thanks to everybody here in the d.c. bureau who made us feel right at home. we might never leave. my thanks to the congressman and others. that does it for our hour. i'm nicolle wallace. "mtp daily" starts right now with steve ckornacki in for chuk todd. and the biggest so far in the russia investigation. >> and george papadopoulos, the guilty splee pr y plea is perha biggest news. >> the white house fires back on charges of collusion>> it h. >> it has to do with his telling the truth. >> no evidence. and mr. manafort and the trump campaign collude with the russian government. >> and what does it all mean for the president's agenda on taxes

and beyond? the white house works to stay on message. >> like to start the briefing today by addressing a topic that i know all of you are preparing to ask me about. and that's tax reform. >> this is "mtp daily" and it starts right now. and good evening. i'm steer kcorkornacki in for c todd. the day has rocked american politics and set in motion an epic legal showdown. special counsel bob mueller announced the first charges into his investigation into russia's interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion with the trump campaign. trump's campaign's top deputy, indicted. and pleading guilty about lying to investigation turns out was

secretly cooperating with investigators. the campaign chairman, paul manafort, and top associate rick gates, charged in a 12-count indictment involving crim na conspiracy, secretly acting with agents of a pro russian political party, laundering money in payments and making false statements about their activities. that scheme began as early at 2008 and perhaps lasted all the way through 2017. this afternoon in a federal courthouse in washington both manafort and gates entered pleas of not guilty. both are under home confinement now. manafort did not speak to reporters after being arraigned. his lawyer, though, did. he calmed soled some of the cha ridiculous. and in addition, foreign policy advisors george papadopoulos pled guilty on charges he lied to investigators about his connections with kremlin connected russians. they were offering him dirt on hillary clinton and thousands of e-mails. papadopoulos has been secretly cooperating with the special

counsel's office, and his claims about those e-mails are critically important. they were allegedly made to the trump campaign after the clinton campaign was hacked, but before any of those e-mails were leaked out. court documents indicate that he set up a meeting between russia and mr. trump. nbc news learns the campaign official was manafort and he rae plied, "let's discuss, we need someone to communicate that donald trump is not doing these trips. should be someone low level in the campaign so as not to send any signal." response to all this news the president and his allies are digging in, fighting back. president trump today renewed his call for an investigation into the dnc and hillary clinton. he again in1i69ed there's no collusion and the white house doubled down on his defense. >> today's announcement has nothing to do with the president. has nothing to do with the president's campaign. or campaign activity. the real collusion scandal as we've said several times before

has everything to do with the clinton campaign, fusion gps and russia. we've said from day one there's no evidence of trump/russia collusion. >> and we should remind viewers that the president's only deputy attorney general appointed this special counsel. white house today repeatedly made the argument the indictments are their former campaign chief and his top depty and the guilty plea of one campaign adviser had nothing to do with the campaign and has nothing to do with them. >> has nothing to do with the president's campaign or campaign activity. we're not worried about it distracting because it has nothing to do with us. this action took place outside the campaign activity. >> it doesn't have anything to do with us. >> bring in chief legal correspondent, host of "the beat" comes up at 6:00. and ken delanian, and kristen welker, nbc white house correspondent is with us. ari, start with you. so what you just heard there from the white house, saying

this has nothing to do with the campaign. it felt for a moment this morning when we first got word of manafort and his deputy he had nothing about papadopoulos for a while. felt the spin was operative, but this papadopoulos issue, a character nobody was talking about before today complicates the claim it had nothing to do with the campaign. >> exactly right. they're trying to cordon off what happened to the two aides and a plot according to bob mueller's investigation went up to 2016, even 2017, but was about money, not registering as a foreign agent and money laundering's in papadopoulos you have somebody pleading guilty. much farther along than the other two indictments and about russia collusion. attempt by kremlin-linked officials at an early stage to offer clinton e-mails and dirt. >> turns out he was arrested over the summer. we didn't know anything about this. it never got reported. turned out entered a guilty plea

almost a month ago. nobody knew until today and turns out he's been cooperating during this period of time as well. what does this mean? >> bingo. that's what's so huge about this. arrested in july, reached a plea agreement october 5th. we learned about it because it was unsealed. a theory bob mueller is making this up as it goes along, random. another theory closer to what we know about bob mueller. everything has a thought-out strategy. he could have legally released this early early or held it to later. he made a decision to basically offer up in concert these two things together, communicating through what he believes to be facts. again, manafort and -- and -- i'm blanking. >> gates. >> and gates. manafort and gates are denying this and presumed innocent. he says these factsz show, a., campaign, people's use of mrn and b. separate problem, caught, that relates to how russians

