grand jury in washington, d.c. to investigate the russian interference, according to two people with that matter. nbc news has not independently confirmed the report but the journal calls it a sign that mueller's inquiry is growing in intensity and entering a new phase. quoting from the report, grand juries are powerful investigative tools that allow prosecutors to subpoena documents, put witnesses under oath and seek indictments if there is evidence of a crime. special counsel to the president ty cobb told the journal he was not aware that mueller had started to use a new grand jury. the news comes on the very same day that senators from both parties unveiled two bills aimed at protecting the special counsel from being removed from his job by president donald trump. nbc's intelligence and national security reporter ken dilanian is joining us from washington and kristen welker.

there's a grand jury that has been looking at anything that they needed to look at as it pertained to mike flynn and paul manafort. so why a new grand jury in d.c. today? >> well, one could be a matter of convenience. the grand jury that we have reported on having been active in this case was in alexandria, virginia, and mr. mueller is operating out of washington, d.c. what seems significant to this story though it says he impaneled a special grand jury for this case. there always is a grand jury sitting in any federal courthouse that's dealing with all manner of crimes and issuing indictments and prosecutors use grand juries very commonly as tools to subpoena documents. but if mueller has in fact impaneled his own separate grand jury just to focus on this russia case, that seems very significant. it does track with our own reporting that this investigation is picking up speed. is very serious. is focusing on the russia issue and anything related to it.

and is not going to be over any time soon, nicolle. >> kristen welker, one thing it tracks with is the president's frustration over the existence of bob mueller. we know we had a notion at least to perhaps replace jeff sessions as attorney general. we know he's got his close surrogates in the media assassinating the character and the potential political conflicts of many of the attorneys working on muler's probe. talk about the white house reaction if the dread with which they would anticipate news like this today. >> that frustration that you map out can't be overstated. this is the number one issue that hangs over this administration. that continues to frustrate the president and to really complicate and stand in the way of i think to some extent his domestic agenda. i was talking to top officials here, they're still processing

this information. no official word from the white house just yet and we reached out to ty cobb who has been tasked with being the point person really on all things russia related. no reaction yet from ty cobb, but let me read you what he told "the wall street journal." grand jury matters are typically secret, they haven't been made aware of this. and the white house favors anything that accelerates the conclusion of his work fairly. referring to robert mueller. look, the official line here at the white house is they want this to wrap up as quickly as possible. this underscores that this is going into a new phase and so i think the spin will be look, this gets us one step closer to reaching the conclusion of this investigation. we are going to get our own reaction from ty cobb, but i think we'll see a more disciplined message coming from a lot of top officials here. nicolle, just to remind our viewers the president has referred to all of this as a

hoax. he has been more disciplined on twitter with the installation of his new chief of staff, john kelly. tonight he's at a campaign style rally and very friendly territory, west virginia. we'll have to see if he addresses this at all. >> and kristen welker, doing her most professional perfect duty with the vehicle moving in reverse and very close to earshot. stay with us. julie pace, let me you bring in to the conversation. while he's managed to resist the impulse to tweet about an investigation that he believes is a hoax, he has not stopped tweeting about russia. even this morning attacking the congress for making that relationship different from what he would like it to be. this president really since the day he was inaugurated has never gotten out from under the cloud and the questions about what under girds his feelings and his statements and his tweets even

this morning about that u.s./russia relationship. >> and i think what we learned from this journal report about a grand jury being impaneled is he won't for quite some time either. this is a step you take when you signal that an investigation is going to last for quite some time. months or years is what some white house officials believe is the time line of this. and, you know, yes it is true that trump has resisted the urge to tweet about the investigation the last few days. but his feelings about the investigation, his feelings about bob mueller and the fact that this investigation along with the congressional probes are moving into phases where people who are close to trump, his son-in-law, top advisers from the campaign, his son, are involved now. i mean, this is manager that no matter what he says, no matter what he tries to do to discredit bob mueller and the investigators this is something that he knows he'll be living with for quite some time and his friends and family are living with for a long time as well. >> ken dilanian, talk about the

differences with which these two men operate. bob mueller is a stealth operator. he keeps his head down. he does his work quietly. we have been warned about talking about whether or not this suggests he's ramping up because we wouldn't know, because he's a pro's pro. we won't know what's going on in this investigation until he wants us to know. on the other side is donald trump. sort of the proverbial bull running through the streets of pamplona. we know how he feels about just about everything. can you talk about the contrast in the investigator and at least one of the men inside the orbit being investigated. >> it's an incredible contrast, nicolle. i can't imagine a greater one. bob mueller is a marine combat veteran with a stellar reputation in washington. you're right, he's a reticent, quiet professional. there are many things that he's known about for a long time that he's declined to discuss. i remember at one point trying to get him to talk about the fbi's involvement in controversial cia interrogations. he was against what the cia was

