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i'm ayman mohyeldin at msnbc world headquarters. here is what's happening this hour. day six of jury deliberations set to begin at any moment in the bill cosby trial. legal experts have been dissecting questions asked by jury members throughout the week and the calls for a mistrial by defense team are intensifying. cosby has denied all allegations of sexual misconducmisconduct. let's go to pennsylvania, nbc's ron allen. a lot of people surprised the jury deliberations have dragged on for so long behind closed doors. what can you tell us about, a, the expectations of what can happen today and how people are interpreting this. how is the defense viewing the delay in deliberations, how is

the prosecution viewing snit. >> reporter: a few things. everybody is expecting a verdict at any moment. we've been feeling that way for several days. the period of deliberations has extended longer than the trial. remember, a couple days ago the jury came out and said they were deadlocked. the defense saw that as very good news because if they get a mistrial, the prosecution has to decide whether to start this process all over again. the defense has been pushing for a mistrial, not only during deliberations, but during the trial, during the pretrial. that has been part of the cosby strategy is to try to make this whole thg go away. that's where we'll begin this morning with the judge ruling on yet another motion for a mistrial. what the defense is saying is that they think the jurors are being coerced, that there's pressure on the jurors who are not agreeing with the majority. that's unfair. the judge says that the law says the jurors can deliberate for as

long as they want and he can't interve intervene. he has said to the jury on a number of occasions, if there's something going on, anything you want to tell me, you're being harassed, if there's tension, it's uncomfortable, they can tell him and then he can intervene and perhaps in some way move the process of coming to a decision more quickly. the other big point i want to make, remember, a lot of people out there have heard all the other allegations about bill cosby over the past couple years and they're wondering why this is taking so long for them to come to a decision of guilty. this is about one case, a case of 2004, andrea constand. there was a sexual encounter. cosby says it was consensual. she says it was assault. all those other cases having in to do with what was going on in the kroo. there was only one other alleged victim allowed to testify. that's another recent case or fairly recent case. the others, too much time has

passed, it happened too long ago. they can't be criminally prosecuted which is another reason so many people have their hopes pinned on this case. there are women here who claim they were abused, mistreated by cosby some time ago. they are waiting with us to see what happens. they're hoping he's convicted because they know this is obably the last time he's going to fac criminal charges or this sexual misconduct, alleged sexual misconduct. they know these other cases will never come before a jury. >> so much at stake on both sides. ron, let me ask you quickly, if, in fact, we see the defense make the motion for a mistrial this morning, how soon after that motion could we potentially expect a decision by the judge? how quickly has he been making those decisions, no, i want the jurors to keep deliberating throughout the course of the last week? >> immediately. he's shut them down almost immediately at each time there's been a motion for a mistrial. the judge has been very clear, and he said to the defense lawyers, show me the case law

that says he needs to intervene in some way when the deliberations have passed a certain period of time. and there apparently is none. that's an argument that the cosby team has been making louder and louder as it goes on. again, if they can get a mistrial out of this, essentially the charges go away, for the moment at least. the prosecution can decide to retry the case. there's been some pressure on the prosecution mott to retry this case. remember, it dates back to 2004. cosby was arrested in 2015, 18 months ago or so, and there are a lot of people who feel this prosecution is politically motivated. that gets more complicated. but the bottom line is, the jury should be here any minute. they'll get a ruling on this mistrial and the expectation is the deliberations will continue. >> ron allen starting us off in pennsylvania, thanks for joining us. the other big breaking news story we're following this hour is the desperate search for

seven navy sailors theer tnear coast of japan. nbc's hans nichols is in our washington bureau with the latestdetas. hans. >> right now they're focused on the safety of the ship, its well-being, as well as finding those seven sailors. three sailors including the commanding officer have been evacuated. at a certain point this will turn into an investigation, questions on how this happened. when you look at the photo, it doesn't look like a direct t bone, it looks like it was at an angle. there's nearly always backups, redundancies trying to figure out how not to have these mistakes happen. this is a major incident. i think one other thing they'll be looking at is the kind of communications, whether or not there's flight plans -- excuse me -- ship plans, who was on the bridge. i think that's another key question, who was at the helm when this happened. in general, when you have a destroyer like this, it can be part of a strike group.

