justify their actions. >> i, too, am angry and furious as are so many muslims around the world. while no one asked me to say it, i will, these culprits are not acting in the name of any faith of which i'm a member. thank you for watching. "deadline white house with nicolle wallace" starts right now. hi, everyone, it's 4:00. if you're alarmed by what you saw from president trump on twitter over the last 24 hours, then buckle up. the white house today doubling down on the president's harsh words and misrepresentation of the language used by the london mayor in the hours after terrorist attacks on his city. and the white house comes full circle on the travel ban saying it is, indeed, a ban. and despite the fact that its only legal road blocks, the president maintains it's necessary for our national security. >> look, i don't think the president cares what you call it, whether you call it a ban, whether you call it a restriction. he cares that we call it

national security and that we take steps to protect the people of this country. it's real simple. everybody wants to get into the labels and the semantics of it but the bottom line is he's trying to protect the citizens of this country, the danger is extremely clear. the law is very clear. and the need for this executive order is very clear. and the president's priority in protecting the people is very clear. full stop. >> so she says tomato, i say tomato. also comey is free to speak. the white house announcing that the president will not invoke executive privilege. clearing the way for jim comey to testify thursday before the senate intelligence committee. we'll get to all these headlines with our outstanding group of reporters and panelists starting with "the new york times'" chief white house correspondent we just ripped away from his keyboard, peter baker. at the white house white house, "washington post" reporter ashley parker. peter, since you're truly on deadline, want to get back to what you're working on, talk to me about the piece you wrote over the weekend, it brought me back to my times at the white house where you never harkined for a day when you lived through a terrorist attack but in normal

white houses you wait for all the facts to come in. that's not what we saw on twitter from this president and no apologies from the white house podium today. >> no, it's interesting, you right, when the terrorist attack happens the ushl usual response from the president is resolve in the face of the threat. you saw some of that from president trump over the weekend when london faced the latest attack but very quickly pivoted, actually even from the start, into, you know, making political points about his travel ban, and as you said, to go on the attack against the mayor of london. you know, republicans, democrats alike, found that somewhat perpl perplexing. he mischaracterized what the mayor of london said. you could have said, okay, maybe he was misinformed, maybe he saw a random tweet that didn't fully give the context of what the mayor said. once everybody reported it out of, of course, 24 hours later, he certainly knows how the full context of what the mayor said and doubled down by calling it a pathetic attempt by the mayor to

explain his words. so, no apology. no reversal. just straight ahead. >> and i know you're working on another piece, because today at the podium as you said, once it was -- this is, again, where they're so outside the realm of what is normal, when you misspeak, everybody misspeaks. this white house isn't capable of ever saying, oh, he misconstrued the remark. what the mayor of london said is he didn't want people to feel alarmed by seeing armed policemen in their streets. they wanted them to understand this was part of the reaction. and sarah huckabee sanders refused to sort of concede any deeper understanding when pressed by john carl. what is this -- you know, moving forward, this seems to make perfectly clear that we're not going to see a president that hues any closer to facts. he's not going to let any facts get in his way. >> no, that's right. he doesn't -- he doesn't back down. once he's set on something, he's going to stick to it and everybody else must be wrong. he said in his tweet this morning that, you know, the msm, that's the mainstream media, was trying to, you know, spin it in

effect. it's not spin. if you read the quote, read what the mayor of london said, if you watch what he said on television, as i did, i'm sure other reporters did, it's very clear he's not taking terrorism softly. he's definitely responding to this in a visceral way. he says these are cowardly people, says we're not going to cower in front of them. it was barbaric. and as you said, he said don't be alarmed you're going to see more police in the streets, this is what we need to do to protect ourselves. that's not a mayor who's trying to say don't be alarmed by terrorism. that's what the president decided to stick with. >> ashley parker, i was told by someone who spent some time with the president over the last 72 hours that he's very nostalgic for his campaign self and his campaign life and his campaign road warrior buddies and that the tweeting is part of his way to bring himself back to the freedom he felt, but now he's our country's commander in chief. any word on the how unsuccessful attempts have been from this white house staff to rein him in or curb him from twitter? >> reporter: well, i think if

