i would also urge you to follow the instagram story on msnbc which i have been running from here on set today. for now that is it for me. thank you for watching. "deadline white house" with my friend nicolle wallace starts right now. >> hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. the silent treatment, chilly face to face encounters and verbal abuse. no, we are not talking about a bad soap opera break up. we're talking about the president's treatment of his attorney general jeff sessions after he recused himself in the russia investigation. today the president is awash in buyer's remorse over the selection of sessions, but a block buster report in "the new york times" is raising new questions about whether the president's treatment of his own a.g. could pose the greatest threat to the president in special counsel robert mueller's investigation into obstruction of justice. from that new reporting, kwoelt, the president objected to sessions' decision to recuse himself from the russia investigation. mr. trump who had told aides

that he needed a loyalist overseeing the inquiry berated mr. sessions and told him he should reverse his decision. in an unusual and inappropriate request. the confrontation which has previously not been reported is being investigated by the special counsel robert mueller as a are the president's public and private attacks on mr. sessions in efforts to get him to resign. the special counsel's interest demonstrates mr. sessions' overlooked role as a key witness in the investigation into whether mr. trump tried to obstruct the inquiry itself. it also suggests that the obstruction investigation is broader than it is widely understood to be, encompassing not only the president's interaction with and firing of former fbi director jim comey, but also his relationship with mr. sessions. joining us now, one of the reporters who broke that story, mike schmidt of "the new york times," also john heilman, nbc news and msnbc -- why do i always laugh? >> i don't know. he >> he's got a lot of titles.

>> it's not that many. i'm going to add some make it harder for you if you want. >> jonathan lemire. that's nice and short. whouts reporter. gene robinson and former deputy assistant attorney harold levitt. i'm starting with you, it's your reporting. the first thing i thought was everyone talks about how much peril the comey firing could present to the president in the obstruction inquiry. it strikes me after reading your story it's his abuse of jeff sessions, his anger after his rekudsal and iz efforts to unrecuse himself that could pose the most danger to the president. >> this sort of reporting was borne out of the 49 questions because if you look at them, so many of them are dedicated to sessions in things beyond comey. you sort of look at other matters or other things. and if you look at the questions, there's one about did the president try and get sessions to reverse himself on the recusal decision. and we knew that the recusal decision was something of interest to mueller, but when

you peel back and you look deeper, there is an event like this where the president is going to him and saying, look, you have recused yourself, but can you come back? can you come back and be in charge of the investigation? i give the president some creative points for, you know, coming up with such a novel idea that most lawyers would never, ever think of. >> but there were a lot of guardrails around the trump/sessions relationship. and they've all been before bob mueller so there are a lot of people who have told the special counsel this story. they have to include the white house counsel, white house chief of staff -- there are a lot of corroborating witnesses to what plainly -- >> there are also a lot of things that went on between them beyond this. there is what happened in the oval office the day that mueller was appointed in may. the president berating sessions, sessions offering to resign, leaving the white house, having to be dragged back in and forced not to resign to try and keep him around. the president holding onto his resignation letter for several days. then in july the president's

efforts to oust sessions to try and get sessions to resign. this is something that's gone on for a while. and the thing about trump is he has not hidden any of this. we sat with him in july and he said right out in the open, he said, look, i would not have made him my attorney general if i knew he was going to recuse himself. he does not hide on this issue at all. >> but that doesn't mean it doesn't represent a threat to him, right? >> correct. but sometimes the president can sort of be transparent about the things that he is afraid of -- >> transparently obstructing justice, yes? >> when the president says don't look at my finances, why is the president saying that? the president sometimes i think will take his anxieties and push them out into the things -- it can look obvious at times. >> but that's the president. what does rudy giuliani say on the fact pattern of sessions and the fact pattern? >> he says he shouldn't have to answer any of these questions. >> other people already have. rudy's theory seems to be put

the tooth paste back in the tube. >> these are privileged conversations. if he did this it would hurt presidents to come after him. he said even if it's true that the president did this with sessions, all he was trying to do -- he's not saying shutdown the investigation. he's just saying do your job. take hold of it. >> heilman, what do you think of the irony -- comey, i think there are websites dedicated to smearing and assassinating the character and integrity of jim comey. and the president has made a good run at sessions actually. he's attacked him from the rose garden. he's tweeted at him. he's got whatever her name is, jeannie -- i always get that wrong. >> judge jeannine. >> but not the kind of effort to discredit him that they put into discrediting comey. this strikes me as potentially far more dangerous. >> i think there are so many things -- this is a great piece. mike schmidt has broken a lot of stories over the years.

