The control o special Counsel Robert Mueller. The Associated Press is reporting mueller, quote, has taken over a separate criminal probe involving former Trump Campaign manager Paul Manafort and may expand his inquiry to investigate the roles of the attorney general and Deputy Attorney general in the firing of fbi director james comey. And nbc news justice correspondent Pete Williams has more on mueller adding hes quote already closely managing the investigation, receiving daily briefings, and weighing in on investigative tactics. Meanwhile, in russia, today president Vladimir Putin offered a new explanation when faced with questions about his countrys meddling in our countrys election. While all of our intelligence agencies have found russia took part in our electoral process putins equivocation is not all that far from Donald Trumps. In effect, hes saying a lot of people could have done it. Putins comments came during a forum and a one on one interview in st. Petersburg with our own megyn kelly. There is no specific evidence, no facts. Just assumptions, allegations, and conclusions based on the allegations. Nothing more. What the experts say is that this couldnt have been faked. That its not one factor that its 100 factors that pope to russia. The forensics, the digital id, the encryption keys, the specific piece of code that all them all of them ints point to russia and none of them point to anyone other than russia. What finger prints or hoove prints or horn prts . What are they talking about. Your girl that is 3yearold can perpetrate such an attack. You had said for months that russia had nothing to do with the interference of the american election. And then this week you floated the idea of patriotic hackers doing it. Why the change . Translator well, i hadnt said anything. Its just that french journalist asked me about those hackers. I told him the same thing i can tell. Hackers can be anywhere. They can be in russia. In asia. Even in america. Latin america. They can be by the way in the United States. Very skillfully and professionally shifted the blame, as we say, onto russia. Can you imagine Something Like that . In the midst of a political battle . By some calculations it was convenient for them to release this information so, so they released it, citing russia. Can you imagine Something Like that . I can. Hackers in Laltin America could be out to frame russia. The complete interview with Vladimir Putin will air sunday night on the broadcast with the same name on nbc. Lets bring in our srting panel. Intelligence and National Security rter end kennedy lanian is with us. White house reporter for politico matt news balm is with us in new york. And washington clmist in for the boston globe, and this is germa germane, a proud daughter of pittsburgh, pennsylvania. Well got moore on pittsburgh later on. Welcome to you all. Ken, im going to begin with you on the importance this Associated Press reporting. It mentioned the attorney general sessions, the deputy a. G. Rosenstein. But more importantly, it mentions that mutualer is now, i guess, taking over the manafort investigation. Does that become overarching . Does he does he have the ability to say share with me what you have learned. You can shut your effort down, ive got it from here . Brian, with all due respect to my former colleagues at the Associated Press where i worked as the intelligence writer not too long ago im puzzled by this story because we at the msnbc nbc news Investigative Unit have been reporting for some time that the Paul Manafort case and the Michael Flynn case are a part of the whole russia investigation even though they dont seem on the surface to be directly related to russia collusion. It seemed only natural to us that mueller would be taking both of those things over. There may be a tech knick callity that he had to assume. The bottom line is mueller is overseeing a sprawling fbi investigation that includes criminal as sfekts and kousht intelligence aspects. As Pete Williams reported today he is taking a active role in managing it. Pete has been trying for days to get muellers people to explain how he is going to approach the investigation. He could be a caretaker, chairman of the board delegating a lot of the decisions. It turns out he is getting daily briefings, he is involved in the details of the investigative tactics. He may sit in on witness enters. He is running it like a District Attorney would run in the Southern District of new york, which i find fascinating. Tell me about the manafort investigation. Perhaps people are being thrown off because a prong of it is being run out of the commonwealth of virginia, correct . Im not im not completely sure about that. But i but there are aspects of these investigations that are in multiple districts across the country is our understanding. And we had been led to believe that it was they all fell under the umbrella of the investigation that has now fallen into muellers lap. All right. Ken. Thank you. Matt, is there any way of gauging if the white house is more worried today than they were yesterday, more worried this week than last . This is kinds the nightmare scenario about special counsel is that these investigations tend to ma tas at that size and grow. An investigation like this, its so broad to begin with. Hes already looking at flynn, at manafort, at these different figures. And now we are hearing about sessionsnd rosenstein. And theres really no apparent limit to what mr. Mutualer and his team can look into. Thats whats so scary for republicans in the white house, for republicans on capitol hill