you just look over these past 24, 48 hours, all attempts to rein him in and curb him have been incredibly unsuccessful and i know from talking to people in the west wing in the white house, that this is something that they are desperate to do. they want to control how much he tweets, if they could some of them wiould sort of take away hs twitter feed all together. he's been warned particularly when it comes to the russia stuff, the fbi probe, that these tweets may cause more legal headaches for him and could have really adverse consequences. but you're right, this is something he likes to do. he's impulsive. he can sort of be rash. we off see he's watching morning television and tweets in response to something he sees that anger hims or excites him. and so far, his aides haven't found a good system. >> ashley, you raised the legal consequences. there's a piece, i think, in your paper today, about how four of his own tweets present four legal obstacles for him if he ever wants to see this travel ban that he brought up in the minutes after the terror attack

become law. he's making his own policies more difficult to get through the courts by tweeting about them. >> reporter: that's exactly right. and i think when this does go before the supreme court, you're going to see some of the president's own words used against him. i mean, one of the cases his lawyers have made is basically the judges at each place where they've appealed should disregard what the president said on the campaign trail, that was just campaign rhetoric, it's very different now that he's president. now that he is president, he's tweeting some of the exact same stuff. he's calling it a travel ban. you played sarah huckabee sanders saying semantics don't matter, but in this case semantics really do matter. his aides, if you remember a couple months ago, they went out of their way to stand at the podium to say this is not a travel ban, that is a wrong word. you had the president in a tweet, i believe in all capital l letters, calling it a travel ban. that complicates the job he wants to and his aides want to do on his behalf. >> peter, back to the substance of the tweets, he doesn't spare

anyone. he's obviously exasperated by his own department of justice. i'm hearing that frustration,s what we see in public is just the tip of the iceberg. >> i think that's right. you would have -- by reading these tweets, you would think he had nothing to do with any of these decisions. he said why, in effect, the justice department decide to water down this executive order? they should have stuck with the original. wait a second, he's the one who signed the revised executive order, nobody out. as he's pointed out many, many times, nobody forces donald trump to do something he doesn't want to do. he acts as if the justice department isn't part of his own administration which i think does, as you say, reveal certain frustration going on on. remember, this is the justice department who gave him a special counsel on the russia investigation, so there's a real fraught history there. ashl ashley's right about the legal consequences here. i mean, he's -- as you mentioned, the four, you know, tweets undercut the argument for his own travel ban. who says that? that's not the opinion of liberal mainstream media but of a very conservative lawyer until

last week was president trump's choice for assistant attorney general for the civil division and by way, the husband of kellyanne conway, his white house counselor. he tweeted today that the president's tweets are making it very difficult for the administration's own lawyers to make this travel ban pass legal muster. >> we have that tweet up on the screen. ashley, he me alet me ask you a that. kellyanne conway has been noticely more vnotice more visual. she was out on the "today" show again berating the media, donald trump's favorite thing to see his aides do. we saw that on full display in today's briefing. any word from the white house in response to kellyanne conway's husband's tweet about how donald trump is making it difficult to get five supreme court justices to side with him? >> reporter: i -- not specifically, i mean, you did see there was that original tweet then he sort of went on a more strained version of the trump tweet storke where m, i d support this president, deeply

support his policies, i deeply support his agenda, i deeply support my wife. the reason i'm saying this is because what the president is doing is undercutting his own agenda, so kellyanne conway's husband sort of pitch or the way he couched it was he was sort of speaking from love and maybe a little bit in disappointment. >> tough love. >> tough love. but i have to say, who knows what the president's reaction to that will be, but the president does not like to be criticized publicly, although sometimes the best way to get to him as his aides and maybe some of their partners and spouses have learned is on television or through twitter. >> that's all very, very complicated. the ties that bind. all right, you two, get back to your key boards. thank withdryou for sparing tim me. joining my panel, donny abramso. harold ford jr. and one of the people who i search on twitter for all of the things that you tweeted to make sure i haven't missed anything. you've been one of the --

