can possibly be. he wants to see the people, see the devastation first happened and he'll do that saturday. >> reportedly been watching it very closely on tv. >> he loves tv. >> all right. well, thank you to philip rucker david hoppy and rick sentencing elfor being with us. "mtp daily" starts now. in for chuck todd. >> good show today. appreciate it. and if it is thursday, that trump tower meeting with russians comes roaring back. tonight, rescue and relief. >> just know we are with you and we will stay with you. >> as the massive cleanup begins, what happens to tens of thousands of people left homeless in harvey's path of destruction? plus, new exclusive reporting on the russia investigation. details on paul manafort's notes

about that trump tower meeting. and warning shot. is the u.s.-led show of force enough to push back on the north korea crisis? >> i agree with the president. we should not be talking right now to a nation that's firing rocket missiles over the top of japan. >> this is "mtp daily," and it starts right now. good evening and welcome to "mtp daily." i'm indicate yi tur in for chuck todd. we're expected to hear from vice president any moment and on the escalating russia investigation. vice president pence has spent the day in texas where rescues are still under way, especially in the beaumont and port arthur area. pence has met with first responders, volunteers and people impacted by the storm

firsthand. we'll go live to the storm zone when he starts speaking. but we begin with exclusive reporting tonight from nbc news on the russia investigation, and that now infamous meeting at trump tower last summer. the one between donald trump jr. paul manafort, jared kushner, a russian lawyer and multiple other russian figures. two sources tell nbc news that manafort's smartphone notes from the meeting included the words donations in close proximity to the reference to a reference from the republican -- to the republican national committee. congressional investigators have been trying to figure out whether that june 26th meeting included any talk about donations to either the trump campaign or the rnc from any russian sources. it's, of course, illegal for foreigners to contribute money involved in u.s. elections. manafort's spokesman issued a statement saying, quote, it is 100% false to suggest this meeting included any discussion of donations from russian

sources to either the trump campaign or the republican party. mr. manafort provided the senate intelligence committee with the facts and his notes, so this speculation and conjecture is pointless and wrong. that trump tower meeting is also being scrutinized as part of special counsel robert mueller's investigation. our nbc investigative team reported earlier this week that mueller's investigators want to know what president trump knew about the meeting and whether he sought to conceal its purpose. and another development late today, "the wall street journal" is reporting that president trump's attorneys have submitted arguments to mueller saying that the president didn't obstruct justice when he fired former fbi director james comey. joining me now to digest all of this is nbc news national security reporter ken did he laneian. so, ken, you're reporting talk about the word donations in close proximity to the rnc and

his notes. do we know what those donations could have consisted of? >> well, there are a number of possibilities, katy. and investigators aren't a 100% sure. but what's pretty clear is that paul manafort was taking notes on his smartphone during the meeting. these are rather cryptic notes, as my sources describe them. one or two words. and two of those words were donations and rnc for republican national committee. now, obviously as you said, it would be illegal for any russian to contribute to an american election. it would be illegal for an american political party to accept foreign donations. so congressional investigators want to get to the bottom of whether there was any discussion at all at this meeting about donations. now, there are other possibilities, though, because the stated subject of the meeting was these magnitsky act sanctions. they had a story to tell about some particular americans who she said pulled money out of russia and some of them may have contribute to hillary clinton's campaign. that was the allegedly

incriminating information from her point of view that she was bringing to the trump team. so in that sense there were donations discussed according to her to hillary clinton. ask it's possible that manafort was talking about that and he inadvertently put rnc. being generous here. but the bottom line is we don't know and investigators don't know and we want to find out. >> he was looking at his phone the entire time according to done junior, but there were other folks in that meeting. are investigators trying to get any other information from, say, smart foenls or any notes that the other people in that meeting might have taken? >> you can be sure that special counsel robert mueller and the house and the senate are trying to get every scrap of paper, every piece of electronic data and every witness account they can about that meeting. that meeting is emerging as a marmg focus of the investigation. as you mentioned before, nbc news reported earlier this week that the special counsel is interested in why president trump crafted a misleading statement on his son's behalf about the purpose of that

