an extraordinary life well lived. but she lived the life she wanted to. 34 years old. estimated 10,000 people attending her funeral in chicago, illinois. in 2006 she was enshrined. the national aviation hall of fame. >> truly an american story. not a life-long lived but well lived. if you have a monumental american, tweet us. >> she went, i would say -- >> a lot of pilots during that day did that. >> glad you are back. >> thank you. and i'll be back at 3:00 p.m. eastern. now over to andrea mitchell for "andrea mitchell reports." >> hoping for answers. house intelligence committee questioning the white house communities director. in connection with the russia investigation. will she answer their questions? >> when hope that hope hicks, when she does come in, will be forthcoming. but yes we continue to make progress even though it is difficult and ethough the

chairman continues to want the committee to focus on this attack on what he believes is the deep state. >> waiting for orders. the head of u.s. cyber command says despite russia's continue aid tacks on american democracy, he has received no marching orders from the white house to defer russia. >> as i understand, you said that president trump never ordered cyber com to take any action to thwart anything in the electiones this fall. is that correct? >> i said i've never given any specific direction to take additional steps outside my authority. i have taken the steps within my authority and trying to be a good proactive commander. >> no one from the administration has asked to you take any additional steps? >> i've been granted any additional authority, capacity, capability, that's true certainly true. >> and hell on earth.

that's how it is described in the damascus suburb, attacked also with chlorine gas. >> russia claims the rebels gassed their own people for international sympathy. medics say that's ludicrous. yet again, they ask for help to stop the assad regime from bombing their clinics. and good day, everyone. i'm andrea mitchell in washington. trump's closest white house aide and campaign aide, hope hicks, is behind closed doors. still not clear whether she is answering questions or asserting some sort of privilege against testifying. as the president is exploding against the russia probe on twitter. declaring the mueller investigation and congressional inquiryes a witch hunt in all caps. joining me now, chief white

house correspondent, halle jackson. of course, moderator of washington week. and nbc reporter mike memly on capitol hill. first to you, hallie. it doesn't get any closer. >> you put it right up there on the level of jared kushner. even ivanka trump. hope hicks has been around the trump family since before donald trump got into politics. working in an outside public relations capacity, essentially, coming on board the campaign. at the president's side for nearly every pivotal moment. house intel investigators are looking at. this is not some of them you've seen carter pages of the world, right, come before house intel. that's not the case here. she is certainly someone in the loop. there are questions about what she might be able to say and about the white house asserting executive privilege here. remember back when steve bannon came in front of the house intel

committee a couple of times. that was a real issue. there was the sense that i had heard from folks reporting around this time that it was almost like political theater in a way. the expectation now and mike will talk more about this, so i don't want to step on his toes, in it for the long haul, andrea. questioning hope hicks shortly after 10:00 a.m. on the hill. >> as you tee that up, mike, the house intelligence committee because of all of the partisan, infighting, nunes versus schiff, memo fight, they have so much -- well, so much credibility. so why is this important? i guess it is important because if she is taking an oath, swearing to congress, then anything she says there could be picked apart in the future. by robert mueller. but robert mueller is the main act. >> that's absolutely right, andrea. but one thing in this house intelligence investigation, given all of the political dissense we have seen within it,

it is a big deal because it shows both sides are willing to bring somebody before them. any time someone testifies before congress, their truthfulness is an issue. but we are are yet to see at this point is just how far republicans are going to be willing to go in pressing hope hicks to answer some of the most important questions they have and there is some indication that's not the case. representative christopher stewart of utah want, one of the members, stepped out and said hope hicks was not answering questions about her time in the white house. this sets up potential executive privilege fight. why that time period is so important is because one of the things i no he that democrats especially want to talk to her about is her role in the conversations that took place on air force 1 just after it was about to be reported that the "new york times," by the "new york times", that this conversation at trump tower that happened in 2016. hope hicks may have played a role according to some of the reporting we've seen in saying

that e-mails that donald trump jr. was sending to some of the russians who were going to join them for that meeting would never get out, raising the specter of obstruction of justice. so we saw when donald trump jr. testified before the house intelligence committee last december, that he wasn't willing to answer questions about those very conversations. he cited attorney client privilege which democrats thought did not apply because neither donald trump nor his son were attorneys. so whether or not republicans would follow through with subpoenas as they did with steve bannon last month is still remains to be seen. but as stewart also told us, they are in for the long haul here, just getting started after just two hours. >> and robert costa, let's talk about hope hicks and the role she plays, first in the campaign and transition of course and now the white house. >> having first met her years ago, she was at president trump's side. then candidate trump.

