hospital and we're still waiting to hear more about the actual identity of the attacker and exactly what motivated him. greta? >> matt, thank you. thank you for watching. see you back here tomorrow night 6:00 p.m. eastern. up next, "hard swrn baball with matthews." taps. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. president trump is still working to escape his tweets that president obama wiretapped him during the campaign. today, a junior ally, house republican devin nunes, said he has access to information showing trump or some of his people were picked up in the transition period through surveillance of someone else. well, the bigger story here is that his information does not only -- does nothing toen to firm trump's actual tweets but

the congressman's conduct is hardly appropriate for someone chairing an investigation of trump. he acted today more like a trump staffer. the surveillance story released today may, in fact, be a decoy from today's far bigger story. the trump campaign chair, paul manafort, was once paid $10 million a year from a friend of vladimir putin. that's $10 million a year from putin's buddy. let's start with the news that the chairman of the house intelligence committee, devin nunes, has access information, he says, that says donald trump or someon connected to him came up under u.s. surveillance during someone else. according to nunes who was on president trump's transition team, the brand new information he obtained alarmed him, he said. it was so alarming, he said he rushed to tell the president at the white house and then tell the press in two separate news conferences. let's watch. >> what i saw has nothing to do with russia and nothing to do with the russian investigation. has everything to do with possible surveillance activities and the president needs to know

that these intelligence reports are out there and i have a duty to tell him that. what i've read bothers me and i think it should bother the president, himself, and his team, because i think some of it seems to be inappropriate. >> the president was correct in what he tweeted? >> it is possible. >> well, nunes never explained what the information is, where it is, where h came from or how it showed surveillance. to be very clear, here's exactly what president trump tweeted in the early morning hours of march 4th. pay attention to this, "terrible. just found out that obama had my wires tapped in trump tower just before the victory. nothing found. this is mccarthyism!" nr of the tweeting, "how low has president obama gone to tap my phones during the very sacred election process? this is nixon/watergate. bad or sick guy." that would be president obama. according to nunes today, this new information was collected legally and involved incidental

intelligence, meaning the trump names weren't the target of the collection. >> it looks like it was legal collection. incidental collection. then made itself into intelligence reports. >> regardless, the president today said he felt somewhat vindicated. >> mr. president, do you feel vindicated by chairman nes? do you feel vindicated by chairman nunes coming over here? >> i somewhat do. i must tell you, i somewhat do. i very much appreciated the fact that they found what they found, but i some quha do. >> only monday that fbi director james comey, someone who's in a position to really know, said this about the president's tweets. >> director comey, was the president's statement that obama had his wires tapped in trump tower a true statement? >> writh respect to the president's tweets about alleged wiretapping directed at him by the prior administration, i have no information that supports

those tweets and we have looked carefully inside the fbi. the department of justice has asked me to share with you that the answer is the same for the department of justice and all its components. the dd department has no information that supports those tweets. >> ranking member of the intelligence committee, u.s. congressman adam schiff, he's the democrat, cast doubt on the motives of his chairman. let's watch. >> we have no idea where these documents came from, whether they even show what they purport to show. but even if they do on the basis of what the chairman said, the underlying fact is still the same. there's no evidence to support the president's contention that he was wiretapped by his predecessor. so i'm not sure what the point of this extraordinary process is, and i have to hope that this is not part of a broader campaign by the white house aimed to deflect from the director's testimony earlier this week. >> well, u.s. congresswoman

jackie speeier is a member of the intelligence committee. thank you. i've been going through this day. it's been driving me crazy because not a single point in frump's tweets of a couple weeks ago that caused all this that saturday morning has been countered by anything that came out today. there's nothing in the so-called surveillance, incidental surveillance, that says anything about president obama ordering any wiretaps. nothing in it about wiretaps. nothing it in about something happening during the campaign. on every single word in that sentence, there's not a thing in the tweet that's countered by what's come out today. what's come out today is something to do with surveillance, something to do with incidental pickup of somebody near trump during the transition period. and yet they'r running around the white house like they're creating this big spooky notion that somehow they have uncovered the whole thing and i have to say the press hasn't looked m e particularly good, either, the way they handled it down at the white house, the way they've gone with this story because they're easily moved i suppose by this. you t you're the expert. you're on the committee. first of all, is there anything in this thing that the chairman has come out with today that

