of the recordings, at least one of them. i know that for a fact. i stand behinded. >> that is news. that's the headline tonight. avenatti saying trump is on at least one audio recording to him. that's our show. "hardball" starts now. trump bashes disney. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. a day after abc fired roseanne bra, president trump expressed his outliers rage, not at roseanne who september a racist tweet about a senior obama adviser, but at abc. trump tweeted bob ig area of abc called valerie jarrett to let her know abc does not tolerate comments like those made by

roseanne barr. gee, he never called donald trump for the horrible statements made about me on abc. maybe i didn't get account call. to follow up, white house press secretary sarah sanders cited several examples of abc personalities criticizing trump. meanwhile, roseanne spent the day tweeting out a bizarre series of messages suggesting she was a victim of a political double standard, attacking some of her former co-stars and blaming the medication ambien. barr wrote guys, i did something unforgivable. do not defend me. it was 2:00 in the morning and i was ambien tweeting and "not giving excuses but i've done weird stuff while on ambien." she later deleted those tweets. the company that makes ambien responded racism is not a known side effect. later in the day, barr said i never was a racist and never will be. a lifetime of fighting for civil rights at the expense of my

nervous system, family wealth will never be taken from me and later added you guys make me feel like fighting back. i will examine all my options carefully and get back to you. and she wrote i am tired of being smeared over stupid mistakes. i'm joined by yamiche alcindor and an msnbc contributor, mike dyson, the author of "what truth sounds like," a beautifully written book and actor and comedian sinbad. thank you for joining us. michael, i love your book. it's about the conversation. what is this whole thing with this triad of roseanne barr who are did the bad thing here, abc that fired her for doing the bad thing and president obama who like he did with charlottesville -- president trump like he did with charlottesville seems to be taking sides against abc and for roseanne? that's the way it sounds to everybody. >> we've got a bigoted chief and

racist in residence. he has unleashed some of the most horrendous viewpoints bigotries and viewpoints in this country. he stayed look, it's okay. come out of the closet, stand up and speak and tell the world what you believe and you will be defended by political bluster and notice in his tweet, he said nothing about the horrendous statement that roseanne barr herself admitted was unforgivable. he said nothing about that. >> explain why he didn't do it. why do you think he didn't do it? >> because he wants to have it both ways. he wants to certify and validate the quiet bigots afraid to stand up and speak out and at the same time, he wants to get at the other side for its bigotry and for its dumping on him. he's able both to exonerate those people who believe what roseanne believes and to validate their anger at a bob iger and the left. it's a brit ploy but it's cynical. it doesn't play to the better angels of our nature.

this is not bobby orr jack kennedy. this is not barack obama. this is the base cesspool bigotry of american society, the underbelly of our worst ini think its amplified by a man who continues to tweet bigotry day in and day out. he turned the nation into a stooik commode into which he dumps his beliefs. >> sinbad, i'm asking you her defense is it was a bad joke saying that valerie jarrett is the daughter of an animal. and a terrorist. that was just a joke. what do you make of of it. >> we can't hide as artists behind bad jokes. we tell bad jokes. they mean you don't get a laugh. once you put ape and black woman together, called michelle obama ape, they've called us apes throughout our lives. you can't hide behind that. i have more respect if you stand with it. i used to drive around with roseanne. she was my prend. when she first came to would,

she asked me to find her a black female manager and then as time goes on, these kind of tweets come out, i'm like this. i don't know what you're trying to say but it's not what you used to do. when i say bad joke, we can't behind a bad joke. if you said it, you said it. it's not a bad joke. it's racist. >> yamiche, you suffer this president. i think he's doing what he did in charlottesville. good on both sides, he refused utterly to come out against the white supremacists and he's refusing to offend his 20% of the country which has these attitudes. i'm guessing about 20%. like the birtherism, like all that crap. and he doesn't want to offend them. >> there's a long narrative of president trump playing the victim. here's president trump playing the victim yet again and using roseanne barr's racist tweet to say you know what? i'm the problem, the problem is with me and how i've been

