far longer than we'll see more donald trumps marching across the country's stage. that's not a hope. it's a prayer. that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. "all in" with chris hayes starts right now. tonight on "all in." >> i honestly do not understand why the white house is covering up for michael flynn. >> a brand-new michael flynn probe is announced as the white house blames obama? >> all of that clearance was -- was made by the obama -- during the obama administration. >> tonight, new charges of a cover-up and what it means for the trump-russia investigation. then the new push for trumpcare runs into the same old trouble. >> can you reassure people with pre-existing conditions that they won't be worse off under your plan? and as the president's bluff gets called again, this time on nafta -- >> i said i will hold on the termination. >> why just about everyone is grading the president's first

100 days on a curve. there's a very extreme emphis placed on this 100 days, joanie. >> when "all in" starts right now. happy take your kid to work day. good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. how and why did president trump allow a literal foreign agent into the situation room? that continues to be the big question facing the trump white house nearly 100 days into office. today, we found out there is a new investigation to get to the bottom of it. that foreign agent, of course, is disgraced national security advisor michael flynn, seen here leading a "lock her up" chant at the republican national convention, who last month retroactively registered with the justice department as a foreign agent for his lobbying work on behalf of the turkish government. lobbying he was doing for half a million dollars secretly last year while -- and this is quite crucial -- simultaneously advising trump on foreign policy. this is just one of the bright red flags about flynn.

he was also paid nearly $34,000 to speak at a moscow gala celebrating russian state tv in 2015. that's flynn sitting next to vladimir putin and somewhat weirdly across from jill stein. plus of course flynn was fired in february from his post as national security adviser after just 24 days after allegedly lying about the content of secret conversations with the russian ambassador during the presidential transition on the crucial day that sanctions against russia were imposed. on tuesday, flynn was accused by lawmakers from both parties of potentially breaking federal law for having not disclosed payments from foreign governments including the russians, a crime punishable by up to five years in prison. today, new developments. democrat elijah cummings releasing documents showing that flynn was specifically warned in 2014 not to take money from foreign governments without advance permission and that he is now facing a formal investigation by the pentagon for potentially violating the

law. >> the pentagon's warning to general flynn was bold, italicized, and could not have been clearer. i don't care what his lawyer says. there is no such document saying that he requested permission to get money -- to get the money or a document saying that he received it. >> for the record, flynn's lawyer maintains flynn did brief the department of defense about his paid speech in russia, and his presser today, cummings also hit the white house for refusing to release documents related to flynn requested by the house oversight committee, documents the white house maintains it does not have. >> i honestly do not understand why the white house is covering up for michael flynn. i don't get it. after the president fired him for lying. they should be bending over backwards to help us. it does not make any sense, and it makes the american people think the white house has something to hide.

>> sean spicer was peppered with questions about flynn at the white house press briefing today, and he kept returning to a singular defense -- blame president obama. >> when general flynn came into the white house, he had an active security clearance that was issued during the obama administration with all of the information that's being discussed. >> general flynn came in, and he walked through the door with just the clearance that was conducted by the obama administration? that doesn't make any sense. >> sure it does. why would you re-run a background check on someone who is the head of the department, the defense intelligence agency, that had and did maintain a high-level security clearance? >> putting aside the fact the trump administration apparently felt it didn't need to do anything to vet its own national security adviser, which is frankly crazy, flynn was fired in 2014 as the head of the dia. and while he maintained a security clearance, former nsa attorney susan hennessy tweeted today that spicer's claim is false. there is always re-investigation after someone is out of access

as flynn one. the issue of who trump has brought into the government, people like steve bannon or jared kushner -- remember this man, sebastian gorka. >> the message i have, it's a very simple one. it's a bumper sticker, sean. the era of the pajama boy is over january 20th, and the alpha males are back. >> this is gorka wearing the honorary medal of the hung ar yan nationalist organization linked to the nazis, which he wore to trump's inauguration. a jewish newspaper reported that gorka worked with openly racist figures in hungary. gorka maintains he was unaware of their affiliations. gorka has little -- a remarkablt in buzzfeed finds that in 2002, he was denied security clearance to work in the hungarian parliament with hung ar yarn count ter intelligence citing

