client donald trump in a couple of weeks. i repeat rudy guiliani talking to everyone except apparently donald trump. we'll i'm sure have more on that and discussion of a potential interview with bob mueller. that does it for "the beat." "hardball" with chris matthews starts now. how scared is trump? this scared. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris math you ooze in boston. the bbc is reporting according to sources in kiev, trump fix ter michael cohen received $400,000 for setting up a meeting with president trump and the ukrainian press poroshenko. we have not verified that report. faced with the evidence on trump's web of eastern promises, the president himself is setting up what appears to be a fifth

amendment strategy not answering robert mueller's questions on the ground his answers would tend to incriminate him and claim that as justification for taking the fifth which trump himself associated with gangsters but also on the political ground now that the mueller investigation is out to get him. indeed, president trump is going to new extremes in his attempts to put the fbi on trial by alleging now that he, the subject of a federal investigation, is somehow the victim of fbi spying, that's his word. the president's eketively staged a crisis to convince the country that mueller's not being fair to him and therefore, he donald trump has a right not to answer his questions. it's an excuse the president is setting is up to justify a number of escape routes. pleading the fifth with special counsel mueller or in a most extreme move shutting the probe down all together. this morning trump launched his most egregious assaulted on our law enforcement institutions to date saying look how things have

turned around on the criminal deep state. they go after phony collusion with russia, a madeup scam and end up getting caught in a major spy scandcan dal, the likes of this country may never have seen before. what goes around comes around. believe it or not, that's the president of the united states talking. nothing could be further from the truth, however. certainly when it comes to the fbi's use of an informant in their investigation of the trump campaign. in his washington "washington post" column today it, david ig nay shish asked the question lost, isn't that what the fbi and its sources are supposed to do? ignatius adds, trump is running a circus of distraction. but at the interest of the ring remains mueller, silent and unblinking. nevertheless, the president has managed to pressure the department of justice and the fbi to sit down with his republican acolytes tomorrow. trump leading this circus parade

is already out there declaring that bad things happened. let's watch. >> 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. this was a terrible situation. what we're doing is we're cleaning everything up. it's so important. what i'm doing is a service to this country. everybody wants to solve, but a lot of bad things have happened. we now call it spy gate. you're calling it spy gate. a lot of bad things have 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. >> joining me now are three contributors, joyce vance a former federal prosecutor, michael schmidt is a reporter for the "new york times" and david ignatius a columnist with the "washington post." when i watched that today, i have to tell you all today, i reminded myself of joseph welsh

in the mccarthy hearings back in '54. i never nude how far trump would go. today i realized he'll go all the way today. he came up with this conspiracy theory about spying and spy gate and how this was all something new and awful by the federal government to capture him all to avoid detection in whatever he did with the russians your thoughts? your reporting? >> i mean, the interesting thing here is that he continues to push this notion but he still seems afraid to actually do anything more severe like go after rosenstein or replace sessions. that i think is where congress is keeping their eye on him. what would he do at that level. i think to some extent republicans look at this and say look, he's making noise. it's an inspector general investigation and they can live with that. the real question will be when rosenstein do what he wants him to. in this case, it looks like rosenstein has done that. but the president looks like he'll continue to beat this drum and he continues to launch on to

a narrative about this informant that at least our reporting doesn't back up. this informant was not someone inside the campaign. it was someone that talked to two of these campaign officials who had contacts with russians to find out whether they were, you know, these conversations had happened to corroborate them. as someone pointed out to me, it would have been more aggressive for the fbi to go and knock on the doors of some of these folks with badges and sit them down for interviews and something that could come out publicly and could have damaged the campaign at the time. but the fbi took the more sort of quiet more secretive route and ran this informant up against these folks. >> joyce, tell me about this because when criminals are or rather suspected criminals defendants go into a trial, they'll come up with anything to get the jury to think of some other possibility to get reasonable doubt. i understand that. this is the president of the united states. his way of creating reasonable doubt among his people, an the