even noncandidate trump's side back in 2014, 2015. as a candidate who was so devoted to being dominant in the media, getting headlines, to be on social media, not so much build out campaign infrastructure but to use the media and media attention as a way to generate buzz for his own campaign, she was central to the american stage and remained at his side. so when he trusts to provide him with information she prints out tweets, prints out articles. the president does not use a computer ever or e-mail. and so he relies on hope hicks to be his channel, trusted confidant or understanding the one area he is so obsessed with, the media. >> in fact, her hand-written notes that were noticed by an ap photographer in the oval office the other day when he was meeting with the families from florida, from sandy hook. her notes saying, you know, i

hear you, i'm listening to you, and the rest. so hallie, she is at his side, you know, and giving him information. she is the one prepping him for many of the key meetings. >> and in many ways acting as a conduit, andrea, between him and other information. whether it is e-mails, or to play off of your discussion with the hand-written note, saying, i hear you, and about this listening session and being there to support the president in a lot of ways. yes, her title is communications director. but i think behind that title is a lot that's not reflected in those words. regarding her involvement inside the west wing, regarding closeness, remember, with the family, somebody who has known ivanka trump and jared and the rest of the kids for a long time. i dent want to sound like a broken record here, but again, yes, she is part of the intercircle and that is where these questions come from house intel. i do want to note and i think is brought up by bob, by mike, by you, the house intel committee is under fire, andrea, as you

have alluded to. as opposed to, for example, senate intelligence committee. but what is more crucial than either of those is bob mueller's special counsel investigation. that's where many of the critical questions have been coming from as it relates it hicks's involvement in some moments throughout the president's campaign, transition and administrations looked at. >> and before we let you guys go, bob costa, if you could just weigh in very quickly on brad pasqual and how he played in the 2016 campaign. not a well known figure but now the campaign manager of the campaign in 2020 re-elect which the president declared he is running for reelection. a very controversial, very little known character. >> little known but if we only have a moment here, it is important to note he is close to

jared kushner, the son-in-law. for all of kushner's problems inside the white house looking toward 2020, a kushner ally. now set to run the campaign. >> this guy did the whole digital operation and obviously potentially key witness in terms of any connection to russia in the digital space? >> indeed. especially if you look at social media and the way some of those people who are indicted use facebook. his knowledge of how that whole world works could certainly come under scrutiny. >> thanks so much. to halle jackson and bob costa and mike memley standing by on the hill. join m joining me is former fbi assistant director for counter intelligence. and matt miller spokesperson for attorney general eric holder. welcome both.

if hope hicks does not answer questions, how valuable will be her testimony about the campaign itself? >> so andrea, look, the push back we're seeing and inability of congressional committees to break through the obstructionist approach that's being taken with regard to executive privilege serves to place even more pressure and more importance on the mueller investigation. we all have reason to believe that hope hicks has spoken at great length to the mueller team. but this kind of thumbing your nose at the congressional committees, just reiterates to all of us, that wind is out of the sails with regard to an effective credible investigative process on the hill. i want to bring up something else on this topic of executive privilege. which is, that white house counsel mcghann is back there calling the shots, literally framing and telling witnesses

what they can and cannot answer based on so-called executive privilege. here is the problem. mcghann himself is a witness slash possible subject in some of the dealings with the mueller team. yet he is able to call the shots to ensure that people aren't answering questions that might be about him. and his involvement. so he really needs to recuse himself and we're not hearing enough about this cop flikt. >> and people have not been raising that question. these committees don't have the power, democrats don't have the power, they're not in the majority wp nunes working closely with the white house. matt miller, there's been testimony on the hill today from admiral mike rogers, highly regarded, stepping down, retiring after long services ahead of the national services agency which is our cyber world. and what he testified to today was that no one, not commander-in-chief, not general mattis, defense secretary mattis, have asked him to retaliate against the known actors now in russia. we've got the indictments, we

