Acceptance rates. Hogg responded by hitting ingram where it hurts calling on her sponsors to abandon her. As of this hour four have done just that. After news broke two of the sponsors dumping laura ingram, she apologized writing, quote, any student should be proud of a 4. 2g pa, including david hogg. On reflection and in the spirit of holy week, i apologize for any upset or hurt that my tweet caused him or any of the brave victims of parkland. And heres the response to that tweet from david hogg. I 100 agree, an apology is an effort just to save your advertisers is not enough. I will only accept your apology if you denounce the way your network has treated my friends and i in this fight. Its time to love thy neighbor, not mud sling at children. Ingrams apology also came after the pope the pope voiced his support for these young voices. Quote, there are many ways to silence young people and make them invince i believe. It is up to you not to keep quiet. Even if others keep quiet, if we older people and leaders, some corrupt, keep quiet, if the whole world keeps quiet and loses its joy, i ask you, will you cry out . Steve schmidt joins us today from parts unknown at the table. Mark leib vits is here, chief National Correspondent for the New York Times magazine and msnbc contributor who we dont drag to new york often enough. Heilman is here, nbc news and National Affairs analyst. Jim mussina, deputy chief of staff for president obama, also former Campaign Manager in 2012. And rick sting l, former under secretary of state republic diplomacy, now an msnbc analyst. Let me start with you, john heilman, on the news of this. The news of this is that a 17yearold insulted and really denigrated by laura ingram who as Whoopi Goldberg would say is a grown as woman taunted a 17yearold on twitter about not getting into colleges with a 4. 1 gpa. Ive never seen such a swift come uppings in the court of Public Opinion and the one that matters to her among her own sponsors. Laura ingram, the thing she said about david hogg would be pathetic of any adult to any child his age in any circumstance. Forgetting about on television and the politics of it. Like really . Sad. But the real story here is the story of david hogg, who at this moment, we all say, well, theres a march, how much will the march change anything . Does this really have legs, this movement . Do these kids really have power . In my world, power is the ability to take money away from people, to take advertisers away, to take sponsors away. There is also power at the ballot box. Until we get to november, the way you demonstrate you have power is the ability to go on social media and say, you know what, im calling for a boycott and you have three advertisers four, here they are. Rachel rays nutrish, trip advisor way fair and speed i cant pulled advertisements from Laura Ingrams show. They know what shes like. Theyve heard her trash people before. None of this was new. The new element here is those advertisers understand that these kids and this issue have power and they want to be on the right side of it. Its not about laura ingram. Its that they want to be with this movement and that is a gargantuanly important thing in politics and life. I was thinking today about what the reverse would be. I was thinking of a 17yearold pro life activist came out and some on the left attacked her viciously and said, no wonder you cant get into a university with a 4. 1 grade point average. I could not even fathom the viciousness with which the right wing media would treat a pro life teen. Have you seen any sort of example, though, of a teen, of a 17yearold who was very new to political activism he certainly seemed ready for the moment. He met this moment. Completely. Hes one of the voices i remember covering in the first hours after the shooting. But to have peeled away four major advertisers from laura ingram with the power of one tweet he sent seems pretty remarkable. It is changing american politics. When you and i grew up in american politics, the nra was undefeated heavy weight champion of the world. Now they are on the run. Its not just these four sponsors. You saw delta airlines, United Airlines a couple weeks ago, a bunch of people saying we wont work with the nra any more. That is unbelievable and it is all because of these kids. And these kids continue to be the most underestimated Political Force of our recent time. Not for much longer. Its unbelievable in the middle of this, they are changing an issue that has been the political third rail for a very long time, and these kids are doing it by themselves. It is unbelievable. Laura ingram certainly is helping. Steve schmidt, you and i have had a lot of talks about both of these subjects, about the power of these kids. We talked in the first days after the shooting about just this, the nra and its defenders having met their match in these kids. Weve also had darker conversations about what fox news has become and i wonder if you can weigh in on both planks. Well, fox news has become a propaganda network. It exists in an alternate reality. It spews forth daily a toxin into the american body politic. It purposefully monetizes division in the country. So, when you see fox news hosts routinely now calling for senior officials at a department of justice or in the intelligence communities to be locked up, the daily assault on institutions, the rule of law, the use of completely crazy alternate reality conspiracy theories as justifications for all of it, weve never seen in any of our lifetimes an American Television ostensibly news network do Something Like that. I want to let you finish, but work in an answer to this, too. Do you think there is pressure on the Trump White House to distance itself from one of the parkland victims . No. Look, i think at the end of the day that the trump base is where the trump base is. And the trump base, the vessel that communicates to them, is either through his twitter account and then reinforced, of course, on the nightly programming of fox news. The issue with the advertisers is this. The sensibility of brands has changed. Its not what a brand says, its what a brand does today. And every advertiser, every brand, when you lock on and you spend your money, your resources on a show like laura ingram, youre taking laura ingram on as a business partner. What youre saying is nobody in their right mind wants to be in business with laura ingram. And you dont want to be in business with laura ingram because of her easy and casual cruelty that she inflicts out on people on a daily basis. To john heilmans point, what you see is an example of an adult acting terribly. This is a 17yearold kid. And by the way, some college is going to be lucky to get that kid. A 4. 