Them at a lot of schools where they had problems, these teachers love their students. The students love their teachers in many cases. These teachers love their students. And these teachers are talented with weaponry and with guns. They feel safe. Id 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, even though he heard lots of shots being fired inside. The teachers, coaches and other people in the building, the dean, the assistant dean, the principal, they can they love their people. They want to protect these kids. I think were better with that. This may be 10 or 20 of the population of teachers, et cetera. Its not all of them. You would have a lot. You would tell people that theyre inside. The beauty is, its concealed. Nobody would ever see it, unless they needed it. Its concealed. So this crazy man who walked in wouldnt even know who it is that has it. Thats good. Its not bad. Thats good. And a teacher would have shot the hell out of him before he knew what happened. They love their students. They love those students, folks. Remember that. They love their students. Im telling you, that would work. We need offensive capability. We cant just say, oh, it is a gunfree school. Were going to do it a little better. Then you say, what happens outside . The students now leave school, and you have 1,000 students. 3,500 at the school were talking about. But you have 1,000 students standing outside. The teachers are out there, also. If a madman comes along, we have the same problem but its outside of the school. Or they drive cars. There are a lot of things that can happen. I want to stop it. I know its a little controversial to say, but i have to say, since i started this two days ago, a lot of people that were totally opposed to it now agree. They love their students. They dont want their students to be killed and to be hurt. So we have to do something that works. One of the big measures that we will do, and everything in this room, i think, has to agree, and theres nobody that loves the Second Amendment more than i do, and there is nobody that respects the nra theyre friends of mine. They backed us all. Theyre great people, patriots. Theyre great people. But we really do have to strengthen up, really strengthen up, backgrounds checks. We have to do that. For the mentally ill, we dont want people mentally ill having any form of weaponry. We have to be very strong on that. Were going to do that, and i believe congress is going to get it through this time. They have a different leader, somebody who wants to get it through. Not somebody who is all talk and no action, like so many of these folks. This is somebody that wants to get it through. I also want to protect. We need a hardened site. It has to be hardened. It cant be soft because theyll sneak in through a window, sneak in some way and, again, youre standing there, totally unprote unprotected. You know the five great soldiers from four years ago. Three of them were world class marksman. They were at a military base in a gun free zone. They were asked to check their guns quite far away. A maniac walked in, guns blazing, killed all five of them. He wouldnt have had a chance if these worldclass marksman had, on a military base, access to their guns. Im going to look at the policy on military bases. All five were killed. All five. The guy wouldnt have had a chance. Were going to look at that whole military base gun free zone. If we cant have our military holding guns, its pretty bad. We had a number of instances on military bases. You know that. We want to protect our military. We want to make our military stronger and better than its ever been before. We also need to create a culture in our country that cherishes life and human dignity. Its part of what were talking about. A culture that condemns violence and never glorifies violence. We need to force real human connections and turn classmates and colleagues into friends and neighbors that want to fight for us. Were not just having a conversation about school safety. Youve had conversations, in all fairness. Im new here. But ive been seeing this going on for 20 years. The president gets up, everyone is enthusiastic the first few days, then it fades, fades, fades. Nothing is done. Lets get it done. Lets get it done right. We owe it to our country. Ive been watching a long time. Ive seen a lot of words and very little action. You know, if you think about it, most of it is just common sense. Its not, do you love guns, do you hate guns, its common sense. Its all common sense. Some of the strongest advocates about what im saying are the strongest advocates i know them very well political people, the strongest advocates for the Second Amendment. But this is common sense. In addition to securing our schools, were also implementing a strategy to secure our streets. We want our kids to be safe everywhere they go. Whether theyre in a classroom walking home from school or just outside playing with their friends. Every child deserves to grow up in a Safe Community surrounded by a loving family and to have a future filled with opportunity and with hope. Thank you. Just not fair. Reducing Violent Crime in america is a top priority for my administration. We will do whatever it takes to get it done. No talk. Were going to do what it takes to get it done. As youve seen pretty well reported, were significantly increasing gun prosecutions by tremendous percentages. Were working to get violent offenders all our streets and behind bars and get them behind bars quickly, for a long time, or get them the hell out of our country. In 2014, we brought cases against more violent offenders than any administration in a quarter of a century. More than any administration. Were just gearing up. We have tough people. Ill tell you what, when you deal with ms13, the only thing they understand is toughness. They dont want anything. All they understand is toughness. If that ice agent or Border Patrol agent is tougher than them, they respect