counters what the fbi director, ns ax direct nsa detectirector said this wee? >> absolutely not. this thing as you referred to it is something we haven't seen and it's highly irregular to have the chairman not bring something that he might have acquired to the committee for it to be reviewed by the staff. for its authenticity. and we're an oversight committee of these various agencies. the cia. the nsa. the entire intelligence community. so the fact that he raced over to the white house really casts doubt on our ability to do an independent investigation of the trump operatives in collusion with the russians to undermine our elections. and i don't know to what extent this is being orchestrated by the white house or it was just t tomfoolery on the part of the chairman to do this because it is -- it sabotages this effort.

>> you know, it hit me, i guess i'm always political, congresswoman, so what struck me is the likely scenario, what happened is nunes was trying to be honest this past week, trying to admit there was no evidence. there was no evidence, he said as chairman, of any wiretapping of president obama by the candidate at the time, trump. very straight on that. agreeing with the democrats. very bipartisan. he got some heat from home, maybe from the trump people in washington. he got some heat. so he goes bounding down to the white house with this new information. we don't even know if he got it from the white house. we don't know if it -- by the way, as a member of the committee, can you ask the chair to see what he has? can you just call him up and say can i see that, mr. chairman? >> well, we do have a hearing tomorrow. you can bet your bottom dollar that we will be asking for that. you know, the irony is of course, during the hearing, all the republicans wanted to talk about was the terrible leaks coming out of the intelligence community. >> oh, yeah. >> this would appear to be a

leak out of the intention communi intelligence community and holding it up with great fervor. the whole thing is way too orchestrated. it really does disservice to our institution, the legislative branch and the independence of it. >> have you ever heard of a member of your committee getting access to something that no one else on the committee, democrat or republican, has? in other words, this unique possession of something that he doesn't -- in case of he -- doesn't have in his immediate possession, says he has to go lookt, says he's allowed to go look at it but he doesn't have it he can't show it. there's something very interesting about this. almost a religious belief, i've got something i've seen, this apparition, i can't tell you how it happened but if happt happenu have to be there when it happened. believe me it happened. i have this stuff. i can't show you. >> it's beginning to sound more and more like watergate. just deep throats and, you know, meeting in garages. i don't know where he met whomever he met. >> no. >> or how he achieved it.

the other thing that's important to point out, however, there is huge news today about paul manafort. and yet -- >> go ahead. >> -- that got dismissed. >> we're going to bring it up in about five minutes. what do you make of the fact of a guy making $5 million a year? that's a lot of rubles. to say it never happened under direct questioning -- i saw one clip today, i've seen it before, george stephanopoulos of abc, have you had connections of russia? no, no, no, no. they were covering up by dealing with the pro-russian ukrainians who are really the pro-russians. then they're denying president that trump's denial on the record, no connection, my people in the campaign. why does paul manafort -- how did he get the job? i'm curious about all the russian activity. aren't you amazed that the frequency of the traffic back and forth to russia, carter page, roger stone's got buddies over there. all these people, back and forth. jeff sessions. all these people. frequent traffic. i've never been to russia.

maybe i'm just a hokie guy that doesn't think russia is the top of my travel list. they're always over there, it seems. what do you make of it? >> what i make of in, i said this during the hearing, i mean, there is a web of involvement with russia that is unheard of among those in the white house, those in the cabinet, and those who are operatives in the trump campaign. and i think we've got to connect those dots and we've got to find out if the spider is, indeed, putin. y're the best. thanks so much. u.s. congresswoman jackie speier of california. u.s. congressman adam schiff had this to say about the activities of chairman nunes today. let's watch him. >> the chairman will need to decide whether he is the chairman of an independent investigation into conduct which includes allegations of potential coordination between the trump campaign and the russians or he's going to act as a surrogate of the white house. because he cannot do both.

