There was some grand master tragedy. This is something america stumbled into. Exactly. With us on set. Are we saying the same thing . Veteran columnist and msnbc contributor mike barnacle. Politics editor for the daily beast, sam stein, where are you . Crazy. Sam, whats the name of that park . Nathan. Have you been to nathan . Not since. What do they do at nathans park . They spoke weed. Special agent. Im going to tell my daughter to come home now. Nbc news capitol hill correspondent and the host of. Laser rock. Casey d. C. On msnbc. Good way to wake up, guys. I will start, so did you enjoy your time at dartmouth . Is that a rhetorical question . Its amazing, its the best school ever. Really . Hanover, im one of those parents that get every excuse to visit. Very annoying. Cowboy for coffee . The best school in New Hampshire for sure. At least. All right. Enough about nathans park. Garden. Oh, it turn noose a guarden, does it . Lets start with that testimony on capitol hill featuring tomorrow Jeff Sessions who once again faced questions about the Trump Campaign and alleged ties to russia. We will get to what he does and does not remember in just a moment, but first . Wasnt it fascinating actually that Jeff Sessions actually stepped up yesterday and did what our guest said he might do, and that is be a part of the Justice Department that pushes back on the president trying to influence . Well, that was the notable exchange from that hearing. Sessions squared off with members of the house who were asking him to appoint another special counsel to look into allegations related to Hillary Clinton. Here is an exchange between sessions and congressman jim jordan. Whats it going to take to actually get a special counsel . It would take a factual basis that meets a standards of the appointment of a special count is el. And it sure looks like the fbi was paying the author of that document and it sure looks like a Major Political party was working with the federal government to then turn an Opposition Research document that quoted some National Enquirer story to a do you mean to turn it into the fisa court to spy on the president s campaign. Season that all the things we know about james comey, doesnt that warrant naming a second counsel as 23 Committee Members asked you to do. I would say looks shrike not enough to appoint a special counsel. Wow. Kind of like what Chuck Rosenberg said yesterday, he said, you know what, i dont want to be polly annish, but there are a lot of men and women in the Justice Department. They have been there, they seen political tides come and go, i think theyre going to do the right thing and Jeff Sessions, were going to criticize him in a minute for forgetting or overlooking another russia meeting, but at the same time, as i pointed out yesterday, when america, when the republic needed Jeff Sessions to stand up and recuse himself, so justice might have a chance of being blind, he did it. Hes done it twice now. Hes in a terrible position. Hes got a president thats bullying him. You know, through twitter, which is not the best way to communicate with your staff. Hes being push and prodded. Hes got now the guys on the hill who are pushing against him. And hes done the right thing. He did right thing by recusing himself, he did the right thing by pushing back yesterday. His mandate, attorney generals mandate is taking a an aggressive stance on crime the opioid investigation. If we run away with these things blushed out, thats take i away with what he wanted to achieve. I thought he did a good job yesterday. We were talking be every the show, whats the most important story . We can talk about roy moore the polls, the calling, boerne my bernstein or whatever. We could have owe Bernie Bernstein or whatever. We could have talked about papadopoulos meet something. What itself the most important ting that happened yesterday . Were talking about it right now. We said we had an attorney general that stepped up and did not look like he was not going to allow, looked like he was not going no allow our president , our republicans in congress turn this Justice Department into some device for a tyrannical autocrat in the making. Yeah. We will get to the fact that hes prone to amnesia. We will get to that. Its just with his memory. On this specific facet of what happened yesterday, this is an attempt, a considered attempt by the president of the United States and allies in the house of representatives yesterday, jim jordan, the guy without a coat from ohio to turn the Justice Department into just a political property of the president , to inflict politic noose the Justice Department, which would affect the morale of the Justice Department. It would shatter constitutional norms. Again, thats why we are starting with this, because if he listened to donald trump. It would have been telling. This would shatter constitutional norms and would be chilling. Yeah. And this thing is all over a Canadian Company purchased by the russians. The purchase as it involved the United States was approved by a committee that represented nine different federal agencies of the government. Thats some conpier is tracy you hold together. Conspiracy. Nine different agencies. President trump has been hammering them calling the uranium modern day watergate. One of foxs leading journalists shepp smith took on the president s statements, calming them inaccurate in a number of way, noting the Clinton State Department had no power to veto or approve that transaction. Even so, the accusation is