The gunman. President trump calls to arm nations teachers and also slams the deputy who was on duty. What he did, he trained his whole life. Theres an example. When it came time to get in there and do something, he didnt have the courage or something happened, but he certainly did a poor job. Good day. Im Andrea Mitchell in washington. A lot of news today. Thanks for joining us. Breaking news, another bombshell in special counsel Robert Muellers russia investigation. A source familiar with the proceedings telling us that former Trump Campaign aide rick gates is expected to plead guilty today, an indication gates is cooperating with the special counsel. This comes a day after Robert Mueller filed a 32count indictment against both gates and former Trump Campaign chairman Paul Manafort, charging both men with additional crimes,
number of counts, some limited conduct that would vastly reduce his prison exposure. We believe this plea is happening in washington, d. C. As you mentioned, there was another indictment handed down in the case yesterday in virginia that charged a raft of new bank and tax fraud charges against both gates and manafort. Those could be waived under any kind of plea deal as would typically happen. The real significance of this is that Robert Mueller seems to be approaching this like he would prosecuting the gambino crime family. Hes trying to flip people up the chain. It appears hes flipped mr. Gates, who was Paul Manaforts right hand man and this puts enormous pressure on Paul Manafort, who is already facing 15 years in prison under the existing indictment under federal sentencing guidelines. Hes 68 years old. The pressure on manafort now to consider a guilty plea would seem to be enormous. Peter baker, rick gates is a central figure here. He actually was part of the campaign for a longer period than manafort. And when we get the outlines of gates agreement and what he might be able to contribute to this case . Its likely incredibly significant. There are two questions we have to know the answer to that we obviously dont but bob mueller will know at least one. The first is what can rick gates say about Paul Manafort and his exposure. We know Paul Manafort obviously has a great deal of legal exposure. We have seen it now in two indictments. Hes now looking at not just a paper case but a cooperating witness, not just any cooperating witness, but a cooperating witness who is his closest aide and confidant. The second question is what does Paul Manafort know that he can tell bob mueller about the president and others close to the president. The white house has tried to claim as you heard peter baker say, that these charges are completely unrelated to the campaign, to the white house, to the overall russia investigation. We dont yet know if thats true. We Dont Know WhyPaul Manafort came and joined the campaign in early 2016, at no salary, at a time that he was massively financially leveraged, and in debt to a Russian Oligarch, aRussian Oligarch he later promised private briefings during the campaign. We dont know that answer. Its certainly one bob mueller is trying to find out. Ken, when we talk about Paul Manafort, Paul Manafort had no political connection since the 70s, really, when he was involved in being a delegate hunter in the 76 campaign, he had no recent political experience. All of his experience was in representing russian interests in ukraine and other arguably bad actors, regimes Around The World. So one wonders whether if you are getting into all the finances of Paul Manafort, you are getting into russia and oligarchs. Its a great point. Matt just made a fantastic point which is that this new indictment paints a picture that Paul Manafort was really in financial trouble when he joined the Trump Campaign. He had made tens of millions of dollars with his relationship with this russianbacked Ukrainian Oligarch for years consulting and according to the government, illegally lobbying the United States. By the time he got to the Trump Campaign, the spigot of cash had
been turned off and manafort and gates had turned to basically scamming the banks and evading taxes in a way to generate cash. It really puts a different spin on the question of why did Paul Manafort end up with the Trump Campaign, why was he offering those private briefings with that Russian Oligarch, what does he know about potential relationships with russians. Its a very important question. And as we are building this pressure, this case, Chuck Rosenberg, clearly it would be to try to squeeze manafort and try to get a Plea Agreement from him. Is there the potential, this has been speculated about a lot, potential that he would resist a plea because he knows by some fashion that he might be pardoned . If he knows hes going to be pardoned, and we dont know whether he knows hes going to be pardoned, sure. That makes a lot of sense. If you take a step back and put the pardon aside for a minute, most defendants plead guilty. The overwhelming number plead guilty. So first we shouldnt be surprised that rick gates is
