voters were identified. so how did the russians know to identify who those voters were. >> all right. thank you, guys, so much. thank you all very much. good to be with you today. i'll see you tomorrow morning on "morning joe." that does it for this hour. i'm willie geist stepping in for nichole. >> willie, wait a minute. is this sunday morning? this is like our sunday morning hand off. >> except it's five o'clock in the afternoon. >> it's five o'clock somewhere. thank you, willie. if it's wednesday, timing is everything. tonight, tracking the trump russia timeline. >> whether there was any cooperation, coordination or collusion is part of our investigation. >> why the timeline suggests a willingness to work with the russians and to cover it up. plus, a pledge of independence. christopher wray, the president's pick to lead the fbi gets grilled on the hill. >> no, senator.

no one has asked me for any loyalty oath and i wouldn't offer one. >> and his answers satisfied even democratic senators. judiciary committee member sheldon white house joins us with his perspective on today's hearing. and can republicans win elections by embracing president trump? >> mitch mcconnell's big gamble in alabama. this is m tv daily and it starts right now. well, good evening. i'm chuck todd here in washington. and welcome to m pt daily. federal and congressional investigators are trying to make sense of the trump junior bombshell. we are too. we typically view the timeline of events surrounding russia as helpful context s. not any more. after these latest revelations, the timeline looks now like it could end up being evidence in and of itself. the president today called this story the greatest witch-hunt in

political history. his son, his lawyers and the white house are all flooding the zone right now trying to diminish the story or explain it away. but boy, oh, boy, there's a lot of explaining to do about what happened during the trump campaign. the trump transition and the trump presidency. so here is what we do know. the campaign was a willing partner or at least donald trump jr.'s e-mails suggest this in russia's efforts to influence the election. the transition tried to cover-up the full extent of kmuks with russia and it also tried to set up a back channel to communicate with the russian government using russian facilities. those are facts we now know. and as president mr. trump has gone to some shocking lengths seemingly to help putin or give him some cover. given russian information that government officials say was highly classified, urged the fbi to drop the investigation rfl michael flynn. then he fired the fbi director. and he's made it clear to putin during a face-to-face meeting that he wasn't going to punish

him for what he did. instead, he's discussed parng with him on ieber security matters. specifically surround sg donald trump jr.'s meeting during the campaign paints an equally troubling picture of what happened and perhaps why it happened. in early june, after russian hackers penetrated the dnc and john podesta e-mail accounts but before it was publicly known, he was offered a meeting. he was told it was part of a russian effort to back his father and, quote, incriminate clinton. a mere four hours after the date and time of that meeting was confirmed, mr. trump as candidate is teasing that he's got dirt on his opponent. >> i am going to give a major speech on probably monday of next week and we're going to be discussing all of the things that have taken place with the chin tons. i think you're going to find it very informative and very, very interesting. >> so now we now know that it's two days after those comments that the trump campaign ends up

meeting with the russian lawyer. and it's right after the meetings, apparent conclusion that mr. trump is tweet, quote, where are hillary clinton's 30,000 e-mails that she deleted. do begin to drop. and of course the floodgates open. at the july convention there's that bizarre change at the top of the gop pla form. making it a bit more russia friendly on the ukraine. >> and then there is this. >> russia, if you're listening, i hope you're able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing. >> when the trump campaign is at its lowest on the day of the "access hollywood" tape drop, they get wikileaks, which trump uses with gust oh on his way to victory. and then thairs the u.s. intelligence asessionment on that same very day, by the way, exposing russia's effort, km then prompts a criminal investigation which brings us back to day. sources say the president was consulted with his son's initial meeting with the russian lawyer.

