that is our broadcast for tonight and for a busy news week. have a good weekend. good night from new york. power speaks to truth. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews up in boston. james comey delivered powerful testimony yesterday about a president who lies, abuses power, and can't be trusted. and today president trump responded, defying and denying comey's written sworn account of what his then fbi director said he did, saying he would do so under oath. >> he did say under oath that you told him to let the flynn -- you said you hoped the flynn investigation -- he could let it go. >> i didn't say that. >> so he lied about that? >> well, i didn't say that. i mean i will tell you i didn't

say that. >> and did he ask you to pledge his loyalty -- >> and there would be nothing wrong if i did say it according to everybody that i've read toy,ut i did n say that. >> did he ask for a pledge of loyalty to you? that's another thing he said to you. >> no, he did not. >> he said those things under oath. would you be willing to speak under oath to give your version of those events? >> 100%. i didn't say under oath. i hardly know the man. i'm not going to say i want you to pledge allegiance. who would do that? who would ask a man to pledge allegiance under oath? i mean think of it. i hardly know the man. it doesn't make sense. no, i didn't say that, and i didn't say the other. >> so if robert mueller wanted to speak with you about that -- >> i would be glad to tell him exactly what i just told you, jim. >> that was just part of the president's damage control in the wake of comey's testimony. trump and his team say he was vindicated, but they also accused comey of lying and went after him as a leaker. the problem for the president,

the verdict from yesterday was clear and overwhelming. with the country watching, comey clearly didn't come across as nut job the president told the russians he was. i'm joined right now by nbc's kristen welker at the white house, congressman eric swalwell of california, who is on the house intelligence committee, and "the washington post" columnist ruth marcus. let me go to kristen first of all. what was your sense of the reaction yesterday in realtime to the trump testimony while the trump people were watching? the comey testimony? >> well, i think it was divided. i think it was divided, chris. i think that president trump, i was told, according to people who are familiar with that room that he was in, watching the testimony, he was in and out of this dining room here, that he was even while he watched the testimony. that he did, in fact, feel vindicated because comey backed up his assertion that he told him that he wasn't under investigation. he felt as though that was a big win. but to your broader point, he also makes this sort of paradox by saying that comey vindicates him and then accuses him of lying on so many other issues.

i think what is striking about what we saw today is yesterday we saw a president trump who was very much disciplined in terms of his messaging. that's what his senior officials wanted from him. i think they came away from the comey testimony feeling concerned, a number of people here, because as you point out, a lot of people were persuaded by what they heard from former fbi director james comey. and today we saw president trump take his messaging into his own hands, and that's what a lot of people here behind the scenes didn't want him to do. we woke up to a tweet from president trump, and then that very defiant press conference in which he said he would testify under oath, in which he countered so many of the assertions that comey made yesterday. and, of course, chris, the other big headline is that he dangled the possibility that those tapes might still exist, saying that he'll give everyone information in the coming days. chris. >> well, kristen, i mean here's

what he's up against. he's up against his fbi director at the time, serving him at the time, who kept contemporaneous notes, who wrote them down and filed them. in other words, that's all a part of the past record regardless of whether comey was gog to get fired or not. he also has a guy swearing an oath that everything he says is true with tremendous detail about leaving the room through the grandfather clock door and everything else. amazing amount of detail. who was there, who was told to leave the room. it had the smell and look and wording of an actual statement of exact fact. and here the president wistfully says, never said that, never said that, never said that, as if no matter what jonathan karl had said today, he was going to say none of that happened. he had a dismissive approach today to whatever was going to be said about that meeting. and is this just trump living in the magic moment in which he always lives, which will pass a moment later, and it doesn't matter what happened in that moment because that moment has passed. that's my reading on the guy.

