hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. for west wing proud of its alternative facts and boastful that voters seemingly forgave the president's transgressions on election day voting for the first self-described grabber of women's private parts it's futile to speculate what might constitute noteworthy or newsworthy evidence of the depravity of the west wing. it's close to unremarkable when they speculate on who is next to leave or who may or may not be screwed in the various investigations, it's barely breaking news when the president fires someone on twitter. and there are so many cabinet secretaries under dark ethical clouds that we don't always find time to cover them here. but today, today we have an example of behavior from the trump white house and from people aligned with donald trump that's worth hitting the pause button for. it's worth noting what our politics now permit or even encourage. this woman, kelly sadler, is a commissioned officer in the white house with a rank of

special assistant to the president. i'm old enough to remember when that used to mean something. being a commissioned officer means that your name is preceded by the words, the honorable. now, this is important. sadler's official title as a commissioned officer in the white house is the honorable kelly sadler. but the dishonor she has brought to the white house, to the president and the country with these comments is staggering. sadler reportedly said of senator john mccain, who is waging a valiant battle against cancer, quote, it doesn't matter. he's dying anyway. the context of those remarks, john mccain's refusal to support trump's cia nominee gina haspel over her support for the enhanced interrogation program. mccain, who was held as a prisoner of war and survived torture himself, was opposed to the program when it was revealed during the george w. bush presidency. but his moral compass and

principle is unrecognizable to the men and women who work for the current occupant of the white house. the disgraceful comments could have emanated from the tone set by the guy who sits atop the chain of command. mccain is a frequent target of donald trump's. here is then candidate donald trump. >> he's a war hero because he was captured. i like people that weren't captured, okay? john mccain's daughter meghan speaking out today on her show "the view." >> kelly, here's a little news flash. and this may be intense for 11:00 on a friday morning but we're all dying. i'm dying. you're dying, we're all dying. and i want to say that since my dad has been diagnosed, almost a year, july 19th, i really feel like i understand the meaning of life and it is not how you die, it is how you live. >> right. [ cheers and applause ] >> and whatever you want to say in this kind of environment, the thing that surprises me most is -- i was talking about this

with you, joy, that i don't understand what kind of environment you're working in when that would be acceptable and then you can come to work the next day and still have a job. that's all i have to say about it. >> neither do we. meghan there displaying a tremendous amount of grace, especially considering the attacks on her father are coming from multiple fronts. here's a guest who appeared on fox business network yesterday talking about torture. >> the fact is john mccain, it worked on john. that's why they call him song bird john. >> to help us take stock of this extraordinary moment, let's go to nbc's kristen welker at the white house, steve schmidt who is back with us today and with me at the table, john heilman, msnbc and nbc national news affairs analyst. also the host and executive producer of showtime's "the circus." steve, let me start with you. >> meghan mccain said something very wise and very important. it's not how you die, it's how you live. and let's talk about john mccain's life. he put the uniform of the country on when he was 17 years

old and except for the 6 months when he was a congressional candidate, he has spent every hour of his adult life in service to this country. and he served his country through horrible torture and unbearable pain, and he kept faith with the country. john mccain is an imperfect man. he has many flaws. he'll be the first to tell you. but he has always loved america perfectly, and he has served america honorably. i was asked a couple days ago at something i was speaking at about who will take john mccain's place. of course, the answer to that question is nobody. 500 years from now, should america endure, there won't be another john mccain. we'll never see anybody like this in high public office in american life ever again. we should not fall out of our chairs that a vile person like

kelly sadler works in this corrupt and vile administration. we see it every day. but when we look at why donald trump isn't going to be invited to john mccain's funeral, it's because of how they have lived their lives. john mccain's life was honorable. it was about service to others. it was about reconciliation. we don't talk enough about this, but i was in vietnam a couple weeks ago. and if you go to vietnam, the vietnamese revere three american warriors. they revere john kerry. they revere john mccain, and they revere pete peterson, a fellow p.o.w. of john mccain's who was the first ambassador when diplomatic relations were restored. those three men, veterans of that war, but john mccain, the only -- john mccain tortured repeatedly. he was an instrumental leader in