and unfortunately, i think the actions of today throw great doubt into the ability of both the chairman and the committee to conduct the investigation the way it ought to be conducted. >> joined right now by senator chris coons of delaware, a democrat, and jeremy bash, former chief of staff of the cia and department of defense, an msnbc national security analyst. senator, thank you so much. is it the job of an oversight committee to staff the presidency? i thought it was the other way around. >> no, the whole point of oversight by the intelligence committees is for them to conduct a thorough bipartisan oversight and this is a particularly important and delicate time where it is vital that the chairman and the ranking member work together, coordinate and consult with each other and what tharmchairman nu did today legitimately raises real questions about whether he's primarily interested in providing a defense or a cover to the white house, or whether he's dedicated to a bipartisan and thorough investigation of russia's interference in our elections. >> yeah, there seems to be a st.

bernard in the snow aspect to this. he's rushing down to the white house to help the president trump. let me ask you about the facts. the tweets, the notorious tweets of a couple weeks ago were quite clear and quite blunt and dishonest i thought. first of all that president obama ordered a wiretap, which is illegal and possibly even -- under the rules of fisa, you can't do it. number two, he did it toward thump personally, he did it himself, he was sick for doing it, he did it at trump tower and did it during the campaign. to me, not one of those points haen countered by this thing. so far, just a thing that mr. nunes says he has in possession. nothing challenges the story we've been get. >> chris, we don't have a lot of k details because congressman nunes hasn't shared it. as you heard from congresswoman speier a minute ago, you can be guaranteed tomorrow during their hearing the house intelligence committee members are going to be pressing congressman nunes for exactly what it is that he's seen and where it came from. but it doesn't, to your point,

undermine the significant statement that was made by fbi director comey that's also now been made by the national intelligence leadership that there is not a shred of evidence to support president trump's claim in a 6:00 a.m. tweet now several weeks ago that president obama wiretapped now-president trump in trump tower. there's no evidence for that so far at all. >> hold on, senator. is this a black flag? isn't that what they call it? some phony thing out there. everybody goes chasing. are we chasing the wrong story? is the story not nunes but the story, in fact, manafort got 10 million bucks? >> the story is from monday's hearing, we've had counterintelligence investigations. we've had fbi criminal investigations of the white house. we've never had an fbi counterintelligence and criminal investigation of the white house. this is unprecedented in our history and that was the big news from monday. the monday hearing was a debalk bl for the white house. >> yes. >> not so much on the wiretapping issue, chris, but in fact, on the revelation that

they and their inner circle are under fbi investigation for basically having the russians help them throw the election. and so this is unprecedented. and the chairman was under tremendous pressure because he basically presided over a hearing that was a complete setback for the white house. >> that's what i thought. i thought district or the white house said you want to play mr. neutr neutral? we're going to burn you. >> i think they said, find us something, any port in a storm, something to get out of this. let me ask t senator about this. the history of the intelligence committee, i think we have to spruce up their image right now. this isn't good for them. i remembered when i worked for the speaker, speaker o'neill, they gave the hot intelligence stuff -- tip said i don't want all this information, it's all in my head, i can't do anything with it. i know these horrible things are going on. the intelligence committee is supposed to keep secrets. that's they're job. >> that's right. >> they're given the information -- explain the culture of that institution and the ethics. >> that's right. one of the important things about the intelligence

committees in both the house and the senate is that they are dedicated to receiving and reviewing and understanding, to authorizing and appropriating for a very significant intelligence community here in the united states. the members of the intelligence committee do difficult work. they're exposed to very high classification secrets of the united states. but most importantly, as you mentioned a few minutes ago, chris, they are supposed to conduct oversight. oversight of the executive branch, oversight of the intelligence community. not to end up cheering on or providing an executicuse for th white house. >> do you think we need something independent? people have talked today at the congress -- i hate to say because i love the congress, i know you do, too, senator, that congress can't handle this because the ranking -- rather the top -- the chairman of the house committee, half the effort here has now shown himself to be a partisan buddy to the president. >> this is a gravely concerning development, chris. i still remain hopeful that it's possible that the senate intelligence committee can demonstrate its relevance for

