And good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. Day 790 of the Trump Administration brought us a new level of vitriol from the president and this comes on this night of especially fevered speculation that Robert Swann Mueller iii is prepared at any moment to transmit his final work product to the department of justice and to the u. S. Attorney general. For his part today the president attacked mueller but didnt stop there. He continued his line of attack against john mccain that he started over this past weekend. Today in front of a backdrop of tanks in a plant in ohio, in a county that voted for john mccain over barack obama, he silenced the crowd when he made his case that mccain was responsible for the Mueller Investigation. John mccain received the fake and phony dossier. Did you hear about the dossier . What did he do . He didnt call me. He turned it over to the fbi hoping to put me in jeopardy. He voted against repeal and replace. He voted against at 2 00 in the morning. Remember, thumbs down. We said what the hell happened . I endorsed him at his request, and i gave him the kind of funeral that he wanted. Which as president i had to approve. I dont care about this. I didnt get a thank you. Thats okay. We sent him on the way. But i wasnt a fan of john mccain. Trump today also kept up his criticism of conservative lawyer George Conway, the husband of kellyanne conway, one of the president s senior and longestserving advisers. Conway has been using posts online to raise alarms about the president S Mental Health and his fitness for office. Trump was asked about that as he left for ohio. I dont know him. Hes a wack job. Theres no question about it. But i really dont know him. I think hes doing a tremendous disservice to a wonderful wife. Kellyanne is a wonderful woman. And i call him mr. Kellyanne. The fact is that hes doing a tremendous disservice to a wife and family. Before opening up with that trump was posting about conway on social media. And we quote. Mr. Kellyanne conway by those who know him is very jealous of his wifes success and angry that i with her help didnt give him the job he so desperately wanted. A stone cold loser and husband from hell. Later conway responded to a post asking why its considered an insult to be referred to as mr. Kellyanne. He said it isnt and added, what i really wouldnt want to be called is individual blank, a reference to Court Documents that describe trump as individual 1. Conways wife spoke to politico today and defended her boss, the president , saying he left it alone for months out of respect for me, but you think he shouldnt respond when somebody, and hes talking about her husband here, a nonmedical professional accuses him of having a mental disorder . You think he should just take that sitting down . And from conway to mueller the president again today itemized his grievances against the special counsel. Does the public have a right to see the Mueller Report . I dont mind. I mean, frankly i told the house if you want let them see it. I just won one of the greatest elections of all time in the history of this country and even you will admit that. And now i have somebody writing a report that never got a vote . Its called the Mueller Report. I had a business transaction with him that ive reported many times, you that people dont talk about. But i had a nasty business transaction with him and other things. I know that he put 13 highly conflicted and, you know, very angry i call them angry democrats. Let it come out. Let people see it. Thats up to the attorney general. We have a very good attorney general. Hes a very highly respected man. And well see what happens. Former cia director john brennan weighed in on trumps day of outrage with this. Your bizarre tweets and recent temper tantrums reveal your panic overt likelihood the special counsel will soon further complicate your life, putting your political and financial future in jeopardy. Fortunately, lady justice does not do nondisclosure agreements. A reminder of what mueller has accomplished in nearly two years may explain some of the obvious discomfort. Convictions and guilty pleas for seven of trumps former senior aides with another 27 individuals under indictment. Theres also increased scrutiny of ivanka trump and Jared Kushner. More on that ahead as well as donald trump jr. There are at least eight separate lines of inquiry by federal and state prosecutors spun off the Mueller Investigation and the new inquiries on capitol hill from at least five Standing Committees in the house of representatives. With all that as backdrop lets bring in our leadoff panel for this busy wednesday night. We are so pleased to welcome to the broadcast Preet Bharara, former u. S. Attorney for the Southern District of new york until he was freed up by donald trump to spend more time with his family and perhaps write a book. It happens to be called doing justice a prosecutors thoughts on crime, punishment and the rule of law. Discussion to follow. Philip rucker, pulitzer prizewinning White House Bureau chief for the washington post. By coming on tonight phil has agreed to spend part of the last hour of his birthday with his friends here at the 11th hour. And we welcome back to our broadcast jill colvin, White House Reporter for the associate press. Mr. Rucker, id like to begin with you. First can you clear up the president just dropped nasty business transaction. Hes talked about this before. Part of why he feels mueller is conflicted. I know this involved a trump property. Whats your memory of what it is hes talking about . Yeah, brian. Well, nasty business transaction has you thinking there was some huge, you know, multimilliondollar deal gone awry, but in fact it was a dispute over Club Membership at one of trumps golf properties. I believe the one here in Northern Virginia where mueller was at some time a regular and of course is no longer a member of that club. But thats the dispute to which the president