and it's probably time politicians stop talking about the enormous debt we owe to all of them and repay that debt instead in the form of the quality care they all deserve. that is our broadcast on a wednesday night. thank you so very much for being here with us and good night from nbc news headquarters here in new york. rachel does have the night off. she will be back tomorrow. we have a big show because several breaking stories tonight. actual change on gun control, thanks to that new student movement around the country. news tonight, special counsel mueller gathering evidence about that meeting. and the breaking news right now on the mueller probe into russian election interference is new clues as to where they are headed. the special counsel probe did begin questioning whether president trump obstructed justice since he allegedly pressed his own fbi director to back off.

he asked him to famously drop an investigation of trump's own aide mike flynn who later pled guilty and fire that fbi director with, quote, russia on his mind. we know now this animated probe from the start. they occupied mueller's focus, so that makes this breaking "times" story so troubling for the white house. trump spoke to witnesses about matters they discussed with special counsel. mueller has learned of two conversation in recent months in which trump asked witnesses about matters they discussed with investigators, according to three people familiar with the encounters, this involves the efforts to fire mueller himself. now consider the two crucial tracks in the story. first, why this president would be talking to witnesses in the mueller probe, and why he thinks that's a good idea. now, is it because the president

just doesn't care about the advice from his own attorneys not to do this kind of thing? does he think there's no risk? he can outsmart one more problem or does he think the risk is real but it's somehow worth it? or is this like some other stories, something smaller, a lack of impulse control. talking to witnesses in this case is dumb. it's inappropriate. that talking is not a crime, it would be asking witnesses to lie for you, that's what richard nixon did. take this brand-new reaction tonight. moments after the story broke from a high-branching doj official known from his measured analysis. >> it looks so bad, and basically, you've got donald trump acting like a two-bit criminal here and saying to witnesses like priebus, hey, what did you say?

were you nice to me and so on. that is horrible. i'm a defense lawyer, i love a challen challenge. i represented bin laden's driver. bin laden's driver acted with far more integrity in every stage of the investigation than donald trump has so far and this is just the published report of what we know. >> worse than bin laden's driver. we don't usually hear him talk that way about a president he vehemently disagrees with. legally, though, the second track could actually be worse for trump. and it builds on an incident the "times" broke on january 25th that this president under investigation in part for firing his fbi director also tried to get the special counsel investigating him fired. and then his white house counsel threatened to quit, which created the prospect of a saturday night massacre. and then trumped backed because

that man, counsel dan mcgahn, threatened to resign. mueller learned about it in recent months as his investigators questioned about whether the president obstructed justice. in this new reporting tonight, the "times" says not only with mueller being told about the president's order to fire him, we know some of that. it also says something important. that mueller knew exactly what was happening inside the white house after this january story appeared. look at this. the president told an aide that the white house counsel, don mcghan should issue a statement denying the "new york times" article in january. the article said mcgahn toll investigators that the president once asked him to fire the special counsel robert mueller and later they had to remind the

president that he had indeed asked mcgahn to see that mr. mueller was dismissed. hold up. quote, had to remind the president. those are five ominous words for donald trump tonight. they suggest that mcgahn had to resist trump's version of events, this false account where donald trump denies trying to get mueller fired. if he says that statement in the hopes that his lawyers would join him in it, would lie to mueller, well, yes, that would be a kind of statement to a witness that could be the element of a crime, which lawyer don mcgahn knows so those are ominous words. now, the fact that tonight we know they're in the "new york times," those word, is even more critical because it suggests someone or someone close to mcgahn or somewhat sympathetic to him or mcgahn himself wants to be on the record in public tonight about this little memory game, you know, where we all remember the time the president tried to get his investigator fired while under investigation

for obstructing justice. and if this is what is leaking out from don mcgahn, what else is he telling mueller about donald trump in private? joining me now is michael schmidt, one of "the new york times" reporters who broke this story. thank you for joining me. what can you say about your understanding of why this is coming out now and the kind of legal peril it might pose for anyone at the white house? >> this incident, these incidents were things that concerned folks when they learned about it, people that were close to the investigation. and they believed mueller needed to know about it because there was a perception that this could be some kind of witness tampering. it's not that they thought in and of itself that it was witness tampering, but it gave off this view, this look that if mueller had found out about it and it had not been disclosed, it would be problematic, and it would raise questions of obstruction or many different matters.

