about to say we got a problem and she said the name of the movie she saw -- but it wasn't -- >> my favorite part of it was she was going to be teasing him for going so slow. >> right. right. so the "daily news" has cracked the case and the guilty party is going to be on the cover of the "new york daily news" tomorrow morning. here's a look. here's a peek at the guy who got it wrong. >> oh. >> he apparently was in charge of the envel lopes. we'll take it down. 's too feipainful. look, it's his one moment on television on the cover of a newspaper in his life and the short of that moment is the better for him because he was the guy. he was the guy with the althoug right? forever known for his one thing. thank you, lawrence. >> it wasn't warren's fault. let's let history show. >> an sol becomeabsolved. thank you. donald trump discovered today health care policy is complicated. during the campaign he said repealing and replacing obamacare could be simple and easy and done very quickly. that's because the only health care expert donald trump knew this was this guy, his personal physician who put in writing the lie that donald trump would be the healthiest president in history. that doctor just made up that lie and signed his name to it. that's the kind of health care expert donald trump was accustom to dealing with before becoming president of the united states and that is why president trump and the republicans in congress are trapped in a nightmare of their own making in their desperate and confused attempt to repeal and replace obamacare. and they're trying to do that. that huge legislative endeavor. while the air of scandal and incompetence thickens around the white house. >> this budget will be a public safety and national security budget. >> from talking to my constituents over the last week during recess, one of their greatest fears of this president is that he's going to get us engaged in war. >> republican and democratic leaders in the house, they are split over how to go forward investigating president trump and his advisers over alleged ties to russia. >> i don't have any evidence that would -- of any phone calls. that doesn't mean they don't exist, but i don't have that. >> we haven't obtained any of the evidence yet, so it's premature for us to be saying we reached any conclusion about the issue of collusion. >> how many people have to say there's nothing there before you realize there's nothing there? >> do you support a special prosecutor on russia? >> thank you. >> is this all make believe? i don't understand what the president is trying to say except to deflect from the poor way he's running the administration thus far. special prosecutor. since richard nixon was driven out of the presidency by the work commenced by a special prosecutor, the words "special prosecutor," those two words are the worst words a white house can hear. and as the trump white house embarks on i second month, only its second month, the calls for a special prosecutor to look into trump ties to russia have spread from democrats to republicans. so today in the white house covered by clouds and scandal and rank incompetence, the most ignorant, incoherent, incompetent president in history walked into a room full of governors to tell them how he plans to bankrupt the federal government and by extension the states who depend on the federal government. of course, there was no hint that the president understood that everything he was saying would bankrupt the federal government but all of the governors knew what they were hearing. the president was proposing massive increases in spending and massive tax cuts along with a new tax increase on some imported goods. a tax that the president erroneously seems to believe would be paid by foreign countries when, in fact, it would be paid entirely by american taxpayers. the president proved to the room his utter ignorance of everything that's happened in the world since world war ii when he suggested that the reason the united states no longer wins wars the way we used to is we just don't spend enough money on them. >> we have to win. we have to start winning wars again. let's just say when i was in young in high school and college, everybody used to say we never lost a war. we never lost a war. you remember. some of you are right there with me and you remember, we never lost a war. america never lost. and now we never win a war. we never win. we don't fight to win. >> of course, when donald trump was in college, he was the only student there who did not know that we were losing a war. every day that he was in college, we were losing the vietnam war. donald trump managed to get a doctor to say that he had bone spurs that then allowed him to escape the draft and possible service in vietnam. those bone spurs never inhibited donald trump's physical activity before or since the vietnam war. and his utter obliviousness to the vietnam war today surely helped convince most of the governors in the room that he was as divorced from reality as his speech was. there was even a moment in his speech today when he left his prepared remarks to announce that he, alone among americans, had just discovered that the health care system in this country is complicated. and that repealing and replacing obamacare is not going to be as easy as he thought. we'll have more on that later in this hour. the president said he will talk more about his proposed budget tomorrow night in an address to congress but he did not actually promise more detail. president george w. bush appeared on the "today" show this morning and matt lauer asked him about the travel ban the trump administration continues to try to rewrite into a new executive order. >> i think it's very important for all of us to recognize one of our great strengths is for people to be able to worship the way they want to or not worship