And they all know that The 11th Hour with Brian Williams starts right now. New tonight, raging against the media. Donald trumps pennsylvania barn burner. He claims hes being riddenered hindered by the russian hoax. Meanwhile, back at the white house, the president s top intel and Law Enforcement officials show a united front and say what trump wont, that russia poses a threat to our upcoming elections. Also new tonight, Robert Mueller is looking to speak to another person with ties to that Trump Tower Meeting. And ivanka trump, off message, on her white house low point and a break from her dad on a popular talking point. The 11th hour on a thursday night begins now. Good evening once again from our nbc headquarters here in new york. Im Nicolle Wallace in for brian tonight. Hell be back tomorrow. Its day 560 of the trump administration. And President Trump just wrapped up a rally in pennsylvania where he ramped up his attacks on the
media. Just hours earlier, the president s Top National Security officials delivered a forceful warning on Russian Election interference, promising to protect the integrity of u. S. Elections. But there was no mention of russian meddling at tonights rally. The president did bring up his meeting with Vladimir Putin in helsinki. In helsinki, i had a great meeting with putin. We discussed everything. I had a great meeting. I had a great meeting. We got along really well. By the way, thats a good thing. Not a bad thing. Thats a really good thing. Now, were being hindered by the russian hoax. Its a hoax, okay . Ill tell you what. Russias very unhappy that trump won. That i can tell you. But i got along great with putin. And everybody said, wow, that was a great that was great. Disgusting news. Nice. As we mentioned, it was a whole different scene during todays White House Briefing where we heard these clear warnings on Russian Election interference from Top Administration officials. Our democracy itself is in the crosshairs. Free and Fair Elections are the cornerstone of our democracy and it has become clear that they are the target of our adversaries who seek as the dni just said, to sow discord and undermine our way of life. Our focus here today is simply to tell the American People we acknowledge the threat. It is real. It is continuing. And were doing everything we can to have a legitimate election that the American People can have trust in. The reality is its going to take all of us working together to hold the field, because this threat is not going away. As i have said consistently, russia attempted to interfere with the last election and continues to engage in malign influence operations to this
Brian Williams examines the days top political stories and current politicalcampaign news. Government agencies. Certainly general hayden, former cia director, former nsa head, called the 2016 attack a political 9 11. Certainly there is nothing happening in the government, in the executive branch, that mirrors the steps that the National Security apparatus took after 9 11. Ill go you one better. Even if everybody is on the same page and even if everybody is, you know, at the highest level of alert going into the election, theres only sort of so much you can prepare for. As an example, do you uring the administration, the fbi, the cia, everybody was on alert for russian interference. And when they saw the hacking that was happening, they looked at it and said, we know this game, theyre going to seize the material and theyre going to use it for intelligence purposes. It was only when they weaponized the hacked material and started publishing it through wikileaks did they say, oh, my god, we
about getting sessions to end the russia investigation . I think this has been building for some time. We saw dan coats a week or two ago raise some alarm in that interview with Andrea Mitchell in aspen. Weve seen alarm is a good way to put it. Let me show you his answer about helsinki. Lets watch that. In the runup to the helsinki summit, u. S. Officials, ambassadors to nato, ambassadors to russia, said the president would raise the issue of malign activity with president putin. He didnt discuss that, at least at the press conference. Youre saying today that the president has directed you to make the issue of election meddling a priority. How do you explain the disconnect between what you are saying, his advisers, and what the president has said about this issue . Im not in a position to either understand fully or talk about what happened in helsinki. Why not . That is amazing. Him. You can see that if you take the white house posture at the beginning of the mueller investigation, it was very much, we want to do everything we can to avoid a subpoena fight. Thats not where the president wants to be. I think youve heard giuliani say publicly now that were not really concerned about an indictment, we think this is ultimately a political question. So theyre fighting a political fight. If they can take this sort of complicated story and make it, theres a witch hunt, bob mueller is out to get the president , him and his team of democrats, and now he wants to infringe on the power of the president , if he can make those Talking Points stick, then, you know, he can maybe win some support among republicans. For impeachment. Were not talking about the legal setting. Yeah, this has nothing to do with indictment. This is all about impeachment. This is all about staying in office and keeping your poll numbers up. Jeremy bash, i think that
