Russia investigation. Our Kaitlan Collins is in west palm beach, following the president. It was a short time ago, kaitlan, we got this statement from the white house supporting a specific kind, maybe, of gun control legislation. Reporter yeah, thats right, john. We heard from the white house of a conversation the president had on friday, and the Deputy Press Secretary raj shah issued this statement and said the president spoke to senator cornyn on friday about the bipartisan bill that he and senator murphy introduced to improve federal compliance with criminal background check legislation. Now, shah said discussions are on going and revisions are being considered, the president is supportive of efforts to improve the federal background check system. I have to note that the white house says the president is open to supporting the improvements in the background check system, the president didnt tweet once about that matter over the weekend, though he was on a tear on twitter talking about democrats, the fbi, even Oprah Winfrey, to give you an example of how far that span of those tweets were, but he did not tweet about this. And as the shootings have happened during the trump presidency, we have seen not only the white house, but also Congress Express this support in this, but largely that legislation hasnt gone anywhere in congress. So the question will be what is different about this time and will we see any tangible changes made in light of that tragic shooting in parkland. But we do know that the white house is scheduled to hold two listening sessions there in washington this week. One with high school students, and another with teachers and School Officials to discuss this. Well be waiting to see what the president has to say about that then. So far we have not heard him talk about these background checks himself. Were only hearing this statement from his press secretary. So it is important to keep that in mind as the white house issues this statement here, john. And, kaitlan, it is interesting, a gun almost ended up in the president s motorcade this morning. Explain what happened here. Reporter yeah, thats right. A very interesting morning for the press pool that is traveling with the president here in west palm beach. A small group of reporters that go with the president wherever he goes and he was going to his golf course here, the Trump International golf course for the First Time Since hes been here. We know he wasnt golfing earlier this weekend because aides determined it would be poor optics in light of the School Shooting. But one of the drivers of the press vans according to the pool reports sent to the reporters had a firearm in his bag they found during the sweep when they were going through luggage and bags and equipment that they have. And he said it was a personal firearm, he forgot to leave in his car. He was detained. We were told. And then again one of the vans carrying the reporters to the golf course actually hit a secret Service Vehicle this morning. So quite a route for the reporters this morning traveling with the president to his golf course, john. Very interesting. That gun, again, had it not been picked up by the secret service would have been in the motorcade with the president , theoretically close to the president somewhere it should not have been. Kaitlan collins, thank you. There is news this morning in the russia investigation. Word perhaps of an imminent plea deal from rick gates, a key deputy to Paul Manafort, who was the campaign chair. Lets get the latest from cnn justice correspondent jessica schneider. Gates has been in plea negotiations for the past month and now word his guilty plea could come within the next few days here. Our team has seen the signs of this for weeks now. In fact, rick gates original attorneys moved to withdraw from his case and he has brought on a top notch white collar criminal defense attorney tom green who we know is well versed at plea deals. And now, of course, the l. A. Times reports the deal is in the works and it would include about 18 months in prison, a substantial reduction from what rick gates might have gotten as well as gates potentially agreeing to forfeit any cash or valuables he obtained through this alleged illegal activity. And, once this deal is in place, which could be this week, it will be yet another cooperator in the special counsels sprawling probe. And rick gates could be important to the mueller team because he was a big player in the Trump Campaign. He served as Paul ManafortsDeputy Campaign manager. He also stayed on the campaign after Paul Manafort was fired, just a few months before the election. And rick gates was an integral part of the inaugural committee. So he could definitely have a lot of important details about what happened during the campaign. And, of course, any plea deal from rick gates could increase the pressure on Paul Manafort to cooperate. Of course, manafort has pleaded not guilty for financial crimes that hes been charged with, which are unrelated to the campaign. And mueller, though, hes already secured guilty pleas and cooperation. You can see it here from michael flynn, and george papadopoulos, who worked on the Trump Campaign as a Foreign Policy adviser and now, of course, word that rick gates, a plea deal from him, a guilty plea could be imminent within the next few days here. John . Follow the plea deals, follow the cooperators here, they could be leading somewhere, who knows where that is. Jessica schneider, thank you for being with us. Here now, Washington Bureau chief for the chicago suntimes, lynn sweet, Simone Sanders and cnn political commentator and republican strategist alice stewart. Lynn, i want to start with the news this morning, word from the white house that the president could be supportive of increasing security and standards on some background