treated. >> a nar sissist and a yasist. >> you said that, not me. i'm a reporter. the other thing here is president trump has had a problem with race. i don't have to tick off all the thingsize done. charlottesville is the start of it. there's the central park five and the fact he never apologized for saying they should get the death penalty. he does not do that. >> even though the dna cleared them. >> they've been exonerated with dna. he doesn't apologize for anything. >> why is roseanne barr now part of his i refuse to an r apologize gig. >> she's trying to act like donald trump except they realize they're not donald trump. ask the governor of missouri yesterday. you try to live through the scandals and realize no one can be teflon like trump is. >> according to one of the tweets roseanne barr wrote i'm sorry for my tweet and il defend

myself as well as talk to my followers. has she got a religious thing inning my followers. go away if you don't like it. il handle my sadness the way i want to. i'm tired of being attacked than other comedians who have said worse. he said herman kaine saying even though the show was a ratings success, forces within abc didn't like the conservative defense of certain things was so popular. why did the president of the united states -- you're an academic, michael. i remember from man for all seasons about thomas moore, is silence consent? throughout much of today, the president didn't say anything about this, then jumped into it both feet taking basically her side against abc. why did he take this crap, if you will, into the white house with him? it's now in the white house as of tonight. >> silence is not only consent, it's complicity. there's an active agency of wrongdoing here. the president is siding with roseanne fully and her initial

spoonses before her admission about ambien and whatever other drug, she's taking bigatol. the symptom of that is uncontrollable racist talk. the reality is, he has taken it into the white house and this is what got him to the white house. what we don't want to admit it, 20% at least of american voter who's voted for this man believe what he believes. think that black people have taken over, brown people are in our midst. the race saying you people [ speaking spanish ] . we got border problems, problems with people who are trans and so all the others are ganging up on us. it's like a horror show to whiteness. now that these people are attacking them and their big chief defender is in the white house speaking it bravely for them and not recognizing a, he doesn't care but, you think roseanne cares about the 200 people who lost their jobs? if you're concerned about those on your side, those people lost their jobs. this is what donald trump is not

telling it the truth to his followers and the people who vote for him that you are undermining the economic stability of that group. >> i don't understand the intellectual argument either way on this that somehow black people are taking over america. they were here before 90% of us were here, just to be tribal about it. everybody knows. everybody knows american history that most african-americans came here, slaves going back to the 1700s at least and it was all here before most of us european americans if you want to use that is phrase got here. >> you know what gore vid dal said, we live in the united states of amnesia. the south won the war but they won the battle of memory. now they're telling america that hey, things are bad, things are worse, black people are taking over. we know -- how do we get called lazy and we did all the labor. >> sinbad, i guess this is -- i honestly psychologically and politically and commercially i

do not understand. why did she commit suicide to make a racist point? sinbad, this was a highly expensive tweet. >> yeah. >> she's finished now. her comeback is gob. all the people working on that show are gone. abc is going to lose a lot of money they could have made and would have walked into their pockets. it was a money machine that show. there's no logic to this. there was a logic to hitler. he wanted to rule the world. what do you get out of this? >> there's no logic to what donald trump -- donald trump is not a logical man. >> got elected. >> he it worked for him. he said what a lot of people had to hide. used to be they put the hood on your head. he told the klan, take the hood off and run around with a sheet on. roseanne will still it be rich and have her money. people in the show will lose their money. people are allowed to speak now. they think they're like donald trump and like teflon.

abc took a big shot when they put her on the air. she said some things before that's out there. when they put her on the air, that was a chance you were always taking. that's why they put the clause in the contract, you get fired if you said something that offended the community. that's what they were hoping. they were hoping they could have this hit show, this controversy, and nothing would happen. well, it's a time bomb. you put a time bomb in a room with a timer, eventually it goes off. and that's what happened. >> she's done this number before, this animal motherhood thing where she said susan rice, another prominent african-american woman was the daughter of apes if you will. i want to be careful. i watch like you and i did we watched the rise of trump. the first thing he said out of his mouth was the president of the united states was a legal immigrant, some weird theory that a woman went over to kansas and named him barack hussein obama with the idea he would be become president.

