the special counsel's investigations, the parties do not believe this matter is ready to be scheduled for sentencing. jeremy bash, does that mean flynn is still being helpful? >> i think so. that's what it usually means, and chuck can tell you more specifically. >> that's what it usually means, absolutely. it's been fruitful and they need more time. >> maybe the president that ambien from somewhere. >> thank you all so much. it does it for our hour. mtb daily starts right now. >> hi. you had a little fun with the doctor. he's one of the great characters. i look forward to the spinoff. >> jeremy bash went there with "billions" not me. >> yeah. we need the hulu spinoff for that guy. if it's tuesday, mueller's making a list and we're checking it twice. tonight, questions and answers. robert mueller's list of questions for trump reveals the russia probe goes way beyond obstruction. plus case in power point. >> the nuclear deal is based on

lies. >> israel's prime minister turns to the big screen for an audience of one. >> and fail to the chef, sorry, the chief. the art of the typo. this is "mtp daily" and it starts right now. good evening. i'm chuck todd. welcome to mtp daily. we begin with bob mueller's potential interrogation of president trump, "the new york times" published a list of questions that mueller's team apparently wants answered in an interview. they were communicated to the president's legal team which compiled them into a document and which said document ended up getting leaked to the times. the assumption is it comes up somewhere through the president's legal team past, present, future, we'll let you decide. the president and the white house are focusing on the

troubling nature of the leak. if it originated from the president's lawyers, it raised a lot of questions, many of them bad. what's arguably much worse for the president is what this leak reveals about the legal jeopardy facing him and the scope of the mueller probe. dozens of mueller's purported questions were reported. they're not accusatory in nature at all. the questions have not been verified by nbc news and the president's lawyers have declined to comment. they speak to allegations. these questions matter of fact in nature. he wants to hear about possible efforts to corrupt leaders in the justice department or possible efforts to intimidate potential witnesses or prevent them from testifying. he also wants to hear from the president about what he knew about russian meddling during the campaign. what he knew about roger stone's

contacts or jared kushner's contacts. he wants information about the trump tower meeting. statements we now know were misleading. how intentional was that to be? he also wants to hear from the president about incidents that some speculate might suggest a possible quid pro quo with russian leaders. he wants to president to explain why they changed the gop platform to make it more russia friendly on ukraine. or why there were talks with russians about real estate deals during the campaign. if that isn't troubling enough, you have to wonder if mueller already knows the answers to the questions or if they cover everything he's invest gating or if they just scratch the surface. folks, it's sometimes easy to focus on the obstruction piece of the probe. in many ways i this i the president himself wants more focus on it, not on the actual focus of the probe, because the reason why there's so much focus on the obstruction part, it's the part of mueller's

investigation with the most publicly available information, so it's the easiest to report out. this investigation is much more than on instruction. it's about the potential evidence that mr. trump may have been trying to obstruct. joining me now is former trump campaign manager corey lewandowski. welcome back. >> thank you. thank you for having me. >> i want to hit a few subjects with you first. first i want to ask you about this morning's scoop in the new york times. the list of questions, at least via a trump attorney, we don't know which one, but it seemed to have come from that side of the sourcing aisle here of the various questions mueller may have of the president. after you read the list of questions, what did you learn from it? >> well, what i learned from this, if these are the actual questions that the mueller team sent over to the trump attorneys and let's take it for garanted that it is to be safe. what it says to me is it looks

like the mueller team is no longer investigating possible collusion between the trump campaign and the influence potentially of russia. i it seems there's a series of questions that fall outside the scope of what was originally supposed to be part of the mueller investigation to find out if russia was colluding with the trump campaign, and we now know there was no collusion. the house intelligence committee report clearly delineated that. this seems to be a series of questions that fall outside that initial scope or initial part of what this was supposed to be about. >> do you have an example of a question that you believe -- every single question here seems to have at least one or two moves at most away from the central core mission which is trying to figure out did the russians interview and if they did, did they have help of americans. every single question here seems to be related to that. what's an example of a question you believe is unrelated to the scope? >> well, look, what i think is -- i don't want to go through each question.