meeting. recall that the statement initially said, oh, this was a meeting about russia adoptions. there really wasn't much to it. and then we later learned that actually there was a specific and explicit promise of help from the russian government and incriminating information about hillary clinton. so, yes, this meeting looms large. >> the white house said the president wasn't really involved in crafting that statement. the reporting suggests otherwise. wall street journal has alternatives spoken a story saying that donald trump's legal team has submitted memos outlining its defense against this idea that he was obstructing justice when he fired fbi director james comey. what can you tell us about that? >> that it's exactly what you would expect good white collar, you know, lawyers to do when they know what the potential charges are. it's no secret that robert mueller is investigating whether the president of the united states obstructed justice in part by firing james comey. and so they're arguing that, look, that was a lawful firing. and they're right about that in a sense. but they're also argue eyeing that james comey would make an unreliable witness.

that's a more questionable assertion. they're making the case to mueller that he shouldn't even try to bring that charge. that's what you would expect them to do here. >> there's no groundbreaking defense here. yes, he has that authority, but he stated this that interview with lester holt, ken, that he was thinking about the russia investigation. so even if he could hire and fire at will, is that a defense against obstruction? >> well, it may be a defense as regards to the particular firing of comey, but don't forget there's a whole fact pattern here. it's the private meeting that the president had with comey where he asked him to go easy on mike flynn. it's the meetings that he had with mike rogers, the head of the national security agency and done coats the head of the dni where he asked them to say they'd seen no collusion. its the statements about the investigation and denouncing the investigator. so there's a pattern here. whether that adds up to a criminal act of obstruction of justice is another matter, but it's clear that donald trump is resisting at every stage of this

investigation. >> and it's want just a pattern when it comes to this, ken. it's a pattern when it comes to the blurring of lines between the offices, similar thing when he was pardoning joe arpaio. he talked to the doj beforehand and asked how they can stop that court case from going against him. that case that said that he was continuing to profile, racially profile when he was ordered not to. ken delaneian, great reporting as always. joining me now is been wit advertise, a senior fellow at the brookings institution and editor in chief at law fair. ben, that's so much for joining us. we're talking to ken about this argument from the trump lawyers that the president has the authority to fire and hire at will and that this case of obstruction against him just won't hold water. what do you think about that? >> well, so i think that memo is quite interesting, actually,

both of the memos that the journal reported that was submitted to mueller's people on the president's behalf. so, first of all, the first of those memos, which alleges that the president has the inherent authority to staff the executive branch however he wants, and therefore couldn't have object druktd justice, strikes me as remarkable overbroad. i mean, the president, after all, has the authority to fooir -- certainly has the authority to fire jim comey but he doesn't have the authority to take a bribe in order to fire jim comey. the claim that he simply couldn't have violated the law because he has the underlying authority to do this is a sort of laughably overbroad assertion. >> are they saying, though, that the intent doesn't matter here, because he has that authority? >> well, that seems to be what they're saying. obstruction of justice is after all a specific intent crime, right. the same act can be perfectly an oh dine or can be obstruction of

justice depending purely on what you meant to do and how a reasonable person would have understood what you were doing. right. and so here the president engages in a pattern of activity, and it's not simply the firing, right, as ken described. it's a lot of activity leading up to the firing and after the firing. and their claim is, well, he has the authority to fire anyone he wants, therefore it couldn't be obstruction of justice. that is not a legal claim that is going to carry the day. the second memo is also, at least as the journal reports it, fascinatingel defective. i don't know what basis this issue is going to be resolved on, but it will not be resolved on the basis that jim comey is not a credible witness. >> let me read that memo from "the wall street journal." a memo submitted to mr. mueller outlined why they believe mr. comey would make an unsuitable witness, calling him prone to exaggeration, unreliable in

congressional testimony, and the source of leaks to the news media. of course, they're saying that when they come to leaks, they're going to go back and say hey, the president asked you to distribute a memo, essentially, that he wrote extemporaneously about that meeting with james comey. they're also going to see that he had to come back and correct something he he said in congressional testimony. is that not going to weigh at all on mueller? >> so first of all, it was not me. >> i'm sorry. it was not you. as i said that i realized it wasn't you. i'm sorry. >> it was senator collins thought it was me and guessed it was me, but as jim testified at the time, it was actually somebody else. >> i apologize, ben. my bad. >> but look, there is simply no doubt in my mind that before any jury you could amass in the united states or before any selt of investigators, much less the highly professional selt of investigators that bob mueller has put together, that jim comey

