and that's why they're selling off their stocks. 1.7% is not a serious matter on its own. the only thing is it's not on its own. i'll see you tomorrow morning 8:00 a.m. eastern for msnbc's all day coverage for march for our lives. thanks for watching. "deadline white house" starts right now. >> hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in washington. i'm kristen welker in for nicolle wallace. the question right now, who needs a new white house communications director when the president has apparently decided he is his own best crisis manager? the president woke up this morning in a white house scrambling to react to punishing headlines, like porn star stormy daniels in her upcoming tell all on 60 minutes. play mate karen mcdougal who gave an interview about her alleged affair with mr. trump. he prepares to sit down for a possible interview with special counsel robert mueller and new details about the scope of

russia's meddling in the 2016 election. so, what did the president do to relieve all of that pressure? well, he threatened to shutdown the government. mr. trump tweeting early this morning, i am considering a veto of the omnibus spending bill, the bill that would keep the government open ahead of tonight's midnight deadline. this threat after his aides and advisors spent the past 24 hours assuring lawmakers mr. trump would definitely sign the bill. his tweets sending shock waves throughout washington, but it didn't solve the issue of that 1:00 p.m. white house press briefing where sarah huckabee sanders would certainly face questions about all of that uncomfortable news. so, the president took control again, tweeting news conference at the white house concerning the omnibus spending bill, 1:00 p.m. well, it would have been the first solo news conference from the president in over a year and given all that the press wanted to ask him about, it would have been a pretty big deal. only it wasn't a press conference. and he didn't veto the spending bill at all. instead, he condemned it. then he signed it anyway. mr. trump answering two questions, but then started

walking out of the room when he was asked about those sex scandals. joining us from the white house and to discuss all of this is jill colvin with the associated press. msnbc national security analyst jeremy bash, a former chief of staff at the cia and pentagon. and with me on set, shannon petty piece white house reporter for bloomberg news. evan mcmullen former cia opera i have it, recently ran for president as an independent. and jennifer ruben, washington post opinion writer and author of the papers right turn blog. jill, i want to start with you. this was a day, break neck pace. i was at the white house earlier today with you. we were trying to figure out what on earth was going on. and what struck me was so many top officials seemed to be out of the loop in the moments and hours after president trump sent out that tweet. so, what do you make of how he handled this and what has the fall out ben there? >> absolutely. this is one of these days just bombardment one after the next. you have no idea what is coming along. what was notable the staff here

didn't seem to me at all what was going on. many were taken by surprise by the tweet this morning. we knew the president had been speaking to outside folks, had had conversations indicating he was frustrated with especially the way the omnibus was being covered. he was very irritated that it didn't include this immigration spending that he pushed for. and a couple of times he was in positions where people felt like they kind of had to walk him back from the edge. they nonetheless thought he was going to go along with signing it. so starting from that first tweet they were surprised, the decision to call a press conference came as news to a bunch of folks. we were scrambling up until the last minute to find out where that was going to take place. and this just comes at a time of such instability in this white house. you know, we had the news last night -- it was just last night when they announced mcmaster, the national security advisor would be replaced by john bolton. so it's one thing after the next after the next here. >> and, jill, let me just follow-up with you on that point. if we had had a news conference

as i was preparing for possible questions, i wrote down, what did you accomplish with this veto threat. what did he accomplish ultimately he's going to have to answer questions about all of those scandals as well as the staff shake up that we witnessed this week. >> one thing he accomplished here is he arguably severely damaged the negotiate ability not just on capitol hill. it is the president's own aides who are helping to hash out the confines of this deal. you have mark short and nick mulvaney yesterday speaking to the american people from the podium in the white house saying the president is going to sign this. in addition, you've got sarah huckabee sanders who has come out there multiple times now, including assuring people just last week that mcmaster was not intending to leave, the president had told her he was safe. so, again and again, you've got the president undermining his aides here. when it comes time, it's unclear that congress will have any opportunity for big legislation, at least in the next couple of months ahead of the mid terms.

