from but for now i'd say it's about law and order, race and policing and why the founding fathers would have been sympathetic to the grievances of black lives matter. starting tuesday i will be in washington, d.c., boston on grf black lives matter. starting tuesday i'll be in washington, d.c., boston wednesday, thursday f philadelphia. check out our facebook page for more details. some events are selling out. that is "all in" for this evening. "the rachel maddow show" starts right now. >> congratulations on your book show. i am super excited for you. i'm talking about your book on monday. thanks for starting with me. thanks for joining us at this hour. happy friday. if you have an image in your head for general douglas macarthur, it's probably this one, right? the iconic hat, the awesome sunglasses, before biden, right? douglas macarthur's sunglasses, obviously the giant corn cob pipe. when douglas macarthur was the

commanding general for u.s. troops in the korean war, china sent hundreds of thousands of chinese troops over their border into north korea to help the communist side in the korean fight. and general douglas macarthur went to president truman when that happened and he told president truman that he wanted the united states to wage war on china in response. he wanted to start bombing china, and quite famously, president truman fired him for that. fired him. removed him. that was a big hairy political deal at the time because general macarthur was really, really popular. he was so popular they threw parades in his honor when he came home from being fired. you've seen this footage. some of the most iconic footage of gigantic ticker tape parades in the canyon of heroes in new york city is from the enormous

parade that new york threw for douglas macarthur after he got fired by the president. literally millions of people turned out in tribute to him after he got fired. macarthur was really, really, really popular even though he maybe wanted to start world war iii. all the legends about douglas macarthur were larger than life. in world war ii when he was ordered to leave the philippines during the fight against the japanese, douglas macarthur famously said when he was leaving, "i shall return." and two years later he did come back. he waded ashore on leyte island and he said, "i have returned." quite a bit of the legend of general douglas macarthur is associated specifically with the philippines. he lived in the philippines for years before world war ii. he lived there while he was running the training of the philippine army. and because he was larger than

life, when he was living in the philippines training the philippine army, where he lived while he was doing that was in the fanciest room in the fanciest hotel in the whole country. while he was training the philippine army, douglas macarthur lived in the penthouse suite of the manila hotel. other than the presidential palace, it was basically the ritziest place to live in the entire country. and his suite at the manila hotel is still there, upgraded and partly preserved. you can, if you have enough money, rent the general douglas macarthur suite. at the manila hotel in manila, in the philippines. you can soak up some history along with your jacuzzi bath and the other amenities of your luxury stay. today's news someday becomes tomorrow's history. and that dynamic still holds. and i'm sorry to say that the general douglas macarthur suite

at the manila hotel now features in a new footnote in history -- or at least it will someday, because in today's news it's part of a lurid international military bribery case which everybody calls the fat leonard scandal. >> reporter: three navy officials have been arrested and it's cost the u.s. navy millions. at the center of the scandal is leonard francis, owner of a singapore-based company that provides dock side service to navy warships. federal indictments accuse francis of bibing navy officials with large sums of cash, prostitutes, and even tickets to lady gaga, to steer the navy's business his way. a second commander, jose sanchez, is accused of accepting $100,000. and after provided with prostitutes, allegedly sent francis a facebook message. "yummy, daddy like." >> ugh.

lienard francis, the guy at the center of this, is fat leonard. he doesn't mind if you call him that, everyone does, fat leonard. in 2015, fat leonard pled guilty to bribing u.s. military officers with everything from spanish suckling pigs to luxury hotel rooms to expensive watches to expensive booze and so on but you can't have a briber without a bribee and it turns out in this criminal case there are a lot of bribees. before this week, 20 former or current navy officers were charged in this case. 20. 13 of the 20 pled guilty. that was before this week. then this week this happened this week, federal prosecutors announced charges against another nine navy and marine officers, including an admiral. and the details in the charging document start out as kind of a fun read then take a sudden turn into oh, my god. you get a lot of detail on their

