Administration, and we are covering a number of stories. We should lay them out this way. First, the pentagon today talked about the success of the Cruise Missile attack on that syrian airfield. The u. S. Secretary of state is in russia. The Washington Post is reporting that Trump Campaign aide carter page was under surveillance for contact with russian agents and was the subject of a federal court warrant. And today during passover, the White House Press secretary said hitler, unlike assad in syria, did not use chemical weapons on his own people. They were instead taken to what he called holocaust centers. We didnt use chemical weapons in world war ii. You know, you had a you know, someone as despicable as hitler, who didnt even sink to using chemical weapons. Hitler isnt even sink to the level of using chemical weapons. What did you mean by that . I think when you come to sarin gas, there was no he was not using the gas on his own people the same way that assad is doing. There was not in the he brought them into the holocaust center. I understand that. One of those holocaust centers, better known as death camps, is marking an important anniversary today. Buken vauld in germany was liberated by pattons army on this day in 1945. Sean spicer as issued a statement of apology. He appeared on several networks tonight to deliver a full apology. Meanwhile, President Trump was asked about north korea today in an interview with Maria Bartiromo on fox business. It came after the ominous headline appeared north korea state media warns of Nuclear Strike if provoked. The president tonight talked about the Carrier Battle Group tonight being sent into the region. We are sending an armada, very powerful. We have submarines, very powerful, far more powerful than the aircraft carrier. That i can tell you. And we have the best military people on earth. And i will say this. He is doing the wrong thing. Lets bring in this evenings panel. A lot to talk about starting with michael mcfaul, former u. S. Ambassador to russia, former special assistant to president obama at the National Security council and an msnbc contributor. Our terrorism analyst malcolm nance, 35year veteran of the trade, including navy intelligence, special ops and homeland security. Author of the book, the plot to hack america, how putins cyber spies and wikileaks tried to steal the 2016 election. By anna gold riga is back with us tonight, and Ashley Parker, White House Reporter for the Washington Post. Hard to know where to begin. But, malcolm, i think the first question goes to you. Explain to the good folks watching what a fisa warrant is, how hard they are to get, how much certainty you have to show a federal judge that its worth looking at someone, and who is carter page . Well, as you know, carter page was a campaign person that donald trump said early last year was the person who, you know, advises him on issues of russia. A fisa warrant is a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant, which is a secret court which issues warrants so that american citizens who are being investigated for counterintelligence, which is spyhunting, or counterterrorism, which is, we suspect that theyre operating with terrorists, it allows the Justice Department to use all the National Resources or select resources to go after those individuals and work up a case or prove them innocent one way or the other. The fbi director, about three weeks ago, sat down along with the director of the National Security agency and made it very clear that a fisa warrant for it to be issued has a very High Standard of evidence. There has to be the evidence may be circumstantial, but it must indicate it will be successful if a warrant is issued. Tonight were hearing that carter page had a fisa warrant issued way back earlier in the summer, as early as june or july, and that means that this gives us a lot more information about this investigation. We must have the fbi certainly has way more information that has been worked up with his relationship with russia, whatever it is at this point, but it was significant enough that the fbi decided they needed to get an Intelligence Surveillance warrant against him. And that may explain some of the behavior of john brennan, the former cia director last august, when he was going around hair on fire, trying to get the gang of eight of congressional leaders to go along and understand russia was involved in this election interinterference. Malcolm, a quick followup, what happens in your life and your electronics when the full power of u. S. Surveillance, with the order of a federal judge, gets switched on . Oh, they can just take your life apart. You essentially have all the rights of, you know, a russian Intelligence Officer. You know, the fisa warrant is not a game. This is not something which is issued routinely although many of them do occur with great frequency. But it means that we know something, and we have indications that you are a linchpin to an investigation. So if youre calling a known russian Intelligence Officer and it will start out as incidental collection until the lawyers get involved. Then it will be passed on to the Justice Department. Theyll go to the fisa court. They will get a warrant, and then suddenly everything that was collected before and everything that will be collected after can be used to build an evidentiary case against you or, in some circumstances, prove you innocent. So that doesnt happen too often, but certainly in cases of terrorism and counterintelligence, we want to get as much information as possible. But this allows an american citizen to be collected on, on a scale that is if you havent seen it, its almost unimaginable. Ambassador