going to plead guilty. Of those who dont plead guilty, the overwhelming majority are convicted at trial. So pardon aside, one way or the other, manafort is in a world of hurt. While we have all been reporting this out, the president spent nearly an hour, maybe more than an hour, at the conservative Political Action committee. It was a rally, he went off script, he barely touched on the advanced text that had been released where there was Serious Business he was going to be announcing sanctions against north korea. Peter baker, i wanted to play some of the clips from that speech, where he went after Hillary Clinton, john mccain without naming him, but it will be very clear from this, barack obama, this was just some of the highlights from this speech at the conservative Political Action committee. We have a very crooked media. We had a crooked candidate, too, by the way. But we have a very, very crooked
manafort was in against a woman opponent. Right. To say nothing that hes encouraging the crowd to chant lock her up on the day his Deputy Campaign manager is pleading guilty to a serious crime. Irony aside, what is pretty transparent here is his polite Ki Stratepolite Political Strategy has not changed. His base are the only friends he has. That doesnt mean his friends are only in the republican party. It means he wants to have these fights not only over what hes done, but what his political opponents have done that he knows ends up charging up his crowd. Thats why he invokes the names of people like barack obama and Hillary Clinton and john kerry. Its also why he cites the Famous Maverick john mccain and this is the thing that plays well for him politically in the moment. The problem really, though, is if you just think two steps ahead here, this does not play well politically necessarily for most Congressional Republicans and they are the people that are
on the ballot here later this year, not President Trump. Matt, as a former Justice Department aide, i saw you cringing when you heard the president s comments about that Deputy Sheriff in florida. I thought that was a really disgraceful comment from the president. He said it before he left the white house. He criticized him again from the speech. Look, whatever mistakes this Deputy Sheriff made, it does seem like he made serious mistakes, it is so graceless and undignified for the president of the United States, the most powerful man in the world, to be attacking a Deputy Sheriff who yes, made a mistake. The president should be above the fray. Should not be weighing in. Josh made an important point before we came on the air. This president dodged the draft four times, hes never put himself in the line of fire, and now is criticizing someone else who was on the scene at the school. I thought it was a really undignified moment for the president. This from a president who said, promised during the campaign he would have the back of our men and women in Law Enforcement and who got a lot of political mileage out of
unfairly criticizing his political opponents, including president obama, in situations in which he felt like president obama had been insufficiently supportive of our men and women in Law Enforcement. But to stand in front of a bunch of reporters on the south lawn of the white house and question that deputy who obviously did make some mistakes, its disgusting. Were not defending the deputy and we see the president s returning by helicopter from that speech going back to the white house, where very shortly, i think he is quite a bit behind schedule, that lengthy speech has held up or maybe its momentarily the arrival of the australian Prime Minister, which is another whole interesting story because the australian Prime Minister had one of the most notably Difficult Conversations with the president of the United States shortly after President Trump was elected. Thats right. Wosworn in, i should say. Their disagreement was about an arrangement between theUnited States and australia to try to resolve the cases of a number of refugees and so again, this is a difficult political challenge for President Trump and look, australia is one of our closest allies. We rely on them particularly when it comes to our presence in asia and this is a relationship that President Trump will need to work on, both for his own benefit but also more importantly for the benefit of the country. All hang in here because we will be back in a moment on call to arms. President trump riling up that crowd at cpac calling for more guns in the schools. This as the australian Prime Minister is about to arrive and australia had a very different approach after a school shooting. We will talk about that when we come back. Oh theres one. Manatees in novelty ts . Surprising. Believe the health we aof our Water Sourcesany is essential to the health of our communities. Which is why were helping to replenish the mighty rio grande as well as over 30 watersheds across the country. Were also leading Water Projects in more than 100 communities. And for every drop we use. Were working to give one back. Because our products rely on the same thing as we all do. Clean water. And we care about it like our business depends on it. Cpac convention arguing that putting guns in the hands much teachers could prevent more school shooters. Hes breaking from normal practice, also slamming an armed sheriffs deputy for not going after the florida shooter. You had one guard, he didnt turn out to be too good, i will tell you that. He turned out to be not good. He was tested under fire and that wasnt a good result. But you know what i thought of as soon as i saw that . These teachers, and i have seen them, at a lot of schools where they had problems, these teachers love their students and the students love their teachers in many cases. These teachers love their students. And these teachers are talented with weaponry and with guns and they feel safe, and i would rather have somebody that loves their students and wants to protect their students than Somebody Standing outside that doesnt know anybody and doesnt know the students and frankly,
