kushner with security clearance access, we're told that the mueller investigation has impacted all of this, that the mueller probe essentially has prevented jared kushner from obtaining a full security clearance, in part because of those unanswered questions. fredricka? >> all right. jeremy diamond, thank you so much. i'm fredricka whitfield. see you tomorrow. "inside politics" with john king starts right now. thank you, fredricka, and welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king. thank you for sharing your day with us. the trump white house launches new sanctions against north korea, sending a message by upping the pressure on pyongyang before the olympics in south korea come to a close. plus new charges from the russia special counsel and a white house scramble now to help presidential son-in-law jared kushner keep his access to the government's most sensitive intelligence. and the president gets a hero's welcome at cpac,

supporting his border wall and a man who they not too long ago considered a cancer. >> you don't mind if i go off script a little bit, because it's sort of boring. i've got this beautiful speech, everything is wonderful, but a little boring. >> we begin the hour with the president and guns and some mixed messages from a leader who sees different from politicians but at least today is acting like one. we see president trump and mr. turnbull at the white house. we'll get a glimpse of those sessions. the president has spoken twice about guns, including a rowdy

speech to curonservatives in whh he made his case that some teachers should be trained and allowed to carry weapons in school. >> it's not all of them, but you would have a lot, and you would tell people that they're inside. the beauty is it's concealed. nobody would ever see it. unless they needed it. it's concealed. so this crazy man who walked in wouldn't even know who it is that has it. that's good. that's not bad, that's good. and a teacher would have shot the hell out of him before he knew what happened. >> the president at that session also pitched strengthened background checks and better mental health screening. but in a room packed with conservatives and nra backers, the president said nothing about two other ideas he has promoted this week, banning so-called bump stocks and raising the age limit to buy a long gun. is he just a politician not risking boos or is he already backing away from that idea

because the nra doesn't like them and because many of his advisers are telling the president not to go too far in pushing new gun controls? joining me is my panel. which is it? do we know the answer to the question? weave seen this before in other big issues. if the president wants to convince conservatives to raise the age limit, to pass legislation as opposed to administrative actions to ban bump stocks, here's your chance. i'm your president, i need you here. and he passed it. why? >> probably because this is the ultimate in red meat crowds because you need to know your audience because you don't necessarily go here to do that, and because in talking about this alternative idea, this idea of arming teachers, perhaps you are offering them something there that you need in exchange. if that's what he's doing. but we don't know yet. we don't know yet, and we won't

until we see more concrete steps. >> i get the politics of that, but isn't this the magic moment? i'm with you on arming teachers. a lot of people don't like that. i will fight for the second amendment with every last fiber of my being. he could have pulled a charlton heston if he wanted to and raised his arms. isn't this the right place to show the charge? if it's what you believe. >> what you believe is a loose term with trump at any given time. i don't know how committed he is to this. i know he's much more committed to getting a lot of applause in the room he happens to be in, so that would be the reason for not doing that. also there is a part of this where, politically, don't stop the other side from taking itself down a flight of stairs, because there are a lot of people on the left who are openly calling for a pretty broad amount of weapons bans. that is not a bad place to be standing against. so trump may feel strengthened by the fact that a lot of this

rhetoric has gone to that place, which is a more honest place than it usually is in these debates, so fine with me. >> he's taking a stance in support of certain gun control measures. you saw the florida governor making his announcement, you saw the things marco rubio said at that town hall stopping short of assault weapons. which is pretty much what went into the proposal that couldn't get past congress a few years ago. but the president took several days to even start to talk about this shooting at the very beginning, right? we only started hearing him talk about gun control when he was seeing the kids on television, realizing how much effect they are having. he was like, oh, maybe i'm open to this at mar-a-lago. now it's cpac, a very different audience he's hearing from, so this president doesn't seem to have a true core of, this is what i came into office with and these are my principles. >> we had this question before. he was the art of the deal president. he was going to repeal and replace obamacare. never got there. it was easy.