claims. joining me now congresswoman jackie speier of california, a member of the house intelligence committee. congresswoman, let's start at the top level. do you trust the process in the white house in terms of who they are bringing into the white house after what we've seen with flynn and gorka? >> i think that we all have to wonder whether anyone has been properly screened, and it goes to the core values of our country to have persons that we can trust in these positions of ultimate trust. and mr. gorka is a great example of someone in his own country calling him a snake oil salesman, that he was not given a security clearance in hungary and lost for mayor. so he comes trotting into the trump administration as a counterterrorism expert when really what h was, was an editor at breitbart. he was one of steve bannon's voices. >> what about the white house's contention on the case of flynn that basically they had no

reason to do anything over and above a security clearance review that had happened years earlier? >> well, that's just false. and to somehow lay that on president obama is really preposterous. president obama fired him, and he had a responsibility to have him properly researched and checked out, and the fact that he has violated the law -- this is a general in the united states army who was told not just once, but twice in letters from the department of defense that he cannot receive money from a foreign source without first getting the consent of the army. consent doesn't come orally. it comes in a form of a letter. he received no consent, and it's interesting to point out that after all of this comes out, he is now seeking immunity to speak to the intelligence committees of both the house and senate. well, he realizes -- and i think

his attorney realizes that he has violated the law. i have joined with a number of colleagues, both republican and democrat, and we are now seeking the secretary of the army to do what he has the authority to do, which is to investigate fully and then to recall all the money that he has received from these foreign sources by taking that money out of his pension because u.s. military officers who retire can always be called back to active duty. and that is why it is incumbent on them to provide information about any interest in seeking foreign-source monies and why they need to get consent first from the department of defense. >> you mentioned the reporting -- it's been rerting. i don't know if you have a more direct source. you may since you sit on one of the relevant commtees, about his offer of immunity, an offer i think that's been rejected at least by richard burr in the

senate. i don't know if there's a formal rejection from the house side. but of course flynn is a particularly important figure because the thing that got him fired was a series of conversations with ambassador kislyak of the russians on the day of the sanctions, conversations he apparently lied about to everyone in the government. and i want to read you what the president has to say about the russia story. russia is a faux story. it's made up. democrats lost an election. they used the russia story as a way of justifying how they lost the election. it's a fake story. are you doing that? are you using the russia story as a means of essentially exculpating the sins and flaws of democrats? the last election? >> you know, sometimes i think we're living in parallel universes. we have had director comey say in an open hearing that the fbi was investigating whether or not trump operatives were coordinating with the russians in trying to intervene in our election. that's what they're investigating right now.

we already have an unclassified document that makes the case that the russians did, in fact, intervene in our elections. we had a president who took forever to finally agree that, yeah, maybe the russians did try to intervene. i mean his reluctance to ever call out vladimir putin, whether or not he is sending ships along our coast to spy on us or buzzing our planes, he is very reluctant to call out president putin. so you got to ask the question why? >> congresswoman jackie speier, thanks for your time tonight. joining me now, ned price, former cia analyst, spokesperson, senior director of the national security council. ned, let me start with you on this question of vetting. my understanding is that there are a bunch of vets that folks would go through to go into the white house. there's an fbi background check

that is part of the clearance process. there's also just vetting that the staff does. is it surprising to you that apparently general flynn walked in the door with, as far as we can tell, zero? >> well, it's absolutely surprising, chris. frankly i don't believe it. look, i think you have to stop looking at these revelations about michael flynn in isolation. when you take a step back and you look at the totality of what we've learned about this individual in recent weeks, a very dark portrait emerges. we've had these potential violations of the logan act, the 18th century statute that makes it a crime to subvert u.s. policy. we've had his failure to register as a foreign agent, his lying to the vice president, and potentially even to fbi investigators. and then this strange kidnapping plot when he was working as a foreign agent on behalf of the turkish government to abduct a u.s.-based turkish cleric in the poconos. so, look, when you add all of this up, is it possible that michael flynn just forgot or

