>> hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. do you hear that? it's the sound of the drum beat of indictments and guilty pleas in the mueller investigation which is clearly picking up its pace. the latest guilty plea in the special counsel investigation, senior trump campaign official rick gates who once served as donald trump's deputy campaign manager and remained in the trump orbit for many months longer than paul manafort did. he pleaded guilty today to lying to federal investigators and participating in a financial conspiracy with former trump campaign manager paul manafort. manafort's response today's? a backhanded swipe at his alleged partner in crime writing, quote, notwithstanding that rick gates pled today, i continue to maintain my innocence. i had hoped and expected my business colleague would have had the strength to continue the battle to prove our innocence. for reasons yet to surface, he

chose to do otherwise. this does not alter my commitment to defend myself against the untrue piled up charges contained in the indictments against me. gates becomes the third former trump campaign official to join what one former prosecutor and trump ally describes as team america. gates along with former national security advisor mike flynn and former trump campaign advisor george papadopoulos are all now cooperating with the investigation and providing special counsel bob mueller with any and all information, including testimony, documents, electronic files, or anything else it requests in return for leniency. as this news was breaking, donald trump addressed a wildly enthusiastic crowd at the annual cpac conference just outside washington, d.c. >> i saved you, cried the woman, and you've bitten me. heavens why? you know your bite is poisonous

and now i'm going to die. oh, shut up, silly woman, said the reptile with a grin. you knew dam well i was a snake before you took me in. [ cheers and applause ] >> and that's what we're doing with our country, folks. we're letting people in and it's going to be a lot of trouble. >> that, ladies and gentlemen, was our president. anyone who has covered trump recognizes that brazen version we witnessed at cpac as the kettle blowing steam donald trump. today's guilty plea may explain the pressure cooker that the washington post has written about in the past and may likely describe the west wing today as the mueller probe inches closer and closer to the president's inner circle. we have assembled some of our favorite reporters and friends to break it all down. joining us from the washington

post white house bureau chief phil ruckerment in "the new york times" michael schmidt also joining us. chuck rosenberg former u.s. attorney, former senior fbi official now thankfully and msnbc contributor. and harry lit man, former u.s. attorney and former deputy assistant attorney general during the clinton administration. let me start with you, michael schmidt, and ask you, you've written i think the stories today and yesterday about the significance of rick gates, of his guilty plea and what that might mean in terms of the wider mueller probe. break it down for us. >> look, this is the latest movement and indication that mueller is building a case in the traditional federal investigation. he has put pressure on manafort, put pressure on gates here to gates to flip. what does gates have to offer? what did he give mueller in exchange for this? is it simply just information to put more pressure on manafort to

get manafort to flip? or is there more information? gates was around, as you pointed out, for longer than manafort was. is there anything that he knows about the campaign? remember, the central question we sometimes forget as we look at all these documents today about the ukraine, it's obviously about russian collusion. is there anything he knows about that. so, what does this deal look like? what is it all about? and how does it help mueller advance himself? is it simply just on manafort or is it broader? >> and let me set up for you all the things that rick gates who may or may not be a household name at this point was involved in. he served as the trump campaign deputy campaign chairman. he was a transition official. so, he was there as the trump campaign folks started landing in different agencies. and he stayed in the trump white house's good graces and worked over at the trump super pac. so, what sorts of things -- what sorts of things would they be able to glean if they had the

same kinds of things we know they seized from paul manafort in that no-knock search they did where they seized all of his computers, all the hard drives? i guess the cooperating witness in the special counsel investigation, he's now agreed to hand all those sorts of things over. >> well, my guess -- well, certainly, look, he was involved with things from the convention. there were questions that happened at the convention. there are questions about things that happened at the transition. what were these things that went on and does he provide any larger insight into them? is he getting a deal just on manafort or is there actual stuff? is there stuff on the convention? obviously there were those questions early on about the platform and why the platform changed. was that something he was involved in? was there more that he can provide there? as you point out this is someone that stayed in trump's orbit a lo lot longer than manafort it speaks to a fundamental problem trump had. it was not a traditional campaign and they let different people in that probably wouldn't

have been let in to, say, a mitt romney campaign and they allowed them to stay around for longer. they didn't vet them in the same way a traditional candidate would. we're seeing a product of that today. >> phil rucker, i was warned today as michael schmidt pointed out not to look at this as a piece of the manafort story but to how much longer gates endured and potentially for mueller a bigger piece on the chess board. i want to read to you something your colleague philip bump wrote today. getting manafort to cooperate would be huge. save flipping a member of trump's family like son-in-law jared kushner. there are few people higher in the trump campaign infrastructure during 2016. he's much more possible to be aware of efforts to shift the direction of the campaign, including any ways in which those shifts crossed ethical or legal lines. so, it seemed to me we gloss over the gates at our own peril as he could be a central figure in trying to get whatever it is