offering dirt on clinton were dealt with by the trump campaign. obviously, released this in an explosive way in one day showing his work isn't done and he's pursuing both avenues. >> ari, following it all day. work's not done for you. we'll let you prep to your show in an hour from now. thanks for stopping by. let's bring in ken delanian and kristen welker. seemed the main name is paul manafort. reporting he was likely to be indicted. the campaign chairman. he's the biggest fish there from that standpoint. in terms of the question everybody is interested in, collusion question is there an argument to be made papadopoulos is the more significant development today? >> yes, steve. certainly what my intelligence sources are saying, because they look at this fbi document laying out what papadopoulos did and they see an obvious attempt by russian intelligence to penetrate the trump campaign. the justice department doesn't say it explicitly, talks about

russians, the kremlin, meeting with papadopoulos. intelligence experts say most certainly cutouts and handlers for russian intelligence. to me the most significant thing about this is that papadopoulos met with a, somebody characterized as a professor with ties to the kremlin who told him in april 2016 the russians had dirt on hillary clinton and thousands of e-mails. that was a month -- we know now, a month after john podesta the computer was compromised at the dnc. apartment the time, nobo at the time, nobody had an idea, even intelligence, russians hacked with democrats and here was this professor talking on behalf of the russians to this trump campaign aide about these e-mails. the question not answered in this documents, who did papadopoulos tell about this dirt and e-mails? >> that's the question. do we know anything, if he told anyone at all? and the other question here is, do we know if mueller is telling us through these indictments and

through this plea agreement everything he knows? >> it's clear he's not. now we're sort of into the realm of speculation. what we know from the documents, that papadopoulos was in communication with, as you said in your intro, paul manafort, referred to as a senior campaign official. and also another campaign, senior campaign adviser, unnamed. he wasn't just operating as lone ranger, as sarah huckabee sanders seemed to be suggesting the white house briefing. he was consulting with top campaign officials about his meetings with these russians and efforts to coordinate. we know that was going on, but the document is silent on whether he conveyed this offer of dirt from the russians to the trump campaign. >> and kristen welker at the white house, following their reaction today. again, when we got the news for people who weren't watching the second-by-second developments this morning, the thing that struck me in terms of the president's reaction, we initially got the news of manafort and gates. former campaign chairman and his deputy. then donald trump, when that news came out basically tweeted

out, look, this is old stuff. didn't have anything to do with the campaign. no collusion. then, after that, you had the papadopoulos news, all of these implications we're discussing here. is there any indication that is affecting at all how the white house is going to be responding to this given that the papadopoulos stuff is a 14-page plea agreement. you read it, talks about his role in the campaign. >> i think you saw press secretary sarah huckabee sanders signal the strategy moving forward on that point as well with papadopoulos. she made the case, nothing to see here. this is someone who was an unpaid volunteer who sat in, really, on one meeting. now, of course, if you look at the facts, there are a number of e-mails that papadopoulos sent over a series of months to campaign officials. and so that's where some of the problems are going to lie for the white house. as they try to answer questions about this. president trump is going to be handing out halloween candy in just a short time from now. so reporters will have the chance to shout some questions

at him. presumably, he might get a little more reaction from him, but look, i think this is the argument of the white house. there's nothing to see here. they're distancing themselves not only from papadopoulos but also from paul manafort as well. we saw that argument start to take shape over the summer when the former press secretary, sean spicer, said, look, paul manafort didn't serve on the trump campaign for an extended period of time. of course, he did serve is for a number of months as campaign chair over the summer of 2016. so it is debatable how much distance he had. a lot of people say actually he played a critical role, but the strategy, i think is becoming very clear. now, it's also important to point out that ty cobb, the president's legal counsel on this, has said, look, we are going to cooperate with robert mueller. we're going to continue to cooperate, and sarah huckabee sanders was asked again today if president trump has any plans to fire robert mueller, and she said, that at this point in time there are no plans for that,

steve. >> and ken delanian, again, this name of george papadopoulos i think to a lot of people, even following this pretty closely, are surprised at his name coming in today. this plea agreement, the news of the cooperation over the last couple months. does this tell us something bigger about the mueller investigation in terms of this was kept secret, kept secret from the public, from the press. we didn't know this was going on for three months. how much more is going on out there we don't know about? is there a possibility for a lot? >> absolutely. because what experts say is if the russians did it once, they did it many times. weren't just trying with george papadopoulos to infell trait the trump campaign. we know about the attempts with the donald trump jr. meeting in 2016. the question is, who else is cooperating? what else, does mueller know, about other russian toemattempt infiltrate the campaign?

