Harvey. The latest quote, historic rainfall in houston and all over texas. Floods are unprecedented and more rain coming. Spirit of the people is incredible. Thanks. Trump trampling over that message, launching distracting moves from the white house late friday night as harvey began to hit the coast. Following through on pardoning sheriff arpaio, condemned from the wall street journal and john mccain and paul ryan and the president barring the acceptance of transgender people in the military and also, the ousting of sebastian gorka. President trump and the first lady are expected to see the devastation of Hurricane Harvey and looming over this, more headlines about the Trump Campaign and the ties to russia. Lets go to our reports covering all this stuff, Peter Alexander at the white house, phil rucker from the Washington Post and nbc News National reporter and Peter Alexander, as a fellow northern wild cat, thats how we start it off as always, the president is headed down to houston, maybe on wednesday. What are you hearing about that . Yeah. Were hearing that hes headed down tomorrow to texas and hes likely to go closer to Corpus Christi where Hurricane Harvey made landfall. Governor abbott of texas saying that the president as he understands it, didnt want to go so those to houston that he didnt want to interrupt the evacuations still taking place and the president as me said in the oval office with the president of finland saying hell visit more than one spot tomorrow in texas. Departing early in the morning alongside his wife, melania trump, and he may go back this weekend with potential stops in louisiana and texas. Heres part of the president s remarks just a short time ago in the oval office. Take a listen. The people are handling it amazingly well and the people of texas as you know have really persevered and when you watch the spirit and the enthusiasm and helping each other, the team work, its really been something for people to say i think in finland they would say its pretty incredible what theyre able to do. We have noticed that, yes. So well be leaving tomorrow at 8 30 in the morning. President trump facing his first sort of commander in chief moment as it regards to a natural disaster. And Governor Abbott of course a republican from texas saying that the effort so far has been aplus. Praising the president all the way down. The president hoping to keep up that goodwill and demonstrate real competence by this administration in the days ahead. Pete. Phil rucker, lets ask about the other big story, one of them over the weekend the arpaio pardon. Sort of came out on friday as the story is about the hurricane were basically taking over all of cable news. Theres suspicion on some peoples part they were trying to bury this story. What are you hearing about that . The pardon of sheriff arpaio, is something that he has been wanting to be do. The president actually asked the attorney general, jeff sessions, back last spring whether it would be possible for the federal government to drop the criminal charges against arpaio, drop the case if you will. This was before the trial. He was advised that that would be inappropriate and so the president decided to let the trial to go forward and pardon him if he were found guilty which is what happened on july 31st. In the week since then, the wheels were turning at the white house to get this pardon ready to get the paperwork prepared to get the talking points drafted and the president decided to execute the pardon on friday. It was in the middle of this hurricane but it was his decision. Something he wanted to do. He signed a document, got it emailed over to arpaios lawyer and by friday evening he felt like he was a free man. So the case of arpaio has been an ally of trump, dating back to the early days of the birther campaign. Is this a personal loyalty that trump has to arpaio or thinking about that arpaio might run for senate against jeff flake. Or whats the deeper motivation . These two men have known each other for five years. They were both pursuing the birther conspiracy investigations concurrently at the same time around 2011 and 2012. This was the false conspiracy into president obamas birth which as we know was in hawaii. And in arpaio, trump saw an avatar. And he admired a that. He flattered arpaio and then they became friends and then last year on the campaign trail, arpaio was a surrogate. Arpaio is 85 years old, he has health problems. He couldnt stomach the law and order icon, someone who served in the military, who has been a beat cop, someone like that to waste away in the jail cell and the president didnt want him to face jail crime. All right. You have some reporting in the paper in, the wall street journal just on where things stand on the on nbc, im thinking of your prior employer. Over the Mueller Investigation that got overlooked in some of the coverage of all this Hurricane Harvey material. Tell us brief us on things in muellerville right now. Sure. Our reporting was on the new subpoenas that went out last week. Basically there that mueller has subpoenaed six pr firms in washington, d. C. , that did work with Paul Manafort on in a lobbying effort. International lobbying effort, basically. The stated purpose for this it was for ukraines bid to enter the European Union. The subpoenas that are now they had subpoenaed documents. These are for grand jury testimony which is a significant step in the investigation and is obviously serious and suggests that things are moving quick moving forward in terms of the investigation into Paul Manafort and the back drop is this against against this is that mueller is trying to figure out sort of whether these lobbying effort that Paul Manafort did with russian backed interests were indeed on the level. Whether the money that he received was that everything was as it should have been and as it presented. So this is