that mueller's investigators want out of mueller and if it's as your colleague surmises, someone who might flip on the family member. or as michael schmidt is alluding to, if it's a window into what sorts of promises were being made during the campaign, during the transition, or even once donald trump was president. >> i think that's exactly right, nicolle. potentially gates could provide a lot of information to mueller. he was privy to a lot of transactions that took place at the campaign. he was very involved, for example, in the creation of the digital strategy, the social media strategy -- excuse me -- during the fall. he worked closely with jared kushner, the president's son-in-law. he was very involved in the transition at trump tower. we saw him there a lot. he helped in the room in terms of deciding some of the officials that would get positions in the government. and he was close to manafort, but he stayed on beyond manafort and had the blessing of ivanka and jared kushner during a period in the fall campaign where he would have had access to a lot of information and a

lot of strategic decisions. >> chuck rosenberg, i want to ask you, there's been some analysis that the additional charges, indictments against manafort and gates coming so many months after the first ones, which i believe were in october, could mean a whole lot of different things. we don't know what we don't know. but since those first charges were filed, steve bannon, jeff sessions, jim comey and sam nunberg have all spent time in the special counsel's office space in washington, d.c. what sorts of pieces of the story might steve bannon, jeff sessions and jim comey and sam nunberg who was a trump campaign official, what sorts of things could they have shared -- what threads could they have pulled that would have revealed additional crimes on the part of the president's former campaign chairman and his deputy? >> well, nicolle, these could all be independent tracks.

i wouldn't necessarily draw a straight line from sam nunberg and jim comey, for instance, to rick gates and paul manafort. what we've seen from the special counsel as the submarine surfaces from time to time, is that there are many different aspects to the case. i imagine that continues to be true today. >> and let me ask you, larry lit man, you wrote a piece before today's guilty plea about mueller's momentum and you wrote, there's greater cause for hope this week than last that the full contours of the story, whether it involves actions that are sinister, bumbling, criminal or unwitting, will in due time come clear so long as robert mueller stays on the job. what from your vantage point, from your sort of -- what you see with your experience, what is your analysis of both the pace of these indictments of the things that are now becoming public at a quicker pace since the new year, and what is your sense of where this

investigation is based on what we see? >> well, yeah, it's been kind of a breath taking week where he has brought into play not simply all kinds of new charges, but new basic episodes that he'll be able to build one after the other, the bannon conversation, the gates plea, the van der shal plea as well. in terms of gates where it would be headed, he did have a proper session with the prosecution. it was that that he actually did gates lie about one of the charges he's pleaded to. and notwithstanding lying, mueller offered him a pretty sweetheart deal. so, i think it's likely that he not only stitches up manafort for mueller, which is no mean feat, but also does offer, as others are saying, certain insights into what was going on during the campaign, even post manafort's exit.

>> chuck, let me ask you to weigh in on the manafort statement today. he obviously expressed displeasure with his former deputy pleading guilty, and a lot of people have asked me -- and not that i'm any authority, but have sort of been throwing around this question about whether a pardon has been promised either explicitly or through some intermediary. what did you think when you saw the manafort statement today expressing displeasure and disappointment in gates for not staying and fighting to try to prove their innocence? at least on paper, it seems like an impossible or at best a herculean task. >> it is not a statement to say the least, nicolle. you have to look at this not from manafort's perspective, but from gates' perspective. if you read these indictments and i've read them carefully, the case against both of these guys is overwhelming. it's really not a difficult case to prove in court.

it's a hard case to investigate, but not a hard case to prove in court. and so gates had to make a rational choice. he did. what he gets out of it is some finality and the chance, not the promise, but the chance to stay out of jail. and so the notion that manafort would take a shot at him for making a rational choice about his own, gates's own future seems kind of silly and desperate. it's an odd statement to say the least. >> is it an irrational question to wonder if manafort has been assured through some back channel, a pardon if he does president plead guilty to these crimes? >> it's not odd to wonder that. in fact, that may well be the case. we don't know what we don't know as you said earlier. but, look, if he's going to get a pardon, he's going to get a pardon whether he pleads guilty, is convicted at trial, or just stays the course and tries to wait this thing out. so, again, hard know what we don't know. but the statement seems -- and