checks. This has to do with legislation that was introduced following the Sutherland Springs shooting in texas, by john cornyn what do you make of it . In the wake of Congress Failing to act sense the columbine massacre decades ago what does that mean . What will trump do . What will he do to make this happen . Those words seem a little vague to me. Did that mean, he could have said i support the measure. There is legislation. There are words on paper. So i dont know if this is a negotiating point that he rejects some of it and embraces some of it. In which case that will help doom the legislation unless it is clear what he is for and says so explicitly. We know that bump stocks were supposedly the device that would get people together, because it was a way to make a gun more powerful and able to repeat shooting. Everybody thought that was kind of something reasonable, nothing to do with your rights, had to do with modifying a weapon to make it more dangerous in the wrong hands, that did not fly, so that is my analysis, john. What is step two . Well, step one would be a step that they havent taken in a long, long time. So before you get to step two, you got to get to step one. And, alice, this legislation, again, isnt controversial. This is introduced by john cornyn. It is to make sure things that are found are reported, domest ache abuse, the military discharges and alike, and bump stocks which lynn brings up, isnt part of the legislation, but this is low hanging fruit. There are things that you can easily, easily get majorities on, alice, if there is a will. Is there now a will . There has to be. There has to be a will and they have to find a way to make it happen. We started the conversation about bump stocks after las vegas. And it died on the vine. We havent had any followup on that. In this case, we cannot do that. The president has made it quite clear while im encouraged to see that his spokesperson has come out and said they will have a conversation on background checks, what we heard from the president himself, it is a bigger picture. Many factors go into play, including Mental Illness. And how we go about identifying Mental Illness and following up with treatment. What i believe will happen out of this, well look at all of the factors that go into a lot of these mass shootings, whether it is background checks, whether it is waiting periods, whether it is Mental Illness, we need to sit down, look at all of the factors and find out what we can all agree on, one issue at a time, and what we can use and pass not just talk about it, but actually enact legislation that will help to put an end to these and i think background is part of the conversation, Mental Illness, as well as other issues, without making angry the Second Amendment right supporters, but something has to be done. Were not going to get away with just talk this time. Simone, the students, from the school, in parkland, florida, the students so eloquent and so vocal, who are now sponsoring this march on washington on march 24th. Have they changed the nature of this discussion . Have they created an imperative now to do something . Have they made it impossible to ignore . I think they have created an imperative that something has to be done. Furthermore, look, john, institutions have never brought us the change that we would like to see in this world on their own. They have always been pushed. Im actually not confident that congress is going to do what they need to do, and, you know, in cahoots with the white house, without being pushed and backed into a corner. Thats what the Young Students from parkland, florida, are going to do. Theyre not just marching on washington, they are walking out of school, they are organizing, and they will not be silent. And i think these young people are the young folks that are going to finally Push Congress over the edge and back them in a corner and cause them to give us some legislative relief when it comes to guns. Nobody is talking about taking away Second Amendment rights. It is a freaking amendment in the it is an amendment in the constitution. No one is talking about changing that. But what we are talking about doing is making our schools safer, our streets safer and, again, over 90 of americans support comprehensive universal background checks. Semiautomatic weapons are weapons of war. They do not believe in the streets of our cities. These are common sense things that congress cant get through their heads, so young people are going to push this change forward. These are the radical revolutionaries we need. These are the young folks we have been waiting for. Lynn sweet, the president , this morning, wrote, he said, have a great but very reflective president s day. Thats his most recent statement on twitter. Before he got to that point, though, over the last 30 hours or so, hes written a stream of things. Airing of grievances against anyone and anything you can think of following the 13 indictments handed up by special counsel robert mueller, leaving the impression now that perhaps hes not happy with how the russia investigation is being perceived in this country. Well, it strikes me that President Trump is not happy on president s day. And if we look at psychological operations, i would like to point to the oprah tweet the president put out, where he accused Oprah Winfrey of being insecure. And that shes not and that shes fooling around with the facts, which in itself is, you know, since he has no regards for the facts, but let me go to my point about psychological operation of Oprah Winfrey. Somebody who is in her orbit told me one reason she doesnt have an absolutely declarative slam the door shut statement is that somehow she knows that as long as shes out there, it gets to trump. She doesnt have to do anything. That tweet showed with all, you know, here it