>> trump tweeting why he says the russia indictment is over. but it comes just days after u.s. intel chiefs warned moscow has now set its sights on the midterms. so what now? plus, the president and first lady visit victims of the florida school shooting. a new investigation is launched over the way another agency handled calls about the suspect. and the white house is changing its security clearance process. why it could mean big changes for some staffers including the president's son-in-law jared kushner. 13 russians and three companies indicted for what was described as information warfare setting up a network of russian political subversion against the united states. russians allegedly stole identities, posed as political activists, trolled divisive political issues on social media and organized political rallies.

president trump has tweeted quite a bit this afternoon saying again there was no collusion and this morning at a conference in germany top officials took shots at each other over these charges. trump's national security adviser h.r. mcmaster had this to say. >> as you can see with the fbi indictment the evidence is now really incontrovertible and available in the public domain. >> now, just minutes before russian foreign minister sergey lavrov said this, quote, i have no response. you can publish anything and we see those indictments multiplying, the statements multiplying. until we see the facts, everything else is just blabber. meanwhile, in russia the country's presidential envoy for information security further denied the allegations. he told russian state media, quote, there are no official claims, there are no proofs for this. that's why they are just children's statements. for more on this story now let's bring in nbc news national security and intelligence reporter ken delanian.

ken, walk me through the activities that led to the indictments of these individuals and companies and try to explain the significance of mueller's indictment. >> the mueller indictment is hugely significant from both informational standpoint and legal standpoint, aaron. on the information side mueller told for the first time in cine d cinematic detail. we learned for example there was a budget of $15 million a month. we learned russian spies actually infiltrated the united states. we learned there was unwitting cooperation from americans. and then in addition to the social media manipulation we learned that the russians actually sponsored rallies in swing states. and on the legal side just as significantly we learned that mueller has laid out a criminal conspiracy at the heart of this. this actually violated u.s. law. because for a long time many people had said is it even a crime for americans to collude with foreigners interfering in the election? mueller answered that question definitively. he said it was a crime, criminal

conspiracy to defraud the united states. while this indictment does not accuse any american of that, we know that mueller's investigating those questions. we know for example the president's son accepted a meeting with russians on the promise of dirt on hillary clinton from the russian government. that's very much an issue in the mueller investigation. >> ken, while we have you, we know we have just a little while after the word of this indictment came out we learned of new claims against the former campaign manager, paul manafort, what can you tell us about that? >> that's right. in a filing last night the government has accused paul manafort of additional bank fraud allegations. these are not formal charges, but it has to do with accusing him of essentially overstating his income and faking a profit and loss sheet to get a mortgage on a property. i think the bottom line shows the mueller team is playing hardball, they are relentless, will not overlook any technical legal violation and putting immense pressure on paul

manafort. they would like him to plead guilty and tell what he knows. >> we'll see if that happens. ken, thank you. >> you bet. >> we said president trump is tweeting this afternoon and talking about the indictments here. for more joined by nbc news white house correspondent jeff bennett in florida traveling with the president. jeff, the president says case closed in one of thhis tweets ts afternoon. where do things stand with coming from the white house and this indictment? >> it's interesting, aaron. a white house aide says the president is spending the day at his mar-a-lago retreat and not to golf out of respect for the victims of the parkland school shooting. but he's busy on twitter tweeting about the mueller indictments. i'll read a two of them. in one he writes, charges deal don a big win, written by michael goodwin simply states russians had no impact on the results, no collusion with the trump campaign, she, meaning

hillary clinton, lost the old fashioned way, by being a terrible candidate. case closed. the president then writes, deputy a.g. rod rosenstein stated at news conference there is no allegation in the indictment that any american was a knowing participate in this illegal activity. there is no allegation in the indictment that the charged conduct altered the outcome of the 2016 election. now, as ken just made clear the mueller investigation continues at pace and only robert mueller knows where it will lead. and as we reported this past week, steve bannon, the president's former campaign manager and former white house chief adviser spent 20 hours with the special counsel team on and off in interviews this past week. so in terms of next steps, the big question is what will the president do next in terms of retaliating against russia. the trump administration so far has not articulated a full plan of response. of course the most immediate option available to him is levying the sanctions that were overwhelmingly passed last year by the congress.

