariffs not mapped out from a legal perspective but look at the messaging. Its been all over the place. He made the announcement. He said trade wars are a good thing. Then he said theres not going to be a trade war. Today he seemed to flip again and said look, trade wars arent so bad. Hes been all over the map and even his top officials dont know how to protect him on this issue. They dont know where he really stands right now. Mike, back to my point which is what i love in politics is the personality of the leader. We have a president with a view of the universe, i am the sun is, the solar system. Theres one sun. It burns hot. It this guy going to be the happiest man in the world when hes home alone and theres nobody around and everybody has to give him credit . Yeah. For the economy. The indices hes looking at what he believes it happening with the economy right now on the heels of the tax bill. He sees this despite the peak surrounding the trade decision for him, that feeds that narrative with his base. So hes out there doing what he thinks he needs to do to keep the universe centered right around that sun. But this is different because you see republicans were holding fire to some extent because they still thought ed change his mind. Clearly with gary cohn gone, theyre not changing his mind on this. Theres going to be open warfare right now. A lot of money to be made in free trade, right . Theres a lot more money. Free trade than in protectionism i would think. Without a doubt. Gary will be there for another two weeks. I suspect hell be trying to get the president on track. But in terms of willing to stand by the president , you know, gary wanted to hang his hat saying i got tax reform done. I havent ca tried to take credit. Theyre all trying to take credit for tax reform. Gary doesnt want to be there because its embarrassing if tariffs go the wrong way. They all want to want to save face and say i dont stand with him on the crazy stuff. They feel embarrassed. Anyway, thank you kristen welker. Stephanie, great having you on. The crisis situations affecting the markets and the economy and everything including our futures we call on you. Michael steele, thank you. Dana, i know youll have an interesting turn on this in the next 48 hours. Well get to the markets reaction to cohn leaving in a minute. Coming up later, the timing of cohns departure koxs comes one day after sam nunberg says trump may have done something wrong on the russian thing. Tonight here on hardball. Plus, nothing to see here. Trump wants you to know theres no chaos in the white house. Just the every day comings and goings of a typical presidency. After cohns exit you the is anyone buying that. And the first battle for control of the congress in texas is on tonight. Will the resistance against trump show up at the polls . Will there be a big blue wave this year . Well see how real that is. Let me finish with trump watch. He wont like it. He might in a weird way like this one because its how whacky the whole thing is but seems to fit with him. This is hardball where the action is. When heartburn hits fight back fast with tums chewy bites. Fast relief in every bite. Crunchy outside. Chewy inside. Tum tum tum tum tums chewy bites. Welcome back to hardball. Stock future trading tonight is pointing to a lower stock market opening tomorrow after news broke that white house chief economic adviser gary cohn is gone. Hell be gone in two weeks. Hes out of a job now. Im joined by john harwood. This would shock most of the world that the top Economic Advisor to a head of government has walked right after a major announcement on trade has been made. This is a conflict maybe . Weve been thinking some country like italy was going crazy if this happened. Your thoughts about the impact from the number one country in the world, us. Chris, as you know is, weve got a Republican Party that is split between hits blue collar working class wing which has grown and its pro business pro market wing. Now, in Donald Trumps era, the blue collar wing has become ascendent. Im standing here in southwest pennsylvania right behind me, joe bide is giving a speech for a Republican Democratic congressional candidate conner lamb. Some of the thinking was that President Trump wanted to help the republican running for this special election next week by applying these tariffs. But this is a president who is siding on a critical economic issue with that be blue collar wing. Thats not normal, not what the bushes have done in the past. Thats not what the mitt romney would have done. They would have sided with the pro market, pro business wings. And this nomination and election of donald trump had consequences. Were seeing them right now. The markets are likely to open lower tomorrow. I do think, chris, if President Trump gets pounded in the markets for multiple days, that will influence who he picks to succeed gary cohn. And maybe what he does Going Forward on trade. Theres a much bigger trade decision that the Trump White House faces on china later this year on intellectual property. If they go fullout to punish china for stealing our intellectual property, that is going to be a much bigger and more economically congressional step than these tariffs he announced right now. The great irony, people like Sherrod Brown, very tough on trade. They think youve got to help the steelworkers, geojury regard. These are tough guys angry about what they see as the dying of our Steel Industry and theyve got a president leaning in their direction. This is a strange Political Division were looking at, working class democrats and t