congressman ted deutch. >> it's not just you side with the parents. it's those kids. not all of them are 18 but they will be soon, and they will be voting for years to come. they are energized. thanks for watching. i will see you back at 3:00 p.m. eastern. >> right now, we hand you off to our friend and colleague, andrea mitchell for "andrea mitchell reports." right now on "andrea mitchell reports," the wild, wild west wing. rapid-fire headlines coming out of the white house. hope hicks, one of the president's closest and longest serving aides, out. jared kushner reportedly raising millions for his family business from inside the white house. jeff sessions being called a cartoon character by his boss. all while special counsel robert mueller is digging into what candidate trump knew and when did he know it about the dnc e-mail hack. >> wikileaks. i love wikileaks. i'll tell you, this wikileaks stuff is unbelievable. >> it's been amazing what's coming out on wikileaks. >> this wikileaks is like a treasure trove. the gun show.

president trump unloading on live tv, negotiating with congressional leaders and taking both sides by adopting a surprise new stand on gun control. only to revote on twitter today. >> you can't buy one, you have to wait until you're 21, but you can buy the kind of weapon used in the school shooting at 18. i was just curious as to what you did in your bill. >> we didn't address it, mr. president. >> know why? because you're afraid of the nra. if you could add what you have also, and i think you can, into the bill, can you do that? and invincible. a warning from vladimir putin today claiming he has a new arsenal of nuclear capable weapons which he says could render u.s. defense systems useless. >> if you have a cruise missile that can fly low and fast, it cannot be hit by our missile defense systems in our coastal cities, boston, new york,

washington are definitely at risk. good day. i'm andrea mitchell in washington. with the white house reality show hitting a whole new level. a trusted aide on the way out, jared kushner's questionable financial dealings under the microscope, a public feud between the president and his attorney general has gone from bad to worse, and hovering over it all, special counsel robert mueller, a potential grim reaper for the trump presidency, inching closer to the commander in chief and his wide-ranging investigation. joining me is msnbc's katy tur with exclusive new reporting on the mueller investigation, msnbc contributor and "the washington post" white house reporter ashley parker and nbc white house correspondent kristen welker. katy, first to you. break down the significant new information that you broke yesterday. >> here's the thing. the investigation and all the reporting threads on it seem to be leading in one direction and that was the obstruction angle.

did donald trump potentially obstruct the investigation into russian interference. this new reporting from carol lee and i showed that the special counsel is still very interested in what donald trump himself, not his campaign, not those close to him, but donald trump himself, knew about russian meddling, knew about specifically the wikileaks e-mails that came out not only on the dnc but on the hillary clinton campaign, on john podesta, her campaign chairman. they are focusing on a moment during the campaign, at least one of the focuses is a moment during the campaign in july of 2016, right in the middle of the democratic national convention, when donald trump held a press conference, got up onstage and said russia, if you're listening, i want to see hillary clinton's missing 30,000 e-mails. investigators were curious why in the world would he say that, and they are curious still with the special counsel. they are asking witnesses if that line was scripted. they want to know if it was off

the cuff, potentially and if it wasn't, if somebody did tell him to say it, who, and why? so now they are also looking at roger stone, who was donald trump's former campaign aide, long-time confidant. was roger stone really out of the mix in 2016, or was there some sort of back channel? we are interested in roger stone, obviously, because of some of the prophetic tweets he sent out at the end of the 2016 campaign, saying it would soon be john podesta's time in the barrel and less than a month later, or about a month later, john podesta's e-mails started coming out on the very day the "access hollywood" tape dropped. it allowed donald trump to refocus attention to distract from that scandal and the other scandals that were embroiling his campaign at the time. >> all this happening while there is a major white house shuffle. hope hicks, there from the very beginning, ashley parker, the

