one way or the other. "deadline white house" starts right now. hello, everybody, it is 4:00 here in washington, i'm peter alexander in again for my friend, nicolle wallace. the president today speaking on the phone with russian president vladimir putin two days after putin's landslide victory in russia's presidential election. an election widely condemned by critics as rigged. and five days after the u.s. imposed those sanctions against russian nationals for meddling in the u.s. elections in 2016. so you can imagine, the president of the united states would certainly have a lot to say to his russian counterpart. here's what he did say. . >> i had a call with president putin and congratulated him on the victory. his electoral victory. we had a very good call and i suspect that we'll probably be meeting in the not too distant into up to discuss the arms race which is getting out of control, but we will never allow anybody to have anything even close to

what we have. and also to discuss ukraine and syria and north korea and various other things. so i think probably we'll be seeing president putin in the not to distant future. >> to republican senator john mccain, that was unacceptable. mccain said in a statement today, "an american president does not lead the free world by congratulating dictators on winning sham elections and by doing so," mccain says "with vladimir putin, president trump insulted every russian citizen, including the countless russian patriots who risked so much to protest and resist putin's regime." there is a lot the president did not say to putin. in his own description of that phone call, president trump makes no mention of russia's assault on the united states or that recent alleged poisoning of a former russian spy in the uk. so just to be sure reporters at

the white house ask eed press secretary sarah huckabee sanders if president trump held putin accountable for anything. >> did the president not raise the issue of russian next meddling in that phone call? >> i don't believe it came up on the specific call. >> i'm curious, did the recent poisoning in the united kingdom come up in the call? >> i don't believe that was discussed in today's call. >> i want to follow-up on the accusations of fraud in the russian election. why doesn't the president of the white house believe that's something they should be discussing with the russian leader? >> i didn't say we couldn't discuss it with the russian leader, i said it didn't come up on today's call. >> does the white house believe that the election in russia was free and fair? >> look, in terms of the election, they were focused on our elections. we don't get to dictate how other countries operate. what we do know is that putin has been elected in their country and that's not something that we can kick date to them how they operate.

>> on each question, the white house declined to criticize russia. let's get to our guests right now. with us from "washington post," white house bureau chief philip rucker. with me on set, a.b. stoddard for real clear politics. jeremy peter, "the new york times" reporter and msnbc contributor. . michael steele, former rnc chairman and msnbc analyst. also philip bump, political report frer fer the "washington post." we have a full team. he's joining us, philip is, from new york. phil, i'll start with you. it's your birthday today. i figure you get the first one right off the bat. happy birthday. >> thank you, peter. >> why won't the president call out vladimir putin? they just imposed sanctions on russian nationals, they just determined the russians meddled in our election, they've agreed with the uk, france, and germany, that the they were involved in that poisoning of a spy in the uk. so why not call them out? >> well, president trump has never really called out president putin, despite the activities that you just laid

out in his administration. people working in his administration are moving aggressively to try to confront russia, but the president is not leading that charge. remember, it took him a long time to come around to actually saying definitively that he believes russia hacked those democratic e-mails and that rush is russia tried to infiltrate to influence -- intrude upon, rather, the u.s. election in 2016, despite the conclusions of u.s. intelligence agencies. trump just has had a sort of weird relationship with putin all along, where he's been unwilling to confront him on that matter, unwilling to confront him today on the poisoning matter, and then congratulates him for a victory in an election that was not free and not fair. >> and a.b., to be clear about this, we heard from sarah sanders, she said specifically, we can only focus on the freeness and fairness of our elections. consider what the last administration, the obama administration, and frankly, the bush administration, did before. the obama administration

repeatedly urged countries to allow for free and fair elections. they were sometimes criticized for not doing it further in iran, for example, because they didn't want to be accused of being a foreign government that was interfering, in effect, propping up those civilian protesters. but the white house could say, hey, we want you to have free and fair elections if they so choose, couldn't they? >> yeah. president obama, to be fair, he also congratulated vladimir putin -- >> waited a week, for which they thought was a slight, but, yes. >> in 2012. but he also had a record of doing what you just outlined which is being -- we are the beacon for democracy across the world, and the president of the united states is supposed to give voice to that. and play a leadership role on the global stage for democracy. so we have traditionally criticized attempts to steal the rights of citizens as john mccain said, to determine their future and fix sham elections. so what -- what's so tough for

sarah sanders is when she's answering these questions, and it was for sean spicer before her, is that the president doesn't have a record to fall back on. so they say we're tough on russia, now they have these brand-new sanctions that they're enforcing. six weeks late, january 31st, was the original deadline. so they can say we just, you know, we're just enforcing these new sanctions. we're being really tough. but it is true that he refuses himself rhetorically from his bully pulpit to ever condemn or disavow putin or any of his actions. he leaves it to cabinet members and other people within his administration, but personally, the president will never weigh in on this. >> philip bump, let me ask you, if i can, on venezuela, for example, after their elections in july, from the president of the united states, donald trump, this outrageous seizure of absolute power through a sham election represents a serious blow to democracy in our hemisphere. there is precedent for this, he could say something about it if he wanted. again, when you consider that, doesn't this just sort of fan the flames of these questions about whatever ulterior motive might exist for this president

