in some ways it is strange to have him put on the agenda. that's been useful in a weird way. i think persuasion is over on this particular issue. thank you both. that's "all in" for this evening. ari melber is in for rachel. >> good evening. at hole for joining us, rachel is still under the weather but we have some big news breaking. so big that we will be hearing from rachel herself. that's in a few moments. it is friday night and the a.p. is reporting the russia probe is widening. special counsel robert mueller including in his inquiry a probe into paul manafort. as for man a fort, his political work has been widely reported. nbc confirming the prosecutors have reviewed his advocacy for pro kremlin forces in ukraine

and that came before he linked up with trump in 2016. manafort's winter secret payments surfaced right before he split with the trump campaign. the a.p. saying that he will review that review of manafort. that's not great news for the white house but it does not automatically undercut their argument that trump has eliminated his ties to manafort and it might have little to do with the core of the campaign for president. the other part of parx report does namechec current new trump officials including the man who just picked mueller for this job. take a look at this tonight. the parx reporting that the special counsel, mueller, may expand his inquiry to include the top two doj officials, jeff sessions and rod rosenstein. they said that now discredited letter recommending that trump

fire james comey for one reason. that comey was allegedly unfair to hillary clinton. which president trump later said was not the real or only reason he fired comey. rosenstein wrote a medical over and both he and sessions discuss that had firing with trump, despite sessions withdrawing him from the russia probe. trump saying that caused the firing but then trump admitted that was not true in an interview with nbc's lester holt. >> did you ask for a recommendation? >> what did i was i was going to fire comey. my decision. it was not -- >> you had made the decision before -- >> i was going to fire comey. there's no good time to do it, by the way. >> in your letter, you said i accepted their recommendation. you had already made the decision. >> i was going to fire him regardless. he made a recommendation. he is highly respected. a very good guy, very smart guy. the democrats like him. the republicans like him. he made a recommendation.

but regardless of recommendation, i was going to fire comey knowing there was no good time to do it. in fact, when i decided to just do it, i said to myself, i said, you know, this russia thing with trump and russia is a made-up story. >> now, that interview, when you listen to it, it did me than just throw the justice department under the bus. it made the justice department vulnerable at least to an allegation that it was part of an effort to mislead the whole nation about the first firing of an fbi director without cause in american history. that's a big deal. and a lot of that is still reverberating, as you know, within days, rosenstein responded to that by appointing mueller as the special counsel and then he gave a very unusual private briefing to that bipartisan gathering of the senate and then he went quiet.

no press releases, no speeches, definitely no fort meade interviews until tonight. rod rosenstein spoke to the media for the first time since it broke up. he spoke about russia and whether the man appointed to run this inquiry has the ability to investigate him, rod rosenstein. here's what he said tonight. i've talked with director mueller about this. he is going to make the appropriate additions and if anything did i winds up being relevant to his investigation, if there's a need for me to recuse, i will. a spokesman for mr. mueller in the article declined to comment. here's why this matters. even if this is to be clear, a hypothetical point. mueller has independence but rosenstein oversees him. rosenstein was involved in th unusual rollout of a law enforcement firing that at least some people think should be investigated as potential obstruction of justice. if mueller goes down that road,

can rosenstein limit his authority? even if he doesn't, how do you really clearly and forthrightly investigate your own boss? well, tonight the news here on the record for the first time in an interview, is rosenstein saying he will get out of the way. he will recuse himself if need be. maybe the russia probe will die down and none of this stuff that they're putting out will be relevant. maybe rosenstein wants a secondary kind of a public reason not to talk about any of this again. by calling up the a.p. on a friday night and putting this on the record, maybe he thinks that allows him to say later, to congress, that this is a matter under potential investigation and he can't discuss it. we've heard those defenses before. or maybe this is the first of many rounds in the shadow boxing over this increasingly sticky probe as mueller makes clear right now that he has a broad mandate. basically daring his boss to disagree. and rosenstein is saying the

right thing before what? before what we know is coming. the big days of testimony on capitol hill. from james comey next week and soon after from sessions and rosenstein. or maybe, i don't know, maybe it's a combination of all those dynamics. afte weeks of blers espiage, anonyms leaks and complaints about those underlying leaks, tonight we have at least one major player speaking out under his own nail in the light of day. joining us now, eric tucker, the justice department reporter for the a.p. who broke this story. thank you for joining tonight. >> thank you for having me. i appreciate it. >> you broke this story. it is significant for many reasons. can you tell us more about how it came together and how it was that rod rosenstein gave you this first on the record interview about this hot topic? >> so actually, rod spoke with a colleague of mine, sadie, and it was a wide reaching conversation about some of his priorities as