for whatever reason, decided not to go in. Peter baker, Chuck Rosenberg, josh earnest still with us. Peter baker, the teachers i have spoken with are not in sync with the president. Neither are the ones i have seen from florida. I dont know what you are hearing but most educators do not want this responsibility or this challenge. This isnt their role. The president was suggesting yesterday giving them some sort of bonus pay for doing the training to become armed. Yeah. Most teachers have a lot on their plate already. They have to worry about textbooks and supplies, about the latest curriculum, about, you know, multiple kids and their own individual problems and how they can bring them to class and make sure they are paying attention and connect with them in a real way, and the idea that suddenly they will be parttime Security Guards when the fulltime Security Guard wasnt, you know, able to handle the situation, that seems
perplexing to a lot of teachers. Youre right, the ones i have talked to certainly are not eager for that responsibility. What the president is saying is im not talking about all teachers, talking about a select number who might have military or some other kind of experience. I dont know the statistics on that. I dont know how many teachers actually are former marines and soldiers and whether they have that kind of experience. But clearly, this is an idea that hasnt been fully explored in a real way in the white house that has no paper on it, theres no tradeoffs recognized, no cost estimates, no serious analysis of whether this might be useful, whether teachers might actually be up to it or want the kind of responsibility hes talking about. Peter, yesterday we had Fred Guttenberg whose daughter jamie, 14 years old, was gunned down. He said from the way hes been briefed about the hallway video, what the Security Cameras picked up, it was chaos. In that kind of situation you would have innocent people shot
by a teacher or anyone else who was in there with a gun, just because it was just mass panic with people running in the corridors in and out of classrooms. Well, you can imagine what the Law Enforcement officers responding to the situation would think if there were suddenly more people with guns on the scene, people with guns they dont want to shoot, but they dont know whos on which side at that point. Youre right, that would only in some ways, you could imagine adding to an already chaotic scene if there were you know, you understand the appeal. This is why the president says it, because he is in fact a supporter of the second amendment, a supporter of the nra, and so hes looking for something to combat the problem. To many of his people in that audience today at the conservative Political Action committee, sounds like a good solution. Why not have more good guys with guns, as they say, rather than bad guys with guns. Its an appealing idea to a certain select part of his base. Again, its not a proposal thats been thought through or analyzed in a serious way to look at how it would actually work in a reality situation. There were also attacks from the president and his ally, wayne lapierre, on the intelligence communities, on the fbi, on others in Law Enforcement. Despicable. Its hard for me to even process that, andrea, to tell you the truth, and i dont tend to get overwrought or emotional, but when i hear folks who purport to be leaders at least of certain parts of our communities attacking Law Enforcement, calling them out, disparaging their work, disparaging their motives, its despicable. Josh earnest, from your experience in the white house, and if we can try not to be partisan in this, there does seem to be a lack of process. Peter baker said these are not thought out policies. In the white houses i have covered from reagan on up, when policies were proposed, no matter what the president s
individual personal feelings were, it went through a process, a domestic policy council, then was vetted, the Chief Of Staff would weigh in, decisions were made. Obviously the president has the final say but this seems to be an emotional reaction to do something. It does, and i cant tell you how many meetings i sat in with lawyers from the department of justice and other agencies in the federal government, examining what kind of steps the president could take using his Executive Authority to try to make progress on this issue, to make it harder for people who Shouldnt Have Guns from being able to get their hands on them, and in some ways, the challenge here is we are talking around the problem. The problem is that congress has failed in their basic responsibility to pass common sense legislation that would e