at all. i mean, the bedrock of our freedom, a bedrock of our freedom is the right to worship fr freely. >> for or against the ban? >> i'm for an immigration policy that's welcoming and upholds the law. >> joining us, david frum. jonathan alter, columnist for the daily beast. nicholas confesore, reporter for "the new york times" and msnbc contributor. david frum, i want to go first to you on what president bush had to say this morning. you were a speechwriter for president bush. in his white house. your reaction to what he told matt lauer about the travel ban. >> that's him all over. one of the -- he made such an effort in his administration to establish the war on terror was not the war on any particular religion. and in fact, one of the weirder things that struck english speakers as weird, used the term evildoers to describe terrorists came about to find a word in arabic that would not be sensitive to arabic and back translate into that english. that was him. that was the authentic man. >> jonathan alter, the budget talk that the president gave today was the most incoherent budget talk ever given by anyone who's taken the oath of office as president with all of those asides that trump does when he's giving a speech, no real specificity. he doesn't seem to understand what the republicans in the house -- in the congress are doing as opposed to what he talked about during the campaign. >> well, you know, you got to look at the people he's appointed and the bad news is he appointed a guy named mick mulvaney, a tea party congressman, to be head of his office of management and budget and the indications are that the president's budget is going to be an extraordinarily conservative document which sla slashes, not just trims, but slashes and eliminates many social programs. we're going to be arguing all through the spring, went everin spring about this budget. tax reform isn't until august. obamacare repeal isn't happening for reasons we discussed. we're going to be obsessed about this budget and make ronald reagan's budget in 1981 which caused a huge storm in washington, look like a picnic. >> listen to what some of the republicans in the house are saying about this budget. this is charlie dent who's appropriations committee in the house. he said "the president will propose and the congress will dispose, we'll look at his budget but at the end of the day we in congress write the appropriations bills and i am not one who thinks you can pay for an increase in military spending on the backs of domestic discretionary programs which constitute 13% or 14% of all federal spending." and nick, the problem there is if you're not looking at discretionary programs, you is to look at the so-called entitlements. really big items, social security, medicare, medicaid. donald trump promised in the campaign never, never going to touch social security and medicare. >> look, here's the problem. trump is not an american conservative. rig right? he's just not. promised to defend entitlements for middle class people, social security and medicare, exactly. the problem is to balance the budget or to expand spending on the pentagon on the backs of the epa, is impossible, right? he's saying i'm going to have it all. i'll have the entitlements. more spending on defense. i'm going to cut the taxes and regulation and cut tax. it's impossible to do. >> did frum, is the ultimate move here going to be, yes, cut the national endowment for the arts and cut all these things that republicans, some republicans have always wanted to zero up and eliminate? and increase military spending and just put the rest of it on the deficit? just don't pay for it? just increase that spending. >> well, donald trump's essential business method was to borrow money and not pay it back. which can be a very powerful, wealth-creating effect for the individual and he's often recommended that approach to the united states. that the united states could borrow money and not pay it back. and so i think that probably is the plan. you know, the traditional republican answer has been that you can -- there are a lot of ways to find savings inside medicare without changing the nature of the benefits, but by squeezing providers. that means you have to get into the actual details of program administration, you have to think about how the health care delivery system in the united states works and as we learned today, it turns out it's complicated. >> yeah. here's more from politico. this is republican congressman steve womack and he says trying to solve for a deficit in the hundreds of billions of dollars cannot be accomplished through deeper cuts in discretionary programs without terrific harm to both the economy and a lot of innocent people. and jonathan, that's not what you will hear from most republicans. they'll leave out the part about possible harm to the economy or innocent people. but if they're honest about the numbers they will just point out mathematically the numbers don't exist in discretionary spending to try to do this kind of thing. >> right. they don't care about deficits when a republican is in the white house. remember when george w. bush was in the white house, kidick chen said, quote, deficits don't matter. they ochnly care about irresponsible spending when democrats are in the white ho e house. expect them to run up the numbers. call what they call rosy scenarios of economic growth that will somehow take care of these deficit problems and they're also, remember, they only have a two-vote margin in the senate, so it doesn't require a lot of defections for them to just get slam dunked on all of these things and the president's political capital is rapidly depleting. >> but nick, i remember a presidential candidate running against the national debt and running against the deficit that adds to the national debt and his name was donald