democratic congressman of national rifle association who will talk about that deadly shooting in his state along with one of the students who is protesting gun violence. but now good night from all of us here at nbc headquarters in new york. 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 picking up its pace. the latest, senior trump official rick galgts who once served as donald trump's deputy campaign manager and remained in the trump orbit for many mongs 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, a backhanded swipe at his alleged

partner in crime writing, quote, not withstanding 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 innocence. for reasons yet to surface he chose do otherwise. this does not alter my commitment to -- defend myself in the charges piled up against me. gates becomes the third trump campaign official to join what one ally describes as team america. gates, along with former national security adviser mike flin and former trump campaign adviser george papadopoulos are 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 damn well i was a snake before you took me in. and that's what we're dolg doing wi -- 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 trunk recognized 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 mull mueller probe inches closer and closer to the president's inner cirque. we've assembled some of our favorite reporters and friends to break it down. phil rucker from. from the new york time michael schmidt. also chuck rosenberg, a former u.s. terp, former senior nib official now and msnbc contributor and hairly litman and former deputy assistant attorney zben e general during the clinton administration. let me start are 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. break it down for us. >> look, this is the latest movement and indication that mueller is building a case in a

traditional federal investigation. he has put pressure on manafort, put pressure on gates to get gates to flip. question now is what does gates have to offer. what did he give mueller in exchange for this? is it simply just information to put for pressure on manafort to get montha for the anafort to fe more snftion baits was around for longer than manafort was. is there anything he knows about the campaign? remember the central question we sometimes forget as we look at all these documents about the ukraine is about russian collusion spt there anythi collusion. is there anything he knows about that. is it simply just on manafort or is it broader? >> let me put up all the things that gates may or may not be involved in. he served as the deputy campaign chairman, the 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 that we know they seized from paul manafort in that no knock search? i'm guess ago as i cooperating witness 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 actual stuff? is there stuff on the convention? there were those questions early on about the platform and why the platform changed. was that something he was

involved in. is there more that can he provide there. but as you point out, this was someone that stayed in trump's orbit for a lot longer than manafort and it sort of speaks to a fundamental problem that trump had which was 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 and they didn't vet them in the same way that a traditional candidate was and we're seeing a product of that today. >> phil, i was warned today not to look at that as a piece of the man for the story but to look at how much longer gates endured and to look at that as potentially for mueller a bigger piece on the chessboard. i want to read you something your colleague philip bump wrote today. he writes, getting manafort to agree to cooperate would be huge. save flipping a member of trump's family like son-in-law jared kushner. there are fewer people who are higher in the trump campaign infrastructure during 2016. he's much more possible to be

aware of efforts to shift direction of the campaign including any ways in some which those shifts cross dollars ethical or legal lines. so it seems to me that we gloss over the gates indictment 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 says your colleague surmises, someone who might flip on a 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. 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 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 be in the room in terms of deciding whichsosome o theervegs would get positions in the white house. he stayed on past man an for the and went on with ivanka and jared kushner in the fall campaign where he would have had access to a lot of strategic decisions. >> i want to ask you, chuck, 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. and we don't know what we don't know, but that since those first charges were filed, steve bannon, jeff session, jim comey and sam number have all spend time in the special counsel's office space? washington, d.c. what sorts of pieces of story white steve bannon, jeff

sessions and sam numb berric who was a campaign official, who sorts of things could they have shared and threads could they have pulled that would have revealed additional crimes on the part of the chairman and his deputy? >> these could all be independent tracks. i wouldn't necessarily draw a straight line from noneberg and jim ocomey 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 harry litman, you wrote a piece before today's guilty plea about mueller's mow meant pum u tomb, aupd wrote there's great cause for home 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 become clear so

long as mueller stays on the job. what from your vantage point, 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 bas based on what we see? >> it's been kind of a breathtaking week where he has brought into play not simply all kinds of new charges, but new basic episodes that he can -- that he'll be able to build one after the other. the bannon conversation, the gates plea, the vander swal plea as well. in terms of gates, where i think it would be headed he did have a proffer session with the prosecution. it's that he did gates lie about -- it's one of the charges he's lead pleaded to. and notwithstanding lying, mueller offered him a pretty

sweetheart deal ninkt it. i think it's likely that he not only stitches up manafort, but does offer, as others are saying, certainly insights as to 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 nor t e that i'm any authority, but have 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 trying to prove their innocence which at least on paper seems like an impossible or herc leeanne task? >> it's not a statement to say