mcfaul, do you agree with the contention kind of sown into the Washington Post piece tonight that this is the clearest evidence yet that they had reason to believe there were russian efforts to get to people around trump . Well, carter page had many interactions with russians. He traveled there. He identified himself as an adviser to the campaign although Campaign Officials subsequently have denied that. He was treated royally when he went there on one trip. He was the speaker at a commencement address at the new economic school. The last american to do that was president obama. I was there with him in 2009. So they were treating him. All that was Public Knowledge before this new information today. I think what this means for me is that they had reason to believe that he wasnt just talking about innocent things, that maybe he was talking about other things. But i also want to underscore that its not necessary that were talking about breaking crimes here because of this fisa warrant. It could be other things besides that, and we shouldnt judge that theyve gone already. They want to learn about what the russians did in our elections, rightly so, and this helps them to understand that further. Very good point, ambassador. Thank you. Bianna, as people watch this who are not tuned into the specificity of all these stories, is this going to turn out to be perhaps what the president meant when he was talking about being surveilled or wiretapped as he put it first in quotes . Well, who knows because as we know, he sent that tweet out, that notorious tweet before we knew any of this information. In fact, his aides went scrambling to find any sort of data that could back up his claim after the fact, not before. So this could very well feed into that narrative to sort of cause more chaos and confusion. But as you mentioned, this is the first clear evidence that were actually seeing a fisa warrant was issued back last summer. Ashley, the russian story, the russian prong of all things trump, they remain under investigation of course, has gotten messy and complicated and confusing. Is there a reaction tonight yet to the story your newspaper has published . Theres not really a clear reaction yet tonight on this story, but if you sort of look back, to me this story feels like the latest in this kind of drip, drip, drip on possible russia collusion. As you point out, it may be the clearest evidence yet. Theres a very high bar to get a fisa warrant. But typically if history is any indication, what the administration will sort of say is, you know, theres no there there. Its a lot of smoke and not very much fire. But i have to say sort of this story, and i can assure you whatever story comes next, and it feels like there will be some sort of next story does not help this administration with their general messaging narrative. They want to focus on their 100 days, on what they would say are accomplishments or on sort of getting rid of this cloud of russia thats kind of dogged them since the middle of the campaign. Ambassador, on russia, as we go to press tonight, the russians are dangling out maybe putin will meet with tillerson. Maybe not. Kind of a classic power move that could be validating or not. Thats right. Ive witnessed before. I remember traveling with secretary clinton in 2010 with the same ambiguity. But generally speaking, democrats or republicans for the last several administrations, that when a secretary of state, especially on his first trip to moscow, shows up, the president meets with him. So if putin decides not to, thats a big setback. That says that theyre trying to punish him for the things that he said and for the things that the administration said surrounding the attack that they did on syria. Bianna, eric trump ill paraphrase in an interview said this is the best proof yet. The air strike in syria, that the fix wasnt in, that my father was not beholden to the russians. It was almost expected to be read somewhere by someone. Right. Of course, hes saying, see whats happened over there. We sent 59 missiles. Of course my father is tough on putin. Hes not his puppet. Its interesting the Chinese Press once those missiles were sent that night, also said the next morning, this is an indication that trump is trying to deflect away from these close ties that he has with russia. So its not just eric trumps. Its other nations that are picking up on this as well. I think that eric trump is protesting a little too much right now and not necessarily in the right idea of having that thought out that way. And malcolm nance, lets not forget we have an accusation on the table, more accurately on twitter, from the current president , accusing the former president of a felony of, to use his word, wiretapping, later being described as kind of generic surveillance. You have said since the beginning that any number of people could have been surveilled whose jobs, business, titles brought them into the trump orbit and anyone they met with, spoke of, anyone with an interesting, enticing name would have gotten swept in. Thats still your contention . Oh, its always possible. I mean, you know, incidental collection happens within our network, within the National Systems that we use to collect information. So i mean, you know, if youve got a target and that targets in trump tower, for example, yeah. The title trump tower may come up, or a candidate who is running for president of the United States whos very unique may show up in peoples conversations. That is not surveillance. That is not targeted collection against that individual. So that accusation that he made was patently, on its face, a lie, and they have spent months Digging Deeper and deeper and deeper