Chris Matthews debates hot political issues with politicians, newsmakers and Washington leaders. Chicanery. The president said putin was unhappy he won. Ill tell you what, russia is very unhappy that trump won, that i can tell you. Well thats a far cry from what putin himself said in helsinki. Did you direct any of your officials help him do that. Translator yes, i did. Because he talked about using the u. S. russia relationship back to normal. Joining us now. And malcolm nance, msnbc analyst. First to the reporters, michael and then john. Isnt that what is going on, this split screen . They had to show they were doing something and it left them exposed to critics who said you are not doing anything. You are not taking this threat seriously. You laid it out well in the beginning of the show. He charts its own path. He is going to say what he feels whether it is on twitter or at a rally. And in terms of collusion, the idea of interference, he cant separate the idea between the Mueller Probe and the accusations of collusions and just that moscow tried to interferon his behalf. Given credence to that idea delegitimizes his victory. And we see time and time again how that revs him up and how he unleashes. Did he tell those people to go into the pressroom . This is wacky. And why dont people see this is wacky. I cant believe that this is idea. Who is the grownup. I think john kelly. While u. S. Officials take their step to combat the threat of russia interference. Which ultimately hinders our ability to russia aggression. To deter russian, moscow needs to believe that the United States will impose costs beyond the sanctions and other punishments. What we saw yesterday it is the Vice President who is still saying this is a threat and we need to do something. He is on a different page from the president. And if anyone else is saying hey, go into the room, we can see that. At the same time we are bleeding expertise in fbi on cybersecurity. They are walking out the door. Malcolm, have you seen this . The last person i saw do that was saddam hussein. Come out with these insane statements and wait to see if he would be backed up and i think what we saw here with donald trump is that he with mike pence decided to stage an event and allow them to cover their butts by coming out and doing what Michael Kelly wanted to do was to make a statement to the nation that they are on top of it. I think he has no intention what so ever of allowing them to go further than the press conference. This gives him a measure of illegitimacy. I would guess, and i wanted you to check me on this. Vladimir putin operates differently. He wants his government to do something, and they do it. And they do it because he believes it. That is his message. So the russians sitting there watching this game. The president say nothing is wrong and the people say they did. And trump doing it by subterfuge. What does putin make of this . What is going on here . They know we did it. They know we know we did it. So i would say on this putin didnt get the gift he thought he was getting when he got donald trump as president. He thought he was going to turn the United States government to his will and the bureaucracy is resisting direction that is totally outside the norm of what the u. S. Has historically done. On the rhetoric as a journalist front paging it, how do we objectively describe this situation where the president is still, and he will do it again tomorrow in
ohio. He is on the road now with his show and his show says hoax. Well, from the rhetoric, putin could not be happier. The rhetoric was too pro russia. And when trump wants to do things on russia, there is deep skepticism. So he is playing too hard into it. Where if he was quieter and maybe more conniving or more slick, he could get more done in terms of what russia actually wants. Jonathan, i know what an ap reporter does, you have tocor to cover everything that happens. These are the facts. How do you cover that event tomorrow. He says the same kind of denials and yet you know, you check your notebook or read any newspaper or wire copies, his people
saying the opposite. He goes out on the stump using air force one saying no they didnt. I will be there tomorrow in ohio. And what we do is cover him fairly, and honestly was we can. And we will fact check him. He may say that russia didnt want him to win, but as a few weeks ago, Vladimir Putin on stage said the exact opposite. We have trump in a tweet saying the russians interfered to help the democrats. This is a unique moment where we have the president and the rest of his administration on two separate pages. We have seen it with other issues particularly with russia where President Trump is charting his own course. Even if flies in the face of the
