Diplomats poisoning the former russian diplomat and his daughter. These are 60 Russian Diplomats, 12 of them based in new york at the u. N. And several of them around the United States in various consulates and embassies. The entire consulate in seattle is going to be shut down, u. S. Administration officials saying its located too close to a u. S. Submarine base there. So generally, the administration uses diplomatic language, you know, calling these people diplomats because these russians are based at embassies and consula consulat consulates, but not today. The administration telling reporters this morning that these people are flat out spies, call them aggressive collectors of intelligence and that the u. S. Would be safer without them. This is a bigger response than many of them expected, not only here in the states but among u. S. Allies. Now were seeing the use u. S. Leading the response in its scope of more than a dozen allies who have also decided to kick out Russian Diplomats from their countries, a few here and there, but not 60 like the u. S. Keep in mind that britain, where this attack happened, kicked out 23. Granted, the u. S. And russia have a large number of diplomats in each others countries, and over the summer when we saw tit for tat expulsions over other matters, Vladimir Putin said at the time that now the u. S. And russia were equal, that they each have 455 diplomats in each others countries. So to put this in perspective, when you see the u. S. Now kicking out 60 of those 455, thats 13 of all Russian Diplomats working in the u. S. This is essentially the u. S. Saying, goodbye, good riddance, you have one week to pack your bags and get out. Dont let the door hit you on the way out, and by the way, russia, if you do plan to retaliate for this, as you say you will, the u. S. Could take additional action, brianna. Very well put, Michelle Kozinski at the state department, thank you. This announcement on the Russian Diplomats being expelled came with a pretty forceful statement from the white house. Cnns indicakaitlan collins is. Shes here to discuss this. Tell us what theyre saying. After the administration took its toughest action on russia since President Trump took office, the white house released a statement shortly after, Sarah Sanders, the press secretary saying, the United States takes this action in conjunction with our nato allies and partners around the world in response to russias use of a militarygrade chemical weapon on the soil of the united kingdom, the latest in its ongoing pattern of destabilizing activities around the world. It goes on, the United States stands ready to cooperate to build a better relationship with russia, but this can only happen way change in the russian governments behavior. Now, during that call, the Administration Officials breached reporters on the expulsion of these diplomats. They said the u. S. Were slower to act than ally germany and other countries, and they said that was only due to coordination with those allies in expulsion of these diplomats, brianna. So the president spoke with putin last week. Did he raise anything about this . Did he at all show his hand that this may be happening . Because meetings would have been ongoing then. Reporter exactly. They said this is a personal decision that the president made, something hes been involved with since the beginning and was involved as recently as this weekend in these discussions to make this discussion here, brianna, but it raises the question, why didnt the president bring this up when he spoke with russian president ladder mirr Vladimir Putin himself when he congratulated him . His advisers told him not to congratulate president putin, which he did, but he was also instructed to bring up the issue of this russian poisoning during the call, something which Sarah Sanders said he did not do during that call. This is a personal decision the president made, but it raises the question, if its so personal to this president , why didnt he bring it up when he had the opportunity with Vladimir Putin just last week . I should point out they have not spoken since that time, the white house says. Kaitlan collins, thank you. Joining me now, diplomatic analyst john kirby. He is a pentagon and state Department Spokesman under president obama. Also Senior National security correspondent at the daily beast. What message does this send . 60 diplomats. That is a significant number. 60 diplomats, it is a message thats being embraced by our european allies because theyve been worried that with some of the things they heard from this president or havent heard from this president about russian president Vladimir Putin means he might be soft on moscow. But this tells them that the National Security professionals theyve been talking to behind closed doors really have held sway and the u. S. Policy is following what they have always promised, which was a crackdown. But on the other hand, what it could do at a time when weve got very aggressive russian activity, youre probably going to have a reciprocal expulsion of u. S. Intelligence officers from moscow at a time when we really need to be collecting intelligence on them. So ive spoken to people ive spoken to europeans since this has been announced who embrace it, and ive spoken with former Intelligence Officers who are like, you know what . This is going to give us a black eye right where