>> that's a lot of pressure. >> yeah, it's a lot of pressure because you better be as good on tv as you are on twitter. all right. i want to read you guys something from the weekend. from the "a.p." of all unbiased sources. no offense. all right. "president donald trump can't be counted on to give accurate information to americans when violent acts are unfolding abroad." i read that ten times. is that where we are? >> scary as that is, it seem to be. you know, it's interesting, his little tweets -- i want to come up a new word because he drops these turds. now we're going to call them twurds. then he talked about we need to keep people safe with a travel ban where factually that's completely wrong. 13 jihadists who lethally killed people in this country since the/11, not one of them is from outside. they were all citizens or permanent residents. 80% of the 4 00 jihadists involved in terrorist acts, 80% fall in that category.

he gets his facts wrong then he politicizes in terms of gun control, the travel ban. finally steps all over himself with that absurd fake tweet about the mayor of london. it is just -- and to make things even more pathetic, his minions come out and say we shouldn't really pay attention to his twurds. >> sarah huckabee sanders fielded a question whether she was or was not sean spicer's replacement. she's on the kellyanne conway vain as asserting reality as trump sees it. >> it's unfortunate. she really couldn't answer. when she couldn't answer, she said, look, you know what he means. i don't recall a president or leader of any country, the sp e spokesperson said, you know the president, what he might have meant. to add insult to injury, i was here two weeks ago when we were talking about the trip to saudi arabia and europe. theresa may just faced trying to

manage the bombing in manches r manchester, the president spoke down to her. here we are a week and a half later, dealing with the seem kind of president, same kind of responses. this idea of the travel ban, whatever it is, i get some of this. there's no doubt, there's a group of young men in this country, otherparts of the worl where they're being trained -- we should travel them more closely. this travel ban, it's unclear, whatever they want to call it, i think it's a travel ban, it's clear that's not going to impact any serious way the kind of efforts that the new york police debarment or police departments around the country to work. if you want to help them and target people, target pem who fit the profile of those committing these awful and heinous and horrific acts around our country and around the globe. >> one of the more notable moments in the primary, when lindsey graham was in it, looked to the camera, apologized to every muslim american who fought and died on behalf of this country. where are the republicans when the leader of the republican

party is calling for a policy that really has no potential to stem the kind of -- the last three terrorist attacks in this country, if i'm correct, were carried out by people radicalized on the internet, youtube. where is the republican party who used to be strong and clear eyed about terrorism? >> they're certainly afraid of a little bit of blow-back from their own voters. it's understandable. >> held hostage by the tweeter in chief? >> they're holding themselves hostage. it's not as though donald trump has a gun to their said and says you have to follow me lock step. there's no incentive to do that beyond the fact they could face a primary challenge at home. >> that's what they're worried about. >> precisely. >> they're worried about donald trump's base which i have to say the base loves a cycle where he impulsively tweets, we attack. >> freak out. >> and, you know, makes them, you know, love him all the more. >> but you know what, it should be said that when the president assumes and he did this during the campaign trail, too, when he

assumes there's an act of radical islamic violence going on, nine times out of ten he's correct. one of the occasions in which he was wrong, turned out to contradict the government of the philippines, we can argue whether or not it's good to contradict rodrigo duterte's government. that's one of the very few times he turned out to be incorrect. while it's cliche to say that, the base appreciates the fact he's not waiting for the facts -- >> i'm sorry. >> you know, beyond facts or not, i'm going to quote my tribe, there's a term called sekle. when a terrorist attack happens, the first thing that a human being does is our hearts go out. we hope everything's okay. >> right. >> that's just what humans do. we doesn't have humanity inside of him. so forget whether he's right or wrong, to ichldly immediately not feel -- >> the first thing a leader does is get the facts. i mean, so let's -- let's take off points for humanity. let's also take off points for -- i mean, you've been in congress. the first thing that a leader does is gather the facts.

i mean, why are republicans tolerating someone who doesn't gather the facts before he tweets at another elected official? >> 40% i think. >> yeah, it's fear. >> that's it, when that number starts to drop -- >> he gets his facts or as kellyanne said, alternative facts, from, you know, twitter, alt-right sources or whatever. >> he retweeted -- >> his information base is all cockeyed as well. >> look, he will get the -- i listened to sarah today, parts of what she said today. part of his base and part of the country, i don't, may find it appealing. he says, look, i may not have said it right, you know what i'm saying. i'm trying my best to protect the country. a year ago this time, the orlando nightclub situation happened. the situation in chelsea, in new york, where the bombs went off on 23rd street. these were young men who had traveled and come back to the country. that's the only point i'm making. if the president would focus there, i think it could be far