had the lawyers pushed ahead and this information got, got to mueller. >> is it fair to boil down what you're saying to the idea that donald trump's behavior here was so reckless or legally dangerous that people on his own legal team were sympathetic to those people, felt a duty to self-report this to the special counsel? >> one of the central, most basic things in investigations is that those under investigation should not try and talk to witnesses, just because it just gets into a very, very difficult area. there are lawyers that can talk to other lawyers about it. the other thing is they should not talk to law enforcement people. and what struck people about this is that the president had had such a bad consequence come out of the time he did this last february when comey says he asked him one on one to end the flynn investigation. when that came out, it led to

mueller being appointed and has put this dark cloud over the president, so for the president, even as the investigation is intensifying, he's engaging with these witnesses about matters that he knew had come up in front of mueller. >> your piece is significant. and your headline is arresting. and i don't want to get into copy editing your headline. but the firing of mueller part of this seems bigger than the witness part, because your paper and you and other reporters have documented how basically, i'm looking at the timeline that there was the alleged attempt to fire mueller in june 2017 as you reported. then you have don mcgahn speaking in november. as a witness to the special counsel. and then the january report of the effort to fire mueller. if donald trump was, as you

report tonight, trying to get don mcgahn to publicly lie about the firing of mueller, isn't that a legal problem as well? >> i guess it could be. i think that the president was very upset with the report, simply just the fact that this was out there. and he thought it was wrong. and basically went to rob porter at the time and said, look, got to get a statement out there from mcgahn. and if he doesn't want to do this, get rid of him. the president was very agitated about it and pushed for it and eventually had a confrontation with mcgahn about it and mcgahn had to say to him, look, this is what happened. and the president said he didn't recall it that way and they discussed the fact that mcgahn had not directly told the president he was going to quit at the time in june. mcgahn said he had told other white house officials about it and then the conversation moved on to other matters. >> and briefly, any further context on why mcgahn would be

telling that to other officials but not the president? >> what happened in june was the president had told mcgahn to call rod rosenstein, the deputy attorney general who is overseeing mueller, tell him that mueller had these series of conflicts and had to go. the president pushed mcgahn to do this over the span of a few days and eventually, mcgahn got fed up. he knew this was something he didn't want to do. and he told the folks around him he was going to quit. around that time, the president backed down and stopped pushing him to call rosenstein and he stayed on. >> mcgahn didn't want to do it or perhaps felt legally he could not do it. michael schmidt with the "new york times" with the big story. thank you. >> thanks for having me. >> stepping back for a moment, this reporting has two three lines. the first is the president talking to the mueller witnesses. the second is what we've been

discussing, what we're learning about the probe itself and this likelihood that don mcgahn will continue to provide information that's adverse to his boss, donald trump. for more i turn to joyce vance, a former federal prosecutor from alabama. thanks for being here tonight. >> thanks for having me, ari. >> when we know that don mcgahn has to play more than one role, he has the duty to the commander in chief and give him advice in that role, but also has a legal duty to comply with the special counsel probe, what do you see in this story that you think don mcgahn is likely to provide to mueller? >> it's an interesting question. mcgahn has the duty of candor in response to mueller. so in response to questions that are posed to him, he must be truthful, like anyone else, he

testifies in front of a grand jury. but that prohibition against not being fully truthful means a little bit more to lawyer whose are officers of the court. so mcgahn obviously has a lot of insight into his conversations with the president, and as we've learned tonight from this story, the president is prone to talk to witnesses. something his lawyers have undoubtedly advised him against doing. where this could become a crime, there's a narrow species of obstruction, witness tampering, it has its own statute. 18 u.s. code 1512. and it makes it among other things illegal for someone to try to corruptly persuade, to intentionally influence a witness, to give false testimony in a court proceeding. so we're not quite there on this story. we're talking about mcgahn being asked through a third person to go out and refute a newspaper story. but mueller will want to press down on this and see if there were any further, more difficult conversations that the president

