tomorrow. but for now, "deadline white house" with nicolle wallace is next up. /s >> hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. donald trump's war on justice took an audacious turn today with an assault on the truth that left her reeling. we will show you his outlandish claims made on the south lawn of the white house. but instead of waiting until after you hear those remarks from the president to fact check them, we want to warn you in advance that his meandering comments include lies about the nature of the surveillance of his campaign as well as smears on the former fbi director jim comey. also a key witness in the mueller investigation. attacking comey, we understand, is the trump legal team's entire strategy for defending the president in the obstruction of justice investigation, which hing hinges, at least in part, on comey's firing. we also want to tell you his new bumper sticker spy gate is also based on a lie.

there is no evidence that anyone was spying on the trump campaign. a counter intelligence investigation was underway. and for the president who still doesn't seem to know what that means, let's try this. the good guys, american law enforcement agencies, were closely watching the bad guys, american adversaries like the russians. the reason trump's campaign is in the mix is because they ended up in close enough cahoots with russians to raise suspicions. with those facts in mind, here's the president's performance today. >> >> all you have to do is look at the basics and you'll see. it looks like a very serious event. but we'll find out. when they look at the documents, i think people are going to see a lot of bad things happened. i hope it's not so because if it is, there's never been anything like it in the history of our country. i hope -- i mean, if you look at clapper, he sort of admitted they had spies in the campaign yesterday inadvertently.

but i hope it's not true. but it looks like it is. everybody wants it solved but a lot of bad things happened. we now call it spygate. you're calling it spygate. a lot of bad things happened. i want them all to get together. they'll sit in a room, hopefully they'll be able to work it out among themselves. what i'm doing is a service to this country, and i did a great service to this country by firing james comey -- excuse me. a lot of people have said it. and you go into the fbi and a lot of those great people working in the fbi, they will tell you, i did a great service to our country by firing james comey. what i want is i want total transparency -- wait. you have to have transparency. >> and democrats in >> even they probably want transparency because this issue supersedes a party. this supersedes republicans and democrats. so, what i want from rod, from

the fbi, from everybody, we want transparency. and you know what? i think in their own way they are obstructionists. but even the democrats, i really believe, on this issue, it supersedes i think they want transparency, too. >> the president later ignored questions over whether he has confidence in deputy attorney general rod rosenstein. again. also notable the meeting the president hereby demanded on sunday is still set for tomorrow at the justice department and that as of this hour no democrats have been invited. yet another obliterated norm in the handling of classified insensitive intelligence matters at the justice department. joining us today on about the most perfect of days is a man i've known for a lot of my career, someone who has been speaking out about donald trump's assault on the truth longer than just about every other former national security official, general michael hayden, former director of the nsa and cia. he served under the clinton, bush and obama administrations.

he's out with a tremendous new book, the assault on intelligence american national security in an age of lies. thank you so much for spending some time with us. we're so happy to have you. >> thanks, nicolle. >> if we could have created a day when your book and your perspective on this presidency is most perfectly fit together like two puzzle pieces, we couldn't have thought of a better day. just your take on the president's comments today, the president trying to brand a counter intelligence investigation into his campaign as something that it isn't, spygate, your thoughts and your reaction to all that. >> yeah, it kind of proves the premise of the book that the departure point for the president's rhetoric and very often for the president's actions is not a view of objective reality. or certainly any agreed upon view of objective reality. it comes from something else. and, nicolle, the theme of the book, then, is what do the truth

bearers, the fact tellers, do when they confront a president for whom the truth and facts and objective reality aren't the departure point for decision making or presidential rhetoric? and that creates great tension. you know, i look at it through an intelligence lens, but you realize the high friction points for the administration have been intelligence, law enforcement, the courts, science, scholarship, and might i add journalism. as imperfect as those are, they preserve truth as they best know it to be. we see a perfect example on the south lawn where it is a creeatd reality to meet the needs of the moment. >> let me ask you about the why because i remember talking to

you on the day that the intelligence community officials flew up to new york. it was during the presidential transition. >> right. >> the president was in act three of his five-part war against the intelligence community. it was when the dossier was in the news and other things that triggered him against the intelligence community. he called them nazis at the time. i want to ask you, you gave me a good explanation as to why you thought he was doing that, that his motive was wrapped up in his own fears about what they might know. >> right. >> i want to ask you to speak to the motive behind this war against the justice department and the fbi. >> sure. so, look, we always knew that this relationship with this president was going to be above average difficult. and, nicolle, as you well know, we always have to adjust to the president. how the president learns, the president's priorities, the president's style. but this adjustment was going to be bigger than most just because of the way that god made donald