omitted this payment and this disclosure in his vetting and security clearance forms? sure, it's possible. but is it likely? absolutely not. >> but there's also -- it also strikes me there's an affirmative -- i remember the beginning of the obama administration watching this sort of the wheels of the background check process sort of come alive. and it was remarkable how much work went into it, how it slowed the process, but how important everyone involved in that process took it as central to making sure the people that are going to be in the white house every day have been vetted, that their resumes have been checked, they are who they say they are, they've done what they say theye done. i just have to wonder if that basic thing has happened here. >> it doesn't seem to be. actually it points to what we've all suspected, that this is an administration that was simply not prepared to run government. you don't have people in key positions at the pentagon, at the state department, and clearly vetting wasn't done for senior people who are in the white house. the process alone is pretty

straightforward. your security clearance does not go with you when you leave government. so if he left in august 2014, even if he re-upped it for a maximum of two years, that is august 2016, well into the campaign. plenty of time to say, okay, if we're looking at you to be the national security adviser, advising the president on everything from sanctions to human rights issues, that he should be re-investigated, declare all of his payments. that should have been part of the conversation then. so what this points to is that the white house not only neglected the background briefing process, they probably gave him access to classified information he should not have had access to at this point. that is probably why you have sean spicer at the podium bending over backwards to throw this on politically on president obama because this points to serious white house negligence of the lock him up type. >> and i would note the mishandling of classified information, that phrase has a kind of particular bite to it given the last campaign.

you're nodding your head, ned. i mean michael flynn is a person who said, if i did one tenth, i think was the line, one tenth of what hillary clinton did, referring to her e-mail server, i would be in jail. he was sitting in intelligence briefings -- i mean, remember, he was in those briefings once the major parties had their nominees. they get versions of the presidential daily brief if they want it. he was in those briefings while he was taking money from the turkish government to advocate for turkish interests in ways presumably he could have traded on that information to further their interest. >> absoluly, chris. it sounds like frankly he did. if the stories about his involvement in this kidnapping plot against fethullah gulin, this cleric in the poconos are true, it certainly suggests he was swayed by this turkish money to take a policy position. he is also, as national security adviser designate, he was a key point person on the raqqah campaign. as you know, the turks have

objected vociferously to any plans to arm the kurds, which michael flynn by all accounts objected to as well. >> that is a great point. this incredibly, incredibly fraught diplomatic negotiation about the kurds and the ypg, who have been one of the best anti-isis fighting forces in existence, possibly the best, he's in the middle of all that while this is all going on and into the new administration. >> right. he's not able to look at any of these issues, whether it's the counterterrorism challenge in turkey or the -- certainly the issues going on with russia and crimea and elsewhere, their undermining of even the u.s. election and u.s. democracy. michael flynn is not able to look at that objectively when he is taking money from those governments. that is the entire point of having a fara sign-up and also having background investigations, so that you bring people into the process who are going to be helping the american public and putting the american public first. flynn was compromised. i mean maybe he at some point

thought that confuse the russian engagement with what was supposed to be happening with the campaign, but certainly compromised to be national security adviser. >> thanks to you both. still to come, will president trump's first 100 days in office be capped off with another failed attempt to repeal and replace obamacare? late word tonight that trumpcare is in trouble again after this two-minute break. at&t is working with farmers to improve irrigation techniques. remote moisture sensors use a reliable network to tell them when and where to water. so that farmers like ray can compete in big ways. china. oh ... he got there. that's the power of and. at red lobster's lobsterfestime. any of these 9 lobster dishes could be yours. so don't resist delicious new lobster mix and match

