his stormy daniels admission. and the art of the speaker phone. >> the president is on the phone. enrique? >> when "all in" starts right now. >> hello? good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. today the white house reaction to the passing of one of america's truly towering political figures, senator john mccain, descended into outright farce as a president who had repeatedly mocked and diminished mccain during his life was initially unable to offer up a single kind word even in death. >> thank you very much, everybody. thank you. >> any thoughts at all about john mccain? do you think john mccain is a hero? >> thank you. >> nothing at all about john mccain? >> thank you very much. >> that was the strange scene in the oval office this afternoon. on the heels of revelation this weekend that trump had nixed issuing a statement that praised the heroism and life of mccain opting instead for a brief tweet that offered sympathy for mccain's family but conspicuo conspicuously did not say anything about mccain himself. after john mccain passed away on saturday the white house did lower its flag to half staff but this morning after less than 48 hours the white house flag was back up. despite precedent the flag remain at half staff until an honoree's burial. p it appeared to be a deliberate decision. the white house flag was raised to full staff even as the flags remained lowered at the washington monument which you can see in the background of the white house just a mile or so away. all of this prompted a massive outpouring of criticism including from veterans groups. so late this afternoon the white house lowered its flag again back to half staff, and trump issued a proclamation hailing mccain that seemed to come through gritted teeth. despite previously opining that mccain is not a war hero because he got captured, trump also managed to speak stoefrn john mccain's name out in public and briefly compliment him during an event late this evening. >> also our hearts and prayers are going to the family of senator john mccain. going to be a lot of activity over the next number of days and we very much appreciate everything that senator mccain has done for our country. >> trump today also named the officials who will represent his administration at mccain's funeral since mccain declared shortly before he passed away that trump was not welcome to attend the funeral. the previous two presidents, barack obama and george w. bush, will both be offering eulogies. now, the animosity between the celebrated gop senator and the releaptlessly graceless president has made things awkward for republican senators as they took to the floor today to honor their former colleague. they were addressing a gop electorate that is now almost entirely faithful to a man mccain seemed to despise. a look at the polls. trump's approval rating among republicans now stands at 88%. late last year nbc polling put mccain's approval rating among those same voters at just 35%. it's not really a contest. that means electoral republicans are effectively bound to trump whether they like it or not. today the "wall street journal" reported that trump's former campaign manager, paul manafort, remember him? sought a deal for his second trial after being convicted in his first trial last week. although before jury deliberations actually delivered that conviction but talks broke down. if trump's current issues bring him down he could take down much of the gop with him. and thernt the only existential threat. axios reported today republicans have been, get this, secretly circulating a spreadsheet that meticulously previews the investigations democrats will likely launch if they in fact take control of the house. and there are a lot of them. republicans identified 18 different possible areas of investigation from trump's dealings with russia to the stormy daniels payoff to the firing of james comey to election security. with me one of the democrats who would be at the helm of many of those investigations, congressman adam schiff of california, top democrat in the house intelligence committee. i want to ask you about that list. but first i wanted to see if you have anything to say today about senator john mccain. >> well, you know, those of us that had a chance to get to know him, and i traveled with him a number of times, just have the greatest admiration for him. his bravery, his plain-spoken manner, his sense of humor. the respect that he had for and was shown to him by leaders all around the world. he really is irreplaceable, and this is a terrible time to lose him. the country really needs people to put country over party, particularly in the gop, where they have effectively acted as a rubber stamp for this president. and john was no rubber stamp. he was tenacious in defending the interests of the country even when they conflicted with his own party. he will be greatly missed. and there's really no one else like him. >> you just talked about the rubber stamped nature of the current republican majority. that brings us to this memo they're circulating which is -- could just be a memo from democrats or could be a memo a reporter wrote about here are some things that probably should be investigated. this is not like crazy out there red meat stuff. things like the tax returns, emoluments violation forz which there's several federal suits. dealings with russia. the stormy daniels payment which of course was lied about and since been confirmed. james comey firings. steve mnuchin's business dealings. the cabinet secretary travel expenses. what do you think of this list? >> well, i think there are a great many candidates to be on that list that probably aren't even on the list. i'll give you one that i find particularly troubling. reports a couple months ago that the president was meeting privately with the post-master general to try to browbeat her into raising postal rates on amazon to punish jeff bezos and the "washington post." we see a president using the instruments of power to attack the free press and the first amendment. and so there's any number of issues, many of which are not on that list, which have gone completely without oversight. why did the president reverse course on this chinese telecom zte? was it because of reports china was going to invest 500 million in a trump branded property? is u.s. policy basically for sale in indonesia or in the middle east or through jared kushner? there are a great many serious allegations of impropriety. and chris, all you need to know about the current gop congress's unwillingness, complete abdication of any oversight responsibility, you can tell from a single statistic. and that is the chairman of the government oversight and reform committee, trey gowdy, who brought us the endless benghazi investigations, hasn't issued a single subpoena during the trump administration to investigate any allegations of incompetence or corruption within the trump administration. they have just been utterly unwilling to do their jobs. >> he really hasn't issued one? >> not one that i'm aware of, no. it's really quite breathtaking. but it is a sign, and we certainly see it on the intelligence committee, where the only subpoenas they seem intent on issuing were to investigate the investigators. >> right. >> when people like steve bannon came in, yes, finally he got a subpoena. but when he still refused to answer questions they said, well, okay, we're not prepared to take any further. we really honestly don't want to know the answers. and that unfortunately set the tone for their oversight responsibility. >> one of the things that was investigated briefly was of course the president and the attacks by russia during the election. a committee on which you're the ranking member. roger stone was one of the individuals i believe who came before you in that investigation. and you know this area of fact better than most, having been -- had access to classified material and also to some of the interviews that happened. so i wanted to get your reaction to a bizarre statement by roger stone today posted to the internet out of nowhere in which he attempts to kind of get out ahead of what he says an impending story and deny it. take a listen. >> this is roger stone. somebody has been pushing a fake news story first with the "new york times," then the "washington post," and now with ronan farrow of the "new yorker." someone is saying that they overheard a conversation in which i told donald trump in october of 2016 what exactly would be in the wikileaks disclosures and when they would be disclosed. this is categorically false. >> thoughts? >> well, first of all, i wouldn't believe what roger stone has to say any further than i could throw him. there are any number of statements he made under oath to our committee which have been put into question by other things that have been reported since. there if you look carefully at what he had to say he is denying that he told the president exactly what would be in the wikileaks disclosures. and it would be just like roger stone to say, well, i didn't say that i didn't tell him what would be in, it i just said that i didn't tell him exactly what would be in it. sow simply can't believe anything roger stone has to say, at least from my experience. he's one of the people that i think ought to be brought back for further questioning before our committee in light of statements, for example, i think he and others have acknowledged that they were approached by someone with a slavic background offering information that would be useful to the campaign. so these are things that i think need further investigation certainly but i don't know what else to make of this rather bizarre video. >> well, you join a lot of people in that ultimate determination. congressman adam schiff, thanks for your time tonight. >> thanks, chris. for more on how republicans are handling mccain's passing and trump's attitude, what happens if the house flips, i'm joined by michelle goldberg, columnist for the "times" and msnbc contributor betsy woodruff, politics reporter at the daily beast p i'll start with you, michelle. you have a column coming out about exactly, this the subject of the spreadsheet, when and if impunity ends. >> not even the spreadsheet but because the spreadsheet was compiled by just looking at different requests for documents or interviews that democrats have made and republicans had ignored. they have this kind of guide. this is what they want to know about. but democrats -- there's too many things to do them all. so democrats have their own priorities for kind of what they're going to do and i think you're going see investigations basically every single different committee and subcommittee looking at sort of what in its wheelhouse it can investigate and subpoena. we have this kind of bitter saying throughout this whole nightmare last 19 months where everybody says ha, ha, ha, nothing matters. and the reason nothing matters, that we find that, say, trump's personal attorney goes to court and says trump instructed him to commit two felonies to cover up his affairs and n. advance of the election and 48 hours later everyone seems to have forgotten about it is not because trump is some teflon person with particularly strong support among the american people but because they have one-party rule and they refuse to play any role in the accountability. that is the thing american voters have the potential to bring to an end in november. right? adam schiff could restart the russia investigation. elijah cummings at oversight will have subpoena power. maxine waters will be the head of the committee on financial regulation. the house ways and means committee will be able to obtain trump's tax returns under an old 1924 law that people don't use. it's going to be a completely different environment in terms of the ability to hold them accountable for all these outrages. >> and it seems to me, betsy, that this document indicates -- partly this is a fund-raising motivate the donor class document which is look what's going to happen, it will be an apocalyp apocalypse. but it also evinces to me republicans know exactly what they're doing now and what is coming if they don't hold on to the house. >> that's right. and for months people in paul ryan's inner circle have been operating under the assumption that they're going to lose the house in november. there just hasn't been any publicly available polling evidence indicating that republicans had a particularly good shot of hanging on to it. and while trying to read the tea leaves of early polls can sometimes be foolish that's what republicans have to work with as they're looking ahead to november. and that's why we're seeing so much pessimism emanating from the republican party leadership. one thing that's really important about this memo is that it sends a signal, especially to young up-and-coming trump-friendly republican political operatives and wonks. if you're a republican and you're thinking about take a job in the white house, you probably want to wait until after november because -- >> that's interesting. >> -- going through these investigations can be incredibly costly from a legal perspective. just paying an attorney or a team of attorneys to help you prepare for one, two, or three-hour testimony before a congressional committee can cost tens of thousands of dollars because washington attorneys are really expensive. and while many people in the trump administration are extraordinarily wealthy, many of them aren't. if you're in your mid 20s and you're looking at your second or third job and you have to face the prospect that you may have to testify before the committee chaired by elijah cummings or maxine waters and it could out you $20,000 to $40,000, that's going to make you think twice about potentially taking a position in the white house. >> you know, today was also just another reminder of just how much they are just tethered to this man. i mean, this is the person who their voters like. and as you watch this preposterous up and down with the flag insanity where the president's incapable of just doing the most sort of basic, you know, graceful gestures you've got to wonder like what goes through their head on a day like today? >> i mean, i've been wondering that for -- >> for a very long time, yeah. >> -- the last 19 months and i feel like i've kind of read studies of parliamentarians in vichy, france to try to understand what makes you sell out your principles on such an industrial scale. and someday i would love to see a forensic profile of the sort of cowardice because it's really -- i mean, both -- they're not even getting that much out of it and it is so incredibly degrading. >> and then you see someone like jonny isakson today, senator isakson of georgia today who sort of relished the opportunity to say what a lot of people feel but they never do because it was kind of of a safe space to do it. take a listen to what he had to say. >> anybody who in any way tarnishes the reputation of john mccain deserves a whipping because most of the ones who would do the wrong thing about john mccain didn't have the guts to do the right thing when it was their turn. we need to remember that. >> it seems pretty clear who he's talking about. >> not a lot of subtlety in that particular comment. seems a very clear allusion to the fact trump invoked so-called bone spurs when he was trying to not have to be roped into fighting in the vietnam war. of course mccain went on to fight in vietnam and become a prisoner of war as we're all aware. mccain has so many -- is so beloved by his senate colleagues on both sides of the aisle, not just his senate colleagues but also staffers on both sides of the aisle. he was really a lion of the senate. even if you talk to people who had deep philosophical grave differences with many of the policy positions that mccain took, as a human being he just generated so much affection. people just really liked and respected the guy. both in the senate and around the world. so johnny isakson is very much speaking for capitol hill almost as a whole when he makes these comments about going after people who would try to damage the reputation of mccain after he'd passed away. he's not a lonely voice there. of course he's a unique voice and sort of putting it in those particular terms, but he got zero pushback in the dmam behr for being so blunt. >> they'll be back in a week to voting for everything the president wants more or less. michelle goldberg and betsy woodruff, thank you both for being with me. >> thank you. >> after the break the mueller investigation has reached trump o grchlt. the news that has the president so wound up white house officials reportedly thought about staging an intervention. that story in two minutes. ntion. that story in two minutes. a steak. luckily for brad, this isn't a worry because he's discovered super poligrip. it holds his denture tight and helps give him 65% more chewing power. leaving brad to dig in and enjoy the tastiest of t-bones. super poligrip, helping you enjoy the foods you love. need a change of scenery? the kayak price forecast tool tells you whether to wait or book your flight now. so you can be confident you're getting the best price. giddyup! kayak. search one and done. this is moving day with the best in-home wifi experience and millions of wifi hotspots to help you stay connected. and this is moving day with reliable service appointments in a two-hour window so you're up and running in no time. show me decorating shows. this is staying connected with xfinity to make moving... simple. easy. awesome. stay connected while you move with the best wifi experience and two-hour appointment windows. click, call or visit a store today. so as of last week we now know that the trump organization is part of the mueller investigation. thanks to last week's bombshell plea agreement from trump attorney michael cohen and news of an immunity deal for allen weisselberg, the company's chief financial officer. we don't know where the investigation is headed, at least the one in the southern district of new york, but we do know that long-time trump confidant and former campaign adviser roger stone, who we just mentioned, has a legal defense fund and that he predicts another member of trump world could soon be indicted. >> i predicted yesterday based on excellent sourcing that the special counsel is going to charge donald trump jr. with lying to the fbi. >> donald trump jr. you just mentioned him. is he going to be -- is mueller going after him next you? said they're going to try to get him for lying to the fbi. >> i think so. notice they're not going after him for the underlying crime because there is no crime. he's done nothing wrong. >> take that with a grain of salt. it is roger stone, after all. now, gabe sherman at "vanity fair" is reporting that white house officials are so worried about the latest presidential unraveling, although frankly we've been hearing that for months, that they "talked about inviting rudy giuliani and a group of trump's new york real estate friends including tom barrack, richard lafrak and howard lorber to the white house to stage an intervention last week. the president refused to take the meeting." here with me now someone who worked with donald trump for the better part of two decades. former head of construction at trump tower here in new york. good to see. you. >> nice to see you. >> let's start with allen weisselberg because he's someone i think people didn't have much of a sense of until last week when he was reported to have been granted immunity. how central is he to the organization? >> he probably is more central than i initially thought. when i worked with him he was really the guy that paid the bills, collect the rents and get the invoices, that kind of thing. but he's been with trump so long and trump so values family, he's part of the family, that i think he probably moved into a position of more authority and maybe a little bit more information and influence. but i don't think that he is in the inner circle. he certainly wasn't when i was there. >> that's interesting. the family dynamic, you see roger stone sort of darkly warning that don jr.'s on the hook and there's no reason to think that he knows anything that we don't know publicly. but one of the issues it seems to me is the president, because he so mixes family and business, has now put his family in a position where they're exposed. >> and he i think he has put them in a position where they're exposed. and i think they're not -- they are culpable too. they played the role that they were assigned very well. and i do think they're in position where they're possibly exposed. i don't know if stone is right, there's nothing wrong with them. but i do think lying went on about the meeting, about who was there, about when it happened, about why it happened. >> and you said before you just don't think it's plausible that given the way that donald trump operates and the given the relationship he had with his son and others that something like that meeting would happen without him being given a heads-up. >> absolutely not. nothing important happened without trump knowing about it. even things that weren't so important he wanted to know about. >> he was kind of micromanager. >> he was a bit of a -- it's funny because when you needed him he was ant round a lot of times. but it was $5,000 for a subcontractor he wanted to know why. you know, that kind of thing 37. >> that's very interesting. do you think that there's -- how do you think the organization is functioning now with the fact the sons are running it and he is putatively not touching it at all? i guess do you buy that that's the case? >> well, i don't really think that the sons are running it per se. i think it's kind of -- it's really not an organization, it's not a company of any kind. it's just a whole bunch of groups put together and names associated with it. >> it's not like a huge complex like business with a ton of employees, right? >> no, it's not. and it doesn't have, you know, like an organizational chart. we used to say there would be an organizational chart would be donald on the top and everybody else because that's basically the way it was run. but as far as them running the organization is concerned i think it probably pretty much runs itself in terms of day-to-day operations and that kind of thing. and as far as major questions, major answers, major problems i can't imagine trump is not -- >> that it's not still going to him. >> yeah. >> there's two schools of thought about the president. one is that he is incapable of self-restraint, impetuous, has no self-discipline. the other is that he's cannier than he looks, that he can stop himself when he needs to, that he kind of knows what he's doing. and that has been a crucial debate and question as we watch him sort of escalate his attacks on mueller, which is this sort of fits of pique or is he doing it strategically? what do you think as someone who worked with him for years? >> i think he is now scrambling. >> you do. you don't think this is some chess, some strategic escalation? >> no. i've seen donald be a little strategic but he does tend to fly off without control. >> and he does. >> absolutely. >> and he gets very upsxet and angry and calls people -- >> yes, absolutely. turns white. it's really a very rough scene. >> so when you read these reports about him spending all weekend like gabe sherman reported calling people up and yelling at them that scans to you as the donald trump that you know? >> absolutely, yes. definitely. >> do you think there's been a decline in his ability, though, to sort of listen to advice and sort of tack as needed over time? >> well, over the time that i knew him i noticed that dramatically. in the three years that i was gone from him that i did trump tower and then i came back to do other projects. he was a different person totally. when i was there he listened. he listened to me. he listened to the contractors. he listened to some of his people, the architects. i mean, it was a struggle. it was always a struggle. but after that i noticed he was surrounding himself with sycophants and he was being told how great he is and he was liking that. and i observed that over time. now i think it's ridiculous. i don't think anyone can control him. and i think they tried to control him with cohen and initially he was a little laid back but then he couldn't. he had to do it. he had to do it. >> that's very interesting. barbara res, thank you. i appreciate it. >> it was a pleasure. >> just one week after the president admitted he personally provided the hush money payment for stormy daniels the adult film actress, alleging they had an affair. one week after that donald trump is hosting a white house dinner with his evangelical supporters. that story next. ers. that story next. it's so simple, i don't even have to think about it. so i think about mouthfeel. i don't think about the ink card. i think about nitrogen ice cream in supermarkets all over the world. i think about the details. fine, i obsess over the details. think about every part of your business except the one part that works without a thought your ink card. introducing chase ink business unlimited with unlimited 1.5% cash back on every purchase. chase for business. make more of what's yours. the kayak explore tool shows you the places you can fly on your budget. so you can be confident you're getting the most bang for your buck. alo-ha. kayak. search one and done. can make you feel unstoppable. ♪ but mania, such as unusual changes in your mood, activity or energy levels, can leave you on shaky ground. help take control by talking to your doctor. ask about vraylar. vraylar is approved for the acute treatment of manic or mixed episodes of bipolar i disorder in adults. clinical studies showed that vraylar reduced overall manic symptoms. vraylar should not be used in elderly patients with dementia due to increased risk of death or stroke. call your doctor about fever, stiff muscles, or confusion, which may mean a life-threatening reaction, or uncontrollable muscle movements, which may be permanent. side effects may not appear for several weeks. high cholesterol and weight gain; high blood sugar, which can lead to coma or death; decreased white blood cells, which can be fatal; dizziness upon standing; falls; seizures; impaired judgment; heat sensitivity; and trouble swallowing may occur. you're more than just your bipolar i. ask about vraylar. america's a nation of believers, and tonight we're joined by faith leaders from across the country who believe in the dignity of life, the glory of god, and the power of prayer. everybody agree with that? >> yes. >> this hour the president is inside the white house hosting a number of prominent evangelical christians for an event that david brody of the christian broadcast network said was like a state dinner for evangelical leaders. it's unclear when the event was scheduled. what is clear is that this dinner gives the president an opportunity to cozy up to a portion of his base that is most loyal, particularly at a time of scandal. like the extraordinary fact that two of the president's closest associates were convicted in federal court less than a week ago of multiple felonies or that the president himself last week somewhat casually, one must say, was finally forced to admit his involvement in the hush money payment to an adult actress. but that's done nothing to shatter the conviction of evangelical christians who seem incredibly clear-eyed about the pact they've made with the president. >> i would say the thing that would cause me to change would be for example if he suddenly became pro choice, if he started to say, well, you know what, we've had enough conservative justices at the federal courts and on the supreme court, we need somebody more moderate. those things i think would cause evangelicals to turn away. i don't see either one of those things happening. look, he's very smart. he knows he's got to have his evangelical base behind him. and i think he's going to continue to support those policies that put him into office. >> we'll talk more about the relationship between the president and evangelical christians. i'm joined by amy sullivan who's reported on this for years, host of "impolite company," a weekly podcast on politics and religion. i thought that jeffress clip, amy, is so striking because it is so clear-eyed and so honest about what exactly the nature of this political pact is. >> exactly. they're very open about the fact that this is transactional, this is not about personal moral character, which may cause some whip ashe for those of us who remember 1998 and the things some of these same evangelical leaders were saying when bill clinton and his involvement with monica lewinsky was all over the news. then we heard a lot about how important it was to have moral leadership and how we couldn't as a country stand for having a president who had anything less than the most sterling moral character. but this is another time and this is another political party evangelicals are working with. >> do you think people are -- i think when you're forced to mag arguments you end up believing them often. so i wonder the interior spiritual life, are people aware they're being transactional and hypocritical or have people sort of reasoned themselves into a place where they have some sense that no, actually he's morally elevated or a spiritually enlightened individual? >> well, you know, it's kind of both and for a lot of folks. there is some really interesting theological gymnastics that's been going on in terms of what people have been able to talk themselves into. you hear a lot about people saying, well, if you look through the bible there are many instances of god using somebody of less than sterling moral character for his own purposes. and so they're very open about saying look, donald trump is not somebody i would expect to sit next to me in the pew at church but he's going to put people on the court, justice jeffress says he's going to do what we want in terms a pro life agenda and so we're happy with him. and then there are other folks who reportedly, i've heard this, do believe that they are going to be the ones to lead donald trump to christ and that by being close to him they're going to be able to kind of land this white whale. >> we don't have time to put it up but one of the most amazing spiritual exchanges between david brody, i noted earlier, and donald trump on his golf course when he asked him what he thinks of god and trump goes into a long revery about how it's great he owns the golf course without a mortgage. i guess the sort of question to me is from a policy perspective is it really the course -- jason zangerly who has a great piece in the "new york times" magazine, says it's just about the sheer efficacy and sort of ambition and ruthlessness with which mcconnell and don mcgahn and trump are putting judges on the federal judiciary that represent the sort of evangelical agenda and the right wing of the party. is that really the key thing? >> well, look, you've got a lot of folks in kind of what we broadly they've as the religious right who are thrilled about what trump is doing with the courts. and yet who are not willing to do something like go to this dinner right now at the white house and stand and kind of be willing to be used for political purposes. the folks who are there tonight, these are the folks who weren't really in the in crowd during, say, george w. bush's presidency. >> interesting. >> because those guys, they kind of learned their lesson. they didn't want to be used for political purposes. and that's what they took out of bush's administration and their experience with him. but these are the guys who are willing to make an idol of political proximity. >> that's really interesting. amy sullivan, thanks for joining us. i appreciate it. >> thanks for having me. ? coming up next, donald trump's attempt to make a major announcement is derailed by advanced speakerphone technology. that's tonight's thing 1, thing 2, starting next. tarting next i take trulicity once a week to activate my body to release its own insulin, like it's supposed to. trulicity is not insulin. it works 24/7. it comes in an easy-to-use pen. and i may even lose a little weight. trulicity is an injection to improve blood sugar in adults with type 2 diabetes when used with diet and exercise. don't use it as the first medicine to treat diabetes, or if you have type 1 diabetes or diabetic ketoacidosis. don't take trulicity if you or your family have medullary thyroid cancer, you're allergic to trulicity, or have multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. stop trulicity and call your doctor right away if you have symptoms of a serious allergic reaction, a lump or swelling in your neck or severe stomach pain. serious side effects may include pancreatitis. taking trulicity with a sulfonylurea or insulin increases your low blood sugar risk. common side effects include nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal pain, and decreased appetite. these can lead to dehydration, which may worsen kidney problems. to help lower my a1c i choose trulicity to activate my within. ask your doctor about once-weekly trulicity. to help lower my a1c i choose trulicity to activate my within. that's confident. but it's not kayak confident. kayak searches hundreds of travel and airline sites to find the best flight for me. so i'm more than confident. how's your family? kayak. search one and done. thing 1 tonight. it was over a year -- three years ago, july 2015, at the family leadership summit in iowa when then candidate donald trump was asked by the moderator about his claim that john mccain was a dummy. trump not only defended his position, he went after mccain for being captured during the vietnam war. >> he's not a war hero. >> he's a war hero. 5 1/2 years -- >> he's a war hero because he was captured. i like people that weren't captured. okay? i hate to tell you. he's a war hero because he was captured. okay? >> i'm sure you've seen that clip before. maybe you gaffed along with the audience. but don't think that was some one-time thing. donald trump has been slamming john mccain this way for decades. >> the way trump looks at it, he's at least better than everyone else in the race, beginning with john mccain. >> he was captured. >> he flew combat missions with distinction. >> does being captured make you a hero? i don't know. i'm not sure. >> 1999. now, today as most of washington was paying their respects and watching the flags go up and down in the white house trump really wanted to change the subject badly. so he called everyone into the oval office for a huge announcement of a brand new trade deal with mexico. >> and i believe the president is on the phone. enrique? >> trump v. speakerphone is thing 2, in 60 seconds. n 60 secs ever since i started renting from national. because national lets me lose the wait at the counter... ...and choose any car in the aisle. and i don't wait when i return, thanks to drop & go. at national, i can lose the wait...and keep it off. looking good, patrick. i know. (vo) go national. go like a pro. need a change of scenery? the kayak price forecast tool tells you whether to wait or book your flight now. so you can be confident you're getting the best price. giddyup! kayak. search one and done. the full value oft wyour new car? you'd be better off throwing your money right into the harbor. i'm gonna regret that. with liberty mutual new car replacement we'll replace the full value of your car. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty ♪ in what seemed at least a pretty blatant attempt to change the subject away from john mccain today president trump tried to rush out an announcement of a proposed trade deal with mexico. and if it weren't for that confounded speakerphone he might have succeeded. >> i believe the president is on the phone. enrique? you can hook him up. you tell me when. oh, he is? a big thing. a lot of people waiting. >> introducing president pena nieto. >> hello? do you want to put that on this phone, please? hello? be hopeful. >> 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legislation with him. so for me to go from seeing a hero and to one who i got to work with even just in the last few months of miz life before he took ill was personally very, very important to me. >> it was a strange scene today in washington. it doesn't seem like the most important thing on this occasion but it does seem worth asking what you made of the weirdness with the flag up and down and the president's statement and all of that in the midst of this. >> well, you know, in a time where folks try to divide us we need to ignore all that and focus on the legacy of john mccain and all the things that he did for this country. i think that's what he would want us to do. and if you look at his statement that he wrote before his passing, you'll see that he was really emphasizing wanting us to come back together as a nation to put america first. he certainly always put this country first before everything else. and i think that's what we should focus on and just ignore everything else. everything else is just noise at this point. we should come together as a nation to celebrate this man, his legacy and his service to this nation. >> you know, one of the things he did that i think has not gotten as much attention as maybe it deserves is the work he did with john kerry in 1994 around normalizing relations with vietnam in which he obviously had a very specific and kind of unrivaled moral authority to basically say it is okay to normalize relations, to go to vietnam and say we are going to be at peace with this country, this regime that imprisoned me. and i wonder your reflection on that because he's thought of as a hawk, and he was p. and he was the advocate of a lot of u.s. military intervention. but he did use his unique voice in that specific way with respect to vietnam. >> well, i think that is reflective of the greatness that was john mccain. he did that. i still bear a grudge against the guy who shot me down. whoever that was that fired the rpg against me. if you put me in the same room with him i would have a civil discussion with the guy. here's john mccain after five years as a p.o.w. where he was tortured daily to be able to sit down and normalize relations with vietnam just shows how great a man he was and how much he truly placed this nation before any of his own personal interests. and i certainly think that the normalization with vietnam was good for this country and good for our economy and was the right thing to do. >> you know, he obviously was a very prominent supporter of the war in iraq. that was the war in which you were shot down by an rpg. at the end of his life he said this side and like to get your reaction to it. he said "the principal reason for invading iraq, that saddam had wmd, was wrong. the war with you its cost in lives and treasure and security can't be judged as anything but a mistake, a very serious one, and i have to accept my share of the blame for it." >> well, i agree with him. i agree with him. i've always said the war was wrong. i was opposed to it from the very beginning. i still served. i was proud of my service. and i would continue to serve today if the military would want a legless helicopter pilot. but let me tell you, i think it says something about john mccain that he understood and was willing to admit that when a mistake has been made and to learn from those mistakes and to not do them again and not make those same mistakes in the future. which is why he has also spoken out about the need for a new authorization for use of military force when it comes to afghanistan, when it comes to iraq, to setting up those parameters for how we deploy our troops into harm's way today. >> senator tammy duckworth, thank you so much for making some time today. >> thank you. ♪ that's confident. but it's not kayak confident. kayak searches hundreds of travel and airline sites to find the best flight for me. so i'm more than confident. how's your family? kayak. search one and done. but climbing 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we have a working knowledge and we can reduce the impacts of a small disaster, but we need the help of experts. pg&e is an integral part of our emergency response team. they are the industry expert with utilities. whether it is a gas leak or a wire down, just having someone there that deals with this every day is pretty comforting. we each bring something to the table that is unique and that is a specialty. with all of us working together we can keep all these emergencies small. and the fact that we can bring it together and effectively work together is pretty special. they bring their knowledge, their tools and equipment and the proficiency to get the job done. and the whole time i have been in the fire service, pg&e's been there, too. whatever we need whenever we need it. i do count on pg&e to keep our firefighters safe. that's why we ask for their help. arizona senator john mccain was a towering figure in american politics. throughout his decades long career, people have found themselves at one point or another either cheering on john mccain for his righteousness and bravery or being infuriated by his object continue answer and wrong headedness. he leaves behind an extremely enduring legacy. a man who has been on both the right and wrong sides on the most important questions. joining me now, writer for esquire magazine. a piece was out today about the sincerity and the popularity of the senator from arizona. i thought it was interesting to talk about whether americans still care about the intentions of a politician. >> i think part of what people liked, why he was more popular than his policy agenda. a broad sense that basically john mccain was out of principle. if he was wrong, he came at it honestly. i think you've seen in the trump era, a real citizen evening of meaning well. from the level, people like john mccain. they used this positive public image to pursue an agenda. the wrap on mccain was that he was a standard issue republican politician on a wide variety of issues which was complicated by his vote to save obamacare. and then from the right, i think part of what has animated trumpism has been this idea that these well meaning politicians with global ideas, and mccain some genuinely big global ideas about spreading democracy. he was a supporter of immigration and the good that immigration does for people around the world. saying that's people giving away your stuff. what you need is someone greedy like donald trump who will not be nice like john mccain. so i think partly, people have soured on the idea of an earnest politician like john mccain. and not always for crazy reasons. the stuff on the left, john mccain made some really big mistakes, supporting the iraq war that got a lot of people killed. >> you had occasion to cover him over a long period of his career. what are your thoughts? >> yeah. the very first profile i wrote for esquire back in 1999 was with john mccain. it was marked by the fact that i was with him in arizona at 6:00 in the morning pacific time the day the lewinsky scandal broke. it was the first time i had ever laid eyes on him. we were in his car driving around going to events. it was my hang-around time. he hadn't known me for 15 minutes and he said, what do you think should i say about this? first of all, what i am a supposed to say to sar united states senator about whether or not the president has been doing the hired help? the second thing was, the second thing i thought was, now i understand why he gets the press he does. he's already involved me in this. as somebody who appreciates good political moves the same way i appreciate the good baseline drive, i thought that was, i was very impressed by that. >> he had, i think people on capitol hill, staffers, fellow members of the united states senate and politics and reporters all, felt like a connection to him. he was very good at pulling those folks in, particularly the press who he lovingly teased and spent a lot of time with and cared a lot about. >> he was driven by honor and that is why he had this image as the maverick. sometimes that would lead him to policy positions that were surprising, driven by a life event. he got caught up in a relatively minor way in the scandal in washington. that was a formative experience led him to be one of the people behind the campaign finance reform push. he ended up behind the tax cuts. mabel because he lost the presidential primaries to george bush. but he was there, sometimes it was frustrating. covering him on economic policy, it was clear he didn't have deep thoughts. >> he even said so much about it. he even that, i'm not that much into domestic policy. like throwaway line. the thing that he was very focused on, i would love to get your thoughts on it. to me, this has me thinking in a broader sense about this country's failure in many ways to reckon with the disaster that was iraq. john mccain not single handedly responsible for that but he was a very vocal advocate. it seemed that hundreds of thousands died in that war, many innocent civilians and noncombatants. and the country has not quite come to terms with what we did there and what it meant. >> i think one of the reasons we haven't completely reckoned with iraq is we haven't reckoned with vietnam yet. we are still killing people in vietnam. with unexploded ordnance. i'll tell a story about my hang-around time with him. this was back in washington. an aide came in and they were just chatting. and i forget about what. she mentioned that one of her kids had gotten in trouble at his school. and he said, you know what you do? tell him to say. this i am a black air pirate committing crimes against a peace loving people at my school. that has worked for me in the past. i seriously laughed at that. a while later, it was my wife who pointed it out. there's a lot of dark rooful thought in that answer. and one of the things about that it made him appealing is that he sort of lived in this constant state of atonement for sins examined and unexamined. and i could never quite get my finger on it. but there was a lot of apologizing in the act of being john mccain. >> it is really well said. and part of that was the palin decision and the rally, he gave rise to trumpism before it was called trumpism. >> that's a classic mccain mistake. it was an impulsive decision. i was discussing this this week. if you look at sarah palin's tenure as governor of alaska in 2007, 2008, it is not as obvious at the time that they would turn into what she did. but there wasn't a lot of data. you shouldn't have taken risk. it was the kind of gut thing that john mccain did. >> thank you both. that's "all in" for this evening. >> thanks, my friend. thanks for joining us. happy to have you with us. there has been a bunch of breaking news late this afternoon and into this evening including the surprise ruling tonight from a panel of three federal judges that could have a really big impact on the democrats' chances of winning control of congress. winning control of the house of representatives this fall. as you know, the mid-term elections coming up very fast. they are ten weeks away. but there is been ongoing litigation in multiple states about whether or not the maps that define congressional districts in certain states have been drawn fairly. well, tonight the three-judge ne