he was going to protect the dreamers and do a daca deal and get the conservatives on board and give us some things. at least as of today. we're not there. the china argument keeps coming up, if trump could only do this. if trump could sell pretty modest gun controls. it's not my job, anyway, to say what's right or wrong. let's air them out and if people have the courage, vote on them. if he wants to raise the age, if he wants to ban bump stocks, why not go into that crowd and say, let's do this together so we can look liberals in the eyes and say, you're going too far. >> i have trump's view of this issue. congress has made the laws. he's followed them, not led them in terms of obamacare and everything else. we've heard rick scott and donald trump say things. i would be secucurious what pau ryan and others say. i just don't know that trump making comments ten days after a shooting, i'll be curious to see

what happens a month from now if paul ryan is driving the issue, and i'm not sure he will. >> the bump stock thing isn't even controversial in the room he was in. he could have certainly mentioned that. >> that would be undercutting the administration, right? his own administration is pushing on that issue, and you're trying to get a law which is not what the nra wants and then it gets murky. >> we're going to hear from the president later today. the governor stepping forward. the governor rick scott has been a favorite of the nra, but he's also running in a senate election next year and he had a tragedy play out. listen to the governor this morning who is going to try to strike what he believes to be the right balance. >> i know there are some who are advocating a mass takeaway of second amendment rights for all americans. that is not the answer. i do know that some are going to accuse me of unfairly stigmatizing those who struggle

with mental illness. i reject that. i'm not asking them to wear a scarlet letter, nor am i unsympathetic to their plight. >> let's look. we showed you earlier what the president has said he's for and what he didn't mention in one speech. here's what the governor of florida says. mandate law enforcement -- sorry, some breaking news here in washington. we are told right now that ex-trump campaign aide rick gates has now reached a deal to plead guilty to charges thin robert mueller's sprawling russia probe. evan, what do we know and how did this come about? >> reporter: we've been waiting for this the last week or so. rick gates and his attorney tom green have been in talks with the special counsel trying to reach an agreement. we heard multiple times that they were close to an agreement and that they fell apart. as recently as yesterday, some of rick gates' own family and

friends were encouraging him to keep fighting, but now we're told that there is -- they've reached a deal with the special counsel for him to plead guilty to criminal charges. we don't know the details of what exactly he's going to plead to and what exactly are the terms, but this is a big deal for the government. with rick gates on their side now, with him pleading guilty, he's expected to help in their case against paul manafort. as you alluded to earlier, yesterday the government added 32 counts and charges that were filed across the river in alexandria, virginia. that's in addition to 12 counts that were filed in october here at this courthouse here in washington. so now you have two cases against paul manafort and rick gates. we expect that as soon as later today, rick gates will plead guilty to these criminal charges as part of a plea agreement with the special counsel. again, we don't know exactly what the terms are. he had been saying as recently as yesterday and as recent as

this morning, people close to him were expecting that perhaps he might be able to hire a new lawyer, continue to fight this case, but now we're told that that is no longer the case. he's throwing in the towel and he's expected to plead guilty, john. >> he havevan perez outside the courtroom. if you get more information, we'll bring you back in. sh shim shimon porcupecz joining us as well. while we wait to find out exactly to what he is pleading guilty to and exactly what the information decree will say about his level of cooperation, what does this say about his level of tactics? >> clearly it's another line of tactics we've seen throughout this case where they are just stripping people close to this investigation who have information in this investigation.

when you look at others who are cooperating, george papadopoulos, former campaign adviser, michael flynn, all these folks now cooperating and now with rick gates cooperating, you have a third person who is part of this campaign providing information to the special counsel. and mueller's team knows what rick gates knows at this point because he's been in to see them. he's done that properly. he's come in and told them everything he knows. while some suspect it may only have to do with paul manafort, there could be other things that he knows, other information that he may have regarding whether it's the russians or ukranian or lobbying work that he and paul manafort were doing during the campaign, before the campaign. all of that is information that he has already given to the special counsel. obviously they deem it worthy of their investigation for them to go ahead and offer him a cooperation agreement. then oert thithe other thing, j we're all saying this is a way to put pressure on manafort,

most folks feel the end game here for this special counsel investigation is to get paul manafort to flip and get him to provide information. because there are indications to two investigators that he has a lot of information and that his cooperation would be key and central in this investigation. >> shimon, stay with us if you can. let's bring solomon wisenberg into the conversation. he interviewed bill clinton in the grand jury indictment case. take us inside mueller's calculations. you were in plea negotiations, they weren't working well. you slap a number of new charges against rick gates and then you get a plea deal. take us inside the prosecutor's mindset and what that tells you about what comes next. >> well, one thing we know about bob mueller's team, they're very aggressive, and when they set a deadline, they're going to go by that deadline.

