tried . president trump is tweeting back saying he is working on programs that will save our countries billions of dollars and perhaps more importantly he's a very good person. and top officials on both sides of the aisle pespeaking o on the latest controversy. >> there was a lot of different ways to communicate back channel, publicly with other countries. i don't see any big issue here relative to, relative to jared. >> i will tell you that my dashboard warning light was clearly on and i think that was the case with all of us in the intelligence community. >> i think jared has said he's more than willing to answer any and all questions. >> if these allegations are true and he had discussions with the russians about establishing a back channel and didn't reveal

that, that's a real problem. >> i don't trust this story as far as i can throw it. >> all right. joining me now were kristen welker, nbc news justice correspondent pete williams, nbc security analyst matt miller and washington editor at larcge for the atlantic steve clemmons. great to have everyone with us this morning. wristen, let me begin with you. i want to start off by playing what senator mccain said during an interview in australia about the jared kushner controversy and russian president lad peer put vladimir putin. take a listen. >> my view of it is i don't like it. i know that some administration officials are saying, that's standard procedure. i don't think it's standard procedure prior to the inauguration of a president of the united states by someone who is not in an appointed position. i think he is the premier and

most important threat, more so than isis. >> trong words are coming out of senate john mccain overseas. he's concerned about this latest development that you're hearing. let me get your reaction in terms of ou this plays out with what the white house has been dealing with over the past 48 hours since president trump returned to the u.s. >> reporter: first in all in terms of strategy, the white house is establishing a war room to deal with this, effectively to beat back the headlines. the president is bringing on his own attorney and we know that he is thinking about hitting the road more, trying to keep the attention focused on his domestic agenda, talking about things like tax reform and health care. but obviously these weren't the head lines that the president was hoping to return to. he had a big foreign trip last week. hoping that was helping him turn the page on some of the mounting questions and mounting controversy about russia and the

russia probe. but obviously sit a crisis that's only deepening for the white house. the white house is bracing for a big battle in the coming days. >> steve, i wanted the to get your reaction too. you have that division, senator lindsey graham casting doubt and owes saying they're unf uncomfortable with establishing this black door channel. >> sit a weird story. i need to know more about the banker meeting. that is the element that's really bizarre to me, in addition to the side that jared kushner thought he needed to do this. what we're not reporting out there is there was no lack of connection and connectivity between the united states government and dealing with the russians. john kerry, over syria, got within an eyelash of sitting up an joint implementation center with the russians to deal with joint targeting decisions. then then accidentally killed a

lot of syrians. the response where the russians began attacking so-called accidentally human convoys. we were talking to the russians, talking to putin and to lavrov. i don't know when a back channel would be needed when we had a legacy and a staff in the state department that would have been very available to rex tillerson and even no jared kushner to basically deepen orthopaedic to talk about some strategic course with the russians. this doesn't make sense. it's bizarre. >> speaking of bizarre, pete williams, jared kushner has come under scrutiny particularly by the fbi. he's reportedly not considered a subject or a quote of the investigation and the issue of collusion as well with the trump campaign. but could circumstances change though depending on what the fbi uncovers and he become an actual target of the investigation? >> well, sure. but that could be true of anybody. what we're told is they basically view him at this point

as an information witness. remember what this is all about. this is an investigation to see how russia was able to med until the election and whether any member of the trumpampaign helped the russians do that. that's the bottom line. and all indications are they want to talk to kushner who was close to the president, involved in the campaign about what he knows. and his lawyer says he's eager to tell his story to congress and the fbi. and based on the statement that his lawyer gave when the story surfaced last week, it would seem that the fbi has not yet talked to him. but his lawyer says he's cooperate with anybody who has questions so we'll see how that works out. >> is there any time line as to when that might happen if he is going to sit for questioning? >> no time line. i think you can safely say that whatever the time line was, if there was one, is now pushed out into the future just a little bit because it takes time for robert mueller, who is the new special counsel to get up to speed and decide how he wants to

run the investigation. >> matt miller, let me ask you about a point that steve miller brought up, which was the back door channel and the fact that there us with a lot of connectivity between the white house and the russian government. is there any reasonable explanation for why jared kushner would propose establishing a secret back door channel with the russians that would entail using russian diplomatic activity? >> complete and utter naivety by jared kushner. that is not a great explanation but it's better than the alternative ones. one of the things that are striking about it, if they wanted to have the back channel, first of all, they could have waited a couple of weeks until they took office. second, even if they wanted a back channel with the rugss during the transition, they could have easily gone to the white house, the national security establishment and said we want to have some

