you're fired. donald trump is fighting a cascade of unwelcome headlines about his alleged sexual relationship with porn star stormy daniels and ongoing fallout from the security clearance debacle including today's departure of one of his close st aides, guy literally with the title, body man, escorted off the white house grounds. against that backdrop, donald trump gave rex tillerson the ax this morning and replaced him with cia director mike pompepom. all the news delivered on twitter. the move raising eyebrows for, if nothing else, the optics of firing the guy who took a tougher line on russia yesterday than the white house and replacing him with the guy who took such a soft line on russia as cia director that the cia had to walk back his comments. it's been under pompeo's tenure as director of the cia that we have a president who does not read his pdb.

that stands for presidential daily brief. a document that contains the nation's most sensitive and urgent intel. it has also been reported that the president only receives news about russia in writing. so as not to derail those intel briefings. figure out for yourself how much the president knows about russia. one former national security official and frequent contact with donald trump's top national security team members described pompeo as so ambitious that he spent all of his time kissing the president's rear end, and, quote, never got around to creating a plan to fight russia. but first, the presidential tweet that set things in motion this morning. "mike pompeo, director of the cia, will become our new secretary of state. he will do a dpfantastic job. thank you to rex tillerson for his service. gina haspel will become the new director of the cia and first woman so chosen. congratulations to all." rex tillerson speaking out this afternoon after being blind

sided by the time of the news while on a trip to africa. he didn't thank the president in his remarks, and mentioned him only once to say trump called him hours after his twitter announcement. and these comments to the press. >> rex and i have been talking about this for a long time. we -- we got along, actually, quite well, but we disagreed on things. when you look at the iran deal, i think it's terrible. i guess he thought it was okay. i wanted to either break it or do something and he felt a little bit differently. so we were not really thinking the same. you know, i wish rex a lot of good things. i think he's going to do -- i think he's going to be very happy. i think rex will be much happier now. and i'm really at a point where we're getting very close to having the cabinet and other things that i want. >> he's really, really close. tillerson reportedly calling the president a moron last summer, didn't help things. in fact, two sources tell nbc

news that president trump could never get past it. and that the incident was a constant undercurrent that exacerbated their other clashes. to help us understand the significance of all of today's news, we're joined by some of our most favorite friends and reporters. "washington post" white house bureau chief phil rucker, from "the new york times," matt apuzo, from politico, senior foreign affairs correspondent, michael cowley, and jeremy bash, former chief of staff at the ci, and pentagon, now an msnbc national security analyst. i've been following jeremy on twitter all day long. donald trump would have preferred to fire rex tillerson while he was in transit, a move that seems to mirror his desires for the comey firing. what is it with him? >> yeah, that's right, nicolle, that's what we're reporting here with my colleagues ashley parker and carol leneg that the president wanted to announce this firing in a tweet on friday

which was saturday time in africa. remember, john kelly called rex tillerson while he was asleep in nairobi at about 2:00 in the morning or so saturday morning to wake him up to let him know the president was mad, his days may be numbered and a hint for him to get back to washington and take care of this. meanwhile, the president wanted to tweet that tillerson was fired and kelly appealed to him, to vin convinced him not to do so, it would be more appropriate to let the secretary of state come back to the united states and depose him while he's here on domestic soil. >> air it babarely sounds like story you hear in american politics. remarkable. let me read something that caught my eye. "the quickest way to get fired by donald trump isn't misuse of taxpayer funds, domestic violence or land iying, it's stg up to putin." here are the comments we referenced in the beginning of our show.

tillerson on russia yesterday after the white house refused to implicate russia in that attack in the poisoning of former russian spies living in the uk. this is what tillerson said. "we are outraged that russia appears to have, again, engaged in such behavior. from ukraine to syria, and now the uk, russia continues to be an irresponsible force of instability in the world. acting with open disregard for the sovereignty of other states and the life of their citizens." this kind of harsh critique or rebuke of vladimir putin's russia never lands well with donald trump. >> no, that's right. it was striking that we saw tillerson's exit the day after he made those comments. it's -- i don't think that they were related, but you do point out the interesting juxtaposition, and, you know, i see in tillerson someone for whom the scales fell from his eyes. he came into that job very bullish about changing u.s./russia relations. i think was interested in some of the president's ideas along the lines of whether u.s./russia

relations could be restored and we could have some kind of partnership. of course, tillerson had a background of working with russian president vladimir putin on big oil deals when he was runnirun running exxonmobil. over the year-plus in which tillerson was in that job, i think he came to realize the russians really are pretty terrible and infuriatining on s many h fronts and as he said in his final remarks at the state department today, i thought it was noteworthy, really putin is on a track to further isolation and russia has got to change its course and i don't think that does sit well with president donald trump. having said that, nicolle, one last thought, it's not as though in mike pompeo you're bringing in dana rohrabacher. pompeo is not a putin hugger and he does have history of pretty tough views toward russia, so if that is one of the key problems for trump, bringing pompeo in is not going to solve it. >> jeremy, let's unpack that a little bit, because mike pompeo did get over his skis a bit as director of the cia.