doing, but he never once was willing to talk about that. even though it became a significant matter of public interest. donald trump of course, flamboyant, the exact opposite. but look, i want to also remind people what we're talking about here. there are so many aspects of this investigation that are significant. one is robert mueller's investigating if the president obstructed justice when he fired james comey and in the meeting he had with comey asking him to go easy on mike flynn and then the other inquiry between business relationships with trump and his associates and russia. and third, if anybody covered up and was deceitful about their relationships with russia. whether they told the truth to the fbi, whether they told the truth on their disclosure forms. so there are so many things that a grand jury and that the mueller team is trying to unpack here. >> i'm going to ask matt miller, former spokesman for the justice department and an msnbc justice and security analyst to jump into this conversation. he joins us by phone.

matt, what i want to know from you is this news broke on the very same day that democrats and republicans are out making the rounds talking about the need to protect bob mueller and his important work. you have democrats and republicans now willing to legislate the protection of bob mueller and his investigation into russia. >> yeah. i think, nicolle, it makes that kind of legislation or if not -- it's not the passage of that legislation, that kind of signal from the congress all the more important because what we have seen in the past from the president is every time this investigation has expanded, when previously jim comey expanded it, when it was announced publicly, we have seen the president respond. sometimes he's responded behind closed doors trying to get people to intervene with the fbi and back off and sometimes he's intervened publicly by threatening to fire bob mueller. given this expansion of the investigation, we should be

clear it doesn't mean indictments are coming soon, but it's expanded, it's moving forward. given that expansion you have to worry that the president is going to respond somehow and try to curtail this investigation as he's done in the past. so i think it's important that both democrats and republicans on the hill make it clear that that would be a red line if he crossed it. >> matt, talk about -- what can you do an investigation with the grand jury that you can't do in the investigation without a grand jury? i remember from working in the bush white house when valerie plame leak investigation was under way, the grand jury being impaneled was associated with people going before the grand jury and being questioned by the investigators. it was associated with even more document protection. it was associated with frankly more anxiety on the part of the people under scrutiny. >> that's exactly right. with the grand jury you have the

ability to compel the production of documents. but the most important thing is to compel testimony. you can ask anyone to come do an interview with the fbi and they can turn you down. you can come in and take the fifth, but you're compelled to appear before the grand jury. it is a very nerve-racking process for a witness. you go into that grand jury room and sit, the prosecutor is there, the grand jury's there. the judge is there, but your attorney is not there. it's all done in secret. and so what we are likely to see in the coming months is a sight we have seen before in washington. you saw it during the whitewater and monica lewinsky investigations, we saw it in the valerie plame investigation. there's a parade of white house staff into and out of the courthouse in downtown washington. and that -- it's hard to overstate, you would know from working in the white house, hard to overstate the stress that causes in a white house when you

have multiple staff members going in to testify and their co-workers don't know what they're saying. they don't know if they're implicated. >> matt, let me ask you to stay with us. we're going to head over to kristen welker who has some breaking news for us. >> nicolle, we are getting our first reaction from the president's legal team. this is from john dowd, one of the president's private lawyers. our colleague peter alexander obtained this reaction. he spoke to him by phone. he said that he wasn't aware that robert mueller has started to use a grand jury as reported by "the wall street journal" and quote, we have been cooperating with bob mueller and his staff since the 1st of june because we're trying to get this over and done with. it underscores the point we were discussing which is that the public line here from the white house is they want this investigation to wrap up as quickly as possible. even though they are quite frustrated by its very existence, but the fact that it to some extent is overshadowing the president's agenda, whether it's on health care and tax reform. >> these are the president's

lawyers who have in mind a legal strategy. so i assume the comments are part of that broader strategy. we are also joined now by phone though by dell quinton wilbur, one of the reporters who broke this news in the last hour. thank you for joining us by phone. and please talk about the development and what you understand it to entail and signify in terms of this investigation. >> well, you know, bob mueller has been investigating the russia meddling -- you know, for the last couple of months. this is just a step he took in recent weeks. he impaneled a grand jury in d.c. and they're very powerful investigative tools but they powerful tools in "a," i think that's a crime here and i can subpoena documents and records and to have people give testimony under oath. >> you quoted a law professor from the university of texas who

said, quote, if there was a grand jury looking at flynn, there would be no need to reenvent the wheel for the same guy. this suggests the investigation is bigger and wider than flynn, perhaps substantially so. can you talk about that? >> that's exactly what he's saying. he's saying that you know if this was just about michael flynn where they had a grand jury in action in northern virginia you wouldn't reinvent the wheel, right? oh, we'll do it here, just move everything over. you have done this work and gotten the documents. no, what you would do is -- it's suggesting there's more here to investigate than that. we'll visit to the near offices and we want it more convenient. >> not necessarily more people or do you immediate documents or additional witnesses or both? >> or both. who knows? >> i'm sorry, you also report that another sign that the investigation is ramping up, a top partner in a power house new york law firm, has joined mueller's team.

