announce on monday. justi justi justice gorsuch. >> "hardball" starts right now. >> the heat is on. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm in for chris matthews as legal challenges mount for several of his associates. trump's personal lawyer and self-described fixer signaled that he might be willing to cooperate with prosecutor.

vanity fair reports that trump is reconsidering his relationship. change his narrative by cooperating with robert mueller's investigation. the abc interview was largely in efforts to distance the president from his former attorney. it remains unclear if he will eventually cooperate with mueller. one already cooperating is michael flynn. flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the fbi last december. new questions about the russian ties to paul manafort who remains in prison after being indicted on tampering charges.

trump used almost the exact same language talking about all three men all of whom potentially have the ability to create big legal problems for their former boss. >> i've always liked michael. i haven't spoken to him in a long time. >> is he your lawyer? >> not my lawyer. >> but i've always liked michael. and he is a good person. i don't think it is right that they burst into his office on a weekend. i've never heard of that before. i feel badly for general flynn. he lost his friends, he lost his life. maybe he didn't lie. i think a lot of it is unfair. i look at some of them where they go back 12 years. manafort has nothing to do with our campaign. but i feel badly about it. they went back 12 years. paul manafort worked for me for

a short period of time. for 49 days or something. >> i am joined by julia anszly. erin blake. joyce vance former u.s. attorney. julia, let me start with you. this new reporting we cited there about michael cohen and his motivation where he talked about putting country, putting family first. the idea that he wants to change the narrative. i guess what i am wondering is why, when you are in the legal situation he is in, shouldn't you want to be dealing with the legal predicament first? when that is all settled, then you worry about the pr. >> i am wondering if it has tong with subtle messages that are going to two different camps. not just the message that he is sending to donald trump.

since he hired rudy giuliani has been on a blitz trying to distance himself from cohen. some of the tape you played there saying he wasn't my lawyer. he has already thrown him under the bus saying he was responsible for the payment. and then the other side, the message he might be wanting to send to prosecutors right now. if you want to talk about the switch flipping, realized that donald trump wasn't going to bail him out. he changed his message. no longer going to take a bullet for him, and in fact, might no longer take an indictment for him. he might be willing to cooperate and maybe they are hoping to grease those wheels although ard to undue some of the damage that was done. >> joyce vance, you were a prosecutor, if someone in your

cross hairs legally speaking goes out and gives the interview that michael cohen gave and sends the potential messages, he sent in the interview, is it perking your interest there? >> no. not at all. the only way it might be perking my interest is if he said something in the interview that i can use in evidence against him. cohen has a new lawyer coming on board in the next few days, a former narcotics chief of the southern district of new york. if cohen wants to talk to the u.s. attorney office about cooperating, he should have his lawyer pick up the phone and call him. this is something prosecutors don't like to see. it is not the way defends reach out and say they want to cooperate. if anything, it is harmful to cohen. >> it sounds like you are saying this is potentially could

backfire. >> this has been a public drama. but as a prosecutor working this kind of a case, you want there to be mystery about who cooperates with you and who isn't. you don't want it to be a known fact. if someone is helping you build a case, you want to do that under a cover of darkness until you are ready to reach out with plans for indictment. it might make for great drama, but it isn't very good for a criminal defense point of view. >> erin, that relationship between michael cohen and donald trump, we played the tape there, julia talking about maybe cohen doesn't feel the president has his back. and the president down-playing the relationship, and at the same time i've always liked michael cohen. do we have any sense how this

new turn by michael cohen, how trump is interpreting it. >> it is the trumpian. putting out these bizarre statements. we are trying to figure out if he is being strategic or worried about his image. if this is about him trying to run a pr campaign, the idea that this is going to have impact in the long run is short cited. if he is going to be the john dean of this case, that is determined at a later date. the idea that people are going to remember this interview with george stephanopoulos from july of 2018, is short-sighted. it doesn't seem to be sound

advice. >> michael flynn will make his first hearing. quote the repeated delays in flynn's sentencing has led to speculation that prosecutors believe his testimony could be useful at some future trial or that the sentencing process might disclose some aspect of the investigation that mueller still wishes to keep secret. so we have a court date on the calendar, what will we be expecting? >> i think they want to figure out when they set that sentencing day. and it could mean that flynn handed over some information. if you remember back early december, when we saw these final charging documents, it came to the fact that he lied to the fbi.

