what about ronald reagan who trump claims to be following in his foot step? they didn't have prior knowledge. >> i'm glad i got you both in there. thank you both. and that is my time, my friends. have a great weekend. no collusion, no obstruction. yesterday showed no collusion, no obstruction. >> on friday, donald trump gave that one response to what are in fact two separate scandals now plaguing his presidency. one has to do with a cloud of suspicion shadowing trump over this question. did he and/or any members of his campaign collude with russia to interfere in the election? it could be months or even years before this investigation into trump's ties of russia gives a definitive answer to that question. when it comes to building the case for possible impeachment, that may not matter as much as

the one that is only picked up steam since trump admitted to firing fbi director jim comey because of the fbi's russia investigation. namely, is the president guilty of using his power and influence to try and impede the progress of that investigation? on thursday, comey himself moved us closer to an answer. >> the president was asked whether he had urged you to shut down the investigation into flynn. the president respondeded, quote, no. no. next question. is that an accurate statement? >> i don't believe it is. i took it as a direction. he's the president of the united states. with me alone saying, i hope this. i took it as, this is what he wants me to do. i didn't obey that, but that's the way i took it. i was honestly concerned he might lie about the nature of our meeting so i thought it really important to document. >> comey said during his testimony that he is sure that special counsel robert mueller will expand the scope of his investigation to determine whether trump has obstructed

justice. this question puts trump in the company of presidential predecessors who have been the architects of their own demise because of attempts to make sure their dirt stays buried. when bill clinton was impeached, it wasn't because of his sexual indiscretion with monica lewinsky, it was for lying about it under oath. richard nixon's watergate scandal was only partially about the break-in that occurred at the dnc watergate headquarters. in fact, his counsel john dean writes in his book, there is no actual evidence that nixon ordered his staffers to commit the burglary. the smoking gun that caused the house to draft articles of impeachment was the recording of nixon recording his chief of staff to make the cia stop the fbi from investigating the break-in. and it was nixon's self-made scandal that first gave rise to the now well-worn adage that proved true again that bill clinton and now with donald trump, it's not the crime. it's the cover-up.

and joining me now is clinton watts, malcolm nance and former member of donald trump's national security counsel transition team. thank you for being here. i'm going to start with you, clint. will the biggest threat be that he threatened and went after jim comey on twitter and said there better not be tapes and that he fired him? >> yeah. he's made public disclosures, which have opened the door for comey to respond. so both on twitter and in the firing letter. remember, he said you told me on numerous occasions and meetings and that opens the door for comey to talk about those meetings, which is what we saw with this testimony. everything is a self-made disaster for president trump. he goes out and makes these statements and these challenges and asserts them and thinks that these other people don't have agency to combat them and that's what we've seen with the intel committee. they call it deep state. it's also called defending

yourself. >> you got rid of comey and now you have mueller which. >> you could look at comey, mueller, the new nominee, all with the department of justice and rosenstein and at the same point running the special counsel investigation at the same time as the fbi and these are all people that work for mueller just five years ago and they are now in charge of the fbi. so donald trump is really taking on a team that it is very independent in their leanings. >> this is donald trump and it's an exchange in which he asked whether there is a loyalty pledge. let's listen. >> he did say under oath that you told him to let the flynn -- you said you hoped the flynn

investigation -- >> i didn't say that. i will tell you, i didn't say that. >> and did he ask you to pledge -- >> and there would be nothing wrong if i said that but i did not say that. >> and did he ask for a pledge of loyalty from you? >> no, he did not. >> so he said those things under oath. would you be willing to speak under oath to give your version of -- >> 100%. i hardly know the man. i'm not going to say i want you to pledge allegiance. who would do that? >> so kyron, now that it's a credibility contest between donald trump and jim comey, do you think trump should testify under oath? >> i'm not sure about that because i think the facts are still coming out and i'd like to await that moment before i make the determination you've asked but i do think that this is something kind of like a shakespearean tragedy in that

