Interviews with political figures and news updates. Were talking about mens suits, andrea. Mens suits at 25,000 a pop. I dont know. Peter alexander, you know more about mens suits than i do. You can also tell me about Donald Trumps tweets, because this has been a storm of tweets today and its been a rather creative one. He is also tweeting about al capone. He wrote, looking back on history, who is treated worse, alphonse capone, legendary mob boss, killer, and public enemy number one, or paul manafort, political operative and reagan dole darling, now serving Solitary Confinement although convicted of nothing. Where is the russian collusion . Im not sure who his target is there. Reporter andrea, the president has a series of targets today, one thats clear is Attorney GeneralJeff Sessions in some of those earlier tweets when the president went further than he has been, more explicit than he has been at any point, basically calling on sessions to stop the russia investigation. To the jury. But dont forget, youre also going to have rick gates who is manaforts righthand man during all of this time period and all of this conduct, who is also going to testify. And what he will be able to do is really lead the jury through a lot of this documentary evidence. I think this is a very, very difficult defense for paul manafort. I think at the end of the day, the government has a strong case. And unless something goes sort of haywire with the jury, which can always happen with any jury, i would expect a conviction. And of course the defense, the main defense, which we will hear after the first week and a half or whenever they do get to the defense, the defenses argument is rick did it. Theyre going to try to muddy up the key star witness who has made a plea deal and is cooperating with the prosecution. Dan, to what do you think and im going to ask peter as well about this to what do you think we can attribute the president s firestorm as well asRudy Giuliani, theres been a real increase, an escalation in the attacks against mueller and now sessions today. Why now . Manafort is not on trial in this case about anything that had to do with russia and donald trump. Andrea, i think there are a couple of things that the president and his team are seeing, where theyre starting to feel the Collusion Investigation Closing in a little bit more. And prosecutors dont believe in coincidences. Its not a coincidence that not eve of the Manafort Trial and as the Manafort Trial is getting going, even though its unrelated to the collusion investigation, that were getting this Rudy Giuliani media tour, and were getting Donald Trumps most overt and obstructionist tweets to date. Its not a surprise. And what i think they are sensing is, when you start to add up a lot of the data points, and ill just point out a couple, the july 27th, 2016 date
when the president calls for russia to find the emails and then the mueller indictment of the russian intelligence officials says that on that very date they started mining for data, and then when you look at the sequence of events related to that june 9th trump tower meeting, and guiliani for the first time informs the public about a premeeting, a premeeting where, by the way, cooperating witness rick gates attended, i think that what theyre starting to get a sense of, and it may be from Paul Manaforts lawyers who have a lot of information about what rick gates told mueller, i think theyre starting to see theres a lot more smoke to this collusion investigation. And thats why youre seeing the president lash out as forcefully as he ever has at this investigation. An innocent person would say, please finish this so we can move on, i want to get to the bottom of it. But thats the exact opposite of what hes saying. And Peter Alexander at the white house, theres a different tempo right now. I mean, youve been reporting on it for a couple of days. Weve certainly seen it in the last week. And the rally last night. Reporter yeah, andrea, i think thats right. I was asking this very question of several sources close to the president today, why now, why is he out with this latest twitter tirade as weve witnessed this morning. One of these sources described to me, the president simply feels emboldened right now, supported by the rally he had last night, celebrated by the large crowd in tampa. Many sources said to me theres really not anybody inside the room in the west wing anymore that can tell the president , no, thats not entirely new. But it is significant right now because as the president sees the headlines, watching fox news, as he travels back from tampa, sees the criticism not just of the press but also of the case against paul manafort, it infuriates him again. He has a sense, according to
