tomorrow at 6:00 p.m. eastern. i'm ali velshi. for now, i have to quit talking on tv in favor of my friend chris matthews and hard ball that starts right now. >> so what if it was chelsea. let's play hard ball. >> good evening. i'm chris matthews in san francisco. let's call it the chelsea test. a new monument university poll shows that 29% of americans say they do not think it was wrong for donald trump, jr., paul manafort, and jared kushner to meet with russians to get dirt on hillary clinton from the kremlin. this is their position, they say. the 29%, even if it's proven, it was fine. well, now the chelsea test. if there were the other way

around and hillary clinton had lost the popular vote last year by 3 million votes but managed to win in the electoral college. and it came out that her daughter, chelsea, organized a meeting with members close to the kremlin, would trump people be saying the same thing if it was chelsea organizing the meeting? i'll tell you, they would be going nuts. they will demand that hillary will thrown from office and her and her daughter be charged. can't they see that. engaging with people who are out to interfere in an american election, no matter which candidates' people did it. this is the game trump is playing right now. he knows he's putting up dishonest statements that people cannot truly believe. he knows the secret service was not detailed back then to protect his son donald, jr.

this debate over the russians is no longer just about what happened. it's about people who think it's important to guard our democracy from outside interference and those who say they don't. even though they would be saying the very opposite, let's face it, if the shoe were on the other foot. we have the author of policing men. susan paige, if washington bureau chief for usa today. let me try that on you. how do these people deal with the fact. i'm stunned with this number, that 29% say even if it's proven they were over there trying to get dirt in trump tower, bringing the russians in, trying to get dirt on hillary from the people in moscow, that they say that's fine.

i don't think they would be saying that if this was the other way around. >> you know, today attorney general jeff sessions did another one of his tough on crime speeches where he wants to bring back the war on drugs and all these things that target young, black men. when you compare that to the way republicans respond to donald trump in this investigation where all the targets are rich white dudes, the trump folks are like, we don't see the problem with that. what's wrong with conspireing with the u.s.'s sworn enemy to take over and subvert our democracy? well, fortunately special council bob mueller shouldn't go by that double standard. i think he'll go by the u.s. criminal code, which makes what donald trump, jr. is alleged to have done a federal crime. >> susan, what do you think about this? what is in the mentality of the trump bitter enders? the 30%, 29%. i've been trying to narrow it down by the latest poll numbers. they seem to be saying whatever trump does is fine with them,

even if it's playing ball with the russians. >> you know, it's very tribal. if you look at the poll, you will see that nine out of ten democrats say it was the wrong thing to do, but only about a third of republicans say it was the wrong thing to do. you put a label on it and say this is something trump people did or alleged to have done. a majority of republicans actually say they don't see anything wrong with it. we see this even when you look at things like the assessments of how the economy is doing, that now has a partisan tense. it's like no facts matter. it's the team you're on. >> what about the proposal that if hillary clinton had done it and chelsea set up the meeting, it forces them to have objectivity about what they're saying. >> that would be interesting. i agree with you. if the situation were reversed, the republicans now say it was already for donald trump, jr. to do this, would certainly protest most strongly if they thought chelsea clinton had done it.

>> it's like simon says, if they say it, the republicans do it. >> well, look, you know, one of the things that steve bannon has been telling people around the white house, these polls come out -- and we've had three polls that are absolutely brutal. the best news out of these polls is that trump is at 40% nationally, the worst is at 36%. but what bannon has been telling people for months is trump has retained between 90 and 95% of the people who voted for him last time. to the folks in the white house right now, that's good enough. this is all about -- chris, it's all about holding a beach head. these guys are in a defensive position. they're not moving ahead and getting other voters. so right now, all they care about is holding on to the -- what's our number here, 35 to 42% of the electorate that's going to stick with him. you can't get a lot of stuff passed with that. this is where they are right now. it's trench warfare. >> i understood to large extent

that he would win. i understood the poll of this push. the country should look out for itself and not be pushed around by other countries. here is a case where we were manipulated and these people that are so trump pronationalists are going along with the manipulation of our democracy. the contradiction doesn't seem to click with them. >> it's not about words. it's not about policy. it's about where you live in the united states. it's about what your income level is. it's about culturally what you're exposed to. people are not looking at this. they voted for donald trump, a lot of folks, because he wasn't hillary clinton. he didn't represent the democrats. there's not an internal logic to all of this stuff. the logic is more cultural. as long as trump proudly represent what is they believe, they're going to stick with him. >> well, i'm going to bring the contradiction home to these guys.

