comey to leave the room, comey said to sessions you have be between me and the president. "hardball" with chris matthews starts right now. comey throws the book at trump. let's play "hardball." >> good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. huge news on the investigation of the president. nbc news is reporting tonight that special counsel robert mueller is now moving more speedily toward a report that could show that president trump obstructed justice. what opened the way is the realization that the president will refuse to answer mueller's questions. the other breaking story tonight is we're seeing the first excerpts from james comey's explosive new memoir and the former fbi director didn't hold anything back. "the washington post" has obtained a copy ahead of publication next week and

reporting that it includes new details about the alleged incident in that moscow hotel room. comey reveals when the allegations came up, "trump told him to consider having the fbi investigate the prostitutes' allegation to prove it was a lie." comey says "in an apparent play for my sympathy he added he has a beautiful wife and the whole thing has been very painful for her. he asked what we could do to lift the cloud." in response he writes though i didn't know for sure, i imagine the presidential suite of the ritz-carlton in moscow was large enough for a germ phobe to be at a safe distance from that activity. he offers a portrait of what he calls the forest fire that is the trump presidency. i'm joined right now by "the washington post" phil rucker who wrote that the report who has read the book. also julia ansley, reporter for nbc news, jill wine-banks, former watergate prosecutor and

legal contributor, robert costa, national political reporter with "the washington post" and msnbc political analyst and bret stevens op-ed columnist with the "new york times" and an msnbc contributor. all these points, let's start with the facts brand-new tonight from you, phil rucker. phil, the juicy stuff, sir, what's in the book. >> well, chris it's a long book detailing all of comey's interactions with president trump beginning when he was the president-elect at trump tower when it was comey one-on-one with him who briefed the president-elect orrin that intelligence dossier with unconfirmed allegations that you alluded to from that hotel room. he writes in the book again and again and again in their conversations trump would come back to that scene and try tro convince the fbi director it was not true that, it could not be true. at one point he asked comey to have the fbi investigate the allegations in order to prove they were not true to the american people to make that proof that it was not true

public. trump was fixated on this. >> does comey say he did investigate and agreed or disagreed with what the two sex workers had said had happened in that room? >> well, comey in the book does not render a judgment about what happened. he simply relates his conversations with the president but he did go ahead and investigate it. it really bothered the president according to comey's account because it was so painful for first lady melania trump and president trump would bring that up with comey in their conversations, and it's important to point out that that comey draws broader conclusions about trump as a president. he says he's a congenital liar, an unethical leader who blurs the line between the politics at the white house and what should be an independent fbi and department of justice and he calls this a forest fire of a presidency that must be contained. >> let's talk about the accusation. i understand he says the president acted like a mob boss. >> that's exactly right.

comey before becoming fbi director was a prosecutor in new york. he prosecuted the mafia, went after mobsters. and at a couple different points in the book he reflects on trump and says that a lot of traits he saw in the mafia he also sees in trump and in the trump white house. the circle of deceit, the demands for loyalty pledges, the sort of with us or against us world view. and the constant lies and copy says it became very clear to him that the lifestyle he saw within the mafia and the mob was evident in the oval office now. >> two more questions, the small hands reference which i thought was a bit cheap but the more serious question about trump's admitting he likes oaths of loyalty. >> that's right pep talks about the loyalty oath. this is something that comey got into in his senate testimony that we remember. there was one-on-one dinner comey had with president trump in the green room of the white house where the president asked for his personal loyalty. they went back and forth. comey made clear it wouldn't give his personal political

loyalty, he would be loyal to the truth. they sort of left it at that. after that point, trump went through a litany of accusations against him to try to convince comey they weren't true beginning with the sexual assault allegations brought up during the campaign. he talked about that moment at that campaign rally where he mocked "new york times" reporter search kovalev less ski who is disabled and said that was not true. went through other examples, as well. >> what about the small hands reference? >> yeah, the small hands reference. he describes meeting trump for the first time at that briefing in trump tower. and noticing a few things about his physique. one that he thinks trump was smaller in person, shorter rather in person than he appears on television. trump is 6'3" but comey is 6'8". comey describes his hands, says they're smaller than mine being comey's and describes his face as being orange and that he would look at the sort of center of his eyes where he suspected there were tanning goggles. it's a real personal attacking