1 gpa seems pretty good to me. But he sure does seem to have a knack for economics if you look at the boycott that hes been able to arrange and the infliction of monetary pain on someone who was so callous and casually cruel to him. 4. 1 gpa is like mine times two. No comment. I want to you were writing about and youre knowledgeable about our new communications vehicles. I want to ask you about the role social media played. Almost instantly i saw sort of the reaction and it was swift. It was largely from fox newss detractors, but not exclusively. But the critique about laura ingram was really about her as a woman and a mother. How could you as a mother attack a kid who has just been through what has to be one of the most horrific experiences of his life, the pettiness, the smallness. I wonder if you could speak to what that says about this moment, the coarseness. She is a grown woman, respected in her own circles. She anchors a news program and she had the lack of judgment to tweet at a 17yearold to taunt him and bully him on social media. Well, to steves point, by the way, im going to start by this. The admissions director for harvard, princeton should be on the phone to david hogg already. Hes a great, great catch. It does show you the power of social media to sway opinion and to do it so quickly. I mean, people did sort of shame her as a mother. What she did was absolutely immature. But it just shows this kind of tsunamilike power that social media has. Also to steves point about fox news, at the risk of committing some controversy, russia today is to Vladimir Putin what fox news is to donald trump. No doubt. Why is that controversial . It is a support network that is will always react positively to everything that he does. Its not journalism. It is propaganda. So is the nra, right . Are we saying something revelatory . We say nothing revelatory. I dont, you guys do. Anybody in russia today is going to get with the exception of a few obvious hours, shep smiths hour, Chris Wallaces weekly show, that is true of fox all day long. I think other people in this industry have said that. Very rarely do they do something that invites condemnation so universally. Thats the point. Thats why thats where were starting today. This was her acting so inappropriately in public not just on her show, but taunting a 17yearold on twitter. Right. I think, though, what you cant forget is the swiftness by which david hogg acted. He went right to tactic sort of tactic red, which is advertisers. Money. He was not even taking the time to message this. What is the most response . What is the measured highminded he just went, boom. Within like an hour or so, he had advertisers out on social media. You had the response within 24 hours or less, you had an apology. So, i mean, the question is how many times do you play this card, right . The next time sean hannity mentions seth rich on the air, the next time something someone this network or cnn does something objectionable to the right, do you actually have a counter reaction and this becomes just another kind of card to play . I do think that the whats interesting about the story will play out over the next few weeks. But having said that, david hogg has shown he is not messing around. In a weird way Stormy Danielss lawyer, Michael Avenatti is not messing around. There is a new not messing around ethic among detractors of donald trump and the right, which i think people would have associated with donald trump during the election. Or a kid who intuitively understands the power of social media, im going to flip the switch and its going to work. There is david hogg and whats going on in Laura Ingrams head and fox newss head. They are generally good at knowing their audience. Even though they cross boundaries and p upset liberals, they know where they can get away with it with their base and not sacrifice any economics for them. The fact that she misjudged this so clearly, the fact she didnt get this would impact the underpinnings of her he can many no i can show, there is fear. This thing is out of control. It is changing the parameters of politics. Its making its throwing the chess board in the air in a way thats causing people whose a lot of comfort, we can do this, this is how the game is played. No, wait, these guys are threatening something here in the status quo and its causing some people on the right to sort of lose their minds. What also is changing is how advertising works. Because what weve had over the last ten, 15 years is people not buying content or brands, but buying audience. Yes. All those brands are buying her audience. They know what she does on air is objectionable. What he is doing is linking the content and the person with the advertiser and saying, youre buying laura ingram so your brand is being represented by her. We didnt get to this when it happened, but its important to raise it now. I mean, she does exactly what you said. She knows her audience and she presses their buttons. She had some pretty controversial remarks about famous basketball players who she said to shut up and dribble. Lets watch. Im numb to this commentary, like. Must they run their mouths like that . Unfortunately a lot of kids and some adults take these ignorant comments seriously. Look, there might be a cautionary lesson in lebron for kids. This is