With its unprecedented power, is there anything anyone can do about it . I wish i could tell you that were going to be able to stop all interference. But that just wouldnt be realistic. All in starts right now. Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. Tonight, the infamous steel dossier is at the very center of the news on the russia investigation. Nbc news reports that investigators on special counsel Robert Muellers team have interviewed christopher steele. Thats of course the former British Intelligence officer who compiled that absolutely explosive document. The dossier deals an alleged effort by the russian government over a period of years, stretching back to 2013 or so, to cultivate and coopt donald trump and his inner circle, as well as an extensive conspiracy between the Trump Campaign and Russian Forces to Work Together to interfere in the 2016 president ial election on trumps behalf. The president denies those
and now it appears mueller wants to ask some followup questions. Thats what i think this interview would have been about. Ken dlanian, thank you. I want to bring in former assistant Watergate Special prosecutor juwan banks, former federal prosecutor renato marriotty. What do you make of this news . Its interesting and big news. The dossier i think you and ken covered it very well, chris. The dossier contains a lot of explosive details. And had been denied had been the subject of very frequent denials by the administration. They said, oh, false dossier, fake, theres nothing real in there. But at ken was pointing out portions have been verified. Now that muellers looking at it, what it tells me is hes going back and trying to figure out what he can create usable evidence out of. So your viewers understand, you cant just toss this dossier in front of a jury. You actually have to bring in we took every bit of information that we got, every clue, every tip, and took it seriously. Its interesting especially in light of the release of the mark felt movie and his being held out as a hero. But really, he was telling us what we already knew, because his information came from the same fbi that worked for us. So it wasnt dramatic, new information. The fbi knew everything that he had and we had it. The people who didnt have it were the public. And it was helpful to bring Public Opinion to support our efforts to uncover all the information. And it really helped in the end too bring about the replacement of the Special Prosecutor after the Saturday Night Massacre and to get the release of the tapes, because the public was supporting us because they saw the evidence publicly. Here you have a situation where the senate has to get to the bottom of what happened, not just in terms of the dossier,
but in terms of the clear and convincing evidence that we have that the russians hacked. Because they have to protect our electoral system. And thats a really important underlying thing that the congress has to do, whereas the criminal prosecution has to proceed through the mueller investigation. Renato, i want to talk about time scale here. This is now an investigation that was opened i think in summer of 2016, i believe june. Its gone through several phases. I think its intensified. Its been passed over to the special counsel. And the argument that you heard from Sarah Huckabee sanders, although it was of the Intelligence Committee but the same ilk, theyve been looking and talking to people, theres thousands of pages of transcript, and they havent found the smoking gun so this is a witch hunt. What do you say to that . First of all, we dont know what muellers found yet. So your viewers understand, when you conduct a grand jury investigation, as a legal matter, its secret. So mueller cant divulge to us everything that he knows. We dont know what he knows. And this is just in the frankly, in many ways, its still in a fairly early stage. As we just heard recently, mueller is interviewing people at the white house about obstruction and other issues. So each one of those interviews is going to generate more requests and more subpoenas and more interviews. I mean, this is going to go on and on at hes verifying this dossier. Hes going to be interviewing more people sxoo bringing them in. This is just the beginning. And i would not draw any conclusions other than what we already know about manafort and others being indicted. So then jill, this goes to you. Obviously theres been reporting suggesting that mueller has informed manafort directly, you are going to be indicted, which if he was unclear on that, breaking into his apartment to search a Search Warrant probably helped him to that possibility. I guess my question is to renatos point, did you feel when you were working the watergate investigation, was there some sense of extemple pressure that you guys at some point, in order to sustain Public Interest or sustain peoples thoughts that this was a fair proceeding, did have to
pru something tangible that you could come public with . Lets look at the smoking gun which you mentioned. And we were appointed in may of 73. We found out that there were Tape Errorinrecordings in july. Subpoenaed them, were stonewa stonewalled, but then we finally got some. They werent the shown gun, it was nine limited tapes and we only got six because one had an 18minute gap, two were missing. So we only got six of the nine. And then in march we returned indictments. It was only in preparation for trial which was set for September Of 74 that we subpoenaed 64 more tapes and got the smoking gun. When we got the smoking gun, and this is now more than a year after we started, that was an immediate response. The republicans acted as americans. The three Top Republicans in the congress, house and senate, went to nixon and said, there is no