inning this book leveled at the president. >> let me go to robert who knows the president pretty well. what do you make of trump's reaction? he's getting this as we're getting this. i don't know if he has an advanced copy. >> he's already fighting a political war against the mueller probe mulling his decisions he's going to make and now it's the comey book. the white house has some strategy prepared but not a wholesale strategy working in coordination with the republican national committee. there's a lot of angst in his inner circle could he erupt as the book becomes the national firestorm. >> what do you think of comey putting in this cheap stuff about his hands? i always believed in if you write a book, your we cannest cheapest charge becomes your vulnerability, that people will focus on that and take you apart. if it looks like a personal vendetta, doesn't that hurt his case on the facts even if he has the facts? >> i haven't read the book. i will say what's more important about this book is what it outlines about potential conduct

by the president, possible obstruction of justice, how does the mueller probe look at the comey book? how do people in congress look at the book. the little things will create headlines. but in the big picture of this presidency, his conduct and actions, that's what matters. >> julia, you've got this reporting tonight. but it seems to me that both comey who wrote this book and it's coming out now, tomorrow morning we'll read it all in the papers and "the washington post" especially already have got it. we also know that comey's firing was probably what triggered the fact that robert mueller wanted to take the role of special counsel. this is important to him institutionally. the role of obstruction of justice in the firing of comey. how are the stories we're getting now going to affect the power of the prosecution? >>'s a triggering effect. comey was fired and rod rosenstein appointed mueller to be the special counsel. that's a point that the president has been very angry about and it all builds into the

obstruction case. we know now from our reporting that robert mueller has been building an obstruction case based on his firing of comey, his intent behind that, about the statement he made on the trump tower meeting, these pardons that he's dangled in front of grand jury witnesses on this idea of the recusal of jeff sessions that allowed rosenstein to then appoint mueller after comey was fired. all of this you can't put in one vacuum. robert's right. a lot of the things we're hearing in this book are probably things mueller already noepz there's going to be a lot that can be used as political spit fire back and forth. trump can say look, comey was biased against me the whole time but he can loose look at it and say there's a lot of information if this comes out, the obstruction case can be looking harder and harder and especially if he decides not to sit down with mueller for an interview as we believe his legal team now

wants to do. that's going to make the obstruction case move faster against him. >> what do you think they'll come out with a report? >> what we've heard is between may and july was the plan before monday. the whole plan got thrown up in the air on monday after that raid of michael cohen's apartment and offices and all of that because the president said forget it. i don't want to sit down with this guy. we think it could speed it up. >> maybe by june. >> as journalists if i had a key source who doesn't want to talk to me and i'm writing that profile, i get everything else i can around them and then i move out that story. i don't wait for an interview that would never happen. mueller wouldn't either. >> jill wine-banks, when you hear that comey the head of the fbi referring to his experience with the president as feeling he's in the presence of a mob boss, i'm wondering what the whole notion what the crime end up being in terms of the report. if the president has a pattern of running basically a racket of one after another to obstruct justice, is that the kind of

package this report will come in, something like a risk co, running a criminal enterprise out of the white house? i'm wondering how strong the fact the fbi director looks upon the president as a mob boss will influence the report by the special prosecutor. >> i think the special prosecutor's report is really what is going to matter to the public. it's more important than the comey book. and i think the report as i have been reading the reports is going to be a searate tim series of reports that will first deal with obstruction of justice and only obstruction of justice. he'll move on to collusion and other crimes that may be involved. as far as obstruction, he has a pretty significant amount of evidence that could show that there has been a violation of that law. i think that the mob boss and rico which would allow greater penalties may be something that would be in an indictment later

on. but in terms of the report, i think he's going to set out what are the facts about the various things that have happened, what are the facts about the firing of comey? maybe even the firing of sally yates before that. maybe about keeping flynn even when he knew the bad information that existed about flynn. it's going to include the false statement that was drafted to explain the meeting in trump tower in june. so there's a lot of elements of obstruction that could be just straightout facts. i think he will stick to the facts. and not draw conclusions that are of a bigger scene unless and until he indicts. >> phil rucker, when you read the comey book, do you sense an indictment, an implicit indictment of this president? >> well, chris, there's not -- if you're looking for comey to lay out sort of articles of impeachment, for example, you're not going to find that in the book. in fact, in the conclusion of the book, comey writes that he

