donald trump was warned about flynn by people within his own campaign and transition team, but his blind spot for his faithful aide, who was for a while, the only person with national security experience who would come close to the trump campaign, may now jeopardize members of trump's own family and the president himself. over the weekend, nbc news confirmed reports that flynn's attorneys have cut off communication with the president's legal team. for flynn, it's complicated. his legal exposure includes potentially providing false states, failing to disclosing work as a foreign agent, ties to turkey and russia, and involving his own son in what may turn out to be a criminal enterprise of consulting foreign governments and failing to disclose those ties. but the risks for the president is also monumental, as jennifer ruben in "the washington post" writes today, quote, it's trump himself who may have the most to lose from flynn's cooperation with mueller frump has denied

knowing about contacts with russian officials. flynn's testimony to the contrary could be politically fatal to trump. and there's no doubt that the russia investigation was on the president's mind this week. he sent this tweet late last night. since the first day i took office, all you hear is the phony democrat excuse for losing the election. russia, russia, russia. despite this, i have the economy booming and i have possibly done more than any ten-month president. make america great again, in all caps. let's get to our reporters and guests from "the washington post," white house bureau chief, phil rucker, republican strategist, steve schmidt. former federal prosecutor, mario ren regnati, and zerlina maxwell, formerly with the clinton campaign, now the director for progressive programming with sirius xm, and james pindel,

thank you all for being with us. phil rucker, let me start with you. i spoke to a trump confidant not on the white house staff. but someone in close contact with the white house staff and with the president himself, who said it's actually jared kushner who is at the top of the list of aides who once mike flynn was sort of flagged as someone who could be problematic and ultimately bring some political heat to donald trump's white house during the transition, that it was jared kushner who really behaved the way for him to come back in at the highest levels, as the first national security adviser to donald trump. >> yeah, you know, that sounds about right. flynn, early on in the administration, had the full support of jared kushner and others, it's worth noting, in the trump administration. and flynn was not only the national security adviser at the white house, but was a key architect of the transition. that whole three-month period after the election in november, before trump took office in january, it was flynn at trump

tower every day helping to make decision with the president-elect about who would be staffing this government throughout, and he sort of had his pick for what job he wanted and he wanted to be the national security adviser. >> renato, let me ask you some questions about bob mueller's investigation. we know that bob mueller is looking at mike flynn's contacts with turkey and turk iish officials. we know that bob mueller is looking into mike flynn's contacts with russians. if he had those contacts during the transition, at a point when he knew he was the incoming national security adviser to the american president, what sorts of criminal liability could he have exposed other aides to and the president himself, if he happened to know that donald trump was going to ask jim comey to see to it, to let flynn go. >> wow, well, there's a lot. there's a lot to unpack there. first of all, one thing the viewers need to know is whenever you know that a crime is being

committed and you do something to move that ball forward on that crime, in other words, you help make it succeed in some way, you are reliable for the underlying crime. so we've heard a lot over the past days and weeks about things that flynn was involved in. you know, obviously, failing to register as a foreign agent. there was a suggestion that he was involved in a potential kidnapping of someone who was living -- a permanent resident in pennsylvania to deliver him to the turkish government. you know, obviously, you also have potential that he was trading official acts or promising to trade official acts in exchange for something of value, which doesn't surprise people as a crime. and what i mean by official act is, something, you know, on behalf of the united states in his role as national security adviser. there's an endless number of things that he could be involved in, where, you know anybody who was involved in that effort could then get caught up in that. as long as they knew about the criminal activity and they

helped it in some way, they could also be liable. >> steve schmidt, let me ask you something about mike flynn. so we know, chris christie has been on this program and said that he made his concerns about mike flynn known to the president. he was fired from the president's transition. and there may have been other factors. i'm sure there were. but i want to ask you, to sort of drill down as someone who worked in the white house about what could have been going through people's minds when they placed someone who had a book of business that anyone that cared to look could have seen that he was working on behalf of the turks, he had been at a high-level dinner with russian state-run television. what is sort of the process and what do you think the exposure is, not just legally, but on the political front for don magan, for jared kushner, for reince

