in vietnam dragged on for another seven years. that is our broadcast for this tuesday evening. thank you so very much for being here with us and good night from nbcn headquarters here in new york. where do you want to start tonight? this is like you're used to having like an entree and two sides for dinner. no, tonight is pu no, tonight is poopoo platter. tonight you can choose from everything we have to offer. this has been another one of those days with one breaking news story after another. each one of them a big enough deal that in any other administration it would be the focus of months of attention and scandal and congressional investigation but in this administration it's all you can do to finish reading one of the huge scoops that broke this afternoon and this evening before another one comes flying

down the barrel behind it. just in no particular order today, today the head of the national security agency has not been authorized to disrupt russian cyber attacks targeting our elections. the head of the nsa said we're absolutely not doing enough. russia is encouraged to do more by the success their efforts thus far, but his hands are basically tied because the president hasn't given him or his agency the day-to-day authority to disrupt russia's ongoing cyber attacks against us. that's a big story. also today, the president announced his reelection campaign which is strange enough since he's only been in office for a year but then he also chose to name his campaign manager for his reelection effort in 2020. can't use the old campaign chairman obviously. he's got 23 felony counts pending against him, so no, not him. the new campaign chief instead will be the guy that served as

trump's digital media guru brad parscale. as we await word from the special counsel as to whether there will be further indictments in the russia investigation with the data side of the presidential election in 2016, donald trump has just named the digital media guru from 2016 as the chief of his whole 2020 effort. that seems like a big story. but wait, as soon as that was announced, the associated press said a few months ago, brad parscale just named campaign manager for 2020, just a few months ago parscale signed a $10 million business deal with a super shady penny stock wp thco, which has recently been investigated for pumping its stock price online. this is a company famous for one

of its top executives offering to pay a million dollar bribe to some hedge fund investors supposed hedge fund investors to get them to illegally pump up the company's penny stock price. those hedge fund investors were fbi agents and it was a sting that executive ended up pleading guilty to commit securities fraud. he flipped and became a cooperating witness for prosecutors and now brad parscale just joined the board of that company and did a $10 million deal with him while he's just been announced as the trump campaign manager for 2020. all the while trump's deputy campaign chair from the last campaign pled guilty to two fellness and his aforementioned campaign chairman from the last campaign is due to be arraigned in federal court tomorrow and will be arraigned again in a different federal court two days later in both cases on multiple felonies. that seems like a big story, too. i can tell you there is some beautiful historical symmetry in the fact the president announced his reelection campaign today on the same day that the russia

legal defense fund for trump 2016 campaign staffers was formally incorporated into law. we'll have more on that coming up later on this hour. the "atlantic" magazine tonight also released direct messages between trump campaign associate roger stone and wikileaks. these are direct messages between stone and wikileaks from before the election even though roger stone denied he had direct contact with wikileaks. this means roger stone now admits being in direct contact during the campaign with a russian cutout that released e-mails stolen by the russian government and belatedly admits to being involved while they had e-mails stolen by the russian government. those in addition to the direct contact during the campaign

between wikileaks and donald trump jr., which the campaign first denied but now they have been forced to admit, as well. all of these news stories breaking in the same afternoon, this is all one day of news. let's keep going. today the white house communications director was called to testify under oath to committee and white house communications director refused to testify about anything and nobody is asserting executive privilege here. she's refusing to testify. okay. conveniently that means hope hicks drafting a false and misleading statement and the true nature and meeting during the campaign that involved and a whole bunch of russians by

claiming they had dirt on hillary clinton that had been collected by the government that they wanted to deliver to the trump campaign. also today, another white house official is reportedly talking about the false statements about the trump tower meeting, josh raffle. he quit the white house today. josh raffle had kind of a strange job. he was technically deputy communications director at the white house though that title was never formally announced before he quit today. okay. and real life what his job actually was was that he was the spokesman for the president's children, for the president's children given senior white house jobs. it's a strange thing to have the president's children and senior white house jobs and also a strange thing that we, the taxpayers, were paying the salary for the president's

