businessman. he was not there. he is what he was. >> wise words from the rev. we'll have to end on them. thanks to jennifer, jonathan, and the rev. that does it for our hour. i'll see you back here monday for deadline white house at 4:00 p.m. gates to open, let's play hardball. good evening i'm chris matthews in wab where there's been a big development today in robert mueller's voftion. in a plea deal, another former trump campaign official has agreed to cooperate with the mueller team. rick gates served as the deputy chairman of the trump presidential campaign. he also worked for trump's transition team. in court today, gates pleaded guilty to conspiracy against the united states and making a false statement to investigators. that false statement was made in february 1st, this month, when

gates was already negotiating a deal. at the heart of his deal now, gates admits he sprd with his business associate paul manafort in a variety of criminal schemes related to their work with the ukrainian political party. manafort maintains his innocence, though gates's deal now puts the pressure on him to make a deal of his own with mueller. the agreement requires gates to cooperate in all matters with investigators, including answering all questions, turning over all documents, and testifying at any preceding requested by mueller's team. gates is the third trump campaign associate to strike a cooperation to go with mueller. the other being flynn and papadopoulos. mueller has been speeding along in his investigation piling up indictments and guilty pleas. this may account for some of the frenzy by the president himself who cannot help but see this work as a threat to his

presidency. today trump basked in the warm glow of his own base in a lively speech on red meat, guns, immigration, his own accomplishments with nary a word on russia. >> do you remember i started running and people say are you sure he's a conservative? i think now we've proved that i'm a conservative. right now behave a big race coming up in '18. you have to get out, get that enthusiasm. they'll take away your second amendment which we will never athrough happen. when we declare our schools to begun free zones, it just puts our students in far more danger. far more danger. don't worry you're getting the wall, don't worry. i heard something -- getting the wall. i had a couple of these characters in the back say, oh,

he really doesn't want the wall, he just used that for campaigning. i said can you believe it? you know, i say every time i hear that, the wall gets ten feet higher. >> well, for more today, i'm joined by nbc news national security reporter ken dilanian and former federal prosecutor paul butler. msnbc analyst ed lin farc cuss, and ken vogel. thank you all for joining us. let me go to ken dilanian to start this. the sque how much can they squeeze out of gates to use on manafort to use man for the against trump? >> i think a lot, chris. i mean, look. gates, while he's only pled guilty to two charges, criminal information filed in the case shows that he's admitting to this much larger conduct, criminal conduct with paul manafort, basically illegal lobbying, bank fraud, money laundering. he looks like he's prepared to go into court and testify against manafort, his long-time mentor. he was with him for years.

and gates remained in the trump campaign well after manafort left so we don't know exactly what he may be tell about the trump campaign. but this is a horrible day for paul manafort. he is under now enormous pressure to plead guilty. you know, before this had been essentially a paper case, a document case, a very strong case, now he's got his former friend who seems willing to testify against him, it's just got to be a devastating day for him. >> ken vogel, how much does rick gates now? >> he helps mueller in three areas. number one is with manafort as ken just outlined, he'd been with manafort for decades. number two is with trump. he remained on the campaign after manafort left. he remained sort of in the trump orbit through the transition. he worked on the inaugural campaign. and so he could potentially be privy to some conversations about how to respond to the russia investigation that might potentially get into this area of obstruction of justice. and number three, he also has

some visibility into the business side of trump's dealings. he worked for tom bear rick and was close to tom bear rick, a close trump friend who has done business with. and we keep on hearing that mueller's investigation might veer off into trump's finances. he might have insight there too. >> i want to know about the buzz. you're in the room, you hear other conversations, illinois know what's going on. does rick gates now about what happened in trump tower in june? does he know about all these meetings with kislyak? there's a lot of things that goes on with politics. was he there to get this stuff and rat these people out, manafort and trump? >> i would imagine if he's close enough to manafort, not only is he around enjoying the buzz, but he may be getting a buzz with manafort over drinks or something on another occasion because, again, they have a special relationship. the other thing is -- >> what did you think of manafort's statement today i didn't sell out this guy did?