trump. all right. it's a national tragedy and i really mean this, that the first time we had to get to that interface between the fact bearers, the truth tellers in the intelligence community, as best as they can do in an imperfect world, meeting with this president and his peculiar personality, special personality, was on an issue that other people -- not the intel guys, but other people were using to challenge his legitimacy as president of the united states. and, nicolle, here we are 18 months later and the president is not able to disassociate the threat to his legitimacy over here from the threat to america over here. and what he has now done out of his own sense of self-defense is to not argue the facts of the case -- he never does that. what he does when he's forced to face someone who disagrees or challenges him is that he tries

to undercut the legitimacy of the person or the validity of the institution that is pushing back. and now, nicolle, you have the great fear that i have, that the president for near term personal and political needs is actually eroding institutions and certainly eroding american confidence in institutions on which we have relied for more than a century and on which we will have to rely again. that's the great danger. >> so, let's put that into practice. what happens tomorrow which i believe rod rosenstein has deputized his deputy, a man named ed callahan. attending that meeting will also be the house republican members of the loudest, harshest of critics. i want you to contrast that to

the most contentious intel debates that took place on your watch during the war in iraq about enhanced interrogation, about extraordinary renditions. i mean, these were debates that caused fractures with some of our allies certainly on the right and left, but they were always free to democrats and republicans on the committees. >> i'm going to quote to you law. the fact i can do this almost verbatim here ten years after i left government tells you how important this chunk of law was. consistent with the protection of sources and methods, the congress shall be kept fully and currently informed about all significant intelligence activities. so, we have congress. now, we rarely tell all of congress. very frequently, the routine is to tell the two intelligence committees. but then when it gets really special, really secret, we go to the gang of eight which are the chair and ranking committees

plus the leadership of the house and senate. but, nicolle, it's the gang of eight. it's both sides of the aisle. and now we have, based upon a presidential claim of transparency, we have the fbi briefing two members of one political party. i think that's not just norm-busting. that may be in violation of the statute that requires us to keep congss --ot one party in congress -- fully and currently informed. >> i just want to make sure -- so, it may be illegal the way they have this briefing structured tomorrow? >> if they're basing it on the congressional requirement -- the congressional demand that they need to know based upon congress's oversight responsibilities, the statute is very clear -- it's explicit in the statute that you brief the chair in ranking, not just one party. >> so, let me -- let's -- so, in a briefing that may or may not be in accordance with the laws

about how you have oversight of intelligence activities, can we talk about the actual substance of how we got here? he wants to, as you said, under the guise of transparency, he wants to investigate the people investigating actions of people associated with his campaign. can you take us inside what a counter intelligence investigation has to be in terms of the alarm it creates inside the fbi and the justice department to even launch one? >> right. so, you're right. and it's really important to keep reminding ourselves because the president doesn't. that the origins is not a counter investigation, it's an intelligence investigation. based on information we received from a good friend in sydney, austral australia, the russians are making a run. frankly, nicolle, this informant

that made a soft approach to those affiliated with the campaign, when i reflect on that, that's the softest possible approach to learn about what was going on and still be able to call it an investigation. and that's what the president seems to have a great deal of concern about. and if i can just expand my concerns a bit more, you've got the issue with this investigation trying to dee legitimatize it. you've got the concern about the security of this particular informant. but frankly, nicolle, although i've kind of given you congress fully currently informed, the committees or the gang of eight, this is one in which the executive branch traditionally would have said, no, you don't need to do that in order to perform your oversight function, let alone just brief one party. we probably would have held our ground as not required to tell

the congress about this because it doesn't just put this source or this investigation at risk. what it does, nicolle, is break the social contract we have with all current -- and this is important -- future sources that we can keep the relationship with us confidential. and so that's why the original white house response to this was to say no until the president intervened. >> and this has happened twice now. christopher wray, the fbi director who testified to basically verbatim what you just articulated, that once we can no longer protect confidential informants, we can no longer ensure our national security. i want to read a little bit from your book because you make this larger point. history and the next president will judge american intelligence. if it is found to have been too accommodating to this or any other president, it will be disastrous for the community. is this the kind of precedent that is disastrous to