that statement appears to be a braz eneffort to mislead the public on what actually happened. in short donald trump jr.'s e-mails and the subsequent three days to get the story straight may give bob mueller evidence, an evidence of willingness to cover-up the extent of that content. and that like this entire timeline may now end up being crucial evidence against the trump team. joining me now roy blunt, also a member of leadership, so we will talk a little health care. senator blunt, welcome, sir. >> good to be with you. >> so i want to talk about this timeline now. how important is it to the intelligence committee investigation in context with what we keep learning now? and i'm curious, did you know about the donald trump jr. e-mails before it came out in public in the investigation? >> i did not. >> so that had not somehow surfaced in the intel committee's investigation? >> it hadn't surfaced in a way that i've saw it. and i've spent a lot of time out at the cia, at other places

looking at the things that we have had and had a changs to look through carefully. you know, my view, chuck, the whole time has been that our committee should talk to everybody that a reasonable person would think we should talk to. we should look at everything that a reasonable person would think we should look at. and at the end of that process reach a largely bipartisan conclusion on what happened and how it happened and when it happened. and i think we've done a pretty good job of not rushing to conclusions too quickly. but all the people at that meeting, for instance, i think should be talked to. all of the -- manafort -- >> how about the russian lawyer? >> probably the russian lawyer. >> let me ask you this, does the scope of the investigation continue to expand, though? does it now -- there's always been some question how deep do you go into researching financial ties between russian invest ors and the trump

organization, considering that it includes donald trump jr. who is not an official part of the campaign, does that mean the intel committee's investigation needs to expand its scope a little bit? >> i don't think so. when we get this more pressing issue of russian involvement in the elections and any involvement that others had with them, if that turned out to be the case, i think that's got to be the top priority. after that i frankly think we have to -- it's within our responsibility as the intel committee in the senate to look at the leaks, to look at how secure our own national security structure is. that's probably where we expand to. in terms of expanding to things that are now under the responsibility of mr. mueller, i don't know that the intel committee ever goes there. but things that relate to russia and the election and trying to prevent those things from happening again. >> that's your scope. that's the lane you want to stay? >> that is the lane i believe we were asked to be in and we

should be in. >> considering we have donald trump jr. saying those words, typing those words, i love it when it comes to those e-mails in there, whether it comes to opposition research on clinton, you talked about what a reasonable person would consider, do you understand if a reasonable person sits there and says how is that not evidence right there of collusion or at least of openness to collude? >> well, i think you've got to -- i'd like to know why he was at the meeting and what he expected to get from the meeting. that's why we need to talk to him. i do think that it's hard to measure this campaign by the standards of a seasoned, well-run political operation where you'd clear these things with your lawyers. what you had in the trump campaign was a candidate who had somehow figured out the exact communicating spot to be with the american people in 2016 and a campaign around him that i was never sure had the capacity to collude with the republican national committee, let alone

anybody else. somebody asked me yesterday would you have gone to that meeting if you had been him, and i said, you know, if i had never been involved in politics and i was just coming to this the first time, i don't know if i would have gone or not, but of course i wouldn't go to that meeting knowing -- >> i had somebody present an alternative theory using the same, which is you had a campaign that couldn't figure out how to work with the rnc. you had a campaign that nobody wanted to work with at that point in time for what it's worth. the establishment -- >> i'm not sure internally the campaign ever kmukd effectively with itself. >> but that made campaign operatives more open to looking for help in alternative ways because they weren't getting traditional help. >> oh, i don't know about that. >> is that an excuse? because i know there's a growing sort of spin on this. well, donald trump jr. didn't know what he was doing. is that an excuse? is that a legitimate excuse? >> i think it could be a reason, but i think that's why we ought to talk to him. we ought to talk to hinl.

talk to mr. kushner, talk to mr. manafort, who has less reason to be in that meeting for some reason of not knowing what he's doing than the other two might have had. >> okay. you can explain away the meeting. how do you explain the decision to mislead on the first day of the story on saturday, to write a statement that intentionally miss leads what the meeting was about? >> i don't know how that decision was reached. and, you know, it could have been -- this is an issue that i've been pretty involved in over the years, russian adoptions, spo i would sb sensitive to that as something that should be talked about and definitely related to the magnitsky act when we passed are the russian trade agreement, but how they got there, i don't know. that's another reason -- these people need to come. they need to be asked questions and see what their answers are. >> let me ask you this. do you need to talk to the president? should he voluntarily speak to the intel committee? >> i don't know that that's somehow we should go. you'd have to -- >> why is that? >> the chairman and the ranking member would probably have to