meanwhile, in an attempt at damage control, a member of the president's legal team, his lawyer blanketed the talk shows, repeatedly saying that nothing about the meeting was illegal. here he goes. >> everybody is coming to the same conclusion regarding the legality. there's nothing illegal about that meeting. none of that is violation of the law. that's more process, of course. almost every legal expert says it's not illegal. what took place was not in violation of the law. >> well, you can always find someone to defend the president. when asked if the campaign should have reported the meeting, the secret service was blamed. this is pretty sleazy. here he goes. >> i wonder why the secret service, if this was nefarious, why did the secret service allow these people in. the president had secret service protection at that point. >> that's sleaze ball. the spokeman for the secret service said donald trump, jr. was not a protectee.

let me get back to paul on that. paul, you know, these guys, i don't know anybody who doesn't like the secret service. they protect people at the top with their lives. they take the bullet. here's guy choosing to use him for his practice game here of getting some of the delusion nair trump people to buy into a nonsensical argument that someone in the secret service should have surrounded donald trump, jr. and kept away the russians. >> this is what they do when they don't have a case. they weave and bob and try to change the subject. this is president donald trump's lawyer, not trump, jr.'s lawyer. he's in big trouble and has to decide whether he wants his client, the president, to go down with his son, or whether he wants to align his interests with donald trump. i don't think that's in the best interest of the president.

>> and you can indict a president's son. >> you absolutely can. you have to wait until he's impeached and then he can be indicted if there's probable cause of a crime, but he could be indicted tomorrow. >> let me go back to susan on. this i thought it was illegal to take a contribution of any sort in kind of in cash from a foreigner, someone from another country or certainly representing another government. how can this guy say we all agree this was legal. i don't think bob mueller is in on that agreement at all. >> that's true. in fact, we don't know everything that's happened. and we also don't know what the legalities may be. it's not up to jay. it will be in the end up to bob mueller and his investigators. so this is at least premature. it's also an interesting standard to set that as long as it didn't violate the law, it was okay to go ahead and do. i mean, there are things that

don't violate the law that we choose not to do every day because they're the wrong things to do. >> governor chris christie is back. he had a press conference today saying accepting from a foreign government is probably illegal. let's watch. >> yeah, i think it would be. i think it would be. i don't think there's any evidence that they did, but i do think it would be. sure. i think, quite frankly, it's probably against the law, in addition to being inappropriate. >> glenn, that's powerful stuff coming from the president's ally. >> well, chris christie has this nasty habit remembering that he used to be a federal prosecutor. right? and the other thing about it, let's just say not a ton of love lost between chris christie and, say, jared kushner, even though they sort of came together later. christie was ousted from the

transition. >> explain the background, the family issue there. >> so chris christie was running the transition. he was ousted by a group of trump folks. christie had actually sort of organized the transition in a conventional way. he did an organizational book that was rejected out of hand by three people. by jared kushner, by steve bannon, and vice president mike pence. and he was ousted and pence then took over the transition. as we know, what happened after that? mike flynn. so christie has continued to informally advise the president. oftentimes we're told it's on issues related peripherally to legal matters. he doesn't act as an attorney, but he clearly has a lot of experience. >> kushner's old man was put in prison by christie? >> yeah. he put his father in prison. over the last four or five months or so, the two of them,