but so far, aaron, it doesn't appear that the president has a willingness to do that just yet. >> jeff, i do want to ask you since you mentioned the president visited with the victims of the school shooting there in florida, what was reaction to that visit? >> i'll tell you we understand that five of the victims are still being treated at the hospital here behind me. look, i think the reaction has been mixed. of course on the one hand you hear the sentiment echoed frankly by some of the survivors that, yes, they welcome thoughts, yes, they welcome prayers. but they would also welcome some action so they could prevent the kind of mass shootings from happening again. and when president trump was here yesterday he steered clear entirely issues of, you know, politics and of policy. there's also the issue of how president trump chooses to deal with these sorts of issues. as we know he's pretty brash, consoling does not come easily to him. i think that's one of the reasons why we saw him talk more about the first responders, talk more about law enforcement and less about the personal impact what all of this means to him. not just about this tragic

shooting, aaron, but about the others. this is the third deadliest shooting in the last five months in american history, aaron. >> nbc's jeff bennett for us this afternoon in florida. let's bring in two experts on this type of investigation. joining me, frank, msnbc national security analyst and former assistant director for counterintelligence at the fbi. and seth waxman, former federal prosecutor and current partner at the firm of dickinson wright specializing in government investigations and securities enforcement. gentlemen, thank you for being here. seth, i'll start with you. first of all, the charges against the 13 russian nationals who likely will never face a judge in a u.s. courtroom, what's the real value of these indictments? >> well, i think it could have two values. the first value of course putting these people on notice that they've engaged in criminal conduct. and while it may be difficult to bring those russians to justice in the u.s., i will tell you having worked in the office of international affairs their mantra is we never forget.

the idea they'll be red notices out there in the international community, if those individuals were to travel to foreign countries that we have extradition treaties with, they very well may be brought to justice. there's also another strategic element to bob mueller's indictment. the timing of it to me is significant. it may be a prelude to a counter if president trump were to in fact plead the fifth. i mean, we know there's this impending meeting between the mueller team and trump and his lawyers where bob mueller's going to get to question donald trump extensively. i'll tell you as a criminal defense lawyer under any normal circumstances i would never allow my client into that room to be questioned by bob mueller. of course the president is not a normal client or typical client. if he were to plead the fifth, the political ramifications could be far reaching. and so i think the lawyers there and president trump still with that risk may be considering pleading the fifth. and to claim that they aren't pleading the fifth because he

did anything wrong but rather because the investigation is a sham or a hoax. and that this indictment puts into the public arena that the investigation is the exact opposite, that it's not a hoax, that it's not a sham and bob mueller put this indictment out there given the timing to set the stage to counter any claim by president trump of a right not to testify. >> frank, i want your read on this too, what does this indictment suggest about mueller's overall strategy here? >> what we saw here on friday was it was a smart tactic as part of an overall strategy, and here's why. mueller could have come out friday, let's say with the obstruction charges against the campaign advisers. perhaps against trump. we've all been talking for weeks and months about how strong an obstruction case there might be right now. but if he did that, many members of congress, many americans would have said, well, he's obstructing what, obstructing something that's a russian hoax that hasn't been proven? what we saw on friday was mueller laying the groundwork

saying this is serious business. the russian case is for real. when i come in later and try to prove obstruction, you need to care about it because this is what was being obstructed. >> seth, we noted that the president's been tweeting. he tweeted about this over and over again this morning. deputy white house press secretary said this. take a listen to this. >> first of all, we have to understand this began in 2014 under then-president barack obama's nose. he didn't do a thing about it. long before donald trump announced for president this was going on. also it points out clearly that in this process there was no collusion, as you just pointed out. the president said it multiple times this makes it clear and concise for the american people and proves the president correct, no collusion between donald trump, his campaign and russia. and also i think this is important too, it did not affect the outcome of the election

