or convicted, and we can have that discussion. >> all right, senator sherrod brown of ohio, thanks for joining us. >> always, thanks. that's "all in" for this evening. "the rachel maddow show" starts right now. >> thank you, my friend, appreciate it. we have an exclusive interview tonight that i'm really looking forward to. a national security and law enforcement veteran who has not spoken publicly since he left the trump administration for a very interesting reason. he is going to be speaking out for the first time tonight. this is his first interview since leaving the trump administration. he's not only going to hopefully talk with us about the circumstances under which he left the administration, but also about his potentially unique ability to give us some insight into matters concerning james comey, matters concerning robert mueller, matters concerning the eastern district of virginia where the u.s. attorney there, we've just learned, has been fired under

circumstances that nobody quite understands. he has been very closely associated with all of those people and institutions. and he, again, is doing his first interview tonight since leaving the trump administration. he's going to be live here in studio with me. that's going to be a big deal. i encourage you to stick around for that. we're also going to be joined tonight by alabama political reporter john archibald. last week after "the washington post" published allegations about alabama senate candidate roy moore, four women saying moore had pursued them sexually or romantically, i guess, while they were teenagers and he was a grown man in his 30s. after that reporting broke in "the washington post" broke last week, john archibald from "the birmingham news" burst the bubble a little bit when he explained that based on his long history in covering politics in alabama and particularly the politics of the modern republican party in alabama, he said based on his experience, that that "washington post"

story might cause roy moore to win the united states senate race next month by an even larger margin than he might have previously been expected to win. john archibald explaining that that "washington post" story and the allegations against roy moore would be gallon vanizing moore's supporters in a way that might possibly help his political chances. that was john archibald's take as of thursday, the night the "washington post" story first broke. but now today, a fifth woman has come forward, saying that she was a 16-year-old waitress in gadsden, alabama, when roy moore, the local district attorney, didn't just ask her out. she says he assaulted her violently in his car, that he tried to force her into sexual activity and that he threw her out of his vehicle when she did not accede to it. roy moore denies her allegations and has denied any sexual misconduct with anyone. but this woman who came forward today, she's trump supporter.

she says she is not motivated by politics. she says she is not suing roy moore, she is not seeking some sort of civil settlement with him. she is not seeking any sort of law enforcement action against him. but she is describing what she says happened to her. and she did use her real name and go on camera to make these allegations. she is also, importantly, volunteering to testify about her experiences under oath. her attorney saying today that if the senate judiciary committee were to convene a hearing to assess these allegations against roy moore, her client, who described this alleged assault from when she was 16, her client would testify under oath under personality of perjury to any such hearing. that offer ends up being not just a dramatic illustration of how much this woman stands behind the allegations she's making and how much scrutiny she's willing to subject these agenci allegations too.

it also ends up being a practically interesting idea that conceivably could be the republican party's way out of this problem. because this is a big problem they've got on their hands, right? they've got a declared, formally nominated candidate for the united states senate who may very well win election next month in spite or even because of these myriad seemingly credible allegations against him. remember that all five women who have made these allegations against roy moore have described remarkably similar types of behavior. they've all given their names. none of these women apparently knew each other in any other context. they say they have not coordinated their efforts. the initial "washington post" story not only named all four women accusers, they also corroborated these women's allegations with 30 other interviews. because of the weight of those allegations, the republican party does have a real problem, right? they're in a pickle. roy moore denies the allegations and he insists he will not step down, per john archibald and other veteran alabama political observers, there is a real

chance that roy moore will win election next month, even after these allegations have come out. the latest polling shows that roy moore is tied with his democratic opponent, doug jones. even after the allegations came out, roy moore an even bet to win that senate race. but starting on thursday, and then increasingly over the we weekend and then in a big tide today after the latest accusation came forward, republicans serving in the senate have started to insist that roy moore should not join them as a united states senator. on friday the nrsc, the part of the republican party that's supposed to elect and reflect republican senators, the nrsc on friday ceased raising or spending any more money for roy moore. beyond that organizational decision, though, the head of that group, the head of the nrsc, senator cory gardner, went one very practical step further today when he said if roy moore does win that election in

