Administration and today another chapter of this administration played out as we watched live on cable television. In fact, into the night. A former Trump Campaign aide, as weve been saying, sam nunberg, today announced very publicly and repeatedly he plans to defy a subpoena from Robert Mueller. Katie tur says sam nunberg said hell probably cooperate with muler in the end. But the day played out this way. Without informing his lawyer, nunberg talked to his lawyer, appearing on cable news networks, including this one, repeatedly and in a matter of hours, it all started this afternoon as katie tur conducted a live telephone interview. Reporter why are you saying no . Because what they said to me was absolutely ridiculous. They wanted every email i had with roger stone and with steve bannon. Why should i hand them emails from november 1st, 2015 . I was thinking about this today, katie, i was preparing it. Should i spend 50 hours going over all my emails with roger and with steve bannon . And then they wanted emails that hi with hope hicks, with corey lewandowski. Are you giving me a break . Its ridiculous. What sam nunberg was talking about was a request within that subpoena seeking all documents involving the president and a host of his closest advisers. Nbc news has on it and a copy of the subpoena and it does ask for all emails, text messages, phone logs that pertain to ten key figures in the Trump Campaign and the white house. From the president and aides like hope hicks, Paul Manafort to long time gop operative and trump friend roger stone, who nunberg describes as a mentor. Just a few hours ago, nunberg appeared again on this network and explained for the real reasons for defying the command to appear before a grand jury. Ive talked to them, ive spent money on an attorney and i cooperated with them. And when i got Something Like this and then they wanted me to go to the grand jury next friday and i believe theyre trying to start a case against roger, theyre trying to set up a perjury case against roger. Im not going to have it. Rogers my mentor. Roger is like family to me. And im not going to do it. Im not going to testify against roger. Roger did not do anything. Roger was treated terribly by donald trump. Nunbergs loyalty to roger stone wasnt the only thing he told ari melber. He went further about the mueller process and donald trump. I know mueller, i know the whole team, they probably have something on trump. Trump did something pretty bad. I think they were interested with something with his business. With his business. Did they ask you how he ran his business . Yes. By the way, i have no idea what he did. Nunberg went even further at a later point to suggest whatever it is the president might have done could have an impact on the president s preferred news network. By the way, youre going to be fine when it comes out what he did. But people like sean hannity, lou dobbs, theyre going to be very embarrassed when it comes out. The white house, however, is dismissing nunbergs claims about any potential case against this president. I think he doesnt know that for sure because hes incorrect. As weve said many times before, there was no collusion with the Trump Campaign. Anything further on what his actions are, he hasnt worked at the white house so i certainly cant speak to him or the lack of knowledge that he clearly has. And as the man says on tv but wait, theres more, as we mentioned just before air time tonight, his story appears to have changed again and well talk about that change with one of our guest who is is standing by to talk with us. Lets bring in with that cue our leadoff panel on a busy wednesday night. Phillip rucker, jill coven, White House Reporter for the Associated Press. Former u. S. Attorney joyce vance and john heilemann, our msnbc analyst. What can you report about what may or may not happen on friday . You had sam giving interview after interview after interview where he was really just charging, threatening not to participate in any of the mueller subpoena requests, saying he wasnt going to show up on friday, threatening to arrest him if they wanted to. But in my conversation with him after he finished all his cable news shows, he was in a much more somber mood. He said im really frustrated, they asked me for all of these emails, i emailed steve bannon and roger stone every day, its so many hours of work they put me through, i dont understand i have to do, i didnt do anything wrong but i guess in the end ill end up cooperating with them anyway. He said ideally hed like muler to come back with a revised subpoena. He actually singled out carter page to me saying if he only got a new subpoena that didnt have pages name on it, hed be happy to comply with it. He also said hed never spoken to carter page. Im not sure why page is significant here. But overall it was a very different tone from him saying i know im going to do this, i have to do this but i wanted to put up a fight. Unbelievable. To our former fed we go. Joyce, i have so many questions for you. Can you say no to a subpoena like this . Can you narrow your own scope and get a bigger deal when you have been commanded to show up on friday . You cant say no. The grand jury has the power to issue a subpoena to you and as long as its a proper subpoena, which this one is, you cant just flat out reject it. But you can ask your lawyer to work with prosecutors perhaps to give you a little bit more time to come comply if youre being asked to go through a lot of documents. But having thrown down the gauntlet saying he wouldnt show up and it would be funny if he put him in jail, i think sam nunberg has not put himself in a good bargaining position with mueller in terms of getting any type of favorable treatment. From all reviews, mueller is not a petty man, but mr. Nunberg said a lot of things about a lot of people today, including mueller and the process and kind of scoffed at the process. To your last point there, will that come around to haunt him in any substantive way . I think that youre