these sources, hes getting roped into this manafort investigation, that hes caught in the top paragraph of every story when it has nothing to do with him, all these charges preceded manaforts time working with the trump campaign. He simply views that as unfair. Now, obviously that says nothing of the other things the Mueller Investigation has come up with so far within the last month, obviously, indicting 12 russians for their involvement in russian interference in the u. S. Election. But thats a little bit of a glimpse into the president s mindset. And ken dilanian in alexandria outside the courthouse, what else do we expect besides high end mens fashion today . Reporter in addition to fashion, were talking about expensive renovations to homes, andrea, watches, a jacket made of ostrich. Ive just been told prosecutors have said in the courtroom that Rick Gates May or may not testify. Theyre not saying he definitely will testify, which is interesting, because the defense has portrayed him as the store witness. Of course hes never been the star witness. Manafort and gates were indicted together and the prosecution was prepared to make this case well before rick gates decided to cooperate. But now that he has cooperated, as dan was saying earlier, it was thought he would be able to lead the jury through some of these facts and give his perspective on what i thought manafort was doing with the finances, but now the prosecution is saying it may or may not happen. Who knows whether theyre holding him out for a surprise later. To be continued. Ken dilanian, daniel goldman, and of course Peter Alexander at the white house. Coming up next, President Trumps gaffe about Buying Groceries doesnt exactly check. Thats ahead right here on Andrea Mitchell reports right here on msnbc. And diarrhea can start in the colon, and may be signs of an imbalance of good bacteria. Only Phillips Colon Health has this unique combination of probiotics. It helps replenish good bacteria. Get fourinone symptom defense. On the road. On the trail. Or to the beach. Start a 30day trial and your first audiobook is free. Cancel anytime, and your books are yours to keep forever. No matter where you go this summer make it better with audible. Text summer17 to 500500 to start listening today. You might or joints. Hing for your heart. But do you take something for your brain. With an ingredient originally discovered in jellyfish, prevagen has been shown in Clinical Trials to improve shortterm memory. Prevagen. Healthier brain. Better life. Minorities, the president s claim that people need i. D. s to buy groceries sparked criticism from some who wondered how out of touch the billionaire president just might be. Joining me now is ruth marcus, Washington PostDeputy Editorial Page editor, and bill kristol, editor at large for the weekly standard. Ruth, we go from bijon suits at 25,000 a shot, to voter i. D. s. This has been quite an interesting example of the testimony in alexandria and now of course the trump tweets and the trump speeches. Yes. I dont know where President Trump shops, but i kind of suspect that he doesnt. And you and i, and by the way, congratulations on the 40year anniversary, thats incredible. Thanks. It was less than 40 years ago, but a long time ago, that
president george h. W. Got in a heap of trouble for allegedly and perhaps unfairly not understanding a Supermarket Scanner and how that worked. This is basic, go to the bodega around the corner, go to your local supermarket, you dont need i. D. But more fundamentally, insisting on voter i. D. s, there is no evidence of massive or even significant voting by noncitizens in u. S. Elections. So he should really just stop. Remember the election commission, bill and ruth, that they created. Yes. And it fell flat, they could never even get a meeting together. There was simply no evidence of the massive fraud that he consistently alleges. We run elections on a federal system, states run elections. In virginia i did show my drivers license when i voted. Others thing its too strict. Its been debated in the virginia legislature. Im old enough to remember when republicans tended to think these things should be left to the states. The federal government has a role to play to assist security, but trump is just demagoguing this, obviously. The tweets this morning, those are pretty serious. He seems to be intensifying the attack on mueller. One thing that occurs to me is the Senate Judiciary committee did report out, 147, a bill that would go some ways towards protecting mueller. It wouldnt be a bad thing for mcconnell bring it to the floor. Maybe Chuck Schumer should insist on it. Its important for the congress to not let trump talk himself into thinking he can get away with crippling this investigation. I think he would pay a pretty big price. He seems emboldened. It would be bad to have that constitutional crisis. It would be bad for the republicans, theres no question this would become a midterm
issue. Hes gone after the media, this is a favorite target, we saw that during the campaign. We saw during the campaign, ruth, the Washington Post and other organizations were barred from those rallies and had to come in with the public and try to cover them as best they could. Lets listen to a bit of donald trump last night in tampa, florida, blasting the media. Fake news. Fake news. They are fake. Every night its the same thing. Wouldnt you think they would get tired of these speeches . Wouldnt you think . And jim acosta has been a frequent target. He is the white house correspondent, of course, for cnn. Cnn and nbc and others have also been targets. But jim acosta posted a video, weve cleaned this up a little bit, weve had to bleep out all the profanity, the Trump Supporters at that rally, egged on by the president , going after jim acosta. [ yelling ] [ bleep ] [ bleep ] [ bleep ]. So thats the view from one correspondent, one network correspondent, ruth, of what its like to cover a trump rally last night. So it was bad enough, and honestly it was scary enough at times, when President Trump was just candidate trump. But for a president of the United States to be repeatedly not just elevating this fake news argument but to be talking about reporters as the enemy of the people, to be egging this on, to be egging it on in
