Good morning, everybody. It is friday, march 2nd. What a week with its been. Im Yasmin Vossoughian alongside louis burgdorf. President trump said he will impose steep new tariffs on steel and aluminum imported into the United States. The white house gathered executives from American Steel and aluminum can company companies, a meeting that had had not been on his public schedule the night before. Aides described it as a listening session, but the president did much of the talking and made big news. Take a listen. Were going to be instituting tariffs. Next week well be signing. Well see you next week. Thank you, everybody. Thank you very much. Unlimbed period. Unlimited. 25 , sir . It will be 25 for steel. It will be 10 for aluminum. It will be for a long period of time. So trump reportedly stupped many inside of the west wing and stock markets, as well, quickly dropping the s p 500 by nearly 2 and wiping out the dows yeartodate gains. Senior officials told the Washington Post that staff secretary rob porter who left after allegations of spousal abuse became public had worked with chief of staff john kelly to keep those advocating for tariffs from beganing access to the president. Washington post reporter jeff dossiey said white house personnel just texted me to say things were wild, changing by seemingly the minute and that no one knows what trump is going to announce on a number of issues. Later, the white house publicly denied that anyone was caught off guard. Watch this. This is something, again, that the president has been talking about for a long time. Its not a surprise. And were going to continue doing what we can to protect american workers. That was something the president committed to during the campaign. This is something he feels is vitally important. That part is new and hes announcing his intent to make those things happen next week and well have more details on that. Did he make that decision today . Again, this is something the president has wanted to do for quite some time. So republicans reaction on capitol hill to the president s tariff announcement was one of shock and dismay. As as of yesterday evening, nbc news couldnt confirm that neither paul ryan or Mitch Mcconnell had been warned and ways and Means Committee had been answered. In a statement, paul ryans said this, the speaker is hoping the president will consider the unintended consequences of this idea and look at other approaches before moving forward. Pat toomey said in part, quote, imposing new hare huge tariffs on all kinds of imported steel is a big mistake that will increase costs on american consumers, cost our country jobs and invite retaliation from other countries. And senators orrin hatch and ben sass flat out rejethed tcted th proposal. I love the president. I think hes done a terrific job up to now. This could turn him the other way. Whoever advised him on this ought to be reprimanded. Its not going to help america. Its going to cause higher prices around here and make us less competitive. If you own a steel mill, today was great for you. If you consume steel and every American Family that bought something at the store that had metal in it, today is a bad day for you. There will be retaliatory tariffs against the farmers and ranchers and producers and the workers of america. This is lefty Economic Policy and weve tried it a whole bunch of times and every time American Families have suffered. And this morning, it appears another key members of Trump Administration may be leaving. H. R. Mcmaster, the president S National Security adviser is the latest news that comes out of the white house that finds itself on the defensive. Kristen welker has the details. With the white house already in turmoil, five people familiar with the discussions tell nbc newS National Security adviser hr mcmaster may be on his way out as early as this month. The ouster is being orchestrated by chief of staff john kelly and defense secretary james mattis. White house spokesman michael antawn dismissing the story writing, i was just with President Trump and h. R. Mcmaster in the oval office. President trump said the nbc news story is fake news and told mcmaster that he is doing a great job. He is a man of tremendous talent. Mcmaster was brought into the administration from the pentagon a year ago to replace Michael Flynn who has since pleaded guilty in the russia investigation to lying to the the fbi. It all comes as the president s inner circle is getting increasingly smaller. Hope hicks afounnounced her resignation. Jared kushners top security clearance revoked last week. Kushners Family Business received loans after Bank Executives had meetings at the white house. Jared is still a valued peb of the administration and hes going to continue to focus on the work hes been doing and were going to continue pushing forward on that front, as well. Chief of staff john kelly poked fun at his i miss every one of you every day. The last thing i wanted to do was walk away from one of the great honors of my life, being the secretary of homeland security. But i did something wrong and god punished me, i guess. That was Kristen Welker reporting. Special Counsel Robert Mueller is building a case for criminal charges against russians who carried out the hacking and leaking of private information during the 2016 election. The nra is disputing the suggestion that President Trump is behind imposing new gun laws following his surprising embrace of implementing new measures in that stunning meeting with congressional leaders earlier this week. The top lobbyist for the group, chris cox, revealed in a tweet that he met with the president and Vice President pence last night. Cox added