if they make a threat, they're going to follow through on that threat. i think that all of us should be looking out for when the gates plea agreement comes out. each one of these agreements that mueller has done had three aspects. they've had the criminal information or the indictment, they've had the plea agreement itself, and then they have the statement of the offense. you can't plead guilty unless you stand in front of a judge and say, this is what i did. and the statement of the offense is really the key document. because take mike flynn, for example, michael flynn. his statement of the offense didn't indicate that he had any information about criminal collusion. that's very important. that says, at least with respect to flynn, there is no collusion case. same thing with the papadopoulos statement of the offense. so i would look at that. that will be a clue. statement of the offense, there is also a provision in the plea agreement, all these plea agreements, that is you're

protected, you're covered against prosecution for anything mentioned in the statement of the offense. so if you look at the gates statement of the offense and plea agreement together and it doesn't say anything about trump, if it's all about manafort, that's an indication that gates really doesn't have any information to give on trump or the trump people. >> let me jump in there, sol, stick with me for a second. is it an indication of that period or is it an indication that mueller is not willing to go public with that now and he's just telling people, i have another cooperating witness. >> it could be what you're talking about. that could be it. >> is there some ethical -- i don't mean to interrupt you, but is there some ethical burden on mueller that if that's where he's going, he's supposed to lay it out with these witnesses or keep it secret at the prosecutor's discretion? >> absolutely his discretion. i just think it's unlikely here. possible butun li unlikely.

it's not a typical way of going about it. >> evan perez, please stay with us. if y now you have a long-time business partner who we assumed wouldn't testify against manafort if there was a trial. in your contact with manafort's legal team in the past months, is there an indication that would be enough, that you had a credible witness inside business dealings to testify against him. would that get manafort to cut a deal, or is he stubborn and in for trial? >> you know this from covering stuff over the years, you get a lot of bravado, right? everyone right now says, sure, we want to get a trial. they say they're getting ready for trial, they want to do battle. they filed a lawsuit against the special counsel challenging the jurisdiction of the special counsel to even bring these charges. so they're looking to fight on

various grounds. but i got to tell you, this is a game changer. the idea that you will get rick gates, who is a close employee of paul manafort, he did everything for him, that he would turn against manafort has to change your calculus. manafort is 70 years old. the idea that he wants to spend the rest of his life in prison if he is found guilty of these charges, and now he's got two cases, one here in washington, one across the river in alexandria. there is no doubt it has to change your calculus, or has to make you think, do i really want to go through this? do i want to spend the money? it doesn't appear he has the money to mount this kind of defense. we're not sure, because they haven't even been able to approve their bail package for this case that was brought in october. this has to at least make them stop and think. without gates, the manafort case is a little more difficult for the government. this is a key witness, and it's

got to change some of that calculus, and the question is, what does manafort have? what is he able to offer special counsel mueller that may change all of this investigation? >> evidence, shimon. i want to clear you both. come back if we get any details of the plea agreement. solomon weisenberg. how did ken starr start with a real estate investigation and end up with starr jones? a lot of people say these are government resources, there is the president of the united states. from that perspective, having lived through that, when you look at what mueller has done, papadopoulos pleads guilty, paul manafort is indicted. flynn pleads guilty. a russian is indicted. the dutch lawyer just last week. now the new case against manafort is now a plea deal. does bob mueller, in your view, have both the legal and importantly, with the town i

work in, washington, have the political clout to say, back off, get out of the way? >> i think with the indictment -- you hit the nail on the head. an indictment is bearing fruit. it tells a story. it's saying to the world that, i'm moving along and i'm doing stuff, i'm not just twiddling my thumbs. on one level, i don't think bob mueller cares what anybody thinks. i think if the evidence led to his mother, she would be indicted. but i think it does buy him some time. i think that's very important. i understand the argument against the jurisdiction of the special counsel, the jurisdictional argument. i think it's going to be a tough sell. and the other interesting thing, though, that's related to that is take a look at the original manafort/gates indictment. that obviously is not specifically covered in the charter. that means that mueller had to go to rod rosenstein and get rod

