Right word. It is the thing youre engrossed and you think you know whats happening and then several hours have passed and you understood less than when you started watching. Its like being mind controlled but some sub human creature. Yes. And my first guest tonight ari melber. Im sure he has had time to decode it all. Thanks, lawrence. I was in a car tonight when ari began his interview with sam nunberg. I was listening to msnbc on sirius radio. I had to pull over and stop and do absolutely nothing except listen to every word. And for 35 minutes i sat there and listened as sam nunberg unravelled and became the number one topic trending on twitter. In the history of American News media we had never witnessed anything like this. In his next Television Appearance after ari, sam nunberg was asked, quite understandably, if he was drunk. In a moment well ask ari melber if he thought sam nunberg was under the influence of alcohol during that interview. There are many reasons why sam nunberg took center stage in our Politics Today in a display unlike anything weve ever seen and one of those reasons is that donald trump was lying when he said this. I have the most dedicated people. I have the best people. I have the best people. The Trump Campaign had the very worst people. The very worst people that any Republican Campaign could have beginning with sam nunberg, who was trumps political advise erbefore trump announced his conditioned si. Trump had the worst people working on his campaign because the best people would not consider working for a person like donald trump. Experienced operatives like nicole wallace, steven smith and mike murphy would never work on a Trump Campaign. So donald trump had people on his campaign who would never be hired, be allowed to be near a serious republican president ial campaign. Many of them have flamed out of trump world. None more spectacularly than sam nunberg. Heres a sample of what sam nunberg had to say today about donald trump. Im not a fan of donald trump, as you well know. Katy, did you know that . You said it. Im not a fan of his. He treated roger and me very badly and screwed us over during the campaign. He did nothing wrong, roger. Okay. He did nothing wrong. In fact, he was treated terribly by donald trump. Do you think they have something on the president . I think they may. What . I think that he may have done something during the election. Donald trump is responsible for this investigation because he was so stupid after he fired comey. They probably have something on trump, trump did something bad. Roger was treated terribly by trump. Trump is the most disloyal person youre going to ever meet. Trump has delivered to some institutions of Higher Learning the biggest embarrassment in their history. Donald trump is the biggest embarrassment to Pennsylvania University wharton school. There is no other graduate who believes that trade wars are good and easy to win. Surely the rest of the graduates of Wharton Wharton know that no country has won a trade war. But donald trump is disgracing wharton by threatening a trade war that will kill american jobs. But tonight a Little School on long island has reached a level of embarrassment that it could not see coming. Sam nunberg is a graduate of r toro law school, one of our youngest law schools. We dont know what grades he got at toro law school. But today he sounded like someone who wasnt taking a single note during those courses. Roger stone is like a surrogate hes like my father. You feel loyal to him . And im not going to go in there for them to set up a case against roger. Sam nunberg alternating from insisting that his friend roger stone has done absolutely nothing wrong to then insisting that the special prosecutor wants to use sam nunbergs testimony to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that roger stone did something wrong. Why do you think after you did the other interview do they want to make you go in the grand jury room. Theyre trying to set up a perjury case against roger stone and im not going to have it. Roger is my mentor, like family to me and im not going to do it. Weve known for a couple years now we have no idea whats happening next in trump world and we have known we dont know whats going to happen next in the trump presidency. But we have developed expectations of what kind of things could happen next, a sudden retirement or quitting the white house. But none of us could have predicted that a trump operative could spend a day on Live Television inviting a special prosecutor to arrest him for refusing to comply with a subpoena from the special prosecutor and ending his day in the news media with this. Talking to you, i have smelled alcohol on your breath. Well, i have not had had a drink. Up havent had a drink . No. Anything else . No. Beside my meds. Antidepressants is that okay . Sure its okay. When physicians and psychiatr t psychiatrists describe antidepressants they are required to tell their patients not to mix them with alcohol. One of the many side effects of mixing alcohol and ant antidepressants that it can affect your judgment. But theres nothing on the mayo clinics list that said it might affect your ability to tell the truth about donald trump. Joining us now ari melber, host of the beat on msnbc, and also ron klain, former chief of staff to joe biden and al gore, and mike murphy, a republican strategist who has advised the mitt romney president campaign. Ari to you, and the first question is did you smell alcohol on sam nunbergs breath . Was he drunk do you think when he was talking to you . I did not smell that. I did not ascertain that from any indication on him, scent or otherwise. I do think its quite clear from his conduct in the interview we had, as well as his other public presentations that there is something going on with him. As we explored in our interview, that may be the strain and pressure that comes with this type of situation, people handle it differently. We tried to speak to the legal and the human side in it. Even if one wants to stipulate that what we heard from mr. Nunberg is inconsistent and there is a range of performance and activity here which is