you have in donald trump someone who is outside of the washington political machine and in fact it's outside american electoral politics who surprised everyone and won, doesn't know all the rules of the game in washington where people keep themselves out of trouble even though they are doing things that are not at the letter of the law and then on the comey side, it is really troubling to have a former top cop and intelligence officer who has decided to leak information and i think it's splitting hairs when you say, well, he was a private citizen, you know, the day that he did it but it was privileged information and it's not clear that the notes that he took after the meetings with trump did not in fact include classified information itself. was he cherry picking what he wrote so that he only put in those memos what he thought and determined was unclassified. this is a story where i think if we get political about it now and blame one side or the other

or take a partisan view, we're going to miss the facts and miss the larger story that the structure of american politics is at issue here. it's so divided that i think this kind of thing will happen no matter who runs and if we're going to look at the mueller investigation comprehensively, it's got to get to the issue of the russia probe, which takes us back to hillary clinton's e-mails, which takes us back to what we're doing on the democratic national committee's side. it's not just trump versus comey. >> let me let malcolm nance in here. i want to go back to the question whether comey could leak contemporaneous notes of his meeting with donald trump. you've written a book that i'm sure you had to get clearances so classified information wouldn't wind up in it. is it possible, in your view, that jim comey releasing his own

contemporaneous notes to "the new york times" somehow divulged classified information? >> well, as i understand it from jim comey's own testimony, that what he released was his feelings and the words that were said at that time. there was no discussion going on of classified information. i'm not even sure if it's privileged since donald trump seems to take great delight in commenting on it day and night with witwitter. so i find it very hard to say that this whole thing is boiling down to where jim comey has managed to, you know, implicate himself in some sort of nefarious activity. everyone is allowed -- there's no law that says that you cannot tell people what you spoke about with the president of the united states so long as it's unclassified and jim comey's made that pretty clear. >> and clint, you work for the fbi. as a former fbi agent, are you allowed to talk about your own impressions of a conversation that you had that are your notes that you took?

>> it depends on the circumstance. i mean, anything that you write ultimately in terms of notes as part of an investigation is kept. even if you wrote down on a note pad during an interview, that goes into the actual documents which are then, you know, allowed for a defense attorney to actually pull those or to look at them or a prosecutor. so everything that an fbi agent does, as long as it's not in a classified realm, can be pulled into the public domain. >> we should remind our audience that jim comey then recounted all of those impressions in each of the meetings that he had in a document that he gave to the senate intelligence committee and that they, the senate intelligence committee, at his request, released those to the public. so kiron, if the senate intelligence committee recounted everything in the notes and released it, are you saying that the senate intelligence committee by releasing jim comey's written testimony released classified information or privileged information? >> joy, absolutely not. that's ridiculous. that's the right legal pathway

for the senate intelligence committee to do its job. what i'm taking issue with is comey himself giving to a law professor friend information to give to "the new york times." i don't think it meets the smell test of our top intelligence officers, whether it's confidential, classified or not, i think it's a problem for our system and that's the fundamental point here. but it's not to say that there weren't difficulties on the trump side as well. this is just not good for american politics. we wish it weren't going on. we aren't doing the nation's business as a result. but i don't think it's just an equal -- >> you don't have unlimited time. >> that's not what i was attempting to do. i'm sorry. >> i want to get to -- >> i don't see it that way. >> when comey once asked about the one piece of his testimony that you could consider it delving into the classified realm, it was the dossier.

let's play what comey did when confronted with information that could in fact be classified. let's listen to that in an exchange with richard burr. >> you read the dossier. what was your reaction, given that it was 100% directed at the president-elect? >> not a question i can answer in an open setting, mr. chairman. >> is it not true that mr. flynn was and is a central figure in this entire investigation relationship between the trump campaign and the russians? >> i can't answer that in an open setting, sir. >> do you believe donald trump colluded with russia? >> it's a question i don't think i should answer. in an open setting. >> so malcolm, you have two pieces of information going on here, did trump collude piece of it. what did that answer tell you about the investigation into the original alleged crime here, the russiagate piece? >> well, as i like to tell

everybody, this is called a black hole. that's intelligence that you know should be there. you know that other intelligence indicates that it's there but you don't have that information but everything is pointing to it and it's flowing into that black spot and every time comey said i don't think we can discuss this in an open setting, or, you know, i need to discuss it in a closed setting, he was essentially saying that we have information. it's detailed. it's classified. and it may or may not exonerate a person. but for the most part, he was very, very cautious about exposing any ongoing investigation onto this. and if i could just make one quick point here, joy, you know, the other day when donald trump said i'm willing to swear under oath and come and discuss these matters, the first thing that popped in my head was the music to mortal combat, right? this is going to be a battle royale and i don't think donald trump knows what he's up against. clint can attest to this.

