along the texas coastline. where harvey could hang out for several days to come. dumping torrential rains on communities already coping with flooding. >> the recovery from this disaster is going to be years. >> so when i watch charlottesville, to me -- >> president trump tweeting his support for storm victims while facing a storm of his own. the fallout from some major decisions that truch -- trump handed down while all eyes were on harvey. but we begin with the latest update on the tropical storm. this deadly storm has created some unparalleled damage along the texas coast. we do foe one person died so far. it happened in a fire during this storm. first responders could not get there in time. this happened in rockport. and about 200 miles north of there in austin, the texas governor made his rounds for

shellers for evacuees. an this is moving so slowly if at all. the winds have dropped to 65 miles per hour but residents need to stay alert. don't take the eye off the ball about their safety because of rising waters that could lead to catastrophic flooding. and if that wasn't enough, the national hurricane center is warning folks along the coast, the tornados could happen, jut take a look. footage from last hour of a tornado forming right outside of houston. were told that more could be forming overnight. so let's go to victoria, texas, we have correspondent along the coastline in texas where we find katie beck opn the ground with the latest there. and you've been in a specific spot in a neighborhood all day. how has it changed? >> reporter: well, throughout the course of the day, it has been getting worse and worse and obviously this water is continuing to collect. i'm at the foot of a driveway right now that basically is sort of an island.

you can't get out or you can't get in. a lot of streets here in victoria is increasingly starting to look like this, down power lines and trees. to electricity here at all. and there are no businesses open at all. now we have seen people out and about more than we did yesterday. but i think folks are pretty much staying indoors at this point because they know what is go coming. they know the winds are still here. there is more rain on the way. and as this rain comes, the water really has no place to go. as you could see, there is a lot of debris here in the roadways. this street has some but there are streets that have trees going across, making them impassable. once that starts to happen, the storm drains actually start to get clogged with debris and then the water really started to collect. we were in areas today where front yards literally looked like swimming pools. there was no grass to be seen. so this area will continue to see wind and rain throughout the night. throughout the next several days as this storm stalls right over top of us.

back to you. >> i know you've had a chance to speak with folks in certain neighborhoods in victoria and a lot are staying put mainly because they didn't want to leave and they didn't also know the safest regions to travel to. do people feel they are prepared to stay in this mode for the next couple of days? >> reporter: i think that is the good news. most of the people that we talked to were prepared. they did get supplies and food and water. and their answer as to why they didn't leave was because all of their relatives and friends that would stay with would be in texas and under flood warning. so i think they had serious concerns about leaving their home and their animals behind. and when they were basically going to enter another zone that could potentially be dangerous. so it does seem that people at least that stayed put prepared for that. >> so we're just here at day one. katie, thank you so much. i want to check in with meteorologist shanna mendiola tracking the storm. and we were just talking about this before coming up, about the

fact that it just seems to camp. it is talling. >> it stopped right there. we are looking at a storm that again, 125s miles in radius from victoria to austin that pushes the unstable air from the gulf and that's why you are seeing lightning along this feeder band which we are calling it. in between we get breaks. houston and parts of houston not getting a lot of rain but also getting the tornadic activity, possibly see that through tonight and that is why there is a tornado watch through 3:00 a.m. eastern standard time. i'm looking at tropical storm harvey and it is downgraded but the wind has gone down. it doesn't mean the threat is out of the picture just yet. we're looking at possibility of long-term power outages with the wind knocking over those power poles. also up rooting trees and damaging buildings out there and the flooding is going to be the major concern because for several days from here on out we've been talking about how it is not go fog move and you could see the storm track still the same. all the way through wednesday. it will take us tiny turn toward

the southeast and turn into a low which will downgrade the winds but the rain will continue to push up north and in the same area of southeast texas looking at several days of rain after this. now we're talking about why this is not moving. and i'll show you why right here. we have the jet stream to the north and it is parked in place. and it is not moving. and until there is movement within this jet stream, we're going to get harvey sitting right here over texas with no upper level winds to really steer it in direction. west coast folks seeing dry, hot conditions because of the high in their place. and then out toward the east, we have a high keeping our weather the same. in between we're sandwiching the storm and keeping it in place and the next time we see any movement will be in the next five days or so. maybe all the way through next weekend as well. so very danger situation and we're continuing to watch possible movement in the storm but so far tonight it looks like it is parked in place. >> seana, keep us posted. we'll check back over the next hour. and we want to move on.

