Watching shes like them too. Actually all of you guys, phil rucker, reverend al, jess, john, you guys are all goats of a way and my goat we mean the greatest of all time. That does it for this hour. I was in for nicolle wallace. She will be back next week and you all will be glad. Speaking of g. O. A. T. S, mtp daily starts now. Heilemann, you got me to quickly google the men who stare at goats. Do you remember that movie . I thought it was going to be extraordinarily funny and, well, i cant quote a single line from it other than the title. I cant believe you actually that is what this made you think of but im glad that it did and thats the kind of movie that you are the ultimate netflix customer. John heilemann, i think of you as one of the men who stare at goats. Have a great weekend, chuck. Thank you, sir. If its friday, is the president feeling the heat . Tonight, President Trumps theater of the absurd of the. Now were being hindered by the russian hoax. Its a hoax, okay . Is manaforts trial motivating the president s escalating attacks on everything from mueller to the media . Plus, for your consideration im not waiting, im running against donald trump today, every single day, okay . Progressives seeking the National Spotlight in 2020 take center stage in the big easy. And President Trump versus the map. People call it britain, they call it Great Britain, they call it they used to call it england, different parts. They dont. This is mtp daily and it starts right now. Good evening, im chuck todd here in washington. Welcome to mtp daily. We begin tonight with the hunt for a motive. Exploring issues that affect leaders in the U. S. And around the globe. And flustered, that the Mueller Probe is grinding on and hes personally hurt by cohens betrayal. Last week sources tell gabe sherman that trump told Deputy Chief Of Staff bill shine to ban Kaitlin Collins from a white house event because he was angry she asked questions about cohen. Trump has been sending messages to cohen on twitter that he wont pardon him. Hes just letting him know that youre done. When we ended last weeks episode, the cliff hanger last week was Michael Cohen could testify to the trump tower meeting. Then of course Rudy Giuliani said theres another trump tower meeting. Thats a whole other thing. Youve got trump doing his thing and youve got giuliani out there and there was a time, especially at the end of last week, when they were both acting as if they seemed to think some huge story was coming, was about to drop about a second trump tower meeting. Look, giuliani was acting squirrely. Trump knows if this is true or not. These stories come out, he knows. If Michael Cohen says i was sitting there when don junior came into Donald Trumps office and told him, hey, were about to meet with the russians. Donald trump knows whether thats true or not. Thats probably one of his best memories. When we see a reaction, we can dedeuce from it what we w l will. Guess what, we dont even need Michael Cohen because some people dont think hes a credible witness to confirm some of these things because rick gates has been cooperating with manafort and now the news came out that rick gates might have been in that Preplanning Meeting too. I want to go back to, a lot of people theres some people that i think intentionally wanted to make although the Manafort Trial has nothing to do with russia, but i think were starting to see how this fits into the Mueller Manafort is broke and he magically decides, matthew, that he will work for free in the trump campaign. Its tom barrett that writes that letter of recommendation. Boy, that now you know, im sure that goes back to the follow the money, follow the
advantages, which are for his base bashing the media. One other possibility, they do internal polling. He may be seeing some bad numbers. He may be seeing some bad numbers about his base, bad numbers about the ohio 12 thing has rattled a lot of republicans. Its like again . This one they had everything they thought, they had the right candidate, it was not that kind of district, john kasich was on it. If trump and kasich are supporting the same republican youre not going to have a problem. But capital republicans are more rattled. Chuck, you raise a really important question. Can you connect a to b, the Manafort Trial to russia collusion. This is where were going to see if theres any there, there, if there is a motive, if there was a financial motive and if there was a connection between you just look at the timeline. When manafort came onto the campaign was when you saw the weird fishy things like the platform being changed. You saw President Trump calling for wikileaks, opening calling