the reconciliation of our countries so that this generation could be friends. his life has been about decency and honor compared to a president who is unworthy to say his name out loud, a man who is small and vile and mean and cruel and narcissistic, a man who is a coward, a man who dodged the draft, a man profoundly unworthy, unworthy enough that he can't even understand at a conceptual level the meaning of john mccain's life. the virtues and the values that john mccain stands for in his long life of service to this country are unextinguishable. they light the sky like a star to guide us to the antidote for this vile, debased, corrupt administration. and so meghan mccain had it

exactly right. it's about how you live your life. and kelly sadler and all the people in that white house that are tearing down our institutions, pitting american against american, they're exactly the opposite of john mccain. he's a guy that i've known well and i was honored to have a small role in the giant chapter that he wrote in american life. there were times where he infuriated me, he enraged me, he inspired me. he made my -- made me laugh. he kicked me in the ass when i deserved it, and he put an arm around me when i needed it. i love him very much. and despite all his flaws, i'll just say he is the greatest man i've ever known. and he is the type of man that i would aspire and i think any parent in this country would aspire for their son to be like. and i don't think there's a lot of parents out in this country today who are saying, i want my kid to grow up like donald

trump. and one thing i know for sure, there will never be a person on television, not now and not for a thousand ian eons that says what i said about donald trump, that he's a great man, he's a small and vile man and that's the difference between the two men. >> let me show our viewers how the white house dodged questions about john mccain today. let's watch. >> does she still have a job? >> i'm not going to comment on an internal staff meeting. >> does the white house not think that you need to condemn these remarks or comments -- >> again, i'm not going to validate a leak one way or the other out of an internal staff meeting. >> why not just apologize to senator mccain? >> again, i'm not going to get into a back and forth because, you know, people want to create issues of leaked staff -- >> does kelly sadler still work in this white house? >> yes. >> does he bear responsibility for the tone in this white house? >> the president as i mentioned

just a moment ago supports all americans. if you look at what he's doing every single day, he's showing up to work. he's working hard to make this country better. whether it's through building our economy, creating jobs, defeating isis, fixing our judiciary system, helping with the illegal immigration problems we have, the president is addressing a number of issues. that is what our focus is. that is what we are doing here every day and that is what the president has i think laid out very clearly what his interests are. >> kristen welker, how do you resist the temptation to run up and wring her neck? why can't she just say, if a staffer said that, we're going to get to the bottom of it and she'll be fired? >> i think a lot of people were surprised, nicolle, because there was an anticipation that she would have something to say. there have now been so many reports, including ours confirming the account, reporters including myself who have spoken to people who heard

kelly sadler make these remarks, and so i think there was an anticipation that the white house would at least have comments similar to at least the statement that they put out overnight when they praised john mccain. instead sarah sanders took a step back from that and said she wasn't going to comment on this situation at all, and so you saw the attempts there to sort of try to get at it from a much broader perspective. and then to try to nail down the facts of what actually happened, i asked her repeatedly if our sources are lying to us. she ignored that question outright. so, it is a very striking tactic that the white house is taking. they clearly are hoping this will help to turn the page, will help it to go away. but, nicolle, as you've been discussing, it does shine a light on the tone and the culture within this white house, within washington right now and within our politics more broadly, i think, nicolle. >> an account yesterday from two sources close to donald trump who talked to him after that clip we showed when he called john mccain a bad p.o.w. and he said he really shouldn't

have said that. i didn't say that. it's on film. i didn't mean that. and these two sources close to donald trump described him, i said, is he a sociopath? they said it's not that advanced. it's pathological. it's a pathological detachment to the things that come out of his mouth. but that's obviously filtered down to his staff. >> my sense of trump in that event is that he looks back on it with pride and not because of the actual substance of what he said, but because when there was the first time he said something that was way out over the line and a lot of the chorus of people in our business said he will pay a severe political price for this, it just shows you this man will never be the republican nominee, and he rose in the polls and so he looks back on that. he doesn't think about did he hurt john mccain's feelings, did he transgress, did he say something that was inappropriate. he looks back and says it shows how strong i was, and it proved they were wrong. they all said that i can't say stuff like that. i, donald trump, can say whatever i want and the pundits and conventional wisdom peddlers are wrong.