rosenstein's okay to broaden the investigation to include these unrelated international financial transactions and bank fraud, and that means mueller has already been essentially given that authority with respect to president trump. he's already got a very broad mandate that he has been given by rod rosenstein. >> to that point, i said this would be the last question, but i lied. let me ask you another one. given your experience, and i remember that you interviewed a president of the united states, got him to admit a lot of things he said publicly -- not under oath, but a lot of things he said publicly previously about his conduct were incorrect, were lies. based upon what you know about mueller so far, about who he is and how he operates, if you were advising this president of the united states, would you tell him to sit down for that interview, or would you tell him no way? >> i would tell him it's very, very dangerous to sit down for an interview with mueller. i would tell him to go in front of the american people and say the supreme court has said since

the 1950s that the fifth amendment privilege against self-incrimination protects the innocent as well as the guilty. i've said from the beginning this is a political witch hunt. i'm not going to play gotcha politics or gotcha law with bob mueller. i'm not going in to testify. >> do you personally believe it's a political witch hunt or do you think that's the best way to publicly spin it? >> no, i'm saying that's how he would publicly -- i don't believe it's a witch hunt. but that would be the way to play it for pr. i'll tell you one thing, if you had a regular client in his situation, a client who was not a celebrity or the president of the united states, you would never let that person go in for an informal interview, and if the prosecutor then hit you with a grand jury subpoena, you would have your client invoke the fifth amendment privilege. he is in very dangerous territory if he speaks to mueller. >> very smart legal advice.

i don't know, sorks l, if you c hang out. we've received the charging document just now. this is the deputy campaign chairman of the trump campaign. he's not the campaign for the entire campaign but he was at the campaign for big moments. so you have the adviser they want to call the copy boy. george papadopoulos has flipped. rick gates, we don't know if he has anything to do with the campaign or knows of anything bad that happened during the campaign. but he's about to enter a plea deal which at least puts his former boss and business partner, rick manafort, in legal jeopardy. how is today different than yesterday? >> this is the domino situation, right? it is significant potentially what we're going to see come out in this plea arrangement from gates directly. he stuck out in the campaign longer than manafort did and he was an adviser that could have some contact with the white house during the first two months of the presidency.

but he's the guy that's been by manafort's side through all this. if he flips with information on manafort, the question is, can manafort then tell mueller's team about who the people voted for, and that would be the president and family in his inner circle. we know papadopoulos was kind of the bottom of the food chain but has moved up from there, and similarly gates is not the end all and be all, that he wouldn't have a plea arrangement if he actually was the target of this. it's the question of what's the next step after that, presumably manafort rkts a manafort, and then what can manafort tell us? >> in the case of michael flynn, we are told he was under investigation for a lot of things. in the end he admitted four crimes but the document only charges him with one crime, which is what the prosecutor does as essentially a gift. you are now a witness who is cooperating who i believe has

high information, therefore you get a gift. so what we see in the rick gates filing will give ace lot us a l information about how he was viewed. >> the shoe might drop later or the shoe might just stay up on the wire. so if nothing else were to come out of this, if they can squeeze gates for manafort but they can't squeeze manafort for anything except for himself, you still have, ironically, president trump promised to drain the swamp and you have a really strong signal to lobbyists or to people who should be foreign lobbyists about the way they should do business and the way they've done business. tax evasion, all that stuff. >> i don't mean to interrupt but shimon porcupesz has the charging document. shimon? >> this was just received by the special counsel's office and

it's two counts that rick gates is expected to plead guilty to this afternoon. it's criminal information that he's pleading guilty to. this is normal in these kinds of cases where people will cooperate. the prosecutor is filing information and then the defendants would plead guilty to it. and there's two counts here. one of them has to do with fraud and defrauding the united states, and that has to do with more of his tax violations and foreign violations and not registered as a foreign agent. he's going to plead guilty to making a false statement. we've seen that's very common in these cooperation agreements when defendants are pleading guilty, and we've seen that in this case again. he would be the third person that is now cooperating with the special counsel's office to plead to a count of making a false statement. and that has to do with conversations that he had with investigators, so there it is, it's two counts, and we expect him to be in court this

afternoon where he'll plead. and as we've been reporting, cooperating with the special counsel. >> do we know anything about, is there a sentencing? in the case of papadopoulos and michael flynn, there were dates set and they were extended and extended because of their cooperation. sh shimon, to your point of another false statement, there are still people to come in and give their story. i read every one of those as a message that if i catch you in a lie, you're going to court. >> that's exactly right. we have this lawyer from last week that was charged that came out of nowhere, actually this week, that people were surprised by. it didn't seem innocuous. it didn't seem like it had anything to do with this investigation. but that was clearly a signal to these people who will come before the special counsel, don't lie to us. there are fbi agents that sit in these meetings. they're prosecutors, u.s. attorneys you just can't lie to. if you do lie to them, mueller clearly has no issues with

charging people with lying. in this case, and where we've seen cooperation agreements, they tend to do what's called plea down. so you have defendants pleading down to lesser crimes. it's essential to get them to cooperate and that certainly appears to be the case here. as we've said earlier, it's been difficult for gates to come to this, to say i'm ready to do this. it looks like they pretty much have given him a pretty good deal from where i think these people will be prevented from going to jail. when we come back, we'll return to the gun proposals being put forward by the governor of florida.