this piece when i saw it, there are six things that are interesting to me. i would say that one of them is -- and i know harry lit man will talk about this. we talked about it on television last niechlt. it's fascinating in the sense there is an argument in jim comey's firing the white house said he was fired for misconduct, he did various things wrong. there are democrats who think he did things wrong in 2016. rod rosenstein wrote the memo. you can make the case, president president can, jim comey was fired for some other reason than to stop the russia investigation even though he has said things to indicate the opposite. the way he was moving -- the way he moved on sessions, the way that he has talked about him publicly as mike says and also talked about him privately, the things we know from the reporting, he said to sessions, there is only one reason for him to have treated sessions this way, and that was because of the russia investigation. the reason i will say harry will talk about it, when we talk about obstruction of justice, a key element is corrupt intent. his moves on sessions, again, publicly and now we know privately, are way more damning in some ways because there's no counter argument.

there is not another argument you can make about why he was criticizing sessions. he's criticizing sessions because sessions did not exhibit proper loyalty and stay in the investigation despite department policy in order to protect trump from the russia investigation. where with comey you can makeup other arguments. >> the comey answer that he gave is the answer he gave to lester holt. he did give the same answer about comey to lester holt. >> i think what he's saying is that on comey, the president could replace comey. there are reasons why he could do that. he is someone in the executive branch. he's well within his right to do that. recusal on this, you're going to find -- i don't know who you're going to find. there's not a lot of people who will seri cuesing himself here was a mistake. they will say it is a clear as day. >> it was compelled by justice department policy. >> career prosecutors at the justice department said we recommend that you do this. he's saying, look, this is a decision that's not a questionable one. >> let me bring harry lit man in here. his name is invoked.

two, i want to put some of these questions up and i want your opinion on what you think bob mueller wants to know about the president's interactions with attorney general jeff sessions. let me see if we can -- we've got -- so, from the questions when mike broke the story, did you discuss whether mr. sessions would protect you, and reference past attorneys general? that was one of the questions the president's lawyers took down as maybe being of interest to special counsel robert mueller. do you think he's getting at what john heilman just described, which was his state of mind? >> totally. two points. as john says and as we talked about last night, generally speaking it does seem to stink of corrupt intent and have no other explanation. but two additional points for mueller as a prosecutor, first the decision to specifically in march of 2017, after he's already recused himself under the law to try to get him to

reverse seems especially lawless and corrupt. what are you supposed to say then? ignore the whole thing, please, and just go roughshod over it to protect me? but then second, mueller has got to be interested in the chronology here. listen, he is nominated and this discussion where trump says he wasn't forthcoming happens before january 20th when he's nominated. the interactions that result in his recusal happened during his testimony to be a.g. and his incomplete responses to al franken. so, what trump must be saying is, there was no spectre at the point of his recusal. he must have been saying that come january 10th, when you sat down with me, you should have said, i will promise to protect and defend you over all enemies foreign and domestic without regard to what happens, without regard to what the law says, without regard if there is anything to recuse about. it has to be some general blank check oath of loyalty to trump

and not the constitution. mueller is going to be interested. >> does it also mean the president suspected that having won there might be something to investigate? >> say that again, please, nicolle. >> do you think it also means the president might have had a sense that someone could have started looking under the covers after he won? as mike said, he said over and over again, he wanted someone that would have protected him at the justice department. >> sure. look, we do know that he's spoken before about wanting his roy cohn or suggesting falsely that, you know, that eric holder would have been this way toward obama. but look, at that point he has no idea of what could come between him and sessions and could make sessions have to recuse as he did. so, when he is upset that sessions didn't give this general pledge, knowing nothing about what was in the future, he's saying that it has to be loyalty over everything no

matter what legal requirements could come down the road. >> jonathan lemire? >> one, i'd like to point out one of the attorneys suggested he himself would recuse if he was in jeff sessions' position was rudy giuliani. he would have done the exact same thing. >> uh-huh. that was a different rudy, by the way, totally different rudy. that was the rudy that was still mad at donald trump. >> character assassination around the i want to be secretary of state campaign. >> there were certainly a lot of people who think -- people who threw themselves in front of this last july as reported to try to prevent the president from firing jeff sessions, his inner circle in the white house said it was a bad idea, outsiders as well. it would create that much more pressure on the russia probe. jeff sessions is someone who has a great deal of support from senators on the hill who view him as a long-time colleague who gave up a safe seat to go work for this president who felt he was one of the first to endorse him and therefore some loyalty