dinners, foie gras, duck confit, cognac they were drinking at $2,000 a bottle. cigars they were smoking that were $2,000 a box. the "washington post" reported the menu on a different meal that was also allegedly part of the bribes, an $18,000 dinner that started with black truffle soup before moving on to the pan-seared duck liver and all the rest of it. this was how this defense contractor, fat leonard, bribed officers of the u.s. navy's 7th fleet. in exchange those officers would allegedly give him classified information about the movement of u.s. navy ships and confidential information about other contractors that fat leonard would use to undercut them so he got the contracts. they even reportedly fed him information on criminal investigations into the bribery by his company so he could keep beating the rap, so he could stay ahead of the criminal investigations. fat leonard built himself a $200

million business supplying u.s. navy ships in ports abroad, and he built himself that business by stuffing u.s. navy officers full of foie gras and cognac and other stuff. for example there was in may 2008 what the indictment describes as a "raging multiday party with a rotating carousel of prostitutes in attendance during which the conspirators drank all of the dom perignon available at the shangri-la hotel in manila. room and board charges by fat leonard for this escapade exceeded $50,000." days later of the commander of the "uss milius" wrote, "i finally detoxed myself from manila, that was a crazy couple of days, it's been a while since i've done 36 hours of straight drinking." straight drinking all the dom

perignon in the hotel, no less. here's the part that crosses over where it fits into the news cycle. for context here, there are 30 different admirals who have been investigated in conjunction with this bribery scandal. 30. prosecutors say more than 200 people have come under scrutiny in this scandal. it's really big. it's the biggest corruption case in the history of the united states navy. but even given that scope of it, which itself is striking, it really is the particulars that stick with you on this one. a lot of the alleged bribes, the dinners and booze and watches and jewelry and prostitutes, a lot of those stories circle in m manila around this hotel, around the shangri-la hotel. but not all of them. on page 24 of this indictment we also get to the part that allegedly takes place in the historic manila hotel. and actually in one specific room of the manila hotel.

quoting from the indictment "on or about february 8 through 10, 2007, fat leonard hosted and paid for a lavish party and the services of prostitutes in the macarthur suite of the manila hotel." the indictment lists the u.s. navy officers allegedly there at this particular sex party and then it says this "during the party historical memorabilia related to general douglas macarthur were used by the participants in sexual acts." thankfully the indictment does not spell out which memorabilia was involved or which acts. what do they have of macarthur's in the suite? i will say pictures of at least one hat and one corn cob pipe have been put on the internet over the years by people who say they have been to the douglas macarthur suite at that particular hotel -- so there's that to go on. but i feel like this story, the

fat leonard story is amazing in its own right. but because it is so amazing, it's a really specific piece of evidence as to where we're at as a country right now. because honestly, it seems impossible that a scandal this lurid with details like this hasn't taken over your newspaper by now, right? it's impossible that something this big and over the top and ridiculous is not a scandal of national fixation. but it's really not. it's really not because honestly, where we're at as a country, as scandals go this thing can barely compete. there's no room in the scandal-absorbing part of our brains anymore because so many things are cooking all at once right now. for example there's the case of the health secretary tom price who bought and sold hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stock in health care companies while he was writing and sponsoring and voting on legislation that would affect

the price of those stocks. in some cases he was buying stock in multiple companies then days later taking action as a congressman that would have the effect of inflating the value of that stock he just bought. aspects of his stock trading while he was chairing an important health committee in congress were reported by the "wall street journal," by cnn, by propublica, by "time" magazine, tons of places. but republicans still confirmed him as secretary of health and human services. well you know what? sometimes that kind of stuff comes due. you know what? news becomes history. and now tonight propublica has a hair-raising report that when preet bharara, the u.s. attorney in manhattan, when he was fired last weekend unexpectedly and suddenly by the white house, one of the cases preet bharara was overseeing at the time according to propublica was a criminal investigation into tom price and his stock trades while he was in congress. propublica is citing one source in their report. we tried all day to get further

