that wraps up the busy two hours for me. i'll see you right back here tomorrow at 11:00 with stephanie ruhle and at 3:00 p.m. eastern. you can always find me on social media. "deadline: white house" with nicolle wallace starts right now. hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. the president started his day today with new reaction to friday's bombshell news that his former national security adviser pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators. >> i feel badly for general flynn. i feel very badly. he's led a very strong life, and i feel very badly, john. i will say this, hillary clinton lied many times to the fbi. nothing happened to her. flynn lied and they've destroyed his life. i think it's a shame. hillary clinton on the fourth of july weekend, went to the fbi, not under oath. it was the most incredible thing anyone as ever seen. she lied many times.

nothing happened to her. flynn lied and it's like they ruined his life. it's very unfair. >> those remarks capped a weekend long twitter response from the president that included what appeared to many like a brand-new admission. i had to fire general flynn because he lied to the vice president and the fbi. he had plead guilty to those lies. it is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. there was nothing to hide. that was from the president's twitter feed. the white house informed the press a day later that the tweet in question was dictated by the president's lawyer john dowd. dowd later downplayed the substance of the tweet saying it was meant to be simply a paraphrase of white house lawyer ty cobb's previous statement on flynn's guilty plea. dowd acknowledging i'm out of the tweeting business. i didn't mean to break news but the tweet created a firestorm because it represented the very first time that the president has acknowledged publicly that he knew flynn had lied to the

fbi before he fired him last february. setting off a new round of questions about whether the president's actions amount to obstruction of justice. >> well, if you take the president's own statement, his tweet that he knew michael flynn was lying to the fbi when he fired him, which means that he knew michael flynn had committed a felony when he asked comey to stop the investigation. and when he fired comey when he refused to do so and when he fired sally yates and when he called michael flynn in april to tell him to stay strong. all of these acts are to impede and obstruct justice. >> a source close to the white house acknowledging the severity of the misstep to "the washington post" which writes a person close to the white house involved in the case turned the saturday tweet a screw up of historic proportions that has caused enormous consternation in

the white house. "new york times" reporter maggie haberman put it this way. somewhere white house aides are screaming into pillows. in response to questions about whether the president obstructed justice, dowd said to nbc news that, quote, the president cannot obstruct justice because he is the chief law enforcement officer under the constitution's article two. and has every right to express his view on any case. let's get to all of our reporters. nbc news's kristen welker joins us from the washington. nbc's intelligence and national security reporter ken dilanian is here. from "the new york times," chief white house correspondent and msnbc analyst peter baker and matt apuso and is an msnbc contributor and had some bylines on some of those blockbuster stories over the weekend. kristen welker, the white house at this hour, my understanding is that they're throwing a lot of smoke and a lot of confusion around the president's twitter feed. something i haven't heard from them before. and there's also a debate going

to in legal circles about whether or not a lawyer would have sent a tweet or even dictated a tweet like the one that came from the president's feed on saturday. >> i think that's why a lot of people find this to be so remarkable, the motion that the president's lawyer would potentially get the president into more legal jeopardy. but john dowd, the president's lawyer over the weekend was very insistent he was the one who dictated this tweet to the social media director. he also acknowledges, as you pointed out, he essentially conflated two things that had previously been set by the president's special counsel ty cobb that mike flynn lied to not only the vice present but to the fbi as well. so there's been a fair amount of damage control over the weekend and throughout the day. but it's also just very striking this new argument that john dowd is making which is that the president cannot commit obstruction of justice.

this is an argument we heard alan dershowitz make earlier today. the president and his legal team really grasping onto that for their defense. i've been talking to sources close to the white house as well who acknowledge that this was an unforced lawyer and one that has only compounded the russia probe which already looms over just about everything that this president does, nicole. >> peter baker, i'm not sure i'm buying that any lawyer wrote this, but let me ask you about the white house's penchant for saying there was no collusion. no one talked to any russians. that came out of the president's lips. that's a flat lie. there were 9 to 15 contacts between campaign officials and russians that we know about at this point. on obstruction of justice, for a long time it was, oh, the president didn't obstruct justice. now the explanation is not that the president didn't obstruct justice, not that the president wouldn't obstruct justice, about that the president can't obstruct justice. please explain. >> that's exactly right. what's fascinating is that's an