this agency is -- the fbi has one thing that is the absolute power they have. the ability to charge you if you lie to them and i don't think donald trump has the capacity. again, i think he thinks he's dealing with a lower level district attorney and not the entire justice power of the united states. >> very quickly, clint, can the fbi simultaneously and fairly investigate both russiagate and the potential that donald trump tried to obstruct the investigation into russiagate? >> yes. i think the special counsel will take on both of those at the very top level. the fbi is going to focus on that counterintelligence table. that's something i hope people took away from the testimony this week. russia meddling in elections is going on right now in europe. it's happening and can happen during the 2018 upcoming session. they can still influence these senate and congressional elections coming up. >> i wish we had more time.

thank you all. appreciate it. we'll have you all back. up next, the highly rated lawrence o'donnell. stay with us. we've done well i, with help from our advisor, we made it through many market swings. sure we could travel, take it easy... but we've never been the type to just sit back... not when we've got so much more to give when you have the right financial advisor, life can be brilliant. ameriprise it's not just a car, (work sfx) it's your daily retreat. the es and es hybrid. lease the 2017 es 350 for $329 a month for 36 months. experience amazing at your lexus dealer. wheyou wantve somto protect it.e, at legalzoom,

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the fact that richard nixon had to resign over the phrase uh-huh seems like nothing after jim risch stated on friday. >> okay. you may have taken it as a direction but that's not what he said? >> correct. >> he said "i hope". >> those are his exact words. correct. >> you don't know anyone that's been charged for hoping something. is that a correct statement? >> i don't as i sit here.

>> joining us now, my good friend lawrence o'donnell. >> i just got a call from phil griffin, our fearless leader and beloved boss. >> yes. >> he's hoping you host the show tomorrow morning if you can make it. >> yes. >> it's a big hope of his. >> exactly. and let's just answer jim risch's question. he chose to stand on the idea that no one has ever been prosecuted for hope. is that true? >> a bunch of cases have come out since then saying, yeah, this has been in the dialogue of these kinds of scenes for many years. people know that -- they believe that if they can shade their language in these moments, they can get away with it and the history of the case law says no you can't. >> it's kind of like nice business here. i hope nothing happens to it. >> yeah. >> so the other sort of interesting thing that stood out to me, and this is not what he actually testified to but what he wrote, the day before his

blockbuster testimony. this is fascinating to me. i thought it was the key phrase. march 30 phone call, this is how he reacted when trump once again asked him to get out the fact that he personally was not under investigation and comey said, "i explained that we had briefed the leadership of congress on exactly which individuals we were investigating and that we had told those congressional and told me we needed to get that out and i did not tell the president that the fbi and the department of justice did not make public statements for a number of reasons. post importantly, because it would create a duty to correct." >> exactly. >> "should that change". >> as i said last night, the president cannot learn because i could go into that meeting as president saying, i really want him to say this and then i hear him describe all of the reasons why he shouldn't and then he says, look, if i say you're not under investigation now, if that

changes, i must publicly say it has changed and you are under investigation. now, if you can think, which apparently donald trump can, that means you're better off where you are now. because you might some day be under investigation and it would be publicly announced. but if you leave it where it is now, it won't be publicly announced when you become under investigation and even when you go under investigation, you might survive the whole thing in the end. >> right. >> you could have gotten through the whole thing just by shutting up but he couldn't learn in that moment. the best thing for him, the very best thing for him is that comey keep doing it the way he's doing it. >> but lawrence, donald trump claimed that he fired jim comey for exercising his duty to correct against hillary clinton. he theoretically knew that this was a guy who would go on the tv and say, now this person who we said was not under investigation is again. that is the guy he's dealing with. does he not remember that he