moving this investigation forward. if we have to take an off-ramp and go to a special committee or a select committee here or a commission, it will slow everything down for at least six months. >> you're so right. >> until that commission gets set up. >> that's what i agree. we don't want another iran contra thing with lawrence walsh that went on for nine years. don't want that. quickly. thank you, senator. >> i also think schiff and the democrats should stay in the investigation, stay in the room, issue the subpoenas, hear the witnesses. and get this going. >> thank you. always great to have you. jeremy bash. u.s. senator chris coons of delaware. thank you fo joining us, sir. coming up, new questions about trump's former campaign manager, paul monofar. he's back in the news. he should be front and center. $10 million a year from a russian guy very close to putin. this is what people have been thinking about. how deep does the connection run between trump's operation, his campaign chair, who he now says he doesn't even know the guy? ho how's that work with you? russian billionaire, the gull to advance the interest of vladimir

putin. that's why the 10 million bucks was crossing the table so manafort would prove the politics of russia in this country, news business and among politicians. the very thing we've been talking about, trying to influence our politics with money. anyway, we're going to be right back. by the way, plus, london under attack. we've all been following that story today. new details tonight on the terror attack outside the british parliament. four people dead now. many more injured. police say the attacker was motivated by international terrorists. we're going to get to that moti motive. house republicans hope to push ahead in their obama repeal tomorrow night. as of now, they don't have the votes, don't have the 216. is president trump the self-described deal maker in chief about to go down in defeat? looks like it. finally let me finish with trump watch tonight. this is "hardball" where the action is. ♪

♪ wanna get away? now you can with southwest fares as low as 59 dollars one-way. yes to low fares with nothing to hide. that's transfarency. usaa gives me the and the security just like the marines did. the process through usaa is so effortless, that you feel like you're a part of the family. i love that i can pass the membership to my children. we're the williams family, and we're usaa members for life. at bp's cooper river plant, employees take safety personally - down to each piece of equipment, so they can protec their teammates and e surrounding wetlands, too. because safety is ner being satisfied. and always working to be better. much more coming on trump and russia. right now let's get the latest on that attack over in london today. police say four people have been

killed including a police officer who actually was guarding the parliament and 40 injured in an attack that began when a driver rammed his car into a crowd near the driver ata police officer outside the parliament and was shot and killed. police say the assailant was said to be motivated by terrorism. matt bradley joins us. does this have anything to it with islam, associated with -- do we see any of that aspect? >> reporter: well, chris, the police have been reticent to actually give any real information on the identity of the attacker. they, of course, they have his dead body in custody. he was killed during the attack, but they don't want to reveal hisit identity now and cautione the media not to get too much into the identity of the attacker before they come out with more official verifiable information but they did say they are treating this has a terrorist attack and believe this is connected to international terrorism. they really do believe this is

an islamist or jihadi attack and investigating it as such. they've been doing that all afternoon. basically as this rolls forward, we're starting to hear more and more from the british government, they want this to be about continuity. the message that theresa may, prime minister delivered to this country, wases we're going to be opening parliament tomorrow morning, going to be proceeding with business as usual and sadek khan, mayor of the city, part of his unofficial slogan for london, london is open, nothing is going to scare us. they're going to continue to do business as usual. chris? >> the phrase, keep calm and carry on. anyway, the lights at eiffel tower in paris are dark tonight in sol dare day with tidarity o attack. thank you nbc's matt bradley over in london. wel we'll be back with the big story today, devin nunes giving the white house a heads up with communications collected at trump tower. plus the hot new story from the associated press detailing new ties between former trump campaign chairman paul manafort and pro-putin russian oligarchs.

"hardball" back after this.

welcome back to "hardball." well, the news today from house intelligence chair devin nunes comes as the top democrat on the committee, congressman adam schiff, says evidence of the trump campaign's link to russia is more than circumstantial. here's schiff late today. >> would you admit -- all you have right now is a circumstantial case? >> actually, no, chuck. i can tell you that the case is more than that, and i can't go into the particulars, but there is more than circumstantial evidence now. so, again, i think -- >> you have seen direct evidence of collusion? >> i don't want to go into specifics, but i will say that there is evidenc that is not circumstantial and is very much worthy of investigations. >> "associated press" reported donald trump's former campaign chair paul manafort secretly worked for a

russian billionaire to advance the interest of russian president vladimir putin. as part of that work, catch this, manafort proposed in a confidential strategy plan as early as june of 2005 that he would influence politics, business dealings and news coverage inside the united states. according to documents obtained by the "associated press" manafort signed a $10 million annual contract with russian oligarch oleg deripaska in 2006 and continued the relationship until at least 2009. most damning is one of manafort's memos to the russian billionaire specifically outlinoutlin outlines how his proposals will, quote, benefit the putin government. the news appears to contradict, i'd say, manafort's denial last july about having no ties to putin or his regime. >> are there any ties between mr. trump, you or your campaign, and putin and his regime? >> no, there are not. that's absurd and, you know, there's no base so it.