good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. today the white house reaction to the passing of one of america's truly towering political figures, senator john mccain, descended into outright farce as a president who had repeatedly mocked and diminished mccain during his life was initially unable to offer up a single kind word even in death. >> thank you very much, everybody. thank you. >> any thoughts at all about john mccain? do you think john mccain is a hero? >> thank you. >> nothing at all about john mccain? >> thank you very much. >> that was the strange scene in the oval office this afternoon. on the heels of revelation this weekend that trump had nixed issuing a statement that praised the heroism and life of mccain opting instead for a brief tweet that offered sympathy for mccain's family but conspicuously did not say anything about mccain himself. after john mccain passed away on saturday the white house did lower its flag to half staff but this morning after less than 48 hours the white house flag was back up. despite precedent the flag remain at half staff until an honoree's burial. p it appeared to be a deliberate decision. the white house flag was raised to full staff even as the flags remained lowered at the washington monument which you can see in the background of the white house just a mile or so away. all of this prompted a massive outpouring of criticism including from veterans groups. so late this afternoon the white house lowered its flag again back to half staff, and trump issued a proclamation hailing mccain that seemed to come through gritted teeth. despite previously opining that mccain is not a war hero because he got captured, trump also managed to speak stoefrn john mccain's name out in public and briefly compliment him during an event late this evening. >> also our hearts and prayers are going to the family of senator john mccain. going to be a lot of activity over the next number of days and we very much appreciate everything that senator mccain has done for our country. >> trump today also named the officials who will represent his administration at mccain's funeral since mccain declared shortly before he passed away that trump was not welcome to attend the funeral. the previous two presidents, barack obama and george w. bush, will both be offering eulogies. now, the animosity between the celebrated gop senator and the releaptlessly graceless president has made things awkward for republican senators as they took to the floor today to honor their former colleague. they were addressing a gop electorate that is now almost entirely faithful to a man mccain seemed to despise. a look at the polls. trump's approval rating among republicans now stands at 88%. late last year nbc polling put mccain's approval rating among those same voters at just 35%. it's not really a contest. that means electoral republicans are effectively bound to trump whether they like it or not. today the "wall street journal" reported that trump's former campaign manager, paul manafort, remember him? sought a deal for his second trial after being convicted in his first trial last week. although before jury deliberations actually delivered that conviction but talks broke down. if trump's current issues bring him down he could take down much of the gop with him. and thernt the only existential threat. axios reported today republicans have been, get this, secretly circulating a spreadsheet that meticulously previews the investigations democrats will likely launch if they in fact take control of the house. and there are a lot of them. republicans identified 18 different possible areas of investigation from trump's dealings with russia to the stormy daniels payoff to the firing of james comey to election security. with me one of the democrats who would be at the helm of many of those investigations, congressman adam schiff of california, top democrat in the house intelligence committee. i want to ask you about that list. but first i wanted to see if you have anything to say today about senator john mccain. >> well, you know, those of us that had a chance to get to know him, and i traveled with him a number of times, just have the greatest admiration for him. his bravery, his plain-spoken manner, his sense of humor. the respect that he had for and was shown to him by leaders all around the world. he really is irreplaceable, and this is a terrible time to lose him. the country really needs people to put country over party, particularly in the gop, where they have effectively acted as a rubber stamp for this president. and john was no rubber stamp. he was tenacious in defending the interests of the country even when they conflicted with his own party. he will be greatly missed. and there's really no one else like him. >> you just talked about the rubber stamped nature of the current republican majority. that brings us to this memo they're circulating which is -- could just be a memo from democrats or could be a memo a reporter wrote about here are some things that probably should be investigated. this is not like crazy out there red meat stuff. things like the tax returns, emoluments violation forz which there's several federal suits. dealings with russia. the stormy daniels payment which of course was lied about and since been confirmed. james comey firings. steve mnuchin's business dealings. the cabinet secretary travel expenses. what do you think of this list? >> well, i think there are a great many candidates to be on that list that probably aren't even on the list. i'll give you one that i find particularly troubling. reports a couple months ago that the president was meeting privately with the post-master general to try to browbeat her into raising postal rates on amazon to punish jeff bezos and the "washington post." we see a president using the instruments of power to attack the free press and the first amendment. and so there's any number of issues, many of which are not on that list, which have gone completely without oversight. why did the president reverse course on this chinese telecom zte? was it because of reports china was going to invest 500 million in a trump branded property? is u.s. policy basically for sale in indonesia or in the middle east or through jared kushner? there are a great many serious allegations of impropriety. and chris, all you need to know about the current gop congress's unwillingness, complete abdication of any oversight responsibility, you can tell from a single statistic. and that is the chairman of the government oversight and reform committee, trey gowdy, who brought us the endless benghazi investigations, hasn't issued a single subpoena during the trump administration to investigate any allegations of incompetence or corruption within the trump administration. they have just been utterly unwilling to do their jobs. >> he really hasn't issued one? >> not one that i'm aware of, no. it's really quite breathtaking. but it is a sign, and we certainly see it on the intelligence committee, where the only subpoenas they seem intent on issuing were to investigate the investigators. >> right. >> when people like steve bannon came in, yes, finally he got a subpoena. but when he still refused to answer questions they said, well, okay, we're not prepared to take any further. we really honestly don't want to know the answers. and that unfortunately set the tone for their oversight responsibility. >> one of the things that was investigated briefly was of course the president and the attacks by russia during the election. a committee on which you're the ranking member. roger stone was one of the individuals i believe who came before you in that investigation. and you know this area of fact better than most, having been -- had access to classified material and also to some of the interviews that happened. so i wanted to get your reaction to a bizarre statement by roger stone today posted to the internet out of nowhere in which he attempts to kind of get out ahead of what he says an impending story and deny it. take a listen. >> this is roger stone. somebody has been pushing a fake news story first with the "new york times," then the "washington post," and now with ronan farrow of the "new yorker." someone is saying that they overheard a conversation in which i told donald trump in october of 2016 what exactly would be in the wikileaks disclosures and when they would be disclosed. this is categorically false. >> thoughts? >> well, first of all, i wouldn't believe what roger stone has to say any further than i could throw him. there are any number of statements he made under oath to our committee which have been put into question by other things that have been reported since. there if you look carefully at what he had to say he is denying that he told the president exactly what would be in the wikileaks disclosures. and it would be just like roger stone to say, well, i didn't say that i didn't tell him what would be in, it i just said that i didn't tell him exactly what would be in it. sow simply can't believe anything roger stone has to say, at least from my experience. he's one of the people that i think ought to be brought back for further questioning before our committee in light of statements, for example, i think he and others have acknowledged that they were approached by someone with a slavic background offering information that would be useful to the campaign. so these are things that i think need further investigation certainly but i don't know what else to make of this rather bizarre video. >> well, you join a lot of people in that ultimate determination. congressman adam schiff, thanks for your time tonight. >> thanks, chris. for more on how republicans are handling mccain's passing and trump's attitude, what happens if the house flips, i'm joined by michelle goldberg, columnist for the "times" and msnbc contributor betsy woodruff, politics reporter at the daily beast p i'll start with you, michelle. you have a column coming out about exactly, this the subject of the spreadsheet, when and if impunity ends. >> not even the spreadsheet but because the spreadsheet was compiled by just looking at different requests for documents or interviews that democrats have made and republicans had ignored. they have this kind of guide. this is what they want to know about. but democrats -- there's too many things to do them all. so democrats have their own priorities for kind of what they're going to do and i think you're going see investigations basically every single different committee and subcommittee looking at sort of what in its wheelhouse it can investigate and subpoena. we have this kind of bitter saying throughout this whole nightmare last 19 months where everybody says ha, ha, ha, nothing matters. and the reason nothing matters, that we find that, say, trump's personal attorney goes to court and says trump instructed him to commit two felonies to cover up his affairs and n. advance of the election and 48 hours later everyone seems to have forgotten about it is not because trump is some teflon person with particularly strong support among the american people but because they have one-party rule and they refuse to play any role in the accountability. that is the thing american voters have the potential to bring to an end in november. right? adam schiff could restart the russia investigation. elijah cummings at oversight will have subpoena power. maxine waters will be the head of the committee on financial regulation. the house ways and means committee will be able to obtain trump's tax returns under an old 1924 law that people don't use. it's going to be a completely different environment in terms of the ability to hold them accountable for all these outrages. >> and it seems to me, betsy, that this document indicates -- partly this is a fund-raising motivate the donor class document which is look what's going to happen, it will be an apocalypse. but it also evinces to me republicans know exactly what they're doing now and what is coming if they don't hold on to the house. >> that's right. and for months people in paul ryan's inner circle have been operating under the assumption that they're going to lose the house in november. there just hasn't been any publicly available polling evidence indicating that republicans had a particularly good shot of hanging on to it. and while trying to read the tea leaves of early polls can sometimes be foolish that's what republicans have to work with as they're looking ahead to november. and that's why we're seeing so much pessimism emanating from the republican party leadership. one thing that's really important about this memo is that it sends a signal, especially to young up-and-coming trump-friendly republican political operatives and wonks. if you're a republican and you're thinking about take a job in the white house, you probably want to wait until after november because -- >> that's interesting. >> -- going through these investigations can be incredibly costly from a legal perspective. just paying an attorney or a team of attorneys to help you prepare for one, two, or three-hour testimony before a congressional committee can cost tens of thousands of dollars because washington attorneys are really expensive. and while many people in the trump administration are extraordinarily wealthy, many of them aren't. if you're in your mid 20s and you're looking at your second or third job and you have to face the prospect that you may have to testify before the committee chaired by elijah cummings or maxine waters and it could out you $20,000 to $40,000, that's going to make you think twice about potentially taking a position in the white house. >> you know, today was also just another reminder of just how much they are just tethered to this man. i mean, this is the person who their voters like. and as you watch this preposterous up and down with the flag insanity where the president's incapable of just doing the most sort of basic, you know, graceful gestures you've got to wonder like what goes through their head on a day like today? >> i mean, i've been wondering that for -- >> for a very long time, yeah. >> -- the last 19 months and i feel like i've kind of read studies of parliamentarians in vichy, france to try to understand what makes you sell out your principles on such an industrial scale. and someday i would love to see a forensic profile of the sort of cowardice because it's really -- i mean, both -- they're not even getting that much out of it and it is so incredibly degrading. >> and then you see someone like jonny isakson today, senator isakson of georgia today who sort of relished the opportunity to say what a lot of people feel but they never do because it was kind of of a safe space to do it. >> an because mos would d john mc to do the right thing wh was their turn. we need to remember that. >> it seems pretty clear who he's talking about. >> not a lot of subtlety in that particular comment. seems a very clear allusion to the fact trump invoked so-called bone spurs when he was trying to not have to be roped into fighting in the vietnam war. of course mccain went on to fight in vietnam and become a prisoner of war as we're all aware. mccain has so many -- is so beloved by his senate colleagues on both sides of the aisle, not just his senate colleagues but also staffers on both sides of the aisle. he was really a lion of the senate. even if you talk to people who had deep philosophical grave differences with many of the policy positions that mccain took, as a human being he just generated so much affection. people just really liked and respected the guy. both in the senate and around the world. so johnny isakson is very much speaking for capitol hill almost as a whole when he makes these comments about going after people who would try to damage the reputation of mccain after he'd passed away. he's not a lonely voice there. of course he's a unique voice and sort of putting it in those particular terms, but he got zero pushback in the dmam behr for being so blunt. >> they'll be back in a week to voting for everything the president wants more or less. michelle goldberg and betsy woodruff, thank you both for being with me. >> thank you. >> after the break the mueller so as of last week we now know that the trump organization is part of the mueller investigation. thanks to last week's bombshell plea agreement from trump attorney michael cohen and news of an immunity deal for allen weisselberg, the company's chief financial officer. we don't know where the investigation is headed, at least the one in the southern district of new york, but we do know that long-time trump confidant and former campaign adviser roger stone, who we just mentioned, has a legal defense fund and that he predicts another member of trump world could soon be indicted. >> i predicted yesterday based on excellent sourcing that the special counsel is going to charge donald trump jr. with lying to the fbi. >> donald trump jr. you just mentioned him. is he going to be -- is mueller going after him next you? said they're going to try to get him for lying to the fbi. >> i think so. notice they're not going after him for the underlying crime because there is no crime. he's done nothing wrong. >> take that with a grain of salt. it is roger stone, after all. now, gabe sherman at "vanity fair" is reporting that white house officials are so worried about the latest presidential unraveling, although frankly we've been hearing that for months, that they "talked about inviting rudy giuliani and a group of trump's new york real estate friends including tom barrack, richard lafrak and howard lorber to the white house to stage an intervention last week. the president refused to take the meeting." here with me now someone who worked with donald trump for the better part of two decades. former head of construction at trump tower here in new york. good to see. you. >> nice to see you. >> let's start with allen weisselberg because he's someone i think people didn't have much of a sense of until last week when he was reported to have been granted immunity. how central is he to the organization? >> he probably is more central than i initially thought. when i worked with him he was really the guy that paid the bills, collect the rents and get the invoices, that kind of thing. but he's been with trump so long and trump so values family, he's part of the family, that i think he probably moved into a position of more authority and maybe a little bit more information and influence. but i don't think that he is in the inner circle. he certainly wasn't when i was there. >> that's interesting. the family dynamic, you see roger stone sort of darkly warning that don jr.'s on the hook and there's no reason to think that he knows anything that we don't know publicly. but one of the issues it seems to me is the president, because he so mixes family and business, has now put his family in a position where they're exposed. >> and he i think he has put them in a position where they're exposed. and i think they're not -- they are culpable too. they played the role that they were assigned very well. and i do think they're in position where they're possibly exposed. i don't know if stone is right, there's nothing wrong with them. but i do think lying went on about the meeting, about who was there, about when it happened, about why it happened. >> and you said before you just don't think it's plausible that given the way that donald trump operates and the given the relationship he had with his son and others that something like that meeting would happen without him being given a heads-up. >> absolutely not. nothing important happened without trump knowing about it. even things that weren't so important he wanted to know about. >> he was kind of micromanager. >> he was a bit of a -- it's funny because when you needed him he was ant round a lot of times. but it was $5,000 for a subcontractor he wanted to know why. you know, that kind of thing 37. >> that's very interesting. do you think that there's -- how do you think the organization is functioning now with the fact the sons are running it and he is putatively not touching it at all? i guess do you buy that that's the case? >> well, i don't really think that the sons are running it per se. i think it's kind of -- it's really not an organization, it's not a company of any kind. it's just a whole bunch of groups put together and names associated wi >> i like busine emp >> no, it's like an org we used to say there w d else b the but organi r day- kind major answers, major problems i can't imagine trump is no >> that it's not still goi him. >> yeah. >> there's two schools of thought about the president. one is that he is incapable of self-restraint, impetuous no se the than he looks, himse and t him s on muell of fits it w chess, som i've seen fly off with > >> absolutely. >> and he gets very angry and >> yes, absolutel turns white. it's really a very rough scene. >> so when you read these reports about him spending all weekend like gabe sherman reported calling people up and yelling at them that scans to you as the donald trump that you know? >> absolutely, yes. definitely. >> do you think there's been a decline in his ability, though, to sort of listen to advice and sort of tack as needed over time? >> well, over the time that i knew him i noticed that dramatically. in the three years that i was gone from him that i did trump tower and then i came back to do other projects. he was a different person totally. when i was there he listened. he listened to me. he listened to the contractors. he listened to some of his people, the architects. i mean, it was a struggle. it was always a struggle. but after that i noticed he was surrounding himself with sycophants and he was being told how great he is and he was liking that. and i observed that over time. now i think it's ridiculous. i don't think anyone can control him. and i think they tried to control him with cohen and initially he was a little laid back but then he couldn't. he had to do it. he had to do it. >> that's very interesting. barbara res, thank you. i appreciate it. >> it was a pleasure. >> just one week after the president admitted he personally provided the hush money payment for stormy daniels the adult film actress, alleging they had an affair. one week after that donald trump is hosting a white house dinner with his evangelical supporters. that story next. i can do more to lower my a1c. because my body can still make its own insulin. i take trulicity once a week to activate my body to release its own insulin, like it's supposed to. trulicity is not insulin. it works 24/7. it comes in an easy-to-use pen. and i may even lose a little weight. trulicity is an injection to improve blood sugar in adults with type 2 diabetes when used with diet and exercise. don't use it as the first medicine to treat diabetes, or if you have type 1 diabetes or diabetic ketoacidosis. don't take trulicity if you or your family have medullary thyroid cancer, you're allergic to trulicity, or have multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. stop trulicity and call your doctor right away if you have symptoms of a serious allergic reaction, a lump or swelling in your neck or severe stomach pain. serious side effects may include pancreatitis. taking trulicity with a sulfonylurea or insulin increases your low blood sugar risk. common side effects include nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal pain, and decreased appetite. these can lead to dehydration, which may worsen kidney problems. to help lower my a1c i choose trulicity to activate my within. ask your doctor about once-weekly trulicity. america's a nation of believers, and tonight we're joined by faith leaders from across the country who believe in the dignity of life, the glory of god, and the power of prayer. everybody agree with that? >> yes. >> this hour the president is inside the white house hosting a number of prominent evangelical christians for an event that david brody of the christian broadcast network said was like a state dinner for evangelical leaders. it's unclear when the event was scheduled. what is clear is that this dinner gives the president an opportunity to cozy up to a portion of his base that is most loyal, particularly at a time of scandal. like the extraordinary fact that two of the president's closest associates were convicted in federal court less than a week ago of multiple felonies or that the president himself last week somewhat casually, one must say, was finally forced to admit his involvement in the hush money payment to an adult actress. but that's done nothing to shatter the conviction of evangelical christians who seem incredibly clear-eyed about the pact they've made with the president. >> i would say the thing that would cause me to change would be for example if he suddenly became pro choice, if he started to say, well, you know what, we've had enough conservative justices at the federal courts and on the supreme court, we need somebody more moderate. those things i think would cause evangelicals to turn away. i don't see either one of those things happening. look, he's very smart. he knows he's got to have his evangelical base behind him. and i think he's going to continue to support those policies that put him into office. >> we'll talk more about the relationship between the president and evangelical christians. i'm joined by amy sullivan who's reported on this for years, host of "impolite company," a weekly podcast on politics and religion. i thought that jeffress clip, amy, is so striking because it is so clear-eyed and so honest about what exactly the nature of this political pact is. >> exactly. they're very open about the fact that this is transactional, this is not about personal moral character, which may cause some whip ashe for those of us who remember 1998 and the things some of these same evangelical leaders were saying when bill clinton and his involvement with monica lewinsky was all over the news. then we heard a lot about how important it was to have moral leadership and how we couldn't as a country stand for having a president who had anything less than the most sterling moral character. but this is another time and this is another political party evangelicals are working with. >> do you think people are -- i think when you're forced to mag arguments you end up believing them often. so i wonder the interior spiritual life, are people aware they're being transactional and hypocritical or have people sort of reasoned themselves into a place where they have some sense that no, actually he's morally elevated or a spiritually enlightened individual? >> well, you know, it's kind of both and for a lot of folks. there is some really interesting theological gymnastics that's been going on in terms of what people have been able to talk themselves into. you hear a lot about people saying, well, if you look through the bible there are many instances of god using somebody of less than sterling moral character for his own purposes. and so they're very open about saying look, donald trump is not somebody i would expect to sit next to me in the pew at church but he's going to put people on the court, justice jeffress says he's going to do what we want in terms a pro life agenda and so we're happy with him. and then there are other folks who reportedly, i've heard this, do believe that they are going to be the ones to lead donald trump to christ and that by being close to him they're going to be able to kind of land this white whale. >> we don't have time to put it up but one of the most amazing spiritual exchanges between david brody, i noted earlier, and donald trump on his golf course when he asked him what he thinks of god and trump goes into a long revery about how it's great he owns the golf course without a mortgage. i guess the sort of question to me is from a policy perspective is it really the course -- jason zangerly who has a great piece in the "new york times" magazine, says it's just about the sheer efficacy and sort of ambition and ruthlessness with really in the >> i poli but political >> thanks for having me. political proximity. >> that's really interesting amy sullivan, thanks for joining us i appreciate it. >> thanks for having me. thing 1 tonight. it was over a year -- three years ago, july 2015, at the family leadership summit in iowa when then candidate donald trump was asked by the moderator about his claim that john mccain was a dummy. trump not only defended his position, he went after mccain for being captured during the vietnam war. >> he's not a war hero. >> he's a war hero. 5 1/2 years -- >> he's a war hero because he was captured. i like people that weren't captured. okay? i hate to tell you. he's a war hero because he was captured. okay? >> i'm sure you've seen that clip before. maybe you gaffed along with the audience. but don't think that was some one-time thing. donald trump has been slamming john mccain this way for decades. >> the way trump looks at it, he's at least better than everyone else in the race, beginning with john mccain. >> he was captured. >> he flew combat missions with distinction. >> does being captured make you a hero? i don't know. i'm not sure. >> 1999. now, today as most of washington was paying their respects and watching the flags go up and down in the white house trump really wanted to change the subject badly. so he called everyone into the oval office for a huge announcement of a brand new trade deal with mexico. >> and i believe the president is on the phone. enrique? >> trump v. speakerphone is thing 2, in 60 seconds. in what seemed at least a pretty blatant attempt to change the subject away from john mccain today president trump in what seemed at least a pretty blatant attempt to change the subject away from john mccain today president trump tried to rush out an announcement of a proposed trade deal with mexico. and if it weren't for that confounded speakerphone he might have succeeded. >> i believe the president is on the phone. enrique? you can hook him up. you tell me when. oh, he is? a big thing. a lot of people waiting. >> introducing president pena nieto. >> hello? do you want to put that on this phone, please? hello? be hopeful. >> president trump. >> thank you. 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can lead to dehydration, which may worsen kidney problems. i discovered the potential with ozempic®. ♪ oh! oh! oh! ozempic®! ♪ (vo) ask your healthcare provider if ozempic® is right for you. today senator john mccain's desk on the senate floor was draped in black and topped with a vase of white roses. as his colleagues gathered to reflect on his career and legacy. one of his fellow senators, senator tammy duckworth of illinois, joins me now. senator, you're -- tell me a little about your relationship, your feeling about john mccain. obviously, you shared a bond in that you were both veterans, you had both been through quite an experience in your respective service. >> well, he was always one of my personal heroes, serving in the military, how could he not be for anyone who's worn the uniform of this country. and as his colleague here as a fellow senator it was quite breathtaking for me, and i was able to sponsor some legislation with him. so for me to go from seeing a hero and to one who i got to work with even just in the last few months of miz life before he took ill was personally very, very important to me. >> it was a strange scene today in washington. it doesn't seem like the most important thing on this occasion but it does seem worth asking what you made of the weirdness with the flag up and down and the president's statement and all of that in the midst of this. >> well, you know, in a time where folks try to divide us we need to ignore all that and focus on the legacy of john mccain and all the things that he did for this country. i think that's what he would want us to do. and if you look at his statement that he wrote before his passing, you'll see that he was really emphasizing wanting us to come back together as a nation to put america first. he certainly always put this country first before everything else. and i think that's what we should focus on and just ignore everything else. everything else is just noise at this point. we should come together as a nation to celebrate this man, his legacy and his service to this nation. >> you know, one of the things he did that i think has not gotten as much attention as maybe it deserves is the work he did with john kerry in 1994 around normalizing relations with vietnam in which he obviously had a very specific and kind of unrivaled moral authority to basically say it is okay to normalize relations, to go to vietnam and say we are going to be at peace with this country, this regime that imprisoned me. and i wonder your reflection on that because he's thought of as a hawk, and he was p. and he was the advocate of a lot of u.s. military intervention. but he did use his unique voice in that specific way with respect to vietnam. >> well, i think that is reflective of the greatness that was john mccain. he did that. i still bear a grudge against the guy who shot me down. whoever that was that fired the rpg against me. if you put me in the same room with him i would have a civil discussion with the guy. here's john mccain after five years as a p.o.w. where he was tortured daily to be able to sit down and normalize relations with vietnam just shows how great a man he was and how much he truly placed this nation before any of his own personal interests. and i certainly think that the normalization with vietnam was good for this country and good for our economy and was the right thing to do. >> you know, he obviously was a very prominent supporter of the war in iraq. that was the war in which you were shot down by an rpg. at the end of his life he said this side and like to get your reaction to it. he said "the principal reason for invading iraq, that saddam had wmd, was wrong. the war with you its cost in lives and treasure and security can't be judged as anything but a mistake, a very serious one, and i have to accept my share of the blame for it." >> well, i agree with him. i agree with him. i've always said the war was wrong. i was opposed to it from the very beginning. i still served. i was proud of my service. and i would continue to serve today if the military would want a legless helicopter pilot. but let me tell you, i think it says something about john mccain that he understood and was willing to admit that when a mistake has been made and to learn from those mistakes and to not do them again and not make those same mistakes in the future. which is why he has also spoken out about the need for a new authorization for use of military force when it comes to afghanistan, when it comes to iraq, to setting up those parameters for how we deploy our troops into harm's way today. >> senator tammy duckworth, thank you so much for making some time today. >> thank you. some time today. >> thank you arizona senator john mccain was a towering figure in american politics. throughout his decades long career, people have found themselves at one point or another either cheering on john mccain for his righteousness and bravery or being infuriated by his object continue answer and wrong headedness. he leaves behind an extremely enduring legacy. a man who has been on both the right and wrong sides on the most important questions. joining me now, writer for esquire magazine. a piece was out today about the sincerity and the popularity of the senator from arizona. i thought it was interesting to talk about whether americans still care about the intentions of a politician. >> i think part of what people liked, why he was more popular than his policy agenda. a broad sense that basically john mccain was out of principle. if he was wrong, he came at it honestly. i think you've seen in the trump era, a real citizen evening of meaning well. from the level, people like john mccain. they used this positive public image to pursue an agenda. the wrap on mccain was that he was a standard issue republican politician on a wide variety of issues which was complicated by his vote to save obamacare. and then from the right, i think part of what has animated trumpism has been this idea that these well meaning politicians with global ideas, and mccain some genuinely big global ideas about spreading democracy. he was a supporter of immigration and the good that immigration does for people around the world. saying that's people giving away your stuff. what you need is someone greedy like donald trump who will not be nice like john mccain. so i think partly, people have soured on the idea of an earnest politician like john mccain. and not always for crazy reasons. the stuff on the left, john mccain made some really big mistakes, supporting the iraq war that got a lot of people killed. >> you had occasion to cover him over a long period of his career. what are your thoughts? >> yeah. the very first profile i wrote for esquire back in 1999 was with john mccain. it was marked by the fact that i was with him in arizona at 6:00 in the morning pacific time the day the lewinsky scandal broke. it was the first time i had ever laid eyes on him. we were in his car driving around going to events. it was my hang-around time. he hadn't known me for 15 minutes and he said, what do you think should i say about this? first of all, what i am a supposed to say to sar united states senator about whether or not the president has been doing the hired help? the second thing was, the second thing i thought was, now i understand why he gets the press he does. he's already involved me in this. as somebody who appreciates good political moves the same way i appreciate the good baseline drive, i thought that was, i was very impressed by that. >> he had, i think people on capitol hill, staffers, fellow members of the united states senate and politics and public pressure. relowering its flag for john mccain. >> mr. president, any thoughts he ended up behind the tax cuts. mabel because he lost the presidential primaies to george bush. but he was there, sometimes it was frustrating. covering him on economic policy, it was clear he didn't have deep thoughts. >> he even said so much about it. he even that, i'm not that much into domestic policy. like throwaway line. the thing that he was very focused on, i would love to get your thoughts on it. to me, this has me thinking in a broader sense about this country's failure in many ways to reckon with the disaster that was iraq. john mccain not single handedly responsible for that but he was a very vocal advocate. it seemed that hundreds of thousands died in that war, many innocent civilians and noncombatants. and the country has not quite come to terms with what we did there and what it meant. >> i think one of the reasons we haven't completely reckoned with iraq is we haven't reckoned with vietnam yet. we are still killing people in vietnam. with unexploded ordnance. i'll tell a story about my hang-around time with him. this was back in washington. an aide came in and they were just chatting. and i forget about what. she mentioned that one of her kids had gotten in trouble at his school. and he said, you know what you do? tell him to say. this i am a black air pirate committing crimes against a peace loving people at my school. that has worked for me in the past. i seriously laughed at that. a while later, it was my wife who pointed it out. there's a lot of dark rooful thought in that answer. and one of the things about that it made him appealing is that he sort of lived in this constant state of atonement for sins examined and unexamined. and i could never quite get my finger on it. but there was a lot of apologizing in the act of being john mccain. >> it is really well said. and part of that was the palin decision and the rally, he gave rise to trumpism before it was called trumpism. >> that's a classic mccain mistake. it was an impulsive decision. i was discussing this this week. if you look at sarah palin's tenure as governor of alaska in 2007, 2008, it is not as obvious at the time that they would turn into what she did. but there wasn't a lot of data. you shouldn't have taken risk. it was the kind of gut thing that john mccain did. >> thank you both. that's "all in" for this evening. good evening once again from our msnbc headquarters here in new york. i'm nicole wallace in for brian williams. the president has finally spoken about john mccain two days after he passed away. this as the flag at the white house was lowered to half staff
satirical, but another sort of thought experiment front page as to what might become of the united states, what might become of the news under a trump presidency, trying to get people to imagine if the president kept to his word on some of his promises. >> yes. >> so sometimes people do this to themselves. sometimes people punk other papers. in this case, it's an activist group punking "the post" and "the post" isn't happy about it. >> yeah, for me, this isn't the time because the real headlines are so strange. i just don't want to have to go through the process of trying to figure out, is this the joke one or is this the real -- not now. >> this is not a time when we need to shock ourselves out of the idea these headlines are feel. yeah, i know the feeling. >> thanks, rachel. >> thanks, my friend. well, donald trump discovered today that his job does not come with the same privileges that come with alexandria ocasio-cortez's job. donald trump doesn't have floor privileges. the president of the united states does not have the same floor privileges that a member of congress has, a member of the house of representatives can enter the house chamber at any time and a member of the house of representatives can also enter the senate chamber at any time. donald trump cannot. the president of the united states needs an invitation, and today house speaker nancy pelosi told the president because of the government shutdown that he created, she cannot extend an invitation to him to deliver his state of the union address in the house of representatives to a joint session of congress. and congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez put the blame for the shutdown right where it belongs as of now, and that is in the united states senate, and she did that by exercising her floor privileges and walking right in to the united states senate chamber to deliver a letter to mitch mcconnell telling him to bring the government funding bills that have already passed the house of representatives to a vote in the united states senate, where those bills would pass if mitch mcconnell would simply allow a vote. now, house members entering the senate chamber is a rare occurrence. most people working in the senate never see it happen. most staff members never see that happen. house members entering the senate chamber in protest, well, that's even more rare. and the way the country discovered that that was possible, that house members have the senate floor -- the senate floor privileges to do that was when the then very few women members of the house of representatives marched across the capitol campus and invaded the floor of the united states senate to demand that the senate judiciary committee re-open the confirmation hearing of supreme court nominee clarence thomas so that they could hear testimony from anita hill about what she said was the sexual harassment she suffered from clarence thomas. and i was working in the senate then at the time, and i can tell you that that hearing was not going to be re-opened. that was not going to happen. if the women of the house didn't do what alexandria ocasio-cortez decided to do today. congresswoman ocasio-cortez is the second most famous member of the house of representatives. nancy pelosi being the most famous member. now, we have not seen such a famous freshman member of the house since john quincy adams was elected to the house of representatives after serving as our sixth president of the united states. and in modern politics, in social media politics, with fame comes power, the power to direct media attention where you want it. the power to push a policy position into the national political debate. and congresswoman ocasio-cortez did that today more effectively than any other member of the house of representatives could have done it because of that fame. and there is apparently no one in the house of representatives who understands fame and knows how to use fame better than congresswoman ocasio-cortez. who does not need a staff to explain instagram to her or any other social media or mass communication tool, including how she should handle herself on stephen colbert's show. she went to the senate chamber looking for mitch mcconnell, after she checked the majority leader's office adjacent to the senate floor and she was told he wasn't there, but it's a large office suite with plenty of places to hide, but what are you going to do? the staff says the majority leader isn't there. every majority leader also has a separate senate office that is granted to him as a regular member of the senate representing his state, and so congresswoman ocasio-cortez took the senate subway over to the russel senate office building where mcconnell's kentucky senate office, a place he rarely sets foot. here she is on the senate subway on the way to that office. #wheresmitch. >> okay, guys, we went to mitch mcconnell's office where we went to the senate cloak room. #wheresmitch. >> here is the congresswoman at the end of her search in the russel senate office building. >> he's not in the cloak room. he's not in the capitol. he's not in the russel building. he's not on the floor of the senate and 800,000 people don't have their paychecks, so where's mitch? >> where's mitch? he wasn't on the senate floor. he wasn't in the cloak room. he wasn't in any of his offices. there is one other place congresswoman ocasio-cortez could have gone but it wouldn't be easy to find. there is no marking on the door, it is mitch mcconnell's hideaway. that's literally what it's called, a hideaway. senior senators like mcconnell get an extra office, some of them smaller than their official office, some of them quite grand, and they are secret rooms in the capitol building near the senate floor with no markings on the door and it is the one place where a senator can go and literally hide away. today, mitch mcconnell might have actually been using his hideaway as the place to literally hide away from congresswoman ocasio-cortez. the place to hide away from the inescapable fact that this shutdown now belongs to mitch mcconnell. donald trump started it and mitch mcconnell is doing everything he can to keep it going for donald trump. he is not using the powers of his office the way nancy pelosi is to solve the problem that donald trump handed to them. he is using the powers of his office to block a solution to the shutdown, and so the shutdown continues, and because a state of the union address takes enormous planning by the speaker of the house and by the house sergeant at arms, and by the capitol police and hundreds and hundreds of government workers who have to coordinate to provide security and logistics for a 21st century state of the union address, many of whom are not currently being paid, those workers, nancy pelosi has decided she cannot demand that the federal workforce necessary to support a televised state of the union address from the house of representatives be ordered to work without pay. and so speaker pelosi sent a letter to the president today saying, "given the security concerns and unless government re-opens this week, i suggest that we work together to determine another suitable date after government has re-opened for this address or for you to consider delivering your state of the union address in writing to congress on january 29th." now, actually most state of the union addresses delivered by most presidents have been delivered in writing only, but that changed in the 20th century when woodrow wilson delivered his state of the union addresses in person as a speech to a joint session of congress, and every president after him has done the same thing. those speeches became ultimately delivered to national audiences on radio and then on television and then donald trump shut down the government and may have pushed the presidential state of the union address back into the 19th century. and comments to reporters today, nancy pelosi suggested the president had another option if he doesn't want to just deliver his state of the union address in writing. >> he can make it from the oval office if he wants. >> and senate minority leader chuck schumer supports speaker pelosi's decision. >> well, what is the state of the union? the government is closed because of president trump. if it continues to be closed on the 29th, i think it's a good idea to delay it until the government is open. >> joining our discussion now, ron klain, a former senior adviser to joe biden and president obama and the former chief counsel of the senate judiciary committee. and claire mccaskill, former democratic senator from missouri who is now an msnbc political analyst. i won't ask you where your hideaway was in the senate. >> by the way, all senators have a mount. once they open the convention center. >> it used to just be the seniors. >> right. when they open the convention center, the new facility -- >> there's more space. >> they moved a lot of offices out of the capitol, which gave space for every senator to have a hideaway. >> let's just for a moment, it's not as bad as it sounds. >> no, it's not. >> a lot of productive work gets done by the senators in the hidea ways. it's where you can read, think, and occasionally take a nap in the middle of the night. >> most of the time it's use when we're voting late at night. >> because it's close to the floor. >> right. or if you need to do a quick meeting and you can't get all the way back over to your office and need to stay in the capitol complex because of other things going on. the name is really tacky. we need to change the name. it is weird because they won't even tell senators where another senator's hideaway is. >> that's right. >> the only way you find out is if the senator tells you where it is. >> if you get invited. >> right. it is a culture that probably needs to be changed. >> some of them are quite magnificent. we could go on and on about this. ron klain, after the break, we're going to talk about what's the most impressive hideaway we've seen in the senate. but -- so this -- nancy pelosi, when the president shuts down the government, goes to work and she says our job is legislating, our job is funding the government. it's the congress' job to fund the government. she goes to work. she funds the government. she passes bills to fund the government. >> right. >> those bills get sent to the united states senate. >> correct. >> nothing happens. that's where the shutdown is now, isn't it? >> reit's mitch mcconnell. he's been looking at his shoes and hiding under his desk from day one. remember, he got 100 votes for a bill to get the funding through. 