evening "the rachel maddow show" starts right now with joy reed. >> that you can't for joining us as well. rachel is still under the weather but she did tell us she's itching to get back into this share and hopes to be back very soon. we've got a big show for you, including a story that broke late this afternoon involving the leak of a top secret document. we'll have more on that in just a bit. but first, let me take you back to july of 1974. just one month before president richard nixon resigned from office. they were regal from the months long watergate scandal. he was on his way out the door. his defense secretary was worried about what might if the president decided to subvert the constitution to stay in power even as everything around him was falling apart. god for bid if he tried to

authorize the use of nuclear weapons without consulting anyone first. nixon's defense secretary overwhelmed by the possibility tried to prevent anything like that from happening by going behind his back to the chairman of the join chiefs of staff. if essence, the defense secretary asked the chairman of the joint chiefs for a commitment that neither he nor any of the other chiefs would respond to an order from the white house calling for the use of military force without immediately informing the defense secretary. nixon's defense secretary asked the chairman of the join chief of staff, quote, don't take any emergency type action without consulting me. the joint chiefs of staff were unfortunately with this request. they could not believe what they were hearing. the consensus in the room was he

was becoming unblue demon. there was debate whether the secretary of defense was overstepping his role, an opportunity o take advantage of a president in a weak understand state. but president nixon's defense secretary was adamant. quote, first protect the country, and then the department of defense. it's that kind of sentiment that country first before my job sentiment that nowadays would probably come as a relief to many especially after a weekend in which the president made a number of surprisingly bizarre decisions. for example, his knee-jerk response to the terrorist attack in london was to denigrate the mayor of london, misquoting the mayor mayor and calling his words a pathetic excuse. his response to the attack was to stoke fare in order to revive

the travel ban. pulling the united states out of an almost worldwide climate policy accord and putting us in the loan company of nicaragua and syria. we're already dealing with the consequences of that decision from around the world and even within our own country. sources tell cnn tonight the acting ambassador to china has resigned from his post over his decision to withdraw from the accord. he continues to delay filling ambassadorships around the world and can't afford to lose these career diplomats and keeping their seats warm in the meantime. he hurt our standing with the international community in ways that have yet to be measured. by refusing to reaffirm our commitment to nato's article 5 which states an attack on one country in-foot is an attack on all countries in nato.

despite his campaign rhetoric, trump had been expected to reaffirm that commitment to nato. now we know he took not only the international community by surprise when he decided not to, but that his own top national security officials were surprised as well. according to "politico" today, quote, national security mcmaster, james mattis, and secretary of state rex tillerson all supported trump in reaffirming that commitment and had worked in the weeks leading up to the trip to make sure it was included in the speech, according to five sources familiar with the episode. one source telling "politico" there was a fully coordinated other speech everybody else worked on and it wasn't the one trump gave. another source adding trump's top national security team, quote, didn't know that section had been removed. it was only upon delivery. it doesn't help two of the people who did tried to persuade him are in australia cleaning up

the diplomatic mess trump began when he and the australian prime minister got into it during that testy phone call during the inauguration. this is not just about a reluctance to play well with others, there's direct hostility from the president himself. what are we supposed take away from all of this? a former career diplomat with four decades of experience who worked with democratic and republicans throughout the years. thank you for your time tonight. >> thank you for having me. >> i want to start by asking you to do a damage assessment for us just on the last part of what i talked about which is our standing, the united states, in the international community. how much damage do you think that donald trump has done through that trip not reaffirming article 5 and his general attitude towards our

allies so far. >> well, the failure to not only to reiterate our dmoimts allies that stood with us september 11th, the credibility of our senior officials, secretary of defense, national security advisor, secretary of state were directly undermined by the fact they thought this commitment would be in his speech, and it wasn't. so how do they perform their role and have our allies and partners and indeed opponents if predictability and credibility is undermined this way. >> when our allies around the world talked to the united states, the secretary of state in this, if they're not seen as