is a more credible witness than donald trump. and, you know, i think to ask which of them is a more credible witness is also to answer that question. and so i think the broad point here is that this is -- this issue is not going to be resolved on either of the two bases that the president's lawyers appear to have argued. it's not going to be resolved on the basis that the president has the authority to fire anybody, and so he therefore, can't have obstructed justice. and it's not going to be resolved on the basis that jim comey is prone to exaggeration and is a leaker and is a brag art and is therefore not credible. >> go ahead. >> if the president has a defense, it is going to be on the basis of the facts of what happened between them. and i think what's notable about these two memos is they do not appear to have been arguing the facts of the case. >> and does it strike you that this is the only defense that they're coming up right now? >> i think it is very

interesting that the president's lawyers appear to have believed or appear to believe that mueller has front burn erred the obstruction of justice issues and that they have gone in and tried to preemptively argue on those bases, and i think that's probably an indication that this is an issue that mueller's people are looking at very seriously. >> ben wit advertise, thank you very much for joining us, my friend. and i'm sorry again forgetting you mixed up. >> no. it's a pleasure to be here as always. >> thank you. and we're expecting to hear from vice president pence as he wraps up his trip through the flood zone in texas. we'll bring that to you when it happens live. and we'll have the late rest from texas just ahead as rescue efforts continue and the cleanup efforts are just beginning. plus, the president's playing to his base and only his base. that's ahead.

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more than 25,000 rescues have been carried out by the assorted local and federal agencies down in texas. undoubtedly thousands more were saved by neighbors and good samaritans, but sadly, the death toll from hurricane harvey is now at 32. here is some of what we've seen today from texas. >> water came up so fast between saturday and sunday, so you leave with nothing. >> the front of our house looks like apop lips out there. >> i've got my life, my baby, my family. >> we were so happy like god answered our prayers. >> we lost everything in our home. our car is underwater, everything is underwater. i'm just happy we're safe and somebody had rescued us. >> four doors and laid across the bed diagonally and horizontal. >> and that's where you stayed with the dogs for 14 hours, no food, no water. >> that's correct. >> we got nearly 50 inches of water, which is worse than ike, worse than rita, probably

combined, and so we're really dealing with some things that aren't on the chart. >> the sheer size of the effort in the storm's aftermath is astounding. fema says they are serving over 3 million meals a day and distributing more than 2 million bottles of water per day. 232 shelters are housing 32,000 people driven from their homes from harvey. the white house said 100,000 homes were affected by the storm. and there are 3 mega centers set up. two in houston and one in dallas. white house press secretary sarah huckabee sanders announced this afternoon that president trump is personally donating $1 million, though she said the president is still deciding where to send the money. >> he's actually asked that i check with the folks in this room since you are very good at research and have been doing a lot of reporting into the groups

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most allergy pills only block one. and 6 is greater than one. flonase sensimist. ♪ welcome back. president trump ran as the guy who promised, quote, i can fix it alone. but let's be real. you can't get much of anything donna loan in washington. you can try, but you'll fail, whether you want to build a wall or tear down obamacare. president trump is now confronting a legacy defining moment where he cannot go it alone. he's going to need the support of the public and he's going to need the support of congress as this country confronts a historic and historically expensive cleanup effort. and don't forget the logjam of must-pass bills this fall to keep the government open and avoiding a default. but this president is isolated. the public is frustrated with his leadership. so is congress. and mr. trump is arguably making things worse. right now he's speaking mostly

to the roughly 30 to 40% of americans that make up his base, but there's evidence that they're not listening like they used to. according to a new nbc news survey poll out today, 60% of the public says the president's decision to pardon joe arpaio which he announced as harvey made landfall was the wrong thing to do. it looks like just his base, 4%, agrees with the move. if the president halts daca, most of the country isn't going to like it. 64% support the obamaer ra program which allows young people who came here illegally as children to remain here. overall 61% of the public has an unfavorable view of mr. trump. it looks like just his base, 36%, holds a favorable view. and it's the same story if you look at the president's job approval numbers. 59% disapprove. it looks like just his base,