i rose when they said i would fall. that's how he remembers the incident, not for the transgression because he is fundamentally without a moral core and so he doesn't think about it in that sense. he just thinks did my polls go up or down? were the pundits right or wrong? that's the way he thinks about it. it puts the white house in a terrible position because in a normal way -- >> they put themselves in a terrible position. >> i'm saying the president put his white house in a terrible position. in this respect -- >> miss sadler put herself in this position. >> she did. i'm not trying to let her off the hook. i'm getting to a particular point. she did a grotesque, disgusting thing. the white house is in a position where the normal white house would ask her to leave, would fire her, right. >> yesterday. >> yesterday. but if you -- >> this is like mike flynn's 17 days. what the hell is she still doing there? >> if you're in donald trump's white house and you fire that woman and she walks out and says, i don't understand why i got fired. i'm basically doing what the boss did a year and a half ago.

i don't understand how donald trump has the grounds to fire me when i was just following his example or something to that effect. again, i still think she should be fired. and i still think what she said is disgusting just like i think what he said about john mccain in the first instance was disgusting. but this is the way his depradations against the office filter down for months and months into the future because it creates these situations where when someone else does something that is in the mold of donald trump, how can you ever punish that person when the person at the top has set the tone, not just set the tone, but set a precedent that you will be called on, if they fired her, people would be saying, wait a minute, why did you fire her? didn't the president do something just as bad? >> kristen welker, we covered the first lady's, i don't know, go good, be good, whatever her thing was. >> be best. >> i mean, how does this comport with that? >> it's a great point, nicolle. in fact, we went back, we looked up some of the quotes from that day. the first lady calling for a high moral, ethical standard. >> what a joke.

what are we all doing? i mean -- >> by the way, those were some of the questions that we did also want to ask sarah sanders today. you know, how does this comport with the first lady's message? and i do think it complicates her message. it makes it tougher for her to go out and make that argument when you do have these types of stories that are festering. >> what is the motivation for anyone in kristen's role, i don't want to put kristen on the spot, but to sit in that room and take this -- i mean i don't know the difference any more between baghdad bob and sarah sanders. >> nor do i. i don't know the difference. i think the motivation -- i don't want to try to -- i would never want to in any way disparage our colleagues who have to live through that horror show every day -- >> well, kristen had the most questions today. i mean, kristen made the toughest run at sarah on these questions. >> they do valiant work every day trying to get some semblance of truth or to at least expose

the hypocrisy and lies, the baghdad bobness of it from the podium. but if you're asking me how they tolerate it, how they live with it -- they have more fortitude than i have. i could not go down there and do what kristen welker did today. i could not. i would slit my throat after two of those briefings if i had to sit in that room every day. >> steve, let me let you back in. i heard you try to say something. >> well, i'll tell you the difference between sarah sanders and baghdad bob is that if baghdad bob didn't say what saddam hussein wanted him to say baghdad bob would have been shot. sarah sanders stands up there a willful participant. lying of her own volition. baghdad bob was a hostage. sarah sanders is an accomplice. as is the entirety of the political operation of the white house. they're all in it together. they serve in a debased administration that's dividing the country, hurting america, pitting americans against each other because obviously that's

what they believe is the right thing to do for them to maintain the prerequisites and perks of their powerful positions. that's what the difference is. >> kristen welker, we applaud, i watched the whole briefing. we applaud your valiant efforts. we appreciate you spending time with us. steve schmidt, thank you, the one and only steve schmidt. thank you for spending time with us. when we come back, what's wrong with these people? that's the question being asked by the trump white house. we'll try to answer it. also ahead, behind the curtain on the michael cohen expose. we go inside the new details about michael cohen's pay to play scheme that has ensnared some of the biggest companies of america and caught the attention of mueller's investigators. donald trump embarrassed? that's how his chief of staff describes it. his feelings about the mueller investigation into russian meddling in the 2016 election. stay with us. liberty mutual stood with me when this guy got a flat tire in the middle of the night. hold on dad... liberty did what? yeah, liberty mutual 24-hour roadside assistance

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he's a war hero because he was captured. i like people that weren't captured, okay?

