there's been desibed as an explosioathe manchester arena, huge concert going on. thanks for watching, i'll see you back here tomorrow night 6:00 p.m. eastern. and "hardball" with chris matthews starts right now. more obstruction, let's play hardball. good evening, i'm chris matthews in washington. we're following developments in manchester, england where police say there have been a number of fatalities and serious incident after a concert. officials tell nbc news there has been an explosion. we'll get the latest on that in a minute. we begin with the shocking news in washington. the washington post reports has two top u.s. officials to deny any evidence of conclusion with the russians starting the 2016

presidential election. trump asked james comey to drop the investigation of his then director of national security michael flynn. according to post, trump made separate appeals to the director of national intelligence daniel coats and admiral urging them to publicly deny the existence of any evidence of collusion during the 2016 election. coats and rogers refused to comply with the request, which they both deemed to be inappropriate according to two former officials who spoke on the officials of anonymity. usa today and koe hes executive producer on show time. give us the story right now as you have it. >> well, you gave a pretty good recap there. on march 20th, fbi director jim comey publicly announced

revealed that the fbi had an investigation going into russian interference in the 2016 election and that included looking at whether there was any potential coordination between trump, trump associates and russian government officials. that evidently so angered, irritated and angered president trump that that week he reached out separately to the nsa director, national security agency director, admirable michael rogers and director of national intelligence daniel coats and in separate conversations asked them each to deny that there was any evidence of collusion. >> and so that -- neither one of those gentlemen thought that was an appropriate request? >> absolutely. they were taken aback, to say the least. it was not appropriate at one former general -- cia general

counsel -- by the president and the nsa director was so concerned about it, his -- senior nsa official wrote up a memo documenting what happened in that conversation, which has now been, you know, oversight committee, i think, on the hill will be very interested in. >> thanks for that reporting. let me bring in heidi on this, this follows a pattern, now. >> absolutely. it's not looking like it was an innocent back rub to james comey. it's looking like a broad influence campaign. he goes to comey, comey says i'm not going to do that. then he goes after the intel chiefs and then who is the third part of this puzzle, intel committee chairs were pressured to go out and say things. >> nunes is one who really got by it.

so this is feeding very heavily into this obstruction argument. we are not lawyers. what we're learning now just publicly what we know, not even the private stuff that muller may be uncovering, publicly starting to play more into this obstruction argument. >> this is a pattern here, pretty strong. the president seems to think that he's running a business operation. he has people working for them and he calls up his employees, fire them when he wants, he thinks. he calls up the head of the fbi, calls up the national security and director of national intelligence, national security agency, it's unbelievable. he calls up everybody he thinks can turn up a spigot. >> in a family business not publicly held. >> it's good jared doesn't have all of these jobs. >> in a family business, the pot calls the shots. you say what gets done. you go make it, so. the u.s. government is not like

that. one of the things we're learning in addition to the fact that there's this now clearer prema fascia case that's being built around obstruction of justice, the obstruction of justice questions are coming into sharp relief as a focus of what director of mueller was going to have to look at. you've also got this incredible revelation day after day of how little donald trump understands about the basic of under pinnings of what the government is suppose to work and what the constitutional limits are under the presidency. he tries to run rough shot over them time and time again and also tends to do another thing what we've seen is pit the intelligence agencies against each other. as someone who spent a lot of december, you'll recall, saying things like the -- comparing the intelligence community to nazis, he has no goodwill there. in addition to the fact they probably wouldn't do it any way. he built up bad will and he's trying to use them against each

other to under mine jim comey. >> these are false statements to say his campaign is under investigation for conclusion. we do know they're under investigation. >> someone in the post piece was quoted wasn't a problem that he asked. it was a problem that he asked them to make false statements. >> he said i'm clean. you've got to make that clear. >> you can't clear them without an investigation. >> go and say that the person who is running the investigation is not running the investigation they claim to be running, which is ridiculous on its face. >> there's another story developing today. this thing he said over there in israel about how he never said -- he never told the russians that he gave that information to me that was actual from israel. trump engaged in now familiar pattern of misdisrecollection. it was another case of the president that no one ever reported. watch how this scene unfolded.