what i think is this, asking the president a series of questions which they probably know the answer to, and if they want to ask about paul manafort and his outreach to russians or what would have been known, i can tell you this because i was there. the president was unaware of any outreach that paul manafort may or may not have done. >> how do you know for sure? cory, i mean, in fairness, you weren't there. you got -- you weren't there. i'm sure some days you're thankful for that, but you'd been fired. >> that's true. >> so you don't know what mr. manafort and mr. trump said to each other after you left the campaign. >> i can tell you it looks like from the e-mails that have been released publicly that mr. man foert was offering briefings to people overseas based on the status of where the campaign was. i've had the privilege to speak to the president on a regular basis. he told me he was never made aware of these things. when i was there, there was no interaction with russians. i can say on my behalf, i never

entraktsed wi interacted with a russian. if the question did the russians collude with the trump campaign to determine the outcome of the election. the question really was did the clinton campaign spend $5 million of their money to hire a former british spy to put together a dossier with someone from russia. the answer is yes. that's the only campaign that's admitted to coordinating with russia, and it's not been investigating. >> george papadopoulos has admitted to lying to mr. mueller. he's somebody that there are e-mails to you where he's intimating that he would like to figure out if he should pursue a meeting for trump and putin. can you clarify what discussions you ever had about either asking somebody to set up a meeting with putin or if they wanted to look into it, go ahead? what were the putin discussions that you remember that took place on your watch? >> look, to the best of my knowledge, i never instructed anybody to set up a meeting with

putin. i'm about 1000% certain of that. i never asked anybody on the campaign -- >> right, but when papadopoulos, suggested did you tell him not to do it or did you not tell him to do anything? what was that request? >> my interaction with george papadopoulos was so small, so insignificant to the outcome of the campaign, i bet you from what i'm told, the mueller investigation has all the e-mails from the campaign, because they have all been turned over because the campaign is cooperating, and of those, i think my e-mails alone, there are about 400,000 e-mails that i was responsible for. of those, i think, and i'm not certain, but any interaction with george papadopoulos either to me or cced to me was less than half a dozen. half a dozen potential e-mails sent to me out of 400,000, i don't remember. i don't remember ever having any interaction with george that was significant in any way. and i think the only time i ever met him was the one time he took a picture with trump at the

foreign policy meeting. >> let me ask you about the trump tower meeting. because you have said that the house intelligence committee since they've said there's no collusion, there's no collusion. don't know what mueller is investigating. the trump tower meeting itself, why isn't -- why shouldn't that be considered a smoking gun? >> what was discussed? look, chuck, number one, to be clear, i didn't know about the meeting. i was still the campaign manager. i wasn't invited and i wasn't made aware of the meeting until probably four or five months ago when it came out in the public reports. what we have to do, and i think what the mueller team is investigating is what actual took place at that meeting? was any information provided that would have materially impacted the outcome of the campaign? did they offer information that was a smoking gun? was there a smoking gun on hillary clinton? the bottom line the this is a candidate in hillary clinton who had been in public life of 30 years. there was no smoking gun, and there was no information exchanged. >> but you concede the meeting

is suspicious enough that it needs investigation? >> what's suspicious is paying snob go to russia -- that's the really story. >> a kremlin connected lawyer e-mailed back and forth with the now president's son where it seems to appear that they're talking about dirt on hillary clinton from a foreign adversary. i mean, that is sitting right there in e-mails for us to read. >> well, that, and i have nothing to do with that. i wasn't aware of the meeting. i wasn't a part of that meeting. i didn't find out about the meeting until a few months ago when it became public. i can't speak to that. i can tell you people make mistakes sometimes in campaigns and if i would have been there, i would have encouraged the legal team to look into this potential meeting before any meeting transpired. >> you wouldn't have let donald trump junior -- you would have prevented him from organizing that meeting? >> i can't prevent anybody from doing anything. i'm not going to tell -- i have

no authority either as the campaign manager or as an outside person to tell donald trump junior what to do or what not to do. i would have sent it to the legal counsel and asked them to review it for authenticity and had a legal opinion provided to me of should we or should we not take the meeting? that was the meeting paul manafort led up. michael cohen, what role -- how often did you interact with michael cohen before the campaign started? how would you character rise his role in the political operation before june 2015 and how would you characterize it after mr. trump was a formal candidate? >> michael cohen had a role long at the trump organization long preceding my tenure. he had probably been there eight or ten years before i came to start to formalize a campaign. and so i can't talk to that. i wasn't there. when i joined the organization to start to lay the foundation for laying the ground work of a