him. We have the toughest guys youve ever seen. We got tough. They shouldnt be in our country. They were let in for years. They shouldnt be. Were getting them out. Our administration prosecuted more people for federal firearm charges than has been done in more than a decade. Again, were just gearing up. 1,200 gang members and nearly 500 human traffickers for indicted. Human trafficking, who would think we have this in this age . With our foreign partners, weve learned charge or arrest more than 4,000 members of the savage gang that we talked about, ms13. They dont like guns. You know why . Theyre not painful enough. These are animals. They cut people. They cut them up in little pieces, and they want them to suffer. We take them into our country because our immigration laws are so bad. When we catch them, its called catch and release. We have to, by law, catch them and then release them. Catch and release. I cant get the democrats, and nobody has been able to, for years to approve common sense measures. That when we catch these animal killers, we can lock them up and throw away the keys. In 2017, our brave ice officers arrested more than 100,000 criminal aliens who have committed tens of thousands of crimes. Believe me, these are great people. They cannot the laws are just against us. Theyre against safety. They dont make sense. You meet with democrats, and theyre always fighting for the criminal. Theyre not fighting for lawabiding citizens. Theyre always fighting for the criminal. Doesnt make sense. Here are some of the criminal convictions for the illegal aliens. 11,000 charges or convictions for sex crimes. 48,000 for assault. 13,000 for burglary. 18,000 for killing people. Were cracking down on sanctuary cities. Can you believe this . They protect. Thats another one. Because we want our cities to be sanctuaries for lawabiding americans, not for criminals. By the way, the Senate Democrat s and the House Democrats have totally abandoned daca. They dont even talk to me about it. They have totally abandoned. We get the reputation like daca, its not republican. Well, it is republican. We want to do something about daca. Get it solved after all these years. The democrats are being totally unresponsive. They dont want to do anything about daca. Im telling you. Its very possible that daca wont happen. It is not because of the republicans. It is going to be because of the democrats. Frankly, you better elect more republicans, folks, or it will never happen. The democrats voted in favor of sanctuary cities. In other words, they voted to protect criminal aliens instead of voting to protect the american citizens. To secure our country, we are calling on congress to build a great border wall to stop dangerous drugs and criminals from pouring into our country. Now, theyre willing to give us the wall, but they dont want to give us any of the laws to keep these people out. So, were going to get the wall, but they dont want to give us all of the other, chain migration, lottery. Think of the lottery. You have a country. They put names in. Do you think theyre giving us their good people . Not too many of you people are going to be in a lottery. We pick out people. Then they turn out to be horrendous. We dont understand why. Theyre not giving us their best people, folks. I mean, use your heads. Theyre giving us its a lottery. I dont want people coming into this country with a lottery. I want people coming into this country based on merit. Based on merit. I want people, and we all want to be admitting people, who have skills, who can support themselves financially, who can contribute to our economy, whethwho will love our people and who will share our values, who will love our country. I dont want people who drive a car at 100 miles an hour down the west side highway and kill eight innocent victims and destroy the lives of 14 more. Nobody talks about that. Nobody ever talks about the people that have been so horribly injured, who lose legs and arms. In manhattan, where i used to spend my time, i know it very well, the stretch along the west side highway, people run in order to stay in shape. They want to be healthy. They want to look good. They run. Theyre running all the time. I see it. They run. We work in different ways. But they run. Think of this, they run. They want to be fit. Theyre proud people. They want to be fit. Theyre running up and down west side highway. Its beautiful. It is a beautiful thing. This maniac takes a car going down the highway and just turns to a right and kills eight. But he really badly wounded 12 to 14 other people. Somebody runs to stay in shape, leaves the house, is jogging along, working hard, ends up going home two months later with no leg or with no arm or with two legs missing. Nobody ever talks about them. They talk about the people, rightfully, that were killed, but they dont talk about the people that whose lives have been changed. Just changed. They dont talk about that. This guy came in through chain migration and a part of the lottery system. They say 22 people came in with him. In other words, an aunt, an uncle, a grandfather, a mother, a father, whoever came in, but a lot of people came in. Thats chain migration. Lets see how those people are doing, by the way. Weve got to change our way. I want merit system. All these companies are coming into our country. Theyre all coming into our country. When they come in, they need people who will work. We need workers now. We need workers. But when i walked in today, did anyone ever hear me do the snake during the campaign . Because i had five people outside say, can you do the snake . I said, well, people have heard it. Who hasnt heard the snake . You should read it anyway. Lets do it. Shall we do it . Now, this was rock n roll song, little amendments. But a rock n roll song. Every time i do it, people and you have to think of this in terms of immigration. We have to have great people come in. I want people to come into our