the deputy attorney general. and during the course of that conversation he was asked about the scope and the purview of had special counsel mueller's mandate and it was very broad to include anything that he potentially did, anything that the attorney general did, and he said as you indicated a few minutes ago, that if there is anything that rod rosenstein himself did, that it is considered to be relevant to the investigation, he said he'll go ahead and recuse himself. >> eric, that is different than the view of some people inside the trump white house who publicly opposed any special counsel and have certainly taken the position, whatever the russia probe is, it should not go into the firing of james comey. >> right. so when you look at the one page mandate that was issued several weeks ago by the justice department, it clearly gives a fairly sweeping mandate to bob

mueller and i think everybody who knows bob mueller anticipates that he will pull all the relevant strings he wants to. certainly at the focal point of this investigation is potential collusion between moscow and the trump campaign but that also looks at any potential associates of president trump which would include his campaign chairman, paul manafort and could it include allegations of perjury, obstruction of justice, or anything of that sort. >> in this ap interview, did you get into jim comey's coming testimony? >> no. >> let me ask you about the manafort piece of it. for our viewers, a lot of people have tracked trump in different times under review. what does that say to you that this is now under mueller's purview? >> it's interesting. as you noted the manafort

investigation predates the collusion investigation, it is truly operating on a separate track of a criminal financial fraud time investigation. so clearly, as they're building up their team, as they're developing their resources, as they're gathering steam as part of this investigation, they're looking at all these different sort of outstanding threads and trying to figure out what are the potential ties or connections that unite all of them under a single person and a single leadership. in a lot of ways, it is not that surprising. >> when you look toward james comey's expected testimony this thursday, for you, what is the biggest question you would have for him or want to hear from him on? >> i think we'll hear about his encounters with president trump in the weeks and months that predated his firing. one thing that is really important, interesting abo jim comey, he is known to have kept actual memo formal written memos that he would write up with encounters that made him

uncomfortable. and we know that did he this in february after an oval office meeting in which he says president trump asked him if he would consider ending the investigation into michael flynn who was of course president trump's first national security adviser. i think the senate will be very interested in that and i think former director comey from start to finish. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> we turn now to nick ackerman, a former watergate special prosecutor with quite a bit of experience in these kinds of cases which are not the normal kind of case. what jumps out but to this reporting? >> i think it is not surprising. i would have expected the manafort team would be part of this. i would have expected that rod rosenstein would be considered at least a witness in this case. he was part of the whole process that created that pretext for trump to fire comey in the first instance. they used his memo as an excuse

as to why they were firing comey, when in fact, trump later admitted that was not the actual reason for firing him. in fact, it was the russian investigation that he wanted to get rid of. so in a way, they were using rosenstein and using his memo as pretext in oer to fire comey and keep it away from the russian investigation. so j on that basis alone, rod rosenstein is a key witness in this case. >> so when you say rod rosenstein is a witness and mueller's russian investigation, you're saying he is a witness to how president trump fired jim comey and why? >> because it all the resulted in an obstruction of justice. if you look at the entire pattern of what occurred from the time that the trump white house was warned about michael flynn, and the fact that he was subject to bribery and blackmail by the russians, the fact that trump sat on that for 18 days until the press finally put the

heat on him, and then at that point he fires him. the next day he meets with comey and asks comey to back off the investigation and then when comey asks for more resources to put into this investigation, and announces that there is an investigation, before the u.s. senate, what does trump do? he fires him. >> you're a prosecutor. you know if you're going to make a case, you need a statute and you need a target. when you say there's an obstruction case, who is the target? >> the target would be the president of the united states and anybody else that was i volved in that decision to fire jim comey. it would be jared kushner who admitted that he was involved in the decision to fire jim comey. the statute is endeavour to obstruct justice which includes fbi investigations. clearly, the only issue here is what was the president's intent in firing comey. he is basically admitted on

national television to lester holt that he wanted to get rid of the rusaninvestigation. so all of this comes back to the russian investigation, what did the trump campaign have to do with the wikileaks that related to the break-in with the computers at the clinton campaign, and two, to what extent did the campaign, the trump campaign, collude with the russian government with almost to the data mining and the micro targeting of voters in order to suppress the vote hillary clinton, and to increase the vote for donald trump. >> when you were a nixon watergate special prosecutor, when you worked on that team, you couldn't indict a sitting president for this type of crime. when you reference that statute, if mueller is looking at criminal liability, does he have to find someone in your view other than the president?

