>> arpaio was convicted of contempt of court after he refused to stop racially profiling latinos in his law enforcement work. he was pardoned by president trump before he was sentenced. con sefbtiservatives say it's depressing and the decline of mike pence. he simply said come on. thank you for watching "velshi & ruhle." i hand you off to andrea mitchell. right now, hardball. robert mueller reportedly warning the trump legal team if the president will not agree to an interview he could be subpoenaed. this has the president escalates his twitter attack against rod rosenstein who told trump protectors in congress demanding documents on the russia probe to back off. >> there are people who have been making threat, privately and publicly against me for quite some time. i think they should understand

by now that the department of justice is not going to be extorted. doctor's note. the president's former long time personal physician admits what many suspected at the time, the glowing medical report he issued during the campaign was dictated by his patient, donald j. trump. >> that letter that showed up about his health rgs he wrote it: state visit. president trump making his first trip to the state department to swear in his top diplomat, mike pompeo. >> i've absolute confidence he will do an incredible job as the nation's 70th secretary of state. good day. president trump is reacting to a strange of headlines about robert mueller's tense negotiations with the president's legal team and the deputy attorney general overseeing the russia investigation.

tweeting the probe is a rigged system and then threatening that at some point i will have no choice but to use the powers granted to the presidency and get involved. that's a clear response to rod rosenstein's unambiguous push back against house republicans interfe interference. a march 5th meeting where robert mueller said he could subpoena the president. according to the post, two witnesses say the president's then lawyer replied, this isn't some game. you're screwing with the work of the presidency of the united states. joining me now nbc justice correspondent pete williams, nbc national correspondent, peter alexander. former u.s. attorney and fbi official. we have a full house. let's start with you and the president on twitter today clearly new threats.

new warnings to the justice department, to robert mule r and specifically to the man in charge who was rod rosenstein. >> i think that's right. we have seen this sort of twitter tirade from the president in the past but this is a unique one we're witnessing today. the bottom line is the president is suggesting that the real investigation should be focused on his former opponent, of now approaching two years ago, hillary clinton. he indicates there's no wrong doing so nothing to be uncovered. in a series of those tweets he say it's a stet up and trap. this gets to the new reporting that came out overnight about the fact that more than six weeks ago there was this conversation between robert mueller and one of the president's attorneys, part of his team focusing on this idea that if the president would refuse to sit down for an interview, mueller may have to subpoena him. recognize this was before rudy giuliani had joined the

president's team. the thinking right now is unclear whether the president would sit down. i've had conversations with some of those close to the president, including alan who says there's no reason the president should sit down for a conversation like this. it could only be problematic, incriminating for him. their suggestion is they try to narrow the scope of the investigation now. that's what the president is trying to do. trying to shut it down or if not that, certainly narrow it. >> phil, the washington post team coming up with a lot of these details last night exclusively. let's talk about the scope of this because it's clear that the scope is very, very broad. >> it's very broad. it's uncomfortably broad for the president and his legal team. he feels like there's no collusion. he's done nothing wrong in coordinating with the russians and it's uncomfortable with the

scope of some of the questions that list of 49 questions that came out in the new york times the other day and the president's tweet this morning seems to have been inspired by efforts by some house conser conservatives including mark ma meadows, to get a particular document from the justice department, a memo that would out line what the mueller probe is after. who are some of the targets of that investigation. it angered those on congress and seems to be the inspiration for some of the president's backlash this morning. >> for the reporting as well from the post, i believe there were actually a draft of an impeachment procedure against rod rosenstein. rosenstein is in charge of the parameters of the mueller probe since jeff sessions is recused. pete williams, the significance of all of this and the

possibility of a subpoena for the president. >> well, the possibility of a subpoena for the president, of course, this would take us into legal territory where we've not been before. presidents jefferson and nixon were subpoenaed for documents and tapes. president clinton was subpoenaed for his testimony but he decided to do it voluntarily. if they do subpoena the president and he says no, i'm not going to do it. i'm going to assert my fifth amendment impressive leprivileg us into a territory where the courts have not been before and the white house has to make a political calculation where they plead the fifth which is often associated with organized crime figures. do they want to go there or will they assert the president has executive privilege and doesn't have to answer these questions. we don't know the answer ultimately. the courts have always suggested that presidents have to give evidence in criminal cases but

