it's 4:00 in new york. politics in the time of trump have changed in every way imagine age. and in many ways, we never imagined. one of the most stunning is this. the president's alleged affair with adult film actress stormy daniels has never been our lead story until today. nbc news reporting that daniels sued the president on tuesday, alleging that all bets were off when it came to a nondisclosure agreement that trump's lawyer had negotiated with her because donald trump never signed it. today show anchor savannah guthrie interviewed daniels' lawyer this mornling >> your lieu suit states she had an inmatt relationship with the president. let's not bother to be delicate. did she have a sexual relationship with the president? >> yes. >> okay. she also says according to this document, that there were tangible items, photos, images, that she had them, according to this agreement she won't turn them over. she will never release them publicly. does she still have photos, images, text messages, documents that verify this claim?

>> that's a question that ms. daniels will have to ultimately answer. >> do you know the answer to that question? >> i do know the answer and i am not at liberty to disdloez it. >> michael cohen has acknowledged he facilitated a payment of $130,000 from his own personal funds in accordance with this agreement. >> we are highly questionable whether it came from his personal funds. >> you think the president knew about it? >> there is' no question the president knew about it at the time. the idea an attorney would go off on his own without his client's knowledge and engage in this type of negotiation and enter into this type of agreement quite honestly i think is ludicrous. >> you make that inference or can you prove the president made this payment? >> we can't disclose all the facts in evidence that were in connection with this. >> the suit may also spell more trouble for trump's fixer, attorney michael cohen who daniels claims has worked hard behind the scenes to keep her quiet. efforts that have been ongoing during donald trump's presidency and took place as recently as

eight days ago according to the lawsuit. quote, to be clear, the attempts to intimidate ms. clifford, stormy daniels' real name, into silence and shut her up in order to protect mr. trump continue unabated says the suit. on or about february 27th, 2018, mr. trump's attorney mr. cohen surreptitiously initiated a bogus arbitration proceeding against ms. clifrt in los angeles. just a quick reminder for everyone about what else happened on february 27th, on that day hope hicks admitted she sometimes tells white lies about the president in her testimony to the house intel committee. jared spokesman said he hadn't been directed to fight russian cyber attacks. and the country learned ben carson spent $31,000 on a dining table. it's no wonder stormy daniels gets buried under that. >> you were asked about whether the president knew about this

payment his long-time lawyer made to facilitate stormy daniels. you said then and today not that you're aware of. have you asked the president this question? >> i've had conversations with the president about this. and as i outlined earlier, that this case had already been won in arbitration and that there was no knowledge of any payments from the president and he's denied all of these allegations. >> is there a reason why you're not answering the actual substance of the question on the payment it snefl because it's come up a few times now. >> i believe i have addressed this question pretty extensively. and ongoing litigation i'm not going to comment any further than i already have. >> but the real question on the minds of trump watchers everywhere, could the man who has with stood 13 months of devastating headlines about the russia investigation and record turnover on his staff potentially be most mortally wounded politically and legally by a porn star? to help us answer that, donna edwards, former democratic congresswoman and now a senior fellow with the brennan center

for justice. with us at the table, allison rosati ee melber, and the host of the beat which has had a banner week, ari, thank you for squeezing us in. john heilman, nbc national affairs analyst whom we've installed the 6 second delay we hope is enough today. lydia, huff post editor in chief. under secretary of state for public diplomacy, msnbc analyst. let me start with my legal questions before i turn to the other side of the story with heilman and others. this idea that sarah huckabee sanders tried to advance in the briefing that some case had been won, what is she talking about? >> she seems to be referring to the fact that there is an arbitration clause in this agreement which means if you believe these parties came to this agreement, that rather than going to open court -- >> which agreement, the nondisclosure agreement that she wouldn't talk? she was paid for her silence, is that the agreement? >> that would be the agreement she would seem to be referencing and there is an arbitration provision. all that would mean is instead of going to open court, you go