trumpies out there is to come up with this conspiracy theory that the united states government was out to get him engaged in something that was horrible something to do with spying on him and he's completely making this up. your thoughts >> something that prosecutors tell juries to do and that an maybe the american people need to do here is to hang on to their common sense. prosecutors always tell juries go back and consider the evidence and think about everything that you've heard but you don't have to check your common sense at the door. you can take it with you. here we've got a situation where the president is saying that the fbi was out to harm him, that there was a conspiracy against him and yet, the fbi did nothing to damage him. they didn't go public with the story of the investigation. there was no leakage on russian contacts before the election. if anything it, trump makes a really weak case here that defies common sense. >> you know, david, i saw a picture like most of us in the paper today, a news photo of da mass skurks parts of damascus

completely destroyed in the fight against isis. i was thinking that as sort of a picture of what's going on with our american institutions under trump. without going too far, he's attacked the free president, civility in political debate and now attacking the institutions of the federal government the executive, the fbi, the justice department. i wonder how much damage he's willing to do to protect himself. >> that's a horrifying image to imagine that the institutions of our government are like the ruins of damascus. but like you, i was shocked to hear the president say he was facing a criminal deep state by which he meant the intelligence community of the united states. it's astonishing. i wrote this morning that he has been engaged in a circus of distraction. that circus goes back to the campaign. it goes back to october when the allegations were first made by the intelligence community about russian meddling. in january of 2017 when the

intelligence community made deeper arguments. month after month, there's been a new series of claims about trump tower was bugged by president obama, then it was the fake dossier compiled by christopher steele. again and again there's this effort to distract from the basic issues of this investigation. >> michael, on front page reporting which you're an expert at, we are in a situation where trump as beautifully used the basic sort of trade craft of reporting. you have to write down and put in the paper what the president says every day. however, look what he said today. there's rudy guiliani, his attacks now. giuliani's out there saying apparently for the president now, the president would like to talk to mueller. he keeps changing every couple of days to keep the press listening to him promising a decision within two weeks he told "the washington post," i guess i would rather do the interview, it gets it over with and makes my client happy. he added a caveat, truth is

relative. they may have a different version of the truth than we do. separately giuliani told buzzfeed tonight he hasn't spoken directly with trump in a couple weeks. this game he plays on one hand of his hands and his other hand is out there the trashing people like comey seems like he's playing the straight front page press like a banjo because people keep reporting. i know you have to do it, but i just did it myself. this nonsense of giuliani acting like he's been talking to trump, he apparently hasn't been, just keep bouncing the ball, keeping it noisy and all the time trashing the prosecution. >> yeah, i'm not sure exactly what the strategy is. what we do see is this constant drum beat against comey. giuliani thinks this will come down to trump v comey and it will be up to the public's opinion who to believe. they think that's a winning argument for them and think comey diminished his credibility

during his tour and the inspector general's report that will come out will help them. this is a place that the president they think will be okay in. i think that jew has landed some punches in the past few weeks but i'm not sure what it really means in the end. it's been a lot of noise. it's been a lot of aggressiveness. this is exactly what the president wanted. he wanted a television lawyer to go out and make his case. john dowd and ty cobb did not do that. giuliani is doing that in a much more aggressive way. winning a few points here but i'm not sure that that matters in the end. >> the "associated press" is now reporting how the president is spin slg legitimate news reports to make questionable allegations. "trump made one ally, told one ally this week he wanted to brand the informant in this case a spy. believing the more nefarious term spy would resonate more with the media and the public. let me go back to the judge -- to joyce on this.

you create a vast conspiracy and use words like spy and spy gate trying to distract the jury which is beak his 40% of the country, have them learn the music, learn the lyrics start to say spy gait. today he was like jimmy two times independence "goodfellas" teaching the people outside the white house how to say the word spy gate. he's teaching everybody that so in the bars this weekend they'll all be saying it. it's horrible. and he's doing everything he can to destroy this country and his government so he gets off scot-free. your thinking? >> it's really despicable conduct from the president of the united states. this idea that he's inserting it characteristicizations of conduct by law enforcement that he knows aren't true in an effort to prejudice the people of the united states against the fbi, against the intelligence services who protect us is really i just think in many ways something we were not prepared for it as a country.