has been referring. And philip, i know were going off mostly feeling here, but is it indeed the feeling of high anxiety . Are you picking the same thing up and might that explain the president s verbiage today . You know, brian, i think it does explain his verbiage today, and frankly i think it helps explain his antics over the last several days. This is a president who time and again when faced with a moment of crisis or peril for his presidency he basically kicks up dust. He tries to create alternative storylines. He tries to distract the news media scrutiny. He tries to sort of shift the spotlight in one direction or another. We saw that with the extraordinary barrage of tweets overt weekend attacking all sorts of people and parties and institutions. And we saw that again yesterday and today with his attacks on George Conway sort of elevating the kellyanne and George Conway story to major news. And with his attacks today in ohio on senator john mccain. He knows that this Mueller Report is coming. We dont know exactly when it will come. It could be later this week. It could be next week. It could even be next month. But it is coming soon and trump i believe is worried about that. Jill colvin, the mccain attacks are indeed breath taking any civilized society, especially considering the stature john mccain had in public life when we said farewell to him. There we are in ohio in a factory that makes some of the armor that our men and women have fought the two longest wars in our history with overseas. Absolute crickets in the room when the president decided to go after this decorated former p. O. W. In a factory that employs about a third of its workforce is military veterans. And jill, this makes it very tough for republicans, i would assume. Yeah, absolutely. This has always been one of these attack lines where you just feel and you hear the groans from republicans coming at him in that room. You heard the reaction of just silence. Many veterans standing there as the president bashed a man who has been dead, basically accused him of not being grateful and not thanking him for the funeral that was held on his behalf. I mean, just really base attacks on him. But weve also seen a pattern where the president hasnt really faced any serious consequences for these kinds of attacks. You hear a couple of rumblings from different republicans. You hear mitt romney, for instance, come out today. But it was early in his campaign when the president stood up there, he was on stage being interviewed in iowa, where he first really kind of publicly came out about john mccain saying he didnt think he was a war hero because hed been captured. That was one of those moments early on in the campaign. I remember covering it. Where you heard a lot of chatter of everyone saying this is it, this is it, hes gone, no candidate can possibly recover from this kind of thing. And we saw that that didnt happen. Trump didnt really feel any consequences from it. So he has learned that these kinds of attacks are effective in distracting the media, in creating a firestorm when he wants to distract, and dont really have any personal consequences for him. And counselor, here we are on a wednesday night. You can go back and find media reports that always say its coming next week for weeks into the holiday season. Am i correct that theres no real rules of the road here . Muellers free to send in a fivepage outline with exhibits, a 500page binder, 5,000 pages if he wants, the only rule is that the a. G. Has to say its here, ive received it, its with us . Yeah, essentially. It can be a long report. It can be a short report. It can be of interimmediate yacht size. It can be tomorrow. It can be in a month. It can be in two months. He is required to provide a court that is supposed to be confidential and provides an explanation for decisions made to prosecute individuals and also decisions made not to prosecute individuals, otherwise known as declinations. And thats it. I think one of the questions that i have is how long will the report be . Will it be sparse or will it be full and detailed . The more full and detailed it is i think the more pressure there is upon the attorney general and the more fight there will be with respect to congress as to how much becomes public. There are feelings among people who have been following the organic granular details in this story. It causes some folks anxiety to hear us say muellers wrapping up, muellers done, muellers about ready to hand in his work, because they look at the story and say how can it be done . We keep hearing of all these other tranches of misbehavior. What do you say to people . Look, bob mueller is a man of integrity. He works hard. He served his country. I know there are a lot of people in the country, in the world these days who want to substitute a result they want, which is the arrest and imprisonment of lots of people they dont agree with, including associates and perhaps even relatives of the president. But it doesnt work that way. So i say you let mueller finish his work, accept whatever his results will be and the conclusions will be, and thats it. And i think we need to get back to basics and think about allowing a person of muellers stature to make his determinations. And ultimately whats going to happen with respect to the president will be i think a political resolution, depending on what kinds of allegations are made if any with respect to the president s conduct. The people need to be a little bit patient. It may happen soon. It may not happen soon. There may be a lot in it. It may incriminate a lot of folks. It may incriminateball many people at all beyond what has already been done. Ive been following as closely as anyone, and i think either one of those eventualities is possible. And whats the chance, to use a legal term of art, he gives us a fadeaway jump shot and leaves by way of a group of indictments . Whats the chance that u. S. Attorneys offices elsewhere come out