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tragedy over niger. not just what happened in africa, but what's happened to discourse in america? plus, senator joe manchin on the budget and rolling back a law that allowed the flow of opioids back into his state, west virginia. laerkts governor terry mcauliffe on the scorched earthcom pain in virginiao succeed him in office. and brand-new reporting on what the president just told house republicans on a conference call. sources say the president told lawmakers if they don't pass his tax cut they'll lose in 2018. we'll have a lot more on that. let's start with the latest in niger. at the center of it and i don't want to lose track of this. the four young men serving their country. staff sergeant bryan black, staff sergeant dustin wright, staff sergeant jeremiah johnson and sergeant la david johnson. all members of the u.s. special forces. the circumstances of the ambush that killed these men are still unclear. and a pentagon investigation is unclear into conflicting accounts of the story. the armed services committee is

set to be briefed this week on the mission after senator john mccain and a number of other lawmakers express eed frustrati over a lack of information from the trump administration. republican senator lindsey graham underlined just how little is known about the american mission there. >> but i didn't know there was 1,000 troops in niger. john mccain is right to tell the military because this is an endless war without boundaries. no limitation on time and geography. tell us more and he's right to say that. >> i think most americans want to do the following. they don't want another 9/11. we don't want the next 9/11 to come from niger. >> a senior congressional aid says it was the result of a breach of intelligence failure. there was no quick reaction force available to save the troops if something went wrong.

joining us, retired four-star army general barry mccaffrey, governor of mississippi and secretary of the navy bray mabus and the chief of staff for the iraq and afghanistan veterans of america, allison jaslow who is a former army captain who served two combat deployments in iraq. thank you all so much for being here. really appreciate it. i think it was important to make sure we have the perspective of people who had served as we talk about this story that's just consumed the country over the last week. general, i want to start with the circumstances around this mission. why, if you can lay out. why was it troops had been in niger. what do members of congress know about it or not and does the military need to be more transparent bower mission about overseas? >> as a four-star commander up in stuttgart, germany, and there's troops all over the region. they're in djibouti, somalia,

air strikes into libya, clearly in niger, mali. they are more normally on class 5 missions. frequently it's a training optic on why we're there. but we're also running tier one special operation teams in and out of these nations on occasion. very highly classified. and the whole point of it was libya leaking arms and money after the fall of gadhafi. and the potential for isis to take up residence in other parts of africa. so what did congress know? i don't know but the secretary of defense normally keeps the key committees and the senate and the hour, the chairman and ranking member informed of these operations. >> of course mattis heading up to capitol hill late friday to try to make nice on mccain who was clearly pretty unhappy. mr. secretary, what, you've been on the inside the pentagon when

things go wrong. what should happen now as far as investigating what happened here and trying to kind of figure out and explain how to keep it from happening again? >> the first thing is there ought to be a full investigation and to go to what general mccaffrey just said, be transparent about it. get the lessons learned. what was the mission? what was the level of danger that these troops faced because we've got troops, as he said, all over africa and all over the world. the day i left, we had marines in 43 different countries. knowing what the risk are, knowing what these young men and women face is absolutely crucial before you send them into harm's way. >> allison, you obviously spent a lot time of talking to current vets and people who are currently serving. from what we know about what happened, these men were traveling in trucks that weren't

armored. they didn't have air support overhead. is that standard or does that make people angry when they hear those kinds of details? >> i think there's a lot of unanswered questions that we were hoping we'd get. we found ourselves in a conversation around the fallen and their families and condolences instead of getting the answers to those tough questions. what i really hope is that we're able to get to the bottom of that. the secretary says that there are questions that -- and strategic clarity that we need to give to troops, but their families and the folks especially putting their lives on the line absolutely deserve that. so i hope we get answers soon. >> and this, of course, has been the debate very quickly shifted into the realm of the political with kind of president trump as he started it, obviously, on a week ago. it feels much longer than that now saying that president obama didn't call the families. do you think that this debate at

this point is appropriate? what role does the president play here? does he bear sole responsibility or is it on the shoulders, some of what congresswoman frederica wilson has says? >> a quick backtrack. i've been a lieutenant or captain on three combat tours. wounded three times. there's nothing that outrages me more than hearing every time that somebody made a mistake. it's dangerous out there. we're all carrying a mistake. we don't follow a massive intelligence fail purp be a little cautious about wrongdoing on the part of the people on the ground. strategic clarity, probably more important. now back to the current uproar in washington. i think it's disgusting. my first reaction was to tell the president of the united

states to stop calling families, to stop going to dover. let the major of the army or the major of the marine corps bring our fallen angels home. i think the other thing is, you know, we've clearly got the president of the united states with a boneheaded phone call to a widow followed by exploiting it in the part of the congresswoman followed by the president emulating himself with further treats. so we've taken our eyes completely off the ball. four special ops, highly trained troops, killed in action. we need to honor them. >> speaking of kind of all that back and forth. let's walk through some of that. chief of staff john kelly tried to reset the conversation about the deaths of these your servicemen but the dialogue veerd when he took on congresswoman frederica wilson in an event from years ago. >> the congresswoman stood up,

and in the long tradition of empty barrels making the most noise stood up there in all that and talked about how she was instrumental in getting the funding for that building. now she took care of her constituents because she got the money. and she just called up president obama. and on that phone call, he gave the money, the $20 million to build the building. she sat down. and we were stunned. so let me tell you what happens. their buddies wrap them up in whatever passes as a shroud. puts them on a helicopter and sends them home. they are flown to usually europe where they are then packed on ice again and flown to dover air force base. where dover -- >> so that was john kelly talking a little bit about -- and those weren't necessarily supposed to play one after the other but i want to folk ocus o

what we just heard there. this is not something most americans are familiar with or understand and sort of john kelly laying out step by step what it is that happens when one of our service members is killed abroad. i think certainly was something a lot of people were riveted by and we very distracted by the noise that's ensued and the politics around it. but my question for you, do you think that the country is damaged by the fact that there are so few americans who at this point are familiar with what john kelly was talking about there? >> absolutely. and i think the way that rears its head is seeing the unforced errors we've seen a little bit. i think that that utter disconnect is probably at the heart of why -- i hope it's why we're in the middle of politics that people are just disconnected. otherwise it's pretty heartless in my mind. what has happened to this family

is not only a tragedy that most people can't wall strerelate to now in the headlines. sergeant johnson was just put in the ground yesterday and they had to endure five days of political back and forth and this will be wrapped around his legacy and the unfortunate death he's had from here forward. that's a horrible thing that's happened to that family. >> is there anything that can be done to change that dynamic, make more americans aware of what our service members are doing every day? >> it's a danger to democracy when the people doing the protected get too separated from the people being protected. and i think that we do a disservice when we say only the people in the military can understand. only the people who have served can understand because americans need to have that connection. democracy needs to have that connection. if we get a separate military class. if we get people removed.

and, yes, there are things you can do. there are things like making sure that -- i brought rotc back to harvard, yale, princeton, columbia because it had been gone for 40 years since vietnam. but i also put it at rutgers and arizona state, the two most diverse campuses in the country. it's making sure that we don't just thank people for their service. that we actually understand what they do. it's making sure that we as americans understand who is going into the service and it's making sure that we get the broadest possible representation that our military looks like and relates to the people they defend. >> general, how does this play out at the highest levels of government. we have a long tradition of civilian control of the military but in some ways, certainly i hear from a lot of republicans on the hill when they are asked about their concerns about our

president. they will point on the three men in uniform who are standing there. sometimes describe them as the bullwark against chaos. is that how you view it? and do you think there's any other danger in that in having essentially the military which is a smaller, we know, day-to-day -- >> i know general kelly for years. he's one of the finest people i ever met in my life, bar none. a man of tremendous integrity, good ymt. he understands washington. he's been the congressional liaison guy for the marine corps for years. i think he handled this one very badly. he's emotionally vulnerable. he doesn't like to talk about that great son of his killed in action. i think personally, the president threw him under the bus by referring to him as the answer, the tweet storm that came up. hr mcmaster, the national security adviser, half the time has been a military officer. it's not unusual. the only unusual is jim mattis being the secretary of defense,

a retired four-star marine. and i personally think that the country ought to be grateful that this guy of good judgment and law-abiding person with tremendous experience who i might add is nearly worshipped by the armed forces, particularly the army and the marine corps. we ought to be grateful we've got these guys in office. i don't think general kelly ought to quit for any reason and stay with this president as a voice of good judgment and responsibility. >> general barry mccaffrey, secretary mabus and sarah jaslow, thanks for being with us. coming up next, senator joe manchin and our political panel. house republicans prepare to take on tax reform. as we go to break, a reminder about what the niger story is really about. sergeant la david johnson's funeral was yesterday. you're watching "kasie dc." we'll be right back. give up, skeletor!