clearly, we know from the complaints, he's got all the e345 e-ma e-mails. what else is out there signaling collusion? >> thank you all for joining us. >> thanks, steve. and joined now by democratic congressman adam schiff of california, ranking member of the house intelligence committee. congressman, thanks for taking time this afternoon. when all of this broke this morning i think a lot of people in the media and the political world were a little surprised by the name george papadopoulos and how prominent he suddenly is in all this. is that a name on your radar at all before today? >> yes, it was. this is someone we knew we warranted to bri ed ted to brin committee and where interested in hearing from. it's also i think very significant that those charges that he pled to, the information that he pled to, relate that in april of last year, the trump campaign was told that the russian government had possession of thousands of stolen hillary clinton e-mails. that's well before the country knew about this. it may have been before our

intelligence agencies had much appreciation for this fact. it also might explain why the top campaign officials, paul manafort, the president's son and son-in-law, were so eager to take that meeting in trump tower that would be offered later as a part of what the russians described as the russian government effort to help donald trump. so that's a very key development in the investigation. >> you're raising the possibility there, although we don't see in this indictment specific evidence -- look, for all we know this was a surprise to us where mueller went today and for all we know he has this, maybe going to get this. we should say we don't see in that indictment right now, we don't see specific document instances of papadopoulos actually telling the campaign about this supposed dirt. is that correct? >> well, in the information that's not included, that is, in the facts that he atested to, but also apparent from the information it's not the whole litany of facts, and it may very

well have been the decision of bob mueller to include only certain information. information necessary to make the plea in that particular document, and there are other leads that they're developing as result of his cooperation with the government. i would hope that that agreement that he reached will extend to cooperation with our committees as well. because these are quite central questions. we have to look at this in a bigger context, and the context includes the fact that you have the trump campaign approached later in that july meeting in trump tower, offered derogatory information about secretary clinton and expressing a great desire to get it, and then you have later that moshgs tnth, th russians dumping documents through wikileaks and may have concluded yes the campaign welcomes our help but cleaner not to deliver the documents right to the campaign but to deliver them through our cutouts. to publish them ourselves. there are missing pieces to the

puzzle we're still investigating but key insicghts as a result o this plea. >> it suggests, and all sorts of possibilities i think raised by this, all sorts of questions, as you say, unanswered. i guess the question here is, are you seeing the possibility of collusion here? are you seeing the possibility of collusion being heightened by these revelations or looking at this saying i see collusion right now? >> we certainly see a willingness on the trump campaign at the highest levels to accept the russian government's help to collude in that way. when they were approached at that trump tower meeting and asked, would you want this derogatory information? as a part of a russian government effort to help the answer from the campaign is, yes. so, clear intent to collude. now, the question is, did the russians deliver on it? and did they deliver on it directly or deliver on it by publishing the material themselves? and was there an explicit agreement to do that?

the russians may have well decided that to give the campaign a certain level of deny act, they wouldn't deliver the documents right to the campaign. they would publish them themselves. but we need to find out what level of coordination may have gone on and certainly this is yet another significant fact as early as april of last year the trump campaign was put on notice that the russian government had these stolen e-mails. >> were you aware that papadopoulos had been arrested? were you aware -- were you aware of any of the legal proceedings that played out with papadopoulos before today jrchlt ? >> i was aware of certainly pacts about papadopoulos i can't go into but not aware of the arrest, charged filed or had been made public, and i don't think it would have been appropriate for the special counsel to inform congress what the decisions are unless a

demonstrable impact on our investigation. we're trying to coordinate with the special counsel so nothing we do precludes him from bringing people to justice. there's a certain basic level of coordination and cooperation that goes on, but, no. we did not have advance notice of this. >> gets me to my next question, then. again, there are paralleled things happening. it's what your committee is working on, what you're working on and this actual investigation by mueller. now there's a situation where papadopoulos according ing tin documents out there today, he's still an active figure in terms of mueller and his team, they want his cooperation and see where that leads, his help. you want him to appear before your committee. is it realistic to have him helping the special prosecutor, cooperating with the special prosecutor and simultaneous will appear before your committee? what could you get out of him the special counsel couldn't? >> it's no that we necessarily would get things out of him that the special counsel wouldn't, but we have a different job than the special counsel.