predicated on the charge that secretary clinton approved the sale. She did not. A committee of nine evaluated the sale. The president approved the sale. The Nuclear Regulatory commission and others had to offer permits and none of the uranium was exported for use by the u. S. To russia. That is your rainium one. So this was six minutes of beauty. We will have much more of shepps surgical debucks of sessions ahead on the show. Its incredible smr shepp undercut this entire conspiracy theory. It is. The clown show its called this wasnt Hillary Clinton saying give me mon i will take care of this. There were nine different entities. She had a proxy that signed off on it. It wasnt her that signed off on it. Its difficult how you can orchestrate a conspiracy with nine other agencies. There are lot of things to criticize. Be i the way, this was Barack Obamas administration, an administration that in many quarters had a hostility towards Hillary Clinton. In fact, a lot of people very close to the checkpoints as we all know had a hostility towards the clintons and if i think it wasnt an inside game, anybody that knows that relationship. Correct. Its almost silly we are trying to deblunk u bunk it. Its been debunked so many times. To your point there is a propensity to lead us to these conspiracy fevers. Whatever you think about Jeff Sessions, the ability to say we wont devote resources or a hint of that is noble. It reminded me a little bit of the moment where there was a total different context. Obama comes in its 2009 and there was intense pressure for him to investigate the Bush Administration. Its torture. That is something that is waiting. There is a legitimate case remaining. Obamas stance at the time i need the look forward, not backwards, we cant bear the idea of having to have this political seeming investigation so soon into my administration and he moved forward and i just kept thinking about that yesterday as Jeff Sessions kept talking about clintons. And thats what we were discussing yesterday. We just cant start a precedent where president s come into office and immediately go after their predecessors, where they criminalize politics. Yes, there were a lot of things every president im sure can go back and investigate from a previous president. Why this is so short sided from the day tradener chief f. He starts this precedent and tells them, listen, you and your father will be investigated by the next democratic president every day. If it even gets there. Oh there is so much to investigate. It will never stop. So this is a president not only do the clintons not want and america doesnt want. This is a president that the trumps should not want. If the investigations that are happening right now bear no fruit, which is a stretch. So what exactly did Jeff Sessions know about any outreach between the trump team and russia . Heres what he said last month. You dont believe that surrogates from the Trump Campaign had communications with the russian . I did not and i am not aware of anyone else that did. Since then, it has been revealed that George Papadopoulos met with russians and was seated at the table with Jeff Sessions and then President Trump when he suggested he could coordinate a meeting between trump and president putin. Yesterday he told lawmakers he at first had no recollection of that march 2016 meeting with papadopoulos there he is until he saw news reports about it. I would like to address the false charges made about my previous testimony. My answers have not changed. I have always told the truth and i have answered every question as i understood them to the best of my recollection as i will continue to do today. I do now recall that the march 2016 meeting at the trump hotel is that mr. Ban top lus attepaps attended. I have no clear recall of what he said. After reading my account to the best of my recollection, i believe i wanted to make clear to him that he was not authorized to represent the campaign with the russian government or any other Foreign Government for that matter. But i did not recall this event which occurred 18 months before my testimony of a few weeks ago. Clint, if im investigating or if im on a president ial campaign, a kid comes up to me and says i want to go to russia. I would say, why dont you just go homestead and take a cold shower and call me in the morning. Im not exactly sure how you forgive that. I dont understand the context of checking with russia. When i look through the papadopoulos scenario, why was one of the first actions of this campaign, he believed he was there to establish a relationship with russia. I see no evidence that they wanted to be aggressive with no other country and sexes cant recall someone saying maybe we want to set up a meeting with Vladimir Putin . I would think this would be something that would stick out in your mind and when youre going to testify repeatedly about this issue, you might want to go back through your records, being the attorney general, we tend to stick to evidence and go through records to find that. I cant understand why this comes back to haunt him. Now, i realize, i try and give him the benefit of the doubt. This is a chaotic campaign. These principles go into lots of meetings with people they dont know. We have been through this three times on the senate floor. It keeps coming back, every time there is more to talk about from they keep forgetting, casey, this is a guy we would hold time and time again was flying a around the country with donald trump because he kept him calm. He kept