snoi as promised, steve schmidt. >> t-- it made me feel old yesterday when you said we wish you spoke russian. >> my thanks to my most favorite friend here today. that does it for our hour. i'm nicolle wallace. "mtp daily" starts right now with the fabulous katy tur when i'm 18 seconds late. thank god it's you. >> 21, 22, 23. >> i will give them back. i will spend all those seconds with you any time you want. >> nicolle wallace thank you very much. if it is thursday what do you want first, the good news or the bad? tonight, the vice president has a special message for the

special counsel. >> it's time to wrap it up. >> but can a surge of good news for the administration really overshadow the russia investigation? >> i'll give him credit, i think bringing prisoners home is a good thing. and later, how artificial intelligence and digital manipulation could be taking actual fake news to a frightening new level. >> we are entering an era in which our enemies can make it look like anyone is saying anything. >> this is "mtp daily," and it is start right now. ♪ good evening, i'm katy tur in new york in for chuck today. todd. welcome to "mtp daily." shut down the mueller probe. trump is busy making america great again. guys, that seems to be the white house's argued right now. after the trump administration secured the release of three americans being held captive in

north korea, the vice president said this to my colleague andrea mitchell about mueller's investigation. >> in the interest of the country i think it's time to wrap it up. >> pence is talking about ending an investigation that continues to edge closer to the president. i'm not talking about his campaign chief, who has been indicted. or his deputy campaign chief, who pleaded guilty and is now a cooperating witness. or his national security adviser, who also pleaded guilty and is also now a cooperating witness. or one of his campaign's foreign policy advisors who, you guessed it, pleaded guilty and is now a cooperating witness. i'm talking of course about the president's personal lawyer, michael cohen. we now know that mueller was looking at millions of dollars in financial agreements that cohen made as he reportedly bragged about his proximity to the president. and this doesn't include cohen's other work he did for the president, which is also being

investigated, like that $130,000 hush money payment to stormy daniels. so color us skeptical about the reasons mueller should wrap it up. what are those reasons exactly? >> i would very respectfully encourage the special counsel and his team to bring their work to completion because days like this are what the american people sent to us washington to do. >> pence said mueller should close his investigation because days like this are what the american people sent us to washington to do. he also seth suggested that mueller should wrap it up because the economy is doing great, and taxes were tut, and they are rolling back regulations this. seems to be an emerging argument from the president's allies, that mueller's investigation won't find anything. but if it does, people shouldn't care, because the president is, well, making america great again. heck, the president even suggested that his meeting with kim jong-un could mean world peace. no, seriously, world peace.

or maybe, in other words, you want bob mueller to ruin our chances at world peace? wrap it up. look, does the trump administration deserve credit for securing the release of those three detainees? absolutely. yes. no one is arguing with that. but does it give them enough political capital to shut down the russia investigation? absolutely not. guys, let's be real here. political capital is the most valuable currency in washington and the trump administration is obviously eager to leverage the capital that it has. the question is are they going to have enough of it? especially if more bombshells continue to drop or if michael cohen is squeezed by prosecutors. how much are they going to need against mueller? that depends on what investigators find. but you have to wonder if the argument that the white house making right now, that he needs to wrap it up, combined with mr. trump's suggesting he can

deliver world peace maybe speaks to their level of concern about michael cohen and the direction of this investigation. joining me now is danny is a val owes, attorney and msnbc legal analyst and jim rut enberg of the "new york times" who has been following the michael cohen story for weeks. gentlemen thank you for being here. danny i want to start with you. how much should the white house be worried about michael cohen and his potential jeopardy? >> it should be very worried. because with the revelations of just the last 24 hours i can't say that the conduct is squarely within the federal criminal anti-corruption statutes but it is getting alarmingly close. last night i heard michael cohen say -- not michael cohen. as a matter of fact say at minimum, at minimum we are talking about payments for access. and that's a significant statement. because the supreme court recently reeled in anti-corruption law and suggested that payments for just access, for meetings, for

