good person. >> the hardest question always, the why? the coldest fact, the young woman gone too soon. >> that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. good morning. i'm dara brown in new york at msnbc world headquarters. it is 7:00 many the east and 4:00 out west. calling the shots, a new recording says the president is unleashed. is he becoming his own worst enemy by not listening to his advisers? plus, danger to democracy. president trump's new move leaves some rattled. >> now we have bolton who is clearly a right-wing nutcase. this onbojohn bolton is downrig dangerous. >> i heard that you are actually -- >> will bolton lead up to his

reputation and will it be damaging to national security if it does? and picture perfect. the white house criticized for this photo because of what you see and what you don't. and we begin with a live picture of capitol hill. and at least one republican cautioning president trump about the ways in which he's been firing people. most recently, v.a. secretary david shulkin through twitter. here's an interview with chuck todd airing later this morning. >> this is not the way to recruit good people to replace him, is it? >> it's not the way i would do it. >> you would understand if people say, i don't know if i want to take this job. >> the president does need to understand the effect it has on attracting other people. >> the white house now pushing back on exactly how shulkin lost his job telling politico in a statement that he resigned. we expect to get some clarification from shulkin later this morning when he appears on "meet the press." no indication this morning that president trump is backing down from his attacks on internet giant amazon. he's accusing the online retailer of scamming the postal

service and hurting american workers. kelly o'donnell has the story. kelly? >> reporter: good morning, dara. the president has many different types of twitter adversaries. but this weekend he renewed his fight with a massive e-commerce business that is popular with consumers who are also voters. the president's reasons may be personal. during his motorcade right to the golf course, president trump delivered his own package of tweets, blasting amazon with flawed accusations. this post office scam must stop. amazon must pay real costs. the president scorned for the online giant runs deep, conflating anger at amazon with "the washington post," both owned by jeff bezos but operating separately. along simmering frustration. >> "the washington post," which i call a lobbying tool for amazon, okay, that's a lobbying tool for amazon. >> reporter: but experts say the

president's claim that the post office will lose $1.50 on average for each package it delivers for amazon cannot be backed up. postal service regulators approved contracts with companies like amazon in advance and require that postal service costs are covered. but those agreements are not made public, if. >> we don't know if each package makes a dollar, makes $2 or loses money. that data is not available publicly. and i'm not sure where trump is getting his figures. >> reporter: the president's own 2017 financial disclosure form shows he reported gains from owning amazon stock. but his businessman roots are in a brick and mortar world. >> we're all builders in this room. >> reporter: amazon's rapid growth has pummeled shopping malls and traditional retailers. >> as amazon gets more and more powerful, and as retail struggles, having the president point this out and attack the company certainly gives strength to the complaints that other

folks haven't made for some time. >>er tdplr the pth /*. >> reporter: the president says amazon does not collect taxes. but amazon does collect the sales tax required in 45 states. dara? >> kelly o'donnell, thank you so much. we'll bring in jonathan allen, national political reporter for msnbc news digital. and john sullivan, congressional reporter for "the washington post." great to have you both with us here on this sunday morning. >> good morning. >> good morning. >> shawn, given the attacks by "the washington post," the senior publicist had no comments when we reached out to them yesterday, but what is your sense of where this is coming from? is this usual from the different attacks against "the post" and other media outlets? >> a couple things, one, in general, we have seen the president make this kind of argument and this kind of similar argument about amazon before he's lashed out at other companies. i mean, he likes a good fight in

the public sphere. another thing is that the post's own reporting shows that some of this comes from the fact that the president, or at least according to people who have talked to him, comes from the fact that the president sometimes grows frustrated with the stories he sees about him and the white house in "the post." and that often motivates him lashing out against amazon here. >> and jonathan, do you think that this attack is personal or perhaps ideological? >> i think the president is -- as john suggests, looking for an adversary, looking for somebody to kick up some dust with. i'm not sure where he gets the numbers on the postal service. the postal service has been in trouble for a long time. the biggest issue is unfunded liabilities for their workers. many of whom are military retirees and the post office has to pay for it. this is not -- the post office isn't struggling because of amazon rates. and to defend this organization here. amazon is not lobbying through