whatsoever. >> seems the point is proves and didn't result any influence on the election. is that sort of the right minded way to look at this? >> well, i think those are self-serving statements. if you look at this indictment and see the discussion in 2014 and the year that followed, it's pretty small part of that indictment, but when you get to the heart of the indictment and read 20, 30 pages, it all focuses on the summer of 2016. so while we have this far ranging conspiracy in the summer of 2016 that's laid out in that indictment. we also know from everything else about this investigation at the same time president -- you know, donald trump jr., paul manafort, jared kushner were meeting at the trump tower with a russian contingent of operatives during that same month. so the confluence or the overlap of those two events and the things that followed going in towards the election i think can't be dismissed or were, you

know, talked away with what i think are self-serving statements. >> and so, frank, your final thoughts on this as we wait to see what if anything happens next. >> so, aaron, you might want to tell your production staff to start saving and setting aside all these clips of trump surrogates and members of congress who are saying no collusion, this indictment proves no collusion. because some day, perhaps soon, if mueller does charge obstruction, you're going to want to play all of those. because i don't know how they're going to reverse their statements and they're not going to be able to do it. here's my last word. this 32-page indictment contains such level of detail that we know that the data's coming from the entire intelligence community. we believe there are signal intercepts in there are conversations we conversations referred to about who else has been intercepted, what other russian government operatives have been intercepted by our intelligence kmient and

who were they speaking to at the time. kpeep eye out of that. >> production team has taken note of that, frank. nbc archives opened wide deep for that one. we are taking a live look now at a makeshift memorial dedicated to the victims of the shooting in parkland, florida. you can see some of the flowers and images left behind by members of the community along with the angels representing each of the 17 who died there in parkland earlier this week. and still ahead this afternoon, gun control or mental health, a clash in washington over what's to blame, what's the solution? we'll discuss that. and could it have been avoided? i'll talk to the man who reported the suspect's alarming youtube comments to the fbi next. before you and your rheumatologist move to another treatment, ask if xeljanz xr is right for you. xeljanz xr is a once-daily pill for adults with moderate to severe ra

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the sheriff's office in broward county florida is launching an investigation into how it handled previous reports involving wednesday's alleged shooter. authorities say they responded to about 20 calls of service in the last few years regarding nikolas cruz. >> every one of these calls for service will be looked at and scrutinized. if we find out like in any investigation that one of our deputies or call takers could have done something better or was remiss, i'll handle it accordingly. >> nbc's tammy leitner is in

parkland at a memorial for us this afternoon. tammy, we'll talk about the investigation, but i want to start with this memorial and how this community that i know is agonizing right now is coping. >> aaron, as you can imagine this is extremely tough for this community, for the people that knew the families, that are friends and family members of those that died in the school shooting, and for those who didn't that have been showing up here all morning, all afternoon, we're talking thousands of people not only from this community but neighboring communities coming to pay their respects putting down flowers, notes, pictures, a lot of emotions, a lot of grief here. a community actually grieving together, aaron. >> and, tammy, about the investigation, that is still going as this community is grieving right now. how are they feeling about how the investigation has been handled so far and these missed signals that we're learning more about? >> that's tough. you know, everybody that we've spoken with they are grateful for the first responders.

and the police that went in there and pulled out the children and, you know, risked their lives to do that. but they're also angry and they're also questioning how these red flags could have been missed. and as you know there have been a number of red flags that we now know about. nikolas cruz was expelled from the school. he had very erratic behavior that many people reported seeing. he had some troubling social media posts. and then one of the most recent red flags was that somebody called into the fbi tip line on january 5th, and this was somebody that was very close to nikolas cruz, somebody that knew that he had a gun, somebody that knew he was threatening to shoot people, somebody that knew about his erratic behavior and the fbi has come out and said they dropped the ball on that. so a lot of red flags that are being questioned, aaron. >> at the same time, tammy, we know that nikolas cruz's lawyer, his public defender, says her

