Tonight, day one of the manafort trial. The first of the mueller era. The government argues Paul Manafort thought he was above the law, while his defense team plans to attack the star government witness against him. The president started his day declaring collusion is not a crime, ending his day with red meat for the crowd in tampa, and no talk of russia. He did declare himself the most popular republican ever. And with 98 days until the midterms, facebook announces its found fake accounts designed to further tear us apart, and well show you if they have a familiar look to them. The 11th hour begins right now. Good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. Day 558 of the Trump Administration, and day one of
the Paul Manafort trial, the first big test for Robert Mueller. It is a trial about taxes and not russia, though russia looms large in the background as it seems to in Everything Else these days. Manaforts being tried in Federal Court in alexandria, virginia. He was, of course, Trumps Campaign chairman, ran the rnc convention. Its the first of two trials for him, and this one hes looking at 18 counts of bank fraud, tax evasion, conspiracy charges in relation to his work for a prorussian party in ukraine before he went to work for the trump campaign. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges. This trial is off to a lightning start. So far a jury has been seated. Opening statements have been delivered, and a witness has testified, all on day one. Manafort was a March To August Chairman back in 2016. He helped trump secure the nomination, make no mistake, and trump said so at the time. I have fantastic people. Paul manafort just came on. Hes great. He didnt need to do this, but he wanted to. Paul manafort has done an amazing job. He is here some place where. Is paul . However, more recently, as manafort was awaiting trial, the president sought to, shall we say, diminish his former campaign chairmans role. I know mr. Manafort. I havent spoken to him in a long time. But i know him. He was with the campaign as you know for a very short period of time. I tell you, i feel a little badly about it. They end with back 12 years to get things he did 12 years ago. You know, Paul Manafort worked for me for a very short period of time. He worked for me, what, 49 days . A very short period of time. Manafort is the highest Ranking Campaign personnel so far. He was part of the trump tower meaning when donald jr. And Jared Kushner had the russians come by. Also tonight multiple sources tell us Robert Mueller has referred another group of investigations to federal prosecutors up here in new york, the Southern District of new york. Those sources say that former lobbyist tony podesta, former
minnesota republican congressman vin weber, and former White House Council greg craig are all under federal investigation. The sources also say the inquiry into tony podesta, whose brother john ran the Clinton Campaign of course stem from muellers investigation into the case of Paul Manafort. As the Special Counsel and his team continue their inquiries, the president is now embracing a new line of defense. As we covered here last night, and as floated out yesterday by rudy giuliani. This morning, trump wrote on twitter, quote, collusion is not a crime, but that doesnt matter because there was no collusion except by Crooked Hillary and the democrats. Let us bring in our leadoff panel for a tuesday night. Josh gerstein was inside the
we had a pretty good sense of what prosecutors were going to say and how they were going to blame manafort for what took place here and described the luxury goods that he was indulging in and often pays for with transfers that came directly from Bank Accounts in Shell Company names in places like cypress and the grenadines. But the defense was a little more surprising, and they made this argument that somehow manaforts deputy had duped him into any wrongdoing that took place. Theyre listing all the items of his lavish lifestyle. The big one that broke through in the news media was a, correct me if im wrong, 15,000 ostrich jacket. Of course, who among us hasnt owned one of those in the past. Right. And the sums are significant, especially when you add them up. I mean, the ostrich jacket is a colorful item, but theyre talking about him spending something on the order of maybe 800,000 or a Million Dollars on suits over a few years period. So its a pretty dramatic level of spending. The suit he was wear manage the
fact that theyre going to go after the star witness. Well, yes, they are. Because what else are they going to do . In prosecutorial circles all around the country, this would be referred to as the sodi defense. Some other dude did it. Thats sort of the shorthand. They dont have much to do. And the problem for them is its a paper case. And manaforts signature is all over things, and its not probably not going to work. It doesnt usually work, and i would doubt it works in this case. Sam, i want to read you a quote from frank brunis column entitled Paul Manaforts trial is Donald Trumps too. And the Quote Is Manafort is