christie and kushner have made something that resembles amends. the issue here is trump is not listening to anybody. he listens to trump. this is a problem that is occurring with his attorney. he just got this tight -- to join special counsel. trump continues to heed his own counsel. i think we'll see a lot of dissidence between the donald trump, jr. legal team and the president's legal team. i think that's the next area where we're going to see news breaking. >> i think he has more lawyers than ambassadors. this weekend, president trump offered up plenty of red meat to keep that 29% happy. despite the fact that his own son released email showing collusion already, trump accused the media of undermining democracy with all of its slanted sources and fraudulent reporting, fake news is distorting democracy. that's the latest tweet from

trump, attempting to justify his son's behavior, he wrote, quote, most politicians would go to meetings like this in order to get info on an opponent. that's politics. let me go to paul. is there a chance that trump would actually pardon his son? he can pardon a whole slew of these guys, his son-in-law, everybody. >> he could, chris, but that would be more evidence of the obstruction of justice case that special counsel mueller is investigating against president trump. it would be like when he fired the fbi director and threatened to fire special counsel mueller. you can't fire everybody who wants to do a good faith investigation against you. that is how our system of justice works. >> glenn, when is the breaking point going to come with trump? he doesn't seem to have any advisors left. he has plenty of lawyers trying

to keep him out of legal trouble, but i don't think we have a presidency yet from the white house. >> i think that's a good observation in terms of the presidency. it seems like we have a president who sort of operates on its own and six or seven clusters in the white house composed of his legal team. i don't know where the breaking point is. you're right to focus on the polling. the other thing i would look at, this health care debate, which is happening in parallel to everything that's going on with the russia investigation. it's equally as damaging and will eventually intersect with the russia investigation as senators get used to saying no. when senators and members of the house realize that there's not a political price to be paid for flouting the president, challenging him on legislation, that's when the trouble is really going to start. we haven't seen it yet. there's been sort of conspiracy of silence. they will walk away from cameras. they're figuring out ways to dodge reporters. they are not going to be able to

do that forever, and they can read a poll too. >> i don't think they want this raining on the rest of their careers, any of these people. thank you. this is a great front page piece in usa today. more to come on the pressure building on trump's family. jared kushner is under the microscope with calls for his resignation. as i've been saying from the start, that's the trouble with neap -- neap timpilo. inspect voters who -- independent voters who helped him win are turning on him. and that's pushing his numbers into record lower thetory. and why is the republican party going on with trump on the russians. is the gop becoming a putin party. i love saying that, by the way, the putin party. that's the question. it's raising concerns that this president and the party are putting their interest in front of the country. finally, let me finish tonight. they won't like it, but this is

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>> the white house has dubbed this made in america week in order to honor things made in this country. trump hopped into the seat of a fire truck that was parked on the south lawn of the white house. he tried on a personalized stetson cowboy hat. despite all of that, plenty of reporters were quick to point out the obvious, for all the made in america talk, the president does not practice what he preaches. >> he has a shirt made in china and bang ledid he recollect and india. another is made in the netherlands. give me a sense, if you could, about whether the president is the right vessel for the message that he's going to deliver later

today before the press. >> yeah, i actually look at it in a very different way, which is the president has been a very successful businessman on a number of fronts and industries and understands firsthand what the tax burden and what the regulatory burdens do to a business that wants to grow or expand or hire here. >> by the way, haven't we noticed a few made in russia labels on last year's election? just reminding you. we'll be right back. from the largest financial markets to the smallest transactions, by sensing cyber-attacks in near real time and automatically deploying countermeasures. keeping the world of business connected and protected. that's the power of and. delicious pasta marinara. but birds eye made it from zucchini. mmm! bird: mashed potatoes and rice. but made from cauliflower. looks like i need a fork! oh, no. (giggling)

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>> welcome back. as the russian investigation continues to spread, jared kushner and donald trump, jr. are becoming figures in this saga. nepotism has been playing a role. president trump enlisted his family to help him get elected and get into the white house. his experience, zero. now he has a son-in-law that's a

central focus in robert mueller's investigation. another son openly admits to having discussions with a lawyer who said they had information on hillary clinton. i'm not always right, but i was right about this. >> these people are really powerful. imagine getting into a fight with jared or ivanka. they're always going to be there. if he gets a secretary and title and he's working in the west wing, then who cares whether he's getting a salary or not. this could be a violation of the spirit of the nepotism law. the law is the law. we need our president to obey it. we need him to know he has to. >> with each passing day, we learn troubling news, like the fact that his son-in-law who has no foreign law experience, failed to disclose meetings on his security clearances. three times he did it.