welcome back, a big debate in washington about gun control and mass shootings.

also this week a report from the governor of florida. rick scott announcing what he calls a comprehensive plan to keep students safe in his state. he wants a law-mandated officer in every public school. he also proposes a change to the age limit of buying any firearm to 21 years old, with the exception of those serving in the military. he wants $500 million for school safety and mental health ini initiatives and he wants to ban bump stocks. he also wants to implement a see something, say something hot line for k-12 schools. we're sitting in washington, but most of these proposals, if they live or die, pass or fail, they will be at the state level. especially when it comes to schools and education.

rules should be as local as you can make it. an ally of the nra. he's a republican governor who we expect to be a republican candidate in a very important 2018 senate campaign. an election year laboratory, if you will, for a very important policy issue after a tragedy. what do we make of the plan? >> i think this is a big deal. we can read something more clearly here than we necessarily can from the president's remarks at cpac. i used to cover florida. it is somewhat problematic because of the issues in puerto rico and the hurricane management. rick scott faced a lot of criticism for not showing up at that town hall. this is actually a decisive set of steps that would dial back some of the protections that the nra has fought very hard for. rick scott is also, as you mentioned, really close with president trump and really doesn't do anything without being in communication with top officials at the white house.

>> we were joking before the program about your twitter feed in recent days. i don't bring tit up as a joke because you were in a back and forth with folks, some of whom agreed with you, about how this should be handled. if you have an idea the way it's supposed to work, whether you want to arm teachers. some people think that's a good idea, some think it's a horrible idea. whether you want to raise the age -- some people think that's a good idea, some people think it's a horrible idea. with the nra, the gun culture is strong. it is a state that has more southern parts of florida where the gun culture is very strong, it's part of their tradition, part of their heritage, part of their family, part of their lives. then you get to a place like maybe palm beach or miami-dade where it's a different conversation. it's a fascinating state to have this debate. let them have it, right? >> it's sort of a microcosm for america and what could possibly work. he's doing this in a rational way. he's coming out and presenting this idea in an environment that

i think is more receptive to that kind of thing than the news cycle has been this last week. and he's offered a multi-facetted plan here. i think part of the people were emotionally and reflexively tired of this. some things you can't implement, these things you could. when it comes to the panhandle and places where guns are popular, it is a popular force for young people hunting. when you get to the one about 18-year-olds not able to buy a gun, you'll probably have some pushback there. i like the fact he's putting forth a plan in sort of a calm way and it's something a lot of people can latch onto different parts of. because i think the solution is multi-faceted and incremental. >> i would assume four or five of those ideas, except for the call centers, have to go to the legislators. both houses controlled by

republicans. scott's idea in the past have been rejected by a lejts latgis so these things will not become law by tomorrow. i'll be curious if they end up becoming law at all. they'll be blocked is my guess. so rick scott both here and in florida, watch the legislator. >> i think he deserves credit. especially for some issues he touched on here. the nra will say, no, governor, that's not what we want. some people say he hasn't gone far enough. this session is about to end. does he actually push for it or is it a document that when he's in a senate campaign and he needs to win some suburban areas where there's less of the gun culture and maybe opposition to the gun culture, does it protect him? >> this is a question you should ask of any politician who is talking about gun control measures. is this actually something you're going to spend capital on or are you just going to kind of

say, this is where i am, at least i made a proposal. the gop is clearly going to go through -- this is going to be another moment of soul searching for them, clearly, among other things. and as individual politicians, republican politicians, wrestle with the nra on how far they're willing to go, remember, there are still a whole bunch of people that want gun-based -- you know, take this gun and don't let them buy it at all without an appropriate background check, or don't let them buy it at all if it's a semiautomatic rifle. will there be coalition between the two sides because you have the nra but the big one is still out there that is going to be unsatisfied. >> there is also a mini fight that's treacherous for democrats, which is going toward a semiautomatic ban is touchy in many parts of the country. >> nonetheless, going on the record as a prominent republican

