we hand it off to our colleague andrea mitchell for "andrea mitchell reports." for the first time, the president issues a call to the attorney general to fire robert mueller as the special counsel's first case against the former trump campaign chairman goes into its second day. the president's twitter outburst creating its own firestorm. >> these kinds of threats are no accident. they reflect a state of mind, an intent to obstruct justice. >> i'm not going to be like the daily -- like everyone wakes up, he tweets something, and we're supposed to respond to his tweets. russian trolls. a coordinated campaign using social media to exacerbate political divisions in america and try to manipulate the midterm elections. >> russian manipulation did not stop in 2016. after election day, the russian government stepped on the gas. they are targeting both sides of our political spectrum simultaneously, both before the 2016 election and right now.

and checked out. pushing a need for voter i.d. the president shows he is rarely if ever inside a supermarket. >> you know, if you go out and you want to buy groceries, you need a picture on a card. you need i.d. and good day, everyone, i'm andrea mitchell in washington. for the first time, president trump is directly calling on jeff sessions to end the russia investigation, lashing out today at his attorney general on twitter, writing, "this is a terrible situation and attorney general jeff sessions should stop this rigged witch hunt right now, before it continues to stain our country any further. bob mueller is totally conflicted and his 17 angry democrats that are doing his dirty work are a disgrace to usa." this as the first trial of the

president's campaign chairman, paul manafort, goes to day two. the jury is expected to hear more about his time about a lobbyist for a russian-backed ukrainian regime. these charges are not related to manafort's work as trump's campaign chairman in 2016. peter alexander at the white house, nbc intelligence and national security reporter ken dilanian, and ken goldman, former u.s. district attorney for the southern district of new york. ken, let's start with you at the courthouse in alexandria, what is happening today? >> reporter: andrea, we're into a deep world talking about men's suits, believe it or not, the house of bijon, an elite beverly hills suit maker. paul manafort spent more than a half million dollar there according to the indictment.

the government is trying to introduce evidence to the jury, photos of those suits and invoices, because, the government says, the suits were paid for with money wired from an overseas account in cyprus and that's how, the government alleges, paul manafort evaded taxes on $15 million of income working on behalf of this russian-backed ukrainian politician, viktor yanukovych. we're witnessing how difficult it is for the government to make this document case, because you have an fbi agent who seized these documents in paul manafort's alexandria condo, remember that search of his condo. but this agent doesn't know anything particularly about this documents. the judge is pushing back against the government and saying, look, paul manafort is not on trial for having a lavish lifestyle, you need to show the relevance of this. i'm sometimes wondering how closely the jury is following this and whether they're understanding the web that the government is trying to sort of knit together here. but here we are on day two of the trial.

we're talking about men's suits, andrea. >> men's suits at $25,000 a pop. i don't know. peter alexander, you know more about men's suits than i do. you can also tell me about donald trump's tweets, because this has been a storm of tweets today and it's been a rather creative one. he is also tweeting about al capone. he wrote, looking back on history, who is treated worse, alphonse capone, legendary mob boss, killer, and public enemy number one, or paul manafort, political operative and reagan/dole darling, now serving solitary confinement although convicted of nothing. where is the russian collusion? i'm not sure who his target is there. >> reporter: andrea, the president has a series of targets today, one that's clear is attorney general jeff sessions in some of those earlier tweets when the president went further than he has been, more explicit than he has been at any point, basically calling on sessions to stop the russia investigation.