you have to look at him a little less interpretatively than i do. but i tell you, trump, i thought, was ready to say, jonathan, nothing you're about to say, sir, is true because nothing comey said was true. he was in that mood today. your thoughts. >> reporter: chris, as we learned during the campaign, president trump loves a fight. he doesn't back down. and i think that's what we saw from him today. we sort of saw him revert back into campaign mode. and that is why you do have some of his top advisers who are concerned about that, particularly what it means about his messaging. will he veer off course too much? and, of course, we've seen this concern about messaging as it relates to other issues, the travel ban for example. you have some advisers who worry he's undercutting the travel ban's legal argument by tweeting about it. and it's, i think, a similar instance today in which he's taking his mesgi very much into his own hands. i think thers some concern that if it continues along this

track, that that could become problematic moving forward. what happens, for example, chris, after the sunday shows when he wakes up? we are used to him tweeting on sunday mornings in response to it. what will we see this sunday? that remains to be seen and is a concern here for some. >> donald trump was asked today about his threat last month about having tapes of the comey meetings. let's watch that. >> do tapes exist of your conversations with him. >> well, i'll tell you about that maybe sometime in the very near future. >> you seem to be hinting that there are recordings of those conversations. >> i'm not hinting anything. i'll tell you about it over a very short period of time. >> when will you tell us? >> over a fairly short period of time. >> after the auditing of my tapes is finished. i mean this is the same old game. i'll gladly pay you on tuesday for a hamburger today. that's what wimpy said in the cartoons. yesterday james comey said he hoped there were tapes. we heard him say that. let's watch that again. >> i've seen the tweet about tapes. lordy, i hope there are tapes. >> do you believe there were any

tapes or recordings of your conversations with the president? >> it never occurred to me until the president's tweet. i'm not being facetious. i hope there are, and i'll consent to the release of them. >> so both of you are in the same findings here. you both hope there's tapes and recordings. >> well, i'm the -- all i can do is hope. the president surely knows whether he taped me, and if he did, my feelings aren't hurt. release the entire -- release all the tapes. i'm good with it. >> congressman, your committee is asking for those tapes. i love this date you've selected, june 23rd, which is the day of the smoking gun nixon tape, the 23rd of june. i don't know if anybody noticed that little factoid. but what do you make? are you going to be able to get these? i don't think they exist, do you? honestly, do you really think the president, i he had those tapes, he wouldn't have used them by now? >> i don't know what's worse for the president. if the tapes exist, it will probably contradict what the president is saying. if they don't exist, he may have made the claim to intimidate james comey from coming forward with what he knew. we want to get to the bottom of

this. but, chris, boy did he not sound like a president, look like a president, or act like a president today. and you compare that to what we saw from former director comey yesterday who provided sobering, believable, composed testimony. and you saw a president who was teasing out the release of information about these tapes like it was the season finale of a reality show. it was unfortunate to see that in the rose garden of all places. >> what did you think of kasowitz coming in, marc kasowitz coming in? i'm sure he's a competent attorney, one of the more expensive attorneys, $1,500 an hour, but he brought him in like a defense attorney. this is a guy who has sued people for saying that donald trump is a millionaire, not a billionaire. he has sued people. he has defended the current president with that terrible case of trump university where people were screwed -- aspiring people screwed out of their hopes of getting a better education and becoming businesspeople. he's a divorce-type lawyer.

to have him come in and represent the president of the united states, i found it -- it seemed to me something you'd see in night court somewhere in a small county after a dui case or something. it didn't -- it didn't seem up to the level of the president of the united states. your thoughts. >> they're making a sideshow of what should be a serious investigation. and every time progress is made in this investigation, they seem to get in the way, whether it's the fbi's investigation, the house intelligence committee's investigation. and now to, you know, threaten that they're going to go to the inspector general of the department of justice because a private citizen released unclassified memos also seems like they're trying to have a chilling effect on james comey. chris, the president would be well served to just get out of the way, allow the truth to come out. maybe he's cleared. maybe people are held accountable, but he's not doing himself any favors, and he's not doing the country any favors by just miring us in this mess. >> you know, congressman, you're a political figure, and i don't mean to put you down for saying that. but everybody listening right

now, ruth knows this. kristen knows this. selective release of information is what people do in politics. you pick out "the new york times." you want robert pear to have a week ahead on the story, so you give it to him a week ahead so it appears monday morning, top of the fold, right-hand side of the paper. if you give it to everybody, you'll get the third or fifth or 20th page. so this selective distribution of government truths all the time. it is not a misdemeanor or a crime or anything like that. ruth, your thoughts on this. the idea of trying to criminalize so-called leaking is an absurdity, playing on people's lack of knowledge of how government is actually functioning every moment of the day through leaks. >> well, what they're trying to do with that is to muddy things up and to make comey's leaks and air quotes, which are, as kristen said, a private citizen describing his non-privileged, non-classified -- unclassified conversations with the guy he used to work for, and making that seem like a current government employee who could be