>> yeah. >> manafort maintains his innocence. he said, i had hoped and expect mid business colleague, that's gates, would have had the strength to continue to battle to prove our innocence. for reasons yet to surface, he chose do otherwise. this does not alter my commitment to defend myself against the untrue piled up charges contained in the indictments against me. the federal grand jury today returned an indictment today with additional charges against man for the. the indictment says manafort see creately paid former european politicians out of offshore bank accounts to lobby for ukraine. let me go to paul butler here. how much you can pile on this guy manafort? he's 68 years old. he's looking at 80 years and then there's all these additional decades and more decades today. can they take all that back that they've piled up if he'll squeal? >> they can. so robert gates pled guilty today because he's a criminal who was stupid enough to lie to robert mueller three weeks ago in the office of the special counsel. and then he decides he wants to flip and mueller treats him like

he would any snitch. he says what you got? and if gates says i have stuff on manafort, mueller says that's not good enough. chris, i could go to the federal courthouse three blocks from here if i can get my credentials back, i'm not a prosecutor anymore, i could win that case against manafort in a day. that's a paper case. >> so you think this is directly to trump? >> it's about trump, it's about trump junior, it's about kushner, it's about somebody with a higher in the food chain than it is manafort. >> when i was struck by this, this is in your wheel house, the way he has to lay down for the prosecution. any question you ask, any circumstance, any document, whenever i call on you in front of any group you've got to -- it's like i'm putting this sodium pent that will in your arm right now and you're going to work for me. you're going to be my guy now. that's powerful. he must have gotten something for all of that. >> he's getting a great deal. he was looking at 40 years, now he's looking at ten years. but, if he offers substantial assistance, then that's less

than two years. and so, again, there's -- >> i heard today he might get probation. is that possible? >> yes. he only gets probation if he delivers donald trump. >> let me go to ken. ken, what are you thaerg is being proffered here? >> what the plea agreement says if he offers substantial assistance, mueller's may may not oppose a motion for probation. so probation is very possible in this case, chris. >> evelyn. >> i just want to add one more thing. i don't think many people notice but in the indictment they mention that he was the link between the campaign and the rnc. and there's a lot of question about money. you know, the money that they both got from their shady dealings in ukraine. did any of that money end up in the campaign and did any of that month end up going to the rnc? i think that's another interesting element of all this. >> after president trump referenced his former rival hillary clinton today, the cpac launched into chants of lock her up. let's watch that show. >> we have a very crooked media.

we had a crooked candidate too, by the way. i will say this, folks. everything that's turning out now it's amazing that's come full circle. boy, have they committed a lot of atrocities when you look, right? have they done things that are wrong. >> ken vogel, here's the question. that crowd he has there is not interested in hearing about russia, they're not really interested in gun safety, obviously. they're interested in trump. >> yeah. >> what's he up to? is he feeling the frenzy? he reads the papers. he's the guy -- the only guy that knows more about what he's done than mueller is trump. he knows everything he's done. he may not know how much illegal he did, but he knows the conversations he was in. he knows what instructions he gave to donald junior, what he talked to jared about, manafort. he knows what gates knows.

he goes to bed tonight knowing what the hell does gates know that he can use against me. he's almost perfect knowledge. this reminds me of a philly guy that says georgy knows what georgy's done. and so my question is, how can trump operate? is he as good good as clinton at compartmentalzation? does he know that all those bril yand lawyers around him are coming to get him? >> i don't think so. i don't think he's that the good at compartmentalizing. we see it on his twitter feed. he's obsessed with and he's unable to move on to strie to pass some of these big ticket legislative items that he has cited as his real goals. what you saw today was more an escape. it was trump playing the hits, embracing the or rather basking in the warm embrace the crowd like he did. >> who was the guy that said lock her up on stage? michael flynn. >> yeah. >> so doesn't that resonate with trump this didn't work out the

