Race. We begin this afternoon with breaking news on wall street. The dow has plummeted 600 points over fears of possible economic slowdowns. Also many believing that trade truce between the United States and china is all a bit of a fabrication. I want to take a look at the markets right now. Just down 574. Essentially that is giving back all the gains. After xi jinping and President Trump had dinner in argentina saturday night, President Trump came out saying we have a truce, we have 90 days. Were going to get through this. It was very positive. China is going to make great concessions. Even since yesterday, weve been scratching our heads saying china was basically agreeing to do something that they said they would do months ago that the white house didnt want to do. We wouldnt accept in general. Were going to were going to spend more on agriculture and energy and industry products. Again, thats the exact plan they were always going to take. It is chinas goal to move up the china and make things like electric cars and airplanes. So it was mindboggling at best for us to try to interpret what the president said since china didnt mimic any of his statements and the president s own administration did not back the president statements up as it related to the auto industry. I want to bring in cnbcs bob pisani. I started this morning, this is a trading note from jp morgue than writes, it doesnt seem like anything was agreed on and white house officials are contorting themselves into pretzels to reconcile trumps tweets which seems, if not completely fabricated, then grossly exaggerated with reality. Is this due to the markets saying maybe the trade truce didnt happen . I think theres some of that. The market has indicated it cares about three things right now. Number one it cares about the Federal Reserve and how fast theyre raising rates. Last week, the head of the Federal Reserve, j. Powell, came out and basically implied maybe not as aggressive as some people thought. Now we have the two other things the market cares about, number one, tariffs and trade war and number two is Global Growth. Is china slowing or not independent of the trade wars . Every time we get positive news on tariffs, theres going to be fewer tariffs. The market rallies. It tends to go down when we get negative tariff news. We had one of the president s top economic advisers who said, look, these are agreements thats very high levels between the president. Now its up to People Like Us to interpret what theyre trying to say and what the meaning is. That is, as you know, the devil in the details. The Chinese Media has been relatively mum about what exactly the specifics are. The president of china just getting back into china. I think a lot of people over there are waiting as well to get a correct interpretation of this. The markets saying right now were not quite sure whats been agreed to. Maybe you can help me understand Something Else wilbur ross said, when he said the economy is strong, it is the press that seems obsessed with what may lie in the future. Im very confused. I would think jerome powell, the rest of the fed, economic forecasters, are focused on the future. Thats how investors figure out how to invest. Thats how businesses figure out how theyre going to invest going forward. What in the world is ross talking about . This is somewhat disappointing the press is constantly made into a bogey man. Were constantly trying to figure out what is going to happen because thats what the stock market does. The stock market is not about today. Its actually a discounting mechanism. Its a method of trying to figure out what are earnings for corporations going to look like six to 12 months in the future so we as financial journalists, we have to figure out whats the economy going to be looking like six months to a year from now. There are some signs that china is slowing down. China is one of the most important countries in the world economically. If thats an issue, the markets are going to be concerned about it. The United States economy frankly looks terrific. We had some numbers yesterday. Manufacturing numbers that were terrific overall. Confidence is still very good. I dont see any signs of any imminent dramatic slowdown. Maybe some but recession that would kill a stock market rally in 2019, i dont see it and frankly most other people dont. I think all of us are in agreement the u. S. Economy is in good shape. The Global Economy is a little slower. Europe and china is. But blaming the pression for this is just misguided. They seem very positive and confident. One more question, do you think part of the market drop today could be related to an understanding of tariffs . When the president tweeted earlier today on the tariffs, he talked so much about tariffs, you know, i wonder and i thought earlier on cnbc from diane swann, that does the president understand tariffs, those who get hit are the u. S. Consumer . I think the president does understand that. One of the things that the president s been very consistent now, even going back 20 years, is that he has had a problem with trade. He feels theres a trade imbalance. Most economists would say trade is only one aspect of the Global Economy. And that putting too much emphasis on, for example, trying to balance trade at all costs of everything else, including looking at companies in the u. S. Who export and make a