the least. you have to look at this not from manafort's perspective but from gates's perspective. if you read these indictments, the case is overwhelming. it's not a difficult case to prove in court. it's a hard case to investigate, but not a hard case to prove in court. so gates had to make a racial choi -- rational choice. and he gets the chance, knots the promise, but the chance to stay out of jail. so that manafort would make a statement like that for him making a decision about his own future, it's an odd statement. >> should we wonder if manafort has been ensured through is some back channel a pardon if he doesn't 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 to know what we don't know, but the statement seems, and i'm being kind here, unseemly and odd. >> we're going to break you down and you're going to be just as mean as me by the end of this. i want to play something four phil. donald trump weighed in on the question about security clearances for jared kushner. >> would you be willing to grant a waiver to jared kushner, one of your senior adviser? >> jared's done an outstanding job. i think he's been treated unfair diplomatic he's works for nothing, 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 pi.

i will let the general who's right here make that call. but jared's doing some very important things for our country. he gets paid zero. ivanka 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 rut ker have, i have no doubt he'll make the right decision but he's 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, you know, i don't know how can he continue 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 decision with jared kushner and ivanka trump in part because they are sort in this weird in between space between being actual staffers and family members. and they try to have it both ways sometimes. >> often times, right. >> all the time. >> all the time, right. michael schmidt, let me ask you just to follow up on the security clearance issue because this was three scandals ago but it was never resolved and questions were never answered fwhi white house. 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 for blackmail? that's the fbi's test 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 spart we don't know a lot about what mueller is looking on specifically on him. but you are right that the two things would sort of line up. 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's obviously a central question is what was the campaign's relationship with the russians? what's was going on, what type of meetings happened so they would line up there. the same question on business interests. were there things going on in the business side with foreigners at all that are being looked at by mule center and obviously that is definitely stuff that would be looked at on the background check. so they are parallel things. now, the real question here is why is it that this thing has been delayed? is it simply that, 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 initially there was

problems with the paperwork, it was not filled out. all the foreign officials that he had met with and they went back and amend today. and it's been amend a few times since then. one of the things that got amended was the trump tower meeting in 2016. were the russians promising dirt, met with don junior and manafort. they do line up at times. >> tie this altogether for us. we sit here one week after the stunning indictments last friday of 13 russian nationals. since then, two more individuals about n -- 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 the 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 abbe lowell defending and figuring out whether there's a security risk.

security risk are usually adjudicated in several months. if you have some troubling information, that's enough. there's not the same burden of proof and rights for that person. think probably the white house has already possessed 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, you know, 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're sort of setting the stage for activity in and from russia. and the next big piece will be whether there's 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 schmid the rg chuck

rosenberg and harry litman, we're so grateful to all of you for starting us off. phil rutger not done yet. when we come back, our next guest talks about the dereliction of duty and what a nation can do without a president not willing to protect it. also ahead, ping the president down on his position on guns. it almost makes you feel sorry for the white house staff. okay, not really. just making sure you were 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.

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hello, everyone, what a nice picture that is. i'd like to watch that guy speak. oh, boy. that's nice.

i try like hell to hide that bald spot, folks. i work hard. doesn't look bad. hey, 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 c pac speech today to address his bald spot yet nothing on russian election meddling with the intelligence community has overwhelmingly called a grave and enduring threat to the united states. that makes today the seventh day of deafening silence since rosenstein announced 13 indictments against russian nationals in mueller's probe last friday. let's bring in jennifer rueben and jonathan kay part and my friday double dates mcmullin, former chief policy director for the u.s. house and most recently an independent presidential candidate and refer rand sharpton.

president of the national network. jennifer, it's such a pleasure. i'm addicted to everything you write. we read them all here so you're always here in spirit. but 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 it was in response to something in law fair. they reported the indictment alleges bank froud fraud between 2015 and 2017, a time frame which manafort and gates activities would have continued through their time in the campaign and gates's time on the presidential transition time. 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 were we see that trump has a knack for hiring the very worst people. >> 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 this could make themselves on to a presidential campaign. but the real question for gates think there you alluded to that, is what does he know about how manafort came to the campaign and why he was there. this is a man who in those years was becoming financially unstable, was hemorrhaging money. suddenly he goes to work 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. 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 oth the oth tn the other it really? i want to read something we dug up on how manafort pitched himself to trumpet began by telling the candidate he lived on an upper floor of trump tower. this was no trivial point, it signaled his wealth and a willingness to work 15 hour days. it also meant manafort had all rtd put his money in the form of an apartment purchase into mr. trump's brand, which meant a lot to the candidate. the tractional developer and poll politicians aid said. he had a powerful closers 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, we're up to four people from his campaign have now pleaded guilty to a crime in the mueller probe. but, you know, that -- what you just read from glen thrush, man for the's way of working his way into trump world, i mean, it's the classic move put 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 fid he will whdle when he wen >> you could argue the saudis did too. >>and the french. at least they're an ally. but to me, i'm like 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 that republicans in congress didn't sound the alarm bells earlier about paul manafort? because republicans in washington knew exactly who paul manafort was and knew exactly where his firm's money had come from. they knew had he worked for covich, they knew he was aligned with putin and a lot of people suspected that 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-like crimes, or tax evasion, that paul ryan and senatorbers posture is still let it play out, we don't need to protect mueller, oh hum, who cares? >> i wish i could say i'm surprised but i'm not. i was working on capitol hill with the house republican