39%, approves. yes, this president was elected by that base. they hoped he'd get things done and shake things up. but his agenda has stalled. august was brutal, and some of his supporters are losing faith. >> a word ar a feeling about donald trump, a word or a phrase. everybody ready? go. >> outrageous. >> did you vote for him? >> i did. >> okay. outrageous because. >> everything he does is outrageous. >> abject disappointment. extremely disappointed. >> you voted for him? >> yes, sir. >> off the scale. the thing that drives me crazy is all the tweeting he does. >> crazy. >> why? >> well, that was a lot of it, the tweeting. it has to stop. >> did you vote for him? >> unfortunately, yes. >> we played you some of that pittsburg focus group yesterday, but those were just trump voters you heard right there. in that focus group five voted for trump and four of them sound like they're now regretting it, which is perhaps why the

president seems so intently focused on winning them back, because if they go, so does he. i'm joined now by nbc's chief white house correspondent hallly jackson. thanks so much for being here. thanks for joining us. is the white house worried at all about its base right now? >> so i spoke with one administration official just a little bit ago and the emphasis is on the president pushing some of these policies. remember, put this into the context. you talk about these numbers but talk about the time of where we are right now. turning from frankly a controversial august for president trump to say the least, turning into an extremely busy almost excruciatingel busy with september particularly when it comes to these major policy issues on immigration. it's not just daca, although that is going to be significant. you presented some of those numbers there. the president in a way is under pressure from immigration hard liners here. you've got these ten states that have this deadline of tuesday for the president to do what he said he would do on the campaign trail and rescind daca, although

you also heard the president about having heart for some of these kids, dreamers who are now getting up in age, if you will, in their 20s and perhaps early 30s at this point. and so there is a question, perhaps the president feels conflicted but wants to be able to point to some policies now that will sea what you're talking about, that 30 to 40% of people who do support his policies, who do find him to be favorable at this moment in time compared to unfavorable and who support things like, for example, some of his other immigration policies. >> heal you were on the campaign trail a lot with me. you talked to the base. you saw the folks who were going to support the president even if he shot somebody on fifth avenue. does the white house feel like it's liberating to have a base that's loyal or do they feel sort of trapped by it, like if he tried to go and apiece or make inroads with the other portion of the country by not rescinding daca or doing things that were more unifying, that it

wouldn't matter. ultimately all he has to go is go and direct himself at this base because his base is the only thing that will stick with him? >> i think it's clear the president loves his base. he feeds off of it. he gets energy off of them. we have seen that from day one as you know in this campaign all the way until now 6789 i think of him being in arizona sort of loving that response ha he got. it's been interesting watching the focus groups that you've been playing and that chuck played a little bit yesterday as well, because my experience on the road, i was out on the road last week for my 10:00 msnbc show and we spoke with not just nonsupporters but supportsers as well, while some of them were absolutely skeptical of where the president has been and the headline from all of them was he needs to stop tweeting, i didn't talk to as many folks who were quite as cynical as that particular focus group was. i'm extremely disappointed, i've given up on him. these people, what i heard again and again was we want to give him time. >> yeah. >> and again, this brings us back to the issue of time.

because i'll tell you what from basically tuesday when congress comes back until the end of september is going to be really critical for president trump whether he can get some of this stuff done, movement on tax reform and some of these other policies that people are really looking toward. >> good to see you. thank you so much, my friend. let's bring in tonight's panel. i want to jump off from what i was talking about with hall lee and his support and his base. this focus group is eye opening certainly and for them to say we voted for him but we don't think he's doing a good job. pennsylvania after all is a state that he needed to win in order to win. that being said, i don't know how emblematic they are of the wider base that voted for donald trump and this is what kerry dan talked about in our nbc news.com piece. they're not necessarily

