attempting to interfere in the election and they better cut it out. and by having this delegation out in moscow right now it's not sending a signal to russia that there are going to be costs to pay for any type of continued interference, it's going to be we're going to forgive and forget. that's the message that comes across. >> they said we're not going to raise this or that. we should also point out that the senate committee found that the meddling also helped donald trump and hurt hillary clinton. my thanks to john brennan, michael steele, chuck rosenfield. i'm nicolle wallace. mtp daily starts right now with chris jansing in for chuck. >> just another day at the anchor desk for nicolle wallace. and if it's thursday, scott pruitt is out. good evening, i'm chris jansing in new york in for chuck

todd. welcome to "mtp daily." we begin tonight with breaking news. epa chief scott pruitt has resigned after a shocking number of scandals and controversies simply proved too much, even for an administration that has become rather adept at powering through scandals and controversies. pruitt's ouster is an unbelievable development in that he lasted this long. as scandals piled up, the president continued to dig in, defending pruitt for his work in dismantling epa programs and regulations. as of last week, we counted a total of 15 ongoing federal inquiries into pruitt. there were allegations he abused taxpayer money via personal travel and other expenses. there were the allegations that he used the office in an attempt to enrich himself and his family. there were reports of a sweetheart deal involving a d.c. condo that was tied to fossil fuel lobbyists. allegations he used the office in an attempt to get his wife a chick-fil-a franchise and hook

her up with a $200,000-a-year job. there were allegations just reported in the last few days that he was trying to cover up his actions by deleting meetings from his calendar, and he fired a staffer who questioned the practice. there were inquiries into his first-class travel expenses and a $43,000 soundproof phone booth in his office. some of the reported conduct was downright bizarre, for instance, using one of his top aides, apparently, to try to buy a used trump hotel mattress. so the big question on everyone's mind right now is why now, because despite pruitt's scandals, there was always one person who usually had his back, publicly at least. >> well, scott pruitt is doing a great job within the walls of the epa. we're setting records. outside he's being attacked very viciously by the press. i'm not saying that he's blameless, but we'll see what happens. >> administrator scott pruitt,

thank you, scott, very much. epa is doing really, really well. people are really impressed with the job that's being done at the epa. thank you very much, scott. >> i think he's done a fantastic job at epa. i think he's done an incredible job. he's been very courageous. it hasn't been easy, but i think he's done an absolutely fantastic job. >> but this afternoon the president tweeted i have accepted the resignation of scott pruitt as the administrator of the environmental protection agency. within the agency scott has done an outstanding job, and i will always be thankful to him for this. the senate confirmed deputy at epa, andrew wheeler, will on monday assume duties as the acting administrator of the epa. i have no doubt that andy will continue on with our great and lasting epa agenda. we have made tremendous progress and the future of the epa is very bright. in his resignation, though, pruitt blames his ouster on unrelenting and unprecedented

attacks that he claim targeted him personally. let's bring in nbc's hans nichols at the white house on this busy afternoon. so just last night the president was praising him. he praised him as we just heard in that statement he put out on twitter. so why now? why is scott pruitt gone? do we know if he was asked to leave or he decided to leave? >> we may have two hints on that. number one, today is the first day of the new deputy chief of staff bill shine. it may be that he wanted to clean house and stutterart afred this was one of his first acts, convincing president trump to finally let go of his epa director. we've also heard from congressional democrats saying that they had uncovered additional information, additional cases of scott pruitt asking people in the a.p., employees, to take out personal tasks for him and his family. what's also clear now, this news broke a little over two hours ago, yes, the head of the epa is resigning but the direction of

the e. -- epa has not changed. andrew wheeler is a former coal industry lobbyist. he's a lawyer, he's a lobbyist. what's clear from the president throughout his defense of scott pruitt as well as celebrating andrew wheeler is that the direction of the epa will not change and this will be dedicated to dismantling some of the regulatory and environmental protections put in place not just by president obama but by previous republican presidents as this president wants to do more to help the business community. chris. >> was there any indication, though, that this was coming? the timing is really interesting when you have a new communications director coming on. >> yeah. >> maybe he was able to convince the president. was it about -- we know the president watches social media very closely. you had a, i would say, unflattering bit of a confrontation in a restaurant with a woman going up to scott pruitt. that went viral. people watched it, i think,

