>> that's all for now. thanks for joining us. welcome to "kasie d.c." i'm kasie hunt. tonight president trump confronts russia and china, two nations he hopes to win over, but now faces head on in a global game of chicken. plus, epa chief scott pruitt holds on, but for how long amid a slew of headlines about his spending? and later, surprise! you shared all your information on facebook, and now everyone can see it. mark zuckerberg is preparing to face congress.

we'll talk to senator amee klobuchar who is set to question the tech billionaire. but first tonight u.s. officials say north korea is willing to discuss denuclearization. russia is calling a chemical attack on syrian soil fake news. and china is locked in the opening rounds of what may become a full-blown trade war. and for real this time, the president is acting out a riff he used throughout his campaign, determining who is a friend and who is a foe. >> is that friend or foe? is that friend? friend or foe? friend or foe? he's friend. okay. i think he's friend. are you friend or foe? are they friends? friend or foe? friend or foe? friend. >> it's a choice the president has been disinclined to make where two men in particular are concerned, russian president vladimir putin and chinese president xi jinping.

in a tweet sunday, president trump actually criticized vladimir putin. in this case, slamming putin's backing of syrian dictator bashar al-assad. that's on top of the toughest sanctions yet of russian oligarchs. as for china, in spite of proposing 150 billion in tariffs and the opening shots of a trade war, the president tweeted, quote, president xi and i will always be friends, no matter what happens with our dispute on trade. and somewhere in all of this are people. in the united states, uncertainty for thousands of farmers, workers and investors in a stock market which just saw its worst quarter since 2015. and in syria, people dying and struggling to breathe after an alleged chemical attack for which both russia and syria deny culpability. joining me now to talk about all of this, washington bureau scheef for "the new york times" elizabeth. msnbc political analyst michael steele.

washington correspondent for bbc world news america, msnbc contributor and author of a new book out this week "the confidence code for girls" katty kay. plus washington correspondent for cnbc, kayla. thank you for joining us this sunday night. catty, i want to start with you to put this all in global perspective particularly as we learned of the alleged attack in syria this morning now. we know that president trump, last time he was confronted with something like this, launched strikes against syria, a move that the obama administration declined to make. what is your sense of the significance of what we have learned this morning and how intensely the u.s. should respond? >> well, i think the president's tweets were significant, partly because he took on vladimir putin in name for pretty much the first time ever. but it also raises questions about what american strategy is. the president launched an attack last time against an air field. the syrians have responded a year later with more chemical attacks.

clearly that didn't work. i think the question for the president, who seems to want to -- his instinct is to want to withdraw from the middle east to bring american troops back home to have a more isolationist, foreign national policy, and yet at the same time wants to play the strong man when there is something like this and retaliate. it throws into question his strategy, what president trump wants to do, is going to do in the middle east, and whether there will be if there is another strike, any more concrete follow through in termds of strategy in syria than there has been. >> elizabeth, there's been some statements coming out, early statements from republicans, members of congress who are putting blame with iran and with russia. it did seem note worth think as katy pointed out, the president in this case blamed vladimir putin for this. what do you make of his decision to do that? and, you know, for folks who are tuning back in to this story, how important is russia's role in syria right now? >> it's quite important. assad would not be there without

putin. i think it's very interesting, we know that trump will not blame putin when it comes to russian interference in the election in 2016 because by blaming putin that sort of calls into question the legitimacy of his win. this is very different. assad has put trump in a box right now. a few days ago as we all know, trump said he wanted to pull out. the generals talked him down, said you can't do it precipitously. now it looks like this is a response the president wanting to get out of syria. he has to blame somebody. putin is a good one to blame as is assad. but i just want to say also, the fact that we -- this is a political problem for the president. we are not -- the u.s. is not in the areas where the attack occurred. the u.s. is fighting isis in syria. we're not fighting the government of assad. however, it is hard to separate that out right now. people hear trump wants out, asada tax. >> you mention the generals and jim mattis has essentially said we need to stay in syria. is your sense that this could potentially sway the president to make a change in this regard? re: well, he did say he wanted