the community? >> so, obviously the pressure on the community, on the fbi, on the department of justice, occasionally on the cia and other intelligence organizations -- i mean, look, we always accommodate to the president. i've already made that point. but there are limits to accommodation. and you read one of the key sentences in the book. if you go too far in accommodating, you undercut your legitimacy looking forward into the future. so, you get the tweet on sunday. and frankly, i think rosenstein did a fairly elegant finesse with the demand to investigate the investigation by tossing it to the i.g. that was actually returning serve in a pretty powerful way. and you haven't seen the president hit that ball back across the net again. so, i think that was actually a pretty good move. but now -- and it appears to me this is at the direction of the president to tell the members -- the republican members of congress further information on

the identity of the source. nicolle, it may not be unconstitutional, but it is absolutely unprecedented. and there is a reason previous presidents haven't done it this way. >> why do you think he's doing this? >> actually, again, i think it's part of the broader pattern that we've seen by the president. and by the way, i also mention in the book that the intel guys need to work very hard to make the president successful, all right. they know how to count. they know how the electoral college works. he is the president. i see a pattern in the behavior of the president. he never argues the facts. he tries to invalidate the fact bearer -- the truth giver. and what we're seeing here, i think, is a broadly political move to undercut preemptively what he fears will be the findings of the mueller investigation. >> i wanted to end on that. where do you think the bob mueller investigation, based on just the tiny snippets we see

coming to public view -- you worked alongside bob mueller. i think all of us who did know that he lets his actions speak for themselves. >> right. >> that there are no leaks from bob mueller and his team. >> no. >> so anyone that suggests that he said this or that to rudy is usually hearing voices that aren't coming from bob. but where do you think that investigation stands right now? >> so, so, i don't know where it ends up. i certainly hope -- i've got some sympathy for the administration. they are operating under a cloud. adds long as this is going on. they are under a cloud. i think all of america will be better off when this is over and we have a definitive conclusion. i also firmly believe when bob mueller reports out, it will be as ruthlessly an objective view of reality as human kind can create. so, i have absolute confidence in bob mueller, that he will report out the facts wherever it is that they lead him. >> okay. i have one more for you.

this is going to feel off topic to you, but i dug this up with the nfl headlines. so, you wrote in the fall, as a 39 year military veteran, i think i know something about the flag. this is about the nfl anthem protest. the anthem patriotism, and i think he i know why we fight. that was in response to the president's tweets on this. it's not to allow the president to divide us wrapping himself in the national banner. i never imagined myself saying this before friday, but if force today choose in this dispute, put me down with kaepernick. i wanted to get your reaction to what essentially amounts to the nfl banning kneeling on the field next season. >> well, actually, what they've done is given the home team the option of not going out onto the field. so that they don't break team unity. so, there is actually an off ramp there. if some members of a particular team feel particularly strongly about this issue. and look, i've -- i looked at 1:00 sunday afternoons as my escape from everything else we've been talking about here,

nicolle. i went up to pittsburgh and watched the games. the only thing that mattered is what's happening between the white lines. i was actually offended by what kaepernick had done by pulling this other problem into this release for mostly of america. but when the president made that speech in huntsville, alabama, and made this more about the core issue of free speech, i actually say in that article, i'm actually surprised i'm saying this, but if you make me choose those two positions, what the president said in huntsville or what kaepernick has been saying, i'm surprising myself. i'm going with the quarterback. >> you always surprise me, general hayden. it's such a privilege and such a treat to have you. >> thanks, nicolle. >> the book is called assault on intelligence. thanks for being with us. >> thank you. >> when we come back, the donald trump smear against -- smear campaign against the d.o.j. in full swing. rod rosenstein speaks out about the definition of a pylon. the nfl bans silent protests on the field, a blow to player's

right to free speech and clear win to the president who called them sons of pitches. and more bad news for the fixer michael cohen. cohen's former business partner "taxi king" is now a cooperating witness in the investigation into cohen. we'll be right back. anncr: as y, your brain naturally begins to change which may cause trouble with recall. - learning from him is great... when i can keep up! - anncr: thankfully, prevagen helps your brain and improves memory. - dad's got all the answers. - anncr: prevagen is now the number-one-selling brain health supplement in drug stores nationwide. - she outsmarts me every single time. - checkmate! you wanna play again? - anncr: prevagen. healthier brain. better life.