what if it involves an investigation of them themselves. can a president be indicted. all those questions would have to be hashed out in court. on the documents issue, there's two levels to this. on the one hand it does appear that some con seservatives in congress are unhappy with rod rosenstein and trying to set him up for familiar. ratcheting up to demands they know he can't respond to and then do this impeachment thing. that doesn't seem to have support but among a small group. the house speaker said that's a non-starter. the justice department does have house staffers in the justice department. they now have offices where they can look at these thousands of pa pages about the clinton investigation. based on earlier suggestion and really dictates turn more over to congress. they are doing that. this is an age old

constitutional fight. the justice department says we investigate crimes. there is a separation of power. you do your thing, we'll do ours. >> rod rosenstein really pushed back hard yesterday. let's play a bit of that the question he was asked and his answer. >> any reaction to the news that certain members of the house freedom caucus have talked about drafting up articles of impeachment despite your best ef efforts to comply with document requests? >> they can't even resist leaking their own drafts. the department of justice will not be extorted. we're going to do what's required by the rule of law. any kind of threats that anybody makes are not going to affect the way we do our job. >> chuck, as a former u.s. assistant attorney and fbi official, rod rosenstein's answer. >> i'm glad to see him doing that. i've had my criticisms of rod, someone i've worked with.

someone i know. i like him. it's nice to see him standing up for the department, the institution. there is a separation of powers that must be maintained. some of what the department of justice does under rod rosenstein conducts some of our very most sensitive investigation, political corruption, counter corruption. that needs to remain confidential. >> he's not always been an enemy of the president. this is sarah sanders last may praising him. >> somebody like the deputy attorney general rod rosenstein who everybody across the board has unequivocally said this guy is man of up standing character and the gold standard that the department of justice. i think there's complete confidence in him and another reason for director comey to be out of way so they can have somebody leading this effort that everybody across the board

has respect and confidence in. >> that was after the comey firing when rod rosenstein was in favor in the white house. he was confirmed with 94 votes. all of a sudden because he is doing his job, he's incured the wrath of mark meadows. to impeach him requires a two thinkers vote. that's not something that's a real threat. >> i don't think so at all. it's a political thing and it's a house thing. rod is right to put it aside. if they're going to do that, they're going to do that. he has sworn an oath. he has a duty to uphold and he's going to do it. that's what we need to see. standing up for the men and women of the institution. i did it for a long time. it's apolitical. it's non-political. it's non-partisan. sometimes people are mad at you.

so be it. >> peter alexander, at the white house, the march 5th is the day this meeting took place. a real tense meeting with robert mueller and john dowd and then the attorney for the president. dowd's response is this is not o some game you're playing. you're screwing around with the presidency of the united states. march 5th was the day that netanyahu was in white house and presenting that entire iranian stolen computer file showing what they claimed was the evidence of past vie lolations iran. briefing the president on that. it was the work of the presidency going on and it's ironic he was complaining you can't interfere with the work of the president. the work goes on. >> reporter: after that meeting took place, those real tensions, that private clash that happened

behind closed doors that it was thereafter that robert mueller's team as reported by the new york times provided those topics and those general questions to the president's team. there was sort of a cooling, as we had reported in the past but a rewarming of relations, perhap perhaps, which is why they were able to provide some of this information going forward. the president as he's said is angry about these types of negotiations that we're talking about. thinks the real focus should be on the other negotiations that he's been more focused on. that's what the president wants the conversation to be at. all these over headlines made it more and more difficult to do that. >> now we have rudy giuliani in the mix. dowd is out of picture.

what is rudy giuliani's attitude so far about a potential testimony from the president? >> reporter: so far he's trying to be open with mueller. he met with mueller after he was na named to the president's legal team. i suspect he will be against having this interview. he's not been opposed to it publicly. he's tried to show mueller he will cooperate with him and develop a relationship there. rudy giuliani and mueller go back many, many years. there's the famous photo from 9/11. they have a relationship. i think rudy giuliani is wanting to smooth things over at the beginning. i don't think he's ever going to advise the president to do this interview.

