at 3:00 p.m. thanks for watching. "deadline: white house" with nicolle wallace starts right now. >> hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. donald trump's helsinki hangover stretches into its ninth day today. the president tweeting another bizarre message designed to m t muddle the endellible image of vladamir putin's role in the 2016 election writing -- >> that's funny. here's vladamir putin on the question of whether he wanted trump. >> did you want president trump to win the election and did you direct any of your officials to help him do that? >> translator: yes, i did. yes, i did. because he talked about bringing the u.s.-russia relationship

back to normal. >> once might not be enough for me. new polling data shows the extent of the political damage that the president's comments have done. 51% of americans now believe that the president is compromised by russian president vladamir putin. it's a message disaster, the likes of which this white house hasn't endured since charlottesville and new details about the intervention that took place upon the president's return to washington in response to a republican revolt over his refusal to accept the universal findings of his intelligence community. one presidential adviser today describing the actions taken by "adults in the white house," in this instance that referred to kellyanne conway and bill shine, as a desperate attempt to keep congressional republicans and high profile surrogates from publicly rebuking the president. this adviser described the tweet from the president as an overcorrection of the original comments and said it's surely a response to the political

fallout. joining us to discuss the developme developments, ashley parker, jason johnson, kimberly atkins, and bill crystal, editor at large. ashley, you wrote the definitive tick to ck which you described s walkback week. this white house still very much trying to undo the damage done by the president'shelsinki. >> they sure are. one of the challenges that you're reporting on and we saw sort of reporting from helsinki onwards is you do have some adults in the room. it's not necessarily that people don't tell the president no or don't tell him you really rattled the global community or that was not a good look. but the president at the end of

the day, determines what he's going to do. except for all of the interventions or all of the aides saying, it's not backing down, just reassuring allies, that allies are standing tough. they can do that and the president may hear it and the president will send out a tweet that they don't know that is coming, or an overcorrection or he may say something unexpected or off script at a campaign rally. so it's a walkback, followed by a step in it and another walkback. that's why we see this cycle play out over and over again. >> i was trying to figure out where the all-caps tweet from iran came from. that was how i heard this anecdote. i know you've done more reporting on this than me. but i understood the all-cap tweet sunday night to be in response to the advice he got to just leave it alone, stop picking at the scabs of helsinkhelsink helsinki, and i also heard from an adviser blaming it on a

grammatical mistake was all the president's idea. can you add any more color to that detail of who thought of which part of the cleanup to the messup, to the walk back, to the cleanup? >> absolutely. so on the question of coming up with that kind of creative double negative defense, our understanding is the same as yours, that it absolutely was the president, that he basically -- he reviewed the transcript. he then asked to see the video. he watched the video, and he was the one who said oh, i meant to say wouldn't rather than would. he actually, with his team used the phrase double negative and told them to put that out. we did ask sort of a followup question, if he had meant to say that extra word, why on the flight back from the trip did they not clean it up then? why did it take another roughly 18 hours? and the explanation we were given was this idea that

immediately after the summit, first of all, no one exactly knew, especially the president, just how bad the fallout was. he realized that as he was flying back. a lot of that in the moment, at least from the white house's point of view, focused on the president seeming to stand next to russian president putin and side with him over the conclusions of his own intelligence community. so there was trying to clean up that. but there had to be another cleanup. and again, that was the president's word choice. >> and bill crystal, what he tweeted today is not only a lie, not only is it the democrats who were the only ones in this country standing up for the important work being done by bob mueller, getting to the bottom of the role russians played in the 2016 election, but i'm told donald trump doesn't believe this. this is what he tweeted -- >> i'm told that he has to be told almost daily that's the base with russia.

