Coverage of national and international news, including breaking stories. Putin meeting all around us in that setting. But they are also hearing the president in very few words undercut the investigation. The president also hit some other big topics like the border wall and of course smacking the media. Heres some of the highlights. Were fixing walls all over the border. And were going to start to get very nasty over the world. Anything i want, they want to oppose. I just figured out how to do the wall. Ill say, i dont want to build the wall and theyll insist on building it. I just figured that out right now. They can make anything bad. Because they are the fake, fake disgusting news. So fake, fake disgusting was a sort of updated iteration. There was cheering and jeering at us in the work area that is
the president getting funding for the wall. Remember, a Republicanled Congress has not supported the president in funding such an endeavor. Joining me to discuss, matt miller, an Msnbc National Security contributor and former Chief Spokesperson for the department of justice. My friend ron insana is a cnbc contributor. Edd eddie glaud is an msnbc contributor. I apologize for my voice, i was out last night supporting another working mother. Her name is beyonce. Good for you. When the countrys top National Intelligence official dan coats was asked about the helsinki summit. Youre saying today that the president has directed you to make the issue of election meddling a priority. How do you explain the disconnect between what you are see, his advisers, and what the president has said about this issue . Im not in a position to
either understand fully or talk about what happened at helsinki. What do you make of that . Coats is essentially out of the loop when it comes to trumps private meeting with putin. You know, i think it really highlights the kind of war between the president and the National Security officials. Some officials he appointed like dan coats and chris wray, some career, because the president continues to be at war with the truth about what happened in the 2016 election. I think the white house has a real problem here. A real serious message problem. They could have come out and held a Press Conference like this really any time in the last year and a half. Probably should have done it in the last year and a half and didnt because of the president s hostility towards admitting what happened in the 2016 election. They came out and did it yesterday i think. It seems fairly obvious to me because they realize they have a serious problem. Because of what the president did in helsinki. He raised doubts in a lot of the American Peoples minds about where his true allegiances lie. Youve seen them. He had to come out and clean his statements up afterwards. Because they realize, he created
a serious problem for himself. The problem is, you cant on the one hand admit to Election Interference and admit that the russians are continuinging to try to interfere in the elections as they did by sending this parade of National Security officials out yesterday. And still call russian interference a hoax and attack the investigation that is holding russians accountable. That has indicted 25 russians accountable so far. So the president has this problem. He believes politically he has to continue to attack the investigation because he doesnt know where its going to go and it might get awfully close to him. Either people around him or to him himself. But at the same time, politically, the white house seems to know now, they is there to be more up front and honest then they have in the past. The problem is, the two dont work together. Theyre an obvious tension. You cant do both. Who in the white house knows what . Because it seems like john bolton knows what went down but dan coats doesnt. John bolton is kind of on the horns of the same dilemma. You see john bolton come out and try to, you know, rattle the
saber yesterday and talk about everything theyre doing to attack russian interference. In a Statement Last week, he put out a Statement Last week, calling the investigation a witch hunt. Again, john bolton is in the same place that Sarah Sanders is. Trying to say it out of one side of her mouth. But the administration is getting serious about interference in elections. Out of the other side of her mouth, call the investigation a witch hunt. Everyone in this administration has this problem. You cannot do both of those things at once. Ron, how damning is it for our country that the president is not on the same page as his National Security team . And what does it do to them . If you think about when gary cohn finally said enough is enough, it was when he realized he couldnt help the president on trade and tariffs. Because the president was never going to listen. Hes listening to peter navarro. Theres an old expression about not another sicilian one. This is an american
