luke, elena, alyssa, helena, scott, joaquin oliver, karen, as well as a man named aaron fieft. he was an assistant football coach and security guard at marjorie stoneman douglas high school. according to the school, he sacrificed himself to protect the students. beloved member of this community, aaron along with more than a dozen others was taken away from them too soon. yesterday marked the 273rd school shooting in this country since sandy hook. that brings this difficult hour to a close for me. thank you for watching. deadline white house with nicolle wallace starts right now. >> hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york but our attention is in parkland, florida this hour where 17 people have lost their lives and at least 14 more have been injured in the learning the name victims as alli went through

them, lives cut short by this individual. the accused shooter of wednesday's massacre, nikolas cruz was arraigned today. donald trump addressed the nation today. >> i want to speak now directly to america's children, especially those who feel lost, alone, confused, or even scared. i want you to know that you are never alone and you never will be. you have people who care about you, who love you, and who will do anything at all to protect you. later this month, i will be meeting with the nation's governors and attorney generals. we are making our schools and our children safer will be our top priority. it is not enough to simply take actions that make us feel like we are making a difference.

we must actually make that difference. >> those public comments followed a morning tweet from the president that read, quote, so many signs that the florida shooter was mentally disturbed, even expelled from school forbad and erratic behavior. neighbors and classmates knew he was a big problem. must always report such instances to authorities again and again. here are all of the actions the community had taken to flag the alleged shooter's troubling behavior prior to yesterday again and again. they identified cruz as a threat to the school. they expelled him from school for disciplinary reasons. the teachers warned via e-mail not to allow him on campus with a back pack. they warned the fbi about a youtube video posted by a user named nikolas cruz who said, i'm going to be a professional school shooter, according to reports. it's also been reported that cruz was an outpatient treatment at a mental health facility hes

hadn't visited in more than a year. despite all this he is believed to have passed a background check and lawfully purchased an automatic weapon. students, teachers and parents from the marjorie stoneman douglas high school community spoke out today about the president's response. >> i feel like he really needs to take into consideration all this gun control. there is no reason that a kid 19 years old that's been investigated already and not even a year ago being able to purchase an ar-15 in our county right here. >> the latest statistic on, you know, school violence and as a society, you know, as americans we're failing our children. we're not keeping them safe and congress is failing us and the government is failing us and something has to be done. >> i don't want something like this ever to happen again. i want us to take action and i don't want this just to be another mass shooting. i want this to be the last mass shooting. >> president trump, if you're watching, we know you watch the news.

a lot of these people may not have voted for you, but come here. look them in the face and tell them that you're going to do something. you ran that you were a different person. you were an elected official. you wanted to make america great again. come here and tell these people, these families that you're going to help them. >> let's get right to our reporters and guests. nbc's hallie jackson joins us from the white house. washington post white house reporter ashley parker is also with us. joining us at the table, philip gump from the washington post, john heilman, nbc news and msnbc national affairs analyst. eddy, princeton university professor and msnbc contributor. and dave cohen is here, journalist and author of the book columbine. dave, let me start with you. i saw a note, your gut reaction. i don't know if it's been tempered at all. what did you think when you saw the president's comments this morning? >> infuriating because he gave a 7-minute kind of poem and didn't say anything he was going to do.

that's not his job. actually list nings to him again now, i was reminded of something different. the morning after columbine, the first big assembly was light of the world church when they got together the first time. there were 20 different officials who spoke from the community, fire department, schools, blah, blah, blah, everything. the kids sat sort of stone faced and listened politely. you could just see them just kind of distraught that all the speeches were sort of like that. and they didn't want to hear that. kids aren't dumb. kids are incredibly smart. and they want to know what you're going to do about this. they don't want all these pl platitudes. they want know what you're going to do. the first standing ovation was for the principal who said, this is going to be really hard. this is going to be really rough. it's going to be awful. i'm not going to sugar coat it, but i'm going to be there with you, and we're going to get through this together.