>> thank you, guys. let's move. >> thank you. >> just so you understand, i never mentioned the word or the name israel, never mentioned it through the conversation. so you had another story wrong. i never mentioned the word "israel". >> no one said you did, sir. by denying something he seems to be sticking to the pattern set by his national security adviser. hr mcmaster responded to the news with this nondenial, denial. here he is. >> at no time -- at no time were intelligent sources or methods discuss. the president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known.

>> no one had accused the president of giving away sources or methods ever. this is chicken. this is small stuff. this is the kind of stuff the youngest newest flak in washington learns the trick, which is to deny something that was never said and then you can make it -- by the way, i read the associated press today, it took to the third paragraph last sentence of the third paragraph to finally say, no one ever said this was something that he said it was from the israelis. he gets away with first blush of b.s. >> headline says trump denies -- >> he gets the headline. >> it takes -- the funny part, though, they seem to be confirming israel was the source, which is something up until now no white house official would confirm. it made me think of like when a friend. >> explain how he gave it away. >> he said i did not say israel. i wasn't the one who done it. it's like you're standing with your friend and say, i didn't give the cops here -- i didn't

give the cop your name, i just gave them the address. >> it's like in this direction, doing it very badly. it will get you in more trouble. the reality is, heidi is laughing about. they're up in arms over this. in fact today when he said this, it was the first confirmation of the fact that he had blown israel's cover. he's trying to calm things down and he's inflaming them. >> fuse burning from both ends. one is the cover up stuff, firing and pushing around all the top intel people. the head of -- the fbi, the head of national intelligence, the national security agency, hitting everyone of them up, give me a break and say i'm clean. the other end of it is the constant hanging around with russians, few days ago, always being -- getting it out, his best posse on earth is moscow. >> i try to keep up with this, but it's every day. i think the most significant

development over this weekend to the collusion point or the hanging out with russians point was that it's no longer just flynn and manafort. now we're learning it is a very high up white house official and you talk about who this potentially be name such as tillerson. >> and jared, white house, per se. >> tillerson saying on the record, i don't know what he's talking about. >> did you see this week they showed the white house -- i use to work there. he has the office basically right next to the president. he's like his guy, any way, let's bring in richard senator. it's great to have you on. lawyer from michael flynn said the former national security adviser would not turn over his documents about his ties to russia requested by the intelligence. he's invoking fifth amendment right against self incrimination by holding back his documents. his lawyers said deescalating public frenzy against him. then he said, pleading the fifth

is not something innocent people do, let's watch. >> so there are five people taking the fifth amendment, like you see on the mob, right? you see the mob takes the fifth. if you're innocent, why are you taking the fifth amendment. >> if you're innocent, why are you taking the fifth amendment. michael flynn has turned his tune. he was asking for immunity. during the campaign, he said this about people who seek immunity, let's watch. >> five people around her have been given immunity to, include her former chief of staff, when you are given immunity, that means you've probably committed a crime. it keeps adding to this chain of events. thank you judiciary committee, your former attorney general state of connecticut. let's start with the breaking news tonight, the trump, president of the united states went to the national security agency head, head of national intelligence, we know senator coats, all respected men and said, i want you to clear me of

any russian collusion, what do you make of that? they thought it was improper. >> it is improper. and it adds additional mounting powerful evidence of cover up and obstruction of justice. what's significant. it's cumulative on the issue of intent because donald trump defenders have said, he really didn't mean any harm when he pressured comey. or he didn't mean what he said. but this repeated attempt to stifle investigative work, stop the truth from coming out, eventually becomes evidence of intent. the demanded loyalty from comey, the firing of comey after he refused to shutdown the investigation of flynn, the firing of sally yates after she warns about flynn and then, of course, the boasting to the russians about how he's relieved, he feels no longer any pressure and he's no longer

under investigation and now this latest news, all of it mounting evidence of powerful undeniable dimensions and it goes to the issue of intent. >> do you believe what you just said would be a value to mr. moore. i'm afraid this is going to take a long time. listening to your summation, it's like the summation to the jury, all this evidence is out front. it's p it's prima facie lawyers say. it was a ringing summation, i thought. >> well, there will be no evidence. no doubt the press, and we have the press to thank for uncovering the truth and many of these stories. we'll have more because donald trump seems to be a serial discourager of of the truth. and that may be the result of his habit within private corporation, but what way,