more effect iveffective. this sweeping silly -- i thought george conway's tweet says it all. democrats and liberals, we should sit back and let those words speak for themselves because it's the most stinging. don't get in the middle of what happens in anyone's homes but i have to think there's going to be a conversation at dinner tonight between kellyanne -- >> as a new yorker, i kept thinking after 9/11, what if someone like a donald trump had criticized mayor giuliani, right? >> i'd love to see that at this point. we're going to hit pause, take a short break. when we come back, the guy that trump branded a nut job prepares to tell his part of the story of getting fired by donald trump. one of the riskiest jobs, playing cleanup for president. someone has to do it. with the tweeter in chief undermining aides at any opportunity, are they helping or creating a muddled mess? prepping kushner. lawyers need to prepare their client for new questions that congress will ask about whether kushner was seeking a russian bailout for a very expensive piece of new york city real es

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xfinity mobile. well, i've got to be honest, since saturday night, my focus has been working closely with the police, with the emergency services and with the government to deal with the horrific attack on saturday. nothing but time to respond to informed tweets from the president of the united states of america. >> that was mayor sadiq khan of

london and jill, before we went to break, you were talking about imagine if donald trump had spoken to rudy giuliani after 9/11 in the manner he spoke to mayor khan. >> because, yeah, britain is our probably biggest ally in the world and after 9/11, i mean, you remember the close relationship between tony blair and president bush and your first instinct would be to criticize the mayor of the city of london is unthinkable to me, and i think the underlying worry that i have is that he out of thoughtlessness almost is really hurting his stark alliances that since world war ii have accomplished some of the greatest things the world has ever seen. and with these thoughtless explosions, he puts that at risk. >> you know, it's interesting, it's both ignorance but we need to start diagnosing him.

it's so fascinating that whatever personality -- >> dr. donny -- >> whatever personality disorder he has, he can only feel large by diminishing others. that was such an absurd thing to take a swipe, there's this -- it's not even a zero-sum game, it's a zero minus sum game and i thought the mayor, going to use your term, refusing to punch down -- he just, like, swatted away, no thank you. >> let me ask you this, do you think if sadiq khan's name was not sadiq khan he would have sent that message? >> never. >> i don't want to impugn his motives but worries me he felt, to your point, belittling someone, there's no leader in a world that tried to belittle rudy giuliani and no one should have. >> of course not. he became the world's mayor that day. >> i believe i saw reports they were talking in the white house about sending the president there for some sort of solidarity appearance. that's obviously off the table now. couldn't possibly do that because he shot off the mouth impulsively and alienated the may year or of london. >> he never stops tweeting.

i want to go back to the idea that no republican will take him on because they're scared of the base. where's the guy who's going to say, if it costs me my seat, take my seat and do with it what you want. someone has to stand up for the republican party used to be. 9/11 wasn't that long ago. the patriot act passed with 99 votes in the senate. do you really denver is it that grim, in your view, no republican is going to stand up and say what you just said basically that he lashed out at him because he was a muslim, it was totally inappropriate. are they in a bunker, together drinking? where are they? >> that's where i would be. i think they jump off the ships when the numbers -- >> that's it. only poll numbers. >> what are we talking about? we're not talking about any sort of agenda. >> a president that tweets anti- -- >> we're coming up on an election year in which we had the story in mcclatchy today, republicans are considering running against the media because there's nothing on the table to run on besides an unpopular presidency. they got legislation to pass. the fact is this president keeps

throwing up road blocks in frntt of them. they have to worry about their seats. yeah, they have to hide in their bunker. >> a year goes by, and their health care is still in a bleak situation. and none of the things they bought -- >> will it be or obama -- he's not going to dismantle obama -- that's not going to pass. >> i'm saying they're still going to be frustrated with their health care. not going to be, by the way, if health care goes through, forget about it. single most self-destructive thing he could ever do. or, you know, every time a party is in trouble, every time the democratic party is in trouble, what happened? it wasn't issues, it was bill clinton. republican party was in trouble, it was ronald reagan. there will be a transformative figure. there will be the one brave person, i believe, before his numbers drop -- >> joe lieberman, we remember spoke out against -- >> i think people will line up against him. he'll even be successful -- >> he was pry paired. >> huh? >> he was primaried. >> well, what nicolle asking you, is there no republican politician in washington who's going to act out of conscience?