communication with a public official may not rise to the level of the anti-corruption laws. however, anything beyond that, anything in exchange for an official ability will. so the question is ultimately, what was trumped involvement? was there an official act involved. >> if donald trump knew about the payments would it matter? >> i would need more information. if he merely knew that the payments kpiged -- the anti-krurpt laws, bribery, extortion, mail fraud all the acts center on whether or not there was an official act in exchange. not even always in exchange, however, but the general federal bribery statute focuses on the quid pro quo, the this for that, whether or not there was an exchange for influencing an official act for anything of value on the other end. >> rudy giuliani said no, absolutely does not matter. >> rudy giuliani is very spoke focused on what i think is sort of a bird in the hand for investigators, which is the idea

that this stormy daniels payment, which is still the root of all the problems here initially for them legally. the idea of was this a donation? it starts with that. then fur trying to evade certain laws by channelling a donation through an llc shell company you get more trouble. now we find that shell company is like a public affairs shop, perhaps the hottest in town. >> what do you make of the fact that mike pence said it should be shut down because we are making tax cuts and freeing political detainees. he is out there making the argument that you can't risk with what we are doing in the white house with some silly investigation about election meddling and whether or not there was coordination? >> the argument will work with a certain part of its base. but you can't divorce it from the legal argument.

>> are they setting up a circumstance where they are giving trump all of the justification he may need, all of the fire power he may need to start firing and to start dismantling this investigation, trying to dismiss robert mueller? >> how does he dismiss him? i mean it's not easy. in theory you might have to foreeverybody in the d.o.j. >> there is an argument whether or not it is within his purview. there are all sorts of legal arguments there. it could go to the skormt i mean maybe they are trying to give the american public a thousand reasons why they are allowed to do this. >> it could be one of political pressure. but the moves that the president would have to make are so dramatic, the withdrawing of regulations at the d.o.j. the finding of cause or for cause firing of robert mueller are so great that it would be a real political risk. then again people on the other side might say hey this is a president that takes political risks all the time. he has done unexpected things before. maybe he would try to get rid of

mueller by force, figurative force that is. >> talk about michael cohen and the way he was pitching him selves to these companies, overseas some of them. he pitched on his close association with donald trump noting he was the president's lawyer. he showed photos of himself with trump and mentioned how frequently they spoke even asking people to share news articles describing him as the president's fixer. why do these companies pay michael cohen six or seven figures in order to get his expertise on, i don't know, health care, or his expertise on aerospace, or his expertise on telecommunications. >> i think he knows a lot about health care. doctor, it hurts when i do this. don't do that. i think really what the public statements have been from both the companies and from michael cohen's camp is people needed to understand this new administration, this incoming administration, that the

lobbying world wasn't plugged in with this white house. that's what they are saying. there is a certain on message feel to that. and i think that as this investigation continues we are going to see what's behind it all. >> you look skeptical. >> if these companies paid michael cohen for intel in the form of what does he like for breakfast? what is he like after lunch? when is the best time to negotiate with him that drags them out of the realm of the corruption statutes but to the extent that michael cohen may have been selling access or to the extent any federal official was complicit in that arrangement you just implicated a large number of federal corruption statutes. >> let's talk about the money, though. $1.2 million from novartis. $500,000 from columbus nova which surprise has some ties to a russian oligarch. $600,000 from at&t. 150 from the korea aerospace industries. did that money go? if it just went into michael cohen's bank account, is this as easy as just showing the bank

records to clear it up? >> no, it's not. even if michael cohen reached into that account and just put it all in his pocket, number one, there will be tax consequences. number two, the question arises as to what essential consultants was. was it acting as a law firm? if it was -- if michael cohen as its sole employee, officer, what have you -- if he was acting in his capacity as a lawyer when he settled the stormy daniels case was it a de facto law firm? it wasn't reg stefrd as one. where is his client trust account, his operating account. when it comes to federal law, what exactly is he doing. money wakes up somewhere, it has to go to sleep somewhere. i has to be accounted for. in our modern digital era it can be accounted for. >> i look back. all of this as you mentioned started with an investigation or just an argued about whether or not donald trump had an affair with a porn star and whether or not she should be contractually bound not to talk about it. it started out with a hush money