trump. >> well, you know, politicians sometimes aren't consistent -- >> really? >> happens sometimes. george w. bush ran on getting rid of debt, not spending too much, and he did, of course. >> in fairness, the george w. bush, as a presidential campa n campaigner in the year 2000 did not see al qaeda coming obviously and coming to the world trade center and hitting washington. he had a war on his hands he wasn't anticipating as a president. when the time came, they funded that war and cut taxes. >> here's the problem. we've been in an age of austerity as it is for the last five, six years because of the sequester. many agentries is already operating at the bone. you can't squeeze that much at the lemon to accomplish all these things he wants to do. >> but david, again, there's a long list of things that many republicans in congress would be happy to see zeroed out, and so it's -- if you want to preserve the program, you could look at it and say, well, there's nothing else we can cut from it, but if you don't care if that program dies, there's more you can cut from it. >> look, there are a lot of programs that republicans have ideological objections to they'd be happy to cut. they tend to be pretty small. they don't have a big budget impact. now, they feel strongly about it regardless but they don't have a big budget impact. if you want to make a big budget impact, this is the thing that president obama wrestled with in 2009 and 2010, you have to -- the way to do it is to bring american health care costs into line with the rest of the developed world. if the united states were spending on health care what -- these are figures you'll remember. we talked about this five years ago. what norway or switzerland are spending, next runners-up in the world, you could have the defense budget for free. >> jonathan alter, quickly, before we break here, the air of scandal surrounding the white house while they're trying to legislate, what does that do, what kind of a drag does that put on the legislative action? >> a considerable one because washington can only do one thing at a time. and trump who is the master at distraction is now going to be a victim of distraction because when he wants to keep focus on, you know, cutting food stamps or whatever it is he's going to be doing in the next few weeks, the stories are often going to be about russia and he's going to have a problem getting his message across. >> john alter gets the last word on this round. thank you for joining us tonight. appreciate it. coming up, donald trump's big budget proposal tomorrow night probably will not have much detail as he has been promising. and the pressure for a special prosecutor continues to grow around the trump white house. americans - 83% try to eat healthy. yet up 90% fall short in getting key nutrients from food alone. let's do more. add one a day women's complete with key nutrients we may need. plus it supports bone health with calcium and vitamin d. one a day women's in gummies and tablets. why pause a spontaneous moment? 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"an investigation is not the same as an assertion of specific wrongdoing, it's following the facts where they lead so the american people can know what may or may not have taken place. any review conducted must have the full confidence of the american people which is why i recommended an independent review." the chairman of the house intelligence committee, devin nunes, held an unprecedented press conference today in which he discussed what the committee has been finding in their investigation. >> i don't have any evidence that would -- of he phone calls, that doesn't mean they don't exist, but i don't have that and what i've been told is by many -- by many folks is that there's nothing there. >> axios reported today congressman nunez was one of several government officials including cia director mike pompeo asked by white house press secretary sean spicer to talk to reporters, "to try to discredit a "new york times" about trump campaign aides's contact with russia." nunez seems to have delivered on that request in his press conference today. the ranking democrat on the house intelligence committee didn't discuss any evidence because he says the committee hasn't received any evidence. he did say this. >> on the basis of conversations that the chair and i are having with intelligence officials, we can't draw any conclusions and nor should we. we shouldn't be prejudging where the facts lead. >> joining us now, richard stengel, managing editor of -- forming managing editor of "time" magazine who also interviewed vladimir putin when he was with "time" magazine, visited rush ssia in 2016. he's now an msnbc contributor. back with us, david frum. rick stengel, the notion of a white house reaching out to the intelligence committees and the house and the senate saying please help defend us to "the new york times" and others about this story. >> highly, highly inappropriate. and in fact, the fact that the chairman actually made those phone calls show they have an inherent conflict of interest and can't be independent and impartial in the investigation. >> david frum, what's your reaction to these developments? >> i'm her with a commercial commercial message, please stop talking to the special prosecutor. special prosecutor is a law enforcement official whose job it is to go find if crimes are committed. it's not iegal for an american citizen to have conversations with a hostile foreign intelligence agency. it's appropriate, it's unethical, it's a security risk, but it's not a crime in most cases. so this is a trap. it takes us down a path of legality. the thing we want to know is are there security risks inside the white house? not a crime to be a security risk. not in terms of a special prosecutor under a special council law, but an independent