what's the significance of his addition? >> well, like we quoted a former federal prosecutor in our story about mr. andreas. if you're a high powered attorney in a big law firm, you won't leave your law firm to go work on an investigation for a couple of months that's not going anywhere. you won't make that decision likely. you're going to jump full in if you believe there's something there. that's what that's about. >> i'm only going to tie the two things together because in your piece you do so. you write about how the developments admit a new sign of concern by congress that mr. mueller's protection needs to be protected and you go on to talk about the bipartisan legislation. was there a sense among your congressional sources that this was an investigation that needed to be protected and if so, from whom? >> i think i really can't go beyond what we put in our story there. that, you know, members of congress have raised concerns

about, you know, the president taking action that might affect mueller's investigation. and so they have -- you know, they want their -- they're thinking about introducing, you know, potential legislation to curtail that ability. >> it's a stunning piece and may turn out to be a significant turning point in the investigation. thanks so much for getting on the phone with us and talking to us about it. let me bring matt miller back on to the line. matt, do you know -- you know, this individual that i asked about, the quote here is that people like greg an andreas don't leave private practice willy-nilly. the fact he's being added after a couple of months shows how serious it is and can last a long time. i assume willy-nilly encompasses a bunch of different things like the money he earns in private practice and calls into investigation about something central to our democracy. can you talk about how a special

counsel recruits people into efforts like this and what the addition of someone at this phase might signify? >> yeah. that's exactly right. i worked with greg andreas, he was one of the most respected prosecutors in the department. put mobsters in jail. did overseas bribery cases. very experienced prosecutor now making probably millions of dollars in private practice. this -- what bob mueller has been doing is a little bit like if you watch some of the avengers movies, at the beginning of the movie they're assembling from across the globe to take on a new threat. mueller has been doing that. it's not just andreas, but he's had the pick of litter at the justice department and those who have gone on to lucrative private practice positions an they're coming back because this is one of the premiere cases in the last couple of decades. this is an investigation both into crimes that occurred during the crime and foreign subversion

of the election and the potential obstruction of justice in the white house. it's a serious case and mueller wants to put together the best team possible. it's not just to necessarily bring charges. it's very important to emphasize that. it's also to conduct the most thorough possible investigation so if there are no charges to be brought the american people have confidence that the investigation was conducted early by some the best prosecutors in the business. >> ken dilanian, help us reset where we were for any of our viewers who have been trying to enjoy politics free or russia free summer, reset where we are in this investigation. we have a president who has very reluctantly acknowledged -- we had his press secretary pressed on this question this week and said, oh, one time in poland he acknowledged that russia among others may or may not have interfered in our elections in 2016. we have a fired fbi director, jim comey, who at least in his words, in his sworn testimony believes he was fired because of the way he was conducting the

russia investigation. we have the president's son who we now know recruited the president's campaign advisers to a meeting where they were promised dirt on hillary clinton from the russians. we now know from keir simmons and others that some of the people in that meeting were lawyers with ties to russian intelligence operatives or agencies. talk about what this investigation encompasses. i haven't said anything about possible questions about financial intertakings, but talk about the scope of the investigation and the importance. >> so i happen to be speaking today with a former fbi official who was involved in this investigation and he was musing about how far it's actually come since he's left. we started out with the trump administration saying there were no contacts with russia. and then trump and his defenders said well there were contacts but there was no collusion.

then we saw a letter from the russian oligarchs family to trump saying we would like to offer you dirt on hillary clinton in an effort to help the trump campaign. so donald trump accepted the meeting. unclear if that's it legal. but it's come a long way. there's the obstruction of justice track. you know, donald trump fired the fbi director james comey after having what many view as extremely inappropriate meetings where he seemed to be pressuring him over the investigation and over his inquiry into flynn. >> he asked comey to let flynn go, just let it go. >> absolutely. and now we know that special counsel mueller is investigating the president over whether that amounted to obstruction of justice. and as you mentioned there's a whole financial aspect of this investigation that donald trump seemed to suggest he might consider out of bounds but robert mueller doesn't consider it out of bounds.