to stay after there was a meeting at the white house. the generals talked him into saying don't pull out. >> the latest conversation, though. >> that was thursday or friday. >> right. >> so for now the u.s. is staying. again, it's 2000 largely special operations troops. this is keeping those troops there is not going to prevent another chemical attack. >> yeah. michael steele, what is your sense of what's different here for president trump? we saw last time this is a president, as we know, who spends a lot of time watching the news. >> yeah. >> and images like these devastating ones oults of syria tend to affect his decision making. >> it does. i think he was probably moved more by those images than anything someone said to him, you know in the first instance because he does have mental blocks he puts up at times. but i think the image for him just sort of recounted and recalled for him just how sticky this is, how difficult it will be to pull out, and probably for now it's going to be easier to stay given everything else because in the long run -- well, just in the short run, pulling out now just opens up more opportunities for assad to do a

lot more harm. so, i think the president wants to draw a line to the extent we can use that term, in the sand here. >> elizabeth pointed out assad has boxed trump into a corner here. but also lindsey graham saying on television he has to respond now or do something, otherwise he's going to look weak in the eyes of iran and russia. that's the kind of language that trump responds to, right? he never wants to look weak and i think lindsey graham is also slightly edging trump into a corner, too. >> given his propensity to be challenged in that regard, you don't want him to show how much of a man he is, you know? more president than we may need in the moment. it needs to be a sober, thought through process. and i think that's where mattis and others will play an important role.

>> trump's approach has always been actions speak louder than words. that was his criticism of president obama. that was why last year, almost a year to the day ago, why he chose to launch though 59 tomahawk missiles before tweeting about it, we should mention. and why in june of last year when the u.s. got so much as a whiff of intelligence that syria might be planning another chemical attack, the white house put out a preemptive statement saying there would be a heavy price to pay. this is almost as if the u.s. has fallen asleep at the switch. you had the president just a few days ago saying he wanted to pull out. you have senator mccain saying that statement emboldened assad to actually do what it did. and now the president has to figure out whether he will act or whether that tweet will stand alone. >> kenny, how much blame does the obama deserve for this situation in they said these weapons were supposed to have been destroyed. >> the excuse the obama administration gave for not crossing that red line, doing something militarily in syria

was they got a better deal. this is what the obama administration said. look, we didn't need to use military forces. we got the chemical weapons out of syria. that is clearly become a myth. we've seen it not just on this occasion. we've seen chemical attacks to know not enough of those chemical weapons were taken out, >> when obama was about to strike syria, i want approval from congress. congress said, we don't think so. >> as did the british parliament. >> let's not forget the history here. >> absolutely. let's expand this conversation a little bit. kayla, i want to turn back to you because this prospect of a trade war with china, it seems as though -- this seems to be like another classic case, the president says one thing one day, another thing another day. his advisors say one thing on one channel and another thing on another channel. we have some sound bites we can play in a second. how much of the decline in the stock market at this point do you think can be chalked up to uncertainty around this question? >> uncertainty around what the president will do. on one hand you have his advisor saying this could be an opening volley in negotiations, which is how we hope this ends up. kevin hassett on friday said, don't call the president's

bluff. this is something he wants to do. and the president is emboldened by being the first mover in a lot of these situations, doing something that no prior president has ever done before. that is something that really gives him a rise, and that is a situation that advisors to presidents clinton, bush and obama are looking at this and say, we all agree that china needed to be held to account for its trade transgressions, but this isn't the way we would have gone about it because of the consequence. and here's the president saying, you know, i'm going to go there. >> you touched on this idea that it's unclear exactly where everybody seems to stand in this. we had two of the president's advisors on television this morning talking about whether or not this was a threat or a real trade war, and if you can figure out what exactly is happening here, then you're smarter than i am. take a look. >> those tariffs will be imposed

and those investment restrictions will be imposed. we're clear eyed about this. we're moving forward on a measured way with tariffs, with investment restrictions. >> no tariffs have been implemented yet. you have to take certain risks as you go in. we're taking them. we're making our case. nothing's happened so far. >> so, regardless of who is right on that score -- and you can be the judge -- it still could be the president's own political base that foots the lion's share of the bill from any potential trade war that might emerge. on wednesday, china responded to trump's tariff threat by proposing some of its own on u.s. goods. those include soybeans, airplanes, cars, corn, cotton, wheat, and tobacco, just to name a few. china currently buys 60% of all u.s. soybean exports. of the top ten, soybean producing states, trump won eight of them in 2016. and according to the washington post, 82% of those living in