in terms of his relationship to russia and vladimir putin? >> exactly. not only that, but last august, sarah huckabee sanders, herself, put out a statement about venezuela, explaining why president trump had rejected a call from the leader of that country because they didn't have fair and free elections. i mean, this is the really odd thing here is that given the strength of mccain's statement, it was a very, very harsh statement, particularly for a member of trump's own party,pry have an answer. the obama team in 2012 as was noted, they did, had an internal debate as to how they should respond and landed on the side of having this congratulatory message, but they were able to articulate what their concerns were through the state department, which there's been no statement from the state department here, but they were able to actually make the case for that in a way that actually made some coherent sense and i'll also note this is the second time trump has done this. when there was a -- when erdogan in turkey had a constitutional referendum that barely passed,

this was something that was seen as an aberration by most of the west, and the election, itself, was criticized. but trump simply congratulated erdogan who he sees as his ally. >> jeremy, the bottom line here is, you hear the president say, hey, i can't control some of the bad things they're doing, we're going to call them out on those, i need to be able to have a good relationship with this guy for on so many things on which we agree or need to partner up on. what do you make of this moment today? striking to hear this call took place, and, again, they didn't bring up those other issues. >> it's an odd thing, isn't it, peter, for a president who spent almost his entire president rm campaign railing against the rigged system in the american party and the american electoral system, itself. so, yeah, you can't really square that circle. >> you can't handle a rigged system but can handle a rigged system anywhere else. >> exactly. but i do think this is entirely consistent with what president trump believes, what his views on foreign policy are to the extent that they are fully formulated to some degree. he really does think when he's made comments like, oh, what do

you think, we're so good, ourselves, we're such angels, when he's talking about the united states having interfered in foreign elections and assassinated political adversaries. and he also believes that america needs to withdraw, to a certain degree, from our entanglements in world affairs. and that's exactly what you're seeing here. let them deal with that. that's their problem, not mine. >> part of how he got elected on the very basis. michael, can i ask you for a second, this is what the president said about vladimir putin on twitter in november of 2017. his preferred megaphone. he wrote "when will all the haters and fools out there realize having a good relationship with russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. they're always playing politics. bad for our country. i want to solve north korea, syria, ukraine, terrorism, and russia can greatly help." did the president have the support of republicans right now in h this effort to reset relations with russia? >> i don't think he does in the sense that they don't know

exactly what the reset would look like. the president has not articulated it with any degree of clarity outside of the fact that he has a bromance with vladimir putin what the policy in the u.s. should be. you talk about, you know, our colleagues here talk about all theexistential and important to this. the president doesn't bring it up. he says, i congratulated him, we had a great conversation. there is no followthrough. the state department isn't follow through as you noted. we don't have clarity -- >> in charge of the state department. >> arguably. there's no clarity for senate and house republicans to really take a position supportive of the president behind a policy because we don't know with clarity what that is. >> phil, let me ask you, this played out on capitol hill a matter of weeks ago, admiral mike rogers on whether he can disrupt russian election hacking operations when they originate.

take a listen. >> if granted the authority, i don't have the day-to-day authority to do that, if granted the authority. >> you would need basically to be directed by the president through the secretary of defense -- >> yes, sir, in fact, i mentioned that in my statement. >> have you been directed to do so given the strategic let that faces the united states and the significant consequences you recognize already? >> no, i have not. >> so, simple question, has anything changed in the three weeks, that was february 27th, since we heard from admiral mike rogers there with that alarming statement in effect saying that, you know, he hasn't been given those marching orders? >> yeah, peter, not that we know of. we do know there were sanctions levied last week against russia. that's not the same thing as the authority the admiral was talking about in his testimony. the other thing that roger said in that testimony a few weeks ago that i found so striking was that putin looks at the way the united states responded to the 2016 election interference with so little punishment, so few

repercussions, that he believes he can do it again and that admiral rogers and others in the u.s. intelligence community believe he is doing it again in the 2018 midterm elections and beyond. >> yeah, that he's doing it in 2018, the suspicion is they think he's sort of going to be practicing some tools he might use again in 2020 to better help another presidential election. michael, again, to you, the question is where is the alarm among lawmakers right now? we heard from john mccain, i trust his ally, lindsey graham, has strong opinions about this. where is the alarm widely among those in congress? >> it's actually very disappointing, the congress appropriated the money, the administration has done nothing with it to follow-up and get to the bottom of the hacking in the election abuses in 2016. and yet, you know, everybody's kind of whistling past that gra gravestone as they look at other thng things they want to do. the truth of the matter there is, again, no clarity with the direction, generally speaking. i mean, the house and the senate

are sitting there like puppy dogs at the president's knee waiting for a bone to be tossed or a ball to be tossed so they can go fetch and bring back. and that's unfortunate. they have -- they have a role to play here. domestically and internationally. in helping this president who clearly has no clue about what he should be doing here in a way that is consistent with u.s. policy and constructive for the country going forward. and that's where you expect the house and the that the to sort of step up and say, let us help you lead on this. but there is none of that. >> a.b., the backdrop to all of this, obviously, is the conversation about russia, not so much vladimir putin, but the russia investigation which has led to suspicions about what the president may be hiding. people keep asking, why not j t just, you know, a little punch in the nose so to speak on vladimir putin here? the question to you, i guess, simply is, how do does this relate to robert mueller's investigation? is this fodder for what he's pursuing? remember were it not for that investigation, the president dismiss es as a hoax and witch hunt, we wouldn't know 13