had with people. >> if the attempted firing of bob mueller becomes a part of an element of the obstruction case against anyone at the white house, can don mcgahn then be called as a witness against people at the white house for that issue? >> mcgahn works in the white house. he is a fact witness to what he observes. he is not the president's lawyer. there is no lawyer-client privilege there. the most realistic privilege he could assert, and we've seen no indication that this is the case, would be a fifth amendment privilege to avoid testifying in a way that would incriminate himself personally of a crime. we've seen no indication that he has that problem and every indication that he's cooperated with mueller. >> you are here as a former federal prosecutor and legal expert. i don't want to try to conscript you into media analysis, but i think you know as a long-time

participant in these types of high-profile cases that involve the press that something rachel has said on this program and that we've reported is there are a slew of stories that seem to continuously cast don mcgahn as this hero of the republic who's saving everyone from themselves. can you shed any light on the potential sourcing for that? >> so, i'm a willing conscript into that kind of a venture. often in a case like this, in a public corruption case, you will have a person who is potentially a subject or someone of interest to investigators, and they will run a little bit of a pr campaign to try to enhance their image, at least in the public's eye. there's some reason to believe that this is perhaps going on to

some extent with mr. mcgahn. it these stories do surface with regularity and seem to be the type of stories that would be difficult to source without cooperation from mr. mcgahn or someone close to him. >> i think i understand what you're saying. joyce vance, as always, we appreciate your expertise. >> thank you for having me. >> i want to turn to a close student off of not only this story but its antecedents, mi michael beschloss. >> it conjures richard nixon in '73 and '74. he was accused by the house impeachment inquiry of witness tampering, which was one of the counts against him. his aide said it was pathological. nixon was a lawyer. he knew to get involved in this was against his own self-interest, but he couldn't help himself. he always had to get involved in this. bill clinton, when he was pursued in 1998. his special prosecutor, kenneth starr accused him of witness tampering with betty curry, his secretary, who starr charged had

tried to unduly influence, clinton said that wasn't true. she said it wasn't true either. another thing, ari is i think you would agree, as an imminent lawyer, presidents, those who are deft are also good clients when this kind of thing happens. ronald reagan was an excellent client in iran-contra. he took his lawyers' advice, he got out of the scandal. vice president george bush was in danger of being dragged into iran-contra. he was advised deftly by a man his great friend boyden gray, who kept bush out of that scandal. do you know where donald trump is eating dinner tonight >> no, i don't. >> he is eating dinner at the home of boyden gray, the same guy in georgetown who happened to be having a dinner for republican donors.

it's said to be about the first time donald trump has gone to a private home in washington for dinner. >> that might be some fascinating history in the making. when you mention nixon, people remember john dean and the thinking among his inner circle, if they were pushing him into the criminal conspiracy, that would help him for self-interests, not rat on them. >> absolutely. >> and, as you know, i sometimes turn to music and lyrics to understand things. jay-z is quite knowledgeable at criminal procedure and he famously said plead the fifth when it comes to the fam. john dean, though, ultimately did speak and got people in trouble. do you have see any parallels here about the roles that

lawyers choose to play and what they choose to say? >> i do. and jay z and i are both chicagoans. thank you for mentioning him tonight. in nixon's case, one thing john dean says to this day is one way he knew nixon was trying to make him the fall guy was he'd go into the oval office and nixon would say of course i did not try to do such and such, order a break-in into the brookings institution or something like that. and dean knew that nixon was trying to get dean to be a witness to nixon having behaved well. what dean did not know was that nixon was making secret tape recordings of these conversations but he quickly began to suspect that he was. >> and those tapes ultimately had quite the shelf life. michael beschloss, nbc news presidential historian, thank you. >> thank you, ari. >> that is one of the big, breaking stories tonight in the probe. as we were getting ready to go to air another story broke.