then he went after memory cans and after the judge and every muslim saying they're all terrorists and gradually developed thfd development of support using all those code words and everything else, right? but roseann has got nothing out of this but paying hell. >> that's kind of what sinbad was talking about, this idea that everything thinks they're donald trump. all these republicans think they can it be donald trump, they think they can be crass and get away with things. and roseann saw donald trump. >> he's the peter pan of this whole thing. he's leading people into this. >> he's a unicorn. she picked on valerie jarrett. that is an educated black woman. >> stanford. >> spent eight years in the white house. she picked on someone who she didn't realize had the power to take her down. >> the same thing with highly educated susan rice. >> had she said this about a black farmer, someone who worked at ford, maybe abcs would have

thought differently. who knows. >> i thought that valerie was very good about that. she said i can defend myself. i've got peeps. >>sley said i can defend myself and loy the of african-americans can't do that. >> sinbad, thank you, michael, the book is beautifully written. i read a lot. you're an academic. you know how to write, brother. that is beautifully done. i love your description of the james baldwin meeting where they gave hell to bobby kennedy. he thought he was going in there to get the nobel peace prize. they shoved it at him. two or three months later he got on with the civil rights speech. thank you. new reporting that trump pushed again for attorney general jeff sessions to reverse his recusal and take control of the rush investigation himself. trump already thinks he has a right to pick the jury. that's his 40%. now he thinks he has the right

to pick the prosecutor. isn't that cute. plus, cracks in the armor. the republican congressman who oversaw that infamous benghazi investigation says the fbi's use of an informant for the trump campaign was not only appropriate but routine. trey gowdy says the fbi did exactly what they should have done, despite the conspiracy theories that trump's pounding away at. and trump said a whole lot of things last night in nashville that just aren't true. his people believe the falsehoods he's selling. the question is, does he believe this stuff? finally let me finish tonight with trump watch. he won't like this. this is "hardball" where the action is. margo and sam had a vision, brought to life in one coat. whatever your home may hand you, behr through it, in one coat. behr marquee, #1 rated interior paint.

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>> every death is a horror. but if you look at a real catastrophe like katrina, and you look at the tremendous hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people that died, and you look at what happened here with really a storm that was just totally overpowering, nobody's ever seen anything like this, what is your death count as of this moment, 17? >> 16. >> 16 people certified. 16 people versus in the thousands. you can be very proud of all of your people, all of our people working together. 16 versus literally thousands of people. >> i don't get this. the governor said 16. the official death toll was revised up to 64 killed. but a new study published in the "new england journal of medicine" now estimates that 4600 people died during hurricane maria 4600 compared to 16 or 64. that's more than twice the

number of people killed as a result of hurricane katrina. more information is expected in the coming weeks when george washington university releases its own analysis. this is an awful story and a crazy one. we'll be right back. who governed thousands... commanded armies... yielded to no one. when i found you in my dna, i learned where my strength comes from. my name is courtney mckinney, and this is my ancestrydna story. now with 5 times more detail than other dna tests. order your kit at ancestrydna.com at fidelity, our online u.s. equity trades are just $4.95. so no matter what you trade, or where you trade,