but a lot in his past that was not put into indictment. we want to see what they charge him with -- it might mean they have gotten everything from flynn. to anything else about who might directed him to have those conversations with the russian ambassador. it would make sense that they would want to go ahead with sentencing. >> bursts of news that have come out periodically, sometimes completely by surprise sometimes surprises within those surprises. when you look at this court date for michael flynn, how much clarity do you think this will give us about where this fits

into it. >> it depends on how much information judge sullivan demands in court. and that's for all of the reasons that you have discussed. but it hurts the defendant if he or she is sentences too early. it means prosecutors can't give them credit for all of their koof cooperation. we know that flynn engaged in a lot more misconduct than what he is charged with. it is likely he has explored with prosecutors the range of his conduct. to see if the cooperation is valuable enough so they won't charge him with other counts . d

>> and by the way, the quote again from the article about michael cohen and his motivation, the idea about changing the narrative here, i wonder whether it is with cohen or flynn, the entire question of russia and trump, is that narrative changeable in the court of public opinion in any way. >> the result is what is ultimately what is going to matter here. so many machinations. it seems like ages ago that michael flynn agreed to this deal. this is playing out, this is something that is going to continue, they are still delaying the sentencing. prosecutors that want to buy more time. we haven't had president trump's interview being scheduled. so this is all kind of in the

course of a much broader thing that you know, these minuscule moments are not going to add up to a lot. >> we talk about flynn, we talk about cohen, and there is also this with another character whose name came up. the associated press has obtained other memos and internal messages. those documents show how manafort made con stin tine kilimnik. help formulate manafort's pitches to his clients in ukraine. other mega wealthy russians with close ties to president vladimir

putin. >> it shows that this case that so many people have said, the manafort prosecution, not related to mueller's core obligation to look at russian collusion with the trump campaign and we are now seeing the point that the russian, and this will be perhaps what provides going forward the narrative that we will see mueller fulfill. julia, i want you to stick around. joyce and aaron, thank you for your time. julia, you have exclusive new reporting on those migrant children who have been separated from their parents. and also coming up, president trump waging a war against our own allies, fighting them on

trade and tweeting the need to fix some of the worst and unfair trade deals. has the president's finally pushed republicans on their breaking points. the year of the woman. record breaking women running for the house as roe v wade happening in the balance. the trump says the media has it wrong. negotiations are going well. round table is going to tell us three things we may not know. this is "hardball" where the action is.

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deepens. according to a copy of a government form obtained exclusively. julia, take us through. how many is affected by this. how are they being given this choice. >> reporter: so there was a lawsuit that was filed i think about a week and a half ago where a judge resumed that they should not be able to separate these children and bring them together and reunite them as quickly as possible. the government said, great, we will reunite them, but reunite them by giving them these hard choices. the first place would be to repatriate, to deport themselves without their children. that would mean allow their children to -- sorry, without

their children the child stays in the states and seeks asylum. it would in a lot of cases preclude the parent from seeking asylum. this is something dhs is pushing back on. but i have numerous documents. they have not gotten an order from the judge on whether or not they will get asylum and that process is allowed to play out. so given these choices before they know they can get asylum here. a lot of the people i spoke to before who were behind that class action lawsuit said they wanted this reunification process say they were not acting in the way the judge ordered them to do. >> all of the folks at the border, all of the families at the border, what share of them

this applies to? do we have the scope of this? >> right now, dhs isn't giving us great numbers on how many people have been reunified. little north of 2,000. but this should apply to most of the parents of those 2,000. they are able to get deportation orders quickly, it is the asylum process that takes longer. it could be as many as 1800, 2,000 parents. >> thank you for that. the republicans have walked in lock step with the president, but have they found an issue where they have reached their breaking point? much more on "hardball" 789 that. ♪ i'm awake.

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fighting a two part war. trump says the u.s. is being taken advantage of. this morning the president tweeted, the economy is doing perhaps better than before and that is prior to fixing some of the worst and most unfair trade deals ever made with any country. picking fights with some of the most major economic powers including our allies. >> excuse me, the european union is possibly as bad as china, just smaller. terrible what they did to us. >> what we are doing is other nations have been hurting this country. taking advantage of the united states. we have massive trade deficits with china, with the european union, with mexico, and we are reversing that. reversing it quickly. >> and the president's actions have prompted serious push back. last week the european union

warned it would be doing the same. yesterday the president was rebuked by the prime minister of the netherlands. >> fair trade deals. i don't want to say good, fair. fair trade deals for our taxpayers and our workers and farmers and a lot of good things are happening. i think the eu, we will be meeting with them soon. and that will be good. if we do work it out, that will be positive and if we don't, it will be positive also. >> no. we have to work something out. >> it will be positive. >> president seems unfazed. according to axios. also, upsetting our allies, trump warning members of nato they will have to pay more for

their own defense. for more, i am joined by michael steele. jonathan swan and shelby holiday. shelby, he campaigned on this kind of rhetoric. we have seen other candidates for office campaign, but usually in office they retreat to the same posture on this. do you have a sense on how far he is willing to go on this? >> no. and that is what is scaring investors, economists. other times, with the paris climate of course, he makes a threat and does it. a lot of people looking at what he is saying and what his posture is.