comment from anybody involved. the white house told us they weren't aware of any federal criminal investigation into the health secretary tom price. despite repeated efforts to reach tom price himself and ask him if he has been notified he is the subject of a federal criminal investigation, we got no comment from tom price or his department, from hhs about it. and, in fact, we didn't even get a no comment. we literately got no comment. we got dial tone, nobody home. nobody even there to tell us no. usually what you get is "i'll call you right back" and then they never call. we got nobody. if anybody out there knows how to reach the department of health and human services, let us know. we could not get a single freaking person to answer the phone all afternoon long today. www.sendittorachel.com. this tom price thing this is the kind of thing that will hopefully result in congress

making some inquiries, right? it's no small thing for a cabinet secretary to be under federal criminal investigation. just as it's no small thing for a u.s. attorney to be fired in the middle of overseeing such an investigation, if that is what happened here. so that's a big potential scandal. and we can't get anything out of the administration on it. maybe congress can. that said, congress is busy right now. on monday morning in a normal universe, the biggest thing going on in the country would be the start of the confirmation hearings for neil gour such, the nominee to be the next supreme court justice. that is obviously a big deal. those hearings are expected to go on for four days. starting monday. democrats will likely oppose him in large numbers if not unanimously. democrats may also act procedurally to slow down this thing, to slow-roll his nomination as long as possible. substantively democrats appear to be focusing on his work defending torture and his enthusiasm for guantanamo during the george w. bush

administration, but lines of inqui inquiry, potential scandals, can be hard to predict before these things get started, so we will see starting monday morning. that said, i have to tell you even the confirm make america great again medication hearings for a supreme court nominee starting monday morning, even those hearings are likely to be overshadowed by the other hearings that are starting on capitol hill at the same time on monday morning. monday morning 10:00 a.m. eastern we get the first public congressional hearing into the links between the new administration and russia. former intelligence director james clapper and fbi director james comey are due to testify monday morning in the first open session testimony that we've got about the russian intervention into the election to help donald trump and any ties that may exist between russia and the trump campaign. we have been reporting our little hearts out on this all day, and i can tell you there are a lot of rumors circulating right now as to what director

comey will testify about on monday, what he will or won't describe in terms of ongoing investigations into links between trump and russia. but despite our best efforts it's rumors only, nothing we can report with confidence as to what comey is going to say. in this case we'll learn what he has to say by waiting. he's going to be testifying monday morning. that's house intelligence. also today, the other inquiry, the one in the senate. they made their first announcement about what's going to be their first public hearing into the russian attack on our election. senator richard burr on the left, senator mark warner on the right side of your screen, they together announced today that about a week and a half after we get comey and clapper testifying on russia on monday, about a week and a half later on thursday, march 30th, we're going to get the senate starting their inquiry into russia as well. and the senate hearing, something i would definitely sign up for if it was a college class.

and i was still a surly college student. look at the title. i have to say, this sounds awesome "disinformation, a primer in russian active measures and influence campaigns." really? and it's in two parts, the first part in the morning is going to be the history and characteristics of russian disinformation campaigns and the second part is the role and capability of cyber operations in support of those activities. yes, please, and can i sign up for office hours now with the t.a. and the professor. that sounds great. what's the title again? "disinformation, a primer in russian active measures and influence campaigns." i would read that if that was a novel. but that was just announced today. that's going to be on thursday, march 30th. and we also got a related big piece of news today in the form of something that -- basically

in the form of something that wasn't announced. you might remember earlier this week the nsa, fbi and cia all got a letter from the top republican and the top democrat on the house intelligence committee. that letter asked about this guy, michael flynn. you know, it's a scandal in itself. it is a scandal surpassing and even eclipsing the alleged use of douglas macarthur memorabilia in a u.s. navy sex and bribery ring in manila. it as scandal already of immense proportions, that the national security adviser had to get fired 24 days into his tenure because of the content of his communications with the foreign government, with russia. that is an enormous scandal in its own right. one that has a lot of unanswered questions around it. one of the important things that remains unexplained about mike flynn's firing as national security adviser is how anybody knew what he was talking to the russian government about.