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welcome back to "hardball." not only does president trump think he can pick this jury as rudy giuliani suggested over the weekend, but it now appears he's trying to pick his prosecutor, as well. the "new york times" is reporting donald trump intervened with attorney general jeff sessions two days after sessions said he would recuse himself from overseeing the investigation. in a confrontation in march of last year, the president asked sessions to take back his recusal. mr. trump who told aides he need aid loyalist oversee sag is the inquiry told him at the should reverse his decision, an unusual and potentially inappropriate request mr. sessions refused. according to report, the confrontation is being investigated by the special

counsel which suggests an obstruction probe is wider than we knew. amid these revelations, the president expressed regrets about making sessions ag saying he wishes had he picked someone else to serve in that place. meanwhile, rudy giuliani said he's conducting a q & a session with the president this week to prepare for his testimony. this is blather from rudy. this comes as mueller moves forward with sentencing in the case of richard who pleaded guilty to fraud in february joining george papadopoulos whose sentence is expected this summer and we have late breaking news related to the obstruction investigation. the "new york times" tonight reported deputy director andrew mccabe wrote a memo documenting the details of james comey's firing in may of last year. according to the brand-new report tonight, he described a conversation at the justice department with the deputy attorney general rod rosenstein, most significantly mr. rosenstein said the

president, that would be trump, had originally asked him to reference russia in his memo firing comey. i'm joined now by carolyn but lee zee, and betsy woodruff. now we find out that the president wanted to fire comey on the grounds that he was concerned about the aggressive russian probe. in other words, he did it to protect himself to obstruct justice. this is clearly it seems to me close to the smoking gun of obstruction. >> if you're talking about the question to ask sessions to go back on his recusal, i don't know if that's going to be the smoking gun. >> no, i'm talking about he wanted comey fired because of the russia probe. the very thing he's being probed on, he wants stopped. that's called obstruction. >> i think it does highlight the precarious nature that rosenstein has been in throughout the duration of this

case. he wrote the now largely considered pretextual memorandum of saying he was recommending the firing of james comey because of the way he handled the hillary clinton e-mail scandal. we know president trump went on lester holt saying it was because of the russian thing. rosenstein may very well be a witness in this investigation and people have known that for a while now but i think that the feeling was that he was better than whatever potential alternative there may be, but now i think with this news we may be seeing that he very well may have to recuse himself from this position, as well. it is a bombshell. >> well, again, as i like to say i'm not a lawyer, betsy. but i do know what common sense tells me now. obstructing justice in an attempt to use your position to prevent the regular wheels of justice to turn against you. so decide things like i'm going to get rid of comey and you tell rosenstein, you say the reason

is he's investigating me on the russian probe. i think that's obstruction. >> there's a really deep and rich irony here. according to this "new york times" story, the conversation that the president had with rod rosenstein they cite one source briefed on the conversation essentially said the president told rosenstein i want you to say in your letter about the firing of comey that i'm not under investigation. the irony, of course, is that now the president is under investigation and everything that he did, everything that he said that related to the comey firing that related to the pressure that he put on rosenstein to fire comey is now part of the investigation and now causing trouble for him. >> imagine the scripting right now, caroline, of a report from robert mueller. it may come out before the fall, at any time. we have to rely on rudy giuliani to tell us what's come. it's absurd. suppose it says the president tried to get his ag, attorney general jeff sessions to take him back into the action and take over the russian probe

because he didn't like the way it was being handled. he wanted to pick a prosecutor. he didn't want anybody recusing himself. you find out he fired comey because he didn't like the russian probe itself. i don't know how this doesn't become blatantly ob struktstructionist. >> it is a remarkable ask on the part of trump to take back the recusal. i don't think there was a single person out there that could fault jeff sessions for his recusal. he by all accounts can followed department of justice guidelines on sort of the parameters for that recusal. he was told by career prosecutors in the justice department because he misstated about his contacts with russians, given that information, he really needed to recuse himself from the entirety of this investigation even i think elizabeth warren praised him for his actions which you know was quite shocking by all accounts. so i agree that you know,ing there could be part of a larger piece of the puzzle when mueller

looks at an obstructionist view. he asked the oath of loyalty he asked from comey, seeing if he could let the flynn thing go and the firing of james comey. when you talk about criminal investigations you have to go to a state of mind. this gets further and further into the president's state of mind at the time. he's doing everything he can to you know, throw sand in the eyes of any investigators in this instance. >> well, caroline, you say piece of the puzzle. i was thinking of the old polaroid thing where you would buy the print and it would come into appearance. this is coming into appearance as obstruction. an interview with the "new york times" income july of last year, the president said sessions should not have recused himself and he wouldn't have appointed him in the first place if he had known he would. here he goes. >> sessions gets the job. right after he gets the job, he recuses himself. >> was that a mistake? >> well, sessions should have never recused himself.