but if you're a member of congress who is on the fence, are you really going to trust those negotiators to speak on behalf of the president? >> jeremy, let me bring you into this conversation, because when president trump did speak he said he's being forced to sign this terrible piece of legislation because ultimately, he says, it funds the military. and that overrode any of his concerns about daca, about the fact that it's going to jack up the deficit. what do you make of how he handled this and that reasoning? was that legitimate to anyone who was listening? >> well, nasaal security spending is an important component of it. to jill's point earlier about the president's eroding credibility, it was eroding because he made a veto threat and didn't carry it out. i think if a president is going to make a threat like that against a massive spending bill, he has to be prepared to back it up and explain why. the only thing i think he did by servicing up that tweet this morning was he reminded the

country that he has abandoned the several thousand dreamers brought here as kids by their parents, lived here, worked here, paid taxes, 900 served in the military, most are going to school or are working productive members of the society. the president, has he has not solved the problem is basically saying they could be deported. >> and, shannon, let me bring you into the conversation and the rest of my panel here on set. i know you've been talking to your sources as well. jeremy brings up a critical piece of this which is daca. the president's concerned that this is going to be used as a hammer, something the democrats holdover his head in the mid terms. >> right. >> he tried to sort of pre-butt any of their arguments today. how effective was he given that this is something the democrats are certainly going to be campaigning on? >> right. he has not made the progress that it looked like he was going to make at one point. i mean, all of us, we remember that televised event where he brought the democrats and republicans in. it looked like everyone was going to work together.

there was a deal that was actually offered to him. he has not carried through at all on that sort of optimism that we had months ago that a deal could actually be done. i think maybe he's realize, what president obama realized, this is difficult, and immigration is the third rail of congressional politics right now, not even to mention just the divides among democrats and republicans. but the divides among republicans in their own party. and so it was always going to be a hard fight. doesn't mean you shouldn't try because it's hard, but now he has found himself in a situation a lot of people could have predicted. >> evan, the president says, look, he thinks the chaos can be effective. in this case some of his advisors would argue the point that he got his message out. he talked about why he was angry at this legislation. that's a political strategy. and at the same time did get funding for the military. what do you make of how he handled this? did he, in fact, lose credibility or did he do what he was maybe aiming to do, which was to seize the narrative here?

>> yeah, look, i would say that in the end that's what he did do. you know, the president was also facing criticism not only from the left, but from the further right, from the freedom caucus, from the budget hawks, from those who insist on a wall, the other side of immigration is popular with his far-right base. he got to come out and say, look, i didn't get that, i didn't get the wall funding, as much as i wanted. i'm angry about it, but i did get military spending. he listed all of the equipment, the new equipment that he's going to get. so, that was, you know, in the end possibly favorable to him. but i think the trouble is that the president realizes that he's in trouble for a variety of reasons, political and legal, and he has the power to change the narrative. and in this case he was willing to threaten a government shutdown to do it. what will he do next? >> and you lead me to my next point. this is ann coulter reacting, jennifer. she tweeted out, congratulations president schumer, essentially saying that the president got played here. i will never sign another bill

like this again. she's quoting from the president. yeah, because you'll be impeached. >> good old ann coulter. well, i'm going to do what i rarely do disagree with my colleague. i don't think this was very effective at all. not only did we see that meeting where he brought the democrats, the republicans in and said, send me any bill and i will sign it. he also had a deal with senator schumer when he came up and offered exactly what he was talking about, $25 billion for the wall in exchange for relief for the dreamers. he could have had that deal. and i guess president stephen miller, if we want to call other people president, and president john kelly and president tom cotton, his favorite ally in the senate, overturned the apple carton that one. if he should be mad at anyone, it should be them or himself for following their advice. >> one of the aspects of this that hasn't gotten a whole lot of attention was the fact there were more russian sanctions

tucked into this bill. and there is a sense behind the scenes that that may have been part of what set the president off as well. are your sources telling you anything about that? >> well, i think we can, i guess, stay up all night trying to figure out all the things that would have upset him. i suppose that is possible. i suppose it's also possible that he was learning for the first time, perhaps, that the democrats really got most of what they wanted in this bill. democrats weren't necessarily opposed to more defense spending. they just didn't want to give defense spending until they got a lot on domestic spending and they got most of what they wanted. as you look at those press conferences, press releases coming out from democratic lawmakers' offices, i was struck in the last couple of days with how many of them were thrilled, they were overjoyed. all of them had something for their district and they had bigger plans. no, they didn't get the daca and they didn't get a big infrastructure bill, but they got an awful lot else and they didn't have to give up anything for it. >> they've been touting what