commission run by intelligence professionals that has the power to identify security risks and recommend they be excluded from government and to go fast because you don't want to wait for the legal process, you want to get security risks out of the government fast and that is the -- the higher up that person is positioned, the closer to the office of the presidency that person is, the more important it is to get them out of office fast. >> david, quickly, to complete your public service announcement, who do you want to appoint to that commission? >> will have to be appointed by congress. i don't have a lot of confidence in congress right now but public pressure is an amazing thing. kind of people who should be running it are people who have served at the highest levels in the intelligence community. professionals, lot lawyers. >> so, rick stengel, a commission which i will now sketch into shape with appointees coming from the democratic leadership of the senate, the democratic leadership of the house and appoint tins comes from the senate republican leadership of the house. i think david makes a very good point that the limit -- the problem with the special prosecutor at this stage, the limitation of the focus is on crime and not but crime. if a special prosecutor doesn't find crime, that special prosecutor might actually end up revealing nothing. >> yes. i mean, i won't get into the statute, laws passed after watergate, difference between independent counsel, key prosecutor. whether it's an independent commission like 9/11, independent prosecutor, that's the key thing. the thing i would add in my public service announcement is the investigation has to be larger than the connection between trump world and russia. russia has been trying to invade our domestic space and influence our elections since 1982 which is in that great "new yorker" article this week. they have been knocking on the door and finally they got someone to answer the door, donald trump. and the ramifications for our democracy are huge. the investigation can't just be about trump, but about how they're doing this and how trump responded because trump has played into their act. he has been what lenin called a useful id the yot iot to their which no one has done since 1982. >> i agree with richard stengel, there are things we want to know, should be books written about them, right now there are people in the west wing with access to important information including names of american agents inside other countries who may be security risks and have to exclude them and do it fast. i don't want members of congress on this commission. i want professionals. the commission must be appointed by congress but make it go fast, find the risks, identify them and isolate them from power. >> so rick, i think we can -- we could all agree that an investigative priority would be the connections of people currently working in the white house and working -- >> is that during the campaign, donald trump, candidate donald trump, quoted from "russia today" articles, quoted from sputnik pieces that are russia propaganda. the famous sidney blumenthal thing he did was from a russian piece. how they have infiltrated our space, i agree with david, there's a security risk right now that needs to be investigated. >> rick stengel, david frum, thank you both for joining us tonight. >> thank you. coming up, the correspondents' dinner is now officially a canceled tv series. allergies with nasal congestion? 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>> i consider the media to be indispensable to democracy. that we need an independent media to hold people like me to account. i mean, power can be very addictive and it can be corrosive and it's important for the media to call to account people who abuse their power. whether it be here or elseere. one ofhe things i spent a lot of time doing was trying to convince a pson like vladimir putin, for example, to accept the notion of an independent press. >> right. >> and it's kind of hard, you know, to tell others to have an independent free press when we're not willing to have one, ourselves. >> president george w. bush on the "today" show this morning. joining us now, jay rosen, media critic and professor of journalism at new york university. author of "press think: a blog about journalism." jay, so now for former presidents, the first question is, did you ever think the media was the enemy of the people? >> yeah. and president bush gave a very good answer. he said, it's hard for me to persuade foreign dictators about the importance of an independent press when we are dismantling it, ourselves. when the press used to accompany the president on foreign trips, one of the most important things that would happen is that the american press would get up and ask questions of the president and the foreign dictator he was with. or the foreign government he was meeting with. >> contentious questions. >> contentious questions. and the point was to prove to others that american democracy lives wherever the president lives. and now we're kind of reversing that. >> and the -- to go to the weekend developments on the white house correspondents' dinner, something that has been highly controversial within the business for a while, first, every celebrity in hollywood pulled out. just a complete boycott. no stars going to the first trump white house correspondents' dinner. and once donald trump realized that he would have no supporting hollywood cast in the audience, he decided to pull out and, you know, now we have -- i'm not sure what's left. in fact -- in fact, what's left is the essence of it before it was completely corrupted by the hollywood influence and that is they give awards to white house correspondents and reporters and these are hard-earned awards that deserve attention and never get any attention because