payment. >> right. >> what is nagging you now? where does it go from here? >> there is a lot nagging me now. i think it's what is behind the public statements. federal investigators are learning the answers about that. i'm eager to see what they are finding out. i want to go back to the shell company, essential consultants, its first known purpose was to pay stormy daniels money so she wasn't speak about an affair during when the campaign was going on. >> rudy giuliani said as much. >> when at&t is hiring michael cohen i'm curious what do they think when they are saying write the check to essential consultants llc. if you are hiring michael cohen, why aren't you out in the open hiring michael cohen. why are you hiring this llc. >> even small companies have a legal opportunity to do due diligence on vendors. you can imagine if you get into a business with a vendor who has a checkered past how that can reflect badly on your company. the largest companies that we know of, the notion that they

didn't vet ec or know what was going on with ec. i doubt they found them in the yellow pages or on the internet. as far as i know, it didn't have a web page. among the many questions are how did they find them? and where did the money eventual leland? >> i don't understand why all the stories keep changing. if you did nothing wrong, why does it take the companies three or four statements to clear up what is happening? why do we keep finding things out from a drip, drip, drip. i don't think anybody knows. >> we will keep reporting. >> danny is a val owes, jim ruttenberg, thank you very much. love your strawberry tie today. your stripe one is nice, too. but he has strawberries. >> i didn't pick it myself. >> it's good whoever picked it. >> more michael cohen, president trump, and the money trail ahead. ahead as well, the new faces of fake news. >> this is a dangerous time. moving forward, we need to be

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from the commercial. so sorry about that. michael cohen. and this legal exposure. i mean it seems to get more complicated by the day. as that happens donald trump and his team have gone bigger and bolder in trying to claim and take credit for major accomplishments talking today about world peace. do you think that there is a strategy here to make the stakes so high with the administration that the american public can't afford to continue an investigation into the president and his team? >> what is happening with north korea is promising on the surface. and donald trump does have a good team at the national security council working on preparations for the summit. the big wild card, as always, is donald trump himself. he has said that he is only going to settle for denuclearization. that's something that has never been on the table really with north korea. and while we are excited about

the three hostages who were returned it's horrible that they were hostages in the first place and we are appeasing someone who starves millions of people by giving them a summit with the president. >> he treated -- kim jong-un treated the hostages very excellently, according to the president. excellent to them. >> except for having them as hostages in the first place. but i think one of the points here is that, yeah, it is true that the white house would like to say look at all of these accomplishments we have gotten going on. how could you be hampering us with these investigations? >> this is how white houses work. there are a lot of different things going on at the same time. that has always been the case for white houses. the idea that the president can say, you know, look at these big picture wins that we have. i have done exactly what i said i was going to do during the campaign. that may work politically speaking but in terms of the substance of it there is a whole lot going on here. >> let's look at the tweet talking about world peace. the meeting between kim jong-un and myself will take place in

singapore on june 12th we will try to make it a special moment for world peace. during the nixon administration they argued that nixon was doing great things with foreign policy, and basically ignore this investigation because we are doing tangible things that matter to the safety of the world. it didn't work for nixon, obviously. he was ultimately not impeached but he was on the verge of being impeached and he had to resign. are the circumstances the same for donald trump, though? >> i think there are a lot of similarities between these two situations. i would also say if this was president hillary clinton and she was under investigation and she was making the argument. >> we know. >> that it doesn't matter because i'm doing good things in foreign policy they would laugh us out of the room. we all know that. >> of course. >> that said that's why we can't take their argument seriously. i think when you make that comparison it's for a purpose. it's to say there is a double standard. when they want to be held to a standard where, look at our shiny foreign policy wins. ignore the fact in a the

