Anything like this. Our colleague Rachel Maddow says this is an unusual day. How do you put it . Ari, i think thats right. Its theres something on fire, a whole bunch of people have grabbed hoses. The question is, is everybody hosing down the same fire . Yeah. I mean, i think its that chiotic right now. Ill tell you the one thing we realize, nobody was more about the Trump Administration than jeb bush when he said he was the chaos candidate and the chaos president. That was his critique, his way to win. Jeb bush, what everyone thinks of him, hes been around these people and around government and he said this was a chaos that would hurt the United States. Now we hear from a trump official the same, chuck todd, thank you for your reporting and the toss. We begin with two breaking stories right now. The first has major consequences for the life of this country and the Supreme Court, democrats battling what is a lifetime appointment for Donald TrumpsSupreme Court pick. Well bring that to you later in the show. The other piece is the alarm bell running from within the Trump Administration. Here is the bottomline, if youre just joining us, a senior official describing an active senior thwarting Donald Trumps presidency. This isnt a journalistic report that uncovered the effort, its an admission, a confession made in the pages of the New York Times just within the last few hours and the times, this is important, says it has verified that this person is, indeed, a senior trump official and is risking their job. This person says this effort to thwart is indeed a secret, quote, resistance, but they go on to write its not about politics its about patriotism. What were learning today, a growing number of Public Servants aghast at the moral and Security Risk posed by this particular president. Let me walk you through it, a quote resistance inside the Trump Administration that theyre part of and its formed by officials vowing to do what they can to preserve our Democratic Institutions while thwarting trumps most misguided impulses until hes out of office. The writer is plenty blunt about the president they serve saying hes impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective. The problem in this telling goes well beyond style. The writer concludes, quote, the root of the problem is the president s amorality. This unusual alarm bell has caused instant reaction. In the mere two hours or so since this was published i can tole you the president has spoken out about it personally. The white house is on defense, a former trump top aide called into msnbc to address this, as did our own Rachel Maddow. Americans poring over this essay and what it means tonight are going to have plenty to debate. Donald trumps critics see this as a validation and public confirmation of what so many have wondered about. What lengths that we dont even know about are people in this government going to in order to blunt, to stop, to somehow mitigate this particular president s more extreme demands, efforts and ideas . Something at issue in the new bombshell book by bob woodward weve also been talking about. But i want to be clear there is also something here for trump supporters, the notion that perhaps there is, indeed, a secret kabal of people in this government trying to undermine him. They ask how obama supporters would feel if the same news broke about him. Theres a rebuttal from trump critics as well, which is simple, president obama has never done one tenth of the things President Trump has done which these officials feel they need to stop. This trump official writes it may be cold comfort but americans should know that there are adults in the room. We fully recognize what is happening, and we are trying to do whats right, even when donald trump will not. As for donald trump, his new response. Can you imagine this . We have somebody in who i call the failing New York Times thats talking about hes part of the resistance within the Trump Administration. This is what we have to deal with. And, you know, the dishonest media, you people deal with it as well as i do. Its really a disgrace. Now, trump calls many different types of critics, dishonest, and hes often wrong about that according to our reporting. But also lets be clear here this senior official is admitting to keeping these ongoing efforts secret in order to fight for a supposed greater good for the country. And the white house has been rocked from all sides this week. This is a bad week for them except for perhaps progress on the Supreme Court fight. Donald trumps former special assistant was hammering the credibility of this person, this writer who feels this strongly, but wont step out from the shadows. I do think its a little concerning that we do have someone who is unnamed, that is making these kinds of allegations, if they are so concerned about the white house, the presidency, that they would make these charges yet not so much that they were willing to risk their own job for it by putting their name next to it or stepping down, i think that theres a bit of a credibility issue there. Do you recall conversations like this in the halls of the white house . No. No. But we are told the conversations are happening. I want to bring in a special panel here, eugene robinson, a Pulitzer Prize winning columnist. Heidi pris heidi prizbola, a political respondent for msnbc news. We live in a hyperbolic era, i want to be clear historian michael beschloss, says ive never seen anything like this in president ial history, dan rather, kaboom, never seen anything like this. I agree with that. Maybe someone in the Andrew JohnsonAdministration May have written something with his quill pen what life was like then. This is totally extraordinary, someone who was inside. I would be shocked if it were not someone quite high