emblematic of the white working class voters that put donald trump over the edge, those that did not have a college degree, not saying there's anything wrong with not having a college degree. given that, do you think the white house should be concerned about this, susan? >> absolutely, because one of the things that we've seen in other polling is that those base people are for donald trump, but it's not that he has the influence on them for other folks. so if donald trump is trying to influence an election or a primary, for example, in arizona, his influence is not there. they're still willing to give him a chance, but they're not necessarily buying into everything he does. so they're willing to break off and think independently. so that goes to the president's influence in washington, which goes to his ability to get things done in the legislature. >> and u no doubt i've got people in my twitter right now screaming how hillary clinton won the popular vote and she won more votes and donald trump's margin was actually quite small

and he can't afford to lose anybody. do you think that that is still an argument to be made? after all, she might have won the popular vote, bt he won the electoral vote. he won where the votes mattered most. >> there's an argument to be made. i'd like to make an analogy. remember the bradley effect where folks would say that they would vote for ael black mayor. >> and then they wouldn't actually do it. >> and then they went into the voting booth and they didn't do it. we might want to talk about the trump effect. folks say he's indecent, he's crazy, what he does. >> they find him embarrassing. >> and had then you could be a moderate republican and you can be repulsed by him grabbing women's private parts, but then when you go into the voting booth, you vote for him. we saw this prior to the election, and so what we're hearing here isn't that unfamiliar to us. it's actually quite familiar and yet he was still elected. >> you look at the polls right before the election, so many people thought he was an embarrassment. they would tell pollsters that,

sas it on television. tell their friends and neighbors, no, i'd never vote for donald trump but go into that polling booth and and else happens. >> exactly. i was looking at results recently. they'd say he's dishonest. you'd hear it over and over again. i always question what the consequences for him are because he is married to this republican congress, right, by virtue of the agenda. they want to pass these items just as much as the president does. so in a lot of ways they are the ones under pressure here when you also look at polling, you see that people are more likely to blame their members of congress, the republican congress, more so than the president. their numbers, of course, are lower than the president's numbers in terms of approval. so when he's out there trying to rev up the base, he's trying to push pressure on lawmakers in congress who are going to be on the ballot next year. and we'll see how that works out. >> but donald trump wasn't elected with 36% of the vote. so there is drop-off when we talk about the base and you go

to those numbers. and i think there's also something different also looking at him today versus november is he's not running against hillary clinton. >> right. >> and she was -- >> weapon don't know who he is running against yet. >> but the chances of running against such an unpopular figure. americans elected a person they did not like and did not trust. and that would have been held true for hillary clinton as well. so we know that there's significant drop-off -- >> it was a perfect storm of variables that contributed to this election. who knows if the perfect storm will carry-over to 2020. >> and it does come down to 80,000 people. that's what carried those three states. >> but that perfect storm doesn't account for what happened in the republican primary, though. the republicans vote and made him the nominee. and so -- what we do know is those white working class voters, the white hi every high school educated working class voters, that the median income of the trump voter was actually a little bit higher than the median income of the hillary clinton voter. >> that is true. he went up against 16 republicans that were supposed

to be the future of the party, marco rubio, jeb bush, ted cruz, and he beat them all one by one. this is not to say that anything donald trump does should be excused because his base doesn't care, but this does help people to try and understand why he does get that support. we've got a lot more to talk about coming up in the later panel. guys, stick with us. and a show of force today on the korean peninsula as tensions with north korea ratchet up yet again. details ahead.

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still ahead on "mtp daily," decoding the mixed messages from the white house on north korea. but first, hampton pearson has the cnbc market wrap. >> hello, katy. we had stocks closing higher on waulgts as investors digested key economic data. the dow adding 55 points. the s&p up by 14. the nasdaq closed 60 points higher. consumer spending kregsd .3% in july along with wages and salaries. consumer spending accounts for more than two-thirds of u.s. economic stift. weekly jobless claims totaled 236,000 matching investments. investigators looking ahead to friday's jobs ra report to see if the employment continues to shrink. that's it from cnbc, first in business worldwide. when heartburn hits fight back fast with tums chewy bites.

