that's it for tonight. now for time for a special edition of "the last word." march madness, a look at this chaotic month in the very young trump presidency. good night. >> the now attorney general spoke twice with russian ambassador in encounters he later did not disclose. >> do you feel confident -- >> have i now decided to recuse myself. >> donald trump was up early this morning rage tweeting. he is now accusing president barack obama of wiretapping his phones during the campaign. >> there was no such wiretap activity. >> will the president apologize to president obama? >> let's not get ahead of ourselves. >> i have no information that supports those tweets. >> a historic moment on capitol hill today. >> the fbi is investigating whether there was any coordination between the campaign and russia's efforts. >> the answer is continues to be no. >> today i briefed the president on the concerns that i had about incidental collection.

>> it was done to give trump ammunition to cover his crazy tweets. >> do you feel vindicated by chairman -- >> i somewhat do. i must somewhat do. >> now we know he went to the white house to get that alleged information. >> you can't make this stuff up. >> at least three senior white house officials were involved in sharing intelligence documents with devin nunes. >> it raise as profound question why they were not directly provided to the white house. >> michael flynn is asking for immunity from prosecution in exchange for his testimony in the russia-trump scandal. >> this morning tweeted mike flynn should ask for immunity in that this is the a witch-hunt. >> is the white house concerned that general flynn has damaging information about what occurred during the campaign a with respect to russia? >> nope. no. we'll see. >> good evening. i'm joy reid in for lawrence o'donnell. welcome the our special edition of "the last word."

march madness, the month it was. a new poll today found literally 1/3 americans give donald j. trump an f for his performance in office in the first 71 days. much of that letter grade has been earned in the unbelievably historic and at times hysterical month it was. it began with trump accusing president obama of tapping his wires in trump tower. and days later in a very public humiliation of the president, fbi director james comey was compelled to say there is no evidence to support the trump claim. and oh, by the way the fbi is investigating the trump campaign for possible collusion with the russians to tip the 2016 election in their favor. then there is the one-man drama that is house intelligence committee chairman and former trump transition member republican devin nunes. he tried to help trump find evidence to back his surveillance claims and instead triggered a torrent of questions about him. like why is he working with the trump white house instead of

investigating it? and who let him on to white house grounds? it's a story so strange that even fellow republicans today say they couldn't write this novel. and we haven't even yet mentioned the debacle that was the defeat of trumpcare. over the course of the next hour, we'll bring you a team of experts. we'll get to the bottom of what happened today. what is the next shoe to drop? and with donald trump at war with the intel community and with his own party, what, if anything can he do to stop the serial crises engulfing the white house? we begin with new developments in what is arguably the most stunning new story of the month. donald trump's former national security adviser michael flynn seeking immunity in order to testify to the house and senate intelligence committees. the president defended michael flynn's immunity requests saying mike flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch-hunt excuse for a big election loss by media and dems of historic proportion.

sean spicer later explained the president was only trying to convey his desire to see michael flynn testify. >> back in december, you said if you are guilty of a crime, what do you need immunity for does the president think mike flynn is guilty of a crime? >> i think he believes that mike flynn should go testify. he thinks he should go up there and do what he has to do to get the story out. >> with or without immunity? >> that's up to him and his lawyer to decide. do whatever you have to do to go up to make it clear what happened. take whatever precaution you want or however your legal counsel advises you. >> nbc news was first to report that the senate intelligence committee is not willing to make an immunity offer to michael flynn. at least not yet. a senior congressional official said michael flynn's lawyer was told it was wildly preliminary, and that immunity was not on the table at the moment. and the ranking member of the house intelligence committee, congressman adam schiff said, quote, there is still much work

and many more witnesses and documents to obtain before any immunity request from any witness can be considered. but the congressman also ominously said this. we should first acknowledge what a grave and momentous step it is for a former national security adviser to the president of the united states to ask for immunity from prosecution. congressman schiff finally went to the white house grounds to review those intelligence documents that prompted house intelligence chairman devin nunes of to hold his stunning press conference last week. meanwhile, chairman nunes is trying to knock down reports in "the new york times" and "the washington post" that his sources for those intelligence documents came from the trump administration. >> those reports are mostly wrong. there is -- there are -- this is something that i've known about for a very long time. from people who were not affiliated at all with the white house or anybody there. the challenge was finding a place to be able to view this