against the kind of balwark is something that will take a little maneuvering. >> why don't we have some votes? let the politicians take votes, take stands. if someone doesn't vote wait you like, you have the chance to wait them out. a lot of people have rolled their eyes at this, they don't think it's a serious proposal, but the president thinks one way is to give some teachers the training to conceal carry guns in the school. >> i also think schools should have some form of protection. they also can't be open-ended and gun free. gun free is an invitation for crazy people to just come in and shoot. if they're not gun free, if there are guns inside held by

the right people, by highly trained professionals, you're going to see this end. >> again, have a debate. good idea or bad idea? federal or state issue? the president talks about what he believes in. i mentioned earlier in the show did he blink today by not talking about the age limit. the president said he wants to raise the age limit for rifles, long guns. he didn't talk about it in that setting, but i have to view this as a positive step. chris murphy, a liberal democratic senator from connecticut, one of the leading advocates in congress for major new gun controls, the president said, come down to the white house, let's have a conversation. there's nothing wrong with a conversation. we could use more of them. >> if the president ends up backing the cornyn-murphy bill, that one is about complying wlt la -- with the laws that exist. it's reinforcing the background protection. it's not expanding the broader

measures -- the chris murphys of this world want to do. it's interesting, though, the president is not talking about that in front of cpac but focusing on who in the school to give a gun. he's not addressing the fact there was an armed sheriff's deputy there, whatever the actual role was, at that school who stayed outside. we saw the president call this man a coward. but he didn't address the problematic part of that. you heard from cops and teachers saying, don't give me the responsibility of having to be the person to fire off the gun. also, unless you've got a basis, maybe their students are not as adept as the teachers. >> we won't get anywhere if we don't listen both sides, even if we think their idea is off the wall. a former campaign deputy of president trump pleading guilty in the russian probe. new details in just a moment.

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garlique.® more details this hour. big breaking news story from the russian probe. rick gates will plead guilty this afternoon for making false statements and for being part of a conspiracy to defraud the united states. gates scheduled to appear in court at 2:00 this afternoon. let's bring back in shimon porcupecz. tell us what he's going to say he did wrong. >> reporter: it's fascinating because according to this document, what he's pleading guilty to is lying to the special counsel just weeks ago when he met with them for a possible cooperation agreement. he met with the special counsel, it appears, on february 1st, a couple weeks ago this month, and during that meeting they had asked him some questions about a

meeting that he had in congress up on the hill, with a member of congress. in fact, that meeting with congress happened in 2013. they were asking him questions about that meeting, and according to this, he lied about %-pf the meeting was about ukraine. he apparently lied to the special counsel and to the fbi about that meeting, and so that is one of the things he's going to be pleading guilty to. it's just fascinating that it is something that happened in 2013. that's how far back this indicates to us the special counsel investigation is going. we're in 2018. they're here meeting with him, with rick gates about a meeting that he took with a member of congress in 2013. >> shimon, rick gates, in addition to signing these plea documents today, he's sending a letter to his family and friends explaining his decision. what does it say? >> so there is a line and he's

explaining to the family and friends why he's decide to d to plead guilty, saying he's just exiting the process. i can read a line to you here, and it says, the reality of how long this legal process will take, the cost and the circus-like atmosphere of an anticipated trial are too much. i will better serve my family moving forward by exiting this process. so it is a note we believe he sent today to his family, to his friends, indicating that he was going to exit this case, plead guilty and perhaps cooperate. we know that up until yesterday, even last night, he was hesitati hesitating, wasn't sure what he was going to do. our producer kaitlyn polance, had seen him at the courthouse at least two times where he was delivering documents. very strange blaiehavior on his part. he was appearing there without his lawyers. clearly this has been something on his mind back and forth, and

with this letter to family and friends, he's offering up why he decided to do it. >> shimon porcupecz, thank you for the great reporting of you and your team. you're seeing president trump and melania trump arriving at the courthouse. they're going to have meetings. i believe there is a lunch on tap. we'll take you back to the white house as that situation unfolds. for this conversation, let's bring back in solomon weisenberg. you're a veteran white collar attorney. knowing what we know now about the rick gates plea, tell me how you would view this from the paul manafort perspective. number one f you're a prosecu, prosecutor, what does this do to help paul manafort? and if you're on the other side of the manafort defense team, how does this change your