is, prepresident s day and thats what hes doing. You take that with the tweets about the investigation and the indictments and i think it just shows that you have a president who is consumed with this kind of news and cant move on, cant refocus, cant pivot. Thats whats remarkable. He can change the conversation in a tweet and he chooses not to. Instead, alice, what he chooses to write about is general mcmaster, his National Security adviser who says there are incontrovertible facts. The president said general mcmaster forgot to say the results were not impacted or changed by the russians. Hes choosing instead to continue to throw shade on the notion that russia meddled. Yeah, and i guess we made a little bit of progress, he cant deny russia was involved in the election anymore based on the 13 indictments we had. But he still views this, through the lens that any type of conversation, any intimation that russia was not just meddled in our election, but influenced the outcome of the election, he views that as questioning the legitimacy of his victory. I wish he could wrap his head around the fact that he won, hes the president of the united states, the real issue is not how it reflects on him, but the fact that russia meddled in our election. And for him to another one of his tweets talking about how people back in russia are laughing their butts off because the turmoil they have caused here, thats a serious problem. It is not a laughing matter. And we need to be serious about the fact that russia did meddle in our election, whether or not there was any collusion with the Trump Campaign, we will find out at the outcome of this investigation, but the serious problem is that they did meddle and we need to make sure it doesnt happen again. One thing the indictment says, the russians early on were trying to help out bernie sanders. Im not sure you had a chance to look back on the time there. Anything that jumps out to you now in retrospect . I didnt talk to any russians. And i think i can be very confident in saying no one on our campaign talked to any russians. Russias goal was to disrupt our election. Then when they finally picked a horse, a horse they presumably picked, allegedly they picked donald trump. I think alice is right here. What we need to be worried about is that there are upcoming midterm elections in this country. Just today, there is reporting from politico that many states are concerned that the government is not doing what they need to do so theyre acting locally. And going back to paper ballots and seeing what they can do to secure our electoral processes. The government is failing us, the Trump White House is in fact failing us. So what recourse do we have . What will this white house do when and if our midterm elections are affected. Thats that we need to be worried about. The Mueller Investigation is going to go on. I personally am concerned we indict 13 folks we dont have in custody, but whatever. Im not a legal scholar. What i can say is that russia is coming back if theyre not here already. What are we going to do to secure our elections . The intelligence agrees with you. Russia is coming back in 2018. Thanks so much for being with us. Happy president s day, reflections. Shocked and betrayed, the family that took in the killer in the Florida School massacre describing their interactions with him. Plus, secretary of state Rex Tillerson opens up about his working relationship with the president. What he said when asked about whether he called the president a bleeping moron and all hail the new box office king, the black panther not only breaking records, but also barriers in its debut weekend. Why did i want a crest 3d white smile . Dinnate. Meeting his parents dinner date. So i used crest. Crest 3d white removes. 95 of surface stains in just 3 days. For a whiter smile. That will win them over. Crest. Healthy, beautiful smiles for life. You myour joints. Thing for your heart. Or your digestion. So why wouldnt you take something for the most important part of you. Your brain. With an ingredient originally found in jellyfish, prevagen is now the number one selling brain Health Supplement in drug stores nationwide. Prevagen. The name to remember. All right, we have some breaking news concerning the School Shooting in parkland, florida. Cnn has learned that the gunman had purchased ten guns apparently in the previous year. Our evan perez is reporting that he purchased rifles, ten rifles, all apparently legally, in the past year or just before. And, again, should be noted that given his age, purchasing rifles of any kind, legal, while purchasing handguns would not be legal. New this morning, the white house is signaling that the president is open to improving federal background checks, the question is, how . Joining me now is democratic congressman, member of the house judiciary committee, ted lew of florida. Let me get your reaction to two things. Number one, the fact that this gunman had ten rifles, purchased ten rifles legally within the last year. It makes no sense that someone could purchase assault rifles legally, but not handguns. It also makes no sense that the shooter could not have purchased a beer legally, but could still have purchased all these assault rifles. And thats why we need to have gun reform. I think were seeing an inflexion point in american politics with students speaking out, with silent majority of americans saying enough is enough. We need to have some common sense gun safety measures. So the white house this morning put out a statement saying that the president is supportive of some changes in background checks. Specifically he spoke to senator john cornyn of texas who put forth legislation before the new year that gets rid of some of loopholes, prosecutes people who dont obey the background Check Procedure appropriately. This had to do