importance of hope hicks and what her departure means at the very time jared and ivanka are under fire, losing their top security clearance and not having access to the critical information jared needs. it really does seem like some of the last key players, josh raffel and others who already said they are leaving just this week as well. a big change for donald trump. >> hope hicks was one of these trusted confidants who president trump almost thought of as a surrogate daughter, who was expected to be there turning out the lights with him at the end of four or eight years or whenever his presidency came to an end. it is hard to overstate first how stunning her departure is, and second, sort of how impactful and what it will mean for the white house. first of all, this is a president who likes to be surrounded by people with whom he's comfortable and familiar and hope hicks was first among them. with her exiting, there are

really an incredibly few number of people from the campaign and even from his family who are in the west wing who can make him feel comfortable and hope was also one of these people who was a trump whisperer. you can say that's a good or bad thing, but she was able to manage his moods in the margins and that now is gone, too. a final thing i will add is hope is someone who, other than the president himself, saw and knew everything that is going on in that west wing. she was the person when the president dictated that misleading statement that he had his son put out about the trump tower meeting with the russians during the campaign, he dictated it to hope. she is also someone who is potentially problematic for him in terms of what she knows about what katy was just saying. a lot of these questions that mueller and investigators have. >> she could say, as she did during nine hours of testimony at house intelligence, that she didn't want to answer questions about the transition, about what's happened in the white house. she can't say that, wasn't able

to take that spurious privilege, when she was testifying to mueller. there's a whole question going forward about that. let's show, to illustrate the point you are all making as we bring in kristen, this picture from the white house swearing-in of senior staff and who is still left. you see all of the departures now from bannon to spicer to rob porter, michael flynn, katie walsh. kristen, the president increasingly isolated in terms of having regional players. at the same time, there is john kelly, but john kelly is in a feud, simmering feud, with ivanka and jared. >> you can't overstate the extent to which these continual shakeups makes things difficult for the white house to function, for this president to function. this will now be his fifth communications director. and communications director plays a very big role. you could sort of see that on

everyone's face yesterday. there was some real concern i think about the workload going forward, about what this was going to mean practically. you bring up john kelly. this obviously comes, there's been a lot of questions about john kelly, about his future, particularly in the wake of the rob porter scandal. lot of people within the white house, within the administration, he has stabilized the shift. tensions between him, between jared and ivanka and a lot of focus on jared kushner right now as well, he's one of the people who has been under a microscope in this mueller problem. >> let's see john kelly at a homeland security meeting this morning trying to joke about the tenuous and volatile role he's playing as chief of staff. >> i would just open by saying i have almost no right to be up

here on this stage. i was in -- >> you have every right. thank you. >> truly, at six months, the last thing i wanted to do was walk away from one of the great honors of my life, being secretary of homeland security. >> so he hasn't lost his sense of humor but one of the things that he's going to have to deal with, maybe he is already dealing with in this taking back of the top security clearance for jared kushner, not only did jared kushner not, as "the washington post" reported, acknowledge and disclose his contacts with foreign leaders who were then talking amongst themselves and this was clearly picked up by u.s. intelligence, talking amongst themselves about how they thought they could manipulate the young novice

diplomat, if you will, but he was actually meeting, according to "new york times" reporting, with apollo management and other key investment banks and fundraising folks, major business sources, as the top aide to the president, who then were contributing money and investing in the kushner family business. his legal team would say he's no longer part of that business, but it is the family business, and he was also doing these things during the transition and meeting with a very controversial russian banker. >> well, the "times" story raises the question of a sort of unseemly quid pro quo with jared and these businesses who were coming in and getting white house meetings and white house access, and then were giving his family business loans. at the very least, it's definitely the perception of a conflict of interest. and you're right, general kelly sort of came in and tried to restore order and control and processes to the west wing.