campaign, michael was one of the people at the beginning who i had a lot of interaction with, because he had an institutional knowledge of what had been done previously. but once he launched the campaign and my office was either on the fifth floor of trump tower or on what we called the 14th floor of trump tower, michael's office was on the 26 th floor. there was no direct interaction with michael or myself on a daily basis. it is possible i spoke to michael once a week over the telephone or i ran into him in the lobby, but michael was not involved in the day today operations of the campaign, and he didn't travel with us. >> you would not consider him a part of your team? >> he was not a part of the campaign team. that is accurate. he was part of the trump organization. >> and last question here. i know there's a lot of denials about having to do with whether john kelly, we're reporting he disparaged the president in a couple of meetings including referring to the president as a, quote, idiot, when it comes to specific legislation. you have been public.

you've not been a fan of kelly. what does this story tell you? the fact that there are people leaking on him like this? does this tell you he should still remain chief of staff or the president needs somebody isn't it true? there's people speculating you should be his chief of staff? >> i am thankful for john kelly's service. he's an american hero. i'm thankful for the discipline he's brought to the white house. it was a bit undisciplined before. he's done a good job managing the staff. this is not pointed at anybody, anybody individually, but the entire administration collectively. if you are not on this president's agenda, you do not deserve the privilege of serving in the administration, whether you're the lowest or highest level staffer. if you're not supporting this president and what he's trying to achieve for the american people, you should have the opportunity to go and do something else in the private sector. this job is one that takes everybody moving in the same

direction to be successful. and that's -- >> you think jaohn kelly has instilled enough discipline? >> there are always leakers. part of the leakers are because they're from the previous administration or there are individuals not on the president's agenda, and those people shouldn't have the right to be in the building. >> corey lewandowski, thank you for coming on and sharing your views. appreciate it. >> thank you. >> thank you. joining me now is ben, editor and chief and a msnbc legal analyst. you're here for one topic alone, the mueller questions. trying to understand them a little bit more. how common is it in a practice like this to a subject of a pro probe, not a target. here are the questions i would like to ask your client? >> not. it is not. usually has an investigator you

want an element of surprise. you don't want to give somebody the opportunity to sort of practice -- >> i don't give you the questions in advance. >> that's true. >> we're not even in a nonantagonizing situation. we don't do that. if you're a prosecuter, what's your motivation to do that? >> i think the motivation in this case would probably have been that the president can refuse, can take the fifth, can force you to issue a subpoena and then litigate it and take months and months of your time. or you can try to reassure him a little bit and say, look, we're not out to get you. here we're being transparent. here are the subjects that we want to talk about. the questions are not specific. >> they were general. >> they're pretty general. they're more like giving topics than laying out the specific questions. so i think it's partly sort of a pat him on the back and say it's okay, we're not going to bite. here's what we want to talk about. >> let's be realistic. we always say the followups are

supposed to be the killer anyway, not the initial question. whether it's on television or in a prosecuter's office. >> the goal from the mueller team's perspective, i assume, is to say stuff that is truthful and honest, and has the effect of getting him in the room. and then ask the questions within the area you need to ask to complete your investigation. >> there's an old joke that says no lawyer should ask a question they don't already know the answer to. do you assume mueller knows the answer to all 49 questions or has an answer? >> i assume mueller has developed evidence with respect to all 49 questions. and part of the point of asking the questions is to see whether the answers that the president gives is consistent with other evidence that they have developed or whether there is a divergence that needs to be explained. >> i asked james comey on sunday whether he would view if the president were under oath or

not, whether he would view the president as a credible witness or not. he said he wouldn't. considering the president's own history sometimes there are positions sometimes what we've seen in his comfort with not telling the truth -- >> including about these questions. he tweeted this morning there were no questions about collusion. >> what's the point of asking a question if you don't think your witness is ever going to give you an honest answer? >> first of all, you want -- you always want, if you can, to hear from the subject of an investigation. give them a chance to be on the record, and to address issues before you make decisions. secondly, the fact that somebody is not credible does not mean they will not sometimes tell you important pieces of information. and third, there is an important accountability to mention. >> quickly, if you were the -- there's an assumption this came from somebody who's trying to tell the president don't do