should be paid there. but also who is someone who is very popular with the president's conservative base. and as one person recently earlier today said to me, that is something of course the president is more sensitive to than anything. don't alienate the people who got you into office and you ousted sessions at the time, they could have. >> i remember the day elizabeth warren was out on msnbc defending jeff sessions. and i think even she said -- i never thought i'd see the day, it speaks to sort of -- >> a rift opened somewhere to another dimension when that happened. >> people who appreciated that he followed justice department policy and recused himself, even if they agreed with him on nothing. >> my only question -- i don't know the answer to it -- is whether potentially the president has i guess what you'd have to call stupidity defense here, right? the idea of unrecusal is or recusal is so dumb and such a non-starter that it's somehow

beyond the pale. its intent to do something that is ridiculous to think you could make it do. >> doesn't work, doesn't work. >> doesn't work? okay. >> there is a stupidity defense, i'd like to invoke it. >> another way to say stupidity is ignorance of the law. the question what he was stupid about was wearing on his sleeve, the desire to have personal protection against his personal exposure to the charges here. that equals corrupt intent. >> can i just say, i want to say two things additionally about mike' story. one which jumped out at me to the point where i r5ead it, thi could be a separate story or front page story. we talked a long time about the -- republicans have sessions back. it would be tough if he fired sessions, it would be tough to get someone through the senate. mike's reporting says i think it's never been reported quite this directly where there is a

private back channel going on between senate republicans that the president has considered firing sessions and the reason he hasn't done it is because he has been told by senate republicans that he can't do it because if he fires sessions they will not confirm someone else for him. if that's restraining him, as i say, it is an incredible piece of news. i don't think that is reported anyplace else. am i wrong? >> it's been out there the republicans got very concerned last july when they knew about this and they were going to go to these lengths to do it. >> your story feels solid to me this notion that trump has looked at it and said i want to fire sessions and he's heard directly from senate republicans do not do that. that to me is news. >> i think the other piece is that his anger and his reaction is of interest to bob mueller. i want one more paragraph from the piece. they're yelling at me to go to break. give me one more second. the day after recausal the president prepared to travel to florida. he was seen in the windows of

the oval office determining how far to go with the travel ban blocked by a judge. they conclude the the pot si mu -- policy. mr. sessions' decision determined to find a way forward spent the first ten minutes venting about it. i think i was with you. and watching that and everyone is going he's mad at ben or he's yelling at somebody. he's mad about this. >> the problem is that they had a real issue on the travel ban. they had committed to the second travel ban. they needed him to sign it. he thought it was watered down. here's sessions trying to get the president to do it. he's calling the president. the president won't take his calls. so he gets on a plane and he flies to florida and the president wants to talk about recusal. >> aye-aye-aye. >> do we get to talk about sessions more on the show? >> more after the break. john heilman is stealing the keys. do you want to read it?

>> no, please. >> still ahead, the president's conspiracy theories get whacked on fox and among some of the president's most reliable republican allies. eugene has the giggle. michael cohen back in court today. what investigators found in a shredder. and donald trump finally weighs in on roseanne barr. you won't believe what he's most irked about. spoiler alert, it isn't the racist tweet she was fired over. . need something printed? the business advisors at office depot can assist with exactly what your business needs to grow. get your coupon for 20% off services, technology and more at office depot and officedepot.com. technology and more when it comes to strong bones, are you on the right path? we have postmenopausal osteoporosis and a high risk for fracture, so with our doctors we chose prolia® to help make our bones stronger. only prolia® helps strengthen bones by stopping cells

that damage them with 1 shot every 6 months. do not take prolia® if you have low blood calcium, are pregnant, are allergic to it, or take xgeva®. serious allergic reactions, like low blood pressure; trouble breathing; throat tightness; face, lip or tongue swelling, rash, itching or hives have happened. tell your doctor about dental problems, as severe jaw bone problems may happen or new or unusual pain in your hip, groin, or thigh, as unusual thigh bone fractures have occurred. speak to your doctor before stopping prolia®, as spine and other bone fractures have occurred. prolia® can cause serious side effects, like low blood calcium; serious infections, which could need hospitalization; skin problems; and severe bone, joint, or muscle pain. if your bones aren't getting stronger isn't it time for a new direction? why wait? ask your doctor about prolia.

i am disappointed in the attorney general.