the special count will decide what laws are broken and who should be prosecuted. the special counsel is not charged with telling the american people what happened. and, in fact, the special counsel works for rob rosenstein and he made it clear with respect to the memo written about james comey, he doesn't think prosecutors should be talking about their cases outside of an indictment. ultimately, we have to tell the public what happened, which means we need ta information, too. there may be reasons the special counsel can say, please, wait, and we may or may not be able to accommodate that, but we are doing our very best not to interfere with what he's doing, but we're also doing our best to underscore with the special counsel we have an important obligation, to, to make a complete accounting to the american people. >> do you believe in terms of this question of collusion, that you're looking so much at, do you think that today's developments with papadopoulos are more significant than manafort's indictment? >> well, they certainly go

directly to the issue of collusion, because they give us another piece of the puzzle. they tell us the campaign was on notice, that the russian government had very significant damaging information, in the form of thousands of e-mails. e-mails that it's clear the campaign wanted. we learned last week that the head of cambridge analytica reached out to julian asusange documents like this, and russians on the dark web trying to get these e-mails and there were connections with flynn and bannon and others in the trump campaign. so it's yet another contact. it's also part of the same pattern of trump campaign people being dishonest and hiding their connections with the russians. so this is a significant new piece of information that goes to that very central issue that we're investigating, and that is, what level of collusion or cooperation or conspiracy was

there, if any, between the campaign and the russians? >> congressman adam schiff from california. thanks for your time. >> thank you. and still ahead -- does "the meddler" indictment prove anything about president trump? for your heart... your joints... or your digestion... so why wouldn't you take something for the most important part of you... your brain. with an ingredient originally found in jellyfish, prevagen is now the number one selling brain health supplement in drug stores nationwide. prevagen. the name to remember.

and when youod sugar is a replace one meal... choices. ...or snack a day with glucerna... ...made with carbsteady... ...to help minimize blood sugar spikes... ...you can really feel it. now with 30% less carbs and sugars. glucerna.

ed second thing about this indictment i myself find most ridiculous is a claim that maintaining offshore accounts to bring all your funds into the united states as a scheme to conceal from the united states government is ridiculous. thank you. >> and welcome back. that was paul manafort's attorney speaking outside the courthouse today attacking the charges against his client. as we've said, former donald trump campaign chairman pleaded not guilty today to charges including conspiracy and money laundering. the indictment says manafort and his business associate generated tens of millions of dollars as a result of lobbying work for

ukraine and hid the payments by laund ar laundering that money. here's what paul manafort told j chuck todd if june. >> has mr. trump asked you to stop working doing work in ukraine if it's involving national security? >> i'm not working with any clients. >> and going to make a promise in the future if he's president you'll be careful what clients you take? >> i'm always careful what clients i take. david. what's going on? oh hey! ♪ that's it? yeah. ♪ everybody two seconds! ♪ "dear sebastian, after careful consideration of your application, it is with great pleasure that we offer our congratulations on your acceptance..." through the tuition assistance program, every day mcdonald's helps more people go to college.

it's part of our commitment to being america's best first job. ♪ you know what's difficult? adulting... hi, guys. i'm back. time to slay! no,i have a long time girlfriend. you know what's easy? building your website with godaddy. get your domain today and get a free trial of gocentral. build a better website in under an hour. discover card. i justis this for real?match, yep. we match all the cash back new cardmembers earn at the end of their first year, automatically. whoo! i got my money! hard to contain yourself, isn't it? uh huh! let it go! whoo! get a dollar-for-dollar match at the end of your first year. only from discover. all right. welcome back. plenty of talk about tonight's panel, msnbc panelist and professor eddie glaude and susan del percio and thanks to you all for joining us. gabe, start with you. the surprise name today in, and

maybe with the biggest implications in terms of the issue of collusion is george papadopoulos. trying to downplay this a volunteer, low-profile role. a 30-year-old guy kind of came out of nowhere. is that something they are going to be able to maintain? >> well, they can try to maintain it as long as they want, but the reality, we saw today he has been talking to these investigators for months now. may not have the profile or name of a manafort or someone else we know, the whole country knows about, the fact he's a relatively anonymous guy doesn't mean there's no substance and the reality, looks like there's a lot of substance and why people are digging much more through those court documents and that anything we saw from manafort. >> and susan, it's not just the news of the plea agreement from papadopoulos that has to make trump folks nervous. it's the secrecy of it. the arrest happened over the summer. >> exactly right. >> the plea deal a month ago and a note he's been cooperating.