priebus, for everyone who knew exactly what they were placing, exactly the kind of man they were placing all -- you know, both hands around all of the nation's most sort of dangerous and private and sensitive secrets. >> first off, it's an extraordinarily important position, in close proximity to the president of the united states, responsible for coordinating all of our nation's national security policy. now, i think it's worth mentioning that in no other administration, not the obama administration, not the bush administration, the clinton administration, the ford, reagan, carter, nixon, as far back as you would like to go, since the advent of the modern national security adviser, there is no administration where just on the surface of what was known then, where that person would have been considered seriously for the job given mike flynn's manifest conflicts of interest and known representations for foreign governments, retlet alo

being informed by sally yates that he was likely compromised. so a decision of extraordinary recklessness with regard to the national security of the country by an administration as we've learned over the last year who has made a habit of it. and specifically regard to jared kushner, what we now know, and if we could look at this story through a time-lapsed photography over a course of a year where they denied everything in all contact, we now know the constant lying this has moved closer and closer and closer to all of the president's men, chief amongst them, jared kushner, who's now proximate to the site of two of the major occurrences of this administration. the hiring of mike flynn and the firing of jim comey, which has brought so much trouble to the door of the oval office. >> reporter: i want to drill down on exactly those two things, john. the hiring of mike flynn over the objections of chris

christie, who's a pretty strong-willed, blunt guy, who made his objections to bringing mike flynn into the white house with that kind of proximity to state secrets, to the president, articulated to the president himself, he was brought in over chris christie's objections. and then, the knowledge and possible participation in the firing of jim comey, who the president had -- you know, we don't know exactly at what point the relationship between comey and trump broke down, but you see where there is, as steve just pointed out, sort of this access of potential legal trouble for a growing -- the list of folks i hear to be sweating out the rumors of flynn potential cooperation or don jr., jared kushner, paul manafort and jeff sessions. why would those men have anything to worry about? >> because if what we are understanding is true, it may be that jared kushner is not some kind of machiavellian godfather behind the scenes, that he is a

bumbling fool. that is to say, chris christie, he nails chris christie gets him fired, not because chris christie is bad or but because chris christie prosecuted his father for a crime of which jared kushner's father was dead guilty. and ten years later, revenge being a dish best served cold, right after the election, he nails christie, gets him fired with a false claim that christie had not done the due diligence work on the transition that chris christie had, in fact, done. so that's number one. number two sb jared kushner says trump, sure, fire comey, democrats hate comey, they'll love that you fire him. so trump is listening to jared kushner, who knows nothing from nothing, who bought a building in new york for $1 billion more than it was worth. who has no experience in politics. whom he listens to solely because he is his son-in-law. and if he fries because of kushner, he will deserve it, because this is, a, why we have nepotism laws, and b, he values

some kind of family loyalty over mere competence. simple competence, like, don't listen to a guy who doesn't know anything. >>er is serlina, you're nodding and smiling. >> donald trump brings us all together, i think. but also, president obama, also, as you recall, when now president trump was in the transition period, president obama then also warned then president-elect trump about michael flynn and potential liabilities there. so i think there was a lot of red flags going up about michael flynn. and now we know of two concrete examples, if you include "the washington post" report on his nuclear deals, where he was working perhaps on behalf of a foreign government, which i think is somewhat the undercovered story. we're talking about russia specifically and the potential of collusion, but the fact that donald trump picked a national security adviser that was not working on behalf of american interests is essentially one of the biggest political scandals

of this administration. and it puts us all at severe risk, national security risk. and sally yates going to the white house again, that was right around the time of the comey loyalty dinner. so i think when steve schmidt said, when we put this in a time lapse, it's all going to make a lot more sense when more facts are known. >> and when you go back in time, there's a reason why we had michael flynn even in this conversation, because we had no one else. there are no major foreign policy minds wanting to attach themselves to the donald trump campaign. donald trump campaign, he doesn't know how he was elected. >> he may just hear those voices. >> nonetheless, he was stuck with flynn in some ways. and he had gone out and picked someone else. but there are so few options that the fact that flynn's even at the table is an important thing to mention. >> let me come back to this