this, we all want safe schools, Mental Health reform and to keep guns away from dangerous people. President and Vice President support the second amendment, support strong due process and they dont want gun control. An hour after coxs tweet the president tweeted, good, great meeting in the oval Office Tonight with the nra. So this skomg just one day after the president stunned many republicans by embracing ideas pushed by democrats in a bipartisan meeting to limit access to some guns, even mocking some in his own party for their unwillingness to stand up to the Washington Post. Trump has been telling people that he wants to do more than his advisers can be done on guns. Bob mueller is assembling information against the russians who alleged ily stole and leaked emails to undermine the democrats in the 2016 president ial election. Multiple officials familiar with the matter tell nbc that the possible new charges are expected to rely heavily on secret information gathered across the intel community. And like the charges mueller unveiled two weeks ago, the new indictment would reveal the russian intelligence operation and the people behind it with new and very vivid details. A spokes mapp for the special counsel declined to comment on this story. Paul manafort is set to appear in court in alexandria, virginia, this afternoon. Man that ford is expected to enter a second plea related to lying on tax returns and failing to report foreign bank accounts. Manafort could face a prison sentence of about 15 to 20 years. Manaforts trial in washington, d. C. Is slated to begin on monday, september 17th, just seven weeks before the midterm elections. Lets go to washington now. Daniel lipman is joining us. Good to see you. Happy friday. Very happy friday. Very much appreciate you joining us this early on a friday morning. Of course. I want to talk to you first about hr mcmaster, the report that hes going to be replaced. What are you hearing . So mcmaster feels like hes been short changed by jim mattis. So he will bring proposals to defense secretary mattis and mattis wont give him the resources he needs or wont agree with him. And remember mcmaster was undermined by President Trump on twitter saying mcmaster had forgotten something about the incontrovertible evidence of russian meddling. So clearly, he might be going back into the army and hes been talking to Stanfords Hoover Institution for a new job there. So lets move to the Russian Investigation now. We have mueller preparing charges against the russians on the washington side of things. Do we have a sense now that mueller is closing in on the administration . So i think hes been closing in administration for a while. The issue is he hasnt gotten that interview with trump yet. One senior democrat i talked to said the thing that you have to washing is trump digging into the or is mueller digging into the financials of donald trump. Are they looking at did trump have to rely on russian banks because american banks had basically cut him off for funding because he had all of those multiple bankruptcies. So that is what i would watch out for. We have not seen evidence that mueller has gotten from Deutsche Bank records, for example. I want to talk about the morale in the white house with the hope hicks departure and all the departures that happened before her. Is there some sort of sinking morale in the white house as we see Donald Trumps inner circle that stuck by him from the getgo essentially gone, besides his family members, and do you think john kelly can turn it around at this point . I think its a lost cause for morale right now. And it could get worse. Jared and ivanka could be going back to new york and that would the deprive trump of his family. Who is he going to rely on now that hope is leaving . Shes almost like a surrogate daughter for him. Its tough in the white house right now. They feel like they are on severe pressure. Thanks,. Daniel. Thank you. And President Trump talked about individuals and families affected by the Opioid Epidemic at the white house. He talked about executing drug dealers. He seemed to express praise for the idea once between yesterday. Take a listen. Some countries have a very, very tough penalty, the ultimate penalty. By the way, they have much less had of a drug problem than we do. So were going to have to be very strong on penalties. And trump went on to say that he spoke to the attorney general about bringing lawsuits against some opioid manufacturers as part of his push for stricter penalties. The president has repeatedly said that combatting the Opioid Crisis is a priority for his administration. All right. Still ahead, everybody, after backlash over a major furniture bill, hud secretary ben carson, hes trying to back pedal. Plus, thousands of flights are already canceled today as a major storm heads towards the northeast bringing heavy rain and raging winds. Were going to get a check on the weekend forecast from bill karins when we come back. Dont we need that cable box to watch tv . Nope. Dont we need to run . Nope. It just explodes in a high pitched yeahhh. yeahhh try directv now for 10 a month for 3 months. No satellite needed. The smoother the skin, the more comfortable you are in it. And now theres a new way to smooth. Introducing new venus platinum. A premium metal handle boosts control. To reveal up to 100 smooth skin. Venus welcome back. Lets get a check on your weather now with nbc meteorologist bill cakarins. With we have a full noreaster in new york. Flight delays, School Cancellations, School Delays. We got hit hard overnight in erie, pennsylvania, cleveland. Syracuse, new york, 6 inches on the ground, snowing hard and a lot of