information, to be able to get my hands on this information. so i think what's in the stories is there is a lot of innuendo. there are people that probably knew about this. knew about me being there. but the fact of the matter is that doesn't make them the source of my information. >> well, an exclusive interview that is airing on a.m. joy saturday and sunday, nancy pelosi had tough words for devin nunes. >> let's talk about devin nunes who is leading the house intelligence community at the moment. do you think he has creditability? >> no. i think he not only has lost all credibility, i think he has tarnished the office that he holds. he has brought discredit to something that is a very, very serious position in the congress. >> and joining us now are michael isikoff, chief investigative reporter. he has interviewed devin nunes in the past. david corn and an msnbc political analyst. and tim mak, senior correspondent for the daily

beast. tim mak, devin nunes tried to explain away what he did. he did this interview in which he is trying to say that he going to the white house to view those intelligence documents was perfectly normal, despite the fact that he did it in the dead of night. here is devin nunes. >> i held a press conference and said here is what i found. it has nothing to do with russia. and i'm going to go over to the white house now and i'm going to brief the president. so that's not sneaking around. that's not hiding from anyone. that's being very transparent. maybe too transparent in this case. because i could have just snuck over to the white house and went in quietly and told the president and nobody would have known about this. but i thought it was best that the american people know. >> tim, is any of this normal protocol for a member of congress, a chairman of an intelligence committee, to go into the white house to view anything this way, the way that nunes did it? >> not at all. i talked to a lot of folks who have worked on the house intelligence committee. it is extremely unusual to go to the white house to view documents.

now it's regular procedure to good to the fbi, to go to the nsa, the cia to review executive branch documents. but it is very, very unusual to get a white house grounds seemingly in the middle of the night in order to meet with sources and review documents. now the chairman's story changes every single time he makes a statement. first it was that trump himself was incidentally connected. then maybe that's not right. and then i'm not actually sure exactly what i saw and will have to review the documents. he said he wanted a serious investigation into the extent of russia's ties if there exist any. the extent of russia's ties to the campaign. it appears he is not all that interested. every time the chairman speaks about russia, his story on this changes. >> and david corn, it appears that the ranking member on the committee adam schiff is clear what he saw. he saw apparently the same documents in white house to. this is what he had to say today. nothing i could see today

warranted a departure from the normal procedures, and these materials should now be provided to the full membership of both committees. the white house has yet to explain why senior white house staff apparently shared these materials with but one member of either committee, only for their contents to be briefed back to the white house. david corn, it appears that the ranking member is not confused about what he saw. >> no. he is a former federal prosecutor. he knows how to handle document secrets and how to deal with other government agencies doing an investigation. which nunes doesn't seem to have my awareness of how to proceed. ooh think about this, joy. he has gone from being basically the chairman of an investigation to someone who should be a witness in the investigation. that's just not a good narrative arc for him. >> yeah. >> and, you know, the story has changed. the story about what is in the documents changed the first three or four times he told the story. we still have no idea there is anything in those documents that really warrant investigation. schiff said no. but that they may just have been minor injuries.

and yet you see day after day the white house, sean spicer and other people who are trying to divert attention from the real thing, the russian connection going on about how this is a gigantic civil liberties case, as if they ever cared than. and still nobody ever than nunes has come forward and said there is even a problem here. >> and michael isikoff, let's talk a little bit about michael flynn's situation. this very preemptive request for immunity from either of the committees of the fbi. you've interviewed michael flynn before. his counsel had this very interesting tweet. back in november tweeted the following. a prediction. donald trump will make novel and unusual use of the president's pardon power, an underutilized tool of political power. that may mean nothing at all. but what do you see in this very preemptive request for immunity from michael flynn? >> well, look, it's really hard to say at this point. because michael flynn has potential exposure on multiple grounds.

many of which are not directly related to the central focus of this investigation. his work for turkey, which he retroactively registers with the justice department only in march for work he was getting paid half a million dollars with starting in august. you know, there are potential foreign agent registration act issues there. there is the whole question of the money he had gotten from rt and russia when he went to moscow. did he disclose all that? did he disclose it as part of his security clearance form? we don't know whether this request for immunity is because he is concerned about something involving his conversations with kislyak or the russian investigation or something else. it's really hard to ultimately at this point say where this goes.

