>> vladimir, i'm sorry but i didn't know you were coming. so i do not have a gift for you. >> please, mr. trump, you are the gift. >> and alec baldwin has been a gift for many during these times. we'll see what he ultimately decides. i'll be back monday night 6:00 p.m. eastern. we have a special on the mueller probe. "hardball" starts right now. the world according to trump. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm steve kornacki in for chris matthews. it's been less than 24 hours since president trump canceled distate with kim jong-un. once again ratcheting up tensions on the world stage. despite that though, president trump today declared america is back. and finally getting the respect it deserves.

trump making that statement during a speech at the naval academy earlier today. >> for we are witnessing the great reawakening of the american spirit and of american might. we have rediscovered our identity, regained our stride, and we're proud again. our country has regained the respect that we used to have long ago abroad. yes, they're respecting us again. yes, america is back. >> earlier this morning, president trump said the north korean summit might be back on. he told reporters the u.s. was still talking to north korea and that when it comes to negotiations "everybody plays games." >> mr. president, is the summit

still on? >> we're requesting to see what happens. we're talking to them now. it was a very nice statement they put out. we'll see what happens. >> the possibility at all or is that. >> no, no, we'll see what happens. it could even be the 12th. we're talking to them now. they very much want to do it. we're going to see what happens. everybody plays games. you know that. >> nbc news reported that trump canceled the summit fearing that the north koreans might beat him to the punch and he wanted to be the one to cancel first according to multiple officials. there were significant disagreements among the president's top advisers especially secretary of state mike pompeo and national security adviser john bolton. one official said the process was "like herding cats." despite the continues public optimism, "the new york times" reporting white house officials remain skeptical because as one official said, june 12th is in ten minutes. trump described himself as a

dealmaker on the campaign trail and frequently touted his negotiating skills. >> i will bring america to a flu level. i will negotiate deals nobody can negotiate like do i. i know everybody that i'm running against. nobody will be able to do the kind of things i can do. >> it's supposed to be you get along with congress and cajole and everybody gets in a room and we end up with deals. >> you're supposed to gather people around and make great deals. i want to make great deals from my side of the equation. otherwise, you'll have a stagnant country like you do right now. have you no negotiation. washington is in total gridlock. >> as the new yorker's susan glasser points out, deal making has proven challenging for the president "there are no deals with trump and increasingly unlikely to be not on nafta, middle east peace or obamacare or infrastructure. trump is a much better deal breaker than dealmaker." for more, i'm joined by nicholas kristof, jonathan lemire from the "associated press" and

analyst and sue me terry former director for korea, japan at the national security council. jonathan, let me start with you. what is going on inside the white house to precipitate the cancellation and how active are the talks now in terms of getting this back on the schedule potentially? >> this is something that the president has really wanted despite some of his closest advisers urging caution 0 go ahead with this deal, even some suggesting by just agreeing to the summit in the first place, you've given kim jong-un an air of legitimacy he didn't have. they made efforts in recent days to make this thing happen in singapore in the middle of june. north korea suddenly disengaged in a lot of the talks setting off alarm bells in the white house and state department how seriously north korea was taking the possibility of the summit and would they be willing to give away what the president wants them to do. you heard today a little bit more optimistic from the president and from those around the white house. this is something he still

wants. he sees this as not just something important for global safety but also as a real win for him. the idea that not just account know be peace prize, but the idea of accomplishing something that no american president has been able to do, to bring peace to the korean peninsula something he thinks would bolster his poll numbers and perhaps inknock calculate him from some of these investigations surrounding him and perhaps have a trickle down effect to republicans in the midterm. the idea of can you vote against this president and his party if he's brought peace to korea that no one else has been able to do. >> we'll talk about this later at the board. to look at trump's poll numbers on this question of north korea, nick kristof, in terms of the possibility this is still something the president very much wants to make happen, that line he had there today saying everybody plays games, do you see any strategy behind it the abrupt cancellation that would

give trump the administration and trump more leverage in terms of picking things up now? >> no it antagonized north korea and our asian allies. and it seems to have been based, as well at least according to nbc, on a complete misunderstanding of north korea's position and the assumption that north korea was about to back out of the deal, which is preposterous. just as earlier president trump seemed to enter the idea of the singapore talks on a complete delusion that north korea was about to completely hand over all its nuclear weapons, which likewise was prepo pos terrous. so you know, i've been covering north korea, i've been visiting north korea since the 1980s. this is a moment of tremendous opportunity and risk and it is so maddening to see this being mismanaged with this combination of ineptitude and ignorance and kind of obliviousness.