i've spoken to several sources close to the president today. i asked them to try to cast this for me. they said effectively that the president has privately been bashing sessions. he's been constantly doing this. in this person's words, you can't get jeff sessions out of his mind, there's nothing sessions can do to effectively make this right over floating the idea of him walking into the oval office and resigning. the president doesn't expect that to happen. this source also doesn't expect the president at any time will go ahead and fire sessions. the bottom line in the president's eyes here is that if it were not for this russia inquiry and all of its tentacles that he says do not connect back to him, most notably this paul manafort case according to sources, these sources believe the president would be celebrated among the great presidents. that's the source of frustration for president trump right now. as for paul manafort, that tweet a few minutes ago, what's

striking about that and the other tweets earlier today, the president said it's the government's responsibility to tell him that paul manafort has a shady history. the president knew manafort for several years, manafort lived in trump tower, and the president is saying manafort did nothing wrong. >> it's a mixed signal, clearly going after sessions and mueller. senator john kennedy of louisiana, a conservative republican, here is what he had to say about the president's tweets. >> look, the president can do whatever he wants. within reason, of course. i can only give you my opinion. and that is that general sessions had no choice but to recuse himself. number two, i support the probe to find out what russia did to

try to influence our election in 2016. >> daniel goldman, we can all understand how important this first mueller trial is, the timing, as the president and the white house are increasing the pressure for him to wrap it up. is it a hard case to prove, since it's a case based on a lot of paper and not a lot of fascinating testimony, certainly, according to ken dilanian today? >> i think it's hard for -- ken's right, it's hard for a jury to follow it step by stop. what the government is really trying to do is just put in a lot of the evidence that at the closing statement they will be able to wrap up in a nice bow to explain how it all relates together. this is a very strong case, from what i can tell from the indictment and the exhibits. there is going to be a lot of documentary evidence, you say say, andrea, the paper trail of all these shell companies. and the government is going to have to make a lot of charts to simplify everything, to explain

to the jury. but don't forget, you're also going to have rick gates who is manafort's right-hand man during all of this time period and all of this conduct, who is also going to testify. and what he will be able to do is really lead the jury through a lot of this documentary evidence. i think this is a very, very difficult defense for paul manafort. i think at the end of the day, the government has a strong case. and unless something goes sort of haywire with the jury, which can always happen with any jury, i would expect a conviction. >> and of course the defense, the main defense, which we will hear after the first week and a half or whenever they do get to the defense, the defense's argument is rick did it. they're going to try to muddy up the key star witness who has made a plea deal and is cooperating with the prosecution. dan, to what do you think -- and i'm going to ask peter as well about this -- to what do you think we can attribute the president's firestorm as well as

rudy giuliani, there's been a real increase, an escalation in the attacks against mueller and now sessions today. why now? manafort is not on trial in this case about anything that had to do with russia and donald trump. >> andrea, i think there are a couple of things that the president and his team are seeing, where they're starting to feel the collusion investigation closing in a little bit more. and prosecutors don't believe in coincidences. it's not a coincidence that not eve of the manafort trial and as the manafort trial is getting going, even though it's unrelated to the collusion investigation, that we're getting this rudy giuliani media tour, and we're getting donald trump's most overt and obstructionist tweets to date. it's not a surprise. and what i think they are sensing is, when you start to add up a lot of the data points, and i'll just point out a couple, the july 27th, 2016 date

when the president calls for russia to find the e-mails and then the mueller indictment of the russian intelligence officials says that on that very date they started mining for data, and then when you look at the sequence of events related to that june 9th trump tower meeting, and guiliani for the first time informs the public about a pre-meeting, a pre-meeting where, by the way, cooperating witness rick gates attended, i think that what they're starting to get a sense of, and it may be from paul manafort's lawyers who have a lot of information about what rick gates told mueller, i think they're starting to see there's a lot more smoke to this collusion investigation. and that's why you're seeing the president lash out as forcefully as he ever has at this investigation. an innocent person would say, please finish this so we can move on, i want to get to the bottom of it. but that's the exact opposite of what he's saying.