particular in the aftermath of the murders in annapolis, its somewhere between appalling and heartbreaking. We are becoming too much inured to it. Meanwhile were becoming inured to the absence of president ial News Conference. Hes had one real News Conference as president. I think there were three briefings by the White House Press secretary last month. This is not normal. Its not okay. And it is of a piece with this sort of more public and virulent and scary attack on the media as well. Lets just say, bill kristol, all the president s i covered, all of them didnt like the media, they certainly didnt like us when we were questioning them and going after issues, iran contra, other scandals, lewinsky. But they all understood there should be press conferences, there should are interactions, that was part of the process,
thats what you buy into when you become president of the United States. Its what we advertise when were preaching democracy to other countries, to totalitarians regimes. To see this encouraged, it is dangerous because it undermines our basic values. I thought your phrase egging it on was key for me. Weve had president s grumble about the media, occasionally try to rebuke the media, say youre wrong about this, or once let out a scream of exasperation publicly. But not this consistent egging on of mobs, which is really what that crowd becomes when its egged on that way by the president , to shout obscenities and profanities and try to intimidate, basically, the media. What does this look like . What if youre living abroad, what Isser Er Iamerica is the government you would like to have, rule of law, free media, and you see it turning into the kind of place immigrants have on
tried to escape to get to the United States from. Its very bad in so many ways, i think. Were going to talk about the real fake news, which is a National Security issue because its russia, its russia using social media to spread dissent and spread propaganda under false flags. Thats coming up next. So perhaps the president and his team should be looking more closely at a real threat to our National Security. Ruth marcus and bill kristol, thank you both so much. Coming up, social media. The senate hears heightened warnings about russias attempt to influence this years election. That hearing today. Youre watching Andrea Mitchell reports on msnbc. Im a fighter. Always have been. When i found out i had agerelated macular degeneration,
amd, i wanted to fight back. My doctor and i came up with a plan. It includes preservision. Only Preservision Areds 2 has the exact nutrient formula recommended by the National Eye Institute to help reduce the risk of progression of moderate to advanced amd. Thats why i fight. Because its my vision. Preservision. Also, in a greattasting chewable. The Senate Intelligence committee today reacting to the latest attempts to influence americas elections. The Senate Intelligence committee holding that hearing on foreign influence in social media after 32 pages and account profiles were removed from facebook and instagram in response to an Online Disinformation Campaign to spark political divisions in the u. S. Facebook executives tell federal investigators they are not sure who is behind the latest effort but senators are certainly looking at the kremlin. Im very pleased that facebook took this action and i hope that all Social Media Platforms continue to actively counter russias foreign influence campaign. I have no question that its going on. And i have no question that it is related to more than just election interference. Joining me now is nbc Senior Business reporter ben popkin and ned price, former senior
director of president obamas National Security council. This is a very complicated subject but it certainly would seem to get to the bottom of it, you have to have a governmentwide approach led by the National Security council, which we have not seen. Theyre in it belatedly for just under an hour on friday, their first meeting on that subject. Ben popkin, what did you find out about what russia is likely doing . What we saw described in the hearing, what weve been seeing for over a year is their continued ability to Sow Disinformation and discord. We found posts from these fake accounts that facebook deleted. They were identified as being linked to foreign influence meddling. What this foreign power is doing is gathering people into different groups based on their identity, based on whether theyre into black issues, based
on whether theyre into resistance and left wing issues. Once they draw people in with these innocuous calls, then they start pounding them with much more Divisive Political messages, trying to push their buttons, trying to push them to act. And even in some cases encouraging them to attend rallies, at those rallies to bring helmets, goggles, flags, telling them theyll make the opposition pay. This is a Widespread Campaign that is ongoing, that is spreading information, misinformation not just online but also seeping into the real world. And ned, we saw this during the 2016 campaign after the fact, and the kremlin was certainly well, the russian operatives were indicted first for this false Information Campaign by mueller and now more recently for the hacking. So we now hear that Senator Shaheen and Claire Mccaskill were both hacked by that same fancy bear, the same operatives that had done the 2016 hacking. It seems as though this is an allout approach. The russians are at it again, and they are going back to the very same playbook. Its the same dualpronged approach, not only using these Internet Trolls on