and because we were unprepared for a president who would sort of stoop to these depths, we don't always hear a cohesive response from law enforcement. prosecutors though doesn't responded in public. we've seen that from mueller. prosecutors bide their time. in many cases defendants will go to the press and try to create a negative narrative. prosecutors respond when they're in the courtroom and we know mueller's team will have their first opportunity to do that this july when manafort goes to trial. we may or may not hear the full story here. but at some point i'm confident that there will be a report to congress and the entire collection of evidence that mueller has put together will be available for the public to see. >> during the freedom riders movement in 1961, david. >> jimmy: know you know this history, mr. siegenthaler of the justice department told someone during the riots in alabama, he said i'm from the federal government which got him hit over the head with a lead pipe and left down in the street by

the cops to die. is that the atmosphere trump is cooking up now, this hatred of the fbi especially out in the stix where they like him? he's creating an hatred level which is going to be frightening in its reality as it takes form over the next several months and years? >> there always has been asus pigs of the federal government, of big government, of authority. don't tread on me is a kind of a national idea of liberty. i do worry that by targeting so directly the fbi and intelligence agencies by turning their legitimate count ker intelligence efforts, let's remember, this began as a counter intelligence investigation into something that's suspicious, that's spy gate, that's a scandal. he really is, as you've been saying, as we've all been saying trying to mobilize the country against the institutions that in the end keep us safe.

it's a very, very reckless strategy, dangerous strategy. >> well, the guy who rides the tiger ends up in his mouth. we'll see. joyce, michael and david. it's one of the rare times donald trump has spoeng the truth. he told lesley stahl that the reason he bashes the press is so when they write negative stories about him, no one will believe them. he's tearing down this country's institutions our system of government, our law enforcement and our free press to save his skin. plus the risky business of speaking for donald trump as mark lieberman reports the more the white house communications team defends trump, the more its people damage their own credibility. they should. and woman power. here's good news. will 2018 be is the year that women candidates and women vote ares make the difference? after last night, that's looking more and more like a prospect. let me finish tonight with trump watch. until today, i didn't know how far he would go. this is "hardball" where the action is. say carl,

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"the new york times" first reported today that president trump's son-in-law jared kushner has finally been grant aid regular security clearance. his background checks have dragged on for over a year fueling questions whether the mueller probe turned up any evidence he was a security threat. according to a person briefed on matter, that was not the case. the times" further reports mr. curbners's clearances were approved by career officials and that the president was not involved in the process. nbc news confirmed kushner met for a second time with special counsel mueller's team. that interview lasted more than six hours that included questions on the comey firing. we'll be right back. people said it just made a mess until exxonmobil scientists put it to the test. they thought someday it could become fuel and power our cars wouldn't that be cool?

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throughout the campaign, donald trump bulldozed over whomever or whatever stood in his way. he attacked political opponent often in very personal terms but

his most ruthless attacks were on the press something that's continued since the election. here he goes. >> as you know, i have a running war with the media. they are among the most dishonest human beings on earth. >> if you want to discover the source of the division in our country, look no further than the fake news and the crooked media. for the most part it, honestly, these are really, really dishonest people. and they're bad people. and i really think they don't like our country. i really believe that. they're bad people. they're bad people and they're dishonest people. they don't tell the truth. they don't write the truth. >> look who's talking. yesterday, veteran cbs journalist lesley stahl shared this insightful exchange she will with the president about why he keeps up those attacks on the press. >> at one point he started to attack the press. and and it's just me and my boss and him. and he has a huge office.

he's tab attacking the press and there were no cameras. there was nothing going on. i said you know, that is getting tired. why are you doing this? you're doing it over and over and it's boring and it's time to end that, you know, you've won the nomination and why do you keep hammering at this? and he said you know why i do it? i do it to discredit you all and demean you all so when he write negative stories about me, no one will believe. >> you for more i'm joined by susan page from "usa today" and brent stevens "new york times" columnist and msnbc political contributor. susan, you first then brett. this is something else. he's willing to destroy anything right now but i'll tell you, i think lesley stahl is a match for him in terms of credibility, more than a match. >> actually, what she said relating his comments to her make perfect sense. that is exactly what president trump has tried to do with the news media. it's what he's also tried to do

with the special counsel and with the justice department to preemptively raise questions about whether these fundamental american institutions can be trusted so that if at some time he's in a war with them as we think he might we'll be that americans at least the american who's believe him aren't sure whether they should trust what they read in the newspaper or what they hear the courts say or what the justice department officials are telling them. >> let me go to brett. we all know fbi agents from our families where we went to school. you know, they don't make a ton of money. they go in it mostly for a career and spend their lives in law enforcement and learn how to use a gun and protect they will ever themselves. they know it's a dangerous job and to go out and trash that institution as he's doing, the whole justice system it seems like he's after, anybody that says he's done something wrong in his characterization is evil. >> he's going after nearly every

