Coverage of national and international news, including breaking stories. Trump tower meeting between allegedly his son and some russians and some other folks. And it is true that parts of that investigation have blossomed into whole new areas, such as the manafort trial, which has nothing at all to do with the original russia investigation. In fact its one of the bases that manafort asked the judge to throw that case out, that it exceeded the power of the Special Counsel. So its hard to say what exactly Kristin Davis has information about, because the scope of this investigation is so broad. Just to give a little better sense pulling back the curtain from my conversations in my day job working over at the white house, in a series of conversations i had late this week with sources close to the president , they all tell me that the president s frustration specifically as it relates to paul manafort, remember that specific case he attacked as a hoax on twitter earlier this week, is in the eyes of these folks basically speaking to the president , the president views those and the fact that they are before the 2016 election as
having nothing to do with him and he thinks effectively hes unfairly getting dinged for that here. But this is under Robert Muellers purview, right . He was allowed to start looking for links between Campaign Officials and russians. Basically go wherever the investigation took him, right . Yes. In fact the judge in the case in which manafort tried to get it thrown out observed that and this is really interesting how they parsed words. The court concluded that Special Counsel was permitted to investigate issues relating to russia collusion, but prosecute anything that arose from that investigation. Its an interesting interpretation of the mandate to Special Counsel mueller. But with that in mind, if anything springs from that original investigation that is illegal or unlawful in the Special Counsels mind, then he can investigate and prosecute it. Or, as weve seen, he can hand
issues off or cases or matters off to u. S. Attorneys in particular districts, such as the Southern District of new york. As he did in the case of michael cohen. Danny cevallos and anna schecter, thank you very much. Now to those escalating words escalating war of words over the u. S. china trade right now. Beijing is threatening to slap retaliatory tariffs on 60 billion in american goods. This is the latest in whats really become a bitter backandforth between these two economic powers. It comes just one day after the Trump Administration announced that it will raise its proposed tariff on 200 billion on chinese products to 25 . Judging by the comments from the white house economic advisor, this thing isnt finished yet. Dont underestimate President Trumps determination to follow through. Im just telling you. I cant speak for the Communist Party in china. I can speak for our president. Do not underestimate his determination to change Trading Practices on a fair, reciprocal plane. Nbcs jo ling kent is following this now. So china is threatening additional tariffs against the u. S. The president keeps upping the ante saying it will go up to 2 billion, maybe up to 25 or more. Where are we headed in this and is this just words or something thats having a tangible impact . Right now the threat from china is basically a threat. Were talking about 60 billion in tariffs here but really what it impacts are products that folks use, automobiles, machinery, coffee, food, meat, all kinds of very important daily staples in american life. In fact its going to affect 40 of all u. S. Exports to china. So its a pretty big significant number here. If the white house does follow through, china is not known to back down from these kinds of
threats. Overall, china is looking at a very big global problem if this does indeed go through because, as you know, their economy is slowing down a bit so that could actually have major global repercussions, peter. Heres how larry kudlow sort of assessed the situation as it relates to china this morning. Take a listen. China is in trouble right now. Their economy is lousy. Investors are walking out. The currency is falling. My opinion, china better take President Trumps efforts to solve the unfair, illegal trade. Their tariff problem, their lack of reciprocity, their technology stealing, their ip theft, they better take President Trump seriously. Kudlow there saying china is in trouble right now. Is he correct in sort of his assessment of china, the impact this is having on the other part
of the pacific . Kudlows comments about the chinese currency are on point. Theyre trading at their lowest levels in about a year. The chinese economy is looking at new ways to go as that Consumer Economy gets a little more saturated here. The real key is whats happening at the top levels in terms of communication on this front. Is there a way out of there. According to a cnbc report, it sounds like discussions have basically stopped. Theres only been one phone call over the past couple of days and the discussions have basically fallen silent. Ive talked to an Obama Administration official in recent weeks and they said there is a lot of confusion within the Chinese Government at the top levels in beijing trying to figure out what to do next. But no doubt that the chinese economy needs to be it needs to be supported in some way as they go through a transition. Its not just having to do with tariffs, but the tariffs certainly dont help. You have big number changing now. The chinese economy or the stock market used to be number two to the u. S. And now it slipped to number 3. Already having a real impact. I was traveling