this, for whatever reason. maybe it's john doud, maybe it's somebody there. it's sending a message. is this the most effective message to tell a client, don't do this? >> i can't imagine how it's in the president's interest for this document to leak. . it is -- i mean, this is attorney/client work product. this is material that reflects what you would want -- >> this is damming on his legal team? >> i don't know who leaked it, obviously, and the times said it's leaked but someone who was not part of the legal team. i don't know how that person got it. this is a shocking thing to disclose your private communications with the investigators who were looking at your client. >> we keep breaking more and more norms all over the place and this is one of them that we haven't paid as much attention to. ben, thank you for your expertise, as always. >> thank you. we have more on the answers that we're getting just from the mueller questions ahead. plus the israeli prime minister

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you can do it. we can do this. at fidelity, our online planning tools are clear and straightforward so you can plan for retirement while saving for the things you want to do today. -whoo! welcome back. let's get to tonight's panel. mike allen, executive editor of axi axios. and bill crystal editor at large at the weekly standard. welcome all. okay. to may day. >> happy may day. >> you bring it up. i miss the days of the reviewing of troops and the cold war fights we used to have on may day. don't you miss those days? >> no. >> i kid.

mike, the leak. the president got furious about it. it was interesting to hear ben say about the questions it was not in the president's best interest to have these leak out, but we all know how you have to send messages to the president before he gets it. is this an extreme way to say to the president don't do this? >> the more you parse the questions, the more you realize this dangerous ground this is for the president. one quarter of these questions cite a specific date. so every question is a trap. every question that -- >> every question is legitimate, but you're right, it's a potential trap too. >> and between the lines of every single question from mueller is we know a lot. and we probably know more than you realize. >> i got to think they know this already. i would think i'm the same camp. they're trying to send a

message. the more the airways play it, it's making him think twice. i also think cory was just on saying it had nothing to do with russia collusion. we were chatting. three-fourths of the questions were specifically around russia. >> the whole thing. >> that's why he couldn't produce -- you're going to use that talking point. at least have one example. >> exactly. >> there's not a single question in here relevant to the narrow scope of the probe. >> donald trump tweeted there's no collusion. now they're just looking for obstruction. there was no crime. this is ridiculous. that was cory ley lewandowski's line. i think their line now is we've proven there's no collusion. see the house intelligence committee report -- >> which was not bipartisan. >> right. this is what they're going to say. >> right. >> see the report. no collusion. this is whipped up to try to trap me into perjury as obstruction. i'm not going to go down that

road. did you see the house members today? >> it's funny you bring this up. they talk about this impeachment thing. it's clearly what was amazing is the response bill. it's fiery in a way we did not hear before. we have to listen to the words of rosenstein on these impeachment threats? >> people have been making threats privately and publicly against me for quite some time. the department of justice is not going to be extorted. >> wow. extorted. >> yeah. >> i think this leak is not signalled to trump. i think it's a signal to all trump forces which is what they're supposed to say, witch hunt, mostly about obstruction, and it's to paul manafort who features one of the questions as possibly reaching out to russia for assistance in the campaign.

i suppose they should hang tough and they'll pardon him. it's weird for the president's lawyers to leak this. >> you don't think this is a leak to send a message to trump? >> i don't think trump has been serious about testifying. i think they're laying the ground work to discredit. it's pure o.j. defense. discredit, throw dust and sand in the air, and i think the way they'll try to do it, they can't go after mueller first. it looks like everything is setting up for rosenstein. what do you think of rosenste rosenstein's response? >> almost daring them to come after him. >> rosenstein, a public servant and now he's saying this is the office. there's integrity here, and i dare you. that's powerful. >> don't you think he thinks they're going to come after him? >> he thinks it. i think there's something more we should be reading into this. rod rosenstein's level of confidence in his job. you can see the spine stiffened right around the michael cohen raid. and it was one of those, because that was a controversial

decision supposedly at the time. he's the one that approved it. and it was right after there that he is -- there's this quote now, and he had a similar quote that just says i'm comfortable with everything i've done. i'm confident. it's as if he's saying i know what i know here, and you guys aren't going to be pushing me out of this job. >> that's a great read. it was only a few days ago he was joking i may come to you looking for a job. not anymore. >> there's a level of confidence. >> he's -- >> i think he knows why they were raided. he knows more information. >> why they need the authorization. i don't know that he's confident that he's not going to be fired. i think he thinks he may be fired. i think he's confident he did the right thing and the investigation is going to find serious things. whether he survives -- i think he's on the right side of history than of the next few

