good morning, everyone. i'm alex wilt here at msnbc world headquarters in new york at the half hour. new reaction from president trump's national security adviser to the special counsel's indictment, this at a security conference in munich this morning, appearing to break with the president by conceding russian meddling in the u.s. election. >> we would love to have a cyber dialogue when russia is sincere about curtailing its

sophisticated form of espionage. that day will be coming. we are becoming more adept at tracing the origins on of this espionage and subversion. and as you can see with the fbi indictment, the evidence is now really incontravertable and available in the public domain. whereas in the past it was difficult to attribute. >> now, on the flip-side, sergey lavrov is dismissing news of the charges as being "blather". also new, whether indicted russians will face any consequences. it lies out how they all manipulated social platforms to wage information warfare against the united states. although none have been arrested. mark, with a good morning to you. okay. there's been a night now to absorb all that is in this indictment. what are your main takeaways?

>> well, alex, i think we have all come to understand the past year that russia and its agency undertook a real effort to interfere in our elections in 2016. what this indictment really spells out in stunning breathtaking detail really is the sophistication of thattest. the timeline is really fascinating here. beginning in 2013, early 2014, russian agents coming to this country, learning to understand our politics, learning about purple states. by 2016, identifying specific candidates in the presidential campaign that they would either seek to help or hurt in order to exact the most impact here. and then over time even identifying specific issues in our politics. that could be most divisive. and sew chaos in our democracy. this is a stunning effort to take one of the greatest strengths of this country, our free speech, free expression, and turn it against us weaponizing the partisanship that has become a major part of our political situation right now. >> what do you see as not being in this indictment overall given

all the discussions we have been having the last year about this? >> well, alex, i spent a lot of my time dealing with the congressional investigations into russia. what we have seen in the past few months is an effort on the part of republicans to try to undermine the different investigations, particularly the mueller investigation talking about rod rosenstein potential bias at the fbi. what this indictment shows is a methodical process that's been under way by special counsel mueller and his time. this is good old-fashioned legal investigatory work. they were able to penetrate the troll farms here in russia. we see e-mails in this indictment talking about the fact that they knew that the fbi was onto them. as you point out, what we don't know, there's reference here into unwitting american persons who were part of this discussion. what will be interesting to see as the case develops, as special

counsel continues this work is whether they are eventually able to document that there was witting in the way of allies. >> richard pinedo is an american. what is his involvement? >> so the real crimes as it were in this indictment have to do with these russian agents impersonating u.s. individuals, developing using fake social security numbers. and rich pinedo is one of the individuals who was involved in helping to make it happen, to sell talk identities to take the real identities and give them to russian agents as part of the sophisticated effort to, again, engage in our own politics here. >> all right. is there any expectation that russia will go against the grain of what it has traditionally done, not extradite to the u.s.? the point is what? >> the point is to make a real statement and spell out for the

american people in stark terms just what happened here. i don't think we can expect the russian government -- now it is not is specified in this indictment that they were directly linked to it. we know that some of the names are close to the kremlin. it is unlikely or for us to expect that they will extradite them to the u.s. for prosecution. >> the grand jury has voted to forfeit property, any assets owned by the defendants. what must be effective only in the united states. what do we know that they own? >> well, there's not much that we know about that, frankly. this is taking any leverage they do have, spelling it out and taking steps to retain that property. the real leverage here is making a statement and spelling out now the possibility for individuals who they continue to investigate with potential links to the trump campaign, a role in this conspiracy as it were.

>> all right. mike, you have been on this for quite some time. thank you so much, mike. the fbi certainly under fire for failing to act on a tip about nikolas cruz. in parkland, florida with the latest is tammy lightner. with a good morning to you. i have to think this kind of news is disconcerting for the folks in that community? >> reporter: listen, be alex, parents and students are appreciative to the first responders and police for their quick actions at the school. it undoubtedly saved lives. but there are questions and concerns as to why the red flags weren't acted on. one of the big red flags is why no one acted on the tip line that came in january 5th. they knew he had a gun. they knew he had been posting on social media. they knew his behavior was

erratic, that he talked about going and being involved in a school shooting. the fbi has sense admitted that they essentially dropped the ball. this should have been forwarded to a field office. that did not happen. very quickly, there were other red flags. he was expelled from school. the sheriff's office received 20 different calls regarding nikolas cruz the last few years, not to mention all the social media posts. a lot of red flags, alex, that were not acted on. >> tammy, i have heard many of the staoupblts say we cannot even conceive of going back to school. they saw their friends lying in the hall way, teachers, people they know and love and have grown up with. does this school have plans to reopen? >> reporter: you know, this is tough. school officials are struggling with what to do. there will be funerals the next

week. there is talk of possibly tearing down the freshman building where the shooting happened. there's about 900 students go there to the freshman building. if they tear it down, where will the 900 students go? a lot of uncertainty right now when the students will come back and even if. >> tammy leitner, thank you so much. from a difficult place in parkland, florida. appreciate it. there is renewed calls for action to do something about it. francis rooney is join me next. and natasha bertrand on her piece in "the atlantic." how do you win at business?