we have breaking news that just dropped before the hour coming from the washington post, they are reporting that president trump asked the attorney general jeff sessions to close a case against former arizona sheriff joe arpaio who president trump eventually pardoned. that just happened friday night. last night. all of this while the country was pretty much laser focused on what was happening to texas. i want to bring in now -- who broke this story, phil brucker of the washington post. and phil, explain to us, exactly you are detailing here not only the background relationship of president trump, and the former sheriff, but the fact that he went to his a.g. very early on when the sheriff was about to go to trial. >> that is right. this conversation happened until the spring as sheriff arpaio dwrio was about to head into a federal trial for a criminal case and president trump sort of casually asked the attorney general jeff sessions whether it might be possible for the

government to drop the criminal case against arpaio. trump was advised that would be inappropriate and after talking to segs trump decided to let the case go to trial and if arpaio was convicted, as he was, the president could then grant clemency with the pardon. >> and phil, you go into details of their kind of sim bionic relationship going back to birtherism. >> that is right. these were the faces of the birther movement back in 2011 and 2012 and trump actually admired what arpaio was doing investigating the birth certificate. that was of course a lie. president obama was born in hawaii. but nevertheless, arpaio sent an investigators to hawaii to try to get to the bottom of the birth certificate and trump found that to be a patriotic thing and sent arpaio a fan letter and tweeted about him and ever since trump has admired arpaio. he sees him as an icon for law

and order testaments an american pate row ott and one of the reasons according to white house officials why the president has been so determined over many months to try to help him and prevent him from serving any jail time. >> phil, in your report you spoke with robert bower who is a former white house counsel with the obama administration. bower said he just wanted to kill the prosecution off. he couldn't do it one way so he ended up doing it the other way. this is just another vivid demonstration of how far removed from an proocht exercise of the pardon power this was. we know the president teased at this at the rally that he held in phoenix earlier this week. so is this something -- it is not just kind of the whim, the tease that was given, your reporting is saying this has been deeply discussed for a long time within the administration. they were just looking for a key moment when to do it. >> that is exactly right. by the way, my colleague

did the interview with bower but this in the works is exactly correct. it is something that trump has been thinking about for many months. he's been paying attention to the course of the trial. he paid attention when joe arpaio was convicted on july 31st. and soon there after the president set in motion this pardon. the white house counsel's office started drafting paperwork and the communication staff started drafting talking points and the president sort of tipped his hand in the middle of august when he re-tweeted a tweet from mox news saying that the president was considering the pardon of joe arpaio. ever since then, there has been pretty widespread speculation about the pardon and when it might happen. but to white house officials in the know, this was only a matter of time. something the president was 100% committed to doing at some point this summer sh. >> meanwhile the investigation and charges was well out of the hands of president trump because you can't go back in time. but when we think about maybe

parallels to what happened with what former fbi director james comey said about the michael flynn investigation, can you let that go, do we know if the attorney general pushed back or how the department of justice is commenting on this? >> well, the dep of justice we reached out to them today and they are not commenting on the matter. but we can confirm, according to three people familiar with what happened, that the president and the attorney general had a conversation about this. it is important to note that it is just a conversation. trump asked sessions whether it would be possible to take away the charges, to drop the charges against arpaio. he did not issue a directive, to my knowledge. there was no sort of formal process to review dropping the charges. it was just sort of an in inquiry that the president made with his attorney general and he was pretty quickly told that was not a -- an appropriate thing to do and that the president needed to wait to let the trial run its course and

then he could assure a pardon if he chooses. >> and that ran the course on july 31st with joe arpaio convicted by a judge. that was the choice as opposed to be ago i jury. his lawyer mark goldman say they did not contact trump during this period nor ask anyone in the administration for a pardon. however, you report along with your colleague that inside of the west wing, that the advocates for this pardon are steven miller and -- and bannon, stephen bannon. >> that is right. you know, steven miller, the senior policy adviser in the white house was an aide on trump's campaign. and got to know sheriff joe arpaio pretty well during the course of the campaign because they worked on immigration policy together. steve bannon as well. and it was really miller and bannon over a period of months who were -- who helped encourage the president to move forward with the pardon who were advocates for it internally.