they got. >> i think this is becoming a pattern where someone makes a pitch to him, sure, leadership came in and told him about this budget and this is how it looks. and then this morning, i was watching fox news as i'm sure he was watching fox news in the morning people were saying, it was critical of it. a few minutes later we saw these tweets come out. i think we've seen this before where he says one thing in a public meeting. there is an enormous backlash from his base, from ann coulter, and his other allies out there and he realizes, oh, wait a minute, did i get duped into something? what's this? he he's trying to play both sides which is tough to do. >> it happened on guns. you're exactly right. he went out, he was forthcoming on guns, democrats were thrilled, dianne feinstein looked like she was going to have kittens there so excited. and then the nra got hold of him and yanked him out. >> the private meeting at the white house. if you work at the white house, we were just processing this other big news, which was the latest staff shake up, the fact that mcmaster, his second

national security advisor is out, john bolton is now in. we anticipated that mcmaster was leaving, shannon, but the way in which it was carried out was pretty fast last night. >> it shook everybody. >> what do you make of the way he handled it? wasn't exactly like we learned about tillerson which was through a tweet. but he learned about it, he called mcmaster ahead of time and yet this was something that seemed at the moment like a snap decision by the president. john bolton, by the way, is someone who initially he didn't want as national security advisor. what changed here? >> because it was afz snap decision. bolton came in for a 4:00 meeting. 5:00 mcmaster was told he was out. my colleagues there saw them running between sarah sanders office and the oval office, people coming in and out slamming doors. we were trying to figure out what was going on. it was a snap decision. top aides were taken aback by

it. >> known as a hawk, served under george w. bush. bolton was seen as he worked for bush as having checks on his hawkishness. that is not now going to be in place, evan. what do you make of the pick? >> overall the president and therefore the white house, they're taking a much more hawk isha approa hawkish approach. across the board it will be a centrist on the mueller investigation, on foreign policy. the president i think feels besieged. he has a number of political threats he's confronting. he believes he is best equipped to deal with those. he believes in his own fighting ability more so than anyone else's. he's clearing the deck, making sure he has people on board with the fight he's about to be in legally and politically and that's what we see. >> this week, of course, one of the controversies we all covered was the fact that the president spoke to vladimir putin, congratulated him, and hours

later in this stunning twist, his briefing documents were leaked out and, jill, we learned that in all caps, his national security team said do not congratulate. some people say mcmaster, the timing of it is because of that leak, the white house pushes back and says that wasn't the case, it's not mcmaster. what do you make of that? >> very few people saw that document. it comes through the nse, so it couldn't maybe have been pinned on mcmaster, but certainly people around him. it is a very closed circle of people who see that document. very embarrassing to the president, and that could have triggered him or could have been that john bolton was in his office and said, go for it, mr. president, you're in charge. and he jumped then. i think it is perhaps an understatement to call john bolton a hawk. listen, jim mattis is a hawk. mike pompeo is a hawk. paul ryan is a hawk in the sense that they believe in a muscular foreign policy and america leading the world.

john bolton believes in things like a first strike against north korea. he believes in a military solution to iran. that is out of the mainstream of even where the republican party has been. of course, where president trump has been. president trump ran in essence like people who got us into the iraq war, one of those people was john bolton. so, he's either forgotten that or he doesn't care. i think what we're seeing, just as evan said, we are seeing people who are going to encourage him to go with his most extreme, most out there impulses and that's a problem. >> and a lot of concern about that on both sides of pennsylvania avenue. and jennifer, apologies, i called you jill. >> i knew who you meant. >> i do want to go to jill standing by at the white house, though, and get you to pickup on that point. what does this mean, jill, ahead of these critical talks with north korea which president trump is about to have, and as he deals with issues like the iran nuclear deal? >> yeah, i mean look, what we'd

expect now when you have a new security advisor coming in, we expect john bolton bring his folks in and replace people with those who are on the fence between this one on one meeting with trump and kim jong-un. i think the iran deal is something that is probably kind of on the more pressing forefront here. we have heard the president and rex tillerson, his former, soon to be former secretary of state, clashed on what to do with iran. you've sort of seen in the president's staffing moves here, he's really moving towards creating a group of people around him who are equally frustrated with the iran deal. the president campaigned on a promise to end it. we have some critical deadlines coming up. that is another space where we're really going to see john bolton's influence. >> and, jeremy, final question to you, to this point that john bolton is hawkish, he is someone who will reaffirm, i think, some of president trump's impulses on some of these issues. what do you think the broader