close enough to the president to be influential over him, what's the real world consequence of that? >> i think incoherence which is very, very damaging. we do live in an extremely difficult and challenging world. so our commitments have to mean something if we will be able to maintain what was our strengths a worldwide network of partners and allies. president trump says he wants to defeat isis. i agree. how do you do that if you don't have the network of partners and allies, not just militarily, but for law enforcement, sharing of information, intelligence sharing, and it is doing i think real dac when he deliberately insults and pushes away one of our greatest resources, our allies around the world. >> i'm interested in getting your take on donald trump's response to the attacks in england. they had three terrorist attacks in recent weeks. the most recent case donald

trump went on twitter and went on a tirade against the london mayor. what does that kind of thing do to our relationships with our allies or is that just sort of a new cycle that doesn't affect policy? >> it is just inexplicable to me. the british have suffered these recent attacks. they are our friends and allies. and to say anything other than we're with you, we grieve with you, we stand with you is just betrying our own values as well as one of our closest allies. inexplicable and damaging. >> is there a sense in which maybe in europe and allies, in a way, could that make europe stronger and the eu more independent and take more responsibility for their own affairs? >> certainly they will step up,

but they will lose and we will lose if we are not able to maintain a great strength which is cooperation. we desperately need that to deal with isis and nonproliferation as we did successfully with the iran deal. we now have north korea, pan democratics, environmental crisis. we have to have our friends and allies to works with. >> or climate change. laura kennedy, thank you so much for joining us tonight. >> thank you. >> certainly feels like we're in uncharted territory, but is that really the case? what can we learn from past administrations and what can it tell us about where we're headed. joining us is michael beschloss. great to talk to you. always a treaty to talk to you. >> same here, joy. >> we started with this story of richard nixon at this moment when he's deteriorating and you have his defense secretary and

his cabinet step in and go to the joint chiefs and say if he gives an order that seems odd or using the military, come to us first. we know that's unprecedented. do you see in the administration you're looking at now, do you see anyone in the administration that seems like they could play the role of intervening to put the president back on course if he were to go off course? >> this is what's so shocking of that story of susan glasser's that donald trump didn't give the speech that his advisers thought he was going to give. during watergate, henry kissen engineer and al hague felt they were keeping things steady although as you rightly say, nixon was drinking to some extent. he was not in a great mental state. and he later said, al hague saved the country and i saved

the world. with donald trump, you and i have both heard people say donald trump may be unpredictable and murray curiel may be in a scary way in national security but it's got this national security staff, tillerson and mcmaster and mattis and that staff is not too helpful and they can't manage to get the guy to give a speech endorsing article 5 that they all expected him to give. >> i think back to the george w. bush administration when it was seen that perhaps the president was waking up to the fact that the iraqi invasion, he had been sold information that wasn't accurate and his presidency felt shaky, he brougtd in jim baker who was able to bring in in their mind to right the ship. you think of david gergen. is there a figure in and around the administration now or maybe in republican politics that could play that kind of a role with someone like donald trump? >> no. i don't think there is one at

this point because tillerson and mattis and mcmaster, these are three very tough guys, and if they cannot manage to keep him on track, i don't know who else can. this is also in the context of the tweets where president trump is complaining about the action of his justice department on the travel ban, the justice department works for him, so this suggests a president who is really strange at the edge of his leash and out of control to some extent. this is very unnerving especially in national security. >> is there anything in u.s. history that sort of equates to the situation we have? rex tillerson, the secretary of state who's cloistered with two aides, doesn't talk to a lot of people, the son-in-law who's embroiled in his own controversies, we have all these figures around the president who themselves seem isolated from good advice. >> i hate to say it, but this is

dangerous. national security is serious. this is so some extent mutual hour. you've got a president who's not able to have a staff who is able to keep him on track at least by what we've seen during the last week, and that can be dangerous. at the same time, even just as recently as february, the president's aides, steve miller went on the shows and said the president's powers and national security are very considerable and will not be questioned. that's not the kind of thing that makes us calm. >> lastly, there's been a lot of talk about reince priebus and his lack of influence. typically to chiefs of staff are they drawn from a people who are dependent on the president or that independents to be able to tell the president hard truths? is he unusual? >> he is. you want a chief of staff with the stature to be able to say to the president here's something you're not going to want to hear, if you're anger at me and fire me, that's fine.