know who the russians are. they don't have to be convicted to know what that special unit was doing. >> right. >> here is part of the testimony and part of his q & a with claire mccaskill. >> i'm going to try to channel a woman who came up to me at the grocery store not too long ago. she asked me, are we strong enough and smart enough that we can keep them from doing this again? >> yes. >> okay. so then the next question she asked me, i said the same thing. the next question she asked me, are we doing that right now? >> we're taking steps but we're probably not doing enough. >> okay. so she wants to know, and i want to know, why the hell not? what's it going to take? >> ma'am, i'm an operational commander, ma'am. you're asking me a question that's so much big are than me. >> can you feel for this nsa director who has done his job. but he's not been told to take

retaliatory action against russia for attacking our democracy. republicans were also asking this. when it gets to russia, you have a bunch of republican senators on armed services who are not happy. >> his testimony today was in the category of shocking but not surprising. as revealed, we have the ability to deter russia from doing this again. what we don't have is the will. we don't have the will because the will has to come from the president of the united states himself. without the president making a decision to retaliate against the russian answers deter russians, people down stream from him, people like the director of the nsa, can't take action. as you've reported a number of tiles shown the, there is an single meeting of the deputies -- >> or principals. >> or principals of national security agencies to formulate a government-wide response. there hasn't been that kind of government-wide response because the president for whatever reason will not authorize them to do so. will not direct them to do so. we don't know because he chafs at the idea that russia helped

him get elected. or if it is something for nefarious. but it is dereliction of duty by the president of the united states. have you agencies whose job it is to deter russia from doing this and again's can't act on it. >> you have watched government nor decade in the fbi at high levels. who is in the position of the fbi director nsa director or cia director will take action if they are not told by national security council led by the president of the united states to do something? >> our government has a cyber command. that's the good news. the agencies talk to each other. come to work everyday under the same roof. so that's all coordinated. but there are certain category he of action that require the green light from the white house. and that's not what's happening. there are things we can do. people should know, even as we're speaking, andrea, we're under constant attack by bots, russian government sponsored propaganda and americans are

retweeting right now postings and twitter feeds that are coming from russian government sources. so can we take them down? we can. can we send the message we won't tolerate this? we can. we can only do that more offensive action if the white house gives the green light and why aren't they doing it? is it because they want russia to shape the mid term election? is it because president trump feels compromised and can't take offensive action against russia? what is the reasoning behind this? >> and i want to emphasize the guy wearing the uniform is just the witness here. he is not in charge. he is in charge of the cyber command and doing something, but he has to get an order from, you know, the commander-in-chief. thank you very much. frank and matt, thanks to both. coming up, gun law gridlock.

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now you can get it, too. welcome to the party. a disappointing setback for student activists. many of them travel on buss to florida's capital demanding gun restrictions. the state voted down an amendment to a school safety

bill that would have banned assault weapons. outraging activists in the chamber. >> by your vote, the amendment is not adopted. we will good to the next -- >> excuse me. >> the committee did approve other gun measures including a ban on the ban of bump stacks and raising the age of 18 to 21 to purchase a semiautomatic weapon. last week, voting against a motion to take up a bill that would have banned assault weapons, excuse me, thank you for joining us today. give me your thinking about why you wouldn't want it ban assault weapons given their semi aught mat uk assault weapons given the role that ar-15s and other weapons of this type have played in not just parkland but other

killings. >> andrea, remember my first obligation as an elected official is to defend the constitution and make sure we don't trample on the constitutional rights when emotions are high and as that last video showed, emotions are high. families are still in tallahassee grieving and talking to us about their losses. but ultimately, semiautomatic rifles are included in the family of firearms that americans hold dear as second amendment right. and it is my obligation to make sure that right is preserved as well as slugs that actually defend the children at the schools. of which the house and senate bills have good measures on. >> let me ask you about the second amendment right. the second amendment, and the late justice scalia wrote, that it is not an absolute. they upheld handguns but there

