this morning, the united states pushing back the trump administration is standing by western allies and expelling a number of rush.an diplomates over the alleged poisoning of a spy. plus the attorney of stormy daniels files an additional lawsuit. and the fbi is investigating after a series of suspicious packages were sent to military and intelligence sites in washington, d.c. authorities there say they contained explosive components. ♪

>> morning, everyone. the united states and at least 22 other nations have expelled more than 100 diplomates from their respective countries. it comes in.response to russia's recent poisoning of an ex spy in the uk using an extremely toxic military-grade nerve agent. the uk expelled 23 russians last week in addition to multiple other measures. the u.s. is expelling 60 russians, including 12 intelligence officers from russia's u.n. mission headquarters in new york. it is the largest expulsion of russian personnel ever by the united states. in addition, the trump administration offereded the closure of the russian consulate in seattle which officials say is near a base that houses a u.s. nuclear submarine. a senior trump official says the move is meant to tell moscow, quote, when you attack our friends, you'll face serious consequences, adding that it is meant to reduce the unacceptably

numerous amounts of russian spies in the country. >> today's actions make the united states safer by reducing russian's ability to spy on americans and conduct covert operations and conduct national security. the u.s. and our allies and partners around the world make clear to russia that actions have consequences. >> so in total, 23 countries, including eu nations are expelling at least 138 russians. in the coming days, in the coming weeks, as well. a surprising step that keeps with russia's traditional tit for tat, russian state media is reporting that moscow will expel, quote, no less than 60 american diplomates. russia's u.s. embassy treated a poll asking which u.s. consulate the public would like the kremlin to close. moscow maintains it was not

involved in the poisoning. president trump has not tweeted about this. to the very latest in the stormy daniels controversy, the white house is explaining why the president has not responded to the porn start directly. the president has discussed his response with several aides and has been told the stormy daniels issue doesn't rise to the level of a presidential response. this senior official counseled trump telling him it doesn't he endanger his presidency or his agenda. >> the white house pushing back at stormy daniels' allegations of a 2006 affair with then citizen donald trump. >> the president strongly, clearly and has consistently denied these underlying claims and the only person who has been inconsistent is the one making the claims. >> and disputing this explosive

charge. daniels says she was physically threatened to keep quiet in 2011. >> a guy walked up to me and said to me, leave trump alone. forget the story. and then he leaned around and looked at my daughter and said a beautiful little girl. it would be a shame if something happened to her mom. and then gone. >>. >> you took it as a direct threat. >> absolutely. >> the president doesn't believe any of the claims that in miss daniels made last night in the interview were accurate. >> he doesn't believe she was threatened. >> no. >> what's his basis for that? >> he doesn't believe that --s there's nothing to corroborate her claim. >> but daniels is ramping up her legal battle, alleging that michael cohen defamed daniels by insinuating she lied about the affair and violated campaign finance laws when cohen paid her $130,000 to stay silent right before the election.

cohenen says the money came from his personal account, not the trump campaign. a bitter back and forth with a critical legal question looming. >> i think it increases the heat, probably for the federal election committee to at least discuss whether to open an investigation here. and to get a response from the trump campaign. >> no response from the white house or cohen about daniels' latest court filing. multiple current and form her officials with the federal election commission say it could be a year or longer before the fec determines whether there was any campaign violation. so president trump struggled to stack his legal team is continuing, as well. a prominent defense attorney and his partner declined an invitation to represent him. daniel webb, special prosecutor

during iran contra said he could not join the team since webb represents a billionaire ukrainian oligarch with ties to trump's office. president trump reached out toen dan webb and tom buchanan to provide legal representation. they were unable to take on the representation due to businessen conflicts. however, they consider the opportunity to represent the president be the highest honor and they sincerely regret that they cannot coso. this is another prominent republican who turned trump down. ted olson said no one is asking to be on the team. he asked olson about being recruited for trump's squad. quote, he rolled his eyes suggesting that this was never going to happen and that it was not just a matter of conflicts. in the last few days, has any lawyer came up to you and said i'ming willing to work for trump? ols.on said no. yesterday, olson says he was taken aback by the amount of

turnover within the trump administration. >> i think everybody would agree that this is the turmoil, it's chaos, confuse and it's not good for anything. we always believe there should be an orderly process. government is not clean or orderly ever. but this seems to be beyond normal bounds. and multiple explanations have emerged for president trump's quick turn around on two legal team members. an official statement said joseph digenova and victoria had conflicts which prevented them from being on his team. the senior administration told politico that the couple looked disheveled when they came to meet with the president. that convinced trump that they were not the right fit for the team. but four senior justice department officials familiar with the investigation told msnbc that victoria toesing's