evaluate that after everything else. that is way outside the normal traditions of congressional -- >> do you feel like that would be the -- it would be an unusual thing, but if you're trying to figure out what was going in there and what did he know, don't you want to talk to him? >> not until you know what you're going to ask him. that would be the last person you'd want to talk to, i think, and it might be the last person you'd want to talk to. but it would be even at that point unusual. there may have been other instances -- i think gerald ford was the last president to come before a congressional committee. >> where are you in the investigation? give me a percentage, an estimate. do you think you're 50% done? 25%? where are you? >>ible chairman burr and vice chairman's goal to get done this year. but all of these things to come up, the new lane of traffic with mueller. all of this has potential to

make you slow down a little bit. we clearly need with the justice department a lot of sort of quick and absolutely truthful green light, red light sort of lanes. okay. this is somehow we're looking, we'd rather you stay out of here for a while. >> has that not been made yet? is there confusion of what mueller -- >> it's is not as clear as what i'd like it to be, but i think everybody wants it to be cleared, so it probably does get cleared up in the near future. >> as a former law enforcement officer who makes that decision? >> i'm not a lawyer and i wasn't a former law enforcement officer. i would think mueller makes that decision along with the committee. and who we talk to that he designates becomes a really important relationship in allowing us to move forward with the work we need to do. there's no doubt the russians -- i was the chief election official in our state for eight years and there is no doubt the russians were involved in the election in ways they shouldn't have been and have been involved in elections the -- in ways they

shouldn't have been for the last 15 years, just not as much here as in their neighbors. i think we've looked back and wondered why we weren't more concerned and sympathetic about what was happening in all those elections. >> do you think this russia stuff is hurting your ability to get health care done in the senate or is it not having an impact at all? >> i don't know that it has an impact on health care, but it certainly has averted our ability to take advantage of the early days of the presidency, just like the democrats slowing down the confirmation process. we've been spending weeks on noncontroversial no, ma'am niece, with three people this week -- >> i hear you -- i have no doubts the democrats are -- but you don't have enough no, ma'am niece. there's not flooding the zone here. >> no, no, no. they have plenty of no, ma'am niece. >> they are still behind. >> they are behind where they normally would be because they started behind and the cabinet got in place behind. there are about 200 no, ma'am

niece. 23% of them have been confirmed. 69% of the obama had been confirmed by this time. 90% of the obama nom nees by voice vote. there are doing everything to slow down the work we need to do. >> you do have the majority. and 50% of this. you don't need 60 votes -- >> that are normally waived like the 30 hour rule of debate, but then tuf 30 hours of nothing happening -- >> i know they're doing some of these things. >> votes -- >> i get that, but you still don't have enough no, ma'am niece. >> we don't have all the nominees we'd need, but that is not the part. we are not confirm the nominees we have. >> all right. i'll leave it there. >> and we'll talk about health care another time. >> we will. candidate trump and president trump have said things about

russia and putin that left members even of his own party unable to explain his motivation. here are just a few. >> but in all fairness to putin, you're saying he killed people. i haven't seen that. i don't know that he has. have you been able to prove that? do you know the names of the reporters that he's killed? i haven't seen any evidence that he killed anybody in terms of reporters. >> he's a killer. putin is a killer. >> there are a lot of killers 6789 we've got a lot of killers. what do you think our country is so innocent? do you think do you think our country is so innocent? . >> i don't happen to like the system, but certainly in that system he's been a leader far more than our president has been a leader. i don't think anybody knows it was russia that broke into the dnc. she's saying russia. maybe it was. i mean, it could be russia but it could also be china. it could be lots of other people. it could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds. okay? >> i think it was russia, but it was probably other people and or

countries and i see nothing wrong with that statement. nobody really knows. nobody really knows for sure. >> let's bring in tonight's panel. welcome all. i feel that over the last 72 hours there's two basic facts here that are really problematic. donald trump jr. showed a willi willingness to collude and the horrible statement on saturday to try to explain it the first time showed a willingness to cover-up. >> i would add a third aspect. i think the timing of this was really bad for the white house. i personally -- but i have the sense that people more broadly were beginning to think there's really nothing to this russia investigation, and it's becoming a political problem a little bit for democrats. and then this came. and it not only showed that you can't trust what hur being told from the white house and so we