take away is going to be here and what will you be watching for in the coming weeks and months? >> first we should say general mcmaster has served our country with distinction. he's had a great career in uniform leading in combat and serving the country and it's a shame to have let him go at this juncture when we have so many threats facing our country. he was one of the guardrails i think watching out for america's best interest, guardrail on the presidency with his departure, john kelly pushed aside as well. i'm concerned there are aspects to john bolton's ideology, his approach, his military first approach on some problems. his lack of confidence in multi lateral institutions and alliances that i think are ultimately not going to be in the best interest of the country. we'll have to wait to see exactly what advice he's able to prevail on the president. >> all right, jeremy and my panel. stick around. jill colvin, thank you for being here. appreciate your insights. and coming up, amid chaos and uncertainty within the west wing, some new indications the

president may be considering an even bigger shake-up. could he fire his closest advisor and not even replace him? we'll take a look at that. plus, another woman speaks out. the attorney for stormy daniels posts a cryptic image suggesting they are set to reveal a major bombshell ahead of her big interview. so, what did he mean? and more signs the president is switching up his game in the mueller probe. that's when we come right back. . sarge, i just got a tip that'll crack this case wide open! turns out the prints at the crime scene- awwwww...did mcgruffy wuffy get a tippy wippy? i'm serious! we gotta move fast before- who's a good boy? is him a good boy? erg...i'm just gonna go. oh, you wanna go outside? you gotta go tinky poo-poo? i already went, ok? in the bathroom! as long as people talk baby-talk to dogs, you can count on geico saving folks money. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance.

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staff. i think there will be five or six direct reports like there was in trump tower. i think the president is a hands-on manager and he feels more comfortable with that. >> that is of course former white house chief strategist steve bannon who might have been on to something there. nbc news confirming earlier this month president donald trump considered firing his chief of staff and not naming a successor, according to three people familiar with the discussions. mr. trump has mused to close associates running the west wing as he did his business empire, essentially serving as his own chief of staff, these people said. jeremy bash, the panel is still here. shannon, let me start with you. we've watched john kelly go up, go down, he seemed to be emboldened a little bit. now we are hearing about this reporting. what do you make of his status right now? >> i think with everybody in trump's inner circle and universe, you're in one day, you're out the next. someone told me once trump's dog house has a revolving door. people we thought wouldn't be here, jeff sessions, don mcgahn who are still here, there's

people we thought would still be here like hope hicks. it's hard to predict where things will go. i would say kelly needs to figure out partly the managing the relationships with the family, with jared kushner. we were told there is definitely some tensions between him and jared kushner and same thing with ivanka. he needs to manage those relationships with the family because they're not going anywhere. >> jennifer, pickup on that point, how difficult is it if you're a top advisor, if you are john kelly, to constantly have to deal with these headlines and to manage these very difficult relationships which shannon talks about? >> that's the problem with having your children in the white house, is that ultimately they are closer to trump than anyone. poor rex tillerson had to deal with jared kushner flying around the globe, making deals or giving suggestions that were not necessarily in keeping with what the state department was doing. so, it is a problem. you know, for a long time, everyone was convinced that john kelly is just what the president needs. he's going to discipline him.

he's going to have fewer scandals, he's going to have an information flow. none of that really happened because, as we've all seen, the scandals have just continued. in fact, they've multiplied since john kelly has been there. it's not his fault necessarily, but there is no one who is going to contain him really. and the question is does it make any difference if he goes at this point? i'm not sure it does because right now trump is just being trump at his trumpyest and he is out of control. he is spontaneous, if you want to put it nicely. he is impulsive if you want to be a little more critical. but it hardly matters, i think, who is there because he's going to do whatever the heck he wants at this point. >> jeremy, let me bring you into this conversation. we are seeing the president's inner circle grow increasingly smaller and so are the number of people who can actually say no to him. do you think it's realistic, do you think we could see one day the president say, i don't need a chief of staff? >> i do. but let's not forget, that is actually how the administration started. on day one there were basically five chiefs of staff.

there was reince priebus, kellyanne conway, jared kushner, steve bannon, and mike flynn on national security. by the way, not a single one of those people with the exception of mike flynn's service in the military, not a single one had experience in the federal government, not a single one worked a day at the white house. it was really that chaos that unfolded over the first several weeks that resulted in felonies being committed and potential obstruction of justice occurring. so, i'm a little disagreeing here with jennifer. i actually think john kelly has brought some order to some of the chaos, at least in the staff. he has made the information flow to the president better. will he ultimately make the president, you know, sort of a stern disciplinarian? no, the president lacks it in his personal and ploe fegsal life. a world without a chief of staff is a very dangerous world. >> evan, do you agree? >> i agree. part of the reason is, look, you have a chief of staff to help manage your staff. you as the president request think and act strategically. >> this is an unconventional

president. he does things differently. >> unconventional is a nice word. this presidency is not going well and it is not going to go better if the president is now slg to manage the day to day and the staff and failing to keep his eye on the ball with regard to the major strategic challenges the country faces. it is a terrible idea for him. he may think it empowers him, but it will lead to, i think, more chaos u, more mistakes, mo crimes. i recommend against t. >> we are watching it very closely. stay with us. up next, it's the one skarnd l t -- scandal the president has remained curiously silent about. the woman who described her alleged affair with donald trump as the lawyer teased a possible bombshell. stay with us.

