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tv   The Rachel Maddow Show  MSNBC  January 12, 2018 9:00pm-10:00pm PST

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okay. so where do you start? where do we start? i will start by telling you right off the bat that senator harris is our guest tonight. she's going to be here live. senator harris does not do a lot of interviews. there, of course, is fever pitched speculation she will be a serious contender for the democratic presidential nomination in 2020. she's in the middle of the immigration fight that led to the latest he said what nightmare involving this president. senator kamala harris is live tonight in a couple minutes. you'll definitely want to see that. today at the white house they tried to announce something about the iran nuclear deal. they were trying to announce that president trump will continue to certify the iran nuclear deal for now but maybe not any more after this. and i say they were trying to
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announce that because they failed at it. they failed at actually making the announcement. they set up a call for reporters to call in to get this news from the white house on this very serious subject and we actually got a transcript of what happened when reporters called in for this call set up by the white house. here is how it started. this is where the transcript starts. man speaking mandarin chinese. i am going upstairs to the chicken shop. they have nothing down stairs. everything has been sold out. that's in mandarin. we got it translated. next person says, cough. next person says, how are you? next person, i'm on a phone conference. i can show you the outlet. a woman's voice says hello. then a woman comes on also speaking chinese and says yes, of course. then she told me so man speaking chinese at the start, woman speaking chinese a few lines in, that a man says we can get in
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trouble doing that sometimes. then a different man says do you have a note pad? just one note pad. woman says it's not up yet? man says i hear a lot of noise. woman yells, everyone shut up. woman says this is is washington d.c. different woman says i hope not. yeah, that's what we think. he told me 13 months but this different woman says hello, hello. different woman says is there an operator. woman with british accent says hello? is there anyone? we can't hear anything. different woman says i can't hear anything either, yes, yes, we do not recall the president saying these comments specifically. i think i know who she's quoting there. then another woman yelling has the call started? then a man says martha, can you get me another hard line? i need another land line. i can't hear anything. a woman says should we hang up. man says martha when i try to deal the number, it's not ringing.
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this white house can't even run an f-ing conference call right. he didn't say, f-ing. they don't know how to mute people's lines. group laughter. man, i'm going to mute myself. man yelling, hello, is anybody listening? man, dot, dot, dot, can't even conduct a bleeping phone call. he didn't say bleeping. then background music starts. rick's never going to give you upstarts playing softly in the background. then the woman with an authoritative voice comes on the line and says hi, this is the at&t operator. woman with british accent, obviously excited to hear this says hello, we can't hear anything. different woman says i don't know, it's very noisy and a lot of people are speaking and man says yes, kim jong-un calling for donald trump. woman, hello? man, how long can this continue like this? different man, hello, this is the state department. can you add this line as a host. woman, how do we do that? press one. do we press one? man, does anybody know when this conference call is starting?
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woman, it already has started. more voices, comma, laughter. woman, is there any authorizer on the line? that was the trump white house today attempting to announce the white house policy with iran. they called reporters and asked them to join them on this call. now, reporters were eventually able to figure out what the white house was trying to announce but with martha getting a note pad and the people organizing the call screaming to reporters shut up, shut up, shut up they just couldn't quite get this out the way they wanted to. it's not like other people set up a conference call to talk about this and the white house was hoping -- this was the white house organized event. but imagine you were secretary of state rex tillerson today. today the whole country is
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coping in someway with the fact that we have a president like this now. all right. but if you're that president's secretary of state after the president said what he said yesterday about haiti and african countries, if you are secretary of state and that's your job, you have a special cleanup to do. today was the day that the the american ambassador were summoned after that meeting when he told lawmakers he wanted more immigrants to america from norway and not from that bleep hole countries like africa and haiti. that happened yesterday. rex tillerson today wakes up, heads into work knowing that
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american ambassadors all over the world that report to him are being summoned to explain or maybe apologize for the behavior of the president of the united states as reported in newspapers yesterday. you're rex tillerson, you're thinking about the african union. we have a lot to do with the african union with military stuff, the african union issued a formal protest. they are calling for an apology from the government of the united states for what president said. rex tillerson gets up this morning, i don't know what his morning is. has breakfast, maybe does rex tillerson yoga, i don't know. he knows about the nightmare he's about to have today because of what the president let flow from his mouth yesterday. and then presumably, you know, after he does his little morning routine thinking about what his day will be like, he gets in his rex tillerson secretary of state motorcade and i'm guessing he turns to the chief of staff or whoever his body man is, turns