simply doesn't have enough of the full evidence to be able to render that judgment. he can only go based on his experiences and what he witnessed one-on-one with the president. but in a broader sense. >> how about his firing? does he take his firing as an obstructive act? >> he does not spell that out. he details the acts surrounding the firing but he's leaving it to mueller to draw those conclusions. he does indict more broadly the president's behavior and his presidency in very strong terms. >> bret stephens, your thoughts about this, big picture? >> the big picture is it doesn't sound like comey's book reveals anything we don't already know about the president from his skin tone to the size of his hands to his behavior. but the larger picture i think here is a political one, whatever mueller comes out with in a report about obstruction, unless there are like very clear black letter violations of the law, the question is simply going to be, how it's perceived, how it's perceived among

wavering republicans of whom there are an ever greater number, what happens in november and whether democrats can then move forward with a case for impeachment. i do think that the obstruction charge is likely to be the most damaging against the president because that's where it seems we have the greatest amount of evidence that the president tried to tamper with an investigation. >> that's probably what mr. mueller believes. that's why he's moving with it first. our other breaking story tonight. nbc news is reporting tonight that both mueller's prosecutors and trump's legal team are now proceeding with strategies that presume a presidential interview will not take place. will not take place. as a result, mueller has accelerated his timeline and may be able to close the probe more quickly for obstruction. three people familiar with the investigation tell nbc news mueller has collected findings on trump's attempts to obstruct justice which will be included

in a confidential report. those are elements of the potential obstruction case. they include the president's intent when he fired former fbi director james comey. his intent. his role in drafting a misleading statement about a campaign meeting with russians at trump tower in june of '16. his dangling the prospect of pardons before grand jury witnesses who might testify against them and the report on jeff sessions not to recuse himself from the russia investigation. it could spart impeachment providings against the president in the house if it's sent to the house. this comes amid multiple reports the president is considering a move against deputy attorney general rod rosenstein who has authority over the probe. julia, tell us about these findings. we've heard about these from the beginning, the firing of comey, the intent. what's new there? the intent. >> so intent of course, underlying any obstruction case. you have to be able to show that

he didn't just fire comey because he felt like it because he can as president but that he did it in an intent to actually obstruct this case and to try to move it away from him. in this case, we want to see how mueller may be moving forward. we know these are four areas. there could be other areas. this was really what was overlapping. i was hearing these four areas. we know that mueller is someone who follows the book. he's going to most likely accepted a report which would be confidential to rod rosen tine. he would have to make the decision whether or not that goes to congress, whether or not it goes public and as brett was laying out, whether or not congress would move forward with impeachment. right now mueller is trying to gather everything he can to make this as hard of a case as possible. we know he has findings on these areas. we don't know what they are. there could be a scenario where he finds that some of the findings are actually excup

patory. not every box is checked. we know these are things that witnesses have been questioned about already. >> let me go ahead jill with a bigger question everybody wants to know now. if you're president trump and you're sitting in the white house now watching all this take place around you and you're thinking what's my best way to do, you know, damage control, if there's any damage you could control, what would it be. if you fire rosenstein which is your right, right now, can you kill with hip any report coming from or the person you put in that place any report on any one of these findings from the special counsel? can you kill it, put it in a box somewhere, put a lock on it and throw it away? can a president do that legally? >> this president could do it. but there is not an alternative available to mueller. and that is the grand jury's power tore issue a report. that's what we did in watergate. we compiled all of the evidence

that would lead to impeachable offenses and we got permission to give that to the house judiciary committee which then reviewed it as it considered impeachment, voted articles of impeachment that led to the president resigning. so that is an alternative that cannot be taken away from the grand jury. they have that inherent power. it's a different kind of report than the legislation that creates the office of special prosecutor which is the confidential one. so it would be up to rosen tine as to what happens to it after it's given to him, but it wouldn't be if it's the grand jury's power. so even if mueller and rosenstein were fired, the grand jury doesn't go away and the grand jury has the power to issue that kind of a report setting out the facts. and i think it's very important for americans to get those facts. they need to know as do members of congress, what has the president done and is he guilty, is he fit to be president, and the only way to know that is