now raveling the political and legal world. The obvious significance here, as you know, lawrence, its very rare to see the name and details of a grand jury subpoena leaked its rare to hear someone like he has, on the beat last week and again tonight, describe in detail the line of questioning of the special counsels investigators as well as the grand jury subpoena, which is legally different than the fbi interview for viewers who follow this closely as many have, the fbi interview is a more cooperative framework, you have a witness sitting down and talking it out with investigators. The grand jury subpoena that sam nunberg said he received on friday is more high stakes. Your lawyer is not present. And he believes it is an effort based on the cases hes heard this far to build a case against his mentor roger stone. So even if one thinks hes changed his story or is dealing with a difficult situation, the last thing i will say, im speaking to you at 10 00 p. M. , i also spoke to his father, as well as other people, who are trying to walk him through this situation hes in, which was serious. My conversations with his father were off the record and ill keep the confidence. My conversations with him were on the record and at 9 5 1 he said he will ultimately cooperate because jail is hanging over him, he said he continues to maintain his insistence he feels this is overbroad and as to friday which is the question on the table, he told me as of 9 51 he does not intend to go in on friday. So i think theres a lot here to unpack, even if one thinks hes a person going through a tough time having a range of responses. Who are his lawyers . Theres a lawyer he has that i believe is named patrick blakely. We discussed this in our interview today that his lawyer today is unhappy with what hes doing or they have not connected about it. Is his father a lawyer . Or his mother a lawyer . I was hearing today my understanding his father is a lawyer, although the conversation i had with him he asked to be off the record. Ive never seen anybody with worse legal advice or worse understanding of legal advice. I was stunned to hear that he was a legal graduate after telling katy tur that it would be funny if he got arrested, he would laugh about it if he got arrested. And he said again if he was sent to prison for this, he would laugh about it. Thats the serious part of this. Obviously this is not the first and perhaps the last person in Donald Trumps orbit given the hiring decisions he makes and the people willing to work for him who has, shall we say, a performative style. But this is not performance. This is real life. This is a real special counsel investigation. There are people who have gone to jail. One could argue, and this is a point we raised in our entrepreneur view with him earlier on the beat. There are people who went to jail for less than what hes done. And part of what the special counsel team is speaking out about is his speaking out of turn, defiance and his public revelations of what is in deal of loyaltity with mr. Stone. At the end of the day, however gw those wleef beliefs are held, we have a system of law in this country. One of the striking admissions he made on television today was that he wanted to who would his testimony to protect mr. Stone, who is under a criminal investigation for his alleged dealings with wikileaks and other entities believed to be acting as facilitators of a group thats charged to interfere with the election. This is serious as a heart attack. And bob mueller has charged people with obstruction related activity they take it lightly at their own peril. Ron klain i give you a wide open shot what you think you were witnessing today when you were watching sam nunberg. It may not have been College Basketball on aris show, but it was march madness, thats what i thought when i watched it unfold. I think aris analysis of this is as usual on target and pointed. I think there is something serious going on and that is this, what you saw with sam nunberg is what you see in countries where rule of law is eroded where a leader defies the courts, the Justice System and inspires his followers, perhaps even critical folers like mr. Nunberg, but his followers to do the same. And were going to see more of this. Donald trump attacking the Justice Department, the special prosecutor, the legitimacy of this investigation encourages people to say im going to laugh in the face of it and well see what happens. I think thats the dangerous and nefarious thing that we saw unfold on tv today. It was funny, almost comical but something serious may be going on here. I want to go back to sam nunbergs appearance with ari last week just to show people what a different human being was speaking last week than who showed up there today. It wasnt a waste of taxpayers money to have me in there. It wasnt a waste of time for me either. Im happy to have been in there and happy to have cob rated. Did you leave with the impression they knew more than a lot of witnesses. Yes. Thats why im saying it wasnt a waste of time. Im not a victim here. They didnt just have me in there for no reason and to be mean. It seems he went from being a reasonable person dealing with that investigation to doing his best impression of donald trump today. I thought it was performance. I think, predicting the future, this will go from comedy to drama if he sticks with this plan and really defies a subpoena. I dont think he will. I think theyre going to pry him away from the alleged legal team of gin and tonic. And well quit the dill linger talk. So the fbi will crush this guy and put him in jail if they have to. I dont think hell be there on friday. I think hes under great pressure and this was the Performance Art of this reality show presidency. And i think hell be back down to gravity and his own selfinterest. I agree with what ron said. If he doesnt, if he makes this stand that will turn out badly for him, but if Donald Trump Tweets rewarding this behavior where we ignore the investigations and the legitimacy of the investigations, that takes todays news comedy into a serious attack on and lawrence, just to jump in on that, even if one stipulates