client is willing to take a plea deal. any details on what that deal may look like? >> well, most likely this would be to avoid a death sentence. and in turn he would probably spend the rest of his life in prison. that would be our guess. that would be the reason that he would take a plea deal, aaron. >> all right. nbc's tammy leitner for us in parkland, florida. thank you. let's talk more about those missed signals. joining me now is ben benknight, he came across a youtube user by the name of nikolas cruz, that comment read, i'm going to be a professional school shooter. ben, thank you for joining us. walk me through what happened your contacts with the fbi. >> well, when i actually received the comment on my channel, of course i screen shotted it and reported it to youtube. and i contacted the fbi. i first tried to contact them by

e-mail, but the tips at fbi.gov e-mail apparently doesn't exist. so i called them by phone, left a message. and the next morning i had two fbi agents give me a call and come meet me at my office to look into my report. >> and from that point was that the end of your contact? you made the report that came and talked to you and you weren't aware of anything else after that? >> i hadn't heard anything else from them until the day of the shooting. >> so tell me about that then. we know the fbi did contact you on wednesday after the shooting happened. what did they say then? >> i got a call first from the field office. and right after i got off the phone with them the miami field office called me. and i told them same thing, that they were on the way up to see

me in person. when they came out, asked me general questions, had i heard from the guy since, was there anything further i could tell them about the original comment or commenter, and i asked the fbi agent would this possibly have to do with the florida incident and he said, well, the guy had the same name. oh, i didn't know that. so that was very shocking to hear. >> so what's your take on what the fbi has done about this? from the time of your reporting back in september, the interaction you had this week, what advice would you have even for the fbi? >> you know, that's been a question that's been asked a lot. and initially i didn't feel like i'd given them a whole lot of information to go off of, but as reports keep coming in about the social media posts and about this friend that had contacted the fbi directly and left a message, it's pretty disturbing

that there were that many red flags and still there was nothing done. >> now, you also flagged this comment for youtube. do you know if youtube took any action? did you hear about anything they did? >> i think their spam process is pretty automated but i would like them maybe in the future set up some flags for key words, threatening phrases and things like that. set up some things for that to maybe at least lay human eyes on those type of comments. >> ben, bennight, we certainly know your ifrefforts won't go unnoticed. thank you for your time. >> thank you. information warfare. investigators say they've done it once, so what's stopping russians from meddling in our elections again? the possible threat to the

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there should be no doubt that russia perceived that its past efforts as successful and views the 2018 u.s. midterm

elections as a potential target for russian influence operations. >> has the president directed you and your agency to take specific actions to confront and blunt russian influence activities that are ongoing? >> we're taking a lot of specific efforts to blunt russian efforts direct-- not specifically directed by the president. >> fbi director christopher wray on tuesday, three days before robert mueller indicted 13 russians for interfering in the 2016 election. the question now, what has to be done to stop it from happening again? the hill is reporting that on friday intelligence agencies started briefing election officials from all 50 states on possible election threats. with me now, charlie savage, "new york times" political reporter and chief political reporter for boston herald and kimberly atkins. charlie, start with you. senate minority leader chuck schumer tweeted these indictments are further reason

president trump should implement sanctions against russia that congress passed. how likely is that? >> well, it would be an about face for trump to do so. he's already taken the hit for not imposing those sanctions. so i don't see him likely to do that. it's true that the rest of his government is trying to do some things to deter and prevent future interference. we know that 20 of the 50 states now have a state election officials who have received security clearances so they can receive information that the intelligence community picks up signs of ongoing intrusions into their networks. and i'm sure there are lots of things they're doing that we don't know yet. but the president himself doesn't seem to be particularly interested or onboard with that. >> kimberly, we do have the note that the president retweeted the v.p. of facebook ads today, his post reads in part, there are key facts about the russian actions that are still not well understood. i have seen all the russian ads and i can say very definitively

that swaying the election was not the main goal. the majority of the russian ads spend happened after the election. we shared that fact with very few outlets have covered it because it doesn't align with the main media narrative of trump and the election. kimberly, how fair is that? >> yeah, i think a couple things. a couple points can be made about that. obviously this statement was made to protect facebook and its involvement in the information warfare that we saw deputy attorney general rod rosenstein describe. because it involved social media, it involved networks like facebook and twitter that helped propagate this russian-backed information that in turn went viral. it's in the interest of facebook to make that kind of statement. but the president also cherry picks from a very long thread that that comes from where there was an acknowledgment that this was meant to sow political discord. and that is one of the elements in robert mueller's indictment.