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the dictionary defines piling on as joining other people in criticizing someone usually in an unfair manner. i also have experience with that. [ laughter ] so i am definitely against piling on no matter what definition you use. >> that was deputy attorney general rod rosenstein making

light of the grave assault on the justice department and law enforcement spearheaded by the president and emboldened by his allies. take, for example, the president's latest twitter tirade just this morning. here's a bit from that. quote, look how things have turned around on the criminal deep state. they go after phony collusion with russia, made up scam and end up getting caught in a major spy scandal the likes of which this country has never seen before. what goes around comes around. spy gate could be one of the biggest political scandals in history. witch hunt. as axios knows it's not just trump and his twitter feed. rudy giuliani, mark penn and gaggle of pro trump republicans are hitting the hill, cable, the web, to trash mueller, the fbi and media. hour by hour these voices try to chip away at the case against trump and the justification for it all. and polls show it works wonderfully among republicans.

joining us now from washington, paul butler former federal prosecutor now a georgetown law professor and msnbc analyst. here at the table with us msnbc contributor princeton university professor. john heilman is back. he has the title of nbc -- how did you get this title? an msnbc national affairs -- >> i want to make it complicated for you. really long. >> co-host executive producer of circus, mara gay, "the new york times" editorial board. as the resident person smarter than all the rest of us on the law, general hayden seemed to suggest that tomorrow's meeting may not simply be obliterating norms in terms of how you share classified sensitive intelligence with the hill, but that it may be breaking a law. >> right. so, if this is a meeting with congress, then the president doesn't get to exclude the democrats. what the republicans are saying that the justice department is affirming, this is a meeting with people who have concerns

about the documents that aren't being revealed to the congress. and they're saying the democrats don't have those concerns. they're okay with the process. so, we're just doing this meeting for people who think we should be doing something different. we just want to hear their concerns. whether you believe that is a different question. whether it's ethical is a different question, but it might be legal if that's their story. >> but even if that's the genesis of it, is there a possibility that they are breaking a law by not having the people who have the job of congressional oversight whenever it's something this sensitive and this sort of protected by the justice department? it's no secret the justice department, in the same way they didn't want to reveal the fisa application behind the nunes memo, the justice department didn't want to make this once confidential name and story. is it possible their understanding of a break down of the law of congressional

oversight as hayden suggested? >> i think it's absolutely possible. with all due respect to my former colleague rod rosenstein, this is what happens when you try to mollify a bully. all you do is embolden him. on sunday the president of the united states tweeted that there ought to be a criminal investigation. and within hours, rod rosenstein assented. not so much to the criminal investigation, but to the office of inspector general. and, again, that didn't mollify the president. when you try to go along with get along with someone who is a tyrant, you get what rod rosenstein got from trump yesterday, which is at a press conference the president was asked if he had confidence in the deputy attorney general. the president answered, next question. >> he's done that two days a row, heilman. >> paul is going to -- again, we talked about this yesterday. we'll talk about it again because it's important. he's going to the argument for why yet that was the time to fight. rod rosenstein should have

walked into the oval office on monday and said, i'm sorry, i'm not going to start this investigation. if you want to fire me, fire me. good argument for doing that. and the argument for not appeasing the president. another good argument, rod rosenstein is still in his job today. he knows what's going on in the mueller investigation. he knows what bob mueller has. he knows more about that investigation than anybody other else other than bob mueller himself and maybe as much as bob mueller because he reports to rod rosenstein. he could be playing a game where he thinks this is a compromise that's worth making if he keeps me in this job to fight another day. none of us have the ability to judge, to make that judgment because we don't know what rod rosenstein knows. there is a very good argument paul is making. i think that this thing that's happening tomorrow, the question that should be asked is the question michael hayden raises, what is the legal basis upon which this meeting is taking place. a question to be asked of the white house, a question rod rosenstein if he was going to refer to placate trump on the question of the investigation and kick it to the i.g., he might have on this matter said,

mr. president, happy to try to talk to you about this, but what legal basis am i going up to capitol hill? if you like to cite a law under which i can go up there and brief these members of congress, we'll talk about which members of congress should be briefed under the existing statutes and what would be legally valid. i don't know the answer to that question but it seems to me a very relevant question given what michael hayden said to you earlier in the show. >> let me bring back another figure that ended up spilling out of the president's mouth. his attacks on jim comey and comey responded today saying, dangerous time in our country led by those who will lie about anything. backed by those who will believe anything based on information from media sources that will say anything. americans must break out of that bubble and seek truth. >> that's pretty powerful. i think it's a really good time to just -- everybody take a deep breath and support the institutions that are providing checks and balances to this white house. >> which ones are those now? >> the justice department.