into this hole. I just you know, if i were to give them any advice, if i were called over to the white house, i would say, you know, honesty is the best policy. Just say it was a mistake, and lets walk away from this, and we can get back on to sailing the ship of government. But, brian, can i make a quick aside really quick . Sure. For all of this discussion that we have, the discussion youre going to have on north korea here very soon is the single most important one. Were sending a battle group up there, and the North Koreans are threatening atomic war, and the president is talking about submarines that are more powerful than an aircraft marier, which is put into perspective all of these things have their place within the universe. You know, trumps accusations on twitter are far smaller than the ones he did on north korea today. Malcolm and ambassador mcfaul, thank you gentlemen very much. The absolutely top tier guests on the subjects of their lifes work. Bianna and ashley, no such luck. Youre hanging around to talk to us in our next segment. Well take our first break here as the 11th hour continues this evening, sean spicer, assad, and the holocaust. Also new comments by the president tonight on steve bannon. So youre having a party . How nice. Ill be right there. And the butchery begins. What am i gonna wear . This party is super fancy. Lets go. Im ready. Are you my uber . [ horn honks ] hold on. Dont wait for watchathon week to return. [ doorbell rings ] whos that . Show me netflix. Sign up for netflix on x1 today and keep watching all year long. We didnt use chemical weapons in world war ii. You know, you had a, you know, someone as despicable as hitler who didnt even sink to the to using chemical weapons. The first comment from sean spicer today that started a seemingly uncontrollable ball starting to roll. That comment sparked the firestorm, led to a spoken clarification, three separate followup statements with wording added and changed each time, then a fullblown apology. Msnbcs chief Business Correspondent ali vel xi joins our conversation tonight. Bianna golodryga remains with us and Ashley Parker is still with us. It is with deep affection and appreciation for ashleys work that we welcome our friend back to the broadcast tonight because this was a big day for her. Ashley, of course, White House Reporter for the Washington Post. We must show you this. A camera was rolling on ashley as she reacted to sean spicer at todays briefing, specifically his contention about hitler not using chemical weapons. And repeated on a loop, it slowly took over the internet. We will now rerun the clip with the accompanying audio to see what she was reacting to. I just want to give you the opportunity to clarify something you said this evening. Quote, hitler didnt even sink to the level of using chemical weapons. What did you mean by that . I think when you come to sarin gas, there was no he was not using the gas on his own people the same way that assad is dog. There was clearly i understand your point. Thank you. I appreciate that. There was not, in the he brought them into the holocaust center. I understand that. Im saying in the way assad used them where he went into towns, dropped them down into the middle of towns. So the use of it, and i appreciate the clarification there. That was not the intent. After that clarification, the white house put out three variations of a statement landing in the end on this. In no way was i trying to lessen the horrendous nature of the holocaust. I was trying to draw a distinction of the tactic of using airplanes to drop chemical weapons on population centers. All did not go smoothly even after that, however. Spicer went on live with wolf blitzer stressing he wanted to apologize so as not to distract from the president s efforts to destabilize the middle east. He also told our Peter Alexander the president did not ask him to apologize. Bottom line, just wanted to get it set. You made the clarifications before. What do you have to say . Obviously i was really trying to make sure we talked about assads actions. To draw any kind of comparison to the holocaust was inappropriate and insensitive and obviously especially during a week like this, regret that. Your desire was an apology. I just want to give you the opportunity to make that apology. Absolutely. Im absolutely sorry, especially during a week like this to make a comparison that is inappropriate and inexcusable. Nancy pelosi says you should be fired. Is your job safe . I i well, you know what . I made a mistake. Im owning up to it. And, you know, this is obviously i would expect or i would hope that everyone understands that we all make mistakes and ask for forgiveness. There is speculation tonight that a news max article on assad and hitler may have put the idea in his head as news max is widely read in the trump west wing. Be that as it may, the damage was done. Our panelists are standing by. Ashley, in fairness, i have to start with you. Talk about the dynamic in the room. What the dynamic is likely to be tomorrow. And i dont mean to put you on the spot. Do you think he survives this . You know, i think you never know with this white house i should say at the outset. I think he does. One thing that was interesting is this is a white house that very rarely shows contrition of any sort. Their sort of response to making a mistake or being wrong is to double or triple down. So after the sort of first gaffe, and the opportunity to clean it up and the second gaffe, i think it was important that you saw him go out and unequivocally on a number of networks sort of apologize in no uncertain terms. I think that matters. Bianna, there was a contentious and tense