to a private proceeding. that is something the parties can agree to. we haven't been able to ferret out what victory they say they got. >> what the lawyers seem to be saying to savannah guthrie this morning was absent donald trump's signature -- he was operating under a pseudonym himself. david denison. and i don't know if we have the image of this, but his signature line is blank. so, her suit alleges that that makes it null and void. is that right? >> right. and the obvious larger point here is if she just wanted to speak out and then make this claim, she could. this seems to be a kind of a bank shot to that same point. >> she's also, john heilman, alleging that she's been paid for her silence, but she doesn't want to stay silent any longer. her lawyer is making clear she has a story to tell and he said on the today show today she'll gladly give back the $130,000 that they don't believe came from mr. cohen at all. they believe it came from mr. trump, or at least that he

knew about it. so, money can't buy stormy daniels' silence. >> that is a pretty dangerous situation for the president to be in. i agree with ms. daniels' lawyer and i'm sure ari has a lot of experience sitting around lawyers. i don't know lawyers for really, really rich people who put forward six-figure dollar amounts on behalf of their client without at least consulting their client. rarely do they ever do it out of their own bank account unless there is some nefarious thing to cover up. one of the interesting things about the trump personnel is mike cohen, not a good lawyer. the mistakes that were made, the whole way he set up the llc which was to keep this all quiet turned out to expose him and let all this stuff get out to the public. there are questions about donald trump has the best people. doesn't seem like michael cohen was performing at a very high level of lawyering in this case. >> i don't want to do espn for lawyers and -- >> that's fun. >> that's why we have you here.

let me just add another geek question here. staying on the line he's more my cousin vinny than supreme court material, it would appear a lot of things about this payment raised a lot of flags in a lot of places. i mean, the payment itself was flagged by the bank to the treasury department which was led by donald trump's friend steve mnuchin. a porn star has been successfully able to break free from what was obviously hush money about an affair and is trying to tell her story. >> you're putting your finger why this is such a big deal. it's triggered, as you say, two suspicious activity reports, which is a financial legal requirement, it was done in a way that has created extra problems, it would appear, for not only the president as the participant, but also the lawyer himself michael cohen. and to this question about did he personally bank roll this?

under the american bar association legal ethical rules for lawyers, you're not allowed to put up money for someone unless they are indigent, unless they literally are so poor they can't afford their own counsel. donald trump is many things. he has never claimed to be indigent. >> may not be worth as much as he says he's worth, but i don't think he's indigent. >> donna, let me get you in on this. one, because you're a lawyer. two, because you've served in congress. we've watched a republican congress literally look the other way for all sorts of tropical storm edoua trespasses. trade war has them riled up oddly enough. what do you think about the stormy daniels sex scandal? he's the first president since bill clinton to bring sex into the white house briefing room. >> well, first of all, i had to tell my mother to close her ears for this segment because we're talking about a president, hush money, and, you know, a porn

star. and so, you know, it's really difficult. i think there's also some questions that are raised about whether there was a violation of campaign finance laws, whether it was reportable under the campaign finance laws, whether it came from donald trump, but still it is reportable. and, you know, i can't believe that republicans are still going to sit on the sidelines with this guy. i mean, he's been proven over and over again -- and i think you got to give some credence to the stormy daniels' legal complaint because it's telling us a lot of things that we have to read between the lines that we didn't know before. >> go ahead, jump in. >> i was going to say, this is a salacious story, it involves a porn star, it involves a president who has repeatedly talked about his genitals in public. this is not a delicate administration. but the big picture here is i think even more important. we've talked a lot about background checks and security clearances and the problems the trump administration has had in that department. now, the whole reason that those

are important -- of course the president doesn't need a security clearance because he's the president. the whole reason that's important is the fbi and the entire government is concerned are people vulnerable to blackmail. it's absolutely clear that from donald trump on down, there is a whole bunch of really nasty skeletons in people's closets. what's really frightening is we have a president who is isolated, he is angry and what i can see quite weak. that's a very dangerous combination. >> i want to ask you to pickup on this, rick. i'll put it to the table, if a porn star can blackmail the president, what can the russians do? it always comes off as glib and i don't want to denigrate a porn star. the truth ais the russians may have known about this, too. at the center of the mueller probe into potential collusion and at the center of the congressional investigations, is this question about whether or not russia had something on the