country. I want people that are going to help us. I dont want people that are going to come in and be septemb accepting all of the gifts of our country and contributing nothing. I dont want that. You dont want that. I want people that are going to help and people who will go to work for chrysler, who is moving from mexico into michigan. And so many others. And apple, by the way. And foxconn up in wisconsin. Theyre going to need 25,000 workers. I want people that can come in and get to work and work hard, even if it means a learning period. Thats fine. I want people that are going to come in and work. I want people that love us and look at security and want you to be safe. They want to be safe. I want great people coming into this country. I dont want people coming in the way they do now. I want people that contribute. This is called the snake. Think of it in terms of immigration. You may love it or think, isnt that terrible . If you say, isnt that terrible, who cares. The way they treat me, thats peanuts compared to the way they treat me, okay . Immigration. On her way to work one morning, down the path along the lake, a tenderhearted woman saw a poor, halfhearted, frozen snake. His pretty colored skin had been all frosted with the dew. Poor thing, she cried, ill take you in and ill take care of you. Take me in, o, tender woman, take me in for heavens sake. Take me in, o, tender woman, sighed the vicious snake. She wrapped him up all cozy in a comforter of silk. And laid him by her fireside with some honey and some milk. She hurried home from work that night, and as soon as she arrived, she found that pretty snake shed taken in had been revived. Take me in, oh, tender woman, take me in, for heavens sake. Take me in, o, tender woman, sighed the vicious snake. She clutched him to her bosom. Youre so beautiful, she cried. But if i hadnt brought you in, by now, surely, you would have died. She stroked his pretty skin again and kissed and held him tight, but instead of saying, thank you, that snake gave her a vicious bite. Take me in, o, tender woman, take me in, for heavens sake. Take me in, o, tender woman, sighed the vicious snake. I saved you, cried the woman, and youve bitten me. Heav heavens why . You know your bite is poisonous, and now im going to die. Oh, shut up, silly woman, said the reptile with a grin. You knew damn well i was a snake before you took me in. Thats what were doing with our country, folks. Were letting people in, and it is going to be a lot of trouble. Its only getting worse, but were giving you protection like never before. Our Law Enforcement is doing a better job than weve ever done before. We love our country. Were going to take care of our country. Were going to take care of our country. Just in finishing, our country is starting to do very well. Our economy is blazing. Jobs are at a record level. Jobs are so good. 2. 7 million jobs created since the election. Unemployment claims have reached a 45 year low. Africanamerican unemployment has reached the lowest level in our history. Hispanic unemployment has reached the lowest level in our history. Women unemployment is at the lowest level in 18 years. Wages are rising for the first time in many, many years. Small Business Confidence is at a record high. Thanks to our massive tax cuts, millions of americans are getting to keep a great perce percentage of their money, instead of paying it to a government that throws it out the window. I just leave you with this, we have to fight nancy pelosi. They want to give your money away. They want to give your money away. They want to end your tax cuts. They want to do things you wouldnt believe. Including taking your Second Amendment rights away. They will do that. They will do that. We have to get out there, and we have to fight in 18 like never ever. Just the way you fought with us. Just the way you fought with us. You fought so hard, and you were so tough, and you were so smart, you were so smart, and you know what, i know from a fact you did the right thing because were looking at the numbers. The numbers, even they have to given credit for the kind of numbers were producing. Nobody has ever seen anything like it. Under my administration, the era of economic surrender is over. Were renegotiating trade deals that are so bad, there its nafta or whether its world trade organization, which created china, it created. You look at china. It was going along like this. Then we opened, stupidly, this deal, and china has been like a rock rocket ship ever since. Now, last week, we had almost a 500 billion trade deficit with china. We cant have that. We cant have that. I have Great Respect for president xi, but we cant have that. We have to go and we have to do what we have to do. We just cant let countries, as an example, mexico, we have 100 billion trade deficit with mexico. What does that tell you . It tells you that nafta is no good. It never was any good. For some reason, nobody ever changed it. We emptied our faculties. You have to see the plants in mexico. Youve never seen anything like it before. I want those companies and theyre starting i want them back here. I want them back here. Theyre going to come back here, too. We want to make our neighbors happy, but we cant continuously have other nations taking advantage of the United States like never before. This has gone on for a long time. The last administration was a disaster, but this has gone on for much longer than the last administration. Weve got to change it. Were going to change it. Were renegotiating deals. Hate to say it, but if we cant make a fair deal for the United States, we will terminate the deal and start all over again. Well have to do it. So, under my administration, and with your help, dont forget, many of you were the forgotten people. You were the people that when the polls came out, they didnt know that you existed. The democrats are trying to figure out who you are because they want to get you back, but you were