president's personal attorney is under serious investigation. and if the you think back to when the raid on michael cohen's office happened, it was on april 9th. a few weeks later that's when donald trump did the ranting, fox and friends interview, he was ranting on twitter. and now we have the giuliani sideshow happening. but that's all happening because of what is happening in the investigation. a lot of times, the facts look very different when we get new information. so when donald trump is lashing out and we are like what is wrong with him this morning, what was in his wheaties, if he eats wheaties, it's because there is something in the background, in the mueller investigation, that's significant that he's very worry worried about that's happening. that usually is born out true. >> i feel like he would eat fruit loops, cinnamon toast crunch. something sweeter. >> but it's not just the investigation that is keeping him up at night. a lot of people have said to him recently if things keep going on

the current path these mid terms aren't going to look good for you and then you are going to have to deal with impeachment or something ahoang those lines. >> robert mueller said that that -- -- >> there are a lot of things he is trying to distract from. this is basically, basic political strategy. you always try to get people the look away from the thing that's not so good for you. >> i feel like if he wanted to distract he would have moved the kim jong-un meeting later in the summer so ild he would say over and over again i can't sit down with robert mueller not because i don't want to or it's not fair but i'm sorry i am working on world peace with kim jong-un, i don't have time for an interview. that's what nixon did. >> i think you know better than anyone after all the time you spent observing donald trump he is not exactly one for delayed gratification. he really believes he is going to be able to sit down with kim jong-un and do what no other world leader has been able to achieve. >> that's -- you have got a real point on that.

looking -- okay. let's look at what investigations are going on and what he might want to distract from. michael cohen and all these payments. clearly he is rattled by cohen and what could come out from whatever cohen has on his tapes or in his files or on his phone. who knows? how normal is it, though, give us a reality check. how normal is it for somebody close to the president to be trading off that once that person gets elected? >> there is knots any precedent for the unseemliness and blatant corruption of trump's administration from having a hotel blocks away from the white house that you have foreign governments having parties and hosting their dignitaries at to the sons traversing the world on behalf of the trump organization. there simply is no comparison to the blatant corruption that they really are utterly shameless about in waving in front of the american people. >> i think there are a few layers of what's going on here. you are not hearing people talk about this in d.c. it is an

unfortunate reality that there are a lot of this kind of think bradley speaking where they do get paid for some sort of access. this is different from anything we have seen in ages partially a because we don't know what michael cohen's specialty was supposed to be and there are questions what exactly he was using all of this money for. as you say, there are all these questions going on in the trump world. let's not pretend a lot of it isn't basic swamp stuff that happens. the swamp hasn't been drained, it's extremely amplified in this. >> russian oligarchs, i think that's the distinction. it's not just money from know vartis and at&t. it's money from a sanctioned oligarch. >> they will say that the oligarch had nothing to do with this company and it's crazy to link the two. >> they went into the way back machine and showed he was

directly involved with the company because he was listed on the website. >> and he was at the inauguration. >> yeah. >> they are getting away with legal corruption at least. that's what the 2016 election was all about, drain the swamp. take on the washington cartel. they were going to take on the lobbyists and take on washington. then the same pattern repeats. >> what do you think of michael avenatti? >> i think he is a very deliberate attorney. i think there has been a lot of criticism by people sitting on tv criticizing him for going on tv, which i find funny. there are people criticizing him for using the media as a tool in his legal practice. i think that the criticism -- i find it unfounded because i think that -- it's not like he gets too far ahead of his skis. he is coming on, being deliberate are his words. he is being strategic. i can't point to a moment in which he said something on tv and made a prediction that hasn't borne out to be true

later on. >> the dvd. >> documents were on that dvd. we don't know it was a video. >> he overhyped the dvd. >> if t'was a sex tape. >> leading everybody on. >> there could have been documents. we don't know. >> from that point he has faced criticism with overselling. >> i think when we talk about a sex tape it's time to take a break. >>er so. >> stay with us. we will talk about the debate raging over gina haspel. it's not just a debate over who should lead the cia. it's also a fight over what's right, what's wrong, and what are american values. we are going to dig into that next. discover card.

