Chris Hayes discusses the days top news. Crimes security fraud. An individual, a donald Trump Nominee who is occupying put in place by the chief judge of the district because the president did not get these nominees through the Senate Quickly enough. So it wound up the individual chief judge in the Southern District pointed mr. Berman permanently. And quite clear that we follow the facts regardless of politics. If there is evidence that you violated the law, you will be prosecuted. Making frantic phone calls to his son, the allegations pretty amazing. Caught on tape. Thanks for joining me. Caught on tape. Thanks for joining me. I am joined by elizabeth
together. All of the intentional actions they took to hide information from the government to defraud banks to increase the amount of money they had access to. And confessed on the stand to stealing from the man he worked for to a tune of a lot of money. Michael cohen has been raided by the fbi. He is awaiting his fate one way or another. Another associate of roger stone, an associate of his is going to testify on friday. And the president himself has his lawyers back and forth attempting to avoid a sitdown interview with the prosecutors. And when is the last time such a vortex of alleged and confirmed criminal activity spun around the United States presidency . Watergate and i remember it. The tentacles are spreading and here it is the same thing. And it was very sad. Disturbing the fact the president on the one hand, kind
of a flim flam, oh, i want to talk to the special prosecutor, and talk to robert mueller, but kind of being a wimp. We get this blow by blow. He is never going to go before mueller to talk. The president is a liar, systematic. Very dangerous for him to go forward. Told so many different stories about so many different things. And what it does is reminds me of watergate and we are getting to a very close intense time for him. Because they think i think giuliani that if the president doesnt come forward and testify, that mueller is going to give up. The subpoena is what triggered the downfall of richard nixon. I dont know how the president can claim that he is innocent, if there is a subpoena, and refuse to come forward. What is he hiding. Why is he hiding . We have a president of the United States who is accused of obstructing justice. Not formally increased. But many people think he is involved with obstructing justice. And why dont he clear this up and come and talk to the special prosecute er. Refusal to do that is some indication that he has a lot to hide. And that is what happened in
watergate. Nixon kept saying i am innocent. But ultimately, American People saw that when he didnt want to turn over the case, it was because it was incriminating evidence on the tape. It is because he has got something serious if not criminal to hide. Do you think ultimately that you think they are trying to play out the string, that they hope mueller will give up. The president wants to testify or Talk To Mueller but his lawyers are afraid. He is the president of the United States and he cant make a decision. A president who cant be trusted to Tell The Truth under oath . Pretty serious. Seen a version of this show before. Sadly. Thank for joining us. With me now, is Chuck Rosenberg former senior official. What do you make of the back and forth negotiation that is happening between the president s team and the muellers team over this interview. Elizabeth stated it well. The president keeps saying he wants to sit down and mueller and has nothing to hide. If you want to Talk To Mueller, Talk To Mueller. Nothing to hide, hide nothing. I dont know if it is a back and forth. Because mueller has not been commenting on it. Only seeing one side of this back and forth. In the end if bob mueller has permission to issue a subpoena, and he has the evidence, that is what he will do. Chris collins announcing. And these are places where the rules of law gets tested. Indict a sitting member of congress, first endorsing for the president of the United States. In that respect it seems like it is a Passing Grade for the rule of law. This was able to happen. This idea that they dont want to do anything within 90 days of the election. And that guided the timing today and i am curious your perspective of that. There is a general rule. Unwritten. General rule that you dont take action that will interfere with an election. And some people think of it as 30 days, some 60 days. The Southern District action today is well before that deadline however we characterize it. And with respect to your comment about the rule of law, without talking to mr. Comments or this indictment, there is a public corruption section at the fbi. Prosecutors all over the country who handle public corruption cases. We have been doing this for years. Democrats, republicans, local, state, federal, years. So i dont see anything unusual about this. The Rule Of Law Didnt Pass Just today, it passes all the time. What do you make of the timing of Manafort Trial which i think is going to be a harder, obviously, that is out of the hands of the Special Counsel because he has chosen two different trials and going to try to wrap up the prosecution case by this week. And that is going to spill over closer to the election. Mr. Manaforts second trial if he doesnt plead guilty or go away in other fashion, it is he was indicted well in advance of the election. Well within the parameters, the guidelines. So here, the timing is not of the governments choosing. At least not of the prosecutors choosing. Thank you for sharing that insight. Julia ainsley is here with