>> there's no way he believes that to be true, either. and we just heard that vladamir putin wants trump. so contradicting the president right and left. >> yeah, he is. i've got to say all this talk about the adults in the room, i'm a little sick of it. they're not adults, they're enablers. jim mattis and h.r. mac master are different, they're trying to protect things and i think they're doing the right thing by trying to stay there. but kellyanne conway and bill shine, you named them as the adults in the room. why give them credcredit? they're simply enabling him. he's throwing smoke and they're talking in background to you and you guys are doing your jobs, but to what, to take credit for we did our best, we pushed him in the right direction. and we're doing our best to get him back on message. forget about that.

when someone resigns from this white house, is it -- it's unbelievable that we've gone through the last two weeks, not the say the last 18 months. not a single person finds it a bridge too far and just says i'm leaving? >> i agree with you 100%. the only point was that it was politics that gave bill shine and bill bishine leverage over e president, not politics. it presented him with the yt of a republican revolt, and that was the only way they got him to make up this ludicrous explanation. >> it's one thing if you have a revolt and walk back, but all they're doing is giving him, i guess, the occasion to put out different lies and to say different things, a and the policy is pro-putin. the policy is not to be serious about guarding against the elections in three months, let alone to defend the mueller probe. why don't they insist the president of the united states get up and say leave mueller alone, call off his dogs on the hill and say if you don't do that, i'm quitting.

>> and it seems like it's setting up an excuse. they're worried about the midterms. they're worried the democrats may win. they know that republicans are pushing him to say no, russia is interfering. so this seems like a convenient way to start that midterm conversation. >> and phillip has a piece out this afternoon that makes that point, in the heat of the 2016 campaign, it was never going to be -- when he and everyone thought he was going to lose, the excuse and the trump campaign script was the system is rigged, bernie had a little bit of that, too. it was that someone was cheating, and they were going to rob them. they were looking at parts of pennsylvania, he gave a speech in altuna? do we have that? he's returned to -- with his tweet today, he's rushed ed re "the only way i lose." this is pouring gasoline on the grievance fire of the small

minority of voters that still back him. >> this is also convenience, because the polling this week is terrible. it's not just his polling. the republican polling, it's dragging down the republican party. uva's most recent polls, they think the democrats are going to take the house now. so the president, he wants to say oh, this is fake, bla, bla, bla, and russia provided this. but what he's trying to do is projecting, like usual. he knows the things that affect him, if he can put them out there, what concerns me, if the democrats take the house or senate, as long as it's a safe and honest and ethical election. but what concerns me is the roy moors of the world. i don't want a situation where a democratic or republican candidate wins and the other opponent refuses to concede because they say it's part of the russia conspiracy. that is as damaging to america as if the republicans keep the house. if no one trusts the results this fall, because the president keeps saying it could be rigged or not, i don't know.

>> we have admiral rogers, who was the last one of the high profile cabinet officials to testify under oath, that he had never been directed by this president to do anything along the lines oh of what the president tweeted, to do anything to protect this country from russian intervention. let's watch and talk about it. >> as i understand, you said that president trump never ordered cyber com to take any actions to thwart russia meddling this the elections, is that correct? >> i've never been given instructions to take additional steps outside my authority. i have taken steps within my authority. >> no one from the administration has asked you to take additional steps. >> i haven't been granted any additional authorities or capability, that's certainly true. >> that was from earlier this year. thursday of last week, republicans blocked a bid to extend election security grants. where is this coming from, the

president thinks he can just spread amnesia all over the country and all over the hill and be the guy who cares about russian meddling? >> there's often been, as you know, a yawning gap between the president's words, his actions, and the actual reality. and so this is a president who, you know, repeatedly has been very pro russia, has been pro putin, has been unwilling to accept the conclusions of his own intelligence community. but when it serves him, will go out and be urged on by advisers who are making a political or optics point. will say and stress, i'm incredibly tough on russia. when we were talking about this, one of their talking points was ignoring what we had seen in helsinki and ignores what we had seen in this white house and having the president and willing surrogates go out and make the, you know, this president has

been incredibly tough on russia case. i want to be clear, i'm not saying that the facts support that. but the president so far has found not that much blowback, especially from his supporters of making claiming, especially when it comes to sort of chest thumping and tough thness that aren't supported by the facts on the ground. >> these are the tactics of dictators and autocrats. don't believe your eyes and ears, believe me. >> i think i would get along very well with vladamir putin. putin is a nicer person than i am. he might be bad, he might be good, but he's a strong leader. i would love to get along with russia. it's an honor to be with you, thank you. they should let russia come back in, because we should have russia at the negotiating table. i called him a competitor, and a good competitor he is.

