looking for larger venues. but if you're going to keep an eye on people pressuring their members of congress this weekend, watch those darrell issa town halls. they should be hot. is that the right word? that does it for us.. good evening. chris matthews. for six days donald trump has let the charge hang out that president wiretapped him. smeared the predecessor and let the smear stick without a sled of evidence. includes any evidence from the fbi. after going to capitol hill yesterday the fib director himself appears to have no evidence that what tremp said is true. today the prosecute refused to apps a question about that charge.

earlier this week, reporter director comey asked the department itself to reject the president's claim. last night on the hill meeting with house and senate leaders and according to nbc the topic was matters related to trump tower. he too refused to answer questions. >> people wiretap the trump tour tower. >> house minority leader nancy both in the meeting yesterday. both declined to comment what was said. continue to reject the charge from president afterwards. here was nancy my pelosi this morning. do i know the director of fbi who knows for a fact something

is misology, but misleading to american people and he should set the record straight, yes i do think he should say that publicly. forgetting comey for a moment. going to the president. what is going on there? i mean. really he crossed a line with that. >> you don't believe it to be true. >> of course not. president obama would not do that. we do not use fisa against the american people. >> that's right after the day after she was briefed by comey. very importantly. here's what the congressman said. cnn today after being briefed by comey. i haven't seen any evidence whatsoever so substantiate that. when sean spicer isn't willing to talk about it, there's a real problem. >> meanwhile senate intelligence committee told reporters after the meeting i standby my

statement. i've seen no evidence. the president trump's charge against obama go too far? forced to recant and should the fbi director make it clear there is malcolm analyst and former intelligence officer. president obama somehow i don't know now a president does it put a wiretap on him. now comey on the hill. comey till telling everyone in the justice department. push back on the story. not true. gets on the hill. talks to everybody. and the ones that are willing to talk now, all say, wait a minute, i still believe there's nothing there. they can't divulge the background briefing, but surediville j if they learned anything and they didn't. nothing is there. >> i talked to a senator and

house leader. both leaders who have reason to know what was said dr. >> in those briefings. >> there is no statement by comey whatsoever to indicate that number one, president obama ordered anything. which would be illegal in which he didn't do apparently. or that it directly involved donald trump. might there have been a warrant of some kind involving a server. >> but not trump. >> not obama and not trump. the big picture is this is a rage lg battle between the president and the fbi where donald trump has used his authority to try to change the subject from the russia investigation to something else. l and take on comey in the process. >> seems to me comey is scared, you know what i mean next. he can't talk. he's unable to say the truth to the public. which he knows to be true. he'll get fired for it. it seems to me trump will fire him in five minutes or faster if he comes out and says the

president is not telling the truth. he knows it. comey knows nothing was done. comey can say the president never told me to wiretap this president when he was a candidate. you explain to me the motive why you're whispering. tell everybody it's not true. on background you can can't say this is top credit. won't stand there like a man and say i'm sorry mr. president. i never wiretapped you on behalf of the former president. stop saying it. in fact, take it back. why doesn't he do it. >> that moment may be coming at some point. i think more importantly it's important that president trump stand up, tell the american public that he lied and that it was just politics. >> malcolm. he's not going to say that. >> find another way to say it. he should. he should stand up and say look, i misspoke, i didn't mean it this way. it was a joke.

whatever he used over the last year. he is going to have to man up on this subject. and say that -- and it's not the fbi director's job to correct the president of the united states is the president of the united states is misleading the american public. we have new combat forces going to syria. how can we believe what he says about that. crisis brewing with north korea. how can we believe what he says about that if on this one thing he doubles and triples down. >> not comey's job to clean it up. >> credibility issue is something that is the crux of this problem. this president does it again, and, again, and, again. started where the crowd sizes this he hyped up. >> started with the birther nonsense. >> lied for years. when you say something about a guy and he did that for years and now he's doing it. >> from the oval office. >> he has this thing about smearing obama. he can't stand the guy left with

a good clean record. >> two things, obviously. it is. >> i can when he's dying to say something. >> it gets to right to the boston globe. we also have the president saying and his surrogates saying that massachusetts voters were being taken over the vote ser and voting and new hampshire. it gets at his credibility. when you do have soldiers going off to war or in harm's way, that credibility becomes extraordinarily important and i just do really wonder how far he can continue to do this. it i would say there is something about the internal war between barack obama and donald trump that began years ago. it began with the birtherism. it continued with the jokes the president made at the correspondence dinner. >> we all say it. >> this is a blood feud. number. number two is it trump versus