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can you reassure people with pre-existing conditions that they won't be worse off under your plan? >> people will be better off with pre-existing conditions under our plan. that's the whole goal here. >> it's almost impossible -- it is impossible to see how that's true. since this latest iteration of trump care would allow states to get rid of the provision that prevents insurance companies from charging higher prices for people with complex health problems, which include pre-existing conditions. and perhaps this is why republicans are having a hard time building support for their revamped plan to repeal and

replace obamacare. according to "the huffington post," mario diaz-balart who was a yes on the previous ahca is now wavering. representative mike coffman who supported the health care bill that got pulled from the floor last month told a reporter from politico that if the vote on ahca were today, he'd vote no. representative ryan costello who voted in committee to push forward the last bill, said he would be voting no because of pre-existing conditions. the latest whip count from nbc news has 17 no votes. according to the hill, which is running this headline, new obamacare repeal on life support, at least 21 republicans have said they would vote no on theory viezed gop health care bill. since no democrats are expected to vote for this measure, this means republicans can only afford one more no vote if the hill is correct before this bill suffers the same fate as the last one. it appears that some republican lawmakers are worried that what congresswoman nancy pelosi had to say today might be true. >> if they vote on it, the

minute they cast that vote, they put doo doo on their shoe, tattoo on their forehead, and they have to explain it to their children. at some point they're going to have to explain it to their children, what did they do to make america sick again. and then say they pass it. even worse. they really have to be accountable for it. walk the plank for nothing. thank you, mr. president. >> joining me now, congressman dan donovan, republican from new york. congressman, is that an apt description of the situation? >> you know, i don't know, chris. i'm not privy to the whip vote. i was a no on the original proposal to replace the affordable care act. the amendment that was proposed this week, the mcarthur-meadows amendment that dealt with and allowing states to opt out from providing essential benefits to people and the pre-existing condition clause that you just spoke of earlier didn't address

the concerns i had with the original proposal. so i remain a no vote. >> so do you think -- here's one thing that chris collins i think said this. i believe he's from new york state. his point was, look, hey, i don't like this, but it's not going to affect my people. we're new york. new york is never going to go for these state-based waivers to get rid of these protections. if the freedom caucus and the folks in alabama want to screw their people with pre-existing conditions, so be it. why don't you have the same logic? >> well, because i represent new york city. one of the amendments for the original proposed, which was proposed by representative collins, exempted his county and 56 other counties in new york for their responsibility of paying their portion of medicaid. >> that was a cute one. >> yeah, by exempting them, chris, it put the burden on new york city, the people i represent. even before that, that's a strong reason for my no vote. but in addition, you know, the tax credits that were supposed to help families who are paying

$20,000 in insurance premiums and have $6,000 deductibles and astronomical co-payments, you know, we're offering tax credits to those people to help them buy insurance. those tax credits are not available to the people in new york. it's illegal to use tax credits to support policies that will provide abortion procedures, and in new york we require every insurance company to provide abortion procedures. so the help that we were going to give those hard-working people who don't get their insurance from their employer or who don't qualify for government assistance, who have to buy insurance themselves, we weren't providing them the relief that they deserve. >> wait a second. i don't think i figured this out policy-wise before. so what you're saying is there's actually this kind of train crash for blue states that -- or democratic states or pro-choice states that have these requirements for abortion coverage, and the current tax to the republican bill in terms of the applicability of the

subsidies. >> yaeeah, the tax credits are unusable. and one of the third things -- >> wait. how is any republican in california and new york going to vote for this thing? >> i don't know. i can only account for myself, chris. and the other thing is i mean the current law now on the affordable care act allows insurance companies to charge seniors three times as much as they charge a young, healthy person. the proposal that's before us now allows those insurance companies to charge a senior five times as much as they charge a young, healthy person at a time in most seniors' lives when they're on a limited income, and they probably need health care more than they did in their younger years. the cbo report came out and said a senior citizen living on a fixed income of $26,000 may be liable to have to pay up to $14,000 in premium for their health care. i mean that's just unsustainable. >> i want to ask you about one provision in there, which is that republican lawmakers -- there's an exemption. in the current version of the bill text, an exemption to kee

