Where all eyes should be on that critical meeting under way at this hour setting up a showdown between President Trump and kim jungun, the president has managed to once again upstage his own message. Trump on air force one a few minutes ago revealing that he is considering pardoning Martha Stewart and commuting the sentence of former illinois governor rod blagojevich, both by the way once associated with mr. Trumps apprentice show. Stewart you might recall was convicted of conspiracy, obstruction and making false statements to investigators. Blagojevich was removed from office and convicted of a potpourri of corruption charges including that he tried to sell Barack Obamas senate seat. Blagojevich started serving a 14 year sentence back in 2012. Hallie jackson is with me from the white house of course. And our justice security analyst also with me, matt former spokesman for the Justice Department under obama. But why talk of the possible pardons and commutations now, why talk of them period . Well, let me explain how it went down that we even heard from the president about the possible pardons and commutations. We knew about the key sdesouza. And that sent people into a scramble because remember Kim Kardashian was here talking about a different pardon now that the president is saying that he would potentially be open to, this is for a 63yearold great grandmother, a low level drug offender. Flash forward this morning, the president gets on a plane, he flies to texas. He is on the plane. He calls back a reuters reporter. They have a conversation. The reuters reporter comes back. And then the entire pool, entire 13 member traveling press pool gets called back to the president s cabin on air force one. That is unusual. They talk for a little while. And the president talks about the possibility of these two new pardons. Rod blagojevich, marsha stha st. So this is the answer to why is he talking about it. Presumably my colleagues said who else are you thinking about pardoning and the president got into it. Obviously that is something that is making big news this hour. So lets talk through the two possibilities here and the potential political factor at play. The president lets note for pardons in the past has said things like for example with scooter libby, this is not fair. About Martha Stewart, it didnt seem fair. He seems to be very focused on the fairness aspect of the people that he is pardoning or thinking about pardoning. Rod blagojevich and martha a stewart of course both have apprentice ties, you know that. Blagojevich just last year with our nbc chicago affiliate did an interview obviously from prison and said hey, listen, donald trump has always been good to me. Hes always been kind to me. But blagojevich at the time was focused on going through the supreme court. That was how he wanted to get this done. Martha stewart, you know who was involved in her prosecution, none other than james comey. So there is the comey factor that might be at play here as well. And weve seen that for other pardons that the president issued. He is up to i believe five so far right now. If he adds these, it will be up to seven and then of course the great grandmother. So a lot happening very quickly. And remember, there is a process that a lot of these folks go through when they are looking for a pardon. Certain factors that come into play that they want to prove or talk about or put forward in front of the administration for former president obama, he didnt really do any pardons until late in to his second year as president. Is so President Trump clearly feels like he has the power to do it, he wants to be able to do it, and so he will do it. The question mark here is what exactly is he going to do with blagojevich. That is a question. As you know obviously in illinois now was sentenced for corruption. Is he going to commute, will it be a full pardon. Were working to nail that down. And then there is the peculiar that s Martha Stewart factor. They worked together in business. And she had an apprentice spinoff. So clearly folks that the president knows. And one final point because i know matt miller wants to get in on the conversation as well. But is this sending a signal . Is the president trying to send a signal to others who may be caught up in potential issues with for example the special counsel. People like mike flynn, people like paul manafort. There is a question that some critics have raised that may, is the president trying to tell these guys dont worry about it, i have a get out of jail free conversation. And matt, lets get you into the conversation. The president said any man would be lucky to have Martha Stewart in 2013. There is the tweet. That is impressive, control room, saying she looks terrific, any guy would be lucky to have her. That was again back in 2013. There really does seem to be a tweet for just about everything. Matt, this president has issued five pardons or commutations so far since taking office. Is this unusual for a president at this point in his tenure to have five . And talk to me a little bit more about the process that hallie just mentioned, the process by which they are usually granted. Typically there is input sought from the Justice Department. The number of pardons is not unusual in this case, but the nature of the pardons is. If you look at the way most president s handle pardons, the Justice Department takes applications from people who want to have their sentences either commuted or receive full pardons. They look at things like the seriousness of the crime, whether they expressed remorse, things they have done afterwards in life. And the idea behind a pardon is that they are supposed to be granted out of mercy and granted to people who have shown some, you know, penance for their crime and really are deserving of mercy. The president isnt using the pardon for that purpose. The pardon seems to be granting these to celebrities and republican politicians or republicans like scooter libby, joe arpaio and now desouza who appear on fox news. If you look at the pardons in contrast to some of the pardons that barack obama granted, he granted 2,000 near the end of his teerm rm to low level drug offenders. That is not the kind of people that donald trump is granting these pardons to. It is hard to think of someone more undeserving of a pardon than today nesh desouza. He made unfounded charges about why the prosecution was brought claiming that it was politically motivated. A judge found no evidence of that. He has never expressed remorse for his crime. And honestly, he is just kind of a despicable person. He is an outright racist that spreads racist ideas, conspiracy theories. When you look at such an important power as the pardon, something that cannot be challenged, it is hard to think of someone that it could be less appropriately used for than him. All right. Matt, thank you. Stick around, i want to come back to you and talk more about this message that the president may be sending with regards to the special counsels investigation and also the news with james comey and possible obstruction of justice. More evidence that there may have been obstruction. Stand by. News of the day though, north korea, a lot riding on these preliminary meetings today. What is President Trump saying about them . Let me tell what you is happening with the meetings up in new york. They are over. Not because they went poorly, but for the opposite reason. Apparently they went very well. That is what were hearing from a state department official. That they thought that they made progress. So take that as yet another signal mounting evidence that in fact in less than two weeks