Putin. Well see about today. Were looking for the United States to improve this computer glitch. That does it for us. Well see you right back here tomorrow. In the meantime, Stephanie Ruhle picks up the coverage. Good morning, everyone. Im Stephanie Ruhle with a lot to cover today. Starting with answers, emails and calls. Some of President Trumps response to Robert Muellers questions now revealed has new details on the investigation emerged. Latenight phone calls between donald trump and his associate roger stone and the president dangling a pardon for, guess who, Paul Manafort. Emission failure. The va says it will not reimburse all veterans who were paid less due to a technical glitch. Taking stock. Markets surge after the fed chair suggests interest rate
increases might slow down. Now an expected meeting between trump and the leader xi jinping over the weekend. Theres a possibility a deal can be made. Having said that, some caveats as always. We begin with some of the very fest details about what the president told special Counsel Robert Mueller about wikileaks in 2016. Trump says he knew nothing about it. But does the evidence back it up . I have a great team to break it down. First, i want to explain what we know. Two sources familiar with the matter tell nbc that the president s written answers to the Special Counsel included two critical denials regarding key evidence. The one, he says he did not know about the Trump Tower Meeting with russias ahead of time. Number two, he says his longtime friend roger stone did not tell
him about wikileaks. I want to stop and talk about wikileaks because it is a critical part of the Mueller Investigation. Mueller is looking into any indication that then Candidate Trump knew about russias efforts to influence the 2016 election, if he can draw that line that is potential evidence of conspiracy. Russia used ricky leaks to publicize emails stolen from the dnc and candidate Hillary Clinton and new emails suggest roger stone and the Conspiracy Theorist Corsi communicated with wikileaks because they appear to have known when wikileaks was going to expose the stolen material. This morn, the Washington Post is reporting right around the same time stone was in regular contact with, guess who, then Candidate Trump. One of those conversations reportedly came the day after emails indication that corsi told stone that wikileaks was planning a major release of,
quote, very damaging material. But stone says he doesnt talk to trump about it. I can honestly say that Candidate Trump, donald trump and i have never discussed the wikileaks disclosures before, during or after. You never had a single discussion about Hillary Clinton emails with him at all . That is correct. And that has been his story all along. Wikileaks says it never collaborated with stone. Stone diminished the importance of any Phone Records saying unless mueller has Tape Recordings of the phone calls, what would that prove . Corsi and stone say they didnt have advance knowledge about the wikileaks email revelations. All of this is still very much an open question for mueller, even if the president says its a whole lot of nothing. I want to go right to the white
house where Kristen Welker is standing by. You spoke to the president about those written answers. I talked to two sources familiar with the investigation, with the president s legal team, and they told me that the president answered the Special Counsels questions to the best of his recollection. They say those questions were all about the russia investigation. Just to recap those two key points, were learning that President Trump told the Special Counsel that he didnt know about that Infamous Trump tower meeting from 2016 between don jr. And the russian lawyer and roger stone never told him about the wikileaks before they happened. All of this comes as speculation is announcing that President Trump may be considering a pardon for Paul Manafort. The Plea Agreement between manafort and mueller fell apart. With Mueller Accusing Manafort of lying to investigators. An allegation manafort denies. The president about to leave for argentina for that g20 summit. Hes tweeting about russia. Let me read you his tweets. Did you ever see an investigation more in search of a crime . At the same time mueller and the angry democrats airport looking at the atrocious and pervasive crimes committed by crooked Hillary Clinton and the democrats, a total disgrace. Second one, when will this illegal Joseph Mccarthy style witch hunt, that has shattered so many innocent lives, ever end . After wasting more than 40 million, is that possible, it has proven one thing, no collusion with russia, so ridiculous. Now of course the investigation isnt over. We dont know what the investigation determined. In terms of President Trump, he departs for argentina in just about an hour from now. A lot of Critical Issues are going to be on the table. Hes also going to be meeting with the president of china to discuss trade. This will be looming over all of it. Were hoping to get a few questions before he departs. I want to bring in my panel. Karen, a National Reporter for the Washington Post. Glen kirsner, former federal president. And my friend eddie glaude, professor. Karen, You Are The One who wrote about these latenight calls. Do we know if mueller knows what these calls were about or they happened . We dont know everything mueller knows. I wish we did. Clearly what we know, i would call it a draft indictment, but its really a draft Plea Agreement, what we know is mueller believes this call is critical or these series of calls between corsi emailing
