Short period of time, but i always thought relatively good man. I thought it was a very, you know, they do that very seldom. So i was surprised to see it. I was very, very surprised to see it. But to do that early in the morning, whether or not it was appropriate youd have to ask them. Ive always found Paul Manafort to be a very decent man. And hes like a lot of other people probably makes consultant fees from all over the place. Who knows. I dont know. But i thought that was a very pretty tough stuff. To wake him up, perhaps his family was there, i think thats pretty tough stuff. Wow. There is a lot to what the president said there and a lot more. Were going to break it all down for you right now in our breaking coverage. But first, consider the president saying he hasnt spoken to Paul Manafort in a long time. Thats new. He says he was surprised to see this raid, and he drops that manafort probably makes consulting fees from all over the place. Something he apparently knows in his story line without having spoken to Paul Manafort. What we just saw particularly on russia was a tale here of two Donald Trumps. On the one hand a man offering a parsed and even at times informed breakdown of these issues, unveiling a new chapter in what looks like a legal strategy in saying that if there are alleged crimes, they are either not a big deal or were not committed by him. I mean, we have a situation which is very unusual. Everybody said theres no collusion. You look at the counsels that come in, we have a senate hearing, we have judiciary, we have intelligence, and we have a house hearing and everybody walks out even the enemies said, no, theres no collusion, theres no collusion, so theyre investigating something that never happened. Thats not how it works. Indeed, the fbi cant legally investigate something if theres no basis to believe it happened. That fbi raid we just heard the president allude to of Paul Manaforts home, that was approved by a judge who found reasonable cause there was evidence of a crime. That would be the opposite of saying something didnt happen. Now, what is special counsel investigating right now . What is bob mueller looking at . Well, this thing that never happened could be collusion that involves others or it could be something foreign like the hacking that doesnt ultimately involve americans. Either way there are some crimes that have enough evidence to investigate. And then, this was very interesting when the president moments ago was pressed op special counsel muellers job security, he struck this note. If you sought or thought or considered leading to the dismissal of special counsel, is there anything bob mueller could do that would send you in that direction . I havent given it any thought. I mean, ive been reading about it from you people. You say, oh, im going to dismiss him. No, im not dismissing anybody. I want them to get on with the task. But i also want the senate and the house to come out with their findings. Now, judging from the people leaving the meetings, leaks, but they leave the meetings all the time and say, no, we havent found any collusion. There is no collusion. You know why . Because i dont speak to russians. Look, i won because i suppose i was a much better candidate than her. I won because i went to wisconsin, i went to michigan, i won pennsylvania. I fought a smart battle. Thats why i won. I didnt win because of russia. Russia had nothing to do with me winning. Russia had nothing to do with me winning. Thats a claim, but certainly not a fact. And not one that has been done investigated at this point in time. Lets be clear, its 6 04 p. M. On the east coast. The president just said a lot of things. Were going to show you some of the other newsworthy items that he offered. But at this hour his claims that russia had nothing to do with anything indeed later im going to show you him claiming russia was working against him. Several of these claims are false and they suggest a president who wants to get out ahead of the russia investigation on a day when obviously north korea and a lot of other issues are still in the news. So the question is why. Why did he unfurl this strategy this way . We have an allstar panel to get right into it. Former fbi agent special in charge of the new York Field Office leo, did cyber there, chris tin, shelby holiday here with me onset in new york, senior political reporter at the wall street journal, and david k. Johnson, author of the making of donald trump and a man who has seriously investigated Donald Trumps financial ties and history. David, would you agree with me that we heard a president who wanted to get into the details on this thing . He offered a specific view of the manafort raid, and perhaps more interestingly he suggested that paperwork violations might be a felony but theyre not a big deal. What i heard donald doing, ari, was editing himself. He has told so many lies. Donald creates his own reality that he cant keep all of it straight. Thats why he stops, he hesitates, he backs up. And he makes these absurd comments. Everybody knows Nothing Happened because in donalds view whatever he thinks is what everybody thinks. And then i have no dealings with russians. Well, i have news for donald about that. Rex tillerson as the head of exxon mobil didnt pump gasoline either, but nobody thinks he wasnt in the gasoline business. Wow, i hear you on that. I mean, leo, i want to play for you investigators kind of mine field of claims including as i promised to show for our viewers here, donald trump coming out here this evening and saying that, hey, everyone, russia was actually fighting to stop his election. Take a listen. There was no collusion between us and russia. In fact, the opposite. Russia spent a lot of money on fighting me. I dont think russia wants me because i want a Strong Military and i want low energy prices. Additionally, it seems that russia spent a lot of money