to fargo, north dakota, and spoke to some of the farmers there. Even since the president first initiated this topic of tariffs, they said the price of soybean down about 19 . Jo ling kent is joining us from los angeles. Jo ling, thank you very much. Thanks. Coming up next right here, new reporting from the Washington Post that the Trump International hotel in New York City is seeing an upswing in profits, thanks to some Big International spenders. It comes with growing criticism that President Trumps company is continuing to do business with foreign officials and clearly reaping the benefits. David fahrenthold joins me next. You do, too, but not in time. Hey, no big deal. Youve got a good record and Liberty Mutual wont hold a grudge by raising your rates over one mistake. You hear that, karen . Liberty mutual doesnt hold grudges. How mature of them. For drivers with Accident ForgivenessLiberty Mutual wont raise their rates because of their first accident. Liberty mutual insurance. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty vo ovewhelming air fresheners can send you running. So try febreze one. With no aerosols and no heavy perfumes. So you can spray and stay. Febreze one. So lets promote our Summer Travel deal on choicehotels. Com like this. Surfs up. Earn a 50 gift card when you stay just twice this summer. Or, badda book. Badda boom. Book now at choicehotels. Com
broke that story. David, nice to see you right now. Whats striking about your new reporting today is it really does, even 18 months into the Trump Administration, still show us how little we know about the dealings between the president s private organization and other foreign nations with which his administration is doing business. Thats absolutely right. We dont really have any official list of the foreign governments that have paid President Trumps company to rent ballrooms, to rent hotel rooms since he took office. Theres been a few that have come out through media reports, but the government and the Trump Organization have not given us anything. This story, this letter we got showing this really big expenditure by saudis apparently visiting new york with the crown prince of saudi arabia just sort of illustrates how little we know. This is occurring at a hotel in new york, not in the d. C. Hotel weve been so focused on. There could be a lot more out there that were just seeing in little pieces. Just for a little better understanding of this to walk us through it, its not just the
saudis, you write about the kuwaitis, the Philippine Government that was hosting events. This was specific to the washington, d. C. , hotel. This has been a parade of foreign dignitaries or foreign nations that have been going Trump Properties basically because they say it reflects back at home that they have a close relationship with the president of the United States. Thats right. One of the really striking things we found in the reporting of this story was this interview with the philippine ambassador to the u. S. Interviewed while he was having a Philippine Independence Day party at President Trumps hotel. He was open about it. He said this is a statement. Having it at President Trumps hotel is a way of showing our friendship. Basically to show that we are close to the United States government, were going to put money in the personal pocket of the u. S. President. And you can see the sort of appeal of that. Even the Trump Organization doesnt say you can buy access or favor from the president , people see this as a natural way to get in his good graces. So all this raises questions
about what is called the emoluments clause. No Person Holding any office of profit or trust under them shall without the concept of the congress accept any present, emolument, office or title of any kind whatever from any king, prince or foreign state. So the reason this is important right now, and this may eventually end up before the supreme court, just last week i think it was a federal judge in maryland, if im not mistaken, that basically gave the green light for a lawsuit suggesting, arguing that the president was violating this clause, violating the constitution. Update us on where this stands right now, if you can. Sure. That language you read sounds very outdated and thats in part because president s for a long time, for decades, have tried to stay way away from even getting close to the line so there hadnt been a test of what emolument, this oldfashioned word really meant in the 21st century context. Until last week. As you said, this judge ruled, and he said, look, an emolument, the thing the constitution says president s shouldnt take, i believe that includes things like a Market Value Transaction between the president s company and a foreign state. Its not just bribes, its not just gifts from foreign governments to the president. If the president s company rents a big ballroom for a foreign state and the president benefits, takes in revenue, thats an emaolument and band b the constitution. Coming up, President Trump continuing his attacks on the free press, devoting a lot of time on stage last night at that rally to take swipes at the media. After this break, were going to take a look at what it all means for legitimate news sources, like the president continues to go after even as he spreads his own falsehoods at an alarming rate. Youre watching msnbc. The others. When you read the New York Times, its just story after story after story thats just a negative spin. Just stick with us, dont believe the crap you see from these people, the fake news. They can make anything bad, because they are the fake, fake, disgusting news. That last clip just last night. The president s relentless attacks on the news medias credibility. They are obviously not new. But in recent days the president s vitriol has ramped up. I was on the road with him recently and we witnessed this in person. Its making waves with his most ardent supporters. While the president and his top officials continue to paint legitimate news outlets, these that strive to use actual facts, substantial evidence, reliable sources, to support americas democracy as, quote, the enemy of the people, the line between what is real and what is fake has become increasingly blurred. As an example of this troubling
