Those guys in pennsylvania and West Virginia will not help him. The kids are coming to washington in two weeks. Maybe a million of them demanding something be done. He cant hide in the white house bunker when kids and teachers say you have to do something. At that 340e789 it, hope hicks, his most loyal person walks. Theres a lot there. Youve seen the unraveling of the power structure. Veteran republican operatives, seasoned Military Figures and the family and inner circle. Hope hicks, if josh rafael. Jared kushner is supposed to carry on our most secret sensitive negotiations . Hope hicks leaving, josh leaving. On guns, republican feeling the heat. Rick gates turning on him, flynn already turning on him. Manafort about to. On guns the republicans are feeling the heat. Suburban voters in places like philadelphia want to see gun control. Republicans know the nra gets base voters to come out. They need to show some movement. Thats why you saw the president today trying to show movement. Hes got to deal with the appalachian wing of his party that Doesnt Want To do anything about guns. Conner lamp is not talking guns. Mieke, thank you for joining us. This is a political mess. Its about what is this president going to do in his situation . Hes increasingly isolated. For a man who values loyalty, there is no one willing to go down with the ship with the exception of the family. Dianne feinstein is 85 and shes sticking it out. This woman is 29 and shes going to spend time with her family . What family. Im sorry. It sounds like the thing you do when youve been sacked. Ive got to spend more time with my family. Everyone is fleeing the ship. They cannot get anyone else to replace them. Not only was jared stripped of his clearances, but all these other white house aides. Now they dont have anyone who can do the basic block attack for the white house. As many mistakes as theyve made, expect far more because they dont have anyone who can help him. They always say you dont make new friends at the white house. Im wondering if at the meets anybody who could be the next flack for him. The fifth Communications Director trying to explain him to the country. He does what he wants to do, and by 7 30 in the morning you have to explain what he meant at 6 30 in the morning when he got the times and started rattling off his thoughts. Im giving you credit. Its a thankless job. The reason why hope hicks is the fifth person to have it in 13, 14 months. Its hard who might want it next. Its not just that shes been in that job. She has been somebody who kind of had a connection to him that few other people had. The people hes been close to e that he came to town with as he says hes an advisor on Foreign Policy. If you ask Rex Tillerson or defense secretary jim mattis, is kushner the Senior Adviser making these negotiations . No, hes a confidante of the president. The reason hes there and the reason kelly is sensitive about going after him too much is hes family. Can they visit on weekends at maralago . They want to be close to the flame. Theyre getting a piece of the action. What do you make of this, mieke . Im not a genius. I know the american and world history. Nepotism is a problem. The roman negatives didnt do well. Going with family members, we see all the time, leads to you lower quality advise ersand outcomes. If they want him to be a good will ambassador, shake some hands and do things purely slolic, theyre only in it for the symbolism anyway. Hes an official greeter. Yeah. Maybe ivanka went to the olympics for that reason. Yesterday the post reported officials in the white house were concerned that kushner was naive and being tricked in conversations with foreign leaders. Jonathan swan reported the trump family and Don Junior In Particular was angry at the overwhelmingly negative coverage about Jared Last Night and feels general kelly is hanging jared out to dry. Is he . You in your sourcing, do you sense or sniff out the possibility that mr. Kelly doesnt love mr. Jared kushner . I dont think he does. Based on my reporting, he says im the chief of staff. You can be family or you can be employees. If you choose to stay, youre going to be employees. Of course, that has caused tensions. You can fully be an employee and still be the president s soninlaw or his daughter. This has created all this tension within the white house. Even general kelly with four decades of experience in the military is finding it troubling to try to move forward and make some decisions. Theres an irony go ahead. Its not just that this is
some Vendetta Family versus staff. Kushner has huge security vulnerabilities. The reporting we saw that foreign governments are trying to influence him through his business. What did he do wrong that wont allow the fbi to clear him . Hes had meetings with foreign people he wasnt disclosing. When youre dishonest with investigators, thats a real red flag. He has foreign businesses that create huge vulnerabilities for leverage from Foreign Countries that want to get to him. Are people like ron dermer and bebe and people like that using this guy as a slight figure they can manipulate . Thats what the reporting was. Thats what the reporting suggests. The post reported, my colleagues two weeks ago, the fbi is still doing its Background Investigation on kushner. Thats why hes not getting the clearance. Theyre still doing field work on all his foreign meetings. This is so much march of the second year. Then Candidate Trump hammered