some are wanting to cut out part of the problem. >> i think it would be in the president's best interest if he removed all of his children from the white house. not only donald trump, but ivanka and jared kushner. >> u.s. congressman jackie spirit of california. he's a member of the house intelligence committee. congresswoman, you know there's a reason why throughout history nepotism has been frowned upon because it create this is situation where the princesses and princes have the incredible power that the public didn't give them. they didn't earn it through background or work or experience. they with respect credentialed for these jobs. that's why we have democracy, so we don't have royal families running our country. but now we do. what can we do about it? >> well, we really have to make it apply to the white house as well as to all of the departments.

robert kennedy amendment came as a result of him being made the ag. so you can't have any family members in any of the departments, but we should have also included the white house, not thinking that anyone would put their family member in a position of authority within the white house. now, all members of congress too are under the same restriction. we can't have any family members working for us. it takes all the sense in the world. if your son-in-law screws up, what are you going to do? you're not going to fire him. you have to have thanksgiving dinner with him. so i think this is way past any rational reason to keep both ivanka and jared in the white house. i mean, when you realize that jared has had to amend his sf-86 form about foreign meetings three times. he's had 100 meetings that he didn't disclose, and then we find out that he was also negotiating with the russian

banker of beb bank, that he was negotiating with qatar for financing for his manhattan property. and also with an insurance company in china. with ivanka, you have a situation whereas she was meeting with the japanese president, she was negotiating a deal with a clothing company in japan that went through. then when she was with the president of china, president xi, she was granted three trademarks and a couple of days later, four more trademarks. i mean, this is not what you should be doing as someone working in public service, gaining personally from that public service. both of them are doing that. >> i know. i wish the democrats had yelled loud when this started. i tried to yell loud. if this was chelsea in these meeting, they would be going crazy, the republicans right now. wouldn't they?

>> absolutely. i thought about if it wasn't ivanka sitting in on those meetings, keeping the chair warm for her father, if it was chelsea, you would have pandemonium right now. >> and the russians, all the dirt coming from the kremlin, i think they would be more than getting angry. >> please keep coming back on the program. >> thank you. >> the program titled the downfall of jared kushner. does the president have any choice but to defend his relatives? with his comments today, the president has -- for their actions. that's nepotism. there's no option for political triage when the family is on the line. the shapiro professor of public interest law at george washington university.

let's get to this. why do we have nepotism laws, and why are the trumps getting away with breaking the spirit of them? >> well, nepotism laws have existed in various countries for centuries. the term nepotism actually comes from papal abuses where people were given cardinal hats. it was abusive back then. it almost uniformly worked against the sponsors because, as you've already noted, it adds a vulnerability to you because a failure of a family member becomes your failure. people like the clintons found that out. when bill clinton made hillary clinton the head of the task force for health care reform, it was a terrible idea because her failure would become his failure. trump has gone down the same path, but even more so.

>> what about trump's impulsiveness. if you tie that to the insistence of having the comfort of his family around him, ivanka and his son. some athletes are like that. they need to have their old friends hanging around them all the time, to travel with them even. there's comfort in that. there's no proof these people were good at anything. where's the credentials of the people to be serving as the middle east envoy for president trump and our country? jared kushner is our expert now. he's the new henry kissinger over there. >> it's rare there's a public value to this. ulysses s. grant had 40 relatives working for the government. they were involved in a host of corrupt scandals, include his son-in-law. it helped destroy his administration. this is a strange thing about