the popular obama care provisions for members of congress and their staffs, who of course have to be on the aca because of a republican amendment the democrats took back during aca. do you think that's defensible? >> not at all. if we're going to repeal or replace, we have to be subjected to everything that the american public's going to be. >> -- said they're going to do something to fix it. we'll see if that happens. ahead, an emerging theme from the trump administration. a lot of bluster followed by a swift retreat. president trump with a major change of course on nafta because of a couple friendly phone calls. that story coming up. and the urinary symptoms of bph. tell your doctor about your medicines, and ask if your heart is healthy enough for sex. do not take cialis if you take nitrates for chest pain, or adempas® for pulmonary hypertension, as this may cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure. do not drink alcohol in excess.

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the strange new era of donald trump's presidency, you never know just who is watching your cable news show. as "the washington post" reported a few days ago, stiemgz at night the president hate watches cable shows critical of him while chatting on the phone with friends. now, there's nothing to hate here obviously, but a few nights ago we did report on the 22,000 retired coal miners who will lose their health benefits by the end of this weekend unless congress takes action as part of the government funding bill. and there's been bipartisan support for long-term fix, but senate majority leader mitch mcconnell from all places has been standing in the way. despite touting his support for coal miners both during the campaign and since taking office, the president, who likes to comment on everything, declined to weigh in. now, i spoke on monday with ohio senator sher rod brown, who said the miners have taken notice. >> they are just perplexed. a number of coal miners voted

for candidate trump. they heard him talk about bringing coal jobs back, and they are simply saying government should do what it's done since the days of harry truman, and that is provide health insurance for coal mine retirees and the widows of coal miners. >> the very next day after my interview with senator brown, the senate majority leader announced he changed his mine. i'm in favor of a permanent fix. it's my hope that will be included in the final spending package. this morning on twitter, the president himself finally spoke up, though in typical fashion he got things completely backwards. quote, i want to help our miners while the democrats are blocking their health care. as we've noticed, democrats like sherrod brown have been pushing to fund miners' benefits for month, but we're glad the president finally appears to be paying some attention. something else he's paying attention to is how important trade deals are to our neighbors in canada and mexico, and that is next. it's a supercomputer.

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the trump white house keeps repeating what has by now come to be its signature pattern. a blustery threat to make some big destabilizing move, triggering alarm, and then eventually walking it back with an attempt to save face. the latest face saving measures may have been the most spectacular yet of donald trump's young presidency. it was reported yesterday that the president was considering an executive order co-written by steve bannon to withdraw the u.s. from the north america free trade agreement known as nafta. exiting the trade deal with canada and mexico would have a

huge impact on the economy. the reaction was swift with republican lawmakers urging the white house to hold off on its plans. last night after phone calls with the leaders of canada and mexico, the president changed his mind. today he explained what happened. >> i was going to terminate nafta as of two or three days from now. the president of mexico, who i have a very, very good relationship, called me and also the prime minister of canada, who i have a very good relationship, and i like both of these gentlemen very much. they called me, and they said rather than terminating nafta, could you please renegotiate. i like them very much. i respect their countries very much. the relationship is very special, and i said, i will hold on the termination. let's see if we can make it a fair deal. >> i'm joined now by republican strategist steve schmidt. something tells me if you were in a bar with pena kneeity tow and trudeau having a few beers,

their versions of the singh wednesday of eve -- sequence of events would be a little different. >> i suspect you're right. this is a $500 billion a area trading relationship with mexico. it's upwards of nearly $1 trillion with canada. for 35 states, the number one trading partner is canada. for the ones that it's not, in the number two, and the rest, the trading relationship is with mexico. this would have plunged the american economy into a recession. it would have tanked the stock market. there are millions and millions of american jobs dependent on the free flow of trade and goods across the borders in north america. and i think increasingly, chris, we talk about competitiveness over the next decade, the decade after that, and we look hemispherically. north america from a creativity perspective, from an innovation perspective, this is the most competitive region in the world. >> right. >> and i think that donald trump is bumping up against reality