and arpaio, i interviewed him this morning and he told me that he never once asked the white house for a pardon. but i did obtain a letter that his lawyer sent to the white house counsel don mcgahn on friday morning, so yesterday morning in which he -- he really impressed upon the white house how important it was for arpaio to get this pardon as soon as possible because they wanted it to be processed through the court system before there was any sentencing in october. so to prevent arpaio from having to be cuffed and spend a night in jail. >> and the attorneys for arpaio is mark goldman and we have him coming up in the next hour to talk to him about this. but in your conversation with arpaio, phil, because of being such a staunch law man, and believing in the -- the criminal system, since he was convicted, why accept the pardon and not file an appeal? >> you know, that is a good question. and that is actually one that i regrettably did not ask him.

so i don't know the answer to that. but i know he immediately accepted the appeal. he actually got a call a couple of weeks ago from the white house counsel office asking him if the president were to issue a pardon, would you accept it. and arpaio told the white house, yes, he would accept it. and there is one interesting thing that joe arpaio told us, he had a warninger not president, take a lesson with what is happening in arizona with regard to the russia probe and if they do it to me, meaning the judicial system, they could do it anybody, including the president of the united states. and so sort of a warning that the president may be next. >> phil, great job with this reporting along with your colleague. again, just broke before we came on the air. so thank you for calling in to us. phil rucker working with allen nakashima on this and giving some good detailed information on how this all came about in such a quick period of time.

thank you. >> thank you so much. have a good night. >> i want to bring in analyst david corn. so david, when you hear phil and allen's reporting for the washington post, does any of that surprise you, that there were seeds planted very early on? >> i wish i could say something about donald trump surprised me but not the pardon and the way he went about doing it. i've written about -- and have covered pardons for years now. i won't say how many and there is a very, very detailed organized process within an administration on how to get a pardon. people tend to apply, they go through a pardon office, that is established in the justice department and it is reviewed with details, and usually once a case is resolved. that is there is a sentencing, there a trial and conviction and whatever. and this has been true for every president in modern time. george w. bush did the same thing when there was talk about pardoning scooter libby who was the -- the chief of staff to

vice president cheney. and again and again, it is in very much an organized process. donald trump comes along, shows he has this instinct for autocratic and authoritarian practice and do this without any consideration and the way that he asked jeff sessions if he could kill the case, is of course, as phil noted in the story, very reminiscent of when he asked jim kobe, the fbi director, hey, could you go easy on michael flynn. so people are now pointing to the arpaio pardon as maybe being a precursor to what will happen if anybody starts getting indicted or in trouble in the russia investigation. and it is really hard not to make that correction. although, he does it in those cases to get people to shut up and not say anything that could hurt him or people around him. there is still a case, the legal case that that could be considered obstruction of justice. >> right. and we know that sessions has

recused himself from anything involving the russia investigation. however, in giving a commence for this story sarah huckabee sanders said that it is only natural that the president would have a discussion with the administration lawyers about legal matters, this case would be no different. the justice department did not comment, david, on this. but also the background here, it says in the reporting, that the president waited to issue a pardon if arpaio was found in contempt of court for doo defying a federal judge's order because he suspected them of being undocumented mgtss and he was gung-ho about it. and this reports the fact that they reached ow to arpaio and they were not the one that tried to seek any type of clemency from this white house. >> well, what you do have the letter in which they said we need the pardon sooner than later. because they don't want -- they didn't want him to be saepts

sentenced and rear moved from the -- removed from the courtroom in cuffs and incarcerated overnight before a pardon or so could be issued. this is -- we can't emphasize enough, how unordinary this is in terms of violating well established norms and procedures. that is just the way donald trump works. he doesn't care about norms and procedures. and he certainly has a -- bee up his bonnet when it comes to the federal juddishary. he attacked the judge handing the trump university fraud case, something we have -- we tend to forget. we also -- >> he settled on that. he settled. >> yes. he attacked the judges who said that his immigration ban initially was not legal. not constitutional. >> fired sally yates. >> so again and again and again, this is a guy who doesn't believe in checks and balances. he he doesn't believe in working with congress in a lot of ways.