just another indication that this investigation is moving forward. Carol, do you have any sense the screws seem to be tightening every day on Paul Manafort. Do you have any sense of how the manafort camp is feeling after it tightens . They have been defensive about this and the investigation. It is hard to get a real sense of exactly how theyre feeling. Theres obviously speculation about whether Paul Manafort will decide to cut some sort of deal or talk in terms of give up information that investigators are looking for elsewhere in exchange for something else. You know, if just in terms of where this investigation is going, you know, investigators are very much still focused on him. These subpoenas in particular suggest that things are that its things are heating up for him. Phil, i want to ask you again and bring you back in here and you more about the Mueller Investigation and about in particular some reporting that first appeared in your paper, has been matched ant built on in the New York Times about emails going back and forth between felix saider a long time trump associate and his personal lawyer. Ill read you one of the things, an email that quotes saider saying to cohen in the fall of 2015, our boy can become president of the usa and well engineer it. Ill get putins team to buy in on this. I will manage this process. Now i dont nobody about you theres an awful lot about that some people said is collusion. Talk about this story a little bit and what the implications of it are. Yeah. Well this is really significant. This reporting, there are a number of stories over the last 24 hours or so. It shows that the Trump Organization, Donald Trumps real estate business was actively pursuing a deal in moscow for a massive trump tower project during the campaign. We all remember then candidate donald trump and hes repeated this line as president insisting he had no deals in russia, no interests in russia. That theres just no therethere. It turns out there was a deal in the works, something that the Trump Organization was trying to build. Michael cohen, the executive at the Trump Organization and the lawyer there, hes also very close to president donald trump. Hes a central figure here. Theres actually an email that he sent to the spokesman for Vladimir Putin in january of 2016 that my colleagues reported on just in the last hour or two. Where hes asking for help from the putin government. This doesnt mean that theres any collusion necessarily with the campaign but it certainly raises a big red flag i think for the Mueller Probe as theyre trying to investigate any and all contacts, connections, ties, between the trump orbit if you will, meaning the campaign and the business and russia. Right. At a minimum it kind of pushes up against trumps insistence, that there are relevant events that took place that extend far back behind the campaign proper. I want to bring you back to the story that should be dominating our day, the Hurricane Harvey. There are federal and state responses going on but focus just on the president over the course of the weekend and what we are to make of the responses that he put out mostly over twitter and many of them seemingly appropriate to almost everyone. Some of them seeming less appropriate to many. What do we make of his behavior on his favorite machine over the last 72 hours . Its objectively clear that hes not focused only on Hurricane Harvey and the people we know who have died in the storm. On friday night we had the pardoning of sheriff arpaio, we had the transgender military ban coming up, and gorka quitting and hes been hes been asking people to buy sheriff clarkes book and going to visit missouri. Hes doing all this other stiff and im sure the people who voted for him are facing the historic flooding in houston. In some ways we see a president who cant focus on a natural disaster. I just was reporting in galveston, texas, and my story was focused on Climate Change and on the idea that middle class and poor people would be some of the first people hurt by Climate Change and theres this idea that these storms, these hurricanes are getting worse and worse and that working class and poor people that voted for President Trump, thought his presidency would improve his lives, they cant afford to get into their car and drive four or five hours or cant afford a hotel room to try to escape the floods. So people are stuck in their homes and hurt by the storms. People are really looking for a president that is focused on they want, focused on their wellbeing. Well see in the press conference thats going to come if hell change his tune or sound more sincere. Thank you very much. Well be going to that press Conference Live as soon as it begins. Thank you to carol and phil rucker and Peter Alexander. Talk to you later on in the show. Lets bring in the panel. Msnbc political analyst peggy noonan. And mark barnacle. And the great lawrence odonnell. Great to see you. I want to just take a first big swing at this. Trump has had crises, some selfinflicted. Some not so selfinflicted. This is a particular category of challenge that the president faces when lives are lost, or when the resources need to be marshalled. How do you think hes doing . Its early. This is a catastrophe that is going to be a rolling one that takes place over the next few weeks. It has been going on in the past few days. Every level of government going to be challenged by it. Everyone i think in politics right now is speaking of good coordination between the federal, the state, the city and the national guard, et cetera. So it looks okay. But i dont think thats the story. I think the story is whats happening to those poor people in houston. It is obviously a huge humanitarian climatological event. And being the devils advocate does it matter what donald trump says about this . If its handled well on the ground, does it matter whether