jim baker had that under ronald reagan. if you go by this incident with article 5 and they flurry to give that speech, it's hard to see this staff is doing that with donald trump. >> not good news. michael beschloss, presidential historian. >> i wish i could have been a little bit more kauj tonight, joy. >> it's okay. we like you to keep it real. thank you very much. >> doing my best. >> indeed. up next, a report on that top secret nsa document that was leaked to the press and the news tonight that the alleging leaker has been arrested.

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. four months u.s. intelligence officials have been very clear on one key pointed related to russian efforts to interfere in our election. no results were ever compromised. >> they did not change any vote tallies or anything of that sort. >> we have no evidence that vote tallies or altered or, in my opinion, in any way. >> that's correct. >> you have no intelligence or evidence that suggests any votes were changed? >> i have nothing generated by the national security, sir. >> director comey, do you have evidence that any votes for changed in the states i mentioned to emeril rogers. >> no, >> top secret nsa report details russian hacking effort days before 2016 election. the five-page report says

the intercept says it obtained the document with parts redacted through an anonymous source. the intelligence agency conclusion that russian military intelligence known as the g.r.u. executed a cyber attack against software vendors in august of 2016. they used data gathered from that attack to send spear fishing e-mails to over 1100 election officials just days before the election. the targeted companies believed to be florida based vr systems which makes electron i can voting software used in california, illinois, indiana, west virginia, virginia, north carolina, florida, and new york. to be clear, nowhere in the report does the nsa indicate any actual voting machines or vote tallies were compromised. rather than selling the actual machines used to count the votes, vr systems sells the

software which is used to determine who is eligible to vote. one u.s. intelligence official contacted by the intercept conceded that the russian operation target voter registration software could have disrupted it were the products were being used. it is unknown what potential data could have been accessed and makes no conclusion about what effect the attack had on the outcome of the election but it does conclusion that russian military intelligence, the g.r.u. was behind the attack. as we mentioned, the document was leaked to the intercept anonymously. nearly an hour after it was published this afternoon, the department of justice announced% it had arrested and charged a federal government contractor with leaking the document, the first criminal charge in a leaked prosecution during the trump administration. reality lee winner was charged with removing classified material from a government

facility and distributing it to a news out let. joining us is it nbc news national security reporter did he know -- ken delaney. pointedly by republicans in defense of donald trump was whether or not russian hacking actually flipped votes, changed votes in machines. that's not what this report is talking about, right? >> that's right, joy. i think you laid it out really well. there's nothing in this report, nothing we know that suggests any votes for changed. but what i find really interesting about this report is that it shows that the russian hacking went on right up until the election well after the obama administration warned the trougsz cut it out. there's been reports of high level warnings from john brennan

to his counts on part in the russian intelligence agency and the u.s. was mobilized and aware that bad things were going to happen on election day. it's not clear from this report whether it was an attempt to make those things happen, but it's clear that the russians were into some systems that were close to the voter registration files. what folks i've talked to say could have happened but didn't thankfully is they may have been able to change voter identity en masse. every third voter found their registration didn't match and they weren't allowed to vote. that would have caused mass chaos. there was disruption in negotiation, but there's nothing definitively linking it to this hack. we just don't know. it's an example of classified information the u.s. possessed and hasn't released to the public yet. >> i think that's the point, ken. swrurjs a situation where there was significantly reduced voting in certain states where fewer