story that zerlina mentioned. let me to get you to contribute some of these data points. according to this nuclear deal, this came under scrutiny around the time we learned it was michael flynn sr. and jr. who were both of interest and under scrutiny by bob mueller. but it's been a year now there rumors that he's been in criminal and l reel jeopardy for a very, very long time. can we tick through some of the potential criminal and legal problems that mike flynn sr. has right now. >> you've just seen a couple of them, and this was not my personal reporting, but i can tell you that the story that my colleagues did shows that michael flynn was basically working for a company to put together this nuclear deal and did not disclose it in his security clearance forms and did

not -- and it was not known to the fbi at the time. and that's problematic for him. it could put him in some legal jeopardy, and that's new information. that's on top of all of the other concerns that we already have about him, about what he may have disclosed about his foreign transactions, which we know through reporting is a huge focus of the mueller investigation. to find out how michael flynn was entangled around the world, not only with turkey, not only potentially with russia, but with other business interests, but with his son as well. >> renato, wearing your prosecutor hat, can you tell me with what manafort and gates were indicted for, i believe there are four counts of working with a foreign government among those indictments, i also understand from someone close to the campaign that mike flynn jr. is the whole enchilada for mike flynn sr. so can you sort of talk about, as a prosecutor, sort of the value of having a man's son

ensnared in a criminal probe, as well as the significance of what paul manafort has already been indicted for? >> sure. well, let's start with the first question, you know, i'll give you a great example of what mueller is doing with mike flynn's son is a pretty common tactic by prosecutors. and here in illinois, we love prosecuting our governors for corruption and former governor george ryan, the evidence that ultimately brought -- ensnared him and got him convicted was the testimony of one of his closest aides, and the way that prosecutors flipped that aide was by investigating his girlfriend/fiancee and ultimately made a deal with him in exchange for leniency for her. and he cooperated basically on her behalf. we call that vicarious cooperation, when you corroborate on behalf of another. that very well may be what happened here, because perhaps the president was willing to pardon flynn, but not flynn's

son. or flynn felt he could not feel confident that the president would pardon his son and that may driven it. now as for the liability, i think it's a great parallel, nicole for you to draw with manafort, because we've already seen the manafort indictment and you can see the types of charges there, and you can imagine a lot of the same charges being brought against flynn. i mentioned earlier the failure to disclose the foreign agent status. there's also a failure to disclose foreign bank accounts, potential money laundering, potentially, there was a charge that drew a lot of attention, conspiracy against the united states, which sounds pretty bad, no one wants to be conspiring against the united states. but it's essentially trying to defeat the lawful functions of the irs by disguising things from tax -- from the tax folks at the irs. and essentially, what that is, it's just hadhiding what you're doing and mike flynn has been doing that. allegedly, at the very least. we also talked a moment ago about failing to disclose

something on your forms. if you have a security clearance form and don't tell the truth or have a material omission and a prosecutor can prove that you willfully did that, in other words, you did it on purpose, that's also a federal crime and carries up to five years in prison. those are all serious crimes, they're all felonies. and if i was michael flynn's attorney, unless i thought there was going to be a pardon, i would be talking about cooperation, as well. >> steve schmidt, let me give you a very quick last word on this. we can't talk about mike flynn without mentioning that he was someone once held in extremely high regard by focus like stanly mccrystal, someone who has a complicated legacy, but not a pers person, i talked to more than a dozen people between last night and this morning trying to get ready to come back this morning and find out where this leaves us, but not a single person suggested that mike flynn was innocent of any of this. steve? >> no, not at all. it's one of the remarkable aspects of the story that we

don't talk enough about. he was considered to be among the preeminent intelligence officers of his generation. and what happened for mike flynn between his ascension at dia through his denowment in the early days of the trump administration is an extraordinary, almost shake experience tale. >> all right. thank you, renato, spending this first block with us. we appreciate it. everyone else is staying put. and when we come back, the white house forced to defend a racial slur by the president. this time at an event to honor american heros as trump takes aim at a favorite target. also ahead, mitch mcconnell's unanswered plea to the white house to cut ties with roy moore. what's behind the president's "me too" thing with roy moore? and will it cost republicans control of the senate? and donald trump's holiday twitter feed was the word equivalent of my garbage disposal this morning. we'll sift through the mess to bring you the most alarming things you may have missed this holiday weekend. stay with us. [lance] monica, it is absolute chaos out here!