the fbi. >> okay. >> the intelligence agencies which have already come out with -- >> congress? >> well, you know what, actually, congress may not be living up to its part of the deal and i think that's a serious concern. but i think it's a really good time to really shine some light on why that is and let's, you know, as newspapers, too, we can put some resources behind chasing down individual members of congress. we have mid terms coming up. where are you on this? really. >> so, this is what's having about what john and myra and paul have said. the question about where does rosenstein draw the line. and you can make the argument going either way. but what's happening in the interim? we see norm erosion. we see some ways attack against the institutions, the house intelligence committee is broken. i don't know how that gets reconstituted. we know there are a gaggle of coconspirators who are actually carrying donald trump's water who sold their souls for a mess

of pottage, as it were. so you wonder, you're right, he's going to live another day, he knows more than we know. but what's the collateral damage in the interim between that, that line and this line? >> i don't dispute there is collateral damage. all i know to draw the analogy further. if rod rosenstein played out a plausible scenario. bob mueller has his job because rod rosenstein has his job. i'm not saying this is a conclusive argument or a slam -- you can't bring out the gavel here. if rod rosenstein said i'm not going to do it, he has the constitution ability to fire rosenstein. it's wednesday. bob mueller -- the investigation could be over by today he had he gone the other way. i don't know that necessarily means he made the right decision. you have to play out the consequence of what the all tern it have path might have been. >> part of what the president is doing and his gaggle of defenders right now is gaining

control of a narrative because there's a lot of empty space there because bob mueller as a prosecutor, he cannot actually speak publicly. so, as long as these guys are out there gaining control of the narrative, regardless of what bob mueller comes up with, there is going to be a portion of the american people that are either so confused or so indoctrinated with all of this nonsense that the question is will they actually believe bob mueller. >> paul, let me bring you in on some developments today around jared kushner. his attorney, abby lowell out with a statement today about his cooperation with bob mueller saying a year ago jared was one of the first to voluntarily cooperate with the investigation into the 2017 campaign and related topics. since then he's continued this complete cooperation providing a large number of documents and sitting for hours of interviews with congressional committees and providing numerous documents and sitting for two interviews with the office of special counsel. on each occasion he answered all questions asked and did whatever he could to expedite the conclusion of the investigations

and that accompanied news his security clearances have bng restored. is there anything to be read into bob mueller's interest in jared kushner based on the security clearance news? >> you know, i think it's very difficult to know. so, i'm sure that the fbi reached out to mueller. hey, you know, we're dealing with the security clearance issue. is there anything that you'd like us to know? presumably if mueller thought that the security of the united states was in jeopardy with kushner having access to highly sensitive information, he would have let them know. so, that does not mean, though, that kushner does not have criminal exposure. from everything that we know about where mueller is looking, it's safe to assume that he does. so, mueller has had long conversations with kushner. again, i think he's interested in kushner based, number one, on his own role with regard to

obstruction of justice and collusion, but also what he knows about other people, including his father-in-law. >> when we come back, it looks like the nfl owners were listening and caved after the president said this. >> wouldn't you love to see one of these nfl owners when somebody disrespects our flag to say, get that son of a bitch off the field right now, out, he's fired. he's fired! jimmy's gotten used to his whole room smelling like sweaty odors.