whatever the motive, whatever the practice. it is a pattern and more evidence will be necessary to draw conclusions to bring any charges, we're not there yet and bob mueller will no doubt take this investigation aggressively because he is a professional and he'll draw no conclusions from somebody taking the fifth amendment as former professional prosecutor. i know that when someone claims that right of fifth amendment, self incrimination, it's not necessarily proof of guilt. there will be more evidence amounting to proof that will be elicited by bob mueller. >> let's follow this all the way. he got in trouble for meeting with the foreign minister in a cozy setting. he was with them and while he was with them he shared with them intelligence he had about some sort of terrorist plots in the works and then today, when

he's in tel aviv, he was in jerusalem he said, he didn't -- he didn't tell them he got from the israelis, the whole thing seems to be squirming, the whole thing in crime stories you return, the bad guy returns to the scene of the crime. it's like he keeps going back to the russian connection. i mean, he's leading us back there every day in the stories. what do you make of that as terms of guilty man's behavior? >> i'm trained not to draw inferences from all of the comments that may be made and we need to be careful that we don't reach conclusion before all the evidence is in and if i were arguing this case to a jury, i would want more evidence before bringing charges because the proof on criminal wrongdoing is proof beyond a reasonable doubt. but one point to be made here is michael flynn has no fifth amendment privilege, generally, as to document. if he's going to put that toward

his testimony, i warned about michael flynn back in december when senator asked for his security clearance to be reviewed. and the transition team in the trump campaign was aware of some of these facts, indeed, the vice president, now vice president pence may have been aware. there is circumstance evidence there. so this investigation clearly needs to be pursued aggressively and vigorously. >> i don't want to hold you all night. you know the prosecution requirements to make a case and you also remember the senate and you have the impeachment conviction, of course. it seems to me the points you ma made. he tried to get to drop prosecution and swear loyalty to them in a dictator ship manner. then he went up to the head of the national security agency and

head of the national intelligence, director of national intelligence and all those cases he said, clear me of this case. what more do you need? >> there's more evidence here and if i were making these decisions, which i will not be doing, i would certainly want to continue this investigation and put together more of the mosaic. proof beyond a reasonable doubt which maybe applies to any other proceeding, but certainly a criminal proceeding and i think it's important to reach that based on fact and not surmise. >> i like your summary, sir. thank you very much

blumenth blumenthal. this information trying to get out of trouble. now to other breaking story. police in manchester say there are now at least 20 dead and hundreds injured after the explosion at the manchester arena. witnesses said first reported loud bangs described as explosions after concert by the pob singer ariana grande. you can hear the sound of the blast in footage from dish cam video taken from outside -- dash cam from outside the arena. let's listen. >> kelly joins us now. kelly, what do we know? >> well, chris we first started hearing reports about this about hour and a half ago. this happened toward the end -- at the end of this concert at

the manchester arena. it holds about 20,000 people. witnesses started reporting on social media, these reports of a loud bang. there was a lot of confusion, unclear whether it was -- something innocuous or much more serious. we then received word from manchester police that in fact they were responding to a serious incident at the arena. at this point, we understand a number of confirmed fatalities, that's according to the manchester pd and a number of injured. at this point, chris, they're not giving any exact numbers. they say this is a still very active scene. they've got emergency vehicles at the scene. they have police trying to sort this out. some were told to get out when they heard these sounds. there was a little bit of panic. people were trying to get out as

quickly as possible. some of the injuries may be related to that. but, certainly, when you hear the word fatalities and a number of fatalities that suggest something very serious. we do not know if this was somehow connected to terrorism or some sort of attack, potentially, something accidental. so we're waiting for more information from manchester police at this point. but we are starting to see pictures of people who have been injured, people with bandages on their arms and legs being led out of manchester arena. still a very active story, chris. we're trying to get more details. >> thank you, kelly. law enforcement officials are telling nbc news right now that the preliminary report at the arena in manchester indicate that at least 20 people are dead already and hundreds are injured already and those listings usually grow as the night goes on. we're filing reports from both of those. nbc law enforcement analyst,

jim, what do you make of this from the beginning here. we're right at the beginning of the story. >> well, chris, you know, you're reporting exactly kelly's reports have been spot on. the police have not told us the cause of this loud explosion. there were some reports of smoke, but we could have people injured in an accidental explosion, some kind of event in there with equipment, loud noise, you know, sometimes these concerts use fireworks, so there's reports that there's large balloons there. when you played that on the video, the sound of the explosion, one thing you've got to remember, the stadium is like a bowl and an explosion it's down in the center of that bowl is going to echo throughout that bowl. it's going to sound very loud, whether it's a bomb or not. and that could cause a panic and stampede and trampling injuries and multiple deaths. still could be a bomb. we don't know.