mike flynn's calls with the russians were apparently listened into by u.s. agencies who were surveilling those calls. it's one thing to listen in on russian government officials but americans are not supposed to be surveilled by u.s. agencies unless there's a court-ordered warrant that says it's okay to do so. mike flynn was surveilled. why? was mike flynn the subject of a warrant? if so, was it a warrant for a criminal investigation? was it a warrant for a counterintelligence investigation? and in either instance, if he was on the warrant, if there was a court-ordered warrant to surveil him because of one of those types of investigations, how on earth did the white house end up appointing him to be national security adviser under those circumstances? so the cia, the fbi and the nsa all got a letter demanding that information about michael flynn by today. why was mike flynn surveilled? why was mike flynn -- why were his contacts with the russians

surveilled by u.s. agencies? tell us by friday, march 17. tell us by today. that letter, sent to the nsa, fbi, cia, it was sent to them by one of the committees that oversees those agencies, fbi, cia, nsa, they can't refuse to hand over this information to the intelligence committee. but apparently they're not doing it. i almost can't believe it. this is really, really not normal. the intelligence chair put out a statement today cryptically worded, but what it says is that of these three agencies who were sent this letter told to explain this michael flynn thing, told to respond by today. of those three agencies only the nsa "partially responded." the nsa apparently promised the committee they will fully respond by the end of next week. but the cia and the fbi, apparently they haven't responded at all, they haven't said beep. at least not by 9:00 p.m.

eastern time tonight they hadn't. that's nuts. that's impossible. that's at least not normal. that is at least a really big national security deal. i know it seems like an arcane thing about who you sxhup date with and who you have to answer to. but if agencies like the fbi and cia won't hand over information like this to the committees that oversee them? that's a big national security deal. that's not the way things work those agencies may not want to hand it over, but they have to. they may not want to release that information publicly but they really do have to release it confidentially to the committee. these agencies -- fbi, cia, nsa -- these agencies are overseen by congress. they cannot say no to a request like this by congress. but apparently they're not answering. that's really strange. what's going on with that? one possibility is that mike flynn ended up on that surveillance in error.

that it was done improperly or illegally, they shouldn't have had him on that surveillance. and in that case the fbi and/or the cia may now be trying to get its ducks in a row, because it may be that people who work for those agencies are about to get in big trouble for mishandling this. that's a possibility. another darker possibility is that there is some damning information about michael flynn, about him being the subject of a warrant of some kind. and maybe the trump administration folks who now head up the cia and department of justice, maybe smer somehow impeding releasing this information to congress because it will look bad for mike flynn and it will look bad for the administration. i don't know, we don't know. but the fbi not responding to the intelligence committee? uh-uh, that does not fly, our constitution doesn't work that way. they have to respond and their non-answer is a big deal. the russian attack on our election last year, the unexplained connections between the trump campaign and russia

during that time, during the time of the attack, the strangeness, particularly, the strangenof t fbi in its trtment of this matter, it's settng it's unsettling not just because this is one scandal among so many scandals for this young administration, so many scandals that some of them are basically being ignored because they're not big enough to warrant attention amid other scandals, right? this is unsettling not because it's one scandal among many, this is unsettling because if the worst is true, if the presidency is effectively a russian op, right, if the american presidency right now is the product of collusion between the russian intelligence services and an american campaign, i mean, that is so profoundly big, we not only need to stay focused on figuring it out, we need to start preparing for what the consequences are going to be if it proves to be true. we need to start thinking about how we're going to deal with the

worst revelations if they do come to light, if they are proved true. so tonight we're doing a special report. tonight what we're going to do with most of the rest of the show is we're going to start to try to do that thinking. tonight we are going to talk to some of the people who were the first victims of what happened to us as a country when the russians launched their attack. real people who got hit first, who saw it up close and in realtime. they haven't told their story of how they experienced it and what damage it did at the time before the country figured out what was going on. but they're going to do that starting tonight starting here. they're going to start telling that story. that's our special report, it starts next.

