talking about how congress is taking no action on immigration. despite a looming deadline. congress is taking no action on guns. despite the fact americans want more gun safety laws. it seems the only person in washington that is moving forward, getting things done is bob mueller. and if that's the washington donald trump wants, that's the washington donald trump is going to get. thank you so much for being with us this week. we greatly appreciate it. please stick around. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage. >> thanks so much, joe. that was ending on a dark note. so i better light it up this morning. starting with feeling the spotlight. the president shocked wall street, capitol hill and his own white house, announcing new tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum. >> i'm surprised whoever advised him on this is, ought to be reprimanded.

>> reassuring americans that trade wars are good and, quote, easy to win. no, sir, they're not. grid lock on guns. as the president dines with leaders of the nra, congress, still at a standstill. admitting they've got zero plans, zero, to vote on guns. >> i'm going to watch actions instead of words. >> untangling the web. how a prominent russian politician used his ties to the nra to gain deeper access to american politics and of course our politicians. all right, you know what i'm going to begin with. president trump's call for new tariffs which is drawing major criticism from around the globe. and while the u.s. and international markets have been tanking on fears of a trade war, this president said today that trade wars are good and they're easy to win. that is 100% false. i have a great team here to break all of it down. first, i want to explain for you exactly what's going on here. this is something that the president, he's been talking

about it since the campaign trail. on thursday, he followed through by announcing tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. what is that? it's a government-imposed fee on foreign imports that make them more expensive, making domestic manufacturers cheaper by comparison for steel imports. it's a 25% tariff. for aluminum, 10%. trump and his main ally on this, i'm going to say his only ally, commerce secretary ross and his side kick peter navarro. they have wanted to do this for months. but they were getting lots of pushback by everyone. scores ofp are republicans and members of his own cabinet, most notably, gary cohen, hate, despite, detest this idea because they believe, like the market does, it undermines the free market and could prompt other countries to retaliate. on thursday, trump was looking for a fight and he made it clear america first.

>> people have no idea how badly our country has been treated by other countries. they've destroyed the steel industry. they've destroyed the aluminum industry and other industries. we're bringing it all back. >> so does this help america? that's debatable. it helps some american companies. specifically, steel and aluminum manufacturers. but it hurts american companies that use steel and aluminum. relying on cheaper imported metal to make everything from cars to beer cans. it hurts american consumers that may have to pay more for those items if the cost of raw materials goes up. it hurts those countries that send their steel and aluminum to the united states. now, tariffs might make more sense if they specifically targeted a country with unfair trade policies like china, which is what president trump wants to do. but here's the thing, that's not happening. these tariffs hit all countries. in fact, the top exporter of steel to the united states is our partner, our neighbor, our ally, canada. the next three are brazil, south

korea and mexico. all u.s. allies. russia is number 5. but china's not even in the top ten. the fear now is that some of these countries may retaliate by imposing tariffs on american products being shipped overseas. and this is what we mean by trade war. the stock market took those fears to heart on thursday, falling more than 400 points. and the futures, they are down again. i want to go to cnbc's ron insana. okay, ron, let's take a look at this. for the most part, the market ignores president trump's rhetoric. they think it's nonsense. they turn down the volume. they like his policies. they like deregulation. they like tax cuts. this is the first time we are seeing a trump policy tank the market. and today, when you look at what markets are really getting hit, it's germany and japan. two countries heavily reliant on exports. and there is no other negative economic news out there. if there's a market tank, it's got trump's name on it. >> i think you're absolutely

right. i think that introduction was brilliant. insofar as it really spells out what's at stake here. china not being in the top ten. we do have trade issues with china. they do dump aluminum and steel at below market prices. but this is such a broad sweeping set of tariffs that in the midst of nafta negotiations with canada and mexico, as you said, canada is the largest e s exporter of steel to the united states. as you suggested, led by peter navarro, who has really set china in their sights when it comes to this type of trade maneuver. yet china's not being target heard. the big worry on wall street isn't so much this is a singular item as that it could lead to what we called in the 1930s bigger thy neighbor trade policies with the tit-for-tat all around the world and that just weakens the global economy upon which the u.s. relies. >> it extended the great