nepotism. it draws people close because of this comfort factor, but it almost always results in great vulnerability and often great damage. what do you think? the last notorious pardoning was president clinton pardoning -- what do you think about trump saying i'm going to pardon these people preemptively? >> he can. one of the greatest abuses back then was when bill clinton pardoned his own brother, which was outrageous. the problem is that if you push down on the criminal side, it tends to push up political issues on the impeachment side. actually, trump would be much better fighting on the criminal side. i'm not convinced that this meeting was a compelling basis for a crime. i still don't see the crime. >> let me ask you about that. you're opening a door there, counselor. it wasn't a contribution to the

trump campaign to get an offer of dirt on hillary? opposition research is a product. it's an asset, and they were offered that for the purpose of that meeting. isn't that accepting assets from a foreign source, which i understand to be illegal? >> chris, you're a great advocate of the first amendment. i respect that. that's where i would caution you. if you start to talk about the exchange of information as a political contribution, it would bring a host of political speech within the criminal code that's never been done. >> but this was offered not just as a conversation but the product of espionage, the digging up dirt of hillary clinton. this wasn't just a conversation. here we have the stuff, like a dossier. i think that could be a word product. >> the problem with that, chris, is there's no limiting

principles that would play a role here. if a foreign person giving information to a campaign could be a crime, you're handing the federal government a huge amount of power over a campaign. >> maybe it's a good power. i love to argue with you. >> coming up, apparently independents don't fall in line, and they're not in line with trump anymore. this is hard ball. i realize that ah, that $100k is not exactly a fortune.

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>> welcome back to hardball. we've been talking about president trump's support among his core supporters, but it was independent voters that helped give him his victory in 2016. now a new abc washington post said they may be cracking. 29% say they approve of his job. 82% of republicans, of course, still approve of his performance, by the way. in iowa, a state trump won, shows that 59% of self-identified independents in that state, at least, now disapprove of the president's job performance. up nine points from february. i'm joined by robert costa, national political reporter for the washington post. you know president trump and any

reporter covering him. maybe it's my rant tonight. did they say the contradiction in saying that even if his son is guilty in trying to get dirt from the kremlin and that is all, even if that's true, 29% say they're fine with it. do they see the contradiction if hillary clinton and chelsea clinton had been involved in the same sort of fandango? >> when it comes to the family, you're talking about a president that came from a family enterprise. only knows a family enterprise. his father ran one. he inherited it. he's brought that to the white house. your polling data is intriguing. this is an administration -- when you think about what the strategists are doing, they're cultivating that base, but the cost is the independents. at the six-month mark, they're wondering if trump is the destructive outsider they

wanted. >> i've studied the numbers, and i don't believe the numbers anymore in how wrong they were in catching the swing states last november. they got them wrong, but i do think it's interesting to study how many people are core tru trumpees. they're not crazy. they're not completely down-and-out dead enders. 29% will defend anything he does. somewhere between 20 and 30% are in the middle. you know, he's had a pretty good run a run, and they will be with him. tell me about the edge of the trump support. >> this erosion on the trump number, chris, is it because of his temperament and the cloud that hangs over the trump

campaign, or is it because he embraced paul ryan in the republican agenda. if you're an independent voter, what bothers you more as you look ahead to 2018? all these russia controversies and scandals or the president is pursuing a health care bill that goes after the medication expansion and maybe even goes after your own coverage? >> that may explain why very conservative people like paul ryan, total idealogical people, they seem to like him. the new poll, your poll at the post, 90% of self-identified conservative republicans, nine out of ten -- i've never seen a poll like that for anybody -- are with trump. so at the same time he's coddling up to a relationship with paul ryan on ideology, you're saying he's losing the independents? >> it's not just the ideology. think about what the republican party does today to gin up that base, it's grievance party. it runs against the media before

it even runs against the democrats at the time. think about someone in the white house calling the media the enemy of the people. if you think of politics in that framework, trump is actually successful in your mind. that's why i'm not surprised about these 8 out of ten republicans. trump is the hammer to the establishment, even if he's not successful when it comes to legislation. >> you're the trump boswell. thank you. up next, president trump says most politicians would go to the meeting. if chelsea clinton had done it, don't you think republicans would be going nuts right now? you're watching hardball. more kinds of crab than ever, new dishes, and all your favorites. only while crabfest lasts.