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you were here long before any of us were here, although we have a representative in congress who they say was here a long time ago. they call her pocahontas, but you know what? i like you, because you are special. >> amazing to see how his mind works. that was the president earlier this afternoon in the oval office, in what was supposed to be an event honoring a group of native american world war ii

americans, the navajo code talkers. while discussing the veterans in front of a painting of andrew jackson, no less, he re-upped his nickname for senator elizabeth warren, the senator appearing on this network in the last hour called the remark a racial slur. >> you know, this was supposed to be san event to honor heros, people who put it all on the line for our country. and people who because their incredible work saved the lives of countless americans and our allies. it is deeply unfortunate that the president of the united states cannot even make it through a ceremony honoring these heros without having to throw out a racial slur. >> and when pressed about that remark in the last hour, here's what white house press secretary sarah huckabee sanders had to say. >> why is it appropriate for the president to use a racial slur in any context? >> i don't believe that it is appropriate for him to make a

racial slur -- >> well, a lot of people feel as this is a racial slur? so why is it appropriate? >> well, like i said, i don't think that it is, and i certainly don't think that was the president's think. >> does he see credible value in -- >> again, i think the most offensive thing -- i'm sorry? >> does he see political value in calling people out racially? why use that? >> look, i think that senator warren, was very offensive when she lied about something specifically to advance her career. i don't understand why no one is asking about that question and why that isn't constantly covered. >> um, maybe because no one other than your boss stood in front of a group of navajo code talkers and said "pocahontas" our panel is still here. phil rucker, i don't even know what to ask you. sarah huckabee sanders has the worst job in town, but today she sort of did the worst i've ever seen her do at the worst job in town.

>> yeah, i don't even know what to say about what we just saw. the white house is not the police determining what is a racial slur and what isn't a racial slur. the bottom line is that term is deeply offensive to many people, including native americans, including some republican native americans, including congressman tom cole, who previously has said he doesn't think that's appropriate for the president to be calling elizabeth warren pocahontas, but we know this president is not one to be politically correct and as you said, it's interesting to see where his mind is going. he's in there talking about these native american heros from world war ii and he's thinking about elizabeth warren, because she, for the last 24 hours, has been criticizing the moves that he's making at the consumer financial protection agency. >> let me talk about that a little bit. just tell our viewers a little bit more about -- because that was addressed in the briefing as well and you mentioned it. >> yeah. well, look, the cfpb situation,

the trump administration with mick mulvaney, the omb director, they've installed him over there to take over in conflict with the deputy director, who has become the acting director. there's been a tug-of-war essentially, a power battle this morning over at that bureau, and elizabeth warren has been out front. she helped create that agency during the obama administration, and has been a real protector of it. and the white house is trying to assert some political power over there, and it's clearly top of mind for prmp, because he brought her up in this meeting, this ceremony with the native americans. >> and steve schmidt, i only have joked about watching how his mind works, but it really is a disgrace -- this is the kind of event as former white house staffers, this would be the kind of event that we'd skip, because it had zero risk of either of our bosses, george w. bush or the vice president, messing it up. that's the kind of event this was. this was an event with zero risk. it was a nice event to honor

american heros. how the president sort of squeezes in an insult and botches what is supposed to be the sort of pro forma sort of thing on any politician's schedule boggles the mind. >> let me talk about the navajo code talkers for a second, who they were. those two men, clearly in their 90s, standing behind the president who once again disgraces his office and degrades it with his comments today. during the second world war, the navajo code talkers served in the pacific theater. the japanese could not break the navajo language. it was an unbreakable code, that saved many, many lives of american soldiers. and these navajo code talkers served with great distinction at the front, in constant combat. when you look at the ribbons on their chest, there's an extraordinary amount for world war ii veterans, including valor