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welcome back.

we're expecting to hear from vice president pence in texas at any moment. and we'll go to that as soon as it happens. meantime, though, a show of force today designed to send a message to north korea. u.s. bombers and f-35 jets flew along south korea fighter jets fleksing their joint military muscle. this after wednesday when president trump tweeted, quote, the u.s. has been talking to north korea and paying them exportion money for 25 years. talking is not the answer. just hours after that defense secretary mattis seemed to contradict the president. >> the president this morning tweeted that talking isn't the answer. are we out of diplomatic solutions for north korea? >> no. we're never out of diplomatic solutions. we continue to work together, and the minister and i share a responsibility to provide for the protection of our nation, our populations and our interests, which is what we are here to discuss today. and look for all the areas with which we can collaborate.

>> mattis clarified that comment today, telling reporters that he did not contradict the president, that diplomacy is not just talking. and that he agrees that we should not be talking to a nation that's firing missiles over japan. i'm joined now by gore done chang. good to see you. we might have to interrupt to go to vice president pence, but hopefully we'll be able to talk about this first. mattis and donald trump, not contradicting themselves, each other, but sort of contradicting each other. >> yeah. the message discipline from the middle of this month, you know, is now lost. and clearly what mattis tried to do with his second comments were to sort of harmonize his views with that of the president. but clearly right now there is a problem, and it's not only just mattis and trump. it's also trump and tillerson, the secretary of state. so the president needs to get back to that message discipline which we saw for about a week. >> yeah. we'll see. mattis and tillerson wrote that

op-ed that said they don't want any sort of regime change in north korea and it seems like things cooled off after that. >> i think the problem is last week both trump and tillerson took a vehicle other lap. on tuesdayed you had the secretary of state saying there were no provocations since august 5 which was the day of the skufrt council resolution. the north koreans, kim jong-un is starting to respect us. so what did the north koreans do? well, they turned out and disrespected the president and the secretary of state. >> firing a missile over japan is huge. >> yeah. and also on saturday they fired a salvo of three missiles. so the north koreans just took control of this situation. >> they threatened to fire missiles towards guam. they have not done that. >> no, but, you know, there's still time left because when the original threat was made they said we're going to fire a missile over japan towards guam. they've done the first part of that, which was over japan. so, you know, it's clearly, you

know, that they can still do this going forward. >> so mattis and trump aren't exactly on the same page. is it hard for north korea to figure out who they should be listening to? and i say this very seriously. we had an he had editorial board meeting here at nbc news with some of the senior government officials from ka terr and when asked who they listened to, president trump which was back when that whole drama was going on, when asked if they listened to donald trump who was tweeting some provocative things at the time or listened to secretary of state rex tiller, they said that they were told to listen to secretary of state rex tillerson. so is there, you know, an unspoken directive out there that you don't listen to the president of the united states? >> no. and i think what the north koreans and also the chinese are doing is they're looking at this and they're not wondering who to listen to. what they are seeing is chaos and so they're thinking that probably they can take advantage of the situation. and we saw what the north

koreans did on saturday and tuesday. god knows what the chinese are thinking up right now, and that is the issue. so it's important for the united states, for the president to get control of not only his own tweeting habits but also what his cabinet secretaries are saying. >> these show of force activities that we see, these joint military operations, do they just feed off each other? >> well, they don't impress the north koreans or the chinese. >> so then why are we doing them. >> we do this to reassure south korea primarily and now to reassure japan. this exercise that we just saw, you saw the f-15s from south korea, and then of course the b-1b's, the nuclear capable bombers. they came from anderson air force base in guam. so this was a joint -- really a joint exercise meant to reassure toek joe and sork that we'll be there. >> mattis said dim's is not just talking. >> the united states can go after chinese banks that have been money laundering for the

north koreans. eventually this does end in talking to the north koreans, but only when the north koreans realize they have no choice but to comply with what we want to do. >> with does that happen? >> it could happen in a couple of month is if trump were really effective in wanting to do things, but he hasn't shown that he's willing to take those political risks to do what's necessary. >> what would those political risks be? how would he get them to the table in that way. >> i think what he needs to do is to impose costs on china. once he does that and if he's tough enough, the chinese are going to say, look, we cannot cross the president of the united states. and if that happens, then you're going to see all sorts of good things happen. but president trump is not willing to do those things, and so therefore, this is going to just drag on and on and on and it's going to gut ugly later on. but, you know, wif do have the capability to solve this. we just don't have the political will. >> i said this feels like deja vu when you sat down. we keep having this same conversation. i suspect we're going to have this conversation many more times to come. gordon chang, thank you so much for being here. we are going to sneak a very quick break in.