is they dont know what direction this is going to go in. The longer it goes on, the more people it touches the deeper this thing goes and the harder it is for them to talk about and certainly do anything else. And a big shoe drops next week unless there is some interruption in what we think is coming, thats the comey testimony on thursday . Exactly right. Thats sort of the big thing that all of washington, all of america is waiting for. James comey as weve seen before knows how to turn it on. He goes before the cameras and he can give bombshell testimony. We saw that when he discussed the famous incident during the Bush Administration when he rushed to the hospital to stop the attorney general from being forced to sign something. I think we are anticipating that kind of testimony this next week, something thats all the spotlights on him. And we discussed it doesnt look like President Trump is going to be able to block him from testifying. I know they said they are considering executive privilege. We deny know how that would work. We have two lawyers coming up for a whole segment to talk about that, talk about how that could be true or not. Indira, well get to pittsburgh. First i want to talk sanctions. Before that, i want to player mo of the megyn kelly interview. Lets listen to this and react on oer side. President putin, there are reports today in the American Press that the Trump Administration took active steps to ease sanctions on russia almost immediately after trump took office. Was this possibility ever discussed between the trump team and your representatives prior to President Trump being inaugurated. Translator thats just absurd what they are saying. I dont know where these people have come from that distribute this kind of information. What is an ambassador supposed to do . Thats what he gets money for. He has to hold meetings, have discussions about the current state of affairs. Seek agreement. What do you expect him to do . My answer is no, no agreements whatsoever we never ever get down to that, never had the time to start negotiations. Indira we could make out a couple of niets in there. Whats your reaction . Even from what Michael Flynn said, each before he was removed from his position as National Security adviser after what, three and a half short weeks it was, he essentially acknowledged that he had spoken to sergey kislyak, the Russian Ambassador to washington, about the possibility of lifting sanctions. You know, his words were different but it was along the lines of we will take care of that. Dont worry. You know, once we ar in office, we will smooth over and take care of these issues. What he was referring to of course was that that day the Obama Administration, the day when they had these many phone calls together when obama was still president , the Obama Administration was on that very day imposing sanctions on russia for its involvement in meddling in the 2016 campaign. So the idea was we are going to let that go. We now discovered this week that the Trump Administration was talking about giving back to russia those two facilities that were taken away, the use of which was taken away because they were being used as spy facilities. The tentacles of this go so far. As you were saying with ken earlier, or maybe it was matthew, that when a special counsel starts his investigation you never know where its going to ends up. Just has happened under the bill clinton administration, it all started with an investigation of whitewater, and it ended up with Monica Lewinsky and the impeachment. No one could have possibly foreseen that it would have gone that way. I just between say that the tentacles of this russia thing go all over washington to capitol hill. Just today, you know, we have news that devin nunes, who has been making such a huge deal as the republican chairman the House Intel Committee about unmasking, and parroting the Trump Administration view that no the real problem here is not russian interference, the real problem is unmasking by Obama Administration officials of American People who were on sbrel tapes. Now it turns out his own committee were requesting unof course maing of people caught in conversations. It gets curiouser and curiouser as they say in alice in wonderland. The president was outraged on twitter on that same subject. Kennedy lany, i want you to react to the next clip i want to play here. This is one of our colleagues really showing how its done today, pursuing a russian banker, a bank pretty much run by the russian government, keer simmons. Granted the brits have an advantage because they automatically sound more polite. Such was not the case today as he pursued the banker and tried to get an answer in st. Peertsdsburg. You are the subject of intense scrutiny in america bought of your meeting with Donald Trumps soninlaw, Jared Kushner. No comments about it. Conversation about bloch complain. Know, but there is confusion over what contactually happened. Slow down. Were you talking about business or were you talking about politics. Oh, it goes on from there into the hallway. Ken, reaquapt our viewers with t reacquaint us with the importance of that gentleman. That was a master class in journalism. Im glad he did that. That man, mr. Gorkov is a putin crony its been explained to us who pruns a russian Stateowned Bank that is under sanctions. That man had a mting with Jared Kushner, the president s soninlaw in december. We are sti trying to understand what the meeting was about about. The white house has one story, Jared Kushner was acting in his role as a diplomatic official. And another