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now to a developing story. hill sources tell me house speaker paul ryan wants to vote on the senate's version of the budget by this week, accelerating the process for tax reform. the president spent the afternoon on the phone with house republicans giving them what amounted to a pep talk. he talked to the group about how to message the plan urging them to call it a tax cut instead of tax reform. he basically says no one understands what tax reform is. and he warned if they can't get the tax cut done, the midterm elections will be, quote, really bad. if they don't, they'll be like skating on ice. and he said he wants it done this year. here's the president earlier this morning on fox business. >> i want to get it by the end of the year, but i'd be very disappointed if it took that long. it could be substantially less

than that depending on what happens when we send the bill back to the house. >> 31 years ago today president reagan signed the last major tax reform propossal into law. joining me is rick tyler. national political reporter for axios, jonathan swan. d.c. bureau chief of vice news tonight on hbo, shawna thomas and reporter for "the new york times" jeremy peters. also, former adviser to senator rand paul and msnbc political analyst elise jordan from new york. thank you for being here tonight. i want to start with a look ahead to next week. at this point, the chances they're going to. we think it will be fine but who knows what the president will do. >> i think they've got -- all

the nice stuff has been put out there. the candy, the rates but we don't know much about how they're going to pay for it. i don't think anything will be easy. >> the economy was going to grow 25%. am i wrong? >> that's what they're telling us is that's how you'll make up for the deficit and it will be great. >> you know corker doesn't buy into that. >> corker doesn't totally buy into it, but he buys into it a little. >> he has evolved. >> he has evolved. and on top of tharkts i've been surprised by my kfrgconversation the hill with republicans. they seem hopeful about things getting through. when you talk to them about health care and other things they were like, that's never going to happen. but this, they know that 2018 rides on this. they know all of the things they talked about over the last however many years, they have to get it done. they seem hopeful about that. they do seem hopeful.

>> is that simply because they've sort of come around to this idea that they're facing their political best if they don't do this? a couple weeks ago, bob cork ear you thought health care was hard? this is going to be hard. >> the republican party used to be the fiscally responsible party. that seems to have gone out the window. this whole budget is designed to accommodate this tax reform. i think the president is right to call it tax cuts because people don't understand what tax reform means. >> tax reform is hard, right? tax reform is a big thing. if they keep calling it tax cuts, are they going to get away with -- >> tax cuts are easy to understand. >> trump has the bully pulpit. he's the -- should be the biggest asset in any major legislation that passes because he has to convince the country that despite what they think of him or the republicans or whatever else is said, i want that tax cut. they have to understand that. and the communication in terms of being in favor or promoting legislation has been absent.

>> the fact of the matter is the republican party's biggest donors are ready to walk away from them if they don't get something on tax reform done. >> it's all they have left right now, isn't it? >> being stuck between that kind of a rock and a hard place can only beget bad policy. if they're passing this only for political moetivation, i can't imagine it's going to be well thought out or tax reform of any kind. probably some tax cut. no one is mentioning the word reform. not only because it's hard for people as rick said to get their head around but because they're not envisioning a possibility of a grand bargain on reforming the tax code. >> one of the architects of many grand bargains was mitch mcconnell who has been slightly more challenged in trying to get all republican government to cooperate. here he was earlier today talking about this. >> some of these folks that you've been quoting, as i said, are specialists at nominating people who lose.

that isn't going to help president trump achieve his agenda. >> so elise jordan, mcconnell talking about the people that steve bannon is trying to push through in some of these republican primaries. mitch mcconnell has noted that they lost seats in 2010 and 2012 that should have stayed in republican hands. pull back the lens a little bit here. what are the consequences for republicans if they don't pass this legislation and is steve bannon helping? >> republicans won't have anything to show heading into 2018 and they'll have a president whose approval ratings aren't exactly the best. it's interesting to look at that debate, the mcconnell versus bannon matchup, in light of the tax reform debate. and the tax cut debate. and steve bannon out of the white house. and he was an advocate for not having tax cuts that wouldn't really benefit the middle class. and perhaps raising taxes on income earners who were above $5

million. and with steve bannon gone, donald trump's tax plan has lost some of that populist appeal. >> jonathan swann, she mentioned the middle class. that is something that i'm told president trump keeps coming back to. if you give him a tax reform proposal, this is going to hurt. the people that i know. you have some new reporting on what these tax brackets are going to look like. how does that relate? what are the brackets going to look like? they've come under pressure for potentially lowering taxes for millionaires. >> so the thing a lot of people -- we reported at the time when donald trump was presented with the big six tax plan, the plan that had been worked out behind closed doors for weeks by the leadership and people from his own administration, he hated it. he says what is this thing? how do i sell a cut in the top breakdown and some of the other things he didn't like. so they're looking at this fourth bracket. a higher income bracket on the wealthy for people who earn more than $1 million.

they're going to -- based on the current thinking, could change, keep it at 39.6%. that's so they can pay for some of these other cuts to help the middle class. >> what's your sense as far as -- democrats seem to already be saying, this is what we're going to run on going forward. we're going to essentially say president trump is rich. he's got a bunch of billionaire buddies and they want to raise all of your taxes. is that a message they can run with and win on, based on this bill, or do you think some of the democrats in swing states, a tim kaine or joe manchin. if he cuts taxes, i might be okay with it? >> i think there's some hopefulness for those joe manchins and tim kaines and other people in the world that they could bring them to the table. that goes back to the tax reform versus tax cut issue. and that if it isn't tax reform, if those democrats can't find things that show that taxes are going to go up on some of the rich or stay at the level they

are on some of the rich, they're going to run against that. it totally makes sense. also the thing floated about 401(k)s. that's something middle class people can understand. that's how they're saving their money. if you cut down how much you can contribute to your 401(k), middle class people are not going to like that. i'm not going to like that personally. >> for context, "the new york times" is reporting one of the things on the table here to try to raise more government revenues is instead of putting up to $18,000 in your 401(k), it would only be $2400. that would help the government but hurt middle class taxes. let's talk about steve bannon. he's looking to have the last word in a speech in california. >> president bush to me embarrassed himself. speech writer wrote a high-faluting speech. it's clear he didn't understand anything he was talking about. he equates globalization, agricultural, he has no idea whether he's coming or going,

just like when he was president of the united states. i want to apologize to any of the bush folks in this audience because there's not been a more destructive presidency than george bush's. >> earlier this week, jennifer jacobs of bloomberg quoted bannon in a tweet. "the last man behind enemy lines," bannon says, introducing steven miller at a party at the breitbart embassy. a new pies revealing the president and his former chief of staff still talk frequently in a ritual dipped in tension and deference. it's the president who reportedly has to call bannon because, of course, incoming calls have to go through the white house switchboard, aka john kelly. and in many -- one of his many private chats with fox news personality sean hannity, trump recently asked, is steve still with me? one more thing, according to the post. bannon has lost nearly 15 pounds by loosely adhering to what his associates call a hippie diet.