first time we chanted it? >> it must be in the back of his head. >> where the bald spot is. >> in the back of his head that mueller's charged five people with crimes, in addition to the 19 russian who's we don't have extradition agreement, they'll never see a courtroom. five of the other four have pled guilty. with paul manafort it's just a matter of time. he's 68, 69 years old, again, easy cases to prove. >> why is he holding out? >> i have no idea. it's his constitutional right to go to trial. he wants the best deal he can. you get the best deal if you're the first person, he's going to be the fifth, so he's got to have something really, really good. >> unless he's really a russian agent. i'm not kidding. i'm not even kidding. he will not make a deal if he's really a russian agent. >> what do you make of that thought, ken dilanian? >> well, to that point, the past two days have led a lot of people to reevaluate paul manafort. we learned in that indictment yesterday by the time he joined the trump campaign he was hurting for month, that's why he was committing bank fraud and

tax fraud according to dime. the speaking of cash from the ukrainian ole gark had turned off. he offered his services for free, then it does put a spotlight on what exactly was he doing in the trump campaign? why was he there? >> he's selling jobs at the white house is one thing he was doing zblai parentally so and what was i had relationship with russians and what does he know about other campaign relationships with russia. >> all i know is he wanted a house in park slope, house in the hamptons, and being financed by interesting banking deals. >> he also wanted to reup his cre dent chalss to be able to show that he had connections that were current in washington, d.c. >> yeah. >> that had helped him. having those connections. let's not forget he made these tens of millions of dollars from authoritarian regimes and ole gara garks all over the word based on the reagan campaign. in the reagan administration it was a chance for him to reup and potentially make more money.

not only that did that not work out, it's to his detriment. >> mueller has the baddest attitude about manafort. he sthaerves no knock warrant at his house in the middle of the night. he does not like this guy. it may that be manafort's holding out now because he doesn't have a good deal. even if he pleads -- >> last question. trump or manafort, who has brought more trouble to the other guy's doorstep? i think they both have hurt each other. a bad chemistry there. thank you very much. coming up, are we starting to see signs that something might get done about guns? florida's governor is now calling for raysing the minimum wage to buy a gun 21 but with the nra dead set against that. and trump reading from nra's talking points, the republicans go along? you call that one. plus, as they talk about the issue of guns, is there room in the democratic party for a moderate pro business candidate for president? we'll meet the first candidate

running for the white house in 2020 and find out how he plans to beat donald trump should that be the challenge. and much more from trump's tour deforce at cpac today. he attacked john mccain, talks to immigrants about snakes and fed red meat. it was a guy who knows how to keep his 35%. finally, my hero fror black history month there are is hardball where the action is. with its high-tech cameras and radar, contemporary cockpit, 360 degree network of driver-assist technologies, and sporty performance, what's most impressive about the glc? all depends on your point of view. lease the glc300 for just $449 a month at your local mercedes-benz dealer. mercedes-benz. the best or nothing. oh! there's one.a "the sea cow.

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john kelly will have the final say over whether or not trump's son-in-law jared kushner can maintain access to classified information. due to a new policy imposed by general kelly, those operating without a permanent security clearance are at risk of losing their access to top security information. starting today. the move threatens kushner who has been operating with an interim clearance for over a year. here's the president today. >> jared's done an outstanding job. i think he's been treated very unfairly. he's a high-quality person. he works for nothing, just to -- nobody ever reports that but he gets zero. general kelly respects jared a lot and general kelly will make that call. i won't make that call. i will let the general who's right here make that call. but jared's doing some very important things for our country. he gets paid zero. >> we'll be right back. earned you miles to get to the places you really want to go. with the united mileageplus explorer card, you'll get a free checked bag.

