Interviews with political figures and news updates. Public. And i think with giuliani and sekulow now, what theyre trying to do is trying to put pressure on mueller to wrap it up. Theyre putting this false deadline out there that he has to finish by September 1st because, you know, thats department of Justice Policy, to not come close to an election. Thats a great Ov Oversimplification of what the department of Justice Policy is. There is no absolute September 1st deadline, particularly when youre talking about the president , who is not even on the ballot in november. So its not even a clearcut connection to the elections. And even if it were, mueller does not have to stop investigating September 1st. He just might need to stay away from charging certain people or doing overt acts that might impact an election. So giuliani once again is just making stuff up and trying to put this false deadline and pressure on mueller. And youre right, it has an impact on the public. But i dont think at the end of the day it will or should have an impact on how mueller is doing his investigation. Looking at is mariia butina, a russian national, betsy, someone who infiltrated the nra. We know she got cozy with a number of Top Republicans including some within the trump campaign. And you have new information in regards to that. What are you learning . Thats right. Mariia butina is facing allegations, shareholdwhich of e disputes, that she was working as an unregistered agent for the kremlin, trying to influence american politics. The new information i can share with you today is that she had someone who was acting as a gobetween, between her and a Russian Oligarch who funded her operation in the United States at the time. Hes one of the most powerful people in putins orbit. Butina was not going directly to him to get funding for the work she was doing. Rather, the person who is the face of that funding, who
essentially acted like a grant administrator, is a gentleman who is a really interesting character. Hes not part of the russian government that we know of. Rather, hes considered one of the Founding Fathers of russian public relations. His firm has represented a host of kremlin clients. Its also represented Vladimir Putins own political party, united russia. The fact that butina had this person with such an extensive pr record who was helping her, according to my sources, with the work that she was doing in the United States, shows that the nature of her project was perhaps more complex, more involved, than we initially understood. Great reporting on that angle, betsy. As we set the table here in the broader russian investigation, there does seem to be a lot going on in the manafort courtroom today. And so with that i want to bring in barbara mcquade, former u. S. Attorney in michigan and a msnbc contributor. I know youve been tracking this. Whats the latest, whats
happening there, barbara . Kind of an unusual day today. Ordinarily the judge keeps a tight ship and starts promptly at 9 30. Today when court began at 9 30, the judge came out, asked for a sidebar with the lawyers, that is a private conversation that the rest of us couldnt hear. They talked for a while. He took a recess. He came back and talked further. Finally he dismissed the jury until 1 45. It has left the group speculating, everyone here, what is going on. One thing that he did that might provide some clue is he really went out of his way to admonish the jury, as he does a little bit every day, but today it seemed very pointed, where he told the jury that they are not to discuss the case, they are to presume the defendant innocent, that they should keep open minds about the evidence until theyve heard the whole case. And so theres some speculation that perhaps there is some jury issue thats going on. But we dont know. Well go back at 1 45 p. M. To find out whats happening. Barbara, lets do big picture
on this, since we dont know specifically what the judge has in mind here. If there hypothetically were to be some issue with a juror, what could the broader implications be there . There could be a range of remedies. The jury is really allowed to roll around the courthouse here in a way i havent seen in other courthouses. Theyre a very tight ship in some ways. On the floor where theres a snack bar, for example, members of the press can interact with jurors. A juror may have overheard something, or even jury tampering. The range of options would be instructions to disregard what you hear outside the courtroom, or the opposite end of the spectrum would be to declare a mistrial and try the case over again. After all the work thats been done here, that would probably frustrate the government, but in this trial its a victory for the defense because they live to fight another day. Mimi, if i could get you to weigh in on these breaking news
developments. And theyre just coming in, were not exactly sure what is happening, but we do know as barbara just reported, that the judge to some extent admonished the jury, reminded them not to discuss the details of the case. What do you make of what we just heard from barbara . I think barbara laid out really well in the sense that it could be a range of things, from something small to something very big. Another option, you know, that the judge has, and may be happening right now, is sometimes if theres if one side raises an issue that maybe a juror overheard something or someone approached them, they will do whats called voir dire the jury in private. Barbara may have more insight on whether the jurors have been released or not during this break, but thats something ive seen happen quite often. Sometimes these things really do get resolved. It is good to not like overreact to it, because jurors hear things, things happen in public courthouses, and a lot of times what the judge will do with the