president? this certainly seems like the kind of thing that the russians might have had on him. >> you're asking me because you think i might know about that. >> i'm asking you because, one, you edited the magazine and you cover sex scandals. >> i'm holding a side letter to what we're discussing now. this is real reporting. >> you go magazine editor. >> it is understood and agreed the true name and identity of the person referred to as david denison in the settlement agreement is, and then it's redacted. that is donald trump's name on this agreement underneath that. what is going to expose him is the fact that congress is going to investigate. people will want to get to the bottom of this. is it possible that he was a party to the llc that was formed in delaware and did not pout ut on his disforeclosure you're agreement? that's possible. to the main question about what the russians know, what the

russians have been doing 40 years, they've probably been doing it since he was married to his first wife who was an immigrant who had been from a country formerly behind an iron curtain. what is the bar of embarrassment for him? pretty darn high. we know a lot about him already that he doesn't seem to be vulnerable to. he was the guy who said during the campaign, hey, i can take a gun on 5th avenue and shoot somebody and my voters wouldn't care. it's possible with all this taudre soared stuff people still don't care. >> how much can you brazen out? if we're talking about intimate photographs, i don't know. >> we're dancing around the central issue here. it seems to me politically, right, having covered my share of presidents and politicians who have gotten in trouble with sex from bill clinton to john edwards and others, these stories touch a nerve that is more visceral and more emotional

than discussions of russian collusion or discussions of bank fraud or discussions of obstruction of justice. these go to issues that get people very emotionally riled up. you have a whole subset of america more than half of them women, who basically from the time that donald trump on the access hollywood tape came out and a dozen or more credible women accused him of sexual assault -- have been angry that he got away what all that and got to be present. in this moment of me too, in this moment where we see suburban women running away from donald trump for a variety of reasons, what happens when the photographs stormy daniels is alluding to becomes public? if there are photographs they will become public. the notion they are intimate photographs -- >> it's time for my psa. nobody wants to see a picture raising a boy is clear to them. >> celebrity or shots of male

celebrities genitalia have happened in a lot of settings. in sports and in celebrity all over the place. if this woman has pictures that are of that kind of nature of donald trump, that is a place that we've never gone before in american politics. and donald trump can brazen out a lot of things, but in this moment in american politics and culture, what will happen if those kind of photographs exist and they become public? i think the political damage could finally actually catch up with him ton this issue. >> so, let me ask you. so, you've taken this to where it strikes a nerve with the public. i think we both have reporting that suggests the access holt i wood tape struck a nerve in his household. this seems like the same scandal that put even more strain on his personal life. and i wonder if you have any insights into -- we know after the stormy daniels story first broke, melania trump very publicly did not go with him. she went to the holocaust museum. this also seems like the kind of thing that could be the straw that breaks the camel's back on the private side of his life. >> there was a reason why on

october 7 of 2016 why steve bannon and others around donald trump thought that the most volatile and dangerous situation in trump tower at that moment was what melania trump was going to do when the access hollywood tape came out. they thought if she walked on him, didn't stay by his side, that could be the end of his candidacy. they thought he could get through the tape. he couldn't get through melania trump walking out on him because the damage not just in broadly speaking, but the damage with republican voters to see that happen would be devastating. she clearly, on the basis of all the reporting and visible evidence, has been upset by the stormy daniels story since it broke. as i said a second ago, this story is not going to get better for donald trump as she now wants to tell her story and potentially document her story with some very unsettling potentially unsettling images. what does that do if melania trump ask finally pushed over the edge? what does that do with his political standing with republicans? >> john, this is a conventional marriage the way most people know it, the way republican voters who used to have good

cloth coats know about marriage is ridiculous. there's an agreement. it's a business deal -- >> not most voters, rick. i don't think that's ho most trump voters see that marriage. >> in terms of what she does, she has a business arrangement. >> i don't know about that. >> i thought there was a clear distinction between how she act the before and how she acted immediately in the aftermath of -- >> i imagine she is still capable of shame and humiliation. >> i don't think -- >> i assume she is, but she may be legally bound to not express it or not leave her husband. >> do you think there is some sort of -- what are you saying? >> you don't think there is a prenuptial agreement? i have no idea. i will say when -- >> when sex scandals break with presidents, in the case of bill clinton, with presidential candidates, in the case of john edwards, when they break, the place where you see the damage is not just in the public's perception of the scandal itself, but as the family comes under extraordinary pressure and you look at elizabeth edwards

