bill o'reilly needs to goa bloom thank you for joining us tonight. wendt wendy walsh will be joining us tomorrow night on the show. >> yes, gabe sherman thank you for your breaking news insight on what's going on over there at fox news gabe, thank you very much. "the 11th hour" with brian williams starts right now. tonight, damage control. white house press secretary sean spicer issuing a full apology for saying adolph hitler did not use chemical weapons against his own people like assad in syria. also new details on trump campaign adviser carter page. the "washington post" reporting he was being monitored as a possible russian agent. all of this while secretary of state rex tillerson is in russia amid a lot of guessing as the whether he will meet with putin. "the 11th hour" begins now. good evening once again from our

headquarters here in new york. this was day 82 of the trump 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 air field. the u.s. secretary of state is in russia. the "washington post" is reporting that trump campaign aide carter pain 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 didn't use chemical weapons in world war ii. you know, you had a -- you know, someone as despicable as hitler who didn't even sink to using

chemical weapons. >> hitler didn't 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 -- to the holocaust center. i understand that. >> one of those holocaust centers, better known as death camp is marking an important anniversary today. bugan valid in germany was lib rated by patton's army on this day in 1945. sean spicer has issued a statement of apology. he appeared on several networks on the to deliver a full apology. meanwhile, president trump was asked about north korea today in an interview 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 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. >> let's bring in this evening's 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, 35 year veteran of the trade, including navy intelligence, specialons, and homeland security. author of the book how to hack america. yahoo news and finance editor beiana goal riga and back with us. and ashley parker, white house

report forethe "washington post." hard to know where to begin. 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 it's 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 counter-intelligence, which is spy hunting, or counter-terrorism, which is we suspect they are operateding 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 that it will be successful if a warrant is issued. so tonight we are 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 that they needed to get a 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 congressional leaders to go along and understand russia was involved in this election interference. >> malcolm, a quick follow-up. what happens in your life and your electronics when the full power of u.s. surveillance w the order of a federal judge, gets switched on? >> oh, they can just take your life apart. i mean 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 you are calling a known russian intelligence officer and it's -- it will start out as

incidental collection until the lawyers get involved. then it will be passed onto the justice department, they will 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 evidence year case against you. or in some circumstances prove you innocent. so that dup happen too often but certainly in cases of terrorism and counter-intelligence 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 reason is seen it, it's almost unimaginable. >> ambassador mcfaul, do you agree with the contention kinds of sewn into the "washington post" piece tonight that this is the clearest yet that they have reason to believe there were russians 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 rolly wh royally went there on one trip. he was the speaker at a commencement address a the new economic school. the last american to do that was president obama. i was with him in 2009. they were treating him -- all of 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 wasn't just talking about innocent things that maybe he was talking about other things. but i also want to underscore that it's not necessary that we are talking about breaking crimes here because of this fisa warrant. it could be other things besides that. and we shouldn't judge that where we have gone already. they want to learn about what the russians did in our elections, rightly so. and this helps them to understand that further. >> a very good point, ambassador.

thank you. beiana, 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 wire stand as he put it first in quotes. >> 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. this could very well feed into that narrative to sort of cause more chaos and confusion. as you mentioned this is the first clear evidence that we are actually seeing, that 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? >> there is not really a clear eaction 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. there is very high bar to get a fisa warn. typically, if history is any indication what the administration will sort of say is there is no "there" there, it's a lot of smoke and not very much fire. but i have to say this story and i can assure you whatever story comes next and it feels like there will be some sort of story, does not help this adnistration with their general messaging narrative. they want to focus on their 100 days. their accomplishments or getting rid of the cloud of russia that dogged them since 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. >> that's right. i've witnessed before, i remember traveling with secretary clinton in 2010 with the same ambiguity. 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. if putin decides not to that's a big setback. that says that they are 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. >> beana, eric trump, i'll paraphrase, in an interview, said this is the best proof yet, the air strike in syria, that the fix wasn't in, that my father was not beholden to the

russians. it was almost expecd to be read somewhere by someone. >> of course he is saying see, see what is happening over there? we send 59 missiles so of course my father is tough on putin. he's not his puppet. it's interesting that the chinese press also the next morning said this is an indication that trump is trying to deflect away from the close ties that he has with russia. it is a not just eric trump, it's other nations that are picking up on this as well. i think eric trump is protesting a little too much right now and not necessarily in the right idea of having that thought out that way. >> malcolm nance, let's not forget wife 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 been describe as kind of surveillance. you have said since the beginning that any number of people could have been

surveilled whose jobs and business titles brought them into the trump orbit. and anyone they met with, spoke of, anyone with an enticing name would have gotten swept in. is that still your intention? >> anything is possible within the national systems that we use to collect information. if you have got a target and that target is in trump tower for example. yeah, the tiling trump tower may come up. or a candidate who is running for president of the united states who is very unique may show up in people's conversations. that inot 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 let's walk away from this and we can get back on to sailing the ship of government. >> brian, can i make a quick aside. >> really quick. >> for all the discussion we are having the discussion you are going to have on north korea here very soon is the single most dangerous issue we have. put into perspective all of these thing have -- you know, have their place within the universe. and you know, trump's accusat n accusations on twitter are far smaller than the ones that he did on north korea today. >> malcolm and ambassador mcfaul thank you gentlemen very much. >> thank you. >> the absolutely top tier guests on this, on the subjects of their life's work. beana and ashley, no such luck, you are hanging around to talk to us on the next segment. we will take a break.

as "the 11th hour" continues this evening, sean spicer, assad, and the holocaust. also new cments by the president tonight steve bannon. think again. this is the new new york. we are building new airports all across the state. new roads and bridges. new mass transit. new business friendly environment. new lower taxes. and new university partnerships to grow the businesses of tomorrow today. learn more at esd.ny.gov shanyone ever have occasional she does. she does. help defend against those digestive issues. take phillips' colon health probiotic caps daily with three types of good bacteria. 400 likes? wow! try phillips' colon health.