hundreds of thousands of times. anything that suggests, because i kept asking the question how many scandals, how many ethical investigations is the magic number? maybe now we know it's 15. >> what we heard from the white house throughout this process the last two weeks, even two months, was concern from senior officials. you'd hear that they were troubling. the most recent one was troublesome. but all along there had been concern among officials and it always appeared that president donald trump supported scott pruitt because, a, he thought scott pruitt was being attacked, and b, he thought he was being attacked for his take and approach on dismantling environmental protections and that's something president trump wanted to do. so he didn't want to give the other side, the democrats, the left, unnecessarily a win on this. but really talking to aides the last couple of weeks, me and my colleagu colleagues, the most recent one was troublesome. that came yesterday that they found in his behavior troublesome but a couple of weeks before it was troubling.

all along there was concern among aides, it's still unclear why president trump decided to make this decision today. i think that's something we need to get to the bottom of. >> hans nichols, i know you're continuing to do reporting on this. in the meantime i want to bring in alexi mccammond and howard dean, msnbc contributor. alexi, it's been pointed out for a very long time that if the president wanted to make a change, he could get someone and it seems like he is who can do all the things that scott pruitt was doing in terms of dismantling regulations at the e epa and not have this as a distraction. so again i go to the question why now? is it because he was making donald trump look bad? is it because there's a new communications director? is the pressure finally building? because when you have somebody like trey gowdy who has been so much in the president's pocket saying something is wrong here, laura ingraham saying get rid of this guy, it just became

untenable? >> well, i think if we look to scott pruitt's resignation later and get past the snark in there where he's blaming the media saying the media has been unfairly attacking him, that sort of signals perhaps why now. maybe scott pruitt and the president have seen that they think the media is doing too good of a job by reporting on these scandals. we can look back to february of 2017 when scott pruitt was going through his confirmation hearing and democrats on the hill were saying -- senator whitehouse was saying my republican friends are going to rue the day when they jammed through this nomination of scott pruitt because they had concerns about his connections to oil companies back then. they had concerns about potential controversies that hadn't come up back then and that was last february. i think now we're sort of seeing the troubling, the mounting scandals and controversies coming from scott pruitt in a way that not only was a distraction for the president but a distraction for all the things that the epa was moving forward on that the president is happy about. as you mentioned, he'll be able to do that with the next man without all of these

distractions bothering him. >> howard, i want to read from this text of a resignation letter from scott pruitt and this is what i think we'll hear the most about. he says it was difficult for me to see serving you in this role because i counted as a blessing serving you in any capacity, but also because of the transformative work that is occurring. however, the unrelenting attacks on me personally, my family, are unprecedented and have taken a sizeable toll on all of us. what's your take on scott pruitt being gone? >> well, he actually has a lot in common with trump. not only are they both crooked, but they also have an incredible tenair about whether people notice this or not. the stuff pruitt was doing was stunning and he evidently didn't care. >> he also found that he kept getting away with it over and over and over again, when it became 5 and then 10 and then 12 different investigations going on. >> he did, because of course the republicans are completely --

who run both houses of congress, have no -- they don't serve the country, they serve trump. so they weren't -- they were reluck tanctan reluctant. scott pruitt is a crook. he's cost taxpayers millions and millions of dollars. >> what do you think the chances of that are? is this over? he resigns and it's over or do you think there's legal jeopardy for him? >> i think there's legal jeopardy. there's certainly legal jeopardy. does a politicized justice department follow up or will there be an independent investigation of some kind? there could have. he's damaged this country enormously. he's just been so blatant about his disregard for the law, as trump is as well. so i think trump -- i think what really happened is that he should have been fired in. in a normal administration he wouldn't have been appointed. but even in this administration he should have been fired months ago but he sees himself in pruitt. he likes the swash buckling, take what the hell you want and who gives a damn what the public says. they're both a great victims

player. they cause themselves trouble and then blame somebody else. >> there was also the whole question raised by hans nichols which has to do with whether or not this is about just a new communications director, bill shine, coming in and saying, you know what, we've got other stuff that we need to be worried about, let's start with the supreme court. let's start with the midterm elections. we can't be dealing with this. i wondering if this is anything indicative of the way the white house is going to be looking at things. you obviously have had ethical questions raised about ryan zinke, about ben carlson. you could also argue that compared to scott pruitt they were amateur hour, but does this bode for something else that might happen in the future? >> i think that would be a signal of bill shine having an immense amount of power on i guess his first official day, maybe his fourth official day this week. i wouldn't put it past him and the administration to make that happen. i think the midterm election angina 'em is significant. governor howard dean just mentioned this a little bit.