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when you see some of the lowest options fees in the market and no platform fees? is it happy? good. then it's time for power e*trade. the platform, price and service that gives you the edge you need. e*trade. the original place to invest online. i support the affordable care act, and voted against all trump's attempts to repeal it. but we need to do more. i believe in universal health care. in a public health option to compete with private insurance companies. and expanding medicare to everyone over 55. and i believe medicare must be empowered to negotiate the price of drugs. california values senator dianne feinstein to negotiate the price of drugs. john chiang's father came it'here with little money,on.

but big dreams for a better future. now john has a chance to make history. a champion of the underdog, john took on wells fargo when it ripped off working families. and against the odds, he helped saved california from financial disaster during the great recession. ...leaving more to invest in progressive priorities like education, healthcare and affordable housing. john chiang. the proven, progressive leader we need for california's future. today the nfl announced a new anthem policy that essentially bans kneeling in protest on the field. espn writing, quote, nfl owners have unanimously approved a new national anthem policy that requires players to stand if they are on the field during the performance, but gives them the option to remain in the locker room if they prefer. that decision follows months of menacing tweets and public

condemnation of the protest from the president who insisted that kneeling or sitting silently during the anthem was an affront to our military. for the players, the protests are intended to bring attention to racial inequality and social injustice. here's the statement from the league. quote, the efforts by many of our players sparked awareness and axa round issues of social justice that must be addressed. the palo alto form that we have created together is certainly unique in professional sports and quite likely an american business. they continue by accepting the president's premise that the flag is, in fact, disrespected by a player's silent protest. the league adding, quote, this season all league and term personnel shall stand and show respect for the flag in the anthem. personnel who choose not to stand for the anthem may stay in the locker room until after the anthem has been performed. joining us now, the former nfl player who spent seven years in the league, and kevin veteran sports journalist and espn sports commentator on "around

the horn." paul and the rest are here. kevin, let me start with you because you and i had conversations before, during and after the president started essentially harassing the league, harassing and bullying the owners and shaming the players for exercising their first amendment right to silent and peaceful protest. >> yeah, and this is just really a continuation of that now by the league because what they are doing, in essence, is vilifying and demonizing those players that would prefer to continue to protest issues of police lethality against black men in this country which, by the way, hasn hasn't waned all that much since the years colin kaepernick first dropped to a knee to bring this issue to the fore. it's really unfortunate. the good news is i think there are some owners in this league -- and we've already seen it crack late this afternoon -- who are not down with this policy and are instead down with

their players' ability to exercise their free speech rights within the nfl. and i'm speaking specifically of christopher johnson, woody johnson's son who is running the jets right now who issued a statement this afternoon saying that while he didn't agree with the decision by the league, he would abide by it, but he would not allow any of his players to have to pay a fine should they come out on the field and protest in any way during the national anthem. >> kevin, let me ask you a follow-up question. why is the nfl structurally so much more distant from the political passions, from the pulse of their players than the nba? >> you know, i think because the nfl, if you track its growth, really has followed the growth of suburban america. and so many more of its fans are white and white males, and this league has for very many years ever since the late 1960s, has

wrapped itself in the flag, wrapped itself in patriotism, militaryism, nationalism and that's the way it has sold its game and really ramped up that effort in the 2000s when it started demanding that teams stand at the sidelines while the national anthem was being played and while gigantic 100-yard flags were ununif you recalled on t -- unfurled on the field and b-52 bombers were flying overhead. they made it part of their marketing. that's why they reacted as they have. >> chris, you and i talked last time when leaked audio or transcripts from a meeting between players and owners where the players thought the meeting was ostensibly to talk about how colin kaepernick who as you told me was skilled enough to be on the roster and the owners were there with a different mission, one was the p.r. problem with

the anthem protest. talk about where the players' heads are today on a day when they may not be able to speak as freely as you are. >> well, you know, i think that in this situation the players really have a choice to make, and that's are they going to stick together or are they going to let the owners win because the upcoming cba is already poised to be one of the most contentious in nfl history and this is the perfect opportunity for the players to make a statement to the owners saying, you know what? we are going to band together. we are going to work together and we're not going to follow these rules that are frankly unamerican. and, you know, if all the players decide, hey, none much us are going to take the field, we are all going to act in solidarity, not only is it good from a societal standpoint, but it's also good from a player's bargaining standpoint. >> chris, we just had general hayden on. he worked for democrats and republicans, but his last jobs were for republican presidents. certainly not considered a

liberal by any regard. but he said if he had to choose between donald trump making this about suppressing players' rights -- first amendment rights or colin kaepernick, he'd choose colin kaepernick. he's somebody who has been in public service his entire life. how do the players take that back and say it is the most american ideal of all to permit players to exercise their first amendment rights? >> right. and i think that's actually one of the big things that colin kaepernick has actually been saying this entire time. he's been saying, hey, look, this isn't to denigrate the military. this isn't to say, you know, that the military is bad. this is to say police brutality is bad. i think it's very, very important that we as a nation stop conflating the police with the military because our military is there to protect us from foreign threats. they are doing a job that generally requires them to kill people. our police are civil servants, designed to uphold justice.