depression. get your head around that. i want to take you inside the white house and explain exactly how trump's announcement came to be. remember what happened on wednesday. president trump had a very bad awful no good day. on wednesday, it was announced hope hicks was leaving. president trump was very upset that general kelly had downgraded his son-in-law jared kushner's security clearance. and you know he was fired up about jeff sessions. so ross, his commerce secretary who had been banging around the campaign and the white house for months, trying to push this antiquated idea on trade tariffs came and saw the president pushing this idea and you know at a time like that when president trump is backed into a corner and looking for a fight, will burr ross gave him one. president trump doubled down on this. the announcement came out that something was going to come forward. i can tell you the rest of the white house, led by the likes of a gary cohen, a steve mnuchin,

are apoplectic. why? you want to go after china? ip is your issue. there are bad trade practices. aluminum is a fight in the past. china will take this and keep laughing. by yesterday afternoon, when president trump saw the market go down, he was surprised. he was joined in the oval office by some of those executives. and general kelly who you rarely see defend those new yorkers in the white house, told the president, mr. president, these guys have told you hundreds of times this would be the market reaction. the president acted surprised. i'm not quite sure why. and here he is today, in classic president trump form, doubling down. now, it has been reported that there are people in the commerce department furious that wilbur ross did this, they're threatening to leave. but, the president has extended it until next friday when he'll possibly make this decision.

the game plan for many in the white house is to get the president to wake up, open his eyes and see the error in his ways. for the president, the calculation is difficult. he's going to be embarrassed. the market is down. as i said before, that's the trump trade. i want to bring my panel in. an msnbc political analyst. shawn patrick maloney is a democratic congressman from new york. elise jordan, a "time" columnist and former adviser to senator rand paul. mr. stokles, to you first -- oh, rand paul? what did i say? i got a mouthful this morning. apologies. eli stokles, the president made this announcement. he's gotten heat from all over the place. your former paper, "the wall street journal," ran an editorial calling this the worst blunder of his presidency. and you know the president loves "the wall street journal." jared baker of "the wall street journal" loves the president. and he certainly is close with rupert murdoch. what do you think here? >> well, i think you're right.

you're right this is a decision that got made because the president was angry and backed into a corner. there's this conflict within trump. this is something he has always been clear about. his protectionism on trade was something he sold to voters in those states that he won, those rust belt states. so this is sort of where donald trump has always wanted to go with the breakdown and the process in the white house of late around guns and around trade. you've seen the people who wanted him to go in this direction kind of have their way and there was no place for cohen and those others to come in and sort of put the guardrails on. i think the conflict inside donald trump is not just that he's a protectionist on trade deep down and wants to do this and show strength, wants to foment a trade war, tweeting about it, using the words trade war. but the conflict is this is a president who wants to be liked, who wants to be lauded. when "the wall street journal," when republican allies on capitol hill almost all of them

are clamoring and upset about this when they're pointing to a precipitous stock market drop, that is something -- sarah sanders this morning saying to reporters he wasn't deterred by the stock market drop, but she said, you know, there's always a chance that something that is anticipated to happen won't happen. so we've seen the president do this on nafta -- >> hold on a second -- >> -- so we just don't really know what he's going to do, but there is this tension between having these deep, strong feelings on trade and also recognizing the chorus of critics and the possible backlash and being somewhat fearful of it i think. >> let's just quickly myth bust. last night sarah sanders went on one of her favorite tweet tirades where she said the mainstream media never talks about jobs, trade, the economy. 100%, we absolutely do, sarah. and i remind you, the white house hasn't offered me an interview with anyone who works on those things since last june. to say this wasn't predicted?

people knew a president made a move like this on trade, on tariffs, the market would hate it. he's going to be loved by a very small universe of people who he went and saw on a campaign trail but not from the markets and he does love the mar-a-lago crowd. congressman, i want to read from you a tweet from trump this morning. when a country, usa, is losing many billions of dollars on trade with verdict wale every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win. example, when we are down $100 billion with a certain country and they get cute, don't trade anymosh anymore, we win big, it's easy. the trade deficit with china since president trump is in office has gotten bigger. >> you need a theorous for the word "stupid." just because universally people who understand this stuff know how dumb it is, don't forget the president is also good at some

things. we have a special election going on in western pennsylvania now. what is the democrat conner lamb going to say about this? the fact of the matter is, he won the argument on trade all through 2016. there are real, real issues there. there are millions of americans who are suffering. they think because of our trade policies. a bunch of us haven't done a very good job explaining why the wonders of the world economy help any of them. the president is in a space that is actually a political winner for him. so my advice to all of us is we're so sure he's dumb, we forget how smart he is on some things. he's a very good demagogue on issues like this. he plays off the fears of people who are suffering. i'm not sure it amounts to much because i think he's just making something up to get through the news cycle as usual. particularly to get off the gun embarrassment from the day before. but i'm not sure it's as dumb politically as everybody thinks. >> what about when he needs to deliver? he's won this political fight. you've got people in western pennsylvania and upstate new york who do feel like they've lost their jobs and it's unjust. but now is the time when