daughter and her husband to have their own dedicated communications specialist on tap. but today that communications guy announced he is quitting. we contacted the white house and josh raffel himself today to ask if he's been interviewed by special counsel robert mueller. we also asked about whether he's been questioned about his alleged role in crafting the trump tower meeting statement or anything else. we asked if mr. raffel secured legal representation for himself. we got a polite decline to comment on both matters. but that, all of those things happened before the big news broke at "the washington post." we'll have shane harris, the lead reporter, we'll have shane harris here in just a moment to go through this. basically, here is the scoop. last month in what was then the biggest story of the year, they the new yorker magazine reported that senior law enforcement official himself come to the white house in december and given senior officials at the white house a stark warning that

a member of the president's family was being targeted by a chinese influence operation. in that same article, evan and adam for "the new yorker" reported jared kushner had basically been blowing off the national security protocols with meetings, including meetings alone on at least one occasion from the chinese ambassador. further reported on u.s. intelligence intercepts that turned up some worrying discussions about kushner's dealings with the chinese. quote, u.s. intelligence agencies aggressively target chinese government communications including the ambassador's reports about meetings in the u.s. according to current and former officials briefed about chinese communications, chinese officials said that in meetings to prepare for the chinese

president summit at mar-a-lago, the chinese ambassador and jared kushner discussed the business interests along with u.s. government policy. if jared kushner is bringing up his own personal business interests alongside government policy while talking with the chinese government, that's a serious national security breach. and what just broke tonight in the "washington post" tells us a little more detail about why that is. we're going to go through that with shane harris in just a second but that new yorker report from last night, that was the first time we were learned that jared kushner was given access to the president's daily brief that's prepared for the president every day. what was unprecedented and frankly strange about that revelation is that jared kushner was given access to the pdb despite the fact he doesn't have a full security clearance and hasn't been able to get one since he's been in the white

house. since then, as you know, the whole issue of security clearances has blown up into a full scale disaster for the trump white house. following revelations about rob porter, the white house staff secretary who lost that job following news reports about serious domestic violence allegations against him from both of his ex-wives. those news reports about those domestic violation allegations, those were revelations to all of us and the public but it turned out the white house had known for a long time. the ex-wives had been interviewed by the fbi as part of rob porter's background process for him trying to get a security clearance. the fbi wouldn't clear him to get a full security clearance because of the allegations against him, which they described to the white house chief of staff and the white house counsel. despite that, white house chief

of staff john kelly kept rob porter in that job. he even recommended rob porter for big promotions and he kept giving him access to the most classified materials despite rob porter not being able to get a security clearance. so the furry over rob porter and white house handling of those allegations, the white house inexplicable lack of concern over security clearance problems, that led to sustained controversy for a white house that otherwise sheds controversy like water off a duck, it also led to a policy change at the white house. as of this past friday, white house chief of staff john kelly announced with this memo that the white house would no longer allow access to highly classified material for staffers that couldn't get a full security clearance. and once we got that policy announced, we did see a few people start peeling off out of white house jobs. a speech writer couldn't get a full clearance. four appointees in the commerce department as reported tonight in "the washington post" by carol.

we asked josh raffel if him leaving tonight had something to do with the security clearance issue having to do with him. no answer from him on that either. there is this fraught question looming over this security clearance controversy because the most high profile people in the white house who we know haven't been able to get full security clearances are these two. the president's daughter, ivanka, and her husband, jared kushner, are each titled as senior white house advisers. jared is in charge of middle east peace and china and mexico and all trade policy. ivanka just got back from briefing the president of south korea on the new north korea sanctions. how on earth can they do these senior jobs if this policy from chief of staff john kelly means that the two of them will no longer be allowed to see classified materials? tough question. politico.com reporting tonight the new john kelly policy about

the security clearances, the new policy is in effect, it did go into effect a few days ago on friday. politico first to report this means jared kushner at least no longer has access to highly classified information. he has lost his access to the highest level of classified material including the president's daily brief. we also assume that these changes will restrict access to information for the president's daughter, but who knows, we're in brand new nepotistic ground here so we await further word on ivanka's job. all that is unfolding and meanwhile tonight, "the washington post" just dropped

the hammer when it comes to jared kushner specifically. headline here is quote, kushner's overseas contacts raise concerns as foreign officials seek leverage. this story takes the concerns first reported in the new yorker last month and it turns them up to 11, citing former and current u.s. officials familiar with intelligence reports on the matter, shane harris and his colleagues report tonight quote officials in at least four countries united air of lack of foreign policy experience. national security advisor h.r. mcmaster learned that jared kushner has had contacts with foreign officials that he did not coordinate through the national security council and he did not officially report them. the issue of foreign officials talking about their meetings with kushner and their perception of his vulnerabilities was raised in mcmaster's daily white house