the latest. What was it like in the court room today . Interesting. My colleague ken dilanian was there and he was saying the government was knocking it out of the park. Today the defense did an entertaining cross examination, and they left this bombshell that lingered. They said to gates did you tell the Special Counsel that you had four and of course that did a lot to damage rick gates credibility which is a big goal of the defense of the case. I shared an elevator with manaforts lawyer and we were asking him how he thought the day went and seemed confident and made a joke on how the end of the day ended up on a lot of people could get sleepy. He said i am happy you said that, at least, my part of the show was entertaining. To him, it was a compliment. More entertaining part of the day. Because then we got into taxes and charts and back and forth. And showed muellers style of being a tedious investigator and thorough. Did seem to kind of start putting a lull over the court room as we went back over transactions that we heard over the previous days. This is going back through them with the forensic accountant. What has the prosecution said about their timeline . They said they want eight more witnesses to come. But think they could wrap by the end of the week and then hear from the defense and then have closing arguments which is what the judge has said. He said he expected about three weeks sometimes chris, the judge is pushing this case to go quickly, we almost waste time talking about how much time the prosecution could use. Today we took 30 minutes talking about how much time they would spend on one witness. Definitely pushing this forward but a fair criticism to say sometimes he may be putting his hand on the scale more than we hoped a judge would in a case like this. He seems quite active in how much he is managing this. He is. And for people who have covered judge ellis before, he pushes things quickly. And generally someone who is critical of defense. Today from what i saw, seemed more critical of the prosecution. He questioned everyone they brought up. Often interrupt their questioning. He himself would ask the question directly to the witness until it got an answer that might not have been what the prosecution was going for. Yesterday he accused one of Robert Muellers lawyers of having tears in his eyes. And he has been hard on the prosecution. Sometimes it is a little hard to watch, actually. Nbcs julia ainsley, watches so we dont have to. Thank you. Still ahead, Mind Blowing Reporting about the three maralago members, a dr. , a lawyer and a ceo of marvel who have been running the department of veterans affairs. Plus seth meyers is here. Right here at this desk in just two minutes. Dont go anywhere. Are you ready to take your wifi to the next level . End endless cascade. Hard to manage it all. One place doing an amazing job is Late Night With Seth Meyers and A Closer Look One Of The Best bits of political commentary. That is the president s Deputy Campaign manager saying yes, i committed crimes. Republicans what more do you need before you start taking it seriously. Trump can show up to a rally in a black mask with a bag of cash and republicans would be saying, maybe he just went skiing. I mean, for television, this great bit of you take news and headlines and jokes and put them together and how does that come together . Because as a fellow television person, it seems like a hard time. We have a guy who has a Comedy Background and a News Background so rare hybrid of somebody who can sit down and piece together what we think is going to be the story that we want to talk about when taping rolls around. We have a guy who has a Comedy Background and a News Background so rare hybrid of somebody who can sit down and piece together what we think is going to be the story that we want to talk about when taping rolls around. He has done an exceptional job of giving us The First Draft and we can add jokes. Today is another perfect of example of the Chris Collins thing. This sounds like Chris Collins was on the white house lawn and caught on camera. If you list 100 people, surely the indictment would be one of the corrupt people we have met so far. And then they keep adding characters to a drama that needing to be subtracting character. I am not a financial expert and when you hear there is an indictment and the Security Exchange people are involved, today was so crazy because when they took out the flowchart of how it happened it was the easiest to follow flowchart. It was two rows. The flowchart they show kids to teach them how flowchart works. That is the other part of
this is, when we watch people in this orbit commit crimes, it has not been incredibly sneaky stuff. It has been in broad daylight activity. Never that scene from a movie where the detective has yarn going a hundred deferent ways. It is just one piece of yarn. And you get rick gates on the stand, that was an amazing moment. We did crimes together. There is something really sweet about saying it that way. Bonnie and clyde, that could have been the poster, they did crimes together. There is this question like we saw with scott pruitt. It is the case that the newest thing will washout the old thing. Right. And that is why we started a Companion Piece to a closer look. We have a check in which is once a week, to say, while this has been happening, here is what betsy devos has been doing. Or what Scott Pruitts replacement doing. It is crazy how much oxygen is taken up with Breaking News every day how did you find your way to the audience, this cultural moment, people want to talk about politics. Yeah. It is remarkable. Did you know that going into this . Did you find this . How did you discover that fact . I think we all discovered it the same way. From my time at snl, especially