alabama next month, the senate should vote to expel him. now, senators voting to expel one of their own, that has happened very rarely in the united states senate. there was one guy in the 1700s who got expelled for treason. then there were 14 other members who all got expelled in a big rush in 1861 and 1862 because they were all supporters of the confederacy which was quite literally waging war against the united states of america. one guy for treason in the 1700s, and 14 during the civil war. since the civil war, nobody else has been expelled from the senate. there have been proceedings to consider expelling from the senate, and sometimes that turns up allegations lurid enough that people resign rather than deal with it. there have been recommendations that senators should be expelled. but actually forcing somebody out, hasn't happened since 1962.

but senator cory gardner is now saying it should happen again. hasn't happened since 1862. he says it should happen for roy moore if roy moore wins in alabama next month. and that turns out not to be just an interesting history lesson, it not only ends up being an interesting point for gardner to take, it also is practically important because it offers a few different potential off-ramps for the republican party if they want to get themselves out of this roy moore crisis that they are in. and of those off ramps, the easiest one, the one that actually takes the least courage, is to do what senator cory gardner did today and just threaten that if roy moore is elected, he may face expulsion. you can just threaten that. that's a possibility, alabama, if you elect him, we may expel him. if you want to kick it up a notch and be slightly braver

than that, they could turn that 38 into a promise. republicans could organize the necessary votes in the united states senate to expel him. make a public show of force. don't just threaten, promise that if roy moore is elected, he will be expelled from the united states senate. by our count there are maybe 20 republican senators who have publicly criticized roy moore so far to the point of calling on him to withdraw from the race. if those senators would all pledge to vote that they would expel roy moore, if they would all pledge to vote to expel roy moore, you add them to all the democrats that would presumably go along, that would be more than enough to reach the 60, 70 votes they would need in the senate to expel him, right? if they can line up 67 votes, they can say, these 67 senators are going to vote to expel you. then they can promise that he will never be seated in the united states senate. i mean, are they working on

that? it's not that they're busy passing legislation, they haven't passed a single subjective piece of legislation since donald trump was sworn in in january. i don't know what they do all day. the republicans in the senate could whip those votes and then publicly promise that an expulsion will happen. so they can threaten it, they can promise it. but if they wanted to be even more brave, they really wanted to solve their problem, they really wanted to get rid of the threat of roy moore actually becoming a sitting u.s. senator, they can move not just from a threat to a promise but from a promise to a plan. there is no reason why the senate cannot start holding hearings tomorrow on the credibility of the allegations against roy moore and the question of whether or not he as a senate candidate meets the ethical standards required of a united states senator. now, those proceedings would be moot. if he ends up losing the election in alabama next month. but if he wins the election next

month, the only way they could be far enough along in their expulsion proceedings so they could make good on that promise and guarantee the day he shows up to fill his seat is the day he gets expelled, they should get cracking. if you say you're going to expel him if he gets elected, that takes work. they should get started on that work right now. if republicans in the senate wanted to do something about this rather than just talking about it on twitter, the first witness they may want to speak to volunteered herself today in a tearful statement that she says she is willing to make under oath. so the allegations against republican senate candidate roy moore continue to mount. senate republicans do appear to be in a panic about what to do about it. they could take action against roy moore starting immediately if they wanted to. i also have to tell you, they could also take steps just within the republican party

internally to stop supporting roy moore in his alabama campaign. nbc news has a scoop tonight about the fact that the rnc, despite all of this public handwringing, all this public denouncing by republican senators, you know what, the rnc is still actively right now, tonight, supporting roy moore's campaign in alabama. and not just in the abstract sense. they've literally, tonight, got operatives on the ground in alabama working to elect roy moore. and they are spending on his behalf. so much for the republican party trying to draw a line under him. so republicans have plenty that they could be doing right now if they really want to block this roy moore problem from getting any worse for them. we've got that story ahead tonight in terms of the rnc. we've also got john archibald from "the birmingham news," very much a live wire story. i expect further developments probably while we're on the air. but as i said, there's another major breaking news story tonight, from "the atlantic magazine."