there's a strike group based in japan, that's the seventh fleet out there. they have most of the western pacific. this is the same strike group as the uss reagan that has been doing routine operations in the sea of japan, close to the korean peninsula. clearly this is cotting at a tense time throughout the region and a lot of unanswered questions. ayman. we want to go back to the bill cosby story. we can see live pictures of bill cosby arriving outside the courthouse in norristown, pennsylvania. it's just after 9:00 a.m. and as we've been mentioning, this is the -- i think 52 hours of deliberations that the jury has been considering a verdict in that trial. as we were hearing earlier from ron allen, theudge in that trial has dismissed calls by the defense team accompanying bill cosby as he makes his way into

the courthouse for a declared mistrial. we know he's encouraged the jury to go back and continue deliberations. we also had a chance to hear from bill cosby late yesterday after that session concluded in which he thanked his supporters, urged them to stay calm. some analysis suggest that he and his team have been bullied by the delay. some believe it favors the defense. some members of the jury are deadlocked, not convinced of a quick conviction. that's perhaps why these deliberations are taking long. we see bill cosby making his way, as he has been through out the course of the entire trial as well as the deliberations over the past several ways. we know he has supporters that have been showing up outside the courthouse. what we are expecting, jurors to arrive around 9:00 a.m. we see bill cosby entering the courthouse. those jurors expected to

continue deliberations. we' we're expecting a motion from the defense attorney for a mi mistri mistrial. the judge, whether he'll maintain that motion today or dismiss it and encourage the jurors to deliberate, that remains to be seen. we'll have the details if and when it comes out today, or whether or not he allows the jurors to continue deliberations. stay with us for that and much more. we want to switch gears and go back to the white house and nbc's kelly o'donnell. we're learning more today about th congressional baseball game, particularly the shooter in involved in that. kelly, what can you tell us? >> reporter: first of all, of course, the president is saying he hopes the country will come together after the shooting that wounded four, still two in critical condition, including house majority whip steve scalise, who is in critical condition. and the president is hoping that there will be good wishes and, of course, ever wen extends that's to those affected by the shooting. switching to the investigators working on the case, trying to

understand what may have prompted that, what were the motivations. what we're told by sources familiar with the fbi investigation, after searching things like the gunman's phone and computer and an initial look at potential evidence, they're not seeing anything that suggests there was preplanning. however, with the gunman at the time of the shooting there was something that has piqued the curiosity of investigators and it's leaving quite an interesting clue. >> a deepening mystery behind the gunman behind wednesday's congressional baseball shooting. officials say james hodgkinson carried a handwritten list with the names of house republicans including alabama's mo brooks, arizona's trent franks, and south carolina's jeff duncan. congressman duncan says he spoke to the gunman shortly before shots erupted. >> i did have an interaction with someone in the parking lot who asked me if the team practicing was a democrat or republican team. i told him they were republicans.

>> reporter: president trump suggested the violence could inspire unity. >> my dear friend steve scalise took a bullet for all of us. our country will perhaps become clos closer. >> reporter: in miami's little havana friday, the president signed a new cuba policy, that brings back restrictions lifted by president obama. the move will curb individual americans from travel to cuba and tighten u.s. business with cuba's military-owned interest. the president drew attention away from that event with new interactions tied to the russia investigate. he added a heavyweight criminal lawyer, washington's john dowd who led baseball's gambling investigation that banned star player pete rose. can another lawyer bench the president's twitter game? friday the president declared "i am being investigated for firing the fbi director by the man who told me to fire the fbi

director. witch hunt." referring to deputy attorney general rod rosenstein. the president delivered another surprise. he voluntarily released a federal financial disclosure not due until next year. the filing, cleared by the office of government ethics, shows the president reported earnings in a broad range, a minimum of $595 million since january 2016. but president trump refuses to release any tax returns. sources close to the president's outside counsel say in that tweet he was not personally acknowledging that he is aware of being under investigation, but he was referring to published reports that suggest he is. so they wanted to make that distinction. within the next hour, ayman, the president and mrs. trump will make their first trip to camp david since he's taken office. that, of course, is the maryland sort of presidential retreat that is run by the u.s. military. so that would be his first visit