through real facts, through evidence. and that's what the grand jury has been putting together. >> robert cost ta, your thoughts again again about the president's reaction to all this tonight. what do you think the king is thinking tonight? >> well, he's the president and he's thinking through both the political challenges facing him but also the executive challenges facing him. he's been fuming privately and on twitter about the mueller probe for days. he's been talking to friends and ally who have been urging him to fire rosenstein. now with the comey book out there, all of this will be fueled even more. decisions to make in the coming days and not only here at home but abroad, of course, was syria and trade. >> with these, i don't want to make too big a thing about this. from a way trump is cornered right now. what the president would go after. he's not going to go after the main charges. he's going to go after motive on the part of comey. he has said this whole thing is a vendetta by the deep state.

there's comey a classic product, a figure of the deep state. in the fbi for years. this guy writes a book in which he makes fun of had i hand size and physique, he's smaller than he thought. it may not be a big thing but i can see trump saying this is what i've been saying. these characters have been out to get me. it's clear by language of this book that's what their motive is to get me personally. your thoughts? what will he do with that. >> he may believe that. but there's a calculation to make if he's own a subject at this moment in the probe and not a criminal target, if he still has a choice to making whether to sit for an interview or not, he's being told by white house officials and his attorneys to stay relatively cool when it cops to the real decisions he has to make with regard to the investigation. they're fine with him firing off different tweet buzz they'd like him to stay cool, not do the interview. and hope to weather this storm both the book and the investigation and the report.

>> brett, your big bet right now, where is it heading? we're talking about a possible report from mueller late may, next month. this thing is moving. >> i would be stunned if the president doesn't fire the deputy attorney general mr. rosenstein well before then. and by the way, i have to tell you, based on what i've just heard about the book, if i were the president i would be actually relatively happy about the idea of a comey book tour. comey can do himself a great deal of damage. let's not forget the kind of damage he did himself in 2016. the president has an opportunity to paint comey not just as a creature of the deep state but as a condescending prigg. the important point is that beyond the legal maneuvers, this is a political question about whether the american people want to keep this president or not. and the president, if he knows nothing else, he understands that. >> let me just add a little

partisan piece from the hillary people. they're very angry. lanny davis is not the only one who believes that ten days before the 2016 election, comey dropped a bomb on hillary clinton when he said she's still under investigation. i'm not sure he's going to have a lot of allies on the center left or the left in this coming days. i'm talking about comey. thank you so much, julia ansley, jill wine-banks, we love your expertise here. robert costa, sir, who knows trump and bret stephens, thank you for the big picture. and phil rucker, you got that book. i don't know where but you got it. coming up, another part of the investigation centers on trump's long time lawyer and fixer michael cohen. this stuff is fascinating and what role he may have had killing negative stories about trump including the news today that the company that publishes the nation"national enquireren trump door man for an a salacious tip. how exposed does it leave trump?

we'll get to that next. plus, with the investigation swirling around him, trump says a decision whether to strike syria could come soon but it's coming at a time when trump is under siege politically, legally whatever. constitutionally and even his allies say he's at his most impullive right now. much more from former fbi director james comey as a new book "a higher loyalty." there are new details about his interactions with the president. as i said tonight, comey has thrown the book at this president. faen, let me finish tonight with trump watch. this is "hardball" where the action is. i'm your phone, stuck down here between your seat and your console, playing a little hide-n-seek. cold... warmer... warmer... ah boiling. jackpot. and if you've got cut-rate car insurance, you could be picking up these charges yourself. so get allstate, where agents help keep you protected from mayhem...

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today we got another report of a trump related hush money payment. according to articles in the "new yorker" and the "associated press," american media incorporated the parent company of the "national enquirer" allegedly paid a former trump tower doorman $30,000 to keep a salacious story quiet. the trump organization denied the story and says that the doorman is pushing a false story. nbc news has not confirmed the story and reached out to the white house for comment. this report is the second example of an ami reportedly using a tactic called catch and kill. a practice in which a tabloid pays for a story in order to keep it out of the public eye. the first example was reported by "the wall street journal" four days before the election and according to journal, a month after trump secured account nomination, ami paid playboy model karen mcdougal