that means a little of stuff maybe, maybe, we don't know, but didn't know this was coming either. >> that means there's a lot of mid to low-level staffers saying, where's my attorney? because this guy's been speaking for the last four months. so they are now really concerned about, you know, i've been trying to about good soldier in all of this, and i've got -- who knows what this guy's already told? i think there's a lot of internal concern and don't forget, we can say this aide was just a volunteer but he was in meetings with the president, then mr. trump, and paul manafort was an unpaid staff person in essence. that argument doesn't work. the white house must stop the ostrich strategy. get their head out of the sand and have a single message they can stay focused on and hope the president will do the same. >> i guess, though, to take it from the other perspective, eddie, though. look, 30 years old. did not have much of a professional reputation, whether it was in politics or in

international diplomacy. could you read through this plea agreement some of the messages? could you read this as a guy kind of in over his head, trying to impress folks around him? >> you could. but i think a strong read. what we see when we look closely at the indictment, there was connections up, upstream. right? i have this meeting. i have the e-mails. then the e-mail response from manafort. we're not going to take that meeting. not take this, don't want the high-level meeting, want the low-level meeting. jit instead of it being beginning of the end, the papadopoulos indictment so this is the end of the beginning. getting deeper into this now. >> exactly right, because don't forget. paul manafort did respond. may have been a low-level staffer but certainly had -- >> right. according to the plea agreement, maybe there's more here, we can't know this was coming'sthe plea agreement doesn't have e-mails out there showing the

trump campaign saying, yes, affirmatively, the stuff about the e-mails. it's only couched as a meeting with trump, between trump and putin. not specifically e-mails. maybe that's out there, for all we know, but not in the record right now. >> the open questions, the talk of washington in the last few hours, this whole thing. no one was talking about papadopoulos a few hours ago, at least a few days ago. the reality, mueller knows a lot more. his whole team is clearly going in deep on a lot of these things, internal e-mails. all of d.c. is holding its breath. everyone who worked in or near the trump campaign and it wasn't a huge world is saying, where's my lawyer? i got to figure this out. >> don't forget the determine "dirt" eyesed. the same term donald trump jr. used when, used in that e-mail when he met with the, the russian woman and the others that came out over the summer. just a few weeks before, i think, the arrest of this junior aide. and that donald trump jr., paul

manafort, jared kushner, all met with someone they believed was representing the russian government. >> and say, look, i was interested in finding out what they knew but it raises another question here. >> and right about it, though. >> you say, though, when you say "dirt" and "e-mail," thousands of e-mails, raises the question, which e-mails are we talking about? talked earlier in the show, eddie. a possibility hacked e-mails from the dnc that came out later in the campaign. introduces that possibility. had that clip aplayed it when the meeting in june came out. donald trump and folks on the right, fair to say obsessed with 30,000 missing, deleted hillary clinton e-mails. this was a long-term theme as well. they've got to be out there somewhere. if you're the trump campaign and hear e-mails, thousands of e-mails, might be where your mind goes, too. >> true. i think end of the day, this -- i think this plea agreement is the big reveal. one of the things we just have to step back and just take it

in. mueller is doing his job. it's just step by step. and i think dropping papadopoulos on us today at the same time we get the indictment of manafort and gates, let's us know not only does he know a lot, more than we know, a lot more is coming down and we finally have after all this speculation, actually see legitimate, hard information as far as indictments go. we know that action has been taken. now, there's no speculation who will get indicted? will somebody get indicted? we know someone made a plea deal and two people indicted. those are significant events when it comes to the white house. >> i think it is equally significant, too, just in terms of where this might be going, the secrecy we have seen now, mueller's established, he is able to maintain secrecy. he was -- an arrest, a plea agreement, cooperation. >> none of this was known. >> right. >>ed the possibility others are out there --

>> a lot of people assuming it's a probability. the reality, we saw today, p papadopoulos, low-level staffer. pay no attention. paul manafort was chair of the campaign. what we know, seeing both sides, really it's been methodical the way they're going through this and shouldn't expect to see an ending in the next few weeks. >> a secret, one of the defendants brought in a public defender. being caught off guard. you wouldn't bring in a public defender if you knew an arrest was coming down the pike. >> and finally you hear, it is the white house's reaction, first of all, trying to say this isn't part of the campaign. talked about that. there is that other question hanging out there, the possibility dangling out there, certainly allies of the president out there. the idea of either/or firing manafort -- excuse me, the special prosecutor. pardoning manafort, some combination there, introduced by folks allied with the white house. >> yes. we just saw the editorial on the