for the russians to hack hillary clinton. If you look at the timeline, many of those things happened after manafort came onto the campaign. So thats the question, can you connect those things to some kind of motive because he was under financial distress. There are people that were sort of let go or pushed out when manafort came in who have joked, thank god i was fired. Thank god i was pushed out. Matthew, i want you to respond to something. Quinn hillyer wrote this. Someone still Trump Supporters two wrongs dont make a right. Without saying a word against the vile behavior by trump fans against press covering a rally in tampa, one conservative activist belittled the complaints of one of the abused reporters by tweeting that it would have been really traumatizing to have been shot at like rep Steve Scalise was last year. How much of a problem is that in the Conservative Movement . I think its a problem. I think its a problem in our politics generally, chuck. I think both sides now believe that the rules only apply to the other side. And they love being a victim. Right. Sarah sanders yesterday was more concerned about people saw her as a victim rather than talking saying whats my leader what Leadership Role can i play here. Sure. And i mean you also see controversies hiring in media. Theres the sense that, oh, well whats good for the other side and Fireable Offense for the other side is not necessarily a Fireable Offense if its someone who shares my politics, right . You see that on the left as well as the right. So this just fits into the overall narrative of our tribalist politics. This what aboutism is bad. I cant stand it. Literally, what happened to two wrongs dont make a right . Exactly. Be better. What does the first lady call it . Be best . Be best, right. The problem with what aboutism is you never get anywhere. You never get anything done. You never decide that this was a bad thing that happened. Maybe it happened over here too, but this individually by itself was a bad thing. I think we now have some strong arguments to potentially change the way we do business with this administration because you have a Security Issue with the way that the mob is being turned onto journalists and then you have the question of journalistically why are we there . Were not the story. So if you are going to make us the story, i think this discussion about how we cover this white house is relevant in terms of when there is not big news at these rallies other than trump trashes media, do we send just a Pool Reporter and a pool camera and take ourselves out we are not the story. I totally agree. We are not the story and he wants us to be the story. Its enabling. At a certain point it becomes enabling. I get it, its a tactic. It can work in a primary
campaign. Fair enough . I think thats true. I think there are some incentives among some News Organizations and some Opinion Organizations to also portray themselves in opposition to President Trump too, so the incentives work in both ways. And that is my concern. There are some that view it is an opportunity to become a star. A celebrity. And fight the good fight. Look im shocked, shocked that this sort of thing happens in washington. Im shocked. No. I mean yeah, that is a problem. You know, when i see this craziness, and its its horrifying, you know, to see it at a rally, the president of the United States speaking that way of the reporters who are just trying to do their jobs. I frankly in terms of actual safety, i worry less about what happens at the rallies than pizzagate. I worry about the not balanced guy whos sitting there stewing
in this conspiracy all day and decides to do something. Those are the violent ones. Theyre usually a little bit off, theyre alone, they have gotten themselves stewed up. Thats the Annapolis Capital murder in some ways. That is what you have to worry about and thats where this you dont know who youre inciting when you no, you dont. Thats a problem. All right, guys, lets take a break. Up ahead, were going to go inside the Manafort Trial. Todays developments, including an admittance of Falsifying Tax returns, and of course back to the question that we started in this one, why was manafort broke, and why was he willing to work for free . Well be right back. Fact is, every Insurance Company hopes you drive safely. But allstate actually helps you drive safely. With drivewise. It lets you know when you go too fast. And brake too hard. With feedback to help you drive safer. Giving you the power to actually lower your cost. Unfortunately, it cant do anything about that. Now that you know the truth. Are you in good hands . They work togetherf doing important stuff. The hitch . Like you, your cells get hungry. Feed them. With centrum micronutrients. Restoring your awesome, daily. Centrum. Feed your cells. Welcome back to Political Court tv. Its day four of the Paul Manafort trial, and weve said it before but it bears repeating. The man who ran the president s campaign in the most important twomonth period of that campaign is on trial. Today the special counsels team is diving into how they say President Trumps former Campaign Chairman committed tax and bank fraud. Manafort accountant just admitted on the stand to Falsifying Tax and loan documents on behalf of manafort. This is all part of the prosecutors argument that a man accustomed to a lavish lifestyle got desperate when his prorussia patrons in ukraine stopped paying him. Yet he agreed to work for Donald Trumps campaign for free. It cant help but make us wonder, if he was working for free, what was in it for him . And was he working for somebody else not for free . Nbc News National security and justice reporter Julia Ainsley joins me now from outside of the courthouse. Julia, let me ask this first. Are we done for the week . Reporter were done for the week. Were actually done until 1 00 p. M. Monday. Thats a long recess for a judge that kept pressuring the defense to go as quickly as possible. I mean weve really been breezing through this and actually expect the prosecution to rest my next week, chuck. And that means rick gates, the former partner now prosecution star witness, there was some rumors he could get on the stand today, but it looks like weve got to wait until monday for that one. Reporter just walking behind me now, we did see the lawyers walk across. I didnt want you to miss that. While you were talking, dont worry, we caught manafort walking and we just caught gates walking, so go. Reporter thank you so much for catching that. That could mean something in terms of when rick gates might testify. Lawyers i spoke to today said they expect him to come sometime between the middle of the lineup. What we got today was a lot of the tax side. Its not the fashion side that we had at the beginning of the week where we laid out and heard