criminally liable for releasing classified information. they're both leaks in some sense, but one leak is criminal, not comey's, and one leak isn't. and so that's just part -- if you have a problem in a criminal case or in any case, you just throw up a lot of smoke and you throw up a lot of dust to distract people. people should not be distracted. whether or not comey was behaving honorably or dishonorably in getting this information out, the question is what is the meaning and import of the information? that's what they don't want you to get to. >> congressman, i want to hear judgment on this. and i think you're allowed to make judgments apart from your deliberations on the intel committee or whatever, and that is, when you watched donald trump, jonathan karl is a top rate reporter and he asked him a bunch of questions.

i had the distinct impression that no matter what he had said in describing what comey had said yesterday under oath, trump would have been denying it. everything he said, that didn't happen, that didn't happen. he could have said anything. trump is just quite willing in the moment to deny the truth. he's quite willing to do it, and he did it again today. >> and, chris, it reminded me actually when i was a prosecutor in the courtroom, and it was always a losing argument when the defense attorney wanted to take and accept the most favorable pieces of testimony from a damaging witness that helped third client -- >> right. >> -- but then throw out anything that hurt their client. that never works in a courtroom. in the court of public opinion, i don't think the president doing it today will work either. >> and tell how he did it. >> right. >> he did it by saying i accept his testimony that i wasn't a direct target of the investigation, that my campaign was, and that's going to be my evidence that that's the truth. but i'm going to deny everything else the guy said yesterday, right? >> that's not believable. and the fbi director actually used an analogy that he uses in the courtroom, which is you can't cherry pick.

you have to take the testimony, warts and all. >> yeah. >> and if the president is goi to accept what helps him, he also has to accept what hurts him. >> thank you so much. kristen welker, great reporting. coming up, one of the most stunning moments of james comey's testimony yesterday was when he said president trump never once asked him -- this is killer -- about russia's election meddling in our democracy. what does that say about the president that he's so uninterested in what putin was up to when the russians attacked our elections? i'm going to ask former cia director and secretary of defense leon panetta about that and what trump said in the rose garden today. plus trump and the truth. he says he's willing o testify under oath about his conversations with comey, but it's clear to anyone who is watching this that the president operates in a certain utter disregard for facts, don't you think? and how could he be more credible than the fbi director who kept contemporaneous notes on those meetings and swore to

their effect way back? anyway, the republican defense of trump now is that he just doesn't understand, he u's just little kid, he doesn't understand, he can't know any better. that's a ridiculous defense. he thought through this, made sure the room was empty except for the guy he was talking to, james comey. it just doesn't pass the smell test. finally let me finish tonight with trump watch. he won't like it. this is "hardball," where the action is. be the you who shows up in that dress. who hugs a friend. who is done with treatments that don't give you clearer skin. be the you who controls your psoriasis with stelara® just 4 doses a year after 2 starter doses. stelara® may lower your ability to fight infections and may increase your risk of infections and cancer. some serious infections require hospitalization. before treatment, get tested for tuberculosis. before starting stelara® tell your doctor if you think you have an infection or have symptoms such as: fever, sweats, chills, muscle aches or cough. always tell your doctor if you have any signs of infection, have had cancer, if you develop any new skin growths

or if anyone in your house needs or has recently received a vaccine. alert your doctor of new or worsening problems, including headaches, seizures, confusion and vision problems these may be signs of a rare, potentially fatal brain condition. some serious allergic reactions can occur. do not take stelara® if you are allergic to stelara® or any of its ingredients. most people using stelara® saw 75% clearer skin and the majority were rated as cleared or minimal at 12 weeks. be the you who talks to your dermatologist about stelara®. that closely watched congressional race down in georgia, sixth district is less than two week as way now, and there's a new poll in the race today that's give democrats plenty to be hopeful about. let's check the "hardball" scoreboard. according to a new poll from the atlanta journal constitution, it shows democrat john ossoff with

a seven-point lead over republican karen handel among likely voters. it's ossoff, 51, handel, 44. that looks good for the dems, and that election takes place june 20th. we'll be right back after this. hey you've gotta see this. c'mon.