and how she handled john edwards' scandal and hillary clinton how she handled bill clinton. that is a volatile thing. >> huma aberdeen. >> one quick point. i think john's point about republican women is a really important one. we've been doing a lot of reporting on republican women. women who have joined the resistance within the gop and are running against the trump sort of -- the kind of trumpism -- >> trumpism. >> and i think that you're really, really going to see an impact of that phenomenon in the 2018 election, not that they're going to vote against the gop, but that you could see low-turnout among republican women and that could be very, very dangerous. >> i want to get back to the legal questions. obviously sex is one thing that men lie about whether they're president or not. and i wonder if he is with bob mueller, if there is real concern now that he could perjure himself. >> i think there is a concern he would perjure himself period

knowing how much donald trump lies and knowingly lies and lies on the record, has been caught lying. >> you mean like pretty much always. constantly. >> frequently, with a high frequency. i think that what your very interesting discussion here has been circling around as both a legal and political fact is that these stories raise the prospect of donald trump as both a potential perpetrator and victim, a perpetrator of potential sexual related criminal activity including the sexual assaults he is accused of and whether there are patterns of behavior or activities and buying silence that relate to those other claims, perpetrator. and victim, a potential victim of blackmail, of extortion, of foreign compromise. that is a very difficult and toxic circle to be tightening around the leader of a nation while he is under criminal investigation for other international conspiracy conduct. that is why this story matters so much more than any of its particular details.

>> because if stormy daniels can talk, steve bannon claims -- i don't think -- i think he's exaggerating. he said there must have been hundreds -- if stormy daniels talks, who else is going to talk? >> all right. ari melber, his show is the beat. an incredible week. >> thank you. >> thank you for spending time with us. we'll be watching. when we come back, bill clinton, john edwards, anthony weiner all had their careers rocked by sex scandal. a porn star has barely registered on the richter scale in trump's america. what so far has made donald trump different? plus robert mueller nets another fish. we'll be right back. people would stare. psoriasis does that. it was tough getting out there on stage. i wanted to be clear. i wanted it to last. so i kept on fighting. i found something that worked. and keeps on working. now? they see me. see me.

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the sex scandals of bill clinton, john edwards, elliott spitzer and anthony weiner sent shock waves across the country and exploded onto the front pages day after day after day for months at a time. so, if you're confused about why president trump's alleged affair with porn star stormy daniels hasn't yet joined the ranks, you're not alone. in a piece for bloomberg view, columnist michael lewis explains perhaps why this scandal has played out so differently. writing, quote, stormy daniels had a lot of interesting things to say about our president. not all of them damning, but the world hardly paused to appreciate her words. trump's allies shut their eyes and ears to them as to pay attention would benefit their adversaries. fox news barely mentioned the story. trump's enemies focused on the words that might be weaponized. affair with porn star 130 grand

pay out and ignored the others. most republicans hold trump and really how surprised could even the most dewee eyed trump supporter believed he did any of this stuff, it still faded. donna, let me start with you on that question. we've been around this table on days when all sorts of news has broken, but for some reason this show, we've been on the air almost a year now. we have never led with the stormy daniels scandal. why do you think that is? >> i think in part it's because we have a very low expectation of donald trump and his relationships with women. we've heard it so much. but here's why i think it does begin to take a toll where we can't see it. it is in the increased turnout that you see already now in the primary elections and that will go through november. it is in republican voters that are washing their hands, really not going for democrats, but washing their hands of it. and so i don't think it hasn't taken a toll. it's just that it's not the kind of toll we would ordinarily

measure because the president himself has demonstrated on so many other occasions that this is what we should expect of him. >> and let me pickup on a point you made about republicans, republican women. tony perk inch tony perkins, politico, trump gets a mull began on life. evangelicals said, nothing to see here. i guess the idea being that, i don't know what the idea is. we're all sinners or maybe we're just big fat hypocrites. i don't know. that's part of it. he's had extraordinary cover from the evangelical leaders. >> look, i think that's right, but i always think she's not evangelical, but my 90-year-old grandmother in hudson, wisconsin, gold water voter, rah-rah ra, she couldn't bring herself to vote for donald trump and the reason wasn't the russia stuff. it's that she thought he was vulgar. she's voted for a republican every single election in her life. it wasn't anything around the corruption, but it's really