>> it's an absurd $10 million. the report also appears to contradict the president's statement just last month that nobody from his campaign including manafort had anything to do with russia. >> i have nothing to do with russia, to the best of my knowledge, no person that i deal with does. now, manafort has totally denied it. he denied it. now, people knew that he was a consultant over in that part of the world for a while but not for russia. >> well, while manafort confirmed he did work for the russian oligarch in question, he told nbc news today, "i did not work for the russian government. once again, smear and innuendo are used to pabtint a false picture." i'm joined by jeff horowitz of the "associated press." thank you for joining us. tell us about this connection between this guynd what's his name a trump? and putin? put them all three together. these three characters. >> sure. so let's start with oleg deripaska and putin. oleg deripaska is a magnate who

survived bloody and contentious wars, lots of fighting, literal fighting in russia to dominate that industry. known to the u.s. government in terms of past diptlomat iic cab, close to putin, travels with him. that's oleg deripaska and putin. in terms of deripaska and m manafort, manafort was hired by deripaska, to represent his interests both inside -- both in a number of former soviet block countries and also to sort of promote chose interests in washington as well. that's coming dreirectly from a contract and memoranda connected to the contract. very explicit. the goal is to help the putin government and help oleg

deripaska's interests. separating those things out in russia is hard to do. >> paul manafort said it did not involve representing russia's political interests. according to the diplomat incables the russian billionaire is among the two or three oligarchs that putin turns to on a regular basis, a more or less permanent fixture in putin's trips abroad. i was struck by the contract proposal from manafort which says aisle quoing say s i'm going to -- what's written -- what's he want from inside washington? >> the focus of the work, sort of where manafort was sort of focusing his efforts, was going to be ukraine, montenegro, it was going to be georgia, uzbekistan, sort of former soviet states. that said, manafort correctly derstood washington's position on politics in those countries matters. and so part of his work for deripaska was going to be

influencing american government and media and think tanks. in fact, hiring people from universities to, you know, sort of represent this case. sort of to get them on the same page as their guys were. >> it sounds like it's the same page as putin. it sounds like, jeff, what they're really doing, and manafort was doing was advancing the cause of putin because why would an average private citizen even a big billionaire care about the neir empire, bringing back the countries they want to have in the russian sphere of influence? that seems like a political ambition, not a business ambition. >> separating out his personal and business from political is hard precisely what you're saying. the memo manafort wrote, a number of them, reflect that by doing good -- by doing sort of good deeds for the putin government, that manaford was goi going to be helping deripaska endear himself to the government

and would be beneficial to oleg deripaska. that was fairly explicit -- >> shouldn't paul have registered as a foreign lobbyist if he's basically fights for the interest of a government in effect? sounds like he's fighting for putin, not deripaska. >> we've definitely run across this issue before with paul manafort in that question. on this sort of stuff there definitely is some stuff that does appear to be seeking to represent the russian government and very definitely involving manafort's work in washington. i should stress we do not know exactly what manafort actually did under this contract. we don't know the full scope of that work. so it's possible that the whole thing veered in a different direction and manafort ultimately didn't do these things. that said, the important thing i think for the context of, you know, sort of the current situation and the focus on russia is donald trump's former campgn chamawas somebody who was actively soliciting, had

the contacts, had the willingness, you know, was basically doing his best to get business representing russian interests covertly. >> i've never seen a lobbyist more effective in my life. said he was going to influence politics and he created a president. i'd say he delivered for the russians. sometimes lobbyists bs their way to the money. this guy looks like he delivered manafort. thank you for the great scoop from the "voesassociated press." i'm joined from moscow. julia, thank you for joining us. i get the sense we're watching a page of history as it sweeps through the united states. what the russians have been up to since the fall of the soviet union, with all this extractive industry, with all the oil money, with all the minerals like aluminum, all this money going to the hands of those selected by the former communist to get the wealth that they're using it around the world to get power and we're just the latest page in that history. what do you think? >> reporter: i don't think there's anything unusual about a country who used to be -- that