single institution which upholds what we think of as republican government, small r or liberal. >> i know what you mean. >> or liberal democracy. abraham lincoln gave a speech in 1838 which repays reading these days in which he predicts there will be two kinds of leaders that america might have in its future, those who try to build it up and those who much more dangerously try to tear institutions down. of course, he was thinking about the civil war that was looming a couple of decades later, but i think the truth of lincoln's observation holds with donald trump today. i mean, you have someone who not as a neurosis but as a self-conscious strategy has set himself toward destroying all of the institutions that can hold him factually and morally to account. so it's not a surprise that the targets of as a animus are the justice department and those of nuts news media who by the way

also love this country. >> when you ask yourself what does he love more, himself or the country, we're getting a answer. susan, you interviewed the former director of the national intelligence james clapper for the dianne reams podcast "on my mind." during that interview, you asked him how this investigation that our institutions were in jeopardy. and i do now. >> this feels like a perilous time to you? >> it does. it feels very different than you know the obvious historical parallel of watergate. >> susan, what do you make of that? >> well, i think there are a lot of people who feel -- who both make the comparison with

watergate but also feel there's something dangerous going on now because it's our system of trust in big institutions in these fundamental institutions and their checks and balances that have sustained our democracy. it means if the president goes offtrack, the congress provides oversight. if congress goes offtrack, the courts can call them in. if there's misbehavior that the government won't expose, the news media will. it is a system that has served us pretty well and that when there are attacks on the system especially by the president of the united states, it does seem like a very serious thing. whether you agree with him on policy or not, in terms of sustaining, you think for instance about the 2000 election decided by a 5-4 supreme court decision, americans accepted that decision even if they had voted for al gore by and large, there was some resentment but there was no talk of a coup or that we wouldn't accept president bush as our president

because americans fundamentally had faith in the supreme court as an institution in that instance. that's an important part of how we make things work. >> you know. >> go ahead. >> one of the things, one of of the reasons that as a conservative i've always opposed trump is that conservatives believe that ultimately culture determines the fate of politics, not the other way around. and what trump is really doing is trashing -- trashing our civic culture. there's no other way of describing it. one difference between watergate and the present is at least at the time of watergate, senior republicans howard baker, people like that were prepared to stand up for the constitution against richard nixon, against the leader of their party. that's just no longer the case today because i think trump has so corroded the currency of trust and of truth and basic

factualness, the republicans seem perfectly willing to go along with his alternative. >> well, said -- >> alternative universe. >> that leads to this, only the people on the way out the door like senator corker and charlie dent of pennsylvania and this fellow, jeff flake who is about to speak here in a big speech up at harvard law school today, he talkeded about trump has debased the presidency. he's another one of these lame duck guys now tree to speak a republican who tell us the truth. let's listen to him today. >> our presidency has been debased by a figure who seemingly has a bottomless appetite for destruction and division. and only a passing familiarity with how the constitution works and our article one branch after congress, the congress, that's me, is utterly supine in the face of the moral vandalism that flows from the white house daily. >> brett, what do you make of

the fact and susan it takes a retirement to get the truth out of these republicans at high levels? >> it's the most depressing fact about the republican party today. i mean, you've had and it's also sorry to see i'm very sorry to see people i had somewhat more faith in like lindsey graham seem to capitulate for a variety of reasons to the brandishments of the trump presidency. it says that among the many other things that trump has damaged is he's damaged the moral fiber of the republican party and there's going to have to be at some point in the future some different kind of conservative movement to represent people who don't want to cede either the constitution or the basic moral universe continuously trashed not just by the president but by his followers. >> susan, even mitch mcconnell has a love of the united states senate and as an institution. yet, they don't seem to want to defend the institutions in the face of trump.