and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job and i would have picked somebody else. >> he gave you no heads up at all. >> zero. >> it was obvious to many from day one that sessions as a former trump adviser during the election would not be able to oversee any investigation of the president's campaign because he was part of it. the code of federal regulations on recusal makes clear no employee shall participate in a criminal investigation or prosecution if he has a personal or political relationship with any person or organization involved in the subject of the investigation. betsy, you don't have to be a lawyer to understand that. you can't investigate yourself. >> it's pretty simple, extremely straightforward. >> trump wants to do it. he wants roy cohn back. he's so fond of the alluring idea of having a crook like cohn back. >> one thing he said about roy cohn, all i can tell you about him, he's done cruel things to people in protection of me. trump wants someone who will be a fighter.

he wants somebody who would be willing to break the rules. >> he wants a fixer. >> exactly. but in sessions he got the polar opposite. >> a beckette sort of figure, he created somebody that would challenge him. michael avenatti, it the lawyer representing stormy daniels said that mike cohen's attorney today confirmed in court cohen kept tape recordings of his phone calls. he said those captured conversations between cohen and now president donald j. trump. >> i have every reason to believe that these recordings seized by the fbi which michael cohen and his attorneys have a copy of include record, between michael cohen and the president of the united states. as well as others. >> i know for a fact that donald trump is on at least one of these recordings. >> how do you know that. >> i'm not going to get into details how i know that. >> would you say that in court. >> absolutely. >> this comes as nbc news reports that prosecutors in that cohen michael cohen case are

also piecing together shredded documents seized in the fbi's raid. caroline, under the recording, i've got to refresh myself, new york is that one person has to agree to it or both parties in recording telephone conversations. >> i believe only one person has to. >> michael cohen was taping conversations with the now president of the united states. to what purpose would a lawyer want to tape his client? >> it's beyond me. i think everybody has pointed out that is sort of bad practice when it comes to just being an attorney. i was in that courtroom today in the southern district of new york. judge kimba wood took michael avenatti to task. he did not say that he believed that that president trump was on those recordings. i know that thereafter he went up to the podium after to sort of give a press statement. he's dubbing these the trump tapes but by all indications the only thing he said in court was they were recordings of keith

davidson and michael cohen pertaining to this issue around the $130,000 hush money payment to his client stephanie clifford who is obviously stormy daniels. so i don't know why all of a sudden michael avenatti is stating he knows trump is on one side of those tapes at this point when he wouldn't say it in court today. >> i'm looking at michael cohen's face when he walks in and out of court, i see sadness and that is a sign in great literature like hemingway he's about to turn. sadness an indicator of someone about to turn. they're very sad about the predicament, feel sorry for them selves and that justifies a switch in loyalty. the president should worry about michael cohen. carolyn polisi, thank you. >> trey gowdy dismantles the president's latest conspiracy theory saying the fbi acted appropriately in investigating the trump campaign. why do these guys only speak the truth on the way out of