expression. Foreign policy stops at the waters edge. This used to describe inner party disputes. Regardless of what you said at home, you Wouldnt Go Overseas and disagree. Thats like my parents. You can kill one another inside your hole, bme, but as soon as front door opens, i mean, we are the waltons. This is within his own administration. Hes disagreeing with his own administration on foreign soil. You know, parliamentary democracies, there are shadow governments. I dont mean this in the moronic sean hannity deep state sense. Ooh. We have the notion of maybe a Functioning Alternative Government within this administration largely in the National Security apparatus that is trying to do the right thing, irrespective of what the president has to say or what he does. Does that work for the president . Because hold on a second it might, yes. Because look at the president s policying policies. He stokes this culture war with the base. Down with the rich. Down with the man. Im here to help you. But his policies actually hook businesses up left, right and center. Is that what were going to see on the National Security front, a shadow policymaking team, and then a president who shouts crazy lies that make no sense but they get his base fired up . Some people hope so, right, in the sense you have the adults in the room who will make sure that the countrys protected. And the reason, unlike gary cohn, they wont leave. You have to remember Kirstjen Nielsen is one of those people and shes the force of the Zero Tolerance policy. We always have to remind our audience, as ivanka trump said, it was a low point in the administration. Its not was, it is, and continues to be. You have two things happening at the same time. One is you have as kelly reported, trumps refusal to distinguish russias interference in our elections and his own Mueller Investigation around collusion. Hes collapsing that all the time. Which means he wants to
disregard any count of russias interference in our elections. And then you have the actual fact of the matter. And that is, its not just simply russia. Remember nielsen. Whatever we think of her, she said this. Our democracys in the crosshairs. Its a whole bunch of bad actors. And so our democracy is really what do you mean by that, a bunch of bad actors . What they unleash, the Information War they unleashed, campaigns could use. Remember, we have some folks in california who were running, who wanted to use this. We have other actors. China, other people. The white supremacists. All these folks who are trying to use this to undermine and destabilize the country open the gates to hell essentially. What yesterday revealed, we dont have a coordinated effort in the white house to coordinate these various agencies. Not simply because of russia, but because democracy itself is in the cross hairs. We need all of these organizations not to just simply
be doing what theyre individually doing. For someone to be the center of connect all the spokes. Congressional republicans just turned down 250 million yes, they did. In funding for protecting the elections. Correctamundo. Can the National Security team have any impact in protecting our elections, not just with the government turning down funding to do so, but with the president not being on the same page . They cant really marshal the entire government. They can do the functional things. They can help Election Security systems around the country buttress themselves around cyberattacks. They can do things to help campaigns buttress themselves against cyber a tacks. They can work with social Media Companies to take down, you know, russian social media bots and trolls who are out pushing this information. But the response to russian interference needs to be not just kind of the technical aspect the government does but also marshalling the American People. You have to convince the American People not to believe
the disinformation they see from the russians. You have to convince campaigns on both sides of the aisle if their opponent is hacked, not to use that information to your advantage. It has to be something where youre not just marshalling the levers of government but telling the American People not to listen to this disinformation and telling people not to play into it. You cannot do it when the president is out, you know, kind of actively calling into question what the russians are doing. It simply just wont work. It just wont work. Gentleman, thank you so much. We have a lot to cover today. Coming up, why Special Counsel Mueller hopes a russian pop star sings about that trump tower meeting. Plus, the new jobs report is out. Its slightly below expectations. But the overall picture is still strong. Before we go to commercial, i got to share late nights jimmy fallon. He had some new details about a potential new pick for a key job in the white house. Warner bros. Just announced theyre going to reboot the 80s tv show alf. This is crazy. President trump has already asked alf to be commander of the space board. Happy anniversary dinner, darlin. Can this much love be cleaned by a little bit of dawn ultra . Oh yeah one bottle has the Grease Cleaning Power of three bottles of this other liquid. A drop of dawn and grease is gone. Until the day you leave for your trip. Addon advantage. Only when you book with expedia. Addon advantage. Are you ready to take your then you need xfinity xfi. . A more powerful way to stay connected. It gives you super fast speeds for all your devices, provides the most Wifi Coverage for your home, and