but, but i got to say, at the end of the day, if the committee is -- are going to do their job, they've got to hear from michael flynn. >> well, the thing is -- >> he is the one witness, he is the one witness who was centrally involved during the campaign on national security measures with russia and was talking to president trump and can answer a key question. when he had those conversations with kislyak, was he authorized by the president-elect to have them? or was he freelancing acting on his own? >> the thing is, though, the thing is though, a request for immunity is not necessarily any indication that you've done anything wrong. you can talk to democrats or republicans in the house and senate intelligence committee. >> absolutely. >> i was just talking to a democratic member of the house intelligence committee congressman mike quigley. he is no fan of flynn. and he is certainly interested in getting to the bottom of these ties. he said, look, i may not particularly like flynn, but i can't look at this request for immunity as any sort of

indictment or any sort of admission of guilt. and furthermore, he predicted the house intelligence committee is going to be like the senate intelligence committee. he thought it was unlikely they were going to give any immunity to michael flynn. >> often what you have in the cases, those of us old enough to remember, like michael and a, you go back to the iran/contra days, there was a big debate whether the communities would give immunity to oliver north while the fbi and was investigating him. mike quigley is reasonable. mike and i would be reasonable and say this is no indication of guilt. it was donald trump who said, you know, just a couple months ago, why do you need immunity for unless you have done something wrong. and there are -- and also, but i think a key thing to add to what mike just said is the conversations that flynn had with kislyak and maybe other russians before the election. there is indications that he did talk to the ambassador before that while the hacking and the leaking perhaps were going on. was he sending any signs to the

russians? you'll get a deal with us which would give them incentive to carry out this covert operation. >> yep. and mike, let's stop the question about whether or not that is illegal. but go on. >> let's stipulate they're not going to have testimony from kislyak. >> right. at the end of the day, they might be. and whether they'll ever get them and be able to disclose them is a whole another matter. i think at the end of the day, it is likely he probably will get immunity from the committees. >> and as we know from the case of john dean, back during watergate, that doesn't necessarily mean you won't be prosecuted just because you get immunity from the congress. so tick-tock. it's going to be very interesting. david corn, tim mak, and michael isikoff, thanks very much for joining us. >> sure thing. >> thank you. coming up next, early in the month, as attorney general jeff sessions was being accused of perjury, donald trump took to twitter to put out that fire by starting another. and of course he did it by returning to his birther roots and accusing his old them miss, president barack obama of

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not appropriate. now i'm mashing these potatoes with my stick of butter... why don't you sit over here. something for everyone is awesome. find your awesome with the xfinity stream app. more to stream to every screen. march madness earned its name in the early hours of march 4th. a saturday morning that should have been unremarkable. and then donald trump tweeted terrible! just found out that obama had my wires tapped in trump tower just before the victory. nothing found. this is mccarthyism, exclamation point.

and so ignited the entirely self-created controversy that has engulfed the trump white house and the intelligence community, even paul ryan. >> we put our statement on sunday saying we would have no further comment. >> have you seen any evidence to support the president's claim that he had been wiretapped by the previous president? >> yeah, i have not. i have not seen that evidence. >> any reason to believe that he was wiretapped by the previous administration? >> look, the answer is no. >> i don't think there was an actual tap of trump tower. >> going to take the tweets literally. and if you are, clearly the president was wrong. >> wait a minute, there is a lot of wiretapping being talked about. i've been seeing a lot of things. >> said president obama ordered wiretaps on trump tower. what do you believe? >> no. that's what i said. we've cleared that up. we've seen no evidence of that. >> as far as wiretapping by this

past administration, at least we have something in common, perhaps. >> the department has no information that supports those tweets. >> he said that there is no information to support the allegations that the president made against president obama. >> at this time. as chairman nunes mentioned, this is one in a series of hearings. >> this is information that was brought to me that i thought the president needed to know about collection. >> i somewhat do. i must somewhat do. >> i had to brief the speaker first. >> he had told me that like a whistle-blower type person had given him some information. >> did you encourage him to then go tell the president about it? >> no. >> at least some white house officials had to be involved in him getting information. >> i cannot get into who those individuals were. >> did the president direct anyone in this white house or in his national security team to try to find information or intelligence to back up his associate about wiretapping?