>> i think his investigation has to include everybody. he has to find out what the facts are. it may be that he'll come up and conclude at the end which appears likely will happen that donald trump was engaged in an obstruction of justice. i don't believe at this point in time he could ask the grand jury to return an indictment on a sit go president. >> legally. >> but that doesn't mean there aren't other coconspirators involved in that decision for the exact same reason, to ditch that fbi investigation. if that's so, those people can be indicted and brought to justice. in the same way that it was double with the watergate investigation, there's no reason why all of these facts relating to the president of the united states can't be turned over to the house and then be part of any kind of impeachment proceeding. if that's where the evidence leads. look, we have not at this point seen the memo that's james comey has written. we don't know exactly wha his

testimony will be. everything we've heard has been secondhand. if you take all of that, what the president himself has admitted, it doesn't paint a pretty picture at this point. >> that's why although the ap was very careful in its wording, that mueller was, reportedly his aides are speaking about what he may do, may include, it is fair to say, if it may include the attorney general, that's a significant deal. as we always note, we have to wait for the evidence to come in. as always, appreciate your coming in. the former assistant u.s. attorney in new york as well as a special prosecutor. >> when all these things do come together, it makes me wonder what rachel maddow would say about this. she joins me next and i'll ask her. we see wonder waiting. every step you take,

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friday night of what seems like extraordinary news from the trump russia inquiry. the robert mueller taking over the grand jury, the lobbying flynn can for turkey without registering as the agent of a foreign government which is required under law. the ap then, would that include the probe, jeff sessions for the role in the firing of the fbi director, if mueller wants to go in that direction. the deputy says there's room to run. the manafort probe predates the whole trump campaign and goes back to 14 with the downfall

of the pro putin president of ukraine who rose to power with the help of manafort. and all that rolled up into the perhaps bottomless portfolio. and we're going to talk to a journal i journalist. as you know, she is also the host of this show, the ultimate dot connector, rachel maddow. how are you? >> hey, you probably can tell from my voice, i am not exactly myself. i am still recovering from this thing. but i am super happy that i am able to be with you guys tonight. and this is, talk about dot connecting, this is a, i feel like this is one of those moments when we've been bushwhacking through the forest for a long time and we just came out into a clearing and we can

see where we are. it is sort of a land mark moment in terms of this investigation, i think. >> when you see that the special counsel is now overseeing the manafort inquiry, what do you think that means? >> you covered it very well, i thought, in the a block, in terms of what we understand about why this came about and what it might mean. whether it is expected or not. i mean, for me, it raises a few different things. first of all, i tnk it raises some factual questions which are knowable things, which eventually we will get answered. it is and really practical stuff. i think it could be consequential. and that is, okay, does this mean then that the resources of that fbi inquiry which we've been talking about on the show since the second week of may, i think that is the first time we talked about this as being related to the trump russia collusion. if the fbi investigation into

the ukraine has been going on for years, it's a big investigation. they have fbi agents stationed in kiev. it is a large scale international fraud investigation. a practical question. does that mean the resources of that investigation and the agents assigned to it now get moved over into mueller's inquiry? they get folded in? it is the same thing with the reports that the mike flynn foreign payments from turkey investigation which has been headed up out of the eastern district of virginia, there are reports that will be taken over by mueller. practical answerable questions. does that mean the investigators and the investigators who have been working on that, including the special the i espionage investigator who has been leading that investigation into flynn in virginia, do all those people get folded into what mueller is doing? how big an investigation? how well resourced an investigation? and what caliber people -- are

you still there? >> i'm here. are you still there? i just heard some dialing. you know, that's live television for you. >> all right. [ dialing sounds ] >>okay. let's hope that's done. >> i hear you. >> okay. so practical consequences as to whether or not those prosecutions, the resources of those other prosecutions and investigations are getting folded in. to a certain degree, the fbi kiev one is a big mature investigation. i think we will get the answers about that. i think one way or another we'll find out if the fbi investigator from the flynn thing is working. we'll find out if those agents in kiev can answer to mueller. i think there are factual questions that it raises that we maybe won't get answers to. from mueller, it says he can investigate trump russia collusion. if he's taking over the flynn