i have spoken to people who have been briefed on this investigation and say that there's no doubt that the mueller team is looking into possible financial connection between donald trump and russia, his family and russia, his team and russia. that includes many years of financial transactions whether it's the miss universe pageant or real estate deals in new york. we know that's the case with paul manafort and his real estate deals. at the end of the day, one of the original allegations here is that russia tried to compromise donald trump and members of his team with financial arrangements. now, that's unproven, but that's something that the mueller team has to look into. has to get to the bottom of, nicolle. >> julie pace, let me give you the last word before you dive back into your reporting that i'm sure you're itching to go do. you said my favorite thing about donald trump since this all began, that there is no inner monologue with donald trump, it's all monologue. so i wonder how you think this will weigh on him. if you expect that we'll hear from him in this campaign event tonight. and if you think that privately

people are urging him not to give -- not to put more gasoline on the fire that's obviously still burning on the investigation side of this question about russia. >> well, to the last thing you said there, absolutely. advisers around the president, people on his legal team, people in his family have urged him repeatedly to just hold back on this one. you know, tweet about anything else you see on morning tv, what ever else is bothering you about congress, but on this tread carefully. but the pattern is this. he can restrain himself for a few days. he can hold back for a little while. but it never holds for a significant period of time. and i think that, you know, if you look at the dial thattic that he currently -- dynamic that he currently has with republicans on the hill, they have pushed back on health care, they've signalled they're not afraid of him, hearing about this investigation where there's a grand jury impaneled according to "the wall street journal" and he knows that the republicans

are watching his next moves that combination could be combustible for the president. >> julie pace, thank you for spending time with us. you too, ken dilanian. we never thought you'd come back from aspen. our thanks to kristen welker who had to run off and chase this story and for matt miller for getting on the phone with us. when we come back, more on this breaking news. your brain is an amazing thing. but as you get older, it naturally begins to change, causing a lack of sharpness, or even trouble with recall. thankfully, the breakthrough in prevagen helps your brain and actually improves memory. the secret is an ingredient originally discovered... in jellyfish. in clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve short-term memory. prevagen. the name to remember. trust #1 doctor recommended dulcolax. use dulcolax tablets for gentle dependable relief. suppositories for relief in minutes. and dulcoease for comfortable relief of hard stools. dulcolax. designed for dependable relief.

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we are back with breaking news. broke just this hour, a new report in the "wall street journal" that says bob mueller, the special counsel in the trump russia investigation has impaneled a new grand jury in washington, d.c. the report calls it quote, a sign that his inquiry is growing in intensity and entering in a new phase. joining us "washington post" columnist and msnbc analyst eugene robinson. syndicated columnist, george will. and msnbc contributor and

republican strategist steve schmidt and former clinton campaign, senior aide. all of us earning our paychecks here at msnbc. steve, let me start with you. obviously the president's lawyer as we heard from kristen welker and others saying that we have been cooperating with bob mueller. but by the time it enters this phase there's not much of a choice. the truth is they're cooperating with bob mueller but the surrogates are still engaged in character assassination against bob mueller himself and he team. >> no doubt. look, the investigation will run its course. bob mueller will find out everything that happened here by the time that he gets to the -- by the time he gets to the end of it. in a week, where the president's poll numbers are hitting record lows, where its looks like the -- it looks like the white house is in chaos and cratering, the insanity of last week, all of it continues to put downward pressure on this administration. no doubt it will have our allies, it will have the effect of increasing anxiety as they

see the chaos out of 1600 avenue. >> you and i were both former communicator, you were my counterpart in the vice president's office and the first thing i saw this story at 3:25 was thank god scaramucci was not there. on a serious point this is deadly serious stuff. when we worked in the white house that was under investigation for the leaking of valerie plame's name and i can't describe the precision with which every call from your paper, from every paper was handled. we consulted lawyers. we consulted, you know, we left out people that were perhaps under scrutiny. the care with every inquiry was handled -- >> every word counts, it's important. >> it struck me, thank god for them the mooch is gone. is that ridiculous? i thought it would be hyperbolic. >> this is crazy. this is a grand jury

investigation, which has a certain heft to it. >> explain that, it changes the mood in washington. >> words count. this president doesn't think so, but words count. one of my questions is how far will this grand jury and this investigation go into for example financial dealings of the trump organization which is something that i think the president real he fears and dreads and perhaps cannot abide. >> why? >> look, he was a swashbuckling businessman for a long time. >> was? >> right. still is. >> swashbuckling part. >> but it's still going on. there was a long period when he was basically out of money and he kept getting -- the banks wouldn't -- banks here wouldn't do business with him. he got money from somewhere from places to keep going. you know, his condos kept being sold for very high prices. often to russian -- you know, a lot of things to look at. >> right.