>> we're building a wall. he's a mexican. >> the poor guy. you got to see this guy. i don't know what i said. i don't remember. >> they're bringing drugs. they're bringing crime. they're rapists. >> when you're a star, they let you do it. you can do whatever you want. >> whatever you want. >> [ bleep ]. do anything. >> that was the president of the united states. it's his example that civility has apparently slid so far that a white house special assistant feels comfortable saying openly in a meeting in front of her colleagues of senator john mccain, quote, it doesn't matter, he's dying anyway. former vice president joe biden responded. quote, people wondered when decency would hit rock bottom with this administration. it happened yesterday. john mccain is a genuine hero, a man of valor. whose sacrifices for his country are immeasurable. as he fights for his life, he deserves better, so much better. given this white house's trail of disreexpect toward john and others, this staffer is not the exception to the rule. she's the epitome of it. our children learn from our

example. the lingering question is whose example will it be? i'm certain it will be john's. joining john heilman and me at the table, emma mcmullan who recently ran for president as an independent. rick stengel, former undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, former managing editor, reverend al sharpton, action network and host of politics nation here on msnbc. i want to add one more element to the dumpster fire today, rick, and ask you to respond. jennifer ruben writes in "the washington post," what is wrong with these people? this is the political culture blessed and cheered on for evangelical leaders for nothing trump or his cronies do paying hush monday to a porn star or

endorsing an alleged child molester is over the line. they're not enablers are bad people, but bad people sure do flourish. >> i'm a great believer that any organization takes its cues from the head that of organization. i actually was thinking about this today. i worked for awhile for jack boble, the founder of vanguard. he hated cursing. he was revolted by cursing. i used to curse a lot. i stopped -- i never -- you take, you take your cues from the person who is the head of the organization. it is certainly true what she said was no worse than anything that trump has said. in fact, it's less worse because he is at the head of the administration and people see that. so, he really is the cause of it all. >> do you agree? >> i definitely agree. i think that when you look at the fact that donald trump himself said he likes people that don't get caught in terms of becoming a hostage referring to john mccain, so what would be the basis of their firing her? she could put in a complaint and subpoena the president on his own statements. >> right.

>> and john mccain, and i'm a democrat, a progressive and all, is not only a hero. he was a decent man. he and i disagree. >> is. is. he is still in the fight. >> he is a decent man. he is definitely a decent man that all of us regard and respect. but i certainly think that she would have the grounds of a lawsuit if she -- if they fired her and it came from this president who mocked him himself. and i also think that rick is right about it comes from the top. ironically with all the ministers i've worked for, the only one that stopped on the cursing around was james brown who was the godfather of soul. you couldn't curse around him. he would not let you curse. >> i hope you guys warn me. >> he have the same effect on you that -- >> james brown was a little more stern. he had a way of disciplining you more than bogle did, but we got the point. >> we're going to have to get deep on that some day. >> i'll spend the rest of the show -- >> nicolle, this is not the circus. we have to get into the circus. >> we'll get there, we'll get there.

i want you to say something about john mccain. but i also want you to make a turn for us. i will show you this sound from the president's chief of staff john kelly. >> the vast majority of the people that move illegally into the united states are not bad people. they're not criminals, they're not ms-13, but they're also not people that would easily assimilate into the united states. they are overwhelmingly rural people and the countries they come from, fourth, fifth, sixth grade education is the norm. they're coming here for a reason and i sympathize with the reason, but the laws are the laws. >> one, it is simply untrue. i think most immigrants that come here achieve college graduation rates ahead of many natural born people that are born in this country. and, two, it's not quite right, murderers, they don't send us their best. it is certainly again we're talking about what emanates from the front. those are not mainstream views about people who come to this country because they think it's

a shining city on the hill or to realize the american dream. i was shocked by those comments and if one of the president's aides hadn't called -- said john mccain was dying anyway, i think that would get -- be getting more attention. >> i think so. and i want to say something about mccain but before i do that let me respond to this. baked into the comments about john kelly, which, look, we can debate immigration, that's fine. we can debate that policy. but baked into these comments are people being undereducated or not being sort of high class enough to warrant immigration to the united states i think is a fundamental misunderstanding of the value of human beings. the value of a human being does not come from how -- what their educational level is currently now. it comes from, in my view, it comes from the fact that they are created equally by their god. they are held equally under our law. that's what we believe. but the human potential is tremendous, and we don't take

people just based on their educational level. and, in fact, some people who come to america and are lowly in stature and education and wealth go on to do tremendous things and make tremendous contributions -- >> i believe they serve in the military at higher rates than people born here. >> it's just empirically ridiculous. they serve at higher rates in the military, they have higher graduation rates. >> commit fewer crimes. >> lower crime rates. they have lower rates of being involved in terrorist activity. on every metric they perform above average relative to native born white people in the country and native born -- of all stripes. john kelly constantly makes these kinds of comments. this is not the first time he said it. there is a deep strain. he is with trump on immigration. they are two peas in the pod. this is like the fifth or sixth time -- >> filled with bias. >> he popped out with these anti-immigrant comments on multiple occasions. this is consistent with him. and he's done other things