>> sumi terry, what's your expectation as you watch everything being discussed here, everything playing out in the united states, in north korea? do you think there still will be a summit? could it be on that june date? will there be no summit at all? what's your expectation? >> i expect summit to take place. maybe timeline could slip a little bit. nick was absolutely correct. i think trump administration nis understood north korea. north koreaing had no intention of canceling the summit. the two previous statements they produced, they were to protest all this talk about libya and all this. they didn't mean to cancel the meeting. when you look at the last statement they produced seven hours after trump canceled the meeting, it was very con silltory. i have never seen a north korean statement personally praising trump saying he's a bold decisionmaker and so on. i think north korea is very much

into having this meeting with trump and summit will take place because president trump also wants it. >> there was significant disagreement within the administration what to do about north korea. one person close to trump said the president was unhappy with vice president pence's public remarks appearing to threaten regime changing in north korea. according to several administration officials, secretary of state mike pompeo who was taking the lead why in negotiating with the north koreans blamed bolton for torpedoing the progress already made. bolton has a long history of calling for regime change in north korea. >> i think this is potentially a meeting that begins and ends with the president saying tell me what you're going to doing to denuclearize and kim jong-un saying we'll have talks about this and talks about that. it could be a long and unproductive meeting or it could be a short and unproductive meeting. north korea has a playbook of phrases that they use depending on what their propaganda strategy is.

i think their history over decades is that they like iran, like others use negotiations to buy time to conceal their nuclear weapons and ballistic missile activities. >> are there any diplomatic options left in your view? >> i think the only diplomatic option left is to end the regime in north korea. >> john, you see, this as a priority of the president, something he cares about. do you have a sense who has his ear? we're showing bolton, pompeo. is there a sense within the administration whose view he is most sensitive to? >> that changes minute by minute particularly with advisers in and outside of favor. it is a truism within the administration he tends to listen to the newer voices in the room. pompeo and bolton are relatively new to the administration. pompeo has made two trips to north korea in order to grease the wheels for the summit and urging the president to move forward cautiously but believes

it should happen. bolton has sort of suggested he will go along with what the president said but he has advised against it and thinks that kim is not to be trusted and that regime change would be the best course of action here. within the white house, just in the last few hours, they have said there's a team of staffers supposed to to singapore to work on the logistics of the summit. as of now, they're still planning to go. that doesn't mean it's going to happen or happen on june 12th but it's an indication they haven't given up on the possibility of these talks. >> it's interesting too, nick, when you talk about bolton saying regime change, bolton talking about making another libya out of north korea. libya where gadhafi gave up the weapons and a decade later he's taken from power and killed. it raises the bigger question about any potential negotiations here, how there could be a middle ground if the goal from

the u.s. is denuclearrization and a north korean regime saying look what happened top gadhafi. >> there are people in the administration and a lot of korea watchers who there can envision a process and it involves reaching some kind of a general statement and then north korea blows up some icbms, it freezes production of nuclear materials. it stops nuclear missile test and then over time sanctions. and the main thing is we're not shooting missiles at each other but it's better than where we are now. but the problem is john bolton is dead set against that and you know, look, at the end of the day, bolton has a perfect record of getting things wrong over the last 20 years on iraq, on iran, on north korea. in the case of north korea in 2002, he helped kill the agreed framework which had halted north

korean production of nuclear materials and he seems to have, my reading of this is that he killed this pompeo outreach possibly by misleading the president what north korea was going to do and likewise, in 2003, 2004, he killed an earlier european deal with iran and now earlier this month, he helped kill the latest iran deal. so i think that john bolton is -- he's hit the trifecta of getting every major thing wrong. now he's indeed doing it again. >> sumi, from the north korean perspective, do you have a sense what the north korean regime's read is on trump? do they think they know how he's approaching this, why, what his game is here? >> well, it's hard for any of us to have figured it out. i'm not sure if north koreans have figured it out. certainly the last statement