last year, 2016, june 1, as part of staffing up for the california primary, the clinton campaign added somebody new to their communications team,

a normal hire, normal expectations. then a couple weeks after that new staffer got there his job got suddenly very weird because something weird started happening in the campaign and it became his beat, his unexpected responsibility to try to make sense of it, to try to explain it, this thing nobody planned for which is that russian government hackers had broken into the democratic party's computer servers, helped themselves to anything they wanted. those lifted documents and e-mails stolen from the democratic party and ultimately from the chairman of the clinton campaign ended up becoming ammunition in an attack, a foreign attack, on the u.s. election. an attack designed to weaken the democratic candidate, weaken the democratic party, disrupt their strategy, disrupt their communications, and ultimately help the republican candidate, donald trump, win the election.

it's easy enough to say that now, but in the moment, in the chaos of the campaign it was hard to persuade the public to pay attention to that bigger picture, that the election was being disrupted, it was being tilted. it was being externally operated on by a foreign government in favor of the candidate that that foreign government preferred. but for that new clinton staffer whose job it was to deal with this, this was his life. he was living this every day. as that campaign nightmare was playing out it became this new staffer's job to learn everything there was to know about this hacking so he could explain it to the world and answer everybody's questions about it. he watched this hijacking of our election this attack on our election in realtime. he saw clues about what was happening early on. he had to figure it out fast, firsthand, live, and now as the country is woken up to the magnitude of what happened to us

last year, that staffer is ready to talk about it and i think his perspective on what happened is valuable in terms of us really understanding what happened and starting to unravel it. joining us now for this special report is glen caplin, former senior national spokesman for the clinton campaign, including questions about wikileaks, hacking and russia. thank you for getting a babysitter and coming back. >> thank you for having me back. >> i want to get this right, i really want to hear this, so i'm glad you were able to come back. so you started to tell us this story last night. i want to start again at the beginning. from your perspective, what happened first? what was the first thing that got weird? >> well, the first thing that got weird was the "washington post" broke the story in mid-june that the dnc had been hacked. and that was the first it started to get weird that -- >> you didn't have any indication before that report? that that had happened to the

dnc? >> no, we had indication once the report was happening. they reached out to us for comment and we were aware of the story a day or two before it broke. but that contact was the first we were aware of the dnc hack, that was the first time it got weird. where it got disturbing was when a couple days later guccifer 2 through d.c. leaks started dumping that information. >> and guccifer is -- guccifer 2.0 is like a hacking nom de guerre? it's a persona? >> it's a persona that is believed to be russian intelligence by cyber experts. >> and the guccifer 2 leaks ended up on d.c. leaks website which is something that didn't exist prior to the campaign. nobody ever heard of. >> correct. and that dump was a massive amount of data, of documents that was not user friendly and was very hard to get your arms

around what was there. and therefore it did not get an enormous amount of coverage, an enormous amount of attention. >> what kind of documents was it? it was all internal to the democratic party. was it donor lists? >> donor lists, research, books, which is a comp litigation of clips of vulnerabilities of yourself and your opponents. i believe a donald trump research book. >> so democratic oppo research on donald trump. >> right, but remember at that time donald trump wasn't paying for self-research so the fact that that research book was in there was quite interesting to us. and we believed very -- from the first dump that this was intended to help donald trump and undermine hillary clinton and the democratic party. this wasn't about her -- trying to hurt both sides or just undermine the election itself. >> i remember reporting at the time that in the case of the