awards. these are men who served in harm's way. they're combat heros. and and who they were entitled to today to be entitled with maximum respect that a grateful nation can offer these heros. and once again, the commander in chief pratfalled flat on to his face. disgusting. >> john, you had a thought bubble for those veterans while we were in the break. >> i thought the whole point, it's perfectly fine for president trump to make fun of elizabeth warren in my view. elizabeth warren probably lied about her ancestry and if he wants to make fun of her, he can. what's offensive is making a joke about, you know, native american hero to native americans, plainly. and i think that more interestingly, as also myself as a veteran of the white house, though much less time than you dpis had, is that he has a horror of gravitas. he has a horror of treating solemn occasions with solemnity

and pride. it is almost a tic that he has to lower the tone, bring it down. now, he's an informal person. he doesn't like formality, except he likes to be called mr. trump and he wears a tie. but it is a constant habitual behavior on his part to take these events that are intended to be ceremonial, and thus have a pattern, have a style, have a formal gloss to them, and ruin them, because that would be funny. it would be -- it would -- it amuses him. >> him and only him. >> and this whole idea that everybody had -- i know this is a year in, but, you know, that the presidency of necessity evaluates the person who holds the office because of the power and the gravity, has clearly been disproven, i think, yet again in this instance. >> and you've written about -- you wrote in june about -- >> how president trump should stop calling elizabeth warren pocahontas. >> yeah, either right political context, which was not this event, but you can understand

why it's good for trump to take some shots at listener lrn and why it's good elizabeth warren to take shots back at donald trump. but he's been so good at these monikers, lyin' ted, crooked hillary, that people can get their heads around, can the person on the street really tell you what the pocahontas back story is? there's a better hit on her if he's actually going to do this. and it gets tired and old. and frankly, when the pocahontas controversy came up when she ran for u.s. senate last time, she still won. it's not like this has been the death nail of an amazing moniker. >> it's all the things trump hates, an impotent political attack, he looked like a total tool in the white house, and his press secretary, i think, lost the room today. >> and i think kristen asked a really good follow-up question, why does he continue to use racial epithets? why is it appropriate for the president to do it? i think now we all know that he never misses an opportunity to pander to the certain section of his base that responds to these kinds of racial attacks. his old base is not racist, was

there are some people who respond to this and he does not miss an opportunity to pander to them. he takes every single opportunity to lower the bar, to go under the bar, to go in the basement, whatever you want to use. and i think it's really unfortunate, because we're really in perilous times. and i agree with john that he has -- that he's going to rise up and be presidential. >> i don't know what's going on in this country anymore. >> i think you're right. all right, phil rucker, we're going to let you go. thank you for spending the first half of the show with us. and still ahead, what's behind donald trump, the donald trump/roy moore alliance? and why can't mitch mcconnell or ivanka trump, for that matter, break it? we'll tackle those questions, after the break. ancestrydna is the gift of the season. and it's now just $59! but the real gift isn't what's inside the box. it's what's inside the person who opens it. ♪ give ancestrydna, the only dna test that can trace your origins to over 150 ethnic regions-

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over his own party's objections. quote, something deeper has been consuming mr. trump. he sees the call for mr. moore to step aside as a version of the response to the now-famous "access hollywood" tape, in which he boasted about grabbing women's genitalia and the flood of groping accusations against him that followed soon after. he suggested to a senator earlier this year that it was not authentic and repeated that claim to an adviser more recently. and on the degree of resistance that mitch mcconnell met from the white house when he explored efforts to remove moore, "the times" reports, quote, mr. mcconnell even enlisted washington campaign lawyers with experience in alabama elections to devise a four-page memo, outlining a legal avenue to block mr. moore's path, but the white house council's office ignored the document entirely. zerlina, it's not often i get the read the word's "women's genitalia" on a teleprompt, so thank you, mr. president, for that. but this idea that he's now