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obstruction. he's a leaker. but we want to get back to running our great country. we were very, very happy, and, frankly, james comey confirmed a lot of what i said, and some of the things that he said just weren't true. >> welcome back to "hardball." that was president trump today in the rose garden on the attack against james comey, the fbi director he fired last month. well, comey was asked yesterday if the president had ever requested information on how to prevent future russian meddling in our democracy. let's watch. >> did the president in any of those interactions that you've shared with us today ask you what you should be doing or what our government should be doing or the intelligence mmunity to protect america against russian interference in our election system?

>> i don't recall a conversation like that. >> never? >> no. >> do you find it -- >> not with president trump. >> right. >> i attended a fair number of meetings on that with president obama. >> i'm joined right now by leon panetta, the former secretary of defense for this country, a director of the institute for public policy. mr. panetta, thank you for joining us. you have so many perspectives on this, i'm sure. but one would be as a patriot, thinking about a president of the united states not asking the man responsible for counterintelligence what's happening with the russians and what are they up to with regard to our democracy. he never had a conversation in all those months with the president. >> well, chris, it's a little bit astounding because the first responsibility of a president of the united states is to protect our country and clearly to protect it from foreign adversaries who would attack our

country. i mean we just -- we just experienced a major cyber attack by russia against the united states of america, trying to interfere with our election process. that is a big deal, and it ought to concern this president that we need to look and see what happened and how do we protect it from ever happening again. and the fact that at no time did he seem to have any curiosity about exactly what happened with the russians is cause for concern in terms of where this president is coming from. >> let's talk about the strange behavior of this new president with regard to his fbi director, whisf course, a civil servant. seven days after the inauguration, the president called him up at noon and said, i want you to have dinner with me, and i was thinking about having your family, but i'd like it to just be us this time. and he arranged for him to meet him in the green room on the state floor of the white house,

isolated from anywhere else, far from the west wing, from any of the business offices. just the two of them sitting across a small oval table for dinner. the navy steward came in and served them and then left. they were all alone in this odd spot during which, according to the fbi director, the president asked for his loyalty. tell me what you think about the nature, the abnormality or the normality of such a dinner invitation to an fbi director by a president. >> well, that should never have happened. that's the bottom line. i've served in two presidencies, and none of those presidents would have in any way had a private meeting like that with the director of the fbi, particularly when the director of the fbi is involved in a very sensitive investigation that could perhaps involve some associates of the president.

so that should never have happened, and it is a reflection of the fact that the white house seems to have no discipline whatsoever in terms of trying to guide the president of the united states so that those things don't happen. >> so let's ask about the second -- i'll ask about the second event in which the president's meeting in the oval office with a half dozen of his top people, and the fbi director is present. at that point he asks the chief of staff, the job that you held for a while under president clinton -- he asked him to leave. he asked his own son-in-law to leave. most importantly, to his face, he tells the attorney general to leave the room because i, the president, want to speak with the fbi director. they left the room with some hesitation. they lingered. even the a.g., mr. sessions, he lingered, but he left the room.

what do you make of that choreography? >> well, again, it's surprising that neither the attorney general and certainly the chief of staff would have said, mr. president, that is not appropriate for you to have a private meeting with the director of the fbi. they should have stepped in. they should have said something. they should have prevented it from happening. and that, i think, is what is cause for concern. this is a white house that seems to be totally undisciplined, totally without any kind of chain of command, totally without any kind of foundation to support the president in terms of implementing the responsibilities of the presidency. now, maybe the president doesn't want that. that's possible. >> yeah. >> but what it does is it is endangering the ability of the president to be president of the united states. and we're seeing that now with all of these investigations. >> well, we've had presidents

who have needed interventions. you know about the difficulty of telling a president what to do. he was elected. you weren't. he appointed you. you have to say, mr. president, this isn't right. he says, i disagree. i'm going to do it. i think some presidents listen to counsel. i think clinton was probably a mixed bag. i think people like trump are very difficult to direct. i thought president obama didn't really want a strong chief of staff like bill daley. reagan wanted a strong chief of staff like the great jim baker. what is the degree of difficulty in being a chief of staff to any president, particularly one who has never had an adviser, that really never had a chief adviser's role? >> well, look, you know. you've been in the presence of presidents, and the reality is it's an intimidating experience. >> yeah. >> even for a chief of staff. but i felt it was my responsibility as chief of staff

