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welcome back, everyone. aim alex witt at msnbc world headquarters in new york. new developments now in the russia vex as "the new york times" reports former trump attorney john dowd discussed the possibility of presidential pardons for both paul manafort and michael flynn. "the times" also reporting special counsel robert mueller's

team is now investigating the prospect of these pardons. joining me to discuss that, former federal prosecutor cynthia oxney. do you think the special counsel believes there is a potential criminal charge here? >> yes. that's why he's investigating it. and certainly if mr. dowd was dangling pardons before people who were being investigated, that could be obstruction. what's interesting, one of the interesting things about it, which is a little confusing for people, how could you really investigate mr. dowd? he's the attorney and maybe there's an attorney/client privilege. but there are exceptions to the attorney/client privilege. one of them is called the crime fraud exception. i would suggest we start to learn a lot about that. mr. mueller has been very aggressive, going after lawyers. he's gone after two now on this crime fraud exception. and he may be looking to do that with mr. dowd. >> can you just explain quickly

what crime fraud exception is? >> sure. absolutely. so here's the deal. if you have a lawyer and you go to the lawyer and say, i committed a murder and i buried the body and here's where i buried it, the lawyer can never tell anybody that. if you go to the lawyer and say, i want to know how to bury that body, what do you think? and the lawyer tells you, there's no privilege there. you cannot -- no lawyer can be involved in a discussion that furthers a crime. so if mr. dowd has an attorney/client with mr. trump, which he does, but if he's furthering a crime, there will not be a privilege. it's going to become relevant in the cohen case, another personal lawyer of mr. trump's who is alleged to have made an illegal campaign contribution to silence stormy daniels. if he made that donation and it

was in furtherance of an illegal act, there will not be an attorney/client privilege either. >> okay. >> and here's why it's important. it puts both of these lawyers in a very difficult position and it provides mueller with leverage in the investigation. remember, we have all these little different individual trees. but the forest here is the russia investigation. >> right. >> so if mr. cohen knows something about the russia investigation, and he was involved with the planning of this trump tower in moscow, he was involved in discussions with the ukrainians and if they're treatment was going to be different from the trump organization, if he knows about that, and now mueller has a way to get to him because he has this campaign violation which is illegal, probably he's going to be deposed and probably will lie, now he's going to have a perjury situation. and he's got a bar problem with the new york bar, if he commits perjury and has also been

settling cases in this odd way for clients. so he suddenly is in trouble. that gives mr. mueller leverage to find out about what he wants to know in the russia investigation. it's all coming out. >> it seems like a pretty tight web, as a matter of fact. i do want to talk about stormy daniels. this morning her attorney tweeted, "be clear, we will never accept any settlement regardless of the amount of money. that does not include mr. cohen and mr. trump coming 100% clean with the american people. people that say this is about money haven't been paying attention." and then, #searchforthetruth. if it's not now about the money like he claims, where are they still fighting to tell her story? well, there's nothing more dangerous than a client that you can't pay off in this type of case. this woman wants to be able to tell her story. and i really don't know -- the adultery means nothing to me,

i'm more interested in what does that mean for the russia investigation. and because this lawyer, who is very good, has now put cohen in a box and eventually trump in a box, he's going to make a difference. if his client doesn't get paid off, what does she care, she doesn't really want the money, she's very dangerous for trump and cohen. >> do you think there's more to this here? would stormy daniels have a clue as to whether this was some sort of coverup with regard to helping to influence the election? i mean, her story -- i don't think there's a lot more to hear about that. we've heard it. we know what went on. >> no, and i don't want to know more about that. >> me neither. >> we'll escaskip that, it's fa television. i'm not interested in that. what i'm interested in is, there is an illegal campaign contribution, the silencing of her was an illegal campaign contribution, 11 days before the election, to give trump a chance to win the election.

that illegal campaign contribution leads directly to cohen, perjury charge against cohen because he's going to be deposed and will lie, and that will lead to trump. that's what's important about this case in terms of understanding what's happening long term with the stormy daniels case. not the facts about their affair. >> right. okay. cynthia oxney, always good to get the story from you, appreciate it, thank you. coming up, why president trump's latest comments about u.s. military action are reportedly taking defense officials by surprise. ♪ with esurance photo claims, you could have money for repairs within a day. wow! that was really fast. so it doesn't have to hurt for long.