he should not have recused himself almost immediately after he took office. and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me prior to taking office and i would have quite simply picked somebody else. i told you before i'm very disappointed with the attorney general, but we will see what happens. time will tell. time will tell. >> harry and the panel are still here. >> that's the perfect bite. >> thank you. >> because i have always focused in these instances beyond the law, beyond the politics. i focus on the human drama. this is so incredible because jeff sessions, united states senator, first to ever endorse trump, roundly mocked and ridiculed by his colleagues, it was ridiculous for him to support trump but he got in early and he stayed with trump, he was loyal. he stays despite the sling ands arrows. he does the right thing, recuse himself, and trump has brutalized him now for 15 months. in clips like that, privately,

publicly, humiliated, embarrassed, mocked, and now we find out that it turns out that jeff sessions has been talking about mueller. my question is jeff sessions as a human who has lived through that arc, is that a guy going to go into bob mueller and have donald trump's back or is he going to bob mueller and tell the truth about president trump? i'm betting on the latter. >> two questions on that. so, you asked the president, do you think that holder was more loyal to -- he cut you off. i don't want to get into loyalty but i'll tell you that i say this. holder protected obama. i'll be honest i have great respect for that. his understanding of loyalty is the first scenario that heilman describes, right? >> the attorney general is someone who should be loyal to him first and in charge -- >> in his view. >> in his view, and in charge of enforcing the laws and following the facts after that. that's his view. when he says last year when he

finds out, where's roy cohn, his personal fixer about the attorney general he wanted, he's very clear. >> he wants a lap dog that attacks. >> you've also reported that the attorney general interviewed at length by mueller's investigators in january. any sense jeff sessions was going to do anything other than answer -- >> the funny thing about sessions is sessions has had his interesting legal arc here. you remember he got into hot water because he was not forthcoming with congress about the contact with russians during the transition. that opens an investigation on it. sessions has to recuse himself. steps aside. ultimately becomes a witness. he's a witness in this. he's not under investigation any more. his lawyer has said that on the record. here he is now going in to mueller and telling him about all of his interactions with the president. >> what president trump wants, what he wishes had happened was that jeff sessions somehow had

not recused himself and was in a position to say, you know, i'm ending the mueller investigation and opening another investigation of hillary clinton. that's basically it. and i'm -- >> that's a lap dog meet attack dog. >> exactly. find the real collusion. >> but to your point he has recused himself related to everything from the 2016 election. it's not just the russia stuff. it's anything related to hillary. on the two things the president cares the most about, he can't be involved. the funny thing is this has taken sessions out of all these issues and that's why rod rosenstein is such an important person in the story. if sessions hadn't recused himself, rod rosenstein wouldn't be running around washington trying to -- it would be sessions' problem. >> and where is the president right now in the wake of sort of bringing the justice department to their knees and having to reveal information about spygate? in some respects, rod rosenstein has been a perfect foil for the

president. he's got his allies in the house, freedom caucus have written up impeachment -- calls for impeachment. he's become the new pinata. sessions got himself out of the line of fire in some respects. >> certainly or a different line of flyer. the president wants/needs a foil. sessions is that now. he's gone after it. giuliani is working on an arrangement to receive a read out from those briefings last week. remarkably unprecedented briefings these lawmakers received in which it talks about this informant and the means and methods of those -- in the campaign. the white house legal team wants to know what was said or some circuit court of sense of what was said. giuliani told me friday they're going to take that then to the department of justice and make the case. look, this whole special counsel thing was built on the backs of comey's memos which they think were illegal, and that the --

>> dossier. >> the dossier is a spy in their words that shouldn't have had access to this. this was leading them on. they're going to make the case three things why the special counsel shouldn't have been appointed and why it should go away. >> two of those things aren't true. >> it's a public relations game now. >> when does that stop? >> it's a public relations game giuliani is playing. >> go ahead, harry. >> i was going to say -- make both a legal point and a political point. >> go ahead. >> legally speaking even if it were true and it's patently false, it doesn't permit somebody to cut off a prosecution. law is very clear, people all the time feel that prosecution has been corrupt and going at them. the place to do that is after the charges are brought. you don't get to cut things off in the middle. but as a sort of trial tactics matter, i think trump is a one-trick pony. his instinct is always to attack who is ever criticizing. it's one thing when it's one at a time. but eventually mueller will come forward with a package.

and the question is will trump be able to succeed in saying, not just sessions, but pretty much anyone under the sun, comey or bannon or nunberg. everybody it just so happens is corrupt and biased, et cetera. that's a kind of trick i think that will wear thin if you try to use it in this wholesale way. >> we have breaking news. we want all of you to react to. one second. rudy giuliani telling abc's kelly o'donnell he's doing question and prep sessions regarding the special counsel investigation with the president in the evenings this week. you don't have to answer that. where is the interview? >> the funny thing is the interview negotiations are going on for six months now. at what point does mueller say, enough with the negotiations? >> let me put up all the people mueller has interviewed. do we have that list of all the -- he's interviewed jeff sessions and mike flynn and jared kushner -- i mean, how