they dont believe this individuals statements or predictions about his own conduct lets not lose sight of where we are. This investigation has been going on since the appointment in may. This is the first time this week weve had a list of names leaked from an official grand jury subpoena. This is the first time that weve had this level of detail from an individual saying what they were asked in the line of questioning. And the purpose as you have on the screen, as you know, ive obtained the subpoena, as others have, theres a lot of light here, even if one doesnt buy sam nunbergs heat and the roger stone part is interesting because hes under the belief, true or not, that the purpose of bringing him before the grand jury is to lay testimony and evidence against roger store. Is that true . Well keep working that part of the story. Ari melber has earned the last word in this segment. Thank you for joining us. Mike and ron, please stay with us. Coming up well have the legal trouble that sam nunberg is actually now facing. Well do the legal analysis of what it is he had to say today. And later the chaos presidency, causing global turmoil with the possibility of a trade war and the president talking about president s for life in china and maybe the United States. Dont we need that cable box to watch tv . Nope. Dont we need to run . Nope. It just explodes in a high pitched yeahhh. yeahhh try directv now for 10 a month for 3 months. No satellite needed. You know whats not awesome . Gigspeed internet. 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. Im not going to jail. Come on, ari. Do you think im going to jail . Theyre not going to send me to jail. You know what, if mr. Mueller wants to send me to jail he can send me to jail then ill laugh. Im not going to jail. Joining us now barbara mcquad, former u. S. Attorney and msnbc legal contributor. And back with us ron klain. Barbara mcquad, as a former prosecutor can you answer his question can, is he going to jail . If he continues to defy the subpoena, the answer is yes. The grand jury has the right to ever mans evidence and there are a few exceptions to that. What i hear mr. Nunberg to be saying he wants to protect his mentor roger stone from criminal charges. You have a fifth amendment right from selfincrimination. You can decline to answer the questions if it incriminates you. But the key word is self. So ive not heard the assertion of any legitimate privilege here. So i think Robert Mueller can and likely will file a motion for contempt and the penalty for that is jail up to 18 months in an effort to induce compliance if at the end of 18 months a person wont comply you can be charged criminally and punished for an additional 18 months. Lets listen to what he said about his attempt, basically, to protect roger stone talking to ari. Theyre trying to set up a perjury case against roger stone and im not going to have it. Are you basing that view from the questions i got. Based on a theory or the questions they asked you. Based on the questions they asked me. I had no idea what they wanted in advance of the grand jury but they did tell me i wasnt going to be the subject or target and i was going to get the same kind of immunity. They offered you immunity . Yes. Ron klain apparently in law school he wasnt paying attention where he could learn the only way he could protect roger stone with his testimony is to marry him. Yes or perhaps build a priest pen tenant relationship. I agree hes going to give up the evidence or go to jail. During the watergate investigation one witness refused to comply with the special prosecutor, and he was put in prison for 18 months for refusing to comply. So theres a precedent for this. I think what we saw today was a lot of theatre, a lot of noise. And perhaps common sense will reign and he wont go to jail because he will comply, but i think he will have to do this or he will face con strastraintcon. He will face confinement to get his evidence. I do think, look, roger stone seems to be behind this. Roger stone wouldnt be guilty of perjury if he hadnt lied. And he may have lied on his work with wikileaks and collusion with russia on behalf of the the 2016 election. So theres something serious going on beneath the comedy and outrageous statements. There was a reference to immunity there and there were so many things that were jammed into parts of sentences and parts of answers. But it sounded to me he doesnt have a formal immunity agreement because hed be violating that today with what he was doing. But he seems to think hes been offered immunity. What did you make of that. I think that was the word he used is offered. Offered immunity. So not clear whether hes accepted that offer. But one of the things that can happen is the prosecutor could go to the court and get a compulsion order so you try to work out an informal arrangement without bothering the court. But you can go to the court and tell the court, i promise not to use the defendants statements against him and the court will issue an order compelling the person to testify. So if in violation of that order you refuse to testify that is also contempt of court. He complained about the burdensome nature of the subpoena and they were demanding to know all of his communication with carter page and he says he has no communication with carter page. So we all know you write that in that line and done its less than a minute. So everything he was saying about 2 burdensome nature of this didnt make sense when you listen to what he was talking about. He could have taken the hours he spent running from cable news show to cable news show to search his emails and comply. Maybe hes the first person ever trying to build an insanity defense for a subpoena, which i assure him will not be successful. Maybe he was showing off for g roger stone, for donald trump. Maybe he was trying to impress someone, but he will comply. It doesnt seem hes showing off for trump considering what he said about him today. But i want to say his theory of the case about the president having something to do with the president s business. I think they were interested in something with his business. With his bu