Chris Matthews debates hot political issues with politicians, newsmakers and Washington leaders. Legal strategy. This is a political strategy. It seems to me its designed not to help the president when it comes to his legal troubles with Robert Mueller. In fact, its likely to make them worse. Its designed to set a different kind of landscape for anything that mr. Mueller finds out to be received, to convince at least his own supporters that nothing it wasnt illegal or anybody does that, and by the way, i didnt know anything about it. These are this is an attempt to set a context where people wont take seriously or at least wont be convinced that if there are serious if theres a serious report from Robert Mueller, which is what we expect, they should take it with a grain of salt. We know from polling that President Trumps core supporters are persuaded by this, that theyre inclined to believe this is a witch hunt. And that hes being treated unfairly. Whatever the findings of the Special Counsel turn out to be. And dan, you look at this through the lens of yourself being a former prosecutor. How does a prosecutor, how might somebody in muellers shoes look
asked about his earlier comments. This is what he told abc. Why did you deny President Trumps involvement . When did you learn the Denial Wasnt True . Well, let me tell you two things on that. Number one, as you know, i was in the case, as you know, a couple weeks. There was a lot of information gathering. As Rudy Giuliani said, i had Bad Information at that point. I made a mistake in my statement. Michael steele, again, this is about the initial explanation that was offered by trump world, and donald trump apparently dictating that statement, saying hey, that meeting, it was about adoptions. Nothing to see. I guess it points to a bigger question. Im curious as a republican looking ahead to these elections. You have what robert costa laid out in terms of why the folks around trump, why somebody like Rudy Giuliani wants him publicly being out there in the middle of it, mixing it up like this. From a republican candidates perspective this year, Somebody Running for office in trumps party, in a competitive election. How do they want him handling it . Do they see benefit to him being
out there trying to sort of poison the jury or do they want him saying absolutely nothing . It depends on how you define competitive. If youre talking about competitive in a plus 20, plus 30 congressional dict, yeah, youll run with trump all day long because thats largely where the base in the district is, and it doesnt matter the democratic opposition that may come. You still have you have the cushion, if you will, to withstand whatever they do or however they try to nationalize the election. In fact, you will likely nationalize the election yourself. You know, if youre talking about something where its a little closer, its a different conversation. If youre in a plusthree, plusfive congressional district, you are going to walk a little differently. Youre not necessarily going to nationalize it. Youre going do keep it local and you dont want to necessarily bring the president s problems into your district because, like we see in a number of states, including ohio, that level of closeness in what should be arguably a
republican leaning district becomes problematic. You mentioned ohio. Special election out there for congress tomorrow. Much more on that later on. Donald trump jr. Called in meanwhile to Laura Ingrahams radio show earlier today. Once again said the primary issue of the meeting was adoption. Lets listen. Donny, did the issue of adoption, its near and dear to my heart because i have two russian adopted sons. We spoke about it. Did that come up . When . In the meeting with Vezal Nit Skia . That was the primary thing we had spoken about in the meeting. That was thats not the premise that got them in the room. And then they started it was essentially a bait and switch to talk about that. And everyone has basically said that in testimony already. So this is nothing new. But you know, like i said, i dont understand that its an important issue to you and near and dear to peoples hearts, but this wasnt a Campaign Issue to us, this wasnt relevant to us and something we werent going to do anything with. Robert costa, donald trump jr. Being so central to this, being sort of the focus and the speculation shifting so much to him in the last couple days, is there an aspect of this, of the president feeling protective of his son . The president has been protective of his son throughout this entire process. And hes not just his son. In the same way that ivanka trump is inside of the white house, as a Senior Adviser to the president , you have donald trump jr. Now as a key surrogate for President Trump ahead of these midterm elections, traveling around to different red states, trying to rally the president s base. Hes someone whos inside, if not the white house, hes inside of the president s circle politically. Hes an important force. And you see him going to laura ingraham, someone who has been very supportive of President Trump and trying to explain his position, but at this point, what really matters is not what he says to a conservative commentator, what matters is what does Robert Mueller want to do in terms of prosecuting or