if democrats take back the house or the senate, either chamber of congress, it will be a lot harder for the head of the epa to move forward on dismantling the obama administration's environmental agenda because there will be more congressional oversight from democrats. there are mounting controversies happening within the administration from the top down that are easily becoming a distraction ahead of the november election. scott pruitt is maybe viewed, now we're saying today, as something that is not worth it, a distraction that is not worth it when republicans are heading into this very competitive election in just a few weeks. >> howard, does it take, though, something away from the democrats? are republicans breathing a sigh of relief? they didn't want to have to keep answering questions on the campaign trail about the president's promise to drain the swamp? >> anybody who thinks that scott pruitt is not going to play a prominent role in ads in november is very mistaken. you'll see zinke, you'll see pruitt, there will be a whole lot of people. you'll see bill shine. that's the most amazing thing to me. if the theory shine did this, shine goes into the white house

with ethics problems because he was involved in the payoffs at fox news for the sexual assault stuff. so, look, trump hires people like himself. this is a scandal-ridden organization. as i once said it basically is an organized crime ring run out of the white house. that's what it is and that's what you're going to see. scott pruitt is not going away as far as the democrats are concerned. he'll be with us until election day. >> i guess the question is what do the democrats do about this besides run ads on it? is it really something that's going to have any kind of real implications? or are people just sort of slugging ashru shruging and saying, yeah, you replace somebody who wants to dismantle everything the obama administration did with the environment and you replace it and let's say they keep the deputy in, he's got 200 days before he would have to be formally nominated. even if he didn't make it through he could stay another 210 days.

the president can keep this going well past. and so is it really a victory for democrats when you have somebody who is arguably at least as bad for the environment as scott pruitt was, and some people might argue somebody who even has maybe a worse environmental record or background than scott pruitt? >> the public was never -- i'm sorry, who are you asking? >> go ahead, howard. >> the public was never going to vote on whether scott pruitt was good or bad for the environment. they don't generally do that. there are people that vote the environment, but not many. what the public in general, both republicans and democrats object to is corruption in government. that's why trump's numbers are underwater. it's not even his incompetence, which he is, it's his corruption that's really upset people. so this is not a victory for the democrats to get pruitt out of there, this is a victory for the country that's long overdue. if the republicans in congress had been doing their jobs, he'd have been gone a long time ago.

you don't think if mitch mcconnell and paul ryan went to trump and said you've got to fire this guy, we can't support his agenda, he'd have been fired right there. the issue for the fall is that donald trump has disgraced the office of the presidency and these are just going to be examples of the insidious corruption. there will be plenty more between now and then. >> alexi, what do you think? how much are the republicans going to have to answer for scott pruitt on the campaign trail? >> i think as long as democrats fold this in the corruption angle, they will have to answer for him and we've seen that already in the "a better deal" platform democrats have rolled out. corruption is a big part of that and that extends to scott pruitt, ryan zinke, ben carlson, the mueller investigation, stormy daniels. you see it being used by nancy pelosi, chuck schumer, tom steyer in california in his impeachment campaign and ads associated with that. so i think the larger corruption scandal and sort of picture you can draw for voters, the more republicans will have to answer for it and the more democrats

will be able to use that for their side so it doesn't necessarily ending now that scott pruitt is out. if anything, it gets bigger and better for democrats. >> stick with me. joining me on the phone is fred krupp, the president of the environmental defense fund. pruitt is the first epa chief that they have ever called on to resign. they put out a statement saying scott pruitt's reckless tour is over but the damage will be lasting and the threat of additional harm to public health and the environment remains grave. thanks for joining us, mr. krupp. let me get your overall reaction to what's happened over the last couple of hours. >> well, it's definitely a victory for all americans who care about clean air and clean water to have scott pruitt out. he was corrupt, he did favors for folks who did favors for him. you know, it was a scandal frankly that he lasted so long. unfortunately, changing the