ranking. I dont think the New York Times would have granted anonymity to someone who was a midlevel official. How high do you think . I think very high. It would have to be somebody very high. If i were the editor of the editorial page of the New York Times, i wouldnt grant anonymity except to somebody who was at the senior level. This is important because youre in rooms that many of us and many of our viewers are not in as a journalist making this determination. You dont think the New York Times would give this out to somebody whos 120 on the list . No, i dont think so, and ive been in plenty of meetings. Ive been a Senior Editor at the post before. Thats just thats my opinion. You know, it fleshes out what we suspected, what we knew, actually, that that is crazy town inside the white house. And its a dangerous crazy town. What we read in the Michael Wolff book, that was sloppy, so it got discredited, we read it in the omarosa book, shes omarosa, you didnt give her credit for that. Thats true, she is omarosa. Then we read it in the bob woodward book, the Gold Standard for accuracy, ive known him for 30 years, believe me, if he says hes got the goods, hes got the goods and now we have someone inside saying not only that this is true, but there is an active effort to keep donald trump from exercising his worst impulses because of the catastrophe that would be for the country. Its extraordinary. And you use the word the sound of bob marley, my phone, which should be off by now, you use the word catastrophe. Heidi, let me read to you more from the piece. Quote from the white house to executive Branch Departments and agencies senior officials will privately admit their daily disbelief at the commander in chiefs comments and actions, most working to insulate cooperations with his whims, meetings go off the rails. Occasionally reckless decisions that have to be walked back. I want you to put this in the context of the other big denial from the woodward book, which eugene brings up, which is do we have a policy to assassinate foreign leaders or not, was there a hit ordered on assad in syria, and then was that overruled by the military in exactly the format that this article describes, people having an active secret kind of resistance to order . Ari, this is just the exclamation point on a year and a half of reporting on similar anecdotes that have come from Anonymous Sources in the New York Times, in the washington post. On this network as well as in all of the books that have been published. The news here is that this is somebody inside the white house saying we know it, we know the king has no clothes, and telling us this in his own voice. We are all at this moment trying to process what is the end goal here . What does what action is this person trying to precipitate . And who is this message to . David and i were discussing this in the break, you know, was this because of the woodward book . But look at who he mentions in the story, he or she mentions in the oped, they mention mccain. I think this is a message, actually, to congress potentially because they say in the oped this is not about trump, this is about what the American People have allowed to happen, what has right, and this author thouts as positives the tax reform and deregulation, they seem to be an economic conservative. Senator john mccain put it best, americans should heed his words. We may no longer have mccain, but we will alms have his example to restore public life in our national dialogue. Trump may fear such honorable men. We should revere them. Any casual viewer who hasnt heard about the piece yet has gathered that a lot of people think this is a big deal. David frum, you think its big, but problematic, why . I think the situation will be worse after this piece and the situation will be worse because of this piece. What will immediately happen, of course, is that everyone suspected in the Trump Administration of possibly being the author will have to prove loyalty, they will cleave closer to the president , not farther. There will be a hunt for moles. There will be a hunt for leakers, people who are more normal, more patriotic, lets corrupt will find their jobs in greater jeopardy. Trump will take more advice from the worst people around him. He will spend more time on the phone with his worst cronies. And we have not moved the ball toward what the logic of this piece is. If this president shouldnt be president , you should do something about that. And that and that means risking a little something. Let me push that. I dont want to simplify you. You are a much more nuanced speaker than i am. If your complaint about donald trump is he breaks the rules, the way you fight that should not be breaking the rules . Im not saying that. There are norms that will give way anyway because of this presidency. What im saying is if you make your resignation count, dont skulk off, dont leak. Let me keep you on this, you think this person should be fired and shouldnt do it this way . No, i think this person should come forward. Come forward and testify to congress, give chapter and verse, confront even this craven supine complicit congress. I want to go to eugene. What do you say to this person who would say this is bigger than what they would testify to congress, their goal is being achieved by sounding a historic alarm bell. Give us the specifics. The detail in the woodward book that struck me was the story about gary cohn, the former chief economic adviser, taking a piece after paper off the president s desk by which the president was going to void a trade agreement, a disastrous decision, and when the paper vanished the president didnt notice or remember it was gone. Presumably that story comes from gary cohn or he signed off on it. What did gary cohn do about it . Nothing. He should have