do have this donald trump jr. thing, but it leads me to wonder are they being honest now and when is the other shoe going to drop on this. and i think that's what republicans are really worried about now and that i think the democratic party is very excited about. >> we talked about the drip drip drip several months ago, and we are in that zone right now. and this is another example of it. i think you're exactly right. there was some air kind of being breathe into the system for republicans. they were trying to turn the attention on health care and then, boom, you've got this coming and happeneding the way it is. you cannot trust the words coming out of this white house right now. >> go ahead, nan. >> so i agree with both of the panelists. and i want to add one other really bad fact, which is that for all the president likes to talk about fake news, the two really devastating things that have caused the biggest problems for this white house have been the president's own admission that the reason that he fired james comey was because of the russian investigation, done on network television, and then donald trump jr.'s first, shall

we say, dissembling about the true reason about the meetings, that initial statement and then releasing his own e-mails that are as, you know -- really i do think not only breathe new life into this investigation bud made everybody say, maybe we have been just taking collusion off the table too soon. everybody had said well, maybe not collusion, but something happened. but, you know, you don't answer e-mails like that on campaigns, chuck. you just don't. >> you know, the other thing that's interesting to me is how it came out. we're now -- the reason it came out is because jared kushner corrected -- his lawyers, and he's got two very prominent ones, they clearly to me are giving him the advice, whatever you've got get it out and fix. so they find this e-mail, yet another russian they didn't identify, go fix your form. well, fixing that form means more people find out about it. now we know how this gets out. but michael steel, so u jared

kushner getting advice everything you know, get it out. that ain't the way trurm works. >> no. so that is a clash that i'm wondering how long can it last? you hit a very sensitive point between the jared kushner world and the trump world. i mean, the jared kushner world is like r look, we're not all up into this. let's get this out here. we're listening to our lawyers. >> he's listening to his lawyers. >> and the trump team is like, we'll play it a little bit loosey googsy and loosey goosey is not going to win the day on this. >> "the new york times" reported and plit co's own reporting also suggests that the president's lawyers are increasingly frustrated with him and that the reason that trump is at odds with his lawyer marc kasowitz is because he's listening to jared kushner. and so the real, you know, the real disagreement is between jared kushner and the president's lawyers, which i think hints at the disagreements that you suggested. >> go ahead. >> well, jared kushner has two

experienced washington lawyers. >> who have been through a lot of this. >> they've been through this. jamie was a senior justice department official. abby loul has been through this before and neither don jr. actually have lawyers who understand washington and i think that difference is a huge tejs internally probably between legal terms but most certainly between principles. >> we are all experiencing in dealing with the white house right now. you deal with one faction and automatically the other faction wants to talk. >> and they're scapegoating again, so now they're looking to fire someone. >> it's a rough situation. let's take a pause here. still ahead, how much legal jeopardy is donald trump jr. really in. we'll talk with an expert lawyer on that. that's coming up. let's take a quick break.

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welcome back. president trump's pick to replace the fired fbi director jim comey was himself in the hot seat today on capitol hill for his confirmation hearing.

he pledged to keep the fbi i understand pept and that he would be loyal only to the constitution. the overwhelming themes of questions he faced was about the trump team's ties to russia and the firing of the last fbi director. in fact, republican senator lindsey graham pressed him on those donald trump jr. e-mails specifically. take a look. >> you're going to be the director of the fbi, pal. so here is what i want you to tell every politician. if you get a call from somebody suggesting that a foreign government wants to help you by disparaging your opponent, tell us all to call the fbi. >> to the members of this committee, any threat or effort to interfere with our elections from any nation state or any nonstate actor is mountain kind of thing the fbi would want to know. >> well, there you go. and other senators asked wray what he would do if put in a tough position by the president as he did to comey.