on that false report and that was russian money. And i think it was democrat money, too, you could say that was collusion. Plus, the democrats colluded on the ukraine so they colluded. As far as papers and did somebody forget to file a paper, i guarantee if you look around at everyone e everybody that made a speech, thats up to them. Did they do something wrong because they didnt file the right document or whatever . Perhaps, youll have to look at them. But i guarantee you this, probably a lot of people in washington did the same thing. Leo, as a former fbi investigator, how do you think this team under mueller will look at those new statements from the president . Well, my experience fbi agents and prosecutors dont execute search warrants in cases where its a simple violation of not filing the right document. So theres obviously a serious crime alleged in the affidavit. Theres evidence or probable cause at least that evidence was on the prem sis that they searched and a judge agreed and issued the warrant. So i dont think having a minor violation as the president described not filing a document because you gave a speech or whatever he meant would warrant a search warrant executed by fbi agents or any other federal Law Enforcement agency. Fascinating. Because the president was calling that, you know, pretty tough and all that, christopher roland, leo making the point here in terms of how this works its not about how tough it is, its about whether theres evidence of an underlying crime. Right, absolutely. And i think theres certainly a shock and awe factor of, you know, making a predawn raid on Paul Manaforts house. Federal agency reported to be investigating any number of things including his interesting real estate transactions, not just omissions of filing. But i think ultimately it seems my read on that was theyre putting maximum pressure on Paul Manafort, and it could be a strategy aimed at trying to flip him and get him to talk to them about what he knows about the campaign. You know, typically in these federal investigations the investigators will start low and try to work their way up the food chain. I also notice that the president made a comment that Paul Manafort was a short period of time was he in charge of the campaign. It was actually two and a half months. And i think one of the critical things that happened in those two and a half months was that the Trump Campaign worked very aggressively to water down the republican platform at the convention to make sure no arms were going to be sold to the ukrainians. And i thought that was a very Interesting Development that happened on Paul Manaforts watch. I suspect that the investigators are looking at that as well. Shelby. You know, Paul Manafort didnt just chair the campaign for two months either, he lived in trump tower. And there are reports of them riding the elevators up and down together. We dont know what they said. We dont know how much they interacted. But to the point of Paul Manafort flipping, donald trump did not sound like someone worried about that today. No. He sort of threw manafort under the bus. You listed the reasons, but he said i know him, he worked for me for a very short period of time. We also talked about why mueller would do this predawn raid. You know, he didnt trust manafort to produce documents, he wanted to do this in a quick way, but he also may have wanted to get manafort and the president s attention. And he certainly succeeded in doing that. Donald trump seemed pretty shocked and serious when he was talking about this today. The wall street journal also published a story just now, trumps attorney john dowd wrote the journal this morning very early 4 00 a. M. Calling muellers raid on manafort extraordinarily invasive and gross abuse. So its almost like the tables have turned. We usually hear trump saying this is a witch hunt. Today trump embraced the investigation and his lawyers are essentially calling it a witch hunt. Its really hard to unpack all of these things, but they change every sing l day. Relying on the wall street journal reporting that this by the message of donald trump was more restrained, even talked about the outcome of investigation being a positive thing for him. Speak to shelbys point and this reporting in bloomberg that Paul Manafort says he alerted authorities to this controversial meeting on june 9th, the trump tower meeting, with this russian lawyer promising damaging information on Hillary Clinton according to to, quote, people familiar with the matter. The president and soninlaw kushner dragged into the matter in july as details emerged that contradicted the initial counts of that meeting, leo. Yeah, i dont think that has any bearing on whether or not the Investigative Team will execute a search warrant. Just because someone provides information doesnt mean theyre holding back other information. But i think you might be reading a little bit too much into the 6 00 a. M. Or predawn raid. Almost every single search warrant is executed at about 6 00 in the morning if not earlier for a number of reasons. People are usually home at that time. It gives the agents enough of daylight to execute a complex warrant. So this is not an extraordinary time to go to someones home. And theyre never announced because you would be telegraphing enough time for a defendant to destroy evidence if that were the case. So the execution of the warrant is routine. The fact that it was issued is something that can be studied and perhaps we can glean where the Investigative Team is going with it. And, christopher, where does this go from here . Well, you know, its interesting that the president said that he wants the senate and the house to come out with their findings. I think were looking at, you know, still months and months of grinding fact finding and investigations. And, yes, theyll be more leaks and revelations, but i dont think were seeing some quick