story is that it was a business meeting. This bank is under sanctions. Americans are forbidden to do business with banks under sanctions. That was an attempt to get an answer to what that meeting was about. Although unsuccessfully. Can he read from those contemporaneous notes, former fbi director comey . No one doubts those are an accurate of what happens this the day of his life. Uhhuh. I think it will be hard for President Trump to stop james comey. Its not like he is trying to stop the release of certain documents, not trying to stop a current federal employee from speaking about these things. He fired comey. He is a private citizen. As legal experts weighed in on this, its hard to she how he stops comey, especially when we know from the people around comey he wants to get out there, wants to give his side of the story. As the memos show, he is ready for this. Indira, i promised you a word of defense from your hometown, a grt american city, pittsburgh pennsylvania, which faced really an existential threat to its economy and a downturn. They did what pittsburghers do and they gutted it out. How did it feel to have pittsburgh name checked twice alongside paris. I was shocked when i heard the president say he was elected to represent the people of pittsburgh not paris and using pittsburgh as an excuse for pulling out of climate stalks did and the climate accord. The reason this is so shock is pittsburgh has completely turned around and reinvented its economy since the 1980s when it had stunning job losses from the collapse of the Steel Industry because of foreign competition. Today, pittsburgh stands as a hightech, a medicine, a knowledge economy, a city where it has 45,000 more jobs today than it had at the height of the Steel Industry, a place that has 7 higher per capita income than the national average. And so Donald Trumps idea of some imaginary halcion past where everyone was whistling on their way to work to these fabulous steel jobs thats just a fantasy. For example, coal jobs which donald trump is completely fixated on. There are 51,000 coal mining jobs total left in all of america. That is fewer jobs than at whole foods and you dont see donald trump demanding more jobs in the arugula aisle. You know, this is really about politics and just you know what he thinks sounds good. Paris and pittsburgh, they rhyme aliteration, whatever, but its not real. United Steelworkers Union president actually came out last night and slammed donald trump for that statement. He said we the steelworkers now work in green energy. We want to be in the climate deal. And the mayor of pittsburgh came out and said we actually didnt elect you, donald trump, 80 of pittsburgh voted for hillary clinton. I think they need to rework that slogan. But amazingly enough politico reported that he is planning to have a pittsburgh not paris rally in Lafayette Square across from the white house. So he seems not to have got ten memo. No oneidheiresearch on the true story of pittsburgh which is a rust belt reinvepgs into a green energy economy. Hes not telling the real story of pittsburgh. I had reason to believe you might have something to say on the topic. Well said. And thank you as we thank our starting grid tonight. Kennedy lany, matt news balm, and an deara much balman. Next, this topic of executive privilege. When the 11th hour continues. Thanks for the ride around norfolk and i just wanted to say, geico is proud to have served the military for over 75 years roger that. Captains waiting to give you a tour of the wisconsin now. Couldve parked a little bit closer. Its gonna be dark by the time i get there. Geico®. Proudly serving the military for over 75 years. Working on my feet all day gave me pain here. In my knees. So i stepped on this machine and got my number, which matched my dr. Scholls custom fit orthotic inserts. So i get immediate relief from my foot pain. My knee pain. Find a machine at drscholls. Com. Are made with smarttrack®igners material to precisely move your teeth to your best smile. See how invisalign® treatmentrs can shape your smile up to 50 faster todayr teat invisalign. Comsmile. Hour. As we mentioned, the New York Times has posted this, trump appears unlikely to hinder comeys testimony. To talk about all this, we have two attorneys of counsel for us tonight. Joe wine banks is back with us, one of the special prosecutors during the watergate scandal. Former general counsel to the United States army. And vie yawn wise is with us who helped turn over the decision of tom delay as well as other courtroom achievements. Tom, i want to start with you. Can you give us the briefest explanation for folks who havent heard the term since the watergate era, perhaps, or are new to it of executive privilege. And is it that everyone is saying President Trump has lessened his own possible executive privilege claim because of what he has said and tweeted about comey . First of all, you should never ask a lawyer for a brief answer. I know. I will try. I could hear as it came out of my mouth i knew that was wrong. First, what executive privilege is. It is a legitimate privilege that a president has to protect political conversations, policy discussions with his top aides. He wants to get honest and open advice, so he needs to protect that. It does not and i stress, does n include any conversations about committing crimes. So that if weve learned anything from history, and of course you have to know history to learn from it, you cannot protect a conversation that is an obstruction of justice. Thats what the court said in watergate. That would apply