to be able to be very direct with the president of the united states. otherwise, you're not worth much. why the hell have a chief of staff if that individual is not telling you the truth and trying to help you in terms of implementing your responsibilities as president? so clearly whether it was president clinton, president obama, the reality is that you had to face them, look them in the eye, and tell them exactly why you thought they were making a mistake and what you thought they ought to be doing. it doesn't make them happy. sometimes they get angry about that. but in the end, they also appreciate the fact that there's somebody in the room telling them the truth. i don't know whether president trump can handle that. my sense is there's no grown-up in the white house that can stare at him, look him in the eye, and tell him when he's screwing up. >> thank you, mr. secretary, for coming on and explaining this from all these perspectives because i think -- i wish trump was listening. if there's any hope for it, those would have been the words. thank you, leon panetta, for coming up. up next, trump says comey

wasn't telling the truth when he testified undeoath yesterday. and later, why the republican defense of president tru rings false. it's really a drop in class for the republican party these last few weeks. they are not doing their job of defending the integrity of their political party. and this is "hardball," where the action is.

would you be willing to speak under oath to give your version of --

>> 100%. i didn't say under oath. i hardly know the man. i'm not going to say i want you to pledge allegiance. who would do that? who would ask a man to pledge allegiance under oath? i mean think of it. i hardly know the man. it doesn't make sense. no, i didn't say that, and i didn't say the other. >> so if robert mueller wanted to speak with you about that -- >> i would be glad to tell him exactly what i just told you, jon. welcome back. president trump's public statement today that he would be willing to tell his version of events under oath could prove to be a significant development in the ongoing probe led by special counsel robert mueller. i'm joined by justice correspondent pete williams. how did you read the president today? this is about biblical studies at this point. did he say he would answer any question about the testimony of comey or only those two points about the loyalty oath and the flynn matter? will he answer the question, why did you want to meet with the fbi director all alone down in the green room of the state floor of the white house? why did you ask the attorney general to leave the room while you spoke with the fbi director?

those kinds of questions, are they within the realm of what is accepted here? >> i think so. he basically said he's willing to talk about those discussions, and once you start down that road, i don't see how you don't ask those other questions. but let's be clear about this. the mere fact that he's the president of the united states doesn't mean that robert mueller can't talk to him and he's, you know -- a president can resist it and say, wait a minute. these conversations were executive privilege, but the white house hasn't done that. they didn't do it before comey's testimony. they haven't done it since. i think it would be hard for them to claim it now. but nonetheless, the president seems to say he's not going to claim it. he's willing to answer those questions. of course, will there's some exposure with that as you said a moment ago. anytime you're talking to fbi agents and you say anything that isn't correct, that's a potential criminal violation. after all, that was the trouble that michael flynn got himself into. the fbi director has now said this publicly. we've always suspected that's what they were looking at. the crime -- for flynn, the

potential crime wasn't meeting with the russian ambassador. it was answering questions and being evasive about it when the fbi asked him about it. so anytime you talk to a federal agent, you run that risk. and then, of course, there's the obstruction question as well. all of this may be very academic because you can't charge a president with a crime. >> have a nice weekend, pete. you're the best. thanks so much. >> same to you. when wcome back, much more on trump and the truth. there'two different places of the earth. and the roundtable. plus, the republican defense of trump doesn't add up. in fact, it doesn't measure up to the republican party's tradition. why are they covering for this guy? you're watching "hardball," where the action is.