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now with steak. now that's eatin' good in the neighborhood. i had people they had people in our campaign? can you imagine? can you imagine. >> welcome back to "hardball." that was president trump last night in nashville once again

repeating his charge that the intelligence community of this country infiltrated his presidential campaign. republican congressman trey gowdy, a trump supporter who famously ran the notorious benghazi hearings is publicly debunking that claim. last night he told fox news that the fbi was justified in its use of an informant to investigate the trump campaign. it was president trump himself who said number one, i didn't collude with russia but if anyone connected with my campaign did, i want the fbi to find that out. it looks to me like the fbi was doing what president trump said i want you to do, find it out. i and 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. >> well, south carolina congressman gowdy is one of several lawmakers who met with top intelligence officials six days ago to review classified

materials about the fbi's use of a confidential source. this morning he went a step further in dismantling president trump's claim of spying. >> was there a spy? >> that is not a term i've ever used in the criminal justice system. undercover informant, confidential informant are all words i'm familiar with. i've never heard the term spy used. >> when the president says spygate there was no spy inserted into the campaign. have you seen any evidence that have. >> i have not. that's an espionage terp, not a law enforcement term. >> i'm joined by democratic congressman had eric swalwell. one claim to truth is trump's constant claim some spying went on to uncover his russian connections. >> zero, chris. the question here is how many lies from the president does america have to keep ringing up till we realize that the cost is our rule of law?

and great that trey gowdy has come out and said that there was no spying. but why can't paul ryan say it? why can't mitch mcconnell say it, why can't devin nunes say it? as long as they're not willing, they are accomplices in the president's efforts to torch the rule of law in our country. it's time for them it say it. >> you have i think you're a normal person. you strike me as a person who gets along with people regardless of politics. mitch landrieu of new orleans said don't let your politics decide who your friends are. some people can live like that across the aisle. when you talk to republicans do they admit they're basically gagged because of their fear of this president? >> my mom and dad are both republicans. my brothers are cops and republicans. my wife is a hoosier. they're all republicans. i've worked well with republicans. i rote a bill after the interference campaign that some signed on to have an independent

commission. i remember one republican on the intelligence committee telling me this person had gone against president trump when he was a candidate and can't afford now to stick their neck out because it might be lopped off. that's what i've heard. it's either fear or there are some of them who just see a president who is willing to dismantle health care and give tax cuts can away to the wealthiest and why not look the other way and allow him to do this. a lot of it is fear. >> their loyalty to the truth ends when it comes to trump? >> yes. yes. it's a tradeoff. it's that you know what? we saw this with mitt romney yesterday. mitt romfully said i like the guy's tax policies but i don't think he's a role model for my grandkids. well, the test in america should be if the president of the united states is not a role model for your kids or grandkids, then something's wrong. >> are you surprised that trey gowdy coming out after overseeing that 11-hour hearing going after hillary clinton on

so-called benghazi horrors whatever she was supposed to have done or not done there, and he's come out now, he was the other side of the argument. now he's come out and said all this malarky, to use a biden term, all this malarky about spying is just that. i'm amaze the at his 180 here. are you? >> not entirely, chris. i've worked with trey behind the scenes pretty well. he was a prosecutor, i was a prosecutor. if you're wired that way, at some point you have to call a spade a spade and you follow the evidence. and i think if there was some evidence that there was wrongdoing, he certainly would speak up. but -- i've seen a lot of the evidence in this case that launched the investigation. they did everything you would want them to do. if they didn't launch an investigation, that would have been a problem. if a judge did sign off on the fisa application to look into carter page, that would have been a problem. so i think he's being a prosecutor here. >> keep at it, congressman eric swalwell of california, a member of the intelligence committee. up next, president trump made a

barrage of false statements at last night's rally in nashville from saying that nancy pelosi loves ms-13 to claiming mexico will pay for the wall. he peddled so much nonsense it's worth asking does he believe this stuff? next week marks the 50th anniversary of robert kennedy's assassination. this coming sunday on msnbc, i'm hosting a documentary that takes a look at his extraordinary life. >> 50 years after his assassination, what can we learn from robert kennedy. >> the hate ret and distrust. >> headliners sunday at 9:00 on msnbc. >> we'll be right back. you're watching "hardball." and a little nervous. but not so much about what market volatility may do to their retirement savings. that's because they have a shield annuity from brighthouse financial, which allows them to take advantage of growth opportunities in up markets, while maintaining a level of protection in down markets.