a president ial election where there is no incumbent. You have big fields on both sides, fun things to write about. So that started for all of us. And you know, that was the carnival that we all thought would eventually leave town like carnivals do. We learn during the campaign how to get ready for this. There is a seriousness to it too. That is the challenge that you guys have. Writing jokes about family separation. You try to button it. And you want to have an arc and a thesis and as many jokes as possible and we do it in front of a test audience. We cant find any purchase
comedically we try to let go of it. Hopefully we make a point this matters. You have a test audience. We just gather up people from the building, we fully go down to nbc experience store and say do you want to see a rehearsal. And we get 40 people. A lot of people are tourists. Most of those people were from norway. For some reason it was not scanning. Here is the question i have. It always feels like it is getter more intense. I have this signal with the staff, banning adverbs. Do you have that feeling that we are hurdling towards something . I dont know. Like you say, that has also been this feeling from the beginning of hurdling. We did a closer look about him fudging the facts on the carrier airconditioning. That was a thing that seemed like a real thing. Right. At that point it was like you dont just lie like that in public. Him lying about heating and cooling companies that was the dream. The show has been fantastic. Thanks. Doing great work. Shout out. We like the chris hayes tree. Thanks for coming by. Make sure to catch Late Night With Seth Meyers, 12 35 eastern on nbc. Coming up, three members of maralago working behind the scenes to basically run the va. The reporter who broke that incredible story joins me live next. Ahh. Summer is coming. And its time to get outside. Pack in even more adventure with audible. With the Largest Selection of audiobooks. Audible lets you follow plot twists off the beaten track. Or discover magic when you hit the open road. With the free audible app, your stories go wherever you do. And for just 14. 95 a month you get a credit, good for any audiobook. If you dont like it exchange it any time. No questions asked. You can also roll your credits to the next month if you dont use them. So take audible with you this summer. On the road. On the trail. Or to the beach. Start a 30day trial and your first audiobook is free. Cancel anytime, and your books are yours to keep forever. No matter where you go this summer make it better with audible. Text summer17 to 500500 to start listening today. It was always our singular focus, a distinct determination. To do whatever it takes, use every possible resource. To fight cancer. And never lose sight of the patients were fighting for. Our Cancer Treatment specialists share the same vision. Experts from all over the world, working closely together to deliver truly personalized cancer care. Specialists focused on treating cancer. Using advanced technologies. And more precise treatments than before. Working as hard as we can doing all that we can for everyone who walks through our doors. This is Cancer Treatment centers of america. And these are the specialists were proud to call our own. Treating cancer isnt one thing we do. Its the only thing we do. Expert medicine works here. Learn more at cancercenter. Com Cancer Treatment centers of america. Appointments available now. Monitor their Blood Glucose every day. Which means they have to stop. And stick their fingers. Repeatedly. Today, lifechanging technology from abbott makes it possible to track glucose levels. Without drawing a drop of blood, again and again. The most personal technology, is technology with the power to change your life. Life. To the fullest. I we worked with pg eof to save energy because wenie. Wanted to help the school. They would put these signs on the door to let the teacher know you didnt cut off the light. The teachers, they would call us the energy patrol. So they would be like, here they come, turn off your lights
those three young ladies were teaching the whole school about energy efficiency. We actually saved 50,000. And thats just one school, two semesters, three girls. Together, were building a better california. Were having a mate meeting tonight at what we call the southern white house. All about the va. Okay. So that what you just saw was this really weird moment from back in 2017, we played it in the show. Donald trump talking to his then
veterans Affairs Secretary asking him if he, David Shulkin plans to be about a meeting at maralago all about the va. Of them elected. None of them were veterans, none of them elected. And none of them confirmed. Yet because they are friends there is ike perlmutter. Bruce moskowitz and wealthy attorney marc sherman. None of them were veterans, none of them elected. And none of them confirmed. Yet because they are friends with trump, and pay dues to his private club, they have been allowed to run the department. Take us through the details of this absolutely insane example i am joined by isaac. This is one of the nuttiest stories of the trump era i have read. How involved really are these three gentlemen in overseeing the va . They are involved with plans to be about a meeting at