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i want my life rights back. i feel like the contract is illegal. i feel like i wasn't presented

correctly. i was lied to by everybody involved in the deal. i want my rights back. i want to share my truth because everyone else is talking about my truth. i need to share my story. there could be a big lawsuit like against me, there could be financial ruin. that's why i have really good attorneys to make sure that doesn't happen. am i scared, do i feel threatened? absolutely, but i feel i had to protect myself. >> karen mcdougal, a former play boy model speaking on camera the first time about her fight to tell the story of her alleged ten-month affair with mr. trump back in 2006. mcdougal is suing the parent company of the national inquirer who had purchased the rights to her story with the sole reason of burying it. the practice is catch and kill. after the interview aired, the attorney for so stormy daniels, the woman suing to break her silence about an alleged affair with mr. trump, posted this provocative tweet. take a look. if a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words is this worth? and there you see that dvd. the white house still denies

both affairs. i want to bring in mimi, former federal prosecutor now distinguished fellow in criminal justice at pace university school of law, and the panel is still with me here. mimi, i want to start with you. what do you make of the strategy that we are seeing? first let's just take stormy daniels and her attorney tweeting out that image, teasing the interview that is going to air this weekend. is it effective? is this a tough strategy? >> it certainly seems effective to me. you know, i'm planning to watch the interview as i'm sure many people are, dying to know what's on that dvd. but, you know, i think one of the things she and her attorney really, who seems to me to be a great strategist, you know, has done is they've made this more than just about the affair or the relationship that the president had with stormy daniels. what this is about and the reason i think this story has some real staying power is it's

about the cover up. and as prosecutors often say, the cover up is often worse than the crime. and i think here what's so relevant and really should be interesting to the american public is did the president's lawyer, personal lawyer, but while he was both about to be elected and then even after he was president, was there some kind of nefarious, you know, cover up? was there something illegal? was it an illegal campaign finance contribution? there are a lot of allegations here. i don't know right now which are true and which are not. but her lawyer does seem confident when he talks. and quite credible, actually. >> so, let me follow-up on that point because it really is an important one. we learned last night that stormy daniels' lawyer is planning to subpoena trump organization records to try to determine whether or not there is some link, to try to prove that. so, how much trouble could the

president be in if they're effective at proving that? >> well, i think the person who is likely to be in the most legal jeopardy here, possible criminal jeopardy, would be his lawyer, mr. cohen, who is the one who made the payment and, you know, claimed he did it out of his own pocket, but then claimed something about a home finance loan. we don't know, first of all, the source of that money. we don't know whether that was disclosed as a campaign contribution. if it wasn't, you know, that could be a possible criminal charge against mr. cohen. to put that on the president, you would have to show that the president knew about it and didn't disclose it. we're not there yet. certainly i'm not saying that couldn't happen, but we're not there yet obviously. >> and i want to play a little bit more of karen mcdougal's sound last night. this is ms. mcdougal apologizing to the first lady. take a listen.

>> i'm sorry. i wouldn't want it done to me. i'm sorry. >> shannon, powerful moment there, the questions aren't going away. the white house didn't answer any, but they're going to have to ultimately. >> they'll try to and deny for as long as possible. the story hasn't caught -- some people feel like the story hasn't caught as much traction as we would have seen it catch in other administrations because of all the noise and everything else going on. and my sense around the white house has been there are so many other dramas de jure this is a roundi rounding era this thing going on. being able to see the person, look them in the eye through the television in a way, mcdougal's interview was compelling, seemed genuine. we have stormy daniels. i think that adds a new layer, texture to the story. it becomes a bit more real to people who are watching at home.