briefin briefings. the meetings with kushner and vulnerabilities was a subject raised in mcmaster's meetings and he was naive and being tricked with officials some of whom said they wanted to deal only with jared kushner directly and not with more experienced personnel. so this is operating at a couple of levels. the personal drama here is that it's not just that jared kushner

can't past the background check to get a full clearance. there is some hangup at the fbi in terms of clearing him through. that's no longer the story. the personal drama here is with this breaking news tonight in the washington post, this means that the problem is inside the house, right? this is the president's national security advisor and white house officials more generally who have these concerns about jared kushner and that's why he won't get a full clearance. quote, kushner's contacts with certain government officials have raised concerns inside the white house and are a reason he's been unable to obtain a permanent security clearance. so again, this is not the white house fighting with the fbi over whether or not it's okay to clear jared. this is the white house itself not being okay to clear jared. which is one thing if jared were a normal employee. if you're going to end up firing a rob porter or a mike flynn, that's one thing. but what happens when the guy in question, the guy about whom there are serious national security concerns is the president's son-in-law? happens when the president's own top level staff takes a stand against his family? who wins that fight with the president who gives his family top level white house jobs? and then there is the legal and scandal issues here, too. quote, special counsel robert mueller has asked people about the protocols kushner used when he set up conversations with foreign leaders. now, it has previously been reported that robert mueller's team of prosecutors expanded their interest in jared kushner

to include his efforts to secure financing for his company from foreign investors during the presidential transition. well, tonight "the washington post" put some meat on those bones, again, siting u.s. -- citing u.s. intelligence intercepts. quote, officials from the uae identified kushner as discussing financing with a russian banker. he met in december 2016 with sergey with a bank called veb subject to u.s. sanctions. the bank said they talked about promising business lines and sectors with jared kushner at that meeting but kushner himself told congress that meeting didn't involve any discussions about his family's company. uae. russia. it's china, too.

before trump took office kushner met with executives of a chinese company to discuss a troubled kushner investment in a new york office building at 666 fifth avenue. that company was just taken over this weekend by the chinese government. that's who kushner was negotiating with during the transition for like a $400 million investment in his family's company building. so this is in "the washington post" tonight. this is a bombshell for a couple reasons. one, there is the unprecedented and bizarre personal drama where we can't predict the outcome because we've never had anything like this before. this bizarre personal drama that derives from nepotism which is why there are anti nepotism rules.

bizarre drama from the white house including the security advisor and chief of staff drawing a line and saying no to the president over his son-in-law. saying that on national security grounds and there are concerns about the behavior of a white house senior advisor and contacts with multiple foreign countries, serious concerns they would rank among the biggest scandals in any modern presidency even if there weren't bizarre and complicated nepotism concerns layered in the middle of this same scandal. joining us now is shane harris of the washington post, one of four reporters that broke this big story tonight. mr. harris, congratulations on this very big story. thanks for joining us tonight. >> thanks, rachel. >> let me ask you about h.r. mcmaster. there's a lot of discussions about white house officials having concerns and then there's a lot of specificity in your reporting about h.r. mcmaster, learning about kushner's

worrying contacts, which he didn't officially report and coordinate through the national security council. why is mcmaster the person in line to be monitoring this behavior by a white house official? are the daily intelligence briefings that he's receiving where he was getting reports about these concerns? >> well, h.r. mcmaster came in to replace michael flynn after he was forced out of the white house with his own russia related issues sits at the center of national security policy making that goes on in the white house and also his job to make sure the state department, the defense department and intelligence community their views are all represented and all of that information is brought into the

white house has a coherent policy. when he came into his job he discovered and quite taken aback to find out jared kushner was having his own policy discussions with foreign officials and not reporting that through the normal channels of people in the white house. that was a problem because jared kushner is a senior advisor to the president with a lot of foreign policy issues and if he's not reporting in those conversations he's having, that means the white house doesn't know what was said in those conversations. the white house also doesn't have the chance to brief kushner ahead of time to say you'll be talking to the foreign minister of china. here are the things we know. here are the things he might have tried to tell you. don't believe him. this is what the truth is. these prebriefings after the fact they are standard and done really to make sure that the people in those discussions have the full benefit of information that the government has and that the white house has a cohaerent policy. so mcmaster surprised to find