could be reasonable restrictions on these kinds of weapons has been upheld by many courts. >> well, remember, also, that there are very many reasonable restrictions already in place in florida. i'll make two points. preventing 18 to 21 yoo-year-ol from possessing or purchasing any firearm whatsoever, which is major constitutional infringement from the bill of rights, still doesn't prevent a criminal of any age from obtaining a weapon of any kind on the street or through theft or bartering or what have you. so we come down to this, andrea, how do we protect the kid? if we somehow waved a wand and said, no law-abiding citizen should have a firearm, these crimes will not stop. and i can't sleep at night knowing that's the case. that's why we are looking at sentinels and marshals in our schools to protect the kids. >> at the same time though, if the guns were not available to

an 18 or 19-year-old, that could be one step. if gun did not exist you would not have had the, you know, the terror, massacre, that you have. you can talk about mental health and other restrictions and everything is part of this mosaic but the guns are the differentiator here. if these weapons were not so available on the streets, and easily purchased by someone with the terrible mental problems, of nicholas cruz, this would not have happened. >> you're very well read on these matters, andrea, but i will refer you to the past ban on semiautomatic rifles. there are plenty of heinous crimes occurring during time. including columbine. what we need to do is harden the schools. so that when i drop my children off, i know that if someone comes in to do harm, they will be met with force. not a policy that may or may not

have an effect. what we are looking for now are real-life solutions, realtime. >> thank you very much. i know this debate will continue in tallahassee and around the nation and we appreciate very much your coming on today. thank you. >> my pleasure. >> and while at the same time, a thousand gun control activists, including students from parkland, florida, pushing for tighter gun laws. one of the leaders of that rally is former democratic mayor philly lavine, now running for govern governor. thank you. let me ask you to respond a to what you just heard from jay fant. >> you see the puppet strings behind him. there should have been a disclaimer. he doesn't understand what is going on. i led with a the women's march much of florida. students that came up, team offers that came up, they all

have one mission, to make our schools as safe as possible. unfortunately the senate sided with the nra. this gentleman he just talked about right there. but it is unfortunate. andrea, we delivered about p,000 pi tigses from floridians that want sensible gun reform. i'm a gun owner. i have a concealed weapons permit. but we know we must ban the ar-15s. can i tell what you happens in florida will effect the whole country. let's just hope that people around the country that are watching this will come on to our website, philliplavine2018 to sign petitions to let the people in tallahassee know that we mean business. >> one of the other people in your race is gwen graham, former member of congress. she is also in favor of some gun restrictions. why would you be a better candidate than she? >> i can only speak for myself, andrea. i'm a successful entrepreneur who started with $500 and became

a successful two-term mayor. we've done a lot. i am someone that can get things done. but more importantly, it is not about me. it is not floridians. it is about making our state safe. everybody coming together. ar-15, bullet, an republican or democratic issue. gun reform is a human safety issue. that's what is so sad about this whole situation. these kids go back it school tomorrow. what a shame they have to go back it school knowing these folks in tallahassee sided with special interests and nra and not do the right thing for the people of florida. >> we should point out that same situation is taking hold in congress that despite all of the passion, marchs, protests, right now, at least congress seems hopelessly gridlocked on this issue. thank you for coming. thanks for being on. we are reaching out to others in that race, including gren graham. coming up, holding out hope. will she answer the house committee questions today?

the hope hicks story. more coming up. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. stay with us. ♪ no, please, please, oh! ♪ (shrieks in terror) (heavy breathing and snorting) no, no. the running of the bulldogs? surprising. what's not surprising? how much money aleia saved by switching to geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more.