parties is bring jurors in and make sure that theyre really still able to be there and impartial. Carol sure, go ahead, barbara. I just want to say, one other option here, there are four alternates on this juror. As mimi said, if they find out there is a problem and its related to only one or two of the jurors, they do have four alternates that can take their seats and keep on going. Important point. And carol, we know the white house is watching this very closely. President trump has said, look, Paul Manafort didnt really serve on my campaign, he was there at a critical time, he was the Campaign Chair at a critical time. This is just one of the factors that has increasingly gotten under the president s skin. Weve seen him get increasingly aggressive, frankly, towards this entire investigation. You know this better than anyone, that is what the white house does whatever they have somebody who has been close to the president who then is
suddenly finding themselves in trouble or somehow, you know, contradicting him or undermining him, theyll say, oh, you know, he wasnt really close to him. Revisionism. Yes, thats the playbook. You have the manafort trial, you have whats happening with michael cohen, you have the president s Son Don Junior in the news again. And all of that has really, you can see just based on the president s twitter feed, u unnerved him. Hes said Paul Manafort didnt work for him but then tweeted in defense of him. You have the Interview Issue coming to a head. All of that is only going to intensify in the coming weeks. Great conversation. Well watch the president s twitter feed today. Carol lee, barbara mcquade, thank you for that breaking news. Mimi rocah, and betsy woodruff, Great Conversation, thanks all around. Dana scheckter as well for the reporting at the top. Coming up, a year after the violence in charlottesville, the city braces for another weekend of protest as the president takes to twitter. Is he actually stoking more division . This is Andrea Mitchell reports only on msnbc. Were live from somerville today. Stay with us. I dont keep track of regrets. I never count the wrinkles. And i dont add up the years. But what i do count on. Is staying happy and healthy. So, i add protein, vitamins and minerals to my diet with boost®. New boost® high protein nutritional drink now has 33 more highquality protein, along with 26 essential and minerals your body needs. All with guaranteed great taste. The upside im just getting started. Boost® high protein be up for life
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violence in charlottesville, virginia, the Historic Town is still marked by the stain of racial hatred. Now the city is again bracing for what could be a hostile environmental as the right wing organizers of last years rally are planning to hold another rally in washington, d. C. This weekend. Hundreds of counterprotesters say they will be onsite to face off against them and officials have already declared states of emergency for the city of charlottesville and state of virginia. Amid all of this, President Trump is reigniting a bitter culture war against the nfl, again slamming prayers who protested during the National Anthem at last nights preseason games, tweeting, numerous players want to show their Quote Outrage as something that most of them are unable to define and that players should, quote, be happy, be cool, while suggesting they should be suspended without pay at the same time. Joining me is rouge eveugene ro Washington Post columnist, a correspondent from vice news, and arianna, a student at theUniversity Of Virginia who would like us not to reveal her last name. She plans to demonstrate against White Supremacists this weekend. Thanks to all of you for being here for a critical conversation. Eugene, i want to start with what the aclu is tweeting in response to the president s tweets. Let me read it to you, they say, nfl players have continuously defined what theyre protesting, White Supremacy, Police Brutality and racial injustice. Youre not listening. What do you make of the president s tweets . Is the aclu right . I do believe the aclu is right. Look, keep in mind that President Trump created this, quote, issue. And i call it a quote issue over the nfl protests because they were noticed before he started tweeting and talking about them in the way that he did, but they were not some Huge National issue. He uses the protests by africanamerican athletes, africanamerican men, as a wedge issue. And he drives a wedge. To switch to another metaphor, were way past the Dog Whistle Things and were into, you know, train horns and blazing signs at this point. Evan, pick up there, because youve been tracking really the rise in hate groups all across the country. Some said, look, we do feel emboldened after President Trump was elected. Have you seen that increase, or have they backtracked at all, given that there has been a backlash to them . Well, you have to separate out sort of the idea of the groups themselves and the red rick and the ideology that goes along with it. We did a piece on my show last night, vice news tonight, that talked about how the Actual Movement sparked by charlottesville has kind of face planted in the year since that