russian nationals, 5 russian entities, had meddled in our election. >> right. what michael is saying, i mean, he doesn't usually give the president so much of a break or the congressional republicans, but it's really not out of naivety. they're very concerned he's compromised in some way and this is why a party that used to confront russia no longer confronts russia with the exception of john mccain sometimes and lindsey graham on other days. lindsey graham had a very aggressive tweet yesterday about a sham -- putin's sham re-election. that said, most of them have gone quiet on this question. they -- what was so disappointing about the house intelligence republican majority membership shutting down that investigation was that they basically said, well, we just wanted you to know there was no collusion. and they actually didn't have a plan to mitigate the threat of an ongoing russian interference campaign into our elections where they are continuing to perfect their active measures. they basically threw that up in the air and said, you know, oh well, we just wanted you to know there was no collusion. so the congressional republicans are doing nothing to confront

russia. they're doing nothing to mitigate the threat of election interference. and shame on them. >> and, again, philip, to funk wa punctuate this conversation quickly, today sort of reiterated a simple point, the president, himself, has not said anything since those reports. they put out the sanctions from his administration, but he publicly has yet to say anything about the interference in our election as determined, in effect, by his own administration. >> well, i think one thing to keep in mind is president trump doesn't like to do things that he doesn't like to do. and i think that he has heard for months now that he should take a stronger role, take a stronger hand against vladimir putin. we have heard recent reporting that suggests now he has seen repeatedly that the advice he's gotten from people about what the politically smart thing to do hasn't dampened the support of his base. he's disincentivized by the fact he hasn't seen vast negative repercussions to do anything different than he has so for.

for any other president would be a fairly simple thing, given the question of what the russians did during the 2016 election, he's simply declined not to do is a because he doesn't want to. >> we're going to ask you to stay with us. when we come back, is president trump ignoring his lawyers' advice when he needs it most? facing robert mueller and mounting legal threats, the president reportedly looks to shake things up. also later, you see this headline, what we're learning about a stormy daniels lie detector test. as another woman comes forward with a lawsuit too break her silence on president trump. my time is thin, but so is my lawn. it's been worn down to ugly thin grass! now there's new scotts thick 'r lawn, the revolutionary 3-in-1 solution for weak lawns. with a soil improver to strengthen roots! seed to fill in gaps! and fertilizer to feed! the result, up to a 50% thicker lawn after just one application. ♪ ♪ now yard time is our time. this is a scotts yard.

we know that when you're spending time with the grandkids now yard time is our time. every minute counts. and you don't have time for a cracked windshield. that's why we show you exactly when we'll be there. saving you time, so you can keep saving the world. >> kids: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace ♪ with moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis? how do you chase what you love do what i did. ask your doctor about humira. it's proven to help relieve pain and protect joints from further irreversible damage in many adults. humira works by targeting and helping to block a specific source of inflammation that contributes to ra symptoms. humira has been clinically studied for over 20 years. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis.

serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened; as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. ready for a new chapter? talk to your rheumatologist about humira. this is humira at work.

back now on "deadline white house." it's crunch time for the president's lawyers according to new reporting in the "washington post" as the white house enters a few phase of preparation for president trump's interview with special counsel bob mueller. the stakes may be higher than ever, so the president is doing what he does best, he's stoking chaos and, embracing his combative instincts, destabilizing his legal team with threats of a shakeup and controversial new hire. "the new york times" first reporting that trump has weighed aloud in recent days to close associates whether to dismiss his lawyer, ty cobb, who pushed most strongly a strategy of cooperating fully with the special counsel investigation. and president trump's lead lawyer, john dowd, con tecontem leaving his post. he concluded he has no control over the behavior of the president. this, of course, on the heels of news yesterday that the president has brought on joe digenova, attorney who pushed the conspiracy theory that the justice department and fbi are

framing the. t president. in an attempt to restore order according to the "washington post," president trump's legal team reached out to ted olson, one of the country's most high-profile and seasoned litigators to join forces, but it may come as no surprise given the reports that the president has been ignoring the advice of his lauwyers and lashed out ope ly at the special counsel on twit e th twitter, that ted olson declined to join his legal team. phil rucker is still here with us. if i can, let me start with you, phil, quickly, about these sort of two factions at play within the president's stable. his arsenal of attorneys as it were. you had the competing statements between john dowd, the president's attorney, basically saying this thing should quickly come to an end then heard from ty cobb saying we have no discussions, no conversations about ending this thing. immediately after is if to say where he stands on this issue, we see the president hiring joe