leadership at the time trump was starting off his campaign and then progressing to be then the nominee. and, look, there was an awareness and it was discussed in meetings that russians are interfering in democracies, they're attacking the movement for democracy in ukraine. they're doing some of the same things here in the united states. some leaders sort of had 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 -- this is just more of that. they continue on this path till today. >> rev, i was started waking up with the fear that we're asking the wrong question. we're trying to prove out russian interference. why aren't we trying to disprove it in the the republicans changed the platform at the convention for the first time ever to a pro-russia position. paul man for the did a dirty russian business for ole garks.

donald trump's family has said they got tons of money from the russian, they were very eager to do business. why aren't we trying to prove something that's hiding in plain sight? why can't we flip the script and make them disprove what's in front of all of our faces? >> in line with that, i think 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. and because you have to ask yourself, and as one that is -- >> i totally agree. >> -- had seen donald trump for decades, somebody coming to him, working for free, he would want to know well 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 for me -- >> you want to see the bigger play. >> and what does this mean? what are you going to do for me? you're going work fosh 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. had he 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. >> and that's because trump was already operating with all kinds of russians. had he russian money, people were buying apartments. he had the locke group that was located in his building again with russian money. had he gone to russia, met with people who later pop up again in the trump tower meeting to do his deal for ms. america during the campaign. he was proceeding on a deal with the likes of felix sator and michael cohen to get a trump tower deal going. he was already ameshed with russian oligarchs up to his

eyeballs. >> i think the burden of proof is not in a criminal context, we don't know yet, yes we do. >> just like we know there's collusion. because in plain sight he invited participation. >> last word. >> we just say paul man for the made a business out of supporting putin's interests in ukraine and then the united states. this part with trump is the third chapter and it's a natural follow to what precede today. 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 put look like you're bursting, go. >> i want to give props to evan mcmullin who came on my podcast when it first came out, you just announced you were running for president and 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 -- we should -- i just want to remark. >> canary in the mind. when we come back, donald trump's plan to arm teachers gets some pushback 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. a lot of water. medications seem to be the number one cause for dry mouth. dry mouth can cause increased cavities, bad breath, oral irritation. i like to recommend biotene. biotene has a full array of products that replenishes the moisture in your mouth. biotene definitely works. it makes patients so much happier. [heartbeat]

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such good and important work for the environment. together, we're building a better california. and there's nobody that loves the second amend the 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. 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. >> flufrp unveiling the latest version of his stance on gun control. phil rucker points out in the post today, quote, kbhous u white house officials have struggled to outline his precise poll spi goals when it comes to guns and have avoided overpromising that sweeping changes will happen quickly. but they were all united in at least one message, trump, they repeated, would be a man of acc. but one thing we know trump supports, arming teachers and coaches in schools across the country. >> this maybe 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 walks in wouldn't even know who it is thats that, that's good.

that's not bad, that's good. and a teacher would have shot the hell out of him before he knew what happened. >> phil rucker's back with us and the panel's still here. so, phil, your piece. >> yeah. >> 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 holssters of teachers is an ideas that most teachers oppose. >> yeah. nicolle, this arming schools idea is someone wane lapierre, the head of the nra talked about in the wake of the sandy hook shooting in newtown a few years back and it was sort of laughed off as a fringe, hooky idea.