questioning the authenticity of the tape. >> it's completely preposterous. we all see the tape. we saw what he said on the tape and there are women who corroborate that he behaved in this matter. and it's interesting that they always go back to, that's been litigated and we're here in the white house because it was litigated. yeah, it was litigated and more people voted for hillary clinton. now, we have an electoral college system that has resulted in them being in the white house and i'm here with you today, and that's fine. but we can never forget the "access hollywood" tape. because for me, that was a moment of moral clarity in this country. he said on this tape, to grab them by the genitalia is not the most offensive part of the tape for me. it is when he says, you can do anything to a woman. and i think that women, particularly now in the past eight weeks, have been rejecting that. and since the harvey weinstein story broke, the flood of stories of women coming out and telling their stories is in response to the election of donald trump. donald trump said you can do

anything to a woman, and women everywhere are saying, no, you can't. >> i can't say it any better than zerlina just did. i want to go back to this argument of the authenticity of the tape. donald trump is loathe to apologize for anything. but i have multiple sources that were in the room when that tape was revealed. and the first thing he said was, is that trump, he referred to himself in the third person, and then he asked, was i with melania? and then he apologized. >> i've said and done things i regret, and the words released on this more than a decade old video is one of them. anyone who knows me knows these words don't reflect why am. i said it, i was wrong, and i apologize. >> so, i mean -- do you really think that that guy would have apologized for something that wasn't real? >> well, there's a term that people used who were around steve jobs. they said that jobs had the ability to create a reality distortion field in which when he was evangelizing for some

product, it was almost as if the product already existed, had already sold a billion units, and was changing the world. i think trump shows some signs of having a reality distortion field with himself, that he doesn't like this story, it bothers him, it almost lost him the presidency. and so because he won, he is now ginning up some world fantasy world, in which it didn't happen and he didn't do it, because it wasn't enough to get him, you know, to lose him the election. and so, this is a quality of, you know, of mind, a cast of mind that we need to watch very closely, because it is not a good thing for a president to have. >> i would suggest there's something wrong with his mind. steve schmidt, this me too movement sweeping the country, sweeping up men who have preyed on women, all but roy moore, who preyed on 14-year-old teenage girls and whose me tooing roy moore but donald trump? i mean, you couldn't make it up. >> it's an extraordinary moment,

and it is a moment of grave danger for the republican party, because they face a lose/lose situation for the ages here. the election will be december 12th, and we will soon find out if there are enough democrats, independents, and decent republicans in the state of alabama to say, no, we will not send a credibly accused child molester, a credibly accused pedophile, to the united states senate. and we're going to find out sympathetic about mitch mcconnell and the republican majority. will they seat a credibly cruised pedophile, a credibly accused child molester amongst them in the, what used to be called, most important delibera deliberative body in the world. and should he be seated in the senate? should he win, this will be hung like a millstone around the necks of every republican running in the congress for 2018 to disastrous consequences for every republican in a suburban

swing district. >> and they'll deserve it. james, let me ask you about the reporting in "the times." about the lengths that mitch mcconnell went to try to get roy moore out of the race. he says, i believe the women, and gad for him. but he didn't get a partner anywhere in the white house. don mcgahn, the white house counsel ignored the document that la that laid out a legal way to get roy moore off the ballot. it's a failed effort, but it's remarkable the lengths that mitch mcconnell went to to try to get roy moore out of the race. >> and to be fair, the lengths to which cay ivy was willing too long along as well. i think that's fair. but what's also interesting here in this moment, and that's why we're coming up with stories and this amazing piece from "the times," explaining that the president thought this tape was not authentic is, it's one thing to understand you're in a political pickle and you want to make it about the other guy and make it about liberal doug jones, it's another to say, well, you should listen to roy