charlottesville rally. They were hoping to bring actual White Supremacy to the fore in politics. That didnt really happen. A lot of people in that movement got fired from their jobs and punished. But obviously the kind of ideology that goes behind that is all over the place. I just spent a lot of time at a bunch of trump rallies in the last couple of weeks. Its not hard to find people who are not even in support of the president s hard line immigration policies, they at least want to make you understand they like what is going on or the idea behind it, that really whats happened is that this idea of discussing the idea of White Culture as being under attack is a far more mainstream conversation than we had a year ago or two years ago. And thats i think what had a lot to do with where we are as a country and who the president is. Its a really important point. Arianna, i want to bring you in. Youre so brave for speaking out today, thank you, we really
appreciate your voice in this conversation. Tell me what youre going to be protesting tomorrow. Yeah, so tomorrow, saturday, august 11th, marks the oneyear anniversary of when the 300 torchlit nazis came to the University Of Virginia and attacked students who were around that statue and community members. What we are protesting tomorrow is really just what we want to do is reclaim the space. We want to reclaim the university and we want to demand justice from the university. So we want the image to no longer be this image of 300 nazis with torches surrounding our university. We want it to be an image of students, Student Activists who have mobilized together to combat this issue. And again, we have demands for the university that were really hoping that they meet. One of our first demands is that we really hope the university issues no Trespassing Orders against all the White Supremacists who are identified on that august 11th last year. Additionally, one no Trespassing Order has been issued against jason kessler, the organizer of unite the right last year. That no Trespassing Order is only for four years. Were demanding the university make that a lifetime ban to protect the students at the university. Another demand were making of the university is that they pay and waive the fees of the medical bills of the students who were attacked both on august 11th and right here where im standing, where the car attack was on august 12th. And additionally, with that, the last thing were demanding is that the university be more transparent with us and acknowledge the role that it has played in aiding White Supremacy at our university in aiding the attack that happened on august 1 11th and 12th. We hope students come out and stand with us. In the spirit of transparency and remembering how to some extent we got here, i want to
replay for folks what we heard from the president in the days after the charlottesville rallies. Then i want to get everybodys reaction on the other side about where we are today. Take a listen to what President Trump had to say. Reporter are you blaming what you call the alt left and White Supremacists on the same moral plane . Im not putting anybody on a moral plane. You had a group on one side and a group on the sorry aother and came at each other with clubs and it was horrible to watch. There was a group on this side. You can call them the left. You just called them the left, that came violently attacking the other group. So you can say what you want, but thats the way it is. Reporter you said there was hatred and violence. Yes, i think theres blame on both sides. You look at both sides, i think theres blame on both sides. And i have no doubt about it. Eugene, are we in a place where we are having a more
constructive conversation at this point, and if not, how do we get there . Maybe you can argue its a more honest conversation. Though im not even sure about that. What i am sure of is that even more than the White Supremacists have done, President Trump has brought the politics of white racial grievance into the mainstream debate. I think it was kind of always there, but listen to what Laura Ingraham was saying on fox news the other night, about how essentially immigrants are changing things, changing demographics that nobody likes. Its just extraordinary to hear that on a highly rated network program. Its just you know, its out there now. And we really have donald trump to thank for that. He identified the issue, he made
as much political advantage of this issue as he possibly could. And he continues to do so. All right. We appreciate the conversation. And we could continue talking about this, unfortunately we are out of time, though, so eugene, evan, and arianna, we really appreciate this fantastic conversation. This sunday as the nation marks one year since the deadly clashes in charlottesville, msnbc shares the story of one former White Supremacist who has dedicated his life to reforming others. Watching breaking hate, this sunday at 9 00 p. M. Eastern only right here on msnbc. Coming up, strife of the party. Are republicans starting to panic about keeping control of the house . Ill ask new york congressman peter king, thats next. And its only on Andrea Mitchell reports. Stay with us. Your mornings were made for
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