i'm being kind here -- unseemly and odd. >> we're going to break it down and you'll be as mean as me by the earned of this. i want to play something for you, phil rucker. donald trump weighed in on the question of security clearances for jared kushner. let's lips enin and talk about it on the other side. >> would you be willing to grant a waiver to jared kushner? >> i think he's been treated unfairly. he's a high-quality person. he works for nothing, just so nobody ever reports that. but he gets zero. he doesn't get a salary. so, that will be up to general kelly. general kelly respects jared a lot and general kelly will make that call. i won't make that call. i will let the general, who is right here, make that call. but jared's doing some very important things for our country. he gets paid zero. ivanka, by the way, gets paid zero. so, i will let general kelly make that decision and he's going to do what's right for the country, and i have no doubt

he'll make the right decision. >> phil rucker, i have no doubt he'll make the right decision. jared is doing a really good job for no money, and i'm sure that the general will do the right thing for the country. he was obviously making his preference pretty obvious there. >> he was. and, nicolle, the fact that jared kushner doesn't take a salary is basically irrelevant to this conversation. he's still a white house staff member. he chose to be in the staff as opposed to just being a family member. and he has an important national security portfolio dealing with the middle east peace issue as well as the relationship with mexico. and so i don't know how he can continue to do that job effectively without the highest level of security clearance which creates a really difficult decision for john kelly who we know over many months has had moments of real genuine tension with jared kushner and ivanka trump in part because they are sort of in this weird in between space between being actual staffers and family members. and they try to have it both ways sometimes.

>> oftentimes, right? >> all the time. >> all the time, right? michael, let me ask you just to follow-up on the security clearance issue, because this was like three scandals ago but it was never resolved. questions were never answered by this white house. and one question that i have is, is it possible that the kinds of things that are being asked -- the reasons that jared kushner might be a witness of interest in the mueller probe are the same kinds of questions that the fbi might have in investigating his background sufficiently enough to say no, no, sir, he wouldn't be a threat? that is the fbi's test in a background check for any white house staffer. and if they haven't finished answering those questions for the purposes of the mueller investigation, how could they possibly finish answering those questions for the purposes of a background check? >> the one thing about the kushner part is that we don't know a lot about what mueller is looking at specifically on him. but you are right, the two things would sort of lineup. in fact, sort of on the russia

question, for the background check you would look at the contacts with foreign officials. what were jared's contacts with the russians. that is obviously a central question. what was the campaign's relationship with the russians, what was going on, what type of meetings happened so they would lineup there. same question on business interests. were there business -- were there things going on on the business side with foreigners at all that are being looked at by mueller? obviously that is definitely something that would looked at on the background check. they are parallel things. the real question is why has this been delayed. is it as they say jared kushner's finances are just so complicated that they can't get to the bottom of it, or are there other reasons? we know that initially there were problems with the paperwork, that it was not properly filled out, all of the officials, the foreign officials he met with and they had to go back and amend it, it's been amended a few times since then. for example, one of the things that got amended was the trump tower meeting in 2016. were the russians promising dirt

to jared and manafort. they do lineup at times. >> lit man, tie this all together for us. we sit here all of us one week after the stunning indictments last friday of 13 russian nationals. since then two more individuals have been -- well, one more has pleaded guilty, another has been indicted in the mueller probe. just pull back the lens a little bit for us and tell us where you think we are here at the end of february. >> okay. well, let me start with jared kushner because there's a big difference between proving a guilty charge, a criminal charge beyond a reasonable doubt in front of a jury with abby lowell defending and figuring out whether there is a security risk. security risks are usually adjudicated in several months. if you have some troubling information, that's enough. there is not the same burden of proof and rights for that person. so, i think probably the white house has already processed sufficient information to give grave doubt as to his ability to handle classified information

and it really does rest with kelly now. in terms of the broader status of the investigation, as chuck says, the submarine surfaces occasionally. but in the last week it surfaced and put into play four new platforms of inquiry. and if i had to try to tie together a basic theme, they are sort of setting the stage for activity in and from russia, and the next big piece will be whether there is an ability to link up things in the united states, people in the united states with what was obviously nefarious activity coming from a hostile power. >> michael schmidt, chuck rosenberg and harry litman, we're so grateful for all of you starting us off. thank you so much. phil rucker is still staying with us. he's not done yet. when we come back one of our next guests describes the president's inaction on russian meddling as a dereliction of duty. we'll speak to her about what a nation can do without a president willing to protect it.

also ahead, pinning the president down on his position on guns. it almost makes you feel sorry for the white house staffer. okay, not really. just making sure you're all paying attention. we'll take you inside the debate, inside the president's own mind about how to proceed after parkland. stay with us. don't we need that cable box to watch tv? nope. don't we need to run? nope. it just explodes in a high pitched 'yeahhh.' yeahhh! try directv now for $10 a month for 3 months. no satellite needed. it's ok that everyone ignores it's fine. drive. because i get a safe driving bonus check every six months i'm accident free. and i don't share it with mom! right, mom? righttt. safe driving bonus checks. only from allstate.

