And the president explains his thinking and his timing on the pardon of joe arpaio. In the middle of the hurricane, i assume ratings would be higher than they would be. Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. The fourth largest city in the nation is under water. As harvey continues to dump rain on eastern texas. The worst flooding in the states history. In houston, thousands stranded waiting to be rescued tlaz water keeps rising and rain keeps falling. With totals up to 50 inches expected in some areas by the end of the week. That is a years worth of rain in a matter of days. At least ten people have lost their lives and the result of the storm. While 30,000 are expected to need Emergency Shelter according to the federal Emergency Management agency. The president and first lady are now headed to texas first thing tomorrow morning to survey the damage. I look very much forward to it. Things are being handled really well. The spirit is incredible of the people. The coordination between Different Services as you snow going well. Traveling throughout certain parts and we may go back on saturday depending on where the storm goes we may also go to louisiana on saturday. Storm comes amid an joonslaut of new revelations bit president and his company to build a trump tower in moscow during the president ial campaign. In an email published by the New York Times a business associate of the president s drew a direct link between that project and Trumps White House bid. He wrote, i will get putin on this program and we will get donald elected. Meaning elegislatived president. That epamai email sent by feli, with known mob ties. He was behind the trumps soho project in new york city. The recipient of the email, Michael Cohen, president s long time lawyer and executive of the Trump Organization. In the wake of russias interference in the Trump Administration and amid collusion in the Trump Campaign the president himself insisted he had no russian ties to compromise it. I had no dealings with russia. I have no deals in russia. I have no deals that could happen in russia. Because weve stayed way. While that may have been strictly true when he said it this past january we now know it did not tell the whole story. The Washington Post broke this weekend. The Trump Organization did seek a deal to build a trump tower in moscow while its chief executive was act live i running for president. That effort led by sater and cohen lasted until january 2016 on the eve of the first primaries. But that point trump was leading the field for about six months. We know that sater and cohen werent just going rogue because again, as we have just now learned, the president himself signed a nonbinding letter of intent sometime in 2015 to do the deal. Cohen explained in a statement to nbc news that trump moscow pro posal is simply one of Many Development opportunity the Trump Organization committed. But reaching out to the kremlin to get it back on track. Post breaking the news today that i coulden emailed Vladimir Putins personal spokesperson to ask him for help advancing the stalled trump tower moscow deal. Writing, as this project is too important i am here by requesting your assistance. According to the New York Times cohen emailed paskov, at press. Gov. Regardless, the correspondents showed efforts by the trump team to cooperate with the russian government. He claimed quote the trump tower moscow proposal is not related in any way to the Trump Campaign. But kushl crucially that is not now felix sater, the other side of the deal, portrayed the emails published again bit New York Times. Suggesting that the deals success and Vladimir Putins involvement could be the factor that put donald trump in the white house. I quote from that email. Buddy, our boy can become president of the usa and we can engineer it. I will get all of putins team to buy on this. I will manage this process. Im joined by two of the reporters who have been breaking these huge stories. Ross lin helderman. And thank you both. Ros rossalynn, i will start with you. Complicated things in terms of the characters whaen we are learning. Just the time line of this deal. One of the big revelations that starts in the reporting over the weekend and develops today is we were told that basically there is no overlap between donald trump running for president and trump pursuing a moscow deal. That is definitively not true, as we now know, right . Right. Donald trump starts running for president in june of 2015. We now know that in september of 2015 is when these conversations about sort of this attempt to build a trump tower in moscow begin. Donald trump himself signs that letter of intent with a moscowbased Development Company on october 28, 2015. And then we get this email from Michael Cohen to dimy try peskov. So what youve got a an active process during the heat of the Republican Primary Campaign election. Now, not only that, matt, but to your reporting on that sater email which is pretty remarkable document, because it explicitly connects the two, right . It could be the case that there is a parallel that is the trump org and they are doing deals everywhere, in turkey, in the philippines. But the sater email says, no, no, no, there is a direct line. If we build this and get pewter pute putin on board, that will get donald trump elected. Well his logic is the world needs to see that donald trump is this brilliant businessman and great negotiator. If we can get him cutting a deal with russia and on the same stage as Vladimir Putin then the world will see that he he is not just a great businessman he is a great statesman. This will elevate his portfolio. This will show he is the man to bridge the gap, you know, in our relations with russia. Again a lot of this, as russia said, a lot of this just showes a willingness by people around trump to kind of grab hold of russia both as Business Solution