weeks. >> i wonder if he's realized now we've disclosed all the information. it's in the government's possession. if i go, it's hard to put it back. >> it's too late to fire rosenstein at this point if you're the president. there's too much stuff that's in the hands of real investigators. >> from your lips to god's ears. >> comey at george washington university last night said there's no point in firing either one of these people at this point. you'd have to fire the whole fbi. you'd have to go after every state law enforcement. there's too many prilaces. you go to the justice department website and look at the press release where robert mueller was named. there's three words that discredit the spin we know is coming. the investigation, the purpose of it is to look into russian interference in the election and related matters. and any federal prosecuter in

the government, that is the ultimate thread on the sweater. and a federal prosecuter will pull it. >> that's how they got manafort. pull the thread. >> at best, it's one or two degrees. >> manafort was previously six degrees. >> not anymore. >> and did you know or did manafort may have reached out to the russians for assistance. it wasn't that manafort took a meeting from an incoming e-mail that he reached out for assistance. maybe that's just -- mueller doesn't seem to be one that just throws things out. i suspect -- >> every word in that was thoughtful. >> absolutely. but i think the biggest take away here, rod rosenstein has never been more confident in his job, and that should worry the president more than anything else. >> it's a long list now. >> you guys are sticking around. how democrats seem to be getting messaging help for the mid terms

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welcome wac. tonight i'm obsessed with the oddly terrible things being said about president trump's agenda. and who's saying them. the trump tax cut that republicans sold as primarily benefitting the middle class, quote, there's no evidence whatsoever that money has been massively poured back into the

american workers. they added corporations have mostly given out a few bonuses and bought back shares. and who did this come from? republican senator marco rubio. then there's the issue of repealing the obama care individual mandate. something the president touted. quote, you'll likely have individuals who are younger and healthier not participating in that market and that drives up the cost for other folks within that market. again, just what critics predicted. and again, this comes from a republican. a former house member. a repeal and replace guy. and a former hhs secretary in the trump administration. tom price. and finally the president's promise to drain the swamp, quote, if you are a lobbyist who never gave us money, i didn't talk to you. if you were a lobbyist who gave us money, i might talk to you. if you came from back home and sat in my lobby, i would talk to you regardless of contributions. that comes from a republican. mulvaney. a republican senator says the

tax cuts aren't helping the middle class. a former republican says the individual mandate repeal is not lowering prices but perhaps raising them. and the republican budget director says as a congressman he only listensed to lobbyists if they paid up front. we'll be right back. millions of you are online right now, searching one topic.

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welcome back. with days to go before president trump decides whether to withdraw from the nuclear deal, benjamin netanyahu is making his case against it. claiming that iran lied about its nuclear program. that speech with plenty of visuals, seems aimed at an audience of one. and if you weren't sure it was aimed at an audience of one, benjamin netanyahu made his case today with appearances that included "fox and friends."

that counts president as a loyal viewer. this isn't the first time we've seen a pr blitz from netanyahu. he warned a joint session of congress against what he called a very bad deal. this time he knows the white house is more likely to listen this time. joining me now is ben rhodes. he worked on this deal. welcome back to the show. let me start with the evidence that the prime minister produced yesterday which is evidence of essentially iranians wanting to build a nuclear program. that these plans were there. many people have said yeah, we knew they were doing this. this is the reason for the deal. others argue yep, they're prepared to cheat. this is the reason to get out of the deal. is that where we're aiming at? >> actually, prime minister netanyahu made the case for the deal. this was not a new story. the fact that they had a weaponization program before 2003 was declassified we the

u.s. in 2007. the fact they had a secret facility was revealed by barack obama in 2009. the fact is the iran deal puts in place the restrictions on that program and has an intrusive inspections to make sure they're not cheat and we can catch them if they're lying. if you blow up the deal, you lose the inspections and the capability to know whether or not they're meeting their commitments or whether they're lying. >> does the united states have to be in the deal? if the europeans want to stay in the deal or russia and china, look, we could debate whether -- the role the united states days. does the deal have to go away if the united states pulls out. >> we negotiated the deal. the fact is if we stop waving sanctions relief, frankly, the iranians will say we're not in compliance. the iranians cannot get the sanctions relief without the united states participating.