>> i think you make an important point. jennifer, pick up here. because if this were another president, it would be the only headline. but because there are so many headlines -- and frankly because as a candidate, mr. trump survived a lot of challenging headlines. you look at the access hollywood tape. you look at that sound bite when he said, i can shoot anyone and my supporters wouldn't leave me. is this different? can he survive this? >> it's possible. one big difference is that the social conservatives, the republican party is giving him one big mull begigan, one leade said. there is no cry the president behaved in some improper way. but you have to wonder if he would lie about this, that he didn't make the payment, these are untrue, what else has he been lying about? what about the women who claimed during the campaign to

unconsensual sexual harassment, sexual harassment, sexual abuse, what about them? and we also have -- we've forgotten because it is so easy to forget, we have yet another litigant called a liar by the president who has now survived the first round of litigation and is going to be able to have discovery on what the president did. potentially other affairs he was having. >> and the white house has been very clear, the president has denied these allegations, evan, but we haven't heard from the president himself. he is a self-proclaimed counter puncher who has gone silent. in fact today he was squd about it and walked out of the room. what do you make of how hoe's handling this? >> it's true. maybe he's trying to protect the integrity of whatever the arrangements are with the women. it seems the two have been paid hush money. my bigger question is if you're donald trump and this is priced into your own life and the way everyone perceives you including voters, why were you fighting so

hard to keep these things under wraps? they aren't a surprise so it makes me wonder what are the underlying details of these relationships? did something happen in these relationships we don't yet know about that would reflect poorly on him additionally? we don't know. >> i want to play another remarkable moment from the interview. we'll get your reaction on the other side. >> did he ever compare you to any of his kids? >> you know, he's very proud of ivanka, as he should be. she's a brilliant woman. she's beautiful. she's, you know, that's his daughter and he should be proud of her. he said i was beautiful like her and, you know, you're a smart girl and there wasn't a lot of comparing, but there was some, yeah. i heard a lot about her. >> shannon? >> i heard a lot about her, that was interesting in the way she sort of paused and took a moment before then. but, i mean, it does fit with the president trump that we know

who is very proud and loves his daughter. you know, she's one of his closest, closest advisors. >> and has been asked about some of these allegations as well by my colleague peter alexander. she said, look, i have the right to believe my father. so, again, the white house insists there is nothing to these allegations. but, of course, this litigation plays out. we continue to follow it very closely. stay with me, panel, as well as mimi. when we come back, going to war. that's how one of the president's former advisors describes his possible new strategy against robert mueller. we'll break that down.

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(vo)just one touch.ith with fancy feast creamy delights, she can have just the right touch of real milk. easily digestible, it makes her favorite entrées even more delightful. fancy feast creamy delights. love is in the details. ty cobb and john dowd had a radical theory. let's totally cooperate and waive executive privilege, okay. i have said, as i told the president and told everybody and i told brother dowd, i think that's wrong and i think that's why essentially more aggressive attorneys got brought in that

are now, you know, i think president trump is going to war. i think it's very obvious he's going to go to war on this. >> no more mr. nice president, apparently that's steve bannon putting his spin on what many have noticed in recent days. president trump's strategy for dealing with robert mueller seems to have changed from cooperative to combative. we have entered an era where mr. trump seems more inclined to go on the attack. here's what he tweeted earlier today. house intelligence committee votes to release final report, findings one, no evidence provided of collusion between trump campaign and russia. two, the obama administration's post election response was insufficient. three, obama's director of national intelligence james clapper provided inconsistent testimony on media contacts. joining me now to discuss all of this is betsy woodruff, politics reporter for the daily beast and an msnbc contributor. mimi, jeremy and the panel are still here. mimi, let me start with you on this. just unpacking that tweet a

little bit, what do you make of it? do you think broadly the president may be trying to lay the groundwork for something he says he's not trying to do, but which is to potentially find a way to fire robert mueller? >> well, look, i think the president's been laying the groundwork, if you will, for a while now. he's definitely gotten more aggressive in the last tweet that everyone is talking about. he actually named mueller. this tweet he's back to relying on the republican intel report which, you know, the fact that they didn't find any evidence of collusion between the trump campaign and the russians, it's no surprise because they didn't look at all of the evidence. so, you know -- >> this is a republican report, we should say and stress. that's what the democrats continue to stress. look, this investigation is nowhere finished particularly when it comes to the special counsel. >> correct, it's not even a full committee report. we also know they didn't even subpoena, you know, many witnesses and look at much of

the evidence that they needed to look at. so, the finding of no evidence of collusion is really no surprise. you know, look, it's hard to say obviously, hard to predict what the president is going to do. is he going to try and fire mueller? it seems to me if he was going to do that or try to do that -- because i don't even know how successful that effort would be -- it seems to me he would have tried it by now. but obviously, you know, there are different degrees of desperation and it seems to me that as the investigation goes on, as he is dissatisfied with apparently his legal team, you know, he is seeming more and more desperate. but at the end of the day, mueller and his team are just going to keep on marching forward. i do not think they are distracted by this. i do not think this matters to them. i think they are busy collecting evidence, interviewing witnesses, and preparing their case. >> and, betsy, i know what you know, i'm sure from talking to your sources. the president is growing increasingly frustrated by everything that mimi just