about the personal lack of morality. and i think that while there's been a considerable amount of cover given to donald trump, particularly around by evangelicals around the issue of abortion and i think gun control is another place where you're going to see considerable support for him, i do think you're going to see a softening of turnout of republican women. >> personal conduct. >> on the personal conduct issues. i think of women like my grandmoth grandmother who is presbyterian church going and is morally offended by the behavior of this man. she's a rock river republican. >> and one of your, i guess former peers in the magazine industry described him a a vulgarian. >> so, you know, i'm going to be the sin i ccynic at the table w heilman here. >> not talking about porn stars? >> no, defining deviancy downward. that is what donald trump has

done, he's defined deviancy downward. he is sordid and grotesque and vulgarian. john mentioned the 13 women who accused him of sexual harassment. that happened before the election. >> right. >> so to me, i don't want to sound cynical -- >> no, no. >> i think people have factored that in about him. >> on that point, let me put this up. ronan farrell wrote in the new yorker about another woman, a play boy model, concealing infidelity, what interests me is how there was an operation for keeping them silent the way harvey weinstein had an operation for keeping some of the women he was encountered silent. the interactions that play mate mcdugal outlined show striking similarities who had sexual relationships with trump or propositioned them for sex or harassing them. the affair is entirely

consensual, but it is a detailed look at how they use clandestine hotel rooms, and keep multiple affairs he carried out away from the press. to be clear, harvey weinstein it's about how they covered those interactions up, not necessarily the conduct from what we know. >> donald trump in his life, in his history has always been -- part of his self-styled image has always been a guy who ran around new york. before he ran for president. for years and years, decades in this town, he was a play boy. and, you know, he had multiple wives and he was more or less open about cheating on all of they have while he was with them. he would go on the howard stern show and talk about his conquests and would say the ridiculous thing about how the sexual revolution was vietnam and he survived. that's the guy -- he wanted to present the image of himself as a swaggering frank sinatra for

whom morals were lax, et cetera. if you're that guy and you want to have a political career and you want to have a political career in the republican party -- you don't care, you have no ideology, no real policy. you're making a choice about where you can find traction. if you're going to try to be successful in the republican party, you are going to have to build a system to clean it up. you just are. and, look, if you go back to bill clinton, he had a system, too. he had a different background for different history. by the time he decided to run for president in 1992, he had a decade of a system built that involved state troopers and involved political aides that was about trying to keep quiet the proliferation of extra marital affairs and other entanglements that everybody knew about from his time as the governor of arkansas. >> these guys should be politicians in italy. i want to play something for you, donna --

>> you just throw a bunga-bunga party and invite the press and it's not a problem. >> trump wasn't at that party. >> we get so distracted on wednesday. it's hump day. it's not over. i want to play something for you, again, this idea that things get brushed under the carpet. this is something ivanka said about how as a senior staffer in the west wing, it was inappropriate to ask her in the middle of the me too movement about credible allegations against her father. let's watch. >> your father has been accused of sexual misconduct by roughly 19 women. do you believe your father's accusers? >> i think it's a pretty inappropriate question to ask a daughter if she believes the accusers of her father when he is affirmatively stated that there's no truth to it. i don't think that's a question

you would ask many other daughters. >> these are unique circumstances obviously. there hasn't been a situation where the accusation s have numbered this many to be clear. >> there have been some similar parallels. i don't think you would be asking the same question of those -- >> to be clear, all the women are making it up, though? >> i believe my father. i know my father. so i think i have that right as a daughter to believe my father. >> so, donna, first, ivanka trump should have thought about exerting her right as a daughter before she accepted the position on the white house staff. and second, it's a binary choice. you either think the women are lying or you think your father is lying. she obviously thinks the women are lying. >> well, she does. and it's 19 of them. here's the problem for ivanka. you're right, if she really wanted to play daughter, then she could have done that, stayed in new york, and not become a senior advisor in the white house. she was appearing on the television program, not just because she's the daughter, but because she's a senior advisor in the white house. and so -- and i think, you know,

she can't on one hand claim to want to do great things for women around the world and in the united states and defend the obviously bad behavior and maybe even criminal behavior, frankly, of her father as a senior advisor in the white house. if she wants to do that, she needs to get out of the white house and maybe just go back to new york. >> and because it's the time of trump she might do that. we might break into our program today with that news. we never know. donna edwards, thank you so much for spending the first half of the show with us. when we come back, when west wing chaos turns into a white house exodus. that's where some insiders say things are heading. >> now he's lost the director of the national economic council, the white house chief economic advisor gary cohn. we're going to have to like start broadcasting in an october gone so i can keep turning to different walls. ve my grandma. - anncr: as you grow older, your brain naturally begins to change which may cause trouble with recall.