he wanted to be an auto crat. which makes sense given the fact that he ran a family business where he got to make every decision. and he has no respect. >> and that is why you see, republicans and john mccain who is going through a terrible thing with his cancer treatments, still coming out and saying, this shows no respect for rule of law. paul ryan, a little more timidly had a spokesperson issue a statement. but i'm still waiting for people who care about norms, checks and balances, the rule of law, all of the things that we're taught in schoolhouse rock back in the day to say something and to mean what they say. because trump is pushing the limits, he's testing again and again and again, and somebody has to sent him a signal that you can only go so far. and unfortunately, i think that has to come from the republican side. >> now i'm going to -- i'm just a bill sitting on capitol hill through my mind the rest of the night. >> sorry. >> because you have extensively

covered pardons i want to discuss this one kind of comparing and contrast what is means especially politically moving forward. so david, i'll have you back. david corn, thank you, sir. also more on this story coming up when i have the opportunity to speak with a woman whose own dad was impacted by sheriff arpaioeyo policies in arizona. but we want to get back to the big breaking news we have in covering this extensively all day. tropical storm harvey. this is now a deadly storm as we have one confirmed death so far out of the state of texas associated with harvey. downpours are expected to shut down major cities that are already saturated. we'll get you back on the ground in a moment in texas. m leaving . but why? you haven't noticed me in two years. i was in a coma. well, i still deserve appreciation. who was there for you when you had amnesia? you know i can't remember that. stop this madness. if it's appreciation you want you should both get snapshot from progressive. it rewards good drivers with big discounts on car insurance.

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birtherism and so he asked if they could drop the case and was advised that would be inappropriate with three people with knowledge of the conversation. after talking with sessions, trump decided to let the case go to trial and if arpy woe was convicted, he would grant clemency. now joe arpaio was convicted on july 31st for ignoring a judges to stop arresting migrants because deputies thought this were imgantss. the center for neighborhood leadership in phoenix, it is good to have you with me and i know there is a lot of new information coming out about the background that led up to the eventual pardon last night. but in your own family history, your family faced scrutiny offer joe arpaio watch. >> arpaio has been doing criminal work for -- breaking

the laws and unconstitutional pract is for many decades. in 2014, one of his raid,s he went into my dad's job, thankfully my dad was not at the site at that moment. but he took his file. he took his file, which would -- what arpaio would do is go to people's homes and raid their homes. my family, both of my parents and myself were undocumented. and so we knew that arpaio having my dad's file meant that he could come and tear our family apart at any moment. so then my family moved away. moved to a different county. and has continued to live in fear and terror ever since. because we know that arpaio could have shown up at any moment. >> the coverage that joe arpaio had during his time as sheriff was pretty intense. in terms of what was allowed to be shown. the tent cities, the type of

degradation inmates would have to live through. if they were under arpaio's watch. sometimes staying in deadly heat, we know that rights were violated. also the fact that he went against a federal judge's orders about not detaining people. what was the tate and -- state of mind for people in your family and that you now fighting for about his time as sheriff? was it constant fear? >> it was constant terror. it was constant terror and trauma for a lot of families. my family was just one of the many in the thousands of families that were living in fear. what arpaio did is unpardonable. it is unhumane. not only the fact that he was going hunting and targeting us as latinos, ask as people of color, because he was chasing the camera and chasing the attention, but we have stories like marty art encio who was

beat and hurt and brutalized and murdered by his deputies. we have culture of violence. we have over 400 cases of abuse -- sexual abuse, a lot of them children, that never got investigated because he was too busy becoming -- being a show, being a political show. we had families that were traumatized and terrorized. this is a pardon that there trying to do not only for the racism and the bigotry and the hate that arpaio stood for, but also murder and the abuse and the humiliation that he brought to many families and to our state over all. so it is -- >> and it is not over. >> the stratrauma is still ther >> and when we think about ow quickly all of this happened with the fact that he was con vined at the end of july and we now have the president coming just several days ago to phoenix kind of teasing up the fact of a pardon coming for arpaio, the reporting from the washington post saying that he went to the attorney general asking about