more support for you, you will be convicted in the senate if you do not resign. And that was the end. But that was a year into it. We did not get the smoking gun right away. This takes time. You know, slow and steady wins the race. We have to put the puzzle together piece by piece. And it takes a little bit of time to develop all the evidence thats necessary. And i think mueller is showing every sign of getting it done. All right, jill and renato, thank you both. Joy reid, host of a. M. Joy joins me. What do you think is the significance of mueller sending folks to talk to steele . I think its very important. I think you and ken made a really important point that this is a research document. Its a document from which the mueller team can work to find facts. It is not the fact. The important thing that is people sort of characterize the dossier as sort of the conclusions that this guy was drawing. He was sweeping in all of this information and mueller has to put it together. Its important because theres a lot in that dossier that has borne out. I think it provides the most compelling set of facts that could be a narrative as to how collusion took place. If they can get to the bottom of that by talking to him, finding out where did he get some of his information, he may or may not be able to divulge it, i think it helps to build slowly this investigation. You know, the document itself, and part of the reason that i the way i think about it has shifted over time as facts fall into place. When you read it the first time, what it lays out seems really kind of crazy. Like, i mean, or at least so broad in scope. The idea is that this was a sustained effort over a number of years to cultivate donald trump, to bring him into the russian orbit, to have him be essentially turned into a kind of asset, and then to help his campaign. What it lays out in its scope is really, really enormous. Yeah. But it isnt if you think about the way that russia has worked. Lets remember that the current president of russia was a former kgb agent. Kgb spent years cultivating
assets. This is not something they do quickly. I think the idea that you have somebody like donald trump, who showed the affinity in the 80s, showed an interest in the 80s, had a need in the 90s, need and greed are usually the components of the way that the russians, even when they were the soviets, would develop assets. This is how its done. I think the idea is if youre going to interfere in a president ial election, this is really taking it to a level that is incredibly risky for russia. If youre going to do that, you better do it carefully. You better cultivate these contacts over a long period of time. Its not something they would rush into. So i think it actually makes sense that it was that comprehensive and that it depended on the greed and need of a lot of different people who wanted to make money somehow through russia, or who wanted to have the power of the presidency. Do we have by the way this clip of the president just speaking a little while ago . If we do, i want to play it for joy. This is the president. Hes having a dinner tonight with military officials and their families at the white
house. And its slightly off target but it just happened and i want to get your reaction, i dont know what to make of it. This is the president appearing to threaten something and no one can figure out what. Do you know what this represents . Maybe its the Calm Before The Storm. Whats your storm . The Calm Before The Storm. What storm . We have the worlds great military people here in this room, ill tell you that. Thank you all for coming. Thank you. What storm, mr. President . Youll find out. You know, donald trump what do you make that . Donald trump still seems to think hes in the apprentice, a is spence moment before you go to break, come back from commercial and announce whatever it is hes doing. He treats the presidency like a reality show. He did this with tom price,
hamg on, well have more information for you. Stay tuned. But at the time that theyre potentially ripping up the iran nuclear deal, which could send us on a path of hostility with iran. Iran is not iraq, its a republic, its not a puttogether republic where the people are fractured. It was an empire. It has an actual air force. Its four times the population. Hes contemplating any sort of act of hostilities with iran, thats terrifying. At the same time he is goading north korea. If he werent doing those two things that would just be donald trump doing his donald trump thing. Its kind of terrifying in the context of what theyre doing. I mean, presumably there are intelligence agents of other countries trying to parse this as well. Of course. I think he thinks its an asset if they cant figure him out, but theres reasons to think that the literature in deterrence and game theory that could be quite dangerous. Indeed. Next, more exclusive new reporting on the rift between Rex Tillerson and the man he reportedly called a moron. New details of a furious president fuming at the white house in just two minutes. Later, the facebook effect. A special conversation on the crossroads of democracy and the unprecedented power the Social Media Giant holds. And then you totaled him. You two had been through everything together. Two boyfriends, three jobs. Youre like nothing can replace brad. Then Liberty Mutual calls. And you break into your happy dance. If you sign up for better car replacement™, well pay for a car thats a model year newer with 15,000 fewer miles than your old one. Liberty stands with you™. Liberty mutual insurance. President undermined tillerson or any other cabinet secretary. Whats your response to those who say the president has undercut the Secretary Of State . Sarah, just quickly i think the premise of that question is rud dic husband, the president cant undercut his own cabinet, the president is the leader of the cabinet. He sets the tone, he sets the agenda, i think that question make not sense because of that. Nbcs carol lee who worked on that story and subsequent reporting joins me now. What do we know from your reporting about the reaction to the story . We know that the president was furious. And he vented in the white house for about two hours. He had left quite early to go to las vegas. And once he got aboard air force one, that eswhen kelly kind of started to get into action. About two and a half hours later we saw secretary tillersons press conference. The interesting thing that happened after that is that