president trump has to deliver on these promises because he won the election. >> right. well, except that -- except that, you know, we're all golden retrievers and he's got the tennis ball, so every time he tosses one of these things, we all chase it around but he just picks up another one and throws it in the other direction when we come back with what we think makes sense. >> and he can say to his base i tried. >> i didn't get a chance to comment on wednesday crazy and now it's thursday crazy and by saturday it's whatever he says today. so i think the responsible thing to do is try to focus in on what actually matters. what actually matters is we do have trade policies that help the communities like a lot of the ones i represent that have been left behind by this economy that's concentrating wealth among certain communities, among certain types of americans, and to really get at how we grow wealth again in this country. we have to compete on this emotional level that he's frankly better at. where he simply plays off the fears and the pain of so many people. it's not enough to say that everybody who took macro

economics at a good school knows this is dumb. that's not winning this communications challenge. what is going to win it is when we say listen, we know you're hurting, but here's a better way to go. i know the market is a powerful issue to him. he can brag about the good market. he can crash it. he can't do both. the fact is i do worry we are falling into another trump trap here where we go running around, talking about how protecting the u.s. steel industry is a bad thing. we should think about that before we say it. >> we could make the point is he going to be able to continue this narrative through next friday like he said he'll have some final decision by next friday. if he could successfully carry any theme over the course of the week, given the chaos of late, the chaos since day one. but i do think that's an important point to consider, that this is yet another political frisbee he's tossing out there and it resonates with millions of americans who

haven't seen their wages increase since the beginning of the 2000s and who actually think donald trump cares about trade issues and making it more equitable. >> there are 130,000 americans working in the steel industry. that matters. but these tariffs are going to hurt companies that employ more than 6 million people. these are true statements. to eli stokles, do they matter, because those 140,000 americans are die-hard trump supporters. and they are hurt. and he does speak to them. president trump is not someone who has to stick by his word. >> yes, that's right. he'll sort of switch directions and just sort of, you know, it's hard to pin him down, but i think 140,000 is an important number, but getting back to what the congressman was just saying, he's exactly right about the politics and messaging of this. there are a lot more than 140,000 people who are going to read the politics of this. they are going to say, see, he's doing what he said he was going

to do. he cares about the depressed working class workers in this country. and that's why i voted for him. this is something, it's another instance of economic policy in this case where we've already seen foreign policy and other things. this administration sort of making policy based on the politics of what got donald trump elected. it's appealing to that core supporter, that core group of supporters in the rust belt states. i think, you know, it's hard to sometimes separate politics from policy. they believe these are the kinds of things that are going to keep donald trump viable even amidst all the policies. >> when a country taxes our products coming in, say, 50%, and we tax the same product coming in to our country at zero, not fair or smart. we will soon be starting reciprocal taxes so we will charge the same thing as they charge us.

800 billion, trade deficit, have no choice. all right, sean, you represent a lot of these people in upstate new york. while the majority of the white house could be saying please stop tweeting, mr. president, you don't know what you're talking about, and wilbur ross is tweeting this, what do you say? >> what i say is, look, if the president wants to have a serious conversation about, you know, growing the american economy, i'm all in. if we want to talk about rebuilding our infrastructure, if we want to talk about smart manufacturing, if we want to talk about the skills gaps. we're doing better for technical education for the folks in my district who can't take the jobs that are open there with the low unemployment rate that they can support a family on. i do think, until you're in relationship with those voters, until they trust you, they are more likely to go with this guy. because when they see him crashing around among these global elites who all kind of gather up -- gather up their scorn for this guy, that is exactly why they supported him.