much of the -- what is the purpose at this point of the trump interview for the mueller investigators? is it legal or is it political? >> they need to know -- they say they need to know whether the president had criminal intent when he fired comey. what was going through his mind. why did he truly do that and why did he truly do all these other things, like the stuff with sessions. what was behind it? what were the true motivation s? and if you're doing an obstruction investigation and you're trying to understand why these things happened, you can understand why you want to talk to the person who made those decisions and understand the motivations behind them. >> nicolle -- >> yeah, go ahead, harry. wait -- go ahead. >> it's completely routine, especially in any corrupt intent case. at the end of the day, you do everything but the main person. and then you want to test. you want to actually give him a chance as, say, carl rove had the chance to come forward and say, i didn't have a bad intent

in the libby investigation. you give the subject a chance to come forward. now, he may well say, i want to take the 5 th. but it's a standard procedure to hear from them before making a final judgment about what was, what was in the guy's mind. and if he doesn't do it you can bring charges anyway. but you would never end an investigation without trying to do this. >> heilman, two questions. does he subpoena the question if they don't agree to an interview? sounds like they're practicing getting ready. and two, what do those practice sessions look like? >> i don't know about the subpoena question. i know mueller would prefer to avoid it because there will be -- it will lead to a court challenge he might eventually lose. don't know. but i think he wants the interview. you know, i know a lot about donald trump's debate prep sessions in 2016 and i will tell you that for most of it, it was a -- what's the word that begins with s that i can say on the air that comes before the word show? >> we have a delete button.

>> there was a lot of -- the debate for much of the debate prep sessions in august and september, donald trump -- there would be hours of donald trump trying to feed people hot dogs and feeding people cotton candy, they could hardly ever get him to sit still at a table and engage in anything resembling debate prep. when they solved it, they figured we show him pictures. i don't know how visual you can be. >> the fourth amendment of the constitution, when he tried to read it to him. >> let me put what rudy giuliani thought, at least as of his appearance on a sunday show, what he thought the two areas of interest to bob mueller were at this juncture. let's watch. >> you told my colleague chris cuomo they agreed to limit it from five topics to two topics. what's in, what's out? >> they would probably limit it to collusion and obstruction.

the collusion part we're pretty comfortable with because there has been none. the obstruction part i'm not as comfortable with. i'm not. the president is fine with it. he's innocent. i'm not comfortable because it's a matter of interpretation, not just hard and fast true, not true. so, if you interpret his comment about firing mueller -- sorry, firing comey -- no discussion of firing mueller, by the way. if you interpret that as obstructing the investigation as opposed to removing a guy who is doing a bad job on the recommendation in part of rose not stein, but you see it as obstructing the investigation, you can say it's obstruction. then you can say it's perjury. >> reading between the lines, they are concerned about obstruction and he didn't even mention sessions. do you think rudy is aware of where all the president's vulnerabilities are in the obstruction investigation? >> i'm not sure. i think they know what's in the questions. but when he says collusion, obstruction, that's the whole

thing. >> the whole ball game. >> that's the entire investigation. >> the whole thing. >> that's the whole thing. so, they're limiting it to the most -- if you look at the 49 questions, they all fall into collusion or obstruction. >> how many hours did sessions sit with mueller? >> it was a long interview, it was lengthy. >> i keep coming back to this question because you can be a very forthcoming witness or you can be the witness who doesn't recall a lot. and if sessions wanted to protect trump he might not recall a lot of things. but if sessions wanted to tell the truth, he could be a pretty devastating witness to trump. >> let's hope the sitting attorney general wants to tell the truth. am i foolishly idealistic? >> that's why i told the high human drama story. i think the attorney general is going to be quite candid with bob mueller or has been quite candid. that's my guess. >> any reaction from the white house that suggests they were unaware of just how, just how much vulnerability they have over the president's ongoing treatment towards sessions?

>> when you write a story like this, you want to see what the reaction is. i was kind of thinking i knew where the president was on recusal. he tweets this morning a quote from tray gowdy when he basically criticizing sessions and trump saying himself, you know, about it was a mistake to do it. the president as much as he would ever embrace in "the new york times" stories putting his arms -- >> don't let me down. >> confirmation from the president. >> exactly. harry litman, mike schmidt, congrats on the story. donald trump continues to spread lies about the fbi. some push back on the conspiracy theorist in chief from typically trump friendly corners. at some point, we are going to be able to beat als. because life is amazing.

so i am hoping for a cure. i want this, to uh, to be a reality. um, yeah.

but one blows them all out of the water. hydro boost from neutrogena®. with hyaluronic acid to plump skin cells so it bounces back. neutrogena®

so, how do you like the fact they had people infiltrating our campaign? can you imagine? can you imagine?