100 votes. unanimous in the senate. mitch mcconnell did that. he did that because he had gotten an agreement from the president. >> before the shutdown. >> right. he had gotten an agreement from the president that he would sign it. then rush limbaugh and ann coulter got on their shows and, you know, gave him what for, and he then reversed course. he backed up the truck and said, no, i won't sign it. so mitch knew from the beginning this was going to have a bad ending. so mitch's goal was very simple, i don't want to be anywhere near this. so if you remember, he immediately started saying, this is about the democrats and the president. this is about the democrats and the president. and you got to give him this, the polling shows that only about 5% to 6% or 7% are blaming the republicans in congress. they're blaming trump. and what mitch mcconnell is doing is trying to protect his members, those that are up for election in 2020 in tough states. he doesn't want them to have to take this vote because he knows they're going to have a tough road to run in terms of winning in 2020. if we don't put more pressure on him, and i applaud what the congresswoman did today, we all need to be putting pressure because this -- if mitch mcconnell wanted to get this done, he could get it done tomorrow. >> yeah, and ron klain, some of these individual senators are going to come under increasingly enormous pressure. johnny isakson, republican from georgia, said an extraordinary thing today. he said that the way to get this shutdown to end -- and he represents the -- one of our most important airports, the atlanta airport obviously, major hub, major factor in all of the economy of georgia. he wants to see -- he's advocating a strike by tsa agents, including at his airport, so that that will force the president. now, let's consider what this is. he's advocating an illegal strike -- >> yeah. >> -- by federal workers because he is afraid, he is afraid of himself doing his own job that he's paid to do and cast a vote in the united states senate. >> yeah, it's crazy, lawrence. i mean, look, to win approval for his 14th century wall, president trump may have backed himself into a 19th century state of the union address, as you said at the outset of the program. but, you know, look, trump is kind of in some ways delivering on what he promised us. he said he would run the government the way he ran the trump organization. he's got hundreds of thousands of workers who he's nod paying, he's got contractors who he's stiffing. a giant disaster, the trump shutdown, that he's put his name on top of. this is what we would have expected from donald trump. he's the most incompetent president in history. his incompetence is kind of the driving force behind this shutdown. >> i've just been handed the breaking news from "the new york times" tonight, the latest inside the trump white house report of what the president is thinking about this. and i think you might be able to help the president with this, senator mccaskill. this is maggie haberman and maggie carney with their sources inside the white house reporting what donald trump is saying, and he is saying, "we are getting crushed," mr. trump told his acting chief of staff mick mulvaney after watching some recent coverage of the shutdown. according to one person familiar with the conversation, "why can't we get a deal?" you want to answer that for the president? >> well, it's pretty simple, you know, he should have takeny for an answer. his administration asked to 1.6 billion. we gave them 1.6 billion. that's all they asked for. >> when you say we, this was done before the shutdown, before christmas, way back when claire mccaskill was still a senator. >> still a senator, exactly. so, you know, this is what's nuts about this and, you know, good nancy pelosi, what a badass. i mean, her realizing that she could make -- remove the invitation for the state of the union, i think it was a brilliant political play. it made sense. it was reasonable. i think most people think it's reasonable. and it, once again, she has outmaneuvered him in terms of leveraging the situation. he is not going to get $5 billion for his sea to shining sea wall. and the sooner he realizes that and figures another way out of this, and mitch mcconnell is the guy that can do it. >> and ron, another thing about withdrawing the invitation for the state of the union, we've all seen -- you worked in the senate and senator mccaskill knows this. we've all seen how many people go into overdrive and overtime to put together what it takes to deliver a state of the union in the 21st century with all the security that that takes. most of those people aren't being paid. >> yeah. >> nancy pelosi is saying this is not an emergency. under a shutdown work rules, it's only supposed to be basically emergency critical personnel who are working. we can't say to them that this speech is the kind of emergency that must bring them out back from home into work for this. i don't see how she could actually justify it if she wanted to make the case that it is an emergency for us to hear from donald trump. >> yeah, i mean, it's a stunning thing to think about, the amount of security and logistics that go no the state of the union address. you have sitting in one room obviously the president, all members of his cabinet except one, who is off in a secure location. the entire supreme court and obviously the entire house and senate. our entire government sits in one room for one night a year. it is obviously the highest risk security event we have every single year. so the number of people it takes to secure that, to deal with the transportation logistics of getting these people back and forth and all these things, it's just an enormous number. to ask those people to work for no pay, which is the trump proposition right now, is ridiculous. i think nancy pelosi did something very smart as far as it went. she should have gone the rest of the way. she might as well have invited ann coulter and rush limbaugh to deliver the state of the union address because they appear to be running our country right now. whatever they say goes with trump. they appear to be the highest authority in the united states. >> claire, let me -- senator mccaskill -- >> claire's great. >> i'm going back to before your senate days when we first met. >> exactly. >> when i use that. just so i understand, ron klain is both possibly has the most -- one of the thickest resumes of anyone who appears on this show, having worked for a president and vice president, senate judiciary committee, justice department, but he is our resident stand-up comedian. >> i appreciate that. >> he's the one who is going to do the ann coulter give the state of the union address joke, i just want to make it clear because there is no, you know, laughing audience here. >> okay. got it. >> senator claire mccaskill in her debut as a former senator on "the last word." thank you for starting us off tonight. ron klain, thank you for joining us. when we come back, senator ben cardin, a member of the senate foreign relations committee will join us on the senate's important vote on russian sanctions in which 11 republicans voted against president trump's position on sanctions. michael cohen reportedly plans to testify that his former close friend donald trump is, in michael cohen's words, a mad man. now imagine if you were a cia director and you heard a former close friend of the president describe him as a mad man, how would you feel? i'll ask former cia director john brennan next. and jason johnson will join us to discuss how republicans have turned on steve king for his racist comments. and question why not? take your razor, yup. up and down, never side to side, shaquem, you got it? come on stay focused. hard work baby, it gonna pay off. burning of diabetic nerve pain these feet raised a bouncing boy and climbed the ladder in the hardware business. but i couldn't bear my diabetic nerve pain any longer. so i talked to my doctor and he prescribed lyrica. lyrica may cause serious allergic reactions, suicidal thoughts or actions. tell your doctor right away if you have these, new or worse depression, unusual changes in mood or behavior, swelling, 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tuesday, this is the important part, "the maggie carney with their sources inside the white house reporting what donald trump is saying, and he is saying, "we are getting he's the incumbent right no way. and we all should be very worried about this lack of strategy. >> there's so much that's developed recently this week that the president and information about russia, including this new information that he basically restricts anyone in the administration from really knowing what he has said in his conversations with vladimir putin. if you were sitting there as the cia director and these things occurred that were -- no one else was allowed in the room or the translator's notes were not available, the stories that we've been reading about how this has been handled, what would you do? you would have an interest still in knowing what was said in that room, but you can't find out from the president. what would a cia director do? >> well, you'd need to know what transpired in that two-hour exchange. because the russians know. >> yeah. >> and the russians have internalized whatever message it was and the exchanges that mr. trump had with mr. putin. and so i would be very, very interested in pursuing avenues to try to have a better understand of it. first of all, i would go to the white house and, you know, try to insist that we need to know >> would you try to go face-to-face with the president -- >> i would. >> and say i need to know -- after he got back from helsinki. >> i've never encountered a situation like this. the previous presidents i've worked for, both democrat and republican, would want to make sure that senior members of their staff understand because that gives us a sense how the russians might try to exploit whatever was discussed there. so it's inexplicable why mr. trump did not allow his national security adviser and secretary of state in that meeting. clearly he was trying to keep something from them. what was he concealing and what did mr. putin come away with from that conversation? so, you know, intelligence agencies do not collect against the president of the united states or u.s. officials, but we do have this need to understand how the russians are going to take advantage of whatever mr. trump might have said. >> and so this is the strange presidency where he actually does these things on tv. and during the campaign, he asked the russians to steal hillary clinton's e-mail and provide them in effect to the trump campaign or to leak them to the american public. because he did it on tv, the republicans' defense was, oh, it's a joke. i want to look at another piece of video. there is no sound to this. this is vladimir putin and donald trump. they're at the g-20 dinner in germany. and trump is highlighted there on one part of the screen. putin's down there. there's this signal that he gives to putin and we're going to rerun it because we look at that and i'm wondering if you had picked this up as some kind of intelligence, that the american government picked up in a russian restaurant of two people giving that kind of signal, and you know that these people are in positions of trust by their governments to -- essentially an adversarial position. i mean, what do you think you're looking at when you see that? >> it really is quite curious. i think it just reflects that there is a special relationship between those two individuals. and if any previous president had done that, i wouldn't, quite frankly, think twice about it because i'm sure we would have gotten the full readout. >> yeah. >> the fact that mr. trump with all the baggage that he has on his relationship with the russians and mr. putin and russian interference, and the way that he has had this fawning attitude towards mr. putin and he has these very, you know, one-on-one conversations with him that he keeps from others, it really just continues to fuel the suspicions and the concerns about what is going on, and that's why the -- i think the intelligence community agencies have a right to try to understand better, again, how the russians may be taking advantage of somebody like mr. trump, who i don't believe is an asset of russia, you know, by the formal term, but i do believe that he is being manipulated and exploited, and that putin, who is a trained kgb intelligence officer, is a master puppeteer in many respects. i just feel as though mr. trump is -- has fallen prey to what mr. putin is trying to do, undermining the national security of this country. and when i hear mr. trump say that he is thinking about getting out of nato, an alliance, an organization -- we celebrate the 70th anniversary of nato this april 4th. this the cornerstone of our national security and our partners and allies in europe, to think we're going to remove ourselves from that alliance, that partnership that is so important as to giving the united states access to land bases in europe. giving us overflight rights in europe. preventing the expansion of first the soviet union and russia. i can't even begin to understand what is the basis of the logic behind it, other than he believes that he is doing this and he's going to gain some favor from mr. putin and others. it is just totally head-scratching. >> and on nato what seems to be lost in it all, the one lesson you might be able to teach donald trump is remember world war i, remember world war ii, they were 20 years apart. 20 years later, those same countries, those same european countries were all very strong allies thanks to, among other things, an organization called nato. >> and american leadership. >> yep. >> and we were not recoiling from the leadership responsibilities around the world and mr. trump is doing it every time, whether it be on syria or whether it be on issues like our nato alliance. >> john barren, thank you very much. >> thank you. really appreciate it. and when we come back, 11 republicans broke with the president today on russian sanctions. they voted against the president's decision. we will be joined by a senator who was there. it's absolute confidence in 30,000 precision parts. or it isn't. it's inspected by mercedes-benz factory-trained technicians. or it isn't. it's backed by an unlimited mileage warranty, or it isn't. for those who never settle, it's either mercedes-benz certified pre-owned, or it isn't. the mercedes-benz certified pre-owned sales event. now through february 28th. only at your authorized mercedes-benz dealer. i felt i couldn't be at my best for my family., in only 8 weeks with mavyret, i was cured and left those doubts behind. i faced reminders of my hep c every day. but in only 8 weeks with mavyret, i was cured. even hanging with friends i worried about my hep c. but in only 8 weeks with mavyret, i was cured. mavyret is the only 8-week cure for all common types of hep c. before starting mavyret your doctor will test if you've had hepatitis b which may flare up and cause serious liver problems during and after treatment. 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people, including at least four americans, proves that president trump was very wrong when he said that he had defeated isis in syria. >> isis claims responsibility. if true, that shows that they're not defeated and they have been emboldened. >> joining our discussion now, senator ben cardin, democrat from maryland who is a member of the finance committee and the senate foreign relations committees. senator cardin, that vote in the senate today needed 60, got 57, put picked up 11 republicans. what does that tell you about republican willingness to go against president trump at this stage? >> well, it tells me that the clear majority of the united states senate disagrees with president trump. this is not the time to ease sanctions on russian entities. russia has done and continues to do its business against the u.s., and it's important that we let mr. putin know that we're not going to be easing on sanctions. we actually should be tightening sanctions. so i think it was a very healthy vote. it was an uphill battle to try to get it passed and get over a president veto, but i think it's a clear message we disagree with the president on how he's managing the relationship with russia. >> is that an indication of what would happen if mitch mcconnell were to allow a senate vote on the government funding bills that nancy pelosi has moved through the house of representatives and sent to the senate? >> there's no question in my mind that the majority of senators would vote to open government. this is clearly something that president trump has done. you remember, we did that once before, we did it in december by unanimous vote. we voted for a continuing resolution and the appropriation bills that have nothing to do with the border security issues have already been acted on by the senate. so clearly if mitch mcconnell allowed us to vote on the bills that passed the house, they would pass the senate and we stand a good chance of opening government. >> and the -- another senate piece of business i really want to get you on is confirmation hearing for william barr as the president's attorney general nominee. it looks like he has no resistance from senate republicans, and so that seems like he will definitely be moved out of the committee on to the senate floor, and after some debate if nothing changes in these dynamics, it looks like he will be confirmed. do you expect that to be pretty much a party line vote? >> well, i think we still want to get more information from mr. barr. i know there are still meetings taking place with senators. we are concerned about whether he will make available the full report from the mueller investigation. we also want to make sure that he will not impede the needs of the mueller investigation. so that's of major concern. there are other issues, including border security issues in which mr. barr's comments have raised several questions, so at this point, look, we're not naive. we know there seems to be a rally by the republicans behind this nominee, but we do think we really need to get better answers before we have a vote on the floor of the senate. >> and the -- alexandria ocasio-cortez did that very rare thing today of walking in to the senate chamber, house members rarely do it, to bring the message that the senate -- the shutdown now belongs to mitch mcconnell, in effect, in the senate. if he would simply bring up these bills, that would be the only way to test what is now only a theoretical threat by the president, that he would veto something. and we've all seen presidents threaten to veto things that when they finally pass, depending on the vote count, they choose not to veto. but there is no way to know that unless you put a bill in front of the president. >> you're exactly right. and we know that president trump has caused this shutdown. he said he would be proud to have this shutdown. but now mitch mcconnell, the republican leader, is denying the senate the opportunity to act as a co-equal branch of government. we can clearly act -- and let the president do what owe he wants to do. we have the votes, do it. and the legislation we're talking about is bipartisan legislation. a lot crafted under republican leadership of committees. so this is not a partisan effort. this is for the congress to exercise its power as a co-equal branch of government, to do our work, take up the bills to open government, and if the majority -- i'm sure there is a clear majority, let that -- the will of the body go forward. and mitch mcconnell is blocking that. >> i think a lot of people make the mistake of thinking because you're in maryland you represent more federal workers than other senators, but senators in big states like texas, new york, california, represent really, really big numbers of federal workers. this is all over the country. and the president's council of economic advisers have come out today and said that this shutdown is actually affecting economic growth, it's affecting the health of the economy. we're not sure what it takes to get through to donald trump, but what we are sure of is he sure doesn't care about any of your constituents as government workers who aren't getting paychecks. >> i'm very proud to represent really dedicated government workers who have been laid off, furloughed without pay, who are working without pay. there's also a lot of other people who have lost their jobs as a result of the federal agencies being closed. the impact on our economy is billions of dollars a week. along with senator van hollen and my colleagues from virginia, we've asked president trump to meet with these people, meet with the federal workforce because they'll tell you they want to work and they want to get paid for what they're doing. the mission's critically important. whether it's airline safety or food safety or small business loans, the irs and helping people with their tax refunds, all of those critical missions that are now not being done as a result of president trump closing -- partially closing government. we never should have had it. this shutdown needs to end. >> senator ben cardin of maryland, thank you very much for joining us tonight. really appreciate it. >> thank you. and when we come back, jason johnson will be joining us along with claire mccaskill to discuss why republicans have turned on steve king and why donald trump has not turned on steve king. ♪ carla is living with metastatic breast cancer, which is breast cancer that has spread to other parts of her body. she's also taking prescription ibrance with an aromatase inhibitor, which is for postmenopausal women with hormone receptor-positive her2- metastatic breast cancer as the first hormonal based therapy. ibrance plus letrozole was significantly more effective at delaying disease progression versus letrozole. patients taking ibrance can develop low white blood cell counts, which may cause serious infections that can lead to death. before taking ibrance, tell your doctor if you 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today which was then read by the clerk on the house floor. >> on july 13th, 2006, on the floor of the house of representatives, comparing immigrants to livestock. representative steve king of iowa stated, "we could also electrify this wire with this kind of current that would not kill somebody but it would simply be a discouragement for them to be fooling around with it. we do that with livestock all the time." >> the censure resolution was then referred to the house ethics committee for review. on monday, house republicans stripped steve king of his committee assignments. local newspapers in steve king's home state of iowa are now calling for his resignation. yesterday "the des moines register" editorial board wrote, "steve king should resign. he has lost even the potential to effectively represent his constituents." the sioux city journal who has previously endorsed king wrote, "it's time for steve king to go." here is what steve king said in a radio interview yesterday when asked if he would resign. >> you have no committees left. let me ask you this question, are you going to resign? >> no. no chance at all. i'll go out of this place dead before that happens. and the lord will have to make that decision. >> here's what senate republican leader mitch mcconnell said when asked about steve king and president trump. >> you and also senator ernst have condemned representative king for his comments. i'm wondering why haven't you also condemned the president for the many insensitive comments, racially tinged comments that he's made? >> look, it's been my practice for the last couple of years not to make sort of random observations about the president's tweeting and other things. >> the one thing the house of representatives is now united on is condemning steve king. why now? republican minority leader of the house kevin mccarthy seemed to suggest that republicans should have condemned steve king earlier under the leadership of paul ryan. when we come back, former senator claire mccaskill and jason johnson will consider what has changed in the house of representatives that has turned republicans against steve king. or two actually, got to tell you something. with the capital one venture card you earn unlimited double miles on every purchase, every day. my credit card only earns double miles on airline purchases! well, you earn double miles on this and on everything with the venture card. thanks! hey, by the way, how'd you get in here? same way you did. cross-checking. nice. what's in your wallet... oh, c'mon! you're gonna love if ythe best of geico.ercials, it's geico's all-time greatest hits back on tv for a limited time. and if you love the best of geico, you're gonna really love voting online for your favorite. you can even enter for a chance to appear in an upcoming geico commercial. this fire's toasty, linda but the best of geico collection sounds even hotter. to vote for your favorite geico ad and enter to win, visit geico.com/bestof. 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most major insurers. afrstill, we never stoppedss wmaking it stronger.e. faster. smarter. because to be the best, is to never ever stop making it better. the new 2019 c-class family. lease the c 300 sport sedan for $429 a month at your local mercedes-benz dealer. mercedes-benz. the best or nothing. here's the republican minority leader of the house of representatives, kevin mccarthy, talking about steve king on a radio program in kevin mccarthy's district. >> this wasn't the first time that he used this language. >> absolutely. >> when he used this, i came out directly and denounced it and was frustrated. but i knew that i watched past leaders did not act and just felt i don't care if it hurts me or not i've got to just do the right thing. but when i looked at the back of the things he had said and recently done it can't reflect p th. >> politics editor of the root.com and msnbc contributor and former democratic senator claire mccaskill who is also now an msnbc contributor. back with us. jason johnson, who can kevin mccarthy be talking about? he's talking about past leaders. apparently recent past leaders of the house of representatives. i guess he couldn't -- he couldn't think of paul ryan's name. >> yeah. he couldn't remember paul ryan. he couldn't remember reince priebus. he couldn't remember tons of other leaders of the republican party. this is not new. you know, steve king has been a white nationalist for years. he has said white nationalist things. they have heard about them. they have dismissed these statements in the past. this newfound religion of the republican party, which is let's condemn white nationalist talk but let's not stop white nationalist policies, does not impress me at all. so the idea that mccarthy can't really remember and says this isn't us, this is you. this is the republican party. if you have someone like that who is in your party who has felt comfortable behaving in this way for ten years and you have several other people that have the same belief system, they just know how to say it with sugar on top, that is a reflection of your party. and until you make those fundamental changes in what you accept ideologically and policywise, censuring him, moving him from committees, none of that really matters. >> senator mccaskill, every elected republican in the house of representatives voted against steve king on that resolution about his language the other day including steve king. he voted against himself, saying you know, i shouldn't have said it. donald trump silent. donald trump the elected republican in washington who has nothing to say about steve king. >> yeah, donald trump this week said he hadn't really followed it. now, he was up to the minute on jeff bezos's divorce. >> yes. >> but he hadn't managed to follow a candidate for congress that he supported in so many ways, said that they were on the same page together, they saw things -- by the way, kevin mccarthy, talk about phony baloney. he gave steve king ten grand last year out of his pac. so if this is something that has troubled him for a long time and he didn't understand why paul ryan hadn't acted, why did he write a $10,000 check to steve king last year for his re-election? all of these guys were there for steve king for his re-election last year. so it really -- >> jason johnson, do you think it's the election results in november that has changed their attitude toward this? >> part of it, yeah. you know, the republicans are shook. they're like oh, my gosh, we lost a bunch of seats and the new faces of the democratic party are brown and young and millennial and i guess we need to clean up our act. but the problem is you know, cleaning um your act or healing or improving, you can't heal if you can't agree on the diagnosis. and i have said this before. most of the republicans in a & a lot of democrats, they couldn't even tell you what a white nationalist is. so they're condemning something because they've heard it's a bad word, but they don't know what it is. they don't know what white nationalism is. and they're not really trying to remove it. white nationalism is the wall. white nationalism leads to what happened with police in ferguson. white nationalism is what you have that killed people in south carolina. whies nationalism is what killed people in pittsburgh. white nationalism leads to violence. and until the republican party and the democratic party understands that white nationalism isn't just mean words that makes people feel bad but it results in domestic terrorism, all of this is a dog and pony show. >> senator mccaskill, this is -- steve king's a midwest member of the house. you were a midwest senator. is there something in the political dynamics in that region that the republicans were worried about? because now you have his local newspapers saying resign, you're useless to us, they've kicked you off the committees, you can't really represent us. >> well, i just think what happened, there was obviously a cumulative effect. and i think as time went on and no one really reined in steve king he just went further and further and further. and then finally he went so far that he really couldn't look the other way anymore. it was compelling even to his local newspaper. but he's from a very rural, red area. i remember when tom vilsack's wife ran against him for congress. she came i think within 10, which is amazing when you think about that. that was a few cycles ago. i think the guy that ran against him was a veteran or a former baseball player who came back and didn't have much of a shot but he came closer than christine vilsack did. so i think the republicans maybe clean up on aisle 5, let's get rid of this guy so we can get another republican in there so we don't lose the seat. because if steve king is their nominee they're probably going to lose the seat. >> jason johnson, thank you for joining us tonight. and senator mccaskill, i just want to say, i have seen united states senators leave the senate when they decided to retire, and i've seen them leave when they involuntarily were retired. >> correct. >> and what i've always noticed is about a month later you can't tell the difference because they're just so happy to be out of that submarine. and you look like you're bearing it with both grace and dignity, which is just the way you entered the senate, and i want to thank you for your service there. >> thank you so much, lawrence. >> thank you for joining us. really appreciate it. >> you bet. >> tonight's last word is next. g [indistinct conversation] [friend] i've never seen that before. ♪ ♪ i have... ♪ i but i can tell you i liberty mutual customized my car insurance so i only pay for what i need. oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no... only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ hey, darryl! hey, thomas. if you were choosing a network, would you want the one the experts at rootmetrics say is number one in the nation? sure, they probably know what 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"the 11th hour" with brian williams starts now. said crime isn't even legal. >> the 11th hour with brian william starts now. >> tonight, what did rudy giuliani just say about the trump campaign and collusion with the russians. it's a draw dropper. it may take a bit to react to this one. also with the state of the union shutdown, now there's a fight over shutting down the state of the union address until the government is back open and running again. four americans are killed in an isis related suicide attack in syria and after that, the vice president says isis has been defeated. and the president that insists he's been tough on russia and the ambassador says that's not true and someone has to account for w
editions of "the harvard crimson," the campus newspaper, filled with that kind of stuff. then is it spread with the new york city newspaper strike one time and actually some lampoon graduates putting out, "the daily news," one of the newspapers was down and i think they put out fake copies along with people from "the national lampoon." there is a rich comic history at work here. >> and, you know, i remember at the very start of the -- right after the election, the "boston globe," speaking of massachusetts, the "boston globe" did its own not quite satirical, but another sort of thought experiment front page as to what might become of the united states, what might become of the news under a trump presidency, trying to get people to imagine if the president kept to his word on some of his promises. >> yes. >> so sometimes people do this to themselves. sometimes people punk other papers. in this case, it's an activist group punking "the post" and "the post" isn't happy about it. >> yeah, for me, this isn't the time because the real headlines are so strange. i just don't want to have to go through the process of trying to figure out, is this the joke one or is this the real -- not now. >> this is not a time when we need to shock ourselves out of the idea these headlines are feel. yeah, i know the feeling. >> thanks, rachel. >> thanks, my friend. well, donald trump discovered today that his job does not come with the same privileges that come with alexandria ocasio-cortez's job. donald trump doesn't have floor privileges. the president of the united states does not have the same floor privileges that a member of congress has, a member of the house of representatives can enter the house chamber at any time and a member of the house of representatives can also enter the senate chamber at any time. donald trump cannot. the president of the united states needs an invitation, and today house speaker nancy pelosi told the president because of the government shutdown that he created, she cannot extend an invitation to him to deliver his state of the union address in the house of representatives to a joint session of congress. and congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez put the blame for the shutdown right where it belongs as of now, and that is in the united states senate, and she did that by exercising her floor privileges and walking right in to the united states senate chamber to deliver a letter to mitch mcconnell telling him to bring the government funding bills that have already passed the house of representatives to a vote in the united states senate, where those bills would pass if mitch mcconnell would simply allow a vote. now, house members entering the senate chamber is a rare occurrence. most people working in the senate never see it happen. most staff members never see that happen. house members entering the senate chamber in protest, well, that's even more rare. and the way the country discovered that that was possible, that house members have the senate floor -- the senate floor privileges to do that was when the then very few women members of the house of representatives marched across the capitol campus and invaded the floor of the united states senate to demand that the senate judiciary committee re-open the confirmation hearing of supreme court nominee clarence thomas so that they could hear testimony from anita hill about what she said was the sexual harassment she suffered from clarence thomas. and i was working in the senate then at the time, and i can tell you that that hearing was not going to be re-opened. that was not going to happen. if the women of the house didn't do what alexandria ocasio-cortez decided to do today. congresswoman ocasio-cortez is the second most famous member of the house of representatives. nancy pelosi being the most famous member. now, we have not seen such a famous freshman member of the house since john quincy adams was elected to the house of representatives after serving as our sixth president of the united states. and in modern politics, in social media politics, with fame comes power, the power to direct media attention where you want it. the power to push a policy position into the national political debate. and congresswoman ocasio-cortez did that today more effectively than any other member of the house of representatives could have done it because of that fame. and there is apparently no one in the house of representatives who understands fame and knows how to use fame better than congresswoman ocasio-cortez. who does not need a staff to explain instagram to her or any other social media or mass communication tool, including how she should handle herself on stephen colbert's show. she went to the senate chamber looking for mitch mcconnell, after she checked the majority leader's office adjacent to the senate floor and she was told he wasn't there, but it's a large office suite with plenty of places to hide, but what are you going to do? the staff says the majority leader isn't there. every majority leader also has a separate senate office that is granted to him as a regular member of the senate representing his state, and so congresswoman ocasio-cortez took the senate subway over to the russel senate office building where mcconnell's kentucky senate office, a place he rarely sets foot. here she is on the senate subway on the way to that office. #wheresmitch. >> okay, guys, we went to mitch mcconnell's office where we went to the senate cloak room. #wheresmitch. >> here is the congresswoman at the end of her search in the russel senate office building. >> he's not in the cloak room. he's not in the capitol. he's not in the russel building. he's not on the floor of the senate and 800,000 people don't have their paychecks, so where's mitch? >> where's mitch? he wasn't on the senate floor. he wasn't in the cloak room. he wasn't in any of his offices. there is one other place congresswoman ocasio-cortez could have gone but it wouldn't be easy to find. there is no marking on the door, it is mitch mcconnell's hideaway. that's literally what it's called, a hideaway. senior senators like mcconnell get an extra office, some of them smaller than their official office, some of them quite grand, and they are secret rooms in the capitol building near the senate floor with no markings on the door and it is the one place where a senator can go and literally hide away. today, mitch mcconnell might have actually been using his hideaway as the place to literally hide away from congresswoman ocasio-cortez. the place to hide away from the inescapable fact that this shutdown now belongs to mitch mcconnell. donald trump started it and mitch mcconnell is doing everything he can to keep it going for donald trump. he is not using the powers of his office the way nancy pelosi is to solve the problem that donald trump handed to them. he is using the powers of his office to block a solution to the shutdown, and so the shutdown continues, and because a state of the union address takes enormous planning by the speaker of the house and by the house sergeant at arms, and by the capitol police and hundreds and hundreds of government workers who have to coordinate to provide security and logistics for a 21st century state of the union address, many of whom are not currently being paid, those workers, nancy pelosi has decided she cannot demand that the federal workforce necessary to support a televised state of the union address from the house of representatives be ordered to work without pay. and so speaker pelosi sent a letter to the president today saying, "given the security concerns and unless government re-opens this week, i suggest that we work together to determine another suitable date after government has re-opened for this address or for you to consider delivering your state of the union address in writing to congress on january 29th." now, actually most state of the union addresses delivered by most presidents have been delivered in writing only, but that changed in the 20th century when woodrow wilson delivered his state of the union addresses in person as a speech to a joint session of congress, and every president after him has done the same thing. those speeches became ultimately delivered to national audiences on radio and then on television and then donald trump shut down the government and may have pushed the presidential state of the union address back into the 19th century. and comments to reporters today, nancy pelosi suggested the president had another option if he doesn't want to just deliver his state of the union address in writing. >> he can make it from the oval office if he wants. >> and senate minority leader chuck schumer supports speaker pelosi's decision. >> well, what is the state of the union? the government is closed because of president trump. if it continues to be closed on the 29th, i think it's a good idea to delay it until the government is open. >> joining our discussion now, ron klain, a former senior adviser to joe biden and president obama and the former chief counsel of the senate judiciary committee. and claire mccaskill, former democratic senator from missouri who is now an msnbc political analyst. i won't ask you where your hideaway was in the senate. >> by the way, all senators have a mount. once they open the convention center. >> it used to just be the seniors. >> right. when they open the convention center, the new facility -- >> there's more space. >> they moved a lot of offices out of the capitol, which gave space for every senator to have a hideaway. >> let's just for a moment, it's not as bad as it sounds. >> no, it's not. >> a lot of productive work gets done by the senators in the hidea ways. it's where you can read, think, and occasionally take a nap in the middle of the night. >> most of the time it's use when we're voting late at night. >> because it's close to the floor. >> right. or if you need to do a quick meeting and you can't get all the way back over to your office and need to stay in the capitol complex because of other things going on. the name is really tacky. we need to change the name. it is weird because they won't even tell senators where another senator's hideaway is. >> that's right. >> the only way you find out is if the senator tells you where it is. >> if you get invited. >> right. it is a culture that probably needs to be changed. >> some of them are quite magnificent. we could go on and on about this. ron klain, after the break, we're going to talk about what's the most impressive hideaway we've seen in the senate. but -- so this -- nancy pelosi, when the president shuts down the government, goes to work and she says our job is legislating, our job is funding the government. it's the congress' job to fund the government. she goes to work. she funds the government. she passes bills to fund the government. >> right. >> those bills get sent to the united states senate. >> correct. >> nothing happens. that's where the shutdown is now, isn't it? >> reit's mitch mcconnell. he's been looking at his shoes and hiding under his desk from day one. remember, he got 100 votes for a bill to get the funding through. 100 votes. unanimous in the senate. mitch mcconnell did that. he did that because he had gotten an agreement from the president. >> before the shutdown. >> right. he had gotten an agreement from the president that he would sign it. then rush limbaugh and ann coulter got on their shows and, you know, gave him what for, and he then reversed course. he backed up the truck and said, no, i won't sign it. so mitch knew from the beginning this was going to have a bad ending. so mitch's goal was very simple, i don't want to be anywhere near this. so if you remember, he immediately started saying, this is about the democrats and the president. this is about the democrats and the president. and you got to give him this, the polling shows that only about 5% to 6% or 7% are blaming the republicans in congress. they're blaming trump. and what mitch mcconnell is doing is trying to protect his members, those that are up for election in 2020 in tough states. he doesn't want them to have to take this vote because he knows they're going to have a tough road to run in terms of winning in 2020. if we don't put more pressure on him, and i applaud what the congresswoman did today, we all need to be putting pressure because this -- if mitch mcconnell wanted to get this done, he could get it done tomorrow. >> yeah, and ron klain, some of these individual senators are going to come under increasingly enormous pressure. johnny isakson, republican from georgia, said an extraordinary thing today. he said that the way to get this shutdown to end -- and he represents the -- one of our most important airports, the atlanta airport obviously, major hub, major factor in all of the economy of georgia. he wants to see -- he's advocating a strike by tsa agents, including at his airport, so that that will force the president. now, let's consider what this is. he's advocating an illegal strike -- >> yeah. >> -- by federal workers because he is afraid, he is afraid of himself doing his own job that he's paid to do and cast a vote in the united states senate. >> yeah, it's crazy, lawrence. i mean, look, to win approval for his 14th century wall, president trump may have backed himself into a 19th century state of the union address, as you said at the outset of the program. but, you know, look, trump is kind of in some ways delivering on what he promised us. he said he would run the government the way he ran the trump organization. he's got hundreds of thousands of workers who he's nod paying, he's got contractors who he's stiffing. a giant disaster, the trump shutdown, that he's put his name on top of. this is what we would have expected from donald trump. he's the most incompetent president in history. his incompetence is kind of the driving force behind this shutdown. >> i've just been handed the breaking news from "the new york times" tonight, the latest inside the trump white house report of what the president is thinking about this. and i think you might be able to help the president with this, senator mccaskill. this is maggie haberman and maggie carney with their sources inside the white house reporting what donald trump is saying, and he is saying, "we are getting crushed," mr. trump told his acting chief of staff mick mulvaney after watching some recent coverage of the shutdown. according to one person familiar with the conversation, "why can't we get a deal?" you want to answer that for the president? >> well, it's pretty simple, you know, he should have takeny for an answer. his administration asked to 1.6 billion. we gave them 1.6 billion. that's all they asked for. >> when you say we, this was done before the shutdown, before christmas, way back when claire mccaskill was still a senator. >> still a senator, exactly. so, you know, this is what's nuts about this and, you know, good nancy pelosi, what a badass. i mean, her realizing that she could make -- remove the invitation for the state of the union, i think it was a brilliant political play. it made sense. it was reasonable. i think most people think it's reasonable. and it, once again, she has outmaneuvered him in terms of leveraging the situation. he is not going to get $5 billion for his sea to shining sea wall. and the sooner he realizes that and figures another way out of this, and mitch mcconnell is the guy that can do it. >> and ron, another thing about withdrawing the invitation for the state of the union, we've all seen -- you worked in the senate and senator mccaskill knows this. we've all seen how many people go into overdrive and overtime to put together what it takes to deliver a state of the union in the 21st century with all the security that that takes. most of those people aren't being paid. >> yeah. >> nancy pelosi is saying this is not an emergency. under a shutdown work rules, it's only supposed to be basically emergency critical personnel who are working. we can't say to them that this speech is the kind of emergency that must bring them out back from home into work for this. i don't see how she could actually justify it if she wanted to make the case that it is an emergency for us to hear from donald trump. >> yeah, i mean, it's a stunning thing to think about, the amount of security and logistics that go no the state of the union address. you have sitting in one room obviously the president, all members of his cabinet except one, who is off in a secure location. the entire supreme court and obviously the entire house and senate. our entire government sits in one room for one night a year. it is obviously the highest risk security event we have every single year. so the number of people it takes to secure that, to deal with the transportation logistics of getting these people back and forth and all these things, it's just an enormous number. to ask those people to work for no pay, which is the trump proposition right now, is ridiculous. i think nancy pelosi did something very smart as far as it went. she should have gone the rest of the way. she might as well have invited ann coulter and rush limbaugh to deliver the state of the union address because they appear to be running our country right now. whatever they say goes with trump. they appear to be the highest authority in the united states. >> claire, let me -- senator mccaskill -- >> claire's great. >> i'm going back to before your senate days when we first met. >> exactly. >> when i use that. just so i understand, ron klain is both possibly has the most -- one of the thickest resumes of anyone who appears on this show, having worked for a president and vice president, senate judiciary committee, justice department, but he is our resident stand-up comedian. >> i appreciate that. >> he's the one who is going to do the ann coulter give the state of the union address joke, i just want to make it clear because there is no, you know, laughing audience here. >> okay. got it. >> senator claire mccaskill in her debut as a former senator on "the last word." thank you for starting us off tonight. ron klain, thank you for joining us. when we come back, senator ben cardin, a member of the senate foreign relations committee will join us on the senate's important vote on russian sanctions in which 11 republicans voted against president trump's position on sanctions. michael cohen reportedly plans to testify that his former close friend donald trump is, in michael cohen's words, a mad man. now imagine if you were a cia director and you heard a former close friend of the president describe him as a mad man, how would you feel? i'll ask former cia director john brennan next. and jason johnson will join us to discuss how republicans have turned on steve king for his racist comments. and question why not? and question why not no more excuses with cologuard. we all make excuses for the things we don't want to do. but when it comes to colon cancer screening... i'm not doin' that. i eat plenty of kale. ahem, as i was saying... ...with cologuard, you don't need an excuse... all that prep? no thanks. that drink tastes horrible! but...there's no prep with cologuard... i can't take the time off work. who has two days? and i feel fine - no symptoms! everybody, listen! all you need is a trip to the bathroom. if you're 50 or older and at average risk, cologuard is the noninvasive option that finds 92% of colon cancers. you just get the kit in the mail, go to the bathroom, collect your sample, then ship it to the lab! this is your year! own it! cologuard is not right for everyone. it is not for high risk individuals, including those with a history of colon cancer or precancer, ibd, certain hereditary cancer syndromes, or a family history of colon cancer. ask your doctor if cologuard is right for you. covered by medicare and most major insurers. >> in the oval office. he's the incumbent right no way. and we all should be very worried about this lack of strategy. >> there's so much that's developed recently this week that the president and information about russia, including this new information that he basically restricts anyone in the administration from really knowing what he has said in his conversations with vladimir putin. if you were sitting there as the cia director and these things occurred that were -- no one else was allowed in the room or the translator's notes were not available, the stories that we've been reading about how this has been handled, what would you do? you would have an interest still in knowing what was said in that room, but you can't find out from the president. what would a cia director do? >> well, you'd need to know what transpired in that two-hour exchange. because the russians know. >> yeah. >> and the russians have internalized whatever message it was and the exchanges that mr. trump had with mr. putin. and so i would be very, very interested in pursuing avenues to try to have a better understand of it. first of all, i would go to the white house and, you know, try to insist that we need to know -- >> would you try to go face-to-face with the president -- >> i would. >> and say i need to know -- after he got back from helsinki. >> i've never encountered a situation like this. the previous presidents i've worked for, both democrat and republican, would want to make sure that senior members of their staff understand because that gives us a sense how the russians might try to exploit whatever was discussed there. so it's inexplicable why mr. trump did not allow his national security adviser and secretary of state in that meeting. clearly he was trying to keep something from them. what was he concealing and what did mr. putin come away with from that conversation? so, you know, intelligence agencies do not collect against the president of the united states or u.s. officials, but we do have this need to understand how the russians are going to take advantage of whatever mr. trump might have said. >> and so this is the strange presidency where he actually does these things on tv. and during the campaign, he asked the russians to steal hillary clinton's e-mail and provide them in effect to the trump campaign or to leak them to the american public. because he did it on tv, the republicans' defense was, oh, it's a joke. i want to look at another piece of video. there is no sound to this. this is vladimir putin and donald trump. they're at the g-20 dinner in germany. and trump is highlighted there on one part of the screen. putin's down there. there's this signal that he gives to putin and we're going to rerun it because we look at that and i'm wondering if you had picked this up as some kind of intelligence, that the american government picked up in a russian restaurant of two people giving that kind of signal, and you know that these people are in positions of trust by their governments to -- essentially an adversarial position. i mean, what do you think you're looking at when you see that? >> it really is quite curious. i think it just reflects that there is a special relationship between those two individuals. and if any previous president had done that, i wouldn't, quite frankly, think twice about it because i'm sure we would have gotten the full readout. >> yeah. >> the fact that mr. trump with all the baggage that he has on his relationship with the russians and mr. putin and russian interference, and the way that he has had this fawning attitude towards mr. putin and he has these very, you know, one-on-one conversations with him that he keeps from others, it really just continues to fuel the suspicions and the concerns about what is going on, and that's why the -- i think the intelligence community agencies have a right to try to understand better, again, how the russians may be taking advantage of somebody like mr. trump, who i don't believe is an asset of russia, you know, by the formal term, but i do believe that he is being manipulated and exploited, and that putin, who is a trained kgb intelligence officer, is a master puppeteer in many respects. i just feel as though mr. trump is -- has fallen prey to what mr. putin is trying to do, undermining the national security of this country. and when i hear mr. trump say that he is thinking about getting out of nato, an alliance, an organization -- we celebrate the 70th anniversary of nato this april 4th. this the cornerstone of our national security and our partners and allies in europe, to think we're going to remove ourselves from that alliance, that partnership that is so important as to giving the united states access to land bases in europe. giving us overflight rights in europe. preventing the expansion of first the soviet union and russia. i can't even begin to understand what is the basis of the logic behind it, other than he believes that he is doing this and he's going to gain some favor from mr. putin and others. it is just totally head-scratching. >> and on nato what seems to be lost in it all, the one lesson you might be able to teach donald trump is remember world war i, remember world war ii, they were 20 years apart. 