right that mueller is not petty. Hes by the book. But he is concerned about the institution. So one way this could boomerang on mr. Nunberg is because there will be need to uphold the integrity of the institution and ensure grand juries in the process are respected, i suspect mr. Nunberg will find himself very thoroughly interviewed in the grand jury with the production of any documents they deem necessary to the investigation. Today that he had received immunity. And so that would indicate, if its true, if hes accurately reflecting that, that he would not be subject to substantive action against himself personally. Phil rucker, this was one of those cable era are you watching this days and all of our phones lit up. I assume the same happened to, friends, family saying some version of the question who is this guy . Mr. Rucker, who is this guy . Thats a great question, brian. Sam nunberg was sort of the keeper of trumps political operation, to the extent he had a political manager in those years in the run up to the campaign, it was sam nunberg. He worked really closely were roger stone, who he said was his mentor. And sam would arrange his schedule, his Campaign Appearances and so forth around the country before he launched his campaign. His campaign. Then when he launched his campaign in 2015, nunberg very soon thereafter had a falling out. He was forced out by corey lewandowski, the Campaign Manager at the time and in part because of racially charged facebook posts found on nunbergs facebook account. It was a pretty clean break from the trump operation and nunberg has not been in the president s good graces since then. Hes had a couple conversations with trump, but there was a lawsuit at one point and the white house staff really have attacked his credibility and see him as very much a fringe figure in the trump orbit today. John heilemann, a friend of mine says theres been a market reduction in graffiti in public because its all gone to twitter. Something just north of 20 of americans are on it, theres no barrier to entry, theres no filter on what you can say about people. Im going to show you something that happened with erin burnett on cnn tonight because of what people were saying all day on social media about mr. Nunberg and what trump forces were kind of calling around and texting around. Heres the exchange. It came to this. Talking to you i have smelled alcohol on your breath. Well, i have not had a drink. You havent had a drink . No. Anything else . No. No . No. Besides my meds. Okay. Antidepressants. Is that okay . That was kind of an incredible exchange. For anyone who might have found today entertaining, it was equal parts troubling as well. It came up as soon as sam got off the air with katie, it was the beginning of this, people started raising questions about whether or not hed been drinking and i jokingly said today im familiar with people who drink at 3 in the afternoon. He didnt seem drunk to me. Ive talked to sam a lot over the years. As much as people wanted to say he seemed unhinged or crazy or altered, thats not very different with how hes conducted himself with hundreds of reporters over the course of the last four or five years. Its not to say its praise worthy but just to say thats sam nunberg right there. I think theres no question that he having done his time, having gone in and sat with mueller and his people a week ago, to get the subpoena and then be told hes going to have to go to the grand jury, he was clearly freaked out today. This is a person again, i say neither with sympathy or criticism, he did not seem altered to me but seemed under enormous emotional duress. He focused a lot on roger stone and his conversations. Hes not kidding that roger stone was his political mentor and hes not kidding that hes got dozens and hundreds of correspondent with him all the way to the relevant period. These are people with whom he had a lot of conversations and as the special prosecutor starts to look more at people like roger stone, you can understand why you might want to know what is in the communication with sam nunberg. Joy, im no lawyer and lord knows im no former fed but when you keep saying in effect youd go to jail to protect roger stone, you sure have unleashed an idea in the cable court of Public Opinion that maybe roger stone, your buddy, has something to hide. If he was trying to protect stone, i think he had precisely the opposite effect today. His conversation with ari melber was meandering, he was all over the place. He seemed to contradict himself at times. But one focus that was clear was that he was concerned about stone and some sort of a risk of committing perjury or other sorts of charges and that his goal was to protect his friend and mentor from that. If the court of Public Opinion was voting on roger stone tonight it, probably would be a bad outcome. Jill, you and phillip dont do analysis but please come close. What does this say about the people drawn to the orbit of donald trump . Yeah. Sam is one of the people who was there in the very early days, roger stone, too. When you watch sam doing his whole cable news show after show, how much it felt like roger stone and donald trump, who used to call in from one cable show to the next. Talking to him tonight, sam really kind of seemed proud of himself saying look at me, like what ive done tonight, nobody has seen anything like this, have they . Phil rucker, what can can we what can we surmise now that weve seen the wording on one of the subpoenas . Well, sam nunberg is about as far away in key moments as he can be and yet hes a key player in this investigation i think because of how far mueller and his team are going to try to figure out whether somebody like roger stone, whether somebody like steve bannon had any improper contacts. John, ive also seen some folks who probably should have been nominated last night. There are trump surrogates on cable tonight saying things like i hope he is with his family and i hope this cry for help is answered, expressing crocodile concerns about