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there is yet another story breaking tonight about the special counsel investigation. this is new details on what

mueller is investigate and evidence his team is gathering on the seychelles islands from during the transition period. tonight "the washington post" is reporting that new evidence between a meeting between eric prince, a fairly controversial trump campaign donor and the brother of betsy devos and a russian official close to putin were meeting just days before trump's inauguration. the report is that this was in fact part of an effort to establish, wait for it, a secret back channel with russia. reading from this new report, special counsel bob mueller gathering evidence that a secret meeting in the seychelles was an effort to establish this quote, back channel between the incoming administration and the kremlin. apparently contradicting statements made to lawmakers by one of its participants. a witness cooperating with mueller told investigators the meeting was set up in advance so that a representative of the

trump transition could meet with an emissary from moscow to discuss future relations between the countries, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity. that cooperating witness is george nader, the lebanese american businessman who says he helped to organize the meeting. this new information is important, because it would seem to contradict this testimony that prince gave to house investigators last year, and that's like an oath proceeding. you have a legal obligation. prince saying he attended the meeting in the seychelles islands as a private business person. he denied it had anything to do with the trump transition. he said the encounter with that russian fund manager was an unplanned, casual discussion over a drink. i turn now to sari horowitz who is one of the reporters who wrote this breaking story tonight. thank you for joining me. some of this topic has been out there, this idea that mr. nader

was cooperating with bob mueller and that there was this set of meetings. what is new in your story, so viewers understand, so we understand that advances this? >> hi, glad to be on your show tonight. that's a good question. some of this has been out there. what's new is that we now have information that we're reporting tonight that contradicts one of the participants who was at this meeting, erik prince, who testified on capitol hill, who told lawmakers back in november, that, as you said, this was just not an official, planned meeting. it was an unplanned, and an unimportant encounter that came about just by chance because he happened to be in a luxury hotel in the indian island nations officials from the united arab emirates. just to give your viewers con

te context because it's a complicated story. there's a secret meeting in the seychelles in january of 2017 before the inauguration of president trump. at the meeting is erik prince who i mentioned, who is representing the trump transition team, a russian official close to russian president vladimir putin. officials from the united area emirates and a lebanese american businessman named george nader. what we're hearing, what we're reporting, this is an effort to establish this back channel. what erik prince told lawmakers in november is again, he coincidently ran into people at this hotel. he went there as a private businessman, not as an emissary from the trump transition team and was discussing possible business deals with uae officials, and he's there, and they unexpectedly suggest he visit the hotel bar and meet the russian official who's very close to putin. he says he told officials he talked to the russian official

for about 30 minutes or about the time it took him to drink a beer, nothing substantive in terms of the trump transition team at all. >> why would they want a secret back channel to the kremlin? >> well, this was, this is in the transition period. and this is during the time when the trump administration is believed to be wanting to talk to russian officials. we don't know what went on in this meeting specifically. we don't know if the whole issue of sanctions was discussed. now this was two weeks after the very controversial phone call between flynn, the national security adviser and kislyak. >> i want to push you a little bit. and i appreciate your careful, measured approach. i guess what i'm getting at is bob mueller's investigating russian collusion and quid pro quo. now we're learning about an additional, potential effort to have a secret back channel to the kremlin. they could obviously use, the transition government mechanisms at their disposal.

is the back channel a clue there was an attempt to do something off the books secret because it was maybe bad? >> yes, we know he's investigating the circumstances of this meeting. and more broadly, he is examining, investigating apparent efforts by the trump transition team to create this back channel for secret talks, and you ask why would they need this. well, mueller, the seychelles meeting is of great interest to mueller's team because it's also investigating whether any foreign money or foreign assistance fueled the trump campaign. and he's looking at how trump officials during the transition and the early days of the administration communicated with foreign officials. and this was seen to be one of the first meetings where that was done. where there's communication, it's a back channel. >> right. and this, this fact of mueller looking at it gives a greater context to the period of time

that goes well beyond the campaign to whether the instrumentalities of the transition of government were abused, something that mike flynn pled guilty to lying about. and your reporting keys in on that very important part of it. thank you for your time. >> thank you for having me on, ari. >> still ahead, after months of pressure, the white house now responding to an adult film star. our break down still ahead. ry d. 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. two united club passes. priority boarding. and earn fifty thousand bonus miles after you spend three thousand dollars on purchases in the first three months from account opening plus, zero-dollar intro annual fee for the first year, then ninety-five dollars. learn more at theexplorercard.com looking for a hotel that fits... whoooo. ...your budget?