20 years later, those same countries, those same european countries were all very strong allies thanks to, among other things, an organization called nato. >> and american leadership. >> yep. >> and we were not recoiling from the leadership responsibilities around the world and mr. trump is doing it every time, whether it be on syria or whether it be on issues like our nato alliance. >> john barren, thank you very much. >> thank you. really appreciate it. and when we come back, lo11 republicans broke with the president today on russian sanctions. they voted against the president's decision. we will be joined by a senator who was there. a senator who was there. it's inspected by mercedes-benz factory-trained technicians. or it isn't. it's backed by an unlimited mileage warranty, or it isn't. for those who never settle, it's either mercedes-benz certified pre-owned, or it isn't. the mercedes-benz certified pre-owned sales event. now through february 28th. only at your authorized mercedes-benz dealer. i never thought i'd say this but i found bladder leak underwear that's actually pretty. always discreet boutique. hidden inside is a super absorbent core that quickly turns liquid to gel. so i feel protected and pretty. always discreet boutique. a majority of the senate voted today to block president trump's removal of sanctions for companies associated with russian oligarch oleg deripaska, but the blocking maneuver required 60 votes in the senate, which it did not get, and so the president is now free to remove those sanctions. 57 senators voted to block the president, including all democrats and 11 republicans. 42 republicans voted to support the president's removal of sanctions. today, senator lindsey graham said the latest isis attack in syria that killed 19 people, including at least four americans, proves that president trump was very wrong when he said that he had defeated isis in syria. >> isis claims responsibility. if true, that shows that they're not defeated and they have been emboldened. >> joining our discussion now, senator ben cardin, democrat from maryland who is a member of the finance committee and the senate foreign relations committees. senator cardin, that vote in the senate today needed 60, got 57, put picked up 11 republicans. what does that tell you about republican willingness to go against president trump at this stage? >> well, it tells me that the clear majority of the united states senate disagrees with president trump. this is not the time to ease sanctions on russian entities. russia has done and continues to do its business against the u.s., and it's important that we let mr. putin know that we're not going to be easing on sanctions. we actually should be tightening sanctions. so i think it was a very healthy vote. it was an uphill battle to try to get it passed and get over a president veto, but i think it's a clear message we disagree with the president on how he's managing the relationship with russia. >> is that an indication of what would happen if mitch mcconnell were to allow a senate vote on the government funding bills that nancy pelosi has moved through the house of representatives and sent to the senate? >> there's no question in my mind that the majority of senators would vote to open government. this is clearly something that president trump has done. you remember, we did that once before, we did it in december by unanimous vote. we voted for a continuing resolution and the appropriation bills that have nothing to do with the border security issues have already been acted on by the senate. so clearly if mitch mcconnell allowed us to vote on the bills that passed the house, they would pass the senate and we stand a good chance of opening government. >> and the -- another senate piece of business i really want to get you on is confirmation hearing for william barr as the president's attorney general nominee. it looks like he has no resistance from senate republicans, and so that seems like he will definitely be moved out of the committee on to the senate floor, and after some debate if nothing changes in these dynamics, it looks like he will be confirmed. do you expect that to be pretty much a party line vote? >> well, i think we still want to get more information from mr. barr. i know there are still meetings taking place with senators. we are concerned about whether he will make available the full report from the mueller investigation. we also want to make sure that he will not impede the needs of the mueller investigation. so that's of major concern. there are other issues, including border security issues in which mr. barr's comments have raised several questions, so at this point, look, we're not naive. we know there seems to be a rally by the republicans behind this nominee, but we do think we really need to get better answers before we have a vote on the floor of the senate. >> and the -- alexandria ocasio-cortez did that very rare thing today of walking in to the senate chamber, house members rarely do it, to bring the message that the senate -- the shutdown now belongs to mitch mcconnell, in effect, in the senate. if he would simply bring up these bills, that would be the only way to test what is now only a theoretical threat by the president, that he would veto something. and we've all seen presidents threaten to veto things that when they finally pass, depending on the vote count, they choose not to veto. but there is no way to know that unless you put a bill in front of the president. >> you're exactly right. and we know that president trump has caused this shutdown. he said he would be proud to have this shutdown. but now mitch mcconnell, the republican leader, is denying the senate the opportunity to act as a co-equal branch of government. we can clearly act -- and let the president do what owe wanhe wants to do. we have the votes, do it. and the legislation we're talking about is bipartisan legislation. a lot crafted under republican leadership of committees. so this is not a partisan effort. this is for the congress to exercise its power as a co-equal branch of government, to do our work, take up the bills to open government, and if the majority -- i'm sure there is a clear majority, let that -- the will of the body go forward. and mitch mcconnell is blocking that. >> i think a lot of people make the mistake of thinking because you're in maryland you represent more federal workers than other senators, but senators in big states like texas, new york, california, represent really, really big numbers of federal workers. this is all over the country. and the president's council of economic advisers have come out today and said that this shutdown is actually affecting economic growth, it's affecting the health of the economy. we're not sure what it takes to get through to donald trump, but what we are sure of is he sure doesn't care about any of your constituents as government workers who aren't getting paychecks. >> i'm very proud to represent really dedicated government workers who have been laid off, furloughed without pay, who are working without pay. there's also a lot of other people who have lost their jobs as a result of the federal agencies being closed. the impact on our economy is billions of dollars a week. along with senator van hollen and my colleagues from virginia, we've asked president trump to meet with these people, meet with the federal workforce because they'll tell you they want to work and they want to get paid for what they're doing. the mission's critically important. whether it's airline safety or food safety or small business loans, the irs and helping people with their tax refunds, all of those critical missions that are now not being done as a result of president trump closing -- partially closing government. we never should have had it. this shutdown needs to end. >> senator ben cardin of maryland, thank you very much for joining us tonight. really appreciate it. >> thank you. and when we come back, jason johnson will be joining us along with claire mccaskill to discuss why republicans have d on steve king and why donald trump has not turned on steve king. 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(vo) switch to the network awarded by rootmetrics and j.d. power. buy the latest galaxy phones, get galaxy s9 free. they seem to be the very foundation of your typical bank. capital one is anything but typical. that's why we designed capital one cafes. you can get savings and checking accounts with no fees or minimums. and one of america's best savings rates. to top it off, you can open one from anywhere in 5 minutes. this isn't a typical bank. this is banking reimagined. what's in your wallet? here's the republican minority leader of the house of representatives, kevin mccarthy, talking about steve king on a radio program in kevin mccarthy's district. >> this wasn't the first time that he used this language. >> absolutely. >> when he used this, i came out directly and denounced it and was frustrated. but i knew that i watched past leaders did not act and just felt i don't care if it hurts me or not i've got to just do the right thing. but when i looked at the back of the things he had said and recently done it can't reflect p th. >> politics editor of the root.com and msnbc contributor and former democratic senator claire mccaskill who is also now an msnbc contributor. back with us. jason johnson, who can kevin mccarthy be talking about? he's talking about past leaders. apparently recent past leaders of the house of representatives. i guess he couldn't -- he couldn't think of paul ryan's name. >> yeah. he couldn't remember paul ryan. he couldn't remember reince priebus. he couldn't remember tons of other leaders of the republican party. this is not new. you know, steve king has been a white nationalist for years. he has said white nationalist things. they have heard about them. they have dismissed these statements in the past. this newfound religion of the republican party, which is let's condemn white nationalist talk but let's not stop white nationalist policies, does not impress me at all. so the idea that mccarthy can't really remember and says this isn't us, this is you. this is the republican party. if you have someone like that who is in your party who has felt comfortable behaving in this way for ten years and you have several other people that have the same belief system, they just know how to say it with sugar on top, that is a reflection of your party. and until you make those fundamental changes in what you accept ideologically and policywise, censuring him, moving him from committees, none of that really matters. >> senator mccaskill, every elected republican in the house of representatives voted against steve king on that resolution about his language the other day including steve king. he voted against himself, saying you know, i shouldn't have said it. donald trump silent. donald trump the elected republican in washington who has nothing to say about steve king. >> yeah, donald trump this week said he hadn't really followed it. now, he was up to the minute on jeff bezos's divorce. >> yes. >> but he hadn't managed to follow a candidate for congress that he supported in so many ways, said that they were on the same page together, they saw things -- by the way, kevin mccarthy, talk about phony baloney. he gave steve king ten grand last year out of his pac. so if this is something that has troubled him for a long time and he didn't understand why paul ryan hadn't acted, why did he write a $10,000 check to steve king last year for his re-election? all of these guys were there for steve king for his re-election last year. so it really -- >> jason johnson, do you think it's the election results in november that has changed their attitude toward this? >> part of it, yeah. you know, the republicans are shook. they're like oh, my gosh, we lost a bunch of seats and the new faces of the democratic party are brown and young and millennial and i guess we need to clean up our act. but the problem is you know, cleaning um your act or healing or improving, you can't heal if you can't agree on the diagnosis. and i have said this before. most of the republicans in a & a lot of democrats, they couldn't even tell you what a white nationalist is. so they're condemning something because they've heard it's a bad word, but they don't know what it is. they don't know what white nationalism is. and they're not really trying to remove it. white nationalism is the wall. white nationalism leads to what happened with police in ferguson. white nationalism is what you have that killed people in south carolina. whies nationalism is what killed people in pittsburgh. white nationalism leads to violence. and until the republican party and the democratic party understands that white nationalism isn't just mean words that makes people feel bad but it results in domestic terrorism, all of this is a dog and pony show. >> senator mccaskill, this is -- steve king's a midwest member of the house. you were a midwest senator. is there something in the political dynamics in that region that the republicans were worried about? because now you have his local newspapers saying resign, you're useless to us, they've kicked you off the committees, you can't really represent us. >> well, i just think what happened, there was obviously a cumulative effect. and i think as time went on and no one really reined in steve king he just went further and further and further. and then finally he went so far that he really couldn't look the other way anymore. it was compelling even to his local newspaper. but he's from a very rural, red area. i remember when tom vilsack's wife ran against him for congress. she came i think within 10, which is amazing when you think about that. that was a few cycles ago. i think the guy that ran against him was a veteran or a former baseball player who came back and didn't have much of a shot but he came closer than christine vilsack did. so i think the republicans maybe clean up on aisle 5, let's get rid of this guy so we can get another republican in there so we don't lose the seat. because if steve king is their nominee they're probably going to lose the seat. >> jason johnson, thank you for joining us tonight. and senator mccaskill, i just want to say, i have seen united states senators leave the senate when they decided to retire, and i've seen them leave when they involuntarily were retired. >> correct. >> and what i've always noticed is about a month later you can't tell the difference because they're just so happy to be out of that submarine. and you look like you're bearing it with both grace and dignity, which is just the way you entered the senate, and i want to thank you for your service there. >> thank you so much, lawrence. >> thank you for joining us. really appreciate it. >> you bet. >> tonight's last word is next. . still, we never stopped making it stronger. faster. smarter. because to be the best, is to never ever stop making it better. the new 2019 c-class family. lease the c 300 sport sedan for $429 a month at your local mercedes-benz dealer. mercedes-benz. the best or nothing. ♪ like i feel baby ♪ then come on, ♪, ♪ oh come on ♪ let's get it on, applebee's. now that's eatin' good in the neighborhood. uh uh - i deliverberty the news around here. ♪ sources say liberty mutual customizes your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. over to you, logo. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ we're all under one roof now. congratulations. thank you. how many kids? 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"the 11th hour" with brian williams starts now. tonight, what did rudy giuliani just say about the trump campaign and collusion with the russians? it's a jaw dropper. it may take a bit to react to this one. also tonight, with the state of our union shut down, now there's a fight over shutting down the state of the union address until the government is back up and running again. four americans are killed in an isis-related suicide attack in syria. and after that attack the vice president says publicly isis has been defeated. and the president who insists he's been tough on russia and the ambassador who says that's just not true and someone has to account for what trump and putin talked about. all of it as "the 11th hour" gets under way on a
the evacuations. the factory going up in flames today. the man accused of killing his childhood friend, the verdict tonight after that confession was shown in court. the abc news exclusive. robin roberts with actress selma blair, and her remarkable bravery on display tonight. what she reveals about her battle with ms, and what every parent will want to hear. outrage on the hill tonight. ceos of the major drug companies are asked, why are prescription drugs skyrocketing? how they answer. and tonight, our trip to ha long bay. what we saw for ourselves. the stunning sight off vietnam. one of the new wonders of the world. and good evening tonight from hanoi. president trump has arrived here in vietnam, and so has the north korean dictator. the stakes are enormous. the president willing to hold now a second summit, but will kim give up his nuclear weapons? and all of this tonight amid unfolding drama back home. president trump walking down the steps of air force one, fully aware that back home, they are watching something else unfold, too. his former personal attorney and fixer michael cohen walking toward the senate hearing room today to start three days of questioning. tomorrow, he'll be before the american people. and tonight, what we've learned here, what cohen is going to say about his former boss. on his finances, his worth and it's believed cohen will accuse the president of criminal conduct. abc's mary bruce leading us off tonight with the dramatic day on the hill. >> reporter: michael cohen, who once said he'd take a bullet for donald trump, arriving on capitol hill today to unload on the president. mr. cohen, should the president be worried? what evidence do you have of criminal conduct? you've lied before, why should congress trust you now, mr. cohen? he spent hours behind closed doors with the senate intelligence committee. but tomorrow, he will testify in public, describing, according to sources, the president's, quote, "lying, racism and cheating." and for the first time, he will accuse the president of criminal conduct while in office and provide what he says is evidence. a dramatic reversal for the man who stood at the president's side for a decade. >> i'm obviously very loyal and very dedicated to mr. trump. >> reporter: cohen has pleaded guilty to a host of crimes, including breaking campaign finance laws by paying hush money to porn star stormy daniels, just 11 days before the election. president trump initially claimed he knew nothing about it. >> why did michael cohen make it if there was no truth to her allegations? >> you have to ask michael cohen. michael is my attorney and you'll have to ask michael. >> reporter: but prosecutors say the president actually directed cohen to make those payments. and tomorrow, cohen is expected to say just that. >> do you have any concerns about michael cohen's testimony before congress this week? >> no, no. >> reporter: cohen will also explain why he lied to congress about a trump tower deal in moscow. a project he now admits trump's team was negotiating well into the campaign. sources say he will also produce some of the president's financial statements, which he says show trump made false claims about his net worth. and tonight, republicans are on the attack. congressman matt gaetz, a trump ally, tweeting what seemed like a threat to reveal embarrassing personal information about cohen. saying cohen's wife is, quote, "about to learn a lot." >> we're witness testing, not witness tampering. and when witnesses come before congress, their truthfulness and veracity are in question and we have the opportunity to test them. >> reporter: but cohen tonight is undeterred. >> i look forward to tomorrow, to be able to, in my voice, to tell the american people my story and i'm going to let the american people decide exactly who is telling the truth. >> and mary bruce with us live on the hill tonight. and mary, we saw in your report right there, the president's allies on the attack against michael cohen. and tonight, the white house lashing out, as well? >> reporter: david, republicans and the white house are trying to discredit cohen's testimony by pointing out that he has lied to congress before. the white house press secretary saying, quote, it's laughable that anyone would take a convicted liar like cohen at his word. but david, members of the senate intelligence committee tonight tell us this was a serious grilling, and that the cohen that showed up today was, quote, a very different guy. david? >> mary bruce leading us off tonight. mary, thank you. and we should note, abc news will have live coverage of the cohen hearing tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. eastern right here. and what is unclear tonight is if the president will be watching any of that hearing. he certainly has his hands full right here in vietnam. agreeing to meet for a second time now with kim jong-un. the president waving from his car today, and kim jong-un, after traveling in his armored train through china, then getting into a motorcade to finish the trip through vietnam. you can see his bodyguards there jogging alongside. and with hours to go before they meet now, the president tonight, and what he's now signaling about this summit. abc's jon karl, right here in hanoi with us tonight. >> reporter: a half a world away from the political turmoil back home, president trump received a lavish greeting in vietnam. hundreds waving american flags. "tremendous crowds," he tweeted, "so much love." after a nearly 3,000-mile, 65-hour journey, kim jong-un stepped off his armored train in vietnam to a red carpet welcome. the grinning north korean dictator outpacing one of his aides, who scrambled to keep up. the journey offered rare, unscripted glimpses of the reclusive leader. japanese tv capturing him puffing a cigarette while his sister, kim yo-jong, held a crystal ashtray. in vietnam, a more familiar scene. kim's security detail jogging alongside his armored mercedes. for summit two, both leaders are hoping to achieve something summit one did not. concrete results. kim is seeking relief from crushing economic sanctions. president trump is saying north korea can become an economic powerhouse if kim agrees to give up his nukes. but u.s. intelligence officials say they see no sign north korea is ready to do that. >> the regime is committed to developing a long-range nuclear-armed missile that would pose a direct threat to the united states. >> reporter: last year, president trump called on the dictator to give up his nuclear weapons and fast. >> mr. president, did he agree to denuclearize, sir? >> we're starting that process very quickly. very, very quickly. absolutely. >> reporter: but this year? >> i'm not in a rush, i don't want to rush anybody. >> jon karl with us live tonight here in hanoi. jon, you and i will be watching as the summit unfolds here in vietnam. and the president knows full well that as he prepares for this summit now, his former fixer, michael cohen, will be testifying against him on capitol hill. and there are reports tonight that the president will be watching some of that hearing? >> reporter: david, cohen will be testifying late into the night into the early morning hours here in vietnam, but i would be shocked if the president doesn't find a way to watch at least some of that testimony. in terms of the response, the white house, for the most part, is leaving it up to the president's outside supporters, but the president considers himself the ultimate counterpuncher, and you can be sure that the response that really matters will ultimately come from the president himself. david? >> all right, jon karl with us tonight, as well. jon, thank you. in the meantime, there are several other stories unfolding this tuesday night back home. the race to help passengers trapped on an amtrak train since sunday, trapped in heavy snow and downed power lines. 183 people stranded in oregon for 37 hours with food and other supplies running out. abc's will carr tonight with the video from inside that train. >> reporter: tonight, a crisis averted. 183 passengers thankful to get off a train that was trapped for almost 40 hours. >> we are moving. and it looks totally awesome. >> reporter: the train was supposed to run from seattle to los angeles, but came to a screeching halt when a tree fell on the tracks in rural snow-covered oregon. the hours passing, food started to run short. >> as of tonight, that was the last meal that was available. >> reporter: the situation so dire, passengers were forced to create makeshift diapers for the kids onboard. >> luckily, a really nice lady came in and gave me some pullups, because i didn't know what i was going to do. >> reporter: passengers singing -- ♪ old mcdonald had a farm >> reporter: -- sleeping and posting about their plight on social media. >> no one has given us any information, until the media got involved. >> reporter: then, nearly 50 hours after some stepped onboard, that bell sounding the toll of elation. david, as that amtrak train pulls into union station here in portland, amtrak is offering the passengers refunds and apologies tonight. david? >> what an ordeal. will, thank you. the dangerous storm that stranded that amtrak train, part of the system slamming the west tonight and on the move. whiteout conditions in springfield, oregon, that's near eugene, and an ice and snow emergency closing schools for a second day now. tonight, also, the blast of snow hitting the great lakes, and that will move east. chief meteorologist ginger zee, of course, tracking it all. ginger? >> reporter: david, there are evacuations tonight along the russian river in northern california. a mudslide reported. and we've got more than a foot of rain that's already fallen. so, flood warnings in place there. you could see another five inches in some places the next 24 to 36 hours. and in the sierra, up to another five feet of snow. a quick look at that snow coming through from the great lakes through the northeast. it will be a blast, just enough to make the roads slick. david? >> ginger zee tonight. ginger, thank you. and from michigan tonight, a massive fire at a plastics factory outside detroit. the evacuations, and we could see the workers getting out of that plant today as the fire was raging. abc's alex perez on the investigation already under way. >> reporter: this raging inferno in suburban detroit. >> a stunning spectacle in the sky. it can be seen for miles and miles. >> reporter: the blaze in a storage area for a plastics factory in auburn hills, michigan. >> this is crazy. >> reporter: firefighters from multiple departments battling massive flames. >> i have never seen black smoke so thick and i have never seen it from so far away. >> reporter: plastic and metal auto part containers, some 20,000 storage bins, fueling the fire. loud explosions believed to be siding crinkling and plastic burning, rocking the area. >> from our understanding, that is some of the plastic containers. no hazardous materials. >> reporter: officials evacuating employees working nearby as a precaution. david, luckily, authorities say no one was injured. the exact cause of that massive blaze now under investigation. david? >> alex, thank you. there was outrage on capitol hill today amid skyrocketing prices when it comes to prescription drugs in this country. top drug company executives grilled by the senate finance committee about the high cost. senator johnny isakson of georgia, who has parkinson's disease, asking for so many americans why his medication suddenly jumped $90. and oregon senator ron wyden with harsh words, too. >> drugmakers behave as if the patients and the taxpayers are unlocked atms full of cash to be extracted. >> for their part, the ceos warned any government price controls would slow research they say into common diseases. in the meantime, we turn to an abc news exclusive tonight. extraordinary bravery from a face many will know about her battle with ms. actress selma blair speaking on camera for the first time about her personal struggle. ms affects as many as a million americans. it's a chronic, often unpredictable disease of the central nervous system, involving the brain, spinal cord and optic nerves and causing problems with vision, balance and muscle control. it affects so many in different ways and it can often be debilitating. robin roberts with selma blair and what she wants everyone to know. >> reporter: an emotional return to the red carpet for actress selma blair. the 46-year-old, who is known for her roles in cult classics like "cruel intentions," "legally blonde" and "the sweetest thing," now facing a new challenge. how are you doing? >> i am doing very well. i am very happy to see you, being able to, you know, just put out what being in the middle of an aggressive form of multiple sclerosis is like. so my speech, as you'll notice, is -- i have spasmodic dysphonia right now. >> reporter: when you were first diagnosed, what initially went through your mind? >> i cried. i had tears. i wasn't -- they weren't tears of panic. they were tears of knowing i now had to glif give into a body that had loss of control. and there was some relief in that. because ever since my son was born, i was in an ms flareup and didn't know. and i was giving it everything to seem normal. and i was self-medicating when he wasn't with me. and, you know, i was drinking. i was in pain. i wasn't always drinking. but there were times when i couldn't take it. and i was really struggling with how am i going to get by in life? and not taken seriously by doctors. and so, when i got the diagnosis, i cried with some relief, like, oh, good, i'll be able to do something. >> reporter: how difficult was it to share it with your son? >> not at all. i always want him to feel safe and never responsible for me, but he had already seen that i was falling and doing things. i said, i have something called multiple sclerosis, and he almost cried and said, will it kill you? and i said no. i mean, we never know what kills us, arthur, but this is not the doctor telling me i'm dying. and he was like, oh, okay. >> reporter: what are doctors telling you? what's your prognosis? >> the doctor i saw, he said within a year, i could have -- at the time, he said, 90% of my abilities back, so, this is -- this is to say, let's meet again next year and see if i'm better. if i'm not, and i can still have a conversation, that's good enough. and i want to see. i want to see for other people and i want to see for me and see where i am. i was a little scared of talking and even my neurologist said, no, this will bring a lot of awareness, because no one has the energy to talk when they're in a flareup. but i do. because i love a camera. >> reporter: you got a date, i'll see you in a year, okay? >> okay. i can't wait. >> reporter: beautiful, beautiful. >> we can't wait for that interview a year from now. we are all pulling for selma and everyone who is battling ms in our country. and you can see much more of robin's interview later tonight on "nightline." and "vanity fair's" feature on selma is live on their website, vanityfair.com. the march issue of their magazine is out right now with selma's story. in the meantime, there is still much more ahead on "world news tonight" this tuesday. the chilling headline. a mother and daughter accused of killing five family members. among them, a 13-year-old boy and twin girls. and what that mother allegedly confessed to police about all this. the other horrific case tonight. the young man accused of killing his childhood friend. the verdict is in tonight, after that confession was shown in court. and there is news coming in tonight on the zookeeper injured by a rhino, attacked, struck by its horn while training. we'll have more on that. a lot more news ahead tonight. o elle have more on that. a lot more news ahead tonight. a city with one of the highest increases of women-owned businesses in the u.s. it's really this constant juxtaposition when you're a mom and an entrepreneur. with more businesses starting every day, how do they plan for their financial wellness? i am very mindful of the sacrifices that i make. so i have to manage my time wisely. plan your financial life with prudential. bring your challenges. beauty editors have tried everything. in search of a whiter smile. their choice? crest 3d whitestrips. our exclusive whitening formulation safely whitens 25 times better*. for a noticeably whiter, smile. trust america's #1 whitening treatment. crest 3d whitestrips. but prevagen helps your brain with an ingredient originally discovered... in jellyfish. in clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve short-term memory. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. but their nutritional needs remain instinctual. that's why there's purina one true instinct. high protein for strong muscles. a different breed of natural nutrition. purina one true instinct. also in grain-free for dogs and cats. we turn next tonight to a verdict in a murder trial making national headlines. a young man in new jersey convicted of killing a childhood friend. prosecutors playing a secret recording at trial. my "20/20" co-anchor amy robach following the case. >> reporter: late today, the young man accused of murdering his childhood friend in cold blood found guilty on all counts by a new jersey jury. prosecutors argued pure greed drove liam mcatasney to strangle 19-year-old sarah stern, a promising young artist who went missing from her home in 2016. >> she was a great kid and it never should've ended like this. >> reporter: jurors viewing this chilling tape police say was his confession. >> it took me a half an hour to kill her. >> reporter: they say mcatasney planned to murder stern, then steal thousands of dollars her late mother left her. >> the worst part of it is, i thought i was walking out 50 grand, 100 grand in my pocket. she had one safe that she took money out, and she only had ten grand. >> reporter: mcatasney claimed that video was merely an audition for a horror film. the jury didn't buy it. mcatasney will be sentenced in may. he faces life in prison without the possibility of parole. david? >> all right, amy robach with us tonight. amy, thank you. you can see much more of amy's reporting on this chilling case, a two-hour edition of "20/20" this friday night, 9:00 p.m. eastern. we'll see amy on friday night. in the meantime, when we come back, news tonight about a major carmaker adding jobs in the u.s. we'll tell you where. also, more on that mother and daughter accused of killing five family members in their home, and the mother's chilling words to police tonight. and the new health headline we thought you'd be interested in for sleep-deprived parents. how much sleep are you losing taking care of your children in their early years, and how many years does it take to catch up on that sleep? in a moment. stbound and down. loaded up and truckin'♪ ♪we gonna do what they say can't be done♪ ♪we've got a long way to go ♪and a short time to get there.♪ ♪i'm eastbound, just watch ole bandit run♪ whatever party you've got going in the back, we've got the business up front. to take care of yourself. but nature's bounty has innovative ways to help you maintain balance and help keep you active and well-rested. because hey, tomorrow's coming up fast. nature's bounty. because you're better off healthy. to the index of other news tonight. the chilling murder case in morrisville, pennsylvania. authorities say shana decree and her daughter have now confessed to killing five family members in their home. a 13-year-old boy and 9-year-old twin girls among the victims. the mother allegedly telling police everyone, quote, wanted to die. the zookeeper injured by a rhino at the jacksonville zoo tonight. the 4,000-pound rhino named archie striking the zookeeper with its horn during a training session. archie has been at the zoo since 1975, escaping once in 2010. the zookeeper tonight says she's going to be okay. news about american jobs tonight. fiat-chrysler planning to add 6,500 jobs in michigan. the company will build a new assembly plant in detroit and increase production at five other facilities. the carmaker says it will also cut, though, about 1,400 jobs in illinois. and a new study tonight for sleep-deprived parents. researchers say those sleepless nights hit their peak about three months after the baby is born. mothers losing an hour a night on average, fathers losing about 15 minutes. come on, dads. the study shows most parents will only begin catching up on that sleep six years in. when we come back from vietnam tonight, our recent trip to ha long bay. what we saw for ourselves. the stunning sight, right off vietnam. one of the new wonders of the world. ♪ ♪ this simple banana peel represents a bold idea: a way to create energy from household trash. it not only saves about 80% in carbon emissions... it helps reduce landfill waste. that's why bp is partnering with a california company: fulcrum bioenergy. to turn garbage into jet fuel. because we can't let any good ideas go to waste. at bp, we see possibilities everywhere. to help the world keep advancing. it's been a long time since andrew dusted off his dancing shoes. luckily denture breath will be the least of his worries. because he uses polident 4 in 1 cleaning system to kill 99.99% of odor causing bacteria. polident. clean. fresh. and confident. ensure max protein... to give you the protein you need with less of the sugar you don't. 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(cheers) 30 grams of protein and 1 gram of sugar. ensure max protein. in two great flavors. might mean a trip back to the doctor's office just for a shot. but why go back there when you can stay home with neulasta onpro? strong chemo can put you at risk of serious infection. in a key study neulasta reduced the risk of infection from 17% to 1%, a 94% decrease. neulasta onpro is designed to deliver neulasta the day after chemo and is used by most patients today. neulasta is for certain cancer patients receiving strong chemotherapy. do not take neulasta if you're allergic to it or neupogen (filgrastim). an incomplete dose could increase infection risk. ruptured spleen, sometimes fatal as well as serious lung problems, allergic reactions, kidney injuries and capillary leak syndrome have occurred. report abdominal or shoulder tip pain, trouble breathing or allergic reactions to your doctor right away. in patients with sickle cell disorders, serious, sometimes fatal crises can occur. the most common side effect is bone and muscle ache. if you'd rather be home, ask your doctor about neulasta onpro. pay no more than $5 per dose with copay card. finally tonight here, a magical spot, about 100 miles from where we are here in hanoi. kim jong-un's grandfather came to see it in the 1960s. and not long ago, we saw it for ourselves. we head out to the chopper waiting in hanoi to take us to a breathtaking sight. the crew is about to show us a place some 100 miles from hanoi. we take off for ha long bay, and in the air, we begin to see what draws millions from all over the world. ha long means "descending dragon." and looking out the window, the incredible sight. the limestone formations as far as we could see. and from the ground, the tour boats dwarfed by those formations. it really is spectacular. i mean, everywhere you look here, you see the limestone islands coming up out of the water. take a look at this. they estimate that there are thousands of them here in the bay. it was not long ago ha long bay was named one of the new natural wonders of the world. and they are very proud here. >> ha long became one of the seven new wonder natural of the world. because you see that here not only the view, view very, very beautiful view. ha long became one of the seven new wonder natural of the world. >> reporter: unesco has placed ha long bay on the world heritage site. 18 years, you've been a tour guide. >> right. >> so you know this place well? >> of course. ha long is my hometown. >> reporter: scientists believe these formations began 500 million years ago, sculpted by tectonic movement and ocean water. >> why does the mountain go up? that means that happened by earthquake but happened very, very long time ago. but now we see here very peaceful, very beautiful view here. >> reporter: a place where millions on tour boats still share the waters with the local fishermen and their families who call ha long bay home. feel very lucky to have seen it myself. thought we'd share it with you tonight. and thank you for watching here on a tuesday night. i'm david muir. i hope to see you right back here tomorrow night from hanoi. until then, have a good evening. good night. live doppler 7 lit up and it is not over yet. >> that's true i'm spencer christian. and wide spread flooding is a mounting concern. checks they received from pg&e bounced. i'm michael finney "7 on your side" is coming up. an atmospheric river bringing rain to the bay area. in the hardest hit areas, the message is evacuate now. thank you for joining us, i am dan ashley. >> and i am kristen sze. >> people who live who live whow ordered to get out now. we have labelled them all on this map. these are mandatory evacuation counties. people need to get out immediately. two shelters have been set up. you can see it is now at flood stage and it will keep rising. forecast to crest at 41 feet. >> we have live team coverage. >> let's begin with spencer christian. >> okay. the rain continues to fall. it is wide spread but the north bay continues to get the heaviest pounding from this storm. from sonoma county into napa county into solano county. and here is a closer look roanoke park area. stoney point road. and it