[ booing ] can you imagine? people infiltrating our campaign. is there anybody in this big beautiful arena right now that's infiltrating our campaign? would you please raise your hand? that would take courage. >> he repeated his lies and tried to get a laugh out of it last night. but when it come to trump's now debunked conspiracy theory about a spy implanted in his campaign, the list of people willing to bat for him is getting a little bit shorter. not even fox news is a safe space any more. >> president trump has also claimed the feds spied on his campaign with an informant. the president calls it spygate. fox news can confirm it is not. >> i am even more convinced that the fbi did exactly what my fellow citizens would want them to do when they got the information they got, and that it has nothing to do with donald trump. >> the allegations by mayor

giuliani over the weekend which would lead us to believe that the trump people think that the fbi had an under cover agent who invageled its way in the campaign seems to be baseless, there is no evidence for that whatsoever. >> washington post political reporter robert costa joins the conversation. robert costa, when you lose fox, you probably need to switch up the script, don't you? >> you're really seeing a sea change on the american right as they look at this russia investigation, as they evaluate the information that's been reported about the fbi informant. they know, as andrew napolitano has said on fox news, that these types of informants are a typical part of many federal probes and many intelligence gathering operations and so the context is important to use the word spying elevates it to a different level of federal effort and that is something that would perhaps be

inappropriate and that is where the line is being drawn not only in the mainstream press but now at fox news and elsewhere. >> robert costa, i want to play you sarah sanders speaking about this very issue and get your reaction on the other side. >> certainly the president feels that there is cause for concern and it should be looked at. like i just said, the deputy director of the fbi was fired for misconduct. there are a -- i'm not finished. there are a number of things that have been reported on and that show i think not just for the president, but a number of americans, a large cause for concern and we'd like to see this fully looked into and we'll continue to follow that matter. >> explain who is in the campaign, what is he referring to when he said they were in the campaign? what does that mean in? >> again, i'm not going to get into the details. the president has publicly expressed his concern as is his outside counsel. >> robert costa, why does she continue to tell that lie from the podium?

it is not true that there are a number of things that have been reported on and that show i think not just the president, but for a number of americans a large cause for concern and we'd like to see this fully looked into and we will continue to follow that matter. that is not true. the thing they were concerned about the president tweeted about last sunday, as i said earlier, it brought d.o.j. to its knees by monday morning. they had a briefing at first with just republicans about the informant. everything they raised -- and i've got a list here. the trump tower wiretaps, that was debunked by an fbi official. unmasking. that was debunked by even some of the nutty republicans in congress. uranium one debunked by shep smith. the nunes memo released and fizzled out. spygate, briefed to democrats and republicans. none of these have worked out. why does sarah huckabee sanders use that podium to spread the president's conspiracy theories? >> nicolle, i can't expect to

her motivations. he see the white house seizing on this charged language, infiltrate the campaign, spying on the campaign. that is a distraction from the reporting questions that we still have about this whole matter. who put the fbi informant in motion? what did the fbi informant learn? who did the fbi informant report to inside of the fbi and the department of justice? as a reporter those are legitimate questions to ask. we've been spending a lot of time at the post here on this story. yet there is the political element which the white house is taking up and you saw the president talking about it as his rally. he knows it plays to a crowd to use the charge language. there are questions about the origin of this investigation, but the white house is choosing to use -- to say the least -- charged language. >> i guess what i'm getting at, jonathan, is where does the a.m. bic -- ambivalence, they are the head of the fbi, the head of state. if you could use bad words i'd use them now.

to sarah huckabee sanders's part they stand there and lie about their own fbi, their own justice department? >> it comes from the oval office. a tone set by the president. >> do you lie, smear the fbi? i take fired 7 out of 7 days a week. >> there are moments in this administration we wondered would this be the breaking point for a trump official to walk away? nine times out of 100 that hasn't happened. >> who has quit? >> gary cohn witness about tariffs. >> from their mind-set and their political point of view, they are not criticizing their own fbi. they're criticizing barack obama's fbi and they are criticizing fbi -- >> what says said from the podium today was we'd like to see this fully looked into this. their fbi has been there for 15 months. >> look, i agree about that, but i think when she's talking about spygate, like about the thing that bob costa was talking about, the legitimate questions are, they very much -- and again, i think this is all

ridiculous and clearly politically motivated, not an authentic argument they're making, but it's all calculated. but their argument is the fbi basically is fine. the leadership of the fbi under barack obama was corrupt and so spygate, as they call it, which is obviously a made-up thing, there was no spy, et cetera, et cetera, all of that is not his fbi. it's obama's fbi that did that stuff. >> hang on, let me ask you to answer this and respond as well. the nunes memo was the person that objected to the release of the unredacted nunes memo was his fbi. that was chris wray. the war against -- i don't think we can let them off the hook for being anti-mccabe and comey. >> i'm talking about the specific thing right here. >> they're not about the institutions of our government. they're not about the continuity and strength and integrity of institutions like the fbi and