said that? >> he's the same guy who many, many months after the whole hillary clinton episode as president of the united states, we learned the other day, james comey told us, when he walked across the room in the white house in that famous video we've seen ten million times, the whisper in the ear was, i'm really looking forward to working with you. and he's the same guy who told lester holt in what has become -- let's frame this here -- the most important presidential interview done in the modern era. >> yep. >> because that presidential interview by lester holt has created a special prosecutor. the president in that interview said, i thought about russia when i decided, you know, it was time to fire comey. comey took that as the reason. comey advanced that as the reason yesterday in the senate hearing and it was not disputed by anyone in the room, not one republican said to him, i don't get it. how are you interpreting the reason to be russia?

no one in the room was confused about that or expressed the slightest doubt about that. >> and then he reinforces the fact that that was the reason when he talks to sergey lavrov. >> got rid of the pressure. the pressure. >> lawrence, you pioneered this thing about the thing that donald trump is a liar. >> but i waited until he lied. >> until he lied. >> which was the very first time he opened his mouth about president obama. that's when his lying came into the jurisdiction of my program. >> yeah. >> prior to that, he spent a lifetime lying to wives and everyone else he encountered during the course of the day. that wasn't really part of my 10:00 p.m. jurisdiction, so i let that slide. >> given that setup, do you think donald trump was telling the truth when he told jonathan karl that he is 100% willing to testify under oath about comey? >> i think the truth is zero percent. i think it's somewhere around zero percent willing. and he won't. he won't agree blee do this.

he's going to be ordered to testify and he'll have no choice. he's going to be ordered to turn over evidence. he'll have absolutely no choice. he doesn't know any of this because he has testified, not under oath, to howard stern, that during the nixon years, his primary concern in life was how much sex he could have with how many women in manhattan. that period of his life. >> yeah. >> because he was risking veneer yell disease on a daily basis, he told howard stern that that period of his life was his personal vietnam. >> good god. >> that's his understanding of vietnam. >> lawrence, you come from a family of lawyers. >> i'm the one who isn't. >> you're the one black sheep in the family. >> i play one on tv but i really have. >> you actually really have. donald trump doesn't seem to have an expert one. let's put it that way. >> he's the worst lawyer i've ever seen in washington. >> if he had a better lawyer, is there any attorney that could help someone like donald trump? >> no.

and the better lawyers know it, which is why they all refuse to represent him. they've all said, well, we know what to do and how to handle these cases but we can't represent a client like this. those lawyers knew what i said on tv last night and have said before, he cannot learn. and so lawyers have to teach clients all the time because no one goes into a lawyer knowing what they need to know. the lawyer says, okay, you can't do this, you can't do this, you can't say this. and everyone, the good clients, follow what the lawyers say. but this guy is incapable of it. >> on the mclaughlin scale, 10 being the highest, chances of impeaching donald trump? >> i would say it's around a 5. >> you think it's around a five? >> i do. we have the most spineless speaker in the history of presidential investigations. every other speaker confronted with the presidential investigation has handled themselves with far more

strength and servitude than paul ryan has. including, by the way, newt gingrich in the pursuit of bill clinton. just include them all. but -- so even these -- the spineless response that we're seeing, it's striking to me because there were no real solid defenders of donald trump saying i don't believe james comey and i do believe donald trump. that's not what you were hearing. you were hearing pretty weak stuff. and donald trump is capable of changing their universe this weekend. you know, they're with him today. that doesn't mean that they are with him at noontime tomorrow. there's madness in the white house. they know it. it can erupt at any moment and he's got plenty of time to do it. can i reach back to a previous hour of your show? because i don't miss a minute. >> okay. >> you expressed some -- you had some things to say about the feelings of men when testifying to the senate when they feel they don't want to reveal their