these venues are targets, chris, as we all know. but the jury is not in yet, just staying with the facts this could be accidental, explosion of equipment it could be glass filled balloon. people reacting, the deaths could be from stampede. the police have got to get in. when we go to these bombings, we had a lot of cases where we heard it was a bombing and we got there it was an accidental explosion. people report explosions during fires and it was the roof falling down. these noises are loud. the police are in it. the scene of the explosion. they ought to be able to determine quickly the cause of the blast and it can work back from there. we don't know what the cause is yet, malcolm, you're on the phone. dough have any indication of what this is about. >> jim has hit the nail right on the head. it is far too early to know precisely what's caused this

deaths and injuries at this point. one of the biggest problems that we have in a post attack or post incident is panic and, of course, as you saw just a couple of years ago, thousands of people can lose their lives due to panic and people running and in this concert from the video that we've seen, a lot of people are running and a lot of people are, you know, breathlessly trying to get away from whatever the incident was. so at this point, i think as the news comes in, the british police are normally very, very good at putting out information and, you know, rise this to a level of terrorist attack. that's going to become very apparent as well. stampede is probably going to account for a fair number of these injuries. >> malcolm, how long has it take for a terrorist group to acknowledge its responsibility, normally. is it right away or they wait. >> that depends because isis hasn't had a large scale terrorist attack that, you know, in england the way they've had

in europe. as a matter of fact there were some arrests just recently in the uk, but i would say that it is validated and, again, that's merely speculative within the next 24 hours. >> thank you, malcolm, kelly, any news -- i want to end with you right now. anything further than what you said before. okay. we'll be right back with "hardball." will you be ready when the moment turns romantic? cialis for daily use treats ed and the urinary symptoms of bph.

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welcome back to hardball. if we had not got this story as we went on the air, the president tried to stop or clear himself of investigation into russian collusion. the second like of his first trip abroad. he's continuing his push for peace where he became the first president to visit the western wall, there he is. extremely, how he said for the jewish people. in his press conference, he

expressed for his hope for an eventual deal between the israelis and palestinians, he makes it sound so easy, here it is. >> i thank the prime minister for his commitment for pursuing the peace process. he's working very hard at it. it's not easy. i've heard it's one of the toughest deals of all. but i have the feeling that we're going to get there eventually, i hope. >> well this follows stop this weekend in saudi arabia where he signed $110 million arm steel and called upon all religious leaders to drive out extremist. >> drive out the extremist. drive them out. drive them out of your places of worship. drive them out of your communities. drive them out of your holy land and drive them out of this earth. >> well, president trump moderated his rhetoric on islam.

he broke with his predecessor when it came to promoting human rights saying he did not come to lecture the saw dee peopludi pe. i promise that america will not seek to impose our way of life on others. we are not here to lecture. we're not here to tell other people how to live, what to do, who to be or how to worship, instead, we are here to offer partnership based on shared interest and values. >> well, the first stop, also produced some striking pictures, including a traditional's sword dance glowing ore. this is fascinating why they picked up social media. any way after. they were quick to point out he had criticized former president obama for vowing to greet the king during his visit to the

country. . i've known you forever. let me ask you about peace. you're a moderate guy and democrat. if you were in trump's brain right now, i know, in all the other stuff going on wrong in his life right now and people pursuit of him what he's done whatever with the russians during the campaign. what is he trying to do in the middle east? can you tell what's in his head? >> i think he sees this as a commercial guy. it's a deal. he's doing to make a deal. he's going to tell everybody exactly what they want to do, hoping to win their trust and somehow get them to close the deal. i don't think that's going to work here, i was thinking as i listened to him speak, thinking what would his base at home think about that because he was closing to win the deal with him. i thought daniel who i knew who taught me, always tell an audience what they need to hear. never tell them what they want