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new fallout from president trump's decision to violate the iranian nuclear deal and pull out. the treasury department is announcing sanctions. meanwhile, violence is intensifying in the middle east. israel and iran have been conducting a shadow war in syria for months. now the conflict is right out in the open. escalating fears the simmering confrontation between the two countries could boil over. israeli officials admit they struck dozens of iranian targets inside of syria overnight, hitting infrastructure and

military advisors who are there to prop up iran's ally, syrian president assad. israel says the strikes were a counter-attack after iran fired rockets at israeli military sites in the golan heights and that they will quote not allow iran to establish itself militarily in syria. the white house put out a statement condemning iran's provocative rocket attacks and strongly supporting israel's quote right to act in self-defense. up next, we are talking about a whole different kind of foreign aggression, just released facebook ads showing more about how russia influenced the election. plus the next evolution of fake news you have to see to believe. we'll be right back.

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the major indexes closing higher across the board.

the cow up 197 points, posting gains for the sixth straight day. the s&p rose 25 points. the nasdaq closed 65 points higher. in a flashy new video, tesla ceo elon musk teased a partially covered mystery car and showed off their planned second generation roadster. the video comes on the heels of a contentious earnings call and a series of production woes for the automaker. that's it from cnbc, first in business worldwide. now back to "mtp daily." today, democrats on the house intelligence committee released thousands of facebook ads linked to russia. the ads show how the kremlin backed research agency tried to influence elections. like this page from the post stop all invaders. it includes a clearly photo

shopped picked of former president obama sitting in the oval office with islamic flags behind him. facebook propaganda like this may seem quaint by the time we elect the next president. we are quickly heading to a new frontier in media manipulation. have you seen this video? >> we are entering into an era in which our enemies can make of the like like anyone is saying anything at any point in time, even if they would never say those things. so, for instance, they could have me say thing like, i don't know, kill monger was right or ben carson is in a sonkan sunken place. i would never say these things, at least not in a public address. but someone would, someone like jordan peele. >> an oscar winning filmmaker made that video as a psa about fake news. but there is actually a term for videos meant to be deceptive,

quote, deep fake. they are made with artificial intelligence software that make them seem real. it is a problem that's already starting to worry lawmakers who could potentially be victims this technology some day. joining me now, kevin reduce business and technology columnist for the "new york times." he has recently taken a deep dive into deep fakes. and he's here to tell the tale. kevin, that to me is the scariest stoerp's out there right now. absolutely 100%, if you can put words into somebody's mouth -- i mean that was pretty realistic. it sound like i maybe had some dental surgery but it was generally realistic. what can't you do? >> these are videos created with the help of artificial intelligence software. hollywood studios have always had access to cgi and advanced video editing techniques. now they are in the hands of the masses. anyone can download these free tools and use them to swap one

person's face onto another person's face realistically. i tried it myself. but we got my face on jake gyllenhaal's body. and you can imagine how this kind of technology to be used to set up a political candidate or sabotage them. >> jordan peele is doing an imitation the president, which is why he sounds like him. do you have to be able to sound like that person? >> you could take a prerecorded piece and make someone say it. it's not that hard anymore thanks to these artificial intelligence tools to make pretty convincing deep fakes as they are cal called and get them out there. they are already starting to cause a lot of problems. >> i think back to the romney statement about -- what was the 47% or whatever the number was that he made during that dinner with donors. how easy will it be for a

politician who gets caught on a hot mike or caught on something behind closed doors to say nope, fake. or donald trump to look back on the "access hollywood" tape and say fake. >> that's one of the real problems here. any person who is caught on video doing something bad will now have plausible deny. . they will say that was a deep fake, not me. i think we can easily imagine that happening in upcoming campaigns. >> what is it going to mean for knowledge? how do you protect against it? are we just going to have to become skeptical of everything that we not only read, but now we see and we hear with our own eyes. >> yeah. it's sort of undermining the fundamental assumption of the internet. for years there have been this saying, pictures or it didn't happen. if there aren't video or pictures or something it's suspect. but now even if there are pictures or video, it's still