we need intelligence most. And theyll pull out american personnel, probably, as well. But john, its going to matter the number of folks who are expelled. What do you think . Its a sizeable portion, like 450 or so here in the country. As michelle said, its about 13, 15 , Something Like that. So it is a significant number. Its going to curtail russias ability to do some collection but not completely eliminate that. Whats really important here, though, is two things about the number. One, its larger than any other nation. In fact, its larger than any of them combined. Thats significant. Number two, that it is done in coordination with allies and partners. This is really more a symbol than it is a practical effect. But the symbol matters. It matters to putin, too, because he has been trying to so discord this unity in the west. This shows he is not succeeding and the west is willing to stand up and unify against him. Ive just been told by my producer in my ear that the Russian Ambassador has responded and said this is a grave mistake. This plays against the narrative that the u. S. And the west are against him. And there are a lot of russians who believe the story thats been peddled on russian media, that this poisoning was actually a British Intelligence operation to make russia look bad. So if youre in that camp, you think this is one more step on the world beating up on moscow and one more reason to rally behind Vladimir Putin. If you think, though, these actions, we saw the action the Treasury Department was taking in the last couple of weeks, but then when you look at the president and how he speaks about russia when given the opportunity, when even just last week when he talked to Vladimir Putin, what does he say before the camera . He says hes congratulated him, and then we learn he hadnt brought up the u. K. , the attempt on the life of the former russian double agent, he hadnt brought up russian meddling in the election. At the time, though, discussions of what now were some pretty serious ramifications with the expulsion of these diplomats, but how do you square that, john, with how the president talks about russia and these actions . Couple of things there. Certainly i would love to hear him talk about this expulsion himself. I think that would be powerful. But i dont think we should get too fixated on it here, brianna. This was a pretty wellcoordinated decision not just inside the inner agency, but internationally. It was well rolled out by the white house. You had simultaneous statements from the white house, from the state department, from ambassador haley. I think we should give them credit for that. Whether you think its going to make a big difference or not, there is no way it gets made without donald trump signing off. And it followed a joint Statement Last week with a number of nations. There was a joint statement that came out where it was very Strong Language against russia when it came down almost in a way a precursor of the ramifications were seeing now. It was almost an awakening to the poison. They also agreed to sell arms to russia. Its almost like Vladimir Putin says, hey, were the bosses up here, so well talk nice to each other. And look, this is a president who seems to avoid tough, direct conversations. He fired Rex Tillerson in a tweet, he said in a tweet that h. R. Mcmaster would be through. Thank you, kim dozier, who i should mention is executive editor of the cipher brief. And she alleged to stay quiet when she was holding her infant daughter. Trump signals hes about to fire v. A. Secretary dave shul kin. So who will take his place . Well be back in a minute. Hey, sir losealot thou hast the patchy beard of a prepubescent squire thy armor was forged by a feeblefingered peasant woman. 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Common side effects include increased blood pressure, common cold symptoms urinary tract infection, constipation, diarrhea, dizziness, and headache. Need some help managing your oab symptoms along the way . Ask your doctor if myrbetriq is right for you, and visit myrbetriq. Com to learn more. Stormy daniels had a tv interview about her relationship with donald trump. She said it was a onetime thing but that she was threatened and told to keep silent about it. I was in a parking lot going to a fitness class with my infant daughter. The seat is facing backwards in the backseat, diaper bag, getting all the stuff out, and a guy walked up on me and said to me, leave trump alone, forget the story. Then he leaned around and looked at my daughter and said, a beautiful little girl. It would be a shame if something happened to her mom. And he was gone. Then this morning the attorney for daniels issuing threats of his own. He says the 60 minutes interview is not the last well hear from his client. We have a whole host of evidence. This is not going away, and mr. Cohen and the president better come clean with the American People and he better do it quickly. The Stormy Daniels saying from donald trump, so much fake news. Never been more voluminous or more inaccurate. But through it all, our country is doing great. How is Michael Cohen responding to this . This is a very serious allegation Stormy Daniels is making, not only saying he made threats about her daughter, shes saying these threats came through trump, possibly his lawyer Michael Cohen. After the 60 minutes interview aired last