to hear. he tells everybody what they want to hear and sets expectations way too high and when they conflict, i don't know how he's going to unravel it. i just don't. bring it to cold war rather than hot war by deal with nuclear weapons. this president seems to be saying let's have all the arab governments unit against iran and somehow bring israel into the deal with him. it's pretty grand idea. >> i'm trying to figure out how jim gets into trump's brain. >> you have to get in there to figure out this thing. >> trump is going over trying to create this deal and all deals, the greatest deal we're going to see. >> $110 billion in arm sales. everything he says isn't going to work or has no relevance, what are all these armed sales going to do. he wants to -- lcs sold to the

saudis how is that going to help. >> why do they want that particular weapon? >> this has to do with state on state issues. let's get to the iran issue. what i think they were able to do, regardless of what one said of the deal over nuclear production, is drive the iranian moderates to the left of it. we need to shake iranian politics so they're willing to engage and work with us. what we don't want to do is go back to 2001 and 2002 -- >> you have hope? >> if trump does what's necessary, what he did the other day by trying to alienate them. he wants to keep hatred against iran.

i don't understand. >> if there was a strategy here i could unravel it. he's a used car salesman selling cars to everybody who comes into the lot not thinking about what actually is going to work and how to actually to close the deal. >> he wants him to have four years that go and nothing happens and he continues to build settlements, continues to expand in the territory and nothing happens and so he's playing him like trump is playing him -- i think he's the playing of the year. he's the great maneuverer and trump is going to get screwed. . they're going to have expectations set, expectations collapse and they're going to continue to be suffering under occupation. think about syria for a moment, we're cozying up with the russians who are the allies who

are giving arms to giving arms to the curds who are hated by the turks we haven't given consideration to how that's going to play out. >> but this guy may be wasting his time on this trip or doing worse. >> you know, let's take a look at trump the businessman. he's transactional. why is -- i'll give him a little bit of credit. he's established some rapport with the saudi leadership. there are all sorts of reasons i believe that's the case, he's established something, i agree with jim, i don't agree he can bring this pressure to bear. >> i'm going to put the u.s. embassy in jerusalem. the people that paid attention is over 50 years have noticed both parties if you do that blows everything up over there.

all that belongs to jerusalem, not a piece of it, all of it. and you're never going to get it back. it's a scarey predictment. >> that is why you can't take it to the wall with them. which is why -- his favorable rating and israel is plummeting right now. >> he reneged on that deal. >> reneged and actually begun to speak about settlements which he has to. i don't think this is a guy who can deliver. in order to deliver piece, he's going to have to put pressure which is going to run him into conflict with congress and he's on a short leash. >> and the religious right and christian community, they're very -- very right wing on israel. >> and the people, as i said, who suffer other palestinians, at the end of the day, they're going to be ignored in this whole situation and they are hoping he's doing to deliver, but he can't. >> you know it's screwing and -- i've been there. you've been there a lot more than i have. when you go over there to palestinian territories, they

should be punished by the people over there. i think they've got to act. you have these business guys, regular guys like us, just regular people. they're peaceful. they are being bothered every day of their life. they have to sit there with some israeli soldier pointing their gun at them. once they're called they're going to blow, they're going to say no more negotiation, one state solution, we're not going to go for it any more. >> frankly i think that's where we are right now and what hs doing digging that hole very deep. at the end of the day, i do not see a way to pull these people apart and demand for equal rights -- it's going to become the demand. >> i think people get bullied for so long. . we don't know what the explosion was caused by and ariana concert over there. we'll get the latest developments when we come back here on "hardball.