released by north korea personally praising trump shows me they learned a few lessons how to deal with trump. i think trump canceling the summit did kind of surprise the north koreans because they're not used to u.s. president acting this way. they did get away with all this kind of antics before. i think that did kind of surprise the north koreans. they're still trying to figure out how trump works like the rest of us. >> we also -- we have breaking news here. it's not on this topic but on the topic of trump and the russia investigation. one of our guests has broken this news. jonathan lemire on set breaking the news rudy giuliani telling him trump's legal team wants a briefing on the classified information shared with law maeshs and may take it to the justice department as part of an effort to scuttle the probe. giuliani telling the a.p. if the spying was inappropriate we may

have an entirely illegitimate investigation telling thissing to john lemire. >> that's right. i spoke to the former mayor a couple hours ago. he says that the white house, these two meetings unprecedented meetings yesterday in which the classified informants or in the president's parlance a spy who had contacts with the trump campaign to determine their relationship with any russian officials, they want a similar briefing or some sort of readout that the lawmakers got yesterday. and that has raised concerns that that would give them information that perhaps would impact the president who is if not a target certainly the subject of this probe but what giuliani told me is they want to take the information and if they deem it damaging, deem that it was collected inappropriately, they would take this to the justice department and make it part of their case why this probe shouldn't be here, that it was founded on illet means founded on information from this spy in their terminology that

they think shouldn't have had access and jim comey's memos which they believe were illegally leaked and they would making that case, probably deputy attorney general rod rosenstein that maybe this be probe should be halted in its tracks. >> news reported by jonathan lemire. thank you for joining us. nicholas kristof and sue mi terry, as well. coming up, a milestone moment in the me, too movement as harvey weinstein is handcuffed, arrested and charged with wrap. scores of women accused him of sexual misconduct accusations that triggers a global campaign. plus, more and more states are teaming up to department of electoral college when it comes to picking a president. is there anything to the talk that the blue wave some democrats have been talking about this fall is maybe receding. i'll break down what we know and

maybe what we don't know. and new developments in the russia investigation which continues despite president trump's esattempt to distract from it. this is "hardball" where the action is. a bachelor. and that's how he intended to keep it. from it. this is "hardball" where the action is. attempt to distract from it. this is "hardball" where the action is. attempt to distract fm it. this is "hardball" where the action is. for this new stepdad, it's promising to care for his daughter as if she's his own. every way we look out for those we love is an act of mutuality. we can help with the financial ones. learn more or find an advisor at massmutual.com

there is yet another eyebrow raising report about president trump's embattled epa administrator scott pruitt. according to intending summaries released by the epa, taxpayers spend about $3.5 million on security for him during his first year in office. politico reports the figure is more than twice what pruitt's predecessor spent in the final year of the obama administration. the epa maintains the increased security is needed given what they say have been an increase in threats made against pruitt. be right back. this car is literally my baby.

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in a watershed moment for the me, too movement, disgraced producer harvey weinstein was

arraigned today on sexual assault charges. this comes months after a slew of allegations of misconduct brought down his career and sparked a national reckoning on sexual misconduct. he was arrested, handcuffed and arraigned in new york on allegations from two different women. he faces first degree rape, third degree braip and commission of a criminal sexual act. he has consistently denied engaging in any nonconsensual sex. his attorney spoke to reporters and said his client plans to plead not guilty. >> my job is not to defend behavior. my job is to defend something that is criminal behavior. bad behavior mr. weinstein did not invent the casting couch in hollywood. to the extent that there is bad behavior in that industry, that is not what this is about. bad behavior is not on trial in this case. it's only if you intentionally

committed a criminal act and mr. weinstein vigorously denies that. >> he is now free after posting is million in bail, surrendering his passport and agreeing to wear an electronic monitor. at least 95 women accused him of misconduct ranging from harassment top rape over 40 years. rose magowan had this message for him today. >> no more tears. not because of you. not anymore. today, today rerejoice. tomorrow will be hard again. but today we can have a moment for all of us. this is for all of us who have been told we are nothing. >> and for more i'm joined by legal analyst katie phang and michelle goldberg from the "new york times." katie, 95 different stories that have emerged publicly here about weinstein. let's be clear, what is it

exactly he's been charged with here? which ones do they think they've got him on and what's the penalty he's looking at if he's convicted here? >> so there's one criminal indictment brought by the grand jury against weinstein for two separate victims. for one victim, there are two counts. one first degree charge of rape, one-third degree charge of rape and for the second victim, it's the forcible compulsion oral sex charge being brought against weinstein. for he for any of the first degree charges which is the last one we discussed it's anywhere from 5 to 25 years from prison. the third remaining charge was that rape in the third degree. that's punishable by probation. for a man who is 66 years old 5, to 25 years in prison is a lot. and the victims in this case are going to be challenged to be able to convince a jury if it makes it that far that the conduct that was committed by harvey weinstein was nonconsensu nonconsensual. he has basically teed up for the prosecution in this case the