than expected voters came out. we know about this one attempt to do spear fishing attacks that could delete people off the voting rolls. it's not as a result of a mistake or voter suppression, it's literally the result of a spear fishing attack. does the nsa believe that's more widespread and this is the one they caught? >> the report we have says they don't and they said as much in public. this is one small intelligence analysis report. it doesn't contain any of the raw intelligence. anyone looking for proof that the russians carried out this hack are not going to find it in this report. this report suppress conclusions from the nsa. it is interesting they say definitively it was the g.r.u.. but new york city to your larger point, nsa director mike rogers

has testified before congress he's not aware of any larger effort that would have caused disruption to the actual election. >> you make a good point because what we've been talking about in terms of the russian attacks is sort of using freelance hackers, is this the first report that links directly back to the g.r.u. or adding to the ed this attack on our election came right from the top? >> previous u.s. intelligence reports that have been made public mentioned the g.r.u. but this one is more definitive. that would be based not only on computer forensics, that's based on snalds intelligence and human intelligence suspended it tracking this thing back to particular ruckus officials. >> let's talk about this arrest. do you have reporting on how they were able to zero in on the person who was arrested, ms. winter? >> this is a really remarkable

part of the story. they did it through basic forensics. she appeared to be rather careless. she e-mailed with the news site and then she printed out this document according to the affidavit, though she did not have a need to see it. we're talking about a 25 year old contractor here. the reason she was of interest to the nsa was she was a former air forceling quist. it's automated example how the nsa has a problem with leakers. you never used to see this thing happen at the nsa. once you got clearance it was a club, a trusted circle. >> one things of contractor edward snowden.

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this is the heart senate office building. it houses half of the senate and their staffs.

and tallahassee occasional taxi determinemy. this moose was tucked into the heart building last year to new hampshire senator's office. as was this friendly looking bear. i think he's waving. the poor staffers crammed them into the elevators and parked them in the waiting room for an event with their constituents. tada! they turned a lot of heads understandably. t compared to what's happening this week, that was tame. this thursday, fired fbi director james comey is set to give public testimony before the senate intelligence committee. it's why they expected he will be asked about thinks conversations with president donald trump including those allegations that trump asked him to drop the investigation into michael flynn. there were questions whether or not the white house would try to block him from testifying

ininvoking executive privilege. today the trump administration put those questions to rest. the white house said the president will not block him from testifying. sarah huckabee sanders said even though the right the well established, the administration wants a swift examination of the facts. so that means mr. comey ask free to speak his mind. you can pretty much already smell the popcorn cooking in microwaves across the country. there's something else happening this week worth staking pin in. it's not about russia, but you can bet democrats on that panel will ask him about it anyway. they could grill him on his role in comey's firing. recall that he wrote that memo that was used to justify it and

what he knows about trump's interference. rod rosenstein spoke on the record late friday night sending an early warning through press that he and the attorney general sessions might get tied up in the investigation that's now charging full steam ahead. he said the special council reports to him he would recuse himself if he becomes part of the investigation. which is strange. why would he say on the record to the press he might be next in the cross hairs of the russia investigation? what game is rod rosenstein playing? and what does tv to do with the ticking time bomb when james comey takes the stand. joining us is it matthew miller. thank you for being here i'll let you answer that question. what do you think rod rosenstein is up to going on the record? >> yeah, it's a great question because this is his first interview with the press since

he was sworn into office. and for him to come out and publicly figure himself as a possible subject of this investigation is a strange thing to do. i suspect what he was doing was trying to take some heat off himself and finding an excuse to not answer questions about one of the underlying scandals as doj. the big question is going to be wharmgs the president say to him about the russia investigation. what kind of pressure did they put on him. there's a secondary potential scandal too which is what did jeff sessions and if if they know he was being fired because he was fired and they went along with it, their positions are really untenable at doj. it would be the biggest scandal in the department's history. so what i think you see rosenstein doing is sending this public signal that will probably see him do at the hearing on