here's our plan. and also said, i don't have a plan yet. we're figuring it out. but he was going to do something. those kids -- they're my new heroes reacting to trump. all right, what are you going to do? we don't want you to like pet us and patronize us and tell us it's going to be okay. your job is to change something. what are you going to change? we can agree or disagree, but so far zilch, he's got nothing. >> i have two thoughts. one i'm not sure you can say b.s. on television. the other thought i had -- >> i believe you can, i believe you just did. and i'm pretty sure you guys don't have the 7-second delay on this show. as i've been warned on many occasions. >> i'm grieved to hear the compassion from someone unfiltered. i had the same thought listening to the kids. i have to say that i had this feeling listening to these students that there is so much asymmetry to the trump presidency that normal lawmakers, normal reporters don't know how to cover him. well, he just met his match in,

i think there were about 3200 students at the school yesterday, because they are of a different era and they have footage that we wouldn't air as a news organization. they have comments. they have a platform. and they rapidly responded to him and they cut right through the -- what he said. >> i know a lot of kids -- >> you're still cool with the kids. >> i have a lot of friends who are breeders. let's put it that way. i have a lot of kids around. i find liberals, kids of parents, are the most savvy people. donald trump is not a creation of media. by and large they all look at him, people talk about young children being scared of trump. i'm sure there are children of immigrants who are scared in this environment, no doubt. but by and large, the vibe that i get off of kids around trump is that he's a clown. they sort of like see it as an act. they see it as this is another television performance. so, when they're in a situation

like this where their lives have been lost, of their peers, they very quickly move from he's an act that kind of can be dismissed as funny to, this is just all that word that dave just said. >> hallie jackson, i guess this becomes the lead today, because the gun debate is mired in the intractable. the statement from the podium after the massacre in las vegas was, it's too soon. we're just sending thoughts and prayers because it's too soon to talk about gun control. on the other side of that debate, democrats and everyone who disagrees with that position almost talks of themselves. what these kids did this morning by responding in real time to donald trump was almost d decapitate the gun debate in america. i want to play it again because i really think they cut right to it. i wonder if you heard anything from the white house, and if the white house is preparing for a visit to that community

differently based on the students responding in real-time to the president's comments this morning. >> reporter: so, i'll tell you this, nicolle. i think what we are hearing today is what we have heard many times in the past, and that has been that this is a moment for the nation to come together. you heard the president himself say it. not about -- and again, we keep saying this every time horrifically there's another shooting, as there has been in this administration, past administration, not a time for policy, right? those kids, as you rightly point out and your guests at the table point out, have changed that. they want to talk about policy. they are the survivors, they are the victims here, and they are the ones who want to have the conversation. everybody says we need to listen to their voices or defer to the victims and survivors here. in deferring to them you would be having the policy conversation. i think there will be pressure on the president to say something policy related potentially when he heads to parkland. we know those plans are in the works. we don't know specifics yet of exactly where he's going to go. will he visit the hospital, will the first lady be visiting him.

parkland is not too far from mar-a-lago. it was expected this would happen given the president was traveling down to south florida for the weekend. i would also just point out, you talked about the statement from the podium after las vegas. there was no statement from the podium after this shooting. the president waited a day to come out and deliver those statements from the diplomatic room. that was i think the president and folks who wondered where the president was in this instance, why he didn't say something sooner. obviously one last point because i sat in that briefing room and asked sarah sanders and others, you've said in the past it wasn't the time to talk about policy, specifically gun control, after a school shooting, which again, we have seen after a mass shooting we have seen in this administration. yet after other horrific events, for example, terrorist attacks, there is a conversation about policy. so in those moments you press officials here on the record about why those two things are different. what makes that different. and there is not a clear answer to that, nicolle. >> it's a great point. ashley parker, i sat in this chair because tragically it was the 4:00 hour that the terrorist

attack on halloween took place in new york city. yesterday it was just before the 4:00 hour that the deadliest school shooting in florida state history went down. hallie is absolutely right. an entirely different response. the facts were not all known on halloween, yet the white house weighed in i believe on vetting and immigration policy and the lottery system. we're now, i think it was about the 20-hour mark before the president addressed the nation, and your colleague phil rucker sent out a tweet last night that caught my attention. he said he was in the white house when president obama went to the briefing room after sandy hook the very same day, and that there was almost a chilling sensation to getting the news yesterday that these aren't phil's words, but i thought when i read his tweet, a lid had been put on, there would be no comment from the president of the united states after the deadliest school shooting in florida state history last night.