used to be a giant empire wanting to be an empire again. and trying to advance its interests. i do want to say about paul manafort, he's a lobbyist. he was a lobbyists for lots of other unsavory foreign governments in the u.s. african dictators, filipino dictators. the problem here is that he then became donald trump's campaign manager and didn't declare these activities, that he didn't register as a foreign agent. and then he lied about it repeatedly and the trump administration lied about it repeatedly. the very fact that he was lobbying for the russian government and russian businessman, albeit a very scary man, is not really all that newsworthy. lots of western companies provide consulting and image management to really unsavory russian actors. the pr agency, catch them, for example, did a lot of work for the putin government when he was the prime minister from 2008 to 2012. from here in russia. trying to improve their image and their standing abroad. and ultimately, what i want

to -- like what jeff said before me, that we don't know where this went, catch them ultimately kind of -- that contract kind of spun out because catch them got really frustrated the putin government was not taking any of their recommendations. in some ways it was just bling, right? it's nice to have a chanel purse or maserati as a car. it's nice, a status symbol to hire a famous western consultant, too. >> okay. do the russian people you talk to think that putin's got his hands around trump? >> reporter: no. you know, this is -- from the russian point of view, i spent a few days here and people think we have lost our minds. they don't understand the hysteria. the manafort story is not really registering here at all. i think people don't believe that the hack happened and if it did happen, they don't believe that there's a link to the kremlin, that the kremlin gave the orders. and they also correctly point out that trump is a phenomenon that is uniquely american and of

an american making and actually in terms of the government, i think people here are trying to keep their heads down and lay low and not to anger the trump administration. to kind of hope that this storm in the u.s. kind of dies down and that once putin and trump meet, there will be some kind of personal chemistry to get them over this hump. >> i guess that's what trump hopes, too. anyway, thank you, julia ioffe in moscow. up next, back to our top story, as president trump says he feels somewhat vindicated about his wiretap claim after a visit from the chairman of the house intelligence committee. isn't that nice? the guy who's supposedly running the investigation and the oversight. well, the "hardball" roundtable will be here next. you're watching it, "hardball," where the action is. ...it's how well you mow fast. woooh! it's not how fast you mow... it's how well you mow fast! it's not how fast you mow... it's how well you mow fast. they're not just words to mow by, they're words to live by. the john deere ztrak z345r

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. welcome back to "hardball." today's surprise announcement by house intelligence committee chair devin nunes did nothing to provide concrete evidence of president trump's factless allegation that president obama wiretapped him at trump tower. tramp tower? hmm. nunes did muddy the waters or provide cover for president trump that he so desperately needed. i don't think he mudded the waters at all. here's what he told cnn. >> it does appear like his name and people, and others ended up into intelligence reports. so, look, you can make what you want of it, but, you know, most people would say that is surveillance. >> well, president trump who

enlisted chairman nunes to serve on his ecutive committee during the transition made an eery prediction last week. >> wiretap covers a lot of different things. i think you're going to find some very interesting items coming to the forefront over the next two weeks. >> adam schiff who's democratic ranking member of the house intelligence committee cast doubt on the impartiality of the investigation and its chairman, himself. >> we could do a tremendous service to the country if we're able to do a credible investigation and at the end of the day provide a report to the american people that has democrats and republicans on the same page. but if you have a chairman who is interacting with the white house and sharing information with the white house when people around the white house are the subject of the investigation, and doing so before sharing it with the committee, it throws a profound doubt over whether that can be done credibly. >> more i'm joined by the roundtable tonight, glenn

thrush, white house correspondent or "the new york times." april ryan, white house correspondent for american urban radio. ken vogel, chief political reporter for politico. let's put it together. the three big stories tonight. let's start with the one that nunes, chair of the house intelligence committee came out and tried to, well, mess up the perception that trump was not, was not under surveillance, when in fact, what he said today has something to do with the trance sigs period, vaguely surveillance, something being picked up incidentally whereas trump's charge of a couple weeks ago in his tweets were very clear. he said president obama wiretapped me at trump tower during the campaign. i don't think a word of that has been challenged effectively. >> well, we've been reporting for weeks and weeks and weeks that, you know, wiretaps may have picked up vary members of trump's campaign at trump tower. and, again, i remember -- i'm old enough to remember when the white house was saying that was an intentful wiretap.