his health and otherwise. Theres not a lot of love loss between donald trump and sam nunberg at this point nor between most of the people around donald trump and sam nunberg at this point. It is obviously a crocodile concern as you put it. Also i think its setting up something for the future for them to try to discredit him if he becomes or his testimony in any way becomes damaging to anyone close to donald trump. I will say the most single most irrational thing he did today was to doubt that Robert Mueller would put him in jail. If you look at the way mueller has conducted this investigation, the noknock warrants to Paul Manafort, set p down deterrence to people behaving badly. He wants to let people know you cannot defy me. So i think he would love to put sam nunberg in jail just to send a message to everybody else. It happened before in the clinton years when not complying with the prosecutor landed Susan Mcdougal in jail for 14 months. Phillip rucker, jill colvin, my thanks to all of you for being with us on this busy night of news. What todays round of staggering interview will mean. That and much more. Were just getting started. You know whats awesome . Gigspeed internet. You know whats not awesome . When only certain people can get it. Lets fix that. Lets give this guy gig really . And these kids, and these guys, him, ah. Oh hello. That lady, these houses yes, yes and yes. And dont forget about them. Uh huh, sure. Still yes xfinity delivers gig speed to more homes than anyone. Now you can get it, too. Welcome to the party. There is other news tonight on the russia investigation. This morning the president was on twitter, lo that many hours ago to weigh in on the mueller investigation, quote, why did the Obama Administration start an investigation into the Trump Campaign with zero proof of wrong doing, long before the election in november . Wanted to discredit so crooked hillary would win, unprecedented, bigger than watergate. Plus obama did nothing about russian meddling. Nbc news has confirmed the New York Times reporting that the state department has not spent the 120 million set aside to counter russian interference. An and theres a piece in the new yorker about Christopher Steele as this detail alleging that the kremlin was involved in more than just our elections. The new yorker reports steele is believed to have discussed a memo he wrote after the 2016 election with special counsel mueller. That memo was based on one source described as a senior russian official and we quote from the journalist jane mayor, the official said that he was merely relaying talk circulating in the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs but what hed heard was astonishing. People were saying that the kremlin had interviewed to block trumps initial choice for secretary of state, mitt romney. If what the source heard was true, that is a foreign power was exercising influence over our government. John heilemann single source, not clear. Its raw intelligence, like all the rest of the things in the steele dossier. If you think about Donald Trumps candidacy and his presidency, the things he says, the policies hes pursued and he hasnt pursued, who is secretary of state, each one of them would be the choice that Vladimir Putin would make, in every instance if you look at the entirety of it. If you think about that and the fact that were still concerned about the russians meddling in the 2018 elections. There is nothing of this surprising, including the detail jane mayor writes about. In so many of his appearances today, nunberg has casually tossed in the conversation, you know, i came up with the wall. What does donald trump hate, its a remark like that from someone he sees as an underling. Thats right. Trump fumed over steve bannon for taking credit for aspects of the campaign and the general election. Trump wants credit for all of it. The more headlines about russia, the more angry and frustrated the president against. For much of last week he was raging in the residence, staying up late at night watching television, up early the next morning watching television, calling his friends and calling his Kitchen Cabinet of advisers in fits of rage over aspects of the russia probe. Whether its the conduct of attorney general Jeff Sessions or the scrutiny every day, there was a new drip of day about his soninlaw and white house senior adviser. So it bothers him. I cant imagine hes pleased to see this jeanne mayer piece. And same question, how much more will this darken the atmosphere . Weve heard that the white house is in very dire times. People are comparing this to the lowest moments during the white house during the campaign, comparing it to the charlottesville that got so much back and forth that got so much criticism and the president is increasingly isolated. Youve got hope hicks departing and tension on Jared Kushner and questions about john kelly. He doesnt really have anybody around him to turn to, which is why youre seeing him calling outside advisers, who wind up leaking and continue the chaos. Three superb journalists helping to start us off tonight. Coming up for us, how does the Trump Legal Team now react to these allegations made all day on Live Television . Well ask the man who once represented bill clinton when the 11 hour continues. Fred would do anything for his daughter. Well fred. Good thing the front of this unicorn washed. The shirt with gain. Because gain has the scent that puts the giddy in giddyup welcome back. We have learned tonight that former Trump Campaign aide sam nunberg will likely cooperate with special counsel Robert Muellers subpoena in the russia investigation. Hes told several people different things. He told the Associated Press in the form of jill colvin, quote, im going to end up cooperating with them. He told our own katie tur he will probably cooperate with mueller in the end but doesnt want to make it easy. He wasnt so certain when ari melber talked to him at 9 51 p. M. Tonight. At any rate, before nunbergs possible change of heart,