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this happens nowhere else other than the united states of america. this epidemic of mass slaughter. the scourge of school shooting after school shooting.

it only happens here not because of coincidence, not because of bad luck, but as a consequence of inaction. we are responsible. >> scolding fellow lawmakers for not taking action to prevent school shootings like the one in parkland, florida. congressman, with a good morning to you, sir. you know, he has a point, senator murphy, there. it doesn't seem to happen anywhere else. he's from the state of connecticut where sandy hook happened. so this is a passion for him. do you agree? is congress complicit here? >> we are one of the most open societies in the world. i think each one of these heinous crimes raises the bar and compels that we as a nation

where we are on open society verses what are we willing to do to make sure we're safe and secure. very unstable situation here. when someone like a person of this demonstrated mental illness at the local level and even to the fbi to get a hold of an assault weapon, we have to think about that. >> yeah. and i 100% agree with you. and i think in the past we have seen others that were mentally unstable. and there were warning signs, perhaps not as flagrant as these. i can tell you after recovering from sandy hook, i thought that's different. we saw 20 kinder gartners and first graders slaughtered and six teachers trying to protect them. i thought everything would change after that. how about this time? >> i tend to agree with you. i talked to my staff yesterday. i think this raises the bar significantly that a person of this demonstrated dabity could

get an assault weapon. and that he could walk into another soft target school. we have to harden up the schools. too many schools have been plagued. >> we are looking at a live picture of parkland, a memorial where people were memorialized yesterday. it is heartbreaking to see. i'm curious about the president and his response. that seven-minute address to the nation in which he never uttered the word gun, nothing like gun control. instead, he promises to secure schools, tackle mental health issues. let's listen to the teenagers who survived and what they are saying. >> this can't keep happening. there's so much wrong with this i don't know how i'm ever going to get past this. i can't even use the bathroom by myself or take a shower or sleep by myself anymore.

>> i want them to do something so that none of the children in this country get hurt anymore. i want them to do something so that they feel safe when they go to school and they feel safe wherever they go. not that someone has a gun and can easily kill them at any moment. >> how do you, how do lawmakers, all of us comfort these kids. they are old enough to know how easy it is for them to buy a gun. >> yeah. i think we owe the american people, especially this next generation of youth, something now in the wake of all of these shootings. they need to be assured that unstable people are not going to have access to weapons that could kill them. >> what about -- and in your history, i know that you are cosponsored and supported legislation to free up the sale and you voted for conceal carry across state laws. how are these good laws in how do you justify in terms of tragedies like this and are you rethinking that? >> well, i think the question is

who gets the gun, not the gun itself. i think we need to have really tough laws on background checks and waiting periods. maybe even put chips in the guns so we know where they are. but something -- some freedoms are going to have to be given up to make sure unstable people don't have access to the weapons. guns don't kill people. the deranged people kill people and they use guns or car bombs or different things to do it. >> see, i don't think you can separate the two. you hear all the time that tag line, guns don't kill people. here's the reality. people with guns kill people. you can't separate the two. doesn't common sense have to at some point filter into this discussion and now people realize, to your point, we may have to look at some of our own privacy laws and the concerns about that for the greater good? >> i absolutely agree with that. i think when unstable people get access to guns you're just asking for what happened in fort

lauderdale. >> what about the law in america called the dickey amendment. it prevents government agencies like the cdc from even researching statistics on guns violence. certainly the nra was in support of that. shouldn't that be repealed? is the gun lobby that powerful in washington? >> well, that's a whole separate study of how paufpl they lobby in washington. i'm fighting the oil right now and i feel like david and goliath. i don't know what this law is. i'm have to look into it. >> is there a reason that you can think of why any private citizen needs to own an ar-15 assault rifle? >> to be honest with you, i'm not sure. i think people should be able to use them in gun ranges if we want to rip off a lot of on caps

if you will at a gun range. do they need to own them and take them out of the facility? i'm not sure. this thing here when a mentally deranged person can get a hold of an ar-15, we've got to deal with that. >> do you think you and your fellow republicans are going to agree to do something about gun control now? >> well, i certainly am. not necessarily for normal people, but i definitely think we need to tighten up background checks to make sure people like this cruz guy can't get weapons. >> all right. we'll have is you back and give us updates on how those conversations are going with you and your colleagues on the hill. thank you so much. >> thanks for having me on. >> in just a moment, the fallout from the russian indictment, separating facts from the political spin. can the president continue to dismiss russia as just a political witch-hunt?