there with the trump family, and it's more rustic, perhaps, than the president's trump-branded golf courses, but this will be the first time he'll be spending the weekend at a u.s. military-run facility. >> kelly o'donnell live at the white house. let's bring in republican congressman jim wren nas see of ohio. it's gait reat to have you with. i wanted to ask you, sir about president trump tweeting yesterday saying "i'm being investigated for firing the fbi director by the man who told me to fire the fbi director. witch hunt." if it's true that president trump is now officially under investigation, does that make it harder for you and your fellow gop congressmen to continue to stand behind president trump? >> look, the president is the president. he's going to continue to move forward with policies which i believe he ran on. he continues to get these things done, and i think it's important that we continue the process for

the american people. so absolutely we're going to continue to move the ball forward, and i know the president wants to do that as well. >> let me ask it this way, you heard in the president's tweet or saw in the president's tweet, he used the term witch hunt. do you agree what is happening in washington, d.c. is a witch hunt? >> i know what's happening in washington, d.c. i've been there for six years. the rhetoric, back-and-forth rhetoric is not what's good for the american people. i was a businessman for almost three decades. i went there because i want to get past the rhetoric and get things accomplished. i think that's what the american people want us to do. at some point in time, we have to be able to move forward. there's investigations going on. let the investigations go on, but let the congress and let the president continue to do the business of the american people. >> so the tweet is placing deputy attorney general rod rosenstein's future into question. that's how a lot of people, sir, are interpreting that tweet. do you think we're heading towards seeing him fired or recused from the russia probe?

would you support either move? do you want to see him gone? >> people can interpret a lot of things. again, one of the problems we have in washington, d.c. we interpret a sentence, interpret things the way we want to interpret them. again, this is the president making his position known via tweet. he's trying to talk to the american people directly. i'm going to let him explain what the tweet means and the interpretation. for me, again, this is about trying somewhere. we have to get tax reform, we have to get health care reform done, we have to get the things done and we need to continue to work on those. there are already investigations going on. let them go on, but let's continue to work for the american people. >> but it seems, sir, with the actual investigations going on. the fact that the president is unable to advance his agenda is in large part because of things he's tweeting out. you can make the argument he's shooting himself in the foot

because he, himself is putting out tweets about investigations, witch hunts. that diverts the attention away from the work. >> we have the house, we have the senate, we have the administration. we need to continue to work together. what we can do in the house is continue to work, what we need to get done, what the senate can continue to do is work on what they need to get done and the president can continue to move his programs forward. yes, there's always going to be this media attention on one-liners. again, this rhetoric is what continues to drive the president crazy. people want us to get the job done. they want us to let the investigations occur. let them go. let's continue to do the work for the american people. i think that's what's important. >> congressman, let's switch gears and talk about the tragic ooting that happened earlier in theweek. thehooting is obviously bringing new focus onto

political divisiveness in the country. i want to quote you something you wrote in an op ed on that particular subject. you write, today's hyper partisan environment is hotter and more harmful than i've ever seen and we are at risk of more scenes like the one we saw on the d.c. area baseball field on wednesday morning. i'm curious to get your thoughts, what do you think brought us to this point of divisiveness, can the bipartisanship we've seen the last few days hold up as the investigations move forward, as the agenda moves forward? >> it has to. ayman, i have to tell you, when i first got to washington 6 1/2 years ago, i saw it in my first hearing. that's why i started a bipartisan breakfast. we have a bipartisan group that talks about these issues, how can we work together, how can we move legislation forward? we're happy to say last year there are multiple pieces of legislation that actually got passed into law through this group by working together. are they big picture issues? no. that's what we have to be able

to get to. the problem is, i can tell you, 6 1/2 years ago, the rhetoric was less than it is today. the rhetoric has raised to such a level that it has become a distraction to moving forward and it has become where we get sound bites, one-word sound bites or calling people names. we've got to get past this. i get so frustrated, because it should be policies over politics. today we have gone to actually attacking people. as we saw last week, we've seen actually a harmful attack on people much past just the verbal attacks. i think both sides have to change this. leadership, we've already seen members of republican leadership come out and the democrat leadership, and we have to ntue this. we need to be able to say, look, we need to get the work of the american people done and bri this rhetoric down. it does filter back to the country, and it does filter back to the people back home. even when i'm in ohio, you see it all the time.