counties most directly impacted by these tariffs voted for trump. here's what larry kudlow had to say on friday about the pain that those farmers might feel. >> in china for not playing ball, don't blame the president. he's standing up for american companies and business. >> technology is at the root of this. that doesn't exclude our manufacturers who get hurt or even our farmers who might get hurt. but we can't allow china, which is a first-world country, play by the rules -- >> michael steele, the politics of this. i mean, this is -- unlike the aluminum and steel tariffs which spoke directly to a population of people in the rust belt, this is something republican senators are opposing that could really have major impact in some of these places where trump won. >> well, absolutely. the president throughout the campaign in 2016 never told us that all this winning would cause such pain.

and so here we are now in the environment where there is going to be pain. there is going to be an impact on those very communities that have stood behind him. the question becomes how they feel about that, and how they sort of translate this. the president's team, larry kudlow notwithstanding, is hell bent on moving forward on this. that's very clear. i think navarro is more the key player than kudlow. kudlow is for the softening of the markets. kudlow doesn't want these big spikes the way we've seen happen over the last few days. his whole role is less about that base. that's navarro. his whole role is about the markets. >> markets and wall street. taylor -- >> that's why members of congress are trying to take matters into their own hands.

during recess you had about half a dozen gop senators who actually went to china and went to korea to try to protect the foreign direct investment into their states because they know that that's responsible for billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs. and they know that that's at risk. those investment restrictions you just heard peter navarro talking about, those could go after that very investment directly into the states at a local level. you had the federal reserve saying business leaders regionally are already citing potential tariffs as reasons why they're not investing in their business, they're not creating jobs and they're very uncertain. they're not talking about the growth aspects of tax reform any more which they were a couple weeks ago. >> you saw president trump tweeting saying he was going to stay friends with president xi. the one thing that is going to push the chinese to take action is when the americans or the american president forces president xi into a position where he has to respond. he cannot look weak at home. so, when president trump

criticizes president xi on twitter, that is disastrous than any potential chinese retaliation. >> i have to say i think it is the obvious the president's advisors are split on this. i think there are some, we know who they are, mnuchin and wilbur ross who want to negotiate with china. navarro wants to hold tight, be tough. i think we have to watch the stock market this coming week and see how long trump can stand these massive losses in the stock market and see if he can hold firm because there is a lot of anxiety with the president about the stock market. >> and we will be watching you, kayla, for all of the information on that on cnbc. thank you so much for your time tonight. i really appreciate it. we also do here on msnbc want to make a correction to an earlier report on this network. msnbc has been reporting today that the nse is set to meet on syria tonight. we reached out to the white house and the nsc and they have not confirmed that to us. we will continue to report out this story and keep you up to date on it. but for now, up next, we are just getting started. senator amy klobuchar is standing by. she is set to grill mark zuckerberg on capitol hill this week. plus. >> this was going to be my remarks. it would have taken about 2 minutes. the hell with it. [ applause ] >> that would have been a little boring. >> never boring.

new reporting, republicans may have a new messaging strategy for the mid terms. impeachment. we'll explain that when we continue on "kasie d.c." you know what's awesome? gig-speed internet.

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facebook is facing sharp criticism following the revelation that the data of at least 87 million users was compromised by consulting firm cambridge analytica. the company's ceo, mark zuckerberg, is slated to testify before two committees in congress this week to explain among other things why it took the social media giant so long to notify its users that their data had been stolen. here's senate judiciary committee member john kennedy putting it as only he can. >> mr. zuckerberg has not exhausted himself, being forthcoming. we had one hearing. mr. zuckerberg sent his lawyer, very bright, very articulate, could talk a dog off a meat wagon, but he didn't say anything. but my biggest worry with all this is that the privacy issue and what i call the propaganda

issue is too big for facebook to fix and that's the frightening part. >> senator john kennedy, ladies and gentlemen. for more i want to welcome senator amy klobuchar from minnesota who sits on the senate judiciary committee and has been a leading voice on this issue and on pressing these tech companies. senator, thank you very much for being here. >> thank you, i appreciate it. >> i don't know if i will be as fun as senator kennedy. i'll try. >> i think you can be. i've seen you give speeches. >> he and i together called for mark zuckerberg to testify before any of this blew up just because we thought all the tech executives should come before the judiciary committee and figure out what's going on with privacy and violations and then this happened and now he's coming. >> what is your top question for mark zuckerberg? what is the one answer you feel