their reporting tonight concerns donald trump jr. and yet more contact between the trump campaign and people involved in the russian operation targeting the american election while that russian operation was under way. you may have heard about this scoop already tonight. there are two really important things about this scoop. one is that this is yet another contact, another set of communications that they lied about. this is yet another contact between the trump side of things and the russia side of things that they have apparently sought to keep secret all this time. and it's -- it shouldn't blow my mind, but it does. i honestly felt like i'm not sure what's going to happen next in this scandal in terms of who's going to be arrested next, who might be indicted next, who will turn out to be aware of something that they previously pleaded ignorance of. i have not been expecting we would still be learning about yet more contacts between the trump campaign and the russians,

even at this late date. you know, you know that you're supposed to explain -- i mean, how many more of them can there be? literally today "the washington post" published what they believed was an omnibus account of all the different contacts and meetings between the trump campaign and russian operatives during the campaign. they came up with a list of 30 different incidents. that was published this morning. already it turns out to be out of date. it turns out there's more that donald trump jr. didn't disclose. that's one important part of this. how many more can there be? remember when john mccain said this thing is like a centipede, you keep thinking the other shoe is going to drop, but there's a lot of shoes? is there anybody in the trump world, i don't know, maybe president trump, who can say, who can make a public announcement, hey, if you were involved in the campaign or the transition or my administration and you had secret contacts with russians and their operatives and their agents, now would be a

good time to say so? you could call for that, right? it is all going to come out eventually. somebody should call on them to spill. particularly if you're of the mindset that there's nothing nefarious about these contacts between the trump campaign and russia. if you're going to make the case that it's totally normal for presidential campaigns that are being assisted by a foreign intelligence operation to have several dozen contacts with a little bit and operatives and officials from that country while the operation is under way, yeah, that's totally normal. if you want to claim that there's nothing weird about all these contacts, especially if you want to claim that there's nothing weird about it, then why do you keep hiding them? fess up. say what they are. eventually they'll turn up, in julia ioff's reporting or on "nbc nightly news." if you think these contacts are benign, why have you been hiding them for more than a year? that's the first thing that's important about this new scoop in "the atlantic" tonight.

the second thing that's important is the timing. the first public reports that the hacking of democratic political organizations and the stealing of their documents and e-mails weren't just normal thefts or normal mische chemisc mid-june last year, "the washington post" the first to report that the hack of the dnc was a russian operation. and that public responsibility for the hack, naming the russian government as responsible, that may well have kick started the process of russia to start disseminating that stolen information, to start releasing the stolen documents back to the united states to start affecting the election. it was wikileaks releasing stolen democratic documents to try to help trump and hurt clinton. that hacking and stealing of information and documents and release of the information back into the u.s., that was being

widely publicly described as a russian government operation including by u.s. intelligence officials, all through last summer. but that first report, that it's russia, it's not just random theft, not just random hacking, it's a russian intelligence operation, that first report came out june 14th last year. and that timing ends up being really important. last month, betsy woodruff reported at the daily beast that came bryn an i lit i cana asked about an offer to publish information about hillary clinton. we did not know if they would have been cognizant when they were reaching out to wikileaks, we don't know if they would have been aware of at the time that wikileaks was doing what they were doing as an agent of the

russian government. were they working for the trump campaign? did they know they were dealing with the russians? we didn't know after that report from the daily beast. on friday from "the wall street journal," it turns out cambridge analytica was working for the trump campaign at the time they reached out to wikileaks and asked them to disseminate stolen documents. we still don't have clarification whether or not they knew wikileaks was part of this russian operation. did they reach out to wikileaks before or after it became publicly known that wikileaks was part of this russian intel op? did the trump campaign through came brbridge analytica try to knowingly collude with russia in that attack? they definitely tried to collude. we just don't know if it was knowing, we don't know if they knew it was russia they were dealing with. it's interesting open question. but as soon as we learned that over true from cambridge