and i think the word "competitor" is a compliment. i think we have a very good chance of having some very positive things. i thought that the meeting i had with president putin was really strong. >> who on earth is going to let him get away with saying he's tough on russia? he hasn't been that nice to his wife. >> i'm glad you are so confident the polls, he's holding republican support. republican's chance of holding the house looks slimmer, but it doesn't look like they're going to lose more than the average 30 seats. they're confident they're going to have a supreme court fight in the senate. so i'm worried, he pays no price. i guess i keep coming back, he pays no price. he gaslights, he says hud krolu

things. he says things that genuinely shake the international order. one senator, a few senators, a few congressman complained for one day. on the trade issue today, they were all up in arms, we're going to pay $12 million to pay for his idiotic trade policies. where is the legislation? congress has power over tariffs. so i've discussed this enough. the republicans in congress need to act, otherwise, he gets away with a lot. you know what? the country is divided. it's too big, polarized parties. i'm less confident. i hope republicans do badly this november, because it's important to check donald trump. but i'm less confident that's necessarily on course. >> but they don't need to do that much -- i mean, i say this, donald trump's victory was not big enough, sweeping enough or preordained enough for him to have drafted even the bare bones of a victory speech. so he doesn't have to hlose muc.

there just has to be a swath of voters that think it's creepy he likes vladamir putin. >> i wish it was a bigger swath. don't you think? we're hoping on the margin we're going to get a few people to repudiate him. i myself have been guilty of this. i said oh, finally the republicans on the hill look like they're going to -- >> i'm done with them. i think voters might save us, though. >> i hope so. >> you don't need a lot. >> the democrats don't even have to overtake the house. they just need about 20 seats. if it's close, because the house has gotten anything done any way. >> they need to win the house. >> they don't have to win the house to -- >> i totally disagree. if republicans hold the house, he fires sessions, he fires rosenstein and mueller and says i'm totally vindicated. he's unleashed. and the last six months will look like peanuts if the republicans hold congress. >> it is possible for trump to do that any way.

>> if the democrats could stop him -- >> even if they control the house, how could they stop him? trump's going to do what trump's going to do. if the democrats win the house, it's a good check. but they don't have to overtake the house by 50 or 60 seats to make it a not completely compliant part of government for trump. >> i know they're worried about -- they view losing the house as a possibility. they're already counting votes in the senate as impeachment. they view the senate as the guard rail for the trump presidency. >> i think they do. i think one of the things republicans have been campaigning on is impeachment. i won [ overlapping speakers ]

i think with every given day that he gets away with things, he gets more emboldened and more confidence in his own strategy. i'm not sure how much bill shine or kellyanne conway is driving this. he's listening to himself, we see that more and more every day. >> i don't give trump too much credit, but i give his opponents less credit figuring out how to defeat him. >> reuters is reporting that russia is playing coy on the d.c. meeting. the kremlin was saying this. they mentioned opportunities at multilateral summits. how desperate is the white house to see vladamir putin, to welcome vladamir putin at that 18-acre complex? >> that's a question you have to

separate the president from the white house. our understanding was with the yt of a followup summit between the two leaders existed in general terms before the president even departed for helsinki. but what happened was, the reason it sort of happened on thursday last thursday when it did, was the president was incredibly frustrated with all the negative coverage, all the blowback he was getting about the first summit. he woke up. he called john bolton and said, you though that thing we talked about, that possible meeting? why don't you call moscow and let's make it official. this is something the president decided, orders bolton to do. but that does not mean, like a lot of these issues, especially when it comes to russia, that his entire team and certainly not the national security team is behind this, and it is desperate to see putin saying at the blair house. >> all right. what a thought. ashley, thank you so much. when we come back, rudy tries to make a deal with special counsel robert mueller about an

interview about everything except obstruction of justice. this is one presidential adviser who says today "donald trump will have to climb over rudy and his dead body to be interviewed by mueller." sex, loyalty and audio recordings. we go inside what "vanity fair" describes as the escalating war with the president and michael cohen. and sean spicer's brand-new tell all. the book is going over about as well as the press briefings he once game, about the size of donald trump's inaugural crowd. stay with us. are you ready to take your wifi to the next level?