seeing -- having this case derailed in any way. the fact that hes with found guilty, and also the fact that many people in this country consider a pardon an admission of guilt, is that in any way a sense of justice to know that he was found guilty and that most people, if you get a pardon, they think you were guilty and you just got lucky. >> yeah, i mean it was definitely a community win that he was found guilty. and it was also community win that we kicked him out of office. our community has been fighting for decades, for years and through a lot of that pain and through a lot of that trauma, we had to make sure that we let the courts know that he was guilty and many families coming out and trusting this justice system to do the right thing. many individuals who were hurt or who didn't want to just deal with this whole thing, but a lot of people, story after story,

came out and when we found that he was found guilt dwr-- guiltyt was peace and relief to all of the pain that he had caused and right now a lot of families are questioning where is the justice. because we thought that this justice system works in a way -- how we've always been taught that it works and so we're see right now that trump doesn't care about the law, doesn't care about the judicial system. doesn't care about the rule of law as he is saying, doesn't care about bringing people together. so all his words that we know are fake, but his actions right now are definitely showing us where he really stands. >> well some skeptics would question why would the sheriff accept a pardon if he believes he is innocent, he should file an appeal and fight it through a court of law. viviana hernandez, thank you for your time and i appreciate it and your personal stories. so we want to get back to our tropical storm coverage of harvey. that continues. these rainstorms and stands

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hi, everybody, good to have you with me, i'm thomas roberts at msnbc headquarters in new york. tropical storm harvey stalled over the lone star state. devastating at a category 4. but it is true power is expected to be felt over the next few days because the storm has slowed down to a basic halt, dumbing incredible amounts of rain. and forecasts are warning that

the flooding that we'll see could be catastrophic. it is on top of certain area that's have seen 20 or 16 inches of rain. so far one person has died. there have been more than 338,000 residents left in the dark. without power and told to expect to be that way for several days. >> there are more than 338,000 outages and it will still be several days, perhaps before those outages will be able to be dressed. >> so meanwhile the governor has said that they enacted up to 1800 texas military officers, the coast guard is saying that it is rescued 15 people on boats and several cities including the city of corpus christi are warning residents to boil your water before you use it. so i want to go back to our meteorologist shanna mendiola with the latest on the path of the storm and the path is the fact that it has paused itself. right over certain areas. so who is getting it the worst.

>> all right. well right now we are tracking the storm. and the northeast quadrant of the hurricane or what once was hurricane harvey is now the tropical storm. it is driving in that moisture in the northeast quadrant. what we are watching near houston, northwest of there where there is lightning moving in is where we're seeing the worst of it. but if you look at the radius of how big this is. we measured out to just be 150 miles so any direction from the storm, you will run into rain and this is not just tonight. we're looking at that for self days. so again looking at rainfall totals, because that is the only thing that has changed, positioning hasn't changed and the winds have gone down a little bit but really it is the rain totals that are going up as we speak. houston about four inches. for you in austwell, and victoria slammed and look as that to multiply into wednesday of this week. that is how much we're expecting in terms of the rain.

so taking a look at some of the rain totals for you to get an idea of where we stand, in galveston from friday, about 7 inches of rain since yesterday. looking at -- since august 1st, the beginning of the month, at 10.61 inches and average rainfall annually about 50.76 so that means we are one fifth of the way already and in the next five days or so we might be close to the annual rainfall that galveston gets in one year. that shows you how much rain is expected and river gauges again could be reaching major flood stages. we take a look at what is happening, the guadalupe river at victoria, about 25 feet and forecasted to be at 31.9 feet by wednesday. and the records is about 34. so that is one we're watching and colorado river at bay city with 17.2 feet right now. forecasted for about 49.9. almost 50. so we still have ways away but again we're still continuing to expect rain, today, tomorrow and the way through wednesday of this week.