nameplate on the desk does not necessarily give us reasons for a lot of hope. andy wheeler is a long-time lobbyist for the coal industry. >> well, he's also a former chief of staff to senator inhoff who maybe is the most vocal climate denying senator. when i look at the statement that you put out, i saw a number of members of congress putting out statements from dan kilde on the congressional side, bernie sanders on the senate side. but to that end, does this really change anything? >> well, the fact that andrew wheeler, who will be taking over, the fact that he's been a lobbyist for murray energy, not just nicole company, but a coal company that polluted the same creek in 2000, 2005 and again in 2008 when a coal slurry broke through, the fact that murray energy who he represented paid

millions of dollars in fines, the fact that he represented this firm that tried to silence its 3,500 employees and intimidate them into not confidentially complaining about safety violations to the federal government, you know, he is a coal lobbyist for one of the -- he has been a coal lobbyist in the past for one of the worst offending companies. you know, we're going to have to remain vigilant with a spotlight on because unfortunately the policies of the trump administration aren't changing. >> so what do you do? i guess that's the final question. you're in a situation, as i just laid out, where he can be put in temporarily for a couple of hundred days. even if then he does get nominated and potentially wouldn't get through, there could be another 210 days where he could be in there. so is this just a situation where your hands are completely

tied? >> well, no. there are things that we can do and the citizens can do. first of all, we're going to be watching him like a hawk. second of all, we're going to be continuing our litigation in the federal courts. every time epa tries to repeal one of the protections for americans' health, we'll be in court fighting to prevent that from happening because, you know, they have been trying to eviscerate protections but doing is in a very sloppy ham-handed way. and third, we will be continuing to file freedom of information requests to get the story. so far the story in the trump administration on environmental policy has been, you know, a lot of corrupt dealings, feather bedding by pruitt and payoffs for the polluters. and unfortunately this news does not necessarily mean that's going to change. >> fred krupp, president of the

environmental defense fund, thank you so much. appreciate you taking the time to talk to us. brady dennis with "the washington post" is a national reporter but he has focused largely on the environment and he has written extensively about scott pruitt. so what do you make or what do you know about what happened here? i think i've even asked you this question in the past. what's it going to take? now that scott pruitt is out, the question is why? >> well, i think as others have alluded to today, this was in some sense a long time coming. there was a point at which even the president himself probably realized the personal problems that scott pruitt was facing, you know, had just cascaded and were going to continue to be the focus of attention, you know, pretty much indefinitely as long as he was still in the office there. and so i think it just reached a tipping point this week. >> one of the things, and you wrote about this, these two top aids who went to -- went before

congress and got some more details about some things that we had known about, deeper than we had known about before, give us a sense of the new information that came into congress and we don't know, we may find out eventually that some republicans got into the president's ears and said, look, we talked to these aides and you need to know this. >> yeah, i mean i think what we were starting to see with various epa aides being called to congress is that even people who from a policy perspective were great allies of the trump administration and of scott pruitt, people who agreed wholeheartedly with the policies had still witnessed things and told these investigators about things that were troubling from an ethical standpoint. at that point, it sort of undermined the argument that it was just political enemies or disgruntled employees who were out to get scott pruitt, these were people that he brought with him and were among the most loyal employees to that point. >> you have this group of people

who are very loyal to him, but do you imagine that among a wider group of people who worked for scott pruitt that there is many tears being shed? i mean this is a guy who clearly from what we know put a number of his aides in very uncomfortable situations, asking them to do things that they knew were outside of ethical guidelines and the reporting from your newspaper that there is a young aide who he asked to pay for a hotel bill, didn't get reimbursed and $600 had to come from someone else on the staff, right? >> that's right. there were any number of examples and this is one of the problems that he ran into or that he, you know, came urngd scrutiny for was asking aides to do personal tasks, from picking up dry cleaning to booking personal travel, all sorts of things, which would seem to violate federal ethics rules. yes, he did put employees in difficult situations.

there was frustration about that inside the epa and certainly as this became known within the white house too. >> you know, we have a new communications director who was out at fox because of these allegations that he covered up sexual misconduct there. if you draw a parallel here, it's not as if scott pruitt came into this without this administration knowing there were some questions, right? back in oklahoma. >> yeah. i mean i think that's a little bit of an open question. we don't know quite how much vetting was done on scott pruitt or any number of nominees, to be fair. and i think over time we've seen that if there was vetting, if there were problems that were raised and in some instances we know that there were, i'm not sure how widely that was known at the time. the way this president has operated in many cases is when he clicks with someone and when he likes someone, he tends to embrace them. that's certainly what he did for a long time with scott pruitt.