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questions in the mueller investigation is what the president will sit for an interview. while an interview with the special counsel has been debated, apparently it's now back in play, with one big condition. that's based on a new interview with rudy giuliani in "the wall street journal." the report quotes, the president's legal team is open to him answering questions about possible collusion, with moscow, mr. giuliani said, but is less willing to discuss questions about obstruction of justice. a source close to donald trump and rudy giuliani told me today in response to that "wall street journal" reporting that an interview with the president will never happen, saying "there will be no interview, ever. rudy is simply playing to his client." joining us is chuck rosenberg, former senior fbi official and paul butler, georgetown law professor. what do you make of this idea that rudy is still dangling the idea of an idea with mueller in

"the wall street journal" and people say all the time, over the dead lawyer s -- dead bodyf all the lawyers. >> mostly what rudy giuliani says is nonsense. look, in the end, if bob mueller feels he must talk to the president, and i imagine that any prosecutor would want to, there's another avenue, of course. he can issue a grand jury subpoena. that will likely be litigated and my guess is, the special counsel will win. and the president will be compelled to sit for an interview. it's a long path. it might be a tortured path, but it makes more sense to me than this back and forth with mr. giuliani. >> i've never understood why bob mueller needs an interview with the president. does he need it? >> there's no such thing as too much evidence -- >> but trump lies. even his friends that talk about protecting the president say that the reason he can never do an interview, the reason it will

be over the dead bodies of white house counsel, whatever you think of him, he knows donald trump, is that he's a pathological liar. >> believe it or not, lies are helpful to a prosecutor, too. not just because you can charge them separately. there's another reason why lies are helpful. people who lie box themselves into a corner. they've committed themselves to a story. and you know what the story is? even if you don't believe it, you know what the story is. subsequently at trial, they're stuck, right? and disproving a lie, proving that they lied to put it in plain english, is sometimes just as valuable to a prosecutor as obtaining the prosecute. >> if you look at special counsel investigation into white houses, it's often perjury and obstruction of justice that takes down officials. >> there is that separate reason why lies are valuable. so when i was a federal prosecutor, i would have this conversation with our agents. i would always say, even if they're lying, even if you're

frustrating, keep talking. >> keep them talking. not a problem with donald trump. >> doesn't seem to be an issue. >> breaking into the last half hour, "the new york times" reporting that two top trump donors paid rick gates, a former deputy campaign chairman of donald trump for inside access to the administration, even as gates was drawing scrutiny from robert mueller. their financial arrangement not reported before this afternoon, was emblematic of the way a small circle of donald trump's associates aggressively marketed their administration access to well-paying clients. and sheds light on the activities of mr. gates, who has emerged as a key figure in the investigation of the special counsel robert mueller. one of the reporters on that story, ken vogel joins us now from "the new york times." ken, it's a fascinating read. it goes deep into some of the geopolitical cross currents between the uae and qatar and the sort of layers that the special counsel has peeled off,

and that's the practice of selling access to this white house and this president. can you pull that thread through for us? >> yeah, absolutely, nicolle. one of the things that you just alluded to, that these payments came even as rick gates was emerging as a key figure in mueller's investigation and investigation of congressional committees looking into connections between trump and russia, it is notable. because in past administrations, as you know, when there was someone who was ahanger-on, or even an insider, the white house and administration and people around the white house went to great lengths to keep that person away from the inner circle. and here you have rick gates, not only continuing to have access, but selling his access to other people who presumably would have their own access here, which raises a second question here about why elliott broidy and tom baric would be