fact that yeah, the contact may have happened but according to him, it was purely consensual. >> if it makes it that far. do you think there's a decent probability of some kind of plea or agreement here? >> well, it's kind of a two-prong answer for you. one, we know benjamin bronfman announced he plans to vigorously defend weinstein including a motion to dismiss quickly. the legal grounds will challenge whether the prosecution has alleged enough in terms of the elements of the cause of action that are being brought against harvey weinstein. there's always the possibility for a plea. today is not the first time we've seen a criminal defense attorney vigorously say on the courthouse steps that their client is innocent and they'll fight the charges. harvey weinstein can always take a plea. anythinging from cyrus vance's office is going to include jailtime and whether harvey weinstein could stand that, from what we hear he couldn't get comfortable in the jail cell account few hours he was there. i don't think he's going to be

taking a plea anytime soon. >> katie talks about what may be the defense. sounded like the defense here from weinstein's side, that comment from his lawyer he's not the first -- not the guy who invented the casting couch. what was was your reaction? >> he didn't invent rape either. i think the idea is to say this was an accepted part of the exchange in hollywood. and so how can you punish someone who naught he was entitled to behave liking there? obviously, what they're going to try to do then is smear these women as saying these women were kind of knew what they were getting into or sort of understood the bargain that they were making. and i think we have 95 women who testify not just to coercion, not just to him sort of offering a quid pro quo, but to him destroying those who don't go along with him, right? when he's not actually physically forcing himself on them. so i think they're going to try to take something that's

extremely grave and make it seem as if these women kind of knew what they were doing and now regret it. >> the fact that he's being charged with this i keep thinking back to the -- probably an inept parallel but the financial crisis and that refrain afterwards that flun of the executives faced a trial. you've got somebody from this me, too movement that's erupted, you've got somebody noud who is facing a potential trial, facing a potential criminal penalty and potential prison. what is the broader significance of that? is there one? into on the one hand, it's enormous vindication for rose mcgowan and all the women that have come forward finally that the law is starting to take these things seriously. there's something melancholy that this is what it takes, 95 women, two pulitzer prize winning investigations to bring charges against a man this powerful. big cosby it took over 60 women as well as two trials before he had to answer for what are

pretty clearly established crimes. and so again, you know, about three months, not even a few months after the me, too movement began, you heard people saying has this gone too far and turning into a witch hunt. harvey weinstein might have been trying to allude to a witch lunt with his biography of illya kazan he brought with him to the courthouse. this underlines what it takes to get justice for women victimized by powerful men. >> thanks to you both for joining us. it is a movement that could changing this country's presidential elections. states across the nation looking to side step the electoral college, instead choose the president by popular vote. chris matthews will join cuss after the break which an look at that. this is "hardball" where the action is. hought much of it at all. people said it just made a mess until exxonmobil scientists put it to the test.

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remember, we wouldn't election. and we won it easily. a lot of people say oh, it was close. and by the way, they also like to always talk about electoral college. it's an election based on the electoral college. i would rather have a popular election. it's a totally different campaign. it says though you're running, if you're a runner, you're practicing for the 100 yard dash as opposed to the one mile. the electoral college is different. i would rather have the popular vote because it's to me, it's much easier to win the popular

vote. >> welcome back to "hardball." that was president trump saying he would rather have the popular vote decide presidential elections instead of the electoral vote even though hillary clinton won the popular vote in 2016 by almost 3 million votes. earlier this month, connecticut voted to become the 12th state including d.c. to join the national popular vote interstate cop packet which would require state electors to vote for the candidate who wins the national popular vote instead of the electoral college system where they're assigned based on how the state votes. this system would only go into effect if states representing 270 electoral votes the threshold candidates currently need to win sign onto the popular vote compact. with connecticut's seven expected electoral votes, they currently have 172 votes. i'm joined by james glassman, a board member of the making every vote count foundation and former undersecretary of state in the george w. bush administration. thank you for coming on.

give us a sense -- i've explained the basic structure that the popular vote would rule. tell us why -- why you got into this. you're a republican. why did you get into this? >> i think americans are disengaged and disillusioned with their political system. that's not good for democracy. and most of them, that's what polls show, want a system where the person who gets the most popular votes becomes president. that's how we elect everybody else. that's what americans want. and it's not actually all that hard to get there. so that's how i got interested in it. what frankly i did not know that at the point i got interested in it, 11 states had already passed this compact. i got involved in connecticut and connecticut's an interesting state because it's the senate is evenly divide between republicans and democrat abc yet, we won in the senate by 21-14. we're moving ahead and there is going to happy think.