people. Weve had people that never voted, but theyre great patriots but never saw nobody they wanted to vote for. Then you see, trump pence, trump pence, hats, all sorts of things. Make America Great again hats, right . So, our country is starting to do well. We are going to make it greater, better, safer than it ever was before. The reason is you. This has been a great movement. They try like hell. They cannot stand what weve done. Were doing the right thing. Were even doing the right thing for them. They just dont know it yet. They just dont know it yet. Even the media, the media will absolutely support me sometime prior to the election. All those horrible people back there, theyre going to support me. You know why . Because if somebody else won, their ratings would go down. Theyd all be out of business. Nobody would watch. Theyd all be out of business. I just want to tell you that we are going to win. Id love you to get out and work real hard for 18. We need more republicans to keep the tax cuts and keep all of this going. I love you. I respect you. I appreciate everything youve done for the country. I appreciate everything youve done. I do want to say it, because people have asked, north korea, we imposed today the heaviest sanctions ever imposed on a country before. Frankly, hopefully, something positive can happen. We will see. Hopefully, something positive can happen. That just was announced, and i want to let you know. We have imposed the heaviest sanctions ever imposed. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for everything. You have been incredible partners. Incredible partners. I will let you know in the absolute strongest terms, were going to make America Great again. And i will never, ever, ever let you down. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay. A sprawling, truly sprawling, knee ya neandering speech by the president. Im used to hearing from fidel castro, president putin gives Something Like this every year, others gave speeches like this. By our executive producers conservative count, he touched on at least 31 different topics in the speech. None of which were russia, by the way. Russia didnt come up. Absolutely no mention of russia. Remember, last friday, 13 russians were indicted. The president made no mention of it. If the white house is watching, i would like to ask you, the president said over and over about these great trade deals that this administration is renegotiating. Yeah. We cover that every day here. I dont know of any. Please, let us know what they are. To the audience, we couldnt see the audience, only President Trump, when they were cheering about when President Trump was talking about leaving tpp, unless the audience was filled with chinese people, i have no idea chinese factory workers in particular. Why theyd be cheering. Leaving tpp has absolutely not done anything for america or the american worker. He keeps talking about nafta, which he talked about in the election. They also still havent done anything about that. Remarkable. This was a remarkable speech. Just touching on voter fraud there. We know the president s Voter Fraud Commission that was put together was, of course, disbanded. When talking about the stock market, he said he liked the fact there was the correction. Hed been saying, hey, isnt it going to go down . Absurd across the board. He continued to say nothing has ever been done like this historically. The amount of lies the president has told and this administration over the last year, that is unprecedented. There were a lot of lies in the speech, including the stuff you mentioned about trade, but talking about the fact that wages are finally going up. They hadnt gone up before his administration. Wages started going up it was stagnated after the recession. 2015 was the year that wages started to go up. They went up in 15, 16 and 17, and we think theyre going up. It was a remarkable speech. It was lie to new topic to another lie. It was very strange speech. Also, keep in mind, when he talked about unemployment, whether latino or africanamerican or unemployment as it relates to the numbers being so low, youre right. These are extraordinarily low numbers. We are not coming off a year when they were high. What the numbers are doing are continuing to trend down. Right. If you already had really low unemployment and then you continue an existing trend, youll have lower unemployment the next year, the next week, lower employment the next month. When you come off a stock market setting record highs and it goes up again, even by a point, you get a brandnew record. I dont understand how the audience continues to fall for this. The picture that the president is painting, that a year ago, when we took office, we were in dire economic straits, and now the good times are rolling, is 100 a lie. When he says that pennsylvania and West Virginia are doing extraordinarily well again, we know a coal factory, a mine, opened in pennsylvania in the last year. It was under president obama that the plans were underway. The plans were approved. If you asked the average worker, virginia, with the exception of the sentiment, which is up in a big way, you are not seeing good times rolling. He didnt have to cover the things that were not true. Id harken wed be able to give the president credit for maintaining the sentiment, maintaining the increase in the stock market and the unemployment. He didnt wreck something that was already happening. But because he claims he invented it, we have to stop and say, no, actually, you didnt. Unemployment was low. Stock market was high. Youre continuing a trend. I think it is a strange method. He keeps pointing to the back row, all the media, how theyre against us. No, were trying to keep you honest because youre lying to the crowd in front of you. While the tax cuts are a huge win for corporate america, he said, if we lose in the midterming, theyll be rever reversed. Its not true. Number two, we dont yet know. Yes, weve seen bonuses, some announcements. We dont yet know the kind of job growth it is going to spur. We dont know how it is going to affect our debt and our deficit. Thats a huge deal. Remember, conservatives dont like deficits. Ours is ballooning. Another point to put in perspective, you have a president up there continuing to go after his former political opponent from over a year ago, calling her a crook. You know what happened yesterday . 