that's a completely different job than our military. and the fact that we're starting to bring those two closer and closer together, that's what authoritarianism is. that's what fascism is, is making those two the same thing. making your military your police. and so we need to be aware as a country, not just nfl players, but everyone, that the fact that we are going further and further down this path is a very, very dangerous path to be treading. >> all right. chris and kevin got everyone's heads nodding around the table. go. >> i will say one thing which is interesting. there's a lot of connections between the federal government and the nfl that are direct connections that have to do with advertising, especially on military recruitment. up until 2009 players didn't go out for the national anthem. they started coming out in 2009. that was eight years ago. they stayed in the locker room. they went out partly because there was government spending on military recruitment ads that ran alongside the nfl. if you look at other connection that go to the fact the nfl is tax exempt, it's a nonprofit,

under the tax code and a whole bunch of other things, i know there are lawyers out there right now in america, some of them connected to colin kaepernick who are talking about going beyond the kaepernick collusion suit to thinking about first amendment challenges. and this policy is going to be a red flag in front of the bull of people who want to trake this issue partly because of donald trump having raised it and partly because of the relationship with the ownership, and take the kaepernick cause and have the broader conversation about first amendment issues and, again, the connection between the federal government and the nfl. i would -- don't sleep on this shall yu. you are going to see it over the next year. >> let me tee up mike pence who is i think connection to the story is not -- the president texted him and he bravely stormed out of a game. this is what he said about academic institutions. he said, while this institution has maintained an atmosphere of civility and open debate, far

too many campuses across america have become characterized by speech codes. safe spaces. tone policing. administration sanctioned political correctness, all of which amounts to the suppression of free speech. these practices are destructive of learning and the pursuit of knowledge. feels like a, you know, 5-alarm hypocrisy to me. >> hypocritical to the core. hypocritical to the core. look, it seems to me that we can't -- we can't ignore the racial issue here. and -- >> i guess, why would we want to? >> it's important. think about it. people are okay with clive and bundy more than they are with colin kaepernick taking a knee. clive and bundy is considered a patriot. what he did, he armed resistance against federal agents trying to protect federal land. but colin kaepernick is viewed as somehow a traitor. and that's because of this, nicolle, i think -- >> not everyone. >> and his supporters, the folks

who are really, really animated by this subject. there is an interesting correlation between black protest and the perception of disloyal at this. there is an understanding that if black people, right, call attention to the contradictions at the heart of the country, that somehow it exposes, it reveals what people already assumed, and that is that we really don't love this country. that we're not committed to this country. >> can i just add that's exactly right. and the irony, the deep irony, painful irony, the president who is attacking our institutions would then he and his supporters go out and accuse these players who are exercising their constitutional rights, which by the way, this is not about the flag, this is about the values that the flag stands for. i just want to quote james baldwin who said, i love my country, you know, more than any other country in the world, and it is for exactly that reason that i insist on the right to criticize her. >> go ahead. >> there is an historical point to be made as well.

so, what these players are doing is in the proudest tradition of not only civil liberties and civil rights, but what it means to be an american. dissent is an act of faith. in many ways, these dissinters are like rosa parks and martin luther king. >> let me give you another word in sort of the terrain we cover, both the hypocrisy of the administration and the president's followers who want universities to permit diversity of speech but think it somehow takes away from our love of country to permit a player to kneel during the anthem silently and peacefully. >> sure. he is hitting at the exact thing people want to ignore. the fact of the matter is two-thirds or more of the nfl is made up of black players. when we look at our universities around the country, they may be becoming less and less diverse

if they were diverse at all. and so you're talking about really protecting white spaces while you're denigrating spaces for black folks. and for us for so long, sports has been the one place where people will pay attention to us. so, it is a long tradition, a long heritage among us, among athletes to use their platforms to say something about what is going on around them rather than just stick to the games. >> and when you look back at the life of legends like muhammad ali, we talked a whole lot about the ground he covered in this space as much as we did about his athletic accomplishments. chris, thank you for 13e7spendi time with us. we'll be calling you back. a man known as new york city's tac"taxi king," i didn't know that was a thing, a plea deal, what that could mean for the president's former fixer.