described. the fact the special counsel is undeterred. that this investigation has lasted way longer than his attorneys promised him it would. they said this is going to be wrapped up. what is your sense of where the president stands right now? do you think he's contemplating dismissing robert mueller, finding a way to have him fired? >> john dowd's absence could mean that mueller's firing may be more likely. >> his lead attorney resigned yesterday. >> who is going to take on the work john dowd was doing? there is mixed comment that they are going to join the president's legal team, a husband/wife power team working in d.c. a long time. if they were to join the team they would likely take a more aggressive, assertive approach than dowd was taking. and dowd's absence is significant. when the indictment of 13 russian nationals for espionage was handed down, i believe it was last month, i talked to dowd on the phone right afterwards. what he told me was mueller is

doing a dam good job. we're so delighted with the mueller probe. it is very unlikely anyone on the president's legal team is going to share that type of positive message with the president about mueller now that he's gone. >> evan, betsy gets to the crux of this, which is joe digenova is a conspiracy theorist. he said on fox news that the president is being framed by the fbi and by the d.o.j. so, at the very least, even if he doesn't move to try to get rid of mueller, he's putting up his dukes. he's fighting in a whole different way, it seems like right now. >> that's right. so, what is the value of that? the value is, in my view, that you're communicating if you're trump in this way to your base. you're preparing them for potentially taking action against mueller. you're shaping the way they view things. while you do that, you're also making it more difficult for republican members of congress to confront you or to respond in any effective way if you did fire mueller. so, that's what he's doing. he's done this before with other issues.

he attacks, attacks, attacks, shapes the views of his base, protects himself politically and he'll decide eventually if he's going to actually fire mueller or maybe he's eroded confidence in mueller enough among his base he doesn't need to. >> jennifer, the other thing that dowd's resignation accomplishes is that it does clear the way for the president to do a potential interview with robert mueller. we know that ty cobb, other members of his legal team said he should probably sit down and just do this interview. but there is immense risk that goes along with that. dao'an advertise peyton we'll actually see that happen? >> well, i think you can look at it one of two ways. one way is that by shaping the battle field as you correctly say, he's setting people up to say i don't have to sit down with mueller because mueller is discredited. mueller is a hack. mueller is going to try to frame me in some way. part of this may be a way of him getting out of that because i think he genuinely is concerned about that and any attorney should be concerned about that. in part because he lies, and in part because he doesn't know what self-incriminating is.

he says things that he doesn't realize have a legal consequence. >> do you look at what happened yesterday as a shake up or potentially making a change that needed to happen? >> well, it depends on what you think needs to be happening. trump wants the whole thing to go away and thinks just by bullying people like it always does, he can win. he is completely incapable of dealing with mueller who operates on law and facts and doesn't care about any of this stuff, doesn't care about any of the shenanigans and he is marching forward. so, the one concern that i have is as the heat has been building up, you've heard silence from republicans. they momentarily said, well, you shouldn't do that. nothing in writing, no legislation is moving forward to protect mueller at this point. >> one thing i'd add is that now that dowd is gone there actually could be a greater likelihood the president sits down for an interview with mueller. it was in january when president trump told a spray of reporters he would like to talk to

mueller. after that happened i talked to dowd on the phone. dowd told me, hold your horses, i'm the decider. if trump is talking to him it goes through me and i haven't decided. but now dowd is gone. who is going to be the person potentially standing in the gap saying don't do this? we don't know until we know what the president's team looks like. it is higher. >> one of the controversies dowd sparked, that was a great conversation, betsy. jeremy, i want to quickly bring you in on the news we learned yesterday, the fact that according to "the daily beast," the lone dnc hacker guccifer 2.0 revealed in fact he was a russian intelligence officer. what do you make of that, what does that tell us about where this probe is going? >> well, the russian military intelligence agency which we know was involved in the hacking in some of the social media attacks and intervention in the election, they had an officer who actually was the individual who gave some of the hacked e-mails from the dnc, from the

clinton world to wikileaks. so, that was put out all over the world that showed the direct links between wikileaks and the russian federation. it also shoewed that potentiall roger the russian intelligence officer. yet another link between the trump campaign and the russian federation. >> all right. jeremy bash, thank you. panel stay with me. coming up next, the history-making march set to happen in our nation's capitol this weekend striking parallels to another consequential milestone in america. we'll explain when we come right back.