interview with wolf blitzer on cnn where he paused to even correct sean spicers multitude nus pronunciations of the leader of syrias name. He knew he was facing a rough evening, and he took it. And wolf blitzer, the son of Holocaust Survivors, reminded sean spicer of the few remaining Holocaust Survivors that we have to tell the story. We still know there are holocaust deniers, some of them unfortunately Trump Supporters throughout this campaign. This is a very sensitive subject, a very sensitive issue to be talking about right now during the week of passover. I think it was right for sean to go out and apologize, and well see. I mean with this administration, you dont know how theyll react. At least for now, it does seem like his job is safe. Ali, there was some history here. The First Time Ever the white house put out a statement on holocaust remembrance that didnt mention jews. Yeah. And they struggled with it. President trump was asked about it. Others were asked about it. It was finally craig melvin on msnbc who got him to actually Say Something about it on tv. The struggle doesnt make sense considering that donald trump has jews in his blood family. The whole thing is just a little puzzling. I give sean credit that he got this out of the news cycle pretty fast. I am worried, though, because he made a comment about if bashar assad were to drop barrel bombs on his people, it might get a reaction from the president of the United States. Hes been dropping barrel bombs on his people for six years. This things been going on for six years. So im not worried that sean, for those of us who know him, were not worried hes devious or a bad guy. Do they not know the basics of whats going on . The reason why this is worrisome is because what malcolm nance said to you a few minutes ago. That is when we were talking about nuclear war with iran, we said we didnt want it. The iranians said they didnt want it. Thats very different with north korea. Were both talking about provocation. Donald trump says if the chinese dont help us, were going to take care of things. Kim jongun is saying if you provoke us, well launch Nuclear Weapons against you. We may be on the brink of nuclear war. We cant be getting distracted by factual inaccuracies coming out of the white house. Thats the part that worries me. Ashley, ill take on the dangerous task of paraphrasing ryan lizza who i heard tonight voicing a criticism from the president on down to the spicer level that the things one learns on a daily basis in the paper, you kind of you kind of absorb it in life, the history we learn over the course of a life are sometimes not evident. And youre covering a kind of new reality there. I i think thats true. You know, i think one thing going back to alis point very briefly is that on the barrel bombs, today you saw sean spicer going out and cleaning up this holocaust statement. But yesterday actually it got a little less attention, but it was the barrel bombs statement he was cleaning up. He did say that repeatedly in the press conference, sort of seeming to draw another red line with barrel bombs, which if he had done that, it would have been a huge change in u. S. Policy and sort of again, as soon as the briefing was over, you had reporters kind of racing back to the press office to ask, is that what sean spicer was just announcing from the podium, and did he intend to announce that . You know, if not, can you clarify, and can you clean that up. And they did. They certainly came out and said, no, the administration is not announcing a new policy. But i do think for some of the watchers especially, you know, in the Intelligence Community and foreign policy, there is something a little disconcerting when some of these really basic facts can sometimes seem to be in question. We did the math today to ashleys point, ali, and figured out that if theyre dropping barrel bombs at the same rate as last year on civilian populations, its one every 45 minutes. That would be a tacit declaration of war if that was our line. The Previous Administration with many flaws on its syria policy or its absence of a syria policy didnt draw that line because they knew that was a line that if you decide you are going after syria for assad dropping barrel bombs on his people, were at war with syria. So we have to think these things through. But i really would have hoped that in six years of preparing for this, people would have read in very well. Im hoping thats the lesson thats taken away from all of this for the folks in the white house. Know the facts about the two places in the world right now that are like the world was in 1914. The world is a tinderbox, and the light can go off in syria or in north korea. We have to know every last detail about our relations with those countries and what theyve been doing. This is not time for its not amateur hour. Dont forget our president just tonight said that we arent going into syria. Our defense secretary said our strategy has not changed, that the number one strategy and priority there is continuing to fight isis and continuing to see mixed messages coming from the white house. Sending what he called an armada. To our panel, thank you so much. Ashley, thanks for being a good sport. What a momentous day you were there to cover in the White House Press room. Coming up, reaction to all of this from one of trumps top supporters in the u. S. Congress the 11th hour continues. Aught. Studying to be a dentist and she gave me advice. She said dad. Go pro with crest prohealth. 4 out of 5 dentists confirm these crest prohealth products. Help maintain a professional clean. Crest prohealth. Really brought my mouth. To the next level. Go pro with crest prohealth