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fight for universal healthcare. and stand up to donald trump. as governor, you can trust me to do what's right- because i always have. admitting this that has done what we've done in the first year and a half. wages for the first time in many, many years are finally going up. we passed the largest tax cuts and reform in american history. the ms-13 lover, nancy pelosi. she loves ms-13. can you imagine? in the end, mexico's going to pay for the wall. i'm just telling you. >> we, last night the president of mexico responded to that last claim tweeting president trump, no, mexico will never pay for a wall, not now, not ever it, sincerely mexico. parentheses, all of us. dana milbank thinks we should use a different term than lies. that's coming up next with the

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article is a columnist for the "washington post," shauna thomas washington bureau chief at vice news and eli stokols is the reporter for the "los angeles times." in any order, i'm sort you have in terms of don't call somebody a liar because that ends the conversation. that's my view. factually, how do you deal with trump? >> right, i don't think necessarily that he is lying. so to lie you have to know what the truth is and then say something other than that. >> barack obama was born in kenya. is that a lie? does he believe that? >> well, things like that or nancy pelosi. >> i have people collecting it out in hawaii and threw coming backing with interesting stuff. >> nancy pelosi loves ms-13, some of these things are silly on their face. what strikes me most about trump is he will lie about things easily proven. he will say it was sunny during his inaugural address. we know it was raining.

he'll say things my net worth varies depending how i'm feeling. it doesn't. it leads to you believe there has to be something else going on here. it says it so convincingly. i talked to some psychological experts on this brain experts on this. they think it is a phenomenon where he's so good at this he's convinced himself whatever's coming out of his mouth. >> he's the worst. shauna, it seems to me the needle doesn't move an inch if you tell his supporters that he plipz they have an attitude they like in him. he's resentful. they're resentful. there's sync on that. they don't like liberals and minorities in some case. they don't care if he makes it up. >> i'm not sure it's that they don't. >> they don't move in the polling. >> some of this supporters having one world view and they have a bubble with which they get their information. some of that a few of them it's president trump's twitter feed.

some of it is seeing president trump give these speeches like he did and fox news and msnbc and everyone else taking it. some of them, if they're only watching fox news, for instance, and you're getting one point of view on it and you are inclined to president is telling the truth, you believe he's telling the truth and don't go out and look for anything else. but i do think he lies sometimes. saying nancy pelosi is a lover of ms-13. no one loves ms-13. >> i have a theory people do this. ari was talking about it tonight earlier in the evening. you do it to troll to bother the other side. when fox news says fair and balanced. they know they can claim it but know that's beak screwing the mainstream media. they say fair and balanced just to tick stick it. i wonder if trump says these things they're going to pay for the wall it, knows it drives liberals crazy. >> you're talking about a slogan for a tv network. trump knows he's doing this,

brandsing. last week it was everybody's calling it spygate now. >> no, they're not. >> he says things over and over and over again and it starts to sink in. he knows what he's doing. maybe sometimes he doesn't actually know that he's lying but what's clear from watching him and seeing the volume of falsehoods or lies, what's clear from all of that, he doesn't care to know whether what he's saying is accurate or not. >> not checking it out. reagan would never get any deeper in anything he thought would help him. while there's no evidence to support the president's claim of spying going on, there is evidence his messaging campaign is working von had i yard caught up with some of them last night. let's listen to how they're absorbing the information. >> do you believe the president that there was a spy planted in his campaign? >> absolutely. >> do you believe that there's a deep state working against this administration? >> absolutely, absolutely. yeah. >> that concerns you? >> there is a big concern.

