The gunman. President trump calls to arm nations teachers and also slams the deputy who was on duty. What he did, he trained his whole life. Theres an example. When it came time to get in there and do something, he didnt have the courage or something happened, but he certainly did a poor job. Good day. Im Andrea Mitchell in washington. A lot of news today. Thanks for joining us. Breaking news, another bombshell in special counsel Robert Muellers russia investigation. A source familiar with the proceedings telling us that former Trump Campaign aide rick gates is expected to plead guilty today, an indication gates is cooperating with the special counsel. This comes a day after Robert Mueller filed a 32count indictment against both gates and former Trump Campaign chairman Paul Manafort, charging both men with additional crimes,
number of counts, some limited conduct that would vastly reduce his prison exposure. We believe this plea is happening in washington, d. C. As you mentioned, there
Coverage of national and international news, including breaking stories. Seated, the judge will give fairly long explanation. On. Reporter after the jury is seated, the judge will give fairly long explanation. Were not going to hear Opening Statements today. Its possible we could hear them tomorrow or thursday. Got it. Pete williams. Thank you very much. Let me bring in National Political reporter for the Washington Post and msnbc political analyst. Two msnbc contributors. Charlie savage. Let me go over briefly this reminder about Paul Manafort and why the Special Counsel is interested in him. Starts with donald trump. He hired Paul Manafort to run his president ial campaign in march 2016. Prior to his work on the Trump Campaign, manafort did political work overseas. Some for the prorussian
highlights which as you indicated, rick gates, all eyes will be on him. He was the right hand man to manafort. What hell have to do in order to fulfill his cooperation agreement, for the government
one line that may be a particular meaning is whether trump says something to the effect of watch michael cohen s father-in-law. the challenge there is what exactly is meant by that? does it mean watch to see what happens to him if he s ever investigated from what he did in the past? that might be acceptable. but on the other hand, it might be watch what i will do to michael cohen s father-in-law as the head of the d.o.j. it s the classic example of organized crime saying, hey, that s a real nice store you have there, it would be a shame if it were to catch on fire. if you go down the list of those who have been indicted or struck plea deals with the special counsel s office, it s the top of the trump campaign. it s a who s who in trump s 2016 campaign. paul manafort, michael flynn, michael cohen, rich gates,
man, was replaced long before the election took place. he was only there for a short period of time. he was with the campaign for a short period of time. i ve always known him to be a good plan. he s a nice guy. he worked for me a short period of time. literally for like a couple of months. it s like manafort has nothing to do with our campaign. bob, i asked sarah sanders at the last briefing if there was a message to paul manafort, she said not that she s aware of. i think back to our time back in cleveland. you were taking out rich gates and paul manafort talking to them all the time. we were trying to get quotes. paul manafort, rick gates were at the head of the republican party, at the head of the trump campaign. you could argue that manafort wasn t a formally the campaign chairman for his entire time working for then candidate trump but he came in pretty early in
a response. it s possible he could be talking about rich gates, papadopoulos, michael flynn, perhaps, all of whom who have pled guilty to serious crimes. the president calling eight witch hunt, despite more than 20 indictment, including a dozen russians who are accused of meddling in the 2016 campaign. this morning you have rudy guiliani on the state of the union staking to dana bash as you played that sound byte as illegitimate, saying the base was the firing of james comey and in his words illegal leaking of memos. she pressed whether the president would sit down one on one with robert mueller. it s something long been spec lighted. we understand the president s legal team and the special counsel are still sort of ironing out the details and the logistics for such an interview. here was guiliani s response,