analytica to wikileaks, we also lettered that trump donor rebecca mercer asked came bryn analytica to reach out to wikileaks to help them disseminate their stolen documents. she made those overtures to try to help wikileaks in their operation in august last year. by that time she was clearly established as one of the largest donors of the trump effort and it was widely discussed that what wikileaks was doing was in service of this russian intelligence operation. to the extent we're looking for evidence of the trump campaign knowingly trying to help russia and what they did during the campaign, rebecca mercer would appear to be right in the headlines on that one. open question as to whether cambridge analytica was doing what they did knowingly. rebecca mercer, it seems quite clear. and now the tonight, "the atlantic magazine" has put donald trump jr. on this as well. "the atlantic" obtained and

donald trump jr. confirmed by posting the messages himself, wikileaks contacted him a number of times starting in december of 2016 and they continued reaching out to him for weeks. "the atlantic" reports that the messages from wikileaks actually went on for months longer, well into 2017. but don junior has himself published his messages with wikileaks from september and october, including wikileaks telling him on october 12th, 2016, that there's a specific link that should be used while promoting wikileaks' stolen democratic documents. it's a sort of obscure url, wlsearch.tk. two days after receiving that advice from wikileaks about using that link to more efficiently promote the stolen documents, donald trump jr. in fact tweeted that exact link. quote, for all those who have time to read about the corruption and hypocrisy, in a

contact that wasn't previously disclosed or reported until today. bottom line here, maybe the trump campaign's data firm, definitely the trump campaign's top donor, and definitely donald trump's eldest son were communicating during the campaign with russians who were trying to hurt clinton and help trump. donald trump jr. is admitting that he literally helped them distribute their stolen material. so, questions. is that illegal? what he's admitting to tonight, helping distribute, more efficiently distribute stolen materials, is that illegal? if the stolen material in question was the product of a foreign intelligence operation, does that affect what type of crime this might be or whether it's a crime? julia ioff further reports tonight that on the same day donald junior got his first

message from wikileaks, he told everybody else on the campaign that he was now in contact with wikileaks. he told steve bannon, he told kellyanne conway, he told brad parsca parscale, he told hope hicks. apparently that's documentation of all that. okay. this was when wikileaks was widely reported to be part of the russian operation. they were all notified that wikileaks and don junior were in direct communication. when all or most of those people subsequently claimed they had no idea anybody associated with the campaign had anything to do with this russian operation, is that like a criminal offense lie or is that just a lie-lie or is there some other potential explanation here? the day that donald trump jr. tweeted out the special link given to him by wikileaks for more efficient distribution of the stolen anti-clinton e-mails, that same day mike pence went on "fox and friends" and asked if

there was any possibility that the trump campaign was in cahoots with wikileaks, and mike pence responded, nothing could be further from the truth. later that day, the trump campaign was actually in cahoots with wikileaks. is that actionable? either in terms of potentially prosecuting somebody or in terms of what investigators or prosecutors might do with that falsehood from the man who is now vice president and from all those other senior people on the campaign? how do you handle a case like this, that's both criminal and counterintelligence, it involved we now know dozens of surreptitious meetings and contacts, some of which are still being exposed for the first time today, now? how do you manage an investigatory mushroom cloud like this one? i mean, if you could invent a person to talk to about that you would invent somebody who was like, counsel to bob mueller at the fbi and was also chief of staff to james comey and maybe that person had also been a former u.s. attorney himself and one of the really crucial

districts like the eastern district of virginia. you would invent somebody who had been involved in incredibly high level justice department investigations and prosecutions in their own right and who intimately knows all the players involved here. and i guess ideally you would want them to have a little bit of trump administration experience. you would want them to know what the trump administration is like. and then you would probably want to get the first interview with them after they left the trump administration. and that's what we have done tonight, because that is a real person i'm describing and he is my guest here exclusively, next. patrick woke up with a sore back. but he's got work to do. so he took aleve this morning. if he'd taken tylenol, he'd be stopping for more pills right now. only aleve has the strength to stop tough pain for up to 12 hours with just one pill. tylenol can't do that.

