Where is the line between the trump businesses and the Trump White House . You know, again, im here as a businessman. A businessman that hangs with the Prime Minister . Thats kind of weird. We begin today with something we havent quite seen before in the wake of a mass shooting in this country. The passionate demands for lawmakers to take action on gun control. Well, it appears to be gaining momentum. The parkland Florida Community braces for yet another day of heartbreaking funerals of teenagers. Several determined students will head to the state capital in tallahassee to make their voices heard. Its not just the students. Many parent, politicians and political donors are joining in the call for lawmakers to act. Heres a question. Are they going to do it . I remind the nra and juan la pierre, youre welcome to come on tv and join me. I dont know what youre afraid of, seats open. I have an Incredible Team here this morning to break down all this news. I want to start with nbcs Tammy Leitner in parkland. Today is another difficult day. Three more funerals. But students arent just home, they are resolved to make sure this doesnt happen again and theyre taking their message to the state capital. Its stunning because when weve had shootings before, we see a lot of makers say its too soon, its too soon. They dont get to say it this time because the students, though there in that building who lost classmates and teachers, theyre the ones saying enough is enough. Yes, thats right, stephanie. It is undoubtedly going to be a long emotional day for these students. Theyre going to start by attending the funeral of a very close friend of theirs, 16yearold carmen schentrup. And then from there, theyre going to be boarding several buses, 100 students and their parents, headed for tallahassee. Theyll leave here at 1 00. It will take them about 6 1 2 hours to get there. Theyll be sleeping in the civic center tonight. Tomorrow, theyll walk to the state capital where theyll be meeting with state leaders to discuss gun control. And one thing you really need to keep in mind, stephanie, is one week ago, these were normal High School Students thinking about going out on dates, thinking about soccer games and taking tests and now theyve become outspo outspokeen advocates for gun control. Well, theyre extraordinary young people. Talk to us about the family that Nicholas Cruz was living with, thats the shooter, at the time of the shooting. What are they saying . Because theyre not his immediate family. They were just a family he was living with. The snead family took in nikolas cruz back in november when his adopted mom died of pneumonia. They say they loved him as their own. They set ground rules. They told him that he needed to get a job, which he did. He needed to go back to school. He needed to abide by their house rules. They spoke with our kerry sanders. Now theyre going back and saying were there red flags that we missed. This is what they told kerry. Ive been racking my brain trying to figure out if something should have said in my head, you know, maybe should have paid more attention, and i cant i dont know. It was completely normal week. He told me two weeks ago its the happiest hes ever been. One big question, as we asked them, were you comfortable with nikolas having guns in your home and they told kerry they were comfortable. They put the condition down that he needed to buy a gun locker. They said they thought they were the only ones with the key to that gun locker. They now know that obviously that was not the case. Stephanie. They thought it was a normal week last week. It certainly wasnt. Thanks, tammy. I want to bring my panel in. Phillip rucker an msnbc political analyst and the White House Bureau chief for the washington post. My friend ron insana, cnbc contributor. And evan siegfried, a republican strategist. Phil, i want to start with the New Washington post abc poll, that says more than 6 in 10 americans are blaming congress and the president himself for not doing enough to prevent mass shootings. A spokesman for President Trump said he is open to improving background checks. But what sense are you actually getting from the white house . Is he going to follow through . I know he was with don jr. This weekend and don jr. , hes an nra enthusiast. I think there are competing pressures for President Trump. He views the nra as critical, as a core part of his base that helped get him elected and i think hes going to be very wary of crossing the nra. He also feels the political pressure to act, to do something. We know from our reporting down in the weekend in florida that the president was watching a lot of television. He watched those teenagers on tv pleading with the adults in washington to get something done. He also surveyed members down at maralago, his private club in florida about whether they think he should be championing more gun control. I think he returned to washington feeling that he needed to do something, that the pressure was real. Im just not convinced that hes going to go very far. He did watch those kids on tv. He visited parkland florida. He also played golf over the weekend while they were teenagers yes, yesterday. Teenagers buried on that very day. 68 percent of americans say stricter gun laws could have prevented the shooting. Weve all been here before, having this conversation. If there is enough momentum, its going to come from this generation thats now seen this, you know, far too many times. To harken back to vietnam, it was the voice of a generation. A youthful generation. That made their intentions known about that particular event in american history. And they fostered change. Now, i think obviously