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by the way, we're knocking the hell out of isis. we'll be coming out of syria like very soon. let the other people take care of it now. very soon. very soon, we're coming out. we're going to be coming out of there real soon. we're going back to our country where we belong, where we want to be. >> the president signaling a serious shift of pentagon strategy, catching his own administration off guard. john garamendi joins me, thank you for joining me, sir. considering this ohio rally was meant to be touting his infrastructure plan, and then he goes on to military plans in syria. >> well, it's helter-skelter. it is bouncing from one end of the court to the other end of the court. it is chaos.

this man has a very chaotic mind. and frankly, he's turning syria over to whom? iran and russia. that's exactly what he said right there. we're going to get out and turn it over. there is no policy in the middle east. he said ten months ago he would establish a policy. we're still waiting for it. if this is his policy, to turn the middle east over to iran and russia, we've got a serious, serious problem in the white house. >> i want to focus on russia. the president made those comments this week in the middle of this tit for tat with russia over diplomatic expulsions from each country. the president still has not said anything in public about russia retaliating or even about testing the wide ranging icbm. then we have my colleagues at nbc news, they have an exclusive report saying the president told his aides not to talk publicly about rush policy moves. doing so, trump argued, might agitate russian president vladimir putin, this was according to officials. what is this silence about? is that it?

>> well, it's far more than that. there's something deeply embedded here that we're going to have to get the answer out of. and i suspect mueller is going to dig that out. something's going on. follow the money. what happened over the previous years? what were those russian connections? and the bottom line of this is, it is the president's responsibility to protect this nation. and he's not doing it. there is no comprehensive strategy to deal with russia, to deal with their hacking into our electrical grids, into our critical infrastructure, power plants and all the rest. we need a strategy, comprehensive, to deal not only with the middle east but with russia. we have to push back. if we don't push back, you can bet that putin is going to take advantage of the united states. this president is derelict in his responsibilities to protect this nation. >> let's get now to the president's cabinet shake-up, particularly with the addition of john bolton as his national security adviser. i want to play a joke that the defense secretary made.

he met bolton for the first time just this week. here it is. >> mr. secretary. good to see you. >> thank you. thanks for coming. it's good to finally meet you. i heard that you are actually the devil incarnate and i wanted to meet you. >> nervous law enforcement there. are you at all encouraged by the fact that general mattis is still there? >> thank you god general mattis is still there. i have lost all confidence in kelly, in trying to gain control of the white house. obviously the others are gone. now we have bolton who is clearly a right wing nut case. he wants to take out north korea with some sort of bloody nose attack, starting a war in the korean peninsula that will kill tens of thousands of people in the first couple of days. he wants to do away with the

iran nuclear deal which will absolutely guarantee that iran will once again proceed immediately to build a bomb. or does he want to invade iran and kill tens of thousands of american soldiers? this john bolton is downright dangerous and now he's got the president's ear. thankfully mattis is there. will he be able to bring some sanity to the white house? let's pray. let's pray that he does. >> since you're there in the great golden state there, i want to turn to california's fight against the trump administration's proposal to ask the citizenship question on the 2020 census. are you willing to give the administration the benefit of the doubt that this question is really truly meant to provide adequate funding and congressional representation, or do you think there's something else going on here and underlying something else? >> we're talking about jeff sessions, concerned about civil rights? concerned about voting rights? that's got to be the biggest joke of the month. jeff sessions has a long, long

history of caring little about voting rights. no, this is all about suppressing the number of people that exist in certain states across this nation, states that have an immigrant population. and clearly asking that question is going to cause many, probably tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of immigrants to simply disappear and not answer the question. that will have profound repercussions, not just on california, but on states with immigrants like maybe texas or how about georgia and florida? no, this is really a very, very bad policy. if you want to get at the voting rights, you go at that in a completely different way, not by messing with the required constitutional enumeration of the number of people in the united states. and by the way, the reason that was written, saying all people, way back when the constitution was written, because it was in the interests of the southern states to count slaves.

>> democratic congressman john garamendi of california, sir, thank you very much for your time and enjoy your holiday weekend. >> thank you. next, the jaw dropping autopsy that's raising more questions about the police shooting of an unarmed black man in sacramento. first, why another trump cabinet member is facing backlash and calls to resign. he with moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis? 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.