look, the president said -- >> a sick president. at what trump said. >> he said he s sick and he was bad. >> watergate. >> and watergat and he put it directly at president obama. nothing -- i don't remember anything in those tweets about inadvertent surveillance being picked up. so i don't think anything fundamentally has changed. >> why did nunes throw this dust all over this story? >> what else is he going to do? i think schiff realily does raie a question. this guy was on transition, had communication with the white house. we heard through the reporting nunes is going through the hall and talking about this, the white house wants him to stand up on this stuff. i think that's a very valid question that schiff asked. >> it looked like he was marching to the thune of the president. >> yes. and he was marching, indeed. it makes it look tainted. it makes this investigation look very tainted. i talked to both democrats and republic cans and both sides of the aisle are saying what happened to checks and balances? >> yes, good point. >> what happened to checks and

balances? check mate or checkered now? i talked to someone, a former intelligence official from the obama administration, they said, and this is with president trump, they said, you know, he does not look like an innocent man. all of this happening now, it just makes you wonder what is going on and why did this information have to come to the white house today to the president? >> ken, also, it fits such a pattern that april just said, because first of all, manafort was chair of the party and the convention. he was all over interview shows. now he doesn't know the guy. nunes doesn't know anybody. doesn't know who roger stone is. it's almost like the sergeant in "hogan's heroes." why are they hiding from these people -- even the president, we saw him in a clip a moment ago, he said paul manafort's denied any connection. like he's laying it off on him. not's not vouching for the guy. >> they completely hijacked the hearings and seems almost strategic in a way. this hearing was supposed to be about russia's meddling in the

election and possible collusion between the trump team and russia that would have looked at some of these folks like paul manafort -- >> talk about that. let's focus on that then. manafort $10 million a year from russia. >> that contract ended in 2009. >> tentacles, still nonetheless. >> this gets back to the old bill clinton, depends what the definition is. when you ask about relationship, $10 million sticks there. it doesn't go away. >> when he stopped consulting -- >> he can live with $10 million for a while. >> he didn't have to. he immediately went to work for viktor yanukovych. in ukraine. funded by a pro-russian oligarch. that work continued up through 2014 and then he -- after yanukovych fled the country manafort -- >> you say manafort, that's one tentac tentacle. let's say flynn. two tentacles. >> i want to see the visas these guys have. look at these. roll it out. how many times in russia the

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we're back wi the roundtable. glenn, tell me something i don't know. >> well, it turns out that the reason why donald trump doesn't smile very much in all his campaign photographs and all his official photographs is because he wants to look mean. and he wants to look dour and wants to -- >> i heard that today from someone. how did he get that story out? where'd that come from? >> i wrote it. >> somebody's reading your column to me today. >> with my colleague -- >> somebody said he wants to be winston churchill. >> you stole my punch line, man. >> i attribute it to you. >> with my colleague, maggie hagerman. it's true. trump, if you look at the pictures, it's pretty interesting. '80s, '90s, he smiles as a genial billionaire. that all kind of stopped with "the apprentice." >> i know. >> he would go through -- >> hollywood, they look like they're serious -- >> recall the mother of eric

garner, killed in new york, met with a white house official yesterday in order to find out what's going on with her son's case. but now in question, this official from the public liai n liaison's office, called the department of justice, reached into department of justice civil rights division in an active investigation and also called another department. so we have to -- >> it's a federal case, right? >> federal case. >> lucys. the guy gets killed for loosies. >> oleg deripaska at the center of the paul manafort story today, he had a private equity fund that paul man forts was involved in to invest in properties around eastern europe. one of the guys who was a member of that fund, our reporting shows is suspected of having ties to the russian gru. the russian intelligence service. >> so it's all tied together. >> in this case, it does look to be that russian intelligence -- >> thank you, glenn thrush, thank you, april ryan as always, thank you, ken vogel. much more ahead. this is "hardball," where the action is.