>> and peter alexander at the white house, there's a different tempo right now. i mean, you've been reporting on it for a couple of days. we've certainly seen it in the last week. and the rally last night. >> reporter: yeah, andrea, i think that's right. i was asking this very question of several sources close to the president today, why now, why is he out with this latest twitter tirade as we've witnessed this morning. one of these sources described to me, the president simply feels emboldened right now, supported by the rally he had last night, celebrated by the large crowd in tampa. many sources said to me there's really not anybody inside the room in the west wing anymore that can tell the president, no, that's not entirely new. but it is significant right now because as the president sees the headlines, watching fox news, as he travels back from tampa, sees the criticism not just of the press but also of the case against paul manafort, it infuriates him again. he has a sense, according to

these sources, he's getting roped into this manafort investigation, that he's caught in the top paragraph of every story when it has nothing to do with him, all these charges preceded manafort's time working with the trump campaign. he simply views that as unfair. now, obviously that says nothing of the other things the mueller investigation has come up with so far within the last month, obviously, indicting 12 russians for their involvement in russian interference in the u.s. election. but that's a little bit of a glimpse into the president's mindset. >> and ken dilanian in alexandria outside the courthouse, what else do we expect besides high end men's fashion today? >> reporter: in addition to fashion, we're talking about expensive renovations to homes, andrea, watches, a jacket made of ostrich. i've just been told prosecutors have said in the courtroom that rick gates may or may not testify. they're not saying he definitely will testify, which is interesting, because the defense has portrayed him as the store witness. of course he's never been the star witness.

manafort and gates were indicted together and the prosecution was prepared to make this case well before rick gates decided to cooperate. but now that he has cooperated, as dan was saying earlier, it was thought he would be able to lead the jury through some of these facts and give his perspective on what i thought manafort was doing with the finances, but now the prosecution is saying it may or may not happen. >> who knows whether they're holding him out for a surprise later. to be continued. ken dilanian, daniel goldman, and of course peter alexander at the white house. coming up next, president trump's gaffe about buying groceries doesn't exactly check. that's ahead right here on "andrea mitchell reports" right here on msnbc. and diarrhea can start in the colon, and may be signs of an imbalance of good bacteria. only phillips' colon health has this unique combination of probiotics. it helps replenish good bacteria. get four-in-one symptom defense.

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only american citizens should vote in american elections. which is why the time has come for voter i.d., like everything else. voter i.d. you know, if you go out and you want to buy groceries, you need a picture on a card. you need i.d. >> i don't know where he shops. in his pitch for a nationwide voter i.d. requirement, a controversial tactic that voting rights advocates say is intended to suppress turnout among

minorities, the president's claim that people need i.d.'s to buy groceries sparked criticism from some who wondered how out of touch the billionaire president just might be. joining me now is ruth marcus, "washington post" deputy editorial page editor, and bill kristol, editor at large for "the weekly standard." ruth, we go from bijon suits at $25,000 a shot, to voter i.d.'s. this has been quite an interesting example of the testimony in alexandria and now of course the trump tweets and the trump speeches. >> yes. i don't know where president trump shops, but i kind of suspect that he doesn't. and you and i, and by the way, congratulations on the 40-year anniversary, that's incredible. >> thanks. >> it was less than 40 years ago, but a long time ago, that

president george h.w. got in a heap of trouble for allegedly and perhaps unfairly not understanding a supermarket scanner and how that worked. this is basic, go to the bodega around the corner, go to your local supermarket, you don't need i.d. but more fundamentally, insisting on voter i.d.'s, there is no evidence of massive or even significant voting by noncitizens in u.s. elections. so he should really just stop. >> remember the election commission, bill and ruth, that they created. >> yes. >> and it fell flat, they could never even get a meeting together. there was simply no evidence of the massive fraud that he consistently alleges. >> we run elections on a federal system, states run elections. in virginia i did show my driver's license when i voted. others thing it's too strict.