by all accounts, he did that, at least initially. he does have a lot of challenges to manage. jared kushner is first among them. but you could look at what's happening with trade tariffs today where no one in that white house knows what's going on and what the president is going to say at his announcement, and also, the president's shifting stance on guns and what we have seen with the president going back and forth on immigration, and the president making phone calls late at night that general kelly doesn't know about, or the president calling aides into the west wing and having them go around general kelly. it's an incredibly tough job. >> only today saying they were going to impose tariffs, controversial tariffs on aluminum and steel and now they're not. kristen, in all this mix, how long would you give jared and ivanka to stay and stick this out since he no longer has the top secret clearances that enable him, despite what they say, enable him to negotiate and meet with foreign leaders? >> great question. i can't put an exact time on it, but i can tell you that there is

a lot of scrutiny about that question, questions about that. would he perhaps go back to the campaign. would he be more effective? earlier this week, the president announced his re-election campaign manager. would he be more effective -- >> a jared ally. >> exactly. >> you know these people better than any of us. katy? >> interesting choice for campaign manager. he was head of the data operation during the campaign, not one who was managing people in a traditional sense. this is someone that's going to have to make policy speeches, help with debate prep. it's certainly an interesting choice. also, there's questions by the special counsel about the data operation which he ran. so you have to imagine that he's going to come into some sort of focus at some point. i don't know, it's 2018. the campaign is a long way off still. we'll see if he remains the campaign manager by the time they start running again, if they start running again.

who knows. >> i can't think of a better way to start things off. ashley parker, thank you. thank you, kristen and katy. be sure to watch kristen welker in less than an hour, taking over here on msnbc at 1:00 eastern. at 2:00, katy tur so you have the best of the best and brightest. thanks. >> thank you. joining me now, msnbc contributor jill wine-banks, former assistant watergate special prosecutor. jill, we have been talking for months about this evolving narrative but among all the things we are talking about and we haven't even mentions jeff sessions versus the president back and forth, what's the most significant? i suspect it could be that mueller is looking at those wikileaks and at a possible connection to the president himself. >> i think that is exactly the most important, because it's showing not just the obstruction of justice that's been the focus, it is the collusion, working with russia, and the direct involvement of the president. there's enough evidence now of

his team working with russians, all of the various meetings, all of the leaks about russians having the e-mails that was from his team, but now we are looking at the president himself and his own statements, his own actions. so that is a very major development. >> the other thing, the other subtext here is this continuing conflict with jeff sessions. the president really trolling his attorney general, criticizing him, then jeff sessions having dinner with rosenstein last night in a very public place right across the street from the trump international hotel, which is the informal club away from the white house, and the real dining facility for cabinet members. but there he is across the street, in a high end restaurant, openly with rosenstein, who has also been of course slammed by the president. >> i would say that's a very big dig back at the president and saying i'm not going anywhere,

i'm staying and this investigation still has my support and rosenstein saying mueller has my support. so that is a very big, very big development. and i'm really interested in the development of the facts of the collusion which now are starting to seem more and more obvious, that were hidden before. but you played the tape of the president saying russia, if you're listening, release those tapes, and it's exactly what the meeting with don jr. was about was getting the dirt and knowing about it, papadopolous knew about it. i'm sure don jr. and papadopolous had some communication with the president so when we ask what did he know and when did he know it, we are going to find that the president knew a lot, a lot sooner than anybody is saying. >> you are my lawyer right now, and i know that political ramifications of something i'm going to read to you but i don't know if there's a legal ramification, but we are now told that the bipartisan leaders

of the senate intelligence committee, which means senator richard burr from north carolina, the chair, and mark warner, of course, the vice-chair, the democrat, ranking democrat, have now concluded that the house intelligence committee majority, the republicans, leaked mark warner's private text messages to fox news. they have gone to the speaker of the house and asked him to take action and he has said he's not the head of the committee, even though he is the titular head of the committee. this is all according to the "new york times." are there any legal ramifications for leaking someone's private text messages? >> well, there probably is some violation of our internet laws. politically i think the consequences should be significant. on the other hand, paul ryan has refused to do anything about so many things, including sensible gun protections, so i don't know that he will ever do anything, and i don't know that mark

warner is going to sue anybody over this, but it certainly will impress voters that this is happening, and should give even more credence to the democratic response to the republican nunes memo, which seems to have cherry-picked facts and not revealed what i would call the truth, because unless you have all the facts, you have a misleading statement, but i'm going to have to think more about that. >> i hit you cold with that but it's just another example of the nunes committee, majority in that house intelligence committee, i covered the house intelligence and senate intelligence committees for years and years up on the hill. they were always strictly bipartisan. we have now reached what many would think is a new low. >> every time we think there's a new low, we go lower. >> exactly. thank you so much, jill wine-banks. always great to have you here. coming up, target practice. president trump going off-script on gun control. stunning house and senate