>> is there anything that surprises you covering him as long as you have about scott pruitt putting out a statement basically saying that it was the unrelenting attacks that led to his resignation? >> no, it's not surprising. that's been his position all along is that these were attacks against him because he was causing great and needed change at the epa and that's a line he stuck to today in his resignation letter as well as praising president trump, which he has been, you know, the most loyal of cabinet members right up to the end. >> well, i appreciate your reporting. anything else, please let us know, as you have spent so much time, brady. brady dennis, thank you so much. democrats on a midterm mission. how they're organizing to make a big impact on voters in swing districts. we'll be right back. it was here. i couldn't catch my breath. it was the last song of the night.

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welcome back. plenty of democrats are fired up right now over issues like immigration and the supreme court and, frankly, scott pruitt. but plenty of those democrats also live in deep blue districts. well, now an organization called swing left is helping connect democrats who live in those blue districts with nearby purple districts where they can make a difference and try to flip control of the house. take a look. >> you enter your zip code here.

so i'm in west hollywood, a very blue district. >> yeah. >> maybe one of the bluest. and you search. and it says what my closest swing district is, which is california 25. >> and that's where you're standing right now. >> this is where i've been standing for the last year or so, coming up here almost every weekend. >> he's not alone. the website launched the day after the inauguration. by the end of the first weekend, 200,000 people had signed up. today it's pushing 400,000. people just waiting for a way to channel their frustration into action. >> how many of you guys are from outside of this district? wow. keep 'em up, keep 'em up. that's amazing. >> so in california district 25 in the shadow of the reagan library, 200 people went canvassing last sunday. >> were you nervous about knocking on doors the first time? >> yes, i was very nervous. >> now they tell me it's cathartic, even addicting. >> i cannot go away because every time i go out and meet

another democrat and they say thank you so much for coming, i can't wait to vote. >> add to that swing left manpower, money. they set up innovative district funds. you donate to a district, not a person, and the eventual primary winner gets the cash. in cal 25, that's katie hill. >> katie, it's my great pleasure to hand over this check from the grassroots. >> thank you so much. >> so a brand new organization. they have raised $4 million for those winners. one other big thing that swing left is hoping to use to their advantage, well, 75% of americans live within 50 miles of a swing district. when we come back, the democrats' supreme struggle. president trump is about to announce his supreme court pick. what is the party's strategy on how to respond?

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welcome back. with the president zeroing in his supreme court nominee,

democrats are fighting over fighting the president's supreme court pick. a source familiar with the president's selection process told nbc news the field is now narrowed to three top contenders, all of them staunch conservatives. one was a top aide to ken starr, one is a devout catholic with seven kids, one has been called gorsuch 2.0. so with the fight fast approaching and the president announcing his pick on monday, of course, democrats are still scrambling to unify behind a strategy. the folks who want to fight this pick are hoping to flip republicans or blow up the senate via procedural warfare or dig up some bombshell oppo research. the folks who want to avenge this pick are all about various forms of revenge at the ballot box, maybe limit their terms, pack the court with liberals. democrats have a base that is eager to fight. a moderate wing that isn't, and leadership caught in the middle.

each faction of the party seems to have a different strategy and there is very little time to figure it all out. joining me is california democratic congressman ted lieu, so what should the democrats do about this? >> thank you, chris, for your question. i think we just should be consistent. i agree with what senate leader mitch mcconnell said during the merrick garland nomination. he stated that the american people should have a voice in the selection of the next supreme court justice. then he held that open for nearly a year. we should just be consistent and make sure that this nomination is held open for less than five months while the midterms happen. >> obviously he had the way to do it, he was the leader. he was the majority leader. so what do you do? do you refuse the republicans a quorum? do you barricade the doors? do you occupy the floor? what do you do? what are the democrats supposed to do? >> i would try everything, but also i believe in abraham lincoln's statement when he said that public sentiment is everything. with it nothing can fail, without it nothing can succeed.