because this whole system is so brilliant internationally, why isn't it working for so many americans? they want it blown up. that's not a bug, it is a feature of this president. he's smart enough to remember that. if he starts following gary cohen around, he's not the guy who won the presidency. so some of us who actually care about this, who actually -- who actually believe in addressing these issues, not just exploiting them, have to fill that gap or we will keep getting beat by this guy. i am tired of -- i want to drive it, not ride it. and right now we're all riding the trump bus on this. >> okay, but then is he a super genius? if that upstate new york voter who is loyal to him who trusts him, if they're not leaving the bus, but now put yesterday aside, you saw president trump, listen, he was mocked by the davos crowd a year ago. last summer when jared and ivanka went to the allen and company conference out in sun valley, people were trash talking them right and left until they showed up. then you would have thought it was like the queen and king of

england. gary cohen has won over a lot of wealthy people in the last year. leaving carried interest in with the tax cut. has donald trump found a thread here where he's got a base in upstate new york and he's also won over wall street? >> for a while maybe. i think this is the point. you can -- look, this guy's making it up as he goes along. you can play this for a while. but, you know, the law of gravity has not been repealed. this is not going to end well. the people who are going to suffer are the very people he's exploitding right now. some of us care about that. some of us actually do this to actually bring substantive solutions to those very real problems. he is the wrong answer to the right questions. we have to make sure we are making that distinction. i don't think this ends well. a bunch of us are going to go around and try to clean it up. the problem is you sound like the parents coming home next morning after he had the party all night and who do you want to hang out with. the people who are having the

party or the people saying you got to get up and work in the morning, now it's time to clean up the mess? so you better build a relationship with these voter because we have to ask some hard things of them when this guy is doing destroying our fiscal ability, throwing debt on the economy and creating this real ripple among our allies that is not going to be easy to undo if they follow through on it. the only good news here, i think nothing comes of this. meanwhile, we all exhaust ourselves on this stupid thing. vladimir putin is bragging about smart cruise missiles that can attack the united states. and the president of the u.s. is nowhere on that. >> nowhere on that. artificial intelligence, have you ever heard the president talk about it? never, never. >> i wonder how this ends though if donald trump is still able to attack the elites as just simply blocking his agenda at every step and turn.

he is so brilliant at changing the narrative to, oh, it's i had the right intentions but it's just the entrenched deep state, you know, this isn't -- well, it is national security but, you know, this is the entrenched global elites who are blocking him at every turn as he tries to make things better for the american worker. that i think is the political risk for people who oppose these policies. >> hot damn, that was a great conversation. all right, coming up, despite the tremendous outcry for new gun control legislation, senate majority leader mitch mcconnell apparently has bigger priorities. after a, quote, great, i love these, great dinner with the nra, could priorities change for the president as well? i might have to take president trump to dinner. he doesn't know what great dinners are. after the controversial tariff announcement, stephen colbert, he tried to make sense of it. >> it could make things like beer, cars and baseball bats more expensive. i mean, when i hear that, it

just makes you want to get drunk and smash a car with a baseball bat. but who can afford it now? how do you chase what you love

with moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis? do what i did. ask your doctor about humira. it's proven to help relieve pain and protect joints from further irreversible damage in many adults. humira works by targeting and helping to block a specific source of inflammation that contributes to ra symptoms. humira has been clinically studied for over 20 years. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened; as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. ready for a new chapter? talk to your rheumatologist about humira.

this is humira at work.

his welcome back, i'm stephanie ruhle. passing a gun control bill. his remarks coming after president trump met with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and embraced calls for sweeping changes to gun laws.

shocking his fellow republicans. take a look. >> i have seen this movie before. if it ends up like immigration, he's done himself a lot of harm. >> i have some real questions. >> do you think this president understands gun culture? >> i don't know. i really don't know. >> last night, trump met with the nra following the backlash and hailed the meeting saying on twitter good, great meeting in the oval office. tonight with the nra. i need my panel to make sense of this. okay, president trump bounced from blaming democrats for not doing enough on gun control to then saying he wants to take the gun first, due process later. now maybe he wants to meet with video gamemakers. i talked to a ceo of an electronic arts company last night who said i got no invite yet. you are a lawmakers. you represent upstate new york. how do you read all of this? >> first of all, god bless the

kids from parkland. i met with him this week. they were in washington. they are leading us. they have this wonderful maybe naive but really precious thing, which is they believe if they come to washington and they tell us what has happened to them, we will do something. >> is that mitch mcconnell said no, we're going to look at banking? >> that's right, except they are -- they are what is great about them is they don't know that's the way the world works. and by the way, i'm guessing the people who walk across the bridge in selma didn't know the way the world worked. and every once in a while, the world changes. when you get older like some of us, you think everything's going to stay the same and you've seen it all before. something is different about this. and we have had, i represent a district that voted for the president that is 60% rural, 25% military families. in my district, people are scared to death. we've had dozens of school