george will, he made perfectly clear in an interview with "the new york times" i think about two weeks ago that he had red lines in his mind for bob mueller. but that's not how special counsels work. bob mueller doesn't have lines around that which donald trump wants and doesn't want scrutinized, right? >> that's right. and congress with two bills, bipartisan support, are tending to write the red lines in crimson to say that he's protected from normal presidential discretion. that move i think has to be seen in light of and in the context of the russia sanctions. the president says it's unconstitutional, you're infringing on the latitude of the executive and they said, we don't care. there are two axioms that have to be borne in mind. the mills of justice turn slowly but grind exceedingly fine. and the lineup of judicial

all-stars that he's putting together calls to mind -- if i may mix my metaphors football under woody hayes when it was three yards and cloud of dust and very methodical and they got to the end zone. >> can i underscore that with a piece from the breaking news? i think your point underscores this addition that i was asking both the reporter and matt miller about. "wall street journal" writes people like greg andres don't leave private practice willy-nilly. this shows it can last a long time. i mean, that seems to be your point. this isn't getting less serious the more donald trump rages on. that it's on its own cycle and its own course. >> it develops its own logic and its own momentum that feeds off itself. the second axiom is that a reasonably good prosecutor and this is a very good one in mr. mueller can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. that is he can get them to do

what he wants. the grand jury is not to reach indictme indictments, but an instrument of discovery. you assemble all the people, you get this momentum going. and the ham sandwich is in trouble. >> do you think that's what donald trump is worried about, his ham sandwiches? >> i think he's worried about the finances as gene said and george makes a point about grand juries can indict a ham sandwich which came from the new york chief judge wax her until he got indicted by the grand jury. the red line he drew was when he found out that mueller might see his tax returns. to gene's point you said what's in them? only one reason for a presidential candidate not to show his tax returns is to show what it can repeal. his political capital is as low as you could be at this moment. not just his approval/disapproval numbers but right now in the quinnipiac poll when people were asked if he's

honest, 60% of americans said no. and that includes 62% of independents and 20% of republicans. he does not have any political capital to use. >> adam schiff i think just competed something in line with that. we'll wait till we can pull that up. here's adam schiff. it's true that mueller has impaneled a grand jury, all the more important that congress protects his independence. this underscores what you're saying that the mueller probe is on its own track, immune to character attacks and right wing media that are really audacious. i mean, hard to be shocked anymore but what you see in this media landscape. but shocking that people that know that bob mueller was the director of the fbi in the days and months and years after 9/11 instrumental in saving american lives wasn't a matter of whether we'd be attacked after 9/11 but when and bob mueller was one of the architects of connecting the dots. to see people in the conservative media attacking him is truly stunning.

but the need to protect him is just as stunning. republicans and democrats recognize that. >> i think so. i think part of the reason probably the motivation behind this is i think political people in washington are looking at this as a tipping point moment today. >> kristen welker has some reaction. what do you have for us? >> nicolle, we are getting more reaction from the president's legal team. let me tell you what ty cobb is saying. he is the special counsel to the president. he just started his work here a few days ago. he says, quote, we favor anything that accelerates mr. mueller's work and remain to fully cooperating. mr. comey told the president three times that he was not under investigation, and the only concern at the white house is that this be done fast and fairly. i pressed him on the reports that mr. mueller's looking into the president's finances on that point mr. cobb tells me i have no reason to believe that that's true. i also am just getting reaction in from jay sekulow. he's also of course a part of

the president's legal team. he i think coes what we -- he echoes what we heard from mr. cobb and mr. dowd earlier. with respect to the impaneling of the grand jury, we have no reason to believe that the president is under investigation. the point i'll make about all of these statements taken together they are remarkably on the same message. they have clearly coordinated about this. the big question mark remains will the president follow suit? again, we're tracking that big campaign style rally he'll have in west virginia. >> it's interesting they continue to cite something that james comey said to the president, which was the impetus for the president himself coming under scrutiny for potential or possible obstruction of justice. an interesting talking point on a day like today. >> it's an interesting strategy for sure. and the fact that we now have it two different members of the president's legal team clearly this is going to be the talking point moving forward. to sort of remind people about

what the president has said, which is that james comey told him three separate times that he's not under investigation. of course, the big question mark around that is the fact that that remained true when james comey was the fbi director. and then of course the question becomes what's specifically is robert mueller looking into as we have reported and a number of different news outlets have looked at as to whether or not he obstructed justice. >> i think jay sekulow is driving that truck every time we ask about legal strategy. jay sekulow was all over i think several networks saying that the president had no role in crafting don jr.'s statement about russians to get dirt on hillary clinton. is his credibility intact? >> no. we seem to have this discussion every day.