maralago all about the va. So the va secretary wasnt even going to the meeting at maralago about the va. It seemed odd to me. Except it wont. We now know about the true rulers of the va. There is ike perlmutter. Bruce moskowitz and wealthy attorney marc sherman. None of them were veterans, none of them elected. And none of them confirmed. Yet because they are friends with trump, and pay dues to his private club, they have been allowed to run the department. Take us through the details of this absolutely insane example i am joined by isaac. This is one of the nuttiest stories of the trump era i have read. How involved really are these three gentlemen in overseeing the va . They are involved with everything. They speak with va officials every day on the phone. They have a hand in all manner of policy and personnel decisions that have been coming out of the va for the past year and a half. Every day . As often as every day or multiple times a day. This is like how everything about the policy for the Largest Health care system in the United States. Yeah. This is like how much health care for veterans should be provided by the government Run Va System versus how much should be done by private doctors. What should the va do to modernize. And these guys were all over it. Who should be the leadership of the va be. And the people who didnt get along with the maralago crowd got passed over or pushed out. Basically running personnel. Like a board of a company. And these are employees, they have to answer to them and if they dont like them, they are kaput. Like Board Of Directors pounding a ceo. Board of directors, these members of Corporate Board usually have some kind of expertise or knowledge or insight that they are providing, experienced business people. But these guys dont have relevant experience for Veterans Health care. So all of these officials at the va are scratching their heads wondering who are these guys. And the answer is they have the president s ear. This doesnt happen. This isnt a thing that happens where president s come into power and they just say hey, i got buddies or members of my club who pay me hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. They are going to go with you and whip you into shape. Listen to what they say. That is not a thing that normally happens. There is this statute from the 1970s, you have to have cost control, and oversight and transparency. And they werent interested in any of that. The only reason that anyone outside a few officials from the va who dealt with this, the only one who knows about this is this reporting. This event, some charity event. And they rang the bell. It was at the new york stock exchange. And a few people over is captain america. And this was supposed to be a Public Service event for veterans day but marvel ended up getting roped into it. And the va new it was an ethical area. Because they asked their attorney. They were aware that there was something up with this. You got, you did reporting and got a ton of foia documents. This is an incredibly Important Agency of the government doing a complicated thing. Providing care to 9 Million People in this system. One of the most difficult bureaucratic problems that exist in the federal government. Was this an open secret in the va that these three dudes down in palm beach were running the thing. No. Only a few officials knew about them. Some had heard rumors. Some advocates in town had heard rumors. Lawmakers had no idea. Senator hor ronno was on cnn earlier today and asked her if she knew about this and she said
no. Just good old fashion shoe leather. And you did amazing work here. One of the best stories of the Trump Administration so far. Thank you. Thank you, chris. Why last nights election should have republicans worried. Coming up, plus tonights thing one, thing two, starts next. Thing one tonight when Net Neutrality which is the idea that Internet Service provider should treat all data equally was under threat. John oliver made a stand to preserve it. We need it to get out there and for once in your lives focus your rage if a useful direction. Seize your moments interacted reacted and crashed the fccs website. In 2017 enter donald trump. So john oliver summoned Internet Commenter to take action. You cannot say you are too busy when 540 of you commented on beyonces baby announcement. Seven of whom gave it a one star review. The fcc site crashed and stopped accepting any comments. Would they really lie about Something Like that . Oh, yeah, they would and they did. And thats thing two in 60 seconds. Advice provides or not provided by the fbi to the fcc after the incident. Fcc chairman is placing full blame on subordinates. Not surprising from a guy who behaves like this. Booking a flight at the last minute doesnt have to be expensive. Just go to priceline. Its the best place to book a flight a few days before my trip and still save up to 40 . Just tap and go. For the best savings on flights, go to priceline. We have a bunch of questions. Election in ohio 12 is still too close to call. While republican, Troy Balderson has a slight lead over democrat oconnor, it was a district donald trump won two years ago, its been in republican hands since 1982. Its not the only bad har ambinder as the midterms approach. Kathy rogers nearly lost a freeforall by lisa brown by 200 votes and as a result, they will move to the general election. In missouri, a right to work law got shellacked by a 21 margin and victory for labor unions. In the primary this year, Democratic Candidates for governor the winner in last
nights gubernatorial primary, gretchen, one of a Record Number nominated last year. 90 days away from midterm elections, christina greer, betsy wood roof from The Daily Beast and dave wasserman, u. S. House editor and contributor. Nor something extremely in the weeds of the data here, what is your take of last night and how it aligns what we know so far where things are . It aligns where we know. Democrats are the favorites for control of the house. Theyre seeing record enthusiasm among their voters for a midterm where republicans are. Theres a rural divide on display not only house 12 where a democrat came within a point