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to get his daily schedule from his staffer in the motorcade to greet him. what's on the books today, igor? what are we doing? turns out this is what is on his schedule. first thing in the morning, secretary of state rex tillerson delivers remarks at state department before the entire staff. topic of remarks, quote, the value of respect. they did not put that on his schedule this morning because the president of the united states called every country a swear word in front of u.s. senators, no, this was on the schedule for first thing this morning. today was the day he had to give the value of respect speech. that must have been great for everybody. do you remember during the campaign when candidate trump put out that statement from his doctor that was supposed to attest to mr. trump's health? it was a hilarious statement. mr. trump had a recent complete
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medical examination that showed only positive results, usually positive results on a medical exam are a bad thing, right? what are they testing you for? only positive results. quote, his physical strength and stamina are extraordinary. if elected, he will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency. that is what trump put out during the campaign. today president trump had a physical with the actual white house physician, not his personal physician back home. we thought we might hear from the white house physician himself, that happened in the past with physicians doing physicals for the president. they often made short summery statements about the president's health immediately after the president's physical. we did not get that today. instead, we got a statement from the white house which purported to be from the white house physician. just playing this straight.
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the white house says this is what white house physician ronnie jackson said about the president's physical today. quote, the president's physical exam today at walter reid medical center went exceptionally well. the president is in excellent health and i look forward to briefing some of the details on tuesday. and then right at the end of that statement from the white house they put his name on it. dr. ronnie jackson. you know what? i'm going to go out on a limb here and raise the possibility this statement was not written by the white house physician, dr. ronnie jackson and i won't say that because of how exceptionally well the president's physical went or how excellent his health is. i'm not basing my skepticism on the trumpness of the statement itself. i'm setting that aside. the reason i think this might not have actually been written by dr. ronnie jackson is because that is not how you spell ronnie
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jackson. either the white house physician today suddenly lost the ability to correctly spell his own name in which case he shouldn't be anybody's doctor today, let alone the president's or alternatively, the white house put out this statement today as if it was from him but actually it's their statement, they tried to stick his name on but they couldn't be bothered to look him up on google or check his card before they pull this off. maybe the stress is getting to them. nbc news reports tonight after the president appeared to be confused yesterday morning about his own surveillance policy, after he tweeted a statement against his own policy while watching "fox and friends" the second tweet that was sent nearly two hours later that tried to clean up the mess, nbc reports tonight that that second tweet had to be written for the president by his chief of staff, john kelly. it's still not clear if the
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president even now understands his own policy well enough to know that he was tweeting against it when he woke up yesterday morning. the cleanup second tweet reportedly written on the president's account by his chief of staff was the one that ended with the words get smart. now we all have to wonder who was the intended audience for that scolding ending to the statement the president's chief of staff had to write for him. get smart. and it's not like there isn't serious stuff going on for the white house to be handling in between the brakes they are stepping on. when russian military intelligence hacked into the servers of the democratic party during the 2016 election, there was a funny name the hackers were assigned by the security people that figured out it was them. remember they were called fancy bear. fancy bear is a weird name but
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hacking culture is weird that's what security firms call hackers associated with russian military intelligence and that hack done by fancy bear was a big part how russia tried to tilt the election for trump by stealing e-mails and documents and releasing them online. since the election, the associated press got its hands on a list of people and inls constitutions who fancy bear targeted around the world with online traps and tricks to steal the e-mails and clinton e-mails. a.p. reported on how fancy bear has gone after journalist and people in the national security counsel and retired generals. do you remember when the new president of france was elected and right before, right before his election, a huge bunch of e-mails stolen from his campaign were dumped online by wikileaks. remember that? apparently that was fancy bear two and a firm called trend micro who figured out that macron hack was fancy bear, they figured out that it was them and how they did it.