>> i don't -- i'm not aware of anything directly. >> and joining us now, "new york times" columnist nicholas kristof and daily beast contributor nick wilson. it's been a very interesting misdirection where donald trump gets up and tweets i was wiretapped. and now you've got up until today sean spicer really getting angry at reporters for not following that story instead of the story about russiangate. >> i never would have thought i would be sensitive to sean spicer. but i have to say watching him try to explain the tweets. it reminds me of the time i was in north korea. and this poor north korea was claiming there had never been any crime ever in north korea. when year trying to compare the white house spokesman to a north korean spam, boy, that is a problem for the country. >> and rick wolf, i compared him to baghdad bob.

>> sure there. >> are no infidels in iraq. there are no american attacks. it is not happening. he does that day after day after day. but now it is becoming absurd. and this insistence and demand by spicer that journalists waste their time chasing a story that has already been debunked. is there a part of the country where that is working, where the narrative for people who support donald trump, and they're not even paying attention to russiagate? >> sure, there are elements in the conservative media who decided that they're going to defend trump until the last dog dies. so they have postured and postulated that there is this gigantic conspiracy where thousands and thousands of intelligence agency officials and workers would be willing to engage in a broad sweeping illegal conspiracy which landed any of them with felony charges if they were discovered to illegally wiretap donald trump. this is an absurdity of the

highest possible order. and it takes somebody who is a psychotic level trump apologist or someone who has completely decided that they're going to monetize this. i think we're looking at guys like sean hannity to try to make this into a story where none exists at all. they are desperate to hang the subject. and the louder they scream about the incidental collection, the bicatch from the nsa stuff, the more you know their panic has set in. it's deep and permanent. >> now have you you've have indicated the chairman of the house intelligence committee who has used his time as a representative of that committee and as a member of congress to go searching for evidence to back up donald trump's claim. such that we have a new gate. which is the gate about him, devin nunes. >> yeah. >> let's be even more clear about that. the chairman of the house intelligence committee conspired actively with white house staffers to access information in order to engage in a political pushback for crimes

that are -- for malfeasance that is alleged on the part of trump campaign officials and others in the course of -- and the russians in the course of the 2016 elections. this is a guy who has really stepped well beyond the bounds of his office and well beyond the bounds of appropriate in this case. >> i do think that in the campaign, we had these allegations and mishandling of information by hillary clinton. right now we have devin nunes, who clearly mishandled classified information. >> sure. >> and seemed to have engaged in a cover-up on behalf of the white house. and one of the things as you know, joy, that you learn as a journalist is that when officials begin screeching and get terribly upset and try to squelch testimony, that's when you know you're getting lows to something that they care deeply about that they don't want out. >> yeah. >> and the imperative has to be for us as journalists to take that bait and push even harder. >> yeah. >> because i do think we're

getting closer to something that they deeply don't want us un. >> from his personal account that mike flynn should ask for immunity, calling it a witch-hunt. calling the investigation a witch-hunt excuse for big election loss. that could be read as an improper instruction to the justice department to give him immunity, could it not? >> look, i'll leave that to the attorneys out there. my gut says it probably is that kind of signal. but i think the justice department below the level of jeff sessions is probably going to look at something like that with a great degree of skepticism. there are serious professionals inside the fbi right now who are pursuing this investigation just as obviously going to look at any sort of impropriety by this president particularly with a very sort of gimlet eye. i don't think they're going to go out and accept that sort of

order from him. but it is inappropriate, of course. and this is because he is intemperate and unhinged. >> yep. you trust the justice department on this? >> i do think that the fbi is genuinely mounting a thorough investigation. i think that the senate intelligence committee is going to attempt it. the problem, though, is that these are investigations that are closed, behind closed doors. >> you're right. >> and this is an issue of immense importance for the country. we need transparency. that can only happen with an independent commission can. >> absolutely. nick kristof, thank you for being here. coming up, the craziest tweet that donald trump sent this month that wasn't a conspiracy theory and the problems that it will cause for the rest of his presidency. that's next. thanks, man. imagine if the things you bought every day earned you miles to get to the places you really want to go. with the united mileageplus explorer card, you'll get a free checked bag,

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i'm proud to support the replacement plan released by the house of representatives. we're going to take action. there is going to be no slowing down. there is going to be no waiting and no more excuses by anybody. i think we're going to have a tremendous success. it's a complicated process. but actually, it's very simple. it's called good health care. >> 18 days. that's the trumpcare march madness. trumpcare was born and died all in the month of march.