$150,000 for the rights to her story. she alleged she had a nearly year long affair with trump. allegations he denies. michael cohen it's reported was in touch with ami while they were negotiating the deal with mcdougal as federal investigators are examining how cohen might have played a role in quashing stories about his boss and his relationship with the chairman of the parent company david pecker and chief content officer dillon howard. federal investigators have requested all communications between the two the executives and mr. cohen. president trump is close personal friends with mr. pecker. i'm joined by katie phang and jonathan allen reporter for nbc news digital. katie, there's so much news. this simple question, what would be illegal about michael cohen, the president's lawyer/fixer for

arranging payments to eem through the "national enquire enquirer"'s ownership to keep stories out of the public eye for political purposes? >> so the answer to that is michael cohen would be trying to do an end run around campaign finance laws so instead of the direct individual contribution that we've heard about that's been alleged that he did to stormy daniels in the amount of $130,000, putting aside the salaciousness and who characterize about the underlying facts of this doorman, it's the idea of using ami as a conduit to funnel money instead of going directly from donald trump or michael cohen's pocketbook to that of the trump doorman, they use ami to catch and kill. so you achieve two goals. you beak shut the guy up because you bought the story. you never run it and beak you don't ever have to declare the $30,000 in terms of it having an influence in the outcome of the presidential election. what's key about all the stuff is the common denominator for stormy daniels, mcdougal, the trump doorman, trump organization deals in russia is

michael cohen. he's like the guy with the fingers in the dam waiting to see if something is going to go. now that evidence has been seized we're going to find out what the feds have in terms of the evidence that's been collected and in terms of what could actually be used against michael cohen to perhaps have him flip against bigger fish in the mueller investigation. >> the feds would like to pull his fingers out of the dam and those holes and let the dam go. what have they got on him legally? how did he break the law? what can they use to squeeze him to start squealing on trump. >> the answer would come from the affidavit that was served on the cohen office and the hotel and his home on monday. that would be stuff like bank fraud, wire fraud, campaign finance violations. and those would be set out with specificity in the affidavit and search warrant. we would know upon the return of the search want exactly what was taken, computers, documents, tax returns. these would give us huge clues. mueller is operating behind the

scenes and has a huge arsenal of information and evidence. he's sifting through it now. we're ultimately going to find out what he has of value and who are going to be the targets in the crosshairs. >> let's try to be nice now. michael cohen, he's not a great lawyer, would he know he was breaking the law arranging third party payments to keep stories out of aply campaign? >> yeah, he would know that. it's not that difficult to know the timing is suspect. if you have somebody like donald trump as your client as the guy you're the fixer, that you would jump off a building for, that type of stuff, if you're operating for him, you know you're skirt accounting law if not violating the law by using ami to make payments to somebody to shut him up so he doesn't influence the outcome of a presidential election. >> thought? >> well, she's right. the core issue is whether something of value was provided to the trump campaign that was not recorded and not reported to the federal election commission.

this is a basic no-no. it doesn't take a great lawyer. >> if you're donald trump and you live the lifestyle he apparently leads with a lot of what girlfriends, whatever, fairs, one night, whatever you want to call them, we don't deal on this, and you've decided to run for president, how do you put them together? you have to have a michael cohen. >> you need a fixer. >> what was the guy nixon used to have, they used to have somebody in the clinton campaign? what was that called? bimbo expert. >> played by kath bates. >> the bimbo erupter person. you have the guy whose job it is to reconcile donald trump's lifestyle with his campaign for president which requires a lot of fixing. > a lot of fixing. it's not just the stuff we found out about now or it's not just the big stuff. there's a million little things. katie has the perfect example, the perfect metaphor of trying to put your fingers in the dam as everything is breaking. this is an incredible story. >> people say they like -- he's

likable. donny deutsch this morning on "joe" was saying he's likable. would he know the overlay of campaign law and what's an implicit campaign contribution to keep something quite and something you do as part of the she's world. >> everybody knows the bakes of campaign finance law in politics. if you have something of value and you don't report it. >> edwards, that case was never resolved. >> it is different in part because of the timing. this is something that happened you know, sort of in the run-up to the election. that's something that a jury would have to decide ultimately. they're going to determine what the motivation was if there's no greater evidence. we've got to see what happens here. one interesting facet of this whoa catch and kill idea. >> that's what i want to get to. >> it's the opposite of journalism. >> if you pay somebody real money, $100,000, $150,000 in the case of mcdougal just to kill a