he swigs kombucha and cider vinegar shots and favors green smoothies. >> i'm going to try it. >> steve envisions himself having a larger public role in this emergent populism that we're seeing in the conservative movement right now. naturally, i think he's going to want to slim down and be a more presentable face for that public movement. but make no -- there's no question about it. what he was speaking to, the anti-bush sentiment in the republican party among conservatives is very real and george bush probably only helped donald trump by saying what he said about him and the nativist tendencez he sees coming out of this administration because the trump election repudiated the bush agenda in so many ways from foreign policy, domestic policy, immigration, the idea of who the republican party should be

appealing to. so there's tension there. >> it's also just -- he has this bizarre relationship with the president at the moment. consider that tweet from jennifer where she said -- he said, and i was at that party. jeremy was there. he says of steve miller, the last man behind enemy lines. you know when he uses it? when people tell im, oh, stephen is not on your side of. he's very disloyal. he's now with jared and ivaunk. he refers to that as enemy lines. he sees the white house as enemy lines. this president he wants to support surrounded by new york globalists. this is bannon's terminology. and it's just a very bizarre thing. he's still talking to this president but yet at war and his news organization breitbart is every day going to war with the top members of this administration. it's quite extraordinary. >> elise jordan, jeremy peters mentioned president bush, the president that donald trump is as much a repudiation of george

w. bush's presidency as it was of barack obama's. and it seems like obama and bush have been on the same side over the last week or so. >> well, it's interesting to me because i don't see, despits donald trump's campaign trail rhetoric and his consistency anti-bush stance, look at this. this is not a small government republican budget. as part of the bush administration, we spent a fair amount. this potential budget blueprint would cause us to increase the deficit to about $1 trillion every year going forward. and you look at donald trump's foreign policy, certainly has not been any less interventionist. he's only continued, bush and obama foreign policies going forward. an actual policy. i don't know if this is as much due to the incompetence of so many facets of his administration and donald trump's lack of principles and his overly concerned with his public status. but you really haven't seen that much of a pronounced difference

in policy. >> elise jordan, everyone else at the table stick with us. senator joe manchin will join us on set. we'll talk about the future of the budget, tax reform and a lot more. you're watching "kasie dc." we'll be right back. itched our d home insurance. with liberty, we could afford a real babysitter instead of your brother. hey. oh. that's my robe. is it? you could save seven hundred eighty two dollars when liberty stands with you. liberty mutual insurance.

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is this health care compromise dead? >> wouldn't call it dead, but it's sucking wind. i'm not a big fan of putting fresh paint on rotten wood. you have to replace the wood. in order to help them, we're screwing the other 93%. >> what we're doing now isn't working. it's like giving someone a bus ticket and saying, by the way, we don't have any buss. >> that was louisiana senator john kennedy explaining his apprehension over the health care bill. joining me on set for a competition in who can have the best set of phrases, senator joe manchin. >> i can't beat that one. >> congratulations. i'm so proud of you. >> really appreciate you coming in. sorry it's the second show, not the first show. but i'm honored you're here.

i want to start by talking about this tax reform proposal that looks luke it's gaining steam coming week. there is some reporting out, for example, about 401(k) contributions that suggests that perhaps middle class taxpayers may get hurt in this in a way we didn't fully understand. could you vote for a tax reform proposal that limited what americans could save in those retirement accounts? >> the conversations i've had with president trump is completely different from what i'm seeing coming out with -- whether it's mitch mcconnell, paul ryan, whatever side it's coming from. the president was adamant. it's not going tib to be a tax for the rich. anybody who receives a paycheck and at the end of the day you look at your deductions and you have a bottom line. are they going to have more at the end of the day thn now? everyone else has passive income. different ways to use it with pass-throughs and capital gains. i understand all of that. they are doing quite well.

and i've said this. the working people, the great working people in west virginia say the stock market is doing wonderful. it's at 23,000. most of them -- it doesn't make a different. 23,000 or 2300 doesn't change anything. the bottom line on that check. we've got to do that. make sure we incentivize businesses to continue to invest and great jobs. >> are you still open to voting in favor of this tax reform or this tax cut bill as the president is selling? >> i'm totally available in working with the president in finding something that works for the middle clarks the working class, the people that make this thing go. absolutely. and i think that's what the president wants. >> what does the president have to give you to get there. >> they are starting with $1.5 trillion. sam brownback tried this in kansas. the bush tax cuts. and it didn't pan out. trigger down economy did not work. did noticed not work. if you don't believe history,

you're going to repeat it. if you can do it because you can grow at 2.9 or graeater, i like to think we can. that's like walking in and buying your lottery ticket. walking up to the craps tables and saying i'm going to have a big night. >> do you think chuck schumer would be in favor of -- >> chuck doesn't work that way. they know it doesn't work with me. this is what i think and this is what i believe. i'm not going to vote for this or that. i'm not looking for the democrat or republican way. i'm looking for the american way. what are we here for? what do we come here for? the people need relief. and with that, $20 trillion of debt. i've got ten grandchildren. ten beautiful grandchildren and three children and three great -- two son-in-laws and daughter-in-daw and they're all beautiful people. i have to go home and look them in the eyes and say you'll be fine. they can't handle this.

we're not going to load up. i think we're going to have consistent growth. i think the economy can take off like a rocket, but you can't -- >> you don't think 3% is -- >> we're betting on everything to be done. if they want to put triggers in, i'm willing to talk about a trigger. if you don't hit it you go back to where you were. >> let's talk about politics. you are up for re-election in 2018 in a state that voted for president trump in the widest margin, yes you're a democrat. are you a dead man walking? >> some would like that to happen. in west virginia, i am who i am. they know joe manchin, the brand. i've been a governor, secretary of state. i'm just west virginia, period. it's not democrat, republican to me. >> would you want hillary clinton to come campaign for you? >> wouldn't be wise for hillary to come to west virginia. it wouldn't be a good thing for her or for me. the clintons are friends of mine. you can separate friendship from

politics. surely you can. if you can't today, what's happened to the whole political process that we're in. with that, they have always known west virginia. they worked when i was governor because of arkansas being similar demographics. so we have a great relationship. it's just things that were said, it's harmful and very hard to justify or say. she made a big mistake and it was wrong. with that, you don't throw friendships out because someone says something you don't approve or disagree with them. i don't pick friendships by everything i say or everything i do. i just -- this toxicity. you just asked about the 401(k). believe it or not, i am in d.c. i go to the grocery store this morning. a man says, you're senator. y i am. i want to talk to you. what your doing? surely, you would not have thought this would have come from the gentleman coming up and talking to me about his 401(k). he said you understand that's what we're looking for and what

we have to live for. that's it. so we're going to make sure that everything we do is not going to harm anybody that's working. >> do you think that president trump's approach to the gold star widow this week, was that honorable? decent? >> you know, being a former governor, i've had some real challenges in my state with all the mining accidents i've had and, you know, your commander in chief of your national guard, we've had people that we've lost overseas. i have never been able to find the right word. my heart is aching so much, and i call them and all i can do is say, i can only tell you that i -- if i put myself in your place, i don't know what could be says to ease my heart. >> i don't hear you defending president trump. >> i'm not defending anybody but they all have a different way of doing it. i'm not condemning. i wasn't there. i didn't hear it. i've heard all these back and forths. at the end of the day, what you need to do as a leader.

when everybody goes home and you're by yourself and you donts know what's going on and you have things coming at you. social security, medicare and you don't know how to navigate this. you call me and my staff. we're with them. we are going to be staying with them. that's what they need to know. that's what they need to make sure that you haven't left them. that's all i can recommend. make sure at the end of the conversation, here's my call, my number, whatever you need. i'm here for you and going to help you navigate this because it's going to get difficult. >> you've been out front in talking about the opioid crisis. something that's deeply impacted your state of west virginia. this has been something you called for. the man who had been nominated to be the drug czar to remove himself from consideration. >> that was the honorable thing for him to do. >> i want to ask you about how this law could have passed through the senate without anyone being aware of it. you have family ties to the drug industry. >> sure.