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teachers and staff today return to stoneman douglas high school in parkland, florida, ahead of the school's reopening which is coming next wednesday. while they return to their classrooms, president trump was telling his audience at cpac today that some of those teachers should become armed guards as well. let's watch him. >> there's nobody that loves the second amendment more than i do and there's nobody that respects the nra. they're friends of mine. they backed us all. they're great people. it's time to make our schools a much harder target for attackers. people that are adept, adept with weaponry and with guns. and this may be 10% or 20% of the population of teachers, et cetera. it's not all of them. this crazy man who walked in wouldn't even know who it is that has it, that's good. that's not bad, that's good. and a teacher would have shot the hell out of him before he knew what happened. >> well up to a point he brought it up again, the same point he brought up again during his

press conference with the prime minister of australia. >> very, very important that we have offensive capability as well as defensive capability that's within the schools. because when you have a gun-free zone you're really inviting people to come in and do whatever you have to do. >> arming teachers is the most controversial proposal the president's made. he's also tease get that right, teased for stronger background checks for gun purchases, raising the minimum wage for buying an assault rifle, as well as a ban on bump stock. he's teased all that stuff. since the more fying massacre down in florida, the president has been more open to talking about gun control but it's an open question as to whether he's going to do anything. according to the washington post, the president is eager to be seen as leading the debate but he's reluctant to spurn the nra outright and has been in frequent touch with chris cox the nr's top lobbyist. it's a strategy that's worked

for him in the past with daca, say something now, do nothing later. let's watch that act. >> well, i have a great mart he for the folks we're talking about, a great love for them. i have a love for these people and now congress will hopefully be able to help them and do it properly. whether they slay little company, if they work, whatever they're doing, if they do a great job, think it's the nice thing to an incentive of after a period of years be able to become a citizen. sth should be a bill of love, truly it shrub a bill of love and question do that. >> for me i'm joined by joy read host of am joit joy on the week. joy, i want to start with the teachers because i have an interesting theory about the teachers. i think what he's setting up is something that he knows the teachers unions and common sense is never going to happen. they're not going to put gunss in the holsters because you and i know if you were a kid in

school, i can't imagine going back, you'd be watching that teacher and say where's the gun? i think he's got it in the right-hand side in the hollister and you never take your high off that gun the whole class hour. it would be obsessive to you and it's never going to happen. he says nba stars, you have to go into metal detector to see a basketball game. we don't have the basketball players carrying guns, we have guards doing it. it's insane that teachers teaching while they're showing their gub to somebody. here's my question. is that just so when hell breaks loose ghen six months or a year from now can he say it's not my fault, they didn't have a gun in the classroom. i told them to. >> you know -- >> i think that's what he's up to because he knows it will never happen but it protects him particularly. >> i agree. and it also allows him to give the nra what they want which say massive gun buying program in every school in america would be go goode for the industry. he's sing the nra's tune. trump didn't go to public

schools, he didn't attend them so he doesn't understand how they work. the idea that an armed sheriff's deputy who was the sro in the stoneman douglas high school couldn't stand there and take incoming fire from an ar-15 but, you know, the lunch lady could do it, it's insane. and everybody understands that armed teachers, armed locked up guns in school will be found by the kids, they'll find a way to get to them then you'll just have to the shooters be able to acquire the gun in school rather than bring it. the and by the way, you and i both know that parents of public school kids and my kids went to school in broward county, i would never send my kids to a school where random teachers and the lunch lady and the janitor are packing. absolutely not. >> well, you've said it right. i think that's right because in my limited police training when i worked on the el, i was told the obvious thing. if you're confronting somebody else with a gun in a life or death situation where are your life at stake, you're shaking. no matter how cool you are, cool hand luke, you're dealing with

your own life and yet you need training for that. running around the block, creating simulation of what it's like to be, you know, under incredible pressure. and to a teacher that's got their mind on, you know, 1620 and what happened with the pilgrims and at the same time they're all of a sudden psych lodge i canally ready to pull that gun out and shoot, it isn't the same person, i don't think. maybe i'm wrong. maybe there are such people. >> you just think of all the negligent discharges that there are in the military and those are men and women who have been through advanced training to handle weapons, an idea that we're going to arm a significant portion of teachers in america seems ludicrous. i wonder how many teachers who have that training would want to bring their guns on campus as is. >> that's trouble. anyway, the president and the nra seem to think that arming teach sers a good idea. not everyone agrees. let's watch. >> i don't support that and i would admit to you right now i answer that as much as a father as i do a snaer. the notion that my kids are

