Welcome to Off Message. I'm Isaac Dover. Dover. Do you think that you have an honest broker?

Honestly, some days, I'm not sure what we're dealing. We're obviously dealing on multifaceted fronts.

We're doing with the administration. We deal with Congress. And we always want to be transparent and be honest.

That's all we can do. And if, in fact, we're able to move the ball downfield together, we will. If we're able to build consensus together and work on some things, we will.

And if we disagreed, then we'll fight.

I mean, and that's...

But do you think you have an honest broker in President Trump?

I'm willing to work with the president on anything.

And he...

That's not a yes.

He's the President of the United States of America. Today's guest, Steve Benjamin, the three-term mayor of Columbia, South Carolina, and since

last week, the president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, a group of mayors of cities

big and small across the country, both Republicans and Democrats, which has become one of the

most reliable points of opposition for President Trump and the Republican-led Congress.

They've been on the other side of Obamacare repeal, on infrastructure spending,

the state and local tax exemption disappearing as part of the tax bill passed in December,

adding a citizenship question to the census on the president's proposal last week to cut $15 billion

from social safety net programs.

It's a move that came together just after we did this interview on which Benjamin in a

statement he put out called disastrous.

Last year, when I sat down with former New Orleans mayor Mitch Langer, right after he

became the last president of the conference of mayors, it's a one-year term.

...