Brian Williams examines the days top political stories and current politicalcampaign news. With the 2016 campaign or his work on the inaugural committee. Its a highly separate trial involving past clients of Paul Manaforts. I think if were reading between the lines, its the prelude to something that is supposed to be bigger. Obviously the prosecutors have a case that theyre bringing here, but it does seem like theyre looking down the road to try to get or compel Paul Manafort to participate in the larger mission, which is the investigation to collusion in the trump campaign. And were all sort of waiting to see what manafort does under this type of pressure. I do agree that the case the defense he is bringing seems highly uncompelling. Basically, he is saying my underling did all this without my knowledge. Paul manafort is begging the jury to believe his story. The prosecutors are telling them here interest the resents. So hes got a really bad card to play, yet he is still playing it. It all begs the question, why. Why is he not trying to get some bigger deal done with Robert Muellers team. And i dont know if there are a great answer to this other than
he is waiting for potentially a pardon down the road. And josh, weve already had the first Strange Bedfellow in the first witness. Tad devine, he of the liberal left, he of the kerry campaign, the Bernie Sanders campaign, what was he doing testifying in this trial today . Well, he was brought in because he actually worked alongside manafort. You know, its fairly typical in these overseas Political Consulting efforts when americans go in. Its pretty normal for a republican like manafort to team up with somebody of a democratic large d u. S. Democratic background to go in and advise a here, so i got two more for you. Number one is another mechanical question. Tell the folks watching why it is that Paul Manafort, and weve established he likes him some highend menswear is able to wear a suit in court, even though we have seen his Booking Photo in the green jumpsuit as prisoners wear in that part of the state of virginia. Is it courtesy and is it because coming in a Prison Jumpsuit would be instantly visually pretty judicial . Hope they are too. All right. Well stay on it. And big thanks to our starting three tonight. Were hoping josh does not rue the day he signed up to help us cover this trial where days are long in alexandria. So to Josh Gerstein, to cynthia askney, sam stein, thank you so much to all three of you. Thank you. Good night. Coming up, from our report in the trump rally in tampa tonight, this is critical. From a Special Correspondent who went there for us to witness his first trump rally. Are you ready to take your wifi to the next level . 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. Were going to have tremendous Border Security that will include the wall, that will include the wall. Now a lot of people dont know it, but weve already started the wall. We got 1. 6 billion, and weve started large portions of the wall. But were going to need even the way we negotiate, were going to need more and were going to get more. And we may have to do some pretty drastic things, but were going to get it. That would be another hint at the government shutdown. That was President Trump rallying supporters on Border Security tonight in tampa. We should point out as we always have to the president s border wall has not been started, just repairs to an older section near san diego. The president spoke for over an hour on a number of issues,
including the economy, including his contention that Merry Christmas is under siege no more, including trade immigration, the supreme court, voter id, and shopping for food. We believe that only american citizens should vote in american elections. Which is why the time has come for voter id, like Everything Else. Voter id. And if you go out and you want the buy groceries, you need a picture on a card. You need id. You go out and you want to buy anything, you need id, and you need your picture. In this country, the only time you dont need it in many cases is when you want to vote for a president , when you want to vote for a senator, when you want to vote for a governor or a congressman. Its crazy. That was the kind of thing tonight, and during the rally, the president also heaped praise
on republican congressman ron desantis who is running in floridas gubernatorial primary. With us to talk about it, david jolly, former republican congressman from florida, represented the tampa metropolitan region. He attended tonights rally in tampa, and now we can say among other things he has been to a trump rally. Also with us, lisa lehrer, National Politics reporter for the national press. Congressman, i am very interested to hear your takeaway from your first rally, and chiefly, what television doesnt convey about a trump rally. So i think some of the story lines are what we are used to. Perhaps the National Story tomorrow is really the chanting and attacks on the free press, and frankly, your colleague jim acosta other at cnn. A viral video that is now going around. The real verbal assaults, if you will, to the press. That was absolutely on display. We also saw the energy in the crowd when donald trump would address immigration matters, and frankly, antiimmigration rhetoric, if you will. Also mentions of Hillary Clinton excited the crowd. All those bread and butter