now it's being discussed as a policy solution but you think there's going to be a lot of opposition to it. there is opposition from educators and other gun safety experts. but if this is going to be real and sort of become a sufbt debate on capitol hill, i think it's going to take a while for it to get anywhere because it's pretty new in its debate. >> jennifer, welcome to 2018 when that which was cooky becomes mainstream. i want to put up something that i think feels like the kind of development that points to what a lot of people have been saying since the day these students's voices think first sort of jolted the nation out of not complacency, but the feeling that the gun debate sin tractable. these are the companies that have cut their nra contributions. metlife, symantec, enterprise, hertz, 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's the world in which we live. >> it is. and what we've seen over and over again, we saw it with dreamers, in the healthcare debate, is that corporations these days are much more spencesive to public opinion because these are their customers than pliction politicians who don't think they're going to be held accountable for their moves. so when they sense that the whole ethos of the country is shifting and they want to distance themselves from the nra, that tells you something. now, think part whaft nra has always done is take outrageous position, not only because then liberal media in their mind will come up in arms and their people will get all ginned up and send more dollars. but because we're talking about that we're not talking about the sane measures which are raising the age and making it harder to obtain these weapons and on and on and on. this of course say prosparse ter russ idea for nothing other than

the reason if the police do enter they're going to shoot first person they see who is shooting whether that's a teacher or the assailant. that's the most idiotic idea and he's had lots of them that we've heard from him yet. and what are we seeing? a tragic story, the armed police officer who was at the school had a handgun, did not go into the building? not acceptable, not what we prepare our police office dors. but had he a handgun. and one can understand not want going up against a guy with an ar-15. how preposer russ is that? are we going to give ar-fifteens to our school teachers. >> 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 absurd because even gun owners in this country support more than what the nra is doing. >> no. the overwhelming majority of the public has for some time

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 a tool in the civil rights movement. when it 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 look at here is when you see an armed guard not go in, what kind of way are we going to deal with armed teach centers. >> right. >> so if an armed guard wouldn't glo go in, an armed math teacher is going to go? >> and the kids know it's absurd. we've got a little bit of breaking news. is ken dilanian with us? okay, so ken, i am just seeing this come across.

i guess it's not a wire anymore it's our phones but a federal grand jury has returned a new superseding indictment in the manafort case. the indictment says that 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 there ais is like a bad clancy book. what are relearning from this? >> it's stunning, nicolle and our colleagues are still going through this but it's remarkable that they chose today to file this. i think it underscores the extent to which the muller team is trying to put 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've learned that rick gates, his former partner is going to testify against him. he's essentially 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. goes beyond bank and tax fraud looking like bribery. we're not sure 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. >> let me ask you something that i put to chuck rosenberg earlier in the show. if you read the manafort statement, man for the today pretty brazingly criticized gates for pleading said i had hoped that he would stand and fight for our innocence pit had hoped that he would go to trial to try to prove our nps put look at just the overwhelming. 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 files and files of

records obviously. they have a paper case, i think you and others have described it. why would manafort not plead guilty if he hadn't been promised already a pardon donbye president? >> that's a great question. think there's ever chance that he will plead guilty. sometimes it takes certain kinds of people, very prideful period certain period of time to come to grips with the reality they're face. it took gates some time. it seems like it was a dicey thing up to the end with gates and he's got four children and in a more precarious financial position than mr. manafort. but, look, it's hard to sort of psychoanalyze, but absolutely stle not only as you said the paper case, but now they have a human being who can go into court and say i participated with mr. manafort in the following crimes. it's hard to see his way out of

this. the new york attorney general is investigating manafort's conduct and these bank and fraud charges would seem to have a state element to them if authorities chose to pursue it. it's not clear that a pardon is going to help manafort completely get out of trouble here. >> let me ask you one question about the mueller probe. you go back to bannon's comments where bannon basically laid out his theory of the prosecution of the trump/kushner/manafort gang if you will and said weissman, andrew weissman, he's a money laundering guy, it goes through man for the to kushner and that's how they "f" trump was what steve bannon said to fire and furry author michael wolf. i don't want ask you one of the little nuggets buried deep in the "new york times" reporting yesterday was that paul man for the's son-in-law was implicated or named or involved in one of the funky mortgage tradeoffs

which would 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 junior, mike flynn's son is ensnared. to a prosecutor and investigator have this like investigating a mob family? >> i think it is. robert mueller supervised an investigation of the gam bean know crime family so he knows what he's talking about in this regard. but you've noticed this trend, we've all notice today. the family members. those are hardball tactics. they're not out of line. when people commit crimes they're liable to be investigate 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 it's very evident here. and it's just got to be super unpleasant to be on the other end of that. but the evidence is pretty overwhelming, knick kohl. >> phil rucker, are you still with us? >> yeah, i'm here.