paying. so some of the trump insiders thought they were maybe trying to buck up rick gates to give him some sense that he would have tfinancial stability to pa for mounting legal bills, if we were to be indicted, which he ultimately was, so he might not feel the same inclination to flip, which he ultimately did. so a lot of things going on here in this story. certainly a puzzling relationship between rick gates and these two major donors to trump. >> i've stacked the table with lawyers to explain this. but let me pull out a couple of things. you talked about a whiff of scandal. paul manafort was covered in a stench of dirty business. he did a book of dirty business that any republican living or working in washington, d.c. has known about for decades. so why was there any doubt that gates -- i mean, it would seem preordained that gates would get ensnared in grave legal trouble

by the time manafort was under that kind of scrutiny. >> yeah, that's right. and there were people who did -- who were around the president who did try to keep rick gates away. but one of the things that rick gates had going for him that allowed him to have some access to the administration was the blessing or the foreseen blessing of tom baric, one of donald trump's actual friends and a major donor, who was the chair of the inaugural committee for which rick gates worked. tom baric had rick gates open an office in d.c. for baric's firm. so this was seen as something that was not so easy to ignore by each folks around trump who thought better of having rick gates with this looming cloud of scandal hanging over him around the white house and the administration. >> and rick gates, not a household name the way some of these other characters are. but he's now working for bob mueller, on team america telling bob mueller and investigators everything they want to know

about the trump campaign. any concern about the amount of time rick gates lasted after manafort was off the scene? he was in and out of this white house long after donald trump was inaugurated. he was in and around some key people in places who were also of interest to robert mueller. is there anything about those intersections between gates and folks in the white house and the folks that you write about today that creates more anxiety for people now that he's a cooperating witness in the mueller probe? >> yeah, absolutely. and you raise a valid point. manafort was pushed out. despite the fact that what he was pushed out over, which was his work in ukraine for pro russian oligarchs and officials there, was something that rick gates was his right hand man on that work for more than a decade before the presidential campaign started. so you would think that if there was concern about what manafort was doing in the interest of investigators and that same concern was extend to rick gates. but as you mentioned, man

authori -- manafort was pushed out and rick gates worked on the inaugural committee, base chi wically was right hand man of tom baric running the inaugural committee and was an official at the pro trump super pac early in the administration. so he continued to hang around, even as the same concerns that did steer the trump folks away from paul manafort applied to him, as well. >> paul butler, would you be surprised if the special counsel didn't want to just chitchat with people like mr. baric and i think elliott broidy is already known to be of interest to mueller. but it seems hike the value of someone like gates, who was around during the campaign and presidency is that, one, he's agreed to cooperate, he's agreed to i guess in exchange for leniency, tell them everything they want to know. but two, his tentacles really

cross the government and business webs that are very much of interest to this investigation. >> that's right. i expect that rick gates will be the star witness at paul manafort's trial. but again, paul manafort's trial doesn't have anything to do with collusion and obstruction of justice, which are the basis of the mueller probe. so this may be about mission creep. but i think it's also about collusion and obstruction of justice. i don't think that bob mueller would be putting his star prosecutors on this case, spending all of these resources, if we're only about paul manafort not registering as a lobbyist for ukraine. i think he's trying to get to manafort. manafort has not indicated that he wants to make a deal. chuck, i don't know about you, but i have lots of cases that went to the day before trial and the defendant decides he's going to plead. so it's not too hate for that to happen. >> what do you think about this idea of more and more people getting sucked into the vortex

of this investigation? >> it's almost inevitable. this is a big, sprawling case. in fact, it's all over the world in a sense. and so it's not unusual to find that this pond has many ripples. i also agree with paul. i think he's exactly right. i've had the same experience, nicolle. a lot of times folks get up to the precipice and plead guilty. they file what we call depositive motions, a motion to suppress evidence. if they win that, the government's case could be in a lot of trouble and the government may lose its leverage. if they lose that, they may have to recalculate what they're going to do next. i've even seen people plead in the middle of trial. it wouldn't be that unusual. >> it's a tough issue for bob mueller, if he uncovers criminality by donald trump or the trump organization that doesn't have anything to do with collusion or obstruction, what he does with that evidence. >> and it's in his mandate from