adults are going to have to be equally involved, if not more so. But the articulate nature of some of the comments coming from these young kids, from parkland, who have been extraordinary in their descriptions of the types of change they want, i dont think they can let this movement go. They need to be as vocal and as persistent and consistent as their baby boomer predecessors when this protest really needs to gather enough storm to get adults to listen. These young articulate extraordinarily strong young people who are now having their characters attacked by the far right, by russian bots. Which is stunning to me. But its not just young people speaking out. Big gop donors saying you know what, you continue to do nothing on gun control, were actually going to hold our daughtollars. Are those kind of donors significant enough to make a difference . We know a lot of politicians love the support of the nra. Theyre not significant at this point because youve got to get the major donors to get behind this. Phillip actually mentioned how donald trump is polling members of maralago. Weve had president s who have had kitchen cabinets. The country club cabinet is basically saying well, mr. President , youre wonderful and heres my latest plastic surgery. But they are not getting the pulse of what these kids are going through. If you actually go and now look at what the kids are going through, we have trump surrogates this morning attacking them on another network saying the left is really using them as political tools. We have conservative websites and conspiracy far right websites. The same kids who have been on television here. I saw them on with Chris Wallace who, last i checked, is part of fox news over the weekend. But theyre still being attacked and youre going to see this filter back to the president because it will get to him. The conservative media he consumes. He will move away. I am a pessimist on this. I may be a Second Amendment supporter but i do believe we need to improve background checks. We should have a proficiency test if you want to own a gun just like you can drive a car because we shouldnt have somebody who cant even wield a gun properly have owning one. Its very frustrating. I get these kids. Im glad theyre going out. What they should really do if they want to make a difference, theyve got to run for office themselves because this gop congress is not going to give them what they want. Its interesting, Brett Stevens wrote in the New York Times twice now conservative columnist. About repealing the Second Amendment in its entirety. I wouldnt go that far, but i think when you look at tobacco maybe as an analogue for this, weve taxed it, weve made the manufacturers liable for the outcomes. Cancer deaths have plummeted as a consequence. Tobacco is not the scourge of a generation as it once was. Guns are the scourge of this generation. I would argue not just background checks but going after the manufacturers, putting taxes on guns, outlawing assault weapons, ar15s and the like. No one needs those to shoot a dear if youre so inclined. Theyre just not necessary. The fact a mentally ill individual like this young man could get a hold of ten guns a year is unconscionable. The president says if you see something, say something. This is the issue. They saw something. They said something. Still, a student who is expelled from this high school, a student who wasnt even allowed to go to that high school when he was a student, with a backpack, needed to bring his belongings in a zip lock bag. I mentioned don jr. Before. Was with the president this weekend. Urging his father, according to the daily beast, to hold tight on this because the nra, without a doubt, helped President Trump win the election. Whos going to sway the president here . We know that ivanka loves to talk a big game about being a compassionate mother. I dont know too many compassionate mothers out there who are down with this. Well, ivanka might be compassionate in her pleadings with the president but he doesnt often listen to her. Weve seen that over the past year. The president knows that the nra, that gun supporters, that gun owners were a big part of his coalition that got him elected. Theyre going to be essential to the republican hopes in the midterm elections this fall. Theyre also going to be essential to trumps reelection. Hes going to cpac later this week. A big conservative conference. I mean this is top of mind for him. He always plays to his base. So i would be really surprised if he did something, you know, really moderate and progressive here on gun control. Remember, after the sandy hook shooting in newtown, connecticut, back in 2012, democrats controlled the senate. President obama was championing background checks. 80 approval in the polls and still that background checks bill could not get through the senate because of the Republican Opposition and the intense lobbying by the nra behind the scenes. Okay, evan, you know the Republican Party better than we do. I understand this intense behind the scenes republican lobbying effort. Again, i mentioned the strong hold of the nra. Yet the nra has no interest in coming down mano a mano, facetofa facetoface, sitting down for an interview. Youre welcome to join me any day, even on the weekends. What is it about the republican stronghold . Is his base not shrinking . When you hear from gun owners who say the nra is not representative of who i am as a hunter or a gun enthusiast, theyve gone simply too far . No, and the nra also has a giant checkbook no one else does . Nobody wants to get into a big public fight with the nra. I think so all Mike Bloombergs dollars, all the matching contributions, are