like he really needs to give, you and americans? >> how do you fix this? and this is really about 87 million people. we know lately in the last week found out it was 37 million more than we thought, and that is literally the combined population of california, texas and new york. that's how many people's facebook profiles were given to a russian professor, russian-american professor who then somehow gave did to cambridge analytica. we still haven't gotten to the bottom of what happened. although a whistleblower, wiley was on "meet the press" this morning with chuck todd. he said it's possible that this information is housed in russia, that he doesn't rule it out that some of it has been housed there. obviously these are some of the kind of questions we want answered. but i think what's really important, and there will be a bunch much senators asking questions, so not just dwelling on the past, but how they are going to fix it moving forward. >> we actually have a clip of that interview that christopher wiley did with chuck. let's look at a little bit of t. >> it was quite clear early on

steve bannon absolutely wanted to use it for, you know, republican candidates and the early projects that, you know, we started to apply the research to were indeed alt-right candidates in the united states. >> so, just to put that in a little bit of context, steve bannon was on the board involved heavily in cambridge analytica. what is your view about how this data was used? does facebook understand, and do you believe that this was explicitly to help the trump campaign? >> we don't know that. that's one of the questions i'm sure someone will ask. but the key here is you put yourself at risk when you start giving people's data away. people think they're taking an innocent psychological quiz. none of them thinks that their information is going to actually be given to a political consultant. i don't care if it's for a republican or democrat. they don't think that. and that's their problem. they have built a product with no locks on the doors and no alarms, and now they are finally coming forward and saying that we want to fix some things. the other piece of this is political ads. something that i've been advocating for now for over a year, and we have a really good bill that lo and behold -- >> the honest ads bill. >> and they are now going to support as of last week. facebook is supporting the bill and they are voluntarily going

to be putting out all these ads, both candidate ads and issue ads. >> and that's critical. the issue ads piece of it. that's things like black lives matter protests that were manipulated or used differently to try and incite, we think, political immigration ads. >> energy ads, you name it. under the standards right now, at issue ads of national legislative importance have to be disclosed by your station. they have to be disclosed by radio. and so we're simply applying the same rules. they are now voluntarily going to do that. they are going to have an archive up in june so everyone can see what the ads are. they are also going to require disclaimers. we want twitter and google and the other platforms to do this as well as we work to pass our bill because otherwise you're going to have a patch work of

companies doing this. >> sheryl sandberg, who is another prominent face for the company, went out on something of a national mea copa tour in a way sort of. facebook has been adjusting its strategy as they faced this crisis. what was your assessment of her posture towards answering these questions? do you feel like she was forthcoming? >> well, i just saw one of the interviews. i think there was a real problem early on where they were actually saying this wasn't a breach and i just figure, you know, if someone breaks into my apartment with a crow bar or if the manager gives them a key to go in and steal things, it's the same thing. and that is what more happened here with the way the product is run. i think they still have a lot of explaining to do, but most importantly i think what you've seen what happened with the value of their company, with what kind of the push back, they're going to have to start building these privacy controls in really understandable ways and i think you're going to start seeing some rules. i was asked on this network just a few months ago whether or not by chuck todd, whether we should do something about bots.

and i said we should. you thought, oh, this is so bad. i think we're going to have so start having some rules of the road for all these companies in place. >> yeah, and these tech companies are a little bit afraid of democrats taking back the house and the senate in some ways because they think you might be more willing to regulate them. true? >> well, i think what we're looking for no matter if you're democrat and republican, senator kennedy and i have joined forces on this, you want to have a democracy that works. you don't want to have russia influencing who our candidates are. so, i don't know what they're thinking politically. what i know is this should not be a partisan issue. it just can't be. >> let me ask you about the midterm elections. you were just on the campaign trail for one of your colleagues, tammy baldwin in wisconsin. there has been a push on the left to talk about impeaching president trump and this is now something "new york times" is reporting that republicans are using against democrats.