they haven't had their credibility intact since six hours after he became president of the united states. starting with the great crowd size debate. in every single instance, they have been asked a question about russians they have lied about it. the story very quickly unravels. we find out more about it. and just the incredible strangeness of it. we have worked on two presidential campaigns together. very senior levels. we won one and we lost one. there were no russians around. i don't think there are any russians on the obama campaign. no russians around the kerry campaign. >> only on -- >> apparently there were russians everywhere. the meeting with the attorney. >> wait. let e -- >> nobody can remember it. >> i said this a long time ago. never before have so many people had so many meetings with so many russians that they all forgot about. i met one russian, george will, he was at the u.n. i never forgot it.

because their english -- you don't forget meeting russians. everyone in jeff sessions to jared kushner -- i mean, the whole lot of them forgot about the russians they met. >> it's a case of not selective amnesia, but comprehensive amnesia. whether there's -- these are innocent mistakes we'll find out. that's the whole point of this. that's a lot of dots to be connected and we may connect them and there's not much there, or there may be something there. it will take a while. >> everything that the administration says is suspect. you cannot believe -- i mean the president lies about the boy scouts. i mean, he just lies about -- >> we called him big little lies yesterday. >> it never -- just about the most trivial things. how can you believe anything that comes from him or his team about the important things? >> all right. when we come back, russia punches below the belt calling trump politically impotent and

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welcome back. we are covering the breaking news that bob mueller the special counsel investigating ties between donald trump's campaign and russia has impaneled a new grand jury in washington, d.c. it all comes less than 24 hours after donald trump grudgingly signed the russian sanctions bill. the president was up bright and early today taking to twitter to slam congress for making him sign it. our relationship with russia is at an all time dangerous low. you can thank congress, the same people whon't can give us h care. the most recent tweets are a response to the prime minister who had this to say, the hope that our relations with the new administration is finished. donald trump's surrendered his

executive authority to congress. while some of the establishment is speaking up today. john mccain disagrees with the president's allegation that congress is to blame for the struggles in u.s./russia relations tweeting out quote, our relationship with russia is at a dangerous low. you can thank putin for attacking our democracy invatdzing neighbors and threatening our allies. today, senator graham echoed the sentiments. >> the bottom line is that our relationship with russia is defined by russian aggression against us and our allies. this suggests -- to suggest otherwise mean you're disconnected from the threat that russia presents. president trump's -- why does he see it so differently from the congress? putin has done something that no politician has ever done -- unite the congress. 97-2 for russian sanctions? 416-3 in the house. >> joining our panel is former deputy assistant secretary of

defense for russia, uh-kraine a eurasian, evelyn bar cus. russia has managed to do what no one else has done before, unite the congress in opposition with putin's interference in our election. >> you couldn't have imagined this happening under any other president. because the executive branch does defend the prerogatives and usually the congress understands that. they tend to go as far as they have gone this time to take the veto on any action that the president might take with regard to sanctions on russia. but the most interesting thing is that the president and russians are blaming congress. both blaming the same body. >> they're on the same page message wise. that's keeps happening. why? >> the only difference is that the russians are adding the sentence where they're putting our president down. calling him weak. >> not just weak, but using words like impoe tent. we know he cares a lot about the

size of his hands and this seems like advanced russian psyops. >> right. they're taunting the president. >> i just read thrillers. is it seriously? >> my gut tells me this is the russians basically calling out to the president prove to us you're not that weak. do something cooperative for us. >> he suggested that donald trump was outwitted. >> look, vladimir putin has his number. psychologically. it's amazing if you think about it that the democrats and the republicans in the primary running against trump no one could figure this out. what he's doing is saying he's weak. and when you listen to the transcript or read the transcripts of the calls with the president of mexico, the australian prime minister, what it conveys is extraordinary weakness on the -- and self-indulgence on the part of the president. and the reality is there's no flower quite so delicate as the

male ego. and in america there is -- >> steve schmidt -- let the record reflect -- >> there's one flower more delicate than all. that's what vladimir putin is speaking to. he's pushing his buttons 100%. >> george will, steve mentioned this transcripts. we were going to talk about those. but to this point and its connections to the russian strategy to play to his weaknesses he lays them bear. in his transcript of the leader of mexico says mr. president, i understand the small political margin that you have now in terms of everything you said that you accomplished throughout your campaign. and trump going on and on saying you have to -- you have to pay for the wall. i said it everywhere. i said -- i mean, he lays bear the serious point about the transcript of the two calls. the leaked transcripts, not the sort of thing we usually see. but what's remarkable what's laid bear isn't just -- laid bare is how shallow his knowledge is, but you have to get me cover with the press. i promised a wall.