resolution that the president wants that hes going to be somehow vindicated rapidly. I just dont think thats going to happen. And, david, the money trail . Well, Paul Manafort was paid in addition to expenses over 17 million in fees that we know about by the proputin Ukrainian Government that was ousted. He has been the agent in washington of all sorts of vicious dictators. There are a number of curious real estate transactions, and donald has lots and lots of real estate transactions that in a normal business sense dont make sense. I think leo is quite right about the warrant. Its not particularly unusual that it was issued early in the morning, but the fact they issued this warrant suggests that to whatever extent manafort had been cooperating, and he said he was, something came up that alarmed them and they wanted to secure that evidence. And when we get the return from the search warrant, well see what they were after in muellers effort to make cases. I also think the timing is really interesting because this raid happened right after manafort was on capitol hill. It happened as the Senate Intelligence committee was basically removing their subpoena. And so its a sign that manafort or that mueller is working with congress and that this investigation is actually going very smoothly. There were a lot of concerns that they would sort of mess up each others investigations and so far that is not the case. Right. Fascinating. And, look, the president that we saw here for folks keeping track, made the usual arguments, no collusion, made the eagle argument i won because im awesome. Hes entitled to say that as any politician is, and then some other things that were false here claiming russia was spending money to try to stop him and for folks keeping score at home, you might see headlines about how muellers job is safe. Thats not exactly what the president said. Were going to dig into that as well. Shelby sticks around. Leo, christopher and david, thank you for your expertise. Really appreciate it. Coming up, why the president was also thanking Vladimir Putin today. We havent shown you that yet. And, trump escalating a very odd feud over recess, a man many say he cant afford to alienate, some calling this the best news the resistance has gotten this summer, Mitch Mcconnell under fire. And, later, we have a special report tonight on the beat, a look at how and why Donald Trumps once arguably warm relationship with africanamerican viewers change. Im ari melber and youre watching the beat on mbz. Rethink whats possible. Rethink your allergy pills. Flonase sensimist allergy relief helps block 6 key inflammatory substances with a gentle mist. Most allergy pills only block one. And 6 is greater than one. Flonase sensimist. Atmore than one flavor, oruch texture, or color. Ing. A good clean salad is so much more than green. And with panera catering, more for your event. Panera. Food as it should be. Turning to politics. President trumps feud with Senate Republican majority leader Mitch Mcconnell escalating today. Consider stepping down authority some conservative analyst say its time for him to retire. Well, ill tell you what, if he doesnt get repeal and replace done, and if he doesnt get taxes done, meaning cuts and reform, and if he doesnt get a very easy one to get done infrastructure, if he doesnt get them done, then you can ask me that question. You can ask me the question. That means ask me that question. Lets hope he gets it done. Ask away. And lets be clear, thats the president suggesting mcconnell should resign if he doesnt deliver on this agenda. This is not actual Typical Party infighting in washington. This is a fight with the one Republican Holding the key to trumps entire agenda on capitol hill. Its basically like picking a fight with the bouncer when youre trying to get into the club. You start that kind of beef, youre probably not getting into the club. Now, a few hours after those comments trump was right back at it. Im very disappointed in mitch. But if he gets these bills passed, ill be very happy with him and ill be the first to admit it. But honestly, repeal and replace of obamacare should have taken place. With me now the nations joan walsh conservative commentator, kirsten, theres a lot of policy riding on this fight, joan. Thats right, but he doesnt understand the president is a giant man baby, nothing is ever his fault. Now Mitch Mcconnell has to take the fall. I mean, i would give mcconnell some of the blame. He did this in secret with a little group that included no women. Obamacare. No. Repeal and replace. He did that really in secret. He was not forthcoming until the very end of the vary processes with what was in the bills. And he also got caught by a lot of reporting playing both ends against the middle telling some moderate senators that, oh, these medicaid cuts that youre worried about in eight years, theyll never take place. Theyll be a whole Different Congress then. So he lost the trust of both sides. That was bad. But thats not really what happened. What happened was the Republican Party is no longer a governing party. It does not fundamentally agree with itself on key issues of Government Spending and the social safety net. And mcconnell didnt have the juice to put it together. And we also learned thats incredible. We also learned that donald trump didnt have any juice in the situation. I mean, look at what he did to lisa murkowski, having ryan zinke, the interior secretary, try to blackmail her and say shes not going to get interior money for alaska if she doesnt step up. That was all trump. That was a classic misplaying of a senator. So, kirsten, i have a trump political riddle for you. Oh, great. Whats worse, him getting up in the morning and tweeting whats on the top of his mind, or him going out to reporters and getting twice baited into a recess fight with the Senate Majority leader when theres so much else he could be focus