argument that's very reminiscent of what richard nixon once says after leaving office. if the president does it, it's not illegal. it's not a crime. of course, that's an argument that hasn't been accepted in the past by an awful lot of people including the house of representatives which in the nixon case and bill clinton case included obstruction of justice among the articles of impeachment that they lodged against the presidents in those questions. now whether you can charge obstruction in a court of law may be a different thing. given that a president is in office and impeachment is the main remedy for what we'd call high crimes and misdemeanors, the house has clearly made clear it does consider obstruction to be something the president can be held accountable for. whether these actions count as obstruction of justice or not is a different question. that's something that is still up for debate. but it is funny to say or it is unusual to say that a president is simply, by virtue of being president, immune from the charges to begin with.

matt, let me bring you in here. you have been doing -- you have an incredible body of reporting around these questions. i want to ask you specifically about what we learned over the weekend about flynn's crime. we learned that flynn was charged with lying to the fbi, but in those charging documents, we learned that he was very far from some sort of rogue actor and i think we've learned since our program that his e-mails were in communication with k.t. mcfarland. a campaign aide and also getting direction from jared kushner. i believe your byline was on this story. "new york times," e-mails dispute white house claims that flynn acted independently on russia. mr. trump and his aides have suggested that his concern about flynn's potential legal jeopardy was influenced by the president's admiration for his former national security adviser. but the new details underscore the possibility that the

president may have been worried not just about mr. flynn but also about whether any investigation might reach into the white house and perhaps the oval office. this seems to get at the heart of the question that remains unknown which is why? why did mike flynn lie to the fbi about his russia contacts? any new leads today? >> yeah, no, you're absolutely right. because it's not clear that if mike flynn had said to the fbi or even to the vice president, yeah, i talked to the russian ambassador and told him to just cool his jets and don't worry about these new obama sanctions. we'll get into office and take care of this. it's not clear if he had said that that there would have really been a problem. now there's this theoretical logan act violation, which is never successfully been used to prosecute somebody which is this idea that private citizens can't be negotiating against the interests of the united states.

so if flynn had been truthful, would we have been in this boat? i'm not sure because there were a great many people in the transition who wanted to calm the russians down. because the russians were key to their foreign policy going forward. >> and ken dilanian, let me bring you in on this specific thread and ask you where the investigation into what the president knew and when he knew it stands right now. >> well, just to pick up on what matt was saying, bob bauer has an interesting column today in which he seems to argue that the reason flynn lied is because president trump may have told him to lie. obviously, that's an allegation unproven but he theorizes it's implausible that donald trump didn't know that mike flynn was going and talking to the russians about sanctions given that others on the campaign team knew and were staffing donald trump in mar-a-lago. that's, obviously, an open question for us, but, you know, bob mueller knows the answer to it because mike flynn had to offer a proffer before he made

the sweetheart deal to plead guilty to one felony charge and explain to the special counsel what he would testify to. not in every detail but in the broad strokes. and so to the extent that mike flynn knows anything about the trump campaign and collusion. he was involved to try to get hackers to find hillary clinton's missing e-mails? all of that is something robert mueller knows the details on and the only question is filling in the blanks, continuing to investigate. mike flynn knows whether jared kushner told the truth. he knows a lot and now as somebody else said, he gets up every day wondering how to please robert mueller and that cannot be a good thing for this white house. >> two more men who may wake up every day wondering how to please robert mueller are the white house counsel don mcgahn and the president's son-in-law jared kushner. let me read this from "the washington post" and we'll talk about it. the post writing, inside the secretive nerve center of the mueller investigation. the stelts morning arrival thursday, last thursday, white house counsel don mcgahn became

the latest in a string of high-level witnesses to enter the secretive nerve center of special counsel robert s. mueller's investigation into russian interference in the 2016 election. 20 hours later, mueller and his team emerged into public view to rattle washington with a dramatic announcement that former national security adviser michael flynn would plead guilty to lying to the fbi. mb g mcgann was scheduled to return friday but they postponed it to allow mcgann to help the white house manage the response to flynn's plea. as ken and matt have suggested, bob mueller knows exactly what don mcgahn told donald trump unless, i guess it's always possible he's exerted some sort of privilege suggesting his conversation is with the president, his client would be privileged. but it is likely that with mueller getting closer and closer to the president himself, we will find out in pretty short order what -- if the president's