hello. i'm dara brown and here's what's happening. at a news conference yesterday, the president accused comey of lying about their private exchanges and said he never asked comey for his loyalty. in london police have made

another arrest in connection with last week's deadly bridge attack and indicated more arrests may follow. six people are now in custody. that's what's happening. now back to "hardball." welcome back to "hardball." not only did the president's allies wrongly claim that the president was vindicated by james comey's testimony yesterday, they were also quick to portray comey as a leaker in an attempt to sully his reputation. >> mr. comey has now admitted that he is one of these leakers. >> it turns out he was a leaker in chief. >> right. >> it's pretty dramatic stuff. >> i think his credibility in d.c. after probably an illustrious career has to be shot. he leaked some notes to a friend of his because he doesn't have the guts to do it himself. he has to leak it through a friend. i mean where does this stop? >> he's a leaker. he's a washington leaker. he's the deep state. >> wait a minute. >> he gave his notes to a columbia law professor because he wasn't man enough to give the

notes directly to the media when he wanted them out to the media. >> nbc reports that trump's outside legal team plans to file a colaint wi the inspector general at the department of justice. but as comey described yesterday, the material he shared was not classified, and he shared it as a private citizen after he was fired. well, former officials routinely speak about their time in office. they're called books. when it comes to the president's one-on-one meetings with comey, the most common defense of trump and his judgment is that he just doesn't know any better. here's speaker ryan trying to defend him yesterday. >> the president's new at this. he's new to government. and so he probably wasn't steeped in the long running. protocols that establish the relationships between doj, fbi, and white houses. he's just new to this. >> however, many have pointed out that the president did know such meetings were wrong because as a candidate for president, he frequently criticized former president bill clinton for doing the same thing.

>> remember bill clinton just happened, when he was in phoenix, arizona, just happened to see her plane. the attorney general's plane. >> i mean the attorney general is sitting there saying, you know, if i get hillary off the hook, i'm going to have four more years or eight more years. but if she loses, i'm out of a job. it's a bribe. >> how bad a judgment is it for him or for her to do this? i mean who would -- who would do this? >> the department of justice has acted very unethically, particularly the attorney general's private lengthy 39-minute meeting in the back of an airplane. >> every major lawyer. you look. every major lawyer is saying the same thing. they can't believe it happened. >> let's bring in the "hardball" roundtable, ayesha rascoe, howard fineman, and michael crowley, senior foreign affairs correspondent with politico. howard, let me ask you about

this attack. it seems like there's two modes for this ship of state from trump. it's either attack speed or ram speed. they came out of this thing yesterday attacking, attacking, attacking, and formulating the notion of crimes. now, obstruction of justice is a crime. if he committed it, he'll have to pay for it. but the notion of leaking, i mean i spent all these years since the '70s in washington, and leaking is what you do in politics. i mean if you're going to get a story on the front page of a newspaper, you give it to one newspaper or one weekly magazine as you know. that's how you put out a story. in this case, mr. comey released what his memory was of a meeting he had with the president when he was working for the government. it doesn't seem like a leak to me no matter how hard kasowitz tries to make it so. >> no, it's not. these were notes about his private impressions written by himself, for himself. and especially now that he's out

of a job, thanks to the president, jim comey can distribute those notes to anybody he wants, quote from them as he wants, give them to his friend at columbia law school if he wants. as you said, that's what books are. if, you know, robert gates was considered to have written one of the really terrific autobiographical books about being secretary of defense, i mean that is full of everything he did and saw and learned as secretary of defense. that's what makes it a book. so and the notion also that they're calling out jim comey's manhood, i mean jim comey went in front of the whole world yesterday in that scene you're showing right there and called the president of the united states a liar, and in excruciating, riveting detail, documented what he saw as the president's lies. now, that's guts. that's not lack of guts. that's guts big-time, and the people who, you know, attack comey for that should, you know,

try to grow a pair themselves. >> well said. ayesha, it seems to me that the president has used every technique to intimidate mr. comey as howard said. he said, i've got tapes. be careful what you said. they talked about executive privilege. they talked about every trick. i mean they talked about -- everything they seemed to be concerned with, the fifth amendment, whatever, they're going to keep the secrets of these meetings to themselves. now the president came out with jonathan karl today and showed his willingness to deny everything jonathan threw at him. i am convinced no matter what jonathan had said to him today, he was going to say it didn't happen, didn't happen, didn't happen. that was his mode of defense which was, you know, stonewalling. that's what it's called. >> w iseems like by doing that, he's also kind of painng himself into a corner. i mean he's emphatically denying that, you know, these things that comey said are not true.