maybe thursday as a blocking high to west and to east is sandwiching the storm right over texas. that is where the bull's eye is going to be and that is what we're watching right now, you a. >> and the blocking, is this typical for this time of the year for the wind system to be tracking from west to east in the northern part of the country that would create this situation, it is not at all. >> this is very usual. the jet stream drives the storms frxt west to east. and right now west coast is looking at a big major heat wave for the next five days. and on the east coast, we're looking mild and right in the middle. we've got the hurricane or what used to be the hurricane now tropical storm harvey. sitting right in place and it weakened as we head into the next few days but the rain amounts are not expected to go down whatsoever. >> we know people should not let down their guard. thank you so much. we'll talk again shortly and as we've been talking about the forth largest city in the country, houston is getting walloped by the storm and i'm joined by public information

officer for the harris county office for emergency management, franciso sanchez. in houston. so franciso, explain with the narm weather service issuing a flood warning for houston and victoria, what preparations are underway and what staged assets are already in place for those at most risk? >> well right we have, as you'll see, flash flood watches and warnings for almost the entire southeast texas coast. and for us here at least in the short-term, we've got up to 15 and more inches of rain between now and thursday. but looking at where we are now, four to six inches expected tonight and another possible six to ten through monday. so that is a 24 hour period of a lot of rain. we are working right now with a local fire, state and law enforcement weather partners to monitor for that. so because we've had floods over the past few years, we have increased the number of water rescue assets that we have. we have 60% more than during our

last major flood. so those are positioned strategically around the county so we could respond if we find ourselves in dangerous flooding conditions in the next day or so. >> and with the nightfall coming in about two hours, for your area what are the biggest concerns? that you are trying to anticipate so that you are not blindsided. >> that is a -- that is a very good concern. right now we are talking to our community and getting information out that tonight could be harz arduous for a couple of reasons. we've had tornado touch downs and tornados are difficult to see in the evening. so we're asking folks to if at all possible stay at home and tonight and then that is the safest thing to do. and in addition because we already had rain today, in additional rain is going to he's illy accumulate on our roadways and cause the bayous to rise and high water locations are difficult to spot in the evenings and in the dark. so between the tornado threat, and flooding threat, it is really important that the

community understand that -- the danger is not over. in fact it gets more dangerous in the evening. so get to where you need to be for the evening and plan to taye there and check the -- stay there and check the forecast and traffic conditions before you go anywhere in the morning. >> and before you go, i know we have one confirmed fatality. do you have any information about areas of concern, more rural areas outside of houston where people have not had contact? >> one of the things that is difficult right now and this is not in our community, in houston and harris county communications are fine but some are down so you fee family members trying to connect that are -- that don't know because they haven't been able to connect with families. right now we have the good fortune in harris county that our infrastructure is up. we were not affected by many of the surge. and the winds that came in when it was a hurricane. and it didn't affect us either. so our concern is flooding and making sure that people

understand that the most dangerous thing to do and the way to stay safe is to stay put when you are home or your business or wherever you are surrounded by water, we know it could be uncomfortable. we know it could be scary. but more deaths occur when people leave their homes to drive into high water or to walk into that kind of situation. so to protect lives and property it is important for people to protect themselves first and not going into any kind of flooded situation. >> francisco sanchez of harris county office of homeland security and emergency management. i know it is going to be some long day as head for you and your colleagues there. so thank you for your time. i appreciate it. >> thank you. so our coverage of harvey will continue. more on the mandatory evacuations. the relief efforts an the latest rain totals as this storm makes a very slow crawl. basically stalling over texas right now. the images you see. back with more in a moment. hard. so to breathe better, i go with anoro. ♪go your own way copd tries to say, "go this way."

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so we have a controversial pardon, a high profile departure and a transgender military ban while much of america focused on harvey. the white house was busy making headlines against mother nature an more on that and the coverage back in texas and about electronic devices. if want to check this out, go to nbc news.com/harvey, follow all of our insider breaking news coverage there.