>> this kwwas something the dru industry pushed for privately behind the scenes. >> they have a thing called hot line. i think you -- >> i do know what that means. it means they put it on the list of things to move through quickly. >> because everyone is agreeing. there's no dissent. >> i understand when the bill was introduced in 2014 and if you saw how it was worded it made sure the patient guarantee act, those at end of life, cancer, severe pains, like they were going to be withheld their medicine they needed for pain. that was never the case but they wanted to camouflage it that way. dea pushed back when they first came out with it. hit a road block. they come back. mr. barber was smart enough because he came from the dea. we need to do a couple things. you can't have a revolving door from these agencies in charge of oversight. can't have them leave one day and going on the payroll the next day and knowing all the tricks of the trade and how to word stuff that's not going to be caught. if you aren't on the committee. i'm not on the health or

judiciary committee where those originated and had gone through. so they're going to call. our office is going to call. call the lawyers at dea and doj. tell us about this law. is this going to impede you doing your job? absolutely not. they give you the wave-off on this. doesn't come to me at my level because my staff says we've been waved off completely. doj doesn't raise any flags. >> are the drug companies at fault? >> it's a business plan. it's a business plan. they can say what they want to. you can't send 9 million pills to west virginia with 392 people and tell me you didn't have a business plan. you can't send the millions of pills they keep sending to west virginia and not basically forcing something without a red flag going up. something is wrong, kasie. we've got to change it. the workforce, we're destroying families, communities. we're destroying future economies. and west virginia is the first time i've got the greatest workers in the world. but i'm down to around 50% of the adult workers who are actually working now because of

addiction or conviction. >> very serious problem. senator joe manchin, thanks for joining us. >> good to be with you. >> always nice to be with you. just ahead, on the road again. barack obama returns to the campaign trail. you're watching "kasie dc." ♪when you've got...♪ ♪...nausea, heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach, diarrhea!♪ nausea, heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach, diarrhea!♪ here's pepto bismol! ah. ♪nausea, heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach, diarrhea!♪

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uh, i'm actually focusing on my career right now, saving people nearly $600 when they switch, so... where's your belly button? [ sighs ] i've got to start booking better gigs. [ sighs ] he's brought us to the obstructed justice at the fbi. and in direct violation of the constitution, he's taken money from foreign governments and threatened to shut down news organizations that report the truth. if that isn't a case for impeaching and removing a dangerous president, then what has our government become? i'm tom steyer and, like you, i'm a citizen who knows it's up to us to do something. it's why i'm funding this effort to raise our voices together and demand that elected officials take a stand on impeachment. a republican congress once impeached a president for far less. yet, today, people in congress and his own administration know this president is a clear and present danger who is mentally unstable and armed with nuclear weapons. and they do nothing. join us and tell your

member of congress that they have a moral responsibility to stop doing what's political and start doing what's right. our country depends on it. look what we did over the last eight years. created jobs for the jobless. made it easier for young people to earn a higher education. covered more families with health insurance. brought home more of our brave troops. made sure we were looking after our veterans. made america more respected leader around the world. started making sure that we're dealing with climate change in a serious way. we know what we can achieve. >> that was president barack obama back on the campaign trail arguing in defense of the agenda he's watching be dismantled

piece by piece. we're watching the race for governor in virginia. now just two weeks away. nbc's vaughn hilliard asked some of the democrats in the crowd that night who would be best to lead their party in 2020 as they try to unseat president trump. >> i would pick joe biden. >> joe biden. >> elizabeth warren. >> elizabeth warren. >> mike warner. >> joe biden. >> michelle obama. >> michelle obama. >> i would say the same thing. >> i'll tell you who else, joe kennedy. chris murphy. >> hillary could beat him. i really think that anybody other than a serial killer could beat donald trump right now. >> well, it didn't work the last time around. many of the people you just saw were quick to note they didn't think joe biden or michelle obama will actually run leaving

the question, who could that would get any kind of excitement from democratic voters. i want to talk about this a little bit. kick it around the table. this seems to be, we spent so much time talking about republicans, their problems, their civil war, their divisions. democrats are struggling to get it together in the background. >> one thing i like to ask senate and house democrats is who is the leader of the democratic party. >> good question. >> more often than not, they look at me and say, i don't really know who the leader of the democratic party is right now. that's the problem with the democrats. one, are they just going to run on something that is anti-donald trump next year when it comes to 2018? that's something they have to figure out. >> it's easier in a midterm. >> also who is the person directing where they're going to go. the leader of the republican party is donald trump. so he's the president, great. but no one has that answer. and that's a problem. >> rick tyler, will republicans lose two dem -- two leaderless

democrats? or only farther out? >> it's a really tough question to answer because we know the problems republicans have. what isn't covered as often is the problem outraising the democrats on a scale of two to one. tom perez is not raising a lot of money. he purged a lot of members of the dnc. that shouldn't get a lot of headlines because that happens. you're the chairman. you can push people out. but he doesn't go out and gain -- he doesn't have a lot of support. look, i would say that there's a huge opportunity for democrats, and leaders emerge. we don't pick them. no one would have picked barack obama. some people might have, but most penal wouldn people wouldn't have. >> he was on the horizon further back than we are right now from 2020. >> the final point is i think that the white working class is just split from the democratic party, and i'm not sure the democrats know this yet. >> rick tyler, everyone staying

here. coming up in our next hour, governor terry mcauliffe joins us. you can follow the conversation with us on twitter @kasiedc. back when we continue in washington. you nervous? ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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and we covered it, july first, twenty-fifteen. talk to farmers. we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ we like to think of this newscast not as the last sunday show but your first show for monday. and every sunday night, jonathan swan previews the week ahead in washington with his axios sneak peek newsletter. what's on deck? >> well, tax reform is the big issue at the moment. the president's feeling pretty optimistic about it. as you mentioned, he dialed into that conference call just about two hours, three hours ago. and monday ivanka trump heads to bucks county, pennsylvania. this is probably her biggest outing in terms of selling tax

reform. she's all about expanding the child tax credit. i think based on conversations with house leadership there, pretty optimistic they're going to get this budget passed through the house this week. and within 24 hours of that, chairman of ways and means kevin brady will announce the timing for this tax bill. so it's moving quicker than people thought. it genuinely is. and as i reported, they are at the moment -- the plan is at the moment to have this higher tax bracket, the millionaire tax. >> and my takeaway from your reporting is that this is another sign that there's some nervousness about this being branded as a tax cut for millionaires and that they want to at least have a couple things they point to to say, no, that's not what they're doing. >> this is just a money dimension. originally they said they were going to eliminate the state and local tax deduction and then a bunch of republicans who were in blue states went, hang on a second. and this is not going to happen. they're going to modify the state and local deduction.

they're not going to get rid of it altogether. that means they have to make up a bunch of cash. they're short of cash. >> does that explain -- i mean this 401(k) reporting, we haven't done a deep dive but "the new york times" has been reporting this weekend that they're talking about instead of putting $18,000 in your account every year, you can only put $2,400. that does seem like a real hit for middle class families who have no pensions. our system has changed to be focused around this. >> this is the problem with tax reform. the easy stuff is what they did at the end of september where they said, hey, guys, here's all the candy. we'll cut your rates, do all this stuff. but every time you scrap for a new bit of annoy, you annoy somebody or you anger somebody, or you hurt somebody. and trump is in there being told, you know, this person gets hurt. this person gets hurt. and the thing he just keeps coming back to is what does this do for my people? he always said that phrase, my people. >> candyland. i think i'm going to have to steal that analogy in the future. i'm going to build like a little game board. jonathan's axios sneak peek

newsletter is free to sign up for. visit axios.com and click on the newsletter's tab. we have so much more ahead on our next hour of "kasie dc" including our crack team of producers watches all the sunday morning shows so you don't have to. plus, the senate passes a budget. is tax reform actually on the horizon? we're back in just a minute. liberty mutual stood with me when this guy got a flat tire in the middle of the night, so he got home safe. yeah, my dad says our insurance doesn't have that. what?! you can leave worry behind