>> you're right, phil's tweet was spot on. and it was interesting to see how this administration chose to handle it. as hallie pointed out, there is an argument they are making sort of publicly and privately, he wanted to make sure all those facts were known. it's not the time to talk about policy. but that's a little disingenuous because on a number of other issues, especially when it's sort of a foreign, something he believes is tied to terror than pure domestic violence, he's more than willing to weigh in with a tweet or comment before all the facts are known. and sometimes when the facts are still coming in and he ends up being proven a little wrong. and one thing that makes a big difference, of course, is his base and politics. you'll notice in today's speech about six minutes he did not mention the word gun once. his base is very eager to hear from him, for instance using an

attack to make immigration policy, his base all supports gun rights. and it is just not an area he feels comfortable wading into and going against his base on this. so, he is feeling more pressure potentially from the students and those comments. it is interesting as they pointed out, we may not be your voters. well, that is a very interesting question. because they are not necessarily his base and his voters, does that change how he handles things 12 things? we're going to have to wait and see friday. >> hallie, i want to put this up. president bush at ground zero, 9/11 was controversial. that he spoke to the nation was not in question. president clinton after oklahoma city, never a question whether or not he spoke for the nation against the atrocities carried out by timothy mcvay. president obama, whether or not you came down in favor or opposed to the gun control measures president obama and vice-president biden fought valiantly for after newtown, there was no doubt that in

president obama's comments after newtown when he went there, that he spoke for the nation. i wonder if there is any sense, hallie, at the white house, do they think they succeedsed in speaking for the nation this morning. >> reporter: i think that they will tell you that the president spoke for the nation. and i'm not sure that that's how it was received in every corner of this country, nicolle. i'm not sure that is surprising either given where we are right now in this moment politically, in this moment culturally. you have people that are extraordinarily dissatisfied with what donald trump said today. partly for the reason ashley points out, that he never once said the word gun. and then there's the tweet. >> so, he tweeted, he essentially blamed the community for the atrocity yesterday. the president tweeting, quote, so many signs that the florida shooter was mentally disturbed, even expelled from school forbad behavior. neighbors and classmates knew he was a big problem. must always report such instances to authorities again and again. do you think the white house thinks -- do you think they're

proud to work for a guy who essentially blamed the community, said they needed to report things again and again when the community did just that? >> reporter: yeah, i don't know i can speak to the level of pride for the staffers, nicolle. there are those who would point out neighbors and class made did think that there was something -- these red flags with this young man, obviously very troubled angry person, the suspected shooter here. and i think that in that instance what you hear again and again, you know this, is the president's tweets speak for themselves. the white house has done a job, not just today in this instance, but certainly has made a real effort over the last year to distance themselves from donald trump's twitter and that extends all the way up the chain to the basically second in command at the west wing to john kelly himself. >> dave, i'll bring it back to you because you're my b.s. guy today. how do you reconcile an early morning tweet blaming the community for saying it's their job to go to the authorities again and again which we listed all the ways in which they did,

to coming out and saying we're going to do whatever you need? >> pretty irreconcilable. i think, i think the culture has gotten to a weird place where actually i saw some statistics in media reporting. the last couple big shootings, there's been not much coverage. the one in kentucky we barely heard about it. i heard about it the next day because i wasn't watching my news feed closely. even though i think the church shooting in texas, it was about two days where they're usually five or six days. and i think the country is reaching sort of a compassion fatigue, but also a frustration level and throwing up our hands, we can't do anything about this. but this has sort of brought it back, i guess it's because it's kids again and because those images yesterday were so horrifying of kids running out of the school. this is -- the country has been horrified again. our horror level has gone back up. i keep wondering if there is a moment -- it seems like people have reached a point of really

frustration and like god -- whatever. when are they going to do something? instead of just like oh, they never do anything, like why are we putting up with them not doing anything? i don't know. i'm in new york and i talk to a lot of media people. if i'm in a bubble, but i really get a sense from lots of victims i talk to and people out in the country, you know, i'm from chicago. they're like -- >> it is something. >> i don't know what it's going to take to break that logjam. people are ready to punch a wall kind of mode. >> so, president obama tried to speak to this. he tweeted, we're grieving with parker but we're not powerless. caring for our kids is our first job and until we can honestly say we're doing enough to keep them safe from harm including long overdue common sense gun safety laws that most americans want then we have to change. the person who has tweeted out the most compelling poll numbers for support is our republican colleague joe scarborough. something like 80 plus people