what happens when you attempt to leave high school a year early to join the nba. And its always unwise to seek political advice from someone who gets paid 100 million a year to bounce a ball. Oh, and lebron and kevin, youre great players, but no one voted for you. Millions elected trump to be their coach. So, keep the political commentary to yourself, or as someone once said, shut up and dribble. Laura for you either. I actually think lebron did finish high school. Hes done more for cleveland than im sure laura ingram has. Shes got the facts wrong. This is maybe the information gap in her audience. This is pushing every obnoxious racial button. Back to what steve talked about with advertisers, her advertisers are in business with someone who is pushing every racist button that i can think of. When she said that, i remember thinking of george w. Bushs speech about emboldening racism. I think thats exhibit b exhibit a being charlottesville, and just the fact that advertisers didnt question their partnership with laura ingram after that was shocking. Its shocking that theres still 15 other advertisers who as we went on air havent fired her. Its unbelievable. I want to go back to marks point. We are watching social media change politics by the nanosecond, right. A 17yearold kid immediately took on a really powerful, really well respected right wing lunatic in my view, but whatever. Well figure this out. And took her down. The moment after she went after lebron james who would is a friend of mine, one of the most successful Business People in america. I love him. Not as much as hes what Everyone Wants their kids to be. Hes unbelievably well spoken, unbelievably great. Those obama campaigns, he was a natural at this. I want to trauk aboalk about da one more second. Id look at these universities, screw you, im filing for office. If i was him i would announce today im running for state legislature. He turns 18 later this year. He would be a run his campaign for free . I would write a check today whatever it takes. Steve schmidt, i want to you button this whole thing up. You brought us to being in business with laura ingram. I want you to button up that conversation. But also bring us back to your thoughts on david hogg and what he achieved today that you and i work for multiple politicians who were attacked by laura ingram and they never eked out an apology from her. No, thats right. John heilman talked a minute ago about fear. And we think about politics today, we think particularly about the republican majority and americas greatest scared rabbit paul ryan. And we look at all these republican members that are scared to death, scared to death of fox news, of laura ingram, of rush limbaugh. And what you see in this young man is a quality of character, fearlessness. Maybe thats what happens after youve been down range of an ar15 that kills your classmates and comes close to killing you. You lose all fear because this kid is not scared. Hes not scared of the nra. Hes not intimidated and scared by laura ingram. Laura ingram huffs and puffs. You have half the Republican Party hiding under the table. Half of them are hiding under their bed. Theyre so scared. So timid so skittish, not these kids, though. And i think that its going to be definitional to the political debate that we see play out between november of 2018 when i think trumpism will be roundly repudiated in the next president ial election in 2020. But its such a contrast, these kids, to the elected officials in the Republican Party. Perfectly said. Steve schmidt, thank you so much for jumping in and spending some time with us. Were glad to have you. When we come back, the white house loses its glue. Hope hicks, one of the president s most trusted advisors, says goodbye to the west wing, leaving some aides wondering if he will replace her or add her responsibilities to his own. Also ahead, Michael Cohen, the president s fixer, on that alleged sexual relationship with porn star Stormy Daniels suffers a set back at the hands of, his lawyer. Well explain. Six months after puerto rico was devastated by one of the biggest hurricanes ever to hit the island, a new report suggests storm victims in texas were treated better and helped faster than those living in puerto rico. Well talk to actress and activist rosie perez. Every legacy comes with a burden. An expectation to surpass. But thats the point. Bring us doubt, and well bring you the first car with true hands free driving for the freeway. Bring us a challenge, and well reinvent what it means to own a car. Bring us all your expectations, and well defy them. Again, and again, and again. Gas, bloating, constipation 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 fourinone symptom defense. If you only knew what happened in the breaks. One of the original cast members of the trump production took her final bow today. Hope hicks, one of the president s most trusted aides said goodbye to the president to her job as White House Communications director. In her wake she leaves a vicious fight to fill her job and a raging debate about whether the president may opt to simply fill her shoes himself. Hicks departure comes at a time of incredible upheaval in the west wing. Trumps allies have suggested in recent weeks chief of staff kelly is also at times on thin ice and the president muses about doing his job as well. Why not . Hes got plenty of executive time. Panel still here and joining us is robert costa, National Political reporter for the washington post, also an msnbc analyst and on pbs. Talk to us about the departure of hope hicks who isnt just beloved by the president but also an important witness in the Mueller Probe, she may not be leaving washington in the Rearview Mirror just yet. Sheepz not leaving just yet. Today was her formal last day, but she is expected to still come by the white house in the coming weeks and months to wrap up loose ends with her job. But what youre seeing with the departure of ms. Hicks is a cchange inside the west wing for people who report o