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i try like hell to hide that bald spot, folks, i work hard at it. doesn't look bad. we're hanging in. we're hanging in. we're hanging in there, right? together we're hanging in. >> some of us. president trump made time in his cpac speech today to address his bald spot, yet nothing on russian election meddling which the intelligence community calls a grave and enduring threat to the united states. that makes today the seventh day of deafening silence since rod rosenstein announced 13 indictments against russian nationals in mueller's probe last friday. jennifer ruben and jonathan cape heart and mcmullen, former chief policy director for the u.s. house and most recently presidential candidate and the

rev al sharpton. and president of the national network. i'm addicted to everything you write. we read them all. you're always here in spirit. i have to put up what you've written today about the gates guilty plea. you write, maybe rick gates can shed some light. i think this is in response to something in law fair, law fair alleges bank fraud that indicates manafort and gates' activities would have continued through both of their time on the campaign and gates' time on the presidential transition team and about that you write, think about that. trump's campaign was run for a time by one alleged tax cheat and money launderer and he continued to employ one of the two through the transition. if nothing else, we see that trump has a knack for hiring the very worst people. >> right. you know, we get so used to

looking for the legal jackpot that we forget really how completely irresponsible, how completely incompetent was this campaign and continues to be because trump does not frankly attract the best of the best. so, it's a miraculous thing that people who were engaged in such should chi cane ry can be in the campaign. what does he know about how manafort came to the campaign and why he was there? this is a main who in those years was becoming financially unstable, was hemorrhaging money. suddenly he goes to work for -- on a campaign which frankly no one thought was going to be successful including him, and for free. so, what's in it for him? >> you make such a good point. this is such an inside washington, inside washington republican politics point. but the truth is none of the last four republican campaigns would have touched him. >> right. >> so, inside republican circles, when news broke that manafort had joined the trump

campaign, on the one hand it was like, well, of course he has. and on the other it was like, really? even for trump that was weird. i want to read you something we dug up from glenn thrush who reported this last april. how manafort pitched himself to trump. thrush writes, he began by telling the candidate he lived on an upper floor of trump tower. this is no trivial point. it signalled his wealth and a willingness to work 15 hour days in a building that housed both his lavish apartment and mr. trump's bare bones campaign. it also meant manafort had already put his money in the form of an apartment purchase into mr. trump's brand which meant a lot to the candidate. the transactional developer and politician's aide said plus he had a powerful closer's move, he would work for free. let me say this about people that work for free. two things. you get what you pay for, and nothing is free. >> right. i have a saying that sometimes cheap is too expensive. you know, you get somebody for free, and as the president is

finding out, his administration is mired in not only controversy, but a legal quagmire where we're up to, what, four people from his campaign have now pleaded guilty to a crime in the mueller probe. but, you know, what you just read from glenn thrush, manafort's way of working his way into trump world, it's the classic move. you play to trump's vanity. and if anything, trump got played. trump is easily played, as we've seen on the world stage, whether it's the chinese played him like a fiddle when he went overseas with the pomp and the circumstance. >> you could argue -- >> and the french. at least they're an ally. to me, i'm stammering for words here because i cannot believe that this is where we are, we, the united states of america, are in 2018 with a president and

an administration that is mired in scandal, and a congress that refuses to hold it accountable, refuses to exercise its constitutional duties to hold the white house, to hold the president, to hold president trump and his administration accountable. >> are you surprised at republicans in congress didn't sound the alarm bells earlier about paul manafort? because republicans in washington knew exactly who paul manafort was. they knew exactly where his firm's money had come from. they knew he worked -- he was aligned -- a lot of people suspected his book of business was dirty. are you surprised that knowing all that, seeing all these people pleading guilty to either lying to federal investigators or money laundering or tax evasion, that paul ryan, let it play out, we don't need to protect mueller, ho-hum, who kaz. >> i'm not surprised because i