rod rosenstein to investigate all crimes uncovered in the investigation of collusion. it's a good time to be a lawyer. ken vogel, congratulations with your extraordinary reporting. when we come back, back-to-back blows from the president's former fixer and reporting that suggests that michael cohen might just get the last word. alice is living with metastatic breast cancer, which is breast cancer that has spread to other parts of her body. she's also taking prescription ibrance with an aromatase inhibitor, which is for postmenopausal women with hormone receptor-positive her2- metastatic breast cancer as the first hormonal based therapy. ibrance plus letrozole was significantly more effective at delaying disease progression versus letrozole. patients taking ibrance can develop low white blood cell counts, which may cause serious infections that can lead to death. before taking ibrance, tell your doctor if you have fever,

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with citi, we see a bright future for our farmers and their families. ♪ a secret recording of michael cohen and donald trump talking about a payment to a playboy model wasn't big enough, apparent hi we haven't seen anything yet, according to a new piece from "vanity fair" who writes -- did they think i was just going to roll over and die? a person close to cohen said that he was privy to information that could be valuable to special counsel robert mueller's investigation into russia's attempt to interfere in the election. "when michael says he wants the truth out this and the truth is

not the president's friend, he's not talking about marginal issues, he's talking about core issues at the heart of the mueller probe." "three people familiar with the situation believe that cohen discussed information about the june 2016 meeting in trump tower, during which don, jr., paul manafort and jared kushner met with persons with ties to the kremlin." it seems like we always end up back at the flashpoints we've known for a long time to be of great interest to bob mueller, and this trump tower meeting, i mean, the speculation is that michael cohen may have some knowledge about whether or not donald trump knew about it. >> there's one of two things going on here. michael cohen is doing one of two things, he's either trying to protect himself and say look, i don't want to get in trouble or saying look, save me. >> or both.

>> it's like, i'll go to mueller or you. the moment that michael avenatti talked about this months ago, this guy reported everything. so each these certain number of tapes, he has a ton of information. and his greatest fear, i think, at the end of the day, is not necessarily just going to jail or not necessarily -- which is a fear, or offending the president, his greatest fear is not being important to this investigation. >> you're not important, you don't have the opportunity to flip. we talk about people flipping, chuck, as though it's up to them, that they're sitting around going should i or shouldn't it? it's up to the prosecutor if a person can flip. >> in you have information and i want it and i'm a prosecutor, i'm going to get it. if you have information and i don't want it, you're not going to give it to me. so i have more cards in this relationship. ideally, it's a meeting of the minding. you want to help, i want your

help, that makes it easy. >> or you don't want to go to jail. i want to know what you know about donald trump and his family. >> you want to help and i want you to help me. >> it just seems to me, every time cohen has emerged more centrally in this story trump has sort of flipped out. he did originally when the office was, you know, raided, searched with a warrant. it's outrageous. trump has never seen anything like it. >> an attack on the nation. >> that's right. and now -- i think this last week, the cohen news seemed to coincide with some of trump's crazier tweets. the renewal on the attacks on mueller. i think cohen knows a lot. he's going to cooperate, i would guess, with robert mueller. maybe he already is, for all we know. there's a lot going on that we don't see. and i think trump is freaked out about that. >> and we all forget that cohen

is of interest to bob mueller for reasons we don't know about. we know more about what was referred to the southern district. so there's two halves -- the unknowns of what robert mueller might have been interested in, and the public facing parts of the cohen investigation, which seems to leak out. but i've never bought that trump's angst is rooted in worries about campaign finance violations. because i bet my last whatever, that he has no idea what a campaign finance violation is. >> trump's worried about himself. they can convict these people for 15 years when they look at all the financial transactions. but trump -- [ overlapping speakers ] getting trump -- trump is worried about himself. and he thinks he can't be indicted, so he's worried about being impeached. and he's only going to be impeached if there's clear evidence of collusion and