>> tell me about the psychology. how you think knowing that every vote counts say if you live in a state like -- i don't think i've lived in a state where my vote counted. maryland tends to go democrat. when i voted as a kid, that's a pretty close pennsylvania. but this would make every vote count no matter where you lived. >> that's the main point. there are really -- presidential elections and you know this are decided by about a dozen states. so one of the reasons why you've lived in states where your vote doesn't count is three-quarters of americans live in such states. and connecticut is a good example. nobody campaigns in connecticut. in the 2016 election, $330 got spent on presidential advertising. so people are left out. what we want and what most americans wants is a system where everybody's vote counts and counts the same that's what would happen if we had a popular vote deciding who is the president. >> suppose you get enough states

for 270 electoral votes, enough to win an election in the electoral college. what do states like montana, north dakota, the little states that benefit from the electoral college, what would they do? their candidate may lose that election in the popular vote. >>ingly enough, a lot of people believe that the original system was to protect small states but that actually is not working out. in fact, the 12 states where the election is decided do not include a single small state other than new hampshire which is not a three electoral vote state, it's a four. there are seven states that have only three electoral votes and not a single one is among the states where the votes are contested. that's really not -- that's really not an issue. this is a means to get to an end, this compact. the end is, that everybody's vote counts exactly the same. >> what would stop -- if we go with this system, if it comes into play with 270 electoral

votes shifting to this compact, wouldn't the candidate spend most of their time in highly populated areas like new york and california and anmaybe connecticut? isn't that why the little states are afraid? the candidates wouldn't go there? >> i don't think we know what what would happen if everyone's vote counted the same. my guess is candidates would campaign much broadly. look at california. california elects its governor. there are 35 million people who live in california. it's almost like a small country. and yet, candidates for governor campaign all over the state. the three largest cities in california only have a population of 6 million out of the 35 million. so i think that would happen all over the country. you know, don't forget richard nixon campaigned in every state. maybe that was a mistake for him. but the idea of campaigning all over the country is not a weird idea. what's weird is that we -- that

candidates only campaign in 12 states. >> yeah, and that's not a good system. thank you so much, james glassman with the making of every vote count foundation. steve? >> all right. thanks for that, chris. up next, is that democratic blue wave starting to recede? or are democrats poised to take the house this snow? i'm going to go over to the big board. we've got a lot of numbers to break down and a lot to talk about. you're watching "hardball." as one of the nation's largest investors in infrastructure, we don't just help power the american dream,

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they don't only teach me about what we learn inside the classroom. they teach me about life. the janitor is really friendly. he asks how's my day, and he tells me how his day was. my own teachers inspired me to become a teacher. they always pushed me to do better. they never give up on me. they're extraordinary! narrator: exactly why the california teachers association believes strong public schools make a better california for all of us. welcome back to "hardball." we've got to talk about the midterm elections, because something big might be happening right now. or maybe it isn't. let's go to the big board to show you what i mean. so this is something we've been tracking, obviously who is following the elections has been tracking throughout the trump presidency. the generic ballot, call people up, you ask them, do you want to vote for the democrats or republicans for congress. at the end of last year,

democrats built a double digit advantage on this question. they just won the special election in alabama up 13 points on average at the end of the year in the generic ballot. guess what's happened recently? that thing has been closing in and now if you average them together, the margin is four points. talk to republicans trying to hold onto the house and keep democrats from getting 23 seats they say they can do that if it's four points. if it's 13 forget about it. if it's four, republicans think they can do it. donald trump's an pravl rating has been low. but there's a question of how low will it be? there's a certain point where it might not cost republicans the house. it was 37% at the end of last year in the 30s for a lot of 2017. into 2018. it has begun to tick up. 44% we're not talking reagan in 1984 here. by trump standards, 44% is pretty much as good as it's been for him since he's been