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click, call, or visit an xfinity store today. the house did pass a bill, the bill dealing with fixing problems with our background check system. we also combined with it a bill that advanced concealed carry reciprocity. >> you are going to put concealed carry between states into this bill, we are talking

about a whole new ball game. and you know, i'm with you but let it be a separate bill. >> doing something on this background check issue and using that as a base and then i would like to add some of these other things we have talked about, i think would make a major difference -- >> if you could add that to this bill, that would be great. if you could add what you have also and i think you can, into the bill -- >> yeah. joe, are you ready? >> can you do that? can you add some of the things? >> if you help -- >> i'll help but can you add them in? >> president trump advocating for what amy klobuchar and dianne feinstein want against steve scalise and pat toomey, playing chief negotiator and shocking his nra allies by embracing new gun restrictions, even at one point suggesting taking away people's guns without due process. before he backed off of that this morning in a tweet saying

in part, many ideas, some good and some not so good. respect second amendment. well, breathing a sigh of relief is the nra today, i guess. joining me, jim messina, former white house deputy chief of staff under president obama and bill kristol, editor at large from "the weekly standard." if you had seen your president in the cabinet room in a free-wheeling one hour on-camera negotiation with bipartisan leaders and i didn't see mitch mcconnell or paul ryan there. interesting that the leaders themselves were not there, unleeshu unlea unleashed. >> it's unbelievable. at various points he sounded like a democrat, like someone who had never been to the hill before, he didn't know what bills had passed. my favorite moment is when he said we need to stop mentally ill people from getting guns. in february of last year he signed a deal that did exactly the opposite, that said the nics background checks couldn't have mental health records. he was like why don't we have this, we don't have it because you got rid of it. it was an amazing performance.

now if you are the hill, you have no idea what he stands for after that meeting. it's like bear hugging the marshmallow man. you can't figure out how to do it. i have no sort of, i worked on the hill for 15 years before i went to the white house. you come out of that meeting and look at each other and say what the heck just happened. >> the democrats, chris murphy and other gun law advocates were saying is this another moment like the dreamer moment where he will back off of it immediately. we don't know what he really embraced yesterday. then there is his continuing attacks on jeff sessions, calling him mr. magoo. >> dates him and us, probably. he is subtly implying sessions will -- >> you were treating your own

take on this. there once was a man called magoo who knew the right thing to do. though trump threw a fit he refused to quit and went out to dinner with his crew. we have shown that picture. you had another one, also. there once was a woman named hope, who worked for a really big dope. this is bill kristol, not me. for him she had told white lies her lawyer judged not very wise so when he asked her to stay, she said nope. >> probably shouldn't tweet late at night. >> i probably shouldn't read it on television. >> thank you, that was really great. i was also stuck by that dinner at that restaurant. >> let's see that picture again. >> right across from main justice. >> also right across from trump international. >> that's interesting. a lot of the justice people go there, it's a block or two away. it was really striking he goes and has dinner with rosenstein or the solicitor general. that was underreported yesterday. there are so many things to report, who can keep track.

trump's attack on sessions but sessions' response was tough and immediate. i will serve as long as i can with honor and integrity and defend the integrity of the justice department, which in effect is saying what trump was asking him to do which in this case was not to use the inspector general to look into something but somehow to launch his own investigation, would be contrary to the integrity of either his own integrity as attorney general or that of the justice department. pretty stiff rebuke to the president of the united states. >> the irony is, he is talking, jeff sessions, about using the inspector general at justice to investigate the fisa procedures that had been questioned by the republican minority on the house intelligence committee. he was actually doing the bidding of the white house but still being attacked. >> not doing it in a way that was putting enough of a thumb on the scale, according to trump. >> it seemed like one of those moments where sessions was playing for his legacy. you don't do that if you think you are staying in that job. you don't publicly condemn the president of the united states