facts and even if he is opposed by members of his government. Does everybody understand how crazy this is. This is out outlandish. First there were the remarks in helsinki which he will likely never live down. I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but i will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today. I have President Putin, he just said it is not russia. I will say this, i dont see any reason why it would be. The very next day, as we are seeing in this split screen reality, when his hand was forced he wouldnt say explicitly that russia was responsible. I accept the conclusion that
russia is meddling in the 2016 election took place. Could be other people also. A lot of people out there. A lot of people out there. And then he did it again a day later saying russia was no longer targeting the United States. Is russia still targeting the u. S. Mr. President . Thank you very much. Press, lets go, make your way out. No, he is shaking his head. This is dizzying. These are facts, the president saying one thing again and again in public to his crowd. His government with all their expertise and apparatus and intelligence information are saying the opposite. Russia did it and they are doing it. It is not dizzying, it is exacerbating. When i swore an oath, i hold it today. This is not a president who believes in that oath. He has an oath or a debt to the president of russia. He will do or say or do anything to the detriment of this nation. It came off like he was issuing orders. I think we are going to head into big trouble this election season and if there is a blue wave, that the russians are going to discredit it. Thank you so much. Coming up, Paul Manafort his lavish coats are ostrich and python. But something fishy about a guy who is broke. And then works in the Trump Campaign for free. Why is the white house asking the aclu to clean up trumps mess over family separations. When he attacks the media like he did last night. Does that help the candidates. And what about actual endorsements, are they a blessing or a curse. This is hardball if you have a sick humor, where the action is. You wouldnt accept an incomplete job from any one else. Why accept it from your Allergy Pills . Flonase sensimist relieves all your worst symptoms, including nasal congestion, which most pills dont. And all from a gentle mist you can barely feel. Flonase sensimist. Gathered here are the worlds finest insurance experts. Rodney mastermind of discounts like safe driver, paperless. The list goes on. How about a discount for long lists . Gold. Mara, you save our customers hundreds for switching almost effortlessly. Its a gift. And jamie. Present. Together we are unstoppable. So, what are we gonna do . Insurance. Thats kind of what we do here. Sources now tell nbc news that special counsel muellers team has interviewed kristin davis. Worked with for about a decade. Investigators are trying to build a case. In his statement to nbc news stone says that davis knows nothing about alleged russian collusion. Wikileaks collaboration or any other impropriety of the election. Sounds like he is covering for her. We will be right back. S being tn youre needed most. Hes the one. vo love is knowing. It was meant to be. And love always keeps you safe. vo love is why we built a car you can trust for a long time. The allnew Subaru Impreza sedan and fivedoor. A car you can love no matter what road youre on. The Subaru Impreza. More than a car, its a subaru. Right now, get 0 Apr Financing on the 2018 Subaru Impreza. When you barely clip a tpassing car. Minor accident no big deal, right . Wrong. Your Insurance Company is gonna raise your rate after the other car got a scratch so small you coulda fixed it with a pen. Maybe you should take that pen and use it to sign up with a different
Insurance Company. For drivers with Accident ForgivenessLiberty Mutual wont raise their rates because of their first accident. Liberty mutual insurance. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty i know, right. We are seriously ikeeping up with the joneses. I know, right. We are seriously keeping with the andersons. We are finally keeping up with the fords. Keeping up with the garcias. Keeping up with the harveys. Keeping up with the wahhthewahh the romeros. Carters. Patels. The allens. Wah. Wolanskes. Right, them. No one is going to have internet like this. No one is going to have internet like this. Gig to more homes than anyone. Not just the joneses. Over here. Xfinity. The largest gigspeed network. Welcome back to hardball. The first week for the trial of former Campaign ChairmanPaul Manafort wrapped today. Prosecutors digging into the financial dealings of the person who was trumps number one during key parts of the campaign. Facing 18 counts of bank and tax fraud that pre date his time on the campaign. These charges stem from work overseas. A sales pitch, manafort wrote in
a 2005 memo, we are now of the belief that this model can greatly benefit the putin government. It is the first real test for mueller. For more, i am joined by julia ainsley. And mimi rocah. Thank you both for joining us to put this together. Just tell us about the trial. And his own accountant was surprised. No one is talking about python. Anyway, we thought it would be a dryer day. But actually, it struck a nerve and got to the meat of this case. When the first tax preparer came on the stand, he said there were told there were no foreign bank accounts. Didnt know anything about