hillary clinton for her handling of Classified Information. Lets watch him in action and what he says about his rivals. We also need the best protection of Classified Information. Hillarys private email scandal which put our Classified Information into the reach of our enemies disqualifies her from the presidency. This was not just extreme carelessness with classified material. Which is still totally disquali disqualifying. This is calculated, deliberate, premeditated misconduct. In my administration, im going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of Classified Information. Okay. Peter, so he gets elected president and flips. He starts giving all the Classified Information to his soninlaw that cant pass muster with the fbi. Hes talking about Background Checks for buying guns but doesnt believe in them for people getting Classified Information. Hes got a real credibility
problem here and its his family thats causing it. Your thinking. Youre right the Classified Information was a big theme of his in the campaign and the question then becomes, are you living up to the standard you yourself set. What hes doing is still on the attack against hillary clinton. You saw just today in his tweet assailing Jeff Sessions for not having an investigation into how the Obama Administration handled the fisa warrant of carter page trying to make sure that the focus is on the democrats as much as he can. Its a tough battle when youre the president of the united states. Youre in office right now. Its your conduct and your staffs conduct at issue. Right now, of course, Jared Kushners in the spotlight. One of the reasons you bring in family on a staff like this because you want somebody you can trust. The downside is its harder to fire somebody if they mess up. Well, he didnt have to fire hope hicks. You know trump as well as any reporter. How does he operate with all these moving parts, hope splits, his soninlaw is a problem, his daughter he gives her big opportunities. Not problem there. The son is don jsh is no help. Yet he relies on the people that are no help. Who does help him . How does he get through the day and night . How does he do it. How does he do it . At the end of the day based on my experiences over the years was Candidate Trump and President Trump, hes a loner. He relies on staff, hope hicks provided him with media information. He was his own strategist. He saw the republican primaries and said im going to try to dominate that through the media. Ill do it my way. We keep talking about this staff are coming and going. If you know trump, at the end of the day, its him alone choosing to be alone, making decisions. And as a reporter, you step back and say thats what ive always encountered. Who does he call up and say im in trouble here. Can you help me. Is it tom barak . He loves working the phone. Hes more candid on the phone. Sometimes he Doesnt Want To hear what people have to say. Hell flesh out ideas with them. People will say i spoke to trump last night for 45 minutes. What did you say . He spoke for 44. This is who he is. Hes a complicated figure. And people work for him. Theyre friends with him but no one really controls him or ever has controlled him. I think back to my Access Hollywood conversation with him. He told me you dont know the life. Ive been through everything, personal problems, political problems, financial problems. And he said it was him alone after Access Hollywood watching television, watching the crowd outside of trump tower. You think how does he go without hope hicks or steve bannon . Its always about him at the end, not the staff. Sinatra. Sinatra in the white house. Thats what i hear. Thank you, peter baker, robert costa and mika, you were great
tonight. Come up, as if the chaos inside the white house wasnt enough, trumps feeling heat from two big sources right now. Nbc news is reporting tonight the special Counsel Robert Mueller is zeroing in on whether trump knew about that stolen democratic email cache before they were released by wikileaks and Reports Mueller is he digging into trumps Business Dealings with russia right now. On the home front, trumps also under pressure on guns. Today he seems ready to get behind a bill that strengthens Background Checks and raising the minimum age to buy an Assault Rifle. Hes got to do something in the wake of the deadly shooting in florida with all the young people coming to washington in march. Another stein hes under pressure, hes back at war with Jeff Sessions. He called him disgraceful today. His own Attorney General after the Attorney General opened an investigation into surveilance abuse and now sessions is hitting back. Finally, ill finish with trump