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an ugly week in politics when even condolences to gold star military families became politicized. >> a corrosive political spat broke out over the issue of respect for fallen soldiers and their families. >> the call was a very nice call. look, i've called many people. >> i would just urge president trump let's talk a little bit about the four soldiers. >> in two words, dignity and restraint. >> we need to unite behind our gold star families. >> he should stop tweeting and start leading. >> this was a week when attention should have been

focused on issues with real life consequences. >> tax breaks. >> tax plan. >> tax reform. >> let's talk about taxes. >> i call it tax cuts. >> let's talk about former trump adviser steve bannon. >> your friend, steve bannon, he declared war on you. >> these are intraparty skirmishes. >> do you worry this bickering and feuding gets in the way of your agenda? >> no, and sometimes it helps to be honest with you. >> i don't think president trump has been given nearly enough credit. president trump, i think doesn't get nearly enough credit. i think the president ought to give himself a little more credit. >> late saturday, trump tweets a string of compliments to himself. >> welcome to the second hour of "kasie dc." back with me now, msnbc political analyst and republican strategist rick tyler, national political reporter jonathan swan, the d.c. bureau chief of vice news tonight on hbo, shawna thomas, jeremy peters and former adviser to senator rand paul

elise jordan. everybody, welcome back. there's a lot to unpack there. i just want to start very briefly by focusing in on mitch mcconnell, who got a lot of laughter from the panel when he was talking about president trump. what's your sense of where are things right now between the president and mitch mcconnell? clearly he's had some impact. one of the things we haven't touched on this week was him going -- the president rather calling a trio of incumbent senators to basically say, don't worry. i'll be with you if you face a primary. at the same time, he is on the phone all the time with steve bannon. >> so it's not as bad as it was. that's the basic thing to say, which is to say that it's not as bad as when they were shouting at each other on the phone over the summer. they either have to work together, they have to get this budget done, tax reform done. trump needs to get some momentum. there was a phone call, i think it was last weekend, and there

was i think a lunch or meeting together last monday. they're working together. do they get along? is there chemistry? will there ever be chemistry? no, of course they won't. >> they seem to me like oil and water. >> it's like they -- it's chemically impossible that they work together. >> jeremy peters, you have a big piece on the front page of "the new york times" today talking about chris mcdaniel, who of course tried to defeated th tha cochran in 2014. cochran ultimately hung on. that wasn't true in alabama this year. what did you find about chris mcdaniel? do you think he could actually pull it off this time? >> i think the dynamics are there for an upset, absolutely. look at what happened next door as you just alluded to. the circumstances are strikingly similar in mississippi to what they were in alabama when we saw roy moore unexpectedly topple senator luther strange. you have an incumbent who is going to be easily tied to a very unpopular senate majority leader. you have a restless base that

believes that the republican leadership has failed to defend and enact donald trump's policies adequately enough. and that's a toxic brew for a sitting incumbent establishment republican right now. >> what is your sense, though, rick tyler of the argument is essentially, the one that mcconnell made, is, look, there were five republicans who lost in 2010 and 2012. so my majority is only, you know, razor thin when it could be much wider. that's the problem. is that argument -- i guess it's getting traction with president trump. >> he's right about that except -- so mcconnell engages in 2010. he says never again is the nrsc going to be involved in primaries. so he got involved in primaries and he performed a little bitter. the republican base, particularly the conservative base, not necessarily the trump voter because a lot of them are a different group, right? but they buy into the same thing, which is we've got a republican house. you said you were going to get things done. we got a republican senate.

you said you were going to get things done. the argument was get us a white house and we'll control everything and have a conservative agenda. so far, that has not worked. like nothing has happened. >> nothing at all. >> if you went to alabama, and i know, you know, our reporters are down there, and you ask people who mitch mcconnell was, normally people would say, oh, mitch mcconnell, i can't really place him. they were like, oh, yeah. no. he's with luther strange. therefore we're voting against him. that was luther strange's biggest negative. >> the same is true in mississippi. when i interviewed people, i was not expecting to hear mitch mcconnell's name come up, but it did almost every time when i talked to tea party-type conservatives, who said if mitch mcconnell thinks he can send a bunch of money down here and defend this seat, he better think again. that's something that i think republicans are only now starting to really realize. >> here's what you can't do in alabama and mississippi. you can only spend so much money. how much mail can you put in

someone's mailbox? how many commercials are you going to run? the efficiency of the dollar after 2 million or 3 million -- >> quickly, the people in the republican party who were willing to vote for george w. bush don't seem to be president trump's voters. i'm not necessarily sure. maybe they used to be democrats. i'm not sure they're owned by either party. they seem to be trump voters, and that's the beginning, middle, and the end of it. >> it seems to be a real odd inflection point where democrats in 2016 really used donald trump and stressing his personality deficiencies as a political weapon and, you know, you kind of see where that got him just by stressing that, you know, one point about all of the president's character deficiencies. going into 2018, i don't think that that seems like the smartest tack, and i think that president trump also was very well aware that attacking republican leadership can really play to his benefit. so you've got an interesting position in kind of a triangle

where you look at who's probably going to be getting most of the heat going into 2018 and it's the republican leadership in congress. >> i want to go to our other top story, the ambush attack that killed four u.s. shooldiers in niger. right now a massive intelligence failure is being blamed for the attack, but not much else is known about what really happened. that's what has lawmakers concerned and pressing the white house for more answers as the pentagon conducts an investigation. the big question, what exactly were american troops doing there? the armed services committee will be briefed this week, and for the latest, i want to go to nbc's mike viqueira, who is live at the white house. it is great to see you. thank you for taking the time tonight. >> reporter: it is an honor and a privilege, kasie. >> can you fill us in on the latest that you're hearing from the white house? how worried are they about what may unfold? the congresswoman, frederica wilson, who has been at the

center of this has labeled this president trump's benghazi. that seems to politicize it, but on the other hand, it does seem there are very really questions here that we don't have answers to. >> reporter: in particular, it's the day after sergeant la david johnson has been buried, some two weeks after the encounter that left him and three of his special operations soldiers dead in that patrol in niger. obviously there are major questions here about the preparation, about the intelligence, about the mission in general. obviously they are fighting isis elements within mali, on the border with niger, in that corner of nigeria where boko haram is also operating. this has been going on for quite some time. pruch has communicated with congress in kind of a pro forma way. you see these letters that go back and forth that are dictated by legislation. mentioned in june to president trump or at least over his signature about the mission that was going on in africa there. so, yes, a question about how

much the white house is involved, how much the national security apparatus and the president's advisers here in the west wing and the national security council knew about this operation, oversaw this operation. and of course frederica wilson raising the specter of benghazi, and what many democrats, of course, as we all know, you and all the members of the panel, many people considered a witch hunt that went on for far too long and consumed far too much energy in congress. this has obviously devolved into a political issue. name-calling back and forth. the president in another tweet this morning calling her wacky, calling frederica wilson, the congresswoman from florida, wacky. frederica wilson firing back, calling general john kelly the chief of staff, the retired general, a puppet of president trump, who is merely trying to diversi divert attention from the failed agenda of the president, and on it goes. it wouldn't be a political issue

if both sides didn't see a political advantage in it. i think that's quite obvious. the fundamental and essential questions about the mission and how these four soldiers died standing out there in the balance, kasie. >> thank you so much for that. really appreciate it. and you raise the question of the tone in which all of this plays out, and that raises the question in my mind of statesmanship, and the cause of decency and whether or not it's dead, a question some sought to answer for themselves this week. >> we have been the light for the world is not just what we said, but we built the institutions that guarantee it. >> freedom is not marerely a political menu option or a foreign policy fad. >> the guarantees that are in that constitution are ones that people are walking away from now. >> we will not thrive in a world where our leadership and ideals are absent. we wouldn't deserve to. >> bigotry seems emboldened.

>> you see these demagogues talking about how it's just about whatever the majority thinks. >> by soil or blood. >> you can't define an america based on ethnicity, race, religion, culture, background. >> we've seen nationalism distorted into nativism. >> for the sake of some half-baked, spurious nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems. >> in all these ways, we need to recall and recover our own identity. >> the world still looks to the example and leadership of america to become another better place. what greater cause could anyone ever serve? >> a spokesman for president george w. bush tells nbc news that bush was not criticizing president trump with those remarks. quote, these are the same things president bush has spoken on for the last two decades.