support background checks. 70 plus people support not letting people buy automatic weapons which is what the shooter used yesterday. this is not even a right/left divide. this is a majority megaminority. >> i've been struggling to find words to respond to this because as a parent, you know, you worry about your child. even though mine -- >> i cried all the way home. >> dave has the profanity switch. >> yeah, i think i sent in this amazingly emotional text this morning. i know he thought something was wrong with me. but, look, we're not going to be able to address this. we're not going to be able to do anything until we're honest about the problem. this is not a right to bear arms issue. this is a right to sell arms. this is greed. this is pure unadulterated greed. folks are making money off of selling these weapons and they don't want to stop. they don't want to undo their business model. they don't care if an ar-15,

nicolle, is killing our children. they don't care if it's killing our first graders, right. they want to make money. and until we admit that that's what's driving paul ryan, that's what's driving donald trump, that's -- that drove tom delay, right, in 2004 to let it expire, that it's money. money is allowing these folks to allow our babies to die, period. >> you write about how this is a uniquely american problem. >> i mean, it's sort of obvious. we simply don't see these stories around the world. >> should be. >> that's true, should be. i think one of the things that's interesting and different about what happened yesterday is it almost seems like there was a sort of generational shift. we saw these young people who for us, all of us are old enough now we're still sort of amazed this is happening. for them, they grew up with it. we saw stories of them talking casually we have shooter drills. when i was a kid we never had -- that didn't exist.

i think that combined with the fact they are social media savvy, so aware of how they can represent their voice out in the world, the combination of those two things in addition to giving us these -- we throw them into schools, warn them killers are coming and give them tools to record the killers killing them. this is a baffling thing. we got to see through their eyes what was happening to them in their schools and then we got to hear from them. not only are they used to the fact of life people will come into their school to kill you, they're used to this intractability. they are better than we are to step back and say, hey, this is a thing that should change. and i think that what a lot of people, including president trump rely on, is this idea that it's the same old, going to continue forever. that apathy is self-fulfilling. these kids recognize, not necessarily beyond intuitively, that is something that they themselves -- >> actually, a quick last word to ashley parker because we're going to lose her. any sense the white house is preparing any differently for this trip? this is their first time to --

that i can recall, go down and comfort a community suffering specifically from a mass school shooting. >> the short answer is they're still trying to figure that out. we don't exactly know where they're going yet, but they are going to go. there was a recognition that he -- and this is someone who has floated the rules of politics many times, but there was a recognition that he could not go down to mar-a-lago just about 45 minutes, an hour's drive from this community and not do something there. so, while the specifics are being worked out, he is headed down and they do know he has to address it in some way. >> all right. i'm rooting for the students. hallie jackson and ashley parker thank you for starting us off. as we come back even as the horrific school shooting happened yesterday, they are calling for tougher gun control measures. could the cries from the blue lives that donald trump su purports to value so much be the ones that begin to breakthrough the intractable debate about gun rights in marc? steve bannon spends close to 20 hours with the special counsel investigators.

what we are learning this hour about mueller's latest witness. and a white house security crisis. while the white house seeks to steady the nation in the wake of yesterday's tragedy, new reporting from nbc news that dozens of high-level white house advisors do not hold security clearances. stay with us. we'll be right back. whoooo.

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certainly more money should go to mental health. i've said this time and time again. if we tear a knee, we go to a neurosurgeon. if we have mental health issues we go to be treated. people with mental health

illnesses in this country are being treated. the opinion of this sheriff, they should not be able to buy, surround themselves, purchase or carry a hand gun. those two things don't mix. >> as the tragedy unfolded in florida, we were struck by the near unanimous consensus in law enforcement officials that school shootings represented a new normal in america. so, we wondered if the law and order president might be moved by these voices from the law enforcement community. >> at what point are we going to start to rethink how we deal with weapons in this country. it's not a coincidence that we have a much looser gun control policy and we have a lot more active shooter situations compared to the european countries. >> we get so angry about this issue that here we are again. there's going to be grieving families tonight again. there's going to be 3,000 families concerned for their child again. and the u.s. senate is sitting around basically discussing, well, let's get everybody a gun