comey and wider intelligence community. the trump people view as a nest of people who oppose him. don't trump history. comey, he miegts might want to stay in the shadow. he has a record of coming out in public and explaining actions trying to prove he's not political. he did it in the fall in the campaign with hillary clinton and the e-mails. came out and said, okay. we're looking at this stuff. i just want to tell everybody alk about that. he has decided to protect his integrity is and that of the justice department. i'm trying to make your point. he should come out given past behavior and say it flat out. if he gets fired, he gets fired. i expect to be here for full ten years of terms. six and a half years from now. >> he would have to pay a high price. showing spicers press secretary asked about bosses claims. let's watch. >> if there is no evidence that any wiretapping took place, will

the president apologize to president obama for making such a serious charge. >> let's not get ahead of ourselves. >> there's no evidence. >> what's he. >> again, i think you're asking what if there is evidence. i'm not going to get into a series of hypotheticals prejudging an outcome of a report of investigation that hasn't occurred yet. >> translator: could you explain why the president hasn't asked the fbi chief directly. >> we spoke clearly about what we wanted to happen last sunday. we believe the house and senate intelligence committee have the appropriate forum and process and staff to look into this matter and report back. >> how long can a guy live in a barrel. he's living in a barrel. he's in there. he will say anything. everyone is asking great

questions. all you have to do is call up fbi director and say do you have any evidence and you could have said it before you tweeted saturday morning. >> better yet. call him up ahead of time. he does have evidence then show us. show us if you're going to make this something here. i love the language of prejudge. we don't want to prejudge it. >> malcolm, you're in the world of intelligence and spoox and all the stuff that goes on in the world. i want to get a damage report here. president of the united states, i've been talking about that with people here. president of the united states my wife just over in vietnam talking to top people over there. watching paul. he's run ining trying to be the role model. throw off the shackles of left or right win dictatorship. we have a model the world can learn from and use. now they're saying no thanks.

that's the horrible intelligence out there now. they don't want to be like us. because they think we're a joke now. we have a president who acts like some guy over in pakistan. i'm sorry. that's what happens. you lose on election over there. they hang you. you lose an election they say it was stolen: you hang your opponent you beat. this is third world jokes we're doing. we're doing it right now. look at the organization you started with. the peace corp. >> they're talking about eliminating that worldwide. >> that's news to me. >> there's talk about getting rid of it. there was a time the united states stood for everything decedent and respectful in this world. american exceptionism was truly exceptional. we created globalization for gods sax with all the products we shipped out after world war ii. we invented global marlgting now we have an administration

completely feels that the american system of government, as its existed since warld war two is going to dismantle and will turn back in on ourselves and create internal enemies. no wonder the people overseas if you've got a guy from row wanda turning down american -- you know, yeah. you've got a guy turning down american support, china is eating our lunch everywhere. they practically own half of africa at this point. they don't drive around in ford pickups. they drive around in lawn march and deer pickup truck that come from china. we don't want to engage in this world. world war ii america firstism is going to destroy this nation standing in the world and these guys are happy to whistle on their way to doing it. >> thank you. coming up. white house says president trump was unaware his former national security adviser was working as a foreign lobbyist for the

turkish government. what happened to trump's promise to drain the watch. this is hardball and the actions. live-stream your favorite sport

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welcome back to hardball. formerly identified himself as a foreign agent this week. lobbying work which took place during the 2016 presidential campaign would have benefitted the government of turkey. the associated press reported, quote. flynn and his company found the registration paperwork describing $530,000 worth of lobbying before election day. disclosing those payments is required in law for anyone working on behalf of a foreign government. yesterday white house press secretary sean spicer said the president was not aware of flynn's lobbying. >> the president aware that lieutenant general michael flynn

was acting as a foreign agent when he appointed him to be the national security adviser. >> i don't believe that was known. i would refer to you general flynn and to the department of justice in terms of tv filings that have been made. >> had the president had known that, would he have appointed him. >> i don't know. that's a hypothetical i'm not prepared to ask. >> flynn's lawyers did inform trump's transition attorneys as well as don who currently serves as white house counsel flynn might need to register as foreign agent. in turn transition told flynn's lawyer it was up to him to decide what to do. here's how spicer contended with that during the briefing today. >> you have an attorney calling the transition saying the person in line to be the national security adviser may need to register as foreign agent. doesn't raise a red flag. >> not a question of raising a red flag. whether or not they gave advice they were supposed to.