conversations with the president. >> yeah. >> you were referring to dan coats, director of national intelligence, director of the nsa. >> yeah. >> and joy, i sensed in that part of the show that you -- you don't completely understand men's feelings. no. no. no. especially -- especially when it comes to not wanting to answer a question. >> yeah. >> and i would think anyone who has dated a man, been married to a man understands what men become when you ask them a question that they don't feel like answering. >> yeah. yeah. >> they become a puddle of -- we cannot speak. no words come into our heads when you ask us a question that we don't want to answer. that's -- that's when feelings control everything about us. >> oh, you delicate flowers. you delicate, delicate flowers. >> they are feelings. >> and donald trump is just a

babe. he's just a babe. he doesn't know anything. he's just a baby. thank you, lawrence o'donnell. this is why you don't ever miss a show. the highly rated "the last word" we weeknights at 10:00 p.m. >> i always thought you understood my feelings. but now -- >> lawrence, you just helped make -- you just helped make #amjoy the top thing on twitter. i'm feeling great. thank you, lawrence. always appreciate your help and your two bazillion fans and viewers. ♪ feelings, nothing more than feelings ♪ when this bell rings... ...it starts a chain reaction... ...that's heard throughout the connected business world. at&t network security helps protect business, from the largest financial markets to the smallest transactions, by sensing cyber-attacks in near real time

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do you know of any case where a person has been charged for obstruction of justice or, for that matter, any other criminal offense where they said or thought they hoped for an outcome? >> with the president of the united states with me alone saying i hoped this. i took it as this is what he wants me to do. >> that's not what he said. >> correct. >> he said, i hope. >> republican senators like jim risch dawned their capes and did their best to come to donald trump's rescue during the comey hearing. none more than marco rubio, his most trusty sidekick. >> did you tell the white house's counsel that's not appropriate, someone need to go

tell the president that he can't do these things? >> i didn't. no. >> why? >> i don't know. i think the circumstances were such that it was -- i was a bit stunned and didn't have the presence of mind. >> at the stable, the nation's joan walsh, maria theresa couple mar and fernando. this is after the hearing talking about donald trump's let it go moment, ari flynn. >> i think it boils down to this. is this the actions of someone who was putting together a plan to impede an investigation or is this a nonpolitician, unconventional figure who simply operates in ways that are previous from different presidents? >> and marco rubio was a little salty that the reaction to both his testimony and post-testimony comments was for a lot of his hometown folks, including the

miami herald, that he was caping for donald trump and retweeted in a little flurry, i defended the president at a hearing today but failed to quote me defending him. good reason for that. i didn't defend or attack anyone. i asked questions directly from comey's statement and i'll put up the column that he was returning to, which said, did rubio trade the integrity and on whether he's a defender of donald trump? >> well, joy, like an eager little boy, marco rubio was clearly singing for his supper and dessert at the comey hearing with those ridiculous softball questions which will certainly end up with him receiving that coveted second scoop of ice cream the next time donald trump invites him at the white house. let me tell you about what you call correctly, having it both ways double speak. it's really, joy, evidence of what i call these veshi trump

collaborators like marco rubio, like paul ryan and mitch mcconnell who have these transparent moments of conscience and tough talk only to be belied by a 100% voting record with this administration on all of the key initiatives and issues of this trump administration. and sadly, i think exhibit a of this is senator john mccain who a lot of people want to call an american patriot and who has given to this tough rhetoric but has also been belied by the 100% voting record. i see john mccain like many other republicans who are willing to put party over country and you think back to that disqualification of judgment when he chose sarah palin as the person to be a heartbeat away from the presidency in 2008. >> yeah, you did. and you brought up john mccain so i have to play for the panel probably the most bizarre moment at the comey hearing. john mccain, who is not on the relevant committee, was added along with senator jack reed from different committees to be

the final word and this is what john mccain did with his time. >> i'm glad you concluded that part of the investigation, but i -- i think that the american people have a whole lot of questions out there, particularly since you just emphasized the role that russia played and obviously she was a candidate for president at the time, so she was clearly involved in this whole situation where fake news, as you've just described it, big deal. >> and so, joan, the mccain questioning rambled, to be kind. he was sort of all over the place and kept trying to conflate. it seems like he was confused as to whether the investigation comey was talking about, the russiagate investigation and michael flynn investigation was the exact same investigation as the hillary clinton server investigation. he didn't seem to know which was which. he did issue a statement after