oppo dossier -- the democrats' oppo dossier on donald trump there is -- that being published in june meant that any ammunition the democratic party politically had against trump was then spent. was then out there. >> it felt like a gift to donald trump. that research book being out was not hurtful to donald trump, that was a gift to donald trump. that was one of the tells that very early on this was about hurting us. >> so that happened when? >> mid-june. >> what happened next? >> well, what happened next was the wikileaks dump on the eve of the democratic convention. so if you think about it, this is sort of three shifts, the first is a dump of information in the first place. the russians have done espionage for decades. that's not new. every campaign for going back for years has probably been surveilled and there's been espionage. it was the information actually being weaponized and put into the public arena was what was

new. >> what do you mean by weaponized? >> actuay put in the public arena, as opposed to collecting information for a foreign government's information and knowing what campaigns are thinking and things like that, which is the normal -- >> rather than them stealing it to use for themselves as the russian government, they were redeploying it into the american bloodstream to have an effect on the way we were dealing with each other as americans. >> correct. >> you talked about how there was a big shift, an operational shift that you saw between that guccifer -- the first leak and the wikileaks one, that it was more sophisticated in terms of how it could be weaponized, how it could be used here. >> correct. >> i want to get into more detail with you on that in just a second. we're going to take a quick break. glen caplin, senior spokesperson for the hillary clinton campaign specifically on the issue of the russian attack at the time. we'll be right back with more.

continuing our discussion with glen caplin, former spokes person for the clinton campaign, who spent part of his 2016 election studying the russian interference in the campaign and trying to craft some kind of response in the moment. glen, when we left off at the break, you were saying after there had been this initial leak with guccifer posted on d.c. leaks, the second thing that happened was seemingly more sophisticated leak that came through wikileaks. >> much more. the first one was sloppy, had russian metadata on it.

was not user friendly. >> russian metadata meaning? >> meaning traces on the actual documents. you could tell -- there was russian language on it. >> it so you could tell it was the work of russian hackers? >> correct. >> now we're going to wikileaks timed on the eve of the convention, highly searchable user-friendly search function, we could very easily cull the wheat from the chaff in terms of the e-mails and reporters were able to very quickly search for the bernie e-mails or the dws e-mails. that got metastasized very quickly. >> you said in the earlier leak you talked to somebody who was an expert in these things who told you the russians were good at obtaining stuff but bad at deploying it for propaganda purposes. the second round, the second level of the attack cured that problem for them. >> correct. and the guccifer 2 persona claimed publicly to have given that information to wikileaks at the time.

>> what was the effect on the campaign? the timing was insane, right? this all happened the day after the end of the republican convention, the weekend -- literally on the eve of the democrats' convention. what was the effect? >> it created a lot of stress on the campaign at the convention, there's no question about that. but it's hard to overstate how disturbing it is to have this unprecedented intrusion in our democracy. and we tried very hard to tell that story from the candidate herself, she spoke about it in all three debates. our campaign chairman john podesta spoke about it aggressively. our campaign manager robby mook. our communications director. all down the line. we tried very hard to tell the story of the much -- of this unprecedented disturbing intrusion in our democracy and

unfortunately -- >> didn't stick. >> the coverage tended -- was more about what was in the e-mails as opposed to why the e-mails existed, who is responsible for putting the e-mails into the public discourse and why. and that was frustrating. >> and that was effectively your job to try to explain this to people in a way that would make them get it. it was just a completely unreceptive media environment. >> i think there are a couple lessons that need to be learned. from this experience. i think political campaigns have a lesson to learn because this is not a theoretical threat, this is a real and present danger for every campaign going forward. this is something they have to deal with. so political campaigns are going to have to learn a lesson of how they protect their information going forward. i think the media needs to learn the lesson of how do you cover something like this when an adversarial foreign government

wants you reporting on the details of this information. in the end, none of the e-mails themselves were particularly damaging, but for the last 35 days of the election it was a headwind that was constantly in the news. and third, government. what does -- >> i'm dara brown with breaking news. right now secretary of state rex tillerson is about to speak in beijing with wang yi, the foreign minister of china china. now we'll listen in to rex tillerson. >> -- between the united states and china. this is an important opportunity to follow up on the telephone convsati conversation between preside trump and president xi and to pave the way for continued, productive, high-level engagement. since the historic opening of relations between our two countries more than 40 years ago, the u.s./china relationship has been guided by understanding