remember, we're still waiting for vice president pence to talk to folks down in corpus christi, texas. we'll be right back. (burke) at farmers, we've seen almost everything so we know how to cover almost anything. even a swing set standoff. and we covered it, july first, twenty-fifteen. talk to farmers. we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪

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president pence. it seems like he's been delayed for some reason. don't know why. we're going to go to him as soon as he takes that podium. meanwhile, our panel is back. we've got this storm and i do want to talk about the political response to this storm, but there's also a new breaking news about the russia investigation. i know it seems like there's a new headline every day, susan, but we have some interesting developments. ken did he laneian is reporting that paul manafort's notes from that done junior meeting back in june 2016 showed that he said something about donations, the word donations in close proximity to something about the republican national committee. highly specific, yet very vague. susan. >> yeah. i've been saying this all along. they used to say the cover-up is worse than the crime. i actually think the crime is really really bad which is why so many people are lying about it and that may be just the first glimpse into something that may gone well. everyone from the president down

to the kids down to kushner, it is -- it's scarring them. the president is immobilized. he can't focus on anything else for any period of time. the minute -- the second russia headline comes. >> a lot has happened, a lot of crises have happened. we've got harvey. we've got what's going on with north korea. the president has made a number of foreign trims. he's trying to reset. every single time he goes back to washington or every single time one of these crises passes, what pops up again, the russian investigation. >> exactly. and you have republicans in congress who are leading these investigations who see in some ways these investigations as a way to show independence from this president, particularly as he creates his own controversies. so they're not stopping their work anytime soon. the problem for the president too is that there is really no end in sight here when it comes to these probes. and we get these bits and pieces of information, these kinds of drip drip drip which point to the fact that, you know, they didn't disclose all the information that they probably

should have. and also the fact that -- >> and he tweets about it. >> exactly. and he talks about it and he brings it up at rallies in the context of, look, they're talking about russia all the time of the you don't care about this. the media is -- this is a media con kokz and so you can tell he's concerned. >> we can see vice president pence walking towards the podium holding the candidate of his wife karen. we're going to take him once he gets there. before that, though, there's also reporting that the robert mueller is now coordinating with new york attorney general eric shierd man on parts of the investigation. a lot of folks say that's a good thing because donald trump's pardon power will be limited in that case because he can't pardon somebody for a state crime. there was concern that he'd start pardoning after we saw him pardon joe arpaio. and with that, it looks like we should go directly to texas. let's take a listen.

we're having a bit of an audio problem with governor abbott right there. once we get that resolved, we will go back to it. what do you think of that? >> i would want to echo mark halperin this morning. he said there's a sigh boring with a head and a heart that's after trump and that's bob mueller. and what we see is his professionalism, we see his coordination. >> we just got the audio. let's go to this. >> because of this crisis and that is the resiliency of our fellow texans and our fellow americans. we went up to some homes of people who had their homes completely destroyed. they were sitting out front and they were just proud to be a texan and proud that we were there to help them out. we went to help remove debris from a lawn that was completely littered. and i had the chance to hold a

two week old baby, a baby that was born just days before hurricane harvey hit our coast. and his mom was a prideful mom, beaming with that big motherly smile that you would expect as if the storm had never hit. but i want you to know, it has hit. it's hit the lives of the people all the way from new aces county to jefferson county and horrific flooding in between. and i am so proud of the way that the president and the vice president and their entire cabinet have stood up, stood strong and supported the people of texas. since more than a week before the hurricane even came ashore, the president and his cabinet were in constant contact with my office asking governor, what can we do for the people of texas?

ever since then there's been close daily collaboration between my office with local officials, with the white house, and with their cabinet. i've never seen a president, a vice president or a cabinet who have responded as swiftly and as effectively to people in need like the people of texas overcoming the tragedy of hurricane harvey. mr. vice president, i thank you. i thank the president. i thank the cabinet members with us here today. but candidly, i've got to tell you, the people i thank the most are fellow texans. the way that we see texans helping texans rescue each other, pull each other out of flooding waters and save their lives is the average, everyday texan who are the true heroes. but we know, mr. vice president, that this is going to take more than a few days for us to overcome.