>> give me a break. this is the problem with the republican party right now. if they are so outraged by donald trump, then they need to say that. but so few of them actually are, and the moral leadership in the party right now that so many seem to be clamoring for is never going to materialize if people are denying, like george bush is, what is so obviously a criticism of the sitting president. >> and even if you want to say that bush has had some of those same themes over the years, and he has, especially when you talk about immigration and a couple of other things, we are living in a different word now, so his words have a different context. and it's crazy to think that people would not connect what he said to president trump. >> i think that -- i mean it seems obvious to me, and i was struck by watching the three of those men clearly positioning themselves or acting as elder statesmen in this kind of discourse we've been dealing with for the last six months, sounding so alike. they've all run against each

other in some way in the past. >> there's a cosmic coincidence they all came out in the same week and the two ex-presidents the same day. i agree with jeremy's point, but what point i do disagree with is i think that trump -- the culture elected trump. i mean politicians only get elected to the point that the culture will tolerate them. so the culture has said okay to trump. not everybody. i'm not saying everybody. so in a sense, trump is more of a symptom of the culture than he is driving the culture. he does drive it for sure. but people elected him, so i think bush is talking about a larger -- i do think he's talking about a larger issue that's going on in the united states right now, and it all goes back to the way we're divided. we're divided over the food that we eat, where we shop, what movies we see. democrats, republicans, conservatives, liberals, they don't talk to each other anymore. >> it seems to me kind of at the

root of this is a group of voters who voted for president trump that are now -- they're sometimes called the base of the republican party. i'm not 100% sure that that is an exactly accurate characterization for this group of people. but clearly a lot of republican senators don't understand them. they're afraid of them. they don't understand their power, where it comes from or really where it's going. they are the people who may vote jeff flake out of office if that happens in arizona, for example. it seems to me, to your point, jeremy, that's kind of the group of people that anyone who is not willing to -- who wants to go after the president but won't is afraid of. >> right. they're the guy from network, mad as hell and not going to take it anymore crowd. they're also people fed up with the political system and the political establishment. that's what's so dangerous for republican incumbents right now is they are becoming the focal point for all of that ire and frustration that, okay, we gave you the house, the senate, the

white house. exactly what you asked for. and you can't even fulfill a fundamental political promise that you made to your voters for election after election after election, repealing obamacare, i mean. it's just the sense that politicians say one thing, and i hear this over and over and over again when i interview voters, conservative voters, the base, whatever we want to call them. they just think that the people they elect say one thing to get into office and then completely disregard that once they get to washington. >> there's also just a bunch of assumptions that people had about what you needed to say to be elected president. you needed to talk about america in these terms as the beacon of democracy, and in these lofty terms that we heard just then, and trump didn't say any of that on the campaign trail. he didn't say any of that. and i think these people are like, you know, they've heard this their whole lives and they're now watching the public's fear, and there is none of this rhetoric anymore. they're not hearing about america being talked about in this way anymore.

>> it's like yothe more eloquen you were -- >> your guy cruz. >> cruz was speaking at a sophomore to junior college level, and trump was speaking at third grade level according to "the new york times." and by the time cruz was done with the campaign, we had him down to the seventh grade. >> on purpose. you dumbed him down on purpose. speaking of issues that people seem to care about once upon a time but that have not been as front and center or caused as many political problems as maybe they did before, this is something. senator john mccain seems to be finding a new way to mock president donald trump without mentioning his name. during an interview on c-span 3 about the vietnam war, which i would characterize as one of those things we were just talking about, used to be a litmus test. mccain said this. >> one aspect of the conflict, by the way, that i will never, ever countenance is that we

drafted the lowest income level of america, and the highest income level found a doctor that would say they had a bone spur. that is wrong. that is wrong. if we're going to ask every american to serve, every american should serve. >> and some context for that. job mccain did not mention president trump by name. however, president trump did receive a deferment from the draft in vietnam, citing bone spurs in his feet. and this is something, of course -- this was -- bill clinton, when he was running for office, this was an issue. it doesn't seem to be something that people necessarily care about anymore. >> i think especially if you're going to have a president who is speaking to gold star families and this kind of thing is going to come up, it makes sense senator john mccain would talk about this. i don't know when this interview was shot, but if john mccain seems to feel very free to say whatever he wants. and he felt that way, let's say,

back in 2000, straight talk express, that whole thing. he's a political guy, but he is doing whatever he wants, and he's saying whatever he wants. it will be interesting to watch, but i don't know how much that is going to affect what president trump does in the white house. >> "the new york times" wrote a story today and i noticed senator mccain's office tweeted it, calling him, mccain, in twilight. can i get your take, jordan? you worked inside the bush administration as somebody who was kind of on the inside of that. and listening to those words, he has stepped back out of the public eye until now. but as our panel has sort of pointed out, he then didn't want to actually go there and say, yes, i'm talking about this president. i mean what does giving a speech like that accomplish if you're not willing to say you're talking about what's going on? >> well, he was giving the speech just to give context to a new bush institute initiative that promotes free markets and democracy promotion, and he -- i think it would have been just

very odd had he said nothing. but also perhaps at this time, does it really help to call out president trump directly by name? and i think by trying to keep it more -- the debate more at a philosophical level, you know, the president was hoping to elevate the conversation that we're having about what's happening in our country right now, what has led to this deep division, and what can we do to make things better. so i think what president bush was trying to do is be part of the solution and start a broader dialogue rather than, you know, lowering himself to the level of donald trump and starting a twitter spat. >> elise jordan, the panel is staying with me. next, coming up, we're going to talk to democratic governor terry mcauliffe of virginia. he'll be in studio. could he be gearing up for a run of his own in 2020? plus the flint water crisis. a big deadline is fast approaching that could usher in major change for the city of

flint. the city's mayor will join me a little bit later in the show. but as we go to break, we've been talking about the state of statesmen in america. it was nine years ago nearly to the day that john mccain spoke at the al smith dinner in new york. down in the polls, he was running for president at the time, he left the crowd in tears of laughter and said this to the man who would eventually win the white house. >> in the military they work pretty hard to impress the chain of command on your way of thinking. and one way or another on the 4th of november, word will come down from the top of the chain, and senator obama and i will both receive our orders. political opponents can have a little trouble seeing the best in each other, but i've had a few glimpses of this man at his best, and i admire his great skill, energy, and determination. senator obama talks about making history, and he's made quite a bit of it already. i can't wish my opponent luck, but i do wish him well.

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welcome back. joining us now is the virginia governor, terry mcauliffe. governor, so great to see you. >> congratulations on the new show. >> thank you. very much appreciate it. >> you bet. >> you are in a little bit of a unique position because of the term limits associated with your office. your lieutenant governor is in a tight race with ed gillespie for your seat coming up in a couple of weeks. ed gillespie, the republican, is in polls very, very close to ralph northam, the democrat, in a way that's kind of unexpected for your purple state. >> yep. >> why is it so close? >> well, first off, you look at the history of virginia. this is an off year. turnout generally drops by half from the presidential year last year. when i ran four years ago, i got turnout up to 43%. we spent a lot of money to do it. we really leaned in on the issues. but we have elections every year

in virginia, and to get those what they call federal voters out in a non-federal year is the challenge. but, you know, i feel very good about where ralph is. we have three statewides up. when i won three years ago, republicans controlled all three statewides. we now control all three statewides. people are very happy with the state. over 60% think the state is going in the right direction. i just announced friday our unemployment rate dropped to 3.7 to 5.4 when i took office. that's the lowest level we've had in nine years, second lowest of any state in america. our economy is booming. ed really doesn't have much of a message. things are going great. let's keep the train going the way it's going. >> your approval ratings are higher than president trump's in the state. >> no offense, that's not -- i was 56 in the last poll. he was 31. much higher. >> this begs the question. what does ralph northam need to be doing differently? >> it just goes to the turnout factor. >> that's not what's being picked up in the polling.

what should he be doing differently right now? >> i don't think anything. my best guesstimate, ralph is probably up somewhere from 3 percent to 6 percentage points. i broke a 40-year trend when i won the governorship. if you're a democrat, you're out watching today, you want to help, you want to send a message to donald trump and the white house, this is the first test. we have all three statewides up. i've got the house of delegates up. but ralph is going to win. i mean he went to vmi. he was an army doctor. he served our nation with distinction, was a state senator, was my lieutenant governor, and everybody loves where the state's going. we had a record turnout during the primaries. 200,000 more voters came out in the democratic primary than came out in the republican primary. i think you're going to see this again coming up. ed gillespie won't have trump come into the state. he's treating trump like he has a communicable disease. trump comes into virginia every weekend. i think he was in twice this weekend golfing.