cypress or where it was coming from. We saw mrs. Kathleen manafort dab her eye and walk out the room. It was their joint tax returns. She knows her husbands denial of it struck her . The fact that she knew the prosecution was hitting on the right cord. This was going to be very hard for the defense to walk around. And we saw that. It was a really tough, it was a tough obstacle for them to go over. When they started cross examining the tax preparer, it was short examination and all they focused on, didnt you know. Werent there enough bread crumbs there. And the answer was there was
not. And then we had a witness, cindy laporta. She knowingly falsified these documents. And she felt personally disturbed. What do you make of a fact of a guy who lost his empire, no more luxury lifestyle, he is broke and then he goes to work for trump. I know actions is always good. What was the intrigue here . A broken guy going to work for free for trump. It is intriguing. And i mean, this trial isnt going to answer the question. But it certainly lays the base for the big question which
compelling inference to draw and that is what prosecutors do. They draw inferences and look for the facts to see if they support that. I am going to stick on this for a moment. Is this like six degrees of kevin bacon. Sleazy stuff going on, and then manafort, business partners. And trump seems to have an affinity for russia, whether it is miss universes or whatever is going on over there. How did this start . The russian mix . Different points for different characters. We see a pattern here. We see a pattern in the way Paul Manafort did business, and patterns in the way these people operated. Wanted to maintain a certain lifestyle. And what did russians do for them . Cash . Cash winds, and putting them
in a place where they owe something. Russians have money they want laundered. And they are buying influence. They want to know they are doing their bidding because they have something over them. Whether that is blackmail on something sordid. Manafort is the only member of the Trump Campaign facing prison time. All of those indicted are cooperating. Numerous other people under scrutiny. Don jr. , jared kushner, roger stone. Mimi, i think this is the first round. It is going to be a ten or 15 round fight. My guess it ends with donald trump. How important is this first round. In large part because it is the first round. It lays the groundwork for something that you know, i think could bleed into that namely manaforts susceptibility to russia and pressure when he was running the campaign. And also, i think that rightly or wrongly, trump has made, this well wrongly, trump has made this about the prosecution. Put the prosecution on trial with the public. So rightly or wrongly, this is going to be viewed as a thumbs up or thumbs down on muellers investigation. Even if it is not about the russian conspiracy. How is he doing. And if a jury, which is a semiofficial basically body gives a thumbs up in a conviction, i think that will at least quiet a little bit of the
criticism. And you can be sure if some reason there is an acquittal or hung jury, it will send the witch hunt people into a frenzy. If you want to call it a witch hunt, you have to make sure there arent real convictions. With real convictions it takes on reality, and reality bites. Thank you. The Trump Administration wants the American Civil Liberties union to reunite the policy. Why are they helping private groups, a liberal group to clean up. They used to hate the ucla the aclu. I keep thinking sports. Well be right back. Into making americas 1 shave. Precision machinery and highquality materials from around the world. Nobody else even comes close. Now starting at 7. 99. Gillette. The best a man can get. Criticizing dukakis. I remember it, well, today our current Republican Administration asking the aclu to do the governments job for them. In a court filing yesterday, the u. S. Justice department argued that the aclu is to use its quote considerable resources and network of law firms, ngos volunteers to help reunify the children. The government appears to be taking the remarkable position. Well late this afternoon, the judge in this case overseeing