he uttered an assessment the that is not consistent with the intelligence community's assessment of russia's role in the 2016 election. the cia public affairs office had to walk that back. we also know that as cia director, h e engages with the president. he's involved in the process of briefing him which we now from multiple news outlets. the president doesn't read it. it is simply briefed to him which is his prerogative. we also know that information about russia under mike pompeo is only transmitted in writing. so unless i'm missing something, i know this sounds like an s.a.t. math riddle, but does the president know anything about russia? >> yeah, i think you have a point, nicolle. i think in pompeo's confirmation hearing before the senate foreign relations committee, he's going to with askbe asked detailed questions, how much he believes the findings of russia's meddling in the election. i don't think anybody should be

under elections. the foreign policy of the u.s., vis-a-vis russia is not going to be changing from one secretary to another. putin, letting him work his will in syria, in ukraine, and elsewhere. that's because the commander in chief has decreed that that's going to be the foreign policy of the united states. with regards to secretary tillerson, though, i want to make one point which is the substantive issues like iran, north korea, there's also the process issues which is the president did this via twitter. he did this in a very cowardly way. he did this in a way that only really a small man would do. someone who doesn't actually want to deal with the consequences of telling someone that their employment arrangement is not working out. i wonder what signal it sends to our add vversaries that the president is so petrified to fire someone in person, how we're going to have him negotiate with the north koreans on our behalf. i don't think it's going to work out very well, nicolle. >> i wanted to get to you, matt apuzo, on russia. phil rucker, this idea of

smallness, more than one person pointed out to me today he treats jeff sessions and now rex tillerson with less regard and esteem that he treats vladimir putin. if this is a cycle that starts to repeat itself, what does that look like for the folks working under him in that west wing? >> well, nicolle, it's constant humiliation for both attorney general session s and for now, guess, former secretary of state rex tillerson. remember, tillerson was a titan of industry. he was the ceo of exxonmobil, one of the largest multinational companies in the world. he traveled the world making deals. and for the last 14 months, he's worked for donald trump and working for donald trump means you're belittled, you're mocked, you're made fun of, you're put in your place time and again. not as bad in terms of the public tweets as he has been with sessions, but nonetheless, he has disregarded tillerson. he has, you know, said not very nice things about him in front of his colleagues in these national security meetings. and i think most telling was last week where he made this

extraordinary decision to have the face-to-face meeting with north korean dictator kim jong-un without really consulting tillerson who's the secretary of state and as theii have been involved in any of those deliberations. >> matt, i dug up a story you wrote on june 20th. i wonder if you think this might come up in mike pompeo's confirmation hearings. you wrote yt despite concerns about blackmail, flynn heard cia secrets that the fbi, cia and justice department and the office of the dni, career officials agreed mr. flynn represented an urgent problem. yet nearly every day for three weeks, r the new cia director mike pompeo sat in the oval office and briefed mr. trump on the nation's most sensitive intel with mr. flynn listening." >> yeah, i think the question of why -- why did sally yates, the acting attorney general at the time, raise these serious counterintelligence concerns

with the white house and yet flynn stays in that position for, you know, for nearly three weeks and pompeo, as a cia director, is in there and briefing him on the nation's top secrets. i mean, to me, that is just one of many questions i'm sure he's going to face. just to add to phil's point on the timing of this, one f the things that struck me, it was reported months ago, months ago that the president was considering firing tillerson and replacing him with pompeo and that was widely reported and the white house came out with official denials, there were tweets from the president saying that's not true, it's fake news, b then here we are and the president says today, i've been considering this for a long time. it just -- you know, it's -- it's -- i come on this show with you, nicolle, every time i run out of words to say. >> it we've all been on the receiving end of fake news that we know because we work in newsrooms with lawyers and standards that make sure it's not fake but it is something