>> well, it is now trump's republican party. you see that in the midterm elections where republican candidates are embracing president trump even those in some states where you might think that would be a perilous situation, you don't hear much criticism of president trump or his approach to things or policies from republicans who are on the ballot. and that is -- and maybe that's inevitable if somebody's elected president that his party takes on his characteristics. i think that was a surprise to some people because president trump was so outside the republican party at the time he won the election. it is now trump's gop. >> i wish mike pence would stand up and say what he believes. i don't think he believes a word of this stuff. thank you. the risky business of being one of president trump's press flacks. the white house communication team has its hands full speaking for trump and they're dumping their own credibility in order to get their job done for him.

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when the president so often says things that turn out not to be true, when the president and the white house show what appears to be a blatant disregard for the truth, how are the american people to trust or believe what is said here or what is said by the president? >> we give the very best information that we have at the

time. i do that every single day and will continue to do that every day. >> welcome back to "hardball." thomas jefferson once said that the whole art of government consists in the art of being honest. but that hasn't been the case in the trump white house as mark leave vitz writes notice week, trump places high value on his proxies and expects them to talk more or less as he does even if this might include advancing dubious claims and crossing certain lines of decorum. as a result the job carries significant rick for the spokesperson's own reputation. let's watch some of the performances from the president's press team, if you will, over the past year and a half. >> this was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration period, both in person and around the globe. >> you're saying it's a falsehood. they're giving sean spicer our press secretary gave alternative facts to that. >> the president himself is

always going to be the president. i think he's got some of the best political instincts in the world. i love the president and i'm very loyal to the president. the president has really good karma and the world turns back to him. he's a genuinely a wonderful human being. >> i'm joined by mark leave bowvich from the "new york times" magazine tan msnbc contributor. i don't know what to say here. just today, rudy giuliani's putting out the word there's different versions of reality of truth and that they have their own version. it sounds so much like kellyanne talking about alternative facts. is this what these flacks are engaged with selling an alternative universe? >> it's basically what it sort of comes down to. if you look at things like alternative facts and whatever rudy said and hope hicks' white lies and what sean spicer said on day two, they have tried to reorder reality around donald trump's whatever it is he's

doing. and look, i mean i think there's a pretty wide consensus among the american people that about 61% of people think he's less than truthful. for whatever reason though, many of them still support him. >> you wrote in a conversation with hogan gidley, he told you that "he wanted to speak on backgrounds. i shook my head. he appeared taken aback by my lack of accommodation. you told him we were on the record. why shouldn't we be. he was after all white house spokesman. this arrangement would seem self-explanatory except the relationship between spokespeople and journalists has come to assume anonymity as default. they frequent publish negative articles on the president. a recent west story on the white house and russian investigation was "based on interviews with 22 white house and justice officials. trump of con if i dans and attorneys connected to the probe

many of them spoke on the condition of anonymity. what's the style book on this at the times? if somebody's trashing the president inside, you don't quote them and if they say something that's flackery for the president, do you quote him. how does it work? >> well, it works. it's case by case. if someone is a spokesperson for the president and they're the subject i've story as hogan was in this case, i'm not going to give him anonymity. obviously, usingen named sources is an occupational hazard in our job. sometimes you need to. i do think in this case it's kind of special because one, you have trump, whenever we use anonymous sources, saying they don't exist, they're just making them up. on the other hand, you have his spokespeople immediately asking for anonymity. which one is it. i'm not very -- i was not very accommodating in general to that and i don't think -- this was not the kind of piece where i wanted to do that.

>> you're a thoughtful guy. how do you get in the heads of these people. they must be knowing they're trading away their raupgs reputations for a job. that's a hell of a price to pay for government checks. >> they all know. first of all, one term i shy away from and a lot of us tend to use, what a thankless job, what a happless job. this is not indentured servitude. they're there of their own volition. >> why do they do it. >> they justify it for their own reasons. many of them -- a lot of are getting more, he posh than they ever would and a lot of them will not get white house jobs in any other administration. there is that opportunity. there's not a long line of top tier republican operatives trying to work empty white house. trump is someone who has a pretty stringent loyalty code to who gets to work for him. it's not a big pool in either direction but i do think, look,