situation, the New York Times looked into how real people were lured onto fake facebook pages and accounts in the platforms most recent uncovering of ongoing influence campaigns. For that i want to bring in charlie savage, a pulitzer prizewinning correspondent for the New York Times and also fortunately for us an msnbc contributor. Charlie, good to see you in person. So break down how this is working out. How its becoming increasingly difficult for folks to separate fact from fiction, especially when theyre working on social media platforms like facebook has experienced and how people are lured in and almost become activists of these fake accounts. The phrase fake news which trump has weaponized against real news began with the spreading of misinformation and false news stories about how democrats were for running Pizza Parlors with pedophilia and all this total nonsense that a few fringe people on the internet embraced in the 2016 election as
part of this russian misinformation campaign, sowing disinformation, and amplifying these crazy things. Even though trump has gone off and used that phrase for his own purposes, meanwhile Social Media Manipulation continues. So just this week we had facebook announce that it was taking down a dozen or more accounts and pages that were part of a covert manipulation campaign and information operation. Theyre not saying russian, but theyre saying theyre linked to the russian accounts and the pattern is the same so read between the lines. Its probably still them. And facebook has been under all this tremendous pressure to act in a way that it didnt do in 2016. But what we saw this week was they reacted by taking down everything that was linked to any of these suspect accounts, which included a lot of real content by real people. It shows what a dilemma this is. Stuff gets intermingled. So in this case apparently a bad account started an event page
for a counterprotest against the White Supremacist March that was going to happen here in d. C. This was scheduled to take place in the next week here in washington, d. C. It sure is. This is the followup to charlottesville. The Charlottesville White supremacists are having a oneyear anniversary here in d. C. So all these left wing antiracist groups are going to counterprotest them. They were going to do it whether or not someone made a facebook page. But the first one to get there was this bad page and everyone started adding content to it. When facebook realized it had a patient zero problem, they wiped it out. So this original page was called resistors and had a lot of people from local washington, d. C. Activism groups on the left who engaged in this. If you went down, nbc news was able to uncover some of the pages that were pulled off in the past associated with resistors and they said things like bring helmets and goggles and whatever else. Basically preparing for what was going to be a violent clash. Weve heard from the president
saying, oh, yeah, if the russians are doing anything, theyre only trying to help the democrats. If its promoting the left here, its helping the democrats. But its not that simple, right . Much of the president s world, conservative belief right now, is that the left is sort of fringe and out there in its own way and this in effect was to amplify that thought, was it not . Maybe amplify it in the sense, but i dont think i wouldnt even call these guys democrats. They are far left. These are antifa. They were going to do this either way but the fact that the russians or whoever created this bad account and they sort of got onto it because it was already there now taints the whole enterprise and allows that kind of rhetoric to say this is all astroturf and there wouldnt have been you know, were going to see a rough couple of days in washington a week from now i predict. Im sure then were going to hear from the right, see, the russians are causing this, or
maybe from the left too. And it just shows what a tremendously complicated problem this is that we still havent gotten our hands around. Even facebooks response may have been too far in the other direction. And with only a few months to go until the midterms, there are a lot of potential accounts out there that could be forming as we speak and its hard to know what you can trust when youre reading your own social media. The distinction between wanting to speak freely and maybe hide your identity so you dont feel afraid to say what you really want to say but how do you keep fake people and statesponsored Manipulation Campaigns out of that without absolute knowledge of whos posting what, theres a tradeoff there that doesnt have a good answer without downsides along the way. All of this as we heard from National Security officials yesterday saying our democracy is in the crosshairs. Charlie savage, thank you very much. Coming up, we want to talk a little bit more about this. More than just these individuals that fall victim to this blurred line. The spread of false information has major implications on our
economy, on our democracy, on our businesses, on