we will all be heading to singapore for what may be the first ever several talks. That a point the president continues to emphasize. Ever several talks. That a point the president continues to emphasize. Maybe june 12 is not the only one. Here is a little of what the president had to say on his way to texas. I just want to tell you were doing very well with north korea. Our secretary of state has had very good meetings. Hes meeting again today. The meetings have been very positive. Well see what happens. It is a process. It is all a process. Well see. Hopefully well have a meeting on the 12th. Its going along well, but i want to be meaningful. Doesnt mean it gets all done at one meeting. Maybe you have to have a second or a third and maybe well have none. So perhaps what you are seeing is a little bit of expectation setting coming from donald trump. Perhaps him coming to the realization that as many outside experts have told me, this is going to take a while. This is not going to be a one and done and north korea denuclearizes. Nobody thinks that. That is not a realistic possibility. So even as they are coming to figure out how to get to the table, in just about two weeks from now, there are also parallel discussions happening about how do you get to the table after that and the one after and the one after that because there is not going to be an easy process. You have two other teams, one in the dmz, one in singapore that are also trying to figure this out. And secretary of defense james mattis, guess where he is . Also in singapore. Not because of this, this is a previously scheduled trip, but there is a Critical Mass happening now you and i think we will likely know soon about a final decision from donald trump. All right. Hallie jackson there for us. Thank you. And retired admiral our chief International Security and diplomacy analyst joining me. And so does michael crowley. Admiral, let me start with you because you outrank michael. You jis heaust heard the news t according to sources these preliminary meetings have gone very well. They are making a fair amount of progress it would seem to those covering these preliminary meeting. What do you make of it, does it seem as if to you all indications are the summit in singapore is going to happen . Well, first of all, craig, nobody outranks a journalist, we all know that. But on the spectrum that kind of runs from meaningless photoop to, hey, we all slapped the table and nobel prizes get handed out at the end of the summit, were kind of over here toward the photoop stage. But not quite in fairness at photoop. So the short answer is i think there will be a summit because President Trump and kim jungun are like moths drawn to the flame of international publicity. Very hard at this point to walk away from it for both of them. So i think it happens. I think it will be cordial. And i think that it will then lay the groundwork for what i would anticipate would be at least a year if not a year and a half to two years of grind it out on the ground diplomacy to narrow this big gap that exists between u. S. Expectation, no nukes in north korea, zero, nada, none. And i think kims expectation is, well, i can have nukes for some period of years and maybe when i get more confident well give some of them up and then eventually we wont have them. That is a pretty big gap right now. It will take some serious work to close it. But ill finish by saying life is so often compared to what, and compared to where we were six months ago this, is vastly better. You can see a 70 chance perhaps of getting to a negotiated conclusion here. That would be good. 70 chance. Mike, i want to call our viewers attention, not so much your, but to a publication on the behind of scenes discussions at the white house. And this is a line that stuck out to me and my team this morning. Trump and his top advisers dont seem to know what they want to get out of a summit. I thought that the goal was denuclearization. That is what we wanted to get. Is that not the case . Officially the goal is this phrase were hearing increasingly complete verifiable irreversible denuclearization. And that has been americas policy for several years, this acronym cvid. People will be hearing and are hearing a lot from senior u. S. Officials. But that is really an impractical standard and i think trump figures are trying to figure out what is something that north korea realistically can accept. I dont think the john bolton at least when he was a tv pundit may have said either give everything up right away and dismantle your program in a way where you cant restart it or no talks, no relaxation of pressure. But that is just a snnonstarter. So i think what our story got at effectively is to some degree Trump Officials are kind of talking this through out loud and in public which really is not how these sort of negotiations have been done in the past but of course everything is so unorthodox in this administration. But what our story did is say in some cases mike pompeo seems to be saying one thing, john bolton saying another, donald trump saying another. The same Trump Officials seem to be changing their own lines even in the same day. And i think that that does fairly reflect the fact that this administration has not had enough time to come up with, you know, a clearly delineated position. You dont have to go into these talks knowing exactly what you are going to accept. There is always a degree of f x flexibili flexibility. That was through when obama was negotiating the nuclear deal with iran and several other countr country. It makes a lot of Foreign Policy and Nuclear Experts pretty nervous. Admiral, what do you make of this letter that is supposed to be delivered by hand to the president tomorrow from kim jungun . I think it will say im looking forward to talks with you. Im willing to put the idea of denuclearization on the table. I dont think it will be a groundbreaking kind of document. I dont think magna carta. Think memo to donald. I think it will set a tone out there. But you know, to michaels point, kim jungun, donald trump, negotiating nuclear weapons, what could go wrong. A fair amount can go wrong here. And i read michaels piece, it is excellent. I think he lays out the competing voices here. Ill throw one last thing out, which is weve talked about libya and the Chilling Effect that has had. I think the other slightly Chilling Effect is having pulled out of the iran i cant ian dea does kim assess that in terms of maybe i can cut a deal with the trump administration, but what if they then pull out of it. So there is confidence building that has to go on both sides of the equation. Thank you both. War on justice, President Trump explaining why he fired james comey, again. And it comes just hours after a new report sheds light on what the president was saying about comey right before it happened. Plus, Harvey Weinstein indicted. So what could his lawyers be looking for in the bill cosby trial to prepare for their case . And White Nationalists are running for office in Record Numbers. My colleague Morgan Radford smas pretty incredible reporting. Interviews with two of these candidates, she wanted to find out why they believe this is the year they can win. This monstrous nature of the jewish people must be known to the public. You think jews are monsters . 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And in fact when i decided to just do it, i said to myself, i said you know, this russia thing with trump and russia is a made up story. Matt miller, justice and security analyst. So matt the times reports that the mccabe memo has been passed on to the mueller team. Why is this m