the case rejected the proposal saying it was 100 of the responsibility of the administration. More than 570 are still in government custody. Well i am joined now by jacob soboroff. A lot of people on both sides do respect the organization. It helps out people who werent too popular. And your thoughts about this new reliance of the trump crowd. It is a bizarro world. And to watch that clip, the Trump Administration wants to put the aclu at the center because they have absolutely no plan to put these kids back with their parents. We are talking about the administration that separated 2,550 kids from their parents down at the border. I was on with you from down there. I saw the kids in the cages. And you know, i will never see anything like that again and i dont think many of us in our lifetime will see anything like that again. We separated them, but we dont know how to put them back together so the organization that are suing us, we will suggest why Dont You Guys do that and we will be the support can player and the judge said no. We have no line on those who were sent back to those countries of origin. How would the aclu be able to find those people down there better than the u. S. Government. We have everything down there in those countries and they would be better equipped than the aclu based here to find those parents. Those are the vast majority of the kids that are not reunited. 570 that are not reunited. 410 of them their parents this is the judge suggesting this. How about somebody from the health and human services. Maybe you team up, both of you to come up with a plan. It is not like, it is complicated, it is a nobrainer. These people are going to the consulate. Figure out how to get my child who is in the custody of the u. S. Government back to me here. It is a nobrainer. But the government shirked its responsibility and the judge just ripped right into them and said this is not acceptable. This is unacceptable. In the old days the government of the United States, would find some business leader, someone who knew how to get things done and find one, and say you are good at this, do something for your country for the next couple of months and get this job done. Why dont trump find one of his Smart Business types and get this job done. This is something you can do for your country. Why didnt they put somebody like this in the beginning. They never thought this true. They still havent thought this true. On the first part of the
reunifications, they had this commander who was normally in charge of Natural Disasters and reunify these kids. But yet they are left searching again for this leader. Thank you for caring about this project. That it hasnt been done yet. Next, President Trump laid into the media again last night. He is doing a lot of these rallies. He is not running the country, he is doing rallies. When it comes to the actual midterms, will they want this guy in town . I guess it depends. Youre watching hardball. Your hair is so soft did you use head and shoulders two in one . I did mom. Wanna try it . Yes. It intensely moisturizes your hair and scalp and keeps you flake free. Manolo . Look at my soft hair. I should be in the shot now too. Try head and shoulders two in one. Sfx [cell phone dialing] no. No, no, no, no, no. Cancel. Cancel. Please. Aaagh being in the know is a good thing. Thats why discover will alert you if your Social Security number is found on any one of thousands of risky sites. And the fake news refused to call it, right . Welcome back to hardball. That was President Trump at that rally last night. He was supposed to be boosting republican party. Instead he spent much of his time doing just that, bashing the news. Here is more. We are doing better in all of or states. Despite all the negative stories from the fakers. Even these horrible people, it looks like the Academy Awards there are so many. But they can make anything bad because they are the fake, fake disgusting news. Look at those little kids just laughing at this educator in chief. The roundtable to want, erika werner. And Jeremy Peters new york reporter for the New York Times. Have you been to these things . Of course. It is the same schtick every single time. Somebody is going to end up getting hurt. I have seen reporters get their laptop slammed down. Nothing yet escalated to the point where they have been physically injured. Using a stalin, a choice phrase of Joseph Stalin to describe us. Nixon would say they are our enemies. He just says about ratings, New York Times is doing great. He says the dying New York Times. Trump was in florida earlier this week supporting desantis. And tomorrow he will be in ohio. In tennessee, diane black candidate for governor. President trumps endorsement is worth its weight in gold for republican candidate. The only problem is she didnt get it. Is trumps endorsement worth it . Well hasnt always pulled the people getting it across the finish line. And we are going to find out whether it is useful in election. In a box with trumps endorsement because she is tied with him like on tariffs which are unpopular in tennessee. And make it is difficult for her to do the straddle and win over the soft trump voters. That is a conservative state. A lobbyist said it is just as conservative as texas. And do you want to nationalize a race like that if you are her, blackburn . It depends on the candidate. If it is a base strategy, and trying to super charge the trump voter and run a turnout campaign, then his endorsement helps. Talk about local issues. Now it may work for someone like ron desantis. That is the level of devotion he is dividing. But for someone like colorado or in florida. I wish we had a National Sports book. I go by this. I am