it's been debated in the virginia legislature. i'm old enough to remember when republicans tended to think these things should be left to the states. the federal government has a role to play to assist security, but trump is just demagoguing this, obviously. the tweets this morning, those are pretty serious. he seems to be intensifying the attack on mueller. one thing that occurs to me is the senate judiciary committee did report out, 14-7, a bill that would go some ways towards protecting mueller. it wouldn't be a bad thing for mcconnell bring it to the floor. maybe chuck schumer should insist on it. it's important for the congress to not let trump talk himself into thinking he can get away with crippling this investigation. i think he would pay a pretty big price. he seems emboldened. it would be bad to have that constitutional crisis. >> it would be bad for the republicans, there's no question this would become a midterm

issue. he's gone after the media, this is a favorite target, we saw that during the campaign. we saw during the campaign, ruth, "the washington post" and other organizations were barred from those rallies and had to come in with the public and try to cover them as best they could. let's listen to a bit of donald trump last night in tampa, florida, blasting the media. >> fake news. fake news. they are fake. every night it's the same thing. wouldn't you think they would get tired of these speeches? wouldn't you think? >> and jim acosta has been a frequent target. he is the white house correspondent, of course, for cnn. cnn and nbc and others have also been targets. but jim acosta posted a video, we've cleaned this up a little bit, we've had to bleep out all the profanity, the trump supporters at that rally, egged on by the president, going after jim acosta.

[ yelling ] [ bleep ] [ bleep ] [ bleep ]. >> so that's the view from one correspondent, one network correspondent, ruth, of what it's like to cover a trump rally last night. >> so it was bad enough, and honestly it was scary enough at times, when president trump was just candidate trump. but for a president of the united states to be repeatedly not just elevating this fake news argument but to be talking about reporters as the enemy of the people, to be egging this on, to be egging it on in

particular in the aftermath of the murders in annapolis, it's somewhere between appalling and heartbreaking. we are becoming too much inured to it. meanwhile we're becoming inured to the absence of presidential news conference. he's had one real news conference as president. i think there were three briefings by the white house press secretary last month. this is not normal. it's not okay. and it is of a piece with this sort of more public and virulent and scary attack on the media as well. >> let's just say, bill kristol, all the presidents i covered, all of them didn't like the media, they certainly didn't like us when we were questioning them and going after issues, iran/contra, other scandals, lewinsky. but they all understood there should be press conferences, there should are interactions, that was part of the process,

that's what you buy into when you become president of the united states. it's what we advertise when we're preaching democracy to other countries, to totalitarians regimes. to see this encouraged, it is dangerous because it undermines our basic values. >> i thought your phrase "egging it on" was key for me. we've had presidents grumble about the media, occasionally try to rebuke the media, say you're wrong about this, or once let out a scream of exasperation publicly. but not this consistent egging on of mobs, which is really what that crowd becomes when it's egged on that way by the president, to shout obscenities and profanities and try to intimidate, basically, the media. what does this look like? what if you're living abroad, what isser er iamerica is the government you would like to have, rule of law, free media, and you see it turning into the kind of place immigrants have on

tried to escape to get to the united states from. it's very bad in so many ways, i think. >> we're going to talk about the real fake news, which is a national security issue because it's russia, it's russia using social media to spread dissent and spread propaganda under false flags. that's coming up next. so perhaps the president and his team should be looking more closely at a real threat to our national security. ruth marcus and bill kristol, thank you both so much. coming up, social media. the senate hears heightened warnings about russia's attempt to influence this year's election. that hearing today. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. i'm a fighter. always have been. when i found out i had age-related macular degeneration,

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who else is still out there actively attacking us? are there other troll farms? >> we know the problem. we have bad actors putting out bad information. >> we impose sanctions on russia. they seem to have done no good when it comes to this kind of activity. >> the russians in this case and others see us as a cheap date. we are an easy target. >> lawmakers in both parties on

the senate intelligence committee today reacting to the latest attempts to influence america's elections. the senate intelligence committee holding that hearing on foreign influence in social media after 32 pages and account profiles were removed from facebook and instagram in response to an online disinformation campaign to spark political divisions in the u.s. facebook executives tell federal investigators they are not sure who is behind the latest effort but senators are certainly looking at the kremlin. >> i'm very pleased that facebook took this action and i hope that all social media platforms continue to actively counter russia's foreign influence campaign. i have no question that it's going on. and i have no question that it is related to more than just election interference. >> joining me now is nbc senior business reporter ben popkin and ned price, former senior