and we have from robert mueller's indictment itself a very clear, specific picture about how the russians indeed were involved in trying to meddle within the election. everything from trying to engage americans to try to help engage and spread misinformation to hiring someone to dress up like hillary clinton in a jail cell to show up at rallies. all of these things are clearly meant to send a message to sway voters, efforts to suppress minority voters for example, to making posts saying they should stay home instead of vote. all of this was an effort to clearly influence the election. we see that right there laid out in very specific detail. >> charlie, we also saw a statement from devin nunes, the house intelligence committee chair, he said that he sounded the alarm on russia back in april of 2016 but it went ignored by the obama administration. how fair is it to say that the previous administration ignored

the russian interference? >> well, two things to say about that. one, devin nunes put out this statement and said, hey, i wrote an op-ed about russia in 2014. and at the tail end of a cnn interview in 2016 early on i said, you know, russia is bad therefore view me as a guy who's really interested in curbing russian aggression. i'm not sure how many people who seeing his behavior over the last six months think that's been his primary focus as he's gone after the mueller investigation. so beyond that -- i'm sorry, what was the second part of your question. >> i'm just wondering how fair you think it is for that characterization -- >> yeah, there's a lot of people i think across the political spectrum who are taking a second look at the obama administration's passivity in the second half of 2016 as they saw this was happening and weren't quite sure what to do about it. they would defend themselves by saying they didn't want to

inject into this issue of being blamed for injecting this issue into a political campaign and republican leaders weren't onboard with going public with it. part of the background premise of that we'll deal with this later attitude was they thought clinton was going to win and they didn't want to taint that election by having come out publicly and accuse the other side of benefitting from something russia was doing. obviously their premise was wrong. >> kimberly, last word on this as we go into the midterm elections, what's the next step here? what more needs to happen in your view? >> i mean, i think we seed sort of a blueprint from the indictment in the mueller indictment all the things that can go wrong. i think there's multilevel of things that have to take place including social media companies like facebook and twitter really going further to take a look at their policies and what is happening there and better

identify if there could be some foreign backed disinformation certainly at the local level just as charlie pointed out, officials taking a hard look at their voting systems because we know also that there was an attempt to affect voting systems that was not successful, but at least 21 states there were attempts to do so. so we see that under way, but i think above all what people would like to see is this white house fully and firmly say this happened, russians attempt to meddle, it may not have affected the election, but it happened. and there was an attempt and that is unacceptable. and to take some action including sanctions in order to send the message from the top that this is being taken seriously. i mean, we saw general h.r. mcmaster today the national security adviser say that this is an issue that's probably the biggest statement we've seen out of this white house. so far a lot of people would like to see more. >> kimberly atkins, charlie, we appreciate your time.

thank you. >> thank you. the white house vows to act on mental health following the latest school shooting, but democrats say it's a distraction from the real issue, gun control. psychiatrist and parent who survived sandy hook weigh in on the debate next. froms don't we need that cable box to watch tv? nope. don't we need to run? nope. it just explodes in a high pitched 'yeahhh.' yeahhh! try directv now for $10 a month for 3 months. no satellite needed.

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we will get to the bottom of what happened here. working across agencies of our

government to study the intersection of mental health and criminality. and when president trump meets with our nation's governors in just a few short weeks, he will make the safety of our nation's schools our top administration priority. >> that was vice president mike pence in dallas addressing the shooting in parkland, florida. joining me now, eric millgram, his son and daughter survived the shooting at sandy hook elementary school. he's now the spokesman for the newtown action alliance. and, dr. joshua wooiner, adult and child psychiatrist joining us from d.c. eric, start with you. you heard with the vice president had to say there. he talked about the government studying the intersection between mental health and criminality and adding he wants to be able to make our schools safer. how does that sit with you? does that sound like enough? >> no. it's absurd position to make that statement. mental health is not the problem. i'm all for more funding for mental health. this is the very same