32 counts for his former Campaign Chair and his number two. Counting involving tax evasion and Money Laundering. Stunning that the president would continue to go after his former opponent, who he beat, calling her a crook, when look at all thats around him. Paul manafort, rick gates, mike flynn, george papadopoulos. I remember when scaramucci said, the president has great judgment and picks great people. Where is he going to visit them . In jail . We have a lot of news on a lot of fronts. I want to bring in garrett haake, there at cpac in maryland. Geoff bennet t jot joins us livm the white house. The president was getting a remarkable round of applause from the crowd at cpac. Im assuming it went as well as it looked from here. Reporter absolutely, ali. Look, thats the point. This was very much a political speech. If youre going to try to put a framework around all the different topics that the president covered here today, and there were dozens of them, this was a rally speech. It felt like i was at a rally that i covered of his in 2016. Build the wall. That were chants of lock her up at one point, the 2016 staple. The president recited the snake poem, familiar to people who covered his rallies in 2016. As he jumped from topic to topic, he continued to go back to the things that got him here. I think he fed off the crowds reaction to that. The two or three biggest moments of applause, the moments of positive feedback he got from the crowd here were talking about how he said democrats would try to take the Second Amendment away if they won in 2018. Yup. A direct electoral linkage hes trying to make there. Talked about moving the embassy to jerusalem. Thats something this crowd very much appreciated. Probably the lock her up moment was one of the other biggest things. Maybe going back to the cultural issues, when he talked about how he wants america to be a nation where we proudly stand for the pledge of allegiance and for the national anthem. This was a discursive, all over the place donald trump, who got around to the governing part of this at the very end, when he finally, almost as an afterthought, mentioned td sanctions against north korea, which the structural white house has been pushing as a big thing all day today. Two points to you. Reporter donald trump focusing on 2018 and trying to fire up the voters that got him here. Twopoints for the sat word, discursive. As it relates to President Trump saying democrats will take the Second Amendment away, he also said he is a man of his word. He keeps his campaign promises. He was talking about that with regard to israel and the embassy. In 2016, he put out a tweet that said, Hillary Clinton says im going to bring guns into schools. Lie. Well, in 2018, its exactly what he wants to do. Geoff, the president has a lot to think about, including the fact that he mentioned the north korea stuff right at the end. Hes got other issues hes facing, including were hearing reports about rick gates probably entering the guilty plea he was expected to enter this afternoon. But this is what president nj. The friendly crowd, touching on things that dont have to do with anything were needing to discuss in the country at the moment. Reporter thats right. The most salient part of the speech is what the president said about gun violence. He floated a hypothetical story about gunadept teachers. In effect, neutralizing, killing a mass shooter. He even pointed out the fact that the armed and uniformed School Resource officer there in parkland opted, for whatever reason, not to go into the school as the shooting was unfolding. The president said that trying to get his actual words here he said an armed teacher would have shot the hell out of the gunman before he knew what happened. Now, look, people close to the president are giving mixed signals about how serious he takes any of these proposals. Ill tell you, having talked with some folks on the hill who have been a part of these conversations for years, they say they see sort of a strategy here on the part of the white house and the nra, which is to focus on something as seemingly outlandish as Arming Teachers, even though eight states do allow it. To focus on that is a way to draw attention and intellectual scrutiny away from other proposals that might be more effective. Such as restricting assault rifles. This is one of the issues on which we can ask the president when he holds a joint press conference later this afternoon with the Prime Minister of australia. Well have to see if he calls on any outlets beyond the conservative outlets that he so often likes to call on during these kind of events, ali. Ali, he took his time speaking to the president i mean, the president took the time of the country. A week ago, teenagers were massacred. He took, what was it, five or seven minutes to tell the story of a snake. The snake, by the way, is the immigrant, for those of you who didnt think being called coming from a shole country was not bad enough. I was happy for you to take me into a silk bosom or whatever it was. Its nonsense. That kind of talk about immigration is offensive nonsense. Im not saying that as a journalist and msnbc employee. Im saying it as an immigrant, citizen of america. It is offensive nonsense. President trump, whose ancestors are immigrants, whose current wife is an immigrant, whose first wife whose current wifes parents are benefitting from the socalled chain migration. Its just ludicrous stuff. Lets talk about the stuff that matters. Were not going to be dragged