the justice department that other presidents, like the one you served and president obama and like every other president has felt a sacred trust to be custodian of those institutions and make them better. but to respect what they've done. this administration is about donald trump. it's all about donald trump. and if those institutions are doing things that are inconvenient or dangerous to donald trump, then later for those institutions. they must be bad. and they have to be, you know, dishonored and discredited. >> and it's about winning that next day's news cycle. the president's vision is that short term. we no it was reported last week the idea of spy is something he kicked around with advisors because he thought it sounded more nefarious. spy seemed worse than informant so he went with that. >> you think about one other thing. the way they're talking now about john brennan and jim clapper two guys in previous administrations who served republicans and democrats -- in

clapper's case, they served their country in a variety of ways under a variety of parties. but now they have become obama's clowns. that's the way in which -- that goes to not just the political motivation of it, but to gene's point, generally in the past you would not have had president obama or president bush attacking either one of those guys because they would have been seen as institutionalists, representing the institution. they care not about the institution. all they care about is figuring out who the enemy is, labeling them and tearing them down. >> robert costa, let me give you the last word. is there any concern about the truth tellers on fox news? shepp smith has always been one of them. you see increasingly more and more pockets doing what you articulated at the beginning, on the right people defending and sort of speaking the truth. people with knowledge of law enforcement talking about how it works and not showing for the president. >> what we're watching is the white house and the president himself demeaning the mueller investigation day in, day out,

questioning mueller's credibility, referring to the investigators as john was saying, as angry democrats even though they have registrations and histories working for republican administrations. and this is all part of the breaking point whenever that comes of whether they refuse an interview with mueller or they just fight a subpoena through the courts. and that is when the president and this white house will rely on the conservative base to rally with them. but if there are fissures, that's going to be a harder case for them to make. >> robert costa, thank you so much for spending some time with us. >> thank you. >> when we come back, michael cohen in court today for a big reveal from prosecutors. the evidence against him includes the contents of a shredder. ♪[upbeat music]

♪now i'm gonna tell my momma ♪that i'm a traveller ♪i'm gonna follow the sun♪

♪now i'm gonna tell my momma transitions™ light under control™ visit your local visionworks to ask about transitions™ brand lenses parts a and b and want more coverage, guess what? you could apply for a medicare supplement insurance plan whenever you want. no enrollment window. no waiting to apply. that means now may be a great time to shop for an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. medicare doesn't cover everything. and like all standardized medicare supplement insurance plans, these help cover some of what medicare doesn't pay. so don't wait. call now to request your free decision guide. it could help you find the aarp medicare supplement plan that works for you. these types of plans have no networks, so you get to choose any doctor who accepts medicare patients. rates are competitive, and they're the only plans

of their kind endorsed by aarp. remember - these plans let you apply all year round. so call today. because now's the perfect time to learn more. go long. just like the nixon tapes years ago, we now have what i will refer to as the trump tapes. mr. ryan admitted that there are

audio recordings that michael cohen was taking for years and that those recordings are, to quote him, not only do they exist, but they are under lock and key and some of them relate to my client and her attorney/client privilege communications. mr. cohen and his attorney mr. ryan should release all of those audio recordings to the american people and to congress so that they can be heard by all. >> michael avenatti outside a federal court house in new york city just a few hours ago following a hearing for donald trump's former fixer michael cohen where federal prosecutors sorting through materials seized from the raid of cohen's offices and residences said they still need more time to piece together shredded documents from that raid. joining us at the table, emily jane fox, senior reporter for vanity fair and an msnbc contributor who was in the courtroom today and described it as intense. tell us what went down.

>> so, it was supposed to be a procedural hearing about where michael cohen's lawyer stands, where the government stands, the special master stands. in some ways it was. the government has in some ways it was. we learned the government returned 3.7 documents or files to michael cohen's lawyers. they are a third of the way through. >> we learn of those only a couple hundred thousands of those were attorney shrine privilege. he was a full time fixer. >> he was a businessman, someone who was handling the president's problems and working with his personal clients on a number of different business endeavors. but we also got a glimpse of an avenatti show today. as much attention was on mr. avenatti in court as was on mr. cohen and the legal process that is underway here. and it wasn't a great day for michael cohen in court. his lawyers were arguing they need more time. they asked to be heard again in mid july and the judge said no

you have to be done by june 15 of the. if you are not done we will give it back to the government filter team or the taint team. not a great outcome for michael cohen in that way but it was maybe a worse day for maechd. judge wood admonished him she said you cannot be going on what she called a publicity tour if you want toer is convenient in this case. and we know he withdrew from intervening in the case afterwards. >> he withdrew in order to keep the attention focused object the potential intersection between michael cohen's obviously not lawyering but business act tifts for the president and the president. and what we now know to be other women who have come to him and asked his services. an interesting choice. >> hard for me to see how he could make the other choice in the interests of his client