and then they're even doubling down, and as you said, they're going to be filing an official complaint about the memos and things of that nature. so it's like they're actually bringing more attention to it because now you have the president on the record saying -- denying these things. and both men can't be telling the truth. so you're going to have people wanting to look into that, and it does make it look like maybe the president -- this could be -- some people are saying that it looks like he's retaliating against a former employee who was kind of just blowing the whistle on what he thought was his concerns about his -- about the president's actions. >> michael crowley, this is the president's defense -- total denial. is it going to work? >> well, you know, chris, i think as with so many things we've seen with donald trump so far, its may work with enough people to let him hang in there. you know, his base still seems fairly strong. republican voters are not turning on him en masse.

democrats who are hoping that we are, you know, a few weeks away from impeachment proceedings are going to be very disappointed. it's true that his poll numbers are at a bottom. i think in gallup he's at about 35%, 36% right now, which is close to the lowest number that he's posted since he took office, but with the republican, he's hanging in there. you hear the rhetoric from corey lewandowski or his son donald trump jr. this is the deep state. this is leakers. this is deep state working in concert with the liberal media to bring him down. chris, i don't think that's what's happening here. but i do think that that narrative is potent on the right. and i think -- >> are we in the deep state? are you and i, michael? howard? ayesha? are we in the deep state? i haven't gotten my membership card yet. >> chris, we could do a whole show on this. some people would probably define us as part of the deep state.

they say it's people in washington who stay regardless of -- you know, administrations couple and go and there are people in washington who stick around. i think more accurately it describes national, security, intelligence, and military professionals who exposure kind of nonovertly political power behind the scenes and have access to secrets, and, therefore, a huge amount of leverage over a political actors. >> it's an ultimate thing with a capital "t." it's invisible, and it's everywhere. and it is in the view of steve bannon, the people who believe this, something that goes beyond the visible part of government that is the intelligence community working in defiance of the idea of nationhood, that has conspirators around the world, and they're going to try to knock off and neutralize anybody who opposes them. >> the roundtable is sticking with us. up next, these three will tell me something i don't know. this is "hardball," where the action is.

wee back with the "hardball" roundtable. ayesha, tell me something i don't know. >> well, my colleagues at reuters today are reporting that the trump administration is reopening deportation cases that had been shelved by the obama administration, so putting people who thought that they were safe, putting them back on track to maybe be deported. >> howard? >> chris, bob mueller has hired as his right hand man a guy in the justice department named michael dreeben, who nobody has ever heard of. but inside the law community, he's regarded as the best

criminal defense prosecutor in the business. that means that mueller thinks there's a big criminal conspiracy that he's going to have to investigate. >> big time. thank you so much. michael? >> chris, when comey was testifying yesterday, i was curious, how is russian media covering comey. i went to sputnik, which is one of the major kremlin funded english language russian sites. i couldn't find a story about comey on their home page. i did find a big story saying that hillary clinton might be going to jail on some new corruption charge, which i didn't take the time to read about. but in that sense, i think there's continued synergy between conservative media and russian media. so think about that. >> i also noticed that fox had terrible numbers all yesterday afternoon. i thought that was interesting. anyway, ayesha rascoe, howard fineman, and michael crowley, thank you. when we come back, the great actor alan alda joins us on why we just have a failure to communicate in this country. this is "hardball," where the action is. ou who doesn't cover your moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. be the you who shows up in that dress. who hugs a friend. who is done with treatments that don't give you clearer skin.

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before i share with you my vision for america, i want to say a few words about the man who i hope is my predecessor, president josiah bartlet. differences. >> welcome back to "hardball." that was alan arden in his new book "if i understand you, would i have this look on my face," alan alda identifies with how other people are failing to relate to people in everyday life. i'm joined by actor and writer alan alda. i serve in united states peace

corps. one thing they train you is to hear what you do and do what you don't. and if you get on an elevator, for example, and you're looking the wrong way away from the door, if you don't think we have cultural ways of communicating, try that sometime. people will think you're insane. it's just a thing. we have habits of communicating. you stand next to the person in the elevator. you don't say too much. you say how is the weather or what do you think of the eagles or what do you thing of the redskins, but you don't go any further. it's interesting how we do communicate and we check out the other person's reaction, and that's what really your book is about, relating. >> yeah, it's relating. you're right. and we have -- it's so peculiar, i think. it feels so good when you relate, when you make contact with the other person, get in sync with them in some way. and yet we avoid it so mh. why do y thihat is? why do we hold people back so much and demonize them if they don't agree with us when it