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the big question is what will hope hicks say? former white house aide to presidents clinton and obama and msnbc con tribor george will also a contributor. good to see you both. ron, you've been on these committees as general counsel. you've seen the operation. this house committee destroyedity credibility, frankly, by deinvolving into partisan politics. in a way that intelligence committee never had before. how useful is this session? >> likely not useful at all. we know officials have gone to the committee, stonewalled, refused to answer questioned about the times before trump was before. don junior claimed attorney/client privilege when he was neither an attorney or a client.

so i don't think we will learn anything significant from hope hicks today. other than great adeptness on her part of not answering questions. >> she was a one-time ralph lauren model. she worked for ivanka in ivanka's business. she was in public relations. she comes from a family very, very close to the trump family. to the trump children. she has operated in the white house with increasing authority because of her closeness, her proximity to the president. >> increasing prominence but whether she is exercising is hard to say. because the workings of the white house are opaque to me and i suspect to a good many people in the white house. the claim of executive privilege is preposterous. you can't claim skebexecutive privilege on someone you had at the time who was not an executive. he was confused about that because during transition he was exercising essentially presidential power as with the carrier episode where he flew to

indiana and pressured a company into doing something it didn't want to do. >> the executive privilege, as legal legally defined, involves conversations with the president of the united states. >> well, it can't be among his advisers. but let's be clear. the trump administration has not unwilling to assert privilege. that's not what they are doing. they are refusing to answer questions. and the house is letting them get away with it. that is something that didn't happen in previous investigations, when either a democrat or republican was in the white house. they say, we have legitimate questions. answer them or give a legitimate privilege. so answer. >> or face subpoena. >> or face subpoena. >> even if everyone still got along there would be a tremendous mismatch. these fellows, not tremendous

investigators. no more on their plate besides this investigation, up against the former director of the fbi and 16 professional high-paid a-team prosecutors. so what they can hope to add to what the mueller investigation is doing, i cannot see. >> george, their claim is that their mission is different. they have a mission to see what should be done legislatively by congress to prevent this kind of interference with our election. where mueller is a criminal investigation. >> first of all, you have to know what's happened. that's the fundamental mission. there is some indictment telling us what happened. >> i'm curious also -- >> can i just say, andrea. >> yeah. >> i do believe they have a different mission. we saw an example of that at a different hearing today. the head of the nra sat and told senator mckass kcaskill that he

taking action because the commander-in-chief hasn't ordered him to do so so i think the house intelligence committee which has in its mission helping protect our country could dig into that and help us build the political will to keep russia from doing what they did in 2016, in 2018 and 2020. >> fair point. now look torgwards 2020, what signal is the administration is the campaign, i should say, sending by announcing that brad parscal will be the campaign manager? to my knowledge, he doesn't have m managerial managerial experience. he plans it build on the extraordinary digital operation that they believe succeeded for them. >> well, i think it sends a big signal by putting the person would ran the onramp for russian influence in the 2016 -- >> we don't know that. >> here is what we do know. he ran the digital operation and personally retweeted russian bots and trump digital operation

was amplification operation for the disinformation of russia and its allies and far from saying that was a bad thing, brad parscal has been bragging it was successful and facebook was a successful thing and so this is a sign that trump intends to use the same tactics in 2020 that he used in 2016. >> george? >> if there is a 2020. this man has been elevated to a job that may not exist. a very long time between now and then. mueller will report -- mr. trump, i'm not sure he is having fun. i'm not sure he is the kind of guy that does things that aren't fun. therefore, if he find on the morning after the election in november he is facing a divided congress and fractured house with investigative powers in the hands of committees, chaired by democrats, he might decide that he doesn't want to continue with this. i don't think he is driven by an overmastering urge for public

service. >> george will? you have the last word. ron claim, thank you so much. up next, 2020 vision from democratic side. making mid term voters care about foreign policy. and also, 2020 voters. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. around here, i'm lucky to get through a shift without a disaster. my bargain detergent couldn't keep up. it was mostly water. so, i switched to tide pods. they're super concentrated, so i get a better clean. i mean, i give away water for free. i'm not about to pay for it in my detergent. #1 trusted. #1 awarded it's got to be tide. and for a plant-based clean, try tide purclean today's senior living communities have never been better,