representation of mark carowa is a problem. he left are with concerns about obstruction of justice around the 2016 trump tower meeting with russians. joining us from washington, politico's daniel lippmann. thanks for joining us. >> thank you. >> let's talk russia first. what's been the reaction so far to the administration expelling 60 russian officials? i know we heard from paul yesterday and his reaction to all this. >> yeah. i think it's kind of a welcome breath of fresh air. we had concerns that the trump administration wouldn't be tough on the russians, yet they are even tougher than the obama administration, expelling these types of people. so i think it sends a clear message that the alleged poisoning of that formerer russian spy in britain, that's not going to go

so even though trump doesn't like to talk about putin negatively, his administration is hawkish on russia. >> let me ask you about trump's legal team. what kind of an impact this have, that they're coming late into the game, catching up, trying to get up to the newest developments. >> it's really bad news for trump's team. so his main lawyer now is jay siculo who is more of a conservative legal commentator. he's not a guy that's been trying lots of cases recently. so this lack of a deep bench, it kind of reminds me of how it's tough for trump to get people into the white house. and even you you saw with his

cia appointment, they -- you know, elevated the deputy director because they couldn't recruit that many top people into that position. >> let's turn to stormy daniels because we can't let you go without talking about that. are you surprised at all that trump has remained basically completely silent in the wake of the daniels story sort of gaining so much attention? there's two things that donald trump doesn't talk about a lot. it's russia. >> vladimir putin. and stormy daniels. >> who would have thought we would be putting them in the same area. >> if only trump had listened to his advisers not to tweet about mueller and the russian investigation, he would have been so much better off. so he's listening to his advisers this time, but he has told friends that he thinks stormy daniels is unattractive, not the type of woman he would have pursued, anyway. >> an official line there, by the way. coming up, the shooting of

an unarmed blackman in sacramento and an emotional press conference by his family. and later, is the white house investigating one of its own? those stories and, of course, a check on your weather when we come back. i'm a fighter. always have been. when i found out i had age-related macular degeneration, amd, i wanted to fight back. my doctor and i came up with a plan. it includes preservision.

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white house mail sorting facility in suburban, washington, the national geospace intelligence agency in virginia and another defense university. in every case, law enforcement officials say, the packages were sent through the mail. some included letters that one official described as disturbed and rambling. each time, they say the packages were quickly rendered safe. >> bombs sent through the mail are rigged to detonate when they're opened so they can sit there forever. the bomb squad can do a render safe procedure on a live bomb or it could be a hoax. >> several officials say they do not believe any of these packages came from mark anthony conditt who caused weeks of terror by placing and sending functioning bombs there. just last week, a man crashed his car after driving through the checkpoint at travis air force base in california. officials say they don't know whether that was an attack or an elaborate suicide. >> pete adds that all the packages are now being investigated by the fbi to see

if they're the work of the same person or persons and to determine if they're working devices meant to look real. eight days after sacramento police shot and killed 23-year-old stefon clark in his backyards, civil rights groups are calling for the officers involve to be held accountable. yesterday at a news conference, closhg clark's grandmother fought back tears. >> i just want justice for my grandson and my grand babies. they're in pain. he's got two brothers. >> justice. >> justice. i want justice for my baby. i want justice for ste phon clark. >> officers shot 20 shots at clark fatally wounding the the father of two. police were respond to go a 911 call reporting that a man was smashing car windows.

said at the time they believed the cell phone that was in clark's hand was a gun. the daily beast reports that the family plans to file a wrongful death lawsuit against the sacramento police department. absolutely heartbreaking. and linda brown, the woman at the center of a bill that shut down racial segregation in schools has died at the age of 76. brown's father tried to enroll her in an all-white school near their home in topeka. the naacp's legal arm combined their cases with others before the supreme court with brown's as the lead plaintiff. the win was a motor vehicle historical marker in the civil rights movement, allowing the naacp legal defense fund to chip away at the separate but equal doctrine used to bar black people from public facilities. brown would later become an educational consultal and establish the ground foundation

for equity and research which works to provide equality and education access. let's switch gears and get a check on your weather with meteorologist bill karins. bill, we're all looking for spring. >> spring-like forecast. we have some warmth coming to the eastern seaboard eventually, but we have to deal with rain, flash flooding and the potential for severe weather. >> as of now, heavy rain over the top of st. louis. thunderstorms have died off. but it's a steady rain for you during your commute today. oklahoma city, you're on the dryer side of this -- the less severe side of this storm system. heavier thunderstorms to your south and some storms to the west of dallas that are going to try to slide up towards abilene. today we'll see storms redeveloping this afternoon. this is going to happen each of the next three afternoons. yesterday we had a lot of large hail reports. i don't think we're going to see many today, either. dallas, tyler, waco, austin, san antonio, we have some big airports in here.