obstruction of justice. that's where it gets back to the trump you totower meeting and t why cohen becomes so important in trump's mind, and if mueller flips cohen, mueller may not help him with prosecutions of other people but it might help if he writes a report to rod rosenstein that says here's what donald trump did. >> doesn't it also -- isn't he an important witness to in understanding the president's motives in the whole body of pro russia commentary during the campaign and now foreign policy as president? he would have been involved, cohen would have been involved in any real estate traps actions and efforts to bring in russian investment. cohen seems like the person who crosses over from donald trump the candidate to donald trump the politician. >> and is very aware of donald trump's business affairs, including in russia. so he was one of the conduits between the trump organization

and russians. so he's got all kinds of information. when there's a movie made about this, i think the climatic scene is going to be that meeting with the russian lawyer about duirt n hillary and trump dictating the lie about that meeting on air force one. so that even consciousness of guilt. and if michael cohen has evidence about what trump really knew, then he's the star witness in trump's impeachment. >> how is that not just straight up obstruction of justice, crafting of a lie. >> it is. i mean, it is straight up obstruction of justice. because a couple of things you need to remember about obstruction. you only have to try to obstruct, you don't have to succeed. and you don't even need an underlying crime, just an underlying investigation. so that on the facts that we know publicly, nicolle, look pretty damning. one other point i wanted to make, we keep talking about

cohen as the star witness with respect to trump or about mr. gates as the star witness with respect to mr. manafort. the manafort trial is about to start. they're going to call dozens of witnesses. >> five new ones that we learned about yesterday. >> those are five being immunized, and this is interesting, they did something wrong, right? it's not hikelike a bank teller was standing there when the bank was robbed. these are five additional people who presumably did something wrong. so there will be dozens of government witnesses, some government agents, some innocent bystanders and some folks that were complicit. >> which raises the question why is mr. manafort going to trial? these charges are relatively easy to prove. every day, mr. manafort, he decides what he's more afraid of the russians or of robert mueller. and so far he's been more afraid of the russians. >> why do you think the manafort trial is going forward? >> sometimes people are just

stubborn. >> but i think that was an important point. we don't know if it's going forward. there's no reason to fold your cards before you have to, right? >> i've had defendants immediate guilty when they saw that the government showed up for trial and the witnesses were all sitting outside the courtroom. >> and they know that they're screwed. >> and they listen to my opening statement. >> all right. it's going to be interesting. chuck, paul, thank you for spending time with us. up next, it's hard enough to sell your book when your credibility is shot. but sean spicer is giving it a try, and it's going about as well as you might expect. your paycheck.

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accepted! because i'm not here to be your buddy. i'm here to take names! >> the good old days. tst ju it was just over a year ago that sean spicer left his job as the trump white house press secretary and his new book recounts his time at the white house today. chief white house correspondent for abc news jonathan carl out with a scathing review in "the wall street journal" saying, mr. spicer's book is much like his tenure as press secretary, short and offering up one consistent theme, donald trump could do no wrong. in case you need a refresher of his time at the podium, here you go. >> this was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period. both in person and around the globe. >> the president himself -- is he confused -- >> i'm not confused.

i think the words being used to describe it are derived from what the media is calling this. you don't get to yell out questions. we're going to raise our hands. i think the president's tweets speak for themselves. puts russ salad dressing on his salad tonight, somehow that's a russian connection. >> sean, come on, sean! >> sometimes i miss him. he did bring us some really stunning low points in sort of modern presidential -- not just media relations but i works for a president who calls the press the enemy of the people. he talked about the behavior of dictators, don't believe your eyes, believe me, he stood there and said don't look at this crowd, look at this crowd. he looked uncomfortable with the lies and the slander of the media and the disregard for a free press. sarah is all in. >> right. so he wasn't part of this trump machine, he came from the rnc.