there was a filing by mike flynn's lawyers to extend the sentencing for another 60 days. he's still cooperating. >> both sides say they have a lot of work to do and they need more time. they didn't really explain it. they want to keep that channel open. it's much harder to do it after he's sentenced. i should just say on these documents that congress wants, there's two things they want. they want stuff about the hillary clinton e-mail investigation and i think one of the things that making it harder for the justice department to say no is something that james comey did after shutting down in july the hillary clinton e-mail investigation where he sent stuff that normally the fbi doesn't share with congress. the records of interviews of people. the so called 302s and some internal documents about it. the justice department kind of is asking for this themselves

because they open the door a little bit on that. on the second thing they're asking for which is documents about mueller investigation, that really is the crown jewels of what the justice department does. that's an ongoing criminal investigation and i can't think of case where doj has ever turned over sort of operational memos in the middle of an investigation. >> pete williams, chuck rosenburg, peter alexander thank you so much for starting us off. we have breaking news. a southwest airline flights on its way from newark to chicago had to make an emergency landing because of a cracked window. these pictures appear to show the damage in question. the plane has been taken out of service. no injuries are reported. we don't know if this is a 737 but it comes two weeks after a woman was killed on a separate southwest flight when an engine

failure completely broke the window and partially sucking her out of plane. we're following another breaking story from savannah, georgia. a military cargo plane has just cra crashed. the plane went down shortly after take off. taking off from the savannah hilton head savannah airport. no word on how many people were on board. we'll bring you more details. secretary of swagger. mike pompeo wants to help the state department get its groove back but will his approach work? we'll talk to a democratic senator who has opposed his nomination. i'm not a bigwig. or a c-anything-o. but i've got an idea sir. get domo. it'll connect us to everything that's going on in the company. get it for jean who's always cold. for the sales team, it and the warehouse crew. give us the data we need. in one place, anywhere we need it. help us do our jobs better. with domo we can run this place together.

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i've absolute confidence that he will do an incredible job as the nation's 70th secretary of state. as mike travels the world, he will carry out the greatest mission and highest esest duty state department. to represent the interests of the american people. >> president trump making his very first visit as commander in chief to the state department to swear in his new top diplomat mike pompeo. joining me now, democratic senator. he's been on the job for the couple of days but this was the ceremonial swearing in and first time the president has ever been to the state department before or after his swearing in as

president. it's only about a mile away from the white house. that certainly, today signifies the closeness of this president and mike pompeo compared to rex tillerson. will it make a difference? >> we'll have to see. i hope the state department gets its swagger back because we need diplomacy front and center. we should work hard to resolve con flicks without having to use military force and resolve them diplomatically whether ever possible. what worries me about secretary pompeo is his whole record up till now has been much more of a shoot first, ask questions later approach which is the opposite of what we ask our diplomats to do. we have big decisions coming up with respect to iran where i'm worried about the position this administration is going to take. >> they've signalled that they are going to break away or come

up with some compromise where they waive -- they stop waiving the sangs bctions. it's small but likelihood next week some time before may 12th they'll break out of deal. their argument is like net yanyu said in the past, they cheated their program. they can restart any time they want and bad actors in the region. >> there's in doubt the iranians have been bad actors but we know the information revealed by netanyahu the other day was nothing new in substance. there was more detail but we have known for a long time that up until 2004, early 2004, i ran had a secret nuclear weapons

program. pompeo confirmed that ended in early 2004. during his confirmation he indicated he had zero evidence that iran was in violation of the iran nuclear agreement. it's to prevent iran from getting a nuclear weapon. they had that program. they stopped it. we want to make sure they don't proceed down their path. that's the whole purpose of the agreement. an agreement which they are abiding by as we speak. >> i want to ask you about statement that the white house issued the other night and it was that it was the same day that netanyahu made his very theatrical presentation. iran has a robust, clandestine nuclear weapons program. this is something that was known until 2007.