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in order to facilitate a swift and thorough examination of the facts sought by the senate's intelligence committee, president trump will not assert executive privilege regarding james comey's scheduled testimony. >> president trump will not block former fbi director james comey from testifying thursday on capitol hill. testimony that even presidential counselor kellyanne conway

admits they'll be watching at the white house. joining us from capitol hill, nbc's kasie hunt. and from washington, mika, vice president for third way national security program, and a former staffer in the house intel committee. kasie, let me start with you. a lot has happened since we last saw james comey on the hill. he's been fired. he cleaned his yard. sent a letter to staff saying i'm okay, don't worry about me. but we've also heard a lot from this president about him. he told the russians that he feltle felt less pressure to work with them, called him a nut job, called him crazy. i imagine jim comey will go to this test mope moatestimony and game plan. who's running on the republican and democratic side in terms of getting ha they want to know out of him at the substantive level? >> reporter: look, i think that's right. this is clearly somebody who's gone into the previous -- he has done marathon sessions up here on capitol hill. i think obviously the most interesting thing about his most recent set of testimony, he showed he's not infallible. he made a not insignificant mistake that, of course, was

part of all of the run-up to what we eventually saw with the president, with the firing. now, i think that the focus tomorrow, and i want to point to three people in particular, two republicans and one independent that i think are the people to watch when we come under this -- when we get to point where he is being questioned. i think, look, republicans might be sympathetic to the president, they're going to want to focus on unmasking, some of tease ohe other issues, want are to have a conversation about something else. republicans interested to getting to the bottom of this or at least more open to not doing exactly what the president wants them to do, includes marco rubio. you remember this was not in the sbemgs committ intelligence committee, the foreign relations committee he very sharply questioned -- these are the three people we want to talk about -- very sharply questioned rex tillerson on russia. he ultimately backed down and voted him out of committee. he's someone you want to keep an eye on. james lankford from oklahoma, he's quieter, his volume tends

to be lower. made an impression on leadership in a short amount of time. you have senator angus king, independent from maine. you might remember he made some news with james comey several months ago, honestly, nicolle, feels like years ago, but pushing him on hillary clinton. so i think those are three people you really want to focus in on as the hearings start to unfold. >> and meika, at the substantiv level, is jim comey going to be able to speak to precisely what the president said to him, purported interactions in which he asked him to back off of mike flynn? >> i think he will. there's been so much press reporting about it and the president, himself, has made it an issue, so i think comey should feel free to be candid about what exactly happened there and we've seen comey do this before in the bush administration on the surveillance programs where he was very forthcoming about what exactly got said in the room. >> mika, again, on the legal front, mike flynn is someone who asked for immunity from congressional committees

investigating him. he's someone who we understand, bob mueller's special counsel operation has now taken over the criminal aspect of this. mike flynn is someone we understand to be in a lot of hot water. is it going to be of interesting to the members of the committee to know how much donald trump shared with jim comey about mike flynn's problems and how desperately he wanted him to back off and why? i mean, that seems to be the thread that will tie the people who are still in this west wing to the people who are now very openly and publicly under criminal investigation. >> absolutely. the connections between the president, his former national security adviser, mike flynn, are at the heart of this issue. was flynn directed by trump? was h e freelancing on his own? was trump aware of what he was doing? these are the questions. how much trump was leaning on comey will be a factor in trying to understand what the relationship is between these two men, especially when flynn has had all these contacts with the russians and failed to disclose some of his other foreign contacts. >> kasie, who from your list of three has that specific task to

ask jim comey what were you asked to do vis-a-vis mike flynn and do you know why? >> reporter: i mean, look, nicolle, i think those questions are more likely to come from the democratic side. i think you can rely on all the committee democrats to be pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing on this issue. i think the question and where i think you're going to see more versus less productive conversations in a setting like this, you're going to get democrats who want to know more about the investigation, what did the fbi find as they were investigating? where are they now? we know that when there were obama administration officials who were still in the white house, they had found that there were evidence of contacts, but they had not yet come to evidence of collusion. john brennan testified to that fact up here on capitol hill. i think comey's kbing going to under a lot of pressure from democrats to say more about where that stands. are they at the point where they have found evidence of collusion? because right now that's the difference. those are the questions i think the director based on his previous track record is going to be much less likely to