story it, smells. is that illegal if it weren't for a campaign season going on. >> no, it's not. if you're going to pay her -- what did you pitch to her? did you tell her you were going to run stuff? that's the crux of the lawsuit, she got snowed by a combination of her former lawyer and that with michael cohen in cahoots with ami. >> breaking news on michael cohen. "the washington post" is now reporting right now trump's allies worry federal investigators may have seized conversations recorded by michael cohen and his associates. the post carol leonnig broke the story and joins us now. this is hot. >> we just posted it. so thanks for asking, chris. my colleagues ashley parker and tom hamburger and josh and i have been working on a story about the fact that michael cohen, the president's personal attorney and his personal attorney especially during the campaign was known for making recordings, tape recordings, digital ones of several

conversations. and now there is worry within the trump ally world that those recordings were seized on monday when federal agents basically grabbed up every piece of electronic device that michael cohen owned in his home in, his office and in a hotel room where he had been staying. > so let's imagine -- you don't have to do much imagination. trump is talking to cohen, cohen says i've quieted down that mcdougal story. >> that's a possibility. i think that might be a little farfetched but it's possible. we're told this was not an everyday event for michael cohen, multiple sources though said that during the campaign, they were aware and actually wary of michael cohen because of his reputation for tape recording conversations some of them on the phone. and they don't believe that he was tape recording necessarily the president though it's possible. and he may have been tape recording especially

conversations with people he considered adversaries or litigants and you could imagine a situation where he was tape recording everything cans with people he was negotiating negative stories. >> let me go to katie phang on that. is there a one-party approval for tape recording in new york state? >> you got to have both parties that consent to that. if you don't, you'll have a monica lewinsky situation. both pares have to be understanding they are subject to and privy to this type of communication. >> in new york state. >> i can't say exactly if it's in new york state off the top of my head. what's important about what you're hearing right now, trump was never an e-mailer by all accounts. if comey is goicohen is going t record conversations with trump, it's going to be by way of telephone conversations or person to person conversations. if you don't have the consent, then you've committed another crime. if that's his problem, he's got

a big one. >> what do you know about the scope of the potential conversations. i assume they have something to do with trump. >> i'm not going to pretend we know which conversations can michael cohen tape recorded. there was a good deal of concern. one trump adviser told us earlier today, we're trying to figure out which conversations did he tape, when were these tapings occurring and are they now all in the possession of the fbi. >> in the case of, you talked about the possible adversarial relation ez might have had. clearly he's negotiating with people like karen mcdougal and stormy daniels. those are the people pressing them for money the an one point and being satisfied with money at one point and negotiating those questions would involve you know, it would seem to me ma making the case what they know and able to establish through their own evidence and avenatti would like to know about these conversations at this point.

you've got the story and you believe "the washington post" is reporting the fact that among the materials gathered in that raid, if you will, on monday of michael cohen's office, apartment, and hotel room and on his phone and in his computer are tapes of conversations that might be relevant to this prosecution. carol? >> it's definitely the belief of multiple people that if he these recordings were made by michael and many people believe he made them, that all of those have been swept up by the fbi because they were on his electronic devices in these three playses. i have to say earlier you all were talking about the consent. i don't know the rule in new york state. but i know from our sources that michael cohen had often told other campaign folks that he was comfortable because he believed it was a one-party consent state. >> i see. it's interesting. carol, because of all this and everybody on right now, it's fascinating because what did he say afterwards, john?

>> he said i want to thank the agents for being so -- what's the right words? finesseful as they raided my apartment, my office, my phone, my computer. they were so nice about it. >> someone in deep trouble. >> you're hoping for a little bit of mercy. thank you, carol. what a headline. thank i katie phang for your reporting, your political knowledge and john because you know so much and especially human nature. up next, president trump says a military strike on syria could come very soon. how can this president take us into an act of war when there's so much suspicion he might be doing it to wag the dog? what do you think? this is "hardball" where the action is. and exercise. and maybe even, unproven fish oil supplements. not all omega-3s are clinically proven or the same. discover prescription omega-3 vascepa. the one that's this pure... and fda approved. look. vascepa looks different... because it is different. it's pure epa.