night, they sent a cease and desist letter saying they want Stormy Daniels to stop making false and defamatory comments about their client and even say they want an apology. When she said a man approached her, we just heard her talk about that, they say that cohen actually believes this person may not even exist and the incident didnt happen. One of them going so far as to say this entire incident isry lick did you sa ridiculous. Heres what he said. 12 years ago someone approaches her in a parking lot. What does she do . She doesnt go to the police, she goes to her pilates class. You heard avenatti saying this is not the last time well hear from Stormy Daniels. I think the big question in the coming weeks is going to be, are they going to produce actual evidence that people close to donald trump, including perhaps Michael Cohen, that they were involved in the threats that they say Stormy Daniels has received. She, back in january, made a statement where she said, no, this affair didnt happen. What did she say about that . The big picture or the reason last night was such an important moment for Stormy Daniels is because this was her moment to address some of these things that have come out, including the money that she received from Michael Cohen, including why she has repeatedly denied that she even had this affair with donald trump. And i think the interview last night gave her that opportunity, and she says that the reason she signed this nda and the reason she accepted the money was because she felt like she had no choice and because she felt threatened. Here was part of that interview. So you signed and released a statement that said, im not denying this affair because i was paid in hush money, im denying it because it never happened. Thats a lie. Yes. If it was untruthful, why did you sign it . Because they made it sound like i had no choice. No one was putting a gun to your head. Not physical violence, no. You thought there would be some sort of legal repercussion if you didnt sign it. Right. In fact, the exact sentence used was, they can make your life hell in many different ways. Now, brianna, i know weve all been curious about how First Lady Melania Trump has been responding to all of this. Her spokeswoman telling my colleague kate bennett this morning shes focused on being a mom and is quite enjoying spring break at maralago while working on future projects, so obviously not specifically addressing the Stormy Daniels interview. I dont think its likely that she is going to do so any time soon. No. All right, mj lee, thank you so much. I want to bring in our panel. Senior politics Senior WriterMichael Zelden is with us as well. Hes a senior legal analyst and former aide to Robert Mueller in the Justice Department. Listening, michael, to the Stormy Daniels interview, its important to point out the timing of this. This was taped ahead of time with anderson cooper. Anderson talked to karen mcdougal, the playboy playmate who claims she had an affair with donald trump also, a few days beforehand. We dont expect they were coordinated, just to be clear. These interviews were in the can, basically, beforehand. So there are similarities that are worth pointing out. You have both of them saying they met with him in his hotel room for dinner. It was sort of the similar m. O. That was where they had sexual relations. They both said that he told them they were special, that he compared them to his daughter ivanka trump who clearly they both said he held in high esteem. They both said no condom was used. Legally, do those similarities in these two stories make these women more believable . I think so. When i listened to the interviews, i felt as a lawyer, are these witnesses going to be viewed as credible or not credible . What i walked away from both of those interviews with was these women will appear for a triable effect. We dont know what that triable effect will be. When you listen to them, they were both sober and confident and honest about what they believe is the truth, and i think that speaks volumes of what other people who have to contend with them as witnesses have to evaluate. They didnt contradict themselves, right . Right, and they admitted lies, they admitted mistakes. And they also acknowledged that they took money, why they took money, what the reasons for their desire to speak now and both said theyll give back money, so i think there is a lot of credibility to them as witnesses. Trumps friend, christopher ruddy, who is the ceo of news max. As we try to think where is the president in all of this, what is he thinking . He said trump called the daniels story a political hoax. The president himself has not directly addressed the story. What does that tell you . I think it tells us a lot because quite frankly the president addresses Everything Else except this. When you look at his twitter feed, which is a pretty good representation of what hes think oging on a given day, the fact he put out that tweet about all the false news stories, but he hasnt said, you know, i didnt have an affair while my wife was pregnant or at home with my child, i did not sleep with these women, these women are liars. Weve seen him so frequently when hes facing a political moment go out and attack the credibility of what those people are saying. I think it says quite a lot about where he is on this. I think one of the reasons he may be silent