tweet over the weekend saying that he was aware that mike flynn had lied to the fbi was something that don mcgahn had told him or not. how worried are all of these senior aides who were sort of in the vortex of this house of mirrors if you will, about whether or not they can simply keep their stories straight from one another's. >> officially, of course, the line here at the white house is that they're not worried. there's nothing to be worried about. the point that you make about don mcgahn raises two other issues. one, you have a number of the president's top advisers going in to talk to robert mueller. and we've been told that's going to happen in the coming weeks. number two, the fact that he had friday to come back and deal with the bombshell that flynn had plead guilty to lying to the fbi. i spoke to one source who is close to the president who called that development a very, very, very bad development. essentially acknowledging what the white house, what the

president's legal team won't say officially which is that, look, this is getting much closer to the west wing, to the president. now again, and i want to stress this point, the president's legal team says, look, michael flynn can't say anything damaging to the president because he doesn't know anything damaging. but there are concerned that even if you believe that line of thought, nicolle, there are concerns about what michael flynn might say to robert mueller. so i think the point can't be underscored enough. this is getting closer and closer to the president and that is making life very complicated for all of the top advisers here at the white house. >> peter baker, let me play you something. i've heard one of the concerns that the -- not just this current legal team but the legal teams past that have tried to serve this president in this investigation have had is that they're not always sure that they're getting the full story from the president and they're not always sure they're getting it first. this was the president with

lester holt. >> because my white house counsel don mcgahn came back to me and did not sound like an emergency of any -- didn't make it sound like he was, you know, and she actually didn't make it sound that way either in the hearings the other day like it had to be done immediately. this man has served for many years. he's a general. he's -- in my opinion, a very good person. i believe that it would be very unfair to hear from somebody who we don't even know and immediately run out and fire a general. >> what's so remarkable about that is, we now are going to have a conversation -- bob mueller is certainly investigating what the white house did after sally yates came to don mcgahn, white house counsel and said, hey, mike flynn is a potential target for blackmail from the russians. if you believe the president's twitter feed, he also learned at some point that mike flynn had lied to the fbi, even though

sally yates testified to congress that that's not exactly what she said to don mcgahn. but they have in the president someone who conflates interactions. someone who projects onto interactions certain things. i can't imagine that anyone in this white house is going to testify under oath or to bob mueller's investigators that there was nothing to worry about. they've been warned that flynn was a potential target for blackmail by russians. i imagine the things they did from that moment until the day he was fired are very much under close, close scrutiny. >> you are exactly right. a couple weeks and it was only after it was publicized in "the washington post" that they did fire general flynn at that point which, of course, always raised the question of why alarm bells didn't go off and why they didn't take it more seriously in a quicker fashion. it was the very first days of the administration. and they were busy and consumed by lots of different things. a lot of fires going.

some of which they had set themselves. and, you know, clearly they had not focused on this the way they would, you know, in hindsight the way you'd say they probably should have. mike flynn was there for 24 days in office. he's presumably going to have something because the special prosecutor isn't going to get him off a single charge like this given how much other evidence he seems to have accumulated unless he's getting something of value. the something of value would have to be during the campaign, the transition and during those 24 days. >> matt, i'm going to play chris ruddy but you'll understand why i'm doing this after. let's watch and talk about it on the other side. >> at the end of the day, my view is that robert mueller poses an existential threat to the trump presidency. he's gotten four major, two conviction, two plea agreements, lightning speed. >> that was one of the president's closest friends,

somebody he's known to talk to regularly. he's of news max, news organization. not really someone who would be predisposed to admire anything about bob mueller, but he described him as moving at lightning speed with four major, two convictions, two three agreements. so it's undeniable that bob mueller is working with some urgency to get to the bottom of this. >> yeah, and just look at what the white house is saying in response to these moves by bob mueller. they're saying, look. all these charges show no collusion. and, see, i'm totally exonerated. but that's the corner that this white house has been boxed into. their former national security adviser is under -- pleaded guilty. their former campaign chairman is under indictment. two former aides have been charged. there were not even a year into this administration. if the best argument you can make is, see, we're not in