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the obama administration is focussing on take awning the trump administration in mid terms and beyond the project is called national security action and it is co-chaired by ben roads, former national adviser in the obama white house and former policy adviser from hillary clinton's campaign. they both join me now. welcome, both. ben, what makes you think that voters are going to care about foreign policy? they are happy apparently with the tax cut that is increasingly popular and economy seems to be okay, short term at least. so for 2018, barring any catastrophic events on the economic domestic side, things seem to be going along quite well. >> well, there are some basic

things that people care about. they don't want the president of the united states to be reckless and risk getting us into catastrophic wars like we've seen potentially with north korea. they don't like the military conflict they aren't even necessarily being told about which is what we see across the middle east. they certainly don't like the corruption and one of the things we want to lift up is trump going around saying he would stand up to countries. we see what should be the national interest on foreign policy issue is and we see i think the voters want the president of the united states to represent them around the world and want to be proud of that. right now that's an embarrassment to the united states. we want it mato make the case t not only is trump not fit for office, but there is an affirmative view of how america leads the world and keeps us safe and there needs to be an organized collective making that case and that's why they built the organization. >> joseph young, chief negotiator on north korean issue

says stepping down, retiring, experienced diplomat and negotiator. we see an hollowing out of the state department. we see secretary of state negotiating without a translator, using turkish foreign minister to be his translator? not properly staffed by the state department. people don't seem to care. how do we, you, make people care? republicans as well as democrats care about what is happening in foreign policy. >> i think trump's own secretary of defense jim mattis put it well. if you start cutting diplomats, driving them in droves out of the state department, then jim mattis has to spend more money on bullets and guns. it is more likely we end up at war. more likely we will end up at war on the korean peninsula. more likely we will have to escalate military involvement in the middle east. more likely we could stumble into conflict with iran. and all of those are things that we believe voters will care about as we good forward. they don't want it see the commander-in-chief recklessly putting us at risk of war and not investing in the kind of diplomacy that leads to america

being respected and secure around the world. >> and decisions such as jerusalem being the capital of israel, which has congressional support. but no other president has ever taken the step. now on may 14th, they will open the embassy, a token small opening in jerusalem to make that point, drive it home, and also zeer yroing out palestiniaf jie aid. >> democrats have been strong supporters of israel and israel security. we see the announcement is attached to no strategy. i think it'll make israel less safe. if you stir the pot and make something like jerusalem without a clear strategy without something you can articulate, we are isolated in the world. they threaten other countries not to vote with us at the u.n. and did anyway. they aren't getting return on the policies they are pursuing. they often seize on issues they figure will be a political advantage to them and that is something that needs to be

countered. we see this in the immigration debate. ms-13 is treated as a national securityish puyallup what they a are doing, is the immigration approach that fails to separate out criminal like ms-13 from dreamers, that makes us less safe. whether it is jerusalem or imgr immigration or other issues where they try to drive wedges we need to marshal against trump what he is doing to make us less safe. >> with all due respect, hillary clinton campaigned on that. saying this man, donald trump, is not prepared to be commander-in-chief. trying to frighten people into thinking he has the button and now he brags his button is bigger than kim jong-un's. >> people in the voting booth were concerned about one of their considerations about donald trump acting recklessly. now we have more than year's worth of evidence to suggest those fears are justified.

that donald trump is out there on twitter goeding a dictator into a war. i don't think this is something that voters sleep easily at night with donald trump as commander-in-chief. i would also add that we have global surveys suggesting china's leadership is more respected than america's. if this there is one thing americans care about is that people look at us and see inspiration and don't look at china and see that's the place we want to go for the future. so from my perspective, we have a chance to make the case heading into 2018. both about fundamental questions about security but also how we are as country and how we are seen around the world. >> thank you both so much. >> thank you. >> coming up, corker bows out. there time for real. tennessee senator saying it is final. how does that shake up the race? we will tell you next. stay right here. my name's dustin. hey, dustin. grab a seat. woman: okay. moderator: nice to meet you.