hes tweeting mildly or severely inappropriate things over the weekend . To my mind and to other people the first the last couple of days were a collision of contrasts. You had the president of the United States tweeting in a selfabsorbed way. You had general mattis the secretary of defense standing in front of the troops in iraq, talking about this country and the fact that the country is hurt right now. And he knows its hurt but well come back. Talking about inspiration. Thats leadership. Leadership is not something you go out and acquire. You dont buy it. Its a skill set. Selfinvolvement, selfabsorption is not something you can just put on the shelf. If its part of you. And in the middle of all of this, we have a tribe, a nation of people called americans in houston. Leaning towards one another, helping one another. Theres darkness in our politics right now, but the leadership, the skill set thats not coming out of washington, its coming out of houston and were watching it. So you raise the mattis remarks. Lets put them on so people can see what youre talking about, mike. Youre a great example for our country right now. Its got some problems, you know it and i know it. What we dont have in the military, and you just hold the line, my fine soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines. Hold the line until our country gets back to understanding and respecting each other and showing it and being friendly to one another. You know, what the americans owe to one another were so dog gone lucky to be americans. Lawrence, watching that, the defense secretary universally respected and admired. For many people they look at him and think hes a bulwark against potential trump deprivations of various kinds. People see him as a symbol of hope. When donald trump watches that video what do you think he thinks . What everyone in the media has been saying they see a sharp disagreement with the president. To take the words from the defense secretary in history. You can say hes in obvious disagreement, people should respect each other. We know the president is not in favor of that so that very innocent collection of words represents instantly to many peoples minds a sharp disagreement with the president. Id be interested to see what the president thinks about it. Reutimann, you have twitter jacked in through iv so youre watching trump tweet all weekend long. What do you think the media would say about his tweeting all weekend long . We saw what the media said, look at this, look at this, oh, my god. All that the thing that matters the most are people are safe and taken care of, yes. But i think this was coming what struck everyone was this was coming after a week we had two speeches that were in deep contrast from President Trump last week. One was lets bring the country together. One was the that situation in phoenix that a single word cant describe. So it was the substantively, it was different. So here is a chance to bring together the country for the fellow americans who are suffering and in great danger. It was the opportunity he got distracted into look what this division he just tweeted. Peggy, you raised a really vital point on this. This going to extend out. Its not just the next few days but then it gets to governance. Two of the most important agencies involved in houston now and in the maybe for the next year, hud, ben carsons hud, and the epa. Scott pruitts epa. I mean, the government large parts of it, im not an expert on it. But people say are top level government posts have a lot of mediocre people running then and the function of government it better perform in houston. And a they have a lot of empty desks also. Yeah. And theres a lot of people who arent even there. Its understaffed all of it top to bottom. And theres three months at least in the hurricane season. Its astonishing to see how many unfilled jobs there are still. You wonder if theyll ever be filled. Your view is thats okay. Sometimes its better to have an empty desk than some of the people that donald trump wanted to put at the desks. Can i say i thought one of the things most interesting about what general mattis said in think in jordan and it keys off of what lawrence said, mattis was making a clear distinction between these fabulous young men and women arrayed before him from america and he seemed to be saying, back in washington, they cant get it together. It did seem implicitly to be a critique for he is a major washington player himself. Okay. This table, you all are staying here now and im throwing to hans nichols in the east room of the white house. Because the president is about to come out. Hans, what is happening with you . John, good afternoon to you. I think were getting the president of the United States here shortly. Im going to have a seat. Hes coming to the podium. Thank you. Thank you very much. It is my great honor to welcome the president to the white house. We have just concluded a very positive meeting and i want to begin today by extending my thoughts and prayers for those affected by Hurricane Harvey. And the catastrophe of flooding and all of the other difficulties that theyre currently going through in houston. In southeast texas, and now its looking more and more like the state of louisiana will be also affected. My administration is coordinating closely with state and local authorities in texas and in louisiana to save lives and we thank our First Responders and all of those involved in their efforts. Were working directly with Texas Governor greg abbott who by the way is doing a fantastic job. And his entire staff likewise. As well as with Governor John Bel Edwards whos very much involved in starting the process of louisiana. We have pledged our full support as texas and louisiana battle and recover from this very devastating and historic storm. Theres probably never been anything like this. Under the supervision o