wednesday and come up and say, look, i know you have questions whether i knew about this whether comey briefed me on his concerns whether i saw his memos. but because of this ongoing investigation, i'm just not able to answer. and that would be a dodge that really i think gets around congress's legitimate right to know his role in this story. >> i guess that is because obviously he was the author of this memo. does it matter if when he wrote up this memo, and he'd only been in office for a short time as acting as deputy toench, did he need to have known the firing was because of russiagate? are both of those two things scandalous? >> one is much worse than the other obviously. if he knew it was over russia, then that is much worse. that is a major scandal because

it shows the deputy attorney general helping the president trample on it. if they knew president wanted to fire him, that's a bit less of a scandal, but it's hard to believe even if he didn't have direct evidence, even if he wasn't aware of the conversations, it's hard to believe that he went and had this meeting. they both met with the president the day before they fired james comey. it's hard to believe the president said after long, careful consideration i'm unhappy with the way director comey handled the clinton e-mail case and i'm going to fire him and then he wrote that memo. it's hard to see he didn't know what was going on. >> what do you expect to hear from james comey. do you think there will be anything new that comes out of his testimony? >> obviously he's going to come in we suspect and talk about his conversations with the president. several of those conversations we know about already. but it's been reported he kept memos about other conversations

that we don't know the details of yet. and i suspect james comey whatever you think about him he's shown a propensity to love the spotlight in the past, i think he might be saving his biggest revelation for this hearing. just adding more details, something we saw in the sally yates hearing. we knew a lot of what she planned to say but when she fleshed out the details and told exactly the things she had warned the white house about, if we see him add details about his conversations with the president, it could be explosive. the president said point-blank he didn't pressure comey to fire mike flynn. if james comey comes in, raises his hand in the eric swears under oath and says that's not true, that's a difficult position for the president

because he lied to the american people. >> might be a good time to buy popcorn stock. thank you so much. appreciate your time. did the administration's case for the trump travel ban get a lot more difficult for them to argue within the last hour? stay with us. got it.

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torture committed by americans which was refund and written under the old democratic majority. in late 2014 democrats voted to release the unclassified 500-page redacted summary. the democratic senate also sent copies of the full nearly 7,000-page report to several government agencies. ever since republicans got control of the senate the head of the senate intelligence committee, richard burr has been asking the agencies to return those copies to agreements he wants them out of the executive branch back in congressional hands. now that we have a republican president, the agencies have started to comply. they've been sending their copies back to congress. senator burr tells "the new york times" the committee will, quote, enact necessary measures to protect the sensitive sources contained in the report.

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. after donald trump signed his executive order barring entry to the u.s. for citizens of seven muslim countries, there was chaos and protests at the airports. several judges blocked the orders within 48 hours. once the administration realized it was going to face a court fight they rolled out a new strategy. they said the travel ban was in fact not a ban.

even though the president and members of his administration has been calling it's a ban right up until that moment. now in the face of these court rulings it was no longer a ban. sean spicer engaged in acrobat i can contortions that launched melissa mccarthy's impression on "saturday night live." >> it's not a ban. >> i'm sorry? >> the travel ban is not a ban which makes it not a ban. >> the the president tweeted and i, quote, if the ban were announced with a one-week notice -- >> yeah, exactly. you just said that. he's quoting you. it's your words. he's using your words when you usthe rds and he uses them back, it's circular using of the word, and that's from you. [ laughter ] >> that's pretty much how it went. the administration drafted a whole new executive order to replace the one that kept

getting blocked. but the courts were unmoved from a hawaii judge's ruling in march, quote, by the government's reading the kpektd could not have been religiously motivated because it only represent a fraction of the world's muslim majority nations. the notion that one can demonstrate animus toward any group of people only by targeting all of them at once is fundamentally flawed. it is a discriminatory purpose that matters no matter how inefficient the execution. ouch. the trump administration has stuck with it. homeland security said it's not a travel ban. it's a travel pause. in the not just a pr move. the judges who blocked the ban have all said the context matters, that all things donald trump and his campaign and this