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our next guest served as counsel to robert mueller when mueller was director of the fbi. he served as chief of staff to the deputy attorney general of the united states when that deputy ag was james comey. he also served as chief of staff to james comey when comey was fbi director. you can see him in the middle there holding the bible as james comey was sworn in to run the fbi. not for nothing, he also himself served as the u.s. attorney for the eastern district of virginia which is now a very familiar jurisdiction to those of white house have been following the twists and turns in the special counsel investigation and the investigations of trump campaign chair paul manafort, national security adviser mike flynn. he's one of the highest profile u.s. attorney positions, in terms of stuff related to spying and terrorism. by the time the trump administration came into being, our next guest was serving as the acting director of the dea. in september he announced he

would be stepping down from that role. and "the new york times" reported that he had become convinced that president trump has little respect for the law. i had been wondering about the circumstances of his departure and was hoping i would get a chance to talk to him. his name is chuck rosenberg. this is his first interview since leaving the trump administration. boy, do i have a lot of things to ask about, thank you very much, mr. rosenberg. i should note you are now an nbc news/msnbc contributor. we're happy to have you on board. >> thank you. >> doing your mini-resume there, i think our viewers will understand that you've had proximity to a lot of most interesting people and jurisdictions here. >> what they may take from that is that i can't keep a job. >> none of those jobs are ones you held for five minutes, i've held a lot of those. but i do want to ask you about

your decision to stay on into the trump administration, and then your decision to leave this fall. obviously you were acting dea administrator when the trump administration came to the fore. you stayed there for nine months before you announced you were leaving. why did you leave? >> the first part is easy. i was asked to serve by attorney general lynch under president obama. i have great respect for the men and women of dea. when they ask you to do something and you can do it, you try and do it. the reason i left is more complicated. but i was uncomfortable. and i didn't want to make it about me, rachel. the worst thing that i can do as a leader of an organization like the dea is make it about me. and so when the president condoned the mistreatment of criminal defendants in a speech in new york, i sent an e-mail to the men and women of dea. it became public, that was not my intent or my goal, but it became public. >> because you disagreed with the way the president had --

>> we don't mistreat defendants. we respect their civil rights, their constitutional rights. they are human beings and we treat them as such. we don't condone police brutality. but i was concerned this was becoming about me and that's not fair to the men and women of dea. and so it's time to go. >> when "the new york times" characterized you more broadly as having lost confidence in the president's respect for the rule of law, was that an accurate representation? >> it was. >> would you -- did they ask you to stay or did they offer you a different job when you made clear you would like to leave? >> no, it was pretty clear they were going to make a change anyway, and that's fine, that happens all the time, i get that. and so i figured, let me clear out, let me go do something else. >> you were chief of staff to james comey when he was the deputy attorney general and also when he was fbi director. >> and we were colleagues before that. we were both assistant u.s. attorneys together in the eastern district of virginia. >> given that long relationship,

can you describe your personal view of him and i can ask you about some of the legal stuff too, but the president this weekend on his asia trip went out of his way to single out former director comey by name and call him a political hack. the president has kept up a cycle of personal attacks past firing him. i just wanted to ask, as sho somebody who knows him personally, how does that affect you? >> i don't have a long complicated answer to your question. jim is a man of tremendous integrity and tremendous intellect, and he's a friend. so i'm completely biased. but i also believe i am completely right. it was a privilege to work with him. it was a privilege to work for him. and i learned as much from jim comey as i learned from any mentor or boss in my life. >> when he made contemporaneous notes of his conversations with the president, which he testified about to congress, he said those conversations were