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was sheriff joe convicted for doing his job? he should have had a jury but you know what, i'll make a prediction, i think he's going to be just fine, okay. >> so then we have the president earlier this week in phoenix at

a rally and now we're following the breaking news tonight involving president trump and former arizona sheriff joe arpaio with the president pardoning the controversial sheriff, yesterday after his july 31st conviction. now "the washington post" out with a report that the back story leading up to this saying the president asked jeff sessions whether it is possible for the government to drop the criminal case against arpaio but was advised that would be inappropriate. this is ard -- according to three people with the conversation and after talking with sessions trump decided to let the case go to trial and if joe arpaio was convicted, he could grant clem epsy, david corn is here and matt mcco yak, i just butchered that. >> mccovey ac. there i said it. >> who work on the bush-cheney election and chris coviny.

another emphasis on wrong syllable. we have a fresh statement from speaker ryan on this and his dissent about what just happened ow of the white house saying the speak did not agree with the w this decision. law enforcement has a special responsibility to respect the rights of everyone in the united states. and the responsibility is not diminished by this pardon. by contrast, we have all questions being directed to the white house. the department of justice has not made a comment to the new report from "the washington post." but what do you make of speaker ryan getting on the record? >> well, we talked about this a little earlier in the show. it's not a very forceful statement if it's not coming from ryan directly. we know in washington there's a pecking order and if you don't want to get a lot of attention for something, you have a spokesperson do it and you don't go on video and do it yourself.

the show as strong as those words may be, speaker ryan is not really willing to get out there and do this in his name and confront trump on this and, of course, mitch mcconnell, the republican senate majority leader is -- runs away from any sort of these circumstances. they are letting trump get away with all of this stuff. they are enabling him and until they draw a harder and faster line, he's going to keep pulling stup stunts like this. >> well, it is within the president's right to pardon someone. matt, i'm sure you have two words going through your mind, scooter libby, who did not get this special treatment. have you ever seen a president of any party make that kind of request regarding an ongoing case, the fact that "the post" is reporting about trump's interest in getting sessions to get the case gone? >> i can't think of another example of a situation like

this, certainly not one anytime recently. look, i do think there's a one potential explanation here, that the president of the united states, the first president never to have government or military experience, he may not have fully understood the wall of separation that exists between the white house and the justice department. i think the president believes that all cabinet officials -- >> wouldn't the white house counsel advise him of that, matt? >> yeah, he should have, certainly. it's possible that this president picks up the phone and calls whoever he wants when he wants. it's possible that that was his first run through the counsel's office. yes, i agree with attorney general sessions, that was an inappropriate -- it would have been an inappropriate thing to do and it's a very positive thing that the attorney general had that response. >> the white house has said, responding to questions about trump's conversation with sessions, white house press secretary sarah huckabee sanders

said it's only natural the president would have a discussion with the administration lawyers about legal matters. this case would be no different. do you think it is? i mean, we think about the parallels, i've brought this up before, the fact of fbi director -- former fbi director meeting with donald trump and donald trump saying, you know, lay off of flynn. a you've seen this consistent pattern. i'm confused and this is donald trump's modis operandi. he's kind of shocked when that is not possible.

and he becomes like a child, angry when you take away your toy. in this case, the pardon was kind of -- it was obvious he was going to do this. the part that i think is disappointing who is going to follow it? >> you make a point about the business experience, if the trump organization kind of carries itself as an administration, like it is leasing the country, we do have laws in place that when and if they are broken and there can be a consequence. >> i doubt that. i haven't heard any legal experts say that.

if there's talk of pardoning people involved in the russia investigation in order to prevent them from working or cooperating donald trump really only cares about one thing. i hate to say that again and again. and with him giving street cred on the right and being terrible about latinos when it comes to the immigration policy, he sees them as basically an extended family member and whether it's emoluments or nepotism in the white house. he did what you would expect him to do, protect the guy who was

kind of a bit of a lieutenant, an extended family member, to donald trump and not care about any aspect of the rule of law. >> so we know in this article in reference from arpaio, he says there was no conclusion about birtherism. we'll see where this goes. mark goldman, an attorney for arpaio, is coming up in the next hour. gentlemen, appreciate your time. also, the other breaking story today, hurricane harvey has now been downgraded to a tropical storm. don't be fooled by this. this system has stalled over texas and in certain areas they are expecting up to 30 inches of rain. stay with us. live reports in the next hour from the hardest hit areas. shawn evans: it's 6 am. 40 million americans are waking up to a gillette shave. and at our factory in boston, 1,200 workers are starting their day building on over a hundred years of heritage, craftsmanship and innovation.

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