>> if the president asks you to do something unlawful or unethical, what do you say? >> first i would try to talk him out of it, and if that failed, i would resign. >> during the course of coming to this table today and being nominated, you mentioned that you will owe your duty of loyalty only to the constitution and the rule of law. has anybody asked you otherwise? >> no, senator. no one has asked me for any loyalty oath, and i wouldn't offer one. >> may have been a tough hearing for christopher wray, but maybe the tough hearing is what he needed to earn democratic support because he did well enough to get at least two democratic votes already, senators dianne feinstein and probably more. we'll speak to a democratic, in fact, the one that you just heard questioning mr. wray in 16 seconds.

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me now is democratic senator sheldon whitehouse of rhode island. as you saw there, among those who questioned the fbi director pick today. welcome back to the show. >> good to be back. >> so i just read your statement after the hearing. you sound like not a reluctant yes, you sound like a fairly enthusiastic yes for mr. wray as fbi director. >> yeah. i think he did a very good job in the hearing today. i think he hit all the right notes about protecting the independence of the fbi. i think he clearly recognized the pressures that the trump administration is putting the department of justice under and i think even in areas of recognizing the mistakes that comey made, without throwing his friend and former colleague under the bus, he handled himself very well. >> why do you trust the president to make this selection but probably not trust the president on other things on

this? what is it about christopher wray that makes you think, even though he was nominated by president trump, who just fired a director, what is it about him that he over came that? that to me seems like a high hurdle to over kom? >> yep. and i asked him for a full explanation of everything he knows about how his name came to be before the president of the united states, so we may find out something damaging or derogatory in the course of the answer when we get it in writing to that question. but to the point that you made, my experience is that the democratic of justice has the ability to build a loyalty to the mission of the department and he is predecor and a desire for the approval of your colleagues around you in a good way that becomes kind of a badge of honor for people who have served in the department of justice. and i think that wray comes out

of that tradition, and people like mueller and rosenstein and comey before his mistakes, elm body that tradition. he was also one of the people who in the bush administration when they were fighting over the warrantless wiretapping program you can count on my to resign if you're resigning too. we're not going to let the white house push us around. it's that tradition that allows somebody to take a position and enjoy some confidence even when appointed by this president. >> do you at all feel as if he has to recuse himself in investigating donald trump or not? >> i wouldn't think so. there may be circumstances where he may have to if it relates to former clients of his and so forth, but the mere fact that the president appointed him i don't think alone is cause for recusal. if anything, frankly, somebody

like him may want to make sure that they go the extra mile in that case because their own reputation, their own legacy, the department that they care about, all of those things are at stake in getting the job done right. >> there's a lot of investigations now happening until relation to the russia investigation. you've got the big one in bob mueller. i just had senator roy blunt on. i was asking him about whether the scope needs to expand on intel and he's like well, no, we're still trying to figure out what lane we definitely stay in, what lane belongs to mueller, et cetera. and i'm thinking, and if i'm not mistaken, there's a bunch of you on the judiciary committee that want in on this investigation. when is there too many investigators? >> i think that the arena of investigation is so big that it is hard to have too many. this is a nine-lane highway of investigation. so the issue isn't that there is

too many people in it. the issue is that we need to be respecting each others' lanes and not bumping into each other and causing unnecessary collisions. >> all right. let me just -- your committee -- let's start with your committee. >> yeah. >> what is your lane that you believe belongs to you that you don't want to collide with the intel committee or with mueller? >> well, in the subcommittee we have been doing is try to lay out what the russian playbook is of election interference here and in other countries so we can develop legislative recommendation as to how to protect our country from what every single witness has told us will happen which is that the russians will come back and do this again. this is a known threat. we have to prepare for it. the intelligence committee has no capability to make those recommendations. the -- mueller is not a lemgs laifb committee. he is not going to be credible making legislative recommendations, i don't believe.