closed because of threats. >> because of threats? >> because of threats. in beacon, in pine bush, in middletown. all over my district. because parents are so freaked out about anything that might be a threat. there are real threats. >> wow. >> we have to do something. the only thing i want out of the president and congressional leaders is an agreement that the status quo is not working. you got 1,600 school shootings, mass shootings since new town. what we're doing is not working. if they got some, let's go. but doing nothing cannot be an option. >> could trump though be the ideal candidate to get something done? i spoke to joe manchin yesterday who said people from west virginia would never let barak obama do anything because they didn't trust the slippery slope. president trump has been embraced by gun country, gun culture. if he did something behind that,

don't they trust him and believe it will be limited and it could be common sense gun control? >> i think president trump certainly could be a real driver of change on this issue. but the question is, what does he actually believe? he is so confused over what he actually wants on this issue. he sounds like a lifelong new yorker democrat when he's talking about gun control and the open meeting. then he's switching over, he remembers the nra, they're his friends too. the confusion really drives the map. that's what you're hearing from democrats who want this change. and then republicans are watching him hesitantly because they can't follow someone who they're not sure what he's going to actually back up the moment after he says a new problem low mation. >> i don't want to be a cynic but mitch mcconnell is not going to bring anything to the floor and these kids are amazing and motivated but they don't have a specific ask or really anyone to ask it to. >> that's mitch mcconnell's

choice. it's also the choice of the american people. whether some of these guys get their ass kicked in november. because until this happens, this issue will never move. until there is a political price to pay. what i'm telling you is when you put it together with everything else, i believe there's a significant part of the american electorate right now that is going to look really, really negatively on someone who says i got nothing after all these school shootings. by the way, we're all really reasonable. they're asking for raising the age. they're asking for raising background checks. for closing the charleston loophole. this is not, you know, earth shattering stuff. doesn't have anything to do with the second amendment. really all we need to do in the area of gun safety is think of the semiautomatic weapon the way we think of a fully automatic weapon and you wouldn't touch the second amendment and we can get these things like the australians did out of the market and we can do a lot on school security. there's all sorts of things we should do.

i think there has to be a political price for that. >> something young democrats can do is activate young voters that didn't show up last time. the opening bell rang. as you can see, ouch, the market's down 255. remember, markets are volatile. markets are irrational. but if you're going to live by the sword, you've got to die by the sword. the president and his sons and sarah huckabee sanders, i'm winking at you, love to talk about those markets. let's bring ron insana back. oh, ron. >> oh, stephanie. it's not as bad as it could have been. we were down as much as 280 points. cutting those losses a little bit. there's this broad sense of uncertainty. which goes beyond the question of potential trade wars. whether the united states stays in nafta. you also have a white house that is completely in disarray. that does not engender confidence in any process that is being undertaken in the nation's capital, particularly in the white house right now. so with that as not just back ground but also prologue, the

market's going to have conceivably a rougher time going forward than we saw up until february. where with the first down month in ten yesterday started off very difficult. today again we have nearly a 1% decline. so volatility is picking up appropriately in line with some of the confusion. both about economic and broader geopolitical policy, not to mention all the white house intrigue. >> ron, let's take the white house intrigue out. let's take orrin hatch saying whoever advised the president on this steered him in the wrong direction. let's just look at the markets in a brutal way. if the white house can get the president to change course, which i actually think they have a good chance of doing. right now, he may be digging in. he may be looking for his way out. but if he changes course and says forget about it which he often does, this is going to be a buying opportunity. because the market only went down because of his threat of a trade war. >> i agree. he also has to change his mind about and maybe soften his position on nafta, which as my colleague larry kudlow pointed out this morning, there's some

risk we pull out of nafta as well, which would be as big, if not a bigger deal, than these global tariffs open steel and aluminum. there's also the issue of whether or not the u.s. economy is moving towards an overheated stage that leads to higher interest rates which again would be problematic for stocks. if the president backed away from this, you would get a snap back rally, a big rebound and it would be what we like to call a tradeable bottom. whether or not we're out of the woods in the longer term remains to be seen. yes, you would have to see the president back away from this particular stance to get a bounce here. if he digs his heels in and continues down this road -- remember, navarro, ross, are whispering in his ear that this is a good idea -- >> lighthouser is definitely not. right now this is wilbur ross and peter navarro acting alone. lighthouser is on the other side of the building urging mr. president. larry kudlow would certainly know. ross, navarro, those are his homeboys. >> yes, absolutely, particularly when it comes to trade.