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and always working to be better. we're following two breaking stories tonight. law enforcement officials tell nbc news at least 20 dead already and hundreds of have been injured in that arena. we still do not know the cause of those explosions. also tonight, they're confirming that report in the washington post which will be in the paper tomorrow that president trump asked the national intelligence

director and the director of the national security agency to push back publicly, to clear him on the item that trump campaign was colluding with russia during the campaign. that is a huge story. nbc joins us now with more. ken, that story is so powerful because as senator blumenthal pointed out, that establishes motive that he was trooping around to all the top people that can clear him trying to get him to clear them on the russian connection. >> that's exactly how it sounds, chris. i'll tell you that my source on this, former senior intelligence official knowledgeable about the situation, did not describe it in such terms. they were asked to do something inappropriate, though, they were concerned enough that one of them wrote a memo and they both talked and shared notes about their concern about this request. but they weren't asked to say anything they didn't think was true. it just seemed like donald trump's idea is that, obviously, there's no collusion, why can't

we say there's no collusion, tell what you know. and these heads of these intelligence agencies, first of all, don't want to wade into this political debate. secondly, they can't discuss what they've seen in a classified setting. lastly it's not appropriate for them to make statements like that in the middle of an fbi investigation and multiple congressional investigations, chris. >> wasn't trump the one that complained about comey clearing hillary back in july of last year. >> of course, there is some inconsistency that's what i'm saying. >> i agree with you. certainly it coupled with other behavior, you know, this report that he asked jim comey to drop the mike flynn investigation and these other memos that james comey wrote about their interactions and the concern that comey was expressing about inappropriate interactions. it's all of a piece and it's dribbling out. both of these men are on the hill tomorrow. so, of course, they -- unless those are cancelled, they'll be

asked about this matter and they'll be asked to testify under oath, presumably, chris. >> how did this story get out? am i not allowed to ask that question. they both these top guys headed the national intelligence agency, the overall, you know, coverage at all cia defense intelligence everything and this other guy head of the nsa mike rogers, both guys now acknowledge and you've confirmed this story, the president of the united states came to them and said, clear me. that's an amazing -- this was -- if we had not been talking about this story for the last several weeks, this will be an amazing story. the president of the united states top spooks if you will in the country to clear him of a matter involving intelligence. >> it's unbelievable, the reason it came out i think they were concerned that they talked to a lot of people about it, including people outside the government, inside the government. you know, this just violates a norm of washington, that's what you're expressing, it may not be

illegal, it's not appropriate, it's now how you're suppose to do business. and i think the leaks are a message -- they're trying to send a message to donald trump to cut it out. it's not appropriate. >> i remember a couple of weeks ago hearing about president obama, seems like a thousand years ago, he's so different. president obama told comey at one point this is the last time we'll be together alone. he didn't want to have any questions about his conversations that will be disputable. trump wants in the room. it's not funny. it's hihilarious. i want to get reaction now from msnbc politico analyst, ron reagan. i don't know we were going to have a little more fun tonight about this crazy name calling. this is much more important than name calling, you know, calling people what's his name or what moniker he throws at somebody. he's now getting this information as we're getting it. this is a lot of stuff

indicating obstruction of justice. although it was criminal and cost him his office was have the cia we're into this case, fbi get out of it. this is now four points of contact with the president saying, set me loose, free me. >> it's true. i think we make a mistake, by the way, listening to the discussion you just had. i think we would all make a mistake if we frame this in terms of a narrow issue of collusion between the trump campaign, maybe even donald trump himself and the russians over the hacking. that sort of collusion was not necessary for the russians to do what they did, but it's interesting to know that the fbi investigation seems to be broadening in scope. they're looking at financial crimes now, we're hearing. these investigations tend to go where the facts lead and i think that they're looking at things that are much much more than collusion. the fact that donald trump is doing this, behaving in such a wildly inappropriate, if not down right illegal way, you

know, i don't know what more, you know, what better indication there is that something is there, something is there that he very much doesn't want people to know about. >> how do you think we are as a country right now as this president? >> i think we're in a state of crisis. you know, we have the russian collusion, the russian, you know, tapping into the -- our democratic systems is a serious problem. we've sort of got a handle on that we know what happened there and we know who did it. the other part, the linked part of that process is donald trump himself. this is a dangerously, emotionally and mentally unstable individual here who is wholly ignorant about how you, you know, perform as president of the united states. and i think -- i've been watching from abroad from the last month here, i just got home a couple of days ago. i think i've sensed a change in the coverage now. i think people are finally starting to come to grips, as we must come to grips with the