with something of a coordinated group of indictments . Im not going to put a number on it, especially after 11 00 p. M. But look, thats one reasonable theory. And the theory on which it could be possible, given how many things are still ongoing including with respect to rick gates, about whom the special counsel said hes still cooperating in multiple investigations. One reason to think that the special counsel can wind down and say his work is over and under the regulation at the close of the special counsels work, thats what it says, he provides a report to the a. G. One way that that could be possible is that the special counsel is slowly, as he did with respect to michael cohen, giving that case over to my old office, the Southern District of new york. Thats happening with some of these other matters also. So with the departure of Andrew Weissman and the wraupg of some investigations and handing off of other investigations, maybe bob mueller can make short work of whatever is left. That does not mean that all sorts of people wont remain in jeopardy. But i dont know. All right. That was a firm maybe on one part and an i dont know on another. Phil rucker, let me ask you about the politics of this. If we indeed are about to go into a kind of dark side of the moon phase where the report will reside with the attorney general who takes his time, hes under no time constraint to move quickly, the democrats on the hill im presuming are going to make their presence known to this west wing each and every day of the president s life. I think thats right, brian. And theyre going to do so in a couple of ways. One is i think as soon as we get word that the report has been transmitted to the attorney general youre going to hear a drumbeat from the democrats in congress about releasing the report in full to the congress, which is effectively releasing it to the American People. Theyre going to consider this a historical document, something that they need to see in full, as opposed to some sort of abbreviated summary that could come from the attorney general. But secondly, theres a series of oversight investigations that you alluded to in the opening of the show including by the Judiciary Committee in the house but other committees as well, and theyve been seeking documents and receiving thousands of pages of documents from, you know, over 80 officials who have worked for or connected to the president. They will likely be seeking documents and interviews with many more officials in the months to come. And theres no sign of those investigations slowing down. In fact, theyre ramping up right now. So that is a big concern of the white house. Its one of the reasons why the White House Counsels Office has been expanding the number of lawyers there, to try to get ready for this. But they are not i dont believe fully prepared for the political war that is going to come this spring over both the Mueller Report and the other concurrent investigations occurring in congress. And jill, while republicans support or at minimum lack of criticism for this president has been kind of aweinspiring to watch, they will want to count on friends on the hill when this comes out. Is that directly related to whatever this says . Absolutely. I mean, at this point everyone is really in this waiting mode. Youve seen sort of the rage of the president boiling over this weekend into today even as he lashed out with john mccain, you know, connecting his anger at john mccain with the fact that he referred that dossier over to the fbi. The president is in a state where hes really hoping that he will have republicans will have his back, they will stand up for him. But at the same time as you sort of feel this rage coming from the white house, there also is the sense of quiet optimism where they are hoping, crossing their fingers, and under the impression that if theres been no bombshell that has come out yet that it might be that there is no kind of big, you know, bombshell in this report and that the president will then be able to run with that, be able to run on the idea that this entire Mueller Investigation was nothing but an instance of government overreach, this witch hunt he has been railing against. And hes going to hope that the allies in congress can help him to do that. However, youre going to have democrats on the hill continuing with their investigation saying look, the Mueller Report was only investigating this one sliver of trumps conduct, looking specifically at Russian Election interference. We have all of these other avenues that we are looking into. Trumps other foreign dealings, issues like money laundering, looking into security clearances. All of these other things where the president is going to need republicans to have his back. We walked our viewers up to the edge in the first 17 minutes of this broadcast, and with it our thanks to jill colvin, our thanks and added happy birthday wishes to our friend phil rucker as well. Preet bhararas staying with us. As we ask the former u. S. Attorney in the segment coming up, for the Southern District of new york we might add, about an element of the work for the feds in this case that he writes about in the aforementioned new book. And later another big book is focusing some unwelcome attention onto big names in this west wing. Jared and ivanka. As the 11th hour is just getting under way on a wednesday night. You know reliable support when you have it, and that dependability is what we want to give our customers. At comcast, its my job to constantly monitor our network. Prevent problems, and to help provide the most Reliable Service possible. My name is tanya, i work in the Network Operations center for comcast. We are working to make things simple, easy and awesome. I regret the day i said yes to mr. Trump. I regret all the help and support i gave him along the way. I am ashamed of my own failings and publicly accepted responsibility for them by pleading guilty in the Southern District of ne