was there, i was working on capitol hill in house republican leadership at the time trump was starting offer his campaign and progressing to be then the nominee. and, look, there was an awareness and it was discussed in meetings that the russians are interfering in democracies, they're attacking sort of the movement for democracy in ukraine. they're doing some of the same things here in the united states. some leaders sort of have this idea that trump was already supported by putin. but they wouldn't stand up to trump for that or for many other reasons. so, no, i'm not surprised because i just saw them not do that. and so this is just more of that. they continue on this path till today. >> rev, i have started waking up in the middle of the night with a fear of asking the wrong question. we're trying to prove out russians. paul manafort did a dirty book of business for pro russian

oligarchs. donald trump's family has said on the record in media reports that they got tons of money from the russians. they were very eager to do business. why are we trying to prove something that is hiding in plain sight? why can't we flip the script and make them disprove what is in front of all of our faces? >> in line with that, i think that we should be very careful that we say that trump was being played because trump may have in some ways got hooked in, but may have already been part of a play here. because you have to ask yourself, and as one -- >> i totally agree. >> seeing donald trump for decades, somebody coming to him working for free, he would want to know why does this guy want to work for free. that's not the way a new york hustler like trump operates. you've got to show him where your assets are -- >> you want to see the bigger play. you want a piece of it. >> what are you going to do for me? you're going to work for me for

nothing? why? and manafort had to tell him a lot more than i've got money and live in your tower. i'm going to do this, i'm going to do that. i can deliver this. particularly when you're dealing with a guy that no one really wanted but you and you're getting him for free, he had to prove to trump something was in it for trump, and that's where i think mueller is digging and finding out what that is because it would make him a participant, not a victim. >> that's because trump was already operating with all kinds of russians. he had russian money, people were buying apartments, he had -- a group that was located in his building, again, with russian money. he had gone to russia, met with people, later pop up again in the trump tower meeting to do his deal for miss america. during the campaign he was proceeding on a deal with the likes of felix saber and michael cohen to get a trump tower deal

going. he was already enmeshed with russian oligarchs up to his eyeballs. >> i think we're asking the wrong question. i think the burden of proof not in a criminal context, but just the narrative is, oh, we don't know yet. yes, we do. yes, we do. >> i think we know there is collusion because in plain sight he invited -- >> last word. >> paul manafort made a business out of supporting putin's interest in ukraine ask then in the united states. this part with trump is the third chapter and it's a natural -- it's a natural follow to what proceeded it. paul manafort and donald trump speak the same language. they come from the same murky world and it makes all the sense in the world that they would work together on a campaign. >> all right. you look like you're bursting. go. >> i just wanted to give props to evan mcmullen who came on my show in october of 2016, you just announced you're running for president. he said something then that shocked me, which was that donald trump was behaving like

an asset of vladimir putin. when he said it at the time, it made my hair go on fire because we didn't have all the evidence that we have now, and that he saw it then is something that we should -- i just want to mark. >> when we come back, donald trump's plan to arm teachers gets some push back and the governor of florida proposes raising the age to 21 for all gun purchases. we'll go inside the quickly changing gun debate in america.

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utilizing pg&e's talent and expertise in that area trains our firefighters on the gas or electric aspect of a fire and when we have an emergency situation we are going to be much more skilled and prepared to mitigate that emergency for all concerned. the things we do every single day that puts ourselves in harm's way, and to have a partner that is so skilled at what they do is indispensable, and i couldn't ask for a better partner. and there is nobody that loves the second amendment more than i do and there's nobody that respects the nra, they're friends of mine. they backed us all. they're great people. they're patriots. but -- they're great people, but we really do have to strengthen up, really strengthen up background checks. we have to do that. [ applause ]

and we have to do, for the mentally ill, we have to do very, very -- we don't want people that are mentally ill to be having any form of weaponry. we have to be very strong on that. >> president trump there unveiling the latest version of his stance on gun control. in fact, phil rucker points out in the post today, quote, white house officials have struggled to outline trump's precise policy goals when it comes to guns and have avoided over promising that sweeping changes will happen quickly. but they were all united in at least one message, trump, they repeated, would be a man of action. but one thing we know trump supports, arming teachers and coaches in schools across the country. >> this may be 10% or 20% of the population of teachers, et cetera. it's not all of them. but you would have a lot and you would tell people that they're inside and the beauty is it's concealed. nobody would ever see it unless they needed it.