everybody's looking at the movie star over there or waiting for the comedian to talk. >> right. as it grew into this monstrosity, the awards to journalists and the college scholarships to young people got overwhelmed by -- >> like a dozen kids who go up on that stage and receive scholarships that change their lives. >> no one would even know that. >> yep. >> it became something else. one thing it became, lock how important we are, we can get the president to come. another thing is, look how glamorous our profession is, we have all these movie stars. a third thing i think, it was sort of saying, look, we tussle with each other, there's fights, there's tensions but we're all on the same business, so we should be able to have a laugh and clink our glasses because we're really all part of the same world. all of those things have become inappropriate with trump in office. >> and it took donald trump, apparently, for most of the media to finally see this. >> it did, although he quit them before they quit him. >> well, a lot of them were quitting, though. a lot of them were canceling parties. you know, "bloomberg," "van day fa fair." the tables weren't sold yet. we don't know what the turnout would have been. >> what about the whca, itself? what about the white house correspondents' association? they are still acting like it's business as usual. they still want the normal access, the normal routines, the normal dinner. and i think that was a mistake. they -- >> well, they can get a smaller room. >> yeah. >> jay rosen, thanks for joining us tonight. appreciate it. coming up, donald trump finally admits what we all always knew. he doesn't know anything about health care. he admits it just when the congress was hoping he did. and an nbc news exclusive report reveals that the first military mission ordered by president trump was a total failure. ♪ (music pla♪ throughout) announcer: get on your feet for the nastiest bull in the state of texas. ♪ ♪ (crowd cheers) ♪ hdid you get that email i sente wyou...before you wake up. ... when life keeps you up... zzzquil helps you fall asleep in less than 20 minutes. because sleep is a beautiful thing. befi was a doer.gia, i was active. then the chronic, widespread pain drained my energy. my doctor said moving more helps ease fibromyalgia pain. she also prescribed lyrica. fibromyalgia is thought to be the result of overactive nerves. lyrica is believed to calm these nerves. for some, lyrica can significantly relieve fibromyalgia pain and improve function, so i feel better. lyrica may cause serious allergic reactions or suicidal thoughts or actions. tell your doctor right away if you have these, new or worsening depression, or unusual changes in mood or behavior. or swelling, trouble breathing, rash, hives, blisters, muscle pain with fever, tired feeling, or blurry vision. common side effects are dizziness, sleepiness, weight gain and swelling of hands, legs and feet. don't drink alcohol while taking lyrica. don't drive or use machinery until you know how lyrica affects you. those who have had a drug or alcohol problem may be more likely to misuse lyrica. with less pain, i can be more active. ask your doctor about lyrica. you're going to have such great health care atnd a tiny fraction of the cost and it's going to be so easy. >> he gives so much better speeches when he's wearing the hat. on the campaign trail in october, donald trump called repealg and replacing obamacare so easy. today at the white house with no hat, donald trump said this. >> we have come up with a solution that's really, really, i think, very good. now, i have to tell you, it's an unbelievably complex subject. nobody knew that health care could be so complicated. >> no. nobody knew. donald trump's comments came after the "washington post" reported last night that ohio governor john kasich tried to convince donald trump not to make drastic changes to obamacare. the "washington post" reports that during a meeting last friday, "at one point senior adviser jared kushner reminded his father-in-law that house republicans are sketching out a different approach to providing access to coverage. well, i like this better, trump replied." republicans continue to disagree on what should be in the obamacare repeal. tonight, the head of the republican study committee, mark walker, said he would not support the draft republican plan to repeal obamacare. . the plan would get rid of obamacare subsidies based on income and replace them with tax credits based on age. he called it, "a new health insurance entitlement with a republican stamp on it." joining us next, steven brill who literally wrote the book, the most definitive book on obamacare. he will join us here on the day that donald trump finally admitted that health care is unbelievably complex. what shall we call you? 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ask your doctor about taltz. nobody knew that health care could be so complicated. >> health care is complicated stuff. and the hospital executives who are here and the doctors who are here and the consumer advocates who are here can tell you. >> steven brill can tell you, he wrote a book about it. journalest and author of "america's bitter pill: money, politics backroom deals and the fight to break our broken health care system." steven's also on msnbc contributor. so there's donald trump finally admitting what we've all known for many, many decades, anyone who ever applied for health insurance. >> listen, i felt bad. i spent two years writing a book about such a simple subject, but the only thing i can think of, you know, i'm one of those people who doesn't think that trump is anywhere near as wealthy as he says he is. but he apparently is wealthy enough that he's -- and healthy enough that he's never seen a hospital bill. he's never seen an insurance company's explanation of