him reasoned. He kept him ration rational. Have you don jr. Communicating with his father. We are looking at this time line bunched up with more and more events regarding russia and it becomes less and less possible to accept the testimony of these Trump Administration officials saying they just didnt remember this or that about meetings with russians. Thats possible and less plausible. The timeline filled in by media organizations. I mean between bob mueller and the Washington Post and the New York Times, there are suddenly a lot of things that seem to have come to the forefront of a lot of peoples memories in this particular instance and i do think we were focusing in on papadopoulos a little bit. I have spoken to jd gordon sitting in between those two men. There are formal requests that were filed. Gordon says he claims he stopped those requests and papadopoulos went over his head to other officials. So the idea that theyre downplaying papadopoulos in is up an aggressive way. I think the facts have born out t. Reality is different. Casey, i was debating somebody about this yesterday, that was saying, oh, he was just such, he was a low ranking official. Well, at the time that request was made, donald trump was saying he was one of his two Foreign Policy advisers, which goes back to the fact that this was such a mom and pop operation without their mom that everybody knew everybody there. There was no Campaign Infrastructure at this point and donald trump told the Washington Post carter page and George Papadopoulos were my two Foreign Policy advisers. They keep dismissing him too as a young foreign volunteer, how old was Jared Kushner . 35, lix . He was gentleman to solve peace in the middle east. And still is. There is some real questions about that in my mind. Dont forgive, too, sessions, what a fascinating moment if you are Jeff Sessions between whats going on, that initial the pushback that he gave i thought was remarkable considering by all accounts, he is somebody that wants to keep his job as attorney general. Mitch mcconnell is in another year saying maybe you want to go back to that seat in alabama that uve indicated. The decisionmaking here from him i think is at very much at a significant pivot point. Hey, mike, there also is for people that want justice to be served and want the Mueller Investigation to rock its course, it gets a little confusing at times. Are you rooting for sessions to survive . Hes not telling the truth. Does it seem like hes telling the truth . But donald trump would love an excuse to get rid of Jeff Sessions. Jeff sessions, actually, you said, it was noble yesterday, also showed a great deal of character when he recuse himself, depoo it the fact donald trump had no respect for the law and wanted him to stay in there. No, there are two threads to this story playing out in front of our eyes, part of it played out yesterday. You alluded to one of the threads, the campaign was a total clown show. It was. For very few people, if any believe they are going to win right up and through including election day. Thats the amusing part. They were using the campaign to set up future businesses. Right and the russia deal. A money deal t. Tragic aspect of that thread is that many people who participated in the cloup show who were total clowns are now a part of the government of the United States of america. Thats the tragic part. Yesterday we talked about the 36yearold who you wouldnt hire to do, to present a house closing is going to be a federal judge for life. A federal judge and this papadopoulos. Both my brothers are in the Foreign Policy community. Obviously my father. There is incred everyone is incredulous at the voids in the state department at this point. The people close to the president even as it started, sean spicer, hope hicks in her 20s, jared, ivanka that came from the fashion industry. Theyre all very nice. Theyre all very nice, if you meet them on the street, theyre very nice people. Do you want them running the country . You can say okay. Really, no . Im not saying anything mean. By the way, shes running around saying im going to fix middle east. But again, these are the people that the president is bringing into his most private meetings for his most private counsel for guidance. Lets just be fair across the board, male or female the people in there are not up to it. Not even close. They dont even come from any type of government experience and theyve done nothing but make this president worse. Everyone was supposed to be moderating influences, not seeing it. Lets separate the Campaign Staff that was brought on board to the family members, from general mattis. General mcmaster. Kelly, obviously, a few people in there. The people that spend every minute of the day with him, the family members and very young and inexperienced or incredibly morally, i mean, sean spicer could not do his job. He could not tell the truth. Campaign heads rely on George Papadopoulos. Who i told you i talked to his College Professor who said he was shocked a. Campaign is relying on a state department that has a capable person up top in Rex Tillerson is having incredible difficulties finding staffing people. There is a staffing issue consistent through the campaign and administration tray they have yet to figure out they need to do differently. Lets not pick on George Papadopoulos. Im curious, you have brought up Jared Kushner before. I have spoken with him a lot. I like jared. True. But any time he tried to explain the history of the middle east, he did