here, too. So when the president , in addition to the fact that the allegation is that this is a conversation that was obstruction of justice and therefore not protected but when he reveals the conversation, when he says heres what happened at that conversation, then the person on other end of it has a right to defend him or herself and explain what the actual conversation was. So that, in a way, could be viewed as a waver. So donald trump has said n that public letter, thank you mr. Comey for telling me three times im not the subject of investigation. He has tweeted comey better hope there arent tapes of the conversation. Jill, that lessens his potential case . It does. Frank lesion i think its lessen by the fact that the allegation is that he asked mr. Comey to stop investigating flynn. Yeah. And thats an obstruction of justice. So its not protected anyway. Okay, brian, since a good lawyer is supposed to be able to argue that night is day, day is night, and sunny is cloudy, can you make the other case . Make the case for President Trump, if you would, that perhaps theres a way they can wiesel into an executive privilege claim . And you have used the operative word, brian, wiesel. It would take all of the wieseling that any bunch of wiesels could possibly come up with. This may be the one time when im at loss for words. Im not sure what the over under is on the president invoking executive ilege. I would definitely bet the unde lo, anybody who has ever binge watched law and order recognizes that any privilege, pent tent priest, attorney client, patient doctor realizes number it is a shield, its not a sword. And number two the burden is on the individual seeking to advance that privilege. As jill aptly pointed out anything thats been made public in any way, shape, or form or that falls outside of that discrete privilege is fair game. And whats important in this situation is that you have got someone like james comey, who comes from an environment in the fbi and law enforcement, and the u. S. Attorneys office, where everything imaginable is ultimately documented. If you have lunch with one of your u. S. A. Buddies. If you sit down with with a snitch, regardless what it is. That is whats going to be problematic when the rubber mooets the road when he testifies next week. Jill to brians point as i keep saying on this broadcast he has the bearing kinds of if elliot necessary from the member of the college of cardinals. It matters. Personal matters. Kinds of bearing and ones Reputation Matters when he stands and gets sworn in on thursday. It does. But he is not a totally credible person. He does have the problem that he revealed the investigation int the emails in the days before the election while withholding the information about the ongoing trump russia investigation. So there is an issue that relates to that. But i do agree that once you have a contemporaneous memo which you are trained to do, it carries a lot of weight. Its not as good as a tape. So i hope when the president threatened about tapes that there are actually tapes. I would love to hear those. If you want to get technical, then he may have affected the last president ial election, fine i guess. Brian, lets talk about attorney client. If your client was donald trump, who we all know is going to be tempted to in effect live blog the comey testimony on twitter, how do you control your client and impress upon him the importance of silence . You know, thats one of lifes unanswered questions. Brian. When somebody comes around to be able to answer it i want them to call my cell phone when i get off the set in the b block. If im advising the president , and don mcgahn, who was tom delays personal lawyer who is a bright guy certainly not his first rodeo, should be able to do what any good lawyer does, thats exercise client control. But we have a president , with all due respect, brian, who views normative behavior in some situations the same way that a housewife greets a dock rich at 2 00 in the morning. Little empathy and less sympathy. In this situation every time our president tweets or opens up his mouth he is making a bad situation worse. What we are seeing as we saw during an earlier block its not just michael fly and is n just Paul Manafort. This is an everincreasing cast of characters. It looks like once again every timing like in godfather one they said we need these things to clear the air. From cockroaches to weasels to the godfather reference. Thank you for all of it. What happens late on a friday night at the end of a long week. Jill wine banks, brian, thank you counselsors for joining us on the. After another break well come back with the question why wont the white house say where the president stands on Climate Change . 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 for 10 years my tempurpedic has adapted to my weight and shape. So i sleep deeply and wake up ready to perform. Now through june 11th, save 600 when you buy select tempurpedic Adjustable Mattress sets. Find your exclusive retailer at tempurpedic. Com. Whats the best way to get v8 or a fancy juice store . S . Ready, go hi, juice universe . One large rutabaga, with eggplant. Done thats not fair. Glad i had a v8. The original way to fuel your day. Award winning interface. Award winning design. Award winning engine. The volvo xc90. The most awarded luxury suv of the century. Visit your volvo dealer to take advantage of our midsommar sales event offer. Welcome back. Before become president , donald trump was pretty clear about where he stood on Climate Change. The people at vox put together a list of 