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and the bill you need to pay? do it in seconds. because we should fit into your life, not the other way around. go to xfinity.com/myaccount we didn't use chemical weapons in world war ii. you for example you had a, you know, someone as despicable as hitler who didn't even sink to ing cmical weapons. >> the first comment from sean spic today that started a seemingly uncontrollable ball

starting to roll. that comment sparked the firestorm led to a spoken clarification, three spread follow-up statements with wording added and changed each time. then a full-blown apology. msnbc's chief business correspondent ali very well she, beana and ashley remain with us. it is with deep affection and appreciation for ashley's work that we welcome our friend back to the broadcast tonight. ashley of course white house reporter forethe "washington post." we must show you this. a camera was rolling on ashley as she reacted to sean spicer. 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 want to give you an opportunity to clarify something you said. quote, hitler isn't 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. i mean, 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. but i'm saying the way assad used them, where he went into toups, drop them down, the use of it. 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 ep 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, you made the clarifications before, you wanted to make it clear exactly what the message was you were trying to deliver. what do you have to say. >> obviously i was really trying to make sure that we talked about assad's actions in terms of using chemical weapons and comparing it to the holocaust was inappropriate and insensitive and especially during a week like this, we regret that. >> your desire was to apologize. >> oh, yeah. especially during a week like this, to make a comparison that is inpope and inexcusable.

>> nancy pelosi says you should be fired. is your job safe? >> you know, what, i made a mistake, i'm owning up to it. obviously, i hope that everyone understands we all make mistakes and ask for forgiveness. >> there is speculation 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 like loogly to be tomorrow. i don't mean to put you on the spot. do you think he survives this? >> you know, i think you never know with this white house. you should say at the outset. but i think he does. one thing that was interesting was that this is a white house that very rarely shows contribution of any sort. their sort of response to making a mistake or being wrong is to double or triple down. after sort of the first gaff and

then the opportunity to clean it up and the second gaff, i think it was striking and important that you saw him sort of go out and unequivocally on a number of networks sort of apologize in no uncertain terms. i think that matters. >> beana, there was a contentious and tense interview with wolf blitzer on cnn where he paused to even correct sean spicer's multiattitude nows pronunciations of the leader of syria's 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 in the campaign. this is a sensitive subject and a 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. we'll see. if this administration you don't now how they will react. at least for now it seems his job is safe. >> ali, the first time ever the white house put out a statement on holocaust remembrance that didn't mention jews. >> jews yeah. and they struggled with it. president trump was asked about it, others were asked about of the. finally craig melvin on msnbc got him to actually say something about it on tv. the struggle doesn't make sense considering that donald trump has jews in his blood family. the whole thing is puzzling. i've give sean credit. he got this out of theist news cycle pretty fast. i am worried because he made a comment if bashar assad were to drop barrel bombs on his people it might get reaction out of the president of the united states. he has been doing that for six years. this thing has been going on for six years. we are not worried he is devious

or he's a bad guy. do they not know the behaves of what's going on? the reason it's worrisome is because of what malcolm nance said to you. when wurp talking about nuclear war with iran. we said we didn't want it. iranians said they didn't want it. that's different with north korea. we are talking about provocat n provocation. donald trump said if the chinz down help us we will take care of things. we may be on brink of nuclear war, we can't be getting distracted by factual inaccuracies coming out of the white house. that's the part that worries me. >> ashley, i'll take on the dangerous task of paraphasing ryan lizza who i heard voicing a criticism from the president down to the spicer level that the things one learns on a daily basis in the paper -- you kind of absorb it, in life, the history we learn over the course of a life are sometimes not evident. and you are covering a kind of new reality there.

>> i think that's true. you know, i think one thing going back to ali's upon 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 less attention but it was the barrel bomb statement he was cleaning up. he did say that repeatedly in the press conference, seeming to draw another red line with barrel bombs which if he had done that would be a change in u.s. policy. sort of again as soon as the briefing was over you had reporters racing back to the press office to ask is that what sean spicer was just announcing from the podium? did he intend to announce that? if not k you clarify and clean that up? they did. they came out and said no the administration is not announcing a new poll see. i think for some of the watchers especially in the intelligence community and foreign policy there is something disconcerting when some of these basic facts can sometimes seem to be in

question. >> we did the math today, to ashley's point, ali and figured out if they are dropping barrel bombs at the same rate as last year on civilian populations it's one every 45 minutes. that to be a tasic 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 didn't draw that line because they knew that was a line -- if you decide you are going after syria for assad dropping barrel bombs on his people we are at war with syria. we have to think these things through. i would hope that with six years of preparing for this, people would have read in very well. the white house needs to know the facts about the two places right now that are like the world was in 1914. the world is a tinder box ask. 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 they have been doing. this is not time for -- it's not

amateur hour. >> don't forget our president just tonight said we are not going into syria. our defense secretary said our strategy hasn't changed. the number one strategy there is continuing to fight isis. we are continuing to see mixed messages coming from the white house. >> while sending what he called an armada. to our panel, thank you so much. ashley, thank 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 this from one of trump's top supporters in the u.s. congress. "the 11th hour" continues. we've done well in life, with help from our advisor, we made it through many market swings. sure we could travel, take it easy... but we've never been the type to just sit back... not when we've got so much more to give

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