you can see with today's pruitt resignation, that happened not because of any legal matter but because of public outrage. >> but there is no poll that suggests that people want this delayed. i don't think there's public outrage about a decision to replace a justice who's decided to step down. so, for example, should chuck schumer punish any democrat who goes against this pick? should he punish them with seniority, taking away committee spots? what should he do? >> i can't speak for what chuck schumer would do or not do, but i do note that in my experience in politics, no one wins elections if they can't mobilize their own base. so whether you're a moderate or you're a progressive democrat, you still have to mobilize your own base. if you are not responding to your base, your election chances diminish. >> so i want to make sure that i understand you, though. if democrats promise that they're going to fight on the nomination and they don't have success on that and whoever one

of these three conservatives that we believe is one of the finalists becomes the next supreme court justice, should people who, especially democrats, who may have voted for this person be voted out? should they be punished? should chuck schumer then lose his position? it's not as though this is a surprise. it's not as though they didn't have time to come up with a strategy. do you think there is a clear strategy by the democratic leadership? >> part of the issue is we don't know exactly who the pick is. once that happens, there will be a vetting process and it's up to individual senators to do what they want to do. but again, in elections, really if you can't moebilize your own base, it makes it hard to win. the republicans held the nomination for nearly a year. i think we should do what the republicans did and have republicans hold it for at least past november because the american people do deserve a voice in the selection of the next supreme court justice. >> do you have faith in your leadership both on the house and

the senate side going forward? >> i do. and since trump got inaugurated, democrats across the nation have won 43 special elections, including two federal ones, one in alabama, one in western pennsylvania, so i do have faith in our leadership, yes. >> there is also some disagreement about what to do about immigration, as you well know, and there are these calls to abolish i.c.e. there are others who believe this is just a distraction off message, that the message should be about what the public frankly has been moved by and that is the emotion of seeing children ripped away from their parents. was that a mistake? are these calls a mistake? did the democrats need to have a more unified message? >> i don't think those calls were a mistake. we've got a big tent party where we welcome people of different views. my personal belief is we need to do three things. secretary nielsen needs to resign. the new i.c.e. director that was just installed needs to change the culture of i.c.e. third, congress needs to change the policies of i.c.e. so

they're not terrorizing communities. if none of those three things happen, then we should replace i.c.e. with an agency that's consistent with america's values. >> so here you have yourself in a position where until at least november there isn't a whole lot at least in terms of legislation or power that the democrats can do. let me ask you about what you think about scott pruitt. is there -- it looks as though, at least for 200 days, the president can have someone in there who has the same views, will pursue the same agenda if not the same kind of ethical lapses we saw. what's your take on what happened with scott pruitt and does it change the equation at all? >> although democrats are in the minority party, i think we should not underestimate the power of public opinion. and the power of public outrage. that's what we're seeing across america. the trump administration has had to reverse several times on both policies as well as personnel because of public opinion.

and then in terms of actual policies, we're going to have to wait and see what the new epa interim director does. by all counts he does seem to be fairly conservative and he was a lobbyist for the coal industry. by the way, coal is not coming back no matter what anyone does. >> do you expect to see a lot of your fellow democrats running against scott pruitt, running against the president on the whole drain the swamp pledge? >> i think definitely corruption is a major aspect of november's midterms, but democrats are also running on the economic message for a better deal, for better wages, better jobs and a better future. it's very clear when you look at the tax law republicans passed, it is not happening ordinary middle class families, it's basically helping the super rich and top 1% and the voters understand that and will vote accordingly this november. >> you believe more in running on an economic message, less about running against donald trump? >> yes, i believe that would be

good, but there are some districts where you can do both, where you do one or another. the interesting thing about midterms is we're targeting over 100 different congressional districts and the candidate in southern california will not be talking about the same thing as the candidate in kentucky and that's okay because they're representing their own district. >> congressman ted lieu, thank you. we also want to mark the sudden passing of our former msnbc colleague, ed schultz. he anchored "the ed show" from 2009 to 2015. he was a firebrand voice of the progressive left and working class starting each show with his signature phrase "let's get to work." he began his broadcasting career in 1982 as a sports commentator in north dakota, later hosting a conservative political talk radio program, but rose to national prominence as a liberal radio talk show host. our friend and colleague ed schultz was 64. belly fat:

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with i get rewarded explowherever i go. going out for a bite. rewarded! going new places. rewarded! learn more at theexplorercard.com welcome back. tonight in meet the midterms, take a look. we've got live pictures at great falls, montana, where any minute now president trump will take the stage at this rally. the president is there to fire up republicans. he won montana by 20 points in 2016. now republicans are trying to flip democratic senator john

tester's senate seat there. but tester welcomed the president to big sky country today with open arms. the montana democrat ran full-page ads in 14 newspapers this morning welcoming president trump to the state and thanking him for supporting tester's lentili legislation. the ad listed 16 bills that tester sponsored or co-sponsored and the president signed into law. while he's partially trying to align himself with the president, the president's allies are trying to keep that from happening. the local great falls paper also published an op-ed by donald trump jr. saying john tester is no partner of president trump. we'll be watching tonight's rally and this race as we head into november. more "mtp daily" after the break. and forced to flee the country of your birth. but you started a new life in a brand new world. when i built my ancestry family tree, i found your story...

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welcome back. time now for "the lid." we want to go back to the breaking news. president trump just spoke about

scott pruitt's resignation, telling reporters on air force one that pruitt is, quote, a terrific guy. the choice to resign was his. my panel is back, alexi mccammond, howard dean and david french joins us on the phone. david, thank you for sticking around through what i understand were technical difficulties. a cup couple of more things the president said. there was no final straw, he said. he said scott pruitt had been talking to him for several days that he didn't want to be a distraction and asked if there was anything about the accusations against pruitt that troubled him, the president said no. let me get your reaction to scott pruitt being out. >> well, you know, i think this is overdue. it's been overdue for several weeks. and it wasn't any one thing, it was the accumulation of things. i think his defenders on the right had a real problem in that if there's ten accusations, they may be able to say, well, one or two are slightly overblown, but

they just kept coming and coming and coming. and the problem that you have is when they're so closely related to finances, when they're so closely related to money and perks and prestige, it creates the impression, and, look, it may be unfair, he maybe made all of his decisions without regard to any personal benefit, but it creates the impression that his policy decisions may be influenced by that desire for money and for perks. and you do not want that. you cannot have that cabinet official. and lastly i would say republicans have to get away from the idea that if a guy who's ethically problematic is making good policy decisions, that you need to stick with the ethically problematic guy. you can get good policy decisions without the ethical problems. it is possible. >> so why do you think the president stuck with him so long? i just want to remind folks, i'm looking at a list that i don't have time to go through, from

the 5700 on biometric locks on office doors to the $43,000 for an office booth that was found to violate federal spending laws, to that fancy travel, to using epa aides for personal tasks, including the one that creeped a lot of people out, frankly, looking at possibly buying a used mattress from a trump hotel. why do you stick with a guy and why do you even now when you're asked if anything troubles you, you say no? >> well, look, it's hard for donald trump to take the ethical high ground. it's also, i think, he has loyalty for people -- or he will compliment people who have been good to him and have complimented him. to this day he will say good things, for example, about michael flynn. he will say good things about people who are facing serious problems in the mueller investigation. and also, you know, pruitt was a source of policy wins for this administration. when you're delivering policy

wins that are earning him good press in conservative media, then trump is going to be far more loyal to this person than perhaps to other people. >> as you pointed a lot of peop apparently has gotten someone who will do the same things, part of it was he didn't want to give in to pressure from the left? >> that's a big part of it. if he senses where the left is headed -- or if he senses what the left wants, his instinct is to do the opposite. that's one of the things that got him elected was the notion that he's going to fight the left, he's going to fight the media. when you have stories coming from newspapers, among them "the washington post," that is, you know, maybe his primary arch enemy even over "the new york times," he's going to react in the opposite direction. >> howard dean, let me read to you a couple things that have come out on twitter from the right. lesson to other trump officials from pruitt resignation, any