lets you control your network with the xfi app. Its the ultimate wifi experience. Xfinity xfi, simple, easy, awesome. Welcome back. Im stephanie ruhle. Robert mueller wants to talk to a russian pop star about that 2016 meeting. You may recall he was reportedly a key figure in setting up that meeting between the Trump Campaign and the russians. Well, donald trump jr. Has testified he doesnt remember whether he spoke to agalar about the meeting. The singer recently told vice news the two of them definitely spoke. I said theres some people that want to meet you, they obviously want something that could potentially help them resolve things that you could be interested in. Or maybe not. If you can spare five minutes of your time, id be grateful. In not, no problem. If not, no problem. Don jr. Said of course, ill do it if youre asking. When real life is stranger than fiction. What kind of information could he provide mueller . Nbcs ken dilanian is on the story. Sadly, not wearing a python or an ostrich jacket. Ken, what more do we know about his request . Well, one of the great mysteries of this trump tower meeting, which is why did his employee write that explosive email you just read parts of . I think its worth reading in
full. Goldstone, who worked for agalarov wrote, this is to don jr. , he just called and asked me something very interesting. The Crown Prosecutor of russia met with his father this morning and in their meeting offered to provide the Trump Campaign with official documents and information that would incriminate hillary and her dealings with russia and would be very useful to her father. He went on to say this was part of a russian government effort to help your campaign. Now, goldstone has sort of played this off as puffery. If agalarav can explain why goldstone thought that, what did he know about this russian government, which after all, was true, there was a russian government to help donald trump. That can be very significant. Also interesting, he is russian, he is outside the reach of muellers subpoena. The fact his lawyer is telling us hes in talks to sit down with Robert Mueller is significant and suggests that maybe his interests are not in line with donald trump anymore. He made this rather bizarre video where he seemed to be Trolling Trump and he depicted, you know, Scantily Clad Women in a hotel room and sort of made
fun of all the various allegations in that dossier. So he may have some important things to tell Robert Mueller. Its interesting that mueller wants to talk to him, stephanie. Every time i see this, i look at rob goldstone, were talking pop stars and backstage at beauty pageants. I think, my gosh, the country deserves better. A story im crazy focused on. This Wall Street Journal piece that Michael Cohen, you know him, so do i, trumps former personal lawyer, his fixer, struck a consulting deal worth 10 million bucks with a major trump donor just a couple of days before his offices got raided. What can you tell us about it . To me this is huge. I agree. This report says that this chattanooga developer offered to pay Michael Cohen a 10 million success fee if he can secure some 5 billion in loans to restart a dormant Nuclear Plant in alabama. A Nuclear Plant. Lets just slow that down. This guy was willing to pay Michael Cohen 10 million ifMichael Cohen remember, Michael Cohen, you can pay me, i can help you understand the president and how he works. No, he was offered 10 million if this guy could get billions in loans to restart a Nuclear Plant. Thats not Just Consulting on how to understand this president. Yes, and its also something called contingency fee lobbying, which is an ethical gray area to say the least. Its actually outlawed in some states. But its considered, you know, conducive to corruption. If youre only getting paid if you succeed, it creates a greater motivation to do shady things to get it done. It also just shows that Donald Trumps washington is the swa y swampiest that washington has ever been. Can you imagine in the Obama Administration . Wed still be having hearings about it now. There are bad things that have happened in washington since the dawn of time, but remember why so many people voted for the president , to drain the swamp. I think back to Michael Cohen taking out a Home Equity Loan to pay a couple hundred grand in a payoff, yet after the president won, he was securing a 10 million fee to help somebody get a nuclear deal. Wow. Ken, thanks so much. All right, coming up, were going to break down the new jobs numbers. As china prepares to retaliate in this escalating trade war. Plus, apple scores a trillion, with a t, dollar victory. First, please pay attention. Its stunning. As we cover this chaotic political climate, i want to take you back to this very day in 2012. What were we talking about . Apologies and civility. That was the rage. Please check out this piece from the Washington Post at the time. When politicians used to say im sorry. President obamas Communications Director apologized for attacking a piece by conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer while republican operative john sununu said he was sorry for calling president
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