kelly then summoned tillerson and defense secretary mattis to the white house for this meeting. And the reason why that is significant is because, as you recall, it was kelly and mattis who intervened in july when tillerson was threatening to resign and convinced him to stay. So the three of them had this huddle at the white house where they talked about a path forward. Meanwhile, you have Vice President pence who was really angered by this, particularly because tillersons spokesman said on the record to us for the story, told us the story about a meeting that tillerson had had with pence and suggested that the Vice President somehow was questioning the job that the u. N. Ambassador nikki haley was doing. Pences office said that was flatly, patently false. So he was very upset and he and tillerson had a conversation and
he said, you need to fix this. Youre saying that was the prompt for tillerson to come out before the cameras in that hastily assembled press conference. Right. Youre telling me Behind The Scenes of your interpretation and your colleagues and our colleagues reporting was not, this is not fake news, but rather, i am furious that the man called me a moron . It was essentially yeah. Why was he the idea that tillerson had said something disparaging behind the president s back, the whole notion of this being out there in the headlines, the president was just you know. It was not he was not at all happy with anything that was happening yesterday morning. All right. Carol lee, thanks for joining me. Thank you. Msnbc stephanie rule, one of our report hoarse broke the news yesterday, its good to have you here. They are publicly, the president , tweeting about fake news, fake news, fake news, deny fake news. Meanwhile theyre not interpreting it as fake newsBehind The Scenes. Think about this. Rex tillerson comes out there, gives that press conference to an audience of one, apologizing to the president , saying youre the smartest, prettiest, greatest, bestest boss there ever was in the whole universe, but by the way, im not going to comment on whether or not i call y you a moron, from the parts where i cam from, thats too petty to say that. You know what its not too petty. Because people in that room said it. What do you think it says about that palace intrigue, what goes on within the white house . This is a meeting that took place in july. This has been floating around. So those colleagues that hes working with every day, remember, President Trump says, the stories you hear about the chaos are nonsense, its a welloiled machine. What kind of welloiled machine leaks like this . The other part of this that strikes me is this is also this account has been confirmed by other outlets now. This is something that was clearly people knew that this had happened and had been floating around. It was not a crypto secret. Thats why its stunning for the president to say, lets go after this fake news, fake news. This happened. Like no way other than to say, it happened. Multiple people have confirmed it. Think about how unhappy Rex Tillerson is. A year ago the guy ran exxonmobil. He was the ceo. He flew around the world private, had his own security detail, Foreign Policy team, didnt even eat in the cafeteria, and now hes got a staff that doesnt even interface with other parts of the administration, he travels alone. People in the Administration Talk about Rex Tillerson and his Chief Of Staff like they are Persona Non Grata and thats how Something Like this gets out. Not only Persona Non Grata at foggy bottom, at the white house too, a man without a country. He also the other part of this is it seems from the reporting ive seen, the president s furious but also feels paralyzed because heres this quick look at the people who have gone from the administration. This is last friday we made this. Scaramucci, bannon, comey,
flynn, priebus, spicer, shiller, on and on and on. It will feed the chaos narrative if he does Fire Tillerson so hes stuck with him. Remember President Trump, i hire the best people. A laundry list of people have left. And at the same time a laundry list continues of those who keep getting caught flying private, flying on military planes. We know how much that infuriated the president when tom price did it. Whos he going to be mad at now . Youre well sourced in all this. I wondered if i can pick your brain on the comments the president just made about this being the Calm Before The Storm. Have you seen this . I have. What the heck does that mean . President trump loves to be unpredictable. Its unclear what the Calm Before The Storm the thing is, it could mean anything. But if you are a member of or nothing. Or nothing. But ill tell you, if you are one of his senior Staff Members and you hear him go out there and say, the Calm Before The Storm, youre not feeling like you know what hes about to say. Youre feeling like, what could it be . Realize, it could be iran. It could be north korea. It could be fake news. It could be firing someone. Could be firing Rex Tillerson for calling me a moron, which i said was fake news. It could be hes going to do something very progressive on gun contro