administration who one year ago made it easier for people with severe mental illness who's been determined by social security to be so impaired they can't manage their own finances, that is a very high bar to be able to meet that. but this administration made it easy for them to own firearms. so, you know, why aren't we talking about gun control? why aren't we talking about a much more comprehensive strategy? if you're a person with severe mental illness, you're much more likely to be the victim of violence than to perpetrate violence. >> dr. weiner, the quick response to a lot of these mass shootings seems to be for some we have to tackle the mental health issue, that these incidents are the result of some type of mental illness. how fair is that assessment, or is that an appropriate assessment early on in some of these investigations? >> well, i think it is an appropriate assessment. what your other guest just said people with mental illness are more likely to be the victims of

violence rather than the perpetrators, that's true. however, they also are more likely than the average person in the community to be the perpetrators of violence. so all you have to do is just look at our prison system. 50% of men in prisons have a history of mental illness, 75% of women have a history of mental illness. and we know that people with mental illness, severe mental illness are about three to five times more likely to have violent tendencies. now, the issue here though is that they're more likely to be violent towards people they know. so we're talking about friends or family members, not just the general public. and i want to make it clear that the vast majority of people with mental illness are not a danger to society. but i do think that just by definition if somebody is going to randomly go and shoot up a school or a mall or a movie theater, by definition they have a significant mental illness problem. it doesn't mean that you tackle it only from the mental illness

perspective. it just means that you must address the mental illness issue while also addressing the gun issue. >> eric, i want to play a piece of sound here from a student at a rally today at a gun safety legislation protest that happened in ft. lauderdale. listen to this. >> maybe the adults have gotten used to saying, it is what it is, but if us students have learned anything it's that if you don't study you will fail. in this case if you actively do nothing, people continually end up dead. so it's time to start doing something! [ cheers and applause ] >> just a passionate statement there. is that the message from a student that adults and politicians need to hear in order to make a change? >> absolutely. when the shooting happened in our town, my daughter was a first grader, 7 years old, just turned 7 a little over a month before, my son was 10 years old. they were too young to speak out, you know, on their behalf. these students in parkland, florida, which, you know, i'm a

floridian myself. i birthed and raised there, that's a very, very gun friendly state. these kids though have not been so jaded by the world yet they see through all the nonsense and the noise that we're not the only country in the world that has people with mental illness. we are the only country that has mass shootings. >> dr. weiner, what's lacking in mental health care right now? is there an area or two that we should be zeroing in onto try to tackle this mass shooting problem? >> oh, i think there are several areas to narrow it down to two i would say one is access to care. it is really hard for people who need the help to get the help they need. i think that they need to make in particular child and adolescence psychiatry, declare that emergency specialty and have increased efforts to increase the number of providers out there. i also think one of the other things is that i would have no problem with we have to think the vast majority of these violent incidents are done by

men between the ages of say 18 and 40. so i think if you have somebody who has a severe mental illness to the point where they need to be hospitalized and they fit that category, they're a man between 18 and 40, i think it would be reasonable for us to be able for a period of time, six months or a year, take away their weapons, put them on a list so they can't get weapons. and in order for them to get their weapons back after a period of time, have them jump through some hoops to make sure that they are then qualified to get those back. and safe to get those back. you know, a lot of people know that if you arin voluntarily committed to a hospital, so you don't want to go but somebody makes you go, then your name goes down on a list. but there are lots of people who could be a danger to society who are voluntarily agreeing to go to the hospital. and because they voluntarily agree, they do not get put on that list. and so i think that there are some loopholes in the mental health system that i think if

they're closed they could lead to some benefit here. of course you don't know unless you try. the flip side of that is that that may then turn some people away from seeking the help that they need because they would be afraid of losing their access to their guns. and we could end up seeing some repercussions from that as well. >> so we have to look for some sort of pathway or middle ground here to get to some real solutions. eric, i want to ask you last thing here, if the needle hasn't substantially, substantively moved on gun legislation, how does the strategy need to change for organizations like yours to make something happen to take this conversation, this debate, this issue to the next step? >> it's very simple. background, universal background checks, more funding for mental health. these are all good things. coopt the language that the republicans have used for years, make this an economic issue. if you own a home in parkland, florida, right now your property values just dropped 30%. if you're a realtor in that area, you're already despairing because they know what's going to happen there. the attorney general of the