that's a judiciary committee role. we also have over sight over the department of justice. so to the extent that the department did not stand up for itself, allowed itself to be rolled or sustained pressure from the white house that was improper, that is all in the judiciary committee's wheelhouse. >> final question. there was a perception that not every republican on the judiciary committee was enthusiastic about opening up separate lines of investigation on this russia hearing and the motivations could be many and let others interpret that. is it now -- is it fair to say there isn't that hesitation with your republican colleagues on the other side? they're a little more enthusiastic about investigations today than they were, say, two weeks ago? >> yeah. i think we're over that. one thing that i think helped with our subcommittee hearing just recently that brought in experts who had participated in both legislative and criminal investigations, that basically walked us through what the rules were, how you should avoid conflicts, how do you did he

conflict and to a person across the board, ma r majority that congress has an important roll to play and 59 times it's even important for congress to be able to push aside special counsel where things need to be made public, not that we're going to do that, but we don't need to reflex ifl drop everything when we get near a special counsel. so it was a strong, strong hearing and i think it provided strong reassurance that we were doing the right thing to continue. >> all right. senator sheldon whitehouse. democrat from rhode island. thanks for taking a few minutes with me today. appreciate it. >> my pleasure. >> next up, how donald trump jr.'s legal options are shaping up. give you bare feet... ...backsweat and gordo's everything. i love you, but sometimes you stink. ♪ new febreze fabric refresher with odorclear technology... ...cleans away odors like never before.

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welcome back. the president's lawyer says mr. trump did not know about his son's meeting with a russian lawyer promising dirt on hillary clinton. trump junior says the president didn't know about it either, and now just moments ago roadway ters punished an interview with the president himself and he told them he didn't know about it. he also defended his son for taking the meeting. trump junior defended himself last night on fox. >> i don't even think by sirens went up or the antennas went up at this time because it wasn't the issue that it's been made out to be over the last nine

months, ten months since it really became a thing. in retrospect, i probably would have done things a little differently. again, this is before the russia mania. this is before they were building it up in the press. for me this was opposition research. >> and president trump's attorney today also adamantly defended the president's son. >> the truth of the matter is that a meeting under the circumstances that were described by the release of the e-mails that donald trump jr. did yesterday is not a violation of the law. no exchange of information, the meeting ended up producing nothing, and now there's a media fren zbli going around us because russia is in vogue to attack as kind of the great involvement in the campaign. well, the fact is zero happened here. >> joining me now is washington university professor kathleen clark. she joins me now. misclark, thanks for coming on. >> thank you. >> so let's talk about this issue for legal jeopardy for donald trump jr. from just simply what we know. there's things we don't know,

but from what we know, in the e-mail release and, frankly, in the multiple explanations that he gave "the new york times" over that 48 hour period, what legal jeopardy is he? >> he may be in legal jeopardy because it is illegal for someone to assist a foreigner in contributing to or providing assistance to a u.s. campaign. and what donald trump jr. did is he took a meeting with a russian lawyer and in advance of that meeting he was told that the lawyer would be -- may be able to provide assistance to the campaign, provide information that would be helpful to the campaign. >> can you get charged with a crime if you take that meeting knowing the motivation behind the meeting, but don't act on it? >> it's not illegal to take a meeting. it's not illegal to meet with russians or representatives of the russian government as such. the question is whether donald

trump jr. or any of the other people at that meeting or in the trump campaign aided and abet ted the russian government or any foreigner for that matter in providing assistance to the trump campaign. that's what criminal liability could arise. >> so it's aided and abet ted a foreigner working on behalf of a foreign government or is it any foreigner at this point? >> it doesn't have to be a foreign government. >> a foreign citizen. >> that's correct. >> because the whied is foreign money is illegal inel campaigns, period, so an inkind contribution, assistance from a foreign citizen, is that seen through the law as simply foreign money? >> that's exactly right. it doesn't have to be money. it doesn't have to be cash. it can be something of value, anything of value is what the statute says. >> that's on campaign finance side. >> correct. >> is there any national security law that he broke in here? >> i'm not aware of any national security law that has been violated. a number of commentators have

raised the question of whether donald trump jr. or donald trump sr for that matter have committed treason. >> you use that word and it's a buzz word. >> it is a buzz word. >> we've talked to a lot of lawyers that have said actually, no, it's not. and i take it you're one of those that believes that too? >> i think that they're partially right to be concerned about trechry, if not treason. this is the distinction i would draw. what donald trump jr. seemed to be willing to do was put himself and his father's campaign in a position where they would owe a debt of gratitude to the russian government. he was told in that initial e-mail that the russian government had information that would be helpful, and he took the meeting and seemed enthusiastic about it and suggested exactly when that the information should be released later in the summer. so it's -- i'm concerned about it not in terms of are criminal liability for treason, but the trechry of betraying the united states and becoming indebted to the russian government.