it's concealed. so, this crazy man who walked in wouldn't even know who it is that has it. that's good. it's not bad, that's good. and a teacher would have shot the hell out of him before he knew what happened. [ cheers and applause ] >> phil rucker is back with us and the panel is still here. so, phil rucker, your piece laid out what has become apparent to people taking in all of these events in the days since the parkland, florida tragedy. but what does the white house say about just how unrealistic that idea -- i mean, putting armed security guards at schools is an idea that's been discussed in the past. but putting guns in the socks or holsters of teachers is an idea that most teachers oppose. >> yeah, nicolle, this arming schools idea is something wayne lapierre, the head of the nra talked about in the wake of the shooting in sandy hook, newtown,

it was laughed off as a fringe hooky idea. now it is being advanced by the president so it is being discussed as a serious tone as a policy. there is opposition to it. there is opposition from educators and other gun safety experts, but this is going to be real and sort of become a subject of debate on capitol hill, i think it's going to take awhile for it to get anywhere because it's pretty new in this debate. >> so, jennifer, welcome to 2018, that which is kooky becomes mainstream. i want to put up something that feels like the kind of development that points to what a lot of people have been saying since the day these students' voices i think first sort of jolted the nation out of not complacency, but the feeling that the gun debate is intractable. these are the companies that have cut their nra programs. met life, symantec, first national bank of omaha, enterprise and avis. this seems like the kind of movement, a boycott, that gets

the attention of corporate america, which gets the attention of political america. sad, sad and pathetic reality, but that is the world in which we live. >> it is. and what we've seen over and over again, we've seen it with dreamers and the health care debate, corporations these days are much more sensitive to public opinion because these are their customers and a lot of politicians who live in gerrymandered districts don't think they're going to be held accountable for their moves. when they sense that, you know, the whole ethos of the country is shifting and they want to distance themselves from the nra, that tells you something. now, i think part of what the nra has always done is take outrageous positions, not only because then liberal media in their mind will come up in arms and their people will get gined up and send more dollars, we're not talking about that. we're not talking about the same measures which are raising the age and making it harder to obtain these weapons and on and

on and on. this, of course, is a preposterous idea for nothing other than the reason that if the police do enter, they're going to shoot the first person they see who is shooting, whether that's a teacher or assailant. so, that is the most idiotic idea and he's had lots of them that we've heard from him yet. and, of course, what do we see, a tragic story, the armed police officer who was at the school had a hand gun, did not go into the building, not acceptable, not what we prepare police officers to do. but he had a hand gun. one can understand not wanting to go up against a guy with an ar-15. how preprosterous is that. >> let me put up a poll. 97% of the public which includes pretty much everybody in the nra except for maybe 2%, supports universal background checks. the idea that nothing has happened is preposterous because even gun owners in this country support more than what the nra

is doing. >> no, the overwhelming majority of the public has for sometime supported background checks. and they've not moved forward. that is why i think you hit the right point. when i think the success of this now is when you see corporate america starting to move away. economic boycott was always the tool in the civil rights movement. >> right. >> when you start costing money, then you get beyond whether or not people are going to be inflexible. and i think this is where this movement is going to really start generating the reaction that many of us have been fighting for years. but the other thing that i think we've got to look at here is when you see an armed guard not go in, what kind of way are we going to deal with armed teachers? >> right. >> if an armed guard wouldn't go in, an armed math teacher is going in? >> it's ludicrous. the kids know it's absurd. the ones on brian williams show.

we have a little bit of breaking news. is ken dilanian with us? okay, so, ken, i am seeing this come across. i guess it's not a wire any more, it's our phones. the federal grand jury has returned a new superceding indictment in the manafort case. the indictment says manafort secretly retained a group of former senior european politicians to take positions favorable to ukraine, including by lobbying in the united states. it says in 2012 and 2013. manafort used at least four offshore accounts to wire more than 2 million euros to pay the group of former politicians. i mean, this is like a bad tom clancy book. what was happening inside the trump campaign? what are we learning from this? >> it's stunning nicolle, and our colleagues are still going through this, but it's remarkable they chose today to file this. and i think it really underscores the extent to which the mueller team is trying to put pressure, overwhelming pressure on paul manafort to get him to plead guilty. they're trying to make him realize he has no way out. today we learned that rick gates, his former partner and is