digenova, a guy who is basically all in, he's combative, he's vocal, he's a friendly tv face. what's going on here? >> yeah, well, peter, there's a real push and pull with regards to how to approach the mueller investigation, whether to continue top racooperating and a hands-off approach, comes to criticizing mueller by name and personally the president has clearly chosen for a more combative approach. that's reflective, frankly, in what's been playing out publi y ly in his tweets and public statements. hiring of this new attorney who seems to be much more sort of a pr strategist in terms of undermining publicly the mueller probe, highlighting conspiracies and so forth to really try to show this as an unfair political witch hunt which as we know from our reporting the president believes it is. >> and given these reports of potential disarray within the president's stable, we saw disarray in the west wing with the recent shakeups, now disarray in the president's list of attorneys. here's what we heard from jay

sekulow, represents president trump, telling nbc news and others "john dowd and ty cobb are fully engaged and continue to represent the president, office of the president." beyond that, here's what the "washington post" is reporting, that they say "president trump is not consulting with chief advisers including john kelly and don mcgahn on choices or comments about the probe. he's instead watching television and calling friends" according to this person. harry, is that irenvironment yo can see someone like ted olson signing up for? >> very much not. it was no surprise that ted olson would decline, though he's totally the kind of sober lawyer's lawyer that trump desperately needs here as opposed to joe digenova. you might be surprised but an engagement with president trump is no -- no great prize for lawyers around town. olson is not the first one to turn him down. he, himself, trump, is a controversial figure.

he's an unmanageable client. and then the potential for some kind of debacle representing him is very high as well as when trump will lurch or the next time and do another blood letting and fire whoever he hires. it's not the kind of problem even though it's high profile that the average white-shoe lawyer in a big firm wants to have any part of. >> michael, let me ask you, if i can for a second here, we have heard private musings now from john dowd among others basically saying the president is a man on his own, there's nothing they can do to control him. that seems like a pretty good understatement right now. can you explain the dynamic what you're hearing about the private conversations behind the scenes as the white house and the president's allies try to figure out sort of where this thing goes next? >> well, there had been a significant disagreement between the president and his lawyers. the president really wanting to sit down with mueller.

this is the decision they have to make coming up, perhaps the biggest decision the president has had in front of him about the investigation. the lawyers are much more concerned about it. they think there's very little upside to doing this. they think that the -- they know the president is someone who often does not tell the truth and will go on and on at length. so this is an issue that had been sort of simmering between the legal team and the president. we heard from some folks in recent days that the president has become increasingly convinced he may even think an interview is a bad idea. but they -- the thing to understand is that the president had been told by his lawyers that the investigation would be over at this point. it certainly isn't. certainly looks like it's intensifying. and that is a deep sense of his frustration with the guys that are working for him. >> and yet michael, as you report, the president recently assured ty cobb that he's not go i going to fire him right now. the president is looking to hire some others. right? so what do we make of that?

>> well, this looks like a body posture change certainly from the president. he's using mueller's maim dmam twitter, wesht went after him after crodowd put out his statement, saying he wasn't speaking for the president. the president was emboldened by that and wept after munt after s investigation, strongly as he has. you look here and sort of wonder whether the president has said, you know what, this strategy, the ty cobb strategy of let's, you know, do everything we can to comply with the special counsel, that hasn't gotten me where i need to be. i'm looking for a magic bullet and i want more aggressive lawyers. >> harry, we've been hearing some reports, nbc news now hearing behind the scenes that it's old news that the president's team was handing over some written documents. as first reported by the "washington post" to bob mueller's team right now. as they begin these conversations. those documents sort of chronicling some of the issues that mueller's team may be

interested in. obviously the white house isn't going to turn over anything that's inceriminating here. how significant is that new headline in, something we shoule focused on right now? >> well, i think what you're talking about, peter, there have been two kind of responses. what we heard most recently is that the white house was offering some written statements in order to try to stave off the need for an interview. it's an absolute nonstarter. so the statements, one had nothing to do with trump, they purported to be a written account of the overall, quote/unquote, white house view of certain issues. mueller will be happy enough to receive it and use it as a basis for some questions. but as a gambut to try to keep from actually answering questions under oath about the matters that mueller's investigating, it is nonnews. it does nothing to advance the ball. >> phil, you have these

conversations privately. i'm at the white house for most of the day. i have some of these conversations privately, too. i want your take right now on what you hear from the people in and around the president, not just in the west wing but in his orbit about the depth of their concern about what he's doing vis-a-vis the russia investigation right now. hiring a guy who's claiming -- who spouts off conspiracy theories, some fear that he might be interested in getting rid of rod rosenstein who we've read that he believes is sort of engaged in mischief as well. what do you hear? >> well, i think the concern is less that he's actually preparing right now to, you know, order mueller's firing, or fire rosenstein or fire sessions or taking some drastic action and more that he's really trying to push buttons and test the boundaries and see how far he can go with his public statements and what the resistance might look like among the republican leadership on capitol hill and so far there hasn't been much resistance at all to what the president has been saying. but he's also increasingly

taking things into his own hands. he's making his own decisions. his own calculations. he's talking to friends and outside advisers more so, sometimes, than leaning on his official staff to advise him on these matters. and he feels like he can rely on his own judgment, that he can be his own best lawyer, his own best strategist, his own best pr publicist and so forth and that's very classically trump and how he's been for the last week or two. >> pretty much his own best everything in his eyes. philip rucker, michael schmidt, harry litman, thank you very much, we appreciate it. when we come back on "deadline white house," the news of a stormy daniels lie detector test. plus a decision in a lawsuit brought by another trump accuser. dear foremothers, your society was led by a woman, who governed thousands... commanded armies... yielded to no one. when i found you in my dna,

i learned where my strength comes from. my name is courtney mckinney, and this is my ancestrydna story. now with 5 times more detail than other dna tests. order your kit at ancestrydna.com now with 5 times more detail than other dna tests. i accept i don't i even accept i i used thave a higher risk of stroke due to afib, a type of irregular heartbeat not caused by a heart valve problem. but no matter where i ride, i go for my best. so if there's something better than warfarin, i'll go for that too. eliquis.