18 days. that's how long it took donald trump to give up on passing a health care bill. major pieces of legislation can take months or even years to get done. the 1986 tax reform bill took 323 days from introduction to being signed by president ronald reagan. george w. bush's medicare overhaul took 166 days. obamacare 187 days. paul ryan's repeal bill was introduce and 18 days later not enough support to pass and then this happened. >> we couldn't quite get there. we're just a very small number of votes short. i guess i'm here 64 days. i never said repeal and replace obamacare. you've all heard my speeches. i never said repeal it and replace it within 64 days. i have a long time. >> and joining us now is the washington column for the globe. she is also at the pointer institute for media studies. back with us is our friend rick wilson.

let's remind donald trump what he did say about repealing and replacing obama care during the campaign. here he is. >> my first day in office, i'm going to ask congress to put a deal on my desk getting rid of this disastrous law and replacing it with reforms that expand choice, freedom, affordability. you're going to have such great health care at a tiny fraction of the cost. and it's going to be so easy. >> so with the level of that sale equal to the level of work put in by the donald -- >> well, obviously not. you pointed out the number of days that many important pieces of legislation took to get through. i mean, it was actually 18 months worth of work on obamacare before it fully got voted on. there were all sorts of debates about it before it even got crafted into legislation. the fact that his attention span was basically, okay, you guys wrote this. 18 days, once he couldn't get it in 18 days, that's it. he is done and moved on. that isn't so smart, it seems in

terms of if you want the get things done. but what has really struck me about this is the president lashing out against the freedom caucus of the republican party. this does not seem like a great strategy. you can be the boss and the ceo of a company and family-run company is the only thing that matters. but this government you actually need allies. you need congress to be with you. you certainly need your own party to be with you. so to lash out at them and push back. >> yep. >> donald trump is now promising, after he has gone to war with the freedom caucus, he is now promising democrats in moving wildly to the left where even a poorly crafted bill for the ahca was. so he is going to end up alienating not just the freedom caucus, but frankly, a lot of the main line republicans who have sort of staked their political branding on repealing

and replacing obamacare. the difficulty here, he has no clue how to do this. he is bad at being president. >> i want to show you guys just what that attack looked like, in case you have forgotten in all the blur of the other things donald trump has tweeted. he tweeted this week the freedom caucus will hurt the entire republican agenda if they don't get on the team and fast. we might fight them and dems in 2018. then he went on to tweet directly at jim jordan, mark meadows and raul labrador. this is after he said he is moving on and not doing health care anymore. one more beat. "the new york times" reported the trump attack on the freedom caucus was actually by design. it says mr. trump's advisers have become more involved in his free form twitter feed in the last few weeks has counseled a tough tone with the rebels instructing staffers using a rhetorical a prod to keep party liners in line. any idea to spurn the 20, 30 members of the house that there is any reason democrats would come and provide him the margins he needs to pass anything?

why would democrats come in and rescue him? >> right. i don't see it. i don't the percentage in this for him at all. they've got to come up with a governing strategy. if you can't get your own party in line, why would you expect that the other party would cross over? he has been pointing fingers since the health care, since he was unable to repeal and replace. he has had to blame it on everyone other than himself. >> and rick, before i let you back, in i got to play the responses of some of these members. listen. i don't agree with them idealogically. but i think we agree on this. they appear to be the only republicans who recognize that they belong to a coequal branch of government with the white house and they don't work for the white house. let's play three of the members starting with justin amash. >> a child to get his way. but that's not how our government works.

>> we're trying to help the president. but the fact is you got to look at the legislation. and it doesn't do what we told the voters we were going to do, and the american people understand that. that's why only 17% of the population supports this legislation. >> i don't work for the president. i don't work for the leadership. i work for the people that sent me here. >> rick wilson, they tried to pass a $1 trillion tax cut disguised as a health care bill that got 17% support. that means even republicans hated the bill. >> yeah. and look, free market republicans hated the bill because it was basically just a different set of giveaways to the insurance companies and to pharma. and the freedom caucus guys hated it because it didn't look bold enough. it was too gutless. and the rest of the republican caucus hated it because it looked too heartless. the thing was a hot mess from the get-go. but trump was trying to sell what trump always sells, which is sort of a flatulent mass of his own fantasy about what the product. so he got out there. he talked fast. he said things like oh, don't pay attention to the details.

we're just going to do something great together. well, this guy is entirely contingent, he is entirely impulsive. at the end of the day, the voters weren't buying it. and the members of congress on the republican said no, we're not going to set ourselves on fire for a bad bill that has bad outcomes both politically and policy wise for this guy who is a snake who will turn and bite us on the ass in a hot second, which he did. >> memo to donald trump, the freedom caucus is the tea party. they specialize in going after other republicans. they're not afraid of you, man. rick wilson, thank you very much. indira, stand by. coming up next, the worst thing donald trump did this month could be the one thing that no one is talking about. we'll tell you what that is and who is paying the price for it, next. whoa!