moore, constantly, and having his back constantly. he may not be going out there to campaign for him in alabama, but it's another step that he had to do in this hard epolitical pickle hays in. >> republicans now all hate mitch mcconnell. democrats don't like him. but, here's what republicans like. they like that neil gorsuch is on the supreme court. why is he on the supreme court? because mitch mcconnell held -- would not hold a vote for merrick garland. republicans wanted to health care reform, you know, passed. mitch mcconnell brought it up three times at the behest of the white house to try to get it passed. they want tax reform. if it happens, it will be because of mitch mcconnell. any success that this presidency has, including the potential failure of roy moore to get himself elected to the senate, will be due to the efforts of mitch mcconnell, who is getting no love and no support from his own party for solid efforts to move their agenda and save them from disaster. >> you just heard from the

one-man fan club of mitch mcconnell. >> it's politically true. >> see, you had your piece. i hope he was watching. still ahead, while all of us were enjoying our holiday weekend, the president had other things doing. using his favorite outlet to vent. twitter. he'll go through his most alarming tweets against his favorite target. for your heart... your joints... or your digestion... so why wouldn't you take something for the most important part of you...

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if you have inflammatory bowel disease, tell your doctor if symptoms develop or worsen. serious allergic reactions may occur. never give up. see me. see me. clear skin can last. don't hold back... ...ask your dermatologist if cosentyx can help you find clear skin that lasts. the president kicked off back-to-work monday with a contest and the promise of a trophy, tweeting, we should have a contest as to which of the networks plus cnn and not including fox is the most dishonest, corrupt, and/or distorted in its political coverage of your favorite president, me. they are all bad. winner to receive the fake news trophy. mr. president, add your twitter feed and your press office to the contest and game on, we're in. on a less ludicrous note, the president undermined cnn

international over the holiday, tweeting, quote, fox news is much more important in the u.s. than cnn, but outside of the u.s., cnn international is still a major source of fake news, and they represent our nation to the world very poorly. the outside world does not see the truth from them. condemnation for the president's attack on cnn international, widely interrupted a as a attack on the free press and on foreign journalist who generally speaking, putting themselves in more danger than reporters here in the u.s., was swift. general mike hayden, a former cia director wrote, quote, if this is who we are or who we are becoming, i have wasted 40 years of my life. until now, it was not possible for me to conceive of an american president capable of such an outrageous assault on truth, a free press, or the first amendment. cnn's chief international correspondent, krchristiane amanpour tweeted this, on cnn, we dodge bullets to bring you the news, nothing fake about that.

#factsfirst. if president trump knew the facts, he would never have sent this tweet. here is my late cameraman margaret moth who took a bullet in the face covering the facts and truth in bosnia. james, these attacks on the press are a constant figure of the trump presidency. these attacks on cnn are intensifying and his administration has placed the merger between cnn's parent company and at&t on hold. basically suing them. what's behind this sort of obsession with smearing cnn? >> well, he's, of course, obsessed with his own headlines. he reads everything. >> about himself. >> about himself. >> he doesn't read anything about anything else. >> about himself, that's for certain. you know, cnn saw itself placed -- they thought they saw themselves placed in the middle and he's going to try to move the goalposts. although many republicans felt that they enabled him by running his rallies nonstop throughout the primary season. but he has been, obviously, very much attacking cnn, thinking that that moves the goalposts a

little bit. and right now he knows he has cnn in a pickle. >> steve schmidt, vladimir putin, oddly, or maybe not, changed some of the laws in his own country about tightening the reins. they don't have a free press there, but on tightening the reins around foreign press. here's the cnbc headline. vladimir putin signs a bill, letting russia classify international journalists as foreign agents. can you just address sort of the parallels between what i think donald trump sees and covets in terms of putin's relationship with the media? >> look, general hayden had this exactly right. we have to talk about all three things together. the assault on truth. we must have truth to have accountability in a democracy. the first amendment, the spirit of it in this country, which guarantees protection for a free and independent press. and the free of the press internationally, where typically american presidents would never allow foreign autocrats to say we won't take questions from the