calculations? >> even in a white collar case, even when you have really good documentation, it is always very good to have an insider who can explain things and say, yeah, this is what it looks like, this is what he did. there's no question it helps bob mueller against paul manafort immensely. there's no question it makes the case stronger, a case that looked pretty strong already, that it makes it look even stronger. on the other hand, if i were manafort's attorney, i would be pretty happy with that letter by gates to his family and friends. that's almost like a poison pill basically saying, i wanted to fight it but, you know, the government's resources are too big and the stakes are too high, which is really what every white collar criminal defendant faces when he's facing the power of a determined federal prosecutor. >> so you don't see, on this day, enough pressure from manafort to suddenly come in and say, let's make a deal? >> i would be surprised. he doesn't look like a person who is ready yet or any time

soon to make a deal. again, the interesting thing here is based upon what your reporter just reported, nothing about any of the big topics in terms of the gates plea papers, the big topics, the big picture topics that mueller was originally supposed to be investigating. so we're still, you know, not only are we around the margins, we're beyond the margins, really. >> the question is, is there something we don't know, is he building toward something? excellent point. thank you for hanging around to help us understand this case much better. when we come back, yes, a big debate about gun control, but as we look at the massacre last week in parkland, florida, wufrt one of the reputable facts, a long list of failed actions. colon health has this '' unique combination of probiotics. it provides four-in-one symptom defense. it's your daily probiotic.

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shooting. an armed deputy was on duty but stood outside as the massacre played out. >> what he did, he's trained his whole life. there's an example. but when it came time to get in there and do something, he didn't have the courage or something happened, but he certainly did a poor job. there's no question about that. he was there for five minutes, for five minutes. that was during the entire shooting, he heard it right at the beginning. so he certainly did a poor job. but that's a case where somebody was outside, they're trained, they didn't react properly under pressure or they were a coward. it was a real shot to the police department. poli >> police realized what happened while watching the surveillance video. >> what i saw was a deputy arrive at the west side of building 12 take up a position, and he never went in.

>> was he there when the shooter was still inside the building? >> yes, he was. >> what should he have done? >> went in. addressed the killer. killed the killer. >> how much time went by that he did not go in that he could have gone in? >> minutes. minutes. i think he remained outside for upwar upwards of four minutes. >> the shooting lasted six minutes? >> correct. >> what is he doing on the video? >> nothing. >> the president asked moments ago about the new plea deal of rick gates. >> mr. president, any concerns about rick gates? >> thank you very much. we will be there. >> are you cuttihearing anythin about rick gates cutting a deal

with mueller? >> thank you very much. >> the president is ignoring repeated questions from a rather feisty white house reporter pool. if a law enforcement officer didn't react, didn't go inside the building, the fbi tipped off by threats, we have a much longer list. we could go on and on. we don't have time this hour. the breakdown in the system here is beyond stunning. >> i would like to know more about rules of engagement for this officer. the surveillance was on a tape delay, it seems like, which was an issue as well. and she was on stage blaming the nra when he was elected to serve these citizens. people along the way do have to

answer that and we need to grapple with how these red flags do translate into something like a background check. state governments have not been able to comply with filling that database. that is preventable and we do need to fix some things before we move on to giant sweeping solutions. >> or whatever with two different tracks here. it's ridiculous making the system work. this is not the only shooting where there were mixed signals, things that should have been done. people were not doing their jobs, they should have kept him from buying guns. this is a pattern over several shootings and you have to talk about fixing the system if you're going to prove the system but you have to trust the system is going to work. that's almost what's getting lost in the greater argument politically. what do you restrict, what do you change? >> the argument of gun debate sometimes will get in the way of basic conversations about the confidence of people in charge.

thank you for joining us on "inside politics." i'll see you back sunday morning. wolf starts after a quick break. patrick woke up with back pain.

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and allows us to attract the world's top drone talent. all across new york state, we're building the new new york. to grow your business with us in new york state, visit esd.ny.gov. hello, i'm wolf blitzer. it's 1:00 p.m. in washington and wherever else you're watching around the world. we begin with breaking news. former governor rick gates expects to plead guilty today. will rick gates fully cooperate in the investigation now? clearly this has implications for paul manafort, the