that has come up for your news organization and ours that often fake news means news that he isn't always in the loop on. i think this case, this decision to fire tillerson, might be the opposite example, and i wonder, michael crowley, if you can weigh in on, and help fill out the picture, about just how trumpian pompeo is. i know he earned high marks, general hayden, former cia director, quoted in a couple news accounts talking about how he didn't bring the trump circus to langley and that was appreciated. but in terms of his foreign policy impulses on iran, as a congressman, he came into congress in the tea party wave, talk a little bit more about what we know about mike pompepo the politician's foreign policy views which he will be more free to act on as secretary of state. >> yeah. so i think pompeo, you can summarize as a hawk. you might also say he's somewhat

of an i'd lideologue. certainly not a foreign policy point per se but many people at the cia who thought he had brought a political, even partisan style to the agency that made them uncomfortable. so, you know, very much seemed like the former republican congressman that he was, sh still operating in a political mindset. but when it comes to foreign policy, he is tough minded. in a way that alarms some people. i would say in particular when it comes to iran and north korea. those are two countries where he has advocated very aggressive u.s. action and iran in particular, nicolle, i think that this -- this change does not bode well for the iran nuclear deal. donald trump faces another deadline about whether he is going to extend or pull out of the deal in may and rex tillerson has been kind of holding the line with the help of defense secretary jim mattis among a few others, trying to convince trump that it is not a

good idea to pull the plug on the nuclear deal, walk aw wawaym it and risk an escalating confrontation with iran. pompeo as a congressman called the nuclear deal disastrous, said it should be rolled back. he talked as a congressman about regime change in iran which, of course, is very provocative language. i think that the administration has just lost a defender of the nuclear deal. i think it's quite possible pompeo is going do be kind of egging trump on. possibly to withdraw from this deal which is going to have major foreign policy consequences, particularly at the time when we may be embarking on nuclear negotiations with north korea. and i think pompeo's instincts toward north korea are similarly very aggressive. i don't know exactly where he comes down on diplomacy, but i'd have to say based on what i've heard him say about the north korean regime, his obvious contempt for the leadership there that he is probably suspicious of the possibility of dialogue and negotiations, at least on the terms that seem kind of relatively conciliatory that we're hearing about right now. so really, you traded a kind of

somewhat relatively internationalist pragmatist in tillerson for someone who i would say is much more of an ideological-style hawk. >> jeremy bash, let me ask you u to pick up the thread when it comes to russia and just speak to what we've laid out, what's been stipulated by matt's news organization, by phil's news organization, that under pompeo, donald trump -- it's an open question whether donald trump was actually being briefed on the -- not necessarily the danger, but the adversarial nature of our -- i guess it is a danger. it's a danger to our democracy. you've had admiral rogers testifying that he's not been granted any additional authority. i spoke to a source close to him today who said that it's obvious that the path toward promotion in the trump national security orbit is to kiss the president's rear end and the source didn't use that word. but can you speak to the

exasperation among other cabinet-level national security officials about this russia question and the optics of elevati elevating someone who we all know doesn't always give it to -- give the president the straight scoop when it comes to russia? >> well, i think the bigger issue with russia, nicolle, isn't so much the intelligence briefings, by the way, i do believe the intelligence community has been warning the president about russian meddling and about russian nefarious activity around the world. the bigger issue is the policy response. i really lay the blame for fthi at the feet of the president. he has not convened a single national security council meeting of his key principals, which, by the way, the cia director is part of that but is not one of the key cabinet secretary-level principals. the secretary of defense, secretary of state, secretary of treasury, to passionfashion a comprehensive effort. that's at the president's feet. say what you will about mike pompeo's public presentations. if the president doesn't give him the authority to take on

russia, america is not going to be take bing on russia and that's the president's fault. >> matt apuzzo, your colleague, maggie haberman, has been tweeting up a storm today. one of them was "people close to the white house say they expect more major personnel shifts this week. an effort to rip off the band-aid fast on a number of fronts is likely." we know, you know better than any, because it's your beet, we know one of the band-aids he doesn't like very much is his attorney general. any -- any rumblings about how anything is possible? or do those men, jeff sessions and rod rosenstein, feel secure today? >> are you asking me if they should expect a tweet? >> anything's possible. >> if -- if tillerson isn't going to get a heads-up, i mean, what hope do any of us have? look, it's no secret the president isn't exactly fond of jeff sessions, it frustrated by the fact that he hasn't performed as well as the white house would have liked up on the hill. he's had to go clean up a bunch of his statements.