115 times trump posted on twitter about it. He has called it a hoax. And once famously blamed it on the chinese. But now, less than 24 hours after making that decision, with huge climate implications, no one in the white house would answer whether the president believed Climate Change was real. Yes or no, does the president believe that Climate Change is real and a threat to the United States. You for example its interesting about all the discussions we had through the last several weeks have been focused on one singular issue, is paris good or not for this country. I would like to go back to the first question that was asked that you didnt answer. Does the president believe today that Climate Change is a hoax . You know, i did answer the question because i said the discussions the president and i have had over the last several weeks have been focused on one key issue s paris good or bad for this country. You are the epa administrator, shouldnt you be able to tell the American People whether or not the president Still Believes the Climate Change is a hoax. Where does he stand . I answered the question a couple of times. Where doe the president stand on Climate Change. Does he believe it is a hoax. I have not had the opportunity to have that discussion. Would it be possible to have that conversation with him and report back to us at the next briefing. If i can, i will lot you know. What a time for the White House Press corps. We are blessed to have a quality White House Press corps right now. Lets welcome jemile smith, Senior National koerpent for mtv news. Notely an msnbc veteran back in the day. And sima rhetta, Political Writer for the los angeles times. Welcome to you both. Thank you. Sima, lets start with the politics of it. Well several people in the last 24 hours have said maybe hes just going to become a 40 president. He is clearly speaking to his base. This isnt really any surprise because at Campaign Rally after Campaign Rally last year he was very clear about what he felt about the Paris Agreement and that he planned to get out of it. I dont think anybody should be surprised he did this. I do find particularly his epa administrators inability to answer the question whether he believes Climate Change is real. I find that inexplicable. Jamie, what are the chance that 190 countries at Donald Trumps urging are going to come back, call it Something Different, decide Something Different . I would say thats a zero chance. Frank lesion i think Angela Merckle and other european leaders made it clear this is not a renegotiatible agreement. New york, california, washington, they understand thofs going to happen. They believed his actual promise for one that he was going to keep. They were prepared for him to make the wrong decision. Jemile, the other thing you are reading is that its everything is so retro about it, doto, but notably including, a return to coal mining and people keep asking, where are those jobs going to come from . Coalfired plants are coming off line. The momentum of the nation has been going in the other direction. Yeah. Unless they are going to fire the machines that are doing the mountain top removal or, you know, the people who are doing all the fracking that is competing and driving coal out of business. Frankly, thats the target if you really want to save coal. Its not people who are trying to promote solar, promote air, promote different kinds of alternative energy. So he is actually shooting at the wrong target if in fact which i dont believe he he wants to actually make some progress in this regard. And sima, there is the visual that was also reported last night, ivanka trump was calling ceos as an end around, could you please call my dad. Rex tillerson who used to run exxon, now secretary of state, arguing we should stay in paris. There is a huge dichotomy with the president saying this is whats good for american businesses with a lot of businesses saying we were on the other side of this. There are compete factions inside the white house. But a couple of weeks ago people were talking about steve bannon losing influence. When the president made his announce men about paris steve was front and center and ivanka and Jared Kushner were nowhere to be seen. We know she felt strongly about this very issue. For liberals and democrats who hoped she would be a moderating force on her father this was not an example of success. Jemile, there was reporting last night that banno was the last person the president met with on this. So you see this as it was said it was the nationalism resurgent yesterday. Yeah. I mean that certainly fits the pattern that weve been understanding for trump is that he pretty much believes whatever who the last person who speaks to him tells him. I think the idea here is to really getting away from asking whether or not the president believes Climate Change is real. It is real. We are not asking him if he believes in god or in a kick deity. We are not asking if he thinks the cavs are going to come back and win the nba finals. We are asking about something that has been prop to be a fact. Lets treat it as such. Then there is the governor in your state of california who says this will affect nothing we are going to keep going the way weve been going. Thanks for making up our de facto California Bureau on the on a friday night where its less laid for you than it is for us out here. We appreciate your service nonetheless. Jim hill smith, sima immediata thank you both very much. 