was designed to be easy for some and nearly impossible for others. you can hear me talk about my weird real estate browsing habits. why is this happening everywhere, let me know what you think using our #withpod. good evening, rachel. >> good evening, chris. much appreciated. and thank you at home for joining us at home this hour for what will be a little bit of a special edition of the rachel maddow show. by that i mean we'll break our usual show format tonight. the reason why is because we are at a place in the news right now that is a little bit beyond where i can help explain what's happening now. and particularly, what is likely to happen next and how serious this moment is for the country. those are things i see at the core of my job. but we're at a moment in the news right now where i feel like

i need help to do my job. i need to bring to bear what's going on some much more serious brain power than i can