roads are just now being plowed. You can imagine there would be School Cancellations and School Delays there. Thats the snowy part of the storm. Its raining hard from philadelphia to new england. As the noreaster is forling, its just off the coast of new jersey, south of long island where my hand is located here. Everything is going to spin around this counterclockwise around the noreaster. Thats start to go bring in the cool winds on the back side. Here is our wind gust map. This is current. L last hour, we had a 52mileperhour had wind gust already. Right now, were at 40 miles per hour. Even as far south as roanoke in the mountains. Even though theres no leaves on the trees, you can get some dead or dieing trees that can come down and get some sporadic power outages. The winds are not that strong early today. Philadelphia, new york and long island because the storm is almost over the top of us. Its the opposite of a hurricane where the center is calmer than the on outside. So wind advisories and warnings, 76 Million People are at risk of high Wind Warnings here. 7 00 a. M. This morning, winds are in the 50mileperhour range, d. C. To norfolk to hatteras. 60 to 70mileperhour wind gusts. Thats when new york city picks up the strongest into the 50s. Saturday morning, everything calms down. Yasmin, the big story is the coastal flooding. We expect top five all time tide levels. Thats why theyre saying there would be structure damage, Property Damage and there will be people cut off because of water. Lets hope there arent people out there trying to surf. Theyre trying to tell people to evacuate and get out of the way. Are we seeing any snow in this . You may see some flakes towards the end, but no accumulation. North of new york, though . If you travel about 20, 30 miles north, youll be in it. There you go. I want to turn now to the crisis in korea. The u. S. Military plan is marching ahead. The New York Times reporting the u. S. Conducted a classified military exercise last week in hawaii examining how american troops and equipment would mobilize and strike if theyre ordered. Commanders who participated reportedly were told if war broke out to expect roughly 10,000 american soldier combat deaths in the opening days alone and that the number of civilian casualties would likely be in the hundreds of thousands. Officials stressed the planning does not mean the decision has been made to go to war and conduct strikes on north korea. On the latest example of turmoil in the state department, the United States ambassador to mexico is resigning. Roberta jacobson who served the u. S. For more than three decades says shes stepping down, quote, in search of other opportunities, adding shes leaving, quote, with mexico in my soul and in my heart. Jacobson was reportedly viewed highly among both mexican officials and the public even as relations between the u. S. And mexico have drastically evolved under President Trump. Jacobsons resignation will take effect on may 5th. And among reports of a hue priced overhaul to his office, ben carson has asked to scrap the the order for the costly furniture. The white house and hud announced that the 31,000 new dining room that had been ordered for carson late last year has been canceled. However, carsons Business Manager said stating the order might not be possible stating that the person contracted has already spent 14,000 to make the new table. And it is unlikely the government will recoup all its money even if the dining room set is never ordered. Hud Officials Say this order was made without carsons knowledge. The two the put out a Statement Wednesday night on their twitter account amid those reports saying, quote, there has been no dishonesty or wrongdoing by us. Come on, you can always scrap a furniture order. Plus, i guarantee if they went to ikea, they would be able to get a cool dining room set for 1,000. Not 31 is,000. They might have to just build it themselves. I just use masking tape when i use my ikea furniture. Just get that duct tape out. As long as you hide it, it works. Coming up, steph curry shows us all what can happen when you try to play golf indoors. The roasted core wrap. 3, 2, 1. Not cool. Freezing away fat cells with coolsculpting . Now thats cool coolsculpting safely freezes and removes fat cells with little or no downtime. And no surgery. Results and Patient Experience may vary. Some rare side effects include temporary numbness, discomfort and swelling. Ask your doctor if coolsculpting is right for you and visit coolsculpting. Com today. For your chance to win a free treatment. But prevagen helps your brain with an ingredient originally discovered. In jellyfish. In clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve shortterm memory. Prevagen. The name to remember. Welcome back. Time now for sports. The lakers tool their talents to south boech to square off against dwyane wade and the miami heat. Isaiah thomas led in points. L. A. Got the 131113 victory there. Mean wile, the 76ers made a case for the upcoming lebron sweep stakes showing the cavaliers that trusting the process looks like even with lebrons near tripledouble the 76ers go on to win this one, 1089. And the Sacramento Kings are able to hold off the Brooklyn Nets in overtime to notch the 116111 win. Switching over to College Hoops where last night saw the return of arizona head coach shawn miller, he was cheered by the home crowd despite the espn report that he allegedly discussed paying to secure the recruit of a freshman. Miller has called the report defamatory. Meanwhile, the cruise to victory beating stanford 7567. Next, louisville gets the ball in but, no, theres a turnover. Traveling to the baseline on