how incredibly luxurious his lifestyle was. Today we got the meat and potatoes. We found out there are Tax Preparers or one tax preparer that was given immunity to share her testimony that she did falsify, knowingly so, this tax records to the tune of 900,000, changing what would have been a much lower income because she was knowingly using some information that she knew to be false. Now were waiting to hear from rick gates. We hope that will be sometime next week. Maybe the Powwow We Saw behind us is going to tell us whats coming forward next week, chuck. But rick gates will be key not only to the prosecution but to the defense who wants to use rick gates and discredit him to try to throw away this whole case and show that it was rick gates who really was the bad actor here. I want you to tell me about another piece of testimony today. Philip aliff, a tax preparer,
who i guess was put on the stand to walk us through all of his cyprus accounts. Suddenly Paul Manaforts wife left the courtroom. Describe what happened there. Reporter she did. It was right at the point so philip aliff takes the stand. Hes dry, pretty monotonous, but he gets to one point in his testimony that made mrs. Manafort, kathleen manafort, lower her head, dab a tear and eventually leave the room for about five minutes. That is when he said they did not tell me that there were Foreign Bank Accounts. Yes, i knew there were foreign ejt t entities, but i had no idea these Foreign Bank Accounts in cyprus existed. When i compiled their tax returns, i did so without knowing all of their income. That was a definite piece where miss manafort realized theres some trouble here in what hes saying. We learned a little bit, i guess did the word trump get
uttered today because manaforts Trump Tower Condo and rent on that was some part of some falsified documents. Where did that come up today . Reporter i did not hear the word trump but definitely what they referred to was the Howard Street property was under big question today. That was really a business property. They used it as a rental. They rented it out to make more income. But Paul Manafort asked his tax preparer, phil aliff, to say that this was a private residence for him and his wife in new york and that they were there many days of the year when they came to new york to do business. Philip aliff refused to do that. He said if you are trying to get a loan and you want me to falsify this information, i wont. I wont do that. He very clearly in an email that we saw pointed out to mr. Manafort that he was incorrect the way he was describing that residence. Sydney la porta was different. She came around when the manaforts were really in crunch time, 2014, 2015, the bottom was
falling out. They were taking extreme measures to falsify what their income really was, what their loans really were, and she did let them blur the lines between whats a loan and whats income. So we saw two very different characters from different points in the manafort life. How is the manafort attorneys explained away this testimony . How are they countering . How are they cross examining these witnesses who basically are corroborating a paper trail . Reporter so i cant wait to hear the Cross Examination of sydney la porta, that will come monday. We did hear a brief Cross Examination of aliff. The whole Defense Theory here i think can kind of be boiled down to the term bread crumbs. They want to say that Paul Manafort left plenty of bread crumbs for philip aliff and anyone else keeping the books to understand exactly where this information was coming from, that they would have known that foreign names might have led to foreign accounts and that really
he wasnt trying to obfuscate anything. One of their arguments is that only a fool would give all of this information and not expect to be audited. We may see later when they make their final arguments that theyll say why is the government pursuing a criminal case now when they never audited him and took civil measures for years. Well, that will be interesting to hear those answers when we return monday at 1 00. Julia ainsley in front of the courthouse, busy day. Reporter hope we have better weather. Yeah, i know. Knock on this fiberglass. Thanks very much. Up ahead, the showdown in the big easy. Democrats swarm new orleans for a massive gathering of progressives. Its not hard to look at the Net Roots Nation Gathering as an audition for 2020. So guess what, we will. And thats next. Were in a small room. What . welcome. [ gasps ] a bigger room . how many of you use Car Insurance . Oh. Well, what if i showed you this . [ laughing ] hohoho wow. Its a computer. We compare rates to help you get the price and coverage thats right for you. Thats amazing the only thing that would make this better is if my mom were here. What . an unexpected ending
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