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welcome back to "hardball." president trump today says a decision about a military strike in syria will be coming, here's his words, fairly soon. according to "the washington post," the president is "operating on a tornado of impulses." and with no clear strategy as he faces some of the most conscious convention the decisions of his presidency including syria, trade policy and the probe that threatens to overwhelm his administration. meanwhile, nbc news is reporting that the united states now has blood and urine samples from last saturday's deadly attack in syria that tested positive for chemical weapons. according to nbc, u.s. officials say they believe the syrian government was behind the weekend attack. george f. will columnist for the

west and an msnbc contributor. i can't remember a time when the president is considering an act of war against another country even if it's a small country at a time there's so much suspicion he may try to distract from political problems. >> like the movie "wag the dog." there are four reasons aside from the fact that he said he would that they would pay a price. two are tribal and one is delusional. the tribal one is it makes us feel good. the second is signaling it makes the world feel good about us. the third that is delusional is somehow this would change the trajectory of the war. the outcome of the civil war in syria is known. the war is not overbut the outcome is known, assad has won because putin picked a side and decided to help it win. the fourth is quite serious that we have a national interest in buttressing the norms against the use of these weapons. to which end we would try to

make such a ferocious strike that he would be deterred and other watching dictators with similar arsenals would not do it into can we do that without killing a lot of russians? >> no one knows quite where they are at any given time i assume. but probably. but if not, what happened the last time we had some big russian casualties, putin said, they're private people, something or other. >> small potatoes. >> he doesn't want to have that as a flash point. >> let me ask you about the republican party. you've been identified with it but independently and you haven't been a surefire supporter of everything starting with nixon when you first started. is the party going to survive trump? >> something called the republican party is certainly going to survive. how like the previous republican party it will be we don't know. >> will it be a free trade party, a party that focuses on fiscal responsibility as it once did. >> no, and no. there's a permanent incentive as you know.

bipartisaner. the incentive for the political class to run huge deficits. give people a dollar's worth of government, charge them 60 cents for it, borrow the money from the consenting unborn future generations that will not change. the retirement coming retirement of paul ryan simply underscores the fact that conservatism is now a persuasion without a party. >> where is it going? will there be a separate party. >> i don't think so. it's much too hard. valid access and all the rest. >> will the american people support impeachment if it's only about obstruction and not the underlying charge of collusion with the russians in the election. >> does mueller need that underpinning? >> i don't think the public will support it. 40% of the public will never support it because they're sort of core trump people. and the grown-ups in the democratic party, they're a vanishing few at the moment in

both parties know if they win the house and they come back if january with chanting impeachment, that that's setting up to re-elect mr. trump. >> good thinking. thank you george for joining us. i agree with you. up next, more excerpts from james comey's new book including new details about his interactions with trump, someone he compares to a mob boss. you're watching "hardball." ♪ whether it's a big thing, small thing, or something unexpected, pnc will be right there when you need us. because when it comes to your finances, if you focus on today, tomorrow has a way of working itself out. if you focus on today, when you combine ancestry's with its historical records... you could learn you're from ireland donegal, ireland and your ancestor was a fisherman.

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oaths, the us versus them world view, the lying about all things large and small in, service to some code of loyalty that put the organization above morality and above the truth. he adds what is happening now is not normal, it is not okay. shannon pettypiece had, betsy woodruff, daily beast and yamiche alcindor from pbs. in order, i want you all to tell me what grobs you right now. >> i thought there would be more of a smoke gun in here. i think this does say a lot of things that people know. they know comey does not like the president's personality. i mean they know that the president has done and said a lot of outrageous things. this reinforce the narrative and not necessarily change anyone's narrative. >> betsy? >> what i thought was new is that trump according to book asked comey to try to do some

sort of us kulpatory investigation into the so-called tape that the dossier refers to. >> hotel room in moscow. that sounds like mum nature any spouse would say i don't want my spouse reading this horrible thing. can you find out. >> it's humanizing to see trump worried about the effect all this would have on his wife. >> who wouldn't. >> comey wouldn't have thought there was a 1% chance he would have done that. >> it's not the fbi's job to do background collection on the president to try to clear his reputation. it's the president's job to take care of his reputation. he seemed to be treating comey like his own personal. i think there's two things. what strikes me about this is how personally and vin dicktive and how much he has an ax to grind against the president. it comes off as someone he might have a legitimate claim about i possible illegal things the president did. talking about his hands and