not prosecuting. Thats his choice, with regard to this meeting in 2016. All right, thats where it seems to lay with so many of the questions on this topic. We can talk about what we think, what the political world thinks, but ultimately, it matters what Robert Mueller thinks of it. Robert costa, susan page, michael steele, daniel alonzo. Coming up, week two in the Manafort Trial begins as a key witness takes the stand. What we will learn from the testimony of former manafort aide rick gates. Plus, well go to the big board and take a look at whats at steak in the big Special Election. We teed it up a second ago, out in ohio, can democrats pull a rabbit out of the hat . Pull off a win out there in john kasichs old district . What will it mean tomorrow and for november. Also, the uninvited guest. Donald trump dropped by a Troy Bolderson rally and leaves behind his endorsement, the problem is the gop contender may not have asked for one. Hardball roundtable is going to tackle that and the president s bizarre attacks against lebron james over the weekend. What does he have against the
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today, rick gates, the prosecutions star witness, took the stand and testified under oath that he and manafort were involved in Criminal Activity together. Gates, who has been described as manaforts righthand man, also admitted to embezzling hundreds of millions of dollars from his longtime Business Partner. Gates was originally charged as a coconspirator in manaforts case but has been cooperating with Robert Muellers investigation after pleading guilty to conspiracy and lying to the fbi. The case will only be looking at manaforts business dealings, gates also worked with him on Donald Trumps president ial campaign. Gates stayed on the Campaign Even after manafort left and played a significant role in the president ial transition. Todays Court Appearance was the first time gates and manafort have been the same room together since gates made his plea deal. Im joined by betsy woodruff, politics reporter for the daily beast, and ken dilanian who was at the alexandria courthouse today. Ken, in terms of the basics, the
meat and potatoes here, what exactly is it that gates was admitting to today . To everything, steve. It was really rather remarkable. I mean, we knew most of this was going to happen, but still, to see him walk into that courtroom, Paul Manaforts protege of ten years. Worked for him from 2006 to 2016 and sit down at the witness stand, just feet away from Paul Manafort, was something incredible. And manafort was staring him down, and gates tended not to look at manaforts direction. Nonetheless, he was a pretty calm and compelling witness. A little nervous, but he testified that he had been charged with Paul Manafort in these bank and tax fraud indictments, and he admitted he was guilty of all those charges. And that he had cut a deal with the prosecution to plead guilty to a lesser charge, a charge involving lying to the fbi, in exchange for a reduced sentence if he cooperated. He laid all that out, then he also explained in the course of this plea agreement, he had to admit Everything Else bad he did. That included something the government didnt even know
about, which is that he was embezzling money, stealing money from Paul Manafort while they were on this alleged crime spree, defrauding banks and committing tax evasion. Gates was putting his hand into the cookie jar in the form of bogus expense reports, essentially, and said it was worth about a couple hundred thousand dollars. He was essentially taking advantage of his ability to wir and wiring money from overseas based on false expense accounts. He also admitted lesser things including being 15 minutes late for curfew. The point of that is the prosecution wants no surprises when gates is crossexamined. They want to confront the jury with everything that is bad about gates and say despite that, you should believe him because if he lies on the stand now, this agreement is void and hes going to go to prisoning for long time. Pretty dramatic stuff and it continues tomorrow. Yeah, and betsy, i guess thats the other thing. You know, ken says to be continued tomorrow. Thats probably the suspense now. How will gates after admitting
all this, how will he hold up under a crossexamination . Theres probably a lot there that the manafort side could hit him with. Thats right. Its going to be bruising. And additionally, its going to be personal. There was significant friction several months back when rick gates was going through the process of deciding whether or not he was going to flip on Paul Manafort. Whether he was going to essentially turn on a man who had been his Business Partner and boss for upwards of a decade. At the time, that caused significant consternation on manaforts team. There were reports manaforts team up until the last moment thought he was going to reject a plea deal, tough it out, stand by manafort, be a loyal foot soldier, the loyal colleague they had always perceived, though incorrectly, had perceived him to be. Then at the last minute, sort of when push came to shove, gates decided no, he was going to cross the line, work with mueller and his team, and sort of abandon, if you will, his former colleague. So this isnt just a question of