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that security firm now says that same hacking group, fancy bear, russian military intelligence set up the same system they used to get macron's e-mails with the same trick except here it is targeting the e-mail system of the united states senate. apparently, what it is is dummy web pages that look like the u.s. senate's internal e-mail system. if this was, if you were russian military intelligence who had done this the first time and it worked great, why wouldn't you do it a second time? the elections in america aren't another presidential election. it's the legislature. especially if the u.s. government has no interest in stopping the russians. right? even if our government did somehow grow the will to try to want to stop the russians who
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believes this white house is capable of leading to get the intelligence to stop the ongoing attacks? think they would be good at it? associated press says the fancy bear russia military attacks on the e-mail system were observed in june and also in september. it appears what they are doing is collecting information, looking for information they are collecting now that they intend to leak later like they did to emanuel macon. right before his election. if you think that proven on going international intelligence threat might be top of mind for the white house tonight, i can prove you wrong about that. the wall street journal reported this afternoon that the president's personal lawyer paid $130,000 to an adult film star
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to prevent her from talking about an alleged affair with the president that took place the year after he married his wife melania. the wall street journal had previously reported on another woman who had been poised three months before the election to go public with her story about an alleged affair with the president. that woman who was a playboy model was paid by "the national enquirer" and the publication after they paid her didn't publish it. the journal is reporting today this other woman was poised to tell her story right before the election and she was also paid not to tell her story but according to the wall street journal, who she was paid by was the president's personal lawyer. now, the president's lawyer michael cohen denies this story and produce as letter from the woman in question denying the alleged affair. but then, cnn came out and reported that the woman in question, the woman who is the subject of the wall street journal piece according to cnn says she was in touch.
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with "good morning america." she was prepared to discuss something about her relationship with donald trump before suddenly she cut it off. that was cnn and the daily beast tonight reported that they, too, were negotiating with this same woman immediately before the election to do an interview with her concerning her alleged affair with trump. when she suddenly backed out five days before the election. so i don't know what keeps people in the white house up these days. the president casually threatening nuclear war with nuclear armed north korea. the president needing to have other people correct his statements because he doesn't seem to understand them. the president's health. the president's swerving into racist tirades in front of a room full of senators, some of whom will be willing to tell other people what the president said. this president is being served by a white house that can't do things like spell norway or set up phone calls with reporters or properly impersonate the white house physician.
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well, tonight they are also dealing with multiple pay offs that may have been used to silence the women with which the president is alleged to have affairs. does that keep them up more than usual? is this still a normal day at the office? where do we start? california senator kamala harris is here next. ♪ never going to give you up ♪
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there is a great district attorney named kamala harris. she's brilliant.
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she's smart. she doesn't look like anything you saw on law and order. she's got a big future. people call her the female barack obama. >> the late great journalist gwen eiffel telling david letterman if he's looking for the next big thing in the democratic party, he should look at this san francisco district attorney kamala harris. she became california's attorney general and in 2016 on the same night donald trump won the presidency, kamala harris became only the second black woman ever elected to the united states senate and honestly, the way she won, she made it look easy. today there is a problem in the united states senate. after the president chose an oval office meeting attended by a bunch of senators yesterday as the occasion she was going to describe immigrants from africa and haiti as coming from bleep hole countries.
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senators dick durbin and lindsey graham were in the meeting and standing by the president did use those words, did use that language but senators tom cotton and david purdue was at the meeting and can't quite remember maybe, maybe, maybe not who can say even though both of these senators, purdue and cotton were in the room. both of them put out a joint statement saying they do not recall the president saying these comments specifically. tom cotton and david purdue's selective hearing loss and republican senators are finding it hard to swallow. one said the best thing the president can do is admit it and apologize for it and move on. you have a certain way to conduct yourself, you have children watching, nations watching. a stronger statement from johnny isaacson who said that's not something the leader should make and should not be ashamed of
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himself. owes the people of haiti and all of man kind an apology. so there are republicans in the united states senate who are going to try to act like maybe this didn't happen but beyond them there is a bit of a reckoning what the president said and how he should deal with it and what it means for the country and legislation that he was discussing when the president said these words. well, no state is home to more d.r.e.a.m.e.r.s. than the state of california. kamala harris joining us now. thank you so much for being here. i appreciate your time. >> i appreciate you, rachel, thank you. >> let me ask you for top line reactions when you heard the
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accounts of what the president said in that room. >> you know, listen, the words of a president are very powerful words and unfortunately, this president has used his words to demean and belittle instead of uplifting people. and it is deeply troubling. it is unfortunate and it is irresponsible, simply irresponsible. >> the response from senators who were in the room and i know there is rules and traditions about senators and the way you talk about one another and assess one another's character so don't say anything you're not comfortable but i'm struck by the fact two of the senators in the room, one democrat and one republican says these reports are accurate.