9 million people at risk of severe storms. wind damage and hail are the biggest issue. as we go through the severe weather event day after day, the rain will add up. we have 22 million people under flash flood watches. ft. smith, dallas, little rock, shreveport. that's the area i'm most concerned with. the red is 3 inches. the that's a good chunk of arkansas and the pink is four. ozarks, the hill country with arkansas with heavy rain and south of little rock and northern louisiana. just like we give you the slight risk, moderate risk for severe weather, we give you the potential for flash flooding and a huge moderate risk of flash flooding over the next 24 hours pretty much covers all of the state of arkansas through te texarcana into northeast texas. we'll talk about the warm-up that is finally coming to the eastern seaboard. >> finally. bringing in the good news. >> you guys had a rough week,

huh? >> it was, as we can tell by you. >> sorry. i don't mean to laugh. still ahead, march madness rolls on this time on the women's side with no real surprises as to who is trying to cut down the nets next weekend if in columbus. trying something new can be exciting. empowering. downright exhilarating. see for yourself why chevrolet is the most awarded and fastest growing brand, the last four years overall. switch into a new chevy now. current qualified competitive owners and lessees can get this 2018 chevy equinox for around $199 a month. chevrolet. find new roads.

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the second seeded and defending champ south carolina last night winning 94-65 in that one to reach the final four for the 11th straight season for them. the huskies will next meet notre dame which will advance after eliminating oregon with the irish defeating the ducks 84-74. the winner will face either louisville or on mississippi state in the national championship on sunday. so the final four is set with both games scheduled for this friday. mississippi state and louisville are competing for their first tournament thyme title while notre dame is vying for its first since 2001. uconn is going for its 12th in the program's history. and in the nfl, the los angeles rams have now the pieces to make for a fearsome defensive line, adding five-time pro bowler ndamukong suh to their roster for a one-year deal reportedly worth $14 million. suh will join aaron donald on that side of the ball and l.a.

we'll see how that goes. major league baseball's opening day is thursday and the new york yankees are about to start the season with their lowest payroll since 1992. according to the associated press, the yanks will have baseball's seventh high heest payroll and will avoid paying the league's luxury tax for the first time since the policy began in 2003. meanwhile, the red sox top the majors with a payroll of about $223 million. and finally, the fallout over the sexual abuse scandal resolving around former gymnastics doctor larry nassar continues. william strampel, the new york state university dean who supervised nassar has been arrested on unknown charges weeks after the school announced plans to fire him over his, quote, personal conduct. earlier this year, strampel stepped down as the head of the college of osteopathic medicine due to the scandal and came up fire for failing to confirm that

nassar was following requirements. and in the fall of 2016, strampel reportedly told a group of students and administrators that he did not believes nassar's accusers. so the fallout may still.continue there, guys. >> this is absolutely disturbing story. and it continues to get worse and worse. the more we hear about it, the more we're finding people potentially involved in all this. >> thanks for that, louis. still ahead, wall street makes a comeback as trade tensions ease. we're going to take a look at where the markets are standing the this morning. plus, the white house is pushing back against storms daniels as the adult film star ramps up her legal battle. we'll have the latest on that, next. so you're looking for male customers, ages 25-54,

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welcome back, everybody. i'm yasmin vossoughian alongside ayman mohyeldin and louis burgdorf. we'll begin with the latest developments in the stormy daniels controversy. the porn star is now suing donald trump's personal lawyer, michael cohen, for defamation claiming he portrayed hers as a liar when denying her claims of an affair with donald trump. the new filing argues that the $130,000 hush money agreement signed just 11 days before the election should be nullified because it violated campaign finance laws. meanwhile, the white house is