significant amount of money exporting is probably the wrong approach. I dont want to get into a policy discussion about it. The one thing that everyone agrees on, everyone, is that the history shows imposing more tariffs hurts the Global Economy and hurts the u. S. Economy. I dont think there are many people that would disagree with that on any kind of longterm basis. Certainly agree with you on tariffs and on trade. We do need to make things smarter and better and help american manufacturers and consumers without a doubt. China, they have some unfair practices. Thank you for joining me. Weve got to keep our eyes on the market. Were learning of a major hack involving highlevel republicans. Politico was first to report that thousands of sensitive emails from the National RepublicanCongressional Committee were exposed to an outside intruder. Email accounts blo s belonging four senior aides were reportedly surveilled for several months. The intrusion detected in april. Confirms it was a victim of a cyber intrusion attack but it will not release any more details. Nbc news Political Editor mark murray joins me live. Those who truly understand technology and understand National Security say these are the real risks of the future. And were discounting how major they are. Yes. Stephanie, we saw this play out in real time in the 2016 president ial election. I think be given those 2016 memories, many of us were pressing for this in the Journalism Community as well as the Campaign Aides who knew Something Like this could not actually occur again, but we ended up now knowing, nbcs confirmed with two sources, about this hack. Again, we dont know what actually was the intruder here. To me that still is the very big story. If you remember, in 2016 it became evident months into the 2016 president ial election that russia and its associates were the ones who were able to hack. Most importantly, it was how that information was disseminated. On the eve of the democratic convention. And then the last month of the president ial election, wikileaks again ended up sending out john podesta, the Campaign Chairman of the clinton campaigns, emails. Its still unclear how this information gets disseminated. To me thats the other big story going on here. Including household names, House Speaker paul ryan, they were not aware of the hack until politico contacted the nrtc on monday. Why the heck werent more people told . I mean, people that it impacted . Thats something were still getting to the bottom. To me its interesting according to our own reporting this was first detect bead a vendor back in april, yet people are just being contacted now. And then most importantly to me, it is this was a subject that the dccc, along with the nrcc, Republican House campaigner, where talking about, what is fair game whas, what is not. The parties werent able to come to an agreement to discuss that. But still this was something i think everyone was cognizant that could end up happening. It ended up happening. Well have to see what the receipt nenext steps are. Seems like a one off until it hits you. Mark, thank you. Next, were going to dig into new developments in the russia investigation right now. Right now, this minute, the special counsel is preparing the sentencing memorandum for Michael Flynn. What does that mean . What are we going to learn . Well bring you the details the moment we have them and break down why Michael Flynns role matters big time to President Trump. So a tree falls on your brandnew car and totals it. And as if that wasnt bad enough, now your insurance wont replace it outright because of depreciation. If your insurance wont replace your car, what good is it . Youd be better off just taking your money and throwing it right into the harbor. Im regret that. With new car replacement, if your brandnew car gets totaled, Liberty Mutual will pay the entire value plus depreciation. Liberty mutual insurance. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Its proven quality sleep. The new sleep number 360 smart bed, from 999. Intelligently senses your movement and automatically adjusts on each side to keep you both effortlessly comfortable. 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A document detailing not just the lie he pleaded guilty to but any other uncharged bad act. Remember, its sentencing four times. Friday, the mueller team will enter a filing detail iing manafort. And then on former personal attorney cohen. Fired fbi director james comey will testify on capitol hill. Comey agreed to appear behind closed doors after the committee promised to release a transcript. Also coming on friday, former Trump Campaign aide George Papadopoulos will be scheduled to be released from jail. A busy ten days for the mueller team. As the special counsel prepared its sentencing memorandum for flynn, i want to do a quick recap of who he is and how he got to this point. He is a career army officer. He rose to Lieutenant General and was appointed to head the Defense Intelligence agency by president obama. He was outed in 2014 and then retired. One year later, he was paid 34,000 by russian state media to give a speech in moscow and he attended a dinner and had a table right near Vladimir Putin. A trip and payment he neglected to mention we he renewed his security clearance. During the president am caial campaign, flynn was a leading advocate for trump. Lock