legal machinations. This is also a personal issue for gates, manafort, manaforts legal team, gates legal team, and you can expect that to come through as gates faces crossexamination from manaforts attorneys. Just in terms of the human drama, i think of how many mafia movies we have seen where somebody flips. Theyre in the courtroom, and theres that moment when they basically, theyre staring, you know, 20 feet away from the person theyre flipping. What was that like . You say manafort was staring him down. Set the scene. We didnt have cameras in there. What was it like to watch those two together . It was pretty dramatic. Admittedly, its hard for us in the courtroom to see manafort because were looking at the back of his head, but he seems to be clearly staring gates down, and gates did not want to look at him. And i was told by one of our producers that during the break, that gates refused to look at manafort even though manafort was staring at gates. Let me make one other point, which is even if gates collapses on crossexamination, and the jury doesnt believe a word that he says, the prosecution still
has a very strong case against Paul Manafort because this is a case about foreign bank accounts, and we had testimony from manaforts bookkeepers and accountants they had no idea he had control of all these foreign bank accounts. They prepared his tax returns and said there were no foreign bank accounts. Thats a felony. He was paying for these luxuries with money wired from cyprus, and the only defense we have seen to that is manafort didnt realize it was a crime, he didnt realize he filled out the form incorrectly. Its a strong case with or without gates. And betsy, we talk about this case were talking about, the finances. Not to do with the campaign, but is there a connection between whats being revealed, what might be revealed, the fate that might meet Paul Manafort in this trial and questions about his role in the campaign . Perhaps the biggest revelation we have received from the trial, from muellers team, is what was initially believed to be a 10 million loan that
putin ally and Russian Oligarch deripaska made to manafort wasnt actually a loan. It was actually, according to prosecutors, a payment of 10 million. The fact that deripaska made that significant payment to manafort raises questions about the type of Work Manafort was doing for deripaska. Any loyalties that might have been there, as well as additional frictions that existed between the man who would go on to be Trumps Campaign chairman and a man very up in putins inner circle. Deripaska has sued manafort and gates, he said they mishandled or stole even some of the money that he paid them. Theres a lot of friction between the two men, and during the president ial campaign, reportedly, manafort reached out to deripaska world and suggested that potentially he would be willing to give deripaska personal private updates on how the campaign was going. Any subsequent revelations we get in this trial about manaforts relationship with deripaska, the types of loans
and or Payments Deripaska was making to manafort, when he was making the payments. Those revelations could potentially have implications for the way we view the Work Manafort did when he was working on Trumps Campaign. Betsy woodruff, ken delainian, thanks for being with us. Up next, taking a trip across the studio to the big board. We have a big Special Election tomorrow out in ohio, right around columbus. Suddenly, its a nail biter. This is a longtime republican seat democrats have an actual chance to flip tomorrow. What could it tell us about democrats chances in the midterms coming up in november . Well break it all down over at the big board. You dont want to miss it. This is hardball, where the action is. The first survivor of Alzheimers Disease is out there. And the Alzheimers Association is going to make it happen. But we wont get there without you. Join the fight with the Alzheimers Association. Eh, it just feels too complicated, you know . Well sure, at first, but jj can help you with that. Jj, will you break it down for this gentleman . Hey, ian. You know, at Td Ameritrade, we can walk you through your Options Trades step by step until youre comfortable. I could be up for that. Thats taking Options Trading from wall st. To main st. Hey guys, wanna play some pool . Eh, im not really a pool guy. Whats the hesitation . Its just complicated. Stepbystep Options Trading support from Td Ameritrade then you might have a dcondition called dry mouth. . Biotene is clinically proven to soothe and moisturize a dry mouth. Plus, it freshens breath. Biotene. Immediate and long lasting dry mouth symptom relief. 11 points. If you have been following these Special Elections, you know democrats have been able to make gains so far right around 10, 11 points on average in these house Special Elections. So what are we going to look for tomorrow night . If its a dead even race, ill be at the board all night watching the returns coming in. I want to give you a preview of what were going to see tomorrow. Lets take a closer look at the district because this district is fascinating. Its really a story of the two different americas we talk about so much in terms of how 2016 happened. One group we talk about, we talk about college educated, upscale white collar professionals. Suburbanites. Thats a big part of this district. At lea