on this. i think he's trying to say to you and everyone else in this town when i go, say nice things about me because at least i stood up to this guy. >> i don't think he's making trump fire him -- he's not going to quit. >> just as tillerson has. fire me to my face or else i'm here for the long term. >> come get me. >> that's two of the four most senior cabinet officials which are state, defense, justice and treasury, are basically at war with their own president. wonderful situation. >> what about a testimony from the outgoing white house communications director that she tells white lies for the president? what does that do to the credibility of the white house? >> completely puts it in shambles. but the other thing that is underreported, she's the fifth communications director in 13 months. that's like an entire season of "the apprentice." you can't go through that many. this is as many as barack obama had in eight years. we are now hiring the sixth one which is more than barack obama had in eight years. it's unbelievable. the fact that she sits in front

of the house intelligence committee and says i tell white lies for a living is unprecedented. it's how do you believe anything that comes out of that communications operation? i think it really damages the credibility of the white house press secretary, who has to sit up there and defend these statements every single day, knowing full well that she's not telling the truth. >> you do wonder why she quit. i don't think it had to do with the house hearing yesterday. i wonder about the day or two she spent with mueller and whether she's going to have to -- >> and the pressure. this is a 29-year-old young woman who has gotten a lot more than she bargained for. >> would you want to try the plan the communications schedule for the president of the united states when he tweets every morning at 6:00 a.m.? that's the worst job in american politics. >> i don't want to be on the show when bill kristol is doing limericks every night. thank you, bill. that's a joke. great to see you both. coming up, going ballistic.

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russia? 17 days before his re-election to another term, which is not in doubt, russian president vladimir putin today flexing his military muscle, bragging about his new nuclear arsenal, showing off an underwater drone and a nuclear powered cruise missile. difficult to detect and russia claims impossible to intercept during his marathon state of the nation address. putin is sending a stern warning to the west saying nobody listened to us, well, listen to us now. joining me now is the former deputy national security adviser for president george w. bush and visiting lecturer at law at harvard university and former undersecretary of defense for policy in the obama administration. welcome, both. let me also share with our viewers and you that just now, the president has announced new steel and aluminum tariffs. i believe it's 10% on steel, and 25% on aluminum. this is what we were told was going to happen, then wasn't going to happen, and then definitely was not going to happen but he's meeting with steel companies right now and

the pool was brought in. apparently he has announced it. this could also mean -- excuse me, 10% on aluminum, 25% on steel, the exact opposite, effective next week. they are writing the new rules now. this does also mean that there's a new powerhouse in this white house. peter navarro, anti-free trade advocate who has been promoted recently partly because of the ouster of rob porter, it's opened up a new top position and he was a long-time very tough trade, anti-free trade advocate during the campaign. he's anti-nafta. the president spoke out against china today in this meeting. we will play the tape for you when it comes out. we have a potential new trade war being launched today by the white house. then we have the possibility of a real escalation in the conflict with vladimir putin. first, michel, from your

experience at the pentagon, what would it mean if russia really does have this new offensive threat and we don't have an anti-missile deterrent that can protect against low-flying cruise missiles that have nuclear warheads? >> well, we saw from putin a sort of classic episode of nuclear saber rattling. he's been warning and talking for a long time about how the buildup of u.s. missile defenses for threats like north korea could render the russian nuclear deterrent vulnerable, or less capable. so he's putting these ideas of new weapons out there, still questionable how fully developed they are, this notion of nuclear powered engines is a new one. we aren't really sure it's real. in any case, he's signaling if the u.s. builds up its defenses too much, he will build up his offenses. this is symptomatic of growing tensions between the u.s. and russia, a more competitive relationship. i would like to see the

administration take some steps to really engage in some discussions on strategic stability and how do we keep a lid on this so it doesn't get out of hand. >> juan, what is your take-away from putin's performance today? >> he is nuclear saber rattling and part of this is part of the mantra of trying to place russia back on the world stage, remind the world russia is a nuclear power, has the capability to push back even to threaten and to pierce missile defense programs which have bothered him for some time. it's also a way, as he said explicitly, of balancing the forces globally. i think this is really his demonstration that he wants to continue not only to push in the russian backyard but wants to push globally and to be a balance to american power. it is a stark reminder that russia is a competitor in this space. that was reflected in the national security strategy.