cohoots with the russians to tip the, leks, it shows how much defense they're having to play here. bob mueller is looming large. the white house very much wants to get through this period at the end of the year where their senior staff are being interviewed. they very much want to be able to turn this around on bob mueller and say you've enjoyed everybody at the white house. you've done what you need to do. tell us we're not the focus. move on to whatever you need to do next. that's what they're hoping for. >> what are the odds of that happening? >> not very good. i think these white house interviews are about the obstruction of justice strand of the investigation which probably would not take as long as the collusion strand which is going to take a lot longer because in order to make that case, he may need the testimony of paul manafort. paul manafort may want to go to trial and that could take a year. it feels like there's a lot left to gathor the question of, did senior members of the trump campaign knowingly collude with the russian effort.

i don't think that's going to wrap up any time soon. >> the tweets will go on and on and on. >> kristen welker, ken dilanian, matt and peter baker, thank you. the law & order president rips the fbi. the assault on the top law enforcement agency and part of a disturbing pattern of seeking to destroy the credibility of anyone or any institution that doesn't bend to his will. and all in for roy moore. donald trump finally leading, but on behalf of a man accused of sexual misconduct by more than nine women, including one who was 14 years old. we'll show you who is following the president's lead just eight days out from election day. stay with us. 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

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for an untraditional white house that serves a convention-busting president, there was something very traditional to be surmised in mike flynn's court documents on friday. when it came to what message to pass on to russian ambassador sergey kislyak about russian sanctions, mike flynn called his deputy katie mcfarland. when it came to what to tell the russians and others about a u.n. resolution about israel, flynn consulted jared kushner. flynn was not a free agent. he had not, to borrow a phrase, gone rogue. "the new york times" reporting, mr. flynn was in close touch with other senior members of the trump transition team both before and after he spoke with the russian ambassador sergey kislyak about american sanctions against russia. joining our panel today, kimberly atkins, chief washington reporter for the boston herald, now an nbc

contributor. michael steele, former chairman of the rnc. jason johnson, msnbc contribute our and amy stoddard, associate editor and columnist for real clear politics. let me start with you, chairman steele. this mike flynn fantasy that he was some rogue actor, some guy who lied but didn't have to does not compute. glen kessler from the post tweeted it's worth keeping in mind that flynn served in the military for 33 years and was trained to follow orders in a chain of command. >> and that's the key thing right there. given his closeness to the president, then candidate trump, there's no way he'd go outside of that bubble on a rogue mission on his own to act on behalf of or in the interest of donald trump without someone senior, if not donald trump himself, signing off on his actions. that is the nature of the man. that is how he's approached these things, and i think it's one of the key things that

mueller and his investigation teed off on in the very first instance. if you go back to the beginning of this, flynn has been a key player because he, of all the people outside of his family, trump's family, was the closest to the man. >> you convinced me in the makeup room where all the magic happens before the show that there may be some questionable storytelling about who authored that now controversial tweet on saturday saying that the president had to fire flynn because he lied to the vice president. and the fbi. you don't think for a minute that dowd wrote it? >> the probability that a lawyer protecting the president of the united states would author, i don't know if you pen or type a tweet, an incriminating tweet to get his boss in trouble. >> like how dumb are we? how dumb do you think we are? >> after consult with my lawyer frinds i've learned lay peel like us use the word plead.

john dowd would not have -- >> i was hacked. it wasn't me. >> that was anthony weiner's first response. someone else found this. like it doesn't -- it just strains any sense of credibility. we know this president. no one tells him what to say when it comes to twitter, otherwise they would have snatched it out of his hands eight months popping clearly this was him. he has a record of saying incriminating things. if this was just about the president incriminating himself and making clear he was engaging in obstruction of justice. mueller is going for something more. if we go by the president's words himself, he pretty much is in trouble. >> he wants it to stick. >> he's dealing in a fact-free zone. kimberly, let me bring you in on the question of the overlap because we have all of the people on the right saying, look, friday was an awesome day