into the president to continue to talk about nonsense. Moments ago, Florida Governor rick scott outlined changes he wants to get through the legislature in the next two weeks, including limited gun purchases, all gun purchases, to people over 21. Allowing the courts to prohibit violent or mentally ill people from purchasing firearms in certain instances. And calling for Law Enforcement officers in every school. Weve been talking about teachers being armed. Lets talk to a teacher from Stoneman Douglas high school. He is a supporter of the second amend. Ment amendment. Greg, your responses to the president talking about this conversation. If teachers like you were armed in the school, the results would have been different. One quick thing, american history. Im sorry. No big deal. It is a joke within the school. On a serious matter, the president discussed, one, that he was going to take action. He wasnt clear on what the action would be. One of the things that he did outline in his speech was discussing Arming Teachers in school. I do believe in the Second Amendment. I teach about the Second Amendment in this class. The Second Amendment, if we were to read it clearly, and look back to when it was originally passed in the late 1700s, it does not say anything about assault weapons, laser weapons, any other weapons that are in the future. At that time, they were using a musket that may shoot, maybe, three mini balls in a minute, if you were really fast at loading and reloading. Again, it did not anticipate, one, the weapons we have today that we currently see. As a teacher, with me owning a gun and bringing a gun in the classroom i own a gun. It was demonstrated yesterday by some of your other coworkers at my home. I think it is a very, very, very bad idea. I am a teacher. I did not train, do not want to be police. I do not want to be swat or the army. Am i keeping the gun in my belt, my pants, in my desk, locked in a safe . How am i going to be certain if i decide to shoot this student that it is a correct student. What if i shoot the strong student . What if im upset that day, no postal for all of us who are old enough, im mad at somebody else at work, mad at an administrator and i decide im going to use my weapon to take it out on them. What if the kid somehow overpowers me. They know i have a gun. Ive discussed many matter with some of my students. They have indicated, mr. Pittman, wed be more concerned with what you were doing with the gun and where is the gun than focusing on you as our teacher. As i understand from everything ive been told about the resource officer, who i did know at our school, he had been trained 30 some years to be a sheriffs officer. They, apparently, from what i know, didnt no what theyre supposed to do. They are trained to do this. I am not. I dont want the gun. It is a very bad idea. At my school, i posted some things last night to the teachers, and i only had maybe more than believe this, but ive only had one teacher that indicated and ive had one teacher out of the 215 or so on my campus that indicated that they would perhaps want a gun so they wouldnt be a sitting duck or target in the room. 99. 9 that ive spoken with do not want guns. We are not trained. They dont pay us to do this. Bad, bad, bad idea. Right. But it is a good talking point. We dont need things that are going to take teachers out of the mix because they, as you said, as a gun owner, as somebody trained to use a weapon, youre not looking to be the police or the Law Enforcement or the army or the military. Youre looking to be a teacher. Just in the same way that Law Enforcement officers are looking to do what theyre supposed to do. These are not two things you can simply combine into one being and hope it all works out. Exactly. Perhaps, we may need to have more security personnel on campus. Its a different story. Different measures they can take to make the campus for secure and safer, that can be done. By the way, if the student, the way the laws are currently in florida, coming back to what the governor had to say about changing the laws to 21 in florida, at this point, right now, you can buy an assault weapon in the state of florida by basically presenting a drivers license or permit. You cannot rent a car until youre 25. You cannot buy a beer until youre 21. Even with the pistol that can shoot a handful of shots, you have to have a threeday waiting period. This weapon is only a moneymaker for the gun limited checks. This student that did buy this went through every one of the legal hoops and hurdles that are there. So if he can do it, others can do it. Theres a huge problem in our country. Im not against all guns, but the assault weapons were created for the army and the military, not for every 18yearold to have. You dont need them to hunt with. We dont need them coming down our hallways. Im sure that the president wouldnt want where his son is in school, for someone to come down the hallway with an assault weapon, shooting students as they go through the school. It would all be different if it were their children. As long as it is not their kids, its a whole different story. I bet you have to go through ungodly security to get to where the kids are. Unlike ours. Greg, thank you so, so much for your time and commitment to the kids. Greg pittman is a history teacher at Stoneman Douglas high school. Thank you, ali. Thank you. Breaking news in Robert Muellers russia investigation. A source telling nbc news rick gates is expected to plead guilty today. An indication he is cooperating with the special counsel. Can you put this in perspective . Rick gates, at this moment, possibly pleading guilty, cooperating with mueller, at the same time President Trumps audience at cpac, what are they chanting . Lock her up, things to do with Hillary Clinton. Hillary clinton, now a private citizen, living her life. Theres an image right there. Rick gates in a black car, possibly cooperating, pleading guilty. Rick