notion that we have a dangerous individual in the oval office, who was a national security threat and he needs to be removed from office. that's easy to say. but he needs -- he's unfit and he needs to be removed. >> ron, when your dad was president, we had an ideological fight. you're a part of it and everybody was comfortable with that because your father was a conservative. he had written for years about a point of view. he served the government for eight years, quite competent to do the job. the one thing sad thing i hate, it's a left wing versus right wing, i don't think that's what it is. i think that's what we're missing. it's not progressives against the conservative president. this is not ted cruz. this is something different and i wish the republicans on the moderate right and -- the moderate and sen tryst right would say he's our problem, too. why are they not talking? >> listen, chris, when the history books are written about this period, and they will be,

there are only going to be two sides. there are going to be patriots and there are going to be partisans, there are going to be true americans and people who are engaged in behavior, i would throw donald trump in this category, engage in the behavior that can be described as treasonable. it's not treason legal in the technical sense. they are taking russia's side over the united states of america. russia attacked us. what was he doing meeting and bragging about anything. he looked like some kid, new kid in school and sucking up to, you know -- >> we don't have enough of you, sir, please come on again, quickly. now back to the breaking news from manchester, england. they're confirming multiple fataliti fatalities. kelly is with us from london. kelly, what's new, what do you got? >> well, we're still hearing

these reports, we're not sure if this was an explosion or had something to do with a bomb or attack or something accidental that might have happened at this arena. all of this starting at about 10:30 local time. reports of a loud explosion. people rushing for the exits. this would have been a packed concert. some 21,000 capacity arena. some of the eyewitnesss say that they saw people who were just really struggling to get out there. possible injuries from people just trying to exit the arena, but at this point, we do understand from multiple law enforcement forces that as many as 20 may be dead and possibly scores injured, just really, huge numbers, chris. and it makes you wonder what exactly was the cause of this. there are lots of different reports on social media, a lot of it very difficult to confirm at this point.

people talking about hearing an explosion, not sure if it was sound equipment, if it was something else inside the arena. there is this dash cam video out there right now that shows a very bright light flash and you can hear a bang, which would suggest, once again, this was some sort of explosion. >> kelly, let's go to now. >> let's go to that dash cam video right now. >> kelly, we just heard two explosions a couple of seconds apart there, pretty loud. do we know -- we're relying here on cell phone footage. do we know if there are people still in the arena in manchester arena right now? >> well, it's not clear.

again, this happened about hour and a half ago, almost two hours ago now. people were evacuating fairly quickly. they were talking to the media fairly quickly after it happened, about a half hour after it happened phoning in to different local media stations here in the uk talking about what they had seen. there are a number of emergency vehicles there. we understand that everyone was told to get out of the arena. police are trying to put up a cordon around it. this is right in the heart of the city. the uk's second largest city behind london. in fact, this arena sits atop a main train station, victoria station in manchester. very active area. we haven't gotten a report of the transit system being effected but it would stand to reason there would be some sort of effect because of all of that police activity around the arena and trying to figure out exactly what went wrong. we are starting to see pictures,

as well, chris of some or the concert goers with torn jeans, with bandages around their knees being helped out by first responders. one eyewitness talked about seeing someone with a cut and bloodied face as he was trying to get out of the arena suggesting, perhaps, some of the people who he saw trying to get may have been injured just in the evacuation of the arena. but this happened right at the end of the concert. it's not clear if ariana grande had stopped singing and people were milling about and about to go out or if it was towards the end of the song. we understand, you know, this was toward the end any way, so people may have been making their way towards the exits when this explosion happened. we have had a statement from arana grande's people, the singer said to be fine and focusing all attention back on emergency services and those who have been injured.

>> we're watching these -- pictures of people. racing out of the arena. tell us what's going on there. >> well, i study at the boarding school, we heard everything that was going on but didn't see that much. >> are the people out of there by now? >> as far as i know everyone has been evacuated. >> it's entirely evacuated now. did you hear the exploexs? >> yeah, i was in my dorms in the boarding house and there was a really loud bang and we heard screams and lots of sirens. >> is there any smoke in the air or any indication of a fire? >> it doesn't seem to be, but it's quite dark out so it's quite hard to tell. >> right. thank you for this. anything else you noticed about the event you've been witnessing? >> there's a lot of emergency services in the area from my bedroom window i can see at