walked out the door, told congress the president is mentally disabled. Gene. Well, i think you refer to this congress as craven and supine. That was an understatement, i think, david. Complicit. Complicit, too. That begins to get to where this congress is. You know, so i was thinking about this, and my first reaction was yours, well, this person should come forward, should go to congress and demand to testify, and congress would do nothing. This congress would do absolutely nothing. Especially now, coming up to the election, the congress would do nothing. And what i fear is that this person came out as a way of trying to head off some specific act of craziness that is that donald trump is thats coming. Name a Single Administration official who has either resigned or even just been pushed out and left the administration, and then spoken out. You cant. No. And in many ways, that was my first reaction as well is that this, many many ways, does epitomize the problem, that its not only people in the white house who resign or are pushed out and wont speak out, its everyone on capitol hill. And, again, that brings me back to what is the precipitating event for this . Well, weve lost the one person who other than maybe ben sass and jeff flake was doing that on capitol hill. Resignation is an art. If you basically support the goal of the administration, but you have some policy position that youve famously dean acheson when he resigned from the Roosevelt Administration in 1942 or 43, president roosevelt said he resigned like a gentleman, made clear his enduring support for the administration. But if you dont feel that way you need to make your resignation count. You need to make it bloody. You need to go in a group, you need to be specific. If theres something youre trying to head off, you say what it is, you say what it is. And in some ways the credibility of the media is also at stake. Were going to see what the fallout is from this but you saw how trump actually used Law Enforcement officers as a backdrop to slam the failing New York Times, and hes going to mobilize his base now as using this as in another example how the media is trying to undercut him with Anonymous Sources. Are people getting wise to that . Gene, you mentioned your colleague, woodward, you think his stories are correct, not fiction u he has a story about jim mattis trying to prevent a fifth grade educated idiot president into war. Discussing who will replace mattis at the pentagon, with woodwards reporting that mattis told associates he acted like he had the understanding of a fifth grader, internal speculation about mattiss potential departure has intensified. Theres donald trump attacking the media and then Donald Trumps administration swiftly doing what the media reports. The New York Times says theres a problem with white House Counsel don mcgahn, hes announced out, same with mattis. Apparently they were looking for an eventually replacement to mattis. The president came out today and because of that reporting said no, no, mattis will be around for a long time. Who knows . They could announce tomorrow that hes leaving. I just get i keep coming back to the nature of this president , the unpredictability of this president , and the fact that i think we probably know like half of what hes capable of. I think we i think we probably dont know yet how just how crazy it is in there. Youre saying how crazy is crazy town . Yeah, i think crazy town you know its a town that begins with the word crazy. We hear about 30minute rants. Think about that for a minute. 30 minutes is a long time. Its a long time. Its half your show. With no commercial breaks. Ranting for half your show . This goes to whether there is the feeling that people have around the country, that being scared, that being angry, that questioning the very legitimacy of this presidency is the rational choice and that anything less than that is to really misunderstand the era were in. And that comes, again, against the backdrop of what well be covering later in the hour whether this president should put another lifetime Supreme Court appointment. We dont regularly pull trump tweets and post them. There are many tweets every day and we rarely feature them. My control room tells me theres a bizarre response. The all caps treason . Now, heidi, again, rather than normalizing that all caps statement, if barack obama or any other president responded to this kind of report with i can tell you a legally false charge because theres no conduct that has anything to do with treason, heidi where does that figure into the very real concern that the president , according to many aides, is dangerously close to quote unquote losing it . I think weve been at that point many times. But i will say to your question about what effect this is having and whether we kind of reach a Critical Mass and whether this is it, there was some polling information out within the past week or two, ari, that suggests that this is, to a certain extent, backfiring for the president. We spent months saying its working, their efforts to discredit mueller are working, but the polls show that now 60 of americans want this investigation to go forward, they approve of the course that its taking, and think it needs to be seen to fruition. So yes, i think this piece, if it just stands as it is and the author is not identified, i think will be another kind of sense for the American People who are already deeply concerned, that this administration is going off the rails, but at the same time i think the president will use it as a weapon to fire up whatever that number is, that 18 to 30 . And where this fits into all that. Im going to fit in a break. Its not a 30minute rant. Heidi, david and ju eugene, thank you for being here. We have a lot more from a distress call from