for the president. no russian collusion. well, we don't know that. and the big whopper of a lie that we do know about was about russian collusion. it may have been bungled but it was about that meeting in trump tower. the big whopper of a lie told by the president and the only known unknown is who else was aware of the fact they were telling a lie. and not that it's a crime to lie to the press but this was sort of the ease with which -- and you're talking about all of them -- now john dowd his lawyers is involved in the lie about who sent out the tweet. how many white house aides could be incriminated just in the false statements about russia which could lead mueller to the doorstep of russian collusion. >> there was nothing exculpatory about what happened last week. all we know is there was one time that michael flynn lied, that he admitted to. we don't know all the other times he may have lied. we don't know who else may have

lied. we only know this as a tool used by robert mueller and its investigators to get to the bottom of everything that going on. it's more what we don't know. we have found incidents time after time after time where people in this administration are caught in bald-faced lies. like lying is something that happens with a fair amount of ease in this organization. so again, lying in itself is not necessarily illegal. but if you are covering something up, if you are consistently lying in order to cover something up. and the big question is, why did michael flynn lie about these -- his connections to ambassador kislyak. what was he trying to cover up at that time that was going on in order to -- in the first plaus? >> i worked in the white house. if you have k.t. mcfarland and jared kushner calling the plays on what should be commune kated with sergey kislyak, a meeting has been had. and the only question -- and the only question is, was the president in the room? >> yeah. >> it's pretty much the only

thing at this point. impossible tong think he wasn' aware of it. this is the other thing about flynn and whether it was just this one lie. we thought when papadopoulos got busted, that was bad enough. he had been wearing a wire. but between papadopoulos and now flynn, you can almost triangulate on anybody in this administration. like i know you talked to one of these guys. whenever you tell me, i can run it past either of these people and see if it's true. the noose is really getting tighter on so many different people and you can't keep pretending you weren't at meetings that everyone knows happened. >> as that noose tightens, individuals want to loosen it a little bit to include somebody else's neck. >> people now facing questions but are not really being scrutinized too much by the media are don mcgahn, white house counsel, who was in receipt of information -- here's what we knee know. he received information from sally yates. he was told mike flynn could be a target for blackmail from the

russians. based on the president's tweet is suggests don mcgahn, and the tape i justice showed you from the president's comments to lester holt, it suggests the president believes don mcgahn is the person who shared information with him about mike flynn's other potential legal or criminal liabilities. we don't know the extent of that. another name is rick dearborn. there's an article about how these may have been bungled contacts but contact in coordination with russia was attempted. "the new york times" reporting operative offered trump campaign kremlin connection using nra ties. wow. a conservative operative trumpeting his close ties to the national rifle association and russia told a trump campaign adviser last year that he could arrange a back channel meeting between donald trump and vladimir putin. the russian president, according to an e-mail sent to the trump campaign. that aide is another sitting staffer. the staff has to have a lot of

long lunches with lrawyers on k-street. >> they're running out of lawyers not already booked in this case. this is the thing if you look at the way the president talks about world leaders of any nation all over the globe, with the exception of vladimir putin and russia. if you look at 51, i think the count is now, of official contacts with trump campaign or trump administration with russians. it just doesn't sound like this was an energetic reset attempt with the russians. it sounds like more. the other thing is, if you look at that -- >> what do you mean more? it doesn't sound like a policy shift? it sounds -- >> we don't have evidence of collusion, but -- >> take collusion out of it. bungled coordination. >> way more than an attempt to just have a good relationship with russia starting on january 20 ppt the speculation now and the curiosity about that discussion between sally yates,

then still at doj and don mcgahn, where she relays this about flynn, is that he was actually in more danger than a violation of the logan act which in your first segment you talk about -- people have not been prosecuted under that. as someone who not only worked in the military but at the highest levels of the national security apparatus, flynn would know those conversations with the ambassador would be recorded and he probably could tell the fbi about them without lying. if he was saying, look, we're anti-sanction. it's on the cover of every paper. this isn't news. it's not a secret. the idea of him lying to the fbi, the idea of sally yates saying he could be compromised and the subject of blackmail is probably about something that is larger than a logan act violation. >> you agree with that? >> completely. there would be nothing wrong, they said throughout the campaign, we just want a better campaign with russia. >> donald trump said americans