>> congressman, i've got to say, i don't have any hard data, but i'm pretty sure the majority of americans would agree with you to have bipartisan work on behalf of the peak. thank you very much, congressman, for joining us this morning. appreciate your time, sir. >> thank you. >> she's been called an obscure lawyer who could become the most powerful woman in washington, d.c. who is rachel brand? hear why one senator voted against brand's confirmation next. ♪

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binge dvr'd shows, while painting your toes. on demand laughs, during long bubble baths. tv on every screen is awesome. the all-new xfinity stream app. all your tv at home. the most on demand, your entire dvr, top networks, and live sports on the go. included with xfinity tv. xfinity the future of awesome. technically the president of the united states cannot obstruct justice. the president of the united states is the chief executive officer of the united states. if he wants to fire the fbi director, all he has to do is fire him. >> all right. that was newt gingrich, former house speak r and supporter of president trump at the national press club in washington.

the comment coming after president trump appeared to lash out at deputy attorney general rod rosenstein. joining me now, francesca chamber from "the daily mail" and car rin from "the washington post." if i may begin with you, car rin, what is the conventional wisdom on whether rosenstein will have to recuse himself? >> there isn't conventional wisdom. if he does recuse himself, it will probably be because his memo he wrote considering comey's handling of the clinton e-mail probe was used by the president as the initial excuse for why he was firing the fbi director. then the president said during an interview of innocence that, no, it was actually all about russia. the question will be what did rosenstein know before he wrote that memo. it's not hard and fast law he has to recuse himself in this situation. he himself has said he's not

planning to, although if the moment comes where it seems the precedent and rules dictate he should, he will. it depends on what mueller decides to do and whether he considers rosenstein somebody to have information about, all these allegation, both concerning potential russian collusion but also obstruction of justice. >> francesca, if the associate attorney general does actually recuse himself, the task of overseeing the russia investigion would fall on the shoulders of rachel brand. i want to play you a sound bite from democratic senator amy klobuchar. this is why she said she voted against confirming rachel brand. take a listen. >> rosenstein answered most of the questions i directly asked her some questions, i had a pleasant meeting with her in my office, but i was concerned about her in this job. mueller has not even started to do his job. and i would hope rachel brand

who does have legal experience here would understand that and even if for some reason this went into her hand, would do the right thing for the justice department. >> interesting enough, francesca, we should point out that the senate voted very much along party lines for confirming rachel brand, 52-46. what can you tell us about her? what do we know about her? >> she is someone attorney general jeff sessions says is a brilliant lawyer. so someone the department of justice has confidence in. if she were to have to take over this investigation. but i think the bigger picture here is that we're even at the point where we're now looking at the attorney general having recused himself, having talked about the deputy attorney general having to possibly recuse himself. now seemingly confirmed he may be a focus of this investigation because he fired james comey and he, quote, said he had russia on

his mind when he did it. that's going to be very problematic for this white house mong forward. there's been some chatter about what it means that he targeted rosenstein in the tweet saying that the person who told him to fire comey is now saying he should be investigated for that. and the white house has been ducking on a lot of these questions, pushing them to outside counsel even as the president continues to make comments that raise a lot of questions. >> car rin, i want to ask you about the president's tweet. this comes the day he acknowledged in the same tweet that he is under investigation. in fact, he also said he was going to be firing -- he said he fired the fbi director and he was being accused of doing so by the man who told him to fire the fbi director in that same tweet. what is the implication of that tweet? how significant is it? >> well, the president's story keeps changing about why he fired the former fbi director,

jim comey. first it was, oh, it's all rosenstein's memo, then it was i was going to do it anyways, and we're back to russia, now it's back to rosenstein. this seems to be a signal to rosenstein that he may be next. rosenstein said in a hearing on capitol hill earlier this week that the president can't reach over him to fire mueller if he's upset about the way the special counsel is handling the investigation. rosenstein as the acting attorney general for purposes of the russia investigation has to be the one to sign off on that. he said i don't see cause, i don't see a reason. he said that a day before we reported that the probe was starting to look at the president himself on issues of potential obstruction of justice. if trump is frustrated with mueller, he has to also be frustrated for mueller because -- rosenstein is the firewall for mueller. playing it out, if that happened, maybe he thinks he has a better bet in rachel brand,