obviously, you know, either he wants sessions to be his guy wielding both a shield and a sword for the president. that's not the role of the justice department. so the president has sort of chafed under those constraints. if jeff sessions were fired tomorrow, would anybody be surprised? if jeff sessions goes for two more years, would anybody be surprised? but it's not chaos, what did the president said today, he said he's very close to having his cabinet in order. so we'll see. >> very close to having it exactly as he wants it. let me just give phil rucker the last word and ask you the same question. you hearing that -- i'm hearing rumblings there are more moves afoot. >> yeah. we're hearing that, too. and the two names i would put on your radar are first the national security adviser, h.r. mcmaster, i know you and your colleagues at nbc reported this a couple weeks ago and we've heard the same. that his days are numbered. there's sort of a mutual feeling by both the president and by mcmaster that he'd like to exit

and president would like him to exit at some. point soon. i don't know when, but that could be this week. the other one is the secretary of veterans affairs, shulkin, there is high drama over at the v.a. >> there sure is. >> it doesn't get a lot of dpf s focus. the president isn't pleased with what he's reading and hearing. a lot of heat on shulkin at the moment and directives from the white house to clean up the operation over there. >> all right, phil rucker, matt apuzzo, michael crowley, make me this promise, if it happens in the next 41 minutes, you'll run back to those cameras and break it with us in this hour. >> just another tuesday. >> thank you all for starting us off. jeremy bash is staying put. when we come back, donald trump throwing all the spaghetti at the wall and the white house residence in a herculean way. the republican-run house intel committee closes up shop.

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still yes! xfinity delivers gig speed to more homes than anyone. now you can get it, too. welcome to the party. why did donald trump rush into that meeting with the south koreans when he wasn't even supposed to be in there? and immediately started blabbing about wanting to get together with kim jong-un. what did he not want on the front page of the newspaper? he didn't want the stormy daniels story on the front page of the newspaper. >> joe's diagnosis was made

before donald trump's bombshell dismissal of his secretary of state this morning. the more waves the president makes, the more we wonder if at least in part he's hoping to take back the news cycle from, for example, his sex scandal involving prke ining porn star daniels. stormy and her daughter lawyer set a deadline of noon today, that she'd give back the $130,000 in hush money she says she was paid in exchange for the freedom to talk about her alleged affair with the president. before trump fired tillerson, stormy daniels' lawyers issued this warning to the white house. >> have you heard from them? >> crickets. >> nothing. >> nothing? >> what happens if the deadline passes passes. >> if the deadline passes the offer is going to be automatically withdrawn. we're going to gear up and proceed in a deliberate, measured, smart, aggressive manner as it relates to this case. and we're going to get into a

stage that's called discovery and that's going to involve the issuance of subpoenas. >> i don't know what you call it when the lawyer for the porn star sounds more reasonable than the president of the united states. we'll work on that. but, of course, donald trump missed that deadline. stormy's lawyer tweeting today, "the president and mr. cohen purposely ignored our settlement offer thus doubling down on their efforts to muzzle miss clifford and tell the american people what happened. time to buckle up." this isn't the only white house scandal of the day. could the president be hoping to take attention away from this, that his personal assistant, john mcentee fired this morning, escorted from the premises, not allowed to go back for his jacket on the way out. reporting that he is under investigation by the secret service for serious financial crimes. of course, they found a place for him on the trump re-election campaign. joining us at the campaign, nick, "new york times" political reporter, kimberly atkins, "boston herald" chief reporter,

zer le zerlena maxwell, now director of progressive programming. and i'm so happy to say this -- where are you? >> i'm here. >> msnbc analyst. we already -- >> we did a cute video because we frequently get confused for each other because our hair is similar. so we established that -- >> i was confused. i'm blind. >> but in the peripheral vision, our hair is similar. >> welcome. we're so lucky to have you. talk about this idea, though, because you and i spend a lot of time on that program, on "morning joe" and joe calls it as he says it th. i agree with his assessment. >> i don't. >> no? >> here's why. i'm surprised tillerson lasted this long. how could he -- >> joe made that assessment -- >> no, exactly. he has been on the outs for all this time. and in fact, it is true, he doesn't agree with the president on critical foreign policy issues. now maybe he fired him in a fit or got tired of him for some reason we haven't seen yet, but