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one of the problems here is the white house is getting hollowed out and the number of people capable of doing things, doing real things, whether you agree or disagree ideal logically, is getting smaller and smaller and they seem to be unable to recruit new people to take these jobs. the mess ups we've seen this past week i think we're going to see over and over and over again. the president's erratic style -- i didn't vote for jeff sessions but i think it's a symbol what he did to everybody what he did to jeff session s, don't go wor there. i've heard people being recruited and nobody wants to go. >> it was only yesterday donald trump declared everybody wants to work in the white house. they all want a piece of the oval office. but even as he uttered those words, gary cohn, his chief economic advisor had already informed him of his departure.

from the ap, kohn's departure sparked internal fears of an even larger exodus, raising concerns in washington of a coming brain drain around the president that will only get worse. one white house official said there is concern about a potential death spiral in the west wing with each departure heightening the frenzy and the next. most aides considering departing speak on anonymity said they don't have a clue who they can find to fill their roles. those team players has kept them on the job longer than planned. some are nearing a breaking point. joining us, peter baker correspondent for the white house times, his paper broke the news about gary cohn's resignation and reported the following. the resignation followed conversations the president held in recent weeks about the

possibility of replacing chief of staff. so before he quit over principle, he wanted a promotion. >> well, that's right. look, everybody is trying to figure out the best way forward. in his case, i think he thought if he could have the reigns of the white house he could make it work for him. that was before the trade tariff thing that got out of control from his point of view. the president announced sort of off the cuff he's going to impose these tariffs on steel and aluminum, plans to follow-up tomorrow with a signed order. that was too far for gary cohn and he finally decided to tender his resignation. as you said, he's not the only one. what's happening here is rather remarkable. overall turnover at this point according to a brookings study is 13%. far higher than any modern administration. and we're not through. at this point there's all kinds of speculation. will john kelly stay? will h.r. mcmaster stay? will jared kushner stay? who will be next to go out the door? even the president joked about it last weekend at the press

dinner, everybody is wondering whether stephen miller or melania trump will be the next out the door. so it's a big, big churn now inside the white house. >> you saw the first half of our show. >> that was an easy call. >> let me put up rachel maddow's wall. the daily show tweeted this out. a sneak peek of maddow's list of trump administration departures in two weeks. she joked at the end of last week, i need a bigger wall. i just watched jaws, so the idea i need a bigger boat is in my brain. i love this idea of her list getting bigger and bigger. peter baker, serious question. gary cohn getting credit for being an adult in the room, i understand that. i don't know him personally. this is not a personal observation, but what did he actually prevail upon? it seems like he failed to convince the president to pull out of the paris accord. he failed to sort of prevail in terms of the language the president used after the

charlottesville assessment that the president made that there have been good people on both sides of the kkk march. on what single debate about gary cohn prevail? >> yeah, no, it's a good question. first of all, nicolle, i'm a little worried you're watching shark movies. >> it's actually an unbelievable -- my husband showed the movie to my 6-year-old who hasn't slept since so it's a personal problem. i didn't mean to bring it up. >> at least it's not summer yet. look, you know, gary cohn will walk out of there saying that he had a big part in passing the tax cuts that were passed in december. that's a big win for him, a big win for president trump. and he'll say that he had a big hand in helping to shape that. obviously as you point out on a lot of other issues he did not win. you might say he helped prevent the president from doing more on terms of ripping up nafta right away. you might say that he prevented him from ripping up the korean trade agreement right away. he wrote a speech in davos that was more conciliatory toward

globalized world than hostile. but these are relatively small things in the overall scheme of things compared to, say, the tax cuts. now we're heading into a ses telemundo a year in which there are not a lot of obvious wins ahead of him. he's looking for the door. >> i have heard this. let me put this to everyone at the table. i heard this word exodus used now a little over a week. just to sort of put everything on the table, i've heard that john kelly is one of the factors, that the fact that the hideous handling of the rob porter security clearance situation, that he somehow emerged stronger, not weaker, is galling to some west wing aides who have been there since the beginning. i hear that it's a multifaceted mora morale morass. go ahead, peter. you're there. jump in. >> i think you're exactly right. i think there are a lot of factors here. it's different for each person necessarily, not the same. i think a lot of people felt on