communications channels set up to communicate with the russian government. the obama administration would have considered it and might have grant it. what's troubling is the concealment, asking the russians to set up a channel using russian communications equipment. the only reason you can explain that is if they're trying to conceal wit the u.s. government, from the permanent national security establishment career people and also from the obama administration. >> is it possible at all that the russian ambassador, according to the reporting whose communications were intercepted that tipped off that report that jared kushner was trying to establish this back door channel, is it possible that he was sending false information back to moscow knowing it was going to be intercepted by the u.s. to sew the confusion that we're seeing now. >> i have no idea what sergey kislyak was doing and whether he was trying to dupe us with those communications. we have to be open to all possibilities. he's an intelligence pro.

he runs a network and is aware and dealt in a network of intelligence agents and operatives throughout the united states which is you know very considerable. so it is bizarre. but just listen to what matt miller just said. we just went through an election in which everyone, everyone was very aware that the russians had hacked into the election, they had undue influence, they were involved, there were suspicions about the russians. and jared kushner and others essentially had no concern about that. and so it's not just that there was concealment, it was concealment despite awareness of the nefarious activities that russia had been engaged in in the united states. that's what makes the concealment issue ten times more, i think, disconcerting. >> and kristen, so with all of these questions surrounding jared kushner, what does this mean for his standing with the president? he's got one of the largest portfolios out of any of his

senior advisers. is this going to have an impact in niz role in the white house? >> reporter: here's what we g e know. there are are officials here at the white house that have suggest togd kushner that he lay low but there's in sign that the president shares that viewpoint. in fact as you pointed out at the top of the broadcast, the president defending him in the "the new york times" saying jared is doing a great job for the country, has total confidence in him and he is a very good person. according to another source, jared right now focussed on his work, willing and eager to cooperate with any investigation. there's in doubt that you do have some here behind the scenes who are quite concerned. one person telling me they were speechless when they learned about this story. >> pete, when you consider the facts of what we're seeing in terms of the various individuals, michael flynn, jeff sessions all had various conversations with the russians. are we seeing a pattern of trump

advisers? >> in each of those cases the circumstances are very different. sessions, for example, says he simply forgot in his senate testimony to talk about it. didn't seem like he was aggressively trying to conceal them and later said that he did have contacts and therefore decided to recuse himself from that whole russian modelling investigation. i don't know that you can say there's a pattern. in each case they're different. >> kristen, before i let you go, the president prepares to leigh shortly for arlington cemetery. what can we expect today? >> reporter: this is a tradition on the memorial day. the president will lay a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier and then he'll deliver remarks, paying tribute to those who have made the ultimate sacrifice. i highly doubt that he would go

anywhere close to commenting on the current situation. i think he'll keep the focus on memorial day. >> and we'll have those remarks from the presidents and others live in the next hour. stay with us. kristen welker, pete williams, thank you for joining us. matt miller and steve, stay with us. what did the president achieve overseas? did he leave our allies with more questions than answers? another look at the grounds of arlington national cemetery. the president set to lay a wreath and honor the fallen at the top of the hour. you're going to see that live right here on msnbc. what do you have there?

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> esident trump left a lasting impression in europe during his first overseas trip creating concern for key alloy angela america. . germany's chancellor was left with more questions an answers, telling her constituents that europe may need to turn inward to solve their geopolitical problems on the horizon. matt, if you take everything together, leaving europe without throwing our pull support behind the paris climate accord, the lecture to nato, should we be surprised to read these kinds of comments coming out from chance her merkel? >> not really. if you look at what donald trump promised her in the campaign, he's in a way delivered.

we talked a lot, you know, in the last segment about collusion, whether there was collusion between trump and russian during the campaign. i was skeptical that there was but there didn't need to be. he made it clear that he wanted to steer u.s. interests toward russia and made it clear that he was skeptical of nato and that's what willed mere putin supports. and what i think we saw in donald trump's foreign trip was, you know, we saw a lot of signals from the administration that he was going to reaffirm his commitment to nato and article 5 but when it came to his speech, he didn't do it. that's what vladimir putin would have wanted. >> i want to go back to the comments that we were talking about at the top of the show, senator john mccain saying that russian president vladimir put season a bigger threat than isis. he believes that he poses a threat to the united states and democracies around the world.