you have to keep the refugees. i'm the guy that's going to get killed for it because i said i wouldn't let anybody in. these are -- eli stokols says they're tells. it's not surprising he was outfoxed by putin. >> the president of mexico speaks english better than me. >> that was self-deprecate something which proved his point in one sentence. it is extraordinary. makes you wonder, my goodness if we read transcripts all the time would they read like this? >> i can assure you, no. i sat through a lot of foreign leader calls. >> there would be humorous moments with any president. idiosyncratic moments but not like this. they wouldn't be like this. i mean, it's just extraordinary. you talk about the fragile male ego. i mean, the -- i think in every major world capital they must have teams of psychologists who

have gotten together to study and write papers about how you push donald trump's buttons. i mean, why wouldn't you? >> positively also. like prime minister abe with the golf club and all that. >> absolutely. >> how about just back to this russia theme. the fact that he says in these transcripts that the worst call he had was with the malcolm turnbull, the prime minister of australia. long standing u.s. ally. it was on a day in which he talked by phone with vladimir putin. >> yeah. exactly. i mean, constantly this putting down of our allies. you know, denigrating them. and then somehow exulting almost exulting vladimir putin. so i think it's really disturbing and what it points to is again this reluctance to face the reality the russian government, the kremlin, that i are our adversaries, whether we like it or not. i don't think the american people like it, but congress has spoken for the american people. congress is the representative of the american people.

and i think the president needs to understand that. he needs to listen to his expert advisers who know very well the threat that russia presents to us. >> how dangerous though is if the president of the united states has been reduced to the effectively the bystander in relations between united states and russia. this is an extraordinary thing. >> even in his own white house, i understand a lot of the national security team to spend time in the situation room, dealing with threats from north korea or other places and the president to be up watching cable news and tweeting sometimes. sometimes. >> on the call with the australian president he said that we're dealing with 2,000 refugees i'll guess we'll call that and he said, with all due respect it's 1,250. trump said i heard 5,000. it must give them vert ago that there's -- >> and there's no fox and

friends there. >> we're joined by eric swallow, thanks for getting on the phone to talk about this breaking news. i want to get your reaction that special counsel robert mueller has impaneled a grand jury to investigate russia's interference in the 2016 elections a sign that's increased growing in intensity and entering a new phase. can you talk about whether -- i know there are probably lots of things you can't talk about, but does that track with a new phase for the congressional inquiries as well, sir? >> thank you, nicolle, for having me on and this is what progress in a criminal probe looks like. and you know all we want from our perspective is to just see bob mueller and his team be able to make unimpeded progress. follow the evidence. we are doing the same in our investigations. ranking member schiff and mike conaway have bought in witnesses we have been able to interview in the past few weeks. i think if you're an american citizen right now, you should be heartened to know that both investigations are making progress and hopefully we can

report back soon. >> since you have a little bit of expertise, let me put one of my legal questions to you. the story goes on to detail that one of the reasons why you might impanel a grand jury in a different city, been impaneled virginia hr looking into paul mab fort and mike flynn it might be for new individuals, it might be for new information, it might be for new documents. do you have any sense of the congressional probes are expanding beyond their investigations into mike flynn or paul manafort? >> we want to hear from the relevant witnesses and review the relevant documents. those two are certainly at the top of the list of people who were precipient witnesses to what happened, and, you know, we're trying to get them in here. as far as grand jury's, it is a way for prosecutors and fbi agents to seek evidence, to subpoena evidence and bring it before the grand jury. so it's hard to tell, you know, what stage they are in, you know, whether the evidence is

actually being reviewed or if it's just being sought at this point. but, again, it is encouraging that progress is being made, and hopefully we will have answers soon to whether any u.s. persons, particularly on the trump campaign, worked with russia during the interference. >> let me ask you about one of the individuals that's been added to special counsel mueller's effort. he writes about greg an address, a top partner in a powerhouse new york law firm, davis polk and ward we will, who has joined the team. he's a former top justice democratic official who also oversaw the u.s. toerps office in brooklyn. they point out that he wouldn't leave pay private sector job for a low level investigation. what does that tell you about either where this investigation is or what kinds of things somebody with that kind of experience would be looking into? >> it tells me that bob mueller is taking this very seriously. and whatever he finds or doesn't find, he wants the case or a