state of florida offered to pay the burial expenses for these families. i am so happy that they don't have to incur those costs. why are the taxpayers having to pick up that cost? why is it not being internalized by the firearms industry? make it an economic issue and make that industry pay for its full cost. >> i guess i have to wonder if organizations like yours are physically aggressive enough. and i don't mean that in a violent sense, but, you know, you have a position about what you think needs to be done and how things should be legislated. should there be a mass exodus on to the steps of the capitol to make a statement? are people not taking enough action to force a debate, to force legislation? >> there's a passion gap where people who own guns care far more about guns than people who do not. and i want to address everyone right now. if you think this can't happen to you, everybody thinks it can't happen to them. all of those of us who have been through this, we didn't think it would happen to us either.

imagine your daughter lying on the floor bleeding out and having to put her down or having to have her buried in the ground where your son who just got his braces off is now his head is so badly mangled that you can't even have an open casket ceremony. it is going to happen. and keep happening without change. and the people who today think, well, that's tragic but they're not doing anything about it, vote out these terrible politicians and vote in people who are real leaders who will solve this problem. >> all right then. we will leave it there. dr. joshua weiner, eric, we appreciate your time today. thank you. >> thank you. jared in jeopardy? next, how the president's son-in-law could be affected by john kelly's new security clearance overhaul.

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next week could be a critical one for staffers in the west wing. that is when john kelly's overhaul of the security clearance goes into effect. he wants to discontinue those who haven't been able to get clearances for any length of

time. for the department of housing and urban development, and adrian elrod,s hillary for america. >> these changes that we are going to see in the white house, could they affect curbener, specifical specifical kushner, direct? >> the attorney released a statement that it would not impact him. i find it hard to believe. the president has allocated a lot of responsibility to jared, not only foreign responsibilities, but domestic responsibilities, he would have to look at top secret things that require sc 1 clearance. without that i have a hard time seeing how he could be effective at his role.

you are talking about ivanka, and 72 other individuals within the white house, who may see their clearance will be impacted by this. until they plan to remove those individuals and finding individuals who can pass a background check, it will be difficult for those folks to do their job. >> and staff, whose permanent clearance requests have been pending since june. more than 130 staff members were operating on an interim clearance as of last november. are we going to see a lot of boxes walking out of the west wing? how does the staff continue to do their job, if they don't have this sort of clearance, and not going to be there to do the work? >> you know, unfortunately, i don't think you will see, as you mention a lot of staff leaving the white house with boxes in

tow, i am aging here back in the late 1990, it sent uncommon for security clearances to take a few months, we are now 13 months into this administration. you have a significant number of white house senior aides, including, i believe gary cone, and ivanky, operating at the highest level of government. that is unfathomable. and speculation if john kelly were to be fired that jared and ivanka wanted to jointly take his job. i think it is irresponsible. i don't see how you can function with 72, 74 members that do not have security clearance. that is crazy. >> and there was concern of this having an impact on john kelly's job, do you think it sures up

john kelly working in the white house? >> i think it depends on what happened forward. at hud, i was the deputy chief of staff. all all employees were required to have security clearance, i find it hard to believe, with the initial reports that general kelly wasn't aware of whom did not have proper security clearance. each of those individuals have to get the clearance or forced to leave the white house. if not, it will be difficult for him to do his job effective. >> thank you. how will the white house respond after russians have been charged with meddling with the election says. says. #

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together, we're building a better california. . welcome back. we are following new developments in the russia investigation. the president may have escaped the snowstorm in dc, but tweeting up a storm in florida, all in response to the criminal indictments against the russians.

national security advisor has a different take, speaking of a security conference, he said there is hard evidence that the russians interfered in the 2016 election. >> we are becoming more and more adept at tracing the origins of this espionnage and subversion. with the fbi indictment, the evidence is incontrovertible, and available in the public domain. in the past, it was difficult to attribute. >> nbc white house correspondent jeff bennett is in florida. you can't help but wonder if the