as ken dilanian told us last month, you may be disappointed. that's because the special counsel operates under rules that really restrict how much information can end up being made public. we're joined by nbc news justice correspondent pete williams and nbc news white house correspondent kristen welker. pete, i want to start with you and talk us through the mechanics of this. how we're going to learn that mueller has, in fact, completed his report and what happens from there. >> well, our guidance here is the special counsel rules themselves. and what they say is when the special counsel has concluded his work, he presents a confidential report to the attorney general. so all signs are that -- and this is a picture of robert mueller demonstrating that he can actually drive himself to work today. this is an ap picture of him coming into work. but when he's done, he's going to present his report to barr. all signs point to that happening really any day now. we, frankly, have been expecting this for the last couple of weeks. and today is no different than that. every day that goes by seems to bring us closer to this. so when it goes to barr, we expect that we'll be told that he has received it. now let me just pause there for a minute to say that there were many people who were saying, if i were william barr, i would get that report and not tell anybody that i have it to give me some time to read it in peace but what we're told is it's not going to work that way. when the attorney general receives the report, eventually we will know that within a short period of time. so apparently they'll tell us when he receives the report. the actual mechanics of it are not 100% clear, but how that word is going to come. but presumably, we'll be told and the hill will be told that he has the report. and then, remember, all that we're going to be told is just that. i have the report. william barr will say, i have the report. what's in it, we're going to have to wait for a long time. again, the rules say that all the attorney general tells the hill is anything that he basically countermanded. anything this special counsel wanted to do that the justice department blocked. but barr has said he wants to be much more forthcoming than that. exactly what he'll tell the public and the hill about what's in the report, we're going to have to wait a long time to find that out. >> that's for sure. kristen, over at the white house, we know we'll see the president later on this afternoon. he may or may not have more to add to what he has said over the last 24 hours about this investigation. and his desire, he says, to have people see it. >> it was a big headline yesterday, hallie, when president trump said that, that he does want this to be made public once the report has been turned over to the attorney general. just to set the scene here at the white house, just to underscore everything that pete is saying, the waiting game has reached a fever pitch here. everyone saying, you know, could be any day now. that's certainly the feeling within the president's legal team as well. and then again, the big question becomes, once the attorney general has that report, what is he going to do with it? how much of it will be turned over to congress? how much of it will be made public? so president trump echoing what we've been increasingly hearing from members of his own family. donald trump jr., for example. members of his own party who have said let this report be made public. take a listen to what the president had to say yesterday. >> and now i have somebody writing a report that never got a vote. it's called the mueller report. so explain that because my voters don't get it. let it come out. let people see it. that's up to the attorney general. but it's sort of interesting that a man out of the blue just writes a report. >> so the strategy there, hallie, saying, hey, we're not concerned about what's in the report. let everyone see it. at the same time, trying to essentially discredit the special counsel, the investigation saying he didn't get a vote. i'm the one who got voted into office. the president has been taking aim at the special counsel for quite some time. it is, however, hallie, a preview of what we could expect to see on the campaign trail because if portions of this report are made public, if there are, for example, some problematic revelations for any of the president's allies, the president himself, this is the type of strategy i think you will see him deploying. he's going to continue this bare knuckle attack mode against the special counsel, hallie. >> kristen welker, pete williams, thanks to both of you for joining us. i want to bring in msnbc legal analyst and former federal prosecutors, singcynthia, glen betsy woodruff and aaron blake, senior political reporter for "the washington post." cynthia, from everything that you have seen and heard and have listened to with pete reporting, kristen reporting, are treportir organization, what's your expectation for the timeline? >> nobody has any idea. it's just tea leaves. >> somebody does. robert mueller knows. >> bob mueller knows, and what's all who knows and he's not telling. we just have to face that. the one thing we do know is the president's conversation about, oh, i would love everybody to see it is a bunch of mularkey. he always wants somebody else to do his dirty work. i would love to show you my tax returns but the lawyers won't let me. i'd love to talk to bob mueller but the lawyers won't let me. this constant refrain of his, which i do not believe. >> it's a change of tone, glen. the president has not been so forthful as far as saying, y people should see it. it's a different tactic than he's taken before from donald trump. >> i hear one of two things. when the president, i think for the first time says, i want the american people to see the report, i hear either he knows that the report is coming out, right, so he doesn't want to say i don't want anybody to see it n then be proved wrong because it comes out. what did he say in tandem with, i want everyone to see it in and bob mueller is confronted. 13 angry democrats. >> also it's up to bill barr. >> he may be setting up the american people for seeing the report and planting the seeds that nothing in it is reliable if it criticizes him. >> aari melber today on the "today" show lie laid out four likely possibility with the mueller report. the potential maybe for new indictments. possibility number two, no indictments and no report, right? possiblity three, which i think everybody sees as the most likely. no indictments and a short report. four, maybe a lengthy report. i cannot stret this enough the expectations check because folks think they'll get a novel and be able to sit down and read it the second robert mueller said he's done with his report. that's not going to happen and we can't make that clear enough. >> people want a book. i can tell you bob mueller is thorough and i can tell you that based on my firsthand experience. >> you worked with him. >> not only that. at the u.s. attorneys office in d.c., he investigated and indicted a case and then promoted chief of homicide. guess who got to prosecute his case. the man is thorough. he's thorough on steroids. so i would expect, he may draft a book. however, bill barr has an opportunity not just to take chapters out of that book before we get to read it. he could give us the cliff notes version. the expectations are high. the american people are thirsty to find out what's gone on, on the central question of collusion, and let's hope we get some answers. >> mueller is thorough. he also respects his remit and there was some expectation oral in his investigation that he was going to do sort of a wide ranging, thorough exploration of trump's entire life. we know that that's not correct. we know there are some big areas, pretty big pieces of the story related not just to russian efforts to influence american politics, including particularly the nra section that he's not looking at. but there are also significant parts of trump's personal finances that mueller has deliberately handed off to other prosecutors. so if, when this report comes out, we can say with a high degree of certainty that there's not going to be michael cohen's stuff. there's not going to be deutsche bank stuff or stuff related to financial improprieties. trump's business may have engaged in prior to 2016. mueller knows what his project is. and i think he's going to stick well within the boundaries. >> there's some polling out from the associated press talking about how 6 in 10 are confident of a faur air and impartial investigation. there is a big divide along party lines to who thinks that. whatever is in the report it seems it would be important to draw the distinction between what puts president trump at a legal liability or not and what puts him at a political liability, which is a different can of worms there. >> right. >> you get a can of worms. that's like a phrase. >> nobody wants one. >> it's going to be a really big can of worms. that's what it's going to be. there's obviously a very big difference between those two. one is beyond a reasonable doubt and the other is, you know, what's going to happen on the hill with this information? what is behavior? what is -- what are activities that aren't enough to prosecute somebody but are high crimes and misdemeanors? and we'll have to wait and see what it is. i'd agree with glenn. i'd expect this to be a lengthy report. i'm taking the over on 500 pages. >> from mueller to barr, not what we would see. >> absolutely. yeah, from mueller to barr. and it's not only glenn's experience with him, but also, which is valid, we love glenn and he's super smart, but also if you look just in this -- in this prosecution, in this series of prosecutions if you look at everything he's ever filed has hundreds of pages of exhibits. my guess is it will be the same. i'm taking the over on 500. >> you also have what i think, based on conversations i've had with folks around the white house, the president knows this is going to be coming potent yelly every day. he watches news coverage. he's also been lashing out a lot. you can decide whether you think those two are connected. he's been going after john mccain, after the husband of kellyanne conway. politico frames it as these aides struggling to see strategy in conway and mccain fights and now for the first time on camera, she's coming out responding to what the president said about her husband. he called george conway a whack job, the husband from hell. here's kellyanne conway's response. >> i'm not being asked to choose between my marriage and my job. donald trump has never made -- the president has never made me feel that way, maria. george was quoted as saying, i wish she didn't work there. >> does george want you to step down? >> certainly. certainly. but what message would that send to the feminists everywhere who pretend they're independent thinkers and men don't make decisions for them? they can talk it, and i can walk it and live it. >> i keep thinking back to a couple months ago when the chairwoman of the republican party was forces to come out and repudiate her uncle mitt romney who is the new senator from utah very critical of the president in certain ways. i think the president loves this kind of tension. this is such a great story. husband and wife on opposite sides of this divide. one of them works for him. the other is attacking him almost daily. >> is it a distraction, the president trying to cede some shiny penny out there? >> i think he likes drama and likes to be the center of attention. these are stories that allow him to do that. the mueller report is going to come out. we'll comb through it. whatever is going to happen with that is going to happen and the idea he's somehow making us focus on john mccain and the conways is going to take away from that is far fetched. >> some republicans be standing up more forcefully or what we've seen from romney, senator graham and others is basically what we're going to see? >> we saw johnny isakson say he called it deplorable what the president said and the fact he's a relatively silent senator coming forward and speaking out, he wanted that to be an example. we got halfhearted statements from mcconnell, martha mcsalley, in which they didn't actually address trump but just talked about how great john mccain was. >> aaron and betsy, stick around. glenn kershner, always great to have you. and cynthia. coming up in the 2020 presidential news today, vice presidential news. y really. reportedly. what's up with joe biden's possible running mate. one candidate asks, what's wrong with a man in that job. why new zealand's moves overnight if gun advocates and critics erupting. clean, i don't just clean, i deep clean carpets and floors, so i got this. yep, this too, and this, please. even long hair and pet hair are no problem, but the one thing i won't have to clean is this because the shark's self-cleaning brush roll removes the hair wrap while i clean. ♪ - [announcer] shark, the vacuum that deep cleans now cleans itself. i swibecause they let metual, customize my insurance. and as a fitness junkie, i customize everything, like my bike, and my calves. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ what happened to the real men of america? 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>> i think there's two big reasons. it's a parliamentary democracy. so she's the leader of the government, and she has the votes in parliament and can basically make it happen if her party supports her. as you noted, the opposition supports her, too. that takes you to the second reason which is we have a culture -- a gun culture here unlike any other in the world. there are somewhere between 300 and 400 million guns in private hands in the united states. that dwarfs most of the rest of the world combined, and certainly dwarfs new zealand. so australia did this when they had a mass shooting in the '80s. it's just easier to do. >> new zealand has its own when you talk to folks from there. has its own gun culture, if you will. what's been striking is how politicians there have changed their minds on this issue. deputy prime minister winston peters whose party opposed any measures of gun control said after 1:00 p.m. on the 15th of march, our world changed forever, and so will some of our laws. >> you know, everybody keeps thinking our world is going to change like that, too. after sandy hook, i remember joy manchin went on this network and said they are killing our babies. we've got to do something about this. yet it doesn't seem to change. one reason is the politics of guns became kind of set in stone in 1994. remember in '93 and '94 were the last two big gun bills. the brady act that sun setted ten years later. the republicans took over the house of commons for the first time in 30 years. they beat people like jack brooks who was a very powerful judiciary committee chairman and this idea that guns were toxic politically took hold and it has never really abated. >> there's another big reason that i think gun rights advocates point to which is in the united states, we have a constitution and the nra, the spokesperson tweeted the u.s. isn't new zealand. while they do not have an inalienable right to bear arms and self-defense, we do. she's right. that's true. >> and the fact of the second amendment in the constitution is a big part of the reason that a lot of legal efforts or political efforts to change gun laws have really struggles to come to fruition. it's part of the reason that we have sort of the gun culture in the u.s. that doesn't exist in other countries. it's part of the way that many americans see their identity as americans. we are a country where part of our founding document makes the right to have a weapon sacrisanct. it's part of america's dna and makes it politically harder to tinker around the edges when it comes to guns. >> there's also a lot of pressure on tech companies and on specifically facebook because of that live stream that was out there of this shooting that happened. now this morning there is a new development on that. this morning facebook is announcing that its artificial intelligence systems failed to detect the new zealand shooting video. and facebook is now re-examining its reporting logic as it calls on on live videos because the first user report on this thing came in 12 minutes after this whole live stream was over which meant it got reviewed less urgently. and i wonder if that is facebook going far enough. because our nbc news reporter made this point on twitter, right, that youtube was responding to this struggle to contain the shooting video but there's more work to be done. in 2017, a man facebook live streamed a murder, zuckerberg said we have a lot of work to do. in 2017 when youtube spread information about a texas mass murder, ed there's more work to do. facebook was allowing them to target neo-nazis and white supremacists. 2019, parents found disturbing video spliced into youtube video. facebook said we have more work to do. >> the first thing it's an extremely difficult thing to do. you've built this platform in which people can live stream anything they want to. you built this behemoth that's hugely important and lucrative for certain people. can you suddenly take down these features. that's the only fool-proof way to prevent this from happening when you have this power that allows you to live stream your life to the entire world to say what you want and get it out and have people retweet it and push it out there. you know, there are tons of unintended consequences that come with that and preventing anything from happen is just impossible unless you take away that instantaneous ability to do anything like that. >> aaron and betsy, thank you. matt, i appreciate you joining the conversation. an nbc news exclusive. democrats putting their money where their mouth is to take down donald trump. the new strategy in some seriously important states. a story you will only see right here. what do you have there? p3 it's meat, cheese and nuts. i keep my protein interesting. oh yea, me too. i have cheese and uh these herbs. p3 snacks. the more interesting way to get your protein. 4 out of 5 people who have a stroke, their first symptom... is a stroke. 80 percent of all strokes and heart disease? preventable. and 149 dollars is all it takes to get screened and help take control of your health. we're life line screening... and if you're over 50... call this number, to schedule an appointment... for five painless screenings that go beyond regular check-ups. we use ultrasound technology to literally look inside your arteries... for plaque which builds up as you age- and increases your risk for stroke and cardiovascular disease. and by getting them through this package, you're saving over 50%. so call today and consider these numbers: for just $149 you'll receive five screenings that could reveal what your body isn't telling you. i'm gonna tell you that was the best $150 i ever spent in my life. life line screening. the power of prevention. call now to learn more. your daily dashboard from fidelity. a visual snapshot of your investments. key portfolio events. all in one place. because when it's decision time... you need decision tech. only from fidelity. itreat them all as if,. they are hot and energized. stay away from any downed wire, call 911 and call pg&e right after so we can both respond out and keep the public safe. pg&e wants you to plan ahead by mapping out escape routes and preparing a go kit, in case you need to get out quickly. for more information on how to be prepared and keep your family safe, visit pge.com/safety. i think we should -- i'll ask you another question. how come we aren't -- >> we aren't asking the question. >> i know. but how come we're not asking -- we're not asking more often the women, would you be willing to put a man on the ticket? >> when we get to that point, i'll ask you that question. >> that was former colorado governor and presidential candidate john hickenlooper after getting asked whether he'd pick a woman as his vp. that moment from the cnn town hall is doing things to people's eyebrows. namely raising them. so are a couple other reports bubbling up on vp picks and money matters with the new nbc exclusive report detailing just what a democratic superpac is up to. joining me, nbc national political reporter mike memly. senior news correspondent kimberly atkins and on set with me, the guy behind the scoop on democrats and big money, alex. let's start there. you write about this $50 million expansion that's going to go toward a massive paid advertising campaign on tv, digital radio, all to try to win over some of these voters in so-called trump country. >> we're talking about wisconsin, michigan and pennsylvania. three key states that cost hillary clinton the election in 2016. this is american bridge. they've been active in opposition research in senate campaigns, house campaigns and gubernatorial campaigns. they haven't done a lot of paid advertising and haven't played in presidential politics. this is new for them. the idea is while all these 20 million democrats are fight -- >> going after each other. >> somebody has to mind the store. trump is out there running for re-election. they and other groups are trying to soften him up with core voters. they'll not win them back necessarily but there's a big difference between getting blown out 85/15 versus 75/25 or 65/35. one of the many things problem for hillary clinton, she didn't pay attention to these voters. only focused on getting the democratic vote out. they want to keep that margin in check. >> alex makes the point correctly that president trump is already out campaigning. he is going to michigan next week for a campaign rally here. how effective do you think this strategy couldon the part of democrats in the states obviously going to be incredibly important come 2020? >> yeah, you know, i've been talking to democrats for a while about what the strategy should be. should it be trying to make a play for these midwestern voters who went to trump in 2016 or to really focus on galvanizing and organizing and registering members of their own base who didn't come out as strongly as they could have in 2016. they tell me a little bit of both. there is some concern that democrats, by focusing too much on trying to flip voters who went to trump may be trying to win 2016's race in 2020 when it's the political landscape has changed so much and that could be a dangerous strategy. but you have these superpacs who want to try to figure out, keep an eye on donald trump and also you have a lot of democratic candidates who are saying they don't want superpac help so they have to figure out where they'll -- they have to reframe and figure out how they'll play in 2020. >> some of the midwest states, obviously, are states that like joe biden, someone you follow and report on closely have their eye on. now reporting from other outlets saying maybe there's been discussion thatted ed by biden considering naming a running mate right out of the gate. jim clyburn is talking about this idea. >> i think we have to be careful about doing cute things in campaigns for as long as you can. you ought to challenge the traditional route and hope you can get to where you need to be. i think it would be a mistake for joe biden to come out or any other candidate and announce a running mate right out of the gate. that's taking a lot for granted. >> what's the real deal here? what is biden going to do based on your reporting? is this stuff true or not? >> hallie, as you know, because i was in south carolina when i spoke with you last yesterday, i asked that question to jim clyburn for a very good reason. we've been hearing the same thing. i want edreported last summer t age is likely to be a factor, potentially in the negative column, biden and his team were considering a number of options to address that. one, i'm going to serve just one term as president. the other would be potentially as well, i'm going to select a running mate, announce that person right out of the gate. last week vice president biden met with stacey abrams. a lot of speculation about what that meeting was about. here's what i can tell you. that meeting was about 90 minutes long. a lunch between the two of them. just them alone in that room. and so i didn't get an outright denial that he offered her the position of a running mate but every indication and another source told me they asked biden was no offer about the vice presidency was made to stacey abrams. they are telling me there's a number of unconventional ideas they're considering as they get ready for a potential april launch. a vp pick is one of them. but south carolina would be a critical state for joe biden if he runs in the primary. no one knows south carolina democratic primaries better than clyburn. very strong advice suggesting that would be a mistake would carry a lot of weight with biden's team. >> mike used the term unconventional. the idea that the former vp's team is considering. that borders are gimmicky. is there a risk for biden? >> there's certainly a risk. i'm hearing from folks who are even offended that this idea that stacey abrams may need joe biden more than he needs her. that she hasn't made her own decision about her own presidential future. but it demonstrates how tough it is in a field this big for someone, even with the name recognition of joe biden to try to stand out and try to grab headlines and get some sort of advantage. but i think what we've been hearing from folks is right. to come out this early with that kind of a team does seem gimmicky, and it can seem patronizing in a way to try to say, i have this black woman with me so you should really back me. >> it's not just -- joe biden is eventually going to have to answer questions about the politics and policy. what issues he does and does not support. one issue that's come up is this idea of expanding the supreme court, right, and democrats are talking about doing this. mayor pete buttigieg was asked about this as well. i want to play what he had to say. >> the question is how do we structure it in a way that it's not going to be an apocalyptic ideological battle every time there's a vacancy. i've been interested in this potential model. where you have 15 justices but five are chosen by democrats, five by republicans -- >> so you could see expanding the supreme court? >> if it's in a way that would depoliticize it. >> it's a very valid point and a lot of people in the democratic party are nervous about this kind of thinking. they have been spending the past two years talking about how donald trump has been blowing up norms across washington. breaking things the way they're supposed to work, the way they have worked. but there's a big divide between the idea of revolution, changing the system and pete buttigieg and that kind of talk is more in that camp, or versus rejuvenati rejuvenation. going back to the way things were before donald trump. a lot of people in the party of not satisfied with just going back to the way things are. they want big systematic reforms like that. >> which is why you hear more and more about it. alex, kimberly and mike, thank you for that illuminating conversation. up next, who is turning over documents to house democrats and what those documents could reveal. eric swalwell, a member of the judiciary and intel committees is joining us live, coming up. openturning 50 opens theuard. door to a lot of new things... like now your doctor may be talking to you about screening for colon cancer. luckily there's me, cologuard. the noninvasive test you use at home. it all starts when your doctor orders me. then it's as easy as get, go, gone. you get me when i'm delivered... right to your front door and in the privacy of your own home. there's no prep or special diet needed. you just go to the bathroom, to collect your sample. after that, i'm gone, shipped to the lab for dna testing that finds colon cancer and precancer. cologuard is not right for everyone. it is not for high risk individuals, including those with a history of colon cancer or precancer. ibd, certain hereditary cancer syndromes, or a family history of colon cancer. maybe i'll be at your door soon! ask your doctor if cologuard is right for you. covered by medicare and most major insurers. your daily dashboard from fidelity. a visual snapshot of your investments. key portfolio events. all in one place. because when it's decision time... you need decision tech. only from fidelity. we've got new developments in the last few minutes. politico reporting that julian assange has rejected a request for document froms the house judiciary committee. his lawyer argues that because they say assange is a journalist he should not be targeted by congress at the outset of an investigation. joining me, congressman eric swalwell from california. he is on the house judiciary xhd intelligen and intelligence committees. julian assange obviously rejecting your request. are subpoenas next for him and/or for the others who have not responded? >> we're no longer powerless when it comes to requesting documents and then just having witnesses dictate the terms on their own. we can actually send a subpoena over and get the documents we need and i imagine that will be the case here. >> okay. so that's certainly going to be an option on the table it sounds like? >> yes, and any witness who in the last two years was able to get away with this should know the american people gave us the power to stand up to these refusals and put power on these. >> someone that's agreed to cooperate with you is hope hicks and the document that's come in. can you confirm she's agreeing to turn over some of this information related to her time work with donald trump? >> as far as i know, she is cooperating. she's someone who i interviewed with our interview team when she came before the house intelligence committee. i found that she had a deep knowledge of what was going on in the organization, the campaign, the transition and the administration. she also told me when i interviewed her that she told lies for the president and when i asked her what she had lied about, she refused to testify. and then the republicans did not force her to actually give us an answer. that won't be the case now. she's going to have to tell us who she lied for. >> when do you expect to hear that from her? >> you know, i'll leave that to chairman nadler but she is just like michael cohen, a witness who has seen a lot. >> just like michael cohen, will she appear publicly before your committee? >> i'll leave that to mr. nadler but that would be of high value considering how much she knows. >> you threw document requests out to 81 people, entities connected to trump world. any word back from here we are thursday morning? >> documents are coming back. i'll leave it to the chair of the committee, if he's not satisfied, to put out why he's not satisfied. but hallie, this is to preserve the rule of law in our country but also an honor code. there's some things in our country that are just not enshrined in the law but in our honor code we say you show us your taxes. you don't attack the judiciary. you are straight with the american people, and you don't put your kids in positions of power where you can financially benefit. we're going to look at the rule of law and honor code that's been violated. >> i know you're out west and in washington the waiting game is in full swing for robert mueller's report. you're a member of congress. you're on the judiciary committee. any guidance on timing? when do you think we'll see it? >> no, and that says everything about who bob smimueller is ande team he's leading. no leaks. we have no idea. could be today or a year from now. it shows that donald trump is getting the due process that he wouldn't give to anyone else, but every defendant in america is entitled to. >> you say a year from now. you don't really think it's going to be a year from now. all signs seem to be he's wrapping it up. >> i don't know when it's going to be but it's moved at a break-neck pace, includes multiple foreign countries, hundreds of witnesses, thousands of documents, and we've already had dozens of indictments. people have gone to jail, come out of jail on their way to jail. he's doing hard work. and i have all the faith in the world the american people will accept whatever he puts out. >> let me ask you when it comes to 2020. we had this discussion on joe biden potentially announcing a running mate when he comes out and announce he's going to run for president. do you think he, should any candidate be announcing a vp when they announce they're running? >> he can do whatever he wants to do. and he's talented in his own right, and stacey abrams is someone i really admire. that would be an interesting combination. i wouldn't do it that way, but the beauty of this field, we have so much talent and you'll bring out so many different constituencies. we'll be a part of one symphony. either playing an instrument or you are the conductor that we're all getting behind. so i don't think it matters. >> when you announce that you're running for president, will you also announce your running mate? >> i would not do it that way. >> and when is the timing of that announcement? >> by the end of the month, i'll make a decision. and i'll just tell you now, the last 18 months i went to 26 states across the country, and i see why people work hard. i see what they expect it to add up to. that they do better and dream bigger. and on most floors of most buildings and most blocks of most neighborhoods that promise of america is not coming to most people. so first in my family to go to college, someone who has led future forum, a generational group in the congress and someone who has defended our democracy that's been on the line, that's a candidacy that could connect and bring that promise to all americans. >> you sure sound like a candidate already. it would be more surprising if you said you weren't going to run, right? >> say it again? >> it would be more surprising if you said you were not going to run it seems to me at this point. >> i'm going to decide by the end of the month, but i see all green lights. i know why i would run and who i could help and i think there's a candidacy that could win. >> congressman eric swalwell, thanks for joining us. pentagon investigators are now looking into the guy who runs the pentagon with new questions about his relationship with boeing. we'll explain on "swamp watch" next. ♪ [laughter] ♪ ♪ "i'm okay." ♪ ♪ - [woman] with shark's duo clean, i don't just clean, ♪ i deep clean carpets and floors, so i got this. yep, this too, and this, please. even long hair and pet hair are no problem, but the one thing i won't have to clean is this because the shark's self-cleaning brush roll removes the hair wrap while i clean. ♪ - [announcer] shark, the vacuum that deep cleans now cleans itself. webut some of us turn outhose dreams...... into action... the bookers. the doers. the 'hit that confirmation button and let's go!'- ers! because bookers know that the perfect place to stay... is right there for the booking. be a booker at booking.com the world's #1 choice for booking accommodations. tremfya® is for adults with remoderate. to severe plaque psoriasis. with tremfya®, you can get clearer. and stay clearer. in fact, most patients who saw 90% clearer skin at 28 weeks stayed clearer through 48 weeks. tremfya® works better than humira® at providing clearer skin and more patients were symptom free with tremfya®. tremfya® may lower your ability to fight infections and may increase your risk of infections. before treatment, your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis. tell your doctor if you have an infection or have symptoms such as: fever, sweats, chills, muscle aches or cough. before starting tremfya® tell your doctor if you plan to or have recently received a vaccine. ask your doctor about tremfya®. tremfya®. because you deserve to stay clearer. janssen wants to help you explore cost support options. the relationship between the federal aviation administration and boeing is now under some seriously intense scrutiny. you have the fbi, a federal grand jury and the department of transportation inspector general now investigating how the faa approved those max planes for flight. and now it turns out congress is going to hold some hearings soon. >> i think right now both the faa, boeing and possibly even the united states as a world leader in aviation have all taken a hit. credibilitywise and reputationwise. >> you have the pentagon's inspector general launching an investigation into the acting defense secretary. patrick shanahan. and his connections to boeing. looking into whether or not those connections are affecting decisions being made at the pentagon. let me bring in military reporter courtney cubie and dan grazier from the project on government oversight. courtney, talk us through this new investigation. what is going on? what sparked this? >> so there were some news reports earlier this year that alleged that acting secretary of defense pat shanahan who as you know spent more than three decades as an executive at boeing, that he in meetings that disparaged one of boeing's primary competitor lockheed martin and one, if not more of their aircraft, some of their programs. lockheed martin. he had disparaged their program and talked about their leadership programs and had talked out boeing. and at the same time, we should point out that acting secretary shanahan has recused himself to decisions relating to boeing. but the allegations were, that he still had a bias and that would come out in these meetings. or had come out in these meetings. after these reports, there was an oversight report based in d.c. that called on the pentagon to begin an investigation on secretary shanahan. last week when on the hill with armed services he was asked specifically about it. would he support the allegations. yes said, quite flatly, yes, he would. we heard from the doj that he had opened the investigation. >> bloomberg is reporting that shanahan who spent 31 years at boeing has signed an ethics agreement that has recused him. but bloomberg reports that has not stopped him from praising boeing and trashing experts like lockheed martin during these internal meetings. does that give you concern? >> absolutely, it does. despite his pledge, there's often a lot of flexibility in the way these ethics rules and regulations are interpreted. and we haven't heard anything about how that actually goes in this case. >> are there other business dealings being affected by this, potentially? >> potentially. so it's a little curious that after nearly 20 years of being told that the f35 program is a future of military aviation, that all of a sudden, we're cutting the buy of fa35s and increasing the purchase, buying f-15s all of a sudden. >> courtney, when you talk about the hearings in congress. you mentioned the act defense secretary in front of lawmakers last week. do we know more into the hearing of this and boeing's connections and when it will start? >> well, the investigation is under way. a personnel investigation like this can take weeks to months. it will tend to wrap them up within 180 days. but there's no set time limit on it. what's particular about this case, as you mentioned, hallie, he's the acting secretary of defense. he cannot be that forever. at some point, there's going to have to be a nominee, whether him or someone else. still, what does that do, does that disqualify him from getting the nomination. >> in the eyes of the president, dan, what do you think? >> it's possible, we're in slightly uncharted territory here. >> yeah. >> it's very unusual that an acting secretary of defense for any more than a couple of weeks. and so far, this has been a situation that's gone on for about three months now. and we still don't know if and when the president is going to name an actual nominee, that has to go before congress to be confirmed. >> courtney, it's my reporting in talking with folks in and around close to the president. he likes his acting defense secretary. do you have any guidance at all that we can talk about when he may actually pull the trigger and nominate somebody in his position? >> so, the rumor mill has been that we will hear that acting secretary of defense pat shanahan will get the nomination. that's just rumors through the hallways here. it's nothing that i'd feel comfortable reporting on it. every single day, we're on nomination watch. mainly via twitter, because that's where we've seen a lot of these nominations happen. there's nothing concrete to report on whether he will get the nomination or someone else. i can say there aren't a whole lot of other names out there that we're hearing. >> nomination watch, robert mueller watch. courtney and dan, thanks to the both of you. we'll be right back with more on what our sources are saying. how business gets done is changing. energy, success, the face of entrepreneurship is changing. see how we're changing. at bankofthewest.com/change bank of the west. the bank for a changing world. energy is changing. transpotation is changing. at bank of the west we're helping our customers drive that change. with lower rates on a car loan when you use it for an electric vehicle. find out how much you could save. at bankofthewest.com/ev time now to get a look what our sources are saying, betsy woodruff and aaron blake are here with their hot scoops as always. talk to me, guys. >> a few weeks ago when cory booker got in the race, he made news by spending corporate pac money. in this case, he had actually taken plenty of pac money. the senator would likely have been an outlet for those pacs running for president. we've also seen a lot of members of congress decline this money. this has put them in a position to donate more and more to republicans. they don't like that because they like to be bipartisan. >> they don't have to donate more money to republicans? >> to be. bipartisan, but if democrats don't want to keep that money. >> or they can keep the money? >> or they can keep the money which means less politics. >> that's true. >> cory booker has done that. >> your day job is working with the doj, what are you hearing? >> one thing we've been following closely is the southern district's investigation into trump, particularly, michael cohen. cohen said two weeks ago that trump may have lied to deutsche bank, the conglomerate when he tried to get loans on his real estate project. what i confirmed that the current u.s. attorney running the investigation in new york, his name is berman, he's an employee and actually did a lot of his bork for deutsche bank. that means if it bumps up in favor of deutsche bank, trump will have to make a decision. >> thank you. that does it for us. more news with my colleague craig melvin. i don't know if you heard, the wofford alum. i filled out my bracket, my friend. >> i hope you got wofford winning it all. >> not at all, at least advancing. >> that's a busted bracket. you got to go all the way, hallie jackson. thank you, my friend. good to see you as well. craig melvin here at msnbc headquarters in new york city. mueller on the mind. he said mueller's report will clear him of wrongdoing, but he's trying to undercut the investigation's very existence. also this morning, insult to injury, the president can't cut the controversy especially when it comes to the late senator and war hero john mccain. so, who is he trying to appeal to with his line of attack? and running mate rumors. vice president joe biden reportedly to make a splash when he jumps in the race. his team is considering whether to put stacey abrams on the ticket right o
this is coming just days before the israeli prime minister arrives for meetings with the president next week. john roberts has more from the north lawn. this was news, john. >> it was big news. so far we haven't heard any backup to the president's tweet from the white house. we inquired to what will be going on here, a formal announcement, what will the president do about it? we don't know. since 1981 when israel annexed the golan heights, it's not been recognized as being israeli territory. it's been alternately called israeli occupied territory, israeli controlled territory. now it appears very soon it will be officially recognized by the united states. the president tweeting a short time ago after 52 years, it's time for the united states to fully recognize israel's sovereignty over the golan heights, which is a strategic important for regional stability. mike pompeo, the secretary of state is in the middle east today. he did and interview with trey yingst 40 minutes before the president set out that tweet. trey asked pompeo about it. benjamin netanyahu will be here at the white house next week. he tweeted his thanks to the president saying in a time when iran seeks too use syria as a platform to destroy israel, the president recognizes israel sovereignty over the golan heights. thank you. maria bartiromo is in the middle of interviewing the president. she will no doubt ask him about this. the attorney general, bill barr, was here at the white house. his visit here instantly raised speculation as to whether the mueller report might be forthcoming. we're told it was a routine meeting on national security. dana? >> dana: yeah. the attorney general comes often. i can imagine that. let me ask you also about this. is there any let-up in the mccain feud? >> no. no. and in fact, it was very strange yesterday. obviously the president over the weekend tweeted his displeasure about john mccain. it was related to the mueller investigation because mccain got ahold of that unverified steele dossier and said i didn't know what to do with it so i passed it on to the fbi. that's what got the president going. yesterday it was such a strange time for him to go into that. he was at this army tank plant, the only plant in the united states that make the abrams tank. the president basically rescued that plant from oblivion with his increased defense spending. they have doubled the number of employees or will double the number soon. listen up. he had them eating out of his hands. listen to what he said. >> you better love me. i kept this place open. they said we're closing it. i said no, we're not. >> then in the middle of this, the president took a big left turn back into his feud with john mccain. we remind you, john mccain died seven months ago, ripping mccain again for the steele dossier and his vote over obamacare and then talking about the funeral. listen to what he said. >> i have to be honest. i have never liked him much. hasn't been for me. i've really probably never will. i endorsed him at his request. i gave him the kind of funeral that he wanted. which as president, i had to approve. i don't care about this. i didn't get thank you. that's okay. we sent him on the way. i wasn't a fan of john mccain's. >> the president renewing attacks of john mccain drawing fire from senior republicans, johnny isakson, a big supporter of the military and the president's policies. i was on georgia public broadcasting saying the president's comments are deplorable. other become republicans have weighed in as well. >> let us know if you need an ark. it looks like it's raining. >> yeah. it's about to stop. >> dana: if you need help, let us know. former vice president joe biden moving closer to his 2020 bid and considering naming his running made simultaneously. he's mulling the idea of picking stacey abrams that lost a tight race for georgia governor. some have pointed out in a democratic debate, he could be asked why nobody on the stage is a worthy running mate. joining me right now, a.b. stoddard. this is like the longest tease by the biden team. it's almost we know more about them than when they're going to announce. >> it is strange. the advisers have made it clear that he wanted to enter at the start of the fund-raising period. the second quarter will begin in april. >> dana: makes sense to me. what do you make of this? >> it's interesting. people say it's so presumptuous for him to do that. it seems panicked. incredibly risky and it's a very volatile campaign that will go into next may, dana. that's what insiders expect to go on another 14 months. >> dana: seems early to lock yourself in. >> does anyone have a real sense of what the democratic primaries want? abolish ice, the electoral college or are they going to pick electability? >> dana: cnn has a poll out. do democrats have a better chance winning with biden or somebody else. 50% said biden. 