john kelly's arrival in august a positive he was going to put the place in a better shape. they lost that optimism, partly over the porter thing, partly the issues he's been involved with. >> and i guess just to jump off what peter's reported, it's gone in the other direction. so, they had high hopes, and part of this maybe is just a disappointment that not even a general can straighten out donald trump. it's now gone so far as they feel reserntment. he walked in there streemtly judgmental of the regime that had come before him, reince priebus and others, and that in many ways the white house is more dysfunctional than ever now. >> here's what concerns me, which is that almost anybody who leaves now is not going to be replaced by a better actor, right? once upon a time with administrations, you had people who came in partially because they were idea logically acceptable, and replaced by people who were less idealogical. this time it's the other way

around. people like gary cohn weren't idea logical. if you look at the conversation happening now, john bolton being interviewed by the president for h.r. mcmaster's job. he's in the grand scheme of conventional orthodox generals who support the post cold war order. john bolton is an ideologue and that's what's going to happen as people are replaced. >> ideologues -- i think rick's point is right in this one respect. you usually get a new administration. cite the clinton example. you bring in with all due respect web hubbell. you bring people from home. it turns out they're a little overmatched by the job. in some cases just overmatched. they come in and don't have what it stakes to be white house chief of staff. the next thing you do is see

mack leave the building and leon panetta is one of the great chiefs of staff in the era. trump didn't bring in the kind of hometown mafia. he brought a lot of these pop l, in the general's category, highly come p/e te highly competent -- >> or mediocre. >> we need a break. the mysterious new witness cooperating with robert mueller and why it leads right back to jared kushner. duncan just protected his family

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examining the influence of foreign money on mr. trump's political activities and has asked witnesses about the possibility that the advisor george nader funneled money from the emirates to the president's political efforts. friendly reminder, the u.a.e. was one of the four countries we told you about last week that was reportedly discussing ways to manipulate jared kushner. and one of the others on that list, mexico, which is where jared is today, meeting with the nation's president all while on a downgraded security clearance. peter baker and the panel still here. peter, do you hear anything about how jared kushner prepared for this trip to mexico, his first foray into the foreign policy portfolio after what can only be described as a global humiliation of being stripped of that clearance and everything that kenotes? >> i assume he was watching msnbc and the times for information about meks dough. we don't require a clearance. everything else will require a

clearance. it's a tough thing for a person trying to operate on behalf of the white house in a foreign policy realm without having access to that. it doesn't mean you can't do it. you hear from veterans of past white houses that obviously you can talk about things and you can negotiate things and you can meet with foreign officials. but you go in with one hand behind your back. you don't have the latest intelligence on the leader you're meeting with and their motivations and what's going on behind the scene, what spying there might have been done on the governments of these places we go to visit. that's typical, unspoken for the most part. it leaves you sort of wondering a little bit if you know everything you should know if you stit down at the table with somebody across the way who probably has good intel on you. >> and just one other question about that. the other thing is that you lose your most valuable asset, which is if you're there as the president's son-in-law, nobody thinks you're there because you're the best. they think you're there because you're family. and you lose the prestige of having at least access to the

best information. i imagine this takes him down a notch in terms of prestige with these foreign leaders. >> well, i think you're right. it has to be in their minds. they understand that he has been downgraded. they downgraded. they don't understand quite exactly why. my guess is it is a mystery to foreign officials how this system works and why the president's son-in-law would be striped of his top secret security clearance but they know he has been an that indicates some sort of marginalization of him within the president's inner orbit. so it does take away the most valuable asset which is his connection to the president. >> and quickly, peter, your paper is reporting about bob mueller's interest in a lobbyist for the uae and whether or not there was any mixing of business and politics where it concerned jared kushner. >> yeah, exactly. i think that is a really interesting question you point out correctly.