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want his name on this bill. well, the president himself is here on the hill today to sell the bill to house republicans. make no mistake, this is trumpcare. welcome back to "hardball." that was chuck schumer giving a new name to the house republican's plan to replace obamacare, trumpcare. but the first legislative test of the president's young administration, a plan to remake the country's health care system is in peril tonight as conservatives in their own party are still defying trump the votes he needs to get the bill through the house which is scheduled to vote on it tomorrow evening. however, nbc news reports the white house is currently in negotiations with the house freedom caucus, that's the tea party people whose members are going to the white house tomorrow. u.s. congressman dan donovan of new york is the latest republican to say he's voting against the health care bill and joins me now. congressman donovan, i notice a pattern of members of congress on the republican side who seem to represent regular districts,

not hot right red hot republican districts, you and peter king and brian fitzpatrick. there's not a lot of you but they seem to have the same question. is that because off lot of democrats in your district? you're not some utah sflaeb how can you explain the fact you guy are off and they're on? >> i think chris one of the issues is i'm a republican that represents an urban area. we care for a lot of people who are poorer, working poor families who depend on government subsidized health r care. i also have a lot of people who have paid astronomical premiums, $20,000, have a $6,000 deductible and don't go to the doctor because they can't afford co-pays or deductible so there's a gamut of people who aren't being helped by the proposal now in urban areas and i guess my colleagues -- i haven't spoke to them, but i guess my colleagues have some of the same issues. >> when you look at a person who has a problem, like i have diabetes, type two, better than the other one.

do you sit down and say, well, this kind of person, this kind of person. can you do it that way. who's going to benefit? can you do it cost plus for each of the programs, what we have now under obamacare, what we have now under trumpcare, can you slice it that narrowly. >> well, there's lots of groups we have to be concerned with. we have to be concerned with our senior citizens. elderly people can be charged three times as much as they're challenging a young healthy person. the proposal before us allows companies to charge up to five times as much. there's reports that seniors who need to fill the gap medicare doesn't cover or who retire earlier or are waiting for medicare to take place need help so there's a large majority of groups of people that need help. i have a disabled community has reached out to me. my hospital system, chris, my four biggest employers in my district, i represent staten island and the southern portion of brooklyn. my four biggest employers are my

hospital systems and they care for a lot of people. they're concerned about my community having health care access and how much money they're going to lose with the new proposal that we'll be voting on tomorrow. >> well, you're taking it seriously. thank you, u.s. congressman dan donovan of new york, part brooklyn, bay ridge and staten island. when we return, let me finish trump watch for tonight, you're watching "hardball." ♪ ♪

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trump watch, wednesday march 22, 2017. what worries donald trump more?

what might happen in north korea or what might be discovered about his deals with russia? what do you think? the evidence supports the latter. trump seems intent on shifting attention from anything that connects him and his people to moscow. those tweets of his that president obama wiretapped him during the 2016 campaign were but the beginnings of trump's deflection campaign. today he lapped up word that a friendly congressman said that trump or some of his people had been picked up in government surveillance during the transition period. this continued campaign of distraction makes sense when you see what the associated press uncovered today. remember those denials by trump and his campaign chairman paul manafort that neither of them had any deals with russia? remember? today the a.p. reported that manafort was deep into russia, $10 million a year deep. that's the yearly fee he was drawing from a close putin associate. $10 million being an awful lot more than nothing. i'll say it again. this russian connection just keeps building and every time it builds and expands you have to

wonder if trump himself isn't worried about what's swirling around under the covers even more than what's happening in pyongyang with that murderous child and his nuclear bombs. and that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. "all in" with chris hayes starts right now. good evening from boston, i'm chris hayes. it's a remarkable day on capitol hill today as the chair of the house intelligence committee in an apparent attempt to cover for the president took actions that have now thrown the multiple investigations into the president's ties to russia into further chaos and prompted this claim from president trump. >> i recently confirmed that on numerous occasions the intelligence community incidentally collected information about u.s. citizens involved in the trump transition. none of this surveillance was related to russia or the investigation of russian