it's going to take months as we go into the transition period. and then years for us to fully recover. and i could not be prouder to have as partners in this process president trump, our tremendous vice president and the men and women who serve on the president's cabinet. i'm honored to have with me here today a man who is more than the vice president of the united states. a man who is a friend, a man who knows how to govern, a man who knows on you to face challenges and overcome those challenges. a man who will help texas to lead to build an even better texas. i'm proud to introduce mike pence, the vice president of the united states. [applause] >> thank you. thank you, governor abbott and is he seala. thank you for the extraordinary leadership that you're providing for the people of texas.

i think the president said just yesterday that you were doing an incredible job. and traveling as we did today here through corpus christi and rockport and victoria and seeing the response on the ground and seeing the results, i echo that with a grateful heart. so thank you for your leadership. i'm also grateful to be joined by members of our cabinet, secretary of transportation elaine chow, secretary of veterans affairs, shulkin and who else is back here? secretary of labor alex acosta. and we'll hear just momentarily from each one of them as well as our secretary from homeland security elaine duke. the president sent karen and i here today to survey the damage and ensure that the full resources of the federal government are being brought in

support of the effort of state and local officials to rescue those that are in harm's way, to help communities begin to recover and to lay a foundation to rebuild texas in the wake of this horrific storm. the president will be returning to texas this saturday with the first lady and will be traveling to houston and other destinations within the state. again, to reinforce our administration's commitment and to bring the resources and the compassion of the american people to this dire moment in the life of texas. the president also sent me here with a very simple message. first, a message of gratitude to this governor and to state and local officials who have stepped

forward with such professionalism and such consistency in this historic storm. secondly, a word of gratitude to all of your first responders here in texas. those who at this very hour are continuing to put themselves in harm's way to rescue people and deliver them from danger. they and you have inspired the nation, and we commend them on behalf of our president. i'm also here to express our appreciation and admiration for the federal team, some 21,000 federal officials that are here on the ground in texas. department of defense personnel, fema personnel, our president and our entire administration are proud of the long hours and the efforts that each of you have put in to this effort to date and the commitment you have to see this through. and lastly, as the governor

alluded, i think karen and i today were most inspired by the volunteers. to see the outpouring of compassion and concern was deeply inspiring to us. and every american should know that even in this difficult time in this disastrous storm, the very best of the people of texas and the very best of the people of america is shining forward. we stood in a yard. we watched a total strangers helping to remove debris, helping people put their families and their lives back together. and on behalf of the president, i want to urge every american to do what texans who themselves are often times dealing with hardship in their own household and own family are doing and that is find a way to help. you can go online. you can donate resources or you can do like thousands of

americans are already doing and will be doing in the weeks and months ahead, and that is find a way to get here and be the hands and feet and compassion of the american people to help these families help these communities rebuild. president trump often reminds us that we are one american family, that when one hurts, we all hurt. we stand together in difficult times. and to the people of texas, on behalf of president donald trump i say you are in our prayers and in our hearts. and we are with you. as the president said in his visit here earlier this week and said again yesterday, i say today. on behalf of the american people, with the leadership of president donald trump to the people of texas, we are with you today. we will be with you tomorrow. and we will be with you every day until this great state and

these great communities recover and rebuild to be even better and stronger than ever before. with that, allow me to recognize the secretary of the department of homeland security, elaine duke. >> good afternoon -- >> vice president mike pence telling texans that he and the administration are with them today. they will be with them tomorrow. and they will be with them every day for this storm effort and for the recovery afterwards. ari melber takes things over. how are you doing? >> i'm well, thank you, katy. and we're be monitoring that and the other developments out of texas. but we begin with breaking news on bob mueller's russia investigation. they are closing in. new prosecutors now involved in this inquiry. mueller coordinating with new york attorney general eric snierd man. this opens up the prospect of prosecutions that donald trump could not pardon. a story we first brought you on the