you've got your finger on the pulse of this white house, what does both the guilty plea that we've talked about alled there hour and these additional charges against paul manafort, what does that do to the anxiety level in that west wing? >> tall 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 multiday tweet storm over the week. tomorrow begins another weekend so maybe we'll see 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 advisers 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, a democrat and republican assured him that the russian meddling piece as a fact were not a theory. then had you 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? >> i think the two aspects to. . one is his job as president, oh, yes, that. he has not hardened our electoral system. >> he has not taken steps to van interagency process to do things that we needed to to make sure that 2020 and 2020 are not a repeat. he has not insurance stulted 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

vlad pute. he'll criticize the cop in parkland, florida, anybody. >> jeff sessions. >> but not that guy. >> ken, you have a little bit more. could this be any indication that gates is already proving helpful to bob mueller? >> yes. a colleague of ours caught that this language about the offshore accounts in 2012 and 2013 manafort used at least four offshore accounts to wire more than 2 million euros to pay a group of foreign politicians comes word for word from page 6 to 7 of today's statement of offense in the gates case. it shows how quickly it's moving. gates pleaded guilty to a false statement he made three weeks ago in his proffer to the fbi, that's just remarkable and this is also amazing. >> rev, you know donald trump. what should we expect as sort of the walls around the people closest to him start to cave? >> well, think that we're going to see him continue to make

desperate, very incoherent staple statements. so you can get ready to have your twitter feed fed. but i also think that people around him are going to see an increasing paranoid person because as he sees these footsteps get louder, which means they're closer to him, he's going to be full of distrust with everyone because he's 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 refuses to attack putin under any circumstances. >> right. >> he is not in the script, he's part of writing the script, and he knows that better than anyone. and he is really going to start showing signs of administratide because he never felt it would get this far. he really felt he was invincible. and i think that today and last

friday with the russian indictments he's beginning to understand that you're a president, you're not the emperor and you can face the wrath of justice. >> yeah, i would just say that we as a country are climbing a learning curve right now. we've never been in this situation before. and i think we have a bias that comes from the years of traditional presidents that we've all experienced. and so we sort of look at president trump, and jenn is exactly right when she says it's a dereliction of duty that he won't strengthen our deterns and our defenses towards russian interference. but i think we have to come to grips with a new reality. and that reality is that this president likely wants russian interference to continue. this may be new for us, but it is not new in the world. when russia, when putin backs a candidate, those candidates all over the world, especially if europe, they instliet. they want it. they even ask for it. they lobby for it. they don't turn it away. and right now i think that's our

situation. >> that's stunning. ken dilanian and phil rucker, thank you so much. i didn't mean to snak snag both of you for the whole hour but i'm grateful to both of you for being available. . . when we come back, how american politics went from hope and chains ton snakes. you wro you won't want to miss this. s. you won't want to miss this. ♪ i'm walkin wow! ♪nshine ♪ i'm walking on sunshine ♪ wow! ♪ applebee's handcrafted burgers. any burger just $7.99. now that's eatin good in the neighborhood.

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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 regulations in their entire term. don't worry, you're getting the wall, don't worry, okay. you need electro college, which by the sway 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 by the way too. we have a very, very crooked media. and there's 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 healthcare too.

remember that, they will take away -- thank you. at the will take away those massive tax cuts and they will take away your second amendment. tomorrow the headline will be protesters disturbed the trump -- one person, folks. doesn't deserve a mention. doesn't deserve a headline. do you think they're giving us their 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 you know, it's sort of boring. >> we never mind. jonathan. >> oh, you come to me after that? like 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 is

affront to the presidency, is unfit for office and i cannot believe we've got maybe three more years of this. >> god forbid. you know, it's a small thing but it's not a small thing. to lead booze against john mccain who is an american hero, who is battling cancer, what a low class -- >> it's hard to pick out the most revolting. he was attacking john mccain for one of the most principled moments of his career. but to hear lock her up still is shocking to me. >> lock her up, and desecrating john mccain particularly not only an american hero at the condition he's in. it shows you that we're at a very low point in terms of the presidency. and -- but 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

businessman. he was not there. he is what he was. >> wise words from the rev. we'll have to end on them. thanks to jennifer, jonathan, and the rev. that does it for our hour. i'll see you back here monday for deadline white house at 4:00 p.m. gates to open, let's play hardball. good evening i'm chris matthews in wab where there's been a big development today in robert mueller's voftion. in a plea deal, another former trump campaign official has agreed to cooperate with the mueller team. rick gates served as the deputy chairman of the trump presidential campaign. he also worked for trump's transition team. in court today, gates pleaded guilty to conspiracy against the united states and making a false statement to investigators. that false statement was made in fe