so the president's not doing events for the republican candidate for governor. it's a little embarrassing, i think, on both sides. we have, as you know, president obama in richmond this week. joe biden was in the weekend before. i mean we're bringing everybody in. >> but for give me for noticing. hillary clinton came in but only for a fund-raiser. she didn't do an open event. do you think it would be helpful for the lieutenant governor northam if hillary clinton did an open event. >> if it worked for her schedule. we'd love to have hillary clinton come in. we let all of our folks come in. i mean the other side is like tied up in pretzels. they don't know what to do. he won't mention trump's name, but he's leaned in on the same issues that donald trump has. i mean horrible travel ban, horrible immigration ban, what they've done on health care has really hurt virginia. ed's policies would be the same thing as donald trump's, and they're bad for virginia. the bottom line, people want elected officials to focus on jobs. we have had a record amount of jobs, record amount of capital

investment under the last 3 1/2 years. people are happy. we're moving in the right direction, and that's why ralph will continue that path. i also, i should tell you, vetoed 120 bills, the most of any virginia governor. horrible bills, kasie, anti-women, anti-lgbt, anti-environment, pro-gun, and anti-voting. i vetoed that. i was never overridden. i'm 120-0. we need ralph there to continue to veto because if i have a bill that defunds planned parenthood, which passed my assembly and i vetoed it, you're not going to get the companies of the 21st century, the googles, facebooks, amazons. i just got a billion dollars investment from facebook. we are open and welcome to everybody. you need to focus on the value set of jobs and treating people with dignity. >> spaeblgii know this has someu have focused about in your election, the transpacific partnership. president trump withdrew from it. did that help your state? >> it hurt us badly. i was different than many of the democrats. i actually supported tpp.

61% of our exports, kasie, go to those states, and exactly when i said would happen has happened. china has now gone in and done oneoff deals with every one of these countries. guess who is left out? the united states of america. i am not scared of trade deals. you give me a trade deal -- >> your base is kind of scared of them. >> i'm the guy who is actually the one out there negotiating these deals, and i'm the one selling our products around the globe. i've been on 33 trade missions as governor. i'm the one out there negotiating, selling. we've done $18.5 billion of investment since i've been governor. a record of $6 billion more than any governor in virginia history. i know this business. you give me a fair trade deal, i am going to beat anybody. let me go for my state around the globe. i am going to -- >> i'm going to beat anybody? it sounds like you're talking about 2020. >> i'm going to beat anybody on trade. this is what drives me wild. i just announced last month, kasie, $91 billion.

$91 billion ag and forestry sales in virginia. it's up 32% since i took office. you know what that translates into? thousands of jobs. >> is that a, no, you're not running for president in 2020? >> i'm going to finish strong as governor. i've got about two months to go. ralph will be inaugurated january 13th, and i'm going to work my heart out every day. i've got another trade mission to europe coming up. i'm going to be the big environmental global summit in europe. i'm going to close a couple more deals. i'm going to get to $20 billion by the time i leave office. >> i'm going to put you down as a hard maybe. >> we've got to finish the governorship strong. >> do you think bernie sanders could win a general election in 2020? >> i think anybody can win a general election. i would also tell you this, no one should ever take trump lightly. people he's got his base, and as we know he'll say anything. i clearly think the democrats are going to beat him, but this is a long way off. what i'm trying to get democrats to focus on, we have 36

governors up next year, and those governors are critical to the redistricting effort in 2021. so let's focus on the governors. let's win control of the congress. 2020 will take care of itself. why people need to be concerned, there's only 15 democratic governors left in america. we've lost a lot of state chambers. so when redistricting comes up in 2021 the only prn who can stop a republican drawn map is a democratic governor. if we don't win a lot of these seats next year because all of this is happening at the state level, that is happening through state chambers. we spend too much time focusing on presidential, and then we don't focus on state and local. the dnc, i'm happy they just gave us a million and a half for the virginia's governor race. i'm very excited about that. we've got to focus more on that's local races. governors are the future. >> i want to ask you this is becoming a litmus test not just for national elections but for state and local elections over

impeachment. as we head into the midterm season, there will be reverberations. here's part of an add from tom tire wi steyer calling the president a clear and present danger. >> he's brought us to the brink of nuclear war, obstructed justice at the fbi and in direct violation of the constitution, he's taken money from foreign governments and threatened to shut down news organizations that report the truth. if that isn't a case for impeaching and removing a dangerous president, then what has our government become? tell your member of congress they have a moral responsibility to stop doing what's political and start doing what's right. our country depends on it. >> do you think president trump should be impeached? >> i'm not willing to go there. >> i think in order to impeach i believe in the rule of law and in due process. >> sounds like a not quite. >> it's hard for me to want t--

>> i know there's a lot of people out there fighting and throwing around the stuff impeachment, but read the constitution. it starts in the house, and right now it's controlled by republicans. >> so do you think the president should be impeached? >> i think we have to wait until what bob mueller comes up with. i think we have a process in place. i think tom steyer is a great guy, but i don't agree with him on this. i'm agnostic on this until we find out exactly whether the president broke the law. >> i think you can anticipate my question to you now. do you think president trump has committed an impeachable offense as of now? >> i haven't seen that sitting here today. a agree with the folk who's said we have a process that investigates and goes through this. that's going on in the house and the senate as well as bob mueller. let the investigations go. we need to hold trump accountable, but kasie, the big issue i can tell you as a governor here today, this congress, we have not reauthorized the chip program. our childhood program for young children to get health care.

our health care premiums are going up on average 53% in virginia. i've got real challenges and people are talking about these issues over there. so my point as a governor is -- >> but that's what's animating democrats right now and the base. >> tom steyer is entitled to do anything he wants to do but i can tell you as a governor, i want congress to begin to get their act together and do something. the actions they are not taking or taking are doing nothing but hurting us at the local level. i'm trying to create jobs, but i can't have it with thousands and tens of thousands of my children who now have health care at the end of the year may not have health care, and i speak for every governor. premiums are all going up, and the insanity that trump keeps putting out there on health care and getting rid of the subsidies, i mean he is creating chaos. i don't need chaos as a governor. i need jobs, and i need a federal government that's going to work with me in a bipartisan way. i don't care what your political party is. i need jobs, and i'll work with anyone to do it. what's happening today in washington has done nothing but

affect us at the states, and we can't create the jobs that we should be doing. what do voters want? they want jobs, quality education for their children. they want health care. they want to get on roads and get on them. >> we have to leave it there, but i will put you down as a maybe running for president as the person who is running against washington. >> put me down as a guy focused on the 18 governor races. >> i appreciate you taking the time. coming up, warfare. that's what u.n. ambassador nikki haley called russia's election meddling. officials from facebook, google, and twitter are set to testify before the senate intelligence committee coming up this week. we'll have a preview as congress looks to put the clampdown on russian interference. n compare multiple quote options online and choose what's right for you. woah. flo and jamie here to see hqx. flo and jamie request entry. slovakia. triceratops. tapioca. racquetball. staccato.

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on thursday calling russia's election med ling warfare. that as u.s. social media giants face increasing scrutiny over how their sites may have been exploited by the russians during the 2016 campaign. the top lawyers for facebook, twitter, and google will testify before the house and senate intelligence committees about russian-linked ads and fake news that was spread on their platforms. president trump weighing in yesterday on twitter, saying, quote, keep hearing about tiny amount of money spent on facebook ads. what about the billions of dollars of fake news on cnn, abc, nbc, and cbs? crooked hillary clinton spent hundreds of millions of dollars more on the presidential election than i did. facebook was on her side, not mine. joining me now, alexis madrigal, a senior editor at the atlantic, and matt fuller, congressional reporter at "the huffington post." alexis, i want to start with you because of those tweets from the president, because you have written a very long, and i

commend it to everybody watching tonight, story called "what facebook did to american democracy" in the atlantic. you essentially argue the opposite of what the president has said, which is that the assumption going into our earlier elections, 2012, for example, was that any higher engagement on social media would benefit the democrat because it would inherently engage young people. but you walk through a lot of research that argues that a very small amount of money can have a very large impact and conservatives are doing a better job of it. >> yeah, it's been a fascinating five years to watch, you know. i mean it seemed for a time as if democrats had basically a structural advantage in social media, but as time has gone on, it seems that whoever is best able to exploit those tools, no matter what part of the political spectrum they're on, they're the ones who get higher engagement. and from very, very early on in the 2016 election, even in republican primaries, it was pretty clear that donald trump as well as the emerging sort of