the hearing that said i got the sense from twitter that my line of questioning went over people's heads. maybe going forward i shouldn't stay up late watching the diamondbacks night games. what's going on there? >> i don't know. he continued to try to explain what he was asking and i still don't understand it. director comey was very kind with him. he did point out the relevant fact that he only came out and -- not exonerated but only spoke about the clinton investigation being relatively closed because they had completed it. this they hadn't completed because it doesn't make any sense. they are just at the beginning stages. but i couldn't follow it either. it was not his finest moment. >> and i feel like they are trying so hard to find a way to indict hillary clinton as part of -- and marrying it to donald trump so it mitigates him.

it almost becomes a clumsy way of trying to defend him. another way that they've tried to help donald trump out, without explicitly saying that they think he's being honest, is to stop democrats from being effective. i want to play a moment that a lot of people reacted on afterwards. this is kamala harris. >> yes or no, sir? >> he has the full independence and authorized by those regulations -- >> are you willing to do -- >> the chair is going to exercise its right to allow the witnesses to answer the question and the committee is on notice to provide the witnesses the courtesy, which has not been extended all the way across, extend the courtesy for questions to get answered. >> mr. chairman, respectfully -- >> mr. rosenstein, would you -- >> this witness has joked, as we all have -- >> the senator will suspend. >> she even got the finger of doom there. it is an interesting point that

she's the only women that have been interrupted in this way and only democrats. >> well, that whole line of questioning, if you follow it, she was basically saying, will you put it in writing that you are not going to -- you're going to let mueller do his job? that is what she was asking and he demured and said you have to trust my integrity. it's the bait and switch. they are basically saying, we need this man in office because we want to make sure we're rolling back dodd/frank and make sure we're meddling in health care so the american people don't have access to it and make sure there's a cuba policy that we want to roll back. let's focus on it behind closed doors. and we know that senators rubio and cotton had dinner at the white house tuesday night two days before the hearing.

it does feel like they are cutting -- continuing to cut this deal. we will continue to allow this president to do as he pleases and we'll defend him as long as we get what we want legislatively. >> and you see that with paul ryan and tie them selves to obamacare and cut taxes for the wealthy and for middle income americans. they all take the order and go down with trump on this. you get the sense that they are trying to keep them afloat and just this week, they passed a repeal of dodd/frank and you saw tom cotton during the questioning trying to, again, serve donald trump his master by pressing jim comey to say, but you saw no evidence of collusion. you saw no evidence of collusion. and comey said, well, that's not up to me.

that's up to robert mueller now and that's where the investigation is going. so i'm not going to make any statements because you browbeat me. in some ways i know we're very partisan and anyone on the panel often has very strong feelings but it is sad to see republicans totally in the tank for trump when the issue is really about moscow meddling in our election and the issue that comey raised whether we have a man in the white house who can be trusted. >> yeah. >> in years past and decades past, some republicans would be upset when it was thoohappening their party. >> it's not their father's gop when technically it is their father's gop. >> thank you all. appreciate you guys. coming up, ice cube keeps it real with bill maher. you don't want to miss it.

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now, the guy who was here, it's not his fault. i feel bad about him, the senator. it's all on me. but he said a weird thing. the comic mind goes to a weird place sometimes. but it doesn't matter that it wasn't said in malice. it -- if it brought back pain to people. >> right. >> and that's why i apologize freely and i reiterated tonight. >> last nirkts comedian bill maher brought on author and sociology professor dr. eric michael dyson to get a black friend assist on his mea culpa from this moment last week brought the wrath down on

maher's head. >> we'd love to have you work in the fields with us. >> work in the fields? senator, i'm a house -- >> on his show last night, maher was also joined by ice cube who had been previously scheduled to promote the 25th anniversary release of his hip hop album "death certificate." first, cube pulled no punches in explaining to maher why his n-word punch line was no joke. >> there's a lot of guys out there who crossed the line because they are a little too familiar or they think they're too familiar or it's guys that, you know, might have a black girlfriend and they think they can cross the line. and they can't. >> and joining me now is msnbc contributor toure. i'm dying to know what you thought about it overall. i want to start in order. michael eric dyson was on to