do you think it's helpful in your cause of trying to take back the senate for democrats to be talking about impeaching the president? >> i think, first of all, most senators that i know have just simply talked about the investigation being allowed to move forward, which involves, of course, a number of people that have been indicted. and and -- >> is that your position right now as well? >> yes, of course. we in the senate would be looking at any evidence that would come in. you haven't seen a lot of senators calling for impeachment when the investigation is still going on. and i've heard republicans like lindsey graham say very clearly they want to protect that investigation as well. so, i don't see a big difference here and i think they are trying to use that politically. being in wisconsin with tammy yesterday, what people want to talk about are the things that matter to them in their everyday lives and that is the cost of prescription drugs. that is doing something to make sure that they are going to have health care. that is making sure that they can afford to send their kids to college. and that is the focus of most

people out there in minnesota and wisconsin and other states. that doesn't mean that as democrats we can't do two things at once. and i believe we can do this. i'm a mom, i believe you can do this. one is to focus on this economic opportunity issue which is so important to our constituents, but the other, we do have a duty as elected officials in the senate to be in emergency break. when the president takes on the first amendment, when the president goes after independent judiciary, when the president gds after the workings of our democracy, yes, we have an obligation to do that, but it doesn't mean you can't do two things at once. >> quickly before i let you go, mark zuckerberg -- i never get to ask about what men wear. somebody mentioned this morning he should wear a suit and tie to the hearing. do you concur? >> i think so. it is a congressional hearing and i know he's used to his t-shirt. he owns one. he owns one, and he can afford to buy one, so i think he's okay. i think he should respect -- >> is it the best suit in the world based on -- >> i think this is going to be a very big moment because it is not really just about facebook.

we wanted to see twitter and google as well. we asked for their ceos and hopefully at some point we can hear them because this is really the beginning of looking at how can we allow these brilliant companies to keep going and give us all these new tools to communicate, but at the same time protect our privacy and make sure that we are as sophisticated in our laws as the people that are trying to break them and mess around with us. >> senator amy klobuchar, we will be watching the hearing. i appreciate it. >> thank you. >> in the next hour, congressman ro cann a will join me on set. is john kelly on thin ice or not? and national guard troops making their way to the southern boarder. "kasie d.c." is back in a moment.

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i told him, you know, there's been an evolutionary process this president has gone through as a campaign, i pointed out to the members in the room they all say things during the course of the campaigns that may may or may not be fully informed. >> that interview is reportedly one of the reasons president trump has begun to sour on chief of staff john kelly. there were reports that increasingly kelly has been left out of the loop on some key moments and decisions.

what's more, according to the washington post, the president has vented over the dhs secretary's sensibilities as well. ashley parker reports the president said, quote, you didn't tell me she was a, eh, george w. bush person. leaving the expletive out of that. now texas is sending 250 troops to the southern border and they are expected to arrive within the next day or so. the governor of new mexico has also agreed to send troops. president bush and president obama both sent troops to the border during their presidencies. michael steele, let's -- john kelly, what do you think he means to this administration currently based on all of this reporting? he was the enforcer. he's some of the things he put into place still exist, but now the president, of course, seems to be moving, maybe pushing him out? >> i think, you know, we have to be honest about what's really going on here. the president doesn't really

want a chief of staff, never has. he has been his own chief of staff, bottle washer, communications person. so, he's tolerating his current chief of staff just as he tolerated the last one. there will come a point where i think he will go and will not be replaced. i think that's the space the president ultimately wants to be in. he's still trying to get the cabinet the way he wants it, shaped the way he wants it he talks about kristen as if she's some foreign person. i didn't know she was a bush person. that's the only crop of people you have to pick from in this town because there were no trump people before you got here. >> that's for sure. >> that's his reality as much as he may not like it. >> well, it seems like, elizabeth, they are really two hard liners on immigration, particularly john kelly. he has been a pretty hard line voice. >> he was the head of southern command before he -- sometime before he came to the white house. he saw that was the military. pentagon, he was in charge of, and that included the southern

border. from his perspective, he saw a lot of drug running coming over the border so he was much tougher on immigration than people suspected at first. we learned that quickly after -- when he was at homeland security. but i agree, i don't think trump wants a chief of staff. you know, he wants to go back to the days when he was at trump tower, before he was president, when he would watch tv in the morning, tweet a little bit, come downstairs, go to his office about 10:00, 10:30, surround himself with friendly people -- >> executive time. >> yeah, and he would make it up as he went along. he would never have a real plan for what he wanted to do on a certain day. and he would react. and we found that's what he's doing now. he reacts. chief of staff, he wants to impose a schedule, control access to the oval office, listen in on phone calls. you know, he's rebelling. >> what is your sense of how much of this john kelly