answer. so, i think the question is, can democrats kind of push him in ways that will actually get him to reveal more of this or will it potentially turn into a political circus that is ultimately more unproductive for them? >> kasie hunt, thank you so much for spending time with us. mika, you're sticking around to talk with us a little longer. jill, i keep thinking how your newspaper covered some of these flashpoints during the bush years and i can't imagine anyone sort of letting comey get out of thursday's testimony without a direct answer to that question. what -- unpack the mike flynn enigma or the mike flynn puzzle. explain what his ties are to the bush -- the bush? god. i really am back in a time capsule. to the trump family. jared kushner we know is in sort of a shrinking legal situation, under increased skrcrutiny from the fbi and seems to me if we don't know after he testifies thursday, we'll sort of be back in this fog of the russia

question being an unanswered puzzle. >> i think it's going to remain an unanswered puzzle, though, because i think what the former fbi director is going to do is say, he can't reveal much about an ongoing investigation. that would undercut the fbi and its role in this case. and he cares so much about the reputation of his own agency that i really doubt it, but i'm, again, with you, on the shock is still that the president obstructed justice and asked him to pull the plug on an ongoing case. >> this is not going to be his -- >> and comey, we must remember, comey took contemporaneous notes. he went back and wrote down exactly what the president said to him, so i think his testimony on that is going to be really

hard for the white house to come against him on. >> this is not going to be his wat waterloo. the end of the day, you're right, he's not going to get into the actual investigation. he will say he tried to get arm twisted and trump will put out more fake news and say -- >> he can't do that. the white house has not contradicted the claim that was reported in "the new york times" that he told ambassador kislyak and foreign minister sergey lavrov that he felt pressure. he used the term, pressure. by this investigation. and assumed -- sort of implied that that was released. >> that's -- i'm talking about comey saying that he was pressured by trump to back off. >> right. trump says i was pressured, comey says he was pressured. a lot of -- everybody's under pressure. and that's been released by this -- >> i think the two things that the committee -- remember, the committee has a charge here to look at russia contacts, interference, contacts with this trump team. during the campaign. so, you ask him, do you feel corrupted when the president

told you, or suggested that pull off? this is going to be tough for him. if he says i felt like he was trying to push -- he should have reported this earlier. one thing about james comey we've seen, he's all about james comey. i'll be seriocurious to see the answer. two, your questions about flynn. you guys i s have been looking this for some time. give us some sense, is paul manafort part of the investigation, is michael flynn part of the investigation, how long has jared kushner been part of the investigation? they may have to answer all that in private session. the more he says i can't answer that, that gives you a sense there's more there, and which to donny's point, it pushes the ball right back to mr. mueller's court. >> to jill's points it mean it may not be that satisfying but -- >> you're both right. >> i think the audience for thursday as glued to it as we all will be -- >> political junkies. >> -- is the public and they don't know every dot of the russia puzzle and i think that americans are going to be

shocked to hear in james comey's own words that the president tried to get him -- >> tried to get rid of him. >> -- to drop an investigation. that that, alone, is going to have big impact. >> i may dig myself -- i haven't been this interested in tv since i wanted to know who shot -- you won't know this. >> i do. >> just hitting pause, but it takes a village. when we come back, doing cleanup for president trump. you love them together,

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for 10 years my tempur-pedic has adapted to my weight and shape. so i sleep deeply and wake up ready to perform. now through june 11th, save $600 when you buy select tempur-pedic adjustable mattress sets. find your exclusive retailer at tempurpedic.com. nato members must finally contribute their fair share and meet their financial obligations. if nato countries made their full and complete contributions, then nato would be even stronger than it is today. >> just over a week ago, president trump surprised our nato allies with that message calling on them to pay up while