of winning in a district more republican than 68 other districts held by other republicans in the house and spokane, washington, the number 4 Ranking Leader on the republican side was only a hair ahead of her democratic opponent in the top two primary. This bodes well for the democrat changes in the house with the caveat the senate is a very different landscape. We talked about dave has been telling us so far in 2018 house primaries featuring one man one woman known incumbent on the ballot, a woman has won 69 of the time and house gop side, 64 . Women are powering democratic enthusiasm as candidates and volunteers in every way. Quality women are powering this new revolution, if you will. We also have to remember, one, we have russia to be concerned
with. We have made stride, thats been great. Remember, immigration, gentrification, the landscape of these districts is changing and candidates are changing and women are using their economic power and political tithing, i think a lot more women are investing in women. Men are used to investing in men. Lots more women are waking up, i should run, no qualification, i should run. Men and there are things you have to consider when you run. Finance is one of them. Im thinking what the complexion of the Democratic Caucus should be whether or not it takes the house. I think how the Tea Party Wave and House Freedom caucus changed what that caucus was starting in 2010. You already have alexandria cortez, last night, talib won
the primary in john conyers district, would be the first muslim woman in congress and democratic socialist. And incredible candidate named shareece davids, and out native woman a former fighter. If these are women making up the Democratic Caucus, it will change what the caucus is like. Reporter right. Comparatively speaking its striking. The house Democratic Caucus is way way more diverse than the republican conference, Night And Day difference. Especially for reporters covering capitol hill, having conversations in the hallways of the Capitol Building it is very much pronounced. You can see the extent democratic voters are likely to support people of color than Republican Voters are in terms of the way their representation in congress elects. The other piece of this conversation important we
havent gotten to is the question of money. This is where you can track the Enthusiasm Voters have for the candidates that are running. One number really important is the number 56, the number of democratic challengers so far have outraised the republican nibts theyre running against. Thats a number that really scares republicans in congress and the Leadership Fund an outside group fueling last ditched republican survival stories, a group backed by paul ryan. Their spokesman put out a Statement Today saying republicans need to get their acts together and need to start actually raising more money than democrats. Its a Problem Dogging these people on the right. You see a lot of stories about after the primary upset of cortez. Theres a bunch of stories about democrats are going so far left, theyre going to nominate candidates that cant win. I dont think thats been the
case, you look at talib, she will be the next member of congress, theyre so democratic. In in other words getting a Diverse Group of candidates that seem solidly in line with the district. Chris, the mistake a lot of pundits make is to view politics on a leftright spectrum. I would argue candidates biographies and districts theyre running in mat ears lot more whether someone was a berniecrat or clintoncrat in 2016. They have to be sure not to get wrapped up in this. There is still the angry college student. Voters still want to know what are you going to do for me and want to see candidates focused on pocketbook issues and how to improve the economy and
healthcare situation. Democrats have to stick to that message, not just pronounce they will be the first. I will push back for a quick second. Identity politics is explained when we have women and people of color and candidates that arent white men. The problem is they have been practicing Identity Politics of white men that have left the party theyre trying to get back. What many local elections are doing is saying, lets focus on the talent we have and not democrat versus republican. Voter versus nonvoter and people not registered and knock on their doors and get them inspired to vote for someone talking about their issues. To betsys point there is a gap between the representational class and who democratic voters are. You noticed the difference in diversity. It is still true the Democratic Caucus is more male and more white than the draerk party is, right . Thats true. It isnt representational of those supporting the caucus. When you speak to lawmakers about the issue of the day is, if youre speaking to a lawmaker of color, they are probably, not always, probably ha democrat, something that makes republicans uncomfortable to talk about and they try to focus and spend money on candidates of color or republicans, particularly the republican nominee in michigan to run against debbie stabenow, an africanamerican man. Speaking broadly, the party is overwhelmingly more diverse than the gop is and this fall it will only increase that. I will be very interesting to see how it shakes out. Thank you for your time. That is all for this evening. Tonight, eight months into negotiations, the Trump Legal Team tells mueller no questions on obstruction. In fact, Rudy Giuliani is asking that the whole thing be wrapped up by september 1st. Just three weeks after