of nonconflict, nonconfrontation, mutual respect, and win-win cooperation. it is important that the leaders of our two countries engage in further dialogue to develop a common understanding that will guide our relationship for the next half century. the united states and china are the world's two largest economies, and we must both promote stability and growth. our two countries should have a positive trading relationship that is fair and pays dividends both ways. and we will be working on that going forward. >> we are listening to secretary of state rex tillerson in beijing. he's having a joint press conference with wang yi, the foreign minister of china. the foreign minister wang yi started with his remarks and

that's who we're looking at right now. rex tillerson is now commenting on their meeting earlier in beijing. mr. tillerson is there on his visit to asia. he's been in japan, he's been in south korea, now he's in beijing. they are addressing the common -- what rex tillerson has called common understandings with china. and we are now going to go back to rex tillerson. he's been making his first comments in this joint press conference with wang yi. both china and the united states talking about the importance of opening up a dialogue with china, their common understanding, and of course having a constructive talks about what's going on with our kun trevor ariza. >> minister wang and i also spoke about the importance of safeguarding stability and security in northeast asia and the asia-pacific region. we noted that efforts made over the last 20ears have so far t succeeded in curbing the threat posed by north korea's illegal weapons programs. because china's stated policy is

denuclearization of the korean peninsula, we renewed our determination to work together to convince the north korean government to choose a better path and a different future for its people. i discuss the importance of upholding a rules-based order in dealing with maritime disputes and freedom of navigation and overflight. and i made clear that the united states will continue to advocate for universal values such as human rights and religious freedom. i look forward on this visit to additional meetings today with state counselor yang and tomorrow with president xi. and to continuing to work together with my chinese hosts to address shared challenges and opportunities. >> again, we're listening to the translation of rex tillerson, who is talking with the chinese minister, wang yi, about the chinese and the u.s. governments now, talking about renewed

determination to encourage north korea to disarm and end its nuclear arms program. one of the main reasons why rex tillerson is actually visiting china, the north korean nuclear arms development is a very big discussion with china right now. and they are talking about how they can come together and renew their determination to get north korea to disarm and stop these nuclear arms race which is going on in north korea. obviously china having a stronger arm in that discussion. rex tillerson has been talking with wang yi to talk about that. and also has been mentioning about the human rights issues that are going on in china. that's something that the trump administration has been discussing and possibly saying they're not going to continue in the u.n. human rights council unless it undergoes considerable reform. so these are topics in discussion with china. now back to beijing.

[ speaking foreign language ] [ speaking foreign language ] >>. >> translator: now we have the q&a session because of the shortage of time, just one question for each journalist. first one question from american journalist to secretary tillerson. >> first question goes to bob woodruff, abc news. >> mr. secretary, thank you very much. i know in terms of all these issues, north korea is certainly at the top. you have spoken this week, a couple of days ago. there is this possibility of a preemptive strike in that it's on the table, quote-unquote. exactly where's the red line on

this? what would cause this to happen, do you think? you probably don't have the details but what does north korea have to do in order to have that possibility? and also, did you talk to china about that today and has that given some pressure to use some influence on them to give you anything new in terms of sanctions, et cetera, any changes in laws to enforce some of the rules about trading with north korea? secondly -- the tweeting by the president, president trump yesterday, where he said very clearly that north korea is bad and china has done very, very little. did you know about that tweet when that went out? did you have a chance to talk to him? and what was his reaction to you? has he made your job a lot harder? [ speaking foreign language ]

[ speaking foreign language ] >> as i indicated in my prepared statement, foreign minister wang and i had a very extensive exchange on north korea. and foreign minister wang affirmed again china's longstanding policy of a denuclearized korean peninsula. we also exchanged views, and i think we share a common view and a sense that tensions on the peninsula are quite highlight now. and that things have reached a rather dangerous level.