russia is not just reacting to missile defense and not just reacting to the nuclear strategic review, posture review by the united states, but really trying to proactively place itself at the center of global dynamics and we will have to figure out a strategic way of dealing with russia, whether it's in cyberspace, on the ground in syria, in ukraine or even with respect to the nuclear posture of the nation. russia is a real player and we have to take them seriously. i think that was the message putin wanted to deliver today. >> we obviously have a real conflict with them in syria. the last time we did a deal, if you will, with russia was when john kerry and lavrov negotiated to get rid of the chemical weapons from assad, and now we see him using chlorine against people, we have seen other instances of chemical weapons launched from a base where the russian military was. >> russia has not done a very

good job of delivering on its promises to the west in syria. certainly with regard to chemical weapons, there is now indications not only of recent use but also a u.n. report. >> i hate to interrupt both of you but here's the trade announcement as promised from the president as he meets with steel and aluminum companies today. >> -- by bad trade deals, by other countries. they have been horribly treated by other countries. and they have not been properly represented more importantly because of that, our workers in our country have not been proper properly represented. we are going to build our steel industry back and we are going to build our aluminum industry back. i just want you to hear from a couple of the folks in the room. we will have a few speak. i might want to start with dave barrett from u.s. steel, was a

massive company years ago and got smaller and smaller and smaller and dave was with caterpillar for 35 years -- 33 years and did a great job. they brought him in, he's been there for a short while and he wants to build it back up. dave, maybe you could say a little bit to the room and to the press about u.s. steel and where they were, where they're going and what you think of what we're going to do. >> thank you, mr. president. thank you very much for your leadership on this issue and also commerce secretary, thank you very much. this is vital to the interests of the united states. this is our moment and it's really important that we get this right. the alternatives that commerce secretary presented were all good alternatives and we trust your judgment in terms of the ones selected. we believe the leadership -- >> we can return to this in a bit, but first of all, this

trade war that is now being launched, if you will, your take on the president ramping up tariffs now at a time when we are not as engaged in asia, china has been, by all reports, cleaning our clocks because we backed out of tpp and so they are now much more dominant figure in asia. they are not in tpp but the other asian countries are all in their own trade group and we have not negotiated bilateral deals to take the place. >> there are real concerns about unfair chinese trade practices, to be sure. but the administration has got to prioritize its actions vis a vis china. we are working lots of different issues. on the one hand, we are going to china and saying we need you to put pressure on north korea and to try to resolve this nuclear missile crisis. it's going to be very hard to get their cooperation as we are imposing tariffs and starting a trade war. we have also asked for chinese

help in a whole range of other national security areas. so what this to me suggests is that there's not a clear strategy that's integrating the economic piece, the security piece, an overall picture of how we will deal with china, where are we going to compete, where are we going to cooperate, how are we going to prioritize. this to me feels like the right hand not knowing what the left hand's doing or at least not really being integrated. >> juan, we need china obviously on north korea. our north korean negotiator resigned and is retiring. veteran diplomat, as of tomorrow. they are trying to spin it as this is just a retirement. this is a major loss for the administration at a time when victor cha has been dropped as the potential ambassador to south korea after having been introduced to the south koreans. we are entering a new territory with into diplomats on the ground. >> you're right. and the north korea issue takes

primacy certainly with how the administration has thought about the chinese relationship. having our diplomatic house in order is critical in dealing with the south koreans, in dealing with the chinese and obviously with north korea. michele's point about the choreography with china is an important one but i would say that if you have a theme for the discussion right now it's the return of great power competition. this was a theme that the president laid out in his national security strategy, where it was clear he was going to begin to confront china more aggressively on issues of trade and the economy, where the issue of national economic security were more centrally described in that strategy and even this idea of protection of the u.s. innovation base was something that the president began to introduce. so i agree that the choreography here matters and how you prioritize issues with the chinese has to be clear, but at the same time, the administration has been crystal