roger stone in august, early august, about wikileaks is going to be dumping some very damaging information. Amazing for jerome corsi to know that. And mueller focusing on what happened next. August 3, according to roger stone, he has a Phone Conversation with then Candidate Trump. And not many days later, then Candidate Trump makes an announcement about some very unflattering things that are going to be coming out about hillary. Its a strong set of circumstances. Could mueller know exactly what they discussed . I doubt it. Unless stone told someone else or trump told someone else. Glen, how significant is wikileaks in terms of the overall investigation . If there is a conspiracy, is this the most likely place for
it to come from . I think its one of the likely places. Wiki leagues is arguably central to the Mueller Investigation in their attempts to see if there was a conspiracy between the Trump Campaign and russia. But lets not forget, the Trump Tower Meeting is another area that is ripe for potential c conspiratorial conduct of those who attended the meeting. The folks from the campaign include ed manafort, kushner an don jr. It is not obviously related to wikileaks but, you know, perhaps most importantly steph, how many times have we heard, its not the crime but its the coverup. Boy, there sure looks like theres strong evidence theres a conspiracy to cover this up, which would also be a conspiracy to obstruct justice. I think there are multiple conspiracies in play here. It sure looks like that. Then you look at a lot of senior members of the gop who remain silent on all of this. Matt, stone says you would need tapes to prove he did anything wrong. Is he right . What would it take to convince the public and congress here. Weird thing to say. Think about that. Thats a great point. Unless there are tapes of this you dont really say that, do you . You dont volunteer that bit of information . Its important to note in all of of this that most of the reporting has said Robert Mueller is not going to bring charges against a sitting president. So and then its up to congress. So that makes a lot of these questions about and judgments about the behavior less criminal and more political. In that context, trump has tweeted about this nine times in the last three days. Look at the story lines. They spent 30 million. Its now 40 million. In the last day, yesterday he said it was 30 million. Today, i mean, the fact Robert Mueller dropped 10 million bucks on it, please. He said in the interview, oh, i have these fisa documents i could unseal that really hurt the democrats but im just waiting until after they go after me. That doesnt make any sense. You would have are you saying youre abetting a cover up . Except for the fact there are people around the country who do not challenge the person in the oval office and they bleach it. So roger stone may be direct. Unless you have tapes with my voice, this dont matter. It matters in a sense, by throwing everything against the wall forever, for the last 12 months on this stuff, and having the House Republicans follow him down that road, its made them less credible and made them less
electable. Now democrats run the house. President trump does not have a consistent believable story line about the Mueller Investigation. Hes just saying mccarthyism and Hillary Clinton and maybe fusion gps. Hes creating more chaos which only confuses people at home and actually gets them to tune out. Why should this matter to the average person at home . They dont know who jerome corsi if i held up a picture, my mom would say, i dont know, the guy in line ahead of me at the deli. Right. Matters if it turns out that donald trump stole the election. He conspired to undermine our democracy. Each my mother, retired woman on the coast of mississippi, right, who is losing faith in the very base, the various institutions of democracy. If she finds out the person who was the leader of the free world cole lulded with russia, it
would matter to her. It has implications for our everyday life. This is important because people just around sellish. Did not just preoccupy with their own selfinterest. I want to believe they care about the country broadly. Okay, is the future of our democracy hanging on these two dudes . I mean, Lets Talk About who they are. A known conspiracy theory. At best, roger stone, a political trickster. Neither credible. You raise an excellent point. Like why is everything hanging on a series of people who have given very inconsistent and thats charitable statements about what happened and also to your point. Most americans have no however, whats important, in august, theres an email from jerome corsi, professor you probably dont know and couldnt