again, most of those complaints have been with china. as you pointed out right at the top of this show, this is not about china. this is about an entire global steel supply. it's an ill considered move on the part of the white house. >> i want to go after china. this is not the path. up next, thank you, ron, a new report about russia's meddling in our politics by way of the nra. please, turn up the volume. i want to turn up the attention to this. we are trying to keep track of gun violence in this country. sadly, parkland was not a one off. according to the trace, there have been 8,942 incidents of gun violence in the united states so far this year. since monday of this week, there have been 15 accidental shootings and two mass shootings. yesterday, on the 1st of march, there were 43 shootings in the united states of america, the greatest country in the world. just think about that. taking don that schwab billboard. oh, not so fast, carl. ♪

oh no. schwab, again? index investing for that low? that's three times less than fidelity... ...and four times less than vanguard. what's next, no minimums? ...no minimums. schwab has lowered the cost of investing again. introducing the lowest cost index funds in the industry with no minimums. i bet they're calling about the schwab news. schwab. a modern approach to wealth management. more and more people are finding themselves in a chevrolet for the first time. trying something new can be exciting. empowering. downright exhilarating. see for yourself why chevrolet is the most awarded and fastest growing brand, the last four years overall. switch into a new chevy now. current qualified competitive owners and lessees

can get this 2018 chevy equinox for around $199 a month. chevrolet. find new roads. i'm mark and i quit smoking with chantix. i was a heavy smoker for 26 years. i smoked a pack and a half a day and i was able to quit with chantix. i never thought that i could quit, but i did. along with support, chantix (varenicline) is proven to help people quit smoking. without a doubt, chantix reduced my urge to smoke. when you try to quit smoking, with or without chantix, you may have nicotine withdrawal symptoms. some people had changes in behavior or thinking, aggression, hostility, agitation, depressed mood, or suicidal thoughts or actions with chantix. serious side effects may include seizures, new or worse heart or blood vessel problems, sleepwalking or allergic and skin reactions which can be life-threatening. stop chantix and get help right away if you have any of these. tell your healthcare provider if you've had depression or other mental health problems. decrease alcohol use while taking chantix. use caution when driving or operating machinery. the most common side effect is nausea. my older smoker-self would be so surprised.

ask your doctor if chantix is right for you. my older smoker-self would be so surprised. but i'm not standing still... and with godaddy, i've made my ideas real. ♪ i made my own way, now it's time to make yours. ♪ everything is working, just like it should ♪

welcome back. i'm stephanie ruhle. a new report by npr reveals a russian politician linked to the kremlin has tied himself to the nra. npr says, quote, alexander torshin claimed his ties to the national rifle association provided him access to donald trump and the opportunity to serve as a foreign election observer in the united states during the 2012 election. i want to bring in npr's tim mock. tim, walk us through this. you say torshin used his ties to

the nra specifically to access trump? how'd he do this? >> this is through looking at mr. torshin's long history of tweets. this is a man who really likes to use twitter. he's tweeted 150,000 times over the course of the last six or seven years. we see he has meticulously cultivated a network with the national rifle association. mr. torshin is the deputy governor of the bank of russia. he's in vladimir putin's party. he's served in the russian dula. and has served in sensitive security rules there. it's clear he's tried to cultivate links with the national rifle association over time. >> how successful has he been? >> well, it's really interesting. he has talked repeatedly how he's attended every convention of the national rifle association between 2012 and 2016. during that time, he's met with

every single president of the national rifle association. he's also said he's claimed he met with donald trump or knows donald trump through the national rifle association. and in an interesting anecdote, in 2012, he came to the united states as an international election observer. he watched the balloting that took place in tennessee when president obama and mitt romney were duking it out back in 2012. and he said that he got that opportunity to do so through the nra. >> all right, tim, stay with us. i want to bring in evan mcmullin, former cia operative and former presidential candidate, and congressman sean patrick maloney. what's your take on this? the average american could say i'm so confused by all this russian nonsense, i don't care. this to me seems like a big deal. >> it is a big deal. the nra did a lot to support donald trump. back when mitt romney were last on, i think they put about $12 million into the campaign to support him. or took activities spending

about $12 million. donald trump, they spent about $30 million. on the 2016 election cycle in general, it was $55 million. insiders say it was close to $70 million. >> 70, seven-zero? >> that's right. so finding out exactly where that money came from is crucially important given that the nra has been exposed of having these close ties with a putin ally in torshin. >> i agree with evan. say what you want, it's going to be a while before anybody figures out how to make the nra a more negative force in american politics but here we are. like a bad guy scene from an austin powers movie where you've got them all around the table. you've got the russians working with the nra. the facts of the matter are i think this is the kind of thing we understand what we're talking about. it doesn't help anybody to have russian oligarchs who are, by the way, arms of the russian authoritarian government,