are killers, too. his putin love knew no limits, michael steele. >> i don't know what the fascination is with putin, but he's got it bad, really bad. and i think it could be this thing that really, in the end, vexes him to the point where he'll be standing in front of the american people going -- he just won't have an explanation and that's why mueller is so important here because mueller is the one who is going to give context and explanation for a lot of this. >> that picture is going to be filled in eventually. we're following breaking news at the supreme court which has just ruled that the trump administration can enforce the travel ban. nbc news justice correspondent pete williams is standing by outside the supreme court. pete? >> this is version three of the so-called travel ban. this was announced in late september. this was the new restrictions on visas from certain countries. for the most part it continued the travel ban except puts an additional restriction on north korea, venezuela and other

countries. and after it began to be enforced, the lower courts in hawaii and maryland said it couldn't be enforced against close family members. grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles. today the supreme court lifted that restriction allowing the government to enforce it completely. no exception for family members. only two justices, ruth bader ginsburg and sonia sotomayor said they would have kept those in place. >> this is a huge victory for the president but he has says this version doesn't go far enough. he likes version 1.0 and 2.0 better. does this give him some legal footing to go back to those more severe bans? >> no, i don't think so. those more severe bans are, to a large extent, a dead letter. but what i do think is the -- remember it was the supreme court that initially upheld the family restriction on theole travel ban. and said you had to have a restriction for close family members. now they're saying you don't.

this may be a sign that this latest version of the travel restriction, this visa ban which the government put in place after carefully checking how every country in the world handles the visa application for people who want to come here. it may be a sign that the supreme court is going to be much easier on the administration when this case gets here. it's a good sign for the administration, i think. >> did it come down simply seeing this as something that was clearly a president's -- any president's authority to do? >> we don't know because all -- it was a very brief order. it simply said the request for a stay on these injunctions is granted, and we'll see how it plays out in the lower courts. when it gets up here, the supreme court said we'll take a second look at it but they didn't give any reason for what they did today. >> pete williams at the supreme court, thank you. kimberly atkins, any surprise? >> i think that is a little surprising. we did see, as you says, in the past, particularly this one

restriction that the grandmother exception that it seemed overly broad and they left thatta -- allowed feem continue to do that. in that sense it's a bit of a surprise. last week the retweets of these purported anti-muslim videos, the first thing i thought of is that's going to make it harder for the administration to say we're not anti-muslim. we're doing this for national security. it seemed to be a big blow to that case. it may still be at the lower court about the fact the supreme court is going in the opposite direction is good news for the white house. >> and some courts have suggested that the president's tweets get to his state of mind but obviously not this supreme court. the fbi defends itself from the law & order president who spent the weekend and today smearing them. you won't want to miss this.

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among the most alarming tweets from the president this weekend, this one. after years of comey with the phony dishonest clinton investigation and more, running the fbi, its reputation is in tatters. we'll bring it back to greatness. that brought about swift condemnation from folks who know the fbi best from sally yates -- the fbi is in tatters? no. the only thing in tatters is the president's respect for the rule of law. the dedicated men and women of the fbi deserve better. this from former ag, eric holder. nope, not letting this go. the fbi's reputation is not in tatters. it's composed of the same dedicated men and women who have always worked there and do a great apolitical job. you'll find integrity and honesty at the fbi and not at 1600 pennsylvania avenue. the president railing against what sounds like every man and woman who serves in the fbi. >> and the idea, irrespective of

those individuals who put their life on the line and serving communities across the country, this is all about how he wants to create a narrative around these institutions of government and culture and society. and have -- reshaped in his image, in his mind thought if you will. people look at them the same way he does. the idea starting with the media. now a significant number of americans think the media are not good for america, anti-americans. and the only way it stops is if people just stop injefgesting t crazy and push back on it and call it what it really is. >> what is it? >> what it is is a president who is unhinged when it comes to these things. he see the world through his perspective centered around one person and one person only. it's about him. not about the leadership at the fbi, not -- >> a former diplomat said if an fbi agent gets hurt, this can be