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stormy daniels is suing the president. she was barely mentioned during the 2016 campaign. the former adult film actress spoke about her alleged relationship with trump. but the trump campaign said it was absolutely, unequivocally false that trump ever had a relationship with stormy daniels. then this january news leaked that daniels received $130,000 right before the election. part of an agreement precluding her from discussing the alleged relationship with trump back in 2006. that journalist has now been forced to make some changes. it has forced a white house spokesperson to get a little more vague. >> is the president aware that his lawyer paid that kind of money to a porn star to buy her silence? does he approve of that? >> i haven't asked him about it but that matter has been asked and answered in the past.

>> can we find out in the president approves -- will you ask him about that? >> i haven't asked him about it. >> but will you ask him about it? >> i'll get back to you. >> does the president talk about this at any time during the campaign or thereafter in? >> not that i'm aware of. >> and there's no reason she would be. this is hush money. the first rule of hush money is you don't talk about hush money. but even in the white house, some dodges don't last. today sanders effectively shifted. >> did the president approve of the payment that was made in october of 2016 by his long-time lawyer and adviser, michael cohen? >> the president has addressed these directly, and made very well clear that none of these allegations are true. this case has already been won in arbitration, and anything beyond that, i would refer you to the president's outside counsel. >> up said that there's

arbitration that's already been won by whom and when? >> by the president's personal attorneys and for details on that, i would refer you to them. >> but you're aware of it so what can you share with us? >> i can share that the arbitration was won in the president's favor. >> you said what now what else can you tell us? that was a moment. if trump had no relationship with stormy daniels, and his lawyer made a payment on his own authority, what else would be arbitrated? this new information, obviously, raises more questions than it answers, and it's coming out because of this new lawsuit from stephanie clifford, aka stormy daniels versus the president noting that a non-disclosure agreement not to disclose that an intimate relationship with trump exists but shouldn't be legally valid because it's missing a signature, trump's signature. the missing signature isn't the strongest reason to object to a

contract. it also alleges that michael cohen was back at it just last week pushing a, quote, bogus arbitration proceeding against daniels on tuesday, which she views as an attempt to intimidate her into silence and to shut her up. so cohen admits he facilitated this payment to her. and he still won't answer directly whether he was reimbursed. and his payment itself got formally flagged as suspicious. that was by both the sending and receiving bank, including a flag that came in september, that's almost a year after the election-eve payment, which is an abnormal delay for a suspicious activity report. this all suggests something going on, more than the payment itself. more than that original sum that triggered investigative concern. and we don't know exactly what else that would be. we can also report tonight that

cohen has added trump's lawyer tried to silence adult star danie daniels. and a private arbitration proceeding warning she faces penalties if she publicly discusses a relationship with the president. cohen obtained this from a secret arbiter, barring her from disclosing confidential information relating to the nda from october 2016. and that move could be the victory sanders was citing today. >> i can share that arbitration was won in the president's favor, and i would refer you to the president's outside counsel on any details beyond that. >> so, did this whole thing end with a victory in arbitration in or was a ruling on confidential information more narrow or even more temporary? michael cohen did not respond

with any further details tonight, but this story is much broader than daniels versus trump and whatever history they do or do not share. this is also the story of a president who, despite his denials, evidently does have accusations he wishes to keep private, evidently is willing to oversee a system that pays to keep them secret, and continues to employ a lawyer working the case. all of that in contrast to of course remember during the campaign, when trump loudly denied all accusations of sexual misconduct, even pledging to sue his accusers. >> every woman lied when they came forward to hurt my campaign. total fabrication. the events never happened. never. all of these liars will be sued after the election is over. >> all will be sued. you know, pledging to take

someone to court can sound tough. makes it sound like you're so convinced of your innocence or that you're right that you're ready to prove it in open court. of those 19 accusers who came forward during the campaign, donald trump has sued zero. none of them. he didn't bring a single case to court in public as he threatened. and yet tonight we learn that his lawyer, michael cohen, did bring an arbitration case against one woman, ms. daniels. the difference between court and arbitration is the difference between night and day. under the law, court is open. in this kind of arbitration it's secret. if this was a victory, as the white house spokesperson said today, why would you only want to win in secret? 'sup, world? it's the box with 30% savings for safe drivers.