director of president obama's national security council. this is a very complicated subject but it certainly would seem to get to the bottom of it, you have to have a government-wide approach led by the national security council, which we have not seen. they're in it belatedly for just under an hour on friday, their first meeting on that subject. ben popkin, what did you find out about what russia is likely doing? >> what we saw described in the hearing, what we've been seeing for over a year is their continued ability to sow disinformation and discord. we found posts from these fake accounts that facebook deleted. they were identified as being linked to foreign influence meddling. what this foreign power is doing is gathering people into different groups based on their identity, based on whether they're into black issues, based

on whether they're into resistance and left wing issues. once they draw people in with these innocuous calls, then they start pounding them with much more divisive political messages, trying to push their buttons, trying to push them to act. and even in some cases encouraging them to attend rallies, at those rallies to bring helmets, goggles, flags, telling them they'll make the opposition pay. this is a widespread campaign that is ongoing, that is spreading information, misinformation not just online but also seeping into the real world. >> and ned, we saw this during the 2016 campaign after the fact, and the kremlin was certainly -- well, the russian operatives were indicted first for this false information campaign by mueller and now more recently for the hacking. so we now hear that senator shaheen and claire mccaskill were both hacked by that same fancy bear, the same operatives that had done the 2016 hacking.

it seems as though this is an all-out approach. >> the russians are at it again, and they are going back to the very same playbook. it's the same dual-pronged approach, not only using these internet trolls on twitter and facebook, as we've seen, but also pursuing what they consider to be valuable intelligence targets. in this case, three campaigns, we learned from microsoft in aspen a few weeks ago. there's something particularly instructive about what we've learned from this facebook case, that's how it was broken, how it was involved. i heard from those involved in the forensics of this, that it was close cooperation between law enforcement and the intelligence community, between the government and private sector in this case. that's what we need more of. that's how we're going to inoculate ourselves against this, how we're going to identify these efforts. but the problem, andrea, is that this is not something that the administration has prioritized. as you know, they held their first national security council meeting on election security

last friday, 18 months into the administration was the first time president trump sat down with his team on this issue. and that's not going to protect us going forward. >> and ben, how difficult is it to penetrate these false trolls? >> well, it can be very difficult. the whole name of the game for trolls and russian disinformation is plausible deniability. they want to make it so you can't trace it back to them. in this case it looked like facebook was able to connect the administrators of these fake facebook groups with people, with accounts that had already been identified as being connected to the ira in previous attempts. so they had this little technical trick that they were able to do to identify it. but there's going to be other cases out there that we don't even know about. and that's the problem, that facebook is this closed platform. the uk parliament released a scathing report last week about facebook. one of the things they're

calling for is an audit, an audit of facebook, of its algorithm, of its systems. and they said in the report that we cannot allow facebook to, quote, continue to mark up its own homework. as long as we're relying on platforms to self-police, it seems we're not going to be getting very good results. we may have only heard about these pages because there was a little bit of dirty laundry floated before this hearing to show, hey, guys, we're making good, we're on the case. but without some kind of, you know, regulatory crackdown or cohesive response from the people demanding some kind of action, we're really left to wait for facebook to tell us what facebook is doing wrong. and that's clearly not enough. >> and ned, you are in the nsc in the obama white house. did you see this happening in real time? did you try to stop it? >> well, we saw a precursor to this, andrea, and that was the spread of isil propaganda, terrorist propaganda on these

platforms, not only facebook but twitter and youtube and instagram, all the same platforms we're talking about today. the key in that case is the same in this case. as i was saying before, it's cooperation between the executive branch, between the government, the public sector, and these private sector entities. it's sharing those analytics. it's sharing the forensics so the federal government can come in and identify in this case these russian trolls, this russian prop begaganda, and rem it. it's something that if we're going to be able to fight this, we need to see more drive from the administration on this. >> ned price, thank you so much. ben popken, thanks very much for being on top of that today. coming up, almost home. the remains of what could be americans killed during the korean war on the way to hawaii today to be met by the president tonight. two in one?