issues. Brian, what was most remarkable to me, though, and probably the thing that i will never forget, and i am wrestling with tonight is how homogeneous the crowd was. And we can decide whether or not we want to assign culpability to the president for cultivating a constituency that tonight was 99 caucasian, working class, or is that a broader National Conversation we need to have. But ill be honest with you. And i gut check myself. I asked friends and i asked other folks in the media, look around. How many african americans, how many black americans do we see tonight . And you could count them on one finger. And some of them were specifically positioned for camera shots. This was a White Working Class audience. To Donald Trumps credit, they felt he was speaking for them, not just to him, but he was speaking to their anger. Thats the one thing i wrestle with. Look, the Tampa Bay Community is a very diverse community. I represented a very diverse community. I walked into a rally tonight that was probably the most homogeneous environment ive been in decades. Im curious. How many people recognized you . Obviously youre from there. Youre republican, but youve been highly critical of this president. So i certainly received some criticisms from those who said i needed to be softer on the president. I could also have a conversation tonight, though, about how different Media Platforms divide the information that we receive, because longtime republican supporters who have not heard some of my criticisms because of where they receive their news today, they were not aware of my criticisms of the president. And so they treated me as a
friend. But certainly there were those who wanted to know why i was there, questioned my intentions. Look, i was there out of respect for those who support donald trump. I dont support him. I remain a republican, and i was there to learn from those in attendance. I leave tonight in a strong disagreement as i arrived, but it was important that i attended. Well, thank you for that assessment. Lisa, in many ways it was a standard trump rally. Just when you thought he was on the edge of being rooseveltian, he talked about actually taking office and realizing he was president. I made some notes here. He talked about washington, and he said i know the great people. I know the scum. So i figured okay, so not so rooseveltian there. Did you hear anything new tonight that he may take out on the road . I mean, it mostly did as you say seemed like the standard trump rally. It continues to be striking to me how much the president wants to run on immigration in these mid terms. That really is the central piece of his message, and its one that me believes, rightly so, resonates with his base. But i suspect what he may not be taking into account is it also resonates very strongly with
democrats. So while driving up his base could help in the senate map which is sort of tilted toward republicans to begin with, in the house it gets a little more complicated because a lot of the battleground is in the suburban districts. And by continuing to talk about these divisive issues like immigration, like the potential for a government shutdown, along with the, you know, never ending series of news about the investigation, you know, about controversial remarks, every one of those headlines is an additional shot of adrenaline into an already energized democratic grassroots. So what weve seen is protesters have become volunteers, are likely to become voters. And that level of enthusiasm is something that scares a lot of republicans, particularly when they look at the map in the house. Lisa, how concern ready you . Is the Associated Press to your knowledge about this other dynamic that david talked about . One of the viral videos of the abuse jim acosta of cnn took from the crowd we had to blur what people are wearing. We cant play what theyre yelling at him. Eric trump retweeted it. The president retweeted eric trumps tweet of the video. They were called fake news repeatedly tonight. Whats the level of concern . Well i think everybody is concerned. I thought the Times Publisher ag sulzberger made a really god point over the week. As you know, there was this back and forth after an offtherecord meeting with the president became the president made it public. He pointed out that the threats matter of course in the u. S. , but more importantly, trump is giving cover to dictators across the globe who want to suppress freedoms in places like syria, in places, you know, like the philippines, places where its really hard and very, very, very dangerous. And really, youre risking your
life to deliver impartial information. That to me seems to be the biggest danger to the press globally. And that certainly a trend that is not being helped by the president s rhetoric. Congressman, you get the last word. Steve schmidt left the party. Are you still a republican . For now, but im always one day away, brian. What we saw tonight was a big tent republican party. Unlike the big tent conversations we had in the past ten yearsing whether or not there was room for moderates, tonight we saw a big tent that invited in extremists, the wikileaks crowd, the seth rich crowd. This is a different republican party. And, you know, there will likely be a day some time in the near future perhaps on your show where i join Steve Schmidt in making a statement very much like he did. Well, as for tonight, you are our Special Correspondent of the trump rally. Thank you, brian. And our correspondent lisa lere. We thank you so much david jolly and lisa lerer of the Associated Press. Coming up, the white house resume theyre is now put to rest, done and dusted, at least for tonight. Thats next when we continue. Retired general and white
through the 2020 election as tensions between the two men have eased in recent months. The rumors reached their peak in april when nbc news reported kelly was struggling to bring order to the west wing, referred to trump as an idiot multiple times. Kelly was referred to openly by multiple member