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when did you see the sign? when i needed to create a better visitor experience. improve our workflow. attract new customers. that's when fastsigns recommended fleet graphics. yeah! now business is rolling in. get started at fastsigns.com. well, it's official, after flirting with another potential senate run, republican bob corker now says he is sticking with his original plan, he will retire from the senate, despite pleas from his fellow

republicans. let's get the inside scoop from nbc news senior political editor mark murray. kimberly atkins, boston herald, and msnbc contributor. and sabrina sadicky, for the guardian. corker decide to bow out for real? >> yes, the back story, he was having legitimate second thoughts after saying that he wasn't going to run for re-election in september. then of course back in september, he had said many critical comments about president trump, questioned his stability, his competence, even mentioned perhaps we could be on a path to world war iii. in the last several months, corker has not been critical of the president at all, has tried to wham up to him, particularly as he tries to construct some type of deal on the nuclear deal. but ultimately it was going to be very difficult for corker to win against marsha blackburn, the republican congresswoman from tennessee. particularly as the races that i've seen across the country on the republican side, when it comes to primaries, it is who is

the stronger ally, who is the more pro-trump republican, and bob corker, even if he had kind of walked back some of his previous criticisms, was going to find himself in a tough position with that. >> kimberly atkins, the fact is that marsha blackburn has been a solid ally of the presidents and that is, in terms of, you know, primary politics, makes a big, big difference. she had, in fact, her spokeswoman had responded to corker's spokesperson suggestion that she couldn't win by saying that was the comment of a sexist pig, so she was going all in. >> she was, and she has been doing very well, leading up to this primary, very closely aligned to donald trump. the one thing that had senator corker reconsidering was people close to him, republicans, who are concerned that perhaps she would have difficulty in the general election, as you said her response was to call such a thing sexist. but they always said look, if she was doing well, polling well, fund-raising well, that the likelihood was senator

corker would pull back and we've seen that's exactly what he did. >> sabrina, the other really interesting story that's been bubbling up is melania. melania trump now clearly firing this outside adviser, very high-powered new york event planner, who, we now learn from the fcc filings of the inaugural committee, was paid $26 million for her role in organizing this inaugural which was not even nearly as expansive as the obama inaugural and which was done for far, far less. >> yes, and the white house is saying that melania was unaware of the money that this now former adviser received as part of the inaugural event. that she wasn't really involved. but this adviser did mention melania's name a great deal when she was part of the planning for that inauguration. this really stems from government watchdogs looking for more accountable as to how the inaugural committee raised $107 million and didn't provide a lot of information for how they spent that money.

another line that we've heard from that is they donated significantly less to charity than they had previously advertised. so this has a lot to do i think with transparency and the way in which that money was spent, which as you mentioned, was more than twice the amount that inaugural, obama's inaugural committee spent. >> and the advisers is one of these new york event planners who, mark, this isn't your world or my world, but she had done the met ball, the costume ball. i mean, when you're dealing with the kind of money raised at those events, that is not a public sector kind of event, so that is a misstep by the -- >> andrea, you know, donald trump had a strength being an outsider in the presidential election but it's also sometime a weakness being such an outsider with people who are from the outside of planning these types of events and, as was mentioned, the lack of transparency was a big issue here. >> kimberly, before we go, the

president claim during the transition he was going to barring down the cost of the new air force ones. we don't know the details but both boeing and the white house now saying they have ordered a new fleet. which something that's always very exciting for those of us who have flown on the plane and watched the plane and for americans all over the country, i mean, that is the blue and white symbol of the commander in chief, a powerful one elector alley. >> yes, and president always talks about cutting a better deal so he cut this deal for just under $4 billion. $4 billion was the original deal so i don't know how much of a discount he got. but he likes to tout his business prowess and this gave him an opportunity to do that. >> we'll see when the numbers come in and when the delivery date gets delayed. we'll also listen to that maybe well beyond his presidency. great to see you, sabrina, kimberly and mark murray, thanks for weighing in today. on our inside scoop. more ahead. when i first got on ancestry

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we're out of time. here's kristen welwelker. >> good afternoon, i'm kristen welker in for craig melvin. hope hicks answering questions in the russia probe. will she exert executive privilege like steve bannon and refuse to answer questions? plus, mounting pressure, congress back f