and certainly given his stature as a senator on capitol hill, do you think the white house is going to feel pressure from their own party over the next few month to ramp up sanctions against russia or change their discourse on russia? >> i think the white house has been facing pressure on that front all along. i think when you look at senator corker, john mccain, lindsey graham, others in the house engaged in national security intelligence, all of these have wanted to have a higher sanctions wall for russia. all have wanted donald trump to stand by the ukraine related and crimea related sanctions regime which we put in place because donald trump would say casual things about it. i was in ukraine -- he hasn't been inaugurated yet but i was in ukraine with joe biden the day donald trump said hey, we may get rid of those sanctions if we can get a nuclear deal with russia. donald trump has been sending these signals about russia for a

long time and he's enacting it. but his party and the national security strategic class in washington are not with him, both republican and democrat. and so this is -- there's going to be a lot of tension about it. but donald trump seems to be impervious thus far to the criticisms and the pressure. he's marching into nato shaking up the allies and it's remarkable, while he hugs autocrats around the world. >> do you think president trump made a concerted effort to get back into the good graces with fellow g7 members, nato allies, chancellor merkel, i mean given what you just laid out, is there anything that suggests from his trip that he was trying to mend the fences so to speak? >> no. when we all watched together his speech in beautifrussels and na that was a fail. he failed to connect on the issue of all for one and one for all. others have said you have u.s.

troops in eastern europe now and in poland and that that continues to be the actions that we are. so we ought not to get lost in trump's words. i disagree because angela merkel who is not a flamboyant person, not prone to reckless remarks like this is calling it as it is. she has serious doubts, a so many of our allies in the united states. and i think that is where we are right now. and i think the fundamental problem is that we'll see where donald trump is on the paris accord when he makes a decision there. but if he stays true to form, we'll be out of the paris acc d accord. but if we remain in, he didn't achieve any of the things that you might have thought if he was going to assure or allies. >> and i'm going to you to do something that's tricky. put yourself in the shoes of vladimir putin. he's watching this play out. do you think he sees them and thinks he can be more strategically aggressive in trying to reyat for of a rift

between the united states and europe or does he sit back and let this unfold? >> it's one of the biggest questions i think we all face right now. vladimir putin has been getting increasingly aggressive with flying military planes closer to the cost of our nato allies, his actions in ukraine. and i think he's been testing donald trump to see if he would respond, to see if he would increase sanctions. from time to time we hear leaks from people inside the administration there might be. but so far i think, as steve said, everything we see from the kind of strategic class seems to argue for a different approach to russia. but donald trump doesn't seem to believe that. we saw wit the nato speech. we see it with his approach to sanctions. if you look at his attorney trip and look at the way he behaved when he's in saudi arabia versus when he's in europe, so much of it is personal for him. he likes autocrats who are willing to throw him big parties, willing to say nice

things about him and he doesn't get along with leaders who are going to stand up for their democracies and aren't going to behave with a personal allegiance to him. >> we should note that vladimir putin is meeting today with the newly elected president of france. >> thank you both for joining us this morning. north korea launches a new missile. trump is responding. what it means for the region and kim's ability to launch a nuclear weapon. that's next. ♪ [ male announcer ] tora bora fallujah argonne khe sanh midway dak to normandy

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overseas now where a new missile test by north korea in morning makes it the third test in three week. south korean and japanese authorities say north korea filed a short range ballistic missile. the test comes as north korea continues to develop a long range ballistic missile that could deliver a nuclear war head to the united states. blake mccoy is monitoring the situation from london. what do we know more about this latest launch officially and unofficially? >> well it is the third as you mentioned north korean missile test in three weeks, the ninth test this year. this was a short range ballistic

missile flying for six minutes and 250 miles before crashing into the sea of japan within japan's territorial waters. t tensions are high and japan and south korea are hoping to take action. president trump tweeting this morning, north korea has shown great disrespect for their neighbor china by shooting off another ballistic missile but china is trying hard. no one wants war with a nuclear north korea. james mattis warns it would be catastrophic. >> a crown flionflict in north would be one of the worst kind of fight in most people's life tooims. this is so threat to the region, to japan, to south korea. s it is a direct threat to the united states. >> the u.s. officials are working to father more