administration have said from his call far total and complete shutdown of muslims entering the united states on down, all those statements made it clear the executive order really is a muslim ban. to have a incredible case is court, the administration has to change that context. they have to show that they didn't intend for it to be a ban. it may be a little too late. they were staying more or less on message for the last couple months, until now. here was donald trump, president, on twitter this morning, quote, people and the lawyers and the courts can call it whatever they want. but i'm calling it what we need and what it is, a travel ban. and then the justice department should have stayed with the original travel ban, not the watered down politically correct version they committed to the supreme court. and now just a few minutes ago, we know a travel ban for certain dangerous countries, not some politically correct term that won't help us protect our

people, you know the "the rachel maddow show" does not usually cover trump's tweets very much, but these tweets may have legal consequences. here's how the lawyer fighting the ban responded. kneel katyal tweeted it's kind of odd. we don't need the help, but we'll take it. he wondered whether he shouldn't just turn the lectern over to trump to make the case for us. when he was returning from his trip abroad there were plans to have lawyers vet all the president's tweets before he sent them out. guess that didn't work. even as the president makes it harder to defend the muslim ban, the supreme court and even republicans some republicans are starting to wonder why the administration is still pursuing the ban at all. it was only supposed to last 90 days the administration wanted to use that time to put new extreme vetting procedures into place. roadway blunt and mark warner on the intelligence committee pointed out this weekend on the shows that the white house has

had much longer than 90 days to come up with the procedures. so at this point what's the point of having a ban at all? joining us is neal katyal who argued against the travel ban b behalf of the state of hawaii before the ninth circuit. thank you for joining us, neil. thanks for being here. >> thanks, joy. >> let's talk about why does it matter whether or not donald trump up until within the hour keeps tweeting "it's a travel ban." why does that help your case? >> i think we need to be sanguine about it. there is no gloating on our team or among the challengers for what the president said today. i mean, i think we all have to first keep in mind the extraordinary thing that's happened. the president of the united states is accused of violating our most sacred texts, the first amendment, no establishment of religion. and those challenges have been upheld by court after court saying president trump, you violated the constitution. and now these tweets essentially gut what his lawyers were saying

in trying to defend him. and so it's really undercut the rational for ban, the rationale for the whole legal defense. and it's a real problem. >> and isn't it the case in the dissent on the rulings that have all gone 2in your favor, the dissents have said that it is unfair to take the president's campaign rhetoric into account when you're trying to decide what he is doing as president. do these tweets now that he is actually president essentially negate that argument by the dissenters? >> yeah, absolutely. so there is a handful of judges who have ruled in favor of president trump, rarely with any kind of controlling power. they've always been in the minority or dissenting judges. what they've said is campaign statements like the ones he said, quote, i'm calling for a total and complete shutdown of muslims entering the united states, and quote, i think islam hates us. we can't allow people coming to this country that hate the united states. they base the lyers say that's the old trump.

the new trump is different. but the tweets really gut that kind of argument and make it very clear that, you know, that the president has sunk his own ship. >> so the white house is down to fewer and fewer people that they're willing to send out to speak for him. but two they sent out today, kellyanne conway and sebastian gorkha, they were making two sets of arguments. on kellyanne conway, i'll let you take them one at a time. kellyanne conway's argument that you really can't read what the president says on twitter. it is not relevant. what do you make of that? >> well, that's an extraordinary statement for anyone at the white house to make. don't trust the president in what he says in tweets. that just seems bizarre to me. i guess i defer to her husband, george conaway who tweeted today who said the president's tweets are really undermining the case in the court, including the u.s. supreme court. and i'm not going to predict the outcome at all. that's something for the courts to decide. i think this is an extraordinary, extraordinary thing that's happened today. >> and argument too which has been made by sebastian gorkha is