out took steps to make sure he was notified when jared would be having those discussions. >> in terms of mr. kushner and his security clearance, of -- obviously there is a question about the classified material but a question what is holding up his clearance. one of the big advances in your reporting is we've previously been told the fbi was having problems for a background check for a security clearance application and as of february 9th, the deputy attorney general rod rosenstein contacted the white house and said there were serious remaining concerns about mr. kushner in terms of his background check, but what you're describing tonight is separate and apart from whatever is going on at d.o.j. and fbi with the question of his

background check, there are concerns within the white house itself about his behavior as a white house official that themselves might be enough to block him from getting a clearance. that's how i'm reading it. is that a fair reading of what you've reported? >> yeah, it is. i think that you're right to zero in on this. we haven't really precisely known up until now what was it the fbi was finding or his background check that was causing the problem and it had gone on for more than a year. he wasn't fully forthcoming. these contacts he was having, the conversations he was having, ones mcmaster doesn't know about, there is something that becomes major impediment to him getting a clearance and what's become clear in this is that he is not going to get a top secret security clearance through the normal channels. it would take the president intervening to give him the clearance. we still don't know precisely everything said in those conversations but the fact of that was singled out to us by sources as a hurdle, as something keeping him from getting that clearance that is very significant. >> washington post reporter shane harris, one of four on this scoop tonight from "the washington post." thank you very much for joining us tonight. appreciate it.

congratulations again. >> thanks. >> based on this reporting, i know everything is unprecedented. it's impossible to imagine that white house senior advisor jared kushner keeps his job and national security advisor h.r. mcmaster keeps his job, all together now given what has been reported about the serious conflicts among them and the suspicions of the white house officials toward the president's son-in-law including stripping his clearance. i can't imagine this sustains. can it? hold that thought. thanks man. imagine if the things you bought every day... earned you miles to get to the places you really want to go. with the united mileageplus explorer card, you'll get a free checked bag. two united club passes. priority boarding. and earn fifty thousand bonus miles after you spend three thousand dollars on purchases in the first three months from account opening plus, zero-dollar intro annual fee for the first year,

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now you can get it, too. welcome to the party. as we continue to cover this breaking news tonight about h.r. mcmaster and security concerns -- and other white house officials airing serious national security concerns about jared kushner, the president's son-in-law, who was just stripped of his access to highly classified information, we're joined by somebody who understands these things, if anyone does, because she's been there. n aye colle wallace, former

white house communications director hosts "deadline white house" right here on msnbc, the single smartest show on cable news right now. hi, nicolle. how are you? >> i can't believe you said that. you threw me. i forgot everything i learned. >> in "the washington post" tonight, this shane harris was the lead story is the lead reporter, this strikes me as a big scoop among big scoops. >> yeah. >> one of the things he says is that mcmaster was taken aback to

learn jared kushner was taking meetings without coordinating then and reporting he was taking the meetings. now is there -- having worked in the white house, that's weird, right? >> beyond weird. we'll find through the mueller probe if crimes were committed and it's been the radar since the earliest days of the transition. before there was a transition, the "times" or the "post" broke the story about the back channel he tried to set up with russia. he's been having interactions with foreign government at best were inappropriate and unprecedented and at worst may have involved criminal actions. >> now we got last month from "the new yorker" had that incredible piece about china, what leapt out is people familiar with u.s. intelligence intercepts said chinese officials discussed meetings that happened with jared kushner at which he reportedly brought up his own personal business

interests alongside u.s. policy interests. that's a serious allegation. we've got other u.s. intelligence intercepts described in "the washington post" tonight where four different countries describes what makes him vulnerable including personal financial difficulties, business interests and pursuit of foreign investors for his family's business interest while he's been associated with the trump campaign and administration. here is my question, why is it so dangerous for a senior u.s. official to be mixing his own personal business interests and financial needs with government policy? >> so it's not about what you think it was about. the background check isn't about the fbi looking at your answers on a form, going into the field to vet them out and deciding if you have the sufficient character or leadership skills to be a white house aid. that's up to the staff to decide. they go out with a single purpose. the reason for your fbi field investigation, the reason they go out and check the answers they give on the initial form or more advanced one is to see if you're a potential target for blackmail. jared kushner as of today has not proven he's not a potential