going school with teachers that are armed with a weapon is not something that i'm comfortable with. >> half-cocked, hair brained, really toxic lunacy is the way to describe the idea of arming 10% to 40% of all the teachers in this country. >> i think it's a very, very, very bad idea. where i do put the gun? do i put it in my pocket in a hollister? in my desk? is it locked up somewhere. i'm in the provision to teacfes. i did not sign up to be in s.w.a.t. or whatever. we all think this is a very bad idea. >> let's start with you on the other part of it, joy. i've watched a pattern in politics. bill clinton did it in a totally different way. you can say anything you want right now and do anything you want later because the public's attention changes, situations get in the way of it and so under pressure now trump will say i'm for bump stock banning and probably something we may raise the age to 21 to buy an assault rifle and maybe we'll do

something on the magazine size too. and two or three months from now he'll do the same thing did he with daca. >> yeah. >> he was loving daca to death, oh, loved it. cherish those young people. and then two or three weeks later it was well as long as we do something on family reunification, as long as we get rid of the diversity lottery and all thorth stuff. i get the feeling he'll say all this stuff now and then he'll stop saying it and play some other game. i don't believe he's committed to any gun safety effort. >> he just said it the nra pays me, had he help with my campaign we're not going to back away. i think that trump and other republicans are doing the same thing, they're trying to stop the pain right now. the nra is losing relationships with corporate america right now. these kids are the newtown kids but teenage who'd can talk back, who can speak for themselves. they're under tremendous pressure right now and they're trying to relief that pressure in the immediate moment. these people are not committed to the one thing could you do which is stop the sale of these

weapons of war that a 19-year-old can get their hands on easier than sueda fed. >> as frank senat i tra said, whatever gets you through the night, that's the way trump behaves. i made the outcry for a prominent american companies are beginning to back away. that includes hertz, enterprise, alamo and chub which says it will no longer underwrite an insurance policy for gun owners. oregon's legislature pos passed a law banning people convicted of stalking, domestic violence band from owning firearms. first of all, i didn't know the number of companies who were giving mileage points and whatever and membership benefits to nra members for being nra members. they were given bonus points for being a gun supporter.

>> i wouldn't nund estimate the support for the nra. they say strong membership base that's energized in a lot of single voters and corporate america is going to try to do whatever they can to appeal to any large block like the nra. i do think it was significant that today that those organizations chose to sever their support. >> i would ghaes very few, if any, of those members are teenagers and young people. the nra's problem is the next generation and the generation after that who've grown up having do these mass shooter drills are not going to support this extremist agenda of the nra and the entire culture is moving in the parkland kids direction and away from wane lapierre and company. >> let's hope. thank you so much. good luck this week and everybody watch joy because joy's the best and not just on weekends. thank you, deer. thank you for coming on as well ar elise. and up next, as we saw today, trump has full command of his base so how do you beat him? account answer be a moderate

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even they have to give credit for the kind of numbers that we're producing. nobody has ever seen anything like it. they used to give the best speech of c pac. do they do that still? you better pick me or i'm not coming back. >> welcome back to hardball. that was president trump of course bragging about how great he thinks his presidency is. well, today's cpac speech was reminiscent of what a tramp rally was like back in 2016, full of boastering and pandering to his base. it's an early glimpse of what a trump campaign will look like in 2020, a race that will take off right after the midterms in november. i'm joined by maryland congressman john delaney who's the first democrat i know of to announce his candidacy against donald trump come 2020. how do you beat this guy face-to-face? i've seen a lot of people that have hillary clinton, talented people, when they get on a stage with them he tends to overpower them. what do you make of that? >> you have to push back. half of what he just said if not more wasn't true and you have to