here and good because this would have been terrible for the country and the american workers. >> the reason i want to talk to you about this is i remember actually barack obama and hillary clinton both promised to renegotiate nafta or said they were going to renegotiate nafta in 2008. you've got the situation where if you poll americans on these trade deals, they're quite skeptical of them. there's also good macro economic data to show they have had an affect in rising inequality, which is not to say they haven't been a boon overall. but i wonder how much this sort of sense that we're seeing across the entire sort of west, right, of people feel like they're not in control and the globalists are -- how much does this add fuel to the fire when donald trump runs on i'm going to get us out of and renegotiate nafta, and then he gets in and says, well, it would tank the stock market? like is there something we should be uncomfortable with about democratically about that? >> well, i think when steve bannon and people talk about the quote, unquote, globalists, you stop and pause on that. i'm in los angeles tonight. i could get on a plane and fly

to abu dhabi and be there in 16 1/2 hours. it's not that there's no alternative to a globalized economy. it's crack pot talk to suggest otherwise. we talk about manufacturing jobs. you know, we make two times what we made in 1984 in this country. we do it with one-third the number of workers. it's innovation. it's technology. it is automation, robots that are displacing these blue collar workers, not these trade deals. >> the question becomes how do you -- we're seeing this really interesting change in public opinion, and one of the things that's happened is we saw huge changes in republicans' views on trade. it was unclear to me whether trump was a kind of leader of that or a follower, that there was a base that was really trade skeptical that wasn't being played to or whether the way that partisan politics work is that people adopt their leader's views. what do you think about where the republican party, the republican base is on this right now? >> look, the republican party

has become a grievance party in large measure. it's an aggrieved party. you listen to talk radio. you listen to some conservative cable networks. it's all grievance. someone is doing something to you. someone is doing something bad to you. and so that nafta is bad. trade deals are bad. we're getting screwed by these other countries fits in nicely to this grievance narrative. but, you know, now that you're the president of the united states, there's this tractor pull of, you know, reality. you know, a gravitational force that says, hey, mr. president, you can dump nafta, but the consequences are going to be such. and i think still in the congress, though the members will be scared of republican voters on this issue, overwhelmingly these members support free trade agreements. >> i thought it was just so interesting to watch the sort of canada part of the dispute ratchet up because it almost felt like, one thing is like,

wai wait, how are we now in a war of words with canada? that's not where i saw all this going during the great populist uprising. >> i was in canada last week when the dairy kerfuffle broke out. i said i had no idea you're the north korea of milk. to episode 92, right? war with canada. >> steve schmidt, thanks for joining us. still ahead, as white house staff figures out how to deal with a president that's learning on the job, so are his fellow world leaders, and they're already using it to their advantage. plus, when you're 11 stars short of an american flag, possibly my favorite thing 1, thing 2 ever starts after the break. okay, let's go. find your awesome with the xfinity x1 voice remote. that's amazing!

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hugged the flag onstage, and for trump if you're not physically wrapping yourself in the stars and stripes, it's a reflection on your patriotism. for instance, he spent an entire week criticizing hillary clinton for not having flags onstage at the convention. she did, of course, but that's not the point. >> we had american flags. you know, they forgot to put them on. >> they didn't have flag representation. not good. >> they had no american flags up on the stage. >> did you notice on the stage there was no flag? >> it was a disgrace. >> we had a lot of flags. >> they don't really want the flag, but they ran up. >> they ran up with two very small little flags, one that we saw. >> they forgot for two days to put up the american flag. you know, minor details, right? >> right. minor details. yesterday president trump tweeted out a happy birthday to the first lady, and of course he included a flag on the graphic. but there's just one big problem with that flag. there aren't enough stars, not even close, and it's not the