traced back to donald trump. i heard that from former diplomatic security when he retweeted the anti-muslim videos. i've heard that from a lot of campaign reporters on the road with him when they were screaming and spitting at the press pen. we made a list of all the institutions and independent agencies. it's the fbi, the free press, independent judiciary, diplomats, including his own top diplomat, rex tillerson. i guess he called him a moron. maybe that one stands equal. congress. all the congressional leaders and political opponents like hillary clinton. i want to read something from "the new york times" which wrote in an editorial. he's casting the men and women of the fbi as unreliable if not worse, just as he has previously done with cia agents, federal judges, scientists, congressional budget office analysts and journalists among others. the president wants to undercut just about anybody who is an independent source of information. it's a classic tactic of autocrats who people -- as

people who have spent time in modern russia, china or venezuela can tell you. the attacks on institution that check his power continue. amy, what do we do? >> oh, i don't have that answer for you, but i can tell you this. i think, obviously, in the campaign, his own supporters knew he had authoritarian impulses and voted for him anyway. he won this election by 77,000 votes against a very flawed candidate who i think skirted the law herself. and here we are. but he continues to speak to a third of the country with a very passionate authoritarian style. and the courts, the congress, the constitution be damned if it's the wrong day for any of those. i will say that i can only imagine the republican lawmakers that i have covered all these years and know well, michael, how loudly they would be screaming if barack obama went after the fbi and eric holder

did not stand up for them. it is really quite a day for jeff sessions to be hiding in excellence. number one -- and i'm not sticking up for comey, but this is something to think about. a year ago the guardian reported in november of 2016 that the fbi was completely pro-trump and anti-hillary. and they thought she was a corrupt criminal. if you look back, the reason that comey made all these mistakes and soiled his reputation is because even though you're not supposed to comment on cases he was worried that leaks would come out about him closing that case which is why he gave the july 5th press conference. later he had the october 11th, i think it was, letter. both times he stepped in it because he was so terrified of his own political skin that letter on, leaks would come out from the fbi, people who were anti-hillary. so at that time, obviously, the trump campaign was very pro-fbi. but i think it's a really sad day for jeff sessions and chris ray at the fbi and the doj that they can't stick up for these

men and women? >> where is chris ray, jeff sessions? these men and women carry out missions directed by the director of the fbi who was, i think, confirmed 100 to nothing. and part of the reason we're here is also because of what you just said. the people thought hillary's private e-mail server was the same as donald trump's assault on democracy. it is not. it's just a bad thing. >> and at this point, it's not autocratic impulses. this is goals. we're all hanging by this thread that one day we won't have a saturday night massacre. he's just going to get rid of mueller and the republicans in congress will twiddle their thumbs and say we should have done something about it. two things are problem 80. it's not just attacking these and saying i am the law. i can command everything one way or another. but it's this weird way the president sort of turns all politics into this m.c. esher

painting. you have liberals cheering for the fbi, an organization that's gone after -- and so people don't know who they can support because this is a dangerous president. so all of this, i -- it confuses public discourse, endangers our democracy and makes it problematic to know who our real allies are. >> make something of these, our top diplomats apolitical, putting them on team america and leaving donald trump over here trying to get vladimir putin's abs? >> that may be the case if it wasn't such damage being done. you have, look, donald trump, when he tweets and makes these statements, two audiences in mind. himself and his most ardent supporters. he doesn't care what other people think about them. he doesn't care what the effects of them are. if you have a substantial percentage of the american people who think the fbi is a political organization just out to get him and it's corrupt and part of the swamp, if you have

people when he tweeted those videos. he didn't consider what was that going to do to his muslim ban case or relationship with the uk, one of our most important allies. or american diplomats. he doesn't think about any of that. he is pushing it back, identifying an enemy who was a problem for him and i don't think he cares about the consequences or at very least doesn't think about them. >> he doesn't think. but when we come back, going all in on roy moore. donald trump throws his full support behind the accused sexual molester and the senate majority leader walks back his opposition. and a republican who thinks this is just going to blow over is sadly mistaken. we'll bring you the latest on that alabama race. (avo) when you have type 2 diabetes, you manage your a1c, 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.