benefits. something i'm sure you've seen a lot of. >> right. >> you know you can't decipher them. health care is -- i've written about antitrust law, you name it. it is the most complicated subject -- >> international trade. >> because we have twisted ourselves into a pickle with our health care system. >> and the republicans and the president have now done it on the policy. it feels like if you go by the sound you're hearing, they painted themselves into a corner they don't know how to get out of. let's listen to chuck schumer talking about where he thinks the republicans are now. >> i predict the discord in their party will grow as republicans turn to washington after this last week of angry town halls. i believe the odds are very high. we will keep the aca. it will not be repealed. >> steven, he first said something like that, in my memory, to rachel maddow in this building shortly after the election and he was -- it was more -- >> like the day after. >> it was more of a hunch. he's sounding much more conflicted about this now. >> that's because he understands -- >> he's been through it. >> that it's hard to do and there's a lot of moving parts and can't just take one part out and expect the thing to keep going. just to give you an example, one republican plan says that they're going to allow the insurance companies to charge the elderly five times as much as young people. the rrent regation three times as much. the same plan says that when they give tax credits, they're going to give tax credits to the elderly that are twice as much as the tax credits that go to the young people. how does that compute? how does that work? they might not even know it because it's, you know, a couple paragraphs down. >> and so enter john kasich to the white house who apparently was saying the kinds of things to donald trump that he wanted to hear about here's, you know, you can keep insurance for kids on their parents' policies up to age 26. you can keep the pre-existing conditions piece. you can keep, you can keep, you can keep. and maybe john kasich never quite said you can keep that by keeping obamacare and jared kushner at some point heard enough and realized that his father-in-law was drifting way, way far away from where the congressional republicans are. >> that's right. nor have the republicans explained how when they appeal -- when they repeal obamacare what they're going to do with the billion dollars worth of taxes that are in obamacare. i didn't see that in his budget. i don't know what his budget assumes about that. >> right, because obamacare has about 15 taxes in it. they raised together a significant amount of money. if you repeal it, all that income to the treasury -- >> when i said billion, i meant a trillion. >> all of that is gone. and gone forever. but, again, i mean, it's not clear, because there's been no specificity, i never heard a republican say here's what we want to do to the tax pieces in obamacare. >> the only thing i can tell you for sure is when he does it, he's going to declare victory. it's what a lot of people said we should have done in vietnam, just declare victory and get out. he's going to declare victory, say there are just as many people covered. >> okay. >> spending less money. >> that brings us to last night's "new york times," historic "new york times" tv ad at the oscars. let's take a look at it. >> investigation of any -- >> classified infoation. >> the truth is -- ♪ >> the truth is more important now than ever and that's going to play into both the dimensions of this debate and the outcome. you've long held that when i was trying to figure out how will i do this, how women i ill i do tu said basically on the show, in the end they'll lie about what they did. >> the problem they'll have, though the president just discovered this is complicated and really hard to understand, people will understand when the insurance policies they buy for, let's say, a premium that doesn't go up that much in cost, it's not going up in cost because the benefits have been cut back. the deductibles have been raised. people will get that. the thing about health insurance is as complicated as it is, the cost, the toll on individuals, every consumer, every person in this country, is really clear. that stuff's not complicated. >> and that's when -- when you have statements going out there as donald trump has done, as kellyanne conway has done at different times saying no one who's a current beneficiary of obamacare will suffer in any way, in the end of their story, if they pass a bill, they're simply going to have to lie about that part. >> yeah. you guys could do a town hall every night with people who have been hurt by it. >> right. i used to pay this, now i don't have anything. >> you could do a town hall in yankee stadium of people who have been hurt by it. >> steven brill, thanks for joining us once again. >> sure enough. >> this perennial subject is going to be with us for the rest of the year i think zblchlgs co zblchblgs co . coming up the trump administration is calling a raid in yemen auccess, but the fath of that navy s.e.a.l. says he's not so sure. a new report cites several government officials saying the raid obtained no useful intelligence information. did. at one point, i did change to a different company with car insurance, and i was not happy with the customer service. we have switched back over and we feel like we're back home now. the process through usaa is so effortless, that you feel like you're a part of the family. i love that i can pass the membership to my children, and that they can be protected. we're the williams family, and we're usaa members for life. call usaa today to talk about your insurance needs. or keeping a hotel's guests cuttinconnected.i to 35,000 fans... businesses count on communication, and communication counts on centurylink. they carry your