least four policeman, the way i look out towards the arena. you might be able to hear in the background there are a lot of helicopters and sirens going on. >> thank you so much for that eyewitness report. joining us right now is sean henry, assistant director and msnbc contributor. give us a sense of what we can know now, this is a breaking story only an hour or so old. >> this is clearly developing and there's going to be a lot of investigation here. i think at this point there are a lot of people i've heard speculating that this may be a terrorist incident. we know terrorist are looking at these soft targets, these large venues with many different folks that are attending these types of events. although, you know, we're really not clear at this point. this could be some type of tech nick explosion, it could be

industrial act. first responders that are coming to the scene, they'll be looking for signs, certainly first response is going to be about helping the -- attend to the injured and to do rescue and assist people from a medical perspective, but there will be law enforcement there. they'll be looking for if there are signs that this may be terrorist related, explosive ied. they'll be looking to do interview people who may have seen something or what they heard. so this little unravel over the coming hours here, but certainly the default from a law enforcement perspective will be to look for secondary devices or indicating that this might be terrorist event and something that subsequently occurred. as we've seen in europe over the last year, there have been multiple attack that is have spread out over the course over a couple of hours. >> how good of detectives, do

they pick up a pipe bomb. can you bring into a stadium like that, a bomb, can you bring one in? >> you know, every venue has different security measures in place. some things won't allow you to bring anything in, coolers or anything of that nature. other venues are less restrictive, people can bring in backpacks. i'm not familiar with this particular venue. on the heels of what we've seen here throughout europe in brussels an paris over the last year or so, i know the security measures have been much higher. they've looked to move the perimeter farther out. each venue is going to be a little bit different. but you also have to think, if you're considering a terrorist event, again, this is very very speculative because this is so early on, but if you're thinking about something like that, what investigators are looking for is something that might have been placed there hours or days even

before the venue took place if in fact that was the case, not necessarily somebody coming in, but somebody who might have been there as an insider, again, very speculative this is going to unravel over the next few hours and into tomorrow as investigators try to uncover exactly what happened here. >> we want to get word now -- we're getting word from officials as to -- let's bring in, as i said, msnbc cory on the phone. law enforcement analyst jim again. do you have something that you can see happening here? >> well, as of now the situation obviously is very fluid. we still have no details whether this incident was ever connected to terrorist attack or acting on behalf of. the source of explosion, it's still unclear. investigators will likely be looking at every single possible scenario, everything from potential bomb residue, all the

way to potentially can vancing cameras and obviously looking at any potential suspect who might have been in the area. but, again, the source of explosion remains unknown, what kind of bang it was, individuals -- this could have been a gas pipe explosion for all we know. until we get those details in the next few hours, everything is pretty much speculative as sean indicated earlier. >> there was no warnings, no threats ahead of time? >> well, there has been a lot of threats made to the west, i mean, we know al qaeda have made recent threats and actually called on the type individuals to attack in the homeland, whether this was in any capacity of any way related to that is still unknown, but what we know is that there certainly has been calls to do so. but, again, as long as we don't know the source of explosion, what exactly actually transpired

at the venue towards the end. we know that, you know, jihadist have not released any sort of detail regarding what happened. chatter remains online what types, but anything else is just unclear. >> we're hearing that authorities over in britain, multiple authorities suspect it was a suicide bomber, so-called, someone who went in there to blow themselves up and kill people around them. >> well, if this is, indeed, a suicide bomber, then the likelihood is that, you know, this is a terrorist attack, i mean -- >> obviously, by definition, sure. >> this would be a major indication that this individual might either be connected directly to the terror group or inpyred by them, but -- this is

still unconfirmed, i will wait for the rest of the details that this was indeed a terrorist attack or suicide bomber, rather, and then try to connect the dots with who this individual is, who he communicated with. is this a loan wolf. >> thank you, sir, for your reporting on timely manner. we're going to continue to cover the breaking news from manchester, our coverage continues on "all in" with chris hayes. >> good evening. we're following two big breaking stories tonight, one at home and one abroad. here at home, yet another blockbuster report on efforts by the president of the united states to interfere with the federal law enforcement investigation into his campaign. we'll bring you the details in a moment. but first, the breaking news abroad at this hour, reports of an explosion and mass casualties at a concert in manchester england. let's go to nbc live from