information about this latest launch but say the u.s. will support or allies in the region, japan and south korea. everyone is watching to see what their response will be but the rhetoric is strong coming out of to both of those countries today. >> you were talking about the ninth test this year. given the pace of these tests is there growing concerns about how frequently they're becoming and what that may prompt for some of the allies that you were talking about? >> absolutely. particularly since kim jong-un increased the tests from his father. and the concern is that with each of the tests it shows the growing capability of north korea because they're able to further hone their skills and technology when it comes to these missiles. just because it was a short range ballistic missile does not mean that we shouldn't be concerned. you have to keep in mind, a missile like this could hit u.s. military installations in south korea and japan and provoke a large scale conflict and it could be used to further their

development of other missiles as well. >> black mccoy live for us in our london news room. thanks. we continue to keep an eye on the white house where any moment trump will depart for arlingt arlington national ceremony. the wooet laying ceremony will get under way soon. you'll see all of it live here on msnbc. ♪

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welcome back. in just a few moments president trump will head out to arlington national cemetery to lay a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier. he's expected to give remarks. kristen welker joins me from the white house. what can we expect from president trump's visit today to arlington cemetery? >> reporter: this is a traditional visit that the president makes on memorial day to arlington national cemetery. he lays the wreath and makes remarks and typically we hear the commander in chief pay tribute to all of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice. vi no doubt that today will be any different. i think that's the message we'll hear from president trump. obviously this is someone who has talked quite a bit about trying to improve veterans services and increasing defense spending, making improvements for the military. so i think you will hear the president echo some of those

themes. and again pay tribute to those who have made the ultimate sacrifice. i don't think he's going to veer into any news of day topics. i would be surprised if we heard him do that. i don't think he's going to weigh in on what you and i have been talking about throughout the morning, which is this growing controversy over russia, the fact that his son-in-law jared kushner now at the center of it in many ways, the fact that the "washington post" over the weekend reporting that kushner tried to set up a back channel of communications with russian officials. look, i've been talking to white house officials here. they say the president wants to stay on message not on today but in the coming days, in the coming weeks. he's goings to work hard to do that. that's going to be his strategy. and of course, as you and i have been talking about, the president really reinforcing his support for his son-in-law amidst these mounting questions saying he has complete confidence in him. one white house official stressing that it's rare that the president puts out a statement like the one that he

did today with the "the new york times." so that underscores the seriousliness of that expression of confidence. when the president speaking today he's going to be focused on marking memorial day. >> and you can see the procession of flags making its way there among the crowds. the president expected to depart the white house shortly and make his way across the bridge to virginia where e we'll be carrying those remarks live later in the hour. kristen welker live for us at the white house. turning now to headlines that we're following, in mississippi a deadly shooting rampage that left eight people dead. this is video of the alleged shooter, 35-year-old willie g godbold. a sheriff's deputy was called to a domestic dispute. when he arrived he was shot and killed by god sl bold who then killed three women at the home

and drove to two more homes and kill four more people. he spoke to a local newspaper before he was hauled off in handcuffs. >> i was having a conversation with her stepdaddy and her momma and my wife and somebody called the officer. suicidely cop was my intention. i ain't fit to live not after what i done. >> the deputy killed was 36-year-old leaving behind a wife an 11-year-old son. the community of portland, oregon are honoring two men stabbed to death as they came to the defense of two girls on board a train. police say on friday a man was yelling anti-muslim slurs at two girls and that's when three men came to their defense. all three were stabbed, two died. a former paramedic witnessed the deadly ordeal. >> i worry about the hundreds of people that were impacted by this and i hope that it is

labeled what it is, and that is a terrorist attack. i want that to be clear. >> an online fund-raising page for victims has gone to $800,000. a wild and terrifying ride caught on ka ram. a young boy flew then barrelled to the bottom of a waterslide in california. the 10-year-old boy is fine, said to have walked away with a few minor scratches. what a scary moment. with the president back in town, he's got a laundry list of dramas to attend to, perhaps the biggest, his son-in-law caught up in the russia investigation. we'll tell you more about that when we come back. stay with us. ♪ ♪