she did serve as head of the office of legal policy in the bush administration. she has conservative credentials that a lot of people look at and she wasn't really asked about the russia probe or didn't talk about it during her confirmation hearings. it's a big question mark there. many legal scholars believe she's a very respectable lawyer and will play this hard and fast down the center as rosenstein is trying to do. it raises the question of at what point does the president bet he can get a more sympathetic person in a position of authority that's controlling this run up against politics. you can't keep firing people. republicans even say they trust miller. >> we'll have to leave it at that. an ongoing story for months and possibly longer. thank you very much for joining us this morning. >> thank you. >> thanks. tightening poll numbers days before a congressional runoff in georgia. what the candidates are saying to win those crucial votes and

the impact president trump is having on that race. live report from atlanta right after the break. we've done well in life, 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.

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i'm ayman mohyeldin at msnbc world headquarters in new york. at just past the half hour mark, breaking news in pennsylvania. the sixth day of jury deliberations in the bill cosby trial expected to begin. we saw cosby arriving to the courthouse. he's denied all allegations of sexual misconduct. let's bring in nbc criminal contributor amy fanning and ted, let me begin with you. let's start with what viewers are wondering about this morning. all the questions from the jury, especially the head-scratcher about wanting to go over the definition of reasonable doubt at that point in the process. how do you interpret that? >> it's a struggle.

i'm sure the jury is divided. they're trying to reach some kind of a consensus. the key here in this whole case is credibility, and they're trying to weigh the credibility of both of these various parties, constand as well as bill cosby. >> katie, we've seen bill cosby speak to reporters last night, seen tweets from his account. what what does that stay about his state of mind, as each day goes on, is he b more and moreith condse. >> i think he's hugely buont at this point. i don't think he should show any level of optimism. it's literally reading tea leaves to determine what a jury is going to do. 52-plus hours of deliberations mean nothing when you see as the read-backs. tomorrow is father's day. do these sequestered jurors want to go home?

i believe the answer is yes, and i think we'll find out something to do with finality for bill cosby. >> speaking of that point, the possibilities of finality. one of the things we know, ted, is the defense has been constantly making a motion for the dismissal of the trial or a mistrial saying it's a hung jury, basically is what they've been arguing. what is your take on what we can expect today, could that be something the judge rules in their favor today? >> they're moving initially at this stage for a mistrial. it kant going to happen. as long as these jurors are able to deliberate and they're saying to the judge they're not deadlocked, the judge is going to allow them to deliberate. now, at some stage, if they come back before the court and say they are, in fact, deadlocked, i think the judge will immediately allow and permit a mistrial. >> katie, your take on that, do you agree with ted on that point? >> i do agree with ted. we don't always agree, but i do agree with ted that there's no

chance that the judge is going to order another allen charge to the jury to order them to go back and glib rate more. at that point in time you're flirting with the idea that it's becoming a co-serive act by the court. i believe the judge will say, i'm sorry, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your time. if you can't make a decision, i'm going to send you home. what's really important is what will the jury tell you about what the vote was, who was saying convict bill cosby and who will say let him go free. >> katie fang and ted williams, thank you both. we'll have to monitor this in the event it possibly has conclusion and finality today. thank you both for joining us. >> my pleasure. >> sure. comparing president nixon to president trump, is that fair? we'll take a look at that comparison next. for an exceponally fresh elg choose philips sonicare diamondclean hear the difference versus oral b. in a recently published clinical study, philips sonicare diamondclean outperforms oral-b 7000,

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downfall to trz's administration.

we'll ask a nixon biographer what's similar and how the two are completely different. on "am joy," john ossoff will respond to a new poll on his race. you don't want to miss that.