payments, flynn foreign payments investigation, and he is taking over the ukrainian investigation, does that imply that he believes those things are related to the trump campaign? >> that they're linked. the other thing i want to ask you, part political, part legal. there's this refrain that nothing seems to matter in this trump era. or government lies don't matter. but with all of this coming out, i wonder whether you think there is some potential accountability for false statements about russia or jim comey's firing that could haunt this white house. >> yeah. we'll find out. it is now being described matter of factually that mueller is not just looking into the trump campaign collusion. he is looking into obstruction of justice, perjury, intimidating witnesses, that's being stated as a matter of fact by observers here. by people who are familiar with this stuff. but we don't have any

confirmation of that from mueller. so i sor of want to wait on at until i hear it from the horse's mouth. but i think there is one really, really important and so far overlooked consequence of the manafort thing being folded into mueller. that we were first to report that jeff sessions as attorney general was refusing to state whether or not he considered himself to be recused from any matters involving paul manafort. if this in fact is true, and all manafort matters are now being handled by mueller, that takes away the worry that any trump justice department interference might get in the way of the manafort part of this investigation. and that to me seems like a really important advance here. >> that's a great point. because i work here, i happen to know that you are resting up and coming back soon. but while you're out, are you going bonkers not covering all this news this week? >> yes,ari, i will.

i am watching msnbc instead of helping make msnbc coverage. you have been doing an amazing job, as have all the producing staff there. but i am desperate to get back into this. because i keep thinking it will die down and we keep getting these landmark moments. >> i'm amazed at the job they do. i home you get well soon and you're back at this chair and at this desk where you are of course, missed. >> i will be back soon. thank you so much. you're doing an awesome job. >> thank you so much. still ahead, the white house says it is looking into something that could prevent jim comey from giving testimony next week. stay with us. ? -san francisco. -when? -friday. we gotta go. [ tires screech ] any airline. any hotel. any time. go where you want, when you want

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we can never forget what happened in san bruno. that's why we're working every day to make pg&e the safest energy company in the nation. today after a long legal battle, seven of the president's secret tapes were given to the judge. the president's lawyers asked that all or parts of three of the tapes be withheld from the grand jury on grounds of executive privilege. here's more from carl stern. >> after four months of legal squabbling, the presidential tape-recordings were finally delivered today to the chief judge. >> executive privilege. it is what nixon tried to use to stop those infamous tapes you saw on the screen from getting out. it didn't work and we know how the rest of the story went. executive privilege he is a modern right of presidents to

protect certain deliberations of government and to resist requests for staff that reach too far into the president's purview but it is not absolute. you can't typically use to it cover up a crime, like the nixon tapes about watergate and it is back in the news because of the the countdown to thursday when jim comey is supposed to testify. he no longer works for this admistration. that's one reason he's testifying. but washington has been obsessed about wther tmp might follow other presidents and take a broad reading of this privilege to try to limit what comey says. today the white house indicated it is reviewing the option, according to bloomberg news, and in fairness to this white house, it is the job of any decent white house lawyer to review if it is possible for such sensitive testimony and then derrell if it is in the public interest. here's the thing about presidents. they love their executive powers and they push them way past the

breaking point. a privilege for secrets only works for secrets. not for essentially public matters or things you've been tweeting all about. president obama even learned the limits of executive privilege the hard way when a court rejected his attempt to use it for some justice department materials. the judge said that his own officials had already publicized too much of that stuff to then claim it was a secret. and that was if case where the obama officials had disclosed materials in, we could say, a measured way. a contrast to the loud, even chaotic presentation by president trump about his dealings with james comey. president trump himself blabbing about it on twitter, talking it up in tv interviews, even allegedly to the russians in the oval office. that's according to sources in trump's own administration who spoke to the "new york times." so joining us now, a former u.s. attorney. great to have you back with us. >> thanks. glad to be he >> how much does donald trump's

style of public rhetoric affect his potential claims to executive privilege regarding james comey? >> well, he may have doomed any claim of executive privilege on this matter with his public comments. you can't assert privilege if you've already talked about it in the public sphere. we've seen tweets where he said, jim comey better home there are no tapes of our conversation. he told lester holt he was thinking about the russia thing when he fired jim comey. in the very letter he wrote, he said thank you for telling me on three separate interrogations that i'm not the subject of interrogation. so those comments may 25 privilege. >> if the white house were to assert it, how would it go down? this is scenario a little different. usually, you mentioned the obama example, it is the white house that wants to prevent documents or a member of its administration from testifying. here we have, i presume, a willing witness in jim comey who