working in american political organizations with no disclosure of the financial contribution or what they're really doing. why is that good? how does that help any of us? >> i'm with you but people make the argument russia, i'm just trying to go to work, put my kids through school. >> that's right, some of us worry that we are -- we are in an era where we're waiting for a cyber 9/11, where we are -- it is going to take somebody really hurting us where we start to connect up the fact when the head of the united states cyber command goes before congress and says no, we are not doing what we should be doing to counter the russians, we are going to look back on that when somebody dies or when a lot of people die or when half the bank accounts in america get zeroed out and the backup systems are corrupted too and it's gone. when we really see what the north koreas or the iranians have in store for us, then we're going to get our act together on this and that's the big game by the way on this russia investigation. it's not just about the 2016 election or who said what in trump tower. as important as that is.

it's about whether we have our pants down in a world where the next major threats could be in cyber space. >> okay, i don't want anyone's pants down in the middle of this investigation. as anxious as i am to hear mueller's findings. exactly to sean's point, while the average american may not -- may accept that russia or russia bots infiltrated our social media networks, and fed us toxic information, we're still logging on to facebook every night checking out what our ex-boyfriends look like. lawmakers, though, you've reached out to lawmakers on this. what are they telling you? >> look, it's really interesting. firstly, both members -- members of both the house and senate intelligence committees have said this is a major issue that should be investigated through the course of the inquiries. you reported last month, hey, the fbi is interested in investigating whether torshin illegally sent any money to the nra in order to influence the

election in 2016. >> okay, evan, i want to ask you, nbc is reporting robert mueller gathering a case to charge another group of russians, yes, they won't get turned over, but associated with the hacking of democrats e-mails in 2016. sources are telling us that mueller has sufficient evidence for these charges. does that go exactly to the congressman's point? mueller is trying to look for something much bigger than who is chitchatting in trump tower. >> look, i think what mueller's doing is he's showing that there were crimes committed perhaps by russians in the case of the 13 that were already indicted for the propaganda activities online. and likely in the case of the hacking part of this. he's going to indict people, perhaps russians to begin with, to show there were crimes committed. and then he's going to draw the connections to americans who may have collaborated, may have been involved, some of them unwittingly perhaps, others, we

know that already. what's interesting to me is that after the 13 were indicted, some of the republican surrogates and allies came out saying this was it, trump wasn't implicated so it's done. even some very legally educated, well educated commentators would say this sort of thing. but clearly there's more. we're going to see more. mueller's laying out a very -- he's being very strategic. i think the net is tightening around the administration, around trump's team. >> we're going to all grow morbidly obese eating these nothing burgers. how do you explain trump on tariffs and trade to your family and friends? our next guest recommends actually one of my favorite movies. >> i knew other how this would settled in the animal world. this was girl world. all the fighting had to be sneaky. >> what does "mean girls" have

to do with all the drama surrounding trade? and, like, who's president trump in this? is he ra gina? we'll find out next. here's a question. with smart, revolutionary hearing aid technology available right now, why does it take most of us 7 years -- when we know we have hearing loss -- -- to actually do something about it? will you continue to feel left out... to constantly ask people to repeat themselves... and to miss out on so much in life... for all that time? really? with the aarp hearing care program, provided by hearusa,

why wait even 7 minutes? call right now. and receive the highest level of quality, care and value in the industry. which is why so many people have trusted us to get their lives back. because the time to enjoy virtually invisible hearing aids... to enjoy how they connect with your tv... to enjoy their extraordinary sound quality...is right now. discover hearing care beyond compare. attention aarp members. call hearusa today to find out how you can save an additional $500 off your next purchase of a pair of digital hearing aids. call us today.

my favorite part of the

show, money, power, politics. we have got to get back to tariffs. my next guest says the latest move by president trump can be best explained by the movie "mean girls" which as timing would have it happens to be opening on broadway this month. timing's they did what we asked they had power. so what happened around 2002 was we invited a new pretty girl into the group.