feels so much better to find something underneath the government, underneath the rants that they might be making, that you actually find some commonality with? >> i agree with you. ed mcmahon once said years ago, he says the best question for an interviewer comes out of the last answer. >> absolutely. to do that you have to be listening. you have to read the person's face and seeing what they're thinking, i think. and it's interesting. you know, we do live in divided times now, sharply divided. and i just heard -- i read two experts on diplomacy who were saying independently the same thing. and they said, you can't have diplomacy without taking into account the other person's perspective, which is really syncing up with them, finding out how they feel about things. where are they? how can you understand where they're coming from? but we don't do that if we immediately assume that because they don't agree with us, they must be stupid, or they must not

know the facts when, in fact, we may share the same values. >> i was wondering about that. i know you don't want to talk about politics because this book is not political in any way. >> no. >> it is a common problem we have, and it's -- you know, some people will hear somebody, a politician say, you know what, i think he's talking down to me. i think they're looking down on me. they're dissing me as they say in the streets. i think that's a big part of what's been going on in american politics the last couple years. ople think, i don't cahat the facts are. i'm ticked off because they seem to btalking down to me. >> i think it's very easy if you have not only an opinion about something, but a body of knowledge about it, to speak to people as though they don't know as much as you, and therefore they don't know anything. actually, people know plenty. they've been spending their lives doing something other than what you've been doing. so you can share it with them. but it's never a good idea to sound like the fact that you know means that they don't know, and they're kind of stupid. nobody likes that feeling. i don't like it. nobody likes it.

>> well, alan, you're the best. you know the old saying speaking publicly, it's always underestimate the person in the audience knowledge but overestimate their intelligence, and i think that's what people don't do enough of. they go the other way with the jargon, and they overestimate your ability to know what they're talking about, when really you're talking down to them. you're the best. i've always liked your books. this is another one. i remember you remind me of mr. wizard from the old days, teaching science to regular people. you're the best. what a great guy. >> you're great. thank you. >> i love you as that senator who shined his own shoes. like who the hell else was going to shine them? anyway, thank you for coming on. it's great. >> thanks for having me on, chris. >> the name of the book is, if you understand me, would i have this look on my face? thank you, alan alda. when we return, let me finish tonight with trump watch. you're watching "hardball." what's the best way to get

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he's cute. and buy things from, well, everywhere. how? because our phones have evolved. so isn't it time our networks did too? introducing america's largest, most reliable 4g lte combined with the most wifi hotspots. it's a new kind of network. xfinity mobile. trump watch, friday, june 9th, 2017. he did it again. donald trump showed again this afternoon his readiness to say what will get him through the moment. for him in such moments of conflicts like right now, it's all that matters, getting through the moment. he will say he never asked for james comey's loyalty. he will say he never aed com to drop the case against michael ynn. he will suggest he has tapes of their meetings. he'll say he'll testify under oath about those meetings. he will say whatever gets him through the moment because for donald trump, that's where he wins, where he survives, where he lives in the ever changing, ever dying moment.

once it's over, it doesn't matter. what matters is where he just won or where he just survived. what he said to get through it is irrelevant because the moment itself has ceased to be relevant. all that matters for him is that he won, that he survived, that he can go on to the next moment. i suppose we've had presidents who were not honest, yet even the ones that were, when they were, seemed to show some strain in the telling of a falsehood. it depends what your definition of "is" is, or reagan's difficulties in trying to extract himself from the arms for hostages mess. he shows no guilt, not even a recognition when he stands and looks us right in the eye and says something even his stalwarts know is simply a -- i think we may be a point lower than we even imagined a week ago. that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. the "rachel maddow show" starts

right now. >> its kind of the equivalent of like the fire alarm going off except it was the voice of somedy working in another room, not on this show. that was kind of of amazing. i'm going to assume that wasn't god and just a technical difficulty. thaw for being with us. dan rather is here, which i'm very excited. we have a few new pieces of information to break on what is going on in washington with the what appears to be the mushrooming scandal around the president. we have a few new exexclusive pieces on the on that. lass night a columbia law school professor received what i'm sure was an unsettling letter from congress. the letter was addressed to former president at