you precipitate a crisis. there's no reason for this. there's a may 12 deadline. iran has not cheated on the deal contrary to what prime minister netanyahu said. he repackaged what others said. trump is choosing ing to manufae something that will precipuate a nuclear crisis in the middle east. it makes no sense other than the fact that barack obama negotiated the deal. >> let me take the point of view of the prime minister of israel. he says iran is a direct threat. and iran they want to see israel eliminated. they're a threat. and the fact is so what if you've delayed their nuclear program. they've got a ballistic missile program. they're still funding terrorism. look what they're doing in syria. they're a threat and need to be isolated. and the president sates there -- sits there and says israel is our number one ally. i'm going to listen to them. >> you don't want iran to have a nuclear weapon.

all the things that make us concerned about iran are worse if you lift the constraints in the nuclear deal. and at the same time, by the way, trump is celebrating a commitment to denuclearization in north korea that has none of the inspections as in the iran deal, he's going to blow up the iran deal. it makes no sense. and it endangers israel and the united states. >> the french president did a speech to congress essentially trying to accommodate the president, i feel like, in his concerns about the deal. he said he has some similar concerns. he'd like to expand the iran deal to deal with nuclear activities beyond the ten-year deadline. the ballistic missile activity and curtail their military influence. why weren't you able to have this as part of the deal? why couldn't you make this part of the original agreement? >> we start with the biggest threat, iran getting a nuclear weapon. we wanted to take that off the

table. iran was approaching the point where they could have enough material to make a nuclear weapon. we rolled back that program, dismantling their centrifuging, shipping out their stockpile. you work from the noun dags. i agree with president macron. now that the nuclear deal is in place, deal with the other issues. the question is why would you get rid of the nuclear deal while you're doing that? macron is saying keep the constraints in the nuclear deal and work from the foundation. it makes to sense to arbitrarily around the deadline that's about nothing else in a political promise, blow up the deal rather than keep it in place and deal with other things. >> i think this has always been the difficulty about the deal. i think you and other supporters of the deal want to put it in a box. this is about their nuclear weapons. we're not saying this is a great country. we're not saying they are new allies and they're going to be

benevolent members of the world order. i think others look and say wait a minute. iran, look what they're doing in syria. they probably -- you know, we're trying to get rid of chemical weapons out of there. they may have helped hide them. maybe even the russians did. they're bad actors everywhere else. why are we giving them the benefit of the doubt in the nuclear deal? that's the argument against being in the deal. >> you make nuclear deals with countries that are concerning. you don't make them with switzerland. you want to keep a regime like that from getting a nuclear weapon. and, look, there's an absurdity. at the same time, north korea does a lot of concerning things. there's a lot of human rights violations in north korea. they've assassinated people in other countries. at the same time trump is saying kim jong-un is an honorable man and he wants to meet them. >> that's a point. a man was murdered in north korea. there's not an american citizen in iran that way.

>> you can get whiplash from hypocrisy. if you took the restrictions out iran deal, shipping out of materials, the inspections regime, that is so much further in detail than anything they've discussed in north korea, and yet, they're already declaring victory in north korea and blowing up the iran deal. >> all right. is it smart for the president to always threat ton pull out but not? could there be a chit? if he's going all right, i'm going to stay in, but i'm a skeptic, do you think that's a way to strengthen the deal and could he have played an art of the deal if that's the result? >> only if he stays in the deal. i mean, and, you know, that's the key point here. you can seek those additional steps that macron wants. there's no guarantee the iranians will agree to something without anything in return. so the question here is that theory only holds if you stay in the agreement and let macron and the europeans try to see what they can get. >> all right.

ben, thank you for coming. >> thank you. up ahead, republican infighting hits a new high or a new low in a key senate race. mitzi: psoriatic arthritis tries to get in my way? watch me. ( ♪ ) mike: i've tried lots of things for my joint pain. now? watch me. ( ♪ ) joni: think i'd give up showing these guys how it's done? please. real people with active psoriatic arthritis are changing the way they fight it. they're moving forward with cosentyx. it's a different kind of targeted biologic. it's proven to help people find less joint pain and clearer skin. don't use if you are allergic to cosentyx. before starting cosentyx you should be checked for tuberculosis. an increased risk of infections and lowered ability to fight them may occur. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms of an infection. or if you have received a vaccine, or plan to. if you have inflammatory bowel disease tell your doctor if symptoms develop or worsen.