gave the president the solace that you would think it would, if hes safe from any sort of legal proceeding and all he has to do is malign the Special Counsel to the point where all the republicans in the house wont vote to impeach and the senators wont vote to convict him, he wouldnt be acting like such a loon. What do you make of his comments tonight, his railing at the media and the conduct he displayed in that tweet yesterday . This is part of a larger pattern here, nicolle, where the president fundamentally doesnt want to succumb to the rule of law. He believes in the rule of man or a man, he believes in himself. He does not believe he should be subject to questioning by the Special Counsel or anyone investigating his conduct or the conduct of Anyone Around him. It obviously sets a tremendous negative precedent for the office of the presidency. It signals to the rest of The Body Politic that the president does not want to conform to the law. He wants his Law Enforcement officials to extinguish any
scrutiny of his own conduct and his own arbitrations. Carol, your colleagues have written about the president s rally tonight, calling it attacks on the media going up to ten, attacks on mueller at the same volume, all while mueller seems to be closing in. Well talk about that more after the break, but as the investigation seems to be closing in on people in his orbit. The white house and particularly the president are gearing or girding for whatever report and findings of Robert Mueller that come out. They believe theyll come out before the start of september. So i agree with what jeremy said. Theres a big effort to discredit that work, to call it a hoax, to call it a witch hunt. But part of discrediting that work is to also discredit
reporter ws who are reporting o it and learning about new witnesses who have been subpoenaed and discovering new contacts between russia and the Trump Campaign and learning new things that trump said about getting rid of sessions. All of these reports in the paper are things that he is telling people over and over again, dont believe what you see, dont believe what you read, dont believe what you hear, look over here, that stuffs not true. Its part of the whole package of saying, im not a bad guy, there was no collusion, being friends with putin is great, and whatever you hear later about bob mueller from these reporters, its not really true. And the dirty underbelly of this is when people are reporti reporting, its often testimony that the president sees when he
sashays across the white house, 80 of the white house staff has been before Robert Mueller and his investigators. Thats correct. The reports are accurate and real. Part of what you have going on here is the president is a former television producer. He cant stand turning on cable news and seeing producers, real producers, making different judgments than he would make. If it were his choice, this entire show would be about the remains coming back from hawaii and Vice President pence greeting them and how wonderful the optics were in helsinki with pute and in how big his crowd was in pennsylvania and the gdp numbers from last week. But there are other issues on the agenda that he wishes he could just erase. Everyone is sticking around. Were going to squeeze in a quick break. On the other side, why Robert Mueller wants to talk to a russian pop star who made a music video recently with a donald trump impersonator. And what the first daughter
had to say about one of her fathers most polarizing policies. The 11th hour is just Getting Started on a thursday night. Ingo could help them save money on Car Insurance . Yea,that and homeowners, renters, motorcycle and boat insurance. Huh. Thats nice. What happens when you catch a fish . Gecko whoa. Geico. More than just Car Insurance. See how much you could save at geico. Com. Im ok now im gonna tell my momma that im a traveller im Gonna Follow The Sun now im gonna tell my momma that im a traveller im Gonna Follow The Sun transitions™ light under control™ transitions™ vo ovewhelming air fresheners can send you running. So try febreze one. With no aerosols and no heavy perfumes. So you can spray and stay. Febreze one. Anncr as you grow older, your brain naturally begins to change which may cause trouble with recall. Learning from him is great. When i can keep up anncr thankfully, prevagen helps your brain and improves memory. Dads got all the answers. Anncr prevagen is now the numberoneselling brain Health Supplement in drug stores nationwide. She outsmarts me every single time. Checkmate you wanna play again . Anncr prevagen. Healthier brain. Better life. Issued a subpoena, trumps lawyers could win the fight about whether he testifies. Giuliani says about trump, he wants to clear himself because he didnt do anything. Giuliani reports that the legal team will make a decision in a week to ten days. Nbc news also reporting Robert Mueller has requested an interview with Emin Agalarov, the russian pop star who helped set up the june 2016 Trump Tower Meeting with donald trump jr. And several russians including an attorney linked to the kremlin. In testimony to the Senate Judiciary community, donald trump jr. Said he didnt recall speaking to the russian pop star about the meeting but in an interview with vice news earlier