and as a political solution. We saw it in the june trump tower meeting. A willingness of the Trump Campaign to say yeah, ill take da damning information on hillary clinton. And part of this too, it is not complete idle speculation or vaporware they are coming up with, right . What is your understanding of the degree which there are other people on the other side of this potential deal that folks in trumps orbit are in Constant Contact with . Yeah, i mean, this was real proposal. Obviously it did not come to fruition. Thats a theme in the trump Business World of deals that start to get off the ground and dont ultimately result in a project but you know, we know from cohens statement to congress that they apparently had a conversation with architects about building plans for this. They had conversations about financing for this project. You did get this initial letter that is signed by donald trump himself. So this was a real negotiation. They were really trying to build the trump tower, while donald trump in moscow, while trump was running for president. What seems established here matt and i would like you to weigh in on this, in your reporting, in Washington Post reporting, rossalynns reporting and reporting on the meeting, in all three cases, if russia and representatives of the russia state wanted to send information or set up a meeting or contract the trump orbit or vice versa, there were channels along which that could conceivably be pursued . No question. When we have, we have an administration previously a campaign that said over and over again no contact with russia, no contract with russia, no contract with russia. And its been, gosh, only the end of august. Its been eight months of nonstop contact with russia. So of course, there were channels by which russia could pass information or channels where information could be exchanged. The thing is, is we dont know, obvious obviously if we have seen emails here, we havent seen information showing there is hacked emails and they are going to come out and this is how it will go. Thats really the smoking gun. But what we are seeing here is just another example of another channel of people who have access to or claim to have access to high level russian officiales who can get things done and get information and get close to putin. And to that point, and here is the sort of one take away and one question i think for future reporting, you know, we never know we dont know, we are seeing a very small sample of the email. We dont know what happened after the infamous don trump email meeting. It to me, and i will ask you to weigh in on this, we have a small sample of the emails here. We dont know what happens afterwards. Is that right, rossalynn . Yeah. Thats a fair point. I think we reported previously there were 20,000 emails that had gone to congress and that apparently did not include these new emails because our understanding is they went to Congress Just today. So what we know about so far is in a very, very small percentage of those notes. And you know, i think it is fair to say there is probably likely to be more to come out as we learn more about what is in all of those emails. Here is the emails i want to see. What email traffic was going around the trump orbit when they find out about the dnc hack getting published and people start accusing russia . What light bulbs do you think went on in peoples heads . Rossalin and matt, thank you both. Thank you. Senator chris murphy is a connecticut democrat. Particularly outspoken on this issue. How many more dots do you feel like you need to see connected . I think you need to start here with what we absolutely know. What we absolutely know for sure is that russia skpinded an unbelievable amount of money and effort to try to influence this election in Donald Trumps favor. Hundreds of russian operatives potentially, hundreds of millions of dollars. The question is, why . Why are they so sure that donald trump is a safe bet . And what you are understanding now is that they had lots of windows in to how directly connected donald trump was to potential very lucrative opportunities to line his pockets in russia. Whether it be the investments that russian entities made in the trump operation, that he is likely trying to hide by not releasing tax returns or this potential deal to put a trump tower inside russia. They were pretty sure when they made the big investment that donald trump had and could have a future big financial stake in russia. And ne know what motivates him first and foremost is the security of his wallet, of his financial empire. So i think youre seeing why the russians may have believed that they were making a pretty safe bet. This strikes me as an interesting theory in the case. We are saying, lets table for a moment whether there is collusion, actively conspireing on the hacks. What you are saying is russia probing and satisfying themselves. These are people we can work with, people with can influence, people we can get to before the big thing happens when is that they decide to publish those hacked emails in the dnc. All this stuff we are learning is before them. Right. And if we believe everything in this post report, these are pretty high leflt communications. People close to putin talking to people close to donald trump. And so it would, you know, lead to you believe there is a level of satisfaction inside the russian government that they knew who these people were that they were dealing with. I want to ask you on the Foreign Relations committee and outspoken about the forth policy in the world and i want to ask you to respond to something Rex Tillerson said. This is remarkable. About what the president speaks for. Lets take a listen. I dont believe anyone doubts the american peoples values or commitment of the American Government or governments agencies to advancing those values and defending those values. And