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i'm going to let the people of alabama make the call. the elections have been going on a long time, a lot of discussion. they'll make the decision come tuesday. the ethics committee has to think of the issues litigated in the campaign, should that particular candidate win. >> matters? matters. matters? the matters are being a sexual predator who preyed on teenage girls. was that senate majority leader mitch mcconnell on alabama nominee roy moore. >> she should step aside. >> do you believe the

allegations to be true? >> i believe the women, yes. >> then how could you let the people of alabama decide? the president today made it official endorsing roy moore, and it's worth reminding our audience, moore has been accused of sexual misconduct with multiple teenaged girls. michael steele where are we? what is happening. i'll read your tweet. it's depressing me. your tweet made me feel better. your refusal to acknowledge you just endorsed a pedophile for the vote is a real -- >> yes. i wish republicans would find something of a backbone or any other anatomy part to allow them to say the real thing. a dear price to pay for the party next year. women and men around the country are looking at this going i cannot believe that you value the vote of a pedophile over

leading this country, over protecting women, who finally are finding their voice to come out and speak to these types of behaviors and the aggression against them, and this political party, which has stood on the moral high ground for lo these 30-plus years, sanctimoniously telling people how to live their lives, should do and shouldn't do, sank moectimoniously judgin people because are where they live, now can sit back and say, we want people to decide what they want to do. really? this is it? >> we used to be part of that party, and how did it come to this? i agree with you. all of those trespasses led to this being in women's uteruses, telling people who to marry and who to love what to do in the bedrooms put us on this corrupt panel. the least conservatives things we did as a party. conservatism means out of my life. what i thought it meant when i

as young and impressionable. how did we get here. because over a period of time we've ignored the base. when they were saying, you promised a., b. and the c., we didn't do it. leadership didn't do it. that was a cauldron boiling and then the leadership decided to get down with the money, get down with the deals, with different relationships that took us on a pathway that here we are now. there is no anchor. there's no more anchor to the party that allows it to look at what the president is saying and has done in this regard and say, wait a minute. that's not who we are. we saw that when the president came down that escalator, stood before the american people and called out the mexican-american community talking about rapist and whatnot. we had a document. oh, no. we'll have a different relationship with latin-americans and all americans of hispanic origin. oh, no. toss it out of the window because that bright, shining object represented by trump was more alluring and more promising

than actually going out and committing yourself to the american people. >> there's another aspect to this, too. donald trump and roy moore wouldn't are doubling down on this if they didn't think they could win. >> right. >> so that's the problem. you have a lot of people -- i stalk to people who say, you don't like mcconnell, and we don't like that mitch mcconnell is telling the people of alabama what to do. that makes me support roy moore even more. these things are probably fake. it's fake news. it there wasn't a contingent of the elech tlctorate that would up this kind of things -- >> seems like the ultimate day of reckoning for the smear that was fake news. if donald trump smears the media long enough, the media told their neighbor, roy moore molested that are child when they were 14, they won't believe them. >> more basic. look at voters down in alabama, a lot of people in this country, you have to understand from an electoral standpoint a lot of

conservative republicans already think the democratic party is inherently immoral, the party of sharia law and black lives matter and gay marriage. there are people who believe two adult men having a consensual relationship is more offensive than what roy moore was accused of. to those people voting for him is still a better decision. >> i make that case for tribalism. the ones that do believe the allegations still would never vote for a democrat. choosing that. >> exactexactly. >> i argue what they did for bill clinton and ted kennedy, no one trying to stop the fact tribalism prevail, neither party. >> sneak in one more break and belong be right back. to reach your business goals it takes more than buzz words. it takes tools. tools to help you work smarter on "your business" we'll focus on techniques to attract customers and drive growth. getting you and your business to the next level.

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>> and every republican on clin wi capitol hill will be running for a closet. the people of alabama will have sent him there and that is that. moore himself had the nerve to say i think i could help with the judiciary committee as a senator because i understand the constitution, understand what jumps do and when they put themselves above the constitution. you think? that's exactly what you did, not once but twice. >> we're out of time and ewe al know this is a disgrace. that does it for "deadline." i'm nicolle wallace, right now it's steve in for chuck todd. the year-end scramble. account house and senate get it together in time to avoid a shutdown? and moore sup