fans shpassions, hopes, and dreams.s. and maybe, a chance at greatness because shoulders were made for greatness. not dandruff. big paxton always knew better than most of us that life was fleeting. that you just never know web when the end was coming. bill was 8 yrs old when he c convinco convinced ed his father to bri him to see the president of the united states in person for the first time. he'll never forget that first moment of seeing john fitzgerald kennedy. he waved to the president. a big texas wave. bill was waving hello. he didn't know that he was also waving good-bye. later that day in dallas, the president was shot in the back of the head. bill told me that story late one night when we were working together on the hbo series, "big love." in bill's telling, it felt like it happened yesterday. the lead actor in a tv series should be the captain of the cast and crew. the cheerleader who helps everyone get through their day. that's who bill paxton was. every day that i worked with him. he taught us all a lot. he always brought humility and respect to his work and never had a second of not being deeply grateful to be there. bill started as a member of the crew on film sets and worked his way all the way up to director and number one on the call sheet as an actor. he knew how to do every job on the set and everyone knew that, but he always deferred to the judgment of the people who were doing those jobs. bill paxton brought big love to the set of "big love" every day. yesterday, his family announced that bill died on saturday from complications from surgery. he leaves his wife, louis, and his son, james, and his daughter, lydia. bill paxton was 61 years old. 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>> i think the raid was clearly badly executed. well-intentioned but badly executed. what happened, we don't know how high up the chain of command the mistakes began, but clearly this was a raid that should have been curtailed but wasn't. chief owens died. being reported, 25 or more civilians died as well. this is not a happy situation. >> and we do know, there are reports of how the decision was made that the president made the decision in effect at dinner instead of in the formal setting of a situation room briefing or a formal briefing by everyone who you would want present for such a briefing. do you think -- and was basically general flynn making -- as the national security adviser -- making the presentation. do you think that's part of the problem here? >> oh, i think it clearly is, and i'm not big about monday morning quarterbacking. mistakes happen. but clearly the flynn, now former flynn, nexus with the president probably had something to do with this and was probably not very productive and i think we need to move on from that and just be glad it probably won't happen again. >> and when you read what the father of this navy s.e.a.l. had to say in that florida newspaper, he is deeply upset about this and questioning it at every level. >> yeah, look, he as an american citizen, chief owens' father has the right to do this. we've been through this before, back in 1993 after the blackhawk down incident in somalia, one of the fathers of one of the two army delta operators who received the medal of honor for that posthumously refused to shake president clinton's hand. i thought that was childish thp i think this little bit childish, frankly, too. i hate to say that. it is their absolute right as american citizens and grieving parents. i don't know if that gets us any closer to resz loose olution of really happened here. >> a letter now signed by 120 retired generals and admirals tonight criticizing the white house apparent budgeting in which they would be making major cuts including cuts from the state department. they've signed a letter. it includes david petraeus, mike hayden, saying, quoting jim mattis, saying "as jaims mattis said while commander of u.s. central command, if you don't fully fund the state department, then i need to buy more ammunition." fascinating to see them emerging as defenders of the state department budget and others. >> and this is -- thank you for bringing this up, lawrence. this is absolutely nonpartisan. all these former generals and admirals understand the state department is a critical underpinning of american security worldwide. and the current administration's efforts to defund elements of what the zmstate department doe to give to the department of defense is something i don't know anyone who supports this outside the white house, frankly. this is not rational decision-making in a national security sense and i'm very pleased to see this letter and pleased to see you mention it. >> it's kind of extraordinary because it's easy to get departments to rival each other in that -- >> right. >> -- attempt to get vigorous slices of the pie. to see people with a defense department background coming forward and saying don't do this to state is extraordinary. >> generals, admirals, top civilians in the pentagon understand the critical part the state department plays in all of this and don't want to see that defunded in any way, shape, form. >> john schindler gets tonight's "last word." >> thank you. msnbc's live coverage continues into "the 111th hour" now, with brian williams. s that next. tonight, president trump hours away from what could be his most important speech yet. a preview tonight of what's to come on capitol hill. as questions mount about the investigation into trump's campaign ties with russia. and breaking his silence, former president george w. bush reveals his thinking on the trump administration. "the 11th hour" begins now. and good evening to you once again from our headquarters here in new york. as we begin week six of the trump presidency, the commander in chief just hours away from a critical speech to a joint session of