troubling to him, that's why he made contemporaneous notes, that's why he shared the content of those with fbi officials. is that something you knew him to do other times in his career? >> i know others who have done it, i've done it myself. if you've seen something that you want to remember, and i don't mean necessarily something that troubles you, something that you want to remember, you write it down. memories fade. i've done that too. i come from a meeting, i said, something happened today that's a little bit weird or a little bit good or odd or whatever, i write it down. not unusual. sometimes it's just a he'n e-mao myself. >> if that e-mail or memo ends up being evidence in an investigation, how do prosecutors treat that evidence? obviously there was no witness in the room to what the president told james comey, the

only sort of witness that we have is what comey memorialized to himself. >> contemporaneous notes are helpful because they help witnesses to remember stuff, and frankly we want witnesses to remember stuff. there's lots of ways for me to refresh your recollection on something that may have happened to you. one way would be to show you something you wrote at the time. hey, rachel, does this jog your memo memory? you would read and and say yes or no, either it does or doesn't. that kind of stuff is helpful. if the person is a truth teller like james comey, it's even more helpful. >> are the notes admissible? >> the notes themselves are probably not admissible. but if the witness forgets something while testifying, you can use anything to refresh their recollection so the notes could be used in that way. >> we know there are other fbi officials that james comey briefed. would we expect those people who he briefed about those conversations with the president to be called as witnesses in terms of what they contemporaneously heard from comey? >> again, so without getting

hypertechnical, because that's sort of boring, you know, that might be hearsay, what he said to others. there are exceptions to the hearsay rule that might permit it. but they might also have independent knowledge. so yes, possibly, if they were part of a conversation, they could be called as witnesses too. >> chuck rosenberg is our guest, a former chief mueller, former u.s. attorney for the trump administration. will you stick with us? >> i would be delighted. >> you don't have a choice. >> okay. >> we'll be back with chuck rosenberg in just a moment. kimchi bbq. amazing honky tonk? i can't believe you got us tickets. i did. i didn't pay for anything. you never do. send me what i owe. i got it. i mean, you did find money to buy those boots. are you serious? is that why you don't like them? those boots could make a unicorn cry. yeah, tears of joy.

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let me begin with one overarching question. why do you believe you were fired? >> i don't know for sure. i believe -- i take the president at his word because i was fired because of the russia investigation. something about the way i was conducting it, the president felt created pressure on him he wanted to relieve. >> i'm joined again by chuck rosenberg, an aide to both james comey and robert mueller. until last month he was the acting administrator of the dea until he stepped down because of his discomfort, in his words, with practices of the trump administration and of the president. mr. rosenberg, thank you again. >> my pleasure. >> you just saw there james comey making the case to congress why he believes he was fired. what is your view about how strong the case is that the

firing of james comey was the obstruction of justice? >> it's a possibility. there's a whole bunch of other things we need to know. i presume bob mueller knows them or will find them out. from where i stand, he might have an obstruction case. but let me be clear about something. the mere fact that you have the elements of a crime, that you've met the elements of a statute, doesn't necessarily mean that you have a prosecutable case. federal prosecutors are trained that you also have to have a reasonable probability of conviction. so there are times when we have the elements, and it looks like you might here, but do we have a prosecutable case? different question. and i don't know the answer to that. >> and what are the necessary but not sufficient elements that you need to put together in order to prove obstruction of justice? >> you need to have a pending investigation. you need to have some act that impedes or impairs the investigation. >> or attempts to. >> or attempts to, endeavors to. and you need to have the

requisite intent. of those things, intent is usually the most difficult to prove. you might have bare bones elements. but you might not have a prosecutable case. don't know yet, rachel. don't know. but it's in really good hands. >> well, to that point, i mean, tonight -- we woke up this morning to "the washington post" publishing what it believed was an omnibus list of contacts between the trump campaign and russian officials or agents, 30 different contacts. by this afternoon we have news from "the atlantic" magazine of further contacts between donald trump jr. and wikileaks, which has been named as a russian cutout in this operation. that's interesting on its face in terms of whether or not there's contacts, knowing contacts, which might themselves be legally problematic for donald trump jr. i'm wondering how the investigation is managed in such a way when it continues to mushroom the way it does, when there are that many contacts,