president. what is happening? for republicans in the generic ballot, uptick for trump in his approval rating and maybe rosier prospects for the midterms? maybe it's the economy. a recent poll on trump's handling of the economy, the key it's up almost ten points from earlier in the year over 50%, over majority approval. on the economy. is it simply that rising tide lifts the president's boat? is that going on? that's possible. how about north korea. the summit is off. let's see what happens. recent poll here trump's approval on north korea, his handling of it, 53%. that's up almost 20 points from late last year. maybe he's been getting some credit for at least till this week till the last 24 hours or so how north korea had been going. maybe that's driving it. maybe it's the attention paid to the stormy daniels to the whole sex scandal. the scandal with bill clinton helped him in 1998. it's may. how much does all of this mean? how temporary is all of this?

think back to the last major giant wave election in a midterm. 2010. at this point in 2010, if you look at the generic bashlths democrats were ahead. this week in 2010, democrats were talking about how all that talk about a republican tsunami in the 2010 midterms maybe it wasn't all it was cracked up to be. democrats won a special election this week in 2010, they led the generic ballot and we know what happened in the november 2010 elections. republicans gained 63 seats and were leading in the generic ballot by that point. it's a long way of saying there are some indications that are giving republicans reason for hope. democrats reasons for worry. we want to see if those things continue or if as we've seen before they prove to be very temporary springtime blips. i think everybody looking to head to november to see what happens. new developments today in the russia investigation. new evidence keeps emerging in the mueller investigation

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campaign was spied on. >> all you have to do is look at the basics and you'll see. it looks like a very serious event. we'll find out. when they look at the documents, i think people are going to see a lot of bad things happen. 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. >> welcome back to "hardball." president trump has spent the week accusing the intelligence community spying on his campaign. he continued that distraction campaign this morning with a tweet storm writing can anyone even imagine having spies placed in a competing campaign by the people and party in absolute power for the sole purpose of political advantage and gain and to think that the party in question even with the expenditure of far more money lost. >> as we mentioned earlier, trump defense lawyer rudy

giuliani telling it the "associated press" trump's legal team wants a briefing on classified information shared with lawmakers and may take it to the justice department as part of an effort to scuttle the ongoing special counsel probe. the west fact checker has given trump's spy claim four pinocchios pointing out in theirtive is part of a fog machine it the president has deployed for months against the probe. tonight's roundtable, mara guy at "the new york times," jan kerns, the former spokeswoman for the california party and phillip bump from the "washington post." mara, what do you make of donald trump came out and said this is simple, anybody can look at the basics and they'll see this is one of the worst scandals in american history. how does that read to folks, do you think? >> i think that's an open question. i mean, you were just looking at midterm, we were talking about the midterms and what will happen there. there's a big question how this plays with independents, how this plays with moderates and

how this plays, how much this moat have as democrats to get out and vote. we know this is something that his base enjoys. we know his base pretty much will follow him anywhere. and so i think the question isn't you know, will his base stay with him. the question is, will a middle hold. and how energized are democrats going to be. and certainly that's an open question but when democrats hear this they're not just democrats but when people living in mental space where they have actually seen reality of what's been going on in this country and that administration, they see this as upside down day. this is a president who has gone out of his way to slander the justice department, congress did, completely has no disregard for the separation of powers and he's trying to discredit the investigation before the results are even in. and i think that's extremely dangerous. >> yeah, jen, what we know, at least what's been reported, i

put it that way, is that there was no spy in the campaign. there was nobody within the campaign, there was no mole, there was no plant in the campaign. so it certainly sounds like to read those tweets to listen to what the president just said there that he's taking some liberties here to turn this into almost a siege mentality moment for -- is that a fair way of what he's doing strategically here? >> i don't know what you would call it if you have someone september by the intelligence community and by the opposition party that has you the her control of the white house and the intelligence community heads to put a person like that inside a political campaign. i mean this really is worse than watergate. >> let's separate inside the campaign, the reporting that i'm seeing, tell me if you've seen something i haven't, there was nobody inside the campaign here. >> there was someone who was sent, was having meetings with folks and will he been sent by the intelligence community to look into the russia connections but i'll tell you this.

