Syria. Did this strikes cause a significant blow to relations. Also this, congress hit a new benchmark this week. For the first time in history, they scircumvented meant to hel them Work Together. But it could get worse. Can lawmakers put the publics interests ahead of partisan politics. And isis claiming responsibility for this, two Church Bombings on this palm sunday in egypt. Dozens of people were killed, the latest this hour on that. And to voice your opinions on our pulse questions today, just grab your phone or a laptop, any digital device, go to pulse. M isnt nbc. Com america and thats where you can participate. Well be sharing the responses throughout the hour. You can vote as many times as youd like. But first, just this afternoon, we received news on another shakeup in the National Security council. An Administration Source confirms to nbc news that deputy National Security adviser k. T. Mcfarland is getting reassigned. Now, the news comes just days after steefr bve bannon al
Russia. Joining us now are White House Correspondent sara murray and manu raju. Manu, you had a chance to speak with senator graham a little while ago. What did he tell you . Thats right. We did talk about a hearing that he had yesterday in which sally yates and James Clapper did testify before his committee. He did say he felt that sally yates did an incredible job and he also said that perhaps donald trump kept Michael Flynn in that position for 18 days as National Security adviser, even as he was warned he could vehicle blackmailed because, quote, trump is very loyal to Michael Flynn. What intrigued Lindsey Graham was an exchange he had with James Clapper about possible business connections between trump interests and russian interests and clappers refusal to respond. Listen to his exchange from yesterday. General clapper, during your investigation of all things russia, did you ever find a situation where a trump business interest in russia gave you concern . Not in the course of th
He has been relatively quiet about what he wants to see in the replacement bill, but to the degree that the president has spoken about health care its been to keep the pressure on, the fact that he believes that obamacare needs to be repealed and needs to be replaced. Hes had no shortage of chen tear both on twitter and in person about the problems with that system. Now, legislatively, mike pence has been the one leading the way. He was on capitol hill several times last week meeting with republican senators to try to hash out the deal that could potentially pass in this bill. But one of the more interesting developments over the last couple days that maybe hasnt gotten as much ink as it probably should have is the president sort of opening up the idea of doing this over two bill, a repeal bill then a replace bill. Mitch mcconnell said over the weekend thats not the way hes pursuing this. But the white house director of legislative affairs said yesterday that perhaps this is something
That the decision to remove him from the west wing was quote fine as he clearly had become a distraction. Lets get right to our reporters. Jonathan swann of axios, one of the first to break this news. And phil rucker from the Washington Post and kelly o, white house reporter. You had been on bannon watch and you predicted this this morning but some differing versions of the timing of this decision. Lay out what we know at this hour. Look, yes, bannon has been telling people that he resigned on august 7th, effective august the 14th to mark one year since he joined the trump campaign. That was really a face saving decision, agreement. He was told that he was out. And that conversation happened a few weeks ago. The entire senior staff had basically turned against him. There were very few left in his corner by the end and frankly the president had turned against him. The president has been telling people, you know, who is this guy, what does he think he is . He resented steve bannon the na
Save a long time political ally. We begin with Tropical Storm harvey, the city of houston, one of the largest. 20 inches of rain have fallen in some places, an addition of 15 to 25 inches is expected across the texas coast as harvey moves slowly over the or ya. Emergency Services Performed hundreds of rescues tonight. The city of houston is urging residents to stay off the street unless they are in imminent danger many the mayor will be holding a press conference in h just an hour. Were going to go tote you that life. First lets go to stephanie g k gosk. Stephanie, its gotten white serious in houston. Reporter there are probably a lot of people that went to bed thinking this wasnt as bad as we thought it was going to be. This morning, they are waking up to their worst fears, overnight, historic amounts of rain. You shade 25 inches. The biggest event theyve had for rain in recent history here in houston was back in 2001. That was a Tropical Storm that dumped 24 inches over a onecoup of