this year, Emin Agalarov admitted that he did. I said, they can help resolve things you would be interested in, if you could spare five minutes of your time. Obviously don junior, being don junior, said of course. I know what that meeting was about, i set it up. It was about nothing. Also tonight, one of muellers grand juries will get to hear testimony from a long time aide to long time trump political adviser roger stone. A federal judge tossed out a challenge from Andrew Miller who tried to block subpoenas from the Special Counsel. Miller worked with stone during the 2016 president ial campaign. Two other known Stone Associates have also been called to testify. Still with us, jeremy brash, carol leonnig, matt apuzzo, and phil rucker. Jeremy, talk about the significance of these russians now being subpoenaed by robert
mueller, what is he trying to do, what is he trying to prove, and what will he do next . Thinge ing agalarov worked w trump to build the Trump Tower In Moscow during the president ial election in 2016, it started to take shape in late 2015 and early 2016. They are the ones who went back to the Russian Government and said, we would like to send a russian delegation to trump tower to talk about how were supporting the campaign in june 2016. Theyre integral to the ties between the trump family, the trump organization, and the Russian Government. They were the gobetween. Just because you are a Cheesy Pop Star Doesnt Mean that youre also not a cutout for russian intelligence. Matt apuzzo, this Trump Tower Meeting has long been a flash
point in questions about obstruction, because of what both your papers reported about the cover story about what that meeting was about. It now seems to be a flashpoint about conspiracy to collude or coordinate with an american adversaries. Thats where the two stories come together. As jeremy said, this is part of the Russian Governments effort to help donald trump get elected, and the Trump Campaign response was, i love it. Theres that. And when reporters started to ask questions about this, were you straight with them and were you trying to conceal the truth from the american public. And in tamping down reporters questions, were you kind of also trying to throw off investigators who also might be interested in this investigation. Its where the two come together. I loved rudy giulianis
explanation of who was in this meeting this week, because he hit his head the way i hit my head when im trying to remember something. Do we have that . There was a meeting two days before the meeting took place with donald junior, jared, manafort, and two others. Gates. And one more person. And thats a real meeting . Thats a real meeting on a provable subject. You lose the thread of where rudy is going with this, but its an interesting list of names he trotz os out, rick gat paul man afford. What do you think theyre telegraphing in naming who was in that meeting . Do you think theres some concern that the other participants may be in trouble . There is definitely concern
about donald trump jr. The president is definitely worried about his sons exposure as mueller focuses on the Trump Tower Meeting, not because he thinks he did anything knowingly wrong but he understands how easy it would be to violate the law. To stumble into collusion . Ive worked on a lot of campaigns. We worry about a lot of things, bad oppo, working too much, lying to the New York Times. We do not worry about stumbling into collusion. Thats the a normal thing. Well, he knows his son. Hes worried that his son could have somehow done something illegal unintentionally and there could be dire consequences, and it has him nervous and agitated. Carol leonnig, the story has gone, for many months, the president is too incompetent to have colluded with russia, They Couldnt Collude with headquarters, but obstruction, maybe, it was a mom and pop operation. They now seem equally agitated
and concerned about the potential that something could look like conspiracy to collude with an american adversary. Right, were getting down to the brass tax. The time is coming that were going to hear some information about whether or not there were contacts with the Trump Campaign that the Trump Campaign knew about. The subject line of the email, part of the russian effort to help you, don junior, and your dads campaign, did they know about this, did they willingly accept any accept . We know about a zillion different contacts now. Its sort of this worry throughout this period whats going to come out. I would like to recommend that everybody remember that Michael Flynn played a key role in all this. He cooperated early on in this probe. We havent heard anything fromMichael Flynn. But he gave information to bob mueller. And we dont know what that is. But ill remind you again that in december, right before the inauguration, Michael Flynn is the person calling Sergey Kislyak and its reported they were talking about sanctions. Why . Why is that . And will that come to be important later on about the russian effort that don junior was willing to bring home the russian effort to help your dad . Shes telling us to remember mike flynn. Where do you think mike flynn fits into all the relevant veve . I think carol is definitely on to something. Its hard to know exactly what
evidence mike flynn has about that discussion. Clearly he got instructions from his ultimate boss that when russians come collecting on their investment, its time for us to pay back the favor. And thats exactly what happened. I want to make clear, theres no question whether or not anyone in the Trump Campaign knew the