it was declassified then and the white house and all the other intelligence agencies knowled acknowledged that. it was stopped at that point. this was clearly a misstatement. i called it out as soon as it came out and they waited an hour and a half. sarah sanders said yesterday they quick lly corrected the record. they have not corrected it bauds they d -- because they did not issue a statement. they fixed the website. do you think this was a clerical error or something more involved where they were trying to muddy the waters and suggest that iran still has a nuclear program? >> i don't know for sure. my first reaction when i saw that was here we go again. we remember in the lead up to the iraq war there was all this misinformation coming out about how saddam hussein was marching toward getting weapons of mass

destruction and back in september 2002, netanyahu testified before the congress that iraq was poised to get a nuclear weapon and that we needed to take him out. yes, for a moment there it looked like all these things were happening again and with netanyahu's state the other day, clearly designed to try to undermine the continuity of the iran nuclear agreement, it's looking like here we go again and just recently even though they corrected the clerical error, the administration is clearly latching onto the release of information which we already knew in substance to justify pulling the plug on the iran nuclear agreement which will e limb -- eliminate the agreement that will give a green

light to iran. it makes no sense at all. >> do you think this is case where the white house press office puts out a statement of such import and impact without it being cleared by the national security council or is this a deliberate attempt to mislead the american people and the world. >> well, there's no way of knowing for sure at this point in time. what we do know is that even today in the last 24 hours, for example, the administration is trying to use this information that was known to the united states and our allies for a very long time. that at one point in time iran was embarked on a nuclear weapons program. what they are not focusing on is the fact that we've already found that the iranians ended that weapons program by early 2004 and again the whole purpose of the iran nuclear agreement is to recognize the iranians may

try to get a nuclear weapon. we want to cut off all their paths to getting that and we will have in place a very strong verification regime. you get rid of the grem, you go blind right away. they can pick out a lot of inspectors and resume enriching at much higher levels. to get rid of agreement that is putting the brakes on and which gives us lead time in the event they do cheat at some point, it's bad for our security. it's bad for the security of our allies. i don't know what the president is thinking unless he wants to do at what pompeo said he wanted to do was go bomb iran. that's something mike pom ppeo said years ago which is why i'm worried about him at the state department reenforcing some of president trump's worst instincts. >> thank you very much. thanks for being with us today. >> thank you.

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a new twist in the saga of president trump's former long time personal physician dr. harold bornstein to told news nbc that his office was quote raid bid ted by the presi personal body guard and lawyer. they took the records. now bornstein is dishing new information about his former patient and that unusual doctor's note released describing the president as in the best health of anyone to ever be lelected to the presidency. >> some of them with have to admit that names are changed on them to weird names that he made up. i will also tell you that letter that show eed up in times about his health, he wrote himself. you know that.

>> yeah. >> he wrote it himself. me, from where i come from, tend of it was black humor. it wasn't meant to be a serious comment. i guess people don't have that sense of humor. i get it. >> joining me now is dr. john torrez and nbc news investigative producer. thank you both. let me ask about any vulnerability that dr. bornstein has in talking about his patient's records publicly. the medication that he was using for hair growth. any of those patient-doctor confidential statements. >> as a doctor that's a huge violation of patient confidential and illegal violation as well. we have hipaa that protects

patients. if you didn't have permission to specifically tell people about that specific medication in that format then that's a big violation of that. that violation does come with fines and even jail time. just not something that physicians should be doing. >> when you interviewed him, he was on camera he said to you, i didn't do anything wrong. who would care about a hair growth medication. he doesn't seem to understand that distinction, which was just played out. >> he said he thought since the election was already over that it didn't matter. he said millions of men across america take this drug. it's not a big deal. i think he feels hurt that after he made those statements to a reporter that trump cut him off. >> why do you think he's speaking out now? it's been just about a years since this incident took place where the director of operations in the oval office, former long

time body guard, no longer with the white house but was such a close aide to the president. he and a lawyer for the trump organization showed up at the office and one other individual. >> well, he was seeing the news reports. ronnie jackson was all over the news. the former white house doctor. i think he felt a little bit left out. he would have liked that job and he felt spurned and seeing dr. jackson getting a lot of attention and i think he felt it was time to speak about it. he said he wishes he contacted the police and the fbi at the time that the medical records were taken. it felt like a burglary to him. >> well, thank you very much. we do have some breaking news on the legal front. the president's legal team, michael schmit is joining us. >> the president's lawyer inside

the white house who has been dealing with the special counsel's investigation is going to retire. the president is going to hire emmett flood, a long time washington longer who represented bill clinton during impeachment and worked in the george w. bush white house represented vice president chaney. mr. flood is expected to take a more adversarial approach to the mueller probe. he wanted the president to sit down for an interview. here we are in may of 2018, the year after mueller was appointed and the president will be going with a new lawyer inside the white house to deal with it. >> does this slow down any negotiations on conversations with the mueller team since it's a new cast of characters? i know these lawyers know each other and have worked with each other or against each other in previous cases, but it is