going to testify against him, admitted to all this conduct with paul manafort. and now these latest charges. and this looks really bad, right? i mean, wiring millions of dollars to politicians goes beyond lobbying clearly. it goes beyond even bank and tax fraud, looking like bribery. we're not sure exactly how they worded these criminal charges, but paul manafort's world is crashing in on him and he's 68 years old and facing essentially a life prison term, nicolle. >> let me ask you something i put to chuck rosenberg earlier in the show. if you read the manafort statement and we'll try to pull it up and put it up again, manafort today pretty brazenly criticized his former deputy rick gates for pleading guilty and said, i had hoped that he would stand and fight for our innocence. i had hoped that he would go to trial to try to prove our innocence. you look at just the overwhelming -- and we know from the no-knock search that the fbi

conducted in manafort's house, they have everything. they have, what, more than a dozen computers. they have -- >> yeah. >> they have files and files of records. obviously they have a paper case. why would manafort not plead guilty if he hadn't been promised already a pardon by the president? >> well, that's a great question. i think, you know, there is every chance that he will plead guilty. sometimes it takes certain kinds of people, very prideful people a certain period of time to sort of come to grips with the reality they're facing. it took gates some time. it seemed like a dicey thing right up until the end with gates. and he's got four children and he's in apparently a more precarious financial position than mr. manafort. but, you know, look, it's hard to sort of psychoanalyze, but absolutely they have -- not only as you said the paper case, but today now they have a human being who can go into court and say, yes, i participated with mr. manafort in the following

crimes. it's hard to see his way out of this. now, the thing about the pardons as you know, the new york attorney general is investigating manafort's conduct and these bank and tax fraud charges would seem to have a state element to them if authorities chose to pursue it. so, it's not clear a pardon is really going to help manafort completely get out of trouble here, nicolle. >> let me ask you one more question about the mueller probe more broadly speaking. you go back to bannon's comments. you and i talk about this a lot of days these days. where bannon basically laid out his theory of the prosecution of the trump, kushner, manafort gang if you will. >> yeah. >> and said weissmann, andrew weissmann, he's a money laundering guy. goes straight through manafort to kushner and that's how they asked trump with what steve bannon said to "fire and fury" author michael wolff. i want to ask you, one of the little nuggets buried deep in "the new york times" writing yesterday on yesterday's indictments was paul manafort's son-in-law was implicated or

named or involved in one of the funky mortgage trade-offs which could appear like money laundering. jared kushner and don junior, the president's son and son-in-law, are of interest and under scrutiny by the fbi. mike flynn, jr., mike flynn's son is ensnared. to a prosecutor, to an investigator, is this like investigating a mob family? >> i think it is. and you know, as a matter of fact, robert mueller supervised an investigation of the gambino family. so he knows what he's talking about in this regard. we notice this trend, we've all noticed it, the family members. those are hardball tactics. they're not out of line when people commit crimes they are liable to be investigated and prosecuted for those crimes. but the idea that the mueller team is squeezing every possible avenue here, every point of leverage to get these guys to go in the direction that they want, i think is very evident here and, you know, it's just going to be super unpleasant to be on the other end of that.

the evidence is pretty overwhelming, nicolle. >> phil rucker, are you still with us? >> yes, i'm here. >> you've got your finger on the pulse of this white house. what does both the guilty plea that we talked about already this hour and these additional charges against paufrl manafort what does that do to the anxiety level in that west wing? >> all it does is feed the anxiety level. we saw last weekend, last friday, a week ago today, those indictments against the russian officials and we saw how the president reacted to that, incredibly anxious and angry in that multi-day tweet storm over the weekend. tomorrow begins another weekend so maybe we'll see some more tweets about all of this. but we know just from what the president has said publicly as well as our reporting on what he's been doing privately and how he's been fuming with advisors and friends and aides, how much he's bothered by this russia story that continues to get worse and worse for those around him.

>> you wrote an epic piece after his weekend tweet storm last weekend describing it as a dereliction of duty that he's done nothing. and we now have as if the unanimous opinion of the intelligence community under two presidents, democrats and republican told him the russia meddling piece was a fact not a theory, and you had bob mueller's 13 indictments. what is the dereliction of leadership looking at all of these crimes, at least on paper, alleged crimes, that his former campaign chairman committed? >> there are tua expects to it. one is his job as president. oh, yes, that. he has not hardened our electoral system. he has not taken steps to have an inter agency process to do the things we need to to make sure 2018 and 2020 aren't a repeat. he has not instituted sanctions that were passed by congress over a year ago i think now. he hasn't brought those to bear. we've done it on north korea but