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you' looking at life pictures there from arlington national cemetery where preparations are under way for the arrival of president donald trump to lay a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier. marching their way up to the tomb of the unknown soldier. we'll bring you those live pictures as soon as we can. we also got word that president trump has left the white house en route now to arlington

national cemetery. we'll have that for you as he arrives there and those comments and remarks get under way. here in studio we want to wrap up a quick conversation we were having about some of the fallout from this morning after the "washington post" reported that jared kushner tried to set up a back channel with the russians before the inauguration. president trump is defending his son-in-law to the "the new york times" this morning saying he has total confidence in kushner but the top democrat on the house intelligence committee is questioning kushner's security clearance. take a listen. >> i think we need to get to the bottom of the allegations. but i do think there ought to be a review of his security clearance to find out whether he was truthful, whether he was canned did. if not, there's in way he can maintain that kind of a clearance. >> joining me now for our politics panel is alan smith, politics reporter for the business insider and jonathan swann national political reporter. great to have you with us this

morning. let me we again with you and let's start with the kushner story. how is his role in the white house going to be impacted given the fact that this is a guy who probably had the largest most important portfolio of any one of the advisers. do you think it's going to be diminished at all? >> i don't think so. he's of course one of the closest family members to donald trump. he is arguably the spouse of his favorite child, the person who he has propped up and really given a big role, which is of course ivanka trump. jared kushner is standing on solid ground. i can't imagine if there was a directive to have a back channel to russia that donald trump wasn't aware of that and wasn't something that he wanted him to do. >> how do you think this is going to impact the white house? some of the investigation so far and certainly what we've learned about it have involved people removed from the white house, whether it was michael flynn or

jeff sessions. now you're talking to somebody within the inner circle of the president. >> this is going to certainly overtake a lot of these investigations. jared kushner is going to be the focal point of them. since it's 0 close to the inner circumstancement of the white house, even michael flynn was gone at the point of this really blowing up in the public circle. this is the to value point with jared. there's something to gain for some sides in the dwhous, whether you're looking at steve bannon and what not. but we sue thaw the president s up for kushner this morning. he's going to be on solid ground. the president is not going to distance himself from cukushner >> they're gearing up to set up a war room of sorts. give us a sense of how this is going to work out.

you're hearing calls from ski republican figures like senator john mccain and other, adam schif schiff,. is the white house war room going to be in crisis mode to handle this? >> the war room is about addition, not subtraction. what that means is they're talking about bringing people in, not necessarily getting rid of people. there may be a few people whose roles are diminished. for example i would be surprised if we continue to see the sean spicer daily press briefing. but i think we're going to see some figures, david bosy who was on the came pan, i wouldn't be surprise fd he comes into the white house. corey lewandowski is likely to be involved. reince priebus despises despise lewandowski. but he's going tore involved.

we're going to see some older hands from the campaign. they call themselves street fighters and that's what they are. people that donald trump thinks that can do this sort of hard defensive work that's needed at this point. >> and if you consider many of the revelations that are actually being leaked to the press are coming from within the white house itself, how effective do you think this war room will be in trying to curb some of the leaks, trying to get the situation under control? >> because there have so many factions in the white house and so many people skpeeth for the ear of the president and so many who understand if they want to get a message to the president they can leak tight the "new york times" or the washington post and that will get to him. so it think it's going to be hard to contain the leaks. they're so sparawling. they're coming from all parts of the government. there are so many people leaking information that are in some ways frustrated with what

they're seeing, either frustrated with people within the white house or frustrated with the president himself and want to force him to make decisions through the media. >> so when you're looking at this from the white house perspective, they're consumed with the various leaks, the russia investigation. leadership probably wants to move away from this, to get to budget open healand health care. seems they're being consumed by this as well. americans generally care about both issues, they want to know what's going on with the russia investigation but they also want things done on capitol hill. >> they're consumed with this right now and they don't want to be consumed with it. the leaders on capitol hill want to get past the russia investigation but the leaks and the news stories need to stop breaking. there's in chance they can move on with health care and tax reform as even the president wants with the new stories breaking that are based off of internal leaks from the intelligent committee in the

white house. as long as that's continuing to happen, it's impossible for them to move on to other issues. >> when the president was overseas in europe, you're reporting that president trump told multiple people that he plans to leave the paris agreement on climate change. what is the whois officially saying about that and if the u.s. does pull out, why does this mat center. >> well, the white house is officially saying he hasn't made up his mind and he's going to make up his mind this week. donald trump has told multiple people recently, including skrot scott pruitt that he plans to exit the paris deal. the big caveat with donald trump is he can change his mind. but scott pruitt is preparing and may have presented a detail plan for withdrawal to the president. why does it matter? it's a huge deal. it's a global climate aaccord. the united states would be exciting. there are 195 countries that