basically. right. because that's where stormy daniels fits into this whole picture. >> but it was raising the profile of a president paying hush money. that was sort of what beat down the facts. i mean you spent time with maec michael avenatti. he wants to strain the tension until the facts play out. >> he understand his client is in some ways in the middle of all of this and it is kind of a peripheral matter. it is not the heart of michael avenatti's activities. he found a seam. it was a seam in the launch it is a seam in our political world. and it is a seam in donald trump's psyche. he drove hard into it. and advanced as jean says the cause of his client and managed to throw a spotlight on a bunch

of stuff that was in best interests of his klein. but there is a limit. it was highly successful and i'm sure he would could exactly the same thing again. now the court, the dekorm up court, the rules of the court, constraints of the court have rai risen up and suggested he step back. there is a limit before one thing or the other will hold you back. he has met him back. >> what was this the sledder? >> absolutely no idea. i think it was the sledder that was in his office. there are three things the government has yet to turn back to michael cohen's attorneys. everything else is with michael cohen's attorneys. two blackberries, there was some discussion whether they belonged to his wife or not, nobody knew if they were michael cohen's or his wife's. and the sledder and the contents of the sledder. if there are nefarious thing in the sledder -- >> no one sleds their good

citizenship paper plate award. >> i do. i sled everything. >> where do things stand for michael cohen right now? what does his life look like? he is getting rad for the worst, feeling optimistic, lick wi dating assets so he can pay legal bills? >> 15 lawyers and two data specialists are working tul time on this case for him. not only are they working full time but one attorney said there are people sleeping on couches in the legal office and they had a send an associate home because he had a hand tremor from being so tired. the legal bills alone are causing michael cohen a lot of stress. i don't think there is any reason for him to be optimistic right now. >> do you think he thistle be charged. >> there is a real sense for michael cohen that he is waiting for charging documents. >> that it's imminent. >> i don't think anyone has any sense of time. again they are only a third of the way through what the

government has handed them whack. they have two weeks to get the other third done and back to the government. it's going to be a krurch. >> they feel like the cohen stuff is separate from the president. in the trump west wing and in the outside world they are watching closely. >> up next, the president weighs in on the roseanne controversy. you will never guess what he has decided to take it about. and everything into the cloud. it's all so... smart. but how do you work with it? ask this farmer. he's using satellite data to help increase crop yields. that's smart for the food we eat. at this port, supply chains are becoming more transparent with blockchain. that's smart for millions of shipments. in this lab, researchers are working with watson to help them find new treatments. that's smart for medicine. at this bank, the world's most encrypted mainframe is helping prevent cybercrime. that's smart for everyone. and in africa, iot sensors and the ibm cloud

are protecting endangered animals. that's smart for rhinos. yeah. rhinos. because smart only really matters, when we put it to work- not just for a few of us, but for all of us. let's put smart to work.

it took about 24 hours, but president trump did finally weigh in on roseanne's racist tweet can abc's decision to cancel her show. he somehow made it about himself tweeting, abc called jarrett to let her know that abc does not

tolerate comments like those made by roseanne barr. gee, he never called president donald trump to apologize for the horrible states made and said about me on abc. maybe i didn't get the call. i check that three times to see if that was real. >> what aboutism is a plague in our world right now. but donald trump takes an issue, turns it about himself, he certainly in this case seems to be playing the victim. he restrained himself had, didn't talk about roseanne at the rally last night. i guess he was saving the good stuff for twitter this morning. >> i would only amendment to say that donald trump always makes it about me, me, me, always, he is very predictable. >> can we say this, though, if you were a person who had been accused over and over again with good cause as being a racist and then this happened you would want to make a point of saying of course roseanne barr made a statement that cannot be excused and then go on and make yourself

serving political point. but donald trump doesn't care about the perception he is a racist. it leads to the infearence he is a racist. >> thanks the my guests. that does it for our hour i'm nicole wall as. "mtp daily" starts right now. hi chuck. >> hi nicole, hampshire happy hump day. >> happy wednesday. >> if it's wednesday, there is the base, and the baseless. tonight, dismantling a conspiracy. >> informants are used all day every day by law enforcement. >> the white house shoots back. congressman trey gowdy's defense of the fbi's informant tactics. >> the president still has concerns about whether or not the fbi acted inappropriately. plus, hold the phone. the feds close in on michael cohen, digging into more than a million files seized from his cell phones. and a staggering loss of life in puerto rico. we will dig into that new study that finds thousa