talk to bill maher. let's play about him talking about the context of maher's remarks. >> in the age of trump, we think about the nefarious resurgence of racism under jeff sessions and under steve bannon. there's no question about that. so that even if your intent is certainly not to cause any kind of pain or horror, you do know that the use of that word then triggered, i think, the -- not only unconscious but the way in which black people feel on their haunches now because of the resurgence of racism. >> their conversation was interesting because it was sort of like they were at two different parties. and dyson is doing his classic intelectual thing and maher was at an entirely different level. not saying he wasn't as smart as him but having two entirely different conversations. and maher kept falling back on comic privilege. the comic place goes to weird places. a bad interception. to me it was a bad joke.

i understand the notion of comic privilege. we have discussed it on many occasions when comics make jokes about rape or race or what have you. this doesn't fall under comic privilege because he was not on stage trying to make a joke. i'll allow comedians the space to make a joke that's edgy that push our boundaries. i understand that. this was a sort of automatic association of like, well, i'm one of them, right? and we're going to get to the ice cube bit. when ice cube starts talking about, you dated so many people, you hung out with so many people. you think you're one of us. you think you're honorary and have that pass. that's where you get into bad ally behavior, right? that's what i think this is really about. you think that you're down, so down that you can even use -- no. you still can't because there's still a tremendous amount of pain associated with being black. when you're white and you're like, i'm for justice, i'm for equality and i'm one of y'all, it's like, wait, wairct, you ha gone too far. >> i like bill maher.

he's a good guy. a great commentator. we all enjoy his show. bill maher said, the two different conversations. and he also went to another place about his own views on race baseod where he grew up. let's take a listen to that. >> i grew up in new jersey in the '50s and '60s. and race wasn't even an issue. it didn't exist. >> right. >> we were -- except my parents told me the right thing about it. and i've tried to, by the way, portray the right thing about it. which you have said. >> is that just the blinders of somebody who sees himself as an ally of plaqblack people? >> i've been on maher. i like maher. i know maher. but there was a lot of defensiveness. he prefaced that comment with, well, america has done lots of bad things and i was in a bad situation but i became a right-minded person, a woke person. and like now is not the moment where i'm going to give you your star for being woke.

i mean like just -- there's just -- it's hard to hear these people talk about like, i have a past or i'm an honorary member. i'm just -- there's no pass. and you are not being a good ally when you act like i'm one of y'all, right? this is an over identification, right? and it's painful. it seems to sort of minimize and objectify me when you're like, i'm one of y'all. you are an extraordinarily privileged straight white man, super rich. you are not one of us in any way. >> i thought simone sanders and dyson made a point which was, it's not as if the slaves in the house were any better off. >> the house feel dichotomy needs to die. >> i want to play ice cube which was the most powerful moment last night. >> i know you heard. it's in the lexicon, everybody talking. but that's our word now. that's our word now.

and you can't have it back. when i hear my homies say it, it don't feel like them. when i hear a white person say it, it feel like that knife stabbing me, even if they don't mean it. >> he's absolutely right. in this era, we understand that words have different meanings when they come out of different bodies and different experiences. the only quibble i would have with cube there, as he says you can't have it back. see what happened to lebron james' house. they have it, too. and they can use it as that tool that they want whenever they want. >> toure, thank you. i really wanted to hear from you of all people. thanks for making time to come down. two pieces of great news. today is my sister june carol's birthday. the great june buggy. there she is. she's gorgeous. i love my sister. actress extraordinaire and more happy news, our wonderful team member producer natalie mieles got engaged to her fantastic fiance joe. congratulations to the happy

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[ bees buzzing inside vehicle ] the all-new volkswagen atlas. with easy-access 3rd row. life's as big as you make it. is that our control room sound was being broadcast over the p.a.? that was impressive. it was like -- i'll tell you what happened before the cameras came on. it's kind of the equivalent of the fire alarm going off, except it was the voice of somebody working in another room not on this show. that was kind of amazing. i'm going to assume that wasn't god and it was just a technical difficulty. thanks for being with us tonight. dan rather is here which i'm very excited about. 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.