moderate. but so far hasn t pushed mcconnell to do anything. same with susan collins and a whole host of other senators that are up. mitch mcconnell wants to keep his senate majority so he does listen to the senators who are up. and frankly we have to do a much better job of holding them accountable. and i my hat is off to many of the gun groups which are ensuring that there are ads against cory gardner. but the pressure really shouldn t just be on mitch mcconnell, it should be on the senate candidates, the senate republicans up this cycle. you know, in speaking of putting pressure on him, you say that this is that it s not good enough to keep it on a state level, neera, you say it has to be federal legislation. but what realistically here can get done at this point seeing the back and forth, seeing the sort of standoff between the republicans and the democrats on these gun issues? well, i d say that, you know, in the aftermath of this of the last devastating shooting,
recognition that turning out passionate supporters in 2020 may be a better route to a second term than trying to attract undecided voters. what s the sense you get from covering this white house, eli? does re-election, does it cover pretty much all of the policy decisions the president makes or does he not consider them a great deal? i think overall that is the strategy the president adopts and so does this campaign. it s a base election, you have to juice turnout. there are fewer undecided voters out there at this point. an issue like this, even though 90% of the country supports background checks, they don t see this as an issue that is going to be the deciding thing for those few undecided voters. trump obviously much more concerned about some erosion of his base. that is a point that a lot of these gun groups and folks pushing away from the president to back away from background checks, they made that point over and over because they have observed this president for the
problems and but, you know, if you can reduce the difference between crack cocaine and powder cocaine, all these things that have dogged this country fort 35 years now, this is a step in the right direction. and in one of the most significant gun reforms in recent years, the trump administration has moved to ban rapid fire bump stocks. it reclassifies the items as machine guns making them illegal to sell or own. it is expected to take effect in late march, giving owners 90 days to surrender or destroy their devices, according to senior justice officials. several gun rights introoups groups have already announced plans to sue. it s a very small steps towards sane, rational, gun safety laws, but it is a first step. yeah. we should be flawed that it s there. we ll take it. we certainly had will take it. but the idea that gun groups are going to go sue and they ll
candidates coming into the mid-terms. what s the idea here? the idea here is pretty simple. we got to walk and chew gum at the same time. all these other issues are important. we have a chance to do something special on the issue of guns. we have a republican congress that won t support universal background checks support by 90% of the public. we re running that one day fundraising campaign for candidates who are running a-plus nra candidates. it s an effort to show the anti-gun violence movement has matured, grown-up. it may be just as powerful as the gun lobby is in 2018. this is the first time these different gun groups, moms in action, the gifford folks and their allies have gotten together on a big fundraising drive and it runs through today and we hope folks go on nra and
throughout history have ever suffered before. mr. rouhani was quoted warning the u.s. a war with iran is the mother of wars. meantime, president trump is slamming the fbi and justice department for releasing evidence surrounding this man, carter page. he s the former trump adviser accused of working for the russian government. page denies, that and mr. trump says it shows the fbi and justice department are biased. that s his allegation. when u.s. prosecutors charged maria butina with being a russian spy last week it opened up a new rift between the two countries. that s right. the russians and butina say she s just a pro-gun lobbyist who met with high-ranking politicians and gun groups for her job. prosecutors say she s something more sinister. our matthew chance takes a look at just how maria butina is. reporter: she shot directly to the heart of american