call him out for it. but you also have to tell the american people what you're going to do for him. it can't just be how bad is he but what we're going to do for them. but when he says the stuff like what he just said that isn't true, you have to call him out for it. >> i remember the days in the '60s and even later, jobs, jobs, jobs, we're going to create jobs, put people to work, i don't hear that anymore. how come i don't hear that zbls it's a mistake and if you look at how we've done in the elections the last couple years it's obvious. we're the party of the working family. when we're not talk about someone's jobs, their pay, and the opportunities for their kids which which sas important as you know, we have to the party of the american dream, whenever we're not talk about those things we ought to have a darn good reason. >> when are we going to rebuild this country? >> infrastructurewise? >> everything. we have the worst railroads in the world. they're a joke. they're nothing compared to the rest of the world. everything, you go to berlin they have the most greatest civil engineering. >> right. >> bridges and stuff like that. and we're like third rate. >> because they have -- at this point they have a functioning government and we don't. hyper partisan politics is destroying our country.

it's tearing us apart -- >> how come eisen haur built the interstate highway system? built it? >> because we focused on what was going on in the world, we prepared our country for the future and we focussed on things that we agreed with each other on. we don't do that anymore in politics. what the president is doing right now is he's not focused on the future, he's not preparing our parties for the future. >> is your parties doing that. >> i think it's much more in line -- >> either of your parties talking about jobs right now. >> i am, i can't say everyone is. >> let's watch the democrats bernie and hillary in 19 -- well, 2016. >> imagine every single home in america being powered by renewable energy within the next ten years. imagine every kid in america has potential of being able to go to college regardless as katy would say of their zip code. >> we want to letd let students refinance their staud dent loans, raise the minimum wage.

tougher rules so the big banks can't crash the economy again. >> i want each and every one of you to march right in and to demand that the democratic party makes it clear that it is on the side of working people, not wall street. >> what are you going to do when they start putting their hands newspaper these debates because you'll be in the debates. you're all rtd out there spending money on advertisement in iowa for the caucuses. they'll say who is here for single pair? >> i'm for every single american having healthcare. i think americans want choice. >> you're not for single pair. >> i want -- >> i didn't hear it. >> i think americans have choice so i'm against the single pair in congress. >> ha about free kalg college -- >> i think community college. >> free college. >> i think community college or some kind of training after high school should be free. just like i think pre"k" should. >> not free college.

>> not four year college. >> what about gun control? are you forgetting rid of the ar-15 or limiting it? >> yes. >> abortion, where do you stand. >> pro choice. >> the 20 week thing, you against that? >> listen, i stand for women's reproductive -- >> so you wouldn't be beyond 20 weeks? >> you mean. >> they put it in they say can't have an abortion past 20. >> yeah. >> what about tax reform? did you like to bill? >> no, i don't like this bill, i didn't vote for this bill. >> what would you be for? >> will be, they therewere parts of the bill that were good, fixing the international tax system that was terrible. they should have paired that with infrastructure like i propose pd the went to have been better if instead of cutting the corporate rate to 21 they cut it to 25. business community lobbied for 25%. every one of the corporate tax vate a billion dollars. >> you sound like a nuanced politician. you're in the nuance sermon are you a moderate pro-business

democrat. >> i think all these are outdated. i have nothing against being called a moderate. >> i think he's pretty much against wall street. bernie is very much against wall street and they make streitent statements against wealth in the business world newspaper new york, the deal makers. are you like them? are you suspicious of the market. >> no, i'm not suspicious of the market in the how you can for jobs and not be for the private economy in business in this country? so what i try to do is achieve things that progressives have longed for but i do it by working with the private economy and embracing the power of the free market system. that's how we get the best results. >> okay. you'll there when terve everybo putting their hands up for single pair, free college and you'll say i have to think about that. >> no, i gave you my answer. >> thank you. a moderate pro-business democrat. john delaney first gueye in the field by the way and others will be in this time next year. up next, donald trump played all his greatest hits at c pac. he tauted a plan to arm teachers