clear that they are going to push back on the chinese in a transactional way and in ways that deal with what are perceived to be unfair trade practices. choreography matters. you have to have diplomats on the ground to help you with that. you certainly have to have a strategy that integrates the core elements of national security with national economic interests and we just have to see how it plays out but the core theme is power politics between the great powers is back and it involves economic instruments as much as missiles and military power. >> it's really reassuring that we have so much diplomatic clout and such terrific people in the white house and the cabinet to deal with all of these really complex issues. kelly o'donnell, they were saying today it was on, it was off. you have peter navarro, this anti-free trade advocate, in the room and increasingly important. tell us what is going on behind the scenes because there seems to be a lack of communication today on this.

>> reporter: well, we have seen with this white house things are not always laid out in a road map where the day follows just as it was planned. this did deal somewhat different, with differing views coming from even what the layout of the president's day would be. would there be an announcement, has there been a decision, would it be something that would be covered. there is clearly stress behind the scenes about how this should play out, how it should be presented, and then of course, the press element of should a camera be in the room which we see the president ultimately got. we also saw the president using twitter today to talk about his concerns about tariffs and one of the things that seems to be happening here is we have seen that tension between the president wanting to rely on a partner in president xi for some of the things you have discussed regarding north korea, but also the president looking for ways to try to boost economic numbers or to befriend the business interests that he thinks will not only support him but would generate jobs and economic growth if they get an advantage,

the level playing field he likes to talk about, in trying to use tariffs in this way. we saw it with washing machines. now we are talking steel and aluminum. this isn't a surprise. the president has been talking about it for a long time. but how it rolled out was surprising indeed. >> just a quick comment on that because once you start a trade war, you don't know what you're getting. >> to impose the tariffs at this moment, it doesn't make sense. we are on the verge of getting north korea to the negotiating table. it is the moment when we will need chinese pressure and chinese cooperation the most. and to sort of randomly decide this is the day rather than waiting until getting through this key negotiating period with north korea, with china at our side, it makes no sense. it's symptomatic of this very transactional stovepiped approach and lack of clear strategy and strategic thinking that's playing things out in second and third order. >> wilbur ross, meet jim mattis.

thank you both. coming up, a picture is worth a thousand words or more. jeff sessions, not very subtle message to the boss. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports." ♪ i thought i was managing my moderate to severe crohn's disease. then i realized something was missing... me. my symptoms were keeping me from being there. so, i talked to my doctor and learned humira is for people who still have symptoms of crohn's disease after trying other medications. and the majority of people on humira saw significant symptom relief and many achieved remission in as little as 4 weeks. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened; as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to

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pardon me, officer. >> bright-eyed minion of the law. could youlaw. can you direct me to the exclusive shop for men? oh, thank you, officer. i'll put in a good word for you with the chief, a personal friend of mine. >> that was the old cartoon character mr. magoo. as we discussed earlier with bill crystal, known for his terrible eyesight and clumsiness. reports that the president dubbed his attorney general mr. magoo. it's not clear if his dig is at jeff session's age, his physical appearance or his intelligence. let's get the inside scoop from "the new york times" chief white house correspondent peter baker. and jonathan kaypart, "washington post" opinion writer and msnbc contributor. peter, you've been writing about

this jeff sessions versus donald trump mash-up. where does it end up? >> that's a good question. normally if a president is dissatisfied with the cabinet secretary, the cabinet secretary would be gone. that doesn't seem to be happening here. that's why you see the president perhaps venting in public on twitter rather than, in fact, taking action. he is frustrated by the russia investigation. he's frustrated that attorney general sessions has not done more to both protect him from it and to investigate what he says are the, you know, misconduct of the obama era justice department and fbi. and he's -- he's making his feelings known publicly. but he's not firing jeff session because i think he understands the senate isn't likely to confirm a replacement, not easily anyway. that would leave the justice department without somebody in charge or even perhaps worse from trump's point of view, rob rosenstein in charge, deputy attorney general, who the president is equally not fond of. >> for jeff sessions to not only put out a statement but to be