also failing to aterm article f 5. turns out our allies weren't the only ones caught off guard. politico is reporting today even the president's top national security team was blind sided by the omission. and that it was, quote, only upon delivery that they realized the speech they had prepared for him would not be the one that trump would give. i look to the cabinet, particularly rex tillerson, and secretary mattis and h.r. mcmaster, national security adviser, for them to blink at me in morse code, something like it's going to be okay. he's not going to get us killed. i mean, could you -- and i read everything -- >> it's not funny. >> tsh it's not funny but after the terror attack in london, after trump started live tweeting a terror attack, jim mattis was quoted saying i like to get all the facts before i comment. almost like a direct rebuttal to what donald trump is saying. rex tillerson was talking about how, you know, i hope the fact that we're here, here at nato, demonstrates this is not the administration's views. another piece in politico

article, which is stunning, susan glassman who was on our show friday writes "it was a moment of significant rupture inside the trump administration with the president withholding usual information from his top national security officials and embarrassing them by forcing them to go out in public with awkward unconvincing after the fact claims." what is going on? >> yeah, this is not just something that's a quirk that we should blow off. this is actually a significant threat to american national security. when you toy with the notion that you're not going to respond to the mutual defense provisions in article 5, you're inviting adversaries to test their freedom of action. which he actually did own over the summer he told "the new york times" i believe it was, maybe the "washington post," i forget, he would come to the defense of the baltics they were threatened by russia in the event they met their obligations. estonia is one of the five members of nato that does meet its obligation. it suggested this wasn't about money but about something much more visceral, much moreorientet pledge.

the members of the wing of the party, steve bannon wing of the party, when they have influence over the president, they get him into lot of trouble. i wrote about that at commentarymagazine.com. >> which i subscribe to. not very expensive. it's worth every penny. i heard steve bannon in the wing of the trump coalition that you described is jubilant, that they had a big victory with the climate -- pulling out of the paris climate accord and that by friday, they were practically dancing in the halls of the west wing. they're not feeling any of the pain of embarrassing serious professional national security people. >> short of shows you how few far between and shallow their victories are. i don't dispute that. as a trump skekt call conservative, i didn't have any trouble with that. it's one of the few areas where i don't have any trouble with this white house. i'm sure i was in good company there, but by now the effect has dissipated. we're on to another event. this is what happens when you don't have lasting legislative achievements. you're moving from news cycle to news cycle. >> sorry.

tillerson and mattis and mcmaster, dina powell, are they going to be tarnished by their affiliate with this president? >> time will tell. even the biggest trump detractors like myself, when he named mattis and mcmaster -- >> felt better, right? >> okay, you know what -- now he's basically obviously carving their legs out. i think at some point, these people are such substantial people that i think they start to leave. i think these are not people -- these are not sean spicer -- these are not communication people. these are people with tremendous gravitas and even the gary cohns of the word, theld, these are p who have something to protect. they're not looking for their next job. gary cohn has another life after this. dina powell is one of the smartest, most respected people in the world. the rationalization, gary cohn said the reason he's still there, wants to do his best, do everything he can. i think all these guys have that patriotic thread, but at some point, they're going to go, i can't help, and i'm out of here. >> you're nodding. >> i agree. i thought one of the reasons -- one of the things about mattis and tillerson, he didn't know

these people, president trump didn't. i was reassured, he has the ability and capacity to reach out and fill his cabinet with people whom are validated, accomplished and frankly don't need these jobs to make a few extra bucks or for that matter get another job. i think listening to mattis who made comments overseas suggesting to people, look, don't worry, things are going to be okay to allies around the globe, that's why i'm here. you can only do that so many times before you lose your own credibility. i am hopeful the president does not give them more opportunities or reasons to do that. i'm hopeful there's a difference in tone, a changed tone. >> what's going change? we got to stop waiting for change. it's not going to happen. he's 70. he's out of his mind. it's not happening. >> i don't disagree necessarily but talk about the patriotic thing over gary cohn's chest and others, i happen to be a patriot also and want to see him get this right. as nicolle said so eloquently and succinctly, i don't want to get killed. we may differ from him philosophically. we're on the same page on this. if it doesn't happen, can you imagine a tillerson, mattis,

mcmaster, kelly walking into the office saying we can't do this any longer? >> why don't they walk in on a day like today, i'm going back to muslim ban 2.0, mattis opposed because it didn't carve out iraqi translators. >> should have no reason to believe it's not true or is true, this is another powerful piece of evidence something has to change dramatically. donny is a little more pessim t pessimistic about this than i am. this president who's prove to be a survivor in the business world the last 30 years understands when he has to change a bit and if he doesn't, he's going to face a set of consequences. >> i don't know what you're spoking. >> we're going to stop it, stop it, smoking -- up next, jared kushner facing more scrutiny over that meeting with the russian banker last winter.