recognize on the street who basically says wikileaks is going to dump something. What people dont recognize is he references this is what the hackers are up to now. This is the hackers game now. The president has said repetedly, hey, look, we didnt know russia was trying to help us except for the email that said this is part of the russian governors efforts to help you. This one, again, in corsis email, there is this reference to the hackers. The president has said we didnt know russia was trying to get these emails and wikileaks was using the fruits of a crime to interfere in the election. Corsi seemed to know that on august 2nd, days before Candidate Trump basically telegraphed to all of his supporters that is whats happening. I think, you know, here your
panel is right, these little bit players, who cares, but the larger issue was did this campaign know russia was trying to help . Is that why the president currently is so friendly to Vladimir Putin when everyone else is in recoil at some of his actions . These joint Defense Agreements. You wrote about manafort sharing information with trump. Corsi says hes been doing the same thing. To me, that sounds insane. How can mueller clearly build a case, asuing every single thing he is discussing with these people is going straight back to the president whos been poisoning the well via twitter . Mueller will build the case. Hes going to do with that respect to all of the remaining grifters that need to be swept up in this like corsi and stone. Ive never seen anything like this. You have the president and
manafort entering into this Information Sharing Agreement. They keep the agreement in place. Now, mind you, thats not up ethical. Its really problematic. We can see the reason manafort did it is because hes trying to keep one foot in the mueller camp, one foot in the i hope President Trump will pardon me camp and i think its going to blow up on manafort. Why . Because, look why do you think it Doesnt Blow Up on mueller . This is stunning all these guys are allowed to talk to one another. To me this almost looked like trump and that whole squad is outfoxing them. I dont think it was helpful if, particularly in all those interviews with manafort, he gave Information Mueller really would like to use in court. Mueller probably lost the
opportunity to use in court. Why is this allowed . Its unusual but its allowed. Manaforts lawyers are there to do the best job they can for manafort. They apparently concluded that the best job they could do was to keep both of their options open. Look, he was already sunk in connect with being convicted in virginia, facing another trial in which he was surely going to be convicted in d. C. So his lawyers decided theyre going to keep this Information Sharing Agreement in place so that he can still go back to the president hoping for a pardon. And that may be working. All of a sudden manafort is back in the news in the last 24 hours. His Plea Deal Looks like its getting blown up by mueller. As im flipping through page six, reading new york gossip, oh, president of the United States has an interview with the New York Post and throws out there a pardon may not be off
the table. Isnt that exactly what manafort wants . Of course. Jerome corsi was on ari melbers show last night. Theyre doing a little advertising, please pardon me. That communication between manaforts legal team and trumps legal team after he had supposedly flipped towards mueller, that stuff is not protected by Attorney Client privilege. If mueller wants to go after that communication, he can. Then its a question of, Will Whitaker let him go that far. Second thing about all of this is tomorrow were going to see a lot more of what mueller has because manaforts going to, in front of a judge, or his legal team is, be sentenced. Hes going to have to spell out why we know he lied. If were worried if anyones worried about the Mueller Investigation, somehow going to be surprised by whitaker, by
whoever, well see some of the Mueller Investigation i believe tomorrow. Hanging out there regarding whitaker, over two weeks ago, he used to have conversations about his potential conflicts of interest. Thus far, havent answered a single question about that. Quickly fact check. The president in the last 24 hours keeps making this comparison to mccarthy. I would love for someone to say that. Explain to me, sir, how and why, because i bet he doesnt even know. Walk us through this. Makes no sense. Its a classic case of Freudian Projection. If you think about what trump has been doing. He doesnt talk about Freudian Projection much. Hes been claiming about what he claims about The Deep State. Whos infiltrated The Deep State. Makes his claim about his influence on the country, hes
directing it towards the state department. Hes claiming that The Deep State has been compromised by comb nichts in interesting sorts of ways. Then creating this broad culture of suspicious. All those folks being accused leads to folk in hollywood being accused. Lead to folk being neo cons. Leads to all this stuff with democracy, is literally thrown into the trash bin. Then this one moment when mccarthy in 1954 accuses a lawyer whos defending the army. He says, you have been you have communist ties and joseph welch says to him, have you no sense of decency . It seems to me the way we should respond to this tweet of donald trump is have you no sense of decency or shame because you m
damn sure dont know anything about history. After that, we have to drop the mic. Up next, nancy pelosi is overwhelmingly elected the next speaker