started over. >> i think that it's our understanding that cobb will remain on for several weeks and i'm not sure that this really changes much. the president has personal lawyers who are dealing with the interview question, wcobb had a an advocate of doing the interview. there's been an increasing interview whether after they got the questions that mueller wanted to ask or after the cohen raid that an interview is a bad idea. i'm not sure how much it will change on that front. cobb had been in charge of the document production to mueller. he had pushed out and said we should not exert privilege on any of these. we have nothing to hide. a lot of that work is done but the president will still need a lawyer to deal with all of these questions about the russia matter. >> of course, front and center right now is the whole issue that you first exposed in the new york times with the 49

issues or subject areas that led to questions that were written from notes as to what the mueller people wanted to ask the president about. another former lawyer then representing the president. there's been a continuous resolving door almost on the president's legal team. we have rudy giuliani in now and now you're bringing in an experienced washington attorney replacing ty cobb. you point out it's likely to become more confrontational. you think it makes it less likely the president would agree to an interview? >> yeah. i think so. it's still not really clear. the president you have to remember wants to do the interview. the president thinks he can explain to mueller all of these different things. it's the president's lawyers that are concerned about it.

the president believes he's his best spokesman. believes he can make an articulate argument about why there was nothing wrong with the comey firing or his relationship with jeff sessions. it's the lawyers that are concerned. out of those 49 questions that be president's legal team compiled after their meeting with mueller, two-thirds of them are about obstruction. they are about things that have gone on since the president was in office. there's some conclusion questions but it's largely dominated by obstruction. >> the president has been tweeting in the last 24 hours about all of this and also with implied threats against the probe, against rod rosenstein, against every one involved. also suggesting that collusion was not part of it. collusion is certainly part of those 49 subject areas that were

laid out in your story. >> the other thing about the president's tweets is when we wrote in march that he was considering hiring flood he attacked us and said we made that up and he attacked my colleague who i worked on the story with. now here he is going forward with that. another example of him saying we fabricated things that turn out to be true. >> flood, as we're pointing out, cli clerk for justice ska lcalia. also bill clinton during impeachment proceedings. >> he also was one of the lead lawyers in the bush white house counsel office in the last two years when the democrats had control of congress and investigating all different parts of administration. he dealt with a lot of those oversight issues. take the lead on the u.s.

attorney's firing scandal. the president could find himself in a similar situation if they lose control of the house and or the senate later this year. if the democrats have control, there will be many, many investigations that the democrats will try to do into the way the administration has functioned so far. >> well, thank you very much. stay with us. i want to bring in fellow new york times reporter jeremy peters and washington post colu columnist. we're happy to announce that ruth marcus has joined the msnbc family. she's already a regular on many of our programs especially ours. welcome. >> thank you. >> it's a new role. we're thrilled. >> thanks for your help in all of that. >> it's great day to have your expertise. harvard lawyer here onset. i defer to you. the significance of ty cobb's quote retirement. it seems like a significant time for someone to retire who's been

involved in the most significant case of his high profile career. >> when you have a very big case, what you don't want to do is have a constantly shifting stable of lawyers. there's a lot of factual catch up to get to. not just creating a relationship of strus and reliance and possibly listening to you with your client. also to just know the facts of the case and have relationships with the other lawyers in the case. it is good to have somebody there who has some expertise in high profile, political investigations. it's kind of too bad if the president's point of view. i think we should all want the president to have good capable counsel here no matter what we think of him. it's too bad he can't seem to keep a lawyer. >> this is a white house staff position. >> yes. >> according to this statement from the white house to the

white house reporters, he, for several weeks has been discussing his retirement and let chief of staff kelly know he would retire at the end of this month. it seems awfully sudden. he was doing a podcast and saying the whole issue of a possible interview was on the table. >> well, i guess it's a crowded table with lots of possibilities. it's really important for everybody to understand the distinction between president the president's personal lawyer and representing the office of the presidency. somebody who has experience in the counsel's office is much more capable of being able to be a zealous advocate for the office of the presidency and serving the existing president's interest at the same time. it's good news for trump. >> last september ty cobb was