including to an african-american congresswoman earlier that suggests he may also be with donald trump on race not just on immigration. sorry, rick. >> by the way, kelly was much, much more sympathetic about immigrants than donald trump has ever been. he said they're not bad people. donald trump makes the presumption that they're bad people. he says that they may not fit in in certain ways. he said i'm sympathetic to the reasons that they're coming. that is far more than donald trump has ever done. >> we've got to stop you. you're going from the bottom so low it's underground. i mean only donald trump could make john kelly's views on immigration sound reasonable. that's ridiculous. >> they do sound reasonable. that's what i'm saying. >> my read on john kelly's comments in that regard it's window dressing. when i hear us talk about the metrics of immigrants, they go on -- i've used them, too. they found companies. their children found companies. they contribute significantly. i think 42% of all fortune 500 companies in the u.s. are formed by immigrants or their children. when i hear these metrics, i think, okay, good, this proves the point.

but i also think it can obscure the deeper point, which is that the value of the human being is tremendous in its potential. and those metrics do reflect that. but i think it can sort of suggest that, look, if you don't come here and become a billionaire, then you're not quite worthy of being an american. that's not the case. >> let me clarify -- you're not suggesting that. >> no -- >> john kelly is saying they don't have the skills to succeed. demonstratively that's false. >> it's false, right. >> it's false on the facts. but quickly when you look at the president's bias and john kelly now distorting facts, we expecting to get immigration policy out of this white house that's fair? i mean, that's what's frightening. we are being set in a nation that these people are going to guide us toward a fair immigration process is absurd. >> even his hard-line secretary of dhs is in hot water and threatened to resign. when we come back, the circus and the swamp.

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this is the first week. after a significant investigation we have discovered that mr. trump's attorney mr. cohen received approximately $500,000 from a company controlled by a russian oligarch with close ties to mr. putin. these monies may have reimbursed the $130,000 payment. that's a big deal. okay, what's going to be the second tweet? >> the summary access to the link below. mr. trump and mr. cohen have a lot of explaining to do. it was just sent. >> it was just sent. there it is. the summary, michael dean cohen. how many pages is this thing? >> seven pages. >> what does it say? >> it says they're in a lot of [ muted ] is what it says. >> potentially game changing moment in the michael cohen saga. michael avenatti revealing to the world that when he learned cohen got half a million dollars from a russian oligarch deposited in an account also used to pay off stormy daniels. avenatti apparently has more. here's what he tweeted a couple

hours ago, quote, let this serve as formal notice there is significantly more evidence and facts to come relating to mr. cohen's dealings and mr. trump's knowledge and involvement. you can come clean now or wait to be outed. your choice. we've only just begun. heilman? >> yeah, well, so we were with him -- i was with him on monday night as he was getting ready to launch this news bomb. all day tuesday we sat there, he sent that tweet out. we had all these screens up. fascinating to watch how a tweet like that takes over social media and then migrates onto cable tv from the 5:00 to 6:00 hour it was on twitter. then the top of 6:00 led every newscast across the board. so it's kind of a great social media experiment to see. i think, you know, one of the things about avenatti, there have been a lot of serious questions that have been raised that are legitimate about on what basis he posted those -- the claims that he posted, what were his evidentiary claims. >> how do they relate to the stormy case? >> how do they relate to the stormy case? people are asking hard questions, which he has answers for. whether you like them or not,

but he's prepared for them. he's a pugilist. but the reality is the thing he posted today, which i think is important to understand there are a lot of criticisms about the way he practices law and criticisms he doesn't color within the four corners or stay within the way that traditional lawyering is supposed to have had been done. all this television exposure, it's too much, et cetera, et cetera. he now is in a position to crowd source a lot of the investigative work that he's doing. people all over the country who used to only be focused on bob mueller as the savior are now looking at michael avenatti. he gets stopped on the street. i've seen him, go, go, go. half the country hates him. the other half, people who are in position to leak documents, what cohen may have done, donald trump has done, they are pouring things across the transit to him. this publicity strategy is