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in may and. west virginia in november may hinge on a seemingly unhinged candidate. he served a year in federal prison. if he wins a lot think it would ruin their chance of unseating democratic incumbent joe mansionen. blanketship has been targeting mcconnell. he's called him cocaine mitch. really, that has no connectivity in here. it's a new ad without a lot of explanation. the campaign defends the ad pointing to some report that drugs were once found on a shipping vessel owned by mcconnell's wife's family. republicans may succeed in keeping him from winning but he's made it clear least not going to go away quietly and he's willing to spend his own money on really poorly filmed tv ads to say some really crazy things that could be up ending the west virginia senate race.

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prevagen. the name to remember. time now to lid panelest. before i get to that little mid-term thing, which is truly astounding what's happened in the last week, i want to play a clip of jeremy bash here, our national security analyst, former chief of staff both the defense department and cia. he was speculating where the e-mails came from john dow, well he got an e-mail from john dowd. >> i was speculating earlier with savannah guthrie on the "today" show that perhaps john dowd could be the source of this. and i got a very stern e-mail saying i was not the source, i was not the leak. so i'm just putting out there that john dowd is saying

emphatically on the record he was not the source of this material. >> not surprising. and feel like i should say jay sekulow was probably the source. >> it's important to get out there. it clearly came from trump's orbit somehow. is it an infiltration, we don't know. i want to move into what i said earlier. it's mark rubio on tax cuts, tom price on health care, nick mu mulvaney on draining the swamp. all in the last week you guys have been handed try this one out. >> it's literally a day after the president has been elected we've been given a whole plethora of the things we can go after. i think that there is a lot of infighting. it's should we have a national message? i think what's been working they've been going local.

and local candidates have really been talking about the issues americans care about. >> and suddenly the tax cuts which were going to be the republican shield looked like pretty weak -- >> marco rubio just really destroyed it. >> there's not a single republican whose optimistic, but they said the degree we can stay in the field, it hangs on that. >> in the house i think everyone takes pall ryan's retirement and other things happening on the house side, that had house is almost gone or very, very difficult for republicans -- >> i would say the rank and file are acting as if no one's in charge right now. >> and that's because of the house districts are ones where most of the voters were for

president trump. on the other hand, i mean if it's a nationalized election and trump goes into the last weekending with missouri, you could have the democrats pick up 40 house seats and the republican pick up 20 house seats. >> in virginia it was all the down ballot individuals that basically lifted up -- it was reverse coattails so to speak. you have this organization run for something. they had 15,000 people running from school board, to prosecutors, to people that have never won before. we always normally look at top of the ticket, but i think the game is going to be local. >> these were non-trump related ways, on bread and butter issues, health care, taxes. i think the president is going to come in and say we're running on me, impeachment.

and by the way impeachment could work in north dakota. >> i did an interview with mayor emmanuel the other day and he was saying that the trouble-wise there, that that's not what people want. and undermines what i call this great material you have. >> ironically to your point trump ironically is going to run, you need to protect me. >> we'll continue this conversation after i go to break. up ahead, mistake. be right back. as a control enthusiast,

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well, in case you missed it so did the white house by a single letter. the white house press office put out a letter yesterday featuring this line. quote, iran has a robust cran destine nuclear weapons program that it has tried and failed to hide from the world. scratch that, iran had a robust iran nuclear weapons program. guy, the white house claims a clerical error, naturally. which is the latest n biraj of official poppy dacies. according to the press office the president has traveled aboard air force one once. the white house tripped discussed the possibility of lasting peach. wait, there's more. how about the prime minister of

normpay -- guys, there's caughto correct. double-check this stuff, triple check it. we're the white house. we're not all the best spellers, but you guys got to be, right? the only typo i will accept is anything that says duck you. that's all we have for tonight. the beat with ari melber starts right now. good evening. >> chuck, one thing. i finds auto correct leaves me spelling things the wrong way as well. >> that is true. i will duck out of here. we begin with breaking news. there's a new filing tonight from bob mueller showing he wants more time to get evidence from michael flynn. bob mueller just filed this in federal court. it is a new motion asking a judge to grant