we said we could trade with china because it's beginning to be good for us. they did not work out as we planned. we are in the middle of the movie "mean girls." the lindsay lohan character there gained power. that's where we are with china. we recollected not pretend china is waiving well, they are stealing an economical property. the question is, how do we respond, right? so, at the end of the movie, regina george has understood what her power her and the boring hard work for figuring this out for the united states is figuring out what our relationshi relationships are with offer trade allies. that's the hard work that we have not been butter to do. either party so far for last 15

years since we've been trading with china. we're choosing the wrong thing, this tariff is lashing out in a way to prove our power again. like regina george in the middle of that movie, we don't have the power we think we do. >> do we realize how much power, lindsay lohan, ie china does? we learned that chi ping could stay in power indefinitely. >> i don't think we do. have economist woke up to trade with china has done to the united states. we are looking at the aggregate numbers. how did trade with china effect the numbers. we should have been looking at how it effect certain parts of the states.

there are other -- that china made cheaper. we were not prepared for that china shock and still have not done the work we needed to do to make sure those communities continue to thrive. i've seen evidence, by no means conclusionive, the swing in the vote was a big shock. so china devin does have power over us. if we create a trade war, if you look at reactions all over the world this morning, germany and japan is concerned. the best model we have over what a trade war will do, is that the u.s. will suffer the worst. the u.s. and china and mexico, our main trading partners are going to suffer badly. australia will continue to sell raw materials to china. china is grows as a consumer market so we can no longer do

what we did in the '90s is threaten to cut off our markets and get what we want. coming up, hchl r. mcthat'ser may be on his way out of west wing. but first, march is women's history month. today i want to highlight our #one great woman. ruben bridges. at 60 years old bridges advanced the african-american movement when she became the first african-american student to integrate in the south. ruby and her mother were escorted. each day that year walking past angry crowds throwing slurs at

here. she established the ruby individuals foundation in 1999 which gives kids equal opportunity. early in the show, carlos was talking about how excited he was today for seeing the youth stand up. history will tell you it works. so that's the idea. what do you think? i don't like it. oh. nuh uh. yeah. ahhhhh. mm-mm. oh. yeah. ah. agh. d-d-d... no. hmmm.

uh... huh. yeah. uh... huh. in business, there are a lot of ways to say no. thank you so much. thank you. so we're doing it. yes. start saying yes to your company's best ideas. we help all types of businesses with money, tools and know-how to get business done. american express open. but prevagen helps your brain with an ingredient to get business done. originally discovered... in jellyfish. in clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve short-term memory. prevagen. the name to remember.

cohigher!ad! higher! parents aren't perfect, but then they make us kraft mac & cheese and everything's good again. was a success for lastchoicehotels.comign badda book. badda boom. this year, we're taking it up a notch. so in this commercial we see two travelers at a comfort inn with a glow around them, so people watching will be like, "wow, maybe i'll glow too if i book direct at choicehotels.com". who glows? just say, badda book. badda boom. nobody glows. he gets it. always the lowest price, guaranteed. book now at choicehotels.com there are seven continents, seven seas but at celebrity cruises we'd argue more than seven wonders.

for a limited time enjoy two free perks like complimentary wi-fi and drinks. plus savings for everyone in your stateroom when you book now during the celebrity cruises sail beyond event. we need to be ready for my name's scott strenfel and r i'm a meteorologist at pg&e. we make sure that our crews as well as our customers are prepared to how weather may impact their energy. so every single day we're monitoring the weather, and when storm events arise our forecast get crews out ahead of the storm to minimize any outages. during storm season we want our customers to be ready and stay safe. learn how you can be prepared at pge.com/beprepared. together, we're building a better california. before we go, me matter what there's always good news somewhere and we think good news rules.

today we go all way to west africa where a teacher in ghana wanted to make sure his students could learn about technology the fact the school didn't have a computer. he drew what microsoft word looked like on a chalk board. microsoft has now promised to give that teacher a computer for his classroom. good on yew microsoft, let us know when that computer gets delivered. that wraps us up for this hour. i'm stephanie rahul. join us again at 11:00 a.m. i'll have an interesting story you might like. find me all day long on twitter. coming up more news with my good friend, halle jackson. >> i heard that story maybe coming out we will be watching. as you know, these concerns of a trump trade war is

triggering a ride on wall street right now. cheng out the big board, the dow down some 316 points, now 319. after this morning, the president call trade wars good and easy to win. fact check, not so much. how does this play out in the world of politics, business and in your own home? tlus an nbc news exclusive, me ginn kelly one on one with vladimir putin. ? west virginia the teacher strike is entering its 7th day. every school there closed. more and more pressure building on both sides. let's start back in washington with nbc's hahn nickels over at the white house. the president started his morning up and out. he's over in charolette getting ready for billy graham's