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by the way, what a nice picture that is. look at that. i'd love to watch that guy speak. oh, boy. that's nice. i try like hell to hide that bald spot, folks. i work hard at it. doesn't look bad. hey, we're hanging in. by the way, you don't mind if i go off script a little bit, because, you know, it's sort of boring. it's a little boring. >> that was president trump doing his thing, playing to a drouded c pac. that's the conservative political action committee and certainly showing his showmanship. trump also tauted his administration's accomplishments as he sees them mocking one his

adversaries, senator john mccain unbelievably in the process. >> and except for one senator who came into a room at 3:00 in the morning and went like that, we would have had healthcare too. we would have had healthcare too. boy oh boy wlor was that? i don't know. i don't know. i don't know. i don't want to be controversial so i won't use his name. >> well, the president also res you are recollected one of the staples of his 2016 campaign comparing immigrants to poison us snakes. let's watch. >> this is called the snake. and think of it in terms of immigration. i saved you, cried the woman. and you've bitten me. heavens why? oh shut up, silly woman, said the reptile with a grin. you knew damn well i was a snake before you took me in. and that's what we're doing with

our country, folks, we're letting people in and it's going to be a lot of trouble. >> isn't he married to an immigrant? i mean, i don't know if he doesn't make these connections. let's bring in the hardball round table, jeff bennett, white house correspondent for nbc news. malcolm nance, and franchesca chambers. thank you all. i don't know, i watched every bit of it, it's part of our job to watch him, keep track of what he's up to. i thought it was a show worthy of vadville twrars a great show. he should be sitting on all the trunks with the labels on it of cities he's been to, but it's a show. let's talk about snakes. dreamers ask a romantic notion that the progressives have come up for people who are here because their parents brought them here. snakes, i just want to focus on that because i go back to the real evil of what he does and when he called trump, he called his predecessor the president, president obama an illegal immigrant basically. what's it about that? why does snake work?

snake. >> well this. >> snakey, poisonous. >> using the snake poem for immigrants -- >> you could call -- okay. >> well, my point is, again, the president does not like to challenge his core supporters on the things they care most about, whether it's immigration, healthcare or gun control. he says one day he wants a daca bill with heart and then in frokt of activists rolls this out. >> everybody knows the immigration thing is both personal and border, there's all kinds of things. but when you work with it, people, if you have them at your house or doing something for you doing any kind of work, you realized that even the people that have nothing going for them, they have a skill. they can paint, they can fix things. they've learned enough to make a living here and the idea that the poorest, most desperate laborers that come here is not ready to work. maybe the next generation won't be as hard work but when you get here you're the hardest working person in the country. why's he knocking that? >> i don't know. i think he use thads word snohomish county to be ann insidious term like snake in the

grass, like these people are working to undermine -- >> who likes snakesmy way. >> well, i don't know. but is he making this, as you said, an algory that these are enemies who are infiltrating their way into our society. then tire nation except fortunatetives, are immigrants and it's insulting to everybody right back to -- >> not all by our own choosing. >> back to alexander hamilton. >> so is melania, it's so ironic. >> a chain migration. this is just absolutely insult together american people. >> here's what he does. he plays on the good intuition we have of compassion. even if you -- you're conservative on immigration issues, you still go, yeah, but individually i like these people. individually think they're here to work hard, i want to help them. individually maybe we have to have rules and enforce them. but he says if you've got compassion, you're that stupid lady that liked that snake. you're that -- in other words,

he's attacking your compassion towards immigrants as the way that you're the fool. that's what's interesting about this algoric story. >> i'm with jeff here this was vintage trumpet used to read the snake on the campaign trail for people who were not familiar with his rallies. he loved go into this poem. this isn't the first time that he's brought it up. what you saw at c pac was him getting really riled up by the audience, it's a very -- >> he had to attack it. >> exactly. oh, do you want me to read it? okay, i guess i will. he was up there a long time past the amount that he was supposed to be. he was having a great old time. and i think part of the reason -- >> why john mccain in the man's in bad health right now, he may not make it back to the capital. >> he realized that, that's why he did not say it by name. >> but everybody knows it is him. >> what's interesting about that is that he did that at a conference for republicans for conservatives. but i think that that comment alone reflects how much the

conservative movement has moved from where it was to being -- to being the movement of donald trump. >> the round table's time support. next week we'll cap off the celebration of black history month. each of these people with me will tell us their hero. you're watching hardball. with my brand-new vlog. just making some ice in my freezer here. so check back for that follow-up vid. this is my cashew guy bruno. holler at 'em, brun. kicking it live and direct here at the fountain. should i go habanero or maui onion? should i buy a chinchilla? comment below. did i mention i save people $620 for switching? chinchilla update -- got that chinchilla after all. say what up, rocco. ♪ say what up, rocco.