30% say somebody else. some say it could be name i.d. >> no, i don't think it's name i.d. people think he can win the rust belt and win trump republicans and he has the experience on day one. he slept through four years of a presidency, his staff will be better handled to bring us back to normal than cory booker, you know, taking the job and handling syria and north korea and everything else. there's a real sense from party insiders that that is a sense among the sort of early activists in iowa and other places, that he has the gravitas. >> dana: in that same cnn poll, they showed numbers about bernie sanders favorability was dropping since june, which is interesting. he started off strong with his announcement. kamala harris, up eight points. >> interesting too that she's rising. but she's rising with the people who don't favor biden. she's rising with women, voters of color, liberals. so that's important for her, for race, but doesn't make the electability argument that she would need eventually to win the nomination. >> dana: it's announced that she's not going to the apac meeting. is that something -- do you think that is in her heart she doesn't want to go or -- >> elizabeth warren is going to turn it down. they risk caring the population in the middle that will decide this election. >> dana: if biden gets in after the reporting period that ends on march 31, sunday, april 1 watch fox news and see how everybody did and we'll have analysis of it. what kind of roll-out does he have to have? a big splash -- everybody is talking about how good is your roll-out. can biden pull it off and have endorsements right away. >> he's out of step with roll-outs today. i bet he wants to make a cash splash. he doesn't have the online apparatus that beto does. he wants endorsements to be invincible on day 1. there's a question is how much does he overstep. do you come out swinging too hard assuming you're the nominee? it's risky. >> dana: could he have waited to june to get in and might he? >> i think he needs to step on it. >> dana: thanks, a.b. love having you here. >> thanks for having me. >> dana: a new report from local media in syria says the isis caliphate in syria has crumbled. u.s. backed forces liberating the spinal strong hold. the pentagon says the fight continues. benjamin hall reporting live from syria. benjamin? >> yeah, hi, dana. it's clear to point out that there's been no official announcement that the caliphate has fallen, but local media, we've seen it on the televisions here, are saying the town has been liberated. the caliphate is gone. nothing of it really remains. for the first time since we've been here in syria, five days, covering this offensive, the bombs have stopped dropping, the gun fire has disappeared. there's an erie calm here now and we have witnessed the end of the caliphate. the final stage now is clearing. isis has riddled this town with booby traps and ieds. that could takes months to clear. it's going to be dangerous work as well. this could not have happened without u.s. support. artillery, intelligence, mortars and the sdf are so very grateful for the help up till now. we watched as the black flag of isis was brought out. there was such jubilation of the men that have lived under isis in many cases. today although that is gone, the only fear is that the ideology remains in this part of syria and across the border in iraq. it was the heartland. so stability, all important moving forward to make sure that they don't return. good news potentially here out of syria today. >> dana: thanks for your a reporting. thank you, benjamin. kirsten gillibrand throws out a controversial idea about social security. you'll hear it next. and migrants apprehended at the border and let go. william la jeunesse is in yuma, arizona. >> 170 people came through this whole sunday alone. the most in three weeks. they got released. the story coming up. your home and take out 54,000 dollars or more to pay credit card debt, or just put money in the bank. it even lowers your payments by over 600 dollars a month. as a veteran, you've earned the powerful va home loan benefit that lets you refinance up to 100 percent of your home's value. and with home values rising, that can mean a lot more money for you and your family. and because newday usa has been granted automatic authority by the va, they can say yes when banks say no. and they'll do all the va paperwork for you. we all know some of life's most important financial decisions are made right here at the kitchen table. so, if you're a veteran and need cash, calling newday usa could be one of the best decisions you'll ever make. go to newdayusa.com, or call 1-877-423-5734. ♪ they're all going in the same direction but in very different ways and pampers gives all of them our driest best fitting diaper. pampers cruisers with three-way fit. they adapt at the waist, legs and bottom with up to twelve hours of protection for all the freedom to move their way. in pampers cruisers only pampers diapers are the number one choice of hospitals, nurses and parents. how'd i get this yard? behind pete's great looking yard, is his secret weapon... the scotts turf builder program. all it takes is 4 feedings, with a scotts solution for every season. it's that easy. this is a scotts yard. named 'park' in the u.s. ninety-six hundred roads it's america's most popular street name. but no matter what park you live on, one of 10,000 local allstate agents knows yours. now that you know the truth, are you in good hands? >> dana: border agents detain thousands daily. most of them are released. in arizona, a surge being detained and let go. william la jeunesse is in yuma arizona. >> critics say there's no crisis, that it's manufactured. agents say it's not true. here's why. in yuma, apprehensions are up. one by one, men, women and children duck under the fence and they give up to a border patrol agent. this is the camera that shot that video. we're in yuma. that is a secondary fence. here's where agents patrol. that's a primary fence put here in the 90s. three buses from guatemala show up on the south side. 171 get out and come through this precut hole. turn themselves in to agents. they pay on average about $7,000. now already this year, last five months, there's been 170 breaches of the fence. these dates are dates of individual breaches. apprehensions double last year. because there's other than mexican, 96%, instead of being turned back over, they're at the processing station. the agency is spending $100,000 a month on medical care, food, clothing, diapers. what does it mean? half the agents that would be here doing enforcement are instead caring for and processing illegal immigrants back at the station. so this hole is now filled, dana and this fence is going to be replaced, all 26 miles next month with a steel bollard fence, concrete underneath, so they can't do that. but agents are at the station and not here. >> dana: you know i love that jacket. thanks for the one you sent me. hopefully it's warm enough seen. william la jeunesse. >> democrat kirsten gillibrand is causing a stir after jumping in with a new idea about immigration and social security. >> i have a lot of ideas. first, we need comprehensive immigration reform. if you're in this country now, you must have to pay into social security, to pay your taxes, to pay to the local school system and citizenship. >> my next guest, the author of "love your enemies," arthur seabrooks and has a great podcast here with us. you're a fiscal conservative. what do you think about her idea? >> pretty good idea. the idea of the fact that we're coming illegally but put benefits on top of taking care of status. if she feels this way, they should have a guest worker program and proper benefits and proper legal safety against all sorts of abuses. but the fed let them stay illegal. doesn't make sense. >> what about this fiscal integrity of the social security system? >> for sure. that's a big problem to begin with. nobody that i can see, including republicans these days, have any plan to take on the social security system. so put another politician in line. >> dana: so in your book, "love your enemies" you talk about how we can try to work together, if we have different ideas going forward. comprehensive immigration reform is something that nobody can rope in. because the way we deal with each other today, is there any hope? >> yeah, we need politicians that disregard the public opinion polls and say what they think. why? when politicians act like leaders instead of followers, people will follow. you're going to like some parts of it and you elected me to be a leader. nobody is doing that right now. >> dana: is it because people feel they don't get rewarded if they compromise? >> yeah. that's not right. one of the things you'll see is people will scream and yell but it's a small percentage. most people want a solution, want leaders to lead. >> dana: here's -- the democrats have other internal matters. take a look at max rose who apologized to jewish constituents at a town hall. watch. >> i was horrified when she made the comments she did. >> dana: i want your thoughts. that's an internal squabble. >> good for him. he said i'm standing against it. somebody famous that said something anti-semitic, i'm going to call them out. >> dana: everybody should read your book, "love your enemies." sometimes they make it hard. kentucky governor matt be vin saying he exposed his children to chicken pox on purpose. why? 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[ scatting ] ♪ would you like it anyway? want more from your entejust say teach me more. into your xfinice remote to discover all sorts of tips and tricks in x1. can i find my wifi password? just ask. [ ding ] show me my wifi password. hey now! [ ding ] you can even troubleshoot, learn new voice commands and much more. clean my daughter's room. [ ding ] oh, it won't do that. welp, someone should. just say "teach me more" into your voice remote and see how you can have an even better x1 experience. simple. easy. awesome. >> dana: kentucky governor matt bevin taking a stand to force kids get vaccines. he exposed all of his nine children to chicken pox instead of vaccinating them. matt finn has more. >> dana, the governor's radio interview getting fears reaction. he thinks in the united states, it should be up to parents whether they want to vaccinate children and that the federal and local government should not be involved. >> if you're worried about your child contacting something like chicken pox, then vaccinate your child. don't worry about what else is doing. we found a neighbor that had it. i went and made sure every one of my kids got it. they had it as children, they were miserable a few days and they all turned out fine. >> the centers for disease control disagrees with kentucky's governor. the cdc said that chicken pox can be serious or deadly in healthy children. this afternoon, dr. sean o'leary wrote in a statement to fox news writing -- >> governor bevin states a few times in that radio interview that he's not against vaccines, but he says he finds it ironic that it's vaccinated children that get the chicken pox and that some children that get the vaccine then have to keep getting follow up booster shots. the governor argues getting chicken pox over as a child makes it less likely that you'll get a more severe case later in life. >> dana: matt, thank you. fentanyl causing a surge in deaths. a new analysis by the cdc says drug-related deaths are up 141% in african americans. 118% in hispanics. 61% in white people. fentanyl is a painkiller that is mixed with heroin and cocaine and other drugs and now the leading cause of overdose deaths in american. new zealand taking action following the deadly mosque massacres last week. what the governor will ban right away. governor john hickenlooper makes headlines. where he took his mom for a night out. >> i promised her we would go to the movie theater and see this new movie. you want to come? she said i'd love to go. she didn't want to be left alone in the house again. are you a veteran, own a home, and need cash? you should know about the newday va home loan for veterans. it lets you borrow up to 100 percent of your home's value. not just 80 percent like other loans. and that can mean a lot more money for you and your family. with our military service, veterans like us have earned a valuable va benefit. the right to apply for a va home loan. the newday va loan lets you refinance your mortgages, consolidate your credit card debt, put cash in the bank, and lower your payments over 600 dollars a month. newday usa has been granted automatic authority by the va. they could close your loan in as little as 30 days. so call newday usa. they look at your whole financial picture, not just your credit score. and they'll do everything they possibly can to get you approved. call today. and get the financial peace of mind every veteran deserves. go to newdayusa.com, or call 1-877-236-1855. ensure max protein... to give you the protein you need with less of the sugar you don't. 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(cheers) 30 grams of protein and 1 gram of sugar. ensure max protein. in two great flavors. raquen... rakutahn... rakooten... ♪ rakuten oh! is this my money? whoaaah! haha! rakuten ♪ ahhh! rakuten! >> dana: time for today's political tale from the campaign trail. california senator kamala harris setting her sight on voters in texas firing a shot across the bow of beto o'rourke. she put her 2020 rival on notice. next up, south bend mayor pete buttigieg upping up about religion and politics. >> everybody needs to demonstrate how they will represent people of any faith, people of no faith. i think the time has come to reclaim faith as a theme. the idea that the only way religious person could enter politics is through the prism of the religious right doesn't make sense. >> dana: john hickenlooper recall ago mortifying miscalculation on an evening with his mother. >> she said i'd be left alone. i didn't want to be in the house alone. so i took her to see deep throat. at the end, she knew i was humiliated. as we drove home, i said that was some experience. she says, well, i thought the lighting was very good in the movie. >> dana: hickenlooper said he revealed the episode in his books because it's better for people to see the dumb things you do as well as the smart things. >> nobody at 8-9, 10 knows who she is. >> she's from california. i don't know her name though. >> almost none of you have any clue who he is. who would say this person doesn't look familiar so you have never seen him? show of hands. wow. you know who this is? >> i do not. >> a name game of swing voters in wisconsin. in a crowded democratic field, alexandria ocasio-cortez was more recognizable than any presidential contender even though she's been in congress a few months and three others were better known to voters, bernie sanders, joe biden and elizabeth warren. robert wolf is here with us. great to have you here. so let me start with you, robert. aoc as we call her on the cover of "time" magazine. she's getting a lot of attention. "time" magazine writing, she's a political phenomenon. part activist, part legislator. the best story teller in the party since barack obama and the only democrat with the star power to challenge president trump. is she stealing the show? >> i don't think she is. a few different things. she beat joe crowley, who a lot of people thought he would be the next speaker. you have to give her a ton of credit for that. with respect to her, she's an incredible, passionate instagramer, twitter follower. she gets into underneath kind of a zone with people that like her, people that hate her. she has three million plus followers. >> people that love her and people that hate her. she has a 31% favorability rating. so in some ways, she's a little like president trump that doesn't bother her. >> obviously not, dana, a lot of those viral moments that the people in wisconsin have made them familiar with her, they're not particularly flattering. while it's true she received unheralded coverage for somebody that has been in congress a short time, i don't know that all of it is positive and i think ultimately it will come back to bite her. >> dana: we'll see. i want to talk about john hickenlooper. he had this town hall with cnn last night. take a look at this other question put to him. >> governor, some of your male competitors have vowed to put a woman on the ticket. would you do the same? >> again, of course. but i think we should -- well, i'll ask you another question. how come -- >> you're not asking the questions. >> i know. how come we're not asking more often the women would you be willing to put a man on the ticket? >> when we get to that point, i'll ask that question. >> dana: what do you think, robert? >> he had a softball and he whiffed. there's ten million more women voters. they voted 5% greater rate than men. the democratic mid-terms just showed that all of the excitement has been in the women in the minority movement with respect to voting. that's how we flipped 40 seats. he had a softball and he whiffed it. he should have said of course we have great women that can be vice presidents. i say you win the primary first and then make your decisions. >> dana: robert's point, the republicans in the mid-terms -- that's not a presidential election -- lost women by 19 points. typically they average loss is 4 points. so republicans have some thinking to do as well. >> they certainly do, dana. i have to tell you, i think governor hickenlooper was on the money. i think he was telling the truth. i think it does a great disservice to feminism when we are pushing female candidates just for the sake of them being female. i have no problem with a female president provided they have the right policies for the country. governor hickenlooper is speaking to the silent majority. >> dana: what about that. we talked earlier about joe biden getting in the race. who knows if it's true. the suggestion that maybe he chooses stacey abrams from georgia. he will never have to answer that question. >> i think the vice president is different. he has 100% name recognition. he also has 40 years of things he's voted on and said. with respect to him, his biggest struggle is going through the primary. he's the best general election candidate. it would be a brilliant move for him. but thinking about those that are not worth while or could be vice president, i mean, kamala harris and amy klobuchar, they're all quality. i think they're taking the idea that we have great candidates and would you take one if you were president. he's being asked because he would have won the primary. >> dana: the last word. >> the democrats are absolutely obsessed with identity politics. they're all about that. i think that that will hurt them very substantially when it comes to 2020. we're seeing that now in the primary. we want people running i think that will do the best thing for america. i don't know that any of those people that robert just mentioned fit that bill. >> dana: your accent is a thrill. i love it. it's australian. thanks, robert and nick. >> thank you. >> dana: a fox news alert. new zealand is ban ago sault weapons. the prime minister announcing the change days after deadly attacks. jonathan hunt explains it from los angeles. jonathan? >> dana, it's a move that has been made with stunning speed. just six days since the tearist massacre carried out by a self-described white supremacist using a high capacity rifle. those sort of weapons and in the prime ministers words and military-style semiautomatics are now immediately banned from being sold and will be completely banned under a law expected to be enacted within weeks or even days. it's not clear exactly how many weapons will be affected. new zealand has around 250,000 licensed gun owners. officials believe there's about 1.5 million guns. many of them unregistered in the country. the number of high capacity semiautomatics is unclear. but it's likely in the thousands according to experts. new zealand's move was praised by leading democrats here. congress woman alexandria ocasio-cortez saying on twitter, this is what leadership looks like. democratic presidential hopeful bernie sanders saying "we must follow new zealand's lead. take on the nra and ban the sale and distribution of assault weapons in the united states." to which the nra spokeswoman responded saying the u.s. isn't new zealand. while they don't have a right to bear arms and to self-defense, we do. so while new zealand changes, dana, the gun control debate here the same as it always been. >> dana: jonathan hunt, thank you. investigations widening into two deadly boeing plane crashes. and a florida republican pushing a bill that would curtail voting rights. we talk to two critics before their efforts to stop it. check out the new episode of my podcast with chris stirewalt. we talk about the possibility of biden to wait too long and the appeal of beto o'rourke. it's available on download to itunes wherever you listen. it's a reminder of your struggles with psoriasis. but what if your psoriasis symptoms didn't follow you around? that's why there's ilumya. with just 2 doses, a majority of people were clear or almost clear. and over time, even more people were clear or almost clear. all with dosing 4 times a year... after 2 initial doses. plus, ilumya was shown to have similar risks of infections compared to placebo. don't use if you are allergic to ilumya or any of its ingredients. before starting treatment, your doctor should check for tuberculosis and infections. after checking there is no need for routine lab monitoring unless your doctor advises it. ilumya may increase your risk of infections and lower your ability to fight them. tell your doctor if you have an infection or have symptoms, or if you plan to or have recently received a vaccine. this could be your chance to leave your psoriasis symptoms behind. ask your doctor for ilumya today, for a clearer tomorrow. >> shepard: shepard smith on the fox news deck. a new study shows elite colleges may not be worth it when it come to the costs. and ten jobs that are not worth the cost of getting a degree. that and the news top of the hour on "shepard smith reporting". >> dana: so the fbi is now joining a criminal probe into boeing. investigators want to know why the 737 max jet was certified ahead of two deadly crashes that left 300 people dead in ethiopia and indonesia. both jets lacked two safety features partly because boeing charged extra for the features. boeing will retro-fit all of the 737 max jets. and the pentagon launching an investigation of patrick shanahan in which he gave his former employer, boeing, special treatment. and a battle is brewing over voting rights in florida as the republican-controlled house approved a bill to curtail the ability for ex-felons to vote. now they're pushing back. a coalition reading in part -- >> the authors of that piece with me now, desmond meade and neil volz. let's started with you, desmond. i wonder what you thought would happen in this implementation phase? you overcame a lot. you got the amendment to pass by a healthy margin. looks like you're having to fight again. >> first of all, thank you for having us on. i think what sits at the heart of this discussion is the lives of millions of people that have paid their debt to society and the will of over 5.1 million voters that voted yes on amendment 4. what is so significant about that, we're talking about people from all walks of life, all politic political persuasion that came together around say florida should be a second chance state. to not heed to what they want is a misstep. we're talking about folks that have done their time, that are out, trying to be productive citizens. being able to vote is a special thing for a person who has not experienced it for quite some time. >> dana: neil, what do you think about the legislature and basically they're saying that the implementation has to be taken care of, they're going to be responsible for these types of things. does that hold a lot of water? >> dana, thanks for having us on. as somebody that has been involved in conservative politics for 20 years, you have elected officials engaging in the process to pick their own voters. that doesn't sit well with people from any walk of life, any political background. we think there's just a better way to do this. the voters spoke very clearly. nearly 65% of the people supported the idea when a debt is paid, it's paid. in this state, there's a process in place that determines whether somebody has completed their sentence. we think it would be wise to simply take those standards and move forward using those standards. we don't need to create a new government bureaucracy or jumping down every possible rabbit hole that exists in this conversation. this is about people, it's not about politics. we think we can move forward in a better way. >> shepard: if the legislature and the governor decides to go in a direction that you think is antithetical to what was passed in the amendment, what is your remedy? what is the next step? >> i believe at the end of the day, we have worked too hard and waited so long to get our rights restored to just allow anyone, any politician to just take it away with some legislation. so we are prepared to defend our new-found right. we're prepared to defend what is in the constitution. the florida constitution, which i must add that the language that is in that constitution was vetted by the highest court in the state of florida. in every supreme court justice unanimously approved that language. >> dana: i remember that. >> so we are prepared to defend this. guess what? it's our constitutional right right now and we don't want politicians toying with that. >> dana: yes, andrew gillum who lost to desantis in florida will have a new effort. he's announcing yesterday to "the new york times" saying florida is tired of being a cheap date. you can't just come in when it's a presidential election. republicans have been disciplined in that state for 24 years. now it's time for democrats to do the same. rick scott, who is florida's senator, he said this on "fox and friends." >> andrew gillum, get people to vote. it's our job to tell people what you believe in and they'll vote for you. >> dana: i want your thoughts, neil, in addition to what you're working on, the voter registration and these efforts, a higher priority for both parties? >> gosh, i sure hope voter registration is a higher priority for both parties across the country. as somebody that lost the ability to vote and was granted that ability by the voters and lives with real gratitude to that decision, there's no one that believes stronger than i do or desmond or the people part of our ability to vote. when you talk about next steps for us and this movement, we will continue to advocate and outline our beliefs and what we think is best for the people that are impacted by amendment for. we'll also be engaged in helping people get more civically engaged and becoming leaders in their communities and trans norm our state. >> dana: that gives me a chance to ask desmond the last question. when you were on before the amendment passed and now you're here, you have this next hurdle. what is next for you? what do you want to do next? >> well, my goals are to try to see how we can take amendment 4, the victory of amendment 4 and how we won that based on live, forgiveness and redemption and embrace those spirits. get this country excited about being registered to vote. get folks excited about participating in elections and being more civically engaged. we feel we're great for the rest of the country, to let them know how important it is to get involved and hold our elected officials a couldn't able. >> dana: thanks, neil and december month. >> thanks. >> dana: roger stone invoking the fifth. we'll tell you why. check this out. that was an exciting moment celebrating a major victory. why she's so happy. plusser her plans for the future. your home's value. the newday va loan lets you refinance your mortgages, consolidate your credit card debt, put cash in the bank, and lower your payments over 600 dollars a month. call today. and get the financial peace of mind every veteran deserves. go to newdayusa.com, or call 1-877-806-8332. our mission is to provide complete, balanced nutrition... for strength and energy! whoo-hoo! great-tasting ensure. with nine grams of protein and twenty-six vitamins and minerals. ensure. now up to 30 grams of protein for strength and energy! >> dana: and now a look at other stories. it's our daily three. roger stone invokes the fifth amendment. he sent a letter to the house judiciary committing denying a request for documents related to president trump. robert kraft doesn't want his records going public. kraft and others were caught in a massage parlor sting. a new report from the government accountability office finds that if you get hurt and ride in an air ambulance, it will be a hefty bill. the average price, $36,000 and not covered by insurance. those recovery efforts underway in the midwest after damaging floods swamped much of the region destroying homes and roads and crop lands and bringing rivers to record levels. mike tobin has more. >> hi, dana. the river here in freeport, illinois, is down from its record levels by about 18 inches. the police chief here tells me that he wants to start letting people back into their homes and businesses. first, he wants to bring out and engineer to see if the roads have been undermined. you have about 175 people here that have been displaced. craig, missouri, has a new problem. overnight, the swollen waters of the missouri river breached the levee. the flood water poured in over the berms. emergency crews worked people getting people to safety. the ems chief says he never saw anything like that. >> the water is extremely cold. you can get hypothermia real quick. i've been with the district since 93. we never had water like this here. >> particularly in nebraska and iowa, much of the devastation has been to livestock. so the nebraska national guard comes to the rescue in big ch-47 chinook helicopters. they're dropping hay to the herd stranded by the floods. and also, trains. high water and track wash-outs in high what, nebraska, missouri, union pacific says crews are working around the clock to clear and repair flooded trail lines. amtrak has suspended services because the freights needed to use their lines. the army corps of engineer is reporting in the missouri basin alone, 28 levees have been overtopped or breached. >> mike tobin, thank you. >> dana: a maryland mom of five with a lot to celebrate. [screaming]. >> dana: lakeisha ball battled breast cancer for two years and went to remission twice and relapsed twice. this year, she's cancer free and now she plans to become an advocate to help other women. she got to ring the bell. i don't blame her. wish her the very best. thank for joining us. i'll be on "the five" later on. it's a thursday. i'm dana perino. here's shep. >> shepard: it looks like those hollywood stars accused of bribing their kids way into top schools could have saved a lot of money. new studies shows students with similar grades have the same level of success no matter how elite the university. also, the times when college in general could be a waste of money. we'll look into the study that lists the top ten jobs not worth the tuition it takes to get the degree. reporting begins now. we've been tweeted. our reporting begins with president trump announcing by twitter a change to decades of united states middle east policy. tweet away.
wanted. i barely know him, but just take a look, a stone cold loser and husband from hell. trump and george conway have been publicly feuding since conway questioned trump's mental fitness. sarah, how is george conway responding to the president this morning? >> well, ryan, this is certainly getting a lot more personal. president trump potentially elevating george conway to new levels of recognition by directly engaging with him. george conway is a prominent d.c. lawyer and a longstanding critic of president trump. after trump weighed in this morning for what appears to be the first time weighing in on the conways' marriage, mr. conway responded by writing, you are nuts and also claiming that the president is proving his point by taking the time to write such a rebuttal. mr. conway spoke to the "washington post," tried to explain the frequency of his barbs against his wife's boss. he said the incompetence is just maddening the watch. t the tweeting is just the way to get it out of the way so i can get it off my chest so i don't end up screaming at her about it. the "washington post" did publish a letter that suggested that mr. conway actually turned down a job in the justice department in 2017. keep in mind as you mentioned this all began when mr. conway was claiming on twitter that president trump has mental health problems. he even tweeted out images from a diagnostic manual for mental health conditions. we should note that george conway is not a psychiatrist. this was just speculation on his part, but at this point it's morphed into a feud that has roped in allies of the white house, allies of kellyanne conway, even president trump himself now defending the top counselor to the president. >> something that only seems to happen in the trump administration. sarah, thank you. kellyanne conway recently talked about her husband with cnn's dana bash. this was before the president and george conway traded insults this week. take a listen. >> now we have a president who's actually criticized his own attorney general. >> watch tv and twitter lately and one of trump's most vicious critics is her own husband george, striking hard and deep with his latest attack on the president's mental state, calling it narcissistic personal ty disorder. >> i don't share those concerns. >> we spoke before the latest drama. but well after her husband started going after her boss, which she says she didn't see coming. george was so excited, literally crying with joy in his maga hat on election night. so in that way he's changed. he's changed his opinion on i guess matters of the presidency. but i haven't and donald trump hasn't. >> you mean mr. kellyanne conway? >> the day he was out on the south lawn and he called george mr. kellyanne conway struck me. sounded like he was sending a message. >> i thought it was him being donald trump. it was clever. it's an unusual situation, especially in politics or washington for a husband to get his notoriety and power through his wife. it's usually the other way around. it's funny because people say, george, you should come to harvard and speak side by side. i think okay but then i'd have to give him my power. >> the president's top allies are stepping up their response to george conway on twitter and rallying around her personally as a mother of four children. >> these children are now 14, 14, 10 and 9. they're all old enough to read everything and they're all old enough to have embraced d.c. as home, which took a while, especially for one of my children took a long time. >> it's a tough age to move. >> it's a tough age to move. let's face it, it isccasion whe moving for mom's job. >> that interview was prior this week back and forth between the president and kellyanne conway's husband. it is part of dana bash's "badass women in washington." doug high is a former communications director for the republican national committee. it seems pretty clear that president trump is attempting to insult george conway by calling him mr. kellyanne conway. but if someone were to refer to me as mr. carrie nobles, i would consider that to be the highest compliment. how can this continue? how can kellyanne conway continue to work for donald trump if he's continuing to say these things about her husband and her husband saying these things about him? >> yeah. i think so much of what we've seen in this white house over the past couple years is really reminiscent of professional wrestling where donald trump is sometimes the bad guy, sometimes the good guy. whether you cheer him or you boo him, as long as you're watching they're happy. that also means that a lot of this is prescripted in advance. not to say it's fake, but it's prescripted in advance. we know that donald trump always defines himself as a counter puncher. these aren't necessarily productive counter punches but that's clearly what's happening right now. >> there are a lot of people who don't like donald trump and are probably cheering george conway on. he's really the one that started all of this, didn't he? >> well, sure. usually presidents rise above this. i would tell you there's not a lot that george conway's tweeted that i would necessarily disagree with although i wouldn't go as far as some of the name calling. but ultimately this is up to the white house and how it responds. this is all it always responds. we're in deja vu all over again. but the reality is also a political reality. what i hear so often from republicans on capitol hill is a resigned here we go again moment. for this white house, if i were advising them and blessedly i am not, i would say mr. president, you have great economic news almost on a weekly basis. just yesterday cnn put out a poll that had the economic approval at 71%, the highest since it's been since 2001. i would tell the president, focus on your good economic news that plays to your business record all day every day. stay out of these fights whether it's with george conway or john mccain. >> speaking of the president picking fights, you mentioned john mccain. that's obviously a feud that has continued long after the senator's death. i want to talk about republican senator johnny isakson. he said, quote, i just want to lay it on the line that the country deserves better, the mccain family deserves better. i don't care if he's president of the united states, owns all the real estate in new york or is building the great est immigration system in the woorl, nothing is more important than the integrity of the country and those who fought and risked their lives for all of us. johnny isakson not a flame thrower, he's also somebody who votes with president trump most of the time. how big of a deal is this to see someone like senator isakson step out and defend john mccain so publicly? >> it is significant. one of the things also that's significant about this is senator isakson is also the chairman of the veterans affairs committee, which says this isn't just an attack on john mccain and his heroism. senator isakson also views this as an attack on all veterans who have served. so to see these kind of attacks on one veteran certainly affects all veterans. mitt romney has spoken out as well and i hope more republicans do. >> we'll see if senator isakson says more about this. house democrats wish the president were as generous with his documents as he is with his tweets. congressman elijah cummings says the white house hasn't handed over a single piece of paper or offered a single official to testify as his oversight committee looks into a series of investigations into the trump administration. cummings says he has gotten an unprecedented level of stonewalling, delay and obstruction. and on top of that, the house judiciary committee says the white house has missed a deadline to turn over documents as it looks into whether president trump abused his powers. bottom line, it is looking like a long, subpoena-filled battle lies ahead between the white house and the congress. sara murray is in washington and manu raju is on capitol hill with more on this story. what are you hearing from democrats on the hill? >> reporter: democrats are trying to make the case they believe that the white house is being completely uncooperative in all of their oversight requests. they say these have been legitimate oversight requests. the white house has essentially ignored those requests or has stalled, has not provided witnesses. even former officials like john kelly who elijah cummings wants to speak with as part of his investigation into security clearances at the white house, those former officials are being essentially blocked by the white house and not coming forward according to democrat who s who this is completely unprecedented. elijah cummings took his case to the "washington post" and wrote in an op-ed, the white house is engaged in an unpress denlted level of stonewalling delay and obstruction. the white house has not turned over a single piece of paper to our committee or made a single official available for testimony. one other committee that's doing significant investigation is the house judiciary committee run by jerry nadler. he requested documents from a variety of officials and entities including the white house, asked for responses by this past monday as part of his investigation into obstruction of justice potentially at the white house. the white house missed that deadline. part of the request for information jerry nadler asked to learn more about that hush money scheme that the president apparently was involved in to silence stories about those alleged affairs that he had. these are something this committee wants to look into. nadler last night in a town hall in new york was asked about michael cohen, asked about the president. he said the president has committed crimes. >> we're not talking about what michael cohen said. he was indicted. michael cohen was indicted for illegally paying off a woman to not talk about what had happened to her in order -- no, he was indicted for this and he pleaded guilty. in order to affect the election. that is a crime. he pleaded guilty to that. the indictment said that he did so at the request of individuals numb number one. individual number one being the president, makes him part of the crime. >> reporter: he went onto say the president was not protected by justice department guidelines preventing a sitting president from being indicted. that is unaspes a one aspect of judiciary committee's investigation into the president's conduct. they say they're not getting my cooperation from the white house. >> from this special counsel's perspective, they said they're too busy to respond to a request for manafort documents. kwh >> reporter: that's right. apparently the mueller team is very busy doing what we don't know exactly. they were supposed to respond to this effort to have some documents unsealed in paul manafort's case. in a filing, mueller's team are asking the judge for an extension. the big question is what is this other work they are working so diligently on? is there another investigative matter at hand that we don't know about? are they working on finishing up the mueller report to hand it over to attorney general bill barr in the coming days? we just don't know the answer to that. we learned deputy attorney general rod rosenstein was slated to leave the justice department essentially any day now. now he's made it clear he wants to be at the justice department when the mueller report comes out. he sees himself as something of a head shield and he wants to be here to take the bullets, take the punches if there are any whether the mueller report comes out. we still don't have a good sense of the timing. >> we continue to find bread crumbs but no real tangible information from the special counsel's office. thank you for those report. let's talk a little bit about this with ellie honing. unpack this for me. let's talk about the situation with the oversight committee and chairman cummings. he's not happy that the white house isn't cooperating with his committee. what options does he have? >> his next option is to issue a subpoena. this is both a legal move and a political statement by the white house so just straight up stonewall, not even give them any token documents, just say you get nothing, your move. now all the house committees, their next move is so issue a subpoena which now takes it out of the realm of just a request by a letter to you are now being formally ordered, compelled by the congress to produce these documents. if the white house resists that, then we're going to end up in court and we're going to have a legal battle over separation of powers. there's a couple different ways the white house could object to a subpoena. they could argue it's overbroad, they could argue it's outside the scope of the committee, they could take the fifth and executive privilege, which means certain communications between the president and his top advisors are meant to remain secret. that will take us down the road of the richard nixon supreme court case of 1974 which did not end well for nixon. >> they're saying they need more time to deal with an extension in the paul manafort case. does this have anything to do with the mueller report? what can we glean from this? >> it is very rare, not completely unheard of but very rare for prosecutors to say we just couldn't make it on time. i don't think mueller's team has ever done that other than this. the way i was trained at the southern district of new york is you're always ready even if a judge gives you a seemingly impossible deadline you never say you can't do it, you get it done. the fact they've said sorry, you're honor, can't quite get there tells me they're really churning hard on something. whether that's the report, whether that's the next round of indictments, i don't know. >> is there as good a chance that it's indictments? >> it could be that. there are several names that have surfaced during the course of this investigation i think are in potential jeopardy. jerome corsi. there's been questions about eric prince, questions about donald trump jr. it wouldn't surprise me if there are more arrests there for mueller. >> finally this last tea leaf we got from the attorney general. rod rosenstein is going to stay on. he calls himself a heat shield for robert mueller and this investigation. does this maybe tell us that the mueller report isn't as imminent as we might think? >> it should be that he's got to stick around until it comes out. there's going to be heat clearly, but which way? i do think it's a good thing that rosenstein stay there is t. still to come, 2020 candidate beto o'rourke making his first trip to new hampshire this morning just as a new cnn poll gives a new look at who's leading the democratic field. plus a new report reveals how an off duty pilot saved a different flight the day before the doomed lion air crash. from the start, the c-class was ahead of its time. still, we never stopped making it stronger. faster. smarter. because to be the best, is to never ever stop making it better. the new 2019 c-class family. visit your local mercedes-benz dealer for exceptional lease & financing offers during the mercedes-benz spring event. going on now. i was on the fence about changing from a manual to an electric toothbrush. but my hygienist said going electric could lead to way cleaner teeth. she said, get the one inspired by dentists, with a round brush head. go pro with oral-b. oral-b's gentle rounded brush head removes more plaque along the gum line. for cleaner teeth and healthier gums. and unlike sonicare, oral-b is the first electric toothbrush brand accepted by the ada for its effectiveness and safety. what an amazing clean! i'll only use an oral-b! oral-b. brush like a pro. ewith no down payment s and not one dollarome out of pocket for closing costs. no down payment, no closing costs. why rent when you can buy? call 1-833-853-7627 ♪ ♪ if you have recurring constipation and belly pain, talk to your doctor and say yesss! to linzess. yesss! linzess treats adults with ibs with constipation or chronic constipation. linzess can help relieve your belly pain, and lets you have more frequent and complete bowel movements. see if you're eligible to get 90 days for as little as 30 dollars. do not give linzess to children less than 6, and it should not be given to children 6 to less than 18, it may harm them. do not take linzess if you have a bowel blockage. get immediate help if you develop unusual or severe stomach pain, especially with bloody or black stools. the most common side effect is diarrhea, sometimes severe. if it's severe, stop taking linzess and call your doctor right away. other side effects include gas, stomach-area pain, and swelling. so say yesss! to help for recurring constipation. yesss! to help for belly pain. talk to your doctor and say yesss! linzess. beto o'rourke's huge first day haul of $6.1 million was fuelled by 128,000 what he's calling unique contributors. that's what the democratic presidential candidate said about his fund-raising numbers after a campaign event in new hampshire this morning. it's his first trip to the critical primary state as a candidate. he's holding multiple events today. in fact, one is about to get underway in plymouth. o'rourke is hoping that the mountain of cash can give him a bounce in the polls. a new cnn poll of democrats and democrat leaning voters has him in fourth place right now. joe biden, who's not officially in the race, is on top with 28%, followed by bernie sanders and kamala harris. jeff zeleny joins me from washington. what's beto o'rourke saying? >> he is talking about these fund-raising numbers, of course. that's one of the big headlines of the first week of his candidacy. there has been a question sort of hanging over him, where did all this $6.1 million come from. he had this to say about that. >> more than 128,000 unique contributions made in the first 24 hours from every state in the country. $47 was the average contribution. all of it came from people. not a dime from pacs or lobbyists. it helps us on our way to becoming the largest grassroots campaign. >> he's talking there breaking down the numbers a little bit. let's break them down a little bit more, mainly comparing him with bernie sanders who of course raised just about $6 million and he of course raised an average of $27 on his contributions. you can see the numbers there broken down. what does that actually tell us? it means that beto o'rourke is also getting some bigger checks. some donors are either maxing out to him giving him $2800 and then of course getting some smaller contributions. bernie sanders has always been fuelled by a lot of small contributions. we should make the point here that the fund raising that beto o'rourke is doing seems to me much more like the barack obama fund-raising, having that mix of small dollar excitement, small dollar contributions and the larger establishment money if you will. we will not know the full picture of any of this until april when these full reports are filed. >> we're taking the candidate's word for it up until this point. >> we are. >> i want to ask you what you think about these 2020 polls. >> sure. >> what in particular stands out to you? >> i think that the thing in particular is kamala harris. she had the biggest bounce. of course she has been campaigning all year long. she jumped in just at basically the beginning of january. she had a big rise in there. one thing i am struck by there is a big majority, some 56% of democratic voters and democratic leaning voters who say their top priority is defeating the president. of that subset, bernie sanders fares the worst among the top contenders because they want someone who can beat him. we are going to talk about this a lot. the purity test versus the pragmatic test. a lot of democrats looking for someone who can beat president trump. senator sanders says he is one of them. >> the sanders camp would tell you his purity makes him the most electable. >> indeed. >> joining me now to talk more about this cnn politics repor r er. so much attention has been placed on beto o'rourke's fund-raising numbers. bernie sanders' campaign is going to make this heavy emphasis on the fact they have more unique contributors. does that really matter? >> beto o'rourke's numbers are more similar to barack obama's numbers and i think that's not by mistake. i think once we start really understanding how the campaigns are folding, we're going to see a number of obama former campaign staffers and consultants supporting his campaign. i think the other thing that's interesting for us, the field is crowded. there are a number of democratic contenders. and any little small thing that will differentiate one person from another, i think they're going to tap into. bernie sanders, we know the talking points probably won't change that much. that $27 is going to be key to him because he's saying i'm not just for you little guy, i'm one of you. >> it seems as though we're losing count of how many days we've been on the biden watch. the ball moves a little bit closer every day but he's not quite there yet. you say he's making a mistake by holding out for so long. why is that? >> i do think incrementalism reaches the point of insanity. everyone knows he's running so it's kind of like what's the wait for. here's what i think. i think that biden kind of opens himself up to being picked apart a little bit, criticized, is he too dependent on big donors, is he going to have too moderate a message. and he's not in the race so he can't defend himself. that's at least part of it. the other thing is in reporting done by jeff zeleny, there appears to be this kind of in inevitability message. everything aimed at saying this is really about biden versus trump. it's not a crowded field of equals. it's biden and everybody else. how did that work out for hillary clinton in 2016? >> i imagine the kamala harris camp is paying close attention to that especially as she continues to quietly sneak up in the polls. what do you think about the movement we're seeing from the harris campaign? >> i think the best thing that could have happened for kamala harris's campaign is for people to underestimate her. maya harris, who is her campaign chair, also her sister, a brilliant campaign mind, i think that is the best thing that could have happened. again, i just want to say this very clearly. the field is already crowded, everyone has not yet announced, ala biden. and i also think it's important for us to understand it's 2019 and it's only march. we have a long way to go. there's a number of things that could happen. i was speaking last night at tennessee state university and a young person asked who do i expect to win and i was like, it is way too early to call. we see those screens come up during primary nights and election nights on cnn and it is entirely too early to call. kamala harris's folks are banking on people continuing to underestimate how strategic and how brilliant that campaign has been run thus far and will continue to be run. >> there's no truth to the fact that i'm so swimming in 2020 that i'm writing 2020 on my checks. we're not quite there yet. i do want to talk about president trump's role in all of this. he said, quote, the democrats are getting very strange, is how he put it. now they want to change the voting age to 16, abolish the electoral college and increase the number of supreme court justices. actually you've got to win at the ballot box. we're often critical of the way donald trump attacks his democratic opponents, but this is actually some fairly reasonable criticisms of some more -- i don't want to say radical decisions or policy positions that democrats have taken that may raise some eyebrows. do you think he was smart by going after this? >> leaving aside my constant confusion over what he puts in quotations and what he capitalizes in his tweets, i do think nancy pelosi said last week that impeachment is not where we're going to go yet and i think you will hear skept stic skepticism about adding more supreme court justices. yes, elizabeth warren came out in favor of abolishing the electoral college. my guess is you're not going to see the leadership line up behind that. the 2020 candidates really push the envelope because they need to appeal to the base. whereas the congressional democratic party led by nancy pelosi will say we're focused on doing the business of the american people on pragmatic solutions to get things done. i think that is the natural role we always see when there's an open presidential nomination. i do think trump will seize on the idea that democrats in his words will focus on socialism and impeaching him because that rallies his base. we'll see how much democrats fall into that trap or not. >> i was going to say really quickly, i think it's important for us to understand too i think this is demonstrating that there's a rising of a new, more visible base. this base has been here for years but finally democrats are really starting to see the importance of the black vote that is also why reparations has been a point of discussion. abolishing the electoral college isn't just about undermining the democracy. it's about demonstrating for once that it's time for black people -- the 400th anniversary of slaves being in this country to finally have their own say and nobody speaking for them. >> which was the point that elizabeth warren made in that town hall. don't forget to watch a special cnn town hall with john hickenlooper. dana bash will moderate. it will be in atlanta tonight at 10:00 eastern. coming up, the race is on for 2020 and we're not just talking about the democrats. next, cnn gets a rare look inside the trump reelection machine. welcome to the place where people go to learn about their medicare options... before they're on medicare. come on in. you're turning 65 soon? 