>> do you trust the ia and the fbi. >> absolutely not. >> jeff sessions? >> no. >> rod rosenstein. >> nope. >> i don't trust the government what soever. >> when the president says that there is a spy within his campaign, do you believe him? >> absolutely. >> you don't trust the cia and fbi? >> i don't. >> not at the top. >> didn't trust brannan, clapper, all of them trying to take him down. yes, i think there's a deep state. >> well, they're ready, aren't they? they're absorbing it. taking notes and they're mimicking what he says. >> that is the echo chamber right there. >> you were at a trump rally. >> that's what you would expect there. there is a real phenomenon, a scientific phenomenon called emotional adaptation. that's why the perfusion of the lies have been or the untruths have been increasing and the idea is is the proverbial frog getting boiled. as they creep up there, you don't realize it but you become more accepting of the next lie

that comes around. if somebody's wearing strong perfume, you get used to it. >> can you imagine trump people watching a little beard doctor, intellectualism and you're talking about how they're a little bit nuts. >> what's it called. >> emotional an dachttation. something we all do. the president is doing -- this is how human beings adapt the more these things are toeshlgsd the more acceptable they become to us. >> these conversations them selves blay flow this idea that the elite media doesn't understand us and that we are basically you know, that they're against president trump. so he -- what he is saying is right, what they are saying is wrong. there is something that is politics. he's creating a political reality himself. and he's doing it in a way we've never seen before because sometimes he tells falsehoods but that political reality is kind of weather needs to be able to win again. >> we'll be back with everybody including the roundtable sticking with us. these these will tell me something i don't know.

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we're back with the roundtable. davena, tell me something i don't know. >> there was a lot of argument who would benefit from the tax cuts. we got some important date at that time out today from the commerce department. corporate earnings up 8% in the first quarter. consumer intending everybody else up 1%. the lowest in five years. >> shocker. >> shocker. >> shauna. >> vice news is covering a candidate in california's 25th district, a woman we are seeing she is actually having a harder time winning other women in her primary than she would have thought. it's kind of interesting to see how women are supporting women. >> i thought women were voting for women this year. >> they are. in this specific anecdote, it's harder for her to get women against her male sort of democratic. >> they need to know more. >> eli. >> melania trump has been seen in 20 days publicly since going with the president out to andrews to welcome home the americans held in north korea.

>> what does that tell you? >> there's a lot of rumor and controversy swirling around this. today she did something that her husband does a lot. she tweeted and blamed the media for stirring things up. said she's home, doing just fine. she's with her family feeling great. still haven't seen her in 20 days. >> thank you dana, shauna and eli with some interesting stuff. we'll return and i'll come back with a finish on trump watch. you're watching "hardball." hear that sizzle? yeah. red lobster's lobster & shrimp summerfest is back! get all the lobster and shrimp you crave, together in so many new ways.

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trump watch, wednesday may 30th, 2018. american presidents speak for the country. it's important that they speak as americans. when white supremacists protested the removal of confederate statues in charlottesville, president trump said there were good people in that crowd. when the disney corporation fired roseanne barr yesterday for saying the daughter of a prominent american woman was the daughter of apes, trump attacks disney. what is it in him that makes donald trump side to use winston churchill's phrase with the fire against the fire brigade? obviously in keeping it as simple as possible, trump wants to be seenton that side. he wants a certain number of americans to believe on the topic of minorities in this country, he stands on the other side. this isn't new. president trump gained the white house by appealing to people who held the nastiest racial andect nick attitudes believing obama had snuck into the country that, mexicans are rapists and muslims are dangerous.

it's not a surprise he would again take it out 0 not on roseanne and what she said but what the disney corporation said because of what she said. this is donald trump. it's time we acted accordingly. this is "hardball" for now. that's for being with us. all in with chris hayes starts right now. tonight on "all in." >> the fbi did exactly what my fellow citizens would want them to do. >> another conspiracy theory collapses. >> that is such an outlandish allegation. >> as the president humiliates jeff sessions. >> the attorney general made a terrible mistake. >> tonight the latest on the plot to stop mueller and how the vice keeps tightening around the president's lawyer. >> any comment. >> have a great day, guys. >> if you're smuggling a chide, we're going to prosecute. >> you new details just how many migrant children are being separated from