target for blackmail. >> you are a target if you've done anything that you would take great measures to assure didn't become public or wasn't made known to your home government or law enforcement. >> that's right. >> anything you've done that you would be embarrassed by or you would get in trouble for is something that would make you vulnerable to blackmail manipulation. >> we talk about them so they are in the past and we're in the process of unpacking it. there is no evidence jared kushner's actions that prevented him from getting a clearance and you have to keep in mind, we only know that he couldn't get a clearance. nbc news broke the story but we only got access to this information about the people with interim clearances because of the rob porter scandal. so because of the audacity of the white house to leave an accused wife beater in a position where he was handling incredibly sensitive information, he would have been the person putting the pdb on the president's desk. we learned the numbers of people on interim status. all the reporting tonight bears out not only had it been something he couldn't achieve, it might have been something he would never achieve. what i heard from sources is

that jared's sort of deliberations about do i stay or do i go, and i agree with your list of three people it's not sustainable for h.r. mcmaster, john kelly, not a stretch to describe it as a snake pit. this move was a consolidation of power by kelly. he's reached out to corey lewandowski. >> to get lewandowski on his side in this fight? >> to have his back because lewandowski remains close to jared and ivanka. they can spin it however they want. they sent a senior administration official to say jared is a good boy and does lots of work and you hear the president say over and over he doesn't make money here. not a good talking point. >> all right. >> we know how that worked out for others that didn't make money on the campaign. the problem jared has now is that his wife has a portfolio she enjoys. there is no natural, graceful exit.

i share your theory that h.r. mcmaster may not be where he is for a while. this is a public power struggle made public by their own hubris and their own nones. thanks to incredible reporting and the operating clearance and now we know he probably never would have gotten one. >> yeah, this is kelly taking a stand and saying we're drawing a line. saying that kid's got to go. >> it's mcmaster and kelly saying there is a national security reason he has to take the downgrade in clearance. i have not heard them say he has to leave the white house. being publicly embarrassed. >> getting your clearance stripped and access information stripped. >> the reporting in the new yorker is not an anomaly. he flew over and met with the

saudi leaders and that wasn't on the list. it was a known unknown the ways that he's mixed foreign policy discussions with his own sort of just people could just say, you know, and they are experienced in doing this, he is not. how is your family's business? tell us about your family's industry. it's as easy as that to mix the work of a policy adviser and the work of -- >> you got something to use against them and say show us some of this classified information. >> because those conversations are on going, how do you clear them? >> nicolle wallace and person who has been transformed by the experience of covering the trump administration. >> transformed. people like you miss my old boss. >> there you're wrong. there you're wrong. >> it was normal. it was normal lines of debate. >> we'll fight about this over a drink. we have a little mini scoop tonight still coming up. a scoop mini. that's coming up in just a second. stay with us. what would our founding fathers

want us to do about this president? i'm tom steyer, and when those patriots wrote the constitution here in philadelphia, they had just repelled an invading foreign power. so they created the commander in chief to protect us from enemy attack. the justice department just indicted 13 russians for sabotaging our elections.

an electronic attack on america that the chief investigator called "warfare". so what did this president do? nothing. and is he doing anything to prevent a future attack? the head of the fbi says no. this president has failed his most important responsibility- protecting our country. the first question is: why? what is in his and his family's business dealings with russia that he is so determined to hide, that he'd betray our country? and the second question is: why is he still president? join us today. we have to do something.

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happy birthday. happy birthday trump world legal defense fund. we were first to report earlier this month on plans for a legal defense fund to help people associated with president trump pay for the lawyers they need to deal with the russia investigation. according to the draft papers, the fund would be called the patriot legal expense fund trust l.l.c. there was no public announcement that this legal defense fund was coming into being but we found signs it would soon be incorporated as a nonprofit in

the state of delaware. we've been waiting and watching and clicking and reloading where the government of delaware puts information about corporations that get born in that corporate friendly state but now we need pace and worry no more. behold today it was born, the patriot legal expense fund trust llc as of 3:32 p.m. delaware time. we still don't know who's going to get to donate to this russia legal defense fund or who gets help or who will decide who gets help or who gets left out. an attorney declined our request tonight but this is officially now happening. this still mysterious, legally unusual defense fund for people in trump world who are dealing with the russia scandal. the defense fund exists today. the same day trump announced he's running for reelection. as we learn more, we'll let you know. make something for dinner.