he had worked in the republican party for a long time, most reporters have known him and dealt with him for a long time. so he was put into this new reality and you could definitely see him struggle at times, knowing how uncomfortable it was to be standing in front of the press and lying to their faces and knowing that they knew that he was lying to their faces. and it made for a difficult time. and it was interesting because he was fine as long as the president was behind him and thought he was doing a good job and thought he was getting good ratings. as soon as the president soured on him, that's when things went wrong. that's probably why he's being y efusive in his praise in the book. >> i'm so interested, these people get fired, they humiliate themselves when they work for the president, they get fired by the president, and then they're still loyal. they're still writing pieces defending the president. i gather from the book that the

president is a cunning, wonderful leader, we just don't understand him. i guess it's in their interests to be on good terms with the trump white house and the trump world. they'll be punished if they turn against him? i don't know. i'm amazed that no one speaks the truth. you talk to these people privately, people who have been there and left, my question to all of them is, if i knew what you knew, would i be a little bit reassured or even more worried? >> they all say even more wo worried. >> even more worried. and then they write books saying he's great, he's doing a good job, you don't understand him. i don't understand their loyalty after they've left. >> some of them, even the ones still there, are afraid of what will happen when they leave. i think the ones they leave sort of romanticize the rock star status that they had at the rallies, mistaking the rallies for the country. but the rallies are donald trump's 30% of the country who have the time and take the time

off work to go to the rallies. i'm with you, i don't know how they go out and function in the world. jonathan karl writes, bmr. spicr refers to the author of the infamous dossier as michael steele, who is in truth the former chairman of the republican national committee. >> you know, the irony that a white house spokesperson for this administration can't fact check is not lost on me. it's not lost on anyone here. >> i thought it was maybe a subversive act. >> right, getting back at michael in some way. the other thing i think about him, how these people behave afterwards, it seems like the idea is, you go in the administration, shame yourself, he at an a fellowship at harvard or something like that and write

a book about him and go out and promote it. i'm almost nostalgic for sean spicer. in the first couple of months, we could still laugh about this in a yard sort of way, you look at this on "snl" and you laugh, but you're right, sarah huckabee sanders takes this completely seriously and you recognize these people are dangerous. >> it was less sinister. >> yes. >> he was breaking us in for the far more grave and sinister period that followed him. but they've made progress. i mean, i guess what we can't take away is he wasn't good at the lying part of the job. there were other parts of the job he was bad at but to his credit, he was bad at the lies. they now have a team that's very good at the lies. >> it's lying to your face and not blinking, which is really

extraordinary. >> bill shine, the former head of fox news, is now deputy chief of staff to the president of the united states, the guy who covered up roger ailes' pattern of behavior for decades at fox news is now working for the president of the united states. he's clever, i guess you would say. >> but he sucks at his job. this is arguably, since he started, the worst period of the trump presidency. what is he doing? >> i hope you're right. he has a deep, you know, contempt for the american public. he thinks they can be bamboozled and lied to. i very much agree the lying is more shameless than it was. that's the biggest story, isn't it, that trump and his team are more brazen, more shameless, more unhinged from the normal -- liberated from the normal guardrails than they were a year ago. >> that's what obama was talking about when he was giving a speech with mandela, there used to be a time when they caught

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a major blow just this hour for donald trump's chief attack on robert mueller's probe. republican senator richard burr, chairman of the senate intelligence committee, breaking with his counterpart in the house, devin nunes. burr is now denying the trump line of attack that a fisa warrant for mueller witness carter page was obtained fraudulently. he acknowledges that the fisa court had valid reasons for approving the warrant. there are still republicans with

spines. >> absolutely. we saw from our own eyes this was not based on a bogus dossier. >> and the evidence grew stronger and stronger against page. >> correct. will i be crushed tomorrow for having hoped for five minutes? >> probably. >> you always tell the truth. that's it for our hour, i'm nicolle wallace. "mtp daily" starts now. >> you are my unicorn riding across the rainbow. >> we'll talk about spicy later, i didn't get enough of it later. >> nicolle wallace, thank you very much. if it is tuesday, all roads lead to russia. tonight, autocratic instincts. by the partisan outrage grows as the president weighs stripping security clearances of some of his critics. >> it's banana republican kind of thi-- banana republi o