overheard arguing. maybe you can fill in the details of that. that had to bo an embarrassment to him. >> michael could know the details better than i would but it seems not a lot has changed. you still have a client who is not exactly a model client. somebody known for stretching the truth and out right falsehoods. aides have described as a guy who will probably pass the lie detector test because he's saying what he believes in the moment. also what's not going to change is the doggedness of the mueller probe. i don't know what shifted inside the thinking of this lawyer because what you have here is still lawyer after lawyer after lawyer after law firm after law firm that's refused to work with this president for precisely the reasons i just laid out. i think there's a lot we don't know yet about why this happened. >> your other colleague at the new york times now joins us.

tell us the background hire on c c cobb's sudden retirement. >> he came in last year and was a voice of moderation. the relationship between the white house and the mueller investigation, was tense. the mueller folks didn't feel like they were getting everything. the white house wasn't responding fast enough to their request. cobb came in and was like everybody calm down and we're going to cooperate fully. we're going to give the mueller investigation whatever it wants and the fastest way to get through this is just full cooperation. he said it a million times. full cooperation mode. that ruffles some feathers at the white house with the white house counsel who thought that cobb was too willing to agree

with the the mueller investigators wanted. he worked on special counsel investigations himself. he knows bob mueller and he was a voice of moderation. what's interesting here is you're replacing him with somebody like emmett flood who has been through the impeachment fires and going to probably be more likely to take an adversarial tone. >> matt. the trump lawyers don't have security clearances. apparently john dowd did. he's long since left.

now emmet flood has to get security clearance as well. >> sure. we know that cobb did. i would assume given the prominent law firm he works for and the high level cases he works on, he's been through the clearance process before which will speed this up. whether he has active clearances now that need to be elevated or whether they need to rush this through, i suspect that's not going to be a problem for somebody who is taking a job like the white house special counsel. >> matt you've already referenced this but let me read you, refresh everyone's memory with this tweet from the president attacking maggie's story. the failing new york times wrote a false story stating i'm

unhappy with my legal team on the russia case and i'm going to add another lawyer to help out. wrong. i'm very happy with my lawyers. they are doing a great job. >> one out of three is still there. obviously, fake news. what can you say? >> jay, check your mail. >> if you stack up the record of the new york times against the record of president trump in terms of presenting factually accurate information, i know whose side i'm on. >> especially on twitter. >> i think the bigger problem is, i don't know if it's a bigger problem but it's a huge problem. look at all the people who believed him hen when he said t. this is pattern with this president. because his followers are so devoted to him and republicans on capitol him or so comply sit. they say the president is telling the truth. we know instance after instance in which this has not been the

case. >> matt, in the last 24 hours have seen rod rosenstein standing up to mark meadows in a very public way on camera saying he's not going to be extorted and the justice department is not going to bend. is this a turning point add well? is it stiffening the spine of the people in charge of the mueller probe? >> i don't know how the fight between doj and congress is sort of playing in the room with bob mueller and his shop. i suspect it's more of a side show or a distraction. any propersecutor would not liko turn over documents to their investigation. because rosenstein is digging in that's stiffening the spine of bob mueller. i don't think his spine needs

stiffening. i think it will be interesting to see how these changes play out at the white house and if the change from cobb to flood is a sign that the white house is going to take a different diffe. you know, i spoke with ty cobb briefly before we ran our story. you know, he said he planned to stay on until the end of the month. he said he wished everybody well. you know, he said he was honored to serve. it doesn't sound like he's being rushed out the door, but who knows what's in the mind of the president when he makes these changes. is he hoping that somebody's going to come in -- emmet flood will come in guns blazing and change the legal strategy? >> finally, ruth marcus, msnbc contributor and msnbc contributor ruth marcus, deputy page editor of the "washington post," how would you play out the likelihood of whether the president agrees or doesn't agree? if he is subpoenas if it comes

to that, that is a lengthy procedure? would there -- would it fast-trfast fast-track through the supreme court and get through quickly? >> one is bringing in a lawyer from williams & connolly with extensive criminal experience would suggest that his counsel to the president would be both in the president's presidential capacity and his personal capacity, that it would be not wise to participate in answering questions. then the question is, if bob mueller makes the nebs step axt issues a subpoena, do you comply or contest the subpoena? contest the subpoena outside of authority of the special counsel? we've seen this before. during the watergate prosecution. it's not that complicated a legal question, but if in you're