eliquis reduced the risk of stroke better than warfarin, plus had less major bleeding than warfarin. eliquis had both. don't stop taking eliquis unless your doctor tells you to, as stopping increases your risk of having a stroke. eliquis can cause serious and in rare cases fatal bleeding. don't take eliquis if you have an artificial heart valve or abnormal bleeding. while taking eliquis, you may bruise more easily... and it may take longer than usual for any bleeding to stop. seek immediate medical care for sudden signs of bleeding, like unusual bruising. eliquis may increase your bleeding risk if you take certain medicines. tell your doctor about all planned medical or dental procedures. i'm still going for my best. and for eliquis. ask your doctor about eliquis. narrator: public education has been valued for centuries. man: the direction in which education starts a person will determine their future in life. woman: the highest result of education is tolerance. woman: it's the road to equality and citizenship. man: education is the most powerful weapon

which you can use to change the world. narrator: brought to you by the california teachers association. woman: because we know quality public schools make a better california for all of us. woman: because we know quality public schools i we worked with pg&eof to save energy because wenie. wanted to help the school. they would put these signs on the door to let the teacher know you didn't cut off the light. 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. nbc news learning today that stormy daniels took a lie detector test back in 2011 about her alleged affair with

president trump. "the examiner" found there was a more than 99% probability that daniels told the truth. her attorney tweeted this photo from earlier today of her taking a polygraph test from 2011. at the same time the mime noo"t times" breaking the story former playboy model karen mcdougal is suing the parent company of the "national inquirer," paid her $150,000 for her story. and the defamation lawsuit by former "apprentice" contestant summer zervos is going to move toward, cited the 1999 case between president clinton and paula jones ruling a sitting president is not immune from being sued in federal court for unofficial acts. i know, it's a lot. we're going to walk you through this right now. msnbc chief legal correspondent, ari me wilber, fortunately alsoe

host of "the beat" making time for us. i want to start simply with this polygraph test. how valuable is this polygraph test? is this pr or is it legally significant? >> it's not very legally significant because these types of tests are not generally admissible in court. experts say polygraphs tend to be about 70% accurate, which kind of sounds high, but most people wouldn't want anything important in their lives resting on a third of a chance that it would be wrong. it's interesting in the wider sense because it shows this was done all the way back in 2011, which her lawyers argue undercuts the attack on her that she was only coming around because donald trump is president or for political reasons in 2016. >> so can you just help clarify for us, so the examiner says he had 99% certainty that she was telling truth. these things as you say are normally 70% accurate. so can you sort of reconcile those two figures? >> well, that's the view of the person who conducted the test that her credibility was very high, that the results as they

interpret them mean she was telling the truth about those matters. when i say 70%, i mean 70% of all lie detector tests. so at the risk of doing math which i was never very good at -- >> that's why we got into journalism. >> exactly. what did the character say on "snl,"? my understanding is there would be no math. the 70% figure refers to 70% of all these tests. so that means the fact a given test says, oh, this person was basically telling the truth, that, itself, is not always the case and that's why courts don't generally accept it. but, again, the fact that this test even occurred, that there's documentation of it, that it goes back to 2011, these things are not good for donald trump. >> the president literally has his hands full on his issue right now. we were talking about stormy daniels. i want to ask you about karen mcdougal. give us an understanding of the suit she is filing right now, what her claim is in effect that she was prevented from openly telling her story. >> yeah, we just got ahold of this.

our legal unit is just going through it. it's fascinating because part of what she alleges that is different than stormy daniels, miss mcdougal says she was talking to the "national enquirer," thought she was having the opportunity to speak, to write, to be published and as part of that would keep her potential silence about the history with donald trump, alleges that was illegally and fraudulently coerced, she was misled and michael cohen appeared to be working for donald trump or the trump organization for an intermediary, fancy legal word for a bank shot of the "national enquirer." they're pulling in a campaign organization, maybe that raises election law issues, pulling in this was illegally or fraudulently induced and has one claim which overlaps with what stormy daniels' folks have said, violates policy, a big picture way of saying you can't keep someone quiet legally about the

president of the united states. in many ways this new suit that came out in the last few hours poses more legal peril for donald trump than the stormy daniels suit. >> i want to ask you about daniels. summer zervos, former contest t contestant, supreme court judge in new york effectively said the president can't push these aside because as she said, these were unofficial acts by the man who is now the president of the united states. so what does that mean for president trump right now? will we hear from summer zervos in some form or way soon? >> what that means the process moves forward, you can get discovery. i'm going to make an analogy about defamation, it's not about the underlying facts. i say that in fairness. i want to be clear about what's happening. in the bill cosby case, we saw the same pattern regarding defamation, individual accused of misconduct made allegations about the women accusers. and that set off defamation lawsuits. some of those cases against bill cosby were successful. again, about whether you're