>> you're being very careful here with your words. so there's a specific case. the law has a distinction between the two. because legal experts we've talked to on treason said we've got to be at war for that country for actually the specific definition of treason to be applied here. >> that's my understanding. but i really think we need to focus -- >> you kept saying trechry. >> on the disloyalty of choosing to put yourself in a position where you're going to owe a debt of gratitude to vladimir putin. this could be possibly good for the united states somehow? it's inconceivable. >> is this something that's prosecutable? >> oh, i don't know that that's prosecutable, but it is subject to -- it's political analysis and the body positively particular of whether or not this resonates with the body politic and with congress. >> i've got to leave it there. thanks very much. >> thank you very much. >> when we come back, what's the smart thing for republicans up for election to do?

support president trump or start running away? in alabama they have some interesting choices. we'll be right back. we're on to you, diabetes. time's up, insufficient prenatal care. and administrative paperwork... your days of drowning people are numbered. same goes for you, budget overruns. and rising costs, wipe that smile off your face. we're coming for you, too. for those who won't rest until the world is healthier, neither will we. optum. how well gets done. (woman vo) to refinance? time (man vo) yes! mortgage rates just plummeted. the time to refinance your home is right now. get started at lendingtree dot com. the only place you can compare

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senate when senator jeff sessions became attorney general. he's now running in a republican primary right now and he's on the air with an ad that doesn't just support the president. it hugs him. >> big losers a trump man working to advance the president's agenda. extreme vetting of islamic terrorists, endorsed by the nra. >> now, one of strange's primary opponents is congressman missouri brooks, who was the target of a mitch mcconnell aligned super pack ad for not being with mr. trump from the beginning. take a look. >> career congressman missouri brooks. >> i don't think you can trust donald trump with anything he he says. >> they all attack donald trump, trying to stop him. >> i don't think you can trust donald trump with anything he says. >> and, why he, those were pictures of elizabeth warren and nancy pelosi just thrown up there, right, because missouri brooks and nancy pelosi. so why is mcconnell doing this? pause he fierce brooks will be

heard to corral than strange. and missouri brooks has been that in the house, just ask paul ryan. he's not the easiest guy to corral. but this is a ris ski strategy for mcconnell saying the is more pro trump you are, the better, at least in a primary in alabama. what if this strategy doesn't work and brooks winds up winning? he's further in the right than strange. might just, just be a sign that keeping your distance from president trump is better politics, even in a republican primary than holding him close. point is, this is a ris ski strategy in alabama, this primary and run off and all that business is in august and september. is this the time to be playing around there? we shall see. stay tuned.

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back. anita dunn, michael steele. let's pick up on the conversation. we learned a little bit. chris ray, i am mildly surprised how quickly democrats are rallying around him. dianne feinstein, people who have been highly critical of how the decision went down to fire comey. >> well, i think if you look at chris reines reputation and look at his answers today, he was very clear with the committee and with the democratic members in particular. the segment you played with lindsey graham though i think is probably where democratic members took their most solace which is for him to say basically very honestly, you know, you get that kind of e-mail you should call the fbi. it is clear he has a problem with the approach that was taken by don jr. i think that, you know, democrats want an independent, strong fbi director as much as anybody, and they heard what they wanted to hear. >> i want to shift a little bit to what i did in my obsession, which is there's sort of like trying to plot a political