trying to explain why the president has not responded to the porn star directly. yesterday the morning after her "60 minutes" interview aired, the president tweeted, quote, so much fake news. never been more voluminous or more inaccurate. but through it all, our country is doing great. the president has discussed his response with several aides and has been told the stormy daniels issue does not rise on to the level of a presidential response. this senior official counseled trump telling him it doesn't endager his presidency or his agenda. here is the white house just yesterday. >> can you state categorically that the president is campaigning and the trump organization does not violate federal laws for the election law regarding that payment? >> well, i can speak for only the white house. and i can say categorically and obviously the white house didn't engage in any wrongdoing. the campaign or mr. cohen can

address anything with respect to their actions. with respect to that introduce, i will say the president strongly, clearly and has consistently denied these underlying claims and the only person who has been inconsistent is the one making the claims. >> was the president aware of a physical threat made against ms. daniels when she was with her daughter back in 2011? >> well, the president doesn't believe any of the claims that miss daniels made last night from the interview are accurate. >> he doesn't believe she was threatened? >> no. >> what's his basis forrer that? >> he doesn't just believe -- you know, there's nothing to corroborate her claim. >> so meanwhile, we've learned 22 million people watched "60 minutes" sunday. the porn star's interview was the news magazine's highest rated episode in a decade, second only to the episode with barack and michelle obama's sit-down interview in 2008, but beating donald trump's 2016

interview. stormy daniels and his lawyer did some trolling tweeting, quote, since this is what really matters, lol, the ratings for my client's appear.an on 60 minutes last night crushed any apprentice show in the last ten years as well as mr. trump's november 2016 appearance. priorities. >> and the u.s. has expelled dozens of russian diplomates from the united states. now russia is threatening to retaliate. nbc news national correspondent peter alexander has the details. >> the u.s. retaliates its toughest action yet, expelling 60 russian diplomates in response to the poisoning of an ek russian spy in britain, ordering the russian consulate in seattle shut down within a week noting its proximate ity t

boeing and a marine base. american officials estimate right now more than 100 russian spies are the actively working in the u.s. the white house announcing the diplomatic expulsions make the united states safer. russia's ambassador blasting the move. >> these decisions are going against to the telephone conversation between our two presidents. >> president trump just last calling president putin after his election, but never confronting him about the poisoning case. >> i had a call with president putin and congratulated him on the victory. >> president trump hasn't commented over the expulsion order. 22 country so far expelling more than 130 russian diplomates. british prime minister theresa may condemning russia. >> it is part of a pattern of increasingly aggressive russian behavior, but also represents a

new and dangerous phase in russia's hostile activity. >> russia vowing it will respond, but u.s. experts say expulsions mark an important step. >> it's the right thing to push back on putin's bad behavior. he respects strength. and to not respond shows weakness. >> 48 of those 60 being expelled were here at the russian embassy in washington. the move leaves two russian consulates in the u.s. and roughly 400 russian dip low the mats. lewis. >> thanks to peter alexander for that report. >> at the white house, lawyers are looking into potential violations of criminal laws or federal ethics regulations surrounding two loans totals over $500 million. kushner companies received loans from an arm of apollo global management and citigroup after kushner held white house meetings with leaders of the companies. the office of government ethics confirmed to a democrat on the house oversight committee that the white house counsel's office

had begun to review potential violations. the white house did not respond to a comment from the "wall street journal." an attorney for curb if ner said that after the initial reporting on the loans, quote, the white house counsel concluded there is no issues involving jared. there's new reporting that president trump has expressed hope that former white house staff secretary rob porter will return to work in the west wing. according to the "new york times," the president trump has stayed in touch with porter sips he he left in february. that's according to three people familiar with those conversations. porter resigned after domestic abuse allegations business his two ex-wives cave came to light. porter has denied the allegations. people familiar with the conversations tell the "new york times" that president's calls with mr. porter have increased in the last few weeks as the number of people he is close to inside the white house continues to dwindle.

according to a white house official, the presidents has told advisers he knows he probably cannot bring mr. porter back, but he has made clear that he misses the staff structure that mr. porter helped build and implement. >> and the white house is sending mixed messages concerning reports that president trump is planning to oust veterans affairs secretary david shulkin. one white house spokesperson said yesterday the president is still confident in shulkin, but hours later, another spokesperson dodged that question. >> the bottom line is, we all serve at the pleasure of the president and if he's not pleased, you'll know it. at this point in time, though, he does have confidence in dr. shulkin. he's done some great things at the va. as you know, the president wants to put the right people in the right place at the right time and that could change. talk about dave shulkin. is he going to be fired face-to-face or through the media or twitter? i have no personnel announcements to make at this time. >> joining us once again is daniel lippman, coauthor of "the

political playbook." let's talk about the white house staffing shake-ups that we've seen over the past couple of weeks. the white house remains silent. who are we likely to see next? we know the one thing the president does is telegraph that change is coming. >> yeah. so don mcgahn, the white house counsel, is probably going to leave in the next few months. he's kind of tired of the interchbs job. it's tough to be trump's lawyer when he tweets about the russia investigation. interns are finding it difficult to get jobs because their resume is tainted by the association with the trump white house.