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let us pray with our legs, let us march in unison to the rhythm of justice. because i say enough is enough. america, we are your future. why won't you protect us? >> students in washington, d.c. gearing up for tomorrow's march for our lives. a rally set up by the survivors of last month's school shooting in parkland, florida. half a million people are expected to attend. the main event is right here in d.c. and joining me to discuss this is rev al sharpton and president of the nation action network. good to see you. >> good to see you. >> so put this moment into context. a lot of people say this is different when it comes to getting gun safety laws passed because you have these young voices mobilized and speaking together in unison.

what do you make of this moment? is it different? could they get something big done in washington? >> i believe that they can. i think that the fact that you see these students staying on top of this and not being deterred by the florida state legislature given a baby step toward legislation, it didn't turn them around at all. and if they turn this tomorrow into telling those youngsters that are old enough to register to vote by november to do registration, go to town hall meetings, they will turn the moment into a movement but we've never seen a moment seized like this, especially by young people. i'm going to washington. many are going to support them. but no speakers over 18 years old. i think the uniqueness and the drama gives it the great possibilities of real change. it is pregnant with possibilities. >> a lot of people thought sandy

hook would be the moment that new legislation got passed. why is this moment different do you think? >> i think it is different because of sandy hook. i think that people saw what happened in sandy hook and are saying, we're determined to make sure that does not happen this time. sometimes it takes -- if you look at the civil rights movement, when dr. king and others before my time failed in albany, georgia, it made them not do the same or repeat the same error when they got to birmingham, alabama. the next campaign. and that is what we'll see here. because they didn't follow through in sandy hook they are saying we're going to make this stick. >> and we have breaking news, something the president just tweeted moments ago about this very issue. he wrote obama administration legalized bump stocks, bad idea. as i promised today, the department of justice will issue the rule banning bump stocks

with a mandated comment period. we will ban all devices that turn legal weapons into illegal machine guns. now to unpack that briefly, the nra said we'll support an action on banning bump stocks. we just won't support legislation on banning bump stocks. so do you think given the president's tweet and given the fact that the spending bill that was passed today did include a measure to deal with this issue, to make schools safer. do you anticipate this is the first of more action that we're going to see. >> i think it is more of a reaction. but i don't think it is real action. the students have said very clearly they wanted to see as many of us have been saying for years banning ar-15 and banning military-style weapons. bump stocks wasn't even the issue at parkland high. we're dealing with a president trying to chaij change t-- chane the premise to get to his

conclusion. it is not a bump stock rally, it is a rally around ar-15 and military style weapons, automatic weapons. he's trying to get a diversion here that ought not be in any way, shape or form regarded or respected by those that have laid this out tomorrow. >> and reverend al, i want to talk about another major moment in history that you just referenced moments ago and our nbc documentary going to be airing tomorrow on nbc news and on sunday on msnbc. that documentary "hope and fury", let's play a clib and your reaction on the other side. >> king was able to energize young students. he set a tone of let's come out of these cathedrals and out of these offices and do something in the streets. >> what are your reflections as you think about your

participation in that movement and in this moment that we find ourselves in today? >> i was 13 years old when i became youth director of the new york chapter of dr. king's organization. he was killed about two or three months later. i was literally raised and mentored about some of his lieutenants, jesse jackson, yt walker. and they taught us as youngsters, and i was a young minister, only 13, that dr. king was the one that said that you've got to practice religion with your feet. that if you don't get out there and dramatize and make a media issue, a real -- a really something that you are adept with that you'll never lead to change. so when people accused us later as i became active and continue to be, oh, people like sharpton just want publicity, that is exactly what we want and we learned that from dr. king. >> we learned so much from dr.

king and from you. reverend, thank you for your re-election. >> watch tomorrow at 8:00 p.m. on nbc. and i want to give my thanks to betsy woodruff and evan mcmullan and jennifer rubin. and i'm kristin welker in for nicolle wallace. >> good to see you. >> another slow day. >> another slow news day. we haven't had breaking news in ten minutes so hurry back, will you. if it is friday, it is fight-or-flight to mar-a-largo. tonight how john bolton's appointment as national security adviser changes america's relationship with the world. >> he has a world view that i think will help the president make us safer. >> he has a history of being a war monger. >> plus the president ordered new tariffs o