welcome back everyone. senator dianne feinstein said she's increasingly concerned that president trump will fire special counsel robert mueller and deputy attorney general rod rosenstein. here is what watergate historian elizabeth drew had to say on "the last word" with lawrence o'donnell last night. >> nixon was a very smart man. nixon had a lot of government experience before he became president. he had been in the house, had been this the senate, been vice president for eight years. he knew the machinations of government and he knew how to use them against what he called his enemies. we had a fear during the nixon -- during the watergate

period that nixon and his aides were going to, and they did, use the instruments of government against citizens that nixon considered his enemies because they had spoken out against university presidents and so on. we don't fear that about trump. we fear trump is going to do something impulsive, both of them, it's really od and i don't want to get deep into the psycho basketball. both deeply insecure men. both wanted to be approved and loved and so on. nixon grew up thinking he was picked on, and he was the nerd who wanted to read. he felt people were wealthier than he was, always looking down on him. with trump, there's been much discussion of what his psychological, if not psychiatric problems may be, and nixon was not a narcissist. trump is a narcissist on a grand scale, and it starts there. >> joining me now, is john farrell, author of "richard

nixon: the life." great to have you with us this morning. i want to start by asking you a question i think a lot of people across this country are asking. is it fair to compare president trump to president nixon? >> well, i think it's fair to compare the situations that they found themselves in. the two are obviously very different personalities. richard nixon spent most of the 1960s in deep thought about foreign relations and about the coming information age and about how to bring china out into the family of nations. he was widely read of political philosophy, biography and history, none of which we seem to see with the current president. a number of similarities in the plight of president trump right now are remarkable, but i think we've reached the point where the differences are going to be more important than the similarities, and, of course, the major difference is that nixon faced a highly partisan democratic congress. trump faces a republican congress that to this point has

behaved quite honorably. they could be tested immediately should he decide to disss the special counsel, or they may be tested down t rdhen the special counsel provides them with a report that's critical of the president, but so far the process seems to be working a lot hugh, but the big change between watergate and russia-gate or kremlin-gate is the fact that republicans do have control of all the instruments of government. >> i'm going to ask you about that in a second. one point i do want to ask you about is a comparison, more or less with the form of communications. we had nixon's audio tapes ultimately used against him or to bring him down. in this case one could argue that president trump, he suggested there might be recordings of conversations with former fbi director james comey. the thing is, a lot of people are more concerned about the president's tweets. is that the modern day version, that his tweets could be tripping him up and putting him

in legal jeopardy? >> i think you ooh rear ear right. in nixon's case, he thought he was doing it in private with his aides. he never dreamed that historians would get a chance to listen to the tapes or the tapes would be used against him. in one of the tapes he says to his chief of staff bob haldeman, bob, we need more use of wiretapping of our political opponents. you can't get anything more clear-cut than that. that was the smoking gun we didn't hear go off that wasn't discovered until several years ago. one of the things that the trump tweets has done is accelerate this process, instead of having something that drags on for over two years as in watergate, you have things that are happening in matters of weeks or months. >> let me back to that point which is the role of congress in all this. you're saying congress is acting honorably and they are allowing the investigation, certainly to some extent on the senate side. nixon's impeachment got

bipartisan support back in the '70s. do you think it is likely we're going to see republicans support a trump impeachment for what so may argue are equivalent infractions? >> i would say no, but there's quibbles to that because, first of all, history says no. we've never had a president impeached and convicted and thrown out of office because it's very difficult. 67 votes in the u.s. senate is a really tough margin to get. you really have to screw up as a president. on the other hand, if you were to have a president that was to fire special counsel after firing the fbi director because he wanted to relieve the pressure on his administration, you might find the republican party acting honorably, looking around and say we cannot let this person be in charge of the great powers of his office, no matter what it costs us. if president trump was to continue to do these sort of rash things about this investigation, you could find

public opinion turning against the republican party and you could find them acting out of political self-defense. the midterm elections are only 16 months away. >> all right. john farrell, i wish we had more time. the historical comparisons are fascinating. any time talking about nixon and history is always fascinating for me. we'll have to leave it at that. thank you very much for your time. >> thanks, ayman. >> tonight on the 45th anniversary of the watergate break-in, "all the esident' men revisited." it airs tonight at 9:00 p.m. eastern. the president tweeting out that he's being investigated for firing the fbi director. we'll talk about that. isaac hou has mastered gravity defying moves to amaze his audience. great show. here you go. now he's added a new routine.