the president should have somebody who reflects their views on foreign policy and should motte have a secretary of state who thinks he's an idiot. >> and we know that he thinks he's an idiot. >> he said it. >> but kimberly atkins, weigh in on the -- it's -- of course the president should have someone who's a philosophical match. it wasn't clear really, i don't think, during the transition, what donald trump's national security philosophy was. but the conduct, the manner with which he unceremoniously dumped him on twitter and phil rucker's reporting they he wa ining that it while rex tillerson was on an airplane. that's sadistic. >> all day long getting reaction to this, i haven't come across many people who said rex tillerson was such a great secretary of state. >> right. >> it's so sad to see him go. but there's almost uniform lly whether they agree with this or not a sense this was demoralizing and embarrassing way to fire someone and it's sending a message to people throughout the administration,

if you are not onboard with president trump, if you right now are somebody whose job it is, who finds themselves giving trump the opposite view or urging him to take caution or restraint or something like that, you should get your resume ready because you're probably not long for this administration. donald trump wants people who are onboard, who are backing him up. he doesn't want anybody who is not on the same page. that's the first thing he said about mike pompeo today. >> and jeremy bash, we've reported, we talked about it in the last block, that h.r. mcmaster is on that list of people that may not be long for, i guess, this is donald trump's white house 3.0. but what do you make of the challenges for recruiting in, one, the kind of people that can pass the now higher hurdles or, which i think are the normal hurdles for being cleared by the fbi for the highest levels of security, and the difficulty of bringing people into a situation where we have multiple news accounts that the president

likes to ask people about their conversations with mueller, he talks about things that could require people to hire defense attorneys. this is not an attractive place to go to work. >> that's right. i think we may be at peak talent here for the trump administration. i think once some individuals leave like secretary tillerson, despite the disagreements that the president may have had with him on foreign policy, you're not going to get someone, obviously, you're going to have pompeo, you're not going to get someone to backfill all these positions including the national security adviser who are at the caliber that really a president of the united states needs to advise on the most complex national security decisions out there. i just want to go back to this point about the manner in which tillerson was fired. i think we're talking about it's mean, it's embarrassing, it's actually just weak. it's like gutless. it's a whimp -- only a whimp does that, someone who doesn't want to face the consequences of telling someone directly, hey, this isn't working out, i want to make a change. i want to say our president of the united states is transmitting absolute weakness to everybody around the world.

and for someone who, you know, thinks of himself as a strongman, he's sending exactly the wrong message. >> can i follow up with you, then, jeremy, about the -- i mean, some strong man escorted the president's body man, this is a job famously depicted in aaron sorkin's "west wing." george w. bush was very close to all the people who held the title of body man. this was donald trump's body man. something so egregious that he couldn't go back and pick up his jacket on the way out. he was escorted off the white house grounds today. what kind of transgression are we talking about for that kind of treatment? >> well, it could be anything and some people today have been discussing the fact that he may have disclosed information, not necessarily classified information, but information about the inner workings of the white house and that caught the attention of the secret service and may have led to people saying the president was going to ban the use of personal phones in the west wing and, quote/unquote, leaks.

we don't know exactly yet, nicolle, but i think it's clear that individuals who have worked at this white house were not properly vetted. his team came in a chaotic environment. there was not the appropriate vetting. people did not have the right credentials. and could not get the right credentials. that's why jared had his security clearance bumped down to the same security clearance that the people who serve navy bean soup in the white house mess have. it's why individuals had to be fired and let go. it shows there is a major crisis engulfing this west wing in terms of the credentials and capabilities of some of the staff there. >> and zerlena, he's off-ramping him to the campaign. when i went to bush's re-election campaign in '03, i'm a model of nothing other than what was normal then, i was talking to bob mueller about being his communications director or the president about going to be the campaign communications director. obviously, in both scenarios, i had to pass the highest levels of integrity and i had to vet out for both jobs.

do they see the campaign as sort of a place for rogues? >> yes, but that's also really odd because on a campaign, you also have to pass a vet. they clearly don't have a process for vetting like we did on the hillary campaign or previous campaigns like yours. >> right. >> i think he's clearly at a point where he's not governing for everyone. he's governing for his base. you saw him earlier today, you know, looking at models for the wall he's going to build and saying we're not going with the models that people can climb over with equipment, we're going with the other models where people can't climb over it. i mean, all of it is pretty ridiculous but it's clear he is sending a signal to his base that he's still going to hold close to his priorities that he ran on, and he has -- he's stopped any pretense that he's governing for everyone. he's surrounding himself with essentially loyal sycophants who will not challenge him on policy positions, but i think that we're all in h a position, a precarious position in this moment because if you don't have somebody to push back against the president, who wants to do some sort of military action in north korea or in any other place, if you don't have, you