lying about each other, not the underlying allegations about sexual misconduct. we're seeing that pattern here. zervos here, "the apprentice" contesta contestant, a suit, saying donald trump lied on her when she made accusations about him during the campaign and she's getting into court. the supreme irony, if you want to call it that, is donald trump was the candidate running around saying he would take her to court. he didn't. now she's got him in court. and the judge's ruling today suggests that will continue to discovery which means you could see evidence, even potentially depositions. >> so let's dpofocus on that deposition. will president trump be deposed? should we expect president trump will be told he's got to speak about this? >> i don't know. >> that simple. >> i don't know. i think that when you look at the history, the supreme court of the united states have said these civil cases do proceed against presidents, that was a very famous precedent in the clinton case, a controversial one, by the way, one that stands for the idea that the cases go forward. bill clinton did ultimately give a deposition there which led to a lot of other things but --

>> so there are legal risks beyond just the fundamentals of what the suit is, correct? >> you betcha. my point is it's not as if -- i don't want to have viewers getting the wrongism pre impres. everybody gets past the motion of dismiss case in a civil case you immediately grab the president and sit him down. it takes a lot more than that. >> can i ask you on stormy daniels again, this got buried a couple days ago, so much news with andrew mccabe, james comey, bob mueller, over the last several days. the simple question is about the suit the president's team frankly on his behalf, he's a party to this, is suing stormy daniels for $12 million basically saying that she has already, you know, done damage by speak bing about this on multiple occasions. i think f 20 occasions they acce her of. is that in effect the president acknowledging there was some relationship here? there's the claim that stormy daniels' lawyers are saying, saying why are you a party to this, you wsmpt weren't a partye previous back and forth.

>> that's what it looks like. i discussed that on "the beat" last night. the bottom line is, this is the wildest story except for the five other wild stories we just discussed. this is a wild story. you put it very well, peter. on friday, the president of the united states jumps into the lawsuit, it's called a joinder, a fancy legal word for jumping in, and says he has the power and the rights to enforce the contract, the secrecy agreement, with stormy daniels which would imply, as you say, that he is dennison, that he is on the other side of that table, michael cohen did not go rogue and facilitate the payments. that's the giant thing that happened on friday along with the other -- >> child of attorneys which meant bringing a dictionary to the dinner table, thank god we got ari melber to walk us throught through this. i want to add to the conversation, the washington correspondent yo corresponde corresponde correspondent for "new york"

magazine, philip bump still with us. the question, why won't the white house let these women speak? >> the white house does a lot of things that don't quite make sense. i think it's very difficult to see how any of this would harm the president with his base and, frankly, whether or not it is a politically smart thing to do. most of this white house's decisions seem to be about what will appeal to the base. they don't seem to be broadening out further trying to appeal to different factions of the republican party or certainly not to democrats or independents. so it doesn't quite make sense, and it doesn't quite make sense they would draw more attention to this by donald trump being coa part of this formally on friday. but this is -- i want to put it in context, this is a very big story as ari was just saying. this is in the middle of the white house hemorrhaging staff, president firing people, people resi resigning, very senior people in his administration, hope hicks, gary cohn, in the middle of the mccabe situation and have the russia investigation with bob mueller, have the house and

senate intelligence committees looking into the matter. this is an insane thing that's happening in the middle of several different even more insane things. >> the president is sort of, i think he'd be the first to say, a st mmaster brander, ultimate marketer, knows how to sell his pitch he says to speak to the american people. on that specifically, it seems like the white house, the president is kind of getting beaten at its own game. the attorney for stormy daniels has built a pr machine by himself and keeps this story in the news now for approaching two weeks ahead of this big interview with stormy daniels to air this weekend. >> we have to wonder if president donald trump in some ways respects the way that stormy daniels and her legal team are going about this whole thing. she is sort of, you're right, beating him at his own game, branding she's doing this tour across the country, gotten a great deal of press. and it seems like the president doesn't quite know what to do and his legal team seems to not quite know what to do, either.

can make the same case about russ russia or other things he's involved in. >> a.b., is it possible these stories, these issues with these women from the past are a bigger issue for president trump than the issue we so frequently focus on, which is that russia investigation? >> well, i think olivia's right, hi supporters really don't care about this. i think when he said all these women accusing me during the campaign, they're all liars, and they're all going to be sued, as soon as the election's over, i think the evangelical voters said they're lying, cooking this up. now they give him a mulligan. it's fine. look at how effective lie detecters are. unfortunately, i mean this, unfortunately, 95% of people believe where there's smoke, there's fire, he might have had an affair with one of these people or being inappropriate -- >> a lot of people view this as a pr campaign right now. >> that is why -- so i don't think it goes anywhere as sort of a tawdry issue. what i think is obviously an issue is if it's a campaign finance violation, if it's an in-kind contribution to shut her up at a time when she could