would like the come forward and tell his story. so if the trump white house were to assert the privilege, it is not clear whether they have the power to do so with a willing witness. this is an area of the law that is not very well developed. because usually when these matters occur, some compromise is worked out. it will be interesting to see whether they can assert with it a willing witness. >> you mentioned come promise with the congress. here's a new letter out tonight, just this hour from democrats in congress saying we write to the white house to remind you, any such as, he of privilege, we urge you in the strongest possible terms to counsel t president accordingly. if you're sting in the white house counsel office srghe room for some effort to go at things the president maybe hasn't already exposed? some narrower versions about national security in russia? >> that might be an effective strategy in this case. another reason that the privilege might not be as

effective here, you mentioned, it is not absolute. there could be a finding that it is in the best interests of justice to have jim comey testify. if i were advising the president, i would try to narrow the areas of testimony. you can talk about these things but not these other things, perhaps. >> and our viewers who watch a lot of this stuff are familiar with watching jim comey bob and we've. he takes certain questions and doesn't take others. in your view, what are the actual doj rules on him when he comes forward? >> i don't think he can talk about the substance of the russia investigation. that is an ongoing pending investigation. he should not talk about that. and also, anything that is classified material, he could not talk about. but his conversations with the president, where he was asked to give his pledge, his loyalty to the president, whether he was asked to drop the investigation, i think those matters are all fair game. >> which was as we were discussing on the show, something which may not come up

in the inquiry. thank you for your time. >> thanks for having me. >> still ahead, we'll hear from michael beschloss on where this special query could go as well as new questions on meetings between jared kushner and a prominent russian banker. itit's how well you mow fast. it's not how fast you mow... ...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,

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wherever you are. when this guy got a flat tire in the middle of the night, so he got home safe. yeah, my dad says our insurance doesn't have that. what?! you can leave worry behind when liberty stands with you™. liberty mutual insurance. to be a nightmare! does nobody like the future? c'mon, the future. he obviously doesn't know intel is helping power autonomous cars and the 5g network they connect to. with this, won't happen in the future. thanks, jim. there's some napkins in the glovebox. okay, but why would i need a napkin? you could have just told me a bump was coming. we know the future. because we're building it. welcome back. one of the reasons the tonight story in the ap is such a big deal is that you have the deputy

attorney general, rod rosenstein, basically speaking out on the record for the first time since jim comey was fired, and then he confirm in conjunction with mueller's investigation the guy he appointed, that the inquiry could expand into attorney general jeff sessions and rosenstein's own rules in that decision to fire former fbi director jim comey. there have been many a question about how wide the scope of this inquiry is. how much rope would mueller be given and whether the deputy ag or congress would at some point reel him in. rosenstein made it pretty clear if wasn't already that mueller is on his own. if that means the deputy attorney general has to step aside and recuse, he'll do it. there's always been a distinction between investigating one i'd of government misconduct version the actual management of an spire presidential administration. think about investigating the watergate burglary versus the

wider investigation of that cover-up. the investigations of the iran contra foreign policy deal versus wider investigations over whether there were deliberate efforts to mislead congress or lie to the american people. so we're no longer talking about the speculations and the what ifs. we're reporting on what is being said right out of doj. and this investigation basically saying, we are looking at certain people and history shows when a special counsel or a prosecutor looks at people, it means something. it doesn't tell us the end but it does tell us we are an important part, perhaps an early chapter of this history. we might be able to benefit from a history lesson. i'm happy to say tonight we have just the guy. nbc presidential historian, michael beschloss. great to see you. >> great to see you, ari. without pre judging anything we know tonight, where this goes, we don't know.