watch. He wont like this one. This is hardball where the action is. Get to spend more time together get more from your spring break getaway with exclusive hilton offers. Book yours, only at hilton. Com im walkin wow nshine im Walking On Sunshine wow applebees handcrafted burgers. Any burger just 7. 99. Now thats eatin good in the neighborhood. Today the country paid tribute to americas pastor, the late reverend billy graham. The leader who counseled president s more than 60 years was afforded one of the countrys greatest distinctions as his body lay in honor at the Capitol Rotunda. He became only the fourth private citizen to receive that honor, the first since rosa parks in 2005. Graham ministered to people from all walks of life from heads of state to every day americans. Today he was honored by all of them. It was something to see, that wooden coffin sitting in the Capitol Rotunda surrounded by all that history. Well be right back. And tank. And tiny. And this is lauras mobile Dog Grooming Palace. Laura can clean up a retriever that rolled in foxtails, but shes not much on articles of organization. Articles of what . So, she turned to legalzoom. They helped me out. She means we helped with her llc, trademark, and a lot of other legal stuff thats a part of running a business. So laura can get back to the dogs. Would you sit still . This is lauras mobile Dog Grooming Palace and this is where life meets legal. This is a tomato you can track from farm, to pot, to jar, to table. And serve with confidence that its safe. This is a diamond you can follow from mine to finger, and trust it never fell into the wrong hands. This is a shipment transferred two hundred times, transparently tracked from port to port. This is the ibm blockchain, built for smarter business. Built to run on the ibm cloud. Tyou know whats not awesome . Builtgigspeed internet. Ss. When only certain people can get it. Lets fix that. Lets give this guy gig really . And these kids, and these guys, him, ah. Oh hello. That lady, these houses yes, yes and yes. And dont forget about them. Uh huh, sure. Still yes xfinity delivers gig speed to more homes than anyone. Now you can get it, too. Welcome to the party. Woman back to hardball. Amid the chaos at the white house today, a new report today puts trump at the center of the special counsels probe into possible collusion with russia
during the 2016 election. Multiple people familiar with the probe tell nbc news Robert Muellers team is asking witnesses pointed questions whether donald trump was aware that democratic emails had been stolen before that was publicly known and whether he was involved in their strategic release. As the u. S. Intelligence community concluded over a year ago, putin himself ordered the operation that ultimately hacked it the accounts of the Democratic National committee and that of Hillary ClintonsCampaign Chairman john podesta. Those emails were then disseminated to the public through wikileaks as part of russias influence campaign to help elect trump over clinton. Among his lines of inquiry, mueller is questioning witnesses about the public overture that trump famously made to russia just after the first stolen emails were released when trump embraced their efforts and called on the kremlin to find more of clintons emails. Did you call on putin to stay out of this election . Im not going to tell putin what to do. Why should i . I will tell you this, russia, if youre listening, i hope youre able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. Ha. Ultimately todays reporting makes clear that Robert Muellers determined to find out when and how trump learned of the damaging emails russia possessed back then. As miriam roca told me on monday, anyone who knew of russias efforts and advanced their scheme could be implicated in a conspiracy charge. Lets watch her. Someone within the campaign if they were aware of those efforts and had knowledge of them and took symptom step to further those efforts, the goal of that conspiracy by others, then they could be liable for that conspiracy themselves. Im joined by senator richard
blumen tal, Randall Eliasson and kath i turco authored that report for nbc news. This is fascinating. Lets start with the fact of preknowledge. If the president knew about what the russians were up to in terms of podestas email, the dnc stuff and knew they were out to help hillary, im told by miriam and i guess this is Common Knowledge among prosecutors, if you advance the cause of a criminal activity, a criminal conspiracy, youre a coconspirator. That is the big question. What did donald trump know and when did he know it. You played the sound bite a moment ago of that News Conference from jewel 27, 2017 in the middle of the dplashlg convention. The hacked emails from the dnc had just started to come out. Donald trump was asked about this. Remember, had he taken these friendly positions towards russia and people were wondering why and what would trump say to this . Would he tell russia not to meddle in our election. You heard what he said, russia, if youre listening, i want to see Hillary Clintons emails. Investigators want to know if that call meant meant he knew not just about the hack of the dnc but the hack of the clinton server emails, podestas emails which didnt come out till october. How did he know about that if he did . Theyre also looking into roger stone, one of trumps Early Campaign advisers. Was a staffer on the campaign till august 2015. The Campaign Said he was fired. Roger stone said he quit. Investigators want tooid if he continued to be an unofficial part of the campaign and if so, what did he and trump talk about . Could have about been some sort of liaison between the two of them and could it have resulted in a back channel potentially with whoever had the hacked stolen emails. Roger stone in August Of 2016 was tweeting how it was going to be John Podestas turn in the
barrel. A month later, the same day as the Access Hollywood email, those Podesta Emails come out. That would help trump because he was facing so much scrutiny for what he said on that tape. Senator, either stone is jeanne dixon, hes a clairvoyant or just knows stuff. How did he know it would be John Podestas turn to get hacked . There was some real facts here tha