gates, we know who has already. Mike flynn. George papadopoulos. Paul manafort has been indicted. Put that in perfective. Nbc news ken dilanian and danny cevallis. This is a huge development. It has been expected for some time. There was a little confusion yesterday about whether gates had pulled back. Hed fired his lawyer. His new lawyer, green, known for cutting deals with the justice department. Other outlets are reporting he is expected to plead guilty as soon as today, and is expected to be cooperating. Heres where this is hugely significant. He was Paul Manaforts righthand man and close associate for years. They are charged together. A series of new charges was leveled against them yesterday. Bank fraud and tax fraud allegations. So if gates is cooperating, this puts enormous pressure on Paul Manafort, who is 68 years old and already facing, under the guidelines, 15 years in prison. Puts pressure on manafort to cut a deal. Manafort is the one that mueller appears to really want because of what he could potentially say about Trump Campaign collusion with russians, guys. Danny, this is whats important here, and that is, gates knows stuff about manafort. We assume that mueller believes that manafort holds the key to figuring out what happened at the june 9th meeting. What has happened with various contacts with the russians. Is it your impression that he is continuing to hes got gates to turn on manafort so the manafort defense has to change, or manafort has to cut a deal . Youve got it. That is the likely inference we can draw from this. U. S. Attorneys dont typically enter into these agreements unless the benefit outweighs the loss. After all, theyre agreeing to prosecute someone a little less than would have done. That seems to be the case here. Gates leads to manafort. Gates and manafort were in business together for a very long time. The other interesting thing is, they were already charged. They were already indicted and now there are these new indictments which suggest possibly that they were close to a deal with gates but then why hit him with this left hook, this final haymaker of these 32 new counts . Could it have been to absolutely secure his cooperation . Thats a possibility. But to get to this plea agreement, get to this cooperation, gates had to sit down with those prosecutors in advance and convince them, number one, that hes telling the truth, and number two, that he has information that impresses those u. S. Attorneys, information that they want so much that they will enter into an agreement to later on make a recommendation to a sentencing judge, a 5k1 motion to reduce his sentence. They dont, u. S. Attorneys dont enter into those agreements lightly. They do it only if they think the reward is worth what they are giving up. Okay, so these are heavy indictments, as you mentioned, 15 years, Paul Manafort could spend the rest of his life. What if the president pardons him . Thats a really interesting question. I think we should all be looking for that and doing some reporting on whether that is on the table. As you know, its been reported that the new York Attorney general is conducting his own investigation into manaforts conduct, and if any state charges were filed against Paul Manafort or anyone else, that would be out of reach of a president ial pardon. President trump cannot pardon someone on state charges. Lets say its Money Laundering they are focused on if its jared and jareds business and if muellers team handed this investigation of jared and his Family Business to lets say the brooklyn d. A. Would that be within the president s reach to pardon somebody that the brooklyn d. A. Is going after . No. The president cannot pardon state crimes. There are some, not many, but some limitations on the pardon power. Jareds business, thats a new york family real estate business. Exactly. The president could use language that pardons these defendants for any and all crimes they may have committed, or he could make it as narrow as these particular indicted crimes. If he does that, theres the possibility mueller is holding on to other charges. Not just the possibility, the reality, because we have seen he was doing exactly that. He charged them and then he charged them again several months later. So while there are very few strictures on the pardon power, one of them is it is completely ineffective against state crimes and in addition, its ineffective as to future conduct. If theres anything you are going to do in the future but pardons can be very broadly or very narrowly drawn, and the president theoretically could do it with a tweet. All right, ken, danny, thank you both so much. Before we go, i do just want to say it again. Florida governor rick scott says the state will require all individuals purchasing firearms to be over 21. Which means no more of this buying an ar15 if you are 18 years old. This is stunning. If you think about the nra stronghold in florida, theres a piece in the new yorker right now, hes an aplus. The head of the nra in the state of florida used to be the head of the nra back in the 90s, florida lawmakers answer to her. So we need to tip our hat. These teenagers, these kids, are moving mountains. Call them crisis actors, call them puppets for the left. Please. What these kids did, getting rick scott up there, stunning. You sent me something written yesterday, theyre coming, these are the good guys coming and theyre unarmed. They are the ones changing this thing. Fyi. Because the blogs were all crazy about the fact we reported accurately that rick scotts chief of staff told those kids in his waiting room hes too busy to see them. Thats what rick scotts staff told them. We reported on the news. Turns out he was at a funeral. That wasnt the point. The chief of staff said hes too busy to meet with you. All of a sudden it goes out on the news and he met with them at 5 00 that afternoon, and he got the wrath and anger and passion and creativity of those kids. These