know, a team of rivals as obama and lincoln famous byly had, th was a conversation when obama was coming into the white house, people who have a variety of opinions and have the president weigh in and weigh all of the different points of view and come to a decision. this president does not want to weigh differing opinions. >> let me dissent a little bit. not only does he not have a team of rivals, he doesn't have a tame team of people that aren't suspected of committing felonies. >> look, who else was at the campaign, r first of all? brad parscale and katrina pierson. you know, half the cabinet, third of the cabinet in the senior staff had been brought before mueller or people from the house and senate intel committees. this entire house or this entire administration is in a crisis of investigation. so as we said earlier, who can they find to take these jobs and come inside? provides balance or stability. the answer is no one. it's going to be like this

forever and ever. >> is all rigall right. stay available at 4:00 p.m. zblench when we come back, the house intel committee clears donald trump of collusion without interviewing three former officials who pleaded guilty to crimes in the mueller probe. james r. and associates. anna speaking. james r. and associates. anna. (phone ringing) baker architects. this is anna baker. this is what our version of financial planning looks like. tomorrow is important, but you're ready to bet on yourself today. spend your life living. find an advisor at northwesternmutual.com.

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case closed. that's all, folks. no collusion here. the house intel committee shutting down its investigation into russian meddling. and that's the final determination from republicans. amazingly, they came to that conclusion without ever talking to some of the investigation's most crucial witnesses. not a single conversation with paul manafort, mike flynn, george papadopoulos or rick gates. hope hicks, corey lewandowski, donald trump jr. and steve bannon all fall in that category. not all the republicans on the committee are convinced, though. here's florida congressman tom

rooney last night. >> we've gone completely off the rails, we're a political forum for people to leak information to drive the day's news. as you alluded to, we lost all credibility. we're going to issue probably two different reports. >> refreshing candor. that didn't stop the president from taking this as vindication. in an all-caps tweet, "the house intelligence committee has after a 14-month long in-depth investigation found no evidence of collusion or coordination between the trump campaign and russia to influence the 2016 presidential election." meanwhile, democrats like ranking member adam schiff are accusing their republican counterparts of making this a political stunt. >> republicans on the committee viewed their job as protecting the president. not investigating what took place. essentially, it's the intelligence committee majority saying we just rather not know if it's going to be bad news.

>> and here's the word from a well-respected career intelligence figure, former acting cia director john mclaughlin. "as a subject or observer of congressional oversight of intel for 40 years, i've never seen a party drive a stake through the process as house republicans just did. it depends on a bipartisan approach that at least gives the minority a voice. take that away, and the thing dies. it just did." joining our conversation is democratic congressman joaquin castro, a member of the house intel committee. thank you so much for joining us. >> yeah, thank you for having me. >> is he right? is the ability to function as a nonpartisan body dead? >> well, i hope not. as you know, in addition to the russia investigation, there's so many areas within the intelligence committee so i'm hoping despite this, we can go on and work in a bipartisan way on all of those other things. that said, i really believe that the premature closing of this

investigation is a betrayal of the american people and a betrayal of the public's trust. there were so many leads and paths to follow that basically have now gone ignored, and it really is a dereliction of duty. >> how -- can you try to square for the public, and our viewers, how bob mueller indicts 13 russian nationals, two, three weeks ago, and your committee shuts down the investigation into the conduct of russia? >> that's a great question. i wish i could. the fact is we had 73 witnesses. there were many witnesses we still needed to hear from. there were people really we should have been able to bring back. and also, nicolle, there were subpoenas that should have been issued for things like phone records, bank records, travel records, because what happened was this was basically a see no evil/hear no evil type of investigation. it was like bringen ing in an an

suspect into the police station, asking him did you start the fire, when he says, oh, i didn't start a fire, you say, great, all of us can go home, then. it was a very cursory thing. . >> since it's over, can you help us with the autopsy? how did devin nunes unrecuse himself? >> well, actually, he really functionally practically speaking never really did fully recuse himself. he still kept a very heavy hand in terms of refusing, for example, to issue subpoenas, in directing committee staff to do certain things and communicate with certain people. and he was still very active, himself, behind the scenes. so he never really took himself or stepped away from the process. >> let me ask you, you talked about hoping to put this behind you. i mean, what purpose, what credibility does the house intel committee have as a body if when the sitting fbi director wants to come up and brief your committee, devin nunes blocks it, paul ryan has his block, what credibility does your