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growing ethics scrutiny of epa administrator scott pruitt after controversial new reports, according to bloomberg, pruitt leased a room for $50 a night from the wife of an energy lobbyist last year. the report raising questions about whether paying a below market fee could be considered an improper gift. and what's more, politico reports, unlike other cabinet members who have gotten the axe from trump, pruitt has not obstructed the president's conservative agenda or actively criticized his leadership. instead he praise am trump on fox news and elsewhere every chance he gets. let's bring in democratic strategist, former executive director of the state democratic party, and a republican strategist. noelle, does politico have a point? is the white house turning a

blind eye to scott pruitt's ethics and all the issues of that because he champions the trump jeagenda? >> alex, they may be turning a little bit of a blind eye. but i don't think it's because of those reasons. i actually think it's because of what he's done with the epa. if you look, there was a common practice in the epa of sue and settle. it's a horrific process. and he has actually gotten rid of that and he's making great strides in the epa. you've got to realize people on the opposite side, they're out for him. the epa is a big pet project among, you know, liberal democrats. so anyone in this position, anyone that takes on the epa and tries to regulate it and tries to get it to rein in some of the bad practices that were going on within the epa, anyone is going to be scrutinized. i think they're putting him under a microscope. but i don't think -- you know,

while some of the things he has done, they are shady, i'll give you that. but i do not think they're looking at him and saying they're going to dismiss him and get rid of him for these incidents alone because of the good work he's actually doing within the epa. >> that good work can be challenged by some, basil, as you're aware, i'm sure. there are some who suggest he fraternizes with, he's taken meetings with polluters. couple that with these reports of him paying $50 a night for a room in the capitol hill area that would go for at least $120 a night if not considerably more, how damaging is all this for the white house? >> you know, oddly enough, i actually don't think it's that damaging for the white house, because everyone is getting cover by this president. the truth is i don't think the president or most of the people close to him see that there's anything wrong with any of this behavior. but it's important for viewers to know, and i'm sure your

viewers know this, that we have ethics laws in place to try to put this behavior to the side so that people could come into these jobs for the purpose of providing good public service. and the problem is that you have individuals in these jobs that appear to just be interested in enriching themselves. and again, my feeling is that the trump administration and the president himself probably just doesn't care that these laws are being skirted, as long as they are beholden to his agenda. >> all right. let's get to what i want to play for you, noelle, which is a clip of the newly ousted former va secretary david shulkin, describing how his firing went down. here he is with my colleague, msnbc's chris hayes. >> you spoke to him, he made to mention of the fact that he was about to terminate you? >> that's correct. >> and then you found out via tweet? >> right before that, the chief of staff kelly gave me a call,

which i appreciated, he gave me a heads up. and so -- but that was much after the phone call. >> do you think the president should have handled that differently? >> well, alex, this is trump being trump. you've got to admit that ever since he took the office, that he's been handling things his own way. no other president has been on twitter like this. no one has used twitter to fire people and hire people. so this is a very different administration. but i will say that, you know, he's let a lot of people go by, you know, confusing terms, by saying, you know, like comey, it was confusing with comey, comey was confused. rex tillerson was confused. there are a lot of people who have been confused and gotten mixed messages from the president, only to be fired within days later, minutes later or whatever, from their post. but this is just -- you can't really say it's wrong or it's right. this is just what trump does. >> let me ask you this, basil,

very quickly. i'm going to have will put up a quote from cnbc regarding john kelly. is he chief of staff right now in name only? >> to me he is, in name only. there have been reports the president may take advice from some folks around him saying that you can be your own chief of staff. >> oh, boy. >> which is terrible and dangerous, to say the least. i do think he's chief of staff in name only. to be honest, he's probably still the most stabilizing presence in that white house, which is also a little scary considering the fact that we were yesterday talking about a russian missile test, and there is a depletion of brain power at the highest levels of the state department, so we don't have the diplomats we need to even talk to some of these nations. so when you compare sort of the brain drain coming out of the administration and the fact that you have kelly there doing his

very best to sort of put a band-aid on all this, it's a scary time. >> and an administration without a chief of staff didn't work so well during the ford and carter administrations for various periods of time there. guys, good to see you both, have a good holiday weekend. thank you. up next, why the president says amazon is part of a scam worth billions of dollars. youk for pneumococcal pneumonia that can take you out of the game for weeks, even if you're healthy. pneumococcal pneumonia is a potentially serious bacterial lung disease that in severe cases can lead to hospitalization. it may hit quickly, without warning, causing you to miss out on the things you enjoy most. prevnar 13® is not a treatment for pneumococcal pneumonia... it's a vaccine you can get to help protect against it. prevnar 13® is approved for adults to help prevent infections from 13 strains of the bacteria that cause pneumococcal pneumonia. you should not receive prevnar 13® if you have had a severe allergic reaction to the vaccine or its ingredients. if you have a weakened immune system, you may have a lower response to the vaccine.

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