have, even though they'd been battling for years, legally, actually really harmed his campaign for the election. then i think that's going to end up being a problem for him. it's interesting, i would just add, he always rips everybody, including all those women who accused him before the election. he's been completely silent on stormy daniels. the announcement of the legal action on friday seemed so out of step with the rest of this. that's the part that's completely puzzling to me. that he -- that he would allow himself to sort of be dragged into it. >> jeremy, i want to ask you about something a.b. just brought up that we didn't focus on yet in this conversation. it's the evangelical community. the way they view president trump right now. it's hard to believe that evangelicals stand behind this then-candidate, now president, so fiercely, obviously, he gave them a supreme court justice, he's done a lot in term of religious liberty for that community. i understand why that's the case. talk about that conflict among the evangelical community, or is there one, as they stand

lockstep behind this president despite these allegations that as a.b. says appears where there's smoke, there's some fire? >> i think the one thing that can change this die dmynamic is over the summer there is a supreme court vacancy. once that happens, it is like a reset button. they -- any evangelical christian, social conservatives, republicans, in general, who were getting a little queasy about -- >> are they queasy? >> i think so, privately, yes. if you talk to the leaders -- >> michael's nodding no. >> well, saying so publicly, saying so, and feeling another way privately are two different things here. i think if you talk to the movement leaders, the leaders of churches and social conservative groups, they are publicly very resolute, no, we're standing by him. a layer down from that, kind of at the rank and file, there's a little bit of embarrassment over this. a little bit, i say. i don't know that it's game changing, but like i said, if a supreme court vacancy opens up,

all bets are off. >> michael, go ahead. >> as i said before, for the last 34 you condemned everybody else in this country for how they lived their lives very publicly and in a very embarrassing way. here you have a man in the white house with all of this ish coming out about him and his behavior and you're giving him a mulligan? as i said before, repeat here again, we don't want to hear it. if you have this public stance that we are with the president, he gets to do a mulligan, don't get me in a corner privately and say, you know, we're really concerned about his behavior, this is so upsetting. that's a bunch of bs. the american people aren't b buying it. enough's enough about it. >> philip, i dare go down this rabbit hole here. when i have these conversations with members of the evangelical community, with some republicans, they say there's a big chasm between what president clinton did and what donald trump's simply accused of doing. is that a sufficient pushback? >> gets at one of the key differences between clinton and trump. trump has consistently relied on the strategy of not admitting he

did anything. we actually saw this play out when he was defending roy moore's candidacy in alabama. he relied on the fact that roy moore never said he had done the things he was accused of doing, and as such, he was entitled to the benefit of the doubt. as soon as, for example, al franken admitted to having touched someone inappropriately, donald trump and many republicans jumped down his throat. trump's strategy has been dedmi, deny, deny. continue to keep reasonable doubt and use that as a way to keep people allied with him. i think that's really the challenge here. i think that's the danger for him, there's one question which is why is he pushing back on the stormy daniels lawsuit? right? why doesn't he settle it? why doesn't this thing just go away? i think that may be one of the reasons why. he doesn't want to publicly admit he did anything. >> imagine a ceo, any ceo in america, if these allegations were cast upon them, no chance they'd survive this. perhaps the only seat in the country where you can is president of the united states. ari melber, olivia nuzzi, thank both of you.

it's a special edition of "the beat" tonight with ari, "law and orders, trump versus the fbi. up next, the dirty tactics employed by the president's campaign. the data firm behind them caught on video. we're going to show you next. simple goodness

is ahhhmazing! meaty morsels. a tender texture. with real meat and a blend of peas and carrots i can see. a totally new kind of awesome going on here! (avo) new beneful simple goodness. tender, meaty morsels with real ingredients you can see. breaking just a short time ago, the political data firm used by the trump campaign in 2016, called cambridge analytica, it's come under scrutiny after revelations that it mined personal data from more than 50 million facebook users, many americans. it's now suspending its ceo, alexander nix, one of the people secretly recorded. barely an hour ago, the network released the third installment of that investigation.

so what you're about to see that man, alexander nix, bragging to a reporter posing as a prospective client about the company's role in the trump campaign. nix doesn't know he's being recorded. >> here's the response now from cambridge analytica. cambridge analytica, they right, has never claimed it won the election for president trump. this is patently absurd. we are proud of the work we did on that campaign and have spoken in many public forums about what we consider to be our contribution to the campaign. phillip bump is with us again. phillip, just your reaction to that. more information and more damaging details about this relationship between this firm and the president's campaign. >> yeah, i think as of the new channel 4 report, the most damaging part of that is actually not cambridge analytica's relationship to the

trump campaign, but rather, cambridge analytica's apparent relationship to outside groups. now, federal law mandates that if you're working with a campaign, you can't also work with outside groups that are advocating for that candidate's election or his opponent's defeat. there are some asterisks that apply there. but essentially, cambridge analytica can't both give strategic advice to donald trump and have the same people from the firm turn around and give outside groups information about what the trump campaign is doing. simply because that would mean that contribution limits no longer apply. >> go ahead, please. the reason this is important is because it sounds like cambridge analytica was teaming up not just with the campaign, but also with the super pac. they say they came up with the defeat crooked hillary campaign brand. a lot of people may remember from back in 2016. >> that's exactly right. so cambridge analytica worked both for the trump campaign and for this super pac. and one of the people in this video released by channel 4 seems to sort of celebrate the fact that cambridge analytica was able to do both. he doesn't explicitly say that the same people worked on the it.