a -- you go to the district court, supreme court, that could take months. >> thanks so much to michael schmidt, russian roulette. one of the nation's top spies is saying about that meeting at trump tower. stay with us on msnbc. crohn's, you've tried to own us. but now it's our turn to take control with stelara® stelara® works differently for adults with moderately to severely active crohn's disease. studies showed relief and remission, with dosing every 8 weeks. stelara® may lower the ability of your immune system to fight infections and may increase your risk of infections and cancer. some serious infections require hospitalization. before treatment, get tested for tuberculosis. before or during treatment, always tell your doctor if you think you have an infection or have flu-like symptoms or sores, have had cancer, or develop any new skin growths, or if anyone in your house needs or recently had a vaccine. alert your doctor of new or worsening problems, including headaches, seizures, confusion, and vision problems.

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welcome back. the controversial june 2016

trump tower meeting between a russian lawyer and top members of the trump campaign may have been even more damaging than previously realized. today u.s. former top spy, former cia director general michael hayden noted several critical advantages the kremlin gave through that meeting with top campaign officials. >> we would have called that a russian soft approach. it's good trade craft. they learned the campaign was willing to dealant exactly. >> which is a really big thing. willing to accept information on hillary clinton with the providence of the russian government on it. they learned that the campaign would not go to the feds. >> for more let's bring in former acting director of the cia and nbc news national security analyst john maclachlan. this is a very critical point by mike hayden in his new book about what was gained by the russians very early on in the trump campaign. >> absolutely, andrea.

and mike is exactly right. i'm sure when they write their next trade craft manual this june 9 meeting will be a case study exactly how to do this. in the intelligence business, looking for an agent to recruit there's a cycle, spot that says, develop, recruit. here they were at stage three. they had spotted donald trump jr. they had assessed his vulnerability. he wanted to help his dad and were in the process of reaching out to him to develop him and see where they could go, and mike hayden is quite right. they got a lot out of this. a classic intelligence operation by the russians. and even if this had never come to light, thanks to the media, and two years from now, the russian government wanted something from the united states. this would be blackmail material. they have an e-mail from donald trump jr. saying, bring it on,

dirt about hillary, and he never reported it to the fbi. so it's a classic operation that will be a textbook case in moscow. >> i thought mike hayden on michael jordemergenc "morning joe" was brutally honest about himself saying he had not thought deeply enough how russia was moving against the u.s. that the focus had been, understandably, after 9/11, on counterterrorism, and then on the russians against them on cyber, but not seeing how they were taking advantage of information attacks. >> well, you know -- well, andrea, yes, i do, but i would say just to be a little easier on mike hayden, i would say when you look at russian behavior since 9/11, there is a very clear switch in the way they operate after 2012, when putin comes back as president's in that period of time he focuses much more on eroding confidence in the united states. eroding our alliances in europe

and our partnerships with everything from nato to the eu. it's much more after 2012, and actually i would say russia has gone global now, because we see them much more active in europe, africa, latin america. that's the switch point. so i'm not sure you would have detected that during mike hayden's time in government. >> well, mike hayden's new book, which is "the assault on intelligence" sounds fascinating. about to go get it after watching him on "morning joe." thank you all for going through so much as we pursue this investigation. that does it for us. kasie hunt is here right next to me on msnbc. >> hi, andrea. what a whirlwind news day. >> as usual, i suppose. >> thank you so much. i am kasie hunt. i am in for craig melvin today. breaking news -- cobb is out. another lawyer representing the

president in the russia investigation, ty cobb, is leaving. we'll talk to one of the reporters who was first to break this story. plus -- trump's threat. the president threatening to get involved in a document dispute involving the justice department. and its investigation into his campaign's ties to russia. and -- fit to serve. new concerns raised by the president's former personal doctor. he says trump dictated the statement describes his own health during the campaign. of course, we begin with breaking news, that another member of president trump's legal team is out. white house lawyer ty cobb is retiring, and being replaced by emmet t. flood, the veteran washington lawyer who represented bill clinton during impeachment. the "new york times" broke the story just a few moments ago and i'm joined now by one of the reporters who did that reporter. my former colleague at the associated press, matt