yamiche alcindor reports on the controversial call between mr.mp and russian president vladim putin. >> reporter: the snow showed no signs of letng up in washington today, and neither did criticism of president trump, and his phone call congratulating russian president vladimir putin on his landslide re-election. >> what is the president thinking? what is he congratulating him for? for being great at hacking into americans' votg rights? p >> i thiin is a criminal. i wouldn't have a conversation with a criminal. >> i think he's afraid of the president of russia. well, i think one can speculate as to why. that the russians might have something on him personally, moat they could always roll out and make his lif difficult. >> reporter: president trump had no public events today, but instead took to twitter, claiming other presidents, like president obama, congratulated putin in the past, too. he added, "getting along with ngssia (and others) is a good thing, not a bad t on sunday, putin won his fourth term with more than 76% of thect vote, a viy some

and tbs "news hour" white house correspondent yamiche alcindor. miche, you and i both got the easter message memo today. charlie sykes, first to you. the firing of david shulkin, what does it tell us that the president talked to david shulkin, as chris hayes discovered live on television last night on ""all in with chris hayes"" that the president talked to shulkin about plans going forward and he didn't know he was fired officially? it had been plenty of weeks until john kelly called him to watch his twitter feed. how is it donald trump talked to his veterans affairs secretary and was not able to say the words "you're fired." >> even by the standards of this administration, that exchange last night on chris hayes' show was jaw dropping. it is the casual calculated cruelty and management by humiliation that we've seen by this president. it is obvious donald trump does in the want to say the words himself. he always wants an interimmediate yaintermee interimmediate yaer. it is interesting how often he avoids any kind of actual confrotatico confronta

yamiche alcindor.nk you very muh. >> thanks. >> woodruff: that brings us to the analysis and, to the analysis of shield and brooks that is syndicated columnist mark shiel, and "new york mes" columnist david brooks. i'm going back to what i was talking about earlier in the program, mark, and start with john bolton, the president making news on his tone tweeting last night the suris announcement that h.r. mcmaster was out, john bolton's in, andp this on s you just heard from yamiche, one change after another at this white house. what are we to make of this. >> is this first of all, i'd like tsociate myself with the remarks of nancy mceldowney who was on the show. i think she's absolutely right about john bolton. john bolton is not just ideologically fixed where he's been. unlike hissa parent foes within the strags, jim mattis, secrary of at the fence andn joe rd, the chairman of the joint chiefs, he has never comforted anybody dying in battle. he's never written to a next of kin. he avoided military serv

for the pbs newshour, i'm yamiche alcindor. for more on all this, i am joined by njamin crump, the attorney representing the family of stephon clark.oi thanks forng me. at stephon clark's funeral today, his brother seemed visibly shaken. talk to me a little bit about this family's grief and theie of so many families that you've represented. >> well, yamiche is ver very emotional, as you would imagine having to bury a loved one, brother, son, grandson, a father who was killed in the backyard of the house that they all grew up in is just so etional, especially for his grandmother, who her bedroom is less than five feet away from where he wr grandss executed. so they're dealing with emotions and grieving if their own unique ways. >> reporter: and the city released video we just showed of stephon clark's last moments. there are some who have watched that video and said he should have surrendered to police nd followed their instructions. what do you make of them who ask those questions and what do you see from a legal perspective wh

i'm joined by brett stevens, an op-ed columnist and yamiche alcindor. yamiche, sarah sanders says nothing to see. the president's going to be back out there tomorrow. it has been five days since we've heard from him. is it just a coincidence or is your sense it is related to what happened on "60 minutes" the other night? >> we can't say for sure whether or not the president is silent because of stormy daniels. it's highly unusual for him not to comment on something that is such a big news story. the idea that we've -- i've been sitting in briefings where raj, the deputy press secretary said he wouldn't answer whether or not the president saw the interview. then he said the president also refused what was said in the interview. obviously the president has seen the interview with daniels and seen reporting of it and he's not saying anything. which is completely abnormal. the fact that stormy daniels lawyer is not only talking about deposing him but said you need to call my client a liar and if you don't did, then you know she's telling the truth. i think i

joining me, msnbc political contributor and white house contributed enter for pbs news hour yamiche alcindor, along with my panel, eddie and noelle. these cases have brought the focus back on the issues of african-americans in this country being confronted by police, fatally shot. there are countless stories here, i know you spent for example a lot of time covering the shooting death of michael brown in ferguson, missouri back in 2014. these families once again demanding justice but oftentimes we do not see charges against police officers involved. where are we right now? have things changed at all? >> things have changed in that black lives matter is an established organization. it's an established i would say grouping of people who really understand how to mobilize, understand how to really -- how the system works. so you see people pushing for these officers to be -- to really have justice and to really be charged in the shooting. but people also understand that the systems a lot of times don't work for african-american families in their minds. so in some ways we're back where we started.

. >>> for more on all of this, i'm joined by the pbs hour in's yamiche alcindor, former national security council spokesperson ned price, "new york times" columnist michelle goldberg and "washington post" white house reporter ashley parker. thank you all. yamiche, let's start with bolton. i think we'll talk more about him in the second block and that was the shocker. in terms of long-term impact, he may be the most fraught because he has a history. well, let's go back to the axis of evil. they knocked off the first one under w, they got two more to go. that would be north korea and iran. so he has an agenda this guy. it's war. your thoughts? >> well, there's so many people that supported donald trump mainly because they didn't want him to be an interventionist president, they didn't want him to be getting into war with other countries and here he goes and adds someone as a national security advisor who still thinks the war in iraq was a good idea, who's written articles about offensively attacking north korea and he had to actually make the promise he wouldn't get america into war just to

a wall rather than the firing. >> yamiche alcindor is in washington.lking about republicans on capitol hill saying there's no need for legislation to protect special counsel bob mueller because surely the president wouldn't go that far. what do you think gives them that confidence given what they've seen him already do in the first 14 months of his presidency? >> i don't know if they're confident about it. i think in some ways people like to talk to this president through the media so his own party is sending the message that we're not going to put these in place because we know -- hint hint, wink wink -- that you're not going to do this. but the president in the last couple weeks as shown he's willing to get rid of career people and surround himself with loyalists. john bolton, while he might take a stronger approach when it comes to russia, for most of the things he's in lockstep with the president so he won't have someone pushing time to think about the different angles. >> do you think yamiche, based on what we've seen, john dowd leaving yesterday