"wall street journal." making the case in ways. for firing mueller. if he did, as catastrophic as firing comey. right? one of the things, as a person not a lawyer, who just is interested in politics, what this, the plea agreement and the indictment suggests to me, there's a "there" there. behind the smoke there's fire. we'll see that the fire is bigger than these folks say. >> and eddie, susan and gabe, stick around. a lot moor to talk about with the panel, and we'll be right back. they really appreciate the military family, and it really shows. we've got auto insurance, homeowners insurance. had an accident with a vehicle, i actually called usaa before we called the police. usaa was there hands-on very quick very prompt. i feel like we're being handled as people that actually have a genuine need. we're the webber family and we are usaa members for life. usaa, get your insurance quote today.

i kept looking for ways to manage my symptoms. i thought i was doing okay. then it hit me... managing was all i was doing. when i told my doctor, i learned humira is for people who still have symptoms of moderate to severe crohn's disease even after trying other medications. in clinical studies, the majority of people on humira saw significant symptom relief and many achieved remission. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened;

as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. just managing your symptoms? ask your gastroenterologist about humira. with humira, remission is possible.

meddler" indictment does and doesn't tell us. but first, deidre bosa has the cnbc market wrap. >> hi, steve. stocks today closing lower as investors digest a report kornt tax cuts ho are more gradual than saepted. dow losing 85 points. s&p shed 8 and nasdaq closed two points lower. america fe merck fell 2.8%. a lung cancer drug result and withdrew european use of flagship lung cancer drug. general motors losing 2.8% after goldman sachs downgraded the automaker to a sell rating and predicted a pull back in the stock. that's it from cnbc. first in business worldwide. you know how they send you money to cover repairs and... they took forever to pay you, right? no, i got paid right away, but... at the very end of it all, my agent... wouldn't even call you back, right?

no, she called to see if i was happy. but if i wasn't happy with my claim experience for any reason, they'd give me my money back, no questions asked. can you believe that? no. the claim satisfaction guarantee, only from allstate. switching to allstate is worth it.

only from allstate. think of all the things ithat think these days. businesses are thinking. factories are thinking. even your toaster is thinking. honey, clive owen's in our kitchen. i'm leaving. oh never mind, he's leaving. but what if a business could turn all that thinking... thinking... endless thinking into doing? to make better decisions. make a difference. make the future. not next week while you think about it a little more. but right now. is there a company that can help you do all that? ♪ i can think of one. ♪

all right. welcome back. turn back to major indictments handed out today by the special counsel investigating alleged

russian interference in the 2016 election. as we've said, former trump campaign chairman paul manafort and longtime associate rick gates were indicted by a federal grand jury on 12 charges. manafort and gates surrendered to the fbi this morning in washington, d.c. they later pleaded not guilty in court. manafort's attorney asserted his client's innocence after that not guilty plea. >> i think you all saw today that president donald trump was correct. there is no evidence that mr. manafort or the trump campaign colluded with the russian government. >> and president trump attempted to distance himself from manafort. "the meddler" indictmenthe the manafort indictment. part of the trump campaign, but why aren't crooked hillary and the dems the focus? sources telling nbc news there was a statute of limitations issue that may have driven "the meddler" charges to come out today, but the indictment does not preclude other charges filed

against manafort in the future. joining me now, nbc news justice correspondent pete williams. so, pete, yes. as the president alluded to in his tweets there, a lot of the allegations here from the federal government against manafort, they do date back a number of years. can you shed any light on what the federal government's alleging to could intersect with the broader question of the trump campaign and collusion raised by this plea agreement? is there a potential intersection there? >> two points about this. one is, the government says they lobbied for ukraine from 2006 through 2015. stop lobbying by the time manafort and gates worked on the campaign. but it also says that during the time that manafort was working for the campaign, he continued to misrepresent to federal regulators the source of the income and where the money was. so the indictment does say even while campaign chairman he was misleading the government, which is part of the overall framework

of their indictment. how much it doesn't say anything, and his lawyer is right, nothing in the indictment says anything about russian collusion with the, to try to influence the election. >> the other element here, this is some of the, our nbc news reporting, is that this plea agreement from papadopoulos, the 30-year-old who has these contacts apparently with folks in russia's orbit, his contact with the trump campaign, according to nbc news recording, this campaign official mentioned here was paul manafort. is that correct? >> yes. so -- but remember, i think it's, as you so well understand. i think it's important to keep one thing in mind. what papadopoulos is accused of doing that was illegal and what he has pleaded guilty to doing is lying to the fbi. when the fbi agent said, hey, when you were having contact with these russians, were you working with the campaign? he said, no. and that turns out to be a false statement. so there is no allegation of a