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there are two republican senators who were in the room, senator cotton and senator purdue who say they don't recall. does that stand? is that -- what is your reaction to that? >> i know dick durbin. i worked with him over the course of the last year on this issue in terms of immigration and in particular, these d.r.e.a.m.e.r.s. that he worked on for years and years. i believe when he shared with us the president's words and i don't doubt his word and the other folks will have to reconcile their memory when they look in the mirror and when they talk to themselves or their god. yeah. >> in terms of the context of these remarks by the president, obviously, they were talking about immigration policy and dreamers and status and they were there together because they have a bipartisan idea that might offer a doable way out of the stand off happening with the fate of these hundreds of thousands of young people in the balance. where do you think we're going
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in terms of immigration policy. what are you saying about what will happen. >> california has more d.r.e.a.m.e.r.s. than any other state in the country. and in particular, the daca kids covered by the president's executive action has been coming to my office on a daily basis. they are terrified, rachel. they are terrified. i meet them. i'm a public face of this issue and they come up to me in all places where i am and they will tell me they are daca and almost to a one they then just start crying because they are terrified that at any moment they are going to be separated from their families and they will be removed from the only home they have ever known. and what's most insidious, we made these kids a promise, a country. the united states of america promised these kids if they play by the rules and give us information who they are and the circumstances of their arrival,
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are they living a productive life, have they committed crimes and if they cleared a vet, we gave them to daca status and told them we will not share that information with i.c.e. we will not deport them and now we're at a moment where this administration arbitrarily on september 5th decided to vote that promise and then came up with another arbitrary date, march 5th by which we're going to end the protection of these almost 800,000 young people who buy the way, are in our colleges, graduate schools, serving in our military, working in fortune 100 companies and so my perspective on this is that we need to pass a clean dream act. i applaud lindsey graham. along with dick durbin. there is a bipartisan effort. there is a bipartisan expression of concern for protecting these kids. let's get it done and stop
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playing politics with the lives of these young people. it's a tragedy and it is a bad statement when we, as leaders, as supposed leaders are in a situation where people question whether we will keep our word. >> seeing senator lindsey graham work with dick durban on this and seeing republican senators. i was struck by the statement talking about how repulsed he was and the president needs to apologize to all man kind. i wonder if you think there might be shifting territory. there might be enough space for republicans to find compromise ground with democrats on this. democrats are unified wanting to protect the dreamers. mostly republicans have been on the other side. do you think there is any shifting ground given this controversy over the president's remarks that explain the motivation? >> i think there is common
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ground and there are many republicans that i've talked with who do have i think a very honest desire to protect these young people and to figure out a way to do that. so i do feel a sense of optimism. but i will also say that, you know, on this eve of mlk weekend where we honor the life and legacy of dr. martin luther king, it's an interesting coincidence of timing, frankly, that the president of the united states would speak the words, the hateful words he spoke at a time that we are honoring a man that lived and died with the spirit of saying we are one people and human rights and humanity should be the priority for all of us. it's an interesting moment in time and i do applaud those
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republicans sup as johnny isaacson standing up to talk about who we are in terms of our better shelves. i believe we're better than this as a country. >> senator harris, if you don't mind sticking with us for a quick break. there is an elephant in the room i'd like to talk to you about. >> oh, okay. now you can join angie's list for free.