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to veterans. he said he was giving it all away to veterans groups, including a million dollars of his own money. when a reporter at the washington post dug into that, he discovered that a majority of the money from the fundraiser had not been given away and there was no evidence trump himself donated any of his own money anywhere. that story, that veteran's money story launched david farenthold on a beat that would eventually produce scoop after scoop about how trump ran his charitable foundation and his business. david farenthold revealed that donald trump never delivered and made charitable donations with other people's money and passed it off on his own, who broke tax law using his charitable foundation to settle legal disputes to settle donations and buy big portraits of himself and

crashed a ribbon cutting ceremony for charity opening, a nursery school for children with aids stole a seat on stage that was reserved for a big contributor and left without personally giving one red cent. also the access hollywood tape, the most read story of all time on "the washington post" website was david farenthold's story. he won a pulitzer prize. do you know what he's working on now? that's next. if he'd taken tylenol, he'd be stopping for more pills right now. only aleve has the strength to stop tough pain for up to 12 hours with just one pill. tylenol can't do that. aleve. all day strong. all day long. check this sunday's paper for extra savings on aleve pm.

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international hotel and tower in panama city, panama. donald trump's only hotel in latin america. he doesn't own it but his company is paid to run it. you might remember this special report by richard engel. richard turned up evidence that hotel was built as a brazen vehicle for russian mafia money laundering. here is what is going on there at the trump hotel and tower in panama city today. quote, panamanian police handcuffed a security guard in the midst of a dispute the hotel's majority owner tried to fire the trump organization and trump employees are refusing to leave. quote, there were physical altercations between rival groups of security guards. a visit by police officers and a

triumphant piano performance. the conflict took place in a room that contains surveillance monitors and control the fire alarms and water pumps. today's conflict took place in a room that contains surveillance monitors and servers that

control the bill's fire alarms, fiberoptic communications. they posted guards at the room and bard everyone else from entering for days. at one point staff who work for the owner cut the power to that room. this video obtained by "the washington post" shows what happened this morning when several of the owner's staffers were finally able to enter that room. a chaotic room of shoving and shouting ensued as trump guards tried to evict them. quote, someone grab me by the neck and wrestled me down. at least five panamanian police officers arrived at the hotel and broke up the fight between the rival groups. i think the technical business term here is nuts. but here is the kicker. quote, the panamanian labor ministry is now investigating whether there were violations of the national labor code at the hotel. the public prosecutor is examining whether trump employees have disregarded lawful orders from their employer. which means if you boil it down, that means the president's private company is now under investigation by a foreign government and foreign prosecutors. and david fahrenthold continues to write sentences that no one ever thought would be written about a serving american president. such as, quote, the white house didn't respond when asked whether the president had been briefed on this fight at one of his company's 12 luxury hotels.

joining suss david fahrenthold, pulitzer prize winning "washington post" reporter and as of today, yay, msnbc political analyst. congratulations on this new reporting. and thank you for joining us here at msnbc. we're so glad to have you here. >> thank you. it is great to be here. >> great. tell me about this panamanian dispute. what are they fighting about? >> basically, there is a guy who owns the hotel. the hotel is as you said not owned by trump, it's run by trump. the owner of the hotel has decided it's losing too much money and he blames mismanagement by the trump organization and also blames the trump brand which is toxic in latin america for the fact that the rooms are basically empty. he is trying to fire the organization, even though the contract as far as i can tell didn't allow them to fire them. he is trying to do this by sort of showing up, going to panama, handing out letters of termination and hoping the panamanian government will help him. >> and what about these investigations by the panamanian government? you described interest by the prosecutor, interest by the labor ministry. are these serious investigations? are these -- is this petty harassment of the trump organization on behalf of a competing business interest? or is this serious stuff from that government? >> it seems to be serious. it's actually moving quite fast. so the majority owner has basically asked the government's help in getting to the hotel, delivering these letters of termination and basically getting these trump organization