not on russia. so, he is going out of his way and still will not criticize vladimir putin. he'll criticize the cop in parkland, florida,florida, he'l criticize anybody -- >> jeff sessions. >> but not this guy. >> ken, you have more -- could this be a -- any indication that gates is already proving helpful to bob mueller. >> yes, a colleague of ours caught that the language about the off shore accounts in 2012 and 2013 he used four off shore accounts to wire more than 2 million euros and comes word for word from page six to seven of today's statement of offense in the gates case. it shows how quickly this is moving. gates pled guilty to a false statement he made the weeks ago in his proffer to the fbi. that is jut remarkable and this is also amazing, nicolle. >> you know donald trump, what should we expect as sort of the walls around the people closest

to him start to cave in. >> i think that we're going to see him continue to make desperate, very incoherent statements so get ready to have your twitter feed fed. but i also think that people around him are going to see a increasing paranoid person because as he sees these footsteps get louder, which means they are closer to him, he's going to be full of distrust with everyone. because he is in the center of this. when you look at three or four people in his administration that have very clear ties to russia, that he put there when you see he refused to attack putin under any circumstances, is not in the script, he is part of writing the script. and he knows that better than anyone. and he is really going to start showing signs of desperation. because he really never thought it would get this far.

he really felt that he was invincible and i think that today and last friday with the russian indictments, he's beginning to understand that you are president and not the emperor and you can face the wrath of justice. >> i would just say that we as a country are climbing a learning curve. we've never been in this situation before. and i think we have a buy as that -- a bias from the years of traditional presidents we've experienced and we look at president trump and jen is right when she said it is a dereliction of duties when he won't address the russian interference but we have to come to grips with a new reality and that reality is this president likely wants russian interference to continue. this may be new for us but it is not new in the world. when russian and putin backs a candidate, those candidates all over the world, especially in

europe, they invite that. they want it. they even ask for it. they lobby for it. it dough th-- they don't turn i. and that is our situation. >> ken delanian and phil rucker, thank you so much. i didn't mean to snag you for the whole hour but thank you for being available. when we come back, how american politics went from hope and change to snakes. you won't want to miss this. thank you so much. thank you! so we're a go? yes! we got a yes! what does that mean for purchasing? purchase. let's do this. got it. book the flights! hai! si! si! ya! ya! ya!

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touching on more than 30 topics in 75 minutes the president's cpac speech was a wild ride cementing a changed gop. take a listen. >> he may be the only person that actually fulfilled more promises than he made. i think that's true. no president has ever cut so many regulation in their entire term. don't worry, you're getting the wall. don't worry. okay. >> you need electoral college which is much tougher than the popular vote. the popular vote would be so much easier. but we have a very crooked media. we had a crooked candidate too, by the way. but we have a -- we have a very, very crood -- crooked media. [ chanting ] >> and there is nobody that loves the second amendment more than i do. because people want tax cuts and they don't know what reform

means. >> and except for one senator who came into a room at 3:00 in the morning and went like that, we would have had health care, too. remember that. they will take away -- thank you. you they will take away those massive tax cuts and they will take away your second amendment. tomorrow the headline will be protests disturbed. one person, folks. doesn't deserve a mention. doesn't deserve a headline. you think they are giving us good people. >> she stroked his pretty skin again and kissed and held him tight. but instead of saying thank you, that snake gave her a vicious bite. by the way, you don't mind if i go off script a little bit. because it is sort of boring. >> we never mind. jonathan. >> you come to me after that. you know that -- that clip --

those words that he says make my head explode. every time i've heard them since june 16th, 2015, the man of a front of presidency is unfit for office and i can't believe we have three more years of this. >> god forbid. it is a small thing. but it is not a small thing. to lead boos against john mccain who is an american hero and battling brain cancer. what a low class -- >> it is hard to think about the most revolting. that is appalling. he was attacking john mccain for one of the most principled moments of his career. but to hear lock her up is shocking to me. >> and lock her up and desecrated john mccain, particularly in an american hero at the condition he's in, it shows you that we are at a very low point in terms of the presidency. and you've got to understand the nature of the person you're dealing with.

this was again a guy who hustled real estate. we keep talking about him like he was this credible business man. he was not -- he is what he was. >> wise words from the rev. we have to end on that. thanks to you. that does it for our hour. i'm nicolle wallace, "mtp daily" starts right now. >> more breaking news. we love it. good evening, i'm chuck todd here in washington and welcome to "mtp daily." we have a lot to get to tonight on the the president and guns. but we begin with some of the breaking news. the trump former campaign chief paul manafort if he wasn't in serious trouble before, he is now. today the top deputy rick gates pled guilty to conspiracy and lying and now cooperating with robert mueller. and moments ago mueller filed more charges against manafort. they alleged