thinking if you want to make a pick predictions, red or blue . If it is a red state, trump is going to get big support. He is going to drive that surprise. He is going to put the name trump on that ballot. In the blue states, he will stay the away. Republicans are quietly talking about the missing trump voter. The people who showed up and voting for him. Further, i mean your point is good, but trump doesnt help him in these red districts. Look what happens in pennsylvania 18. Trump showed up. It energized the democrats more. They came out and voted. He is a hell of a candidate. He is. Trump weighed in on twitter yesterday, but one problem, politico Reports Urging voters to come out next tuesday. And who trump is campaigning for this weekend. What can you say . Apparently he was confused or someone was confused. The outcome of this election is going to be interesting. The last special for the
general. Who wins . It is a tight race. The margin is going to matter more than ultimately who comes out ahead. Panic time for republicans. This is a republican plus seven districts. The kind of district if democrats wins, it will portend a blue wave. Is he being careful . Picking a likely winner with balderson. He always does. This one, im not so sure. What is interesting to me is the way balderson has kept his distance. These are not like the ads that we have seen. The republican primary is one smart strategist told me, if it were a broadway show, it would be sung in the key of trump. All of these candidates running ads and tethering themselves to trump. And balderson has not done that. I think the democrats are going to pick up 30 in the house. You are watching hardball. A higher risk of stroke due to afib not caused by a heart valve problem. So if theres a better treatment than warfarin, im up for that. Eliquis. Eliquis is proven to reduce stroke risk better than warfarin. Plus has significantly less major bleeding than warfarin. Eliquis is fdaapproved and has both. So whats next . Seeing these guys. Dont Stop Taking Eliquis unless your doctor tells you to, as stopping increases your risk of having a stroke. Eliquis can cause serious and in rare cases fatal bleeding. Dont take eliquis if you have an Artificial Heart Valve or abnormal bleeding. While taking eliquis, you may bruise more easily and it may take longer than usual for any bleeding to stop. Seek immediate medical care for sudden signs of bleeding,
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kidding. Go ahead. Attempting to mimic alabama race. These days will determine the balance of what happens in the senate, and who controls the majority. These are states where they have been decimated. They need a lot of luck to pull it off. Considering this is a sign of how spooked the republicans are. The talk of the shut down that trump was putting out there this week was a bit of a trial loom. This is why you saw him go on rush limbaugh. Whats the verdict . Well, hannity likes it. If you are the governing party, you ought to govern. Thank you. When we return, let me finish tonight with trump watch. You wont like this one. But it will be worth watching for those who are thinking. Youre watching hardball. vo love. I got it. I gotcha baby. vo its being there when youre needed most. Hes the one. vo love is knowing. It was meant to be. And love always keeps you safe. vo love is why we built a car you can trust for a long time. The allnew Subaru Impreza sedan and fivedoor. A car you can love no matter what road youre on. The Subaru Impreza. More than a car, its a subaru. Right now, get 0 Apr Financing on the 2018 Subaru Impreza. When heartburn hits. Fight back fast with tums smoothies. It neutralizes stomach acid at the source. Tum tum tum tum tums. Smoothies. And introducing new tums sugarfree. Booking a flight 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. Ahoy gotcha nooooo. Noooooo. Quick, the quicker picker upper bounty picks up messes quicker and is 2x more absorbent. Bounty, the quicker picker upper. When the guy in Frontd Down The Highway slams on his brakes out of nowhere. You do, too, but not in time. Hey, no big deal. Youve got a good record and Liberty Mutual wont hold a grudge by raising your rates over one mistake. You hear that, karen . Liberty mutual doesnt hold grudges. How mature of them. For drivers with Accident ForgivenessLiberty Mutual wont raise their rates because of their first accident. Liberty mutual insurance. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty
sitting on their bed that if the person doing it has no connection to the outside world. Trump, the tweeter calls the russian effort to disrupt a hoax. Yet his government says moscows effort was not only real but ongoing to this day. Reading trump tweets coming from a man alone. It is as if the Person Tweeting lives entirely alone, derives his thinking and entire sense of reality from his peculiar sources unlike that 400pound of somebody. This is the president , sending signals as if he is alone on the planet, distant from his cabinet, his staff, the top