paying dividends that can come back to be damaging to various people. >> this is such an important point. and people that cover the investigations, the various fronts will say it is the cohen raid and mueller's investigation into cohen which are two separate things, mueller has a body of information that he's interested in when it comes to cohen and his financial dealings and then there are the matters that have been referred to the southern district. these both scare the bejeezus out of the president much more than the collusion investigation being run by bob mueller. >> they do. you saw today, there is this thing unrelated in the schneiderman case, you have these people stepping forward and saying, oh, hey, coming out and saying, our clients or we've sent e-mail to michael cohen. some months ago we want to let you know we did that. it's scaring the bejeezus out of a lot of people and scared people tend to make mistakes. again, this is what michael avenatti is counting on. scared people make mistakes. and other people, it's inspiring and those people give up documents, leads, tips. it's not an a unuseful tactic. >> right. all right, so despite everything we've heard over the past weeks and

months, it sounds like trump thinks his fight to drain the swamp is going great. this is from last night. [ chanting ] >> under my administration we are fighting against the lobbyists, the special interests and the corrupt washington politics. >> nothing about the corrupt new york politics. but if he believes that, someone on his staff should give him a copy of "the washington post" today. here's the latest. three days after president trump was sworn into office, the telecom giant at&t turned to trump's personal attorney michael cohen for help on a wide portfolio of issues pending before the federal government including the company's proposed merger with time warner according to documents obtained by "the washington post." the documents detail the full scope of cohen's $600,000 deal with at&t and how his contract specified that he would provide advice on the $85 billion merger which required the approval of the federal antitrust regulators. rick, you're nodding. >> well, i'm nodding because

what donald trump has done is turned washington from a normal sort of corrupt, first world country to a third world kind of corrupt country where you employ your family. you enrich your family. you have your henchmen get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by corporations, not for access, but for insight into you. i mean that's what happens in third world countries. that's not what happens in first world countries. so it's not like he's -- he's turning the swamp into a cesspool. >> i guess you're not surprised. you've been warning us for years. i want to ask you about something we talked about at the beginning. this pattern of trump projecting. he's doing the opposite of draining the swamp. he's doing what rick just described. where does that come from? two sources close to him described to me yesterday almost a pathology, projecting onto others what he knows at some level he's doing himself. >> i think that that is exactly right. i think he has an innate ability

to project his kind of way that he sees the world that is always self-serving and he makes his own rules. and he convinces himself that everybody else is wrong and this is the correct way. those laws don't apply. those traditions don't apply. he in his own mind believes the presidency must form to him or adjust to him. and i think when you're dealing with that type of person and the danger of having people around you that don't challenge that but fall in line with that leads us to the kinds of nations that rick is talking about where it is ruled by dictators and tyrants. and that's where he really admires. and i think that we've got to resist at all levels including republicans, that we not allow him to continue to act and behave that way. >> including republicans. >> i take one, include a republican.

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the price of greatness is responsibilities. one cannot rise to be in many ways the leading community in the civilized world without being involved in its problems, without being convulsed by its agonies and inspired by its causes. people of the united states cannot escape world responsibility. >> that is former president george w. bush, my old boss invoking the words of former prime minister winston churchill two world leaders who governed during tumultuous times and often divisive times but conducted themselves in the normal conduct of of those in power. in an interview with npr chief

of staff john kelly spoke about the russia investigation's impact on the president. >> the president keeps calling the russian investigation a witch-hunt. do you think it's a witch-hunt against the president? >> from what i read in the newspaper, something that has gone on this long without any real meat on the bone suggests to me that there is nothing there relative to our president. >> is there a cloud because of it hanging over this white house? >> well, yeah. you know, there may not be a cloud, but certainly the president is somewhat embarrassed, frankly, when world leaders come in, bibi netanyahu was here, he's under investigation himself, you walk in, the first couple minutes of every conversation might revolve around that kind of thing. >> kelly later told reporters the word he was attempting to say was distracted, not embarrassed. but either way if you're innocent, why are you embarrassed or distracted by bob mueller's investigation into russian meddling in our democracy. joining us now is presidential historian jon meachem. his new appropriately timed book