crime in his contacts with the russians. who said that they could get him dirt on hillary clinton. that's not the illegal part. it's lying to the fbi about it. but undoubtedly, an important development, because papadopoulos was a campaign insider, and we know he's been cooperating with the investigators, they say he was arrested in late july and ever since then has repeatedly been questioned by the prosecutors and has been cooperating with them and answering their questions, and we can also get a flavor of that, steve, from the fact that in the plea agreement documents, the government says that the right sentence for him would be zero to six months for lying to the fbi. what that basically means they'll recommend he just get probation. >> is there any sense here of, in terms of what we can read more broadly into the strategy by mueller, by the prosecutor? i'm thinking back, a lot of people, i think had thoughts that went in this direction, at least, instinctively today. think back to the 1990s, whitewater investigation, ken

starr thought this guy webb hubbell was the key to everything. indicted him three times in the hopes to get secrets. never got what he thought he might get there. is there any sense mueller is looking atm manafort the same way? to get more information out of him. >> the simple answer is, we don't know. but seems likely that's the approach to use. use these initial charges against paul manafort and rick gates, when are serious and could cale some serious prison time, if convicted here. to use these charges as leverage to try to get them to talk, but at the same time, steve, you have to wonder if the government hasn't already tried to do that and hasn't gotten any traction with them. but who knows. the actual filing of the indictment tends to focus one's thoughts a lot more than just the charges as an abstract that might be filed. >> pete williams, breaking it down for us. thanks. appreciate it. and up next, can republicans keep this investigation from

derailing their hopes of tax reform? you manage your a1c,es, but you also have a higher risk of heart attack or stroke. non-insulin victoza® lowers a1c, and now reduces cardiovascular risk. victoza® lowers my a1c and blood sugar better than the leading branded pill. (avo) and for people with type 2 diabetes treating cardiovascular disease, victoza® is now approved to lower the risk of major cardiovascular events such as heart attack, stroke, or death. and while it isn't for weight loss, victoza® may help you lose some weight. (avo) victoza® is not for people with type 1 diabetes or diabetic ketoacidosis. do not take victoza® if you have a personal or family history of medullary thyroid cancer, multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2, or if you are allergic to victoza® or any of its ingredients. stop taking victoza® and get medical help right away if you get symptoms of a serious allergic reaction such as rash, swelling, difficulty breathing or swallowing. serious side effects may happen, including pancreatitis.

so, stop taking victoza® and call your doctor right away if you have severe pain in your stomach area. tell your doctor your medical history. gallbladder problems have happened in some people. tell your doctor right away if you get symptoms. taking victoza® with a sulfonylurea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. common side effects are nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, decreased appetite, indigestion, and constipation. side effects can lead to dehydration, which may cause kidney problems. ask your doctor about victoza®. in a day absolutely dominated by developments and special counsel robert mueller's investigation, republicans are desperately trying to keep the focus on taxes. when asked whether the indictments could derail the republican agenda on tax reform house speaker paul ryan said this morning, "nothing is going to derail what we are doing in congress, because we are working

on solving people's problems." and what nbc's kasie hunt call add remarkable scene last hour, half a dozen senators refused to answer questions about "the meddler" indictment at a news conference. kasie reports senator chuck grassley almost knocked over a flag in his effort to escape questioning. senator mitch mcconnell slipped out early as well. the senators left standing deflected. >> that really isn't our job, not our wheelhouse. the special counsel was appointed by the department of justice, and the that is the person you need to be asking. >> and white house press secretary sarah huckabee sanders opened the daily briefing today with a four-minute parable as taxes and bedrinking. >> suppose every day ten peopling for our purposes, say reporters, go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. the group still wanted to pay their bill the way they pay our taxes. >> the strategy may not have

worked. the first question was about the russia investigation. more "mtp daily" coming up. no? next thing you know, i'm telling strangers defense wins championships. -well, it does. -right? why is the door open? are we trying to air condition the whole neighborhood? at least i bundled home and auto on an internet website, progressive.com. progressive can't save you from becoming your parents, but we can save you money when you bundle home and auto. i mean, why would i replace this? it's not broken.