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we're back with the "hardball" roundtable. this week, we're celebrating black history month. asking each of our roundtable guests to tell us which african-american figure has most inspired them personally. jeff is first. >> the person i want to highlight is lucile bridges, the mother of ruby bridges, the 6-year-old who integrated an all-white elementary school in the south back in the '60s. the reason i want to next her, i saw a picture not too long ago that featured her mother. you can see in her eyes the steely resolve on her face as she walked her daughter, 6 years old, through a gauntlet of hate.

that's right. it reminded me of all the contributions made to the civil rights movement, particularly by black women who are the unsung heros and provided the moral backbone to that movement. >> vivian malone is another one. go ahead, malcolm. >> mine, of course, is a spy. one of the first double agents in u.s. history by the name of james lafayette. that was his slave owner's name. he took the name lafayette, because serving with george washington, infiltrated him into the camp of british general corn wallace, made him has personal aide. he actually was used by the british to go back and spy on the americans. the americans gave them false information. he took real information. and at the battle of yorktown when they lost, he went back to lafayette and at the surrender, general cornwallace said you've not only taken my sword, my aid. he said he has been mine the whole time, sir.

a complete double agent. >> francesca? >> i'm going really old school. i really, really look up to harriet tubman. i always thought what she did was really inspiring. i think when the going gets tough, right, the tough get going. she's someone who is a really good role model for young women. >> what did she do? >> the underground railroad, come on, chris. >> i want you do to say it out loud. >> the underground railroad. >> which was the underground railroad -- >> tell me what it was. >> it brought slaves from slave states into the north and they were in safe houses and helped them get out of slavery. >> sometimes all the way to canada, right? >> sometimes really far. she, of course, has ties to my home state, kansas, and john brown. i actually went to school in lawrence which was burned down during that amount of time. something that is really important to me. >> john brown looks good in history, too. thank you to the panel. when we return, let me finish

tonight with my own hero of black history month. you're watching "hardball." ♪ ♪ ♪ (vo) you can pass down a subaru forester. but you get to keep the memories. love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru. (avo) get 0% apr financing on all new 2018 subaru forester models. now through february 28th.

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we finish tonight with black history month. you just heard our roundtable talk about which figures inspired them. well, all week we've celebrated african-americans in history. let's watch. >> tony morrison, she was the first african-american to win a

nobel prize for literature. >> barbara jordan. she was a political trailblazer, a figure ahead of her time. >> katherine johnson was a mathematical genius. >> clarence jones is a lawyer who was martin luther king jr.'s lawyer. >> a share cropper from alabama who in 194 was abducted and gang raped by six white men. >> former detroit mayor coleman young. >> i chose one of my mentors, gwenna evil. >> la roam benefit. >> jackie robinson. >> a leader as a young student rode busses in the south to stand up to entrenched forces. that's john lewis. >> as a journalist, chris, i'm going to look to w.e.b. debias. >> she was my grandmother. >> ida clark. >> i like the suggest another name for the list. the great entertainer harry

belafonte. he played an enormous role in the movement. both out front and offstage. work with political figures like bobby kennedy while never giving up his militancy. that's "hardball" for now this week. thanks for being with us. the first time i saw her, i thought she was beautiful. we just loved being together. we were always together. >> our kitchen back door was open and the glass was broken. >> i need an ambulance now. my wife! oh my god! >> it was he who found her. >> i didn't know how to handle that. i wish i could have been there to protect her. >> a wife murdered and later a