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find a great plumber at angie's list. sfx: tsfx: feet shufflingc life can change in an instant. be covered when it does... ...with a health plan through covered california. we offer free expert help choosing the best plan for you. and all of our plans include free preventive care. financial help is available, so check for yourself to see what savings you qualify for. open enrollment ends january 31st, so don't miss out. because you never know when life... ...will change. get covered today. joining us once again is kamala harris. democratic senator, kamala harris. thank you for being here.
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you've been given a seat on the judiciary committee. which is a big deal. there is a lot of controversy how that committee is doing with investigating the russia scandal. diane feinstein releasing a transcript of a witness, the committee, the committee chairman going ahead without the committee making his own criminal referral to the justice department associated with this scandal. watching the work of that committee, which has this incredibly important remit, it feels like the wheels are coming off. as an observer, that's how it seems to me. now that you are joining this committee, can you tell us whether you think they are doing a good job and how you plan to approach it. >> rachel, i'm also on the senate intelligence committee and we're conducting an investigation of russia's interference with the election of the president of the united states. i speak about that. i'm one week on the judiciary committee. you mentioned senator feinstein.
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i applaud her courage as you probably know, she took a lot of heat for what she did but she's a tough, strong public servant who made, i think, the right decision, which is to bring transparency to a process that otherwise has been opaque and to that extent, her work as ranking member i think was good work and the bottom line is we need to go where the facts take us and get to the end of this and make sure that mueller, that bob mueller stays in place and that his authority is not interfered with and not impaired in any way, shape or form. bob mueller is doing i think an outstanding job of being a professional and pursuing the facts and i know they will lead him to wherever they should and so that's how i feel about it overall. you know, let's also remember, rachel, it's important to
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bifurcate the issue, and determine what happens in past and particularly around the election of 2016. and find out what is going on currently and look at the evidence what will happen in the future and by that i mean also understanding we're not out of the clear in terms of 2018 election cycle. i don't believe we are. russia and probably other adversarial countries taking russia's queue are going to do again what they have already done. so we have to be vigilant to figure out what happened to prevent this going forward and in particular around the 2018 election cycle. >> you mentioned protecting robert mueller and making sure he's allowed to do his work. i wonder if there are bipartisan conversations among senators about having a go bag, being ready to go, having a plan in case the president makes some sort of dramatic action to try to end the mueller investigation through any means he might try to do that. are those conversations happening in terms of how you
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will respond and are they happening, are they bipartisan? >> i've been engaged in bipartisan conversations of mutual agreement about the integrity of bob mueller and his investigation and, you know, i can't speculate and most of us don't want to speculate about the possibility of anyone firing bob mueller but if that happens, i think there will be severe consequence. certainly, i will be calling for severe consequence. >> i said i only have two questions for you. i lied. >> oh, okay. >> there is another one. i'm sorry. a lot of people are talking about you running for president in 2020 and i bet that's annoying for you to be asked about it constantly. >> yes. >> so sorry. if you are going to think about it, when is the right time to think about it in terms of whether that's a good idea. >> i'm being totally honest and
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direct with you, rachel. right now i'm completely focused on what is in front of me. become to the beginning of our conversation, daca. we have every day 122 of these kids losing their status. since the decision was made and announcement on september 5th, of last year, over 15,000 of these kids have lost their status, which means they are afraid at any moment someone is going to take them. they can't work because they lost their authority to work when they lose their status and we have to pay attention to this. we have a deadline of january 19th, which is just days prom now and as far as i'm concerned, everybody should be focused on that because a day in the life of these kids is a really long time. and focussing on what's out there instead of what's an urgent matter in front of us today, i think is, i'll speak for myself, it would be a
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fool's errant. >> that was a great answer. >> the reason i complimented her on that answer is everybody in politics who is in a position, lucky enough and fortunate enough to be in a position where they get asked about 2020, there is a skill to answering that question without talking about 2020, without talking about the presidential election and bringing it back to talk about something you're trying to get done now is the right way to do that. whatever it is you're working on as a politician in any part of our system, if you know you're going to ask that question, turning it around to what you're working on now, that's -- you should all do that all you guys. i'm just saying. i'll be right back. stay with us.