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as far as the wiretapping, by this past administration, at least we have something in common, perhaps. [ laughter ]

>> merkel's face. that was donald trump on friday, march 17th. and on that very same day in mosul, iraq, a u.s. coalition-led air strike targeting the islamic state may have killed as many as 200 civilians, which if accurate would be the highest civilian death toll in a single incidence since the gulf war. the day before a u.s.-led air strike in syria killed 49 civilians after hitting a building. the united states launched more attacks in yemen this month than in all of last year. the u.s. presence in the middle east has grown significantly with the times reporting the pentagon quietly dispatched 400 marines to syria. in iraq nearly 300 paratroopers were deployed recently to help the iraqi military. the developments may be part of the secret plan to defeat isis that donald trump talked about

on the campaign trail. but as indira lakshmanan writes about in her most recent column in "the boston globe," president trump is earning a reputation as a boss who wants a quick fix and who doesn't much care how you got there. and indira is back with me. so indira, the guardian wrote this week that trump earlier this year ordered the review of the rules of engagement set by his predecessor barack obama that insisted on the near certainty that there would be no civilian casualties before any air strikes could be sanctioned. and that the mounting concerns may have already led to the threshold being ordered. we being less careful in your view in terms of trying to avoid civilian casualties under donald trump? >> well, so there is one thing which is whether the actual rules of engagement have changed yet. what we know this week from the pentagon is they have not. the head of central command has testified before the house armed services committee and said they haven't changed the rules of engage. however, that is different from the tone that is set from the

top. donald trump has made it very clear that he is all about defeating isis. do it. do it quickly. get it done. he is about delegating to the pentagon. whereas president obama was criticized some would say rightfully for being really a micromanager when it came to the issue of isis and syria because he didn't want to get us dragged in to another quagmire in the middle east. trump has kind of swung the pendulum very radically in the other direction. that means that low level ground commander, americans who are there supporting iraqi troops are able to call in strikes in a way they were not able to before. this is where we have the concerns of the incredibly high civilian casualty toll in the month of march, which all totaled up is more than the entire civilian casualty toll since the whole campaign against isis began in 2014 august. so if these numbers prove to be true, huge. and if that's the secret plan to defeat isis, it looks a whole lot like american boots on the ground. another 240 infantry.

folks were sent out this week from ft. bragg, north carolina. donald trump promised he wasn't going to take america back into another war. but it is looking like we're sliding in that direction. >> yeah, led by a commander in chief himself got five deferments from serving in vietnam himself. so scary developments. indira lakshmanan, thank you so much for joining us. appreciate it. >> thanks, joy. and as mad as march has been, next month could bring a real bombshell in the russia investigations. possibly in the form of dramatic witness testimony. maybe even live on cable tv. mike flynn's lawyer says he has a story to tell. well, who else does? that's next.

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...and more absorbent, and you can use up to 4 times less. enjoy the go with charmin. the madness of this month will spill into next month, which begins on saturday. given everything that has already developed in the investigations into russian interference in the 2016 election, there is a high probability that we'll see things get even stranger. with three separate inquiries at

the fbi and in the house and the senate intelligence committees, all running simultaneously, the question is who will be called into testify next? former national security adviser michael flynn wants to hear if and when he'll be interviewed and whether he'll be offered immunity by anyone. donald trump's son-in-law jared kushner, his former campaign manager paul manafort, foreign policy carter page and roger stone have all volunteered to give testimony. and then there are the obama administration officials. former director of national intelligence james clapper, former cia director john brennan, and former attorney general sally yates could also be called in if they were supposed to appear before the house intelligence committee earlier this week, i mean. but chairman devin nunes canceled that open hearing without explaining why. one intelligence committee member democratic congressman mike quigley of illinois said this about the investigation and the other possible witnesses.