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[burke] and we covered it, november sixth, twothousandnine. Talk to farmers. We know a thing or two because weve seen a thing or two. We are farmers. Bumpadum, bumbumbumbum welcome back to the 11th hour. Weve been talking about the president s decision to leave the paris climate accord. And we are joined by a former Climate Change denier who has evolved interest something of a Climate Change activist. He is former republican congressman from the great state of sou carolina, bob i think list. He was awarded the courage award in 2015 in fact for his Environmental Advocacy work. Congressman, thanks for coming on. You were primaried out of congress in an election that gave the world trey gowdy among other things. What is the 60second version of your journey from denier to activist and what you have to say to fellow republicans in congress these days . Brian, you are right, it started with six years in congress, of me saying Climate Change was nonsense. Didnt no anything about it except that al gore was for it and if you represented the conservative district i represented then that was enough. I was running especially real estate, my son came to me in 2004 and he said dad ill vote for you, but you have got to clean up your act on the environment. That plus a trip to the Great Barrier reef and an impact with an aussie climate scientist cause my to see the rmt of Climate Change and lets do something about it. A fellow republican of yours, and a friends of ours, and a frequent contributor, Steve Schmidt wrote this, i saw it on social media today, on twitter. For the first time in the post warld war two world, the u. S. President lacks the moral authority to lead the western alliance. That is a great danger. Your reaction . I think thats true. I think that, sadly, donald trump has put us on the sidelines, squatting over there with syria and nicaragua, afraid to enter the competition of ideas out on the field. Its really a very strange place for us to be as the leader of the free world. So its a very awkward place, and an unfortunate turn of events here in the last 24 hours. So what can the people who are likeminded, who agree with you, do about this . How should they think about this . Should they hope and assume the world knows better . Should they be buoyed by the fact that perhaps its reversible by president ial election . Well, i think what we need to do is at republican en. Org we live to show there is a way to fix this problem by simply putting all the costs in and all the fuels, eliminating all the subsidies and if we do that through an effective carbon tax thats paired with a dollar for dollar reduction of other taxes and apply that on imports such that china may challenge in the World Trade Organization but after they lose they would be placing the same price on Carbon Dioxide internal to china and then the rest of the world would follow suit. So american bold leadership could give us a worldwide price on Carbon Dioxide, which i think most economists would tell us is the most efficie way too it. Better than the clean power plan, better than a regulatory approach, better than capping trade. A very simple carbon tax thats paired with a reduction of other taxes or a dividend of the money back to the people. So its an exciting opportunity to really move on to new energy once we fix the economics. Congressman, thank you very much for coming on. We hope we can invite you back. As an earlier guest said we hope the president can schedule a visit to pittsburgh, pennsylvania, where he may learn a lot about the new economy and the new version of pittsburgh pennsylvania. We appreciate it congressman bob i think list. After the break, to a current member of the u. S. Senate, representing the great state of minnesota. When the 11th hour continues. 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Most people using stelara® saw 75 clearer skin and the majority were rated as cleared or minimal at 12 weeks. Be the you who talks to your dermatologist about stelara®. Welcome back to the 11th hour. Senator al franken, democrat, representing the great state of minnesota has just released a new book al franken, giant of the senate, remembering his first career was in comedy. I sat down with him to talk. We started on the topic of russia. I asked him about the ongoing investigations. He said he believes eventually these Investigation Underway now will get to the bottom of it. But he finds the behavior of this white house right now notable. The trump team isnt acting like people have nothing to hide. And thats too bad. But what the russians did, obviously, it was an attack on our country. And on our the fundamentals of our democracy. And we have to find out if the trump team cooperated in any way and if the president you know, what did the president know . And when did his soninlaw tell him. What do you see in the u. S. Senate we have our own view. And we citizens often see our politics as fractured and broken. Some days it seems beyond repair. What do you see, if anything, that makes you optimistic, say, about the u. S. Senate . Well, in the u. S. Senate, you have to maintain collegial relationships with the other senators. And that is part of what makes me optimistic. I see us do bipartisan legislation. There is a division now. I hate whats going on in terms of this Health Care Bill in the senate, this process. We should be doing this in the regular process. We should be having hearings instead of 13 senators, republican senators behind closed doors. The bill out of the house is a disaster. It would hurt minnesotans. It would hurt the very people that trump said he was going to be helping. He said he wouldnt cut