i wonder with historical lens, that's why you're here, what does history say about what has happened when there are wider inquiries into the running of an administration in. >> well, what has happened is if there was an offense, it will likely be found out. that's one reason why richard nixon went after archibald cox. because he expanded his investigation into various abuses of power which in the end included the obstruction of justice for which nixon was driven out of office. so for donald trump to find out if he's finding out tonight, that this investigation is going to go beyond the original focus of it, that's not great news for him. >> so interesting you say that. you're referring to, in the watergate time line, which many observed took so much longer, it appears that both publicly, as you said, within government, the understanding of how tied with scope was, came later. so do you infer anything as a

matter of best practices, or abundance of ution, all the legal mumbo jumbo that comes out of there, that mueller is drawing lessons from history? >> i think that's right. this is sped up. the watergate process took a lot longer. we have at least shadows on the wall of investigations of collusion with the russians and perhaps financial crimes, perhaps obstruction of justice and perhaps some connection among all of those things. to leap from chapter 1 to chapter 16, if and we're a long way from that, but if mueller finds that there is a connection, for instance, between collusion and taking money in some way, and obstruction, that could lead the way that richard nixon led. we're a long way from having evidence of any of this. but the constitution says that the grounds for impeachment are treason and bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanors. >> historically why did so many

presidents shy away from rushing to use the pardon power, even when they were upset about investigations? >> they have shrunk from using the pardon power because it looks terrible and also, it is essentially a confession of guilt. when richard nixon was pardoned by gerald ford, some people said, why didt ford make nixon issue a greater statent of contrition. and nixon said, i think this was not enough, but nixon said by accepting a pardon, i was accepting guilt. >> presidential his historian, michael beschloss. i always appreciate your time. >> and i hope we don't come to seeing a pardon. >> that's one of the questions, a lot of these things involve following norms. one. questions is, what stamina do norms have right now? i don't know. >> that's why we have to hold those in power accountable. >> thank you assal.

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about politics? >> sergey gorkov continues to avoid questions from report betters what he discussed during that secret meeting with jared kushner in december. the meeting now of interest to investigators. this was the second meeting kushner failed to disclose. he met with russian ambassador kis will have a in which he record setting up the secret back hand with the kremlin, even possibly using facilities to do it. the conversations being added up by both sides don't match. the white house saying it was a diplomatic meeting while they said it was a business meeting because of the head of his family's real estate he will pier. either one brings up problems.

it was called a pential secret kremlin back channel, or if it were a business meeting with the ceo of the russian bank, sanctions at a time when he was looking for investors to help pay offdebts. over a billion dollars the kushner's company has borrowed to buy that flagship real estate property, 666 fifth avenue and it must be paid back over the next two years. for month there's is a journalist who has been saying investigators must look at kushner's real estate troubles as at least a potential reason, an avenue of inquiry for why kushner was taking these apparently risky meetings. joining me now is that journalist, tim o'brien. he is the executive editor of bloomberg view. he is the author of "trump nation: the art of being donald" which led him to be sued unsuccessfully at the time by donald trump. thank you for being here. >> it's great to be here, ari. >> given everything that has come out, how you view this all now? >> the 666 fifth?

well, i think it's hanging over the white house now like a specter. it's brought the investigation full force into the oval office. it possibly implicates one of those powerful people in the office, the president's son-in-law. and i think it's added a new element to this. it's moved beyond simply a political collusion investigation. did the kremlin collude with the trump campaign to tip the trump campaign into trump's favor? into was there trading of financial favors possibly in exchange for policy decisions. >> you have reporting on this. this is interesting. when i was thought the primaries covering candidate donald trump, many of his supporters said they loved that he wouldn't owe anyone that he was independently wealthy that he would be different than politicians for sale. >> drain the. >> and drain the swamp. but drn t swamp's policy were saying his ledger and the people he would bring in, he wouldn't owe anyone. your reporting seems to suggest the opposite.

>> well, clearly the reporting is built on the shoulders of a lot of other great reporters. the "new york times," the "washington post" and bloomberg news. but when you connect these dots, you have a property on fifth avenue. it's a skyscrape they're is a jewel in the kushner real estate crown that is staggering under unmanageable debt. and jared kushner begins having talks with chinese financiers in the summer of 2016. and those progressed through the end of 2016 and early 2017 until reporting came out that he may get a favorable deal from the chinese. and the deal i think blew up because of that. during the same time period, he is also meeting with the russians. and he meets with a russian banker during the same period. now we don't me what they discussed. but for some reason, the russian ambassador to the united states decided to broker a meeting between the president's son-in-law and the head of a major russian bank. >> would veb bank be the kind of institution that would put money into the fifth avenue property?