her up. Thats right. Im going to tell you, its unbelievable, unbelievable. Lock her up. I remember interviewing him in 2016 and i was asking him about Vladimir Putin and how hes treated at ed aed a ed aed adv. I think he told me to bite my tongue. And the turkish government. It was later revealed his firm had been paid more than half a million bucks by turkey, that is the turkish government. Flynn then registered under the foreign agents registration act but it took months. During the transition, Michael Flynn reached out to russian officials. He spoke with the Russian Ambassador about blocking a vote backed by the obama administration. A serious breach of protocol and contact he would later be accused of lying about. For his service to the campaign, flynn was hired as National Security adviser. He was ousted about a month into the job. The president saying flynn had lied to the Vice President about meetings he had with russians. Then over a year ago, flynn made headlines again, shocking the country as he pleaded guilty to lying to the fbi in the special counsels investigation, cooperating with the mueller team as part of the plea. Thats a lot. See, you forget about that guy. Joining me now, nbc news Investigative Reporter ken dilanian and former special watergate prosecutor nick ackerman. Seriously, ken, youre going to have a really busy december. What do you expect to learn from todays filing . Going to drop in the late afternoon, perhaps as late as 6 p. M. In terms of what we might learn, ive been speaking to legal experts. Were in uncharted territory. Normally theyre sentenced after the investigation is closed. In this case, the investigations wide open. There may be some things mueller wants to hold back. At least we can expect to get an accounting of the circumstances under which flynn lied about his conversations with the Russian Ambassador, who told him to do it and well see whether that story is consistent with the story told by the president and top aides. Its uncharted territory to sentence them while the investigation is still open, why do it . Im not totally convinced hes going to be sentenced. Really . Yes, i never have a situation what do you mean . Because normally the government wants to keep the sentencing open so they have at least some control over the witness. The witness wants to keep it open because they want to show their cooperation. So i am not convinced that in the end he is not going to be sentenced, particularly in light of Michael Flynns guilty plea which to me isnsent a signal theres about to be another indictment. Cohen had already been had pled guilty to exposure of five to six years in prison. So the only reason that the prosecutors would have insisted on another guilty plea here is because they plan to use him as a witness with respect to the russian issues. In particular, the conspiracy between the russian government and the Trump Campaign relating to the same charges that were filed against the 13 russian intelligence operatives in july of 2018. Almost forgot about them. Remember when they say the thing is taking so long, benghazi took four years, no indictments. Hillary clintons email took over two years, no indictments. What do we have, 32 . It would be faster if people stopped lying. Clever but true. You have flynn, manafort, the most dangerous . It comes down to flynn or cohen. I guess leaning towards cohen only because the president s lawyer and fixer has to know a lot of disturbing secrets. Assuming there are disturbing secrets. Are you saying that with a straight face, stephanie . Yes, but in all honesty, cohen wasnt part of the administration. Michael flynn had to be ousted. You have him say this guys compromised. If there was a russian conspiracy, flynn should know about it. If it was more money laundering, then cohen. The one clue youve got in the flynn guilty plea is the materiality of his lie that he pled guilty to and admitted to in front of the court was his lie about the russian sanctions was material to the coordination between the russian government and the Trump Campaign. All of that means if hes talking to the Russian Ambassador about sanctions, this all related to the quid pro quo why Vladimir Putin would be incentivized to help donald trump win . So many people rise up in this investigation, what does it say to you that it is still ongoing . I think it is not unusual. I mean, criminal investigation do not work the same way. It takes a lot of time to cooperate witnesses, to put together documents. This is not an unusually long time. In fact, Robert Mueller has got an incredible number of indictments in a relatively short period of time. Also say, President Trump is not out of the woods with manafort yet. Hes going to be sentenced. Hes looking at a life sentence. Then hes got to ask himself, am i finally going to come clean or spend the rest of my life in jail . Hes looking at a life sentence but he had a hail mary pass to the president after cutting a deal with manafort. Hes still backchanneling information to giuliani and trump. Which is a great gift to trump and giuliani. Plus the 32 people total who are fulling information for them. Hes put himself out there. Even the president does an interview with Rupert Murdochs new york post. When he doesnt get the pardon, ive had this happen before, people who first arent going to get the truth, they the good hammered with a majo