mole hill and they will turn it into k-2, most of the accusations were overwrought, but the barrage was overwhelming. for molly hemingway in the federalist, well funded and media coordinated, #boot pruitt movement finally gets its scalp, could have taken hours, not months that typical gop administration, now that it's had its success, expect it to be repeated with other trump cabinet officials. let me get your reaction. >> i think it's a mistake fort right wing to apologize for corruption. that is why they're going to lose the house, and maybe the senate. the public doesn't like corruption. it doesn't matter if you're a utah voter and you're a republican or you're a new jersey voter and you're a democrat. the public does not like corruption. on either side of the aisle. and these editorial writers are making the mistake of minimizing what was most likely the most

corrupt cabinet official so far. and we're talking about probably the most corrupt cabinet and most corrupt president, at least since james buchanan. so i think it's a mistake. they're going what trump does, they're feeding their base. but their base is a minority. most americans are decent people. some wanted trump because they wanted change. eventually they'll stop thinking corruption is the price you have to pay for real change. >> i want to go back to that last sentence, expect to be repeated with other trump cabinet officials. in other words -- well, it's not clear. does mollie think they're going to go even after more ben carson now that scott pruitt is gone, or is it that there may be other heads that roll? >> so there are a couple of things happening here. one, and i mentioned this earlier, that investigative reporting, the media is doing its job. investigative reporting has led to departure of epa to the national security adviser, to a

number of other folks under trump. that is the media doing its job. if the right is upset about exposing truths, that is something they'll have to reconcile on their own. an axios, we reported that conservative allies of scott pruitt were quietly talking to the president saying this is a leftist, liberal media conspiracy, trying to boot pruitt. if you let him go, if you let him g a casualty of this movement, they will come for other cabinet officials, they will come for other people around you. that is exactly what you're seeing in that tweet you just showed here. if we care about government officials' trust with the public this shouldn't be a partisan issue. people should be happy that those who are maybe, you know, not following a moral compass, or have ethical values are not serving in the government like scott pruitt. it shouldn't be a partisan issue, but here we are. >> the other thing the president said about scott pruitt in this gaggle he had on air force one, he said he'll go on to great things, he's going to have a wonderful life, i hope.

and david, i'm sure you've heard some of this talk about if his former boss should retire, he would consider running for his seat. do you see that scott pruitt's public life is over, or maybe not? >> i don't think it's over. i think, in a particularly, in a state where trump is very, very popular, where he's made decisions that are very popular with the conservative base, i think he definitely has a political future. the problem that i see, though, is, look, we just got -- we've got to send a simple message here. that simple message is, it's not hard to be ethical, and truthful, and prudent, and conservative at the same time. that's not hard to pull off here. if the concern is, oh no, here they're going to go after other cabinet officials, if those cabinet officials are being ethical, truthful and prudent, and conservative at the same time, they'll be fine. and they will have lots of defenders who will be able to protect them from any unfair

attacks. but we cannot get into this mode of saying, well, we're going to have to rally around a cabinet official, even when there's problematic behavior to protect others. >> david, alexy howard -- go ahead. >> i think there are plenty of horse conservatives in oklahoma, and scott pruitt is the roy moore of oklahoma. we'll be right back. (vo) this is not a video game. this is not a screensaver. this is the destruction of a cancer cell by the body's

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in case you missed it, it's time once again for the mtp daily cured meat news roundup. major news to report, an annual tradition encased in scandal. we talked earlier this week about disgusting and yet american tradition of the nathan's famous fourth of july hot dog eating contest. well, this year, reigning champion joey chestnut once again bellied up to the table and broke the world record by devouring 74 hot dogs. was it really 74? the first count showed he only ate 64. turns out the counter missed an entire plate of hot dogs, missing chestnut's record shattering number. look, nobody's perfect. so mistaken hot dog counter, better luck next year.

but i think i found a substitute just in case. >> i had one hot dog. you brought me another hot dog. that's two. two hot dogs. >> oh, that's all for tonight. we'll be back tomorrow with more mtp daily. "the beat" with ari melber starts right now. thank you, chris. i am back on the beet. i want to express my thanks to aimen m -- scandals from ethics to moisturegate. meanwhile, trump is doing a midterm campaign rally in montana tonight, and we'll let you know if any actual news is made there. we begin with very big developing news. donald trump's lawyer hiring clinton's lawyer. this is significant. donald trump's former personal lawyer, who of course you know