that you can't call it a muslim travel ban because the ban does not delude world's most populous muslim countries, nor does it include the most populous arab country, egypt. if you don't ban all of the muslims from all of the muslim countries, that you can't say it's a muslim ban. what do you make of that? >> that's a terrible, terrible argument. if i'm an employer and have i ten african american employees and i fire one because and say i'm firing you because you're african american, i don't think it's a defense to say well the other nine weren't fired. so it can't be on the basis of race. that's ludicrous. and sebastian gorkha in that interview gutted the president's rationale. he said the old ban is just like the new ban. it's the exact same policy. that's what he said today in a cnn interview. >> and would part of the argument be the original argument made by the administration was well, this is temporary. we just need 90 days of this travel ban in order to get ourselves together and do extreme vetting. does the fact that the 90 days

have long since expired, does that become another argument? >> totally, totally. the justice department has been saying we need 90 days for extreme vetting, extreme vetting and so on. one tweet you didn't read today that the president said this, in any event, we are extreme vetting people coming into the united states in order to keep our country safe. the courts are slow and political. so the very thing he has wanted to do through the executive order he is admitting in the tweet he has done, which is thoroughly bizarre. and i guess one last thing about that quote. the last lines of that tweet are the courts are slow and political. and this president, it's so sad. every single time he lose, he attacks the judge. he calls him a so-called judge. he calls them political, time and again. i can't think of something more corrosive to our democracy than the idea that a fundamental check and balance that madison and hamilton and jefferson laced into the constitution, this idea about judges being the independent bulwark to protect limited government is something

that a president could attack in this way. it is truly sad with an exclamation point at the end of it. >> the other entity that trump seemed to be attacking in his tweets is his own justice department have. you ever seen a situation where the president who is their boss is essentially attacking an organization which reports to him and would could make any arguments he wanted? >> have i not. and indeed i used to hold for president obama, you know, one of the top position, litigating position, the acting solicitor general. iowa never seen anything like that. again, i think that's a fundamental thing that courts are going to have to look at. the justice department is defending this on the idea there is a presumption of regularity that you should presume what the president does is correct. and here is what jack goldsmith, a very conservative harvard professor said today after the tweets, quote, trump's actions take us so far beyond normal it's hard to have any faith in the executive branch. in the last month alone he has told lies, fired comey, related a russia probe and reattacked courts. given the president's

instability, it's not just courts that have reason to relakz the presumption of irregularity. the ill informed president infects the legal soundness of everything he does. last line, as best i can tell, no president's action have ever so adversely affected trust in his administration including nixon during watergate. that is conservative law professor jack goldsmith of harvard law school. >> wow. kneel katyal, fowow, really appreciate your time tonight. thank you. >> thank you. great to be here. still ahead tonight, the mayor of london made a very pointed request tonight. and that's next. are allergies holding you back?

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we have an update to a story we were talking about earlier in the show. tonight london mayor sadiq khan is calling on the british government to cancel a planned state visit to the uk by u.s. president donald trump. this comes after trump's swift criticism of the mayor following this weekend's terrorist attack in london. which left seven dead and dozens injured. following that horrific attack, the president was quick to denigrate london's mayor, mr. khan. at one point, misquoting his appeal for calm amid a heightened police presence. the mayor's office pointed out that mistake. but trump responded by calling the mayor's statement a, quote, pathetic excuse. appearing on a british news channel tonight, mayor khan said the u.s. president should no longer be welcome in the country. he said, quote, i don't think we should roll out the red carpet to the president of the usa in

the circumstances where his policies go against everything we stand for. when you have a special relationship, it is no different from when you've got a close mate. you stand with them in times of adversity, but you call them out when they're wrong there are many things about which donald trump is wrong. a reminder, this is one of our closest allies. we're now living in very different times that does it for us tonight. rachel will be back very soon. i mean it. and knew it's time for "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." >> don't rush out of the building. i'm not feeling well. i have a cold and a sore throat. and i don't know how long the voice is going to last. what are we going to do? >> i'm just letting you know you're not allowed to be sick. >> i'm not allowed to be sick. just one of us at a time. that is correct. >> stay right there. >> i'm going to try. thanks. well, richard nixon had many regr regrets, but his biggest regret was something that donald trump