american media. it's central to who we are. and increasingly, when donald trump says things like, well, the "access hollywood" tape may not be true, haye's trying to twist truth the way that an autocrat does. in that what is true is what the leader says is true. what is true is what the leader believes to be true, even though if it's an obvious lie, which whether it's his crowd size or the millions of people he allege voted illegally for secretary clinton or the "access hollywood" tape, it's increasingly the magnitudes of the lie. and its receipt in his base is very, very worrying. this is -- this is not normal behavior in any healthy democracy and from sweden to stra australia, from great britain to canada, there's no healthy democracy where you see the constant assault on truth emanating from the seed of

executive power like we do in this administration. and it's not a small thing. it's a big thing. and we can't spend enough time in my view talking about it. >> i mean, i think there's something very conscious, a lot of his tweeting is intuitive and spontaneous. trump is setting up a dynamic throughout this administration, which is that he's here, his enemy is the press. his enemy is the press. they won't tell the truth about him, they won't give him a fair shake, they won't report things fairly, you know, for conservatives, they won't do anything fair. so it's him versus this monolithic press. his first target is cnn and he has cnn as a target because he had a personal relationship with jeff zucker and he thinks jeff zucker has like turned on him or is not doing the right thing by him. and he's got this whip hand against cnn because of the at&t/time warner merger. this tweeting is going to hurt that effort. that is to say, we already have judges establishing the precep that his tweets can be used as evidence in legal proceedings.

i don't think there's any way that this merger doesn't go through as a result of these tweets, by the way. but it won't be the last. i mean, it's not that he'll have any modalities in which to attack the press, he already said during the modalities to attack during the press. he said in the campaign, toughen laws -- there are no federal libel laws. he doesn't make laws anyway, but -- >> stop it. >> you see the balance. the drama that he is a -- he's a melodramatic figure a tv actor and is creating a constant melodrama, soap opera, between him and the bad guy. >> and always needs a foil. the proceed always wants a foil. great for him with the media, highly unpopular and not fighting back. passive/aggressive remarks from "time" but not a full fledge punch in the face. and sneak in one more break

but be right back.

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but we're only as strong as our community. who inspires and pushes us to go further than we could ever go alone. sofi. get there sooner. talking about donald trump's dysfunctional relationship with the truth and the press. arlena, always harkin back to presidents obama and bush as bookends. pre-inauguration. president obama, last appearance in the briefing room talking to sort of his outgoing press corps about how important their work is and no president, especially

republican president likes their coverage day in and day out but all presidents appreciate the importance of that function and george w. bush a few weeks later with matt lauer talking about the first amendment and importance of the vibrant and free press. this president doesn't see it that way. >> he doesn't, and i think he takes it personally. he sees the headlines takes it personally thinking they're talking about me and it hurts his feelings, to me seems a little bit underneath what the person who's in the presidency should be thinking and considering on a daily basis. they shouldn't be lookingality he at the headlines and getting hurt feelings. and he's lunged out on twitter and if he can't rise to the level being a mature adult and not taking every single headline about him personally we're going to be in very big trouble.

>> can i mention, headlines. my friend had a peiece in the "new york post." only one trump. roy moore can't play the trump card and the piece is insulting. trump loves melodrama, and he wrote my friend, only one trump, you got that right, donald j. trump. so he only read the headlines if he had read the piece he would have heeded the piece. he head the headline and only the headline. how about that? >> another thing, not just feelings, his ego. over the holiday, "time" person of the year, getting picked but couldn't get the interview trying to dump them before they dumped him. >> refer to "sports illustrated," sporesman of the year. >> nobody wants to see that. >> a fake cover of him being man of the year by "time" magazine. >> fake covers. couldn't make it up. sneak in one more break and be

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trump and his desire to be "times'" man of the year. >> it just shows another example of how thin-skinned he is and how it manifests itself on foreign trips where he goes to china. what an easy mark they must see. throw him a big parade. throw him a great red carpet. just sews incessant thin-skinnedness, from steve schmidt. my thank you to you all. that does it for or hour. i'm nicolle wallace. "mtp daily" starts now with katy tur in for chuck todd. >> if it is monday, take me to your leader. tonight, a crisis of leadership. >> it's going to take a long time for me to regain people's trust. >> why both parties continue to circle the wagons over sexual misconduct allegations. plus, the final sprint on