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there's no allegation in this indictment that any american was a knowing participant in this illegal activity. there's no allegation in the indictment that the charge conduct altered the outcome of

the 2016 election. >> deputy attorney general rod rosenstein with a statement that republicans and democrats are spinning to fit their narratives about the russia probe. let's bring in zolina maxwell of progressive media for the clinton campaign and now the director of progressive programming for sirius kpm and msnbc political rick tyler and joe watkins, former white house aide to president george h.w. bush. good morning to you all. i'm going to start with you zir lena here, the president tweeted his take on this saying the results of the election were not impacted. the trump campaign did nothing wrong. no collusion. where's the truth here? >> well i think that we're learning more and more about the truth. one of the things i keep thinking as we get so much information in the 37-page indictment yesterday about the russia side of the cyberattack on our country during the 2016 election, and i think it's important that we should put the two pieces of the russia attack together. on the one hand, this indictment

talked about how they used russian spies who were infiltrating our society to attack us on social media. using facebook, twitter. to create real-life events so not just online cyberattacks, but create real events with you know, actors dressed up as hillary clinton. but there is the other side of the attack. the timeline is important to keep in mind. as they're creating real-world events with actors dressed up as hillary clinton in the summer of 2016 donald trump junior jr. is meeting with russians in trump tower to get dirt on hillary clinton. and as we know, donald trump asked the russians to hack hillary clinton to find her missing emails in july of 2016. it's important to put all of this together. we learned a lot yesterday about the the russia side of the attack and we know what the trump campaign was doing in the summer of 2016 at the same time. >> rick, i want to get your

thoughts. first of all, do you agree with zerlena, the fact that this whole project began in 2014 and the president says look, it's not me. it's before i was even a candidate. but the reality is that it sounds to me by this indictment they were doing research. they were being told to go to purple states, they pointed out specifically colorado, virginia and florida. do research for a while before they actually began their activity. >> we can look back, certainly and find out what happened in the previous administration. the fact is that the current president has called this whole russia incident a hoax and it's not a hoax. and robert mueller is completely justified, this whole entire investigation. which he was, he was appointed to research russian interference in american elections. now he has 13 indictments of people, operatives acting in the united states, probably at a level of sophistication greater than the majority of the actual

presidential campaigns in targeting. so it's unbelievable to suggest that it wouldn't have an impact on the election. i know the indictment doesn't say that specifically. but of course it had an impact on the election. so robert mueller has legitimized his investigation and he has delegitimized the election of this president. >> it's hard to quantify precisely how it had an effect. >> it's unknowable. but it did have an impact. no question about that. >> joe, where do you draw the line between truth and spin here? >> well robert mueller has organized a rock star team of investigators and they're not playing. they're coming at it with the hard-cold facts. and so there is really not much room for spin. i mean you can try to spin it to say that well, whatever side you want. but at the end of the day, robert mueller's investigators have come up with the truth. and the truth is that russians began this in 2014 and there were three companies involved.

and a number of russian individuals involved and that they traveled to the united states and that just like zerlina said, they bought a cage, they hired somebody to play hillary clinton in the cage. i mean they were actively involved. there's no spin here. >> i want to quickly turn to the school shooting with you guys and start with you, rick. because florida governor rick scott has said that fbi director chris wray should resign. because the fbi botched this. let's just call it what it is. they got plenty of tips about nick nikolas cruz and failed to act. did scott go too far in asking for his resignation. >> i think so i don't think wray needs to resign. but there's a composite of this shooter within hours after it happened. and unfortunately that all could have been done before. this was a catastrophic failure of the bureaucracy. you know we have see something, say something. now law enforcement needs to

actually do something. it's incumbent upon citizens who see something, say something, make sure to follow up with law enforcement that they're doing something. everything was available to know that this person was a real danger and yet, that was not passed on to law enforcement and he should not have been able to pass a background check given all of his activity and the fact that he had been in, well, i don't know the circumstances of his mental health issue. but that's certainly -- >> he had been seeing a therapist. we no that. zerlina, do you like the new catch phrase, see something, say something, do something? yes, we have to do something, we can't just say thoughts and prayers every time. coming up, the russia indictment mplgt. and the most glaring questions unanswered. cream.

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♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ good morning, everyone, i'm alex witt here at