there is a short term benefit in that your, quote unquote, your brand is built but the long-term question is, what does this do to your reputation? who is going to hire you afterwards. are you going to look backing with regret or pride. >> mark, i was there a long time ago. it was 30 years ago but i worked for tip o'neill and i was his top guy but also his spokesman. i was always thinking about my character and reputation, always thinking what i was saying on the phone with reporters and whatever you was doing, i was thinking wait a minute, this is me doing this. this is like whatever you do, you're responsible for what you're doing. i mean, are you responsible personally. don't they know that, personally responsible for what they say. >> they are, but they're also in the thrall of a prospect of going on tv and there's a pretty good chance the guy in the oval office is watching you. there is no better way to win an approval from president trump than to go on tv and defend him as adamantly as you can even if

you might you know, you might say things you night not normally say. he will never be someone who reins you in and say maybe you went too far. if you do it, he's going to notice you. that's an occupational i guess benefit to them. the question is, how does that is look outside the building. >> mark, my friend, i recognized your style in this piece, how you used the people you interview, their words against them brilliantly. i have to say you took down a couple people in this piece which i'm familiar with. it's your job and you do it well. thank you. up next, are we finally seeing a real break through of female candidates? judging by last night's primaries an loan, it sure looks like it. that could make all the dins for the democrats this november because they've got a fighting female population of candidates who look like they're carrying the load of winning the control of the house of representatives and perhaps setting up an impeachment trial this november. you're watching "hardball." if you feel like you spend too much time in the bathroom with recurring constipation and belly pain

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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

georgia has a long story of being the first in a lot of ways. pushing civil rights, pushing women's rights. i look forward to helping change the face of leadership. i want young women, young men thinking about their futures right now to look at my campaign and know that they too can achieve whatever they want. >> welcome back to "hardball." that was stacey abram who's last night the primary to become the democratic nominee for governor of georgia. last night saw women candidates making inroads in a series of primaries across the south. abrams beat her opponent by more than 507b points becoming the first african-american woman nominate ford a major party for governor in any states. women saw victories in house races. in kentucky, amy manage grath, won an upset over the mayor of lexington. in texas, gina ortiz jones an

iraq war veteran won her runoff. oh so did attorney lizzy fletcher. eight women won primaries for u.s. house seats from pennsylvania, seven democrats and one republican. nbc news reports the total number of female house nominees is up to 72. with 62 of those being on the democratic side. that's a huge jump from previous years. as of last night's primaries more than 40%, that's two out of five of democratic nominees so far for the house are women compared to less than 10% for republicans. let's bring in the "hardball" roundtable, national political reporter for bloomberg politics, annie lynn ski, reporter for the boston globe and eugene scotts, with the "washington post." annie, do some cheerleading. go ahead. it is powerful and looks like it's a continuation of that first day after trump won the election with women in the streets. >> yeah, it certainly does. there have been so many female candidates i've talked to who

said that they were inspired to run either on the day after the election when trump won or on january 20th on naug race day and the follow day in the women's march. you larry that as a reporter and think i wonder if they'll follow through and do it. what we saw last night and this season is that people really are. but i will say when you dig into the numbers there is one thing particularly interesting to me. you're seeing more and more women doing well and advancing executive level roles. women running for governor in various states. and the barbara lee foundation based in boston has done a lot of research on this topic and found that women tend to be elected to legislatures but they have a much, much harder time in executive roles. but you know, this year might be the year that that begins to change a little bit. >> let's see. suhil what do you know about that? i always tell people who is

going to win? look at who's running. the fact that women are running more means they have a better chance of winning. > there's a correlation between the type of person who thinks government doesn't listen and people who don't show up to vote. the reason i think we're seeing a flood of women candidates, women decided they'll break the cycle trying to inspire young voters to change the come bleks of american politics. that's what we heard in stacey abrams there. 18 out of the house democratic candidates of the 36 overall are women. this is going to be a huge test of whether they can succeed here. they're doing well in primaries there's a lot of them. whether they do well in the general election will determine whether there's a blue wave or whether republicans hold the house and senate and feel validated in everything they've done. it's going to come down to black women, the kind to don't show up. they have to show up to make a