economists say tariff is not the way to go. china can't impose as many tariffs on us, but it has other levers to pull. it can weaken the currency. expect doing business in china, a lot of other ways to get back to the u.s. >> you are describing is a full-fledged trade war. and when it comes to the idea of triggering something of that scale, is there a red line right now? if this administration tries to do x, then we are in a trade war and no walking back from it. >> right now, it is gradual. he is looking at an additional 200 billion tariffs on china. it is a slow ramp up.

the other countries aren't showing signs of backing down. >> so jonathan swan, we know this is something that donald trump has talked about this style of leadership on the issue of trade for a long time pre dates even as 2016 campaign. he is getting pushback here from republican leaders who otherwise staid loy stayed loyal to him. is that causing him to hit the brakes on this? >> it has in some small way. trump did want to withdrawal from nafta last year, quite early last year in fact. and they were prepared. steve bannon, peter navarro, ready to do it. thinking about the announcement in pittsburgh, and there was an intervention and people like gary cohn.

farmers that would get hurt. and what has delayed him is this conga line procession in the white house in the months since then, saying please mr. president do not terminate nafta. he still hasn't withdrawn from nafta. but look, he still went ahead and imposed the tariffs starting with the washing machines and going into steel and aluminum. the important thing that we have not talked about is now in the early stages. president xi, president for life, doesn't have a lot of stic

stit stit constituencies. he has his own domestic problems. he is in a tough bind. >> michael, that dynamic, the republicans have in congress, the majority in the house and majority in the senate. how many issues were there where we said this is the one that trump has said something that is going to irk the base. and then he wins every congressional district in the state. so proving that thinking wrong over and over again, but is it different on trade? >> it is different. a couple of things, maybe three to keep in mind. where we are on trade is where donald trump has always been on trade. gone back to the early 1980s, been a hawk for this type of formula in dealing with our economic partners along the

globe. he is a single shot player and going to go mano-a-mano. we are still free traders. then the president launched a couple of salvos on steel and other products that began to hit their districts and this brings us to the third point where now they are beginning to hear from their constituencies and beginning to feel some of the pain particularly those in the farming and agriculture sectors pushing back and making some noise. you are starting to see some on the hill respond. how far they respond remains to be seen. and if the president listens remains to be seen. >> quickly, michael, you have been in republican politics for

a long time. is the republican party going to emerge from the trump era still a free trade party? >> i don't see how. they are embracing too much of this idea of antiglobalism and american isolationism. in the guys of one-on-1 dual partnerships. i think the party is going to have some hardship, reconnecting its course if you will. particularly in that base stays locked in on this idea what trump's policies will make their life better. the proof is in the pudding. and hard to reconcile. >> thanks to all of you for being with us. we are firing up the big board. walk across the studio and try to go through some surprising new numbers including polling on the question do you think the president is a racist.

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now the vacancy on the supreme court. democrats trying to win back the house. republicans trying to hang on for dear life. how has the public been interpreting all of this. we have got some new polling. we have a lot of new polling. we are going to go to the board and walk you through it. today, three brand new polls on the president's approval rating. we have a range here. this is the high end. the high end of almost anything you are going to see. sitting there at 48%. and then politico found them at 43. sitting at a touch over 43%.

43.5% average approval rating. it is in that gray zone right now. it is better than it was a few months ago. how about those issues. first of all, the bottom line question, how do you think the president has been handling immigration. you can see from that quinnipiac pole 39% approve. nearly 60% disapproving. and then they asked other questions. trump's motive behind his immigration policy. the charge has been out there. the way the president has talked about this. 50% say he has a sincere interest in controlling the border. 44% say he is motivated in immigration by racist beliefs.

if 44% say that, ask this question, do you think the president is a racist. that was asked by quinnipiac and the answer, 49% said no. and 47% said no. half and half. among white borders, a slim majority saying he is not. 44% saying yes. among black voters, eight in ten say yes. hispanic voters nearly 60% saying yes. asking that question, 49-47. we asked that question, in our poll, the nbc one. when should the nominee be confirmed. folks say hold the vote.