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before discovering nexium 24hr to treat her frequent heartburn, claire could only imagine enjoying chocolate cake. now she can have her cake and eat it too. nexium 24hr stops acid before it starts for all-day, all-night protection. can you imagine 24 hours without heartburn? tomorrow, the house intelligence committee will hear testimony from the former campaign manager for donald trump. you see him there, corey lewandowski. this is his second appearance before the committee. he did refuse to answer many questions about his interactions with president trump during the

appearance in january. it's unclear what he will do. will he answer those questions this time? one thing that is clear, republicans want to wrap it up. they plan to bring this whole probe to an end in the near future, the "washington post" republicans on the panel are trying to roll out a final report on its russia probe in the coming weeks, reporting corey lewandowski is the last witness currently scheduled for an interview, according to multiple sources. this is despite the fact on the democratic side they want dozens of more witnesses, including witnesses that are blocked from testifying by fellow republicans on the panel. in fact, if there is an appetite on the gop side it is for something new entirely. a new special counsel. the latest is trey gowdy. he says we need a special counsel to probe, yes, the fbi

and d.o.j. themselves, regarding the surveillance warrants that monitored at a minimum former trump adviser carter page. now gowdy is joining two other senators, chuck grassley and lindsey graham plus 30 house republicans calling for this special counsel and the idea would be to investigate everything from the alleged surveillance abuses to uranium one and the old favorite, the clinton e-mail probe. it's not clear what the legal basis would be to appoint a special council for those things. the house probe into election interference is of course something they want to end. so an investigation that republicans have basically worked to stymie in various, very public ways from the start is now on the verge of ending for good with what would be as rachel has mentioned previously, partisan reports coming out when it's all done. that would be mean the senate intel probe, that would be the

only truly bipartisan congressional probe in town. this demise of the house probe comes even as today this new information comes out about outgoing communication director hope hicks, that she told the committee her own e-mails had been hacked and allegations that leaked information inside the committee was passed to a potential target, trump lawyer michael cohen and that one of the committee's witnesses may have misled them, may have lied in the seychelles island as an attempt to establish a back chann channel. it is a lot to unpack, but we

have the right guests. congressman eric swalwell. thanks for being here. >> thanks. >> you give us a front row seat to what sari horowitz was reporting earlier. this meeting was casual, not a back channel. her "washington post" report says it was a back channel and effectively that means he's accused of lying to your committee. your response? >> it's all the more reason that our investigation should continue. we're on the eve of what is our last witness that we know about in this russia investigation. the best thing we can do to defend our ballot box and make sure this doesn't happen again is make sure we understand who in the united states worked with the russians. adam schiff and i both asked mr. prince a number of times who did you meet with over there? did you ever try to establish a russia back channel? did you ever try to meet with uae and russians while you were in the seychelles to help the trump campaign. and he denied it at every step, it he met with george nader, he tried to establish a russian back channel, he lied to congress. but i'm afraid we're seeing an attack on our own police, and

that's not how you respond to what russia did. we should complete our own investigation, impose sanctions already passed in congress against russia and provide defenses to state and local election officials so this doesn't happen again. >> do you think erik prince lied to you? if so, what do you do about it? >> i want to find out. you subpoena logs and hopefully bring in george nader as well. but erik prince had every opportunity in the questioning that occurred to tell us if he met with anyone other than this russian banker and uae officials and he never discussed that. this goes to the larger issue. these witnesses come in at a take them at their word investigation. they sit in a seat. we ask them questions. and republicans say that's great. we're not going to check to see if any of this checks out, we're not going to subpoena any third-party records. these individuals on the trump team are not worthy of being

taken at their word. >> when you see republicans on your committee that say it's time to wrap it up, what do you say that many key witnesses have appeared before the committee and that this has been going on for a long time, what do you say to that argument? >> i say if you think we are safer today than 2016 then let's wrap it up. if you believe mike pompeo and rex tillerson and mike rogers at the nsa that the russians are still in our system and still seek to attack us, then we should fully understand what they did, who they worked w whether our response was adequate and tell the american people we're not going to let this happen. >> my job is to look as fairly as possible at arguments. there needs to be some underlying crime that they're