not up to them to make decisions as to what you need to do or not do. >> transition officials were not over overly concerned. >> not a question of overly concerned. the question is did they provide them the avenue they were supposed to. did they tell him to seek counsel and they did. >> reports and news points out flynn was lobbying for turkey while he wattending intelligenc briefings with trump when he was a candidate. i'm joined. david, what hit me when i heard this was the gang that can't shoot straight. why didn't we know this? >> why didn't anything get done about it. in fact turns out the transition team did know about flynn's activities. the comings, ranking member on the house oversight committee informed vice president elect mike pence about it specifically about lobbying, cautioned him there appeared to be a conflict of interest. the issue they didn't do

anything about it. this was a transition where vetting really was just almost unobserved. i think that's what we know is that they had the information and they didn't act on it. they let flynn go forward. the issues only now being raised as he retroactively registered as lobbyist. >> here's the story. most people hear this. working for a foreign government. never told anybody. told us now and it doesn't matter. what if the he had been picked at head of national security. came out he was still national curt director and been on the payroll of a foreign government. all through the campaign. all the time he's supposedly advising the presidential candidate and getting paid and working for someone else he was hiding. >> it would have been fatal. >> to whom. >> flynn's ability or appointment to have assumed the national security adviser post. flynn would say, listen, i severed mid relationship with this client on november 18 before i was appointed. >> why didn't he tell everyone

he was working for a foreign government. isn't the whole thing with draining the swamp and we don't have people getting paid by other interests. that's third world crap. you don't have people being paid by other governments working for us or working for a presidential candidate. he's on the payroll. >> i think it definitely gives -- >> $430,000 is a lot of money to be getting paid and not tell anyone you noticed it. did you notice that. i think you knew it. >> yes. i think there was a definite appearance problem. that probably contributed a lot. >> i would call it a reality problem. >>. you're being nice. let's take a look at this. this morning mike pence denied knowing about flynn's lobbying work. said hi following as a foreign agent this week further justified the president's decision last month to get rid of him. this is making the president look smart, i guess. >> let me say hearing that story today was the first i heard of it. you faculty r fully support the decision that trump made to ask

for general flynn's resignation. >> you're disappointed by the story. >> first i heard of it and i think it is an affirmation of the president's decision to ask general flynn to resign. >> i was saying a couple minutes ago. the scary thing is we're no longer a role model. we're asleep at the helm. we're not fighting for a trade agreement. we don't have the south china sea. we're not giving a role model about our democracy. for a system in africa. looking for presidents resign at end of terms or leave office. teechling them lessons we learn from washington. you have to give up power at some point. >> you put your finger on it. the reason these rules, the reason that vetting of potential cabinet or white house appoin e appointees matter is so you have an orderly transparent process

so people understand what people have done, what positions they've taken. and other countries do key off of this. the reason that there's order -- there's lawful practice in the world is because the united states has traditionally run that system and insisted on it. in government activities, in legal processes. in banking rules. those are all the things i'm sorry to say that seem to be under attack now. >> so many rules. you can't give speeches for nbc and take money. we accept rules. this guy flynn didn't think there was a problem he was getting paid by a foreign government and working for trump. didn't see that as obviously a conflict. >> he did register under the lobby disclose shiure act. he thinks he should have registered as a foreign agent and he did that. >> thank you. when we return. let my finish tonight with trump watch. this is hardball where the action is.

he said president obama did it and he was sick to do it. hung it out there and any time he could have pulled it back, confirmed and said the information didn't hold up. he hasn't. he let the world believe he believes the former president had him bugged. this is third world behavior t. kind that demagogues in poor countries spout off when they're separate to cling to what power they have. if he has evidence, produce it. if director comey does not have evidence. say so. unworthy of us as a country. remember when we all knew that. hardball for now. thanks if for being with us. coming up next, your business with jj rambert.

good morning. coming up on msnbc your business. small and medium businesses struggle with getting paid late from big clients. tell you how to get them to pay up. the ceo of edible arrangements with four things you need to know to grow your franchise. and owners of nail salon grow business by using a starbucks like business plan. those stories and much more information to mep you be profitable coming up next on your business. >> will your business be ready when growth presents itself. america express cards can help you take on a new