employees out of the hotel. so far it seems like the government is sort of taking his side and making efforts to follow through on that. we won't know for a couple of days how far it goes. but it seems like he has sort of the advantage so far from the government. >> are there any additional complications that are going to arise internationally if these investigations do proceed to the point where they're a serious problem for the trump organization while the president still maintains his active interests as far as we can tell in the trump organization as a business? >> well, as you said, president trump has said he has given up day-to-day management of his business, but he still owns it. he still gets money out of it. the money that that panama hotel makes is still his money. the u.s. state department and the panamanian foreign ministry say look, this isn't a diplomatic matter. we don't know what the president's level of knowledge is about this case. so far there hasn't been some sort of international incident coming out of this. but you are right to raise the potential. what if this goes farther along and the government does eject trump from this property where he is making money? the government does arrest more of his employees? you can see the potential for more friction. >> what do you think is going to happen next here?

what are you watching for next in this story? obviously, it's interesting in its own terms. it's interesting as an artifact of a president having a current private business. but there is also this prospect that this could become an unprecedented international complication for this government. >> that's right. i'm looking at two fronts. one, in this particular case in panama, does the owner of the hotel continue to have success using the panamanian government to kick out trump? and if that works, how long does it take? what are the consequences for trump's employees, and does trump try to do anything in the panamanian legal system to block it? trump has tried all these things in the u.s. legal system, but hasn't done anything successfully in panama. does the trump organization make an appeal to panama's legal system. and then beyond that, say this does work and the trump name does come off that hotel, where does it come off next? we've already seen it come off two hotels in toronto and in a new york soho neighborhood where is the next place where trump isn't popular and the owner of a hotel that he runs

tries to kick him out. >> right. and how do we expect the president to react as he sees consequences for his business from his new political life. david fahrenthold, "washington post" reporter, pulitzer prize winner and as of tonight msnbc contributor. i have to tell you, we are all super, super excited to have you here. >> thanks. >> thanks. there is late-breaking news tonight about the democrats making some surprising election pickups tonight in places you wouldn't expect. that's next. (dog) mmm. this beneful grain free is so healthy... oh! farm-raised chicken! that's good chicken! hm!? here come the accents. blueberries and pumpkin. wow. and spinach!

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more seats in special elections around the country. in new hampshire, democrats flipped a seat in the state house. the democrat in that race appears to have won by eight points. this is a district trump won by 13 points. so this isn't just a democratic pickup in new hampshire tonight. it's a 21-point swing in the democrats' direction. this is the fifth seat that new hampshire democrats have flipped from red to blue since the presidential election in 2016. there was also another flip tonight in connecticut. democrats clawed back a seat held by republicans in a district that hillary clinton had actually won in 2016. phil young won tonight in the house district 120 in connecticut. he'll be the first democrat to represent that district in connecticut in 44 years. so there were three special elections tonight. democratic pickup in new hampshire, democratic pickup in connecticut. that i think makes 39 total democratic flips from red seats to blue seats since december 2016. but check out the result tonight

in the third special election tonight. that happened in kentucky. now in this one the democrat lost. this is a kentucky special election for a house seat. but frankly, it's news here that the democrats even tried to contest this seat. this seat, house district 89 in kentucky is a district that donald trump won by a margin of 62 points. the democrat lost there tonight, but she still swung the district almost 30 points in the democrats' favor compared to 2016. so, again, tonight, there were three special elections. democrats flipped two seats tonight, two seats out of three from republican to democrat in new hampshire and connecticut. and in the third one in kentucky, they pulled off a 28-point swing. this is basically been the story of special elections that we've seen across the country in red states and blue states since the november 2016 presidential election. democrats look at the special election results across the country, and they see stars in

their eyes in terms of what is going to happen in november 2018. every election is its own local story. you can't predict >> good evening, rachel. i have breaking news for you from "the new york times" about the color of lies. >> hmm. >> in the white house. and there is a hint in the name of the white house what color the lies are. stand by. i'm going to read it to you word for word hot of the press of "the new york times." hope hicks, the white house communications director told prosecutors that her work for trump that has a reputation for outright falsehoods had occasionally required her to tell white lies.