looking at. are you familiar with what the basis is for that? >> the basis is to distract, ari. the fisa issue has been resolved. i think most legal experts have concluded that the surveillance that occurred on carter page was more than warranted. this is just an effort to undermine bob mueller. that's too bad. because russia attacked us. instead of defending ourselves against russia, they're attacking our own police. this would be like after pearl harbor if you decided the most important thing we should be doing is to go after the air traffic controllers. that's the level of incompetence they are demonstrating by showing this focus on a special counsel. >> intelligence committee member congressman eric swalwell, thank you for your time. >> of course. my pleasure. >> still ahead tonight, another very important story. actual legislative strange driven by students affected by the florida high school shooting three weeks ago today is next.

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show me what democracy looks like! >> this is what democracy looks like! >> show me what democracy looks like! >> this is what democracy looks like! >> students staging a sit-in outside senate majority leader mitch mcconnell's office today. they were calling for what they say is common sense gun control. this is three weeks to the day after the parkland shooting in florida. a short time later, capitol police asked them to disperse.

and when they refused, one by one students were picked up, their hands tied behind their backs, eight arrested for unlawful demonstration. in the three weeks since the shooting at marjory stoneman douglas, there has been a drum beat of walk outs and sit ins and there are even bigger marches coming up. there is something different, something in a kinetic energy this time that for three weeks has been a sledge hammer chipping away at an issue that often feels like this can't be changed. look in the past three weeks real progress across the nation from banning bump stock to the so-called red flag bills happening from oregon to the utah to alabama. there is this nation-wide domino affect. the latest domino florida. today the florida house passed the marjory stoneman douglas

high school public safety act. it raises the age for buying firearms to 21. it adds a three-day waiting period on all firearm sales. it bans bump stocks. this proposed law would add an idea that president trump has created creating a school marshal program to arm some teachers. but if it becomes law it will be florida's first gun control measure in 22 years. this is a state that has generally gone in totally the other direction. pro-nra, the stand your ground laws. they're favored by the nra which was fighting this bulletin to vote no on this. families of the victims of the shooting had their own call to action. they said we must be the last families to suffer the loss of a

loved one of a shooting at school. the moment to pass the bill is now. today they did 57-60. with bipartisan it is headed to the governor's desk. so if it becomes law, this energy from the last three weeks clearly will have played a role. here's florida representative john cortez today. >> i want to thank the kids who protested from parkland had the gaul to come here and protest the situation and the kids who helped them, who protested with them. i would like to see you go on and protest for your rights and let your voices be heard. >> and the voiced protested mitch mcconnell and took student activism to a national level. >> hey, hey, the nra has got to go >> the nra has got to go. >> tech: at safelite autoglass

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new banquet mega bowls, piled high with creamy mashed potatoes, corn, and shredded cheese under a savory blanket of gravy. but that's not all, because we topped it with crispy hunks of protein-packed chicken. now that's mega. that does it for us. rachel will be back tomorrow. you can find me at 6:00 p.m. eastern on my show "the beat" with ari melber. something important right now. stormy daniels's attorney is about to appear live on "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." which sounds interesting. good evening, lawrence. >> good evening, ari. you have to text me your questions for stormy daniels's lawyer. i have a bunch but i need more from you. >> i'll do it. i'll do it right now. >> thank you, ari. >> we will get to that, to the stormy daniels' lawyer's story.

but first the big question is has the president been trying to obstruct justice by interfering with witnesses in the special prosecutor's investigation? president trump, we all remember, was turned down by all of with the special prosecutor's investigation and congressional investigations. the best lawyers turned donald trump down because of his public reputation of not doing what his lawyers tell him to do and not paying his bills. tonight we have more ed of just how right those lawyers were of donald trump when they turned him down. the president keeps doing things that lawyers normally don't have to advise their clients not to do. like attacking the federal prosecutor who is investigating him and attacking the justice department and the fbi because they are investigating him. it wouldn't occur to lawyers to tell their clients do not attack the prosecutors or the lawyers or the fbi.