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we salute one flag, and that is the american flag. and we're going to make sure the american flag gets the respect it deserves, all right? >> president trump tweeted out a happy birthday to the first lady yesterday with an american flag at the bottom. but that flag only has 39 stars. it's 11 stars short of an american flag. in fact, this is even weirder. historically there has never even been an official american flag with 39 stars because north dakota and south dakota joined the union on the same day, becoming the 39th and 40th states. and no big deal, but this is also not the first time this white house has used the unofficial 39-star flag.

the president tweeted this photo collage last month with a 39-star flag at the bottom. and whoever has this particular flag clip art saved on their computer also appears to have helped the mettic usually produced video the president tweeted out last week, which ends with that very same flag. ♪ and i'm proud to be an american where at least i know i'm free ♪ ♪ and i won't forget found a missing piece in my asthma treatment with breo. once-daily breo prevents asthma symptoms. breo is for adults with asthma not well controlled on a long-term asthma control medicine, like an inhaled corticosteroid. breo won't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden breathing problems. breo is specifically designed to open up airways to improve breathing for a full 24 hours. breo contains a type of medicine that increases the risk of death from asthma problems and may increase the risk of hospitalization in children and adolescents.

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i think he's learning the job. i think president trump is learning the job. and some of the things that were said during the campaign, i think he now knows are simply -- aren't the way things ought to be. >> nearly 100 days in, it's not entirely clear what president trump is learning. what is very clear is that everyone working around him is beginning to learn how to deal with him. according to politico, white house aides have figured out it's best not to present trump

with too many competing options when if comes to matters of policy or strategy. instead, the way to win trump over, they say is to present him a single preferred course of action, then walk him through what the outcome could be and especially how it will play in the press. and it's not just white house aides. foreign leaders are also beginning to figure out how to deal with president trump. for example, when it comes to trump's bluster on nafta, one mexican legislator put it this way. it seems like he's sitting at a poker table bluffing rather than making serious decisions. in front of a bluffer, you always have to maintain a firm and dignified position. when it came to trump's campaign promise to label china a currency manipulator and as promised before meeting with the chinese president, he backed off both of those positions as soon as he actually met president xi jinping. after listening for ten minutes, i realized it's not so easy. i felt pretty strongly they had tremendous power over north korea, trump said, but it's not what you think. and face time with german chancellor angela merkel apparently helped clear up

another misunderstanding about the fundamentals of trading with companies in the european union. the independent newspaper citing a german official, ten times trump asked ms. merkel if he could negotiate a trade deal with germany. every time she replied, you can't do a trade deal with germany. only the eu. on the 11th refudsle, trump final ly got the message. then there's nato which trump called obsolete until this month when he said it's not obsolete after meeting with the nato secretary general. in an interview with the associated press, he explained his change of heart saying a cable news show was the, quote, first time i was ever asked about nato because i wasn't in government. people don't go around asking about nato if i'm building a building in manhattan, right? so they asked me about nato, and i said nato is obsolete not knowing much about nato. grading on a curve in the trump presidency, next.

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the people i love have always been there for me. and now, i'm there for them, too. talk to your doctor, and call 844-214-2424 to learn more. if you were to naj title of the book chronicling his first hundred days, what would it be called? the key is you have to keep updating it. version one, i alone can fix it, then nobody knew it could be so complicated, second edition. after listening for ten minutes i realized it's not so easy. and finally people don't go around asking about nato if i'm building a building in manhattan. fourth edition, donald j. trump. all actual quotes. i want to make a case that i sort of believe and sort of don't but it's a case you can

make, which is all these about faces, it's better than the alternative. i really mn this. if he had d, ignorant views and comes into contacts with people saying it's not so easy, and then he adjusts his views, that's better than the alternative. >> it's better, but there are a couple problems with it. one is it seems like the key person who educated him on the complicatedness. north korea situation was the president of china. >> who has a stake in the particular version of the story. >> right which is not the one that aligns directly with american interests. >> this is the thing i worry about with everything. who is telling him about explaining something about tax policy to him or the health care bill to him. who's doing that? they're going to have tremendous power to be like, actually, this is the way it works. >> it's who's explained it to