meaningless . How does the nra have this much power . The nra is very good at its communications. At the same time, the sadness of this tragedy or overall is that President Trump is a political cam milian with no real core values. He actually could bring the Republican Base over if he really put his heart and soul into it and get sensible Gun Legislation done but he wont. One thing i think could do it, and Andrew Ross Sorkin begin speaking about it, is banks and ceos are having some consciousness on this and thinking maybe we just wont allow credit Card Transactions if youre buying guns or buying something from a store that sells guns you are in luck, my dear friend, Andrew Ross Sorkin, will join us later in the hour to talk about that. Corporate leaders, bankers, might be the ones grabbing moral campus. While politicianings are off the rails. Give us our last word from the white house, what you think is really going to happen here. Guns, i think theyre going to be having a lot of discussions. Theyre going to be convening a dialogue, if you will. I think the president s going to be very wary of coming down hard on one position or another until he really has to. But this issues not going to go away. The pressures there. Its only going to be only going to build because of these articulate teenagers in florida. Theyre coming to washington later this spring to have a big march on washington and raise attention and awareness at the front of the white house. Until he really has to. 17 people were senselessly gunned down last week. Youve got teenagers making their way to their States Capital in tallahassee. Theyre making their way to washington. Again, there is going to be that march in march. All about gun control. So i dont know, what could make the argument, nows about the time for it to happen. Just like they did with our election, Russian Hackers now trying to use the Florida Shooting as an opportunity to divide americans. As nbc first reported last week, fake twitter accounts, jack dorsey, wake up and Pay Attention to this, have been posting hundreds and hundreds of inflammatory messages about gun control. Nbcs intelligence and National Security reporter ken dilanian joins me now. Ken, im going to talk quickly about Public Companies. What do Public Companies need to do in order to get shareholders to be excited, grow. Hey, jack dorsey, it is not just about user growth. You control the fact that these bots are able to use your platform. Are you comfortable with that . So, ken, we know what jack dorseys comfortable with. Anything. What are these bots trying to accomplish . Theyre trying to fan the flames of political discord in our country. Which is not that difficult to do on the issue of gun control. In the first hour after this tragic shooting, these russia linked accounts which are tracked by private researchers began tweeting on both sides of the gun control debate and they adopted hash tags like gun control now and parkland shooting. And this is getting a lot of attention right now. But really its par for the course for these russianlinked accounts. Website called hamilton 68 has been tracking this for months. They do tend to tweet about various controversial issues including nfl protests. Theyve also really been attacking the Mueller Investigation and they had an amazing success with that release the memo campaign on that devin nunes memo attacking the fbi. That hash tag blew up overnight while most americans were sleeping. Researchers have traced it to russianlinked accounts with the alt right. So could make the argument that devin nunes memo also blew up. It was nothing. All right, you also posted a new article about hacking but not russia, now youre talking north korea. These bots, theyre equal opportunity i guess. Yes, i highlighted some new research by some private Security Companies that are really warning about a Shadowy Group of north korean hackers a lot of people havent paid attention to that focuses on espionage. This is not the group that attacked sony pictures. Not the group thats been stealing money from banks. This is a more shadowy National Security group of hackers. What caught my attention is that crowd strike says that these hackers can steal data from computers not connected to the internet. So they jump the air gap. That is a way we protect classified information in this country. Its a capability that only the most advanced hackers have. What this really underscores is north korea is really punching above its weight in terms of its offensive cyber capabilities, stephanie. This is complicated, all right, ken, thank you. You two stick around. Next, President Trump again taking to twitter this morning. Blaming obama. So now he acknowledged that there was russian interference but hes blaming obama for that interference in the election. But why hasnt he enacted this sanctions that easily passed the house and the senate . Before we go, you wont believe this is true, but jimmy fallon actually hosted a special fiveminute edition of the today show last night. I actually saw quest love on sunday night in last and he said i got to go home for a fiveminute show because of the olympics coverage. Take a listen to what he thinks about hockey. Olympic story right now is u. S. Hockey, the women are going for gold while the men are close to being eliminated. It also kind of sums up the year 2018. For 100 years, heritage and innovation have made gillette the 1 shave in america. Now get gillette quality at lower prices every day. Brought to you by more than a thousand workers in boston. Were proud of giving you our best. Gillette the best a man can get. 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