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811 is available to any business our or homeownerfe. to make sure that you identify where your utilities are if you are gonna do any kind of excavation no matter how small or large before you dig, call 811. keep yourself safe. >> welcome back to hardball. since donald trump, jr.'s meeting broke, the admission

that they met to get information on hillary clinton. trump says that's nothing out of the ordinary. warning that most politicians would have gone to the meeting to get info on the opponent. that's politics. that's trump talking. sean spicer still claims the meeting was about adoptions. let's watch. >> it's quite often for people who are given information during the heat of the campaign to ask what that is. that's simply what he did. the president has made it clear through his tweets, and there was nothing, as far as we know, that would lead anybody to believe that there was anything except for a discussion about adoption. >> i think she'll say anything. adoptions? that's not why they went to the meeting. republicans have been forced to bend over backward to try to defend the meeting.

let's watch them in action. >> if i got the information, i could run it down within my team, report it to the fbi. there's a number of different things i could do with that information. but i have no problem with a meeting that this could turn into nothing. you have to recognize don, jr. had a 20-minute meeting. >> new york magazine column entitled if republicans loved their country, when will they show it, andrew sullivan argues, quote, it's really well written here. it's not about being dumb, it's not about being ruthless. it's not even about dirty tricks. this is about a basic level of patrioti patriotism it's about how you were brought up. can we trust this president to put the u.s. before himself. if there's any doubt about this, the doubt has to be removed. let's bring in tonight's hardball round table, the

national political reporter for the national globe and reporter for the bloomberg times. it seems to me the republican parties are running the risk of being identified as the putin party, a party that fought the cold war the hard way for years, was proud of the opposition to communism in russia. how do they avoid the blame game when the time comes to see who was on putin's side and who was against him? >> all republicans need to do is hold true to the values that they said they cared about for a long time. they have been the party that has talked about being tough on foreign adversaries until trump came along. what we need to see from republicans is what people are asking republicans to do. i think what that column calls for, it's a move just beyond the words of being troubled or concerned but really hold consequences -- hold the white house responsible and

accountable. if they do see a string of things that are concerning to them, to really put weight behind that in terms of policy. that's what people are trying to pressure them to do. >> well, you know, it's also interesting because when you look at the rhetoric coming out of republicans in congress, it couldn't be any difference than what the white house is saying. look at the sanctions bill that's in the senate. really, the hard liners in russia are still there in the republican party. they're just not in the white house. but, i think, you know, you've been talking earlier on the show about a lot of polling data out there. for the republican party and for their base and for their voters, there are a lot more issues than russia and whether the party is tough on russia. health care, terrorism, security, the economy, taxes. and so i think there's this wiggle room, though, where they can maintain the base, and they can, you know, maintain their identity without the president having to even go after russia on some of these issues. >> well, jeremy, over the weekend, you wrote president trump's opponents have tried to

make an issue of the mutualed aer in ration between him and putin, anticipating the republicans would not tolerate any whiff of sympathy for what ronald reagan called the evil empire. there you go again, as ronald reagan used to say, there they go again. i'm sorry. but this acceptance of putin messing with our election, the casual way they defend it, no matter what's proven -- i know these people on the hard right are patriotic normally. why are they so unpatriotic when it comes to letting the russians mess with us? >> it's stunning. it's this head-spinning role reversal from the party that was tough on communists and tough on the soviet union. this used to be a prerequisite for being a republican. now you have these conservatives who are basically apologists for

putin. i think really undergirting this, it's wrapped up in obamaisms. sarah palin and trump, putin was more of a man than obama was. he seized countries. he road a horse shirtless and he went tiger hunting in the russian wilderness. so for them, he took on this paul bunyon type quality. >> who does this bare-chested tiger hunting image work for? it's pretty friday in order y'all. give me a break here. i liked teddy roosevelt, but this was a retrained version of this. >> he almost became this paul bunyon like figure to conservatives because he represented somebody who was