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try alka seltzer ultra strength heartburn relief chews. with more acid-fighting power than tums chewy bites. mmmmm...amazing. i have heartburn. ultra strength from alka seltzer. enjoy the relief. 2016 elections are held on a tuesday. on friday before the 1016 elections, four days before election, wall street journal published this story. headline, national enquiry shielded donald trump from playboy model's affair. karen alleged she engaged in a month's long affair starting in 2006, which would have been a year after he married his wife melania. the national enquirer ran by trump's good friend arranged for that woman to not tell her story
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by buying exclusive rights to the story so he could kill it. that's the thing, paying for stories explicitly to not publish them, buying a person's silence that way. that is known in the tabloid world as catch and kill, and that's reportedly what the "enquirer" did. they paid her $150,000 so she couldn't tell anyone else and chose not to publish the story so it would never come to light. the details did get out. in the pages of the wall street journal. the trump campaign and "national enquirer" did deny it. it came out four days before election in the wake of the "access hollywood" tape that led to women coming out and accusing candidate trump of sexual misconduct of a non-consensual nature. that "wall street journal" story did have one other maybe important detail. the journal reported that there was another woman, a woman named stephanie clifford, an adult
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film star that went by stormy daniels. around the same time as that playboy play mate, ms. daniels had been involved in discussions with abc to disclose her own prior sexual relationship with donald trump before she unexpectedly cut off her contact with abc. she briefly but considered david vitter in 2010. those were good times. the allegation she once had a sexual encounter with donald trump, other than the brief mention by the wall street journal right before the election, we never really heard anything more about it until today. today trump lawyer arranged $130,000 payment for adult film star's silence. this time, according to the wall street journal, it was not the national enquirer, it was the president's personal lawyer michael cohen who bought her silence in
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october 2016, one month before the election that precluded her prom discussing the alleged sexual encounter with mr. trump. the source is, people familiar with the matter. now since this was published in "the wall street journal" today, trump's lawyer and stormy daniels denied that the sexual encounter took place. in a statement mr. cohen says these rumors circulate time and again since 2011. president trump denies any such occurrence as has ms. daniels. he did not address any alleged payment. he shared a letter that he says is signed by stormy daniels in which she purportedly denies that anything took place and denies that she was paid hush money by donald trump. she doesn't say if she was paid hush money by michael cohen. if that wasn't enough, today
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before we got on the air, "the daily beast" says it, too, was chasing the story during the campaign negotiating with her to go on the record with them. they say they have three sources confirming that a sexual relationship between mr. trump and stormy daniels did take place. "wall street journal" reporter that broke this story today joins us next. out of this life. there are patients out there that don't have a lot of time. finally, it was like the sun rose again and i was going to start fighting back now. when those patients come to me and say, "you saved my life...." my life was saved by a two week old targeted therapy drug. that's what really drives me to- to save lives. coaching means making tough choices. jim! you're in! but when you have high blood pressure and need cold medicine that works fast, the choice is simple. coricidin hbp is the #1 brand that gives powerful cold symptom relief
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so today "the wall street journal" broke this story. trump lawyer arranged $130,000 payment for adult film star's
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silence and this is an important story and this is about the serving president of the united states and about an alleged hush money payment that was paid allegedly a month before he was elected president. this is an important story. i have to tell you full disclosure we've known each other a long time. i feel like i need to be honest with you. this story makes me want to leave my body. having said that, joining us now is michael rothfeld the author of that story. i don't mean it as a personal slight to you. >> none taken. >> i feel like i have a gigantic case of the ughs thinking about it. this is the second story that the journal reported related to a similar matter. is this a pattern of behavior you feel like you've discovered and been able to report out. >> definitely something going on towards the end of the campaign when there were a lot of women coming out and making allegations against donald trump, about inappropriate conduct and assault, and so they were obviously in panic mode and nervous and these other women