i do think things are upside down but for a different reason. i think when you're president trump, you're looking at this and saying there's a reason the saying exists. you're not paranoid if they're following you. we know now there was a spy in the campaign. >> there was nobody -- you said in the campaign there again. we're not talking about somebody inside the campaign based on the reporting out there. also, the suggestion there that if the intelligence community is doing it, therefore the party in power is doing it. is that a dangerous connection to make? that means anything -- you're basically saying anything the intelligence community does at any point is inherently political and the work of the party in power? >> what we know is the obama administration was unmasking people, samantha power doing that 400 times to people in trump tower who were private citizens working on a campaign. we know this person, the word has been report infiltrated the campaign so whether you want to parse the word and say he was outside the campaign, he was a

campaign staffer, he was sent there by the obama administration. >> again, you said infiltrated. >> uh-huh. >> and by the obama administration. not the intelligence community. phillip, let me ask you about this. >> right. >> my understanding from the reports we've seen is yes, this was a person who had a meeting with, who, saw the out a meeting but was not inside the campaign. >> that's right. >> saw the out the meeting looks like under some false pretenses there here. i think there is a question whether this is normal operating procedure for the fbi especially with a political campaign, but infiltrate in the obama administration, that claim. >> so let's take a quick step back. those claims are both invalid. there's a mini fog machine going on in right here. if you look at what happened, we know, for example, that the fbi first had carter page on the radar in 2013 when a russian said this might be a guy we

could get to work for us. the fbi talked to him well before he spoke with the confidential informant. the investigation into what happened triggered by george papadopoulos having said hey, i've heard the russians have e-mails that started at the end of the july. and the confidential spoke with page and papadopoulos, two people who the administration was aggressive about saying why totally distant from the core of the campaign a year ago. now they're saying this is a real risk. we know this confidential inform cannot only spoke with them well after each of them came to the attention of the fbi. there's no indication that this was somehow the nexus, it the origination of the investigation was this informant talking to those folks. there's no indication of that whatsoever. i spoke with a retired fbi agent who is not complimentary to james comey and the fbi be at this point in time but he made clear that distinction. if you have an informant talking to someone, that's what you do.

if they had sent someone in the campaign, got an employee in there, that is a whole different subject. that is not what happened. there is no one in the campaign. it's pure semantics and political rhetoric to say there was. >> the roundtable is staying with us. these three will tell me something i don't know next. if you feel like you spend too much time in the bathroom with recurring constipation and belly pain talk to your doctor and say yesss! to linzess. ♪ yesss! linzess treats adults

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and we're back with the "hardball" roundtable. mara, tell me something snin my

colleague rosie goldenson came out with this piece today which is about the criminaliation of the open roid epidemic. what she denvered after many months of reporting is essentially that prosecutors across the country have begun to pursue charges or prosecute friends and family members or even an quantitiences of those who overdoses and died from the overdose. those who were nearby them. so kind of in the search to look for someone to blame, prosecutors that's what they do, they prosecute. there's a concern that that could actually lead to harm because this has been treated so far overwhelmingly as a public health crisis. so whereas actually we saw that this went down the wrong path when we criminalized people who were addicted to crack cocaine. we don't want there to happen and i think it's a great story. >> jen. >> the state of california could soon see a republican governor as crazy as that sounds. a little known guy by the name of john cox full disclosure is a

client of mine, i do work for him, but i've been a big fan is making a run for it and has taken a big gamble that the sanctuary state showdown will be a winning issue. he looks to come in second to gavin newsom next week. he's got newsome running scared. gavin who is normally has no shortage of words has been refusing to debate this guy. it will be a very interesting story if this turns into a battle between jerry brown, donald trump but also the republican and democrat out there. >> tough state. pete wilson, schwarzenegger was the last. >> pew research center did a fascinating study that asked americans if they thought there was a responsibility the united states had to accept refugees. of all the groups they surveyed by races, gender, religion, no group was less likely to say that the united states had such a responsibility that white evangelical protestants. only 26% of republicans said the

united states had the responsibility. only 25% of evangelicals said the saming. > mara interest, phillip, thank you for joining us. chris matthews will be right back here monday night 7:00 eastern. "all in with chris hayes" starts right now. >> good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. tonight, new evidence of contact between trump world and russia that the trump folks did not want you to know about. now, you remember essential consultants the hush money slush fund that michael cohen set up to pay off stormy daniels and who knows who else, we learned earlier this month a bunch of companies funneled millions of dollars to cohen through essential consultants among them a firm called columbus nova. their biggest client is a kremlin linked russian billionaires named victor veksal berg, and a guy who has already been questioned by robert muelr'