committee have as any sort of bipartisan check on the executive branch if you can't even bring in trump's appointees to issue grave warnings about the gravity of releasing something like the nunes memo? and with all due respect, how do you sort of project any strength or reassurance to the public that your committee has any sort of check on the executive branch? >> you're right. you know, historically, the intelligence committee had operated in a very bipartisan way, perhaps not completely above politics, but as far as congress goes, about as close as you could get to being above politics. so this is a real departure from that, and it remains to be seen what kind of lasting damage there will be to the committee, the committee's work and the credibility of the committee. i hope, because obviously, we do very important work for the country, that we can move past this. that's an open question. >> congressman, thank you so much for spending some time with us. we hope for the best but sounds

like it's time to prepare for the worst. >> thank you. >> thank you. jeremy bash, jump in and speak about your time working for jane harman in the years when the intel community and the house and the thsenate were dealing w what we thought were imminent threats to the homeland. post-9/11 there were state secre secrets held by democrats and republicans in confidence of a republican white house. there were programs they were read into. not only did dmnone of those programs leak, the communities were the only places where were even discussed or debated or even known. how far gone is that era? >> not only from the time i was chief counsel of the committee in the mid 2000s, certainly when i received as cia chief of staff, we really relied on the intelligence committees. we told them our operational activities including i can remember briefing the committee leadership on the bin laden operation. and not only did it not leak, but we could count on the committees to give us guidance, provide oversight, and at

critical moments for congress to provide funding so we would have a stronger intelligence capability. for the intelligence committees to break down really weakens america and i think that all-caps tweet from the president was outcome that devin nunes wanted. when he engaged in that very unethical conduct of unrecusing himself, as you put it, the objective that he wanted was an all-caps tweet by the president saying, see no collusion. again, there's that word "collusion" again, nicolle. we made a new year's resolution a couple months ago -- >> you and me did. >> the word means nothing. there was koord dmags. we kn coordination. we know that. whether it rose to a level of a crime, bob mueller will tell us. whether the russians tried to influence the election, we knew they did. whether the trump campaign knew about it, that's not a mystery. the only question is did somebody commit a felony? >> kim, having worked at the white house when these secret programs after 9/11, whether collecting phone data or others, when they were at risk of being rendered useless, because people would find out about it, it was the intel committee that helped

communicate their value. democrats and republicans. it is hard to overstate the tragedy of this outcome in the house intel committee. >> i think you and jeremy lay out very clearly the importance of this committee. the role that they play. these committees were created in the wake of watergate and they were -- they are a crucial part of government oversight as well as, you know, oversight of the white house as well, reacting to things like russia interference in order so that the congress and the white house can react to it and understand what's going on. that is not what's happening here. it his a partisan bickering math and really eroded a fundamental, fundamental part of the democracy we rely on, but that being said, i'm sure the president is going to use this in his messaging to message against what robert mueller comes up with, but the erosion of this committee will not stop an indictment by robert mueller. robert mueller is still going forward no matter what the

president wants and he's going to complete this investigation. he has the ability to bring criminal charges against folks and all the messaging in the world isn't going to stop that. >> jeremy bash, but you think he can use it to make a case for firing sessions, firing rosenstein, and putting someone in place who would fire mueller? >> i don't know, but after today, i think every cabinet secretary is at risk, as was previously referenced. i think another interesting question, nicolle, is whether or not if the house intelligence committee can't come forward with an actual report about what happened, does bob mueller believe that he has a responsibility to issue a report? there's some technicalities about the authority of a special counsel to issue a report, but in the same way that ken starr issued a report during the investigations into the clinton white house, you know, will bob mueller say, look, we're going to indict, we're going to convict, we're going to win convictions, going to bring people -- we're also going to issue a comprehensive report so congress and the american people can know exactly what their president was up to. when we come back, a judge

says paul manafort could spend the rest of his life in jail. what we're learning. that's next.

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everything you need to go. expedia. talk about a headline. politico politico writing just this hour, quote, paul manafort could face the rest of his life in prison according to a federal judge in a court document just made public. the judge adding that the evidence against the former trump campaign chairman is strong and relegating manafort to a 24 hour a day lockdown. that is alexandria condo except for emergencies and court appearances. ken delaney joins us now. ken, pretty grim assessment from a judge in the manafort case. >> it is. on one hand it's the same assessment that chuck rosenberg have been given for some time. this is an overwhelming case against paul manafort.

he's 68 years old but to hear it from the actual judge in the alexandria case is something -- it's something significant, i think. this is from judge ts ellis and he wrote, given the nature of the charges and the pattern weight of the evidence against him, the defendant faces a very real possibility of spending the rest of his life in prison. and this is a bail ruling where he's been placed on 24 hour lockdown. he's now basically confined to his house except for medical emergencies and he's wearing an ankle bracelet on each ankle, one for the d.c. case and one for the alexandria case. it's one of the great mysteries of the mueller investigation, why paul manafort is holding out and when with and if he will plead guilty. >> i've heard that maybe he doesn't have anything of particular value. what are sort of the investigative journalism and investigative in the prosecutorial theories for why manafort hasn't pleaded guilty?