is out this week, "the soul of america: the battle for our better angels." i want to get you on all of this, jon meacham. where are better angels when commissioned officers of the white house say of john mccain, he's dying anyway? >> thomas jefferson the job of the president was to gain the confidence of the whole people. woodrow wilson said a president can be as big a man as he can. franklin roosevelt said the job is preeminently a place of moral leadership. that's at our best. and the great thing about the american experiment is we have a number of forces on the field. we have the presidency, we have the congress, we have the courts, we have the press and we have all of us. we have the people. and we need to make sure that two or three of those forces are pointing in the right direction. >> is that all we've got, meacham? i mean, are you giving up on congress? i just heard you say two. which two? we got the press and the people, and we're screwed with the other two? >> the courts aren't doing a bad job, i don't think, honestly. wait, wait, wait.

andrew johnson opposed the 14th and 15th amendments. we should not put -- when we have a president who is not commensurate with the responsibilities, as president bush said last night, quoting churchhill at harvard, the price of greatness is responsibility, right now we have a president who is not up to that job. but what are we supposed to do, foal our tents? no. what we do is talk about it, we protest, we resist. we try to insist on a better path forward. >> let me bring you in, evan, on the sound we started off with before i put meacham on the spot about what we have left. john kelly saying the president is embarrassed by the investigation. why would he be embarrassed or distracted by it? why wouldn't he be enthusiastic about an investigation that is going to get to the bottom of what the russians did to impact our democracy? >> well, because the president obviously to your point is clearly at legal and political risk due to his own actions which have inspired the

investigation and caused the necessity of the investigation. i think kelly -- kelly's comments sort of struck me as an effort to make the president appear as somehow a sympathetic victim to the press, which is -- and to mueller doing the investigation, the press covering it, and i think it's ridiculous. the president took certain actions before the campaign during the campaign and post campaign that put him at risk. it's not only him, it's not only about the president, it's about his entire team, it's about what a foreign adversary did to our country. there is a lot that needs to be unravelled here. it is about our national security. the stuff is really fundamental and it doesn't much matter whether it embarrasses the president. and, yes, it's embarrassing, it's embarrassing for the country. is it a distraction? yes, it's a distraction for the country as well. i think over time we're going through this necessary process, but we're going to see just in time how costly this national distraction has been. >> heilman, let me put up a cover of "der spiegel." i think it gets to what george w. bush was speaking to. what do you think?

i have my noncursors over here. i saved them for you. >> that's literally the favorite -- my favorite symbol in all the world. >> that's why i saved that for you. >> the one thing -- >> 47 minutes i've been waiting to show that to you you. >> the one-finger salute. i enjoy it. it's great, fabulous, nice piece of art on the cover. i want to go back to the john kelly thing for one second. one of the things that is interesting this week, if you've got to the end of last week and you saw what was going on in the president's team and legal world, it seemed that he was getting prepared to really go to war, even more than he has been before, ty cobb stepping out and rudy being elevated. some of that stuff has continued this week but, interestingly, the president has not been on the war path against mueller. >> since monday, and monday he called it the big "o," obstruction. >> he had an event in indiana. he didn't talk about it surprisingly to a lot of people. this interview with john kelly, mike pence yesterday, there is now -- they are behaving more in this one week like a normal white house that's tried to do something nefarious which is to

say rather than having an unhinged president ranting about it, you're starting to see the top people in the white house in normal media channels saying it's time to start to wrap this up. it's now the time is the moment. they are starting, if you look at what's happening in the house, as they still continue to lay groundwork to impeach rod rosenstein, you look at the vice president and the chief of staff both in quick succession -- this is not an accident. this is a coordinated effort, a coordinated messaging operation to start to make the move they are going to be making i think relatively soon to try to put pressure on a variety of fronts to try to close this thing. >> i talked to rudy giuliani 20 minutes yesterday. i said, how can you be at war with bob mueller, the man you worked hand in hand with after 9/11? my problem isn't with bob, it's with rod rosenstein. we have to sneak in a break. don't go anywhere. we'll be right back.