remain in it. it sends a signal for what the united states policy will be in the future with regards to climate change and it's a huge break from the g7. we saw how much donald trump unsettled angela merkel and some oval t of the other european leaders last week. >> i want to ask you about something -- the "the new york times" and the washington post have been doing some ground breaking reporting, a lot of it based on information coming out of the white house. the issue of leaks, particularly classified information taking center stage. we saw it play out this week with the manchester concert information, some of those details coming out in the "the new york times." i want to play you a sound bite from john kelly. this is what he said on "meet the press "this morning. >> if it came from the united states it's totally unacceptable and i don't know why people do these kind of things, but it's borderline, if not over the line of treason. >> so as somebody who is in

touch with the white house, breaking news all of the time, relying on a lot of information coming out of there, what do you think of secretary kelly calling it treason? >> i mean i mean, i think as a reporter, people become reporters because they want to get out information they think is public and they think it is important to the public. so in some ways, it is not right to call it treason. but i understand it is disturbing as a national figure and you don't want this information leaked. obviously, britain was very upset about the information coming out. but i think if someone is giving us information and information we deem to be important for the public to know, then i think as journalists we have to do that. >> all right. we're still getting information on this as investigations continue to play out. thank you to all of you for joining us this memorial day

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good morning, everyone. i'm ayman mohyeldin at the msnbc headquarters. at this hour, president trump is

marking the nation's holiday at the tomb of the unknown soldier before delivering remarks honoring fallen service members. we just heard the 21-gun salute meaning president trump is on the grounds there at arlington. we'll also hear remarks from defense secretary james mattis and chairman of the joint chiefs joseph dunford. we'll bring you all the comments live. you're seeing the vice president there. joining me now is colonel jack jacobs and medal of honor recipient and military analyst malcolm nans, retired chief and msnbc terror analyst, kevin barrett, and military analyst and executive editor of defense one in allen lickman, distinguished history professor and presidential historian. gentlemen, good to have you with us. you see there, the secretary of defense, james mattis, as well. malcolm nance and colonel jack jacob, i'm going to start with you, retired military, talk about the importance of today

and what today means to both of you. colonel jacobs, i'll begin with you, sir. >> well, for those of us who spent time in uniform, but particularly those of us who spent time in combat, defending the country, this is a very important day. most people celebrate it by getting together and having a good time. and that's a good thing. but what's really important for us is that we, we all do, but we remember those who fought alongside us and did not come home to enjoy the fruits of freedom, of their labors, of their sacrifice. so those of us who left spent a lot of our time, not just on memorial day, thinking about those people who sacrificed so that we can enjoy today back in the united states. >> malcolm nance, i know you served as well, and i wanted to get your take on the significance and the importance of this day for you. >> well, it's extremely

important for me, as colonel jacobs said. this is about memorializing our comrades and fellows in arms that didn't come home. and as i'm a combat veteran, and my family has served in every war since the civil war, and i'm fortunate that we all came home. but there's this tinge of regret with all of us who understand how our peers and our comrades' families feel, especially those who are gold star parents. and it breaks our heart to have to, you know, go and meet them and remember those who were lost. and so for me, it's very personal. it's very personal. i've lost numerous of my coworkers, people who i have trained, in iraq and afghanistan, lebanon, and so it's very important that we as a nation come together on this one day and leave our personal partisanship and passions behind and remember those people who

gave the ultimate sacrifice for this nation. >> kevin barrett, i'm going to come to you in a moment, but i want to cross over to kristen welker at the white house. kristen, we talk so much about the political bickering in this country, but what can we expect to hear from the president today on this hollowed ground? >> reporter: well, typically, ayman, memorial day and this ceremony that we are watching unfold is a moment for politics to be put aside. the president will likely deliver remarks that pay tribute to those who have made the ultimate sacrifice, to really focus on the service and the sacrifice and to not delve into some of the news of the day topics. obviously, we'll be listening closely to see if he veers from that in any way, shape or form. but he was tweeting earlier this morning about memorial day, giving us perhaps a little bit of an indication of what he might say. he tweeted, honoring the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice and service to america. home of the free because of the

brave. #memorialday. so that could be a little bit of a preview of what we can expect to hear from the president when he makes his remarks. >> kristen welker live from the white house. we'll take a listen now as president trump has arrived at arlington national cemetery. >> present! >> present! ♪ [ national anthem playing ]

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