suspect. people have to be suspicious of not just what they read on line but also the things they see. >> let's listen to this google assistant sounds. this is a google assistant, a computer, calling a hair salon to book an appointment. listen. >> how can i help you? >> hi i'm calling to book a woman's haircut for a client. i'm looking for something on may 3rd. >> give me one second. >> uh-huh. >> that is not a human. that is a computer. it sounds just like a human. but it's computer. that woman on the other side of the phone call had no idea that she was talking to a computer. what do you say about that? >> well, it is amazing that awful these technologies, the deep fakes, the virtual voice aassistant are being developed in an industry where there is basically no regulation on how these technologies are governed. there are some ethics boards that are convening to talk about

how we can use a.i. responsibly. but basically, it's sort the wild west right now. >> can you regulate it? i mean are you going to get into arguments of free speech here? >> i think that's possible. but i think people are starting to realize that these technologies are getting pretty advanced now, to the point where pretty soon it went just be theoretical harm. it will be actual harm. we are already seeing things being designed like the google assistant that will trick humans, that will convince them that they are on the phone with another human when really it's just a machine. >> congress is having a hard time regulating what ads can show up on facebook and social media. they are clearly behind the times when it comes to technology that we have right now. can we expect that our lawmakers will be able to keep up with the way that technology is changing and how rappedidly it's changing. >> i think that's going to be hard. because in some cases the thing that will stop the amount of i. from being misused is other a.i.

in the case of deep fakes programmers are are focused on using a.i. to detect when a video is fake. in some cases you need a.i. to be able to stop the bad a.i. >> what's on the horizon for you? >> i'm going to be looking at what social media platforms are going to be doing to combat this. most video is seen through you tube or facebook or twitter. and those platforms have an enormous responsibility to make sure they are not being used as funnels for this kind of misinformation. so their ability to detect and stop this content from being spread is going to be really important. >> is it clear that they know this sort of thing can be used for ill. everyone is excited about technology. it's excited to creating in new, exciting to be able to put your voice to somebody else's face. it's kinds of cool. oh, my god, look what technology can do. are the consequences as apparent to the masses?

>> i don't know that that's the case. but what's really troubling to me is that no one at google before that announcement thought, maybe this will freak some people out. maybe everyone is not going to think how cool it is that our a.i. can now fool the person at the hair salon. no one is blowing the whistle inside the institutions. >> i appreciate your time, kevin. thank you for scaring us today. >> thanks for having me. ahead, who is your senator? president trump heads to indiana, where control of the senate could be on the line.

welcome back. tonight in meet the mid terms as we speak, president trump is on his way to what's going to be one of the hottest senate battlegrounds in this election cycle. and where control of the senate could be at stake. the president and vice president, mike pence, will be in elk hart, indiana, and their trying to rally support for mike braun, the businessman and former state representative who won the state's very competitive republican primary on tuesday. braun worked hard to depict himself as an outsider just like trump. he defeated two sitting congressmen for the chance to take on the incumbent democratic senator joe donnelly this fall. brawn is already taking aim at donnelly, releasing a statement today urging the senator to confirm gina haspel as cia

director. donnelly has not said yet if he will vote for her but he's seen as one of the democrats who might. donnelly meanwhile has been making his general election pitch saying he doesn't work for a president or a party, but for the people. and pointing out he's voted with president trump 62% of the time. guys, we are going to be keeping a close eye on indiana all year to see what happens. the cook political report is currently calling the 2018 senate race a toss up. and we here at nbc rank it number six on our list of top ten senate seats most likely to flip parties. we will be right back with "the lid."

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i'm not really a, i thought wall street guy.ns. what's the hesitation? eh, it just feels too complicated, you know? you know, at td ameritrade, we can walk you through your options trades step by step until you're comfortable. i could be up for that. step-by-step options trading support from td ameritrade welcome back. time now for "the lid." the panel is back. selena maxwell, gabe debenedetti and elise jordan. guys we have had a relatively slow breaking news day until just now. the "new york times" is

reporting homeland security secretary kiersten nielsen was close to resigning after president trump berated her in front of the entire cabinet on wednesday according to this report. nielsen told colleagues she didn't appreciate, apparently close to resigning after the president was angry with her for not adequately securing the borders. apparently border crossings are up and it's robbed him of his favorite talking point. >> it's something he talked a lot about it during the campaign. as we know, there is no wall. he likes to talk about how there is going to be a wall. he says it all the time at his rallies. this is once again the president lashing out at someone for not getting done this thing. >> if she resigns what happens? >> they would struggle to find someone else to be confirmed who would also be palatable to donald trump, i'm sure. also the article says he is reportedly update because he