color,ivi color, i was testing with someone who knows trump pretty well. that seems like a distraction. it seems like you wanted to be mean and sell your book. there is a section where comey says that after president trump asked him to stay behind and told sessions to go away, jeff sessions later when comey said you can't leave me alone, jeff sessions shook his head and said i can't help you. but comey made it seem as though that's what he felt. that means jeff sessions said look, i can't even handle this guy. you're in it by yourself. that was something that was new. going back to the personal vendet vendetta. >> now he says in his defense, we've known about this, one of the first things we knew about trump was he was a germophobe. trump says i wouldn't have allowed this going on anywhere near my bed i want to sleep in. comey says but it was a very big room. he could have kept his distance. it seems like he's stretching, betsy, stretching to keep this

little vendetta going. >> it seems like comey is relishing having this chance to finally be the person who is perhaps playing trump's game of name calling and needling someone. >> grossing out, too. >> the criticism we'll hear from comey probably from the left and the right in this book, he's stooping to trump's level. >> talk about the mob thing. it fits the notion that it seems like mueller is working on. there is a risk cothing here where everything he does from dangling pardons to manafort and flynn and whatever else or pop dop lis, he says that will shut him up. he looks at this as a part of a pattern of obstruction. >> mueller's investigators have experienced dealing with mob bosses. i think you're very right. i think they are treat this investigation whether they're treating the president or his associates like they would treat mob bosses, tightening the noose trying to get people to flip. >> is that a presumption of

guilt where you have a reasonable presumption of guilt i. >> everyone is presumed innocent up till the yir decides. >> comey says that. >> remember, there's nothing that's more of a mob tactic than raiding a lawyer's office. >> the roundtable is sticking with us. you're watching "hardball." but just one can "behr" through it all. behr premium plus, a top rated interior paint at a great price. family friendly, disaster proof. find it exclusively at the home depot.

roundtable. i know it's going to be good. shannon. >> fresh details out tonight on this meeting between trump and rosenstein today at the white house. rosenstein was brought in.

an idea to try to give trump an update where things are at with this doj response to the congressional inquires. trump seemed distracted during the meeting. > he still could fire him the next morning. >> probably after syria is taken care of. >> thank you. so you think that's the sequence. syria first. do you know when syria is. >> not going to be tonight. >> we cannot reveal those secrets. >> national security. thank you, shannon, betsy anya meech. let me finish tonight with trump watch. you're watching "hardball." ♪ ♪ ♪ raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens ♪ ♪ bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens ♪ ♪ brown paper packages tied up with strings ♪ ♪ these are a few of my favorite things ♪ ♪ ♪

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daniels, model karen mcdougal and that access hollywood tape that never stops grabbing eyeballs. in the midst of all this with mueller about to make his windup pitch for obstruction, we find a president with no time for a "interview" with the prosecutor but time for a war. even a bite sized one. which raises the question, how does this country go into a war situation with a good number of the american people mainly those paying the most attention, thinking the immediate cause of this war as we used to read in books is the commander in chief has a desire tore shift attention from the flack attacking him at home. remember the movie "wag the dog," and the president having the affair with the young girl and the opposition playing the song "thank heaven for little girls." remember the girl wearing a beret? the movie came out in 1998. in 1998, president clinton got into trouble with a young aide wearing a beret. who knows how that happened? life imitating art? how does a commander in chief

convince his country he's sending forces into combat in the interest of national security not simply his own security? that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. all in with chris hayes starts right now. good evening from new york. i'm kris hayes. another astounding day in the nation's politics and news. breaking news tonight, we have our first look at fired fbi director james comey's much anticipated tell-all book, a window into his interactions with president trump and so now, as the president sits in the white house and reportedly plots with his allies to obstruct the investigation that keeps getting closer and closer to himself and his loved ones and his campaign, as he thinks about potentially firing deputy attorney general rod rosenstein or special counsel robert mueller tonight's sits and watches cable news, he's seeing a barrage of excerpts from