that many people who have been not telling the truth about their communications with russians, and when obstruction of justice possibility becomes a tangent off of this one, bank fraud becomes a tangent off of this. how do you handle this spreading? >> how do you handle a big thing? bob mueller ran the fbi. what was bob's first big case? seven days after he started, the attacks of 9/11. talk about a big case, that's the biggest case in fbi history. 500,000 interviews, right? you had agents all over the world working nonstop, day in and day out on the biggest case in fbi history. guess who managed it? bob mueller. and so if you're asking had hme this a big case, you bet it is. if you're asking me does it appear to be getting bigger, the answer is yes. but you have a brilliant manager at the helm.

you have the right guy for this job. and so maybe you bring on more prosecutors and more agents or maybe you break up the team in different ways. i guarantee they have a few big whiteboards in there. but this man can manage a case. >> you were u.s. attorney in the eastern district of virginia, speaking of 9/11, prosecuted zack ar zacharius moussoui. >> we've done this for years, we've done it in a transparent way, tethered to the constitution, the rule of law, to criminal rules of evidence and criminal rules of procedure. i think article iii courts are the place to be if you're trying to bring a terrorist case in this country. >> eastern district of virginia handles cases of that importance. >> you bet they do. >> dana boente was intending to

stay on in the eastern district of virginia, had been advised personally by the president that he could stay on. we're not told why he was fired but we're told he was fired the day before the first indictments came down in the special counsel's investigation. those may be totally unrelated matters. as the former u.s. attorney there, as somebody who i believe has known dana boente -- >> i asked him to take on that job essentially as the chief operating officer of our office, old and dear friend. as to your second question, rachel, that's up to dana. whatever reasons he knows or is willing to share, i have to leave that to dana. it's not for me to say. >> it's probably worth asking the trump administration why they decided to fire him. >> i'll make some calls. >> i bet you will. >> chuck rosenberg, now an nbc

and msnbc contributor, his first interview since leaving the trump administration last month. i hope this is the first of many opportunities we get to talk. a real pleasure. >> i hope so too, thank you. >> chuck rosenberg. we'll be right back. (♪) (♪)

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unfit for office. roy moore simply cannot be a u.s. senator." the newspaper citing allegations from now five women who say they were teenagers when roy moore, who was in his late 20s and early 30s, approached them sexually or romantically. quote, these incidents should not be parsed with statutes of limitations. proof beyond a reasonable doubt is a consideration for the courtroom, not the ballot box. his candidacy is over. his true character has been revealed. it's time for the gop to remove its official support and since he and his party can't assure it, the voters of alabama must. again, this is the editorial board from the largest newspaper in the state of alabama tonight. now, roy moore has denied allegations of sexual misconduct against a 14-year-old girl. today he denied even knowing a fifth accuser who says he violently assaulted her when she was 16. those allegations are being cited by a growing number of republican senators across the country who say that roy moore

should now withdraw from that senate race. here's the thing, though. back home in alabama, republican part officials have made no efforts to try to stop roy moore from winning the senate election. now nbc news can report that neither has the national republican party. nbc's vaughn hillyard has been in alabama reporting on the fallout there, he reports, citing two sources, that the national republican party still has 11 operatives on the ground in alabama tonight, trying to help roy moore win this senate election. so the republican party senate campaign arm has made a big show out of dropping him. lots of republican senators as individuals have made a big show out of dropping him. but not the rnc. the rnc has a joint fundraising agreement with the roy moore campaign, there's no indication they have removed themselves from that agreement. again, they've got 11 paid operatives on the ground in alabama tonight helping roy moore win. asked whether the rnc planned to change its operations on the ground in alabama, nbc news got

no response. so what does this race look like on the ground in alabama, what are moore's chances of still winning this race? with the national republican party still sort of quietly still supporting him, is there concern back in alabama about w actually does win this seat? hold that thought. we switched our auto and home insurance. liberty did what? yeah, they saved us a ton, which gave us a little wiggle room in our budget. wish our insurance did that. then we could get a real babysitter instead of your brother. hey, welcome back. this guy... right? yes. ellen. that's my robe. you could save seven hundred eighty two dollars when liberty stands with you. liberty mutual insurance.