so that, you know, in terms -- meanwhile, the senate is one of the most heavily fortified places in america. can't carry it into the u.s. senate but you can carry it anyplace else in america. when are we going to smart enup? >> let's bring in the assistant director for counter intelligence, now a msnbc national security analyst. and strategist also with us. frank, the second voice you heard there on the tape, that was former new york police department commissioner bill brat en. he was with us yesterday as this tragedy unfolded, making the comment before we even knew the extent of the horrors in parkland, florida, where the senate where you can't take a gun are about to vote on conceal and carry, carry guns with more ease across state lines. your thoughts? >> yeah, the solution to our gun violence is not putting more guns in people's hands because when you do that, then you're putting guns in more hands of people who have mental illness. so, even those who say, look,

it's all about mental illness are trapped by their own argument. because if it's all about mental illness and you give those people guns, you have additional problems. so, we need to attack this in a holistic fashion on a number of fronts. clearly it's time to take some steps to get guns out of the hands of people who should never have gotten them in the first place. >> i think the point i want to make is something that came up clinton watts said. i moved to london in 1990, so 27, 28 years ago and was there for several years. one of the things that strikes you when you get to europe, it's more pronounced now, europeans in general look at things in america, things they like rkz things they don't like. what baffles them is why america has this phenomenon, mass shootings, gun violence in general, particularly the school shootings. when you talk to criminologists and people who study this matter on an international level, what they will point out to you again and again, one of the

fundamental truths people don't always get is that other countries are just as violent as america is. violence is not an american phenomenon. you can find violence in a lot of western industrialized countries. it's just that the violence that breaks out at a pub in london, or at a bar in berlin or anyplace else in the developed world, that does not end up being lethal because of the fact they don't have as many guns. the reality is that i'm not trying to push some gun control agenda. i'm just fryitrying to make a p. there are lots of complicated things going on here. eddy and i were talking about this earlier. why have mass shootings grown, not just a lot in the last 20 years, but in the last 2 1/2 or three years. why is there this sudden explosion and proliferation of school shootings. that is a complicated cultural question. lots of questions. at the heart of this when donald trump gets up on television and says, we will do anything at all to protect you, anything at all to protect you, except have a conversation about the one thing that explains on a really basic

level why america, which is not more violent than the rest of the world, but is much more deadly, why that is, which is about the prevalence of these weapons of mass destruction. >> steve, i want to speak to you -- you and i are the two non-practicing republicans in this conversation, and we carry the most culpability of a party being held hostage by the nra. the nra is a gun lobby out of step with the vast majority of its members that support more common sense gun measures. most gun owners are for things like gun locks and gun saves. most gun owners are for background checks. i want to ask you something. democrats who are for gun control are fine with doing more for the mentally ill, but republicans who are for doing more for the mentally ill, never, ever, ever, ever want to have a conversation about gun control. when is the republican party going wake up and realize it has blood on its hands?

>> yeah, nicolle, i've got to be honest talking about this issue today. i have to disclose my just utter rage, rage over the reality that i have three kids, 14, 11 and 5, and this is the country that they're growing up in. and like every parent in america, i have this sick feeling when i drop my kids off at school in the morning that i'm playing some game of russian roulette with their lives. and the reality is they don't have active shooter drills in vancouver and in toronto and in ottowa. this is february 15th and this is the 18th mass shooting in a school. and part of the sickness in our democracy is that we're unable in this country to even have a conversation about this. and the truth of the matter isi answer about what exactly to do over this horror, this tragedy.

and the fact that we'll be at the 19th and 20th and 21st school shootings before much longer. i don't know what to do about it, but i do know that we have to have a conversation. and there is a fundamentally larger question on the table, and that is what type of country do we want to live in. do we want to live like this? and if we have leaders who are held hostage through their timidity and cowardice by the special interest groups, we need to get the special interest groups out of there. >> let me put up polls. 79% of respond entitles support banning assault weapons, 20% oppose. among republicans and democrats, that breaks down to 70% of republicans who support banning assault-style weapons. 91% of democrats.

requiring background checks for all gun buyers, 95%. there's not much, 95% of americans agree on at all. but 95% of americans agree on background checks. >> yes, that's true. however, there are other polls that ask a more simple question, which is do you support or oppose stronger controls on guns. and in those polls it's about even nationally. and in those polls, republicans a majority two-thirds of republicans say, we oppose those things. if you're a republican legislator, you know that the primary ads that are going to be run against you by republicans who want your seat is not going to be, yes, he stood up for background checks, he advocated for new gun control measures, right. and so the politics -- it seems as though background checks could be an easy lift. the senate tried to do this and failed in bipartisan legislation. >> on newtown. >> after newtown.