constellation of right-wing media properties were very, very, very good at spreading their messages across facebook. >> and one of the things that you write here is an obscure facebook produced case study where they used a very small amount of money, a budget that would have allowed you to send one mailer to 150,000 homes, but that basically allowed them to perform in an election 20 points better. it doesn't seem that it takes that much money to have a disproportionate impact. >> and one of the reasons is that unlike television where you need to make fairly sizeable buys that cost kind of a lot of money or, you know, with direct mail, which just costs a lot on a sort of per piece of mail basis, you know, with facebook you can target really specific areas for not very much money. and that's really what you hear out of the trump campaign, you know. traditionally whoever wins, their digital director goes around the country and says like, hey, this is what we did. this is why we're so great. and the word out of the trump campaign is that they focused

really heavily on very small groups of people, targeting ahead of the election and bloomberg business week, there was a great report basically looking at how the trump campaign was trying to reduce voter turnout among certain key groups including african-americans, what they called idealistic democrats and also women by running ads to them with anti-hillary clinton messaging. >> matt fuller, i want to talk about this hearing coming up on capitol hill. what is your sense of what we could learn in the course of this hearing from -- we're not going to see mark zuckerberg, sheryl sandberg or any of these big names but we are going to hear from the lawyers of these companies. >> i think we'll have a better sense of the scope of how far this went. right now we're looking at a small amount but that doesn't seem to be convincing. a lot of people think it's a lot more money than what we know. clearly we have a sense of what facebook was doing. we don't actually know the extent of the russian bots on twitter. i think there's still a lot of questions out there about how

much this did affect things. but as you said at the top, this is coming at a pivotal time where people are starting to question how much data they're collecting, how is the media sort of getting out there. those questions are being colored by the russia stuff, right? and it's kind of breaking through the sort of traditional partisan lines. i don't think this is going to align so neatly anymore where you have democrats who are now voicing some uncertainty about what facebook and twitter, those things are doing. you have republicans, i think, who have been sort of naturally a little skeptical of those things too. >> at the same time, they could find themselves very easily on the reverse of this if the election were breaking a different way, it seems. >> sure. that may be the saving grace for them is that if this does just devolve into a partisan food fight, that might be the best case scenario for these tech giants because then it's just republicans defending on this thing and democrats attacking for that. i also think it's interesting to see how democrats themselves are going to address this because there's an internal fight, i think, and this is an easy issue

with 2020 coming up. you might have elizabeth warren might attack facebook and twitter, and what's kamala harris going to do in this situation? >> somebody that has them as a constituency is the point you're making. >> or nancy pelosi with tim ryan. there's all sorts of interesting factions within the democratic party. if i were elizabeth warren, i would certainly be going after these things and scoring points on the left with the russia stuff and a lot of people who are naturally skeptical of these tech companies. >> thank you so much for taking the time late on a sunday night to be with us. i really appreciate it. 1,277 days. that was the last time that people in flint, michigan, had clean tap water. can you imagine going 1,200 days without being able to drink water out of your faucet? all this time later the water crisis continues. flint mayor karen weaver sharply criticized the president and then got an invitation to meet with white house officials. she joins me live next as we

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in flint, michigan, it's been 3 1/2 years since brown, lead poisoned water began flowing out of kitchen faucets and showers, the result of a cost-cutting switch from detroit's water system to the flint river. today residents of flint are still relying on filters and bottled water. a federal judge is ordering the city to decide by tomorrow on a long-term water source for the city. joining me now is the mayor of flint, karen weaver, who we hope will bring us up to speed on exactly what is going on. mayor, thank you so much for taking the time tonight. >> thank you. >> explain to us what's at stake here in this decision. my understanding is that essentially the flint city council has not signed off, and judges in state government are trying to accelerate, push you to make a long-term decision on the future of the city's water. >> yes, that's correct.

and we have made a long-term decision. i know i put forward a recommendation, and there's a lot at stake. the decision took months for us to come to. we had experts at the table, but we really wanted to make sure we were doing what was best for public health because we know and you know what happened in flint before was, you know, politics and money was put over the lives and the public health and well being of the people of flint. so we wanted to stay on detroit water, which is actually like huron. so that's in there. we wanted to make sure we were being fiscally responsible. we got out of a $7 million a year bond payment. we have access to a water relief assistance program. we also have water that we can sell to bring in a revenue source for the city. so this recommendation that we put forward is really based on public health and what's best for the people of flint and not having to go through another switch and have to suffer through that pain and anxiety and actually that fear of what happens when you change water sources.

and so we're waiting to see what happens tomorrow. you're absolutely right. >> you have been very outspoken in the wake of the hurricane maria that hit puerto rico and destroyed much of their water infrastructure. what have you learned about trying to solve your city's water crisis that impacted by t? >> you know what? one of the things we learned is while we know there are other flints across this country, that's obvious. but we feel like we have become the poster child for water quality and for infrastructure. we know what it's like to not have access to clean water. and just like what's going on in flint, we recognize the people of puerto rico need access to clean water. it's a public health emergency. if people don't learn from us, then shame on them. and i felt like it was my obligation and responsibility to speak out on their behalf. i did speak with the mayor. and we had a very good conversation. she was thankful that we would speak up for them. one of the things we also have

learned from this is, sometimes when people know that you are thinking about them and you are speaking up and speaking out for them and you are keeping them in your hearts and on your minds and in your prayers, that means a lot to them. that means a lot to them mentally, emotionally, spiritually. so we have that connection. because that's one of the other things we learned. so for them to be in this kind of situation, we understand and we want to do what we can to speak up for them as well. you know, water is a basic human right. this is 2017. these are conversations you wouldn't think we would be having today. >> mayor of flint, michigan, thank you for taking the time tonight. >> thank you. whethn we come back, how i l alpacas explain the difficulties of tax reform and what we will watch for in the week ahead. at'! ♪ that's it? yeah. ♪ everybody two seconds! ♪

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for our wrap-up here, we will take a look at what everybody wants to watch coming up this week. i personally am looking at the devil in the details of this tax reform plan. we have seen republicans focus so far on what they agree on in that framework. but we're about to get a better sense of what's in that bill. so there are bound to be some serious disagreements where members individually come down and also the president i think is a major thing to watch for this week and for the course of the mid term elections and beyond. what are you looking for? >> the widow of sergeant johnson is going to give her first interview tomorrow morning in the aftermath of what has become a political drama that should be about her loved one. and i'm watching for her and for her strength in this moment. >> as we all are. rick? >> u.s. coalition forces are wrapping up isis in the middle east. we see if the white house can

get out of its way to get good coverage on it. >> the president is giving a speech thursday about the opioid epidemic. in august he called it a national emergency. it's been radio silence. >> still has yet to declare one. >> the undocumented immigrant teenager who wants to have an abortion in texas and the back and forth about that that went to court this past week. there's a lot still there. we will be watching to see what happens with that. >> you've been doing fantastic work. >> having the governor of virginia here, refocused my mind around who the next governor is going to be. that will tell us two things as we see what we think looks like a tightening. it's going to tell us about whether or not the republican base is still motivated and it's going to tell us about the strength of the democratic party right now. whether or not they turn out. >> thank you all for joining us. we will see you next week.

we leave you with this. >> clever accounting allows nearly anything imaginable to become a writeoff, including alpacas. a local and federal tax bill can be sheered by claiming exotic pets -- these exotic pets as livestock and turning backyards into barnyards. that's when the fur really started to fly. the association tried to pull the wool over the eyes of taxpayers by retaining a professional pr consultant. kyle, we talked about this. there's no monsters. but you said they'd be watching us all the time. no, no. no, honey, we meant that progressive would be protecting us 24/7. we just bundled home and auto and saved money. that's nothing to be afraid of. -but -- -good night, kyle. [ switch clicks, door closes ] ♪ i told you i was just checking the wiring in here, kyle. he's never like this. i think something's going on at school. -[ sighs ] -he's not engaging.

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