kids are unarmed. They are unafraid. They cannot be bought. They cannot be bullied. The Major League Baseball found a way to honor the victims and survivors. The league says players from all 30 teams will wear this Stoneman Douglas cap for spring training game openers today. I want to get one of those. Everybody should wear one. Several teams will be then signing the hats and auctioning them off to raise money for the victims and their families. That is fantastic. Lets bring in anthony sworczak, relief pitcher for the new york mets. He grew up in Broward County, where Stoneman Douglas is. His older sister graduated from marjory Stoneman Douglas high school. Thank you for being with us. No problem. Thanks for having me. The mets are one of the many teams donated the proceeds to the official victims fund. Tell me what this means to you. It means the world to me. I know it means the world to my family and any time you get to do something to support the victims and support the people involved in this terrible incident, you are going to jump all over it and try to do everything you can to raise awareness for whats going on. Now, you in part call Broward County your home. You have family still living there. How are people in that area doing through all this . I think that everybodys kind of pulling together. I think we are seeing what can happen when people come together and have a common goal in mind. Its not left or right or anything like that. Its just a common goal of making things better for everybody. I think thats whats happening. We read you also sent food to the high schools baseball team. You are talking to the mets about possibly hosting some of the students during spring training. Kind of interesting because what everybody is thinking about, what we are getting on our twitter feeds and all that is how can we continue to encourage these kids who are finally moving the needle in the way many people in our generation have not been successful in doing, to keep this momentum going, to keep their support going. It almost feels like anything anyone can do to show these kids support may actually change things, like they just did with Florida Governor rick scott saying you cant buy these guns anymore if youre 18 years old. Nobody buys a gun in florida until theyre 21. Yeah, i think thats good. I think thats a good adjustment. 21, it seems like the right age these days. I have no problem with that. Well, we appreciate what you and the mets and Major League Baseball is doing. We will support you in it. I will find out for our viewers where we can buy those hats. You can go to mlb. Com, my executive producer tells me. Mlb. Com is where you will be able to buy or bid on the players signed hats, Stoneman Douglas hats. What a way to show encouragement to this movement that i have to tell you, something we havent seen the likes of in a long time, a really big movement. We also have to remember, we talk so much about the extraordinary passion and strength of these kids and their parents. Remember, they went through the most horrible attack last week. I heard Steve Schmidt talk about it last night. You have lots of people in government, maybe they shot a gun before, maybe an ar15. Only these kids have lived through it. They know what an ar15 sounds like as its whizzing by you. They were running from it just a week ago. And look at their courage and strength. Youve got to realize what a long haul this is going to be. They could be excused for not wanting to talk to anybody, to keep to themselves, to just try and heal from the shock but no, they are going out there looking for change. You do have to say thank you to social media. Oftentimes after these attacks those who dont want to talk about, paul ryan said it right after, give lets not have a kneejerk reaction, now is not the time. Were not saying its the time. Those people who are there have the loudest and the strongest voices right now. Thats democracy. What it is time for is our monumental american honoring someone who may be deserving of more recognition. Today yet again, it is a hero of Stoneman Douglas high school. We are talking about him yesterday. Scott beigel. He opened his classroom door to let more students inside to safety. Thats when this man was shot and killed. He was also a Cross Country coach. On tuesday, the Community Held an event called parklands run for beigel. More than 800 students, staff and Community Members ran to remember the beloved teacher. He was 35 years old. 35 years oechltd. Thats a hero. His fiancee said if something ever happens to me, dont tell them i was a hero. Tell them i was a jerk. No, he wasnt. If hes a jerk, we should all be jerks. Without a doubt. Jerks who save lives. That man right there is a hero. Thank you so much for watching this hour of msnbc. I will be back at 3 00 p. M. We will see you together tomorrow at 12 30. Time for Andrea Mitchell reports. Right now on Andrea Mitchell reports, plea deal . A top former Trump Campaign official, rick gates, expected to plead guilty today. A signal hes cooperating with the special counsel. This after Robert Mueller added more charges to gates and Paul Manafort only yesterday. These new charges allege essentially that these guys were engaged in a crime spree while running the Trump Campaign. Its really looking like gates is about to flip and begin cooperating and that is bad news for manafort. Back on the trail. The president bathes in the glow of his base supporters. In an hourlong Campaign Style speech, serves up red meat. My administration i think has had the most successful first year in the history of the presidency. I really believe that. They will take away those massive tax cuts and they will take away your Second Amendment. We have a very crooked media. We had a crooked candidate, too, by the way. By the way, you dont mind if i go off script a little bit because its sort of boring. And failure to act. The armed Deputy Sheriff who was outside Stoneman Douglas high