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confirm to nbc that north korea is continuing to produce ballistic missiles. joining me now is jeffrey lewis, director of the east asia nonproliferation program at midd middlebury institute for international studies. jeffrey lewis, congratulations on the book, thanks for being with us today. let's talk about -- >> it's a pleasure. >> -- the repatriation ceremony was long-awaited, the last ceremony was in 2007 when i was in pyongyang on that mission. and we don't know and we will not know until they do this very complicated forensic study as to how to pair this up with people who are missing and unaccounted for. there are 5,300 americans missing from that war zone. we're talking about 55, not the 200 that kim jong-un promised in

singapore at the summit. >> yes. well, you know, one wants to take this very seriously. and every single rema maimain t get back is worthwhile, and that's worth doing. but, you know, i think we have to put this in the broader context of negotiations. what we've seen from the north koreans are a series of goodwill gestures which are welcome, but they fall far short of north korea agreeing to give up their nuclear weapons. and i think we're pretty far away still from having a normal relationship with north korea that isn't controlled by, you know, the constant changing of threats. >> let's play the president last night at the rally in tampa, florida, a political rally. this is what he had to say about north korea. >> we're doing well in north korea. we have our -- as you know, we have our hostages back. there's been no nuclear testing. there's been no missiles or

rockets flying beautifully over japan. i think our relationship is very good with chairman kim. and we'll see how it all works out. but there's nothing like talking. >> so he's doing somewhat of a victory lap, talking about the progress made in singapore. yet there are no concrete results. as you and i have been talking, we understand there are satellite photos that have been verified that show what is likely more ballistic missile production, could be long range missiles that we know can reach the continental united states including the east coast. >> yes. you know, one of the interesting things is when the new year started, kim jong-un, the leader of north korea, said that north korea would mass produce ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons. and everything we see when we look at satellite photographs is consistent with that. north koreans continue to show up for work. their vehicles are taking things

in and out of these facilities. many of these facilities are being expanded. on some level we're all glad that the president wasn't threatening north korea the same way he was last year, we all found that pretty frightening. but what's changed has not been north korea's behavior. it's just that the president has simply decided to tell people he has solved the problem. >> and what about inspectors? because they were kicked out more than a decade ago. >> well, that's right. one of the interesting things is, we're doing this work here at my institute in the same way that the u.s. intelligence community does its work, which is staring from afar. there are real limitations on what you can know. so although we found two centrifuge facilities that enrich uranium for nuclear weapons, we suspect there are probably more. and so while what north korea has done i think does fall into the category of a goodwill

gesture, there have been no inspectors or other means to independently verify that there has been any change in north korea's stated plan to expand the number of nuclear missiles that can hit the united states. >> and very briefly, what is the risk if the president praises them for living up to promises when they aren't? >> so, you know, i am not one of these people who gets all tied up in knots over, you know, letting the north koreans get away with murder, because the north koreans are going to get away with murder. the scenario i worry about is, what happens when we get passive the midterms and it becomes clear that kim jong-un is not giving up his nuclear weapons? we've already seen the president turn on other world leaders like the prime minister of canada. would he lash out and blame kim jong-un? i think that's the kind of scenario which i outlined in the novel, to be frank, where the kind of hope of 2018 curdles

into really bitter resentment and then things could get very dangerous. >> jeffrey, thank you very much. thanks for being with us today. we'll be right back.