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were going to come out and tell their stories of having an affair with him and so there were various payments made to at least try to tamp down on some of the damage. >> now, since your story was posted today, other news organizations have themselves verified at least the media side of this, that this woman in question negotiating with at least two news outlets to tell her story and in both instances it seems like despite the fact that the negotiations went on for some time they cut off very quickly before the election. that's part of this that she was ready to tell the story. the other part of it obviously making it into the headline is that she was paid not to do it. were you able to trace the money? were you able to trace the payments? you don't have just a description but documentation of the money? >> i can't really talk about the sourcing. we are aware that mr. cohen
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arranged for the payment for the bank account of mr. keith davidson stormy daniel's lawyer at citi national bank in los angeles and, you know, we have that from various sources. we have a sense of how that occurred but at this point we have reported just that that payment was made to that bank. >> can you talk at all about whether or not that payment was drawn on trump organization funds or whether or not mr. trump is -- whether there's any indication that he was aware of these negotiations, these payments? >> we don't know where -- whether the source of the funds was michael cohen himself, mr. trump's lawyer, who arranged this deal. we have no -- we just don't have any evidence of whether mr. trump knew about it but he's close to michael cohn and worked for him as his primary adviser in difficult circumstances for a decade at the trump organization. >> and you talk about that in your piece. you describe a 2017 interview,
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year ago, in which he described himself as the fix-it guy. what does that mean? >> well, he is the guy who handles threats to donald trump. if there's anybody out there that's causing a problem or is speaking negatively about mr. trump they might get a call from michael cohen. he's called a pit bull, anthony scaramucci, said -- told us for that story that he's the guy you call in the middle of the night at 3:00 a.m. with a problem so this is the kind of thing that michael cohen did for donald trump at the trump organization. >> last piece of due diligence and reporting this out, obviously, the picture accompanying the story shows that ms. daniels and mr. trump have been in the same place at least once. were you able to document any other instances in which they seem to be in the same place? >> we don't know of instances in the same place and spoken to at
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least three people, three people who contemporaneously spoke to stormy daniels about her account of an encounter, sexual encounter with donald trump. around that time. >> okay. this is -- this is our lives now. michael rothfeld of "wall street journal," one of the reporters who broke the story today, thank you for helping us understand it today. >> thanks. >> we'll be right back. building a website in under an hour is easy with gocentral...
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friday has been a big day for the special prosecution's russia investigation and learned that robert mueller issuing a first indictment in the case.
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friday december 1st news broke that security adviser mike flynn pled guilty to making false statements to the fbi. and now friday again. tonight bloomberg news reporting that robert mueller and the team are talking to the president's lawyers next week to hash out the terms of president trump's interview with the special counsel. bloomberg reports tonight that the chat could happen between mueller's team and trump's lawyers. the chat could happen by phone as early as tuesday. but bloomberg is reporting that they expect it to take several weeks and a series of additional phone calls before both sides come to agreement for terms of the president's appearance. this all comes on the heels of the president on wednesday telling reporters it was unlikely he would have an interview with mueller. today we also learned that the special counsel requested his first trial date. mueller's team asking for may 14th first day of the trial of paul manafort and his deputy rick gates. prosecutors say they have
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completed a substantial portion of discovery in the case turning up nearly 600,000 documents of e-mails and financial documents. that's weird because a month ago the mueller team produced 400,000 documents. they have increased the amount of documents they're producing to the court by a 50%? in the space of four weeks? which included christmas and new year's. prosecutors also reported a way higher number of electronic devices in their possession than a month ago. a month ago when they made the declaration to the court it was 36. now they're saying they have 87 devices. that they're making available to the court and to the defense for moving ahead at trial. you have to wonder what exactly did they stumble upon since this time last month. oh, we just found 50 more laptops by the way. that does it for us tonight. we'll see you monday. now it's time for "the last word" with ali velshi.
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>> i'm reviewed, a whole new me the last 14 hours. thanks to the president i have now got a new thing to call myself. i was born in kenya. >> not one that i have used to describe myself. you believely say kenyan and new ways to describe ourselves. you have a fantastic weekend. great do see you. >> thank you very much. appreciate it. i'm ali velshi in for lawrence o'donnell. less than 24 hours after asking why are we having the people from shithole countries come here, president trump without any sense of irony said this. >> today we celebrate dr. king for standing up for the self evident truth americans hold so dear that no matter what the color of our skin or the place of our birth we are all created equal by god. >> apologize to you for having said that word and having to say