"the washington post." >> shawn, your colleagues are now out with a new report on last week about what it has been like at the white house with president trump, basic will i calling his own shots now that people like hope hicks are gone. tired of the wait game? that's a quote from sarah sanders justifying president trump's actions this week, including firing david shulkin on twitter. shawn, what are your colleagues hearing? >> it is interesting, we are seeing an interesting moment now that could signal potential shift in the way the white house sort of operates. we have seen a pretty standard streams of departures from the white house, officials seen as stabilizing forces and more traditional operators in the white house. and it was interesting, i was talking to a republican member of congress recently about the departures of people like gary cohen, hope hicks, mcmaster, and what he said was, it feels like the adults in the room are kind

of leaving now. so we'll see what this suggests moving forward. the president wants to do his thing a bit more, not listen to traditional advisers, and wants to be doing whatever he wants, whether on foreign policy, north korea or on tariffs. so we'll see if he's more impulsive with policy moving forward. but we'll see if this signals a policy-moving approach from the president. >> jonathan, with critics pointing to the stormy daniels fight as part of donald trump's behavior here, is this a sense for his strategy now that she's shared her story? >> i think it is hard to ignore her story and that of the former playmate mcdougal. there's no value to the president in fighting with these women who say they had consensual relationships with him. he's not accused of anything criminal at this point. with the stormy daniels situation, this could become a

legal battle with michael cohen and questions of whether or not they're looking to a violation. for the most part, this is not something the president wants to engage in. i'm not sure it changes anyone's view of the president. i think a lot of people will continue to support him. i'm not sure it's changing any minds. >> we'll turn to the reporting you did on the democrats divided on how to win the upcoming midterms. you and your colleagues focused on six states. what are they unable to agree on? >> well, what they're looking for is, we talked to a lot of democratic voters who all said some variation of the same thing. they want to win. they all embraced similar policy proposals. there's a lot of anger against the president, but where they don't agree is, who should be the person who runs against all

this or these candidates. and a lot of people who were not necessarily from politics, but you have a lot of seasoned traditional politicians. so there's a real battle going on, i think in the party, do we want to run more of the same faces, people that we have run in the past, or should we go with the freshman? that's the conversation going on right now. >> jonathan, you have been reporting about the list emily's list is doing. what is their strawed ji? >> it is interesting baa they have candidates in the swing district. there are times that are tough with the democratic campaign committee, but emily is supporting a lot of women candidates who back abortion.

they are trying to recruit in the district that will be democratic no matter who wins the primary. they want to get young women into office to eventually become committee chair and party leaders in the house. they're trying to recruit into the senator gillibrand and sarah clark right now. it will be interesting to see if that happens against somebody who has a more sort of traditional background winning the election. >> they want to run on the tax bill that they passed. and they want to make this election a referendum on that. they feel that can be a popular thing. and that a lot of americans, or at least they can convince a lot of americans, that it was a good thing for their paychecks and for their bottom lines.

they can try to push that aside for upcoming voters, but they are comprehensive about the impact of donald trump, his popularity, the russian investigation and what that is going to mean in the mud ter mi. ultimately, the midterms tend to be a referendum on the president. as much as the republicans don't want to talk about donald trump, it's on both people's minds in the republican party. i don't think the republicans have found a way to help them positively in the election. >> and the mud teid searches wi here soon enough. we'll have more to discuss later. he's been called downright dangerous. so should we be worried about the new national security adviser? that's up next. they senisn't enh to replace your totaled new car. the guy says they didn't make the mistake. you made the mistake. i beg your pardon?

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mr. secretary, good to see you. >> thanks for coming. good to finally meet you. i heard that you are actually the devil incar gnat and i wanted to meet you. >> defense secretary james mattis joking with former ambassador john bolton, president trump's pick for national security adviser, when the two met for the first time on thursday. but here's how california congressman john garamendi described bolton yesterday. >> now we have bolton who is clearly a right-wing nutcase. he wants to take out north korea with some sort of bloody noise attack that will kill tens of thousands of people within the first couple of days. >> that comment comes as the u.s. and south korea begin their annual fall eagle military drills. joining me now is adam bounce

from the american federation of scientists and expert on global strategy and nuclear politics. adam, mattis joked about bolton and garamendi said it is no laughing matter. what is your take? >> that's one of those jokes that is a little too close to home. you know, bolton is one of the most extreme figures in the country on north korea. he's a man that has said that negotiations are a waste of time. he's said that war is the preferable option. he doesn't much care about how these strikes take place, at least in the public comments, but his consistent record over the years has been that regime change is the preferred option for nuclear weapons programs. so that led him to disagree and try to kill agreements with iran and libya that were working and have restrained those programs. and also north korea and also iraq, which is what helped get us into this war in iraq in the first place. >> adam, you said that bolton

has been particularly hawkish on north korea. here's what he said on fox news six months ago. >> the only diplomatic option left is to end the regime in north korea by effectively having the south take it over. i think you've got to argue to china -- >> not really diplomatic as far as they're concerned. >> well, that's their problem, not ours. we have fooled around with north korea for 25 years. and fooling around some more is just going to make matters worse. >> so from what you understand, adam, is this just cable tv bluster and now outdated? or maybe once he gets into office he'll moderate his voice. is this what he did when he was u.s. ambassador to the u.n.? >> i wouldn't be surprised if bolton changes his tone as he becomes national security adviser, as he's trying to reflect an administration policy that at least in public he disagreed with. he said that these sanctions campaign is unlikely to work. that it's too weak. but john bolton is a man that