feels that the family separations aren't happening quickly enough. you look at how draconian the immigration policy is and donald trump is obsessed with the most sick part of it, separating tha his plane during the campaign, and he said just that. he thought that they have to go. i'm sorry, they have to go. i'm sure we'll be playing that sound bite as the days progress if this happens. nielsen is a close ally of john kelly and the president hasn't been happy with john kelly. he hasn't seemed to be happy with anybody besides -- i don't know. who is he happy with? >> himself. >> i think the central point here, it's not all of these other cast of characters that are the problem. the problem in the white house in terms of the core of the chaos is the president. that's been clear from the beginning. no new chief of staff is going to shape things up and make things orderly, as long as the president does not follow the

structure and instructions of his chief of staff. nobody can be his spokesperson if he's going to go out on his own and contradict that spokesperson or tweet something that contradicts that spokesperson. so i think that this is just indicative of the fact that the president of the united states, one, likes to reprimand people and embarrass them and humiliate people in public. so that's another example of him doing that to somebody who's sib o -- subordinate to him. but as gabe said, he wants to stick to the things he said during the campaign, but he doesn't understand the underlying policy anyway. i just want to stick to my talking point, but i have no substance behind what i'm saying. >> just as importantly, there's a feedback loop, it's not particularly complex, about you he doesn't seem to be grappling with it in a serious way. he wants these things to get done, and he's berating the people who are trying to get them done enough they want to quit their jobs. then he has to go through a

whole other process to confirm someone new and we're already dealing with five or six slots that are trying to get filled high up in the government this . this is dragging down policies all over the place. >> i want to talk about gina haspel, because she's going through the confirmation process. is it too much to say that the president just wants to run things without anybody else having any say? does he enjoy dealing with the congress, or any checks and balances? would he be more comfortable if this was a dictatorship? >> i think it's more base to that. he doesn't put thought and vetting into these candidates for positions. he puts people up for positions that they're completely unqualified for. everyone could say and predict that there were going to be some issues with gina haspel for the head of the cia, but he wasn't going to listen. you don't want a president who has said he would like to torture people appointing someone who played a key role in the torture program if you do not want that on ever happen again. >> at the convention, he said, i

alone can fix it. so he thinks he's the president and he can make the decisions without the check or balance or the staff. he doesn't need anybody to help him. that's a problem fundamentally for our national security and the stability of the country. so i think it's something concerning more than just some dramatic stories about a cabinet pick. >> and every administration has their hiccups with a few nominees. with the obama administration, tim geithner, his taxes, the tax returns, that was a big issue. you had bernard carrick in the bush administration, which i admit, completely inappropriate and a bad nominee. >> harriet myers, another one. >> she was put in a bad position. you look at donald trump's nominees and they have beat their ex-wives, they are completely inappropriate and unqualified for positions and have committed just outright criminality. >> but i think this goes back to what she said, it's very easy to go back to the campaign and pretend that's the root of everything here. but donald trump did say it.

he said, i alone can fix it. and that's been his theory. >> he has said he thinks torture works. gina haspel, she may be very qualified, but the reality is, she oversaw a sight that was torturing at least one detainee. yesterday when she was pressed, she couldn't say whether or not she thought water boarding or torture was immoral. are we struggling now with a moral question of what americans val value? >> we're struggling with history repeats itself if we don't admit we made mistakes in the past. i was part of the bush administration, and i will say, there were mistakes made over the war on terror, the war in afghanistan. i think we can have a national security that preserves our values and that's what gina haspel would not say. >> is the interrogation process moral? >> i do not think we should have tortured, water boarded anyone. they haven't proven that it

works and it's immoral and harms us. >> jordan, with the last word. so happy birthday, my friend. >> thank you. >> 21st birthday, everyone. exciting. ahead, snork attack. sfx: muffled whistle text alert. 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,

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