the president s values . And the president speaks for himself, chris. Are you separating yourself for that, sir . Ive made my own comments as to our values as well in a speech i gave to the state department this past week. What do you make of that . That is a blow your socks off moment. That is Rex Tillerson very confidently separating himself from the president of the United States. With respect to the president s statements about charlottesville. I think there are some members of the cabinet frankly thinking about their legacy. But at the same time, lets remember, tillerson is throwing some stones from a glass house when he is talking about american values. It is worth remembering at the same time he is trying to scrub democracy promotion and human rights advancement from the mission of the department of states. When you think about american values, trying to get more people access to democracy, save people from terror and torture overseas has been a fundamental american value. Rex tillerson as much as donald trump has something to do with that being erased from our countrys mission statement. North korea pairs to have launched yet another ballistic missile. This crossing over japanese airspace. Text alert to japanese citizens. Scary moment. They fired over japanese before but not ballistic ones. What is your reaction . Well, listen, this is probably a most provocative action they have taken so far. It suggests they believe they are acting with some degree of impunity. Trump ahead these over the top statements about the military repercussions of attacking the United States. He has been handhanded about it. It not wrong to say there is a disproportionate if they come us to or land close to one of our allies. But they dont believe there is any other path that will ultimately hurt them. They dont think we have a handle on a diplomatic path that would do damage to their country. From the beginning many of us said there is a big piece of this north korea strategy missing. That is way to get other countries around asia to change north koreas behavior. They dont seem to fear that path which is why they act in this manner. Thank you, chris murphy. Thank you. Would an Evacuation Order have helped in houston . Or just compounded and exacerbated the devastation . I will talk to man who made the decision to evacuate that city, in two minutes. Hi leaving a career to follow a calling takes courage. A personalized Financial Strategy can give you confidence to take the next step. Hi guys aw yeah see how access to j. P. Morgan investment expertise can help you. Chase. Make more of whats yours. Chase. Choicehotels. Com. Badda book. Thats it . He means book direct at choicehotels. Com for the lowest price on our rooms guaranteed. Plus earn free nights and instant rewards at checkin. Yeah. Like i said. Book now at choicehotels. Com when i walked through for a cigarette, thats when i knew i had to quit. For real this time. Thats why im using nicorette. Only nicorette gum has patented dualcoated technology for great taste, plus intense craving relief. Every great why needs a great how. Big parts of houston are under water tonight. And it looks like it is still getting worse. Hurricane harvey made land fall friday night dumping a record owe bli obliterating amounts of rain and is forecast to continue for several more days. Volunteers are rescuing people from water that now reached up to several feet high. It was over five feet in our house. We barely made it out. Im just so grateful that they came. Wh when they was telling p em to shelter in place i dont think people need to shelter in place. I think they need to lead as soon as possible. That gentleman isnt the only one suggestion people should leave their homes. But houston authorities told people to shelter and stay in place and with good reason according to the mayor. The major thing is to stay off the street. No evacuation was given for houston harris county. We are not in the direct line of the hurricane. For the areas in rockport, victoria, Corpus Christi further south, they were in the direct path. Harris county, houston, we were not. Comparing houston this time around with hurricane yeet in 2005 when 3 million texans were evacuated many at the same time. From the tribune, of the 139 daen deaths linked to hurricane rita, people died in a bus fire. 10 others died from hypothermia due to heat expiring in their cars. Many people ran out of gas over traffic jams that lasted two straight days. In contrast, here is what some houston area highways look like this weekend instead. Former mayor of houston who ran the city during rita and katrina joins me by phone. Bill white. Thanks for your time to might, mr. White. First, how are things right now in houston . The water is still coming. And ill tell you what, computer models 20, 25 inches of rain, and some parts of the nations fourth largest city, one of the largest metropolitan areas, are getting 40 to 50 inches of rain in the forecast now. Which is to put it in perspective, about the same amount of rain as you would normally get in a year in this area. You were there during rita and katrina. I think a lot of people understood why the evacuation happened with rita because you had just watched what happened with katrina. People felt like they learned lessons from rita in terms of how hard it is to actually evacuate a city the size of houston. Do you think this mayor made the right call in having people shelter in place . Yes. Certainly people who are not in the direct hundredyear, 500year flood plain and moreover, pointing out on rita, we only had a mandatory evacuation area for the storm surge area. Wh happened and surveys who showed this the benefit of hindsight, is that ten times as many people evacuated at the same time because they witnessed what happened in katrina. So the idea of avoiding panic is, you know, a legitimate point. The infrastr