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the president's legal team is responding to his tweet against attorney general jeff sessions in a new interview with "the washington post," saying, quote, the president has issued no order of the department of justice on this. trump's lawyer says the president is allowed to, press his opinion on twitter. the president uses tweets to express his opinion and adding trump's lawyer, rudy giuliani, added that he's carefully on using the word "should." >> phil, you talked to your team who has talked to the white house lawyers. this is their explanation, this is when a threat is not a threat. there is a bit of a clean up effort here underway by trump's lawyer to explain this tweet

when he calls on sessions to end the probe. that should not be interpreted as an order from the president rather sort of voicing publicly of his personal opinion and they tried to make the case that this is something that the president does regularly on twitter and that he was careful to not issue any sort of directive order to the attorney general. >> we should point out tweets are apart of the official records. >> they are absolutely are. >> they are presidential documents. he makes decisions on twitter and he fired rex tillerson on a monday morning on twitter. we have to take him seriously or at least some of them seriously. is this an effort to get him down? and including senator blumenthal

saying this was evidence of obstruction? >> this is all about obstruction of justice. the president's lawyers saying his tweets may got himself into a little bit of illegal issue here. he's not saying much. he's not giving a direct order which means he's not obstructing justice. we all have to remember that robert mueller is looking at obstruction of justice as apart of this investigation of this cloud that's hanging over the white house today and duration of this president's presidency. people are very nervous. president trump likes people that could adjust quickly. okay, if this is what we are going this morning, we have to make sure it is in a row and he's not physically trying to stop mueller from doing his job which would be a big deal if he did that. >> and as you allude to, mueller is looking at presidential tweets as part of the possibility of an obstruction

investigation. >> yes. that's right. these tweets are presidential statements and the white house said that and made it clear early on in donald trump's presidency. these are official statements of the government of the white house. there are windows of the president's state of mind in realtime. the documentary that the president provides on twitter, helps explain his thinking as he's making these decisions like firing comey and today the attorney general should end the russia investigation and it becomes the narrative that the special counsel team can stitch together to show obstruction of justice if that's what they concluded at the end. >> it teed up the sarah sanders' briefing minutes from now. she only had three in july and they were brief. it was less than an hour i believe all told from the white house podium. were you preposition to go into

that briefing? >> she did not offer follow-up questions. there were a lot of frustration i suspect. >> today the white house announced that the briefings have been moved to 1:15. already we are limited of 30 minutes. that is if it starts on time. sarah sanders are going to face questions why the president is tweeting jeff sessions should stop and robert mueller should be doing his work. all of my sources tell me that he knows it will be hard to fire jeff sessions because he would not be able to confirm another attorney general so he stuck with someone he does not want to work with and you see his anger boils over twitter. we'll see a lot more of this. >> phil rucker, your reporting of john kelly, the chief of

staff who he expresses frustration with, in a different light. after this one year anniversary, he's telling the staff that he's staying. >> that's right. it is an effort to try to end what had been pretty rapid speculations and administration of kelly expected demise. their relationships have stabilized at the moment. kelly told senior staff on monday that the president asked him to stay throughout 2020. that could all change. personnel moves and there is constaco constant changes in the white house. there is quite a chatter of who in the white house could succeed him. >> phil rucker and thank you so

much. sarah hucklebee sanders is scheduled to hold one of the briefings of the white house. we heard it will be delay. it could be well cut-off when the photo opt takes place. less time for questions. we'll bring it all to you live, stay with us. >> to stay in successful in business, you go t to navigate a lot of moving parts. on your business, we got your back with expert advice from getting funding and creating eye catching marketing. we'll focus on ideas for growing your business bringing all moving parts together. join me at 7:30 on msnbc or connect with us any time on all your devices. blurred. blurred. it's gone. that's why you need someone behind you. not just a card. an entire support system. whether visiting the airport lounge to catch up on what's really important. or even using those hard-earned points to squeeze in a little family time.

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andrea, it is great to see you, congratulations on 40 amazing years. >> it is great to work with you. >> thank you. >> good afternoon to all of you, i am kasie hunt in today for craig melvin. stop this. the president tells is attorney general to end the russia investigation in a string of tweets on the same day his form er campaign chairman's trail. >> the press briefing should start in about 15 minutes. we'll see how they respond to questions about this. plus, russian influence, hearing on capitol hill reveals russia's push to sway american voters went deeper than we thought. we all these talks, when do we see action to stop it? off message, the president says you need to buy