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mueller and his team have already found a clue that trump fired comey to stop the russia investigation. it's the time trump went on tv

and said i fired c to stop the russia investign. this is like watergate and deep throat was nixon. >> that was bill maher taking aim at the president's bombshell tweeting claiming he was under investigation for the firing of fbi director james comey. let's bring in syndicated radio talk show host and amy tarkanian, former chair of nevada gop party. great to have both of you with us. let me begin with you. what does the president get out of this. how does he benefit by revealing something that may not even be true. or two, many people suspect it anyway. >> i don't think he gets anything out of it. he gets himself in more deep water -- hot water. the stunning thing is, this has become a pattern for the white house. let's look quickly. for months the president has been denying he was the subject of any investigation. he got james comey to admit that three times. then "the washington post"

reports, uh-oh, things have changed,ee the subject of the investigation. fox news and white house, poor sean spicer go out, spend 24 hours saying fake news, fake news. 3:55 a.m. the next morning, the president says, i'm under investigation. it is stunning, i believe, and i think it undercuts his entire argument. fact is right now there's a criminal investigation, a special counsel. the shift has gone from collusion to obstruction and the president is the subject of this investigation. >> amy, to bill's point, you've got to imagine the staff around the president are actually losing their minds over this. they say one thing, then fake news, it's not true, he comes out and contradictsit. how long do you think that is sustainable. when do you think people are doing to be ke, you know what, this is just no longer manageable. >> listen, no underlying cripple act has actually been found. so i don't even understand how

he can be obstructing justice when nothing has been found. it's been proven already, comey himself said it under oath. why are we still having this conversation if this is not what the president calls is a witch hunt. now, if i were working for the president and one of his staff members, i would also continue to ignore this and try to help the president move his agenda forward, turn the television off, because this is fake news. if they want to receive legal counsel just like any normal, rational person could, that seems like a good reason to me. >> bill, i'll give you a chance to respond to that. >> i just want to point out the justice department is part of the trump administration. the justice department has appointed special counsel to look into possible obstruction of justice. they haven't found it yet but they are investigating that. it's not a witch hunt, it's a criminal investigation. and if the white house really wants to -- which i would suggest, let this investigation continue on its own and ignore

it, somebody better get that message to donald trump. the person who is undercutting that strategy is donald trump himself. >> amy, do you agree with that, that the president is his worst enemy? he's constantly saying things whether in interviews or tweets that come back to haunt him. he said in the interview with lester holt he fired jim comey because of the russian investigation. >> no, he did not. he said he fired him -- he was going to fire him for sometime, then thought to himself, you know, this russia investigation is really stupid. then you had the memo come out from the assistant ag and they moved forward together. >> that's an interesting interpretation. i would say the majority of people would agree with you on that point. bill, what's your take on it? did he come out and say that in the interview. >> ama, with all due respect, that's fake news. he told russians in oval office -- i'm paraphrasing, i had to get this guy off my back, that's why i fired him.

then he admitted it on national television to lester holt who said it was that russia thing. we now know why donald trump fired jim comey, period, end of story. stop pretending it's otherwise. >> amy, i'm going to give you a chance to respond to that as well. talk about the president's strategy going forward. should he not focus on the agenda and stay away from the investigation. lindsey graham came out and said he may go down because he got in the way of an investigation that might have cleared him. >> as far as him being you said investigation, that's no secret. we already know that because of leaks that have come out, who has subpoenaed and who mueller that hired. there's a problem right there with people having too big a mouths. i do believe the president, it's okay for him to tweet. maybe he shouldn't tweet as often. i do know his base, we do appreciate it when we can get

the facts straight from the president. >> we're going to have to leave it at that. i know we can talk about it much longer. bill, amy, thank you so much. we're all out of time on "msnbc live," i live,". "am joy," reaction to philando castile verdict. stay with us. ♪ the opioid my doctor prescribed for my chronic back pain backed me up-big time. before movantik, i tried to treat it myself. spent time, money. no go. but i didn't back down.

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