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>> that's right, ryan. what struck me the first moment that i walked into those office that is the trump campaign has now in arlington, virginia, was how different the office space was from what the campaign had in 2016. there were no moldy pipes or electrical wires hanging from the ceiling, no concrete slabs, no unpainted drywall. instead you have this sleek modern office with glass walled offices inside. it's just such a stark contrast to what we saw back in 2016. but it goes so much beyond just the office itself. it's how structured this reelection effort is compared to 2016. they've already hired dozens of staff. they are sitting on lots and lots of cash. they answered 2019 with $19 million in cash on hand after raising more than $100 million in the past two years. this is a reelection campaign that has gotten started earlier than any presidential reelection campaign before. you may remember that the president's campaign actually filed for reelection just hours after the president was nass inaugur inaugurated back in 2017. brad parscale is working in lock step with the reenc in this unprecedented merger to essentially meld the two operations, field operations well ahead of the general election, something they say is going to position them perfectly once democrats have a nominee. brad parscale is very aware of the fact that ultimately it is going to be the president's campaign and defined him hi ed . >> the president says involved. when i show him the direction we're going, the things we're building, he's excited and he gives me input. i've always said he's the campaign director, the finance director. he's the master of the trump train and i'm the conductor. >> he knows obviously the gain is going to be defined by the president given his controversial nature, the polling numbers that he has and he's also propelling the campaign with a digital focus strategy, one that's going to heavily rely on the rnc's data analytics operation. if you look at what the campaign has spent already on digital advertising, $4.5 million so far, already outpacing those democratic candidates. they say the data and lalytics rnc has, really this is going to be a super charged version of the 2016 campaign are the president really focused on his base. you're going to see much of the same this time around, just with many, many more resources. >> as of right now, he doesn't have to worry about a primary opponent so he can focus everything on the general election. thank you for that inside look into the trump campaign. coming up, new details about the final moments of the doomed lion air flight and the frantic search for a fix. what the pilots tried to do to safe those on board before it crashed. does your house still smell stuffy? 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(vo) quickbooks. backing you. cnn has learned that trump administration officials are discussing how to respond if north korea makes a provocative new move, a satellite launch. tensions between the two countries have escalated since president trump's failed summit with kim jong-un in hanoi, and any weapons tests would go against the repeated assurances we've heard from president trump about the progress he's made with north korean leaders. >> now there's no missile testing, there's no rocket testing. there's no nuclear testing. >> chairman kim promised me last night, regardless he's not going to do testing of rockets and nuclear -- not going to do testing. >> all right. so joining me now to talk about this, cnn national security reporter kylie atwood. what are you hearing about how white house officials are preparing for this behind the scenes? >> well, ryan, internally the white house is having discussions right now about how they should react if north korea does indeed make a provocative move in launching a satellite. now, the administration has been crystal clear over the last few weeks, that it would not be good. it would essentially be suicidal for u.s.-north korea ongoing negotiations if north korea were to test, carry out a nuclear or missile test. john bolton just over the weekend, the national security adviser, said that trump himself would be very, very disappointed if north korea made that move. however, publicly, they have not said how the u.s. would react, how the trump administration would react if north korea makes the move in launching a satellite. it is a different kind of launch, but it is still banned by u.n. security council resolutions. >> yes. talk about that a little bit more. there is a big difference between a satellite launch and a nuclear missile or even a missile that's being tested for a nuclear weapon. how would that be viewed by the american government? >> that's right. so you could make the argument that a satellite launch is using technology and is outside of the nuclear infrastructure of north korea's program at least formally, but of course, the devil is in the details. the actual technology that is used for a satellite launch is very similar to that that is used for an ibcm launch. so essentially, it is related. however, maybe not directly to north korea's nuclear program. the other thing to consider here is the fact that secretary of state mike pompeo earlier this year reacted very strongly, very aggressively when iran tried to carry out a satellite test saying it was a flagrant -- a flagrant move. it was in violation of u.n. security council resolutions. so the trump administration would be walking a fine line if it were to react any differently to the same move by the north koreans. >> all right. kylie atwood, thank you for that report. we appreciate it, and we are going to be right back after going to be right back after this short break. takes more than just investment advice. from insurance to savings to retirement, it takes someone with experience and knowledge who can help me build a complete plan. brian, my certified financial planner™ professional, is committed to working in my best interest. i call it my "comfortable future plan," and it's all possible with a cfp® professional. find your certified financial planner™ professional at letsmakeaplan.org. so, you're open all day, that's what 24/7 means, sugar. kind of like how you get 24/7 access to licensed agents with geico. hmm? yeah, you just go online, or give them a call anytime. you don't say. yep. now what will it take to get 24/7 access to that lemon meringue pie? pie! pie's coming! that's what it takes, baby. geico®. great service from licensed agents, 24/7. itso chantix can help you quit "slow turkey." along with support, chantix is proven to help you quit. with chantix you can keep smoking at first and ease into quitting so when the day arrives, you'll be more ready to kiss cigarettes goodbye. when you try to quit smoking, with or without chantix. you may have nicotine withdrawal symptoms. stop chantix and get help right away if you have changes in behavior or thinking, aggression, hostility, depressed mood, suicidal thoughts or actions, seizures, new or worse heart or blood vessel problems, sleepwalking, or life- threatening allergic and skin reactions. decrease alcohol use. use caution driving or operating machinery. tell your doctor if you've had mental health problems. the most common side effect is nausea. talk to your doctor about chantix. ♪ when you have nausea, ♪ heartburn, ♪ indigestion, ♪ upset stomach, ♪ diarrhea... girl, pepto ultra coating will treat your stomach right. ♪nausea, heartburn, ♪ indigestion, upset stomach, ♪ diarrhea... try pepto with ultra coating. want more from your entejust say teach me more. into your xfinice remote to discover all sorts of tips and tricks in x1. can i find my wifi password? just ask. 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63 million. i had 206-223 in the electoral college. 306-223. and i'm saying to myself, wait a minute, i just won one of the greatest elections of all-time in the history of this country, and even you all admit that, and now i have somebody writing a report that never got a vote? it's called the mueller report. so, explain that because my voters don't get it. and i don't get it. >> "keeping them honest," the president's victory, indeed, was a remarkable upset. yes, the president is right no one voted for the attorney general or deputy attorney general or robert mueller. the president glossed over an important fact, the president appointed the deputy attorney general who in turn appointed robert mueller. nose are the facts. i spoke about it earlier tonight with joaquin castro. who sits on the house intelligence committee. i thought i learned every possible line of attack from the president. the argument that mueller is somehow illegitimate because he's never gotten any votes certainly seems to be a new one. >> yeah, that was a very strange thing for the president to say. there are different parts of the government and not everybody's elected, but they still have important responsibilities. that includes in this case a prosecutor, the special counsel. and his role is to determine, investigate and determine whether somebody committed a crime. and if so, to prosecute that person. so it has nothing to do with politics or standing for election or getting a vote. that's his role in the government. >> i wonder how likely do you think it is that president will actually support releasing the mueller findings once he knows what's in them? again, we have no idea whether they'll be good for the president or bad for the president, but, i mean, he'd also said in the past, you know, he'd be happy to sit down with mueller for an interview, which obviously never ended up happening. >> yeah. i suspect that the president and his team will read through the report, make a determination about whether they think it's favorable to them or not, and based on that, decide whether it's going to be made public. you see the tact that they're taking in terms of their relationship with congress right now and not responding to subpoenas, not turning over documents that have been requested, and it's a calculation for them. i think they're going to fight every step of the way. if the president thinks that releasing that report to the public will be damaging. and also, anderson, it should be noted that most of all, the mueller report is owed, of course, to congress, but it's a report that's owed to the american people because it's the american people who suffered through having a foreign nation interfere in their elections in 2016. so this should absolutely be a public report. >> it's owed, you say, but, i mean, in terms of the mandate, the mandate isn't for robert mueller to decide, really, how the report is released. >> that's true, and we're counting on a government that should realize that it should be transparent and accountable. so far this administration on many occasions has failed that test, but i hope that they will release that report. >> do you expect them to -- to cite executive privilege, to try to at least -- if the report is released, to at least remove some aspects of it? or hide some aspects of it? >> yeah. i certainly don't put it past this administration to try to do that, try to redact certain things or, perhaps, take out certain things. >> i mean, it's their right to do that. >> yeah. i mean, that would be within their purview, but remember, if they take out something that's significant or substantial, i mean, they're really doing an injustice to the american people to try to cover up something significant and meaningful that's in that report. >> next week, your committee's holding a public hearing with felix sater, think it's on wednesday. the point person for the trump tower moscow project. he at one point had an office on the same floor as donald trump in trump tower. i'm wondering how important you think he is, what questions you want to -- at least what kind of areas you want to discuss with him. >> he was one of donald trump's, perhaps his main point person in russia, with russian oligarchs and part of the business with russia, so we want to get at what kind of business dealings the president had with russia or russian oligarchs that were close to vladimir putin and want to ask him exactly what he knows about all that. >> i'm sure you're well aware, lastly, your colleague, devin nunes, suing twitter, allegedly, he says he is, and several of its users accusing them of negligence and defamation. do you think he appreciates the irony in that given his deep and ardent support for the most powerful twitter attacker in the world? >> yeah. i think all of us, you know, get riled by twitter comments every once in a while, but i thought that that was a kind of a strange thing for devin nunes to do. >> yeah. we'll see how far it goes. congressman castro, appreciate it. thank you. let's dig deeper now with former clinton white house general counsel nelson cunningham, also garrett graff who's written extensively about robert mueller and cnn legal analyst laura coates. laura, the president saying today the report should be made public or he's fine with it. very well tomorrow, or the next day, could decide i don't really want that or, i mean, he said he would testify in front of mueller. obviously, that didn't happen. >> yeah, you have this kind of schizophrenic approach to this report. it's all been a part of this preemptive strike by the president of the united states to try to undermine its credibility, to try to gain a foothold in the court of public opinion because the hope is whatever the report says, and presumably for him, it's going to be negative, that's what he believes, he wants to be able to say, the fbi can't be trusted, peter strzok and lisa page, the idea that everyone's been against him, it's a great conspiracy, it's somebody who's being a sore loser in the democratic party. he's trying to have this entire thing launched. the issue, however, if we are believe he'd like it to come out, he undermines a little bit of the credibility of his own legal arguments later on to say there's no basis to have everything come out, if there's a privileged attached to it. so he almost cuts off his own nose to spite his face to show, yeah, bring it on, let me have it. he may not actually want that fight. >> garrett, you say you believe mueller may do one more round of indictments and do his speaking in those filings. if so, do you think mueller is close to finishing? >> absolutely. i think all signs are pointing this to be being more a matter of days or weeks than months at this point, and it seems, for all of the reasons you just went through with congressman castro, that mueller is not going to let his entire two-year investigation hinge on what bill barr decides to release when under what executive privilege, et cetera, et cetera. bob mueller, from day one in this case, has done his speaking through those indictments, through those court filings, through those guilty pleas, through those sentencing documents. >> he's added more details than necessary. >> absolutely. i think we have every reason to believe he's going to do that with one final round of indictments that ties up some of these loose threads and fills in some of the bread crumbs that he's left us along the way. >> nelson, you recently wrote that we may be focusing on the wrong report, there could be a second counterintelligence report filed. can you explain that? >> that's right. it's a piece i did in the "daily beast" last week. in addition to working in the clinton white house, i was also for six years a federal prosecutor in new york. in fact, rudy giuliani hired me and i know from that time the fbi is divided into two parts. half is the law enforcement side that we see very visibly. the other half of the fbi is the counterintelligence division, which is designed to protect american citizens, the american government, from foreign intelligence operations. when jim comey first revealed the scope of his investigation in march of 2017, he said, as part of our counterintelligence mission, we have begun an investigation into the president and his team. as we other counterintelligence reports, we will also look for evidence of crimes. so from the very first, this investigation was a counterintelligence report. not a criminal -- intelligence investigation, not a criminal one. why does that make a difference? because as garrett said, the way that a prosecutor lays out his case is through indictments, cases, guilty pleas. none of those things were designed to clearly tell a comprehensive story. a counterintelligence investigation, on the other hand, which is designed to find out who was trying to spy on us, how and why, is precisely designed to produce a report, and beyond that, there is a statute. we've all gone over the special counsel regulations. you've covered them tonight. that limit what bill barr can do. >> right. >> a counterintelligence report by statute goes from the fbi to the director of national intelligence and must be shared with the intelligence committees. >> interesting. >> if it's too sensitive, then it goes to the gang of eight which are the four heads of the intelligence committees and the four heads of the two chambers. >> yeah. >> they cannot block it. >> laura, when it comes to the white house, i mean, they -- the reporting was that they wanted to look at this before it goes anywhere, and possibly look at it for executive privilege. obviously, any classified information they have concerns about. do they have -- they have the right to do that, don't they? >> they do. you want the president to have executive privilege. >> there's a reason the president needs executive -- >> there's a great reason for it, the same reason you want attorney/client privilege or perhaps spousal privilege. the reason it's different is two things. number one, he actually had to be part of the executive at the time the conversations happened to exert executive privilege. >> it would only be anything while he was in the white house, not the transition, not the campaign. >> the transition is a little tricky. it hasn't been well established to figure out there's some reason to have it attached. things that happened as a candidate, somebody vying to be a member executive would not count. the other aspect of this, of course, is that the communications he had to have had to be with people under the nature of the executive. it can't just be because he's the president, everything is covered under the privilege. we saw this, of course, in the trump tower meeting, donald trump junior. he was trying to go into cya mode, perhaps, for his son. that may be part of a inquiry of a court who says the balancing test is the come telling candor we need for a president against the public's right to know. when the nixon case came up, of course, it's what a criminal court wanted to look at for privilege. they said in a criminal context the president can't willy-nilly assert the privilege and hope to avoid having justice. this is congress asking for it, though. it's not really a settled principle of law at this point, but ultimately if the privilege is the fulcrum, it has to deal with the executive branch, itself, with people he would enjoy the privilege with. that might not be the case for most of the conversations. >> garrett, if there is no, you know, collusion, conspiracy, that mueller -- it that happened or mueller was able to get evidence of, the president regardless of who else may be in the report, the president can very rightly say, look, i was right all along, there's no collusion, and see if his strategy of undercutting mueller and kind of sowing the seeds of that actually worked to make people ignore the rest of the stuff. >> yeah, and that's where i think it's really important to talk about what mueller has already found because we have sort of treated, you know, all of these stunning revelations out of mueller so far as if they don't count. and, you know, you heard the president bragging about his electoral victory today. well, what we now know that bob mueller has uncovered is that there were two separate criminal conspiracies that aided donald trump in his 2016 election. one run by the russian government, and one directed by individual number 1, the candidate donald trump, himself. and that bob mueller has brought both of those to light. he has separately, from both of those cases, shown that this was the most criminal presidential campaign in american history. where you've had the campaign chairman and deputy campaign chairman both convicted of working as an unregistered foreign agent of the ukrainian government in the midst of a $65 million money laundering scheme. the national security adviser was working for the government of turkey in the midst of his own lobbying scheme. and the president's chief fixer and lawyer was engaged in his own tax bank and taxi medallion fraud. i mean, this was a stunning amount of criminality surrounding effectively everyone at a senior level in the trump campaign in 2016. >> nelson, i mean, the house judiciary chairman adam schiff recently said the counterintelligence investigation looks into whether the president or anyone around him may be compromised by a foreign power. maybe more important than the criminal investigation, as you were talking about. but any counterintelligence investigation, it may go to, you know, the gang of eight or the intelligence committee members, but that would be classified, wouldn't it? i mean, it wouldn't be something that the public would see. >> it -- it could be classified. there is often a nonclassified summary which is produced which can be shared more broadly with members of congress. i think what a counterintelligence report can do is lay out without worrying about elements of a crime or without worrying about statute of limitations and the like. it can lay out the story. it's designed to lay out the story. what did the foreign power do? how did it do it? what were its means and methods? then what u.s. assets did they compromise or did they cooperate with in carrying out their intelligence mission? the whole purpose of it is to tell the story and why is it shared with congress? precisely so that congress can consider what action to take. i'm confident that the intelligence committee would find a way to begin to share the findings in an appropriate fashion with their counterparts on the judiciary committee and that's when both committees can really dig into what happened during the -- >> right. >> -- campaign and the transition. one more thing to note. obstruction of justice, obstructing an investigation, could, in fact, be part of the counterintelligence effort. why are you trying to -- why are you trying to investigate, block the foreign powers, the investigation? because you want to protect the foreign powers. >> is interesting. nelson cunningham, thank you. garrett graff as well, laura coates, appreciate it. up next, what this -- what this -- was this it? has the bottom reached with the president now seeking credit for the funeral of statesman and former p.o.w. john mccain? why does the president keep going after the late senator? will more members of his party speak out against it? ♪ plants capture co2. what if other kinds of plants captured it too? if these industrial plants had technology that captured carbon like trees we could help lower emissions. carbon capture is important technology - and experts agree. that's why we're working on ways to improve it. so plants... can be a little more... like plants. ♪ georgand a busy day ahead. george has entresto, a heart failure pill that helped keep people alive and out of the hospital. don't take entresto if pregnant; it can cause harm or death to an unborn baby. don't take entresto with an ace inhibitor or aliskiren, or if you've had angioedema with an ace or arb. the most serious side effects are angioedema, low blood pressure, kidney problems, or high blood potassium. ask your doctor about entresto. ♪ the beat goes on ♪ the beat goes on that was great! each day justin at work... walk. and after work. he does it all with dr. scholl's. only dr. scholl's has massaging gel insoles that provide all-day comfort. to keep him feeling more energized. dr. scholl's. born to move. ♪ pardon the interruption but this is big! now with t-mobile get the samsung galaxy s10e included with unlimited data for just $40 bucks a month with the most lobster dishes lobsterfesof the yearred lobster like lobster lover's dream and new ultimate lobsterfest surf and turf. so come lobsterfest today! and now for a limited time, get ten percent off red lobster to go. smile dad. i take medication for high blood pressure and cholesterol. but they might not be enough to protect my heart. adding bayer aspirin can further reduce the risk of another heart attack. because my second chance matters. be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. menew infallible full weards concealer by l'oreal. with an extra-large applicator and full-coverage formula. it shapes, covers, and contours. so much more than concealer. in 25 shades. new infallible full wear concealer even before president trump's latest attack on the late senator john mccain, he was already under fire for his prior attacks on the man. >> it's deplorable what he said. i will continue to speak out because there's one thing that we've got to do. you may not like immigration, may not like this, may not like that, may be a republican, may be a democrat, we're all americans. there aren't republican and democratic casualties on battlefield. there are american casualties. we should never reduce what they give to this country. political fodder. >> that's georgia republican senator johnny isakson before the president spoke out this afternoon at a defense plant in ohio. president's remarks were unprompted. no reporter asked him a question. it just came from deep within his own mind and it broke new ground. >> i endorsed him at his request and i gave him the kind of funeral that he wanted, which as president, i had to approve. i don't care about this. i didn't get thank youed. that's okay. we sent him on the way, but i wasn't a fan of john mccain. so now what we could say is now we're all set. i don't think i have to answer that question, but the press keeps, what do you think of mccain, what do you think -- not my kind of guy, but some people like him and think that's great. >> no one thanked him for giving john mccain the kind of funeral that john mccain wanted. "keeping them honest," the president neglects to mention at the time he had to be pressured into flying the white house flags at half-staff even though the rest of washington did because that's what you do for a hero. that gratitude pr for you in the president's mind. joining us now, former nebraska democratic senator bob kerrey, a senate colleague of john mccain and he, like senator mccain, served incredibly honorably in vietnam. senator kerrey, thanks for being with us. >> you're welcome. >> when you hear president talking about, not that he cares about being thanked but he wasn't thanked for the funeral of john mccain. >> he said he's not his kind of guy. his kind of guy is the guy that showed up and said, i don't want to go to vietnam, like he did. he said, i wasn't eligible to go to vietnam because i had bone spurs. you don't grow out of bone spurs. i call on the president, get your feet x-rayed. let's see those x-rays. i want to see. while john mccain was flying combat operations in vietnam, you were, i think, falsifying that you had bone spurs in order not to go to vietnam. now, i know lots of people who avoided the draft, but this isn't what he's saying. he said i physically couldn't go. mr. president, get your feet x-rayed and let's see those bone spurs. i don't think he has them. >> if he had them then, he would have them now. >> he would have them now. it's -- it's -- everything he's saying is bad enough, but when he says he's not my kind of guy because he went to vietnam, because he was flying combat missions and got shot down, was held as a prisoner. that's not your kind of guy? who is your kind of guy? your friends who falsified their records so they didn't have to go? i think that's the answer. i mean, i think he sees all of us who went to vietnam as fools. we were the suckers. we were the stupid ones. we were the ones that didn't have the resources to be able to get out of the draft. he had the resources and he got out of it. so show us your bone spurs. let's see those x-rays. because i think the x-rays will show that he doesn't have bone spurs and then he'd have to say, okay, i didn't want to go to vietnam. i got out of the war. while john mccain was flying combat missions, i made every single effort i could to avoid the draft. >> he -- the president has now been to vietnam twice, obviously not well after the war, as president, he's never visited the hanoi hilton. it's not hard to visit the hanoi hilton. if you you to hanoi, it's one of the places you go. i always thought it was very telling he chose not to actually go there, because he would have to confront the fact that john mccain went through something horrific that he cannot even imagine. >> look, i wish he hadn't gotten out of the trans-pacific partnership. i think his trip to vietnam was enormously important, it signaled to the vietnamese that we're with you. tpz it was important that he went there. i think it signaled as well that we're on your side. i don't criticize him for what he did trying to go to hanoi trying to negotiate something with kim jong-un. what i want to say, when he says mccain is not his kind of guy, i think he's saying he's a fool to have gone to vietnam. he's a sucker. i'm not a sucker, he says. i didn't have to go. i got out of it. only the suckers went. and i don't feel like i was a sucker to have signed up and gone to vietnam. >> you know, often the strongest people, you know, the president likes to -- went to great schools, that he's incredibly smart, and he certainly portrays himself as this tough guy. he went to -- he was sent, i guess, for reasons that i think he was sort of had some issues and was sent to this military school, a high school, where they marched around and dressed up as soldiers. he then obviously, as you say, didn't go to vietnam. i always find that the people who are actually the toughest people, who've actually risked their lives, sacrificed limbs, done incredible things, they're not the ones saying how tough they are. it's -- >> well, i think it's -- >> like you -- >> i just say it again, i mean, your kind of guy avoided the draft, and mccain was a sucker. he said, my heroes are guys who don't get shot down. really? i'd like to put you up in one of those planes and see how well you do. you avoided going up in the planes. you didn't want to go up in the planes, didn't want to go down in the delta. you didn't want to go to vietnam. you did everything possible because you have the money. i have friends who avoid it. i have friends who went to canada. i understand why people in 1968 didn't want to go, but please don't tell me that you had bone spurs. if you had bone spurs, you still have them. let's see the x-rays. >> did -- does it surprise you at all that more republicans have not, i mean, spoken out? johnny isakson was very strong. >> it's hard. look, i mean, democrats had the same problem with clinton. avoided the draft. it's not easy to criticize somebody in your own party. i'm sympathetic. especially now because it's almost become a cult. >> right. >> so, no, i'm very sympathetic why they behave in the way they're doing. so i think what johnny isakson said was enormously important and very brave, and i'd like to see more of them do it, but -- >> you understand. >> i completely understand. it takes somebody like me who went to vietnam to say to the president, let's see those x-rays. your kind of guy is the guy who didn't go to vietnam. you look at john mccain, you look at bob kerrey, you say, you suckers went, and i didn't. >> senator kerrey, appreciate talking to you, thank you. >> you're welcome. the president had been quite muted for a while on one of his living critics, but no longer. kellyanne conway's husband is a new target and that feud is getting worse. it's just bizarre. we'll be right back. ♪ turn up your swagger game with one a day gummies. one serving... ...once a day... ...with nutrients that support 6 vital functions... ...and one healthy you. that's the power of one a day. 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"a," that he's doing -- that -- i mean, why is george conway doing this against the guy who his wife works for and does it make sense to you that the president is responding? >> well, look, i have known george conway for many, many years, and, i mean, he's a guy of strong principle, strong conservative principles. you know, i got to know him during the bill clinton days when he played a rather key role in the events that led to bill clinton's impeachment. he drafted the briefs for the paula jones lawyers to the supreme court. he felt very strongly about that, and, you know, the core principles were rule of law, no man, no president, is above the law, and, you know, those same principles, i think, have animated what he's been saying about donald trump. >> yeah. i mean, look, i understand the principles side of it, i just think -- i mean, there is a personal side to it that's, frankly, just hard for me to understand some -- anyway. alex, i want to show you something that george conway tweeted yesterday. he retweeted a story that you you for "rolling stone." "this was the article that first got me to really understand you @realdonaldtrump. once someone understands narcissistic personality disorder, they understand you and why you're unfit and incompetent for the esteemed office you temporarily hold." i guess some would argue, aren't all politicians or people in public life at some level narcissists? >> yeah, i think that to run for president, there has to be some level of that. donald trump is certainly not the first narcissistic president we've ever had, but it's a matter of degree. >> there's a difference between being narcissistic and then actually having a disorder. >> right. there's a difference between the personality trait and an actual disorder, and so i think what a lot of mental health professionals are coming out and saying is this has crossed the line. this is a problem. this person has lost their ability to have reality testing because they do have this disorder, because their need to feed their own ego allows them to disregard truth and to disassociate from truth. >> i think this is something you wrote about for "rolling stone," some people hearing that, there was a thing called the goldwater rule which i want to ask you about, explain to people. some people hearing that will say, look, psychologists who haven't actually interviewed somebody shouldn't be, you know, passing judgment on that they have narcissistic personality disorder. >> right. the goldwater rule was instituted for -- during a presidential election, right? >> that was because people were -- psychologists, what, were coming out and analyzing goldwater? >> yeah. i mean, over 2,000 psychiatrists came out in "fact" magazine and they analyzed goldwater. they said he had all kinds of issues based on supposed potty training problems. you know, cold war paranoia, and he ended up suing "fact" magazine and he won. and the american psychiatric association was so embarrassed by this that they instituted the goldwater rule which says that you shouldn't diagnose someone unless they're under your care, unless you met with them specifically. >> right. >> so i think that really did keep a lot of mental health professionals quiet for a while. this professional obligation. then about a year or two ago, there started to be this tipping point where people said, well, wait a second, as mental health professionals, we also have a duty to warn. so which duty out -- you know, which duty wins out? and, you know, over 70,000 signed a petition that donald trump is mentally ill and unfit for the presidency. so, obviously, there's a lot of people coming out and saying, never mind the goldwater rule, i have this other duty and i'm going to stand by it. >> george conway is certainly listening to it. michael, you interviewed conway for your podcast. in an interview, he said, "if i have a nickel for everybody watching who disagrees with their spouse on something that happens in this town, i wouldn't be on this podcast." it is one thing to disagree with your spouse and have strong principles. it's quite another to side with the president against your spouse, especially publicly, and from kellyanne's side, and it's also another thing to attack repeatedly the president which may hurt your wife's career, frankly. >> right. and, you know, he also said in that interview, i asked him how is this going down with kellyanne, and he said, not well, she doesn't like it, but i don't like the administration she works for, so we're even. and i guess that's, you know, that's the way he views it. >> it's -- yeah. i just find the whole thing bizarre. michael isikoff, thanks so much. alex morris as well. thank you so much. still ahead, breaking news. the criminal investigation into the certification and marketing of boeing 737. there's new reporting on that tonight. asis, little things can be a big deal. that's why there's otezla. otezla is not a cream. it's a pill that treats plaque psoriasis differently. with otezla, 75% clearer skin is achievable. don't use if you're allergic to otezla. it may cause severe diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. otezla is associated with an increased risk of depression. tell your doctor if you have a history of depression or suicidal thoughts or if these feelings develop. some people taking otezla reported weight loss. your doctor should monitor your weight and may stop treatment. upper respiratory tract infection and headache may occur. tell your doctor about your medicines, and if you're pregnant or planning to be. ready to treat differently with a pill? 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>> reporter: well, anderson, first, you can see we're already here. we have a packed house ready for tonight. to answer your question, he fits in a really interesting place because he's one of two governors who are running in the democratic field. and he was kind of an accidental politician, accidental businessman, to be sure, because he was a geologist. he got laid off, anderson, and he used his severance to start beer companies and that's how sort of he got started and then he was mayor of denver and then, of course, he was a two-term governor of colorado until he was term limited out. so he has a really different perspective than a lot of the members of congress who are running. lots of house members, mostly senators. different world view. >> and our poll, though, was released yesterday about the 2020 candidates. what kind of support does he have at this point according to that? >> not much. he doesn't have very big name i.d. >> which at this stage -- >> he's in good company, exactly, he's in good company with not having a lot. that's part of the reason why cnn is doing these town halls to introduce these people to the country, to the world, and more importantly, to democratic voters who are going to vote in primaries and vote in caucuses. and so he is not alone. there are a lot of candidates and a lot of them have yet to really have a get-to-know you session, whether it's on national/international tv, or, you know, knocking on doors. we'll see what happens after it because things have changed since in and after several of these town halls that we've had. >> if i remember correctly, weren't governor hickenlooper and governor kasich talking about running together at one point? >> you know, they were talking a little bit about it. i think a lot of people talking about it for them. >> okay. >> they did a lot of -- they're friends. they did a lot of joint interviews. they are like-minded in a lot of ways. just in -- not necessarily ideologically, but just in terms of wanting to get things done across the aisle. so they were governors together. they served at the same time and they became friendly in doing those. lot of people were talking about it. he's running in the democratic primary, so doesn't look like that's going to happen any time soon. >> all right. i'll be watching 15 minutes from now. >> thanks, anderson. >> i'll see you if a few minutes. up next, breaking news on boeing's 737 max 8 jetliners. the justice department has issue ed several subpoenas as part of a criminal investigation into boeing's faa certification process of the planes. this is according to sources briefed on the matter. we'll have more in a second. with moderate to severe ulcerative colitis, are you okay? 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[ a-class ] i am setting the temperature [ a-class ] to 68 degrees. we hear you. we made a car that does, too. the all-new a-class. all-new thinking starting at $32,500. breaking news on boeing 737 max 8 jetliners tonight. the justice department has issued multiple subpoenas as part of a criminal investigation into boeing's faa certification process of the planes. now, that's according to sources briefed on the matter. our shimon prokupecz joins us from washington. so just, if you can, explain what, exactly, fbi agents are looking for, if we know. >> right. so because this is a grand jury now investigating this, they've been issued subpoenas. fbi agents have been given subpoenas. they've gone out and served these subpoenas and really right now, it's a document-gathering process. the fbi is assisting in that. they've asked for information regarding training manual for this plane, safety manuals. they also want to know about the marketing that went into the plane. certainly, they're looking at the certification process, and that is the big thing here. how did boeing going about certifying this plane? and certainly, were there any issues? you know, were there issues with how the training manuals were put together? were there issues with people who working at boeing, did anyone complain about any of the safety issues with this plane? and that is sort of some of the information and the gathering that is going on right now by the fbi and the department of justice. >> and in terms of manpower, what kind of resources and support can the fbi lend here? >> so certainly there's forensic experts who could look through documents or financial experts who could look through some of the money that went into constructing this, to building this out. the training. that is going to a big part of this investigation. and there are fbi agents that are experts in all of this and can review these documents, but for the fbi right now, their whole point is to try and help the department of justice just gather all this information so that the prosecutors and really the agents and the experts in all this could start going through it and trying to see really if there was anything wrong here. >> and lastly, there is also a department of defense office of inspector general investigation involving the acting defense secretary patrick shanahan of boeing. >> yeah, this is an ethics investigation. so shanahan was a longtime employee of boeing. some 30 years. he was an executive there. and they have received complaints, the inspector general, that he's been favoring boeing for products. he's been disparaging competitors. so, complaints have been filed. the inspector general says they're reviewing those complaints because they want to make sure that shanahan is not doing anything unethical and following procedures in place to protect from this stuff happening. certainly, there are conflicts because he was an executive at boeing. and they want to make sure he's not favoring boeing over other products that the pentagon was looking to purchase. >> a lot to cover. more on this breaking news when we come back. we'll talk to ethics lawyer, richard painter. subscribe to movies. we don't follow the naysayers. ♪ ♪ -jamie, this is your house? -i know, it's not much, but it's home. right, kids? -kids? -papa, papa! -[ laughs ] -you didn't tell me your friends were coming. -oh, yeah. -this one is tiny like a child. -yeah, she is. oh, but seriously, it's good to be surrounded by what matters most -- a home and auto bundle from progressive. -oh, sweetie, please, play for us. -oh, no, i couldn't. -please. -okay. 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(buzzer sounds) at some point, a line has to be drawn. nooooooooo! i'm sorrrrryyyyyy for us, that line is only delivering within five minutes of our stores. so your sandwich arrives freaky fresh®. it's nothing personal. it's because sandwich. conventional wisdom says you can't make a 400 horsepower sedan, that's also environmentally conscious. we don't follow conventional wisdom. ♪ ♪ all of you. how you live, what you love. that's what inspired us to create america's most advanced internet. internet that puts you in charge. that protects what's important. it handles everything, and reaches everywhere. this is beyond wifi, this is xfi. simple. easy. awesome. xfinity, the future of awesome. we have more on our breaking news right now. cnn's barbara starr is reporting the defense department's inspector general has begun an ethics investigation into whether patrick shanahan violated procedures while promoting boeing products while serving in his current role. now, shanahan is a former boeing executive who worked for the company for more than 30 years before joining government. a spokesman says shanahan says his boss welcomes the review. joining me now is richard painter, who is the ethics lawyer for former president george bush. i should point out he's also an executive with the watchdog group called crew, citizens for responsibility and ethics in washington, which filed a complaint with the inspector general against shanahan. so, richard, can you just explain what exactly you believe that the acting defense secretary shanahan did here when it comes to his former employer? >> well, we're going to have to find out what he did. but he clearly should not be shilling for boeing products or saying bad things about the competitors of boeing at the defense department. i'm shocked that a boeing executive -- a former boeing executive is put in charge of the defense department to begin with. he clearly has a bias, and apparently according to these complaints, numerous complaints, he is actually acting through with that bias, and he may very well influence defense spending in a budget that is well over a trillion dollars. so this is waste, fraud, and abuse being investigated by the inspector general, and that's what inspectors general do. but in the defense department, with such an enormous budget, we are talking about potential waste, fraud, abuse of enormous scale due to this conflicts of interest. i'm here in puerto rico where we have close to a million people who may very well lose a lot of their food stamp benefits because the disaster relief is running out. we need a defense budget in this country, but it should not be run by boeing executives, former boeing executives sitting on top of the defense department, shilling for their own company and trashing on the competitors. it's flat-out wrong. >> that's one of the things, of course, it's the definition -- again, if true, it is the definition of the swamp, kind of a revolving door from you're in a business, and then you go to somewhere in government that relates to that business, and then you leave and alternately go back to the business and are rewarded for what you did when you were in government. if it's true -- and i say it's a big if -- i mean it is another example of a cabinet secretary, in this case acting secretary, potentially being accused of using influence either to pad their own pockets or do favors for cronies. >> well, it certainly is. i have to say, though, i don't think a former boeing executive, someone who has worked at boeing for 30 years, should be put in charge of the defense department at all. if he is, he shouldn't be opening his mouth about boeing or any competitor of boeing. there's just way too much money at stake. once again, over a trillion dollar. >> do you have confidence in the inspector general's office and the department of defense? >> i do. inspectors general offices are usually very well run and independent. now, this administration has done everything it can to interfere with independent investigations, from threatening to fire bob mueller to other interference. so i'm sure there will be plenty of efforts to interfere. but at this point i would trust the inspector general to do the inspector general's job, which is to hunt down waste, fraud, and abuse. and i can't think a part of this government that is more important to do that than the department of defense. >> i assume you see this as sort of, again, if true, part of a larger pattern with this administration. >> well, absolutely. a lot of presidents would not have put a former boeing executive in charge of the defense department. that's just too tempting. boeing does enormous amounts of business with the defense department. and if those planes don't work or there's some other problem or there's overcharging, it's going to cost taxpayers not billions, but tens of billions, potentially hundreds of billions of dollars. this is a situation that never should have happened to begin with. and the idea that he is not following his ethics agreement, if that is true, he needs to be fired, and we need to find out why this happened. >> how long an investigation do you expect, i mean, in a matter like this? >> well, i would hope they could chase this down quite quickly. if he was running around trashing the competitors of boeing or shilling for boeing products at the defense department and people heard that, they report it to the inspector general, and he may deny that. >> right. >> but that's an investigation that can continue for a week or two. but we deserve answers. the american people deserve answers. we pay for this defense department. >> yeah. richard painter, i appreciate it as always. the news continues. let's go to don lemon. "cnn tonight" starts now. dana, thank you very much. this is "cnn tonight," i'm don lemon. you just heard from colorado governor john hickenlooper in cnn's town hall. still there in the room. the democratic presidential candidate answering questions from the audience for about an hour. questions about the rise of white nationalism, the toll of young black men killed by police, health care, legalizing marijuana, climate change and a whole lot more. so how did he do in terms of making his case with you, with the american voters? i want to bring in now cnn senior political analyst mr. mark preston who was at the town hall in atlanta. mark, thank you very much. for