>> he's lived his entire life in the shadow of the law. he has been doing this kind of thing, the secret accounts, the working for strong men, the working for foreign dictators for his entire career, more or less, and i think he's gotten away with it until now. he's alluded being punished or investigated before. he's made a small fortune doing this work and i believe that him going to work for trump after this career showed that he believed he could keep getting away with it and he still thinks in his heart that he can beat this but the judge is saying, you probably won't beat it and that's why i'm going to put you in the white collar version of solitary. >> all of our experts that come on our air and you with your expertise, basically look at the charges that have been brought against manafort and that keep coming. there were new charges brought in 2018. what could he be holding out for? >> there's a lot of theories. there's of course the pardon theory but we know the new york

attorney general and manhattan district attorney are conducting their own investigation that could be deployed in the case of a federal pardon and donald trump can't pardon on state and local charges. some of these tax charges one would assume if you filled out a federal tax return a certain way your state tax return will reflect the stam issue and if it was false it's going to be false at the state level. so that's one theory. people talk about is paul manafort afraid of potential retaliation from some of the russians that he dealt with, that's a little too spy novelly for me. they may be killing people in the uk but they have not had a habit of doing that on u.s. soil to date. there is some reason that he's holding out and paying a lot of money to lawyers in the face of an overwhelming case by robert mueller. >> they're dropping like flies in the uk, that's a real concern paul manafort might have that his life could be in danger if he leads international investigators to the doorstep of crooked russian oligarchs?

>> i'm not so sure. the case of the or the alleged ex-spy in london is unique to something that's been a long running issue in counterintelligence between the united states and russia. this is different. he was an adviser. manafort's an adviser. i think, though, the point is that the case is overwhelming against him and he's only going to cut a deal if he gives the prosecutors something very good about basically the president or his inner circle and whatever he's telling the prosecutor, the prosecutors wanting more and manafort's holding out and they're going back and forth. this is going to play out for a while. when we get closer to trial, that's where you may see action. >> his campaign hiring the very best people as nick put it, paul manafort's entire book of corporate -- not corporate, his book of lobbying business was well-known. >> um-hum. this is the core of the russia investigation, the money has

always been the core. paul manafort i've been watching very closely, the first prosecutor bob mueller hired worked on enron he used tax charges to get for people that worked at the highest level to flip on the ceo and the coo. that's what he's going to do now. he's going to squeeze every single person that has financial crimes. the money laundering is the path that mueller is using to get to the truth. we'll find out -- >> steve bannon say the same thing, the way you get to trump is right through. >> andrew weissman and money laundering. >> let me let you button this up for us. the house intel committee, nothing to see here but they never talked to paul manafort? >> no. they've never talked to a lot of key people or they allowed people to come in and say i'm not going to answer these questions. why? i don't think i should. obviously that was not a complete investigation. what we're seeing from mueller's team --

>> it was a sham. obviously it wasn't complete. it was a sham. >> it was an effort to protect the president to give him the ability to tweet that tweet so whatever bob mueller comes out with. we disagree with that. we already had a full investigation that found there was no collusion but that's not true. paul manafort we're seeing is the exact opposite, meticulous, careful, not only investigations from what we've seen and there's a lot more that we haven't seen, it's the complete opposite of this, so and i think that's a good point with jeremy if he comes out with a report, probably is a good idea. >> it may be our only hope. thank you so much for jumping on our air. we'll be right back.

i could talk to these friends forever but we're out of time. my thanks no jeremy bash, zerlina maxwell. that does it for our hour. chuck todd starts right now. hi. >> how are you? good to be back. just another tuesday, right? >> just another tuesday after another saturday, right? >> that's for sure. i'm wide awake. no worries. if it's tuesday, the president is fired up. >> tonight, the rexit strategy. >> i received a call today from the president of the united states at little after noon time from air force one. >> tillerson is out, why? and more importantly why now? >> i think he's going to be very happy. i think rex will be much happier now. >> plus how mike pompeo's department for a state department could usher in a