emasculating and humiliating obama on the world stage. because of that, almost any other transgression could be forgiven. >>i've said this before on this show, i appreciate, in fact, positively, the notion that america should be looking out for america most of the time. of course we're globalists and need on the part of the community, but don't get screw us on trade and get us into stupid wars. i understand that kind of nationalism. also, immigration has to be controlled at some point, on some level, but trump here doesn't seem to mind being played around with by putin. when you see the meeting together, putin knows everything about trump's misbehavior. he knows about the meetings and secret relations and everything. he seems to be the guy in charge. i don't know why the trump people like that or even abide by it. >> that's the stunning part, is that the person who was holding the cards here is vladimir putin. he knows exactly what efforts russia took to meddle in the u.s. election. he knows the extent to which on

each one of these political fire storms someone is lying or telling the truth or who messed with who at each time. that's what stuns them about the president's statements consistently. many times, it seems he's siding with the russians and not with our own intelligence community. so that's the real crux of it, is what is that patriotic question? is it that by conceding what democrats and other people are saying, that russia is meddling to get trump in the white house would be less american? that's what they're asking for. i think what they need to look at is what is russia trying to do and should the white house be stepping back to it? >> go ahead. >> the administration see as foreign policy play here too. that if putin can help with isis and syria, putin can help with north korea, then they're willing to do deals with them, but the concern is they're going

to sort of sell us up the river and look at other things more important to us than isis and syria. >> i think we're still waiting for that hamburger. anyway, the round table is sticking with us and coming up, they'll tell me three things i don't know when we come back. tresiba® is a once-daily, long-acting insulin that lasts even longer than 24 hours. i need to cut my a1c. ♪ tresiba® ready ♪ tresiba® works like my body's insulin. releases slow and steady. providing powerful a1c reduction. my week? hectic. my weekends? my time. ♪ tresiba® ready ♪ i can take tresiba® any time of day. so if i sleep in, and delay my dose, i take it as soon as i can, as long as there's at least 8 hours between doses. once in use, tresiba® lasts 8 weeks, with or without refrigeration, twice as long as the lantus® pen. (announcer) tresiba® is used to control high blood sugar in adults with diabetes. don't use tresiba® to treat diabetic ketoacidosis, during episodes of low blood sugar, or if you are allergic to any of its ingredients.

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we are back with the hardball round table. tell me something i don't know. >> last week i was at a private talk with former trump campaign advisor, roger stone and he questioned the events of 9/11 and more importantly he said the president may be a 9/11 truther and that the president has unanswered questions. >> that's fairly sick. >> i have a story out a few

minutes ago that michael flynn is starting a legal defense to pay for his legal defense for the russia probe. it's possible we could see more of these from the mid level campaign officials because these legal bills could range from the tens to the hundreds of thousands of dollars to comply with all these subpoenas and investigation requests. >> as conservatives and senate republican leaders step up-to-pressure to get an obamacare repeal and replace vote, there are members thanking susan collins for saying she's against the bill because not that the they don't want to vote on the bill. but it's what's around that. there's the flurry that's intended to be used in commercials later on. >> i know they want the adds to use against them. we'll be right back with

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trump watch monday, july 17, 2017, this is addressed to those trump folks who tell pollsters it's all right to be-to-do business with the russians when they're interfering with our elections. put it on the other guy's foot. think about what your gut reaction would be if you heard hillary clinton had been doing what your side's been doing and you've been caught redheaded. you'd be yelling treason, you'd

be in sheer delight that you caught the hated clintons selling out their country. now stop and think about your guy and your son doing it with jared kushner and paul manafort and what this band of men were up to last summer when they invited into t russians into trump tower to help them win the election. think for a second if young she che chelsea host of that affair. this is hard ball. all in with kris says starts now. >> tonight on all in, donald trump tries to turn the page but the russia questions keep coming. >> there was nothing as far as we know that would lead anyone to believe that there was anything except for discussion about adoption. >> tonight, new white house spin and a new defense by the president of attempted collusion with russia. then new reporting on the