difference. >> what do you make of abramss chances? >> this is georgia. they haven't had a democratic governor since 1998. we have seen her get support from pockets of the state that people didn't she could. a lot of white voters voted for her. she did really well in the appalachian area closer to tennessee. people are drawn to her message. she will be the first black woman to be governor if she wins but the policy idea she's putting out in terms of economic revitalization to the state and trying to improve the public school system are people even outside of what's called the obama coalitions are drawn to. >> that sounds great. everybody on this one, trump's attacks on the fbi and the justice department have fueled outrage. senator mark warner for example, the ranking member of the senate intelligence committee accused the president, that's trump of smearing federal law enforcement to undermine an ongoing criminal investigation into his campaign. saying this is a threat to the

rule of law. that's mark warner of virginia. u.s. congressman joaquin castro called it a serious abuse of power by the president. and james comey the attacks on the fbi and lying about its work will do lasting damage to our country. how will republicans, plain there to their grandchildren. you first, annie, then the others. >> first of all, what to look for is republican response. i mean, dras are outraged, outraged by what trump says. but he so far has not touch odd the investigation. and when i talked to my republican sources, that's where they start to get really nervous. that's where you see a little bit of movement and legislation to protect the special counsel. so i think trump seems to up the rhetoric because there's been no consequence for doing so whp when he starts to move towards making some kind of changing in that investigation, i think that's where he starts getting calls from top republicans.

>> charlie baker, the governor in massachusetts, when is he going to say something? up next these people tell me something i don't know. be right back. on kittens ♪ ♪ bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens ♪ ♪ brown paper packages tied up with strings ♪ ♪ these are a few of my favorite things ♪ ♪ ♪ but prevagen helps your brain mwith an ingredient♪ originally discovered... in jellyfish. in clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve short-term memory. prevagen. the name to remember.

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we're back with the "hardball" roundtable. sahil, tell me something i don't know. >> a new government report finds by 2019, 3 million americore mi americans willen uninsured. reasons why are the repeal of the half lech mandate and the tax law and president trump's decision to cut off reinsurance payments to companies that take sicker companies. democrats call this sabotage. voters are very attuned to health care costs right now. >> annie. >> chris, jared kushner's harvard class of '03 is

gathering this weekend. kushner will not be there. but the harvard students have used their class notes to make sure he will be discussed and some of them have just sent in comments about their feelings about him. one of the them, the theme is shame on you, jared kushner. another one of them said i for one am actually glad that our class of '03 finally has a real-life fascist among us. who says harvard is not diverse. >> eugene? >> the nfl is being criticized significantly for implementing a policy making it illegal or banning should i say for players to go down on a knee to protest racism and police brutality. but christopher johnson, the co-owner of the new york jets is receiving quite a bit of positive attention for saying if his athletes do go out and take a knee, he will incur the fine himself. >> that's news. >> thank you. we'll be right back.

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giuliani. trump watch wednesday, may 23rd, 2018. until watching him on the white house lawn today, i wasn't sure how far donald trump would go in destroying this country's most precious assets in order to protect himself from justice. today we heard and saw it. listen to him today, listen to him standing there with the white house behind him saying what he knows to be on the same level of nonsense as his birther bs. listen to the president of the

united states continue to trash the very institutions that made this a special country. a country of, by and for the people, a government of by and for the people. a history of generally respectful political debate. a free press. it's clear especially today with his out of right field talk of some sort of political spy ring, his personal assaults on a former fbi director, trump is proving his readiness to destroy any faith in government integrity in order to save some reasonable doubt among some about his. it's been clear from his entrance into the political arena trump is willing to state what he knows is not the truth in order to advance himself. does anyone believe that donald trump ever believed that barack obama's mother, a white woman in kansas, went over to africa to deliver a child, name that child barack hussein obama in order to lie about his birth 35 years later when he became constitutionally qualified for the american presidency? no. he didn't believe that. but he did believe that selling

that conspiracy would get him headed to the white house which is to this country's shame, it did. does anyone believe that donald trump now that he's in the white house wants the country to know the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? on this matter of real national security, donald trump cannot stand the truth. and that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. all in with chris hayes starts right now. >> tonight on all-in. >> i'm obviously very loyal and very dedicated to mr. trump. >> another michael cohen stunner. >> keeping jobs in america, putting america first. >> tonight, even more evidence the trump inner circle is selling american foreign policy to the highest bidder. then. >> a lot of bad things have happened into new polling shows the trump attack on the rule you have law is working. and new concerns democrats are losing the political fight over the russia scandal. plus, my interviews with the first black woman nominated to be her