that is not what democrats want. and democrats are saying you have to do that. because you don't want roe being overturned. and on that front, when you ask folks do you want roe to be upheld or overturned, 2-1 margin they say to uphold. you look at the political narratives and the terms of the debate nationally, and sometimes the answers can be contradictory. and leaving scratching your head on what folks want. up next, trump days away from announcing that pick. at the same time record number of women running for office this year. one upset already in the books. how those two facts impact. you are watching "hardball" were made for better things than psoriatic arthritis. as you and your rheumatologist consider treatments, ask if xeljanz xr is right for you. xeljanz xr is a once-daily pill

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. welcome back to "hardball." 61% americans want to uphold the roe v wade. president trump has interviewed seven potential nominees this week to fill justice anthony kennedy's seat. meanwhile, as we head into the midterm elections, the number of women running for office at all all time high. let's bring in "hardball" round table. noelle, let me start with you.

do you think she looks at that and ratchets up the pressure? >> i think she and lisa murkowski are the two votes. these two votes may be resistant if they do not pass the litmus test for roe v. wade. make nice or whatever with them, because it is not a given that suzanne collins is going to go the way. >> if she breaks does that give cover to the red states that says look, this isn't just democrats, this is republicans too. >> and look, she is unrelenting. susan collins is not going to take any kind of a deal or anything. if you are trump's pick and you

have some sort of inclination or doing something with roe v. wade, to overturn that, that is not going to fly with collins. she stated that. she said if you look like you are going to go this way, you are not going to get this vote. >> these are the most anti abortion states in the country. some of the most pro-trump states in the country. if becomes about roe and about abortion, is there almost an insensitive for the democrats in those states not to be with the party on it. >> there is a lot of incentive. but i want to back up a minute and talk about women. we are looking at a situation where women are going to probably change the narrative

and the conversation about the supreme court pick period. i think that other republican men might listen. so it might be interesting to see how the narrative burgeons up. >> the cynical take on this is this whole confirmation is almost down to a science where the nominee is going to go up there and give a muddled statement and not say anything one way or another. everybody is going to have their suspicions and no evidence. and defaults to a party line vote. >> given the limited power that the democrats have. it looks like, again, we will know the nominee on monday. what kind of factor does this play in the midterms. we have seen republicans have been organized on the issue of the supreme court fight. and court fights in general

across the country. 150 federal vacancies. we just haven't seen it in past elections. now you mentioned women at the top of the segment. those women have been encouraged to run before all of this. i am curious to see how these women groups and democratic groups can harness this energy. >> and we, you know, one of them that has been brought forward is barrett. who used to clerk for scalia. is she going to be more of a scalia vote or more of a justice kennedy. >> and you have seen public opposition. chuck schumer came out and had an attack on her. we mentioned the polling. i want to get the panel to talk

about the question, do you think the president is a racist. and 49-47 is finding on that. it is essentially a 50-50. >> my question, is do the voters care. now that they are saying oh, we know he is racist, are the votes going to penalize the republicans for going along with the racism. and we need to talk about 53-54 white men continue to vote for these guys. >> as a republican,what do you think when you see that? >> first of all, this is a hot seat to be in. either way i go, if i say, no, he is not a racist. i am going to get hammered from the viewers here.

and if i say, yeah, he is a big racist, the conservative side is going to be like, you are not really a republican. here is the point that i go back to when you bring up donald trump and racist. when he was at the "apprentice," or events, he did not have that view of him. in real estate, he wasn't called a racist. when he got to be president of the united states he was a racist. the only thing i can think of how he got the label, is maybe association with far right extremist. >> that is not true. >> i think it was the birther thing. >> yeah. >> making that his transition from the apprentice to politics. >> you are missing his entire history. that is not true. >> you are talking about how -- >> i'm talking about in the

beginning of his career when he was, as a developer discriminating. he put out a full article to send black boys to jail. it was racist. >> the term in the industry, the q score, it measures celebrities and their appeal. when he was at the height of "apprentice," popularity, incredible high scores among african americans. you see those numbers drop when he brought up birtherism. >> he made this a movement of his and the fact that this question is asked in polling, i think is very striking. and i think kind of tells us a

little bit. >> and donald trump gave a lot of contributions as a private citizen to democrats. >> there are a lot of racist democra democrats to be fair too. >> round table is staying with us. more to come. you are watching "hardball." and whiskers on kittens ♪ ♪ bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens ♪ ♪ brown paper packages tied up with strings ♪ ♪ these are a few of my favorite things ♪ ♪ ♪

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