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it's hard to marnl, but the president's personal lawyer could be in eve more hot water. a development first reported by the "new york times" finds that michael cohen's taxi business partner, a man by the name of dean friedman, aka the taxi king has agreed to cooperate with the governments part of a plea deal. aaron blake of the "washington post" writes, quote, friedman was first charged in june but he has only now reached a plea deal as the noose has steadily toointed around cohen's neck. and this isn't just an acquaintance. this was a business partner in an industry where cohen's conduct has come under a microscope. if anyone knows what cohen has done wrong friedman would be the candidate specially if cohen did keep trump in the dark about stormy daniels and the payment.

i wonder if this looks like that part of the cohen file or the cohen search justification? this certainly doesn't seem at this point from what we've seen in the reporting to be about russian collusion? >> mr. friedman is getting the deeflt century. he stole $5 million from new york taxpayers. he was looking at 20 years in prison. under this agreement, he doesn't do a day in jail. and has to pay back $1 million. >> what did he have on cohen? i mean that sounds like a really, really, really sweet deal. what did he have? >> it has to be really really good. we can surmise. >> pictures? video? give me categories of stuff. i'm not a lawyer. >> yeah, something compelling enough to reduce exposure from 20 years to zero. you know, it has to be against someone high ranked as well. this is obviously an attempt to

squeeze cohen because the friedman has the gohdes on cohen. they worked together for many years in the sordid new york taxi business. and cohen is the key to the kingdom for mueller because cohen wasn't mr. trump's lawyer as much as he was the fix it dude. so if there are bodies buried then mr. cohen knows where they are. >> paul used the word sordid related to the taxi business. i would like to substitute it to two other words which are factual, mobbed up. the new york taxi business has been a mob business since it existed. it for a long time was an italian mob business and for the last 20 years a russian mob business. as soon as the taxi business came up in the cohen case my first thought was this was a mob business. this guy is a russian american.

i don't think this is separate from the russian collusion case necessarily. i don't know what all he has got to say. but michael cohen has moved in the world of russian bankers, russian money and real estate for a long time. and he has moved into the russian emgrants and russian americans in this city n this country. there is going to be overlap between those two investigations this. guy could very well be not necessarily the only key but on the basis of the kind of deal he got cut he could be important in putting pressure on cohen, a particular kind of pressure that opens up a whole wide avenue of discussion that goes to the heart of what robert mueller is thinking about related to trump. >> i never thought i'd write a tee about the taxi king. i'm out of my depth here. let me ask you to pick up this thread that this could be because of cohen's interest not just to the southern district but to bob mueller? >> sure. i also want to make the point how remarkable --

>> that we are talking about a taxi king. >> that we are talking about a taxi king. what is so interesting is that you can leave new york but new york will follow you. right? and. >> yeah. >> and so you are seeing, this is michael cohen's business partner. and the shady deals that have gone on with the people in mr. trump's orbit, those may be the thing that bring anybody down if anybody does go down rather than the high minded charges, and very important ones as well that there was some kind of influence from russia. it's actually -- it's fascinating. >> it's going to take you straight into the heart of russian money laundering. >> what do you make when you have this sort of deal? it usually comes with constraint. but he just recently wrote an op ed or wrote in saying that michael cohen is my best friend and stuff, he spoke in ways that suggested that something he will was going on.

>> i think we probably haven't heard the last of it, as you said it's sequential. we have to sneak in our last break. don't go firm we'll be right back. don't make a first impression... or a lasting impression without it. ♪ ♪ don't turn your house into a home without it. ♪ ♪ don't go live... or even share a moment without it. and don't watch her dance like nobody's watching without it. whatever you do, don't forget that the more you live forward, the more you need someone at your back. ♪ ♪

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and vision. boost optimum. be up for life. my thanks to all the friend to take this jenny with me every day. that does it for our hour. i'll nicolle wallace. "mtp daily" starts next. nothing about my warriors. they will come back. it's too raw. tomorrow you can haze me. >> i'm not going to haze you. nobody wants to see the rockets and the cavs. okay? actually, nobody wants to see the rockets and the celtics. america wants lebron versus steph and durant. >> it was a raw nerve. we have made up. >> let's go cavs. fair enough. if it's wednesday, it's spy games. let's take two. tonight, the conspiracy cycle. >> we now call it spygate.