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on thursday after "the washington post" first reported allegations of four women that they had been pursued sexually

or romantically by roy moore when he was in his 30s and they were teenagers, roy moore he was told wouldn't drop out of the race and the allegations probably wouldn't hurt moore's chances of winning that senate seat. now a fifth accuser came forward today accusing him of a violent attempted sexual assault is the view from alabama changed at all? john archibald joins us now from the great state of alabama. thank you for being here. >> thank you, rachel. >> do you think that the overall trajectory of this case changes now with this fifth accuser? >> i think it's a changed good bit since i talked to you last. i think it was a watershed day. anybody who saw that press conference today and didn't find it compelling didn't watch the same thing i watched and i get that sense that a lot of people felt that way. >> when you say you found it compelling, did you find it to be just materially different and

disturbing than the earlier allegations of for fact she was willing to put herself out there live on camera and tell everybody in her own words? >> she was unmistakably gadston people as people would know and spoke with a ring of truth. i'm saying that the so-called political leadership here has not said that. they're still holding fast to that belief that, you know, if you say it was put up by the liberal media long enough people believe it. >> in terms of i guess in terms of the preponderance of the evidence here, saying that this is a liberal media thing, a gloria allred brought the woman forward and "the washington post" published the allegations, there's new reports in yt if new yorker" and krob rited by your paper in the '80s around the time of the allegations supposed to have happened roy moore was seen as a problem at the local mall, that he was somebody who was asked to leave or somehow

sort of blackballed from the local shopping center because of his what was seen as predatory behavior toward young girls. that's not a liberal media creation unless your paper's a liberal media. do you think that changes anything? >> well, you know, i think there comes a time where the timing, where it started, even if there were evidence that, you know, this was put out by the gop establishment or democrats it doesn't matter when you hear, you know, four women in "washington post," 30 sources there, plus this woman today completely compelling and others coming out time and time again, i mean, some point you have to realize this is a problem no matter whether, you know, somebody with a political interest pointed it to somebody or another, but the behavior is unquestionably disturbing and what was described today is unquestionably criminal. this is not creepy anymore. this is sexual assault of a young girl. >> john, one last question. nbc news reported tonight that there are 11 operatives for the

rnc still working in alabama tonight on roy moore's behalf. you don't have any information about that or evidence on the on the ground campaign looks like for you him right now, do you? >> no. i know it continues and there's been no change in that direction and i'm still betting he wins. >> john archibald, appreciate your time tonight. >> thank you. >> we'll be right back. stay with us. ♪ we are the driven... the dedicated... the overachievers. we know our best investment is in ourselves. we don't take no for an answer.

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"the new york times" first to report tonight that white house sources are floating the

idea that if senate candidate roy moore does get elected to the senate next month and then expelled from the senate maybe the alabama governor could appoint jeff sessions to that seat instead. that would put jeff sessions back in his own seat and have the knock-on effect of removing him at attorney general to have the knock-effect of giving the trump administration a chance to appoint a new attorney general who's not recused from overseeing the robert mueller investigation. jeff sessions is in the middle of a lot of scandals in the republican party and the trump administration right now. he will be taking questions in an open hearing tomorrow morning starting at 10:00 a.m. in front of the house judiciary committee. that does it for us tonight. we'll see you tomorrow. now it's time for "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." good evening, lawrence. >> good evening, rachel. from miami -- >> oh. >> that's where i am tonight at the miami book fair. and, high from northampton. >> hi from north ramp on the? massachusetts? >> okay. you be