medicaid. It cuts medicaid by 880 billion. And they use that to 900 billion tax cut for people maki or 250,000 a year. Thats just wrong. And i am cochair of the rural health caucus. Because of this cut and my husband and i both work and we dont know what were going to do. This is wrong and its cruel. Theres a great part of your state called the iron range. Yes. If you go into a stwraunt or a diner on a friday night, what do you think you would hear about donald trump . Well, there are a lot of voters on the iron range who voted for me and voted for donald trump. Yeah. And you know, a trade up there is a big issue. Trump administration has been good on steel dumping. Thats something that really affected the range. The Obama Administration was good on that as well. But loss to someone whos in the industry and knows the range actually in a very granular manner, so im glad that hes there for that. There are also union folks there. Yeah. And this administration is hostile to unions. Im a member of three unions. All they are actor, s. A. G. And writers guild. They know that unions built the middle class and theyre very pro union, too. Its a complex area politically. Theyre very there are skeptical enviroentalists. They are very religious, although theres far more bars than churches. Oh, well, its long winters. Its the rage. Its the range. Yeah. What poses a greater threat to america and this may be an unfair construction. I dont know Vladimir Putin or Climate Change . I think Climate Change is a threat to the world, its an existential threat. This decision on paris is the wrong decision. Its stupid. You know, you talk to anybody in the defense department. They know the quadrennial review, talk about, but this is the worst threat to our National Security and because there are going to be hundreds of millions of k4r50i789 refugees if we dont do something about Climate Change. I write in my book, i dont want my kids my grandchildren saying to me, grandpa, you were a United States senator. You knew Climate Change was happening, why didnt you do anything and also why are you still alive. Because id be 116 at that point. I wasnt going say that. I would say its all the n. I. H. Funding that i got. And Vladimir Putin . Vladimir putin poses a threat to our democracy and attacked our democracy. I think hes also a threat in eastern europe. Hes not a good guy. Senatorial franken during his visit to this studio. And how you can tell a book by its cover in this case. Right back after this. burke at farmers, weve seen almost everything, so we know how to cover almost anything. Even a coupe soup. [woman] so beautiful. [man] beautiful just like you. [woman] oh, why thank you. [burke] and we covered it, november sixth, twothousandnine. Talk to farmers. We know a thing or two because weve seen a thing or two. We are farmers. Bumpadum, bumbumbumbum pressure. I feel it everyday. But at night, its the last thing on my mind. For 10 years my tempurpedic has adapted to my weight and shape, relieving pressure points from head to toe. So i sleep deeply and wake up ready to perform. Now through june 11th, save 600 when you buy select tempurpedic Adjustable Mattress sets. Find your exclusive retailer at tempurpedic. Com. While a shortened week by the holiday its also been a long week. One more note from al frankens visit to our studios. I asked him to take us on a tour of the book cover and thus a tour of his mind. You went with a modest option for the cover. Why . Well, i you know, people say dont judge a book by its cover, but they do. And i felt that we needed a cover befitting a giant of the senate and it had to be an oil painting, but i didnt have time to sit for an oil painting and we took a photograph and had it painted. So theres a lot of important elements here. You have the globe. Right. Ive noticed the whole world in your hands. Because a giant of the senate has global responsibilities. The fireplace there, you see that . That puts a glow behind you. That that signifies being important enough to have an office with a fireplace. Andor warmth. And warmth. You get that feeling, too. Very good. Thank you. The gravitas of the whole thing. The whole thing says gravitas. We replaced my hand, kind of photo shopped it and put a beautiful hand in its place. And then the title, of course, al franken, giant of the senate by al franken. Yeah. Point out im a number one New York Times bestselling author and you have the perfect cover for the perfect book. And by the way, i tell the reader that the reader should judge for him or herself after reading the book whether i am, in fact, a giant of the senate. Another nod to modesty on your part. Thats the way i look at it, certainly. I sometimes in satire, you use irony. Ah im noting that. Its i was going to leave with you that. And no relation with the iron range . Thats iron with a y at the end . Exactly. Ok. Couldnt have said it better myself. Senatorial franken, thank you. Appreciate it very much. Thank you. And that is our broadcast for friday night. Good night from new york. We look for you monday night. Rachel is still under the weather but we have big news breaking tonight. So big that we will be hearing from rachel herself in a few moments. It is friday night and the a. P. Is reporting the russia appropriate is widening. Special Counsel Robert Mueller including a separate criminal probe into paul man fort. It could include his Justice Department if necessary. More on that in a moment. As for manfort his blil work has been widely reported. Nbc confirming the prosecutors have reviewed his advocacy for forces in ukraine