and we've committed ourselves to do everything we can to prevent any type of conflict from breaking out. we view there are a number of steps that we can take that are in front of us. and foreign minister wang has agreed that we will work together to see if we cannot bring the government in pyongyang to a place where they want to make a different course, make a course correction and move away from their development of their nuclear weapons. but it is with a certain sense of urgency that we both feel, because of the current situation that we have on the peninsula. so i appreciated foreign minister wang's sincere expressions of how china sees the situation, and we had a very good exchange on that. and we will continue to be talking with one another on what we can both do along with working with others to bring north korea to a different place where we are hopeful we can then

begin a dialogue. >> we've been listening to secretary of state rex tillerson in beijing having a joint conference with wang yi, the chinese minister there, discussing north korea and how china is going to work together with the u.s. government and possibly help the problems over in north korea. now back to our program.

we're back now with our special report on russian interference in the presidential election as it happened.

one of your senior colleague on this the campaign said here on msnbc, she said about the trump campaign and the russians, i believe that there was collusion. i believe that the trump staff, trump associates in some form, were at a minimum coordinating with wikileaks. in the timing of the leaks they were way too prepared. when wikileaks came oud with their leak du jour in the morning the trump campaign was ready to go with their statement about that." she's saying her impression. what is your view on that point, what did you observe in that regard? >> there is a lot of connections to the trump campaign and russia that we need to fully understand. so yes, what jen is saying, i agree with. i think every american, whether they're a trump voter or a hillary voter, deserves the answer to this very, very important question and we need to get to the bottom of it. >> when you were seeing stuff happen in realtime, did you feel

the wikileaks stuff that was happening and the trump campaign stuff, did it seem coordinated? did you see evidence of anything -- >> we were seeing rt tweet the wikileaks dump of the day before wikileaks did. >> that's collusion between russian government and wikileaks. >> roger stone during the campaign said that he was back-channeling with julian assange. he seemed to predict the podesta e-mails. he recently came out he was direct messaging with guccifer 2 -- >> not a formal campaign adviser but a long-time associate of mr. trump? >> a long-time confidant who has publicly taken credit for paul manafort getting the job as campaign manager. there's a lot of connections here. follow the dots and the puzzle's coming together. we need to understand the full picture. but every single american deserves an answer to this question. >> robby, same question. obviously collusion is the big scary possibility here.

nobody said that they have direct evidence of collusion. in your experience of it, did you see evidence for that? >> well, as glen said, i think we've got to answer this question. it can be pretty simply done. congress can get to the bottom of this, and they seem to be beginning that process, that's good. you know, as glen mentioned, roger stone admitted that there were some communications there. i would also just say, you know, let's step back for a second. the whole reason we're having the discussion about michael flynn and this wiretapping is because the nsa was tapping russian agents. and in the course of tapping those agents, those agents were speaking to trump aides. and so we know that there were conversations, we just -we're waiting to find out what they were about. as i said, congress can solve this pretty quickly. the last thing i'd say about it, though, is it's so important that this not be seen as relitigating the election or partisan witch hunt. we've got to get to the bottom of this to make sure it doesn't

happen again. i've been encouraged, at least very much on the senate side, and we're starting to see now on the house side, bipartisanship to do this together. >> robby mook, glen kaplan, both formerly of the clinton campaign, thank you very much. i have a feeling we may ask you back on the same topic as we learn more. thanks, gentlemen.

as you know, alongside the first public trump russia hearings in the house monday morning, in the senate monday morning will be the first

supreme court nomination hearings for neil gorsuch. to get ready for those gorsuch hearings, sunday night 5:00 p.m. eastern, mns is going to be doing a special look at look at. you should watch that sunday night. ♪ in west virginia hopes ride on campaign promises. >> we're going to put the miners back to work. we're going to put the miners back to work. >> if some of the promises that he's made come through, we can see at least a little bit of a turn around. >> racked by unemployment,