>> so with regard to seeing a staff shake-up, let's talk about jared kushner and his family loans. he's already sort of skating on thin ice here with regard to his security clearance or lack thereof. now the revelation about these family loans. do you think that's going to hurt his standing in the white house? >> i think his standing has already been hurt in the last couple months. you know, he's lost josh rafell, his top spokesman. and it's very hard to see exactly what he's accomplished in this job. and so i think jared kushner probably wants to get back to new york sometime soon with ivanka. he's tired of washington. but i don't think he was stupid enough to say hey, you should give loans to my company, even though i don't have a controlling interest any more. so i think he's clear on that front.

>> let me ask you about one of the biggest rumors in washington, d.c. there's still very much persistent that there is talk around paul ryan possibly resigning. is that likely to see him resign possibly before the midterms? >> i don't think he is going to, you know, throw in the towel in the next few weeks as that nevada congressman had posited yesterday. but we had a big story, you know, a couple months ago about tim alberta and rachel bait that he is thinking of quitting after the midterms. and so he wants to give this year one more shot at entitlement reform, but his -- he tells his friends that running congress is like a day care center and eventually he would be more likely to go from congress if, you know, house republicans lose their majority. still ahead, a former commander in chief offering a

blunt of donald trump's national security adviser. plus, warmer weather is pofg into parts of the country. let's begin. yes or no? do you want the same tools and seamless experience across web and tablet? do you want $4.95 commissions for stocks, $0.50 options contracts? $1.50 futures contracts? what about a dedicated service team of trading specialists? did you say yes? good, then it's time for power e*trade. the platform, price and service

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switch now and get a $200 reward card. more for your thing. that's our thing. call 1.800.directv welcome back, everyone. blasted president trump's decision to hire john bolton as his national security adviser. in an interview with the "usa today" foorp, carter said, quote, maybe one of the worst mistakes president trump has made since he's been in office is his employment with john bolton who has been advocating for a war for north korea for a long time and even an attack on iran and who has been one of the leading figures on orchestrating the decision to invade iraq. the former president went on to call his appointment a disaster for our country given his criticism. carter, when have his for his advice on north korea, said his first would be to fire bolton.

meanwhile, mike pence tweeted that he met with the former ambassador at the white house yesterday. bolton is expected to start his new role next month. and let's get a check on your weather now with bill karins. >>. >> the rainfall will be the story today. 22 mm million people are at risk from north dallas through st. louis and indiana. a good chunk of the south heading into the ohio valley. so we're getting into our storms. areas towards little rock, austin, san antonio. so some april delays are possible. this is how it's going to bla out. the problem with the this storm is it's slow moving. starts in dallas and then we go through wednesday and get another round of significant

storms near hufrt, shreveport, jackson. so that's 11:00 p.m. then we'll do this again into thursday. and because it's going to be day after day, that's why we're going to have the flash flooding risk and maybe some river flooding by the weekend. the expanding warmth is something that's going to be welcomed. there's a lot of clouds that will come with it for the eastern seaboard. for today, cool in d.c., cool in charleston, warmer for the ohio valley. charlotte, 72. the warmth will eventually make it to the east coast. new york city hits 60s on friday. raleigh could be 80 on thursday. a little taste of spring for the east coast. but i'm sorry to say it's not going to last long. >> we'll take whatever we can get, bill. >> i am already going to the apologize. >> turn the volume down. >> you get our hopes up and crush then.