resigning is about john kelly's own -- we know he has a kind of temper, in some ways an irish sense of humor is how one person put it. i mean, are these stories coming from him making offhand remarks that he doesn't mean, or is this a real kind of push for the door? >> john kelly has said on television that god must be unhappy with him and that's why he moved him from homeland security into his current job, which suggests that he's not entirely happy there, but he's also -- he's a general. he's a man of duty. and i think he feels that his duty is to stay there and do that job. the president seems to be making major decisions, whether it's getting rid of mcmaster, whether it's bringing in john bolton, whether it's praising and congratulating vladimir putin without john kelly there. that makes his job untenable. he faces the prospect of trade war with china, military action against syria, an immigration stug struggle, a midterm election that is going to be difficult for the republican party.

the possibilities of doing that without a chief of staff i thought would have been difficult for the white house. >> there were a lot of staffers in the white house when kelly came in felt relieved, like they had space to do their jobs, like it wasn't steve bannon versus reince priebus and the resulting chaos. i know i certainly talked to people who were in charge of dealing with capitol hill who said, oh, my gosh, this is the best thing that's ever happened. >> yeah, well, they made an assumption that at least there would be this sort of reproach mount between president trump and everybody in the white house who didn't fit into trump world. kelly offered that space for them. what they are beginning to see and i think realize is even with someone, a general that the president seemingly wanted to be surrounded by, that when it comes to specific spaces, he wants to occupy that space alone. whether it's communication for what he's doing or the overall direction and structure of what he's doing, and those two pieces, chief of staff and communications director, noticed that communication director spot has yet to be filled.

>> surprise, surprise. >> are the two spaces this president feels he has the most control and power over. >> elizabeth, last word to you. katy ticked through the long list of challenges facing the country. one thing i feel like has been repeated but has not yet materialized is this idea that the president creates his own crises over and over and over again but he has not yet had to really confront a major one that is not of his own making and that this could have serious consequences if, in fact, he has to face it without john kelly. >> right. he still has secretary mattis at the pentagon for a major international crisis and he'll have john bolton as well. but you're absolutely right. the other thing i want to say about the president, kelly said early on that he was not going to have anything to do with the president's tweets. he had no control over them. that was -- but that is where major administration policy is made at 6:00 and 7:00 in the morning when the president

tweets out all these things that actually -- that affect -- you're the chief of staff and you have no control over that. >> you have very little control over this president. >> while you're there. >> and we should mention john bolton has his first day in the white house tomorrow. we haven't gotten to that. elizabeth, michael steele, thank you for your time tonight. i really appreciate it. up next, it will take a lot to felipe red seat in the blue grass state. lieutenant colonel amy mcgrath joins us from lexington, kentucky as we continue our series spotlight of the wave of women running for congress. back after this.

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so it bounces back. neutrogena® it's already been a historic year for women in politics. according to a new report from the associated press, a record number of women have filed to run for seats in the house of representatives. 309 in total by the a.p.'s count. surpassing the previous high in 2012.

but there is another growing demographic of americans who are also running, veterans. lieutenant colonel maimy mcgrath checks both of those boxes. she was, in fact, the first female marine to fly an f-18 fighter jet on a combat mission. and she went on to fly 89 of them in both iraq and afghanistan. now she's running for a seat in kentucky's 6th congressional district against republican incumbent andy barr and fellow democrat and mayor of lexington, jim gray. amy mcgrath joins me now live from lexington. lieutenant colonel, thank you so much for being here. i really appreciate it. >> it's great to be here tonight. >> after reading through your biography there, i have to ask, what did you learn, the marine corps is a pretty male dominated institution. what did you learn in the marine corps that will help you in trump's washington? >> persistence and, you know, speaking truth to power. i think that, you know,