i mean, why would i replace this? is now a good time to refinance? yes! mortgage rates are historically low. the time to refinance your home is right now. get started at lendingtree.com. the only place you can compare up to five real offers, side by side, for free. our average customer can significantly lower their monthly bills. quick. beat the fed's next rate hike. do not miss this window. are you sure you have the best rate? it only takes 3 minutes to find out. go to lendingtree.com right now. we danced in a german dance group. i wore lederhosen.man. when i first got on ancestry i was really surprised that i wasn't finding all of these germans in my tree. i decided to have my dna tested through ancestry dna. the big surprise was we're not german at all. 52% of my dna comes from scotland and ireland. so, i traded in my lederhosen for a kilt. ancestry has many paths to discovering your story. get started for free at ancestry.com.

all right. we've got some scenes we want to show you before we get to the lid. live look at white house right now. that's the president, donald trump, wife first lady melania trump, handing out candy to trick or treaters. renewing a white house tradition. not halloween today but close enough for the kids lining up for candy there. time now for the lid. panel is back. we were talking susan last block about the republicans. this is supposed to be the season of tax reform. don't have major legislative win. this is the one they're supposed to be able to put up on the board and want to brag about next year on the campaign trail. with the indictments, plea agreement and questions and uncertainty, can you move a

major legislative program right now? >> maybe if the president is going to be overseas for next ten days. >> in spite of him. >> exactly. he'll be speaking from that platform. folks in congress will release the tax plan, probably be more disciplined thn the white house and say not going to comment on investigation. the wise way to move. >> today, the questions, showed they were in no mood to answer questions about the indictments or plea agreement. would love to say mueller is doing his job, let him do it. but question politically, will donald trump let them do that? >> that's the huge question. tax reform. is there a window? absolutely but lot of republicans would like to see a world where no one is paying

attention to them while they try to do this. washington these days is not predictable. they can't plan for that. democrats are not going to see this and just talk about indictments not tax reform, no the pressure is quadrupled and they know they have to pass tax reform. fascinating all sides. >> belies the standard story of the civil war in the gop, as if something happening between the trump folks and folks in congress when there's alignment in policy issues. donald trump goes away, but group of republicans is pursuing agenda that's consistent with trump. >> consistent with re-election. >> and with it seems donald trump's interests in specific questions of policy, put something on my desk to sign. >> exactly. this is probably the opportunity that legislative leaders are looking for. he's going to be away, hopefully

the change in time will help them operate on their hours and not worry about the tweets as much. and i think trump also learned his lesson a little bit when he said that house bill on health care was mean. he realizes that he can really deliver a blow to piece of legislation. it would make sense for them to go forward. he's opened his mouth on the 401(k) aspect. i think they've come to a decision. question is, won't be preform, will be tax cuts. >> was calling it tax cuts. >> if the republicans can say, going to put in a millionaire tax hike and get the corporate rate down to 20 and deliver a modest middle-class tax break, i think that's going to get through. >> that's exactly the point. they have to get 50 republican senators on board for this, not necessarily easiest thing. so question is what scope will they try to pass?

we've been hearing comprehensive tax reform, it's infinitely harder, even if indictment news hadn't come. harder than two weeks ago, let alone six months. real question people are asking, what will hit the president's desk? just a small piece of legislation they can call tax reform and check off the list? >> probably. that's best bet. >> bill clinton couldn't get anything through when lewinski broke. iran-contra, couldn't get bill through. track record not good. but this is a slightly kitchen presidency. we'll be back with eye-popping poll number you might have missed. g you more ways to h

america's beverage companies have come together to bring you more ways to help reduce calories from sugar. with more great tasting beverages with less sugar or no sugar at all, smaller portion sizes, clear calorie labels, and signs reminding everyone to think balance before choosing their beverages. we know you care about reducing the sugar in your family's diet, and we're working to support your efforts. more beverage choices. smaller portions. less sugar. balanceus.org.

and in case you missed it, there was eye-popping number out of virginia today. big poll to tell you with just over a week to go until the state's governor election. quinnipiac but northam at 53%, gillespie at 36%. it's an outlier. most of the polls show tighter than 17 points. only need to look how ugly it's been getting to know both campaigns certainly think it is close. another outlier had gillespie up

eight points. up eight in one, down 17 in the other. this is what you invented the poll averages for, averaged northam is up 4.5%, pretty close to the poll average of northam up 3.3 points. in case you missed it, probably not a 17-point race. "the beat" with ari melber starts right now. tonight, breaking news that bob mueller charged three former trump aides and one already pled guilty on russia-related charge. donald trump has been in office nine months. earliest indictment of former aides in history. one admitted he lied about