and again, the laws are nuanced here. but what he duds say and what the cambridge team does suggest is that they intentionally worked with outside groups and used e-mail systems that would essentially self-destruct, so there would be no paper trails, but he seems to suggest that they put out ideas and information that was picked up by those outside groups and that's very, very close to the enl edge of what the law allows. and i think that's really the main question. in addition to, there was an outstanding question reported first by mcclatchy last here as to whether or not anyone from cambridge or trump's digital team worked with the russians that were trying to collude -- or trying to interfere with the election. and i think this idea that they were putting out information that just sort of went out there into the eithther doesn't do anything to suggest that didn't happen. >> and this is the script from that undercover investigation, the third installment. they say the executives were secretly filmed saying, they leave no paper trail. they say they describe the full scale of their pivotal works in

the president's election win. they also talk, nix does specifically, about his conversations with members of american congress. the house intelligence committee and its questioning. here's alexander nix on that topic. >> hoping you can read along there, jeremy. i want to ask you, jeremy peters about this. we heard from the ranking democrat, adam schiff, saying a short time ago. he said my colleagues, republicans, have a habit of asking three questions, did you conspire, did you collude, did you cooperate with russians, and if the answer was no, they were pretty much done. >> does that further discredit findings? >> i don't think that we can expect much in the way of

objective fact finding in the house intelligence committee for a while now, if we ever could in the first place as it relates to russia. but i think we need to think about this in terms of whether or not these laws that were broken will actually result in any type of enforcement action -- >> so were laws broken here? is it even clear that laws were broken? or that they just sort of circumstance coup circumvented the system? >> well our election law enforcement, as weakened as it has been by republicans and by this president, by leaving open vacancies on the fec, i don't see how you can enforce this. >> michael, is this when this issue finally gets addressed? does something change? this video seems like the last several days of these hidden cameras videos seem like they're producing some capital, that some lawmakers are finally going to come together and broad ly, across the board, we agree. despite what happened in 2016, we've got to do something going forward. >> i think that's probably the safest spot for a lot of these guys to go is the combination of the video evidence, coupled with facebook's sort of, you know,

hard stance, will move members of congress to act on regulation. >> all right. we're going to be right back after a short break. you guys stay with us. you're watching "deadline white house" here on msnbc. a coconut water company. we've got drinks for long days. for birthdays. for turning over new leaves. and we make them for every moment in every corner of the country. we are the coca-cola company, and we're proud to offer so much more. where we're changing withs? contemporary make-overs. then, use the ultimate power handshake, the upper hander with a double palm grab. who has the upper hand now? start winning today. book now at lq.com. we're all under one roof now. congratulations. thank you. how many kids? my two. his three. along with two dogs and jake, our new parrot. that is quite the family. quite a lot of colleges to pay for though. a lot of colleges.

you get any financial advice? yeah, but i'm pretty sure it's the same plan they sold me before. well your situation's totally changed now. right, right. how 'bout a plan that works for 5 kids, 2 dogs and jake over here? that would be great. that would be great. that okay with you, jake? get a portfolio that works for you now and as your needs change from td ameritrade investment management. i own my own company. i had some severe fatigue, some funny rashes. finally, listening to my wife, went to a doctor. and i became diagnosed with hodgkin's lymphoma... that diagnosis was tough. i had to put my trust in somebody. when i first met steve, we recommended chemotherapy, and then we did high dose therapy and then autologous stem cell transplant. unfortunately, he went on to have progressive disease. i thought that he would be a good candidate for immune therapy. it's an intravenous medicine that can affect the patient's immune system and unleash it against the cancer. with chemotherapy, i felt rough, fatigue, nauseous.

and with immune therapy we've had such a positive result. i'm back to working hard. i've honestly never felt this great. i believe the future of immunotherapy at ctca is very bright. the evolution of cancer care is here. learn more at cancercenter.com appointments available now. we know that when you're >> tspending time with thelass grandkids... ♪ music >> tech: ...every minute counts. and you don't have time for a cracked windshield. that's why at safelite, we'll show you exactly when we'll be there. with a replacement you can trust. all done sir. >> grandpa: looks great! >> tech: thanks for choosing safelite. >> grandpa: thank you! >> child: bye! >> tech: bye! saving you time... so you can keep saving the world. >> kids: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace ♪

my thanks to philip bump, ab stoddard, michael steele, and phillip rucker who was here earlier. that's going to do it for us this hour. i'm peter alexander. "mtp daily" starts right now. >> thank you, my friend. we're both wearing the washington uniform today. >> if it's tuesday, we now have a republican senator saying firing bob mueller would be an impeachable offense. tonight, the anti-firing squad. >> there's not even a consideration. >> more republicans are warning the president, keep bob mueller in place. plus, big data, big questions. how senator on both sides of the aisle are uniting to hold facebook accountable on its user