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. the panel and jon meacham are still here. meacham, after leaving me two of five players on the field, i want to give you a chance of restoring my faith. so in the wake of -- go ahead. >> no, wait, wait. no, no. what else -- do you have any other nominees? who else in our public -- who? >> let me nominate a few. so after the white house aide attacked john mccain, a beautiful statement out today from joe biden. a beautiful statement out -- >> the people. he's one of the people. >> i guess they're just people now. they're not politicians. but i want to ask you to talk -- >> nicolle, nicolle, they're not just people. they're citizens. this is a stress test for citizenship. you know that. >> so i want you to take me through the reluctant citizens like george w. bush last night, and you and i both know better than anybody how reluctantly he

raises his head and criticizes any person who had the job he had. but he was out with a very clear message last night about the dangers of the isolationism that this president not just craves but is desperate to move our country toward. you had joe biden and kerry out with sharp rebukes, sharper than any republican tragically of the comments of a current and, as we know of this hour, still a staffer in good standing at this white house. and we've got members of the intelligence committee, who have never been tv stars now, you know, cable news stars now in john brennan and michael hayden. talk about the reluctance of public servants to sort of poke their head up in the time of trump and try to be the good citizens you describe. >> but i think they are responding. it may be slow, but they also understand that a little goes a long way in a tsunami world. in a world where we're living -- trump has created -- i think of it now as the joe mccarthization, the roy

cohenization of our national politics. basically the midtown manhattan new york post just throw a punch instead of opening your hand culture has taken over the white house. so that's just what happened. so we can whine about itbiden, with president obama with the iran deal, who put out a thoughtful statement, as with george w. bush, who has given two speeches that i think are quite good on this subject, they are making their statement. and we have to keep doing this. the story of american history is not the story of sudden leaps forward. it's not a story that is without difficulty and tragedy and missed steps. that's in many ways our history. what we're missing right now and the mccain disaster today when the white house aide said that about one of the greatest americans of our time or any time is that what we've become accustomed to as the symbol of the dignified part of government

is simply not going to be there for a while. and i was reminds, as you probably were, of what harry hopkins said when fdr died. his great aide. he called in robert sherwood, a speechwriter, and said, damn it, we've got to get on without him now. we got too used to him. we depended on him. now it's all up to us. all of this is now up to us. whether you're a former president, a former vice president, or an ordinary voter, this is -- what's going on right now in the white house is not commensurate with the best of american standards. we have become the greatest nation on earth because we've listened to our better angels. right now the white house is not helping, so we have to push on and do what we can without that as the beacon. >> i would argue more than not helping, they're hurting. i appreciate you for spending some time with us. we have to sneak in our last break. we'll be right back. and the safey for "most parallel parallel parking job" goes to...

[ drum roll ] ...emily lapier from ames, iowa. this is emily's third nomination and first win. um...so, just...wow! um, first of all, to my fellow nominees, it is an honor sharing the road with you. and of course, to the progressive snapshot app for giving good drivers the discounts -- no, i have to say it -- for giving good drivers the discounts they deserve. safe driving!

for giving good drivers the discounts they deserve. to keep our community safe. before you do any project big or small, pg&e will come out and mark your gas and electric lines so you don't hit them when you dig. call 811 before you dig, and make sure that you and your neighbors are safe. we're back. apparently according to business

insider, rudy giuliani, when asked about debating avenatti, features prominently in your program this weekend, he said, no, i won't. i don't get involved with pimps, which is interesting considering he's repping trump. >> i would say if you were to watch the special hour-long circus, you would find a lot of michael avenatti, some rudy giuliani, some comments in the vein of these comments and you will learn on the basis of the kinds of responses to michael avenatti has to rudy giuliani, they're suggestive of how he's to respond to these rather -- >> my only comment is he don't know what kind of sordid details you're going to get when you go through the cohen files. >> man, there's going to be some stuff. >> and there could be pimps. that's my only point. i'm not saying anything about the president of the united states. my thanks to our panel. that does it for our hour. i'm nicolle wallace. i'll see you back here monday for deadline white house at 4:00 p.m. it's getting ugly. let's play "hardball."

good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. as the special counsel's investigation reaches into new russian territory, trump's allies are making a new effort to destroy it. we're watching rudy giuliani and vice president mike pence join the president now in calling for an end to the probe as we mark the first year of the investigation. and now white house chief of staff john kelly, general kelly, is also speaking out, suggesting in an interview with npr that a year is long enough to conclude there's nothing there. >> the president keeps calling the russian investigation a witch hunt. do you think it's a witch hunt against the president? >> from what i read in the newspaper, something that has gone on this long without any real meat on the bone, it suggests to me that there is nothing there relative to our president. >> is there a cloud because of it hanging over this