has been unusuallily consistent about holding extreme views. he's up front about it. he says that regime change is the preferred option. and we should be headed to military strikes. and that negotiations are a waste of time. he said that when donald trump goes to talk to kim jong-un that he should say, where do you want american ships to sail in next week so we can load that nuclear weapons program onto those ships and take it off your hands. that's a dramatic misyou thi misunderstanding of what the political arena looks like. and it is quite frankly in c congruence with all the information we have on these programs. that's the iraq playbook all over again. and quite frankly, he's one of the most dangerous voices in the country on north korea. >> we have a meeting coming up between trump and kim jong-un here. and it seems to be possibly working. is bolton upset at the apple

part? or do you through the sanctions are working and they may stay the course here? >> well, it's important to realize where we are this morning. the fall eagle exercises started a matter of hours ago. so it's a small miracle that today we're not talking about a north korea missile launch. this diplomatic outreach is really the only thing that has restrained north korea's missile testing program so far. it's pushed off those tests and delayed them. normally, these exercises every year are the starting gun for the spring testing season. and we would have expected icbm tests and submarine launch tests happening right now. it's just like with iran, the thing we don't say nearly enough with iran is the intelligence said they could have a nuclear weapon today if we hadn't done that deal. and the fact that we had stuck to it so far has really held back that program. so bolton is clearly

disinterested in diplomatic solutions. he's disparaged them in public. and it will make the north koreans very unlikely. he meets with kim jong-un and creates an unrealistic demand. now the north koreans walk away. now that they have this comfortable and smiling summit with china, china lifts economic pressure. so they get exactly the opposite result. >> interesting things to discuss. adam mount, thank you for joining us on this sunday morning. great to have you. >> thank you. a picture from the white house is sparking a debate this morning. we'll tell you why. 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. only preservision areds 2 has the exact nutrient formula recommended by the national eye institute

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at least three more companies cutting ties with laura ingraham's show following her latest talk with david hawk.

we'll bring back jonathan allen and sean sullivan. jonathan, is it too naive to see these players become more effective amid the gun battle? >> i think they are seen as the wrong side of it. what laura ingraham did was publicly attack the survivor of a politicaled shooing. -- political shooting. it doesn't take a political seens you to figure out how far on the wrong side of decency she is. she said during the holly week, she had a belated apology. >> turning to the interns here, in what strives to be a lack of diversity here in this photo. what do you saw? >> i think since the beginning of the trump administration there, there have been questions and criticisms raised about a lack of diversity overall in the

administration. we don't know exactly the reason behind this, but as one of my colleagues pointed out in a recent posts, some of trump's most likes do frcome from him. >> and that photograph suggests a lack of diversity compared to the rest of the country. it's really startling and then you realize that a lot of players you can get one. >> roseanne barr came back with ratings out of the park. do you think that is polarizing for the public with her back on air like this? >> it could potentially be -- the president called her personally to congratulate her. people are looking at the show now to sort of perhaps a line in the killture where the president

likes this. they know where she stands, and we're seeing politics intersect and it could become more of a polarizing enterprise. >> we know "the simpsons" in the past would predict things in the future. is roseanne predicting for us? >> many of all stripes and all social strata enjoyed the show. >> we certainly did enjoy it. any chance, "jonathan" she may overplay the trump part here. >> yeah, i think she could turn off viewers that way. >> interesting, i will give you the last word. what do you athink? if the show continues to get great ratings, it will be fine.

>> great to have you here this sunday morning. that will do it for me. i'm dara brown. thank you for watching. at the top of the hour it is "politics nation" with reverend al sharpton. but straight ahead. it is "your business" with jj ramberg. stay with us. so you can put unwelcome lawn weeds to rest. draw the line. with roundup for lawns, there is no better way to kill lawn weeds to the root without harming a single blade of grass. it's a great day to be a lawn. draw the line with roundup. trusted for over 40 years. ♪ ♪ ♪ today is a good day to make a plan for your financial goals and your everyday ones too. pnc can help. we'll be with you every step of the way. let's start today.

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good morning, everyone. coming up on "your business," want a dirty lemon? you won't find it on the store shelves. conversation commerce hits the business industry. and a wife and husband who run a bail bond company show why you need to be able to trust your up clients and they need to trust you. and the inspiring story of a woman who built a multimillion home renovation company out of her backyard. when it comes to making your decisions at work, we have your stories with information and advice that you need to grow. that's all coming up next on "your business." >> "your business" is