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. welcome back. let's turn to business. markets overseas are getting a boost this morning after the u.s. kicked off the new trading week with a nearly 700-point

surge bouncing back from last week's deep losses as trade fears begin to ease. the this is the best gain for the dow since 2008 in one day. what more can you tell us? is the market going to be back on track after the this? >> absolutely, louis. you took the words out of my mouth. the dow surged 669 points. its third biggest points gain ever. just to put that into context, the best gain since august 2015. this as fears of a trade war between china and the u.s. on reports that the two sides are talking about how they can remove the tariff positions and not cite them in the first place. technology has been on everyone's radar. speaking about technology, facebook shares were rocked yet again by news that the ftc were going to be launching an investigation into facebook vis-a-vis the cambridge analytica situation and how they

handled it. this isn't the first time the ftc has looked into facebook. back in 2011, they did sign a decree promising stronger privacy practices. so the ftc are a california uber driver recovering from a classic case of the mondays after getting his car stuck on a set of stairs. he decided to take a set of stairs instead of the elevator. apparently he's saying it wasn't his fault. >> exactly. very important business story here. the uber driver apparently was trying to leave a grocery store and instead of taking the usual way out, he used the stairs instead. there are a lot of photos of this car online. nobody got injured.

he did say it was the navigation system's fault and he had nothing to do with it. he was following the gps and if you like such stories there a's aly day who drove a car into a lake up in michigan a couple of months ago. >> you can't rely on technology at that point. you're going to have to look up from your phone and see that there's a lake in front of you or some stairs. >> listen, if it says the shortest way between one street and the other street is the stairs, then take the stairs. >> all right. live from london. thank you so much. >> coming up next, everybody, ox i don't s -- axios jonathan swan, and what the move signals about the president's willingness to take on putin. >> plus, democratic congressman

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everybody. joining us from washington, jonathan swan, good to see you. appreciate you joining us. talk to us about what axios's one big thing is this morning? >> washington is amping up its demands on big tech with senate intelligence chairman saying last night that the ceo specifically must be held accountable and this is just a huge unfurling story. we've got capitol hill and the federal government, all the regulatory bodies honing in on these big bodies particularly facebook. now it's dramatically broadening to data privacy and protecting

consumers. >> let me pick up on senator mark warner. they've been demanding answers from facebook and other technology companies, but let's talk about what realistically could we see leaders on capitol hill take against some of these technology companies particularly in the wake of the cambridge analytica scandal? >> well, we spoke last night to a house leadership aide and they said that facebook should expect the same scrutiny that other major companies have had who have deceived their customers so in the short term, i think facebook's biggest concern is the ftc investigation, the federal trade investigation which was revealed yesterday into their privacy practices and also they have some problems at the state level. >> so let's talk about the state level here because we've talked about the federal level. what are states doing to take action over this data breach? >> again, very early days but

yesterday we saw 37 state attorneys general asking for information about facebook's business and privacy practices. again, this level of scrutiny, facebook has never seen before. it's of a different order than we've ever seen before with facebook. >> let's switch gears for a moment and talk about something that has clearly emerged to be a bit of a headache for the president although he doesn't talk about it if you were to read his tweets. i know you have some new reporting about lawyers that don't want to represent president trump. what are you hearing this morning? >> i've spent some time, tried to figure out all the different reasons why people don't want to represent donald trump. he literally what he tweeted on saturday or sunday, literally everything in the tweet is incorrect. >> that's hard to believe. >> he said they want fame and

forchurn, he has a reputation for being tight fisted, reluctant to pay his bills, there's also huge concern about his tweeting and not listening to advice. we saw ted olson very respected washington lawyer on tv yesterday talk about the chaos and the turmoil inside the white house. that is a theme that is widespread throughout the prestige law firms. and these white shoe law firms, they don't need the fame. they don't need the pub lis lic associated with the president. >> and when you're not following your lawyer's advice, they're reluctant to stick around. >> is there a sense as to where the president is turning next to bolster his lineup of lawyers? >> he's turned to a lot of

different places. i saw -- there were people yesterday saying it's a go it alone strategy. it's not a strategy, it's what he's been left with because they've a i proechpproached a l he has two call lawyers. ty cobb more institutional inside the white house and jay has some help. they've approached a lot of different lawyers and they've been rebuffed. >> all right. thank you very much. of course we'll be reading axios in just a little bit and to all of our viewers out there you can sign up for the newsletter axios.com. >> that does it for us on this tuesday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. >> you know, i've been saying during this whole campaign that

i'm responding. i then respond maybe times ten. i respond pretty strongly. >> were you physically attracted to him. ? >> no. >> not at all? >> no. >> well, for somebody who can hardly wait to punch back, president trump has been uncharacteriu uncharacterist cli quiet about stormy daniels. the president dismisses others over poor chemistry and their appearance. it all comes as much of the world including the united states finally -- finally takes a hard stance against russian aggression. good morning and welcome to morning joe. it's tuesday, march 27th. we have mike barnacle. the chair of the african american