i think it is important mr. schmidt made reference to, there is no conversation here. and part of the reason there is no conversation, this is a hard position to defend publicly. there is a reason you never want to talk about the politics of gun control immediately after a shooting and that is because what are you going to say in what's your defense beyond, well, the second amendment exists. this is a tough -- >> let me show you what paul ryan said today. paul ryan said -- do we have this sound? you want me to read it? let's hear what paul ryan said today after another school shooting. >> that is not the time to jump to some conclusion, not knowing the full facts. we've got a lot more information we need to know. but if someone who is mentally ill is slipping through the cracks and getting a gun because we have laws on the books -- we have a system to prevent people from getting guns who aren't to get guns. if there are gaps we need to look at the gaps. >> they're not slipping through the cracks because donald trump signed a bill revoking the obama era gun checks for people with mental illness. the rule which was finalized in december added people receiving

social security checks for mental illnesses and people deemed unfit to handle their own financial affairs to the national background check database had the rule fully taken effect, the obama administration predicted it would have added 75,000 names to that database. we'll never know if those 75 ,000 people would have carried out a shooting. >> what did we see from speaker ryan? did we see cowardice? more than likely. self interest? probably. so part of what we begin to interrogate what's driving this, what's blocking the conversation and what's driving our ongoing obsession with guns, it has something to do with the complicity of politicians with business models i mentioned earlier, it has something to do with the cowardice of everyday folk. it has to do with culture. this is something we have to think about. there is a toxic masculinity at

the heart of this gun culture, rooted in a myth about who we take ourselves to be. american, rugged individualism. the government is not going to protect you, we can protect ourselves, right? and there is a way in which this ar-15 is actually the weapon of the minute man. there is this old myth around it so we have to begin to imagine ourselves differently. i think we need a revolution of value in this country, a moral revolution where we begin to change what we care about. what we demand of ourselves, what we take to be actually valuable. let me just say this, too. every day in certain communities, babies are walking to school having to deal with gun violence. every day in this community certain parents in certain communities, parents are bearing their children because of gun violence. so, there are some people in this country right now, folks that i know who are in my family, who are friends, who have to deal with this matter as this issue, as a matter of day to day circumstance. and it's all because, as john

said, this gun culture, this gun culture that makes people money. >> i just want to take exception to what eddy said because toxic masculinity can't be the answer here. women constantly engage in mass shootings. oh, wait, no, there are none of these mass shootings in this history post columbine, i don't believe there is a single one -- someone will correct me out there if i'm wrong. i don't think there is one -- >> in alabama. >> so, out of these hundreds that we've had, hundreds of cases, we can find two where a woman has been involved, and hundreds, literally hundreds in which men, and almost exclusively not exclusively, but almost exclusively young white men. >> and remember -- >> have been -- my sarcasm is eddy is very important. some of the most interesting conversations happening right now, it's a question i started asking this morning on this network, i don't understand what's going on. why is there -- why is this

accelerating. is there some change in policy, the economic incentive has always been there. there's been some loosening you pointed out in trump politics. what's going on? more things are happening. what's happening in the culture? i don't have the answer, but somewhere it's in santa roociol in anthropology, it's something about the crisis of -- that's going on among masculine identity among young white men in america. there is something in there -- >> i think you are making a different point, you're making a racial point as well, that people in urban settings -- we're talking about this because, let's be honest, 17 white kids -- i think you're making a good point, eddy. >> i'm making a point about -- i'm making two points really. i'm saying this is kind of broad cultural narrative we have to change, that we have to challenge. the reason why we have the difference of the question, breaks it down that makes it difficult, there is a certain way which we have imagined what it means to be american, and the gun is at the heart of it, a kind of rugged individualism

that gets represented. the new york daily news, this is us. we have to challenge it. the second part about it is exactly racial. i wish you guys were having this conversation. in chicago, in jackson, mississippi, in oakland, right? they're living with -- >> the slow motion -- >> exactly. >> that's why we need the sheriff and people like that who are sort of the symbols of masculinity. those people and maybe the kids to start to move this conversation, which has been stuck. i think we need new spokespeople and new tactics. like last summer the health care debate, people screaming at their congressmen, meetings where they didn't want to have the meetings, we need kids showing up and parents and yelling and saying, our kids are going to die. how are you going to help our kids? that has to happen. they're afraid to go to their constituent meetings. i think until that happens, until kids and sheriffs like this guy are standing up, that's what's going to change this