>> at this point in time, the only thing we have is the opportunity to go forward. i'm not giving up on the house investigation. i do believe we're going to have that open hearing. and i do believe we're going back to meetings with the admiral rogers and mr. comey to find out exactly what took place. >> the former fbi intelligence operative and author of "how to catch a russian spy." he worked for a double agent and is an msnbc contributor. let's game out who you think would be the most important witnesses to call in trying to get to the bottom of russiagate. if you could pick anyone, with the senate intelligence committee, who would you call? >> joy, i kind of want to stop watching this movie and read the spoiler alert. i want to see how it ends. but the adult in me says there

is a balance here. we obviously have a thirst to know what's going on. one person you didn't mention is christopher steel. he was hired by a trump opponent. he began gathering this information on behalf of republicans, but later worked on behalf of democrats. it had that piece of information that got the headlines, but there's a lot in there that tries to build a narrative as to what happened and why. do you think it's likely he could be end up being called? >> i think there is. it seems that would be -- there was rumors that the fbi at one point wanted to hire him. it seems likely he will come in.

even what nunes, the intelligence that he said he saw that justified the president's claim he was wire tapped by president obama, whatever that intelligence was, that sounds salacio salacious. there's a level of salacious detail that we've heard rumors of for a long time. was there criminal activity? i think that's the part that we need to focus on is where is this going? >> adam schiff a ranking member on the house intel committee said retweeting donald trump talking about michael flynn saying the public should learn more why he needs immunity. we don't want to give up manafort.

i think that's what everyone is looking for. >> appreciate it. what did donald trump do when questioned today about his michael flynn tweet? he didn't sign the two executive orders that he was there to sign, despite mike pence's apparent efforts to get him to do so. take a look. >> today i am signing two executive order orders. you're going to see some very, very strong results, very, very quickly. thank you much. >> were you trying to do that, mr. president? was that your intention, mr. president? was that your intention, sir? ♪ ♪ and the moon up above ♪ ♪ and a thing called love. ♪ ♪ let me tell you 'bout the stars in the sk♪, ♪ a girl and a guy♪ ♪ and the way they could kiss on a night like this ♪

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donald trump's march madness has been a month of mockery. the cover of the upcoming issue of the new yorker pretty much sums it up. the artist barry blit describes the cover like this. the word duffer is defined as a person inexperienced at

something. that's the word that come to mine as i watch president trump plowing one drive after another through the glass windows of american politics. late night hosts pulled no punches in their donald trump punch lines. i'm just going to sit back and sip some tea here as we watch it all unfold. >> according to a new report, obama officials fought to preserve evidence of russian election meddling. it's a good idea. though i do believe there was one large of piece of evidence sitting in the oval office right now. >> every time we dig deep into trump's campaign it seems there is a new person who is connected to the russians. first it was manafort. then it was flynn. the whole thing is like one of those russian nesting dolls. you know? every time one person goes away someone else pops out. >> hawaii is suing president

trump over his latest travel ban. hawaii is suing. yeah. in response, president trump is suing hawaii for being hard to spell. that's what -- that's what he said. it was hard to spell. >> kellyanne conway defended trump's claim that president obama wiretapped him. >> there was an article this week of how you can surveil someone through their phones, certainly through their television sets any kind of ways, microwaves that turn into cameras, et cetera. >> i'm not sure if kellyanne's microwave is watching her but it sounds like she spends a lot of time looking directly into it. >> press secretary sean spicer now says that president trump didn't literally mean that president obama wiretapped him. he also said donald trump didn't literally mean for people to

vote for him. >> for weeks now, republicans have been pushing their obamacare replacement plan. but the bill has a preexisting condition. everybody hates it. >> and this week it came out that his job approval rating is at just 36%. trump was confused. he said how can they disapprove of a job i'm not even doing? >> it was announced that ivanka trump will become a federal employee in the white house serving as the president's eyes and ears. yeah. eyes and ears. no word yet on who will be operating his brain. >> president trump told senators yesterday that they would make a deal on health care because, quote, that's such an easy one. okay. well, just make sure your health

care plan covers amnesia. >> i'm joy reed, thanks for watching. i'll see you tomorrow on a.m. joy starting at 10:00 a.m. eastern time. due to mature subject matter, viewer discretion is advised. >> i think i'm in for over a year. this has been building and building and building and building. sometimes this is the only way people listen. >> this is the end of the line. this is level six. he's not going to leave this prison. all the bad apples are here. >> take a calf, put him in the corner. put a pit bull in here, he's going to react, come out of the corner, you know.