are saying the michael cohen document dump should worry the president and his inner circle. >> what it says is they're still investigating additional crimes or additional defendants. good day, i'm kasie hunt in washington. we're going to check in with andrea live in israel in just a few minutes. but we begin with president trump kicking off another morning in a war of words with kellyanne conway's husband. tweeting, quote, mr. kellyanne conway is very jealous of his wife's success. then adding, quote, i barely know him. but just take a look, a stone cold loser and husband from hell. george conway responding moments later with a rapid fire attack of nearly two dozen tweets and retweets. his message to mr. trump summed up this morning in this tweet. "you. are. nuts." this as we are finally starting to see some republican senators stand up to president trump after he made more derogatory remarks about deceased senator john mccain. joining me now, nheidi przybyla and jonathan capehart. heidi, i fail to see how any good can possibly come of this feud with the president of the united states. there were some reports that aides and advisers tried to talk him out of this. obviously they failed. what do we know? >> i'll put it in a way that is pretty crystal clear. what are we not talking about at this exact moment in time? the possibility of rom's report and the special counsel investigation and what that could mean for president trump. instead the president knows this is something that will be an object that folks will talk about. that's not to diminish the newsworthiness of it, right, because what had been a private matter between two people inside their own home, the president has now elevated onto sort of this very, very national and very public stage. forgive me, you'll hear the choppers overhead, marine one has just landed on the south lawn no too far from where i am which means at any moment the president may come out to head to ohio. this is a president who likes to be on the attack. this is a president who has been, based on my reporting, having conversations on this issue with allies, that george conway has continued to tweet about him and, you know, people wanted to be out there essentially defending kellyanne conway, the president wanted to punch back and so he is. the question, when you look at the thread line, the through line between what he said about kellyanne conway's husband, what he's saying now about the late john mccain, as meghan mccain is coming out and saying, hey, don't feel bad for my family, we have a lot of privileges, the white house should be focusing on other things, the president feels like going on the attack. something has agitated him and riled him up enough that he wants to be talking about this and he very much is. one other point, kasie, the president said something that a lot of people are picking up on, he's often referred to george conway as mrs. kellyanne conway, and people are asking why that's an insult, referring to a man by his wife's name. that's something people are picking up on as well. >> heidi, picking up on that point, why is it an insult to call somebody mr. kellyanne conway? there are opinions about whether someone wants to be mrs. husband's name. this attack is loaded. >> it's clearly trying to emasculate him in the eyes of his supporters who would view that as an ema maemasculation. the irony is if you look at how this came about, george conway did this in reaction to george conway diagnosing him on twitter with narcissistic personality disorder. he's giving us a demonstration of what george conway is trying to warn people about, which is that he doesn't have the self-control, the impulsie control to stop himself from attacking people like him, from attacking john mccain. george conway's message is that this is not strategic. >> he has no control. >> it's something that he has no control over. >> jon, i take hallie's point about trying to grab the headlines back, we see the president do this all the time. but in this case, this is undermining and hurting somebody who has been incredibly loyal to him, kellyanne conway, one of his longest lasting advisers, one of his staunchest defenders on tv. it doesn't make much sense to me. >> i've given up trying to make anything make sense. i think the president compartmentalizes. kellyanne conway, yes, she's married to george conway. but it's not kellyanne who's attacking him, it's george conway who is attacking him. the president feels, as we've seen time and time again when he goes after anyone, and george conway is a private citizen yet the president of the united states is attacking him, he is emasculating him, he is belittling him, and as hallie said, he is trying to distract from all the other things that are happening. but i think we've learned over the last two years, and it's amazing, the president hasn't quite figured this out, that we have learned how to walk and chew gum at the same time, that we can focus on his belittling, emasculating tweets, while also focusing in on all the other things he doesn't want us talking about. >> the mueller report being one of them. the target of his ire is a public citizen but of course deceased, we lost john mccain seven months ago. there are republicans finally stepping up and condemning this. mitt romney, senator from utah, tweeted last night, i can't understand why the president would once again disparage a man as exemplary as my friend john mccain. he calls him heroic, courageous, patriotic, et cetera. johnny isakson, republican senator from georgia, says he's going to give the president a whipping from the senate floor and says the mccain family deserves better, i don't care if he's the president of the united states, owns all the real estate in new york, or is building the greatest immigration system in the world, nothing is more important than the integrity of the country. heidi, why aren't all republicans coming out with statements like this? >> that's the question. we may be pointing to these exceptions right now, kasie, but let's remind people this has been going on for two years when he first attacked john mccain for getting captured and that he wasn't a real war hero. this i think is also a moment where we must reflect on history, because there have been many moments in history where we've wondered how could people just stand aside and not say something. we're living that in real time. what we're learning from this is once people do start to people up like they are now, it doesn't change things because they didn't all do it in the beginning. they didn't all hold hands and push back on this attack on people like john mccain, a war hero, from the very beginning. you're going to see these individuals make their statements and feel good about themselves, maybe suffer some political repercussions, maybe not. in the end it's not going to change the behavior and the bulk of the party and the party leadership is not going to join hands with them. >> and of course this is affecting the mccain family, who still here, cindy mccain, i can't even show you or read out loud what she tweeted yesterday, it was a comment from somebody in her twitter feed that was so vulgar and vile about herself and her daughter that we can't even show it to you. meghan mccain took this on with a little bit of humor this morning on "the view." take a look at how she's talking about this. >> i think if i had told my dad seven months after you're dead, you're going to be dominating the news and all over twitter, he would think it was hilarious that our president was so jealous of him that he was dominating the news cycle in death as well. attacking someone who isn't here is a bizarre low. >> jonathan capehart? >> well, look, i think meghan mccain is handling this very well. she's dealing with this with appropriate righteous indig in addition indignation. the president of the united states is attacking her father, a hero. she tweeted out, john mccain is living rent-free in your head. he cannot let go of any slight, no matter how small. he's still angry at senator mccain for the vote on repealing and replacing obamacare. he blamed senator mccain for the steele dossier making its way into public view. and instead of being a president who rises above it, who puts the office and the nation ahead of himself, instead we have a president for whom that job is all about him. that is the no whnot what this b is supposed to be about. >> this has been a theme for president trump since the beginning of his mccain. he talked about john mccain when he first started running in a way we all thought would sink his bid, obviously he did not. are people tired of this yet in the president's base of core supporters or does this not matter from a political perspective? >> no, i don't think there's a fatigue on it, kasie. i think there's a general acceptance of this is how it's going to be. to jonathan and heidi's points, people have learned over two years who this president is and what he does and his base understands that and his supporters understand that and his critics are starting to understand that as well, that he's not going to change. and that's just the facts of the matter, that's borne out but what we've seen in precedent. i will say that when it comes to the attacks on john mccain specifically, kasie, you probably remember this too back when we were covering the campaign, that was the last time the rnc came out, the republican establishment came out and issued this full-throated condemnation of then-candidate donald trump. but they've quickly i think learned, reince priebus and others in the leadership of the organization at the time, that that was not going to be an effective strategy for the gop and they didn't issue condemnations like that through the remainder of the campaign even when some of those attacks made national headlines, the president went after, for example, the khan family, a gold star family, after the billy bush "access hollywood" tape as well. the irony of all of this, as i was walking out here to have this conversation with you, the first lady was tweeting about what she has been working on this week which is her "be best" campaign to fight online bullying. this is something she had an interagency meeting about with top cabinet officials earlier in the week, this push she's been on to make sure people, kids especially, feel safe and comfortable in this online world, and we're juxtaposing those images with what we're hearing from the president this morning, it continues to be a striking contrast. >> striking indeed. hallie jackson, heidi przybyla, jonathan capehart, thank you for your insights today. democratic presidential candidate julian castro is former secretary of housing and urban development in the obama administration. great to have you on the program. >> good to be with you. >> let's pick up with this discussion we were just having about the president and his attacks on the deceased senator john mccain as well as george conway, the husband of kellyanne conway. what do you think these attacks say about the president? >> well, kasie, i mean, your viewers have seen this now for three years. and i guess almost four years if you include his campaign. it's just another distraction. and this president is a walking billboard of weakness and insecurity. and this is just another distraction. you know, when i travel around the country these days, what i hear from folks when i visit places like iowa, i hear from farmers how worried they are are about his erratic trade war with china. i hear from business owners in my own state, texas, about all the insecurity he's created. i hear from folks who can't afford the rent in any number of communities across the country. and every single minute that he spends insulting somebody on twitter or getting tied in knots over petty back and forths or playing golf, because this president has played more golf probably than the last three presidents combined, is a minute that he is not dedicating to making sure that folks can have good job opportunities in this country, that children can get a good education, that folks will have good health care, that they can afford the rent. i'm going to focus on those things that people truly care about and that are part and parcel in ensuring that folks have a good quality of life and they can achieve their dreams. in the meantime, i would ask people that continue to watch what this president has done, whether it's insulting john mccain seven months after his death or this fight with george conway, do you want another four years of this? >> so first of all, i'm not sure that i can fact check you in real time on that golf claim, as to whether it actually has been as much as the past three presidents. >> that in and of itself says a lot. >> fair enough. but you brought up of course the 2020 race by talking about whether we want four more years of this president. and you were quoted in a recent associated press article in response to being labeled the other texan, of course, talking about beto o'rourke, who recently jumped into the race, and you said, i'm the one from the other side of the tracks, i'm the one that didn't grow up as a frontrunner. do you feel beto o'rourke grew up as a frontrunner? >> no, im r, i'm saying for mys didn't grow up as a frontrunner. because people ask me, what do you think about not being one of the frontrunners right now? i've said that it's very early, that the voting in iowa starts in just under a year, and that i haven't grown up in life as a frontrunner. i can't think of a single time in my life when i was the frontrunner. the people who were born and grew up where i grew up, like a lot of folks in america, didn't grow up as a frontrunner. i'm going to let beto or any of the other candidates speak for themselves. and at the end of the day, the voters are going to decide what they want in a president. but, you know, i've been asked what do i feel like about where i'm at in this race. i tell folks, you know, it doesn't faze me that 46 weeks before the iowa caucus, that i'm not a frontrunner right now. i'm going to do the hard work that it takes to reach the american people in every single state and talk to folks who don't feel like frontrunners themselves. i'm confident by the time the iowa caucus comes around, i will be a frontrunner. >> are you confident you'll make the stage for the first debate in june? >> oh, sure. we've seen support growing for my campaign, both in terms of the polling and in terms of fundraising. and i think that with the help of a lot of the american people out there, that i will be on that debate stage. i'm also confident when i'm on that debate stage, that i'm going to do well. i'm one of the few candidates in this race that has executive experience. i have a track record of getting things done. i'm delivering a powerful, compelling message about what we need to do in the coming years to make sure that we're the smartest, the healthiest, the fairest and the most prosperous national on earnation on earth look forward to getting folks to compare the candidates. >> julian castro, thanks for being here, good to have you. coming up, waiting for a sign. new clues that some say show special counsel robert mueller's team is wrapping it up. the details next on "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc. ♪ carla is living with metastatic breast cancer, which is breast cancer that has spread to other parts of her body. she's also taking prescription ibrance with an aromatase inhibitor, which is for postmenopausal women with hormone receptor-positive her2- metastatic breast cancer as the first hormonal based therapy. ibrance plus letrozole was significantly more effective at delaying disease progression versus letrozole. patients taking ibrance can develop low white blood cell counts, which may cause serious infections that can lead to death. before taking ibrance, tell your doctor if you have fever, chills, or other signs of infection, liver or kidney problems, are pregnant, breastfeeding, or plan to become pregnant. common side effects include low red blood cell and low platelet counts, infections, tiredness, nausea, sore mouth, abnormalities in liver blood tests, diarrhea, hair thinning or loss, vomiting, rash, and loss of appetite. carla calls it her new normal because a lot has changed, but a lot hasn't. ask your doctor about ibrance. the #1 prescribed fda-approved oral combination treatment for hr+/her2- mbc. [zara larsson - "wow"] ♪ ♪ make you're jaw drop drop say oh my drop drop drop ♪ ♪ make u say oh my god my drop drop ♪ ♪ make you're jaw drop make u say oh my god ♪ as we wait for the special counsel's report on the russia probe, we're getting signs that work is still under way in the mueller investigation. yesterday more than 800 pages of warrants and court documents were released in the michael cohen case. many of those pages were heavily redacted, the judge writing, at this stage, wholesale disclosure of the materials would reveal the progress of the investigation. we're also waiting for the mueller team to unseal documents in response to "the washington post." the special counsel's office is asking the judge to give them until april 1st to release the documents. joining me is barbara mcquade, former u.s. attorney and an msnbc contributor. barbara, i want to start with you. you wrote an opinion piece in "usa today," i love this headline because it feels like so much of what we're doing today, the breadcrumbs, you call it, why the cohen document dump should worry donald trump and others. what do you mean by that? what's your thesis on this? >> there are a few clues that appear in these 800 pages. one of them, as you mentioned, are the redactions. there are 18 1/2 pages of redactions after a heading that says the illegal campaign contribution scheme. the only reason to seal materials from the public disclosure is to protect the integrity of the investigation. so that means besides michael cohen, there are still matters that are being investigated there. when you think about that scheme involving checks paid to michael cohen in reimbursement for his payments for hush money, it's a pretty small universe of people who are under investigation there. it could be president trump himself, could be donald trump jr., could be the trump organization. and i think that that is one of the things that speaks volumes out of those documents. >> paul, do you agree with barbara here? what are the tea leaves that you're reading as you try to get a sense of where things stand with this investigation? >> i do agree with barbara, kasie. she makes an excellent point. i would add, in the order that you just read, the judge uses what is a term of art in white collar criminal prosecution. he said "subjects." "subjects" is a word taken from the justice manual, the book that prosecutors use to guide them in their conduct. "subject" means an individual who has come within the scope of an ongoing investigation. because the judge uses the word "subject" and uses the plural, it's a tell, if you will, that there are multiple individuals who are still out there and they are both, both of those individuals, the object of the southern district of new york's investigation. and as barbara pointed out in her excellent opinion page article, those individuals could be people who are often in the white house. >> very interesting. do you take anything away, paul, from the citation of the press of other work as the reason for why they can't produce these documents on paul manafort? >> i do, kasie. when i was a line federal prosecutor, when i was the u.s. attorney, the best writers in our shop were the appellate lawyers. that's their trade. that's how they do their work. that's why they're so very good at writing things. the two lawyers who are asking for additional time are the appellate lawyers on bob mueller's team. i think it's a fair assumption that those are the individuals who are going to have the pen, if you will, the individuals who will take a large part in drafting the report. it's a fair inference in my mind that those people need time to assist in the writing of this report. and i think that could mean that that report is coming soon. >> barbara, one of the other things we're keeping an eye on that i'm certainly paying attention to is, you know, how capitol hill is both preparing for this report and for the potential fight to actually release it. but also how their own investigations are proceeding. and elijah cummings says in an opinion piece that they have sent 12 letters to the white house. the white house has refused to hand over any documents or produce any witnesses for interviews. and he writes, the white house has not turned over a single piece of paper to our committee or made a single official available. what duty does the white house have here? how does this fight potentially play out in court if they continue to stonewall the chairman? >> well, ordinarily information is supposed to be freely given unless there is some countervailing reason to hold it back. and there may be. for one, executive privilege is a legislatimate basis to hold i back under some circumstances. there are other reasons why information may be withheld, national security is one. if chairman cummings wants to push the matter, normally informal negotiations take place to try to revolve tsolve the differences. if not they could push to find the white house in contempt of congress which is a one-year misdemeanor. they could demand an order from the courts to produce these things. that's what we saw in united states versus nixon where the supreme court ruled there was a duty to produce information. this is a congressional inquiry. if it comes to that and chairman cummings is willing to push it to the limit, we could see a fight in the courts over what documents need to be turned over and when. >> finally, paul, i'm interested, you worked with robert mueller. it turns out that as we all sit here and wait for this, his likeness has turned into a bit of a cottage industry online. there are earrings that you can buy with robert mueller's face on them. there they are. that's quite a pair of earrings. there is a robert mueller prayer candle. do we have that? there it is, the robert mueller prayer candle. and one woman, alycia barnett, has named her chocolate labrador retriever "mueller," there he is, apparently in front of a photograph of mueller himself, because the dog seems strong, quiet, proud, and a bit mysterious. there's his tag. paul, knowing a little bit at least robert mueller, what do you think he would make of all of this? >> kasie, when i think the bob mueller, the word "whimsical" doesn't come to mind. >> fair point. >> he's a serious guy. i doubt very much given the pressing work that that team is involved in, he's paying much if any attention to this. but i do suspect, and maybe we should start taking bets, that there are other individuals who are going to start paying attention to this. maybe we can put a bet on when the next tweet comes up on this piece of mueller memorabilia. >> thank you both very much. the president is currently taking questions from reporters on the south lawn as he prepares to depart for ohio. he says he has no idea when the mueller report is going to be released. we'll bring all of that to you coming up here. and be sure to tune in to "msnbc live" with katy tur this afternoon when former u.s. attorney preet bharara joins katy to talk about his new book, right here on msnbc. coming up, big boost. secretary of state mike pompeo in jerusalem to support israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu who is embroiled in scandal to win reelection. andrea mitchell joins us from jerusalem, next. jerusalem, next. if your moderate to severe ulcerative colitis or crohn's symptoms are holding you back, and your current treatment hasn't worked well enough it may be time for a change. ask your doctor about entyvio®, the only biologic developed and approved just for uc and crohn's. entyvio® works at the site of inflammation in the gi tract, and is clinically proven to help many patients achieve both symptom relief and remission. infusion and serious allergic reactions can happen during or after treatment. entyvio® may increase risk of infection, which can be serious. pml, a rare, serious, potentially fatal brain infection caused by a virus may be possible. tell your doctor if you have an infection experience frequent infections or have flu-like symptoms, or sores. liver problems can occur with entyvio®. if your uc or crohn's treatment isn't working for you, ask your gastroenterologist about entyvio®. entyvio®. relief and remission within reach. with expedia, i saved when i added a hotel to our flight. so even when she grows up, she'll never outgrow the memory of our adventure. unlock savings when you add select hotels to your existing trip. only with expedia. nick, nick, we need a decision. these days we all feel a little anxious sometimes. but if you could see inside my mind; you'll find i go to my happy place. see if we let tensions run the show up here, then our bodies won't perform at their best out here. wait, aren't we going to the sound check? priorities. so i'm partnering with cigna, to remind you that how you're doing emotionally affects you physically. go for your annual check-up and be open with your doctor about anything you're feeling. physically, and emotionally. body and mind cigna. together all the way. today secretary of state mike pompeo is in jerusalem meeting with israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu. this as netanyahu, who is under the threat of indictment, is seeking a fifth term in an election being held next month. netanyahu has been stressing his strong relationship with president trump, with huge billboards of the two leaders alongside israeli highways. the prime minister answering questions from our andrea mitchell moments ago. >> reporter: prime minister, do you feel that [ inaudible ] election period? >> i think i gave you all the free press you're going to get. >> reporter: a little more never hurts. >> that was nbc's chief foreign affairs correspondent and of course the anchor of this very program, andrea mitchell, who is in jerusalem. andrea, lovely to see you, thank you so much. how has benjamin netanyahu been using this relationship with president trump so far in this election? >> he's been using him in billboards, in tv ads, in all kinds of ways. and then this high profile visit today with secretary pompeo talking about the strong relationship that president trump has done historic things from his perspective, which is moving the u.s. embassy to jerusalem where we are right now, from tel aviv, basically recognizing jerusalem as the capital of israel which has not been done by previous administrations, republican or democratic. it was very controversial with arab states because it basically shuts off a whole negotiating position for the palestinians who also have a claim to this city as their prospective capital if there ever was a palestinian state. that two-state solution also very much at issue. you may have seen that photo opportunity, i was pulled out by israeli security while he was answering. from secretary pompeo's perspective, i cornered him in warsaw. what happened was he was touring a museum and wandered in and said, am i doing an interview? his wife sarah talked him into doing the interview with me, but he went on to say he was not going to talk to me again, he was joking, saying i was cornered him in warsaw and that was enough. but two strong israeli security guards dragged me out of the room, so that was it for that photo opportunity. by the way, just to put another point on it, he is coming for the apec meetiipac meeting, the pro-israel lobby, he will be seeing presumptuous ident trump weeks. right now he's fighting this indictment, but no one counts benjamin netanyahu out. he was thanking secretary pompeo for the strong position this administration has taken, canceling the iran nuclear deal and going on to take more aggressive actions which are being promised against iran. kasie? >> and andrea, when you all were in kuwait before heading to israel, pompeo was asked in this brief news conference about how the state department talks about the west bank. i know you mentioned the city of jerusalem, but why is it significant that the u.s. doesn't seem to be referring to the west bank as occupied territory? >> well, it's always been referred to as occupied territory by the state department because it is disputed territory. the palestinians have a claim to it. and it is the territory that would become their state. if it's no longer occupied by israel, that does imply that it is israeli or could be israeli. we should point out this secretary of state, and the vice president before him when he was here a year ago in january, did not meet with any palestinians. there have been no meetings with palestinians that we know of, at least, and u.s. officials since this administration last december, december of 2017, i should say, moved the embassy. it was moved in sort of a small way, but now it has been expanded. and secretary pompeo is going to be the first secretary of state to visit the new u.s. embassy building here in jerusalem. so there has been no meetings with the palestinians. they are protesting that move of the u.s. embassy. >> andrea mitchell, thank you so much, great to have you, great reporting as always. recognized by world leaders all over the globe. nbc news achieve white house correspondent hallie jackson joins us now because we have apparently been hearing from the president on the south lawn as he prepares to depart from ohio. i know we're waiting on tape of everything that is unfolding. but hallie, what have we learned? >> could be a minute for that tape, kasie, because the president is still going. we had a feeling he was in the mood to talk based on his many tweets this morning and it appears he is talking about everything from twitter to trade to george conway to that mueller report. and let me start there, the president telling reporters, let people see, essentially, people should be able to see that report when it comes out. but he notes, it is up to the attorney general. he talked about how robert mueller wasn't elected, essentially, the president touting, again, his electoral win in the 2016 election. he, again, talked about those 13 angry democrats, this is an attack line we've heard from the president before, which is what he was referencing. and insisted there is no collusion, and forgive me for reading off my phone here, my colleagues peter alexander, kristen welker, are talking to the president right now and reporting back. those attacks on kellyanne conway's husband, the president calling conway the husband from hell, he says he doesn't know him. he says it's a tremendous disservice to a wife and family. so the president now on camera, speaking in very personal terms about one of his top aides, one of his chief defenders, and somebody who has been one of the president's most prominent critics. interestingly he also talked about china. in a bit of news that i am sure will resonate on wall street, the president says he's not thinking about removing those tariffs from china. this had been a question, the president was considering meeting with president xi in those trade talks with the negotiating team, talking about those tariffs. he says the eu also has been as tough on the u.s., although there's not as much money involved when it comes to trade. interestingly, case kasie, he w asked about twitter, especially outlets like for example fox which we know the president watches, there's been a lot of discussion about this conspiracy theory or concern in some quarters that conservatives' voices will being silenced on social media like twitter. he talked about twitter, he says it's the way he can get out the word, because he says the media is dishonest, he talks about how he has more than 100 million followers. he ignored my colleague kristen welker when she asked several times, aren't these twitter attacks beneath the dignity of the office. he did answer the question from peter alexander, what do parents tell their kids about his words on twitter? he said it's his way to get his message out. the president may be starting to wrap up questions now and in fact he is, which means we are within minutes of getting that tape playback to see for ourselves what the president had to say on the south lawn. >> hallie jackson, hang with us, please, we're also getting notes that he called george conway a whack job. so stay tuned for that. coming up, mutual admiration society. president trump falls for another far right nationalist leader. more on their budding relationship, next. this is "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc. reports"c with more power for more fun. mini was born to do the only thing we ever wanted to do. drive. to hit start and just go. fast and far. around town and around hairpins. to leave everyone in the dust, and leave rubber on the road. because mini was born to drive. drive for yourself at the mini born to drive sales event. special offers at your local mini dealer. when did you see the sign? when i needed to jumpstart sales. build attendance for an event. help people find their way. fastsigns designed new directional signage. and got them back on track. get started at fastsigns.com. stroke and heart disease? 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>> it's actually something we've been trying to find out the answer to for a while, if the president says i have nothing to hide, there can't possibly be anything in this report because there's nothing to see here, then does he support its release. >> i'm going to put a pause on that because we have the tape of the president. let's watch. >> i have no idea. no collusion. no collusion. i have no idea when it's going to be released. it's interesting that a man gets appointed by a deputy, he writes a report, uh, you know, never figured that one out. man gets appointed by a deputy, he writes a report. i had the greatest electoral victory, one of them, in the history of our country. tremendous success. tens of millions of voters. and now somebody's going to write a report who never got a vote. so we'll see what the report says. let's see if it's fair. i have no idea when it's going to be released. [ inaudible question ] in syria we're leaving 200 people there and 200 people in another place in syria closer to israel for a period of time. i brought this out for you because this is a map of -- everything in the red, this is on election night in 2016. everything red is isis. when i took it over, it was a mess. now on the bottom, that's the exact same. there is no red. in fact there's actually a tiny spot which will be gone by tonight. so that's isis, red, right there. and the bottom one is how it is today. this just came out 20 minutes ago. so this is isis on election day, my election day. and this is isis now. so that's the way it goes. >> reporter: do you think the public has a right to see the mueller report? >> i don't mind. frankly, told the house, if you want, let them see it. again i say, a deputy, because of the fact that the attorney general didn't have the courage to do it himself, a deputy that's appointed appoints another man to write a report. i just won an election with 63 million votes or so, 63 million. i had 206-223 in the electoral college, saying to myself, wai minute, i just won one of the greatest victories in the electoral college, even you will admit that, and now i have somebody writing a report that never got a report? it's called the mueller report. explain that because my voters don't get it and i don't get it. at the same time, let it come out, let people see it. that's up to the attorney general. we have a very good attorney general, he's a highly respected man. and we'll see what happens. but it's sort of interesting that a man out of the blue just writes a report. i got 306 electoral votes against 223. that's a tremendous victory. i got 63 million more. i got 63 million votes. and now somebody just writes a report. i think it's ridiculous. but i want to see the report. and you know who i want to see it? the tens of millions of people that love the fact that we have the greatest economy we've ever had. i'm going to ohio right now. they were going to close the plant. that's why they make the tanks. it was going to be closed and i stopped them from closing it and now it's thriving and doing great. and the people of ohio, they like trump because i've done a great job in ohio. and i've done a great job all over the country. that's what the people want to hear. [ inaudible question ] i know nothing about it. i know that he's conflicted. and i know that his best friend is comey who is a bad cop. and i know that there are other things, obviously, you know, i had a business transaction with him that i've reported many times that you people don't talk about. i had a nasty business transaction with him, and other things. i know he put 13 highly conflicted and, you know, very angry, i call them angry democrats in. so, you know -- now, let's say whether or not it's legit. you know better than anybody there's no collusion. there was no collusion. there was no obstruction. there was no nothing. but it's sort of an amazing thing that when you have a great victory, somebody comes in, does a report nowhere, tell me how that makes sense? who never got a vote, who the day before he was retained to become special counsel, i told him he wouldn't be working at the fbi. and then the following day they get him for this. i don't think so. i don't think people get it. with all that being said, i look forward to seeing the report. [ inaudible question ] >> no, we're not talking about removing them. we're talking about leaving them and for substantial period of time because we have to make sure that if we do the deal with china, that china lives by the deal because they've had a lot of problems living by certain deals. and we have to make sure -- now, no president has ever done what i've done with china. china had free rein over our country taking out $5 billion every year. in the truest sense of the word, we rebuilt china. but we're getting along with china very well. president xi is a friend of mine. the deal is coming along nicely. we have our tonight representatives going there this weekend to further the deal. but, no, we're taking in billions and billions of dollars right now in tariff money, and for a period of time that will stay. [ inaudible question ] >> george conway, how does he fit the standard -- >> i don't know him. he's a whack job, there's no question about it, but i really don't know him. i think he's doing a tremendous disservice to a wonderful wife. kellyanne is a wonderful woman, and i call him mr. kellyanne. the fact is that he's doing a tremendous disservice to a wife and family. she's a wonderful woman. [ inaudible question ] >> well, are you talking about the one that you just found out about having to do with cars? no recommendation. it's up for review. and the european union has been very tough on the united states for many years, but nobody talked about it. and so we're looking at something to combat it. not only do they charge our companies, you look, it was 1.6 million to google, just happened yesterday and a lot of other things, lot of litigation. but i say the european union has been as tough on the united states has china, just not as much money involved. we'll see what happens. we'll see whether or not they negotiate a deal. if they negotiate a deal, a fair deal, that's a different story. [ inaudible question ] >> yeah, go ahead. [ inaudible question ] >> i think twitter is a way i get out a word when we have a corrupt media, and it is corrupt and it's fake. so twitter is a way that i can get out the word, because our media is so dishonest, a lot of it, the mainstream, a lot of it. they don't report the facts. they don't report, as an example, that i just showed you, they don't want to report this, so i figure i might as well show it. so whaten i do twitter statemen, i get out the word from a corrupt and fake media. i have on five sites -- please, please, please. on five sites, i have over 100 million people and that includes facebook and instagram and twitter and everything. and it's a way that i can get honesty out because there is tremendous dishonesty with respect to the fake news media. [ inaudible question ] >> well, we'll take a look at it. [ inaudible question ] >> i think our relationship right now is very good with pakistan. >> that was president trump on his way to ohio, answering questions from reporters including our own kristen welker who is now on the north lawn of the white house. kristen, we could hear him pointedly ignoring your question a day after you asked him in the oval office about john mccain. what did you take away from what we just heard? >> i keep trying to get this question to president trump. today he clearly heard it. he clearly ignored me three separate times. the question, kasie, are his twitter attacks beneath the office that he holds? you heard him there pause, listen to me, walk away. in another instance you heard him say, please, please, when i asked him the question again. so, a little bit of a headline there. not willing to engage on that point. but our peter alexander asked him what his message is to kids about these twitter attacks. he did engage on that point. not really answering directly, but instead pivoting to a defense of his use of twitter, saying it's his way to speak to his supporters, the american public in the face of what he called a corrupt media. no surprise, taking new aim at the media there. you also heard him again take new aim at george conway, so not stepping away from these attacks. kasie, there was also a bit of a headline when it came to the special counsel report by robert mueller. of course, we're all waiting for this report. we expect it to be released soon. the president saying, let the people see it. that is significant. really some of the strongest comments that he has made about making the mueller report public. now we anticipate that the white house will want to protect some of the information that is in it, claim executive privilege over it, but again, those were certainly news worthy comments as we await the mueller report. president trump now boarding air force one. as he departs for ohio, kasie, really overshadowing what is expected to be a day of policy, talking about jobs and the economy and that critical battle ground state. again, we are now focused on the president's personal grievances, kasie. >> indeed we are, kristin. you mention the mueller report. julia ainsley is outside the justice department where we have been on alert the past couple of weeks waiting for this report to come out. julia, let's fact check this a little bit. he is kind of accusing robert mueller of out of the blue writing a report. he called comey a bad cop, said he had a bad business transaction with him. it's a good point that kristen raises about personal grievances because this did seem like an unprompted broadside from the president on the mueller report. it sort of adds to the sense that there is something about to come out. >> reporter: yeah, i mean, i think the fact this is an out of the blue report certainly needs to be fact checked. this was part of robert mueller's assignment when he got it from rod rosenstein, that he would be doing this investigation and would end with a report here to the justice department which is what we're all on high alert waiting here for, kasie. also when he is suddenly starting to slam comey's credibility, and rosenstein's credibility, and robert mueller if i could, robert mueller might have been on the short list for fbi director. and he was not given that chance, and instead came here and somehow trump is trying to spin that as if he has something against him. i think nothing could be further from the truth. robert mueller, for anyone who knows him, has worked with him, does not hold personal grievances and i don't think wanted to take a second shot at having that job. he'd been fbi director a long period of time before that. he's trying to dee legitimatize rod rosenstein saying he was the deputy. he had the biggest purview over the investigation. it was his memo that led to the firing or at least justified the firing of jim comey and it's his next guidance, his next assignment was to hire robert mueller as special counsel. so dee legitimatizing him by saying he's only a deputy doesn't go very far. i do think kristen is right to point out this is big, he's saying let the people see it. although that might not be enough. it's not really up to the president what we see. there is still going to be grand jury testimony that stays confidential, and anything that spins off into the numerous other cases we know spun off the mueller investigation. they're going to have to keep that quiet in order to allow the other investigations to go on. so until then we remain here at the justice department on pins and needles. >> on watch. julia ainsley, thank you. david drucker, a quick question to you. i think it is important to point out, obviously this is about the president's grievances around jeff sessions. rod rosenstein was appointed, voted on by the senate. there was a vote. >> you wonder with bill clinton with 379 electoral votes, what the heck ken starr was doing investigating him. presidents in our system are not above the law. i don't think the president has ever really internalized how the american justice system works, and so he's trying to in a sense coach the outcome and win the battle over the mueller report before it's ever released so that if it's at all problematic, the voters he counts on won't believe it and he'll be in the position he wants to be from 2020. >> fair enough. that's going to do it for us on "andrea mitchell reports." "velshi & ruhle" with ali velshi and stephanie ruhle are up next. hi, guys. >> have a good afternoon, kasie. we'll sue you inee you in a lit. i'm ali velshi. >> i'm stephanie ruhle. let's get a little smarter. >> a pathway for medicare. make it available on the exchanges as a public option. let people buy in. if people like me are right, this is going to be not only more widespread coverage, but better and more cost-effective. >> i have a background of having been a lead and i think the voters are going to decide who will be the next commander in chief of the united states based on experience of leading. i was -- and i led at a local government level at state government, and now at federal government. i was the district attorney of