that intersep thought they could manipulate him through business dealings and we understand from the story today that an adviser to them was at the meeting in the sayshells and with a russian connected to the kremlin before the inauguration. what was that about? people have been interested in knowing. people there deny there was anything to it. eric prince said it was a friendly chat over a drink. but it is feeding into the suspicion about any s-- subterranean link and the question of whether george haber connected to the uae was involved and what that means. >> i made a round of calls to find out if this story -- if it was innuendo or someone was going to the jail and the answers were literally -- between those two goalposts and everything in between.

a whole lot of inu endoand somebody is going to jail. >> that is the answer of every question of the trump administration. >> either impeached -- or what do you think the significance -- it is not just the times. there is a body of reporting about bob mueller's interest in interactions with jared kushner and foreign governments. >> well, i mean, nicolle, you went through this. when i went into the administration, i had to sell every equity and every business arrangement and i'm a lot less rich than jared kushner but people don't want conflicts. the fact he was able to get in and get a top secret clearance -- by the way i don't understand -- he can't get a tsi clearance. but he can get a top secret clearance. i would like to know the answer. he should have no clearance whatsoever. but the reason you have to divest yourself is so you don't have conflict of interest. so when he is meeting with foreign leaders, with foreign businessmen and his company has interests with those

businessmen, that is i gigantic leaping conflict of interest. >> and bleeping out his own words. i love that. >> that is unbeliefable. so it is really unfortunate. i put in one word for the emirates. they are among the most stalwart allies of the united states and against isil and opened a anti-isil messaging center in abu dhabi. >> i don't think anyone including mueller has suggested that they have done anything wrong and some of the countries it is the government that creates investment vehicles to invest in -- so they don't have the laws we have. so i don't think bob mueller or anyone else is trying to hold the emirates or anybody else -- but this is good jared kushner. as a official, it is your job to walk into the meeting with the emirates and anybody else and know exactly where the lines are

drawn. >> and that is the tricky part. it is the combination of afteraris and naiveetty that jared kushner so beautifully embodied and make us feel that there is major league fishy going on. and there was a story where you have eric prince of black water and you have this financier connected to putin and mr. nader. and they say, oh, it is just a coincidence. it sounds like the usual suspects. you don't end up in the same place at the same time. but it is also completely plausible in this shambolic administration that it could be a coincidence. >> that was a saw -- so awesome and unpack that and great movie though. i think we've spent a lot of time focused on mueller as investigating two things.

collusion, and obstruction of justice and i think that collusion, which has the international component and it is not a crime, conspiracy is a crime. i think if you look at everything going on, the -- where the inquiries are going and who the lawyers are on the team, there is a whole other c-word which is just corruption. and i think there is a corruption case here that is -- that is interwoven with the collusion and conspiracy case but international corruption is what he is looking at and involved trump and jared kushner and different countries beyond russia. >> and that is what paul manafort was charged with. financial corruption. >> and americans don't like -- they don't like corruption. they can put up with a lot of things, but corruption, that loses elections. >> we'll have a test for that. peter baker, thank you for spending this hour for us. we are grateful. we have to sneak in one more break. we'll be right back.

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the teachers, they would call us the energy patrol. so they would be like, here they come, turn off your lights! those three young ladies were teaching the whole school about energy efficiency. we actually saved $50,000. and that's just one school, two semesters, three girls. together, we're building a better california. quiet these guys down. this is a tweet that the president sent out yesterday morning insisting there is no chaos at the white house. the new fake news narrative is there is chaos in the white house. wrong. people always come and go. there is chaos at at table and i want strong dialogue and i have people i want to change and i'm seeking perfect. there is no chaos, only great energy. >> perfection is one of the words that people associate with the trump administration. perfection. just a little shy of perfection. >> and listen to the end. you have add. and since then kellyanne conway

violated the hatch act and stormy daniels filed her lawsuit and gary cohn resigned. no chaos at all, mr. trump. that does it for our hour. "mtp daily" starts right now, i'm sending heilman over. >> she has four seconds. >> that is so rare. you just ate it. >> i was talking them back. >> you just ate it. thank you, nicolle. if it is wednesday, it's a stormy day. >> tonight, the brain drain. after yet another white house exit, is the west ring in bigger staffing trouble than the president is willing to admit? >> well, i'm concerned that who the president will turn to for advice. >> and plus silencing stormy daniels. can president trump weather the adult film star's legal storm. >> it is hard to talk about politics with your kids. >> and how a battle of biden versus trump is shaping up