him last. he can agree and say oh, that's my understanding now and then the next skpinz they're nicer to him. >> this happened with the health care bill where it was put front of him and they were like that is good bill and then he sborsz it and it's going to be great. when the bill started to go side weighs, he was asking people in meetings, is this really a good bill? and he was too old it was a good bill by the people who were the supposed experts, but the republican party is full of people who don't know. >> and then there's other issue that people can use trump's plain ignorance to empower themselves. >> right. this is big fear. >> that's the worry. you can have people with bad motives. >> that's particularly true in the case of the kinds of

interactions he ran at being the best at which are fraught negotiations with powers that have different interests. foreign leaders are learning how to manage donald trump. even approximate pena nieto and trudeau, they're letting -- they begged -- [ no audio ] -- and you'll get your way. >> trudeau is a mart guy. but if he's the person explaining trade to trump, he's getting trade explanation from the canadian perspective and we want to be going into the deal making positive, friendly deal made from the american perspective. the ion ironny of it.

>> we've gotten our butts kick by china, japan, and now he's like, oh, i didn't know all these and he's the naive. he ran as the hard bitten cynical one. >> turns out the most salient quality is his neediness, that whoever is nice to him or flattering to him can get what they want. the second way to get to trump besides being really nice to him is to do business with him so you could essentially know his business interests, hotels that he wants to buy, ivanka's pecuniary interests. >> that's what people are learning. you wonder how that's happening too. every trump son meeting that's happened, we don't know. we have no idea who has been showing up in those meetings,

telling them what for what reason. >> on the flip side, some of the people he's listening to or better than i would have expected them to be. the replacement of michael flynn with general mcmaster is a good development. mnuchin is not the ideal person to be treasury secretary, but you think of some of the other people on that list they said he's the commerce secretary in a release yesterday. >> that is small thing. i don't care about 39 star thing. it's funny. but there's brown m and ms idea. people who set it up careful. they called mnuchin the commerce secretary, they're tweeting out 39 star flags. today we're getting ready of the 401(k) prerchl treatment.

you do start to worry are they getting better and at what point do these basic basic issues of spell checking and proof reading indicate there are far bigger things happening. >> every administration that is an outsider, a person that was a governor or state senator or something becomes president that hasn't been in washington very long has this issue of a learning curve. normally what they do to solve that is they hire a chief of staff that knows something, even their chief of staff doesn't know anything. >> he's never worked in government. it's a political operative. >> i have experience of that firsthand. i came into cable news like, all that received wisdom is ridiculous. actually, it's not all ridiculous. you sort of zblern that's right. >> that is aening that happened for everyone. an outsider who comes in, what's the conventional wisdom that's true and what can we reject.

i was benefited by t people i was working with, people who had done prime time cable news. >> you talk about the people who are learning trump and now know not that they don't have the necessarily fear or respect him. that's the same on capitol hill, by the way. normal the chief of staff is negotiating with those hostile forces. they don't have someone even do that. >> i worry about this where they don't have the default option to do nothing. >> great point. >> they're screwing up a bunch of stuff on tax reform. and the likely outcome is we won't have tax reform. there's sisksz the white house has to do something for the benefit of america. >> seems like all different parties whether from capitol hill to the citizens to the foreign governments, that's just the guy at the end of the bar talking. at a certain point that isn't going to work. and that's what i worry about us adjusting this way.

joy reid will be hosting the 11th-hour. that is all in for this evening. rachel maddow show starts right now. good evening, rachel. >> if that's the guy at the end of the bar talking, that's a bad bar. >> it's a a bad bar that has nuclear code. it's bad in a lot of different ways, i think. >> i'm just saying. there are good bars and there are bad bars. if that's the dude at your bar, go to a different bar. >> good drinking advice from rachel maddow tonight. >> thanks for joining us this hour. i'm going to show you a piece of tape that i find funny. it's not funny, but i will admit that i find it funny. on march 31st, they did that thing in the oval office that they've gotten pretty good at now. they have the executive orders in big leather folders like men use. the president had his ceremonia pens. they had them