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breaking news, in the last couple of hours nbc news reports former white house chief strategist steve bannon met with special counsel robert mueller multiple days this week for a total of about 20 hours, and today he spoke with house intel committee. according to the highest ranking democrat, was not particularly forthcoming. >> it went so far to refuse to answer questions about conversations he had after he left the administration and with people who played no role in the administration, had never been in the administration. there is no plausible claim of privilege that could apply to those circumstances. what's more, the only questions he would answer were questions

that have been scripted, literally scripted for him by the white house. a set of 25 questions that had been written out for him, to which the answer to each must be no. >> nbc's hallie jackson broke the news and is back with us. hallie, what do we know? >> reporter: so, contrast in case studies here today, nicolle, because while you have adam schiff complaining steve bannon didn't answer many questions in front of house intelligence committee today, we have learned from two sources familiar with the proceedings that steve bannon did meet with bob mueller's team, did talk with the special counsel over a period of about two days this week, roughly 20 hours i'm told. bannon was answering questions, being interviewed over a series of a couple of days here in washington. now, this is not unexpected. we have been hearing for weeks now that bannon would meet with the special counsel, but this is the first time we are getting an indication that it happened and that it wasn't a brief discussion if you base it on that time period, nicolle, a couple of days and some 20 hours of this. ly tell you a couple weeks ago i was having a conversation with a

source who said, yeah, steve bannon, a person close to him, will answer any questions robert mueller has. he will be, this is right on the first time steve bannon showed up at house intel, and again asserted executive privilege, did not answer many questions. and the foreshadowing then was it was going to be a real different story when bob mueller comes calling, apparently that has been the case. this is significant for a couple of reasons. steve bannon was there in the inner circle for donald trump, not just on the campaign, not just during the transition, but also in the administration as chief strategist. this is something who straddled sort of all the worlds of donald trump and all these really critical time periods being pulled in talking with the special counsel, who obviously wanted to get steve bannon in to have this conversation with him. this is somebody who could potentially have a lot of things to say. >> frank, we know or we learned publicly bob mueller was interested in steve bannon after "fire and fury" came out and quoted steve bannon as saying this. quote, you realize where this is going. this is all about money

laundering. mueller chose the money laundering guy. the path of [ bleep ]ing trump goes right through manafort, don junior. it's as plain as the hair on your face. what would you do if you were bob mueller's investigator with a witness like steve bannon? >> so, yeah, today we've got the tale of two bannons. the one that's really not kooptding with congress and the one that spent two days, ten-hour days back to back talking to mueller's team. he's forecast what he thinks the investigation is about. he's publicly stated i think it's about money laundering. he's publicly stated the trump tower meeting was treasonous. obviously the mueller team is going to be asking him, mr. bannon, tell us a little more why you think that trump tower was treasonous. tell us why you think we're investigating money laundering and he's going to lay that out and apparently he has to the tune of 20 hours. the other thing bannon holds keys to, he was a direct point of contact with cambridge

analytica. campaign research. >> right. >> what was being done for opposition research? what e-mails were hacked or privy to? what was the role of russia with regard to the campaign? bannon has information on that. my guess is he's cooperating and telling what he knows to mueller. i'm also intrigued by his lack of cooperation with the hill. here's why. i believe that mcgahn, the white house counsel, is pulling the strings and dictating what can and cannot be answered because of executive privilege. and that's a problem for mcgahn. why? he's a witness/subject himself and he seems to be dictating what people can and cannot say possibly about him. that's a conflict of interest. he should be recusing himself. >> steve schmidt, quickly, a person with bannon's role in the campaign would know everything that happened on the campaign. >> he saw everything, and there is that astonishing scene in the

wolff book where he's yelling at hope hicks, she involves in drafting the statement where the president orders the white house to lie about don junior's meeting with the russian intelligence agents. steve bannon says to hope hicks, do you know what you've done? i'm going to call your father. so, when you read that book, the feeling that i get is that steve bannon is many things, dumb is not one of them. and i suspect that he has stayed out of the traps that so many of these west wing officials have put themselves in going forward. so, the very interesting testimony obviously for the special counsel and there's no doubt that steve bannon knows everything that went on in that white house for the time that he served there. and i think that's problematic i suspect for a number of white house officials. >> i want to give you the last word and ask you if you heard this. someone told me that steve bannon may be crazy, but he's not going to jail for donald trump. what's the level of anxiety in the white house about bannon? >> reporter: i wouldn't be surprised that somebody did say