dismissal of this case to be impenetrable that it is beyond reproach. that he can say he put the best legal mienlds the most experienced individuals on the case and here is what they found or didn't find. i do believe because he has than this so seriously and asemibleld a team like this, you know, whatever he reports back to us will be semd by the american people because he took it so seriously. >> what do you make of the fact that democrats and republicans found it necessary to introduce legislation to protect bob mueller and his team? >> people are worried about the president. they're worried about, you know, him intimating that he, you know, may get rid of bob mueller, his tweets suggesting that the investigation is compromised. i think people believe in bob mueller and they want him to be able to just pursue and chase down the facts here. and so they want to put him, i guess, guard rails in case the president were to try and fire him. and so it's a message to the president that you may get rid of him, but he's still going to be on this case one way or the other. >> thank you, congressman eric

swallow from california. thank you for spending a little bit of time with us helping us understand this big development. we're going to take a quick break, but we'll be right back with mor breaking news. thank you so much. thank you! so we're a go? yes! we got a yes! what does that mean for purchasing? purchase. let's do this. got it. book the flights! hai! si! si! ya! ya! ya! what does that mean for us? we can get stuff. what's it mean for shipping? ship the goods. you're a go! you got the green light. that means go! oh, yeah.

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hi, everyone. we're back. we're covering breaking news about special counsel bob mueller having impaneled a grand jury in washington to investigate russia's interference in the 2016 election. you're looking at reporters as they prepare to film president

donald trump as he heads up the stairs to air force one. he's getting ared to fly to west virginia to participate in a campaign style rally. steve submit, this is not the afternoon he intended. he woke up to news that was bad enough. he's got a 33% approval rating. he's peeved that congress boxed him on russia sanctions as we've been talking about. and he was probably pretty irked about these transcripts that we've been talking about that leaked, the full transcripts of his calls with the looerds of mexico and australia. but the day turn a turn in the last 90 minutes. >> look, no doubt. this white house has been in a state of meltdown for some time and it seems that the events that are occurring last week, this week are just simply overwhelming it. and you look at the transcript of the calls with the foreign leaders, and what you see is weakness, pet u lessons, whiney and a level of unpreparedness to

talk to these leaders about america's interests. and the totality of all of this is it makes the world more dangerous and it makes the world more unstable. and that's the big take away from this week is the degree to which when you put it all together, he is fueling instability. and i don't know what day it will be and i don't know what hour in that day, but we'll pay a price for that at some hour soon in this country. this is serious business. that's a building where life and death decisions get made, and these people couldn't be more out matched in dealing with this stuff. >> george will. >> there's a shakes peerian element of all of this in the sense that as he gathers all of these hae hitters from the law firms, this is a man who ran against the sustainment. and he's up against mr. mueller, born in new york, raised in the philadelphia main line st. paul school, princeton undergraduate, officer of marines, university

of virginia law school. in the dictionary when they define urn, they'll have a picture of an urn. if they have a picture of the establishment, it would be a mr. mueller. >> gene. >> at times like this when we have new information or a new development, what often happens next is the president finds a way to make it worse. so i'm waiting for what happens now. twitter, is it tonight at this rally? does he say something? does he tweet something? so that's what i'm waiting to see. >> evelyn, a lot of people have pointed out that the lawyers are on message, but that was never really the challenge, right? >> no. it was always the president. and here is the thing, nicole. i'm really worried. we still don't know what the united states policy vis-a-vis russia is, and all we've done today is really highlight the fact that there's a real difference between the legislative branch, the executive branch. there's an incapacity in the white house, at least at the highest level, to understand what the threat is. and the russians are not waiting. they're not staying still. so we've got a lot of unfinished

business with russia and i'm worried about that. >> let's going to have to be the last word. thanks to my panel. that does it for this hour. i'm nicole wallace. "mtp daily" starts right now. hi, chuck. >> hi, nicole. so the four o'clock breaker. >> you get a little bit of news sometimes. come on. >> good work ask approximate a good start to this. good evening. another whirl winld day in the city. lake breaking news on guess what, russia. wall street journal is reporting that special counsel rob mueller has impaneled his own grand jury in washington for the russian probe. not just using somebody else's grand jury but using his own. that's a significant deal. the paper calls the move a ramp up in the investigation and a sign of the investigation's growing intensity. that news is breaking on the same day republicans on the hill produced legislation to make it harder for the president to