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for a bailout when he met last winter? that's the question congress is hoping to ask kushner when he testifies. nbc's kenainian has been digging into it. we've also got you from washington. ken, we talked about how all the explanation for jared kushner's meeting with this russian banker require some more context, right? so the explanation we got from the white house was that they were part of his official

transition duties. one explanation put forward was that he was meeting people regarding business. >> the white house position was this was a diplomatic meeting. kushner was acting in a diplomatic way. they said the bank was if i recalling up the business contacts in the u.s. the bank is under sanctions so americans forbidden from doing business with the bank. so it raises questions, did the bank believe sanctions were about to be lifted? did jared kushner discuss this with the bank? that's something they will want to ask him. did the issue of real estate empire come up? was there any discussion of financing, for example, as we reported today, the kushners appear to be under water and under some distress for this big office building on sixth avenue which they got in 2007.

mostly financed with loans. there's a lot of speculation as to whether that issue may have come up. we don't know if it did but we know financial investigators would like to ask. we're calling this a bank but it is a russian owned entity that many say is an arm of the russian government. and the ceo sergey gorkov attended intelligence training and is described as a putin crony. flight records suggest he flew to japan where he met with vladimir putin, nicole. >> so let me bring you in on the legal questions. is it more legally perilous for jared kushner to have been doing business with a sanctioned bank, so the business activity would be illegal, or is it more inappropriate if he was setting up a back channel to do undercover secret diplomacy? which is worse? >> they're both incredible.

we have three things we've never seen before. first a relative of the president who is working as a white house staffer. this kind of nepotism we haven't seen in decades. and then you have the combination of the kushner business enterprises while he's in the white house. and then the third thing is this secret back channel where they would set up in the russian facility. any of these alone by themselves would be serious grounds for a congressional investigation and a serious scandal and this administration just seems to be shrugging it off. it's amazing. >> i'm told by a source who is an ally of jared kushner, doesn't wish him any ill, that he is showing some signs of strain under the mounting scrutiny, the mounding questions he and perhaps even the extraordinary workload. what is the legal picture look like? are you aware of him staffing up or adding any new lawyers for his defense team? >> we can he has a very high form of justice officials. even if you take most innocent

explanation for all these activities, punld explanation, kushner was breath takingly naive and has gotten himself in a heam of deep trouble. as mika said, if he actually asked, as the "washington post" reported, the russians to use their line of communication as back channel to the kremlin, that's just stunning to my intelligence community sources. and i can't imagine why anyone would do that. it looks terrible. he has a lot of questions to answer. >> remember in that meeting, mike flynn, who was the former head of the tense agency was in the room. i'm not sure i believe it was naive because the head of an intelligence agency should know better than to say hey, russia, wheel use your facilities for the secret channel. >> thank you both. we'll take a quick break and be right back. rrow? rrow? at kpmg, we believe success requires both. with our broad range of services and industry expertise,

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i'm going to put you on the spot and ask you some final thoughts. under a normal white house and a normal presidency, all the situations with jared kushner are terrible. >> that's right. the notion that he was involved in some sort of extraordinarily corrupt bargain seem a little outlandish. the simplest explanation he was looking to remain sanctions from this russian bank which they had promised. >> why? >> because it was a campaign trail promise, among other things. it was a campaign promise. they went about it without any understanding of what was an appropriate concession, what were in american interests, and they promised them the world and

couldn't deliver on any of it. >> all right pretty depressing thoughts to wrap up on. that does it for this hour. i'm nicole wallace. "mtp daily" starts right now with katy tur. >> if it's wednesday, the clouds darken after another presidential tweet storm. tonight, governing, from terrorism to the travel ban. how seriously should people take his tweets? >> i think they matter that it gives him a communications tool that isn't filtered through media bias. >> plus, don't forget paris. we'll hear from al gore about what is next this his fight after the paris climate accord. >> we would have a boost if we had not isolated the u.s., if the president hadn't isolated the u.s.