that, nicolle. i wouldn't doubt that level of accuracy. the white house has sort of said publicly they're not concerned about what steve bannon has to say. this came up last month in some of the briefings here at the white house. but unlike some people in donald trump's orbit that are loyal to the very end, i think somebody like michael cohen who paid $130,000 to somebody, we don't know why. i'm not sure steve bannon fits in that category, although he has been very public, came out to reassert that he is there for the president, that he is loyal to donald trump. so, we'll see. >> we shall see. that is true. hallie jackson, thank you. congrats on your big scoop. after the break, nbc news out with another huge scoop about the more than 130 political appointees working for the president without permanent security clearances. stay with us.

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the white house. stunning reporting by our colleagues details that more than 130 political appointees working in the executive office of the president didn't have permanent security clearances as of last november. including the president's daughter, his son-in-law and his top legal counsel. frank and steve and panel are here. frank, what do you make of that for the normal pace of the clearances. the senior staff is cleared almost immediately. >> this smells badly. to be a year into an administration and have 130 folks still not cleared smacks of a real issue. so let's understand the process. the fbi knocks these out as quickly as possible when it involved white house access. you knock them out and get leads, a field office stops what they are doing. it is called a spin inquiry, special inquiry. they put their best people on it and give the results immediately to the white house. they flag any derogatory -- i

can remember as a young agent getting derogatory on a white house spin walking into my supervisor office and be -- and getting on a phone with headquarters and explaining i found derogatory on someone with access to the white house. everything stops. so there is a problem in the white house. and the spokesperson for the white house continue to say things doan make sense. the fbi gave us the results. but they didn't give us the results. they give the white house security office the results which isn't the white house. that is what is going on. >> and there is news, phil, that trey gowdy, actually doing the job of oversight has now asked fbi director wray and chief of staff kelly for all of the documentation that frank just describes for everyone that has sought background checks. but if you talk about derogatory, i started to sweat thinking about what might come up on my background check or steve schmidts but we both passed. but if anything had been

flagged, we would have been interrogated by the fbi and then by our white house supervisors who was the chief of staff and fired. so this is a slow motion calamity isn't going anywhere for this white house and if they fire them all today, what were the people without clearances doing with classified information for the last 14 months. >> that is the key question and the way that sarah huckabee-sanders waived that away -- >> who doesn't have a permanent -- >> and she said media is responsible for the leaks. but fbi director wray testified on the hill and called this out noting they had gone back and for rob porter given information to the white house in march, a preliminary thing that sounded like it was an initial, hey we found derogatory information and they came back and they needed more information and gave them that in november and by january nothing had been done. -- and i spoke with a guy doing this for decades and because he

reached out and said this is bad and this is not how it works and the way he described this was the white house was in a political situation where they couldn't fire rob porter because they needed rob porter and so they essentially ignored it. that's the way he framed it to me. and that is the broad concern that people should have. >> and it should be noted real quickly that they once again blame career officials when confronted the facts they have laid out. >> there is a -- yes, that is a reflexive thing they tend to do. but this is -- this is just a unmitigated -- there is a r-- a lot of lies told here and you look for someone to blame because we don't know the facts here and i'm glad trey gowdy is trying to get at it. you have the porter thing and a much bigger set of questions. >> we have to sneak in our last break but we'll be right back.

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shooting and shooting that results in the death of 17 innocent people at a high school in parkland, florida, yesterday. that is according to court documents. much more on this story in the hours to come after our hour. but i thank the panel for being with us. that does it for our hour. i'm nicolle wallace, "mtp daily" started right now. >> hi, nicolle. we are prepping for another news conference down in broward county and we'll take the baton from you. thank you. if it is thursday, questions and the debate over the gun debate again. ♪ ♪ good evening. i'm chuck todd here in washington. and welcome to "mtp daily." we are awaiting a press conference with the broward county sheriff's office. it will begin in any moment. on the deadly school shooting that killed 17 people in south florida yesterday. we're going tori