campaign strategy in the middle of dealing with two big problems you're staring at if you're mitch mcconnell, one is wherever health care will end up and dealing with that and two is the drip, drip, drip of russia. so you have a base fired up with donald trump. at the same time embracing donald trump in six months could be a bad idea. what do you do? >> you know, i'm not so sure what the political climate is in the country. i think here in washington -- >> i'm with you. i don't know either. >> we have our noses very deeply into this russia stuff, but i think the majority of people who voted for donald trump didn't vote for him because they think he has, you know, sterling character and because they love his personality. they voted for him because they were fed up with republicans and fed up with democrats. i don't think that's changed at all. donald trump hasn't gotten to work at fixing any of the problems that he was elected to fix, and so i don't think the democrats are going to sweep to major victories in 2018. it is not clear to me that republicans are at risk running

with donald trump. to me the political climate in the country is a real mystery right now. >> more of a risk running against donald trump next year than running -- >> i think it is obvious, but it still seems short -- it seems that's the short-term view. is there a long-term risk here of getting yourself too tied? >> the long-term -- >> things unravel. >> to be frank, the long-term risk isn't with individual candidates, they come and go. it is the party. what does the republican party look like after 2018. what does it look like after 2020? that is at the core, for at least guys like me, of the conversation we need to have. because guess what, chuck? we still did not settle the issue we had before we elected donald trump. all of those fractures, all of the crazy that was existing within the base, none of that has been resolved. donald trump in some sense has been a nuclear band-aid, but the reality of it still remains. what does the party look forward going forward. >> the disruption to politics that happened and all of the other industries.

>> no doubt, uber taxis. >> exactly. if republicans don't know what their party stands for, democrats don't either, and i think what the russia scandal is paper over because it takes up so much oxygen is there's a dirth of ideas in both parties, and all of the anger that got trump elected isn't getting resolved because nothing is happening. >> but in midterm elections that anger tends to get focused very clearly on the party that controls the white house, because at the end of the day they own things. if i'm a republican running for reelection in 2018 right now for the house or senate, i will be more concerned about the passage of health care bill than i will be about russia right now because that is actually what people care about. it is a story they're following. sure, it is a most personal issue. we lived for eight years having everything that happened in health care be ascribed to the affordable care act. it was all the affordable care act's fault, and the republican party is about to find out what it feels like when the shoe is on the other foot if they pass something and it is a deeply

unpopular plan, chuck. it takes a while to get that unpopular in this country, and they have achieved it in record time. >> all right. i will leave it here. we're running out of time. thank you, guys. appreciate it. up next, iceberg right ahead. how do you become america's #1? start by taking care of families for 70 years. earn the trust of 32 nfl teams. be there for america's toughest and help, when help is needed america's #1 isn't a status earned overnight. it's earned in every wash, and re-earned every day.

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well, in case you missed it, what if delaware just broke off the united states tomorrow? you'd notice, right? lovely beaches, joe biden, milk.

it is the official state beverage. they brought us this great moment from wayne's world. >> imagine being able to be magically whisked away to delaware. hi. i mean delaware. >> in all seriousness, delaware has a lot to offer and you would miss it if it decided to float away. in case you missed it, that's what happened in antarctica, an iceberg brufly the size of delaware broke off. one of the largest icebergs ever, weighing around one trillion tons. believe it or not, it is not necessarily climate change related. we'll let the scientists dig into this. that's big and hard to comprehend without comparing it to, well, delaware. we don't want to gang up on delaware, so, folks, here are other comparisons. it is twice the size of lake erie, twice the size of luxembourg, that country that everybody knows is there but you're not quite sure where it is. it is more than three times the size of london.

so don't worry, delaware, we still love you and we would notice if you went away missing. that's all for tonight. back tomorrow. it is chris jansen who picks up our coverage right now. hello. i'm chris jansen with "msnbc live." breaking now, president trump says he didn't know. reuters reporting that the president said he knew nothing of his son's meeting with the russian lawyer and he only learned about it a couple of days ago. that secret meeting still reverberating in the west wing with the president reportedly furious. talk about timing. in the middle of that on capitol hill today, the man who could replace james comey taking questions from senators. now, remember the reason he's even nominated is because president trump fired james comey amid the russian investigation. today christopher rey pledged an independent fbi. >> my loyalty