seen in public having dinner in a fancy restaurant with rod rosenstein across the street from the trump hotel, which is the preferred venue for cabinet level and other trump insider dinners. jonathan, this is all just too clear, too deliberate. that jeff sessions is thumbing his nose at the president. >> thumbing his nose and making sure the president understands that he is his own person. and that the president appointed him to a job that is ostensibly supposed to be independent of the white house. and what he is sending, the message he's sending to the president is, i have a job to do, i'm going to do it. the other thing we have to keep in mind, most people would have resigned by now if they're being publicly humiliated by the president on twitter and through leaks. for months now. but jeff sessions, as attorney general of the united states, in that position, is going through basically a check list of policy

priorities that he has had since his days in the senate. so i think from attorney general session's point of view, putting up with some public humiliation from the president is the price you have to pay for getting long-standing policy objectives in place. >> peter baker, there's also just the turmoil, the chaos of the white house in the last 48 hours. just in two hours yesterday, hope hicks resigning. the president losing one of his closest aides. he's increasingly isolated. and josh nefel resigning the day before. you also have real questions about how long jared kushner can do what he is supposedly doing, middle east peace, china, mexico, and now we've just heard in another big departure. roberto jacobson, our ambassador to next cmexico, 31 years as a diplomat, quitting. victor chao was not sent up at

the last minute. we don't have a south korea ambassador in south korea. and for the ambassador in mexico to be quitting when nafta talks are in their seventh round this week. they're not going well. the president of mexico is not coming here because he is so angry at the president insisting on the wall in their conversation earlier this week or last week. what's going on here? >> well, it's just, you know, another week in the trump white house. there's a lot of churn. this is a white house that has from the very start, you know, been constantly rocked by turbulence. and it's -- a lot of it's of its own making or the president's own making. some of it is from the outside. hope hicks departing is a big blow. it would not be unusual to have a communications director leave necessarily this early. what makes it unusual is she's the fifth person to be given that title since this white house came into office 13, 14 months ago. so every day, you know, last week or last month or the last

couple of months has seen this kind of, you know, churning going on. overall, there was a 34% turnover in the senior staff of the white house in the first year, according to a study by the brookings institution. that's twice as high as any modern white house. you see a place that doesn't hold on to people and is having a tough time sometimes recruiting them because it's a very high stress, very high burnout kind of situation right now. >> and the embarrassment of what's happened to jared kushner, no matter what they say, taking away your top security clearance is a big deal. to you, jonathan, how much longer are they going to stay? or are they going back to new york which is a much happier place for them? >> sure, happier place, you know, i don't know. when we're talking about jared kushner and ivanka trump, they're unlike any other member of the staff. this gets to family. if anything we know about this president, there are two things he cares about, number one, his

number one care, is donald trump himself. but then a close, very close second, is his family. >> indeed. peter, any bets on whether jared can do his job with these restrictions on him? >> well, obviously, you can do the job. it's much harder. especially if you're doing middle east peace where intelligence helps. we saw a clue maybe in the last week with the appointment of somebody to run the 2020 presidential campaign that was close to jared kushner. that may be a clue to where he's going. >> peter, jonathan, thank you, we'll be right back. it's time for your business of the week. rover.com has one mission, ensure your pet gets walked and watched. and now with its acquisition of its biggest competitor, it has the largest network of dog sitters in the country. watch your business weekend mornings. so that's the idea.

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thanks for being with us. follow us @mitchellreports. kristen welker is here. >> hi, andrea, another busy day for both of us to say the least. good afternoon from washington, d.c. i'm kristen welker in for craig melvin. new questions about jared kushner focused on reported kushner company loans and access inside the white house. the president's senior adviser under the microscope like we've actually not seen before. plus chaos, a loyal ally, gone, a second attacked by the president. how does this affect the day-to-day work of running the country? and challenging the nra. the president meets with families affected by gun violence after surprising lawmakers by breaking with the nra. we'll talk to a sandy hook mo