>> well, the bank is very close to the kremlin. it's board of overseers includes dmitry medvedev, the former president of russia. sergey gorkov trained at an espionage school in russia. so it's very closely embedded in the russian government itself. >> so you're saying it might for foreign policy reasons, not for business reasons. >> maybe for both. i think what you're seeing here is a possibility that the russians said we can put some money to work in the united states. and in exchange, get sanctions lifted on both our banking system and the country itself. >> tim o'brien, it is fascinating. a thread to keep pulling . thanks for being here. >> thanks, ari. >> i appreciate it. still ahead, some news on what the white house is doing on domestic policy while a lot of attention has been elsewhere.

>> whose word do you trust more, president trump or fbi director james comey? >> i have never further to add. >> earlier today you said the president should be impeached if the comey memo is true. do you stand by that comment? >> have i nothing further to add. do. >> you think the president may have obstructed justice? >> i have nothing further to add. >> do you still have full confidence in the president? >> have i nothing further to add.

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go where you want, when you want with no blackout dates. [ muffled music coming from club. "blue monday" by new order. cheers. ] [ music and cheers get louder ] the travel rewards credit card from bank of america. it's travel, better connected. you can't let trump and his allies be a diversion. they are a threat. and they have been effective up until now. so twitter is a perfect example. you're going to drive up the numbers. you've got more people chasing rabbits down rabbit holes. you've got all kinds of stuff happening. why? to divert attention. it's the circus, right? it's what a classic authoritarian does. it's not just about influencing your institutions, your values. they want to influence your reality. >> that was hillary clinton this

week criticizing overreactions to donald trump's tweets. and this week's reality did feature some substance to be sure. news on the trump russia inquiries and climate change policy. the trump campaign tonight is now pitching a new chance they say to hold a political rally about it outside the white house. some are calling that a distraction. after all, why do you need a weekend rally for somethg the president already did. but the administration also did another significant thing this week that many have overlooked. it involves your rights and your health care. the context came from that executive order. this was from last month originally, with president trump signing what he called the religious liberty executive order, telling federal agencies to work out a new rule, quote, to address conscience-based objections to the preventative care mandate. that was build as a way to help religious organizations like, say, the little cysters of the poor, who have refused to cover contraception for their employees' health care. now this week reports the administration is about to

finish that rule. right now behind the scenes, it's been pitching it as a way to exempt those religious groups from having to cover contraception. the stated goal being to, quote, respect employers' rights to religious freedom, even when the decisions involve their employees. now a draft of that rule has leaked, and this new rule as interpreted gives away the game. because it gives away the fact that this rule isn't really about employers' rights, whatever you think of that argument. it's actually much broader. it is about preventing access to health care writ large. in this case, obviously, health care for women. the trump administration is writing that they plan to, quote, expand exemptions for religious beliefs, and this is key, moral convictions. moral convictions. that is new broad language that can suggest any employer can now opt out of the federal requirement to cover contraception. here is how one law professor explained it to vox. quote, it's a very, very, very

broad exception for everybody. if you don't want to provide it you don't have to provide it. so any company or organization that you work for could argue under this reading that they have a, quote, moral problem with contraception or moral problem with say you or anyone in your family not getting pregnant. and the trump administration then would be able to let them off the hook for what is a mandate under law currently to cover your contraception. the proposed rule as it reads under this argument could potentially deny contraception to hundreds of thousands of women. of people in this country. of women in this country. quote, the rules will result in some not receiving coverage or payments for contraception. oh, and one more thing. the rule will take effect as soon as it's published in the federal register, which could happen literally any day. in this case, it's not what they say on twitter or in the rose garden. it is about what they do. and that does it for tonight. i also hope you will consider

joining me for a special edition of my show "the point" this sunday at 5:00 p.m. eastern. have i an exclusive with a woman who was editor-in-chief of jared kushner's newspaper. she says he has never had a, quote, realistic view of his own capabilities. and also we have a report on russia with the director of the fbi special agents association. now it is time for "the last word." joy reid is in for lawrence tonight. as we say around the building, rachel says hi. >> it was good to hear from her. i know a lot of people in my twitter timeline and text messages that were very relieved to hear from rachel. we'll be there for your peter principle of the point on sunday night. >> as we say we hear you in the tl. well hear you on the twitter. >> yes you do. >> have a good weekend. >> see you on sunday, ari. thank you very much. surprise, surprise, everyone. vladimir putin and donald trump agree. neither one of them want to blame russia for interfering in the u.s. election. and there is breaking news about the russia investigation that is more bad news for the