having -- being male dominated doesn't really matter. you just go in there, as a marine, what we care about is performance. we care about competence. i think those are traits that are really needed right now. >> one thing that democrats have focused on in what is shaping up to be a wavy alexis year is the potential of the impeachment of president trump. this is something that progressives have talked quite a bit about. do you believe this president should be impeached? >> you know, i think we ought to wait for the mueller investigation to go to full -- to its full completion. right now, let's wait for that. let's wait for all the facts to come out and then decide after that. >> you have accused some in the democratic establishment of essentially abandoning your campaign or lining up behind one of your opponents, the mayor of lexington in particular. do you believe democrats in

washington are putting their finger on the scale against you? >> you know, i just think that it's disappointing to me to see that there are democrats in washington that would try to meddle in primary elections around the country. i just think we ought to let the voters decide. it's quite simple for me. >> would you support nancy pelosi to lead the democratic party in the house? >> you know, i think that if elected, when elected, i would look at all leaders that would step up to possibly be speaker of the house. i think nancy pelosi has had a difficult job in the past, but i'm very concerned as are voters here in kentucky that leadership in washington is really led in the democratic party by san

francisco and new york and, you know, we ought to look at some new leaders out there. i think that, you know, that's the prudent thing to do. >> katy from the bbc. you've seen your share of combat. you are now running in a different combat sport, if you like. what surprised you most about running as a woman and as a democrat in kentucky? >> you know what surprised me is when i first started, everybody said it's going to be so hard. but, you know what? people just -- they're just looking for new leaders. they're looking for people of integrity. they're looking for people of character. and i really don't think gender matters that much. that's what surprised me. and the cool thing about that is that it's a lot like being in the marine corps, you know. once you get out there, once you prove yourself, once people get to know you and know you as a leader and as somebody of character, i think that they're behind you.

and that's what i've been surprised about, i guess. >> there are an awful lot of candidates running for the democratic party for the midterm elections in the primaries. a lot of them are women like yourself. one of the things that concerns some people in the democratic parties, the party is being pulled too far to the left. is that something you're worried about? >> you know, i think that we ought to -- i'm not that worried about it because i think the candidates that are going to win are going to be the ones that best represent their districts. and i think that's where we're at in america. i do think we need a new generation of leaders. i think that's one of the things that is exciting right now. i think we need more women in places like congress. i think we need more veterans as well. and so, you know, we're going to let the voters decide. >> colonel, let me ask you quickly as well, you made a decision to pull some of your campaign ads. you've spent quite a bit,

especially for first-time candidate on the air. from sinclair broadcasting, can you explain that decision? >> yeah, i can. i mean, what sinclair has done with making their local reporters read their corporate script, which is sort of right wing script, this is the kind of thing that you see in places around the world that have authoritarian regimes. and it's really quite scary. when i saw it, which was over easter weekend, you know, i was stunned. i'm very concerned about it. it's right to the heart of hitting us in our freedom of press and our independent media. and so i just felt like, look, i've got to make a stand. i've got to do the right thing here. and that's why i decided to pull my ads because, you know, we need leaders that make principled stands. >> lieutenant colonel amy mcgrath, thank you for your time tonight. i appreciate it.

>> thank you. thank you. >> we'll have much more "kasie d.c." in just a moment.

after our interview with amy mcgrath and our ongoing series on women candidates, it's only

appropriate, congratulations on your new book, "the confidence code for girls". this is a book you originally wrote for women. you figured out you needed to aim it at a much younger audience. >> when we did the research on confidence, it became clear that the problem started much younger. we've done a poll that coincided with the release of this book this week that showed from the age of 8, girls are losing confidence. they lose confidence by about 1/3. >> why is that? >> it's a mixture of nature and nurture. our estrogen kicks in. we want to become people pleaser. the problem with becoming a people pleaser is you become a perfectionist. the only way is taking risks. that means a certain amount of failure. girls who want to be perfectionists hate failing. that's what our poll shows as well. >> i'm familiar with that. >> if you want to be confident, you to take the risks. >> wish i had a book like this when i was a girl. thanks for your time tonight, katty. i appreciate it. it's "the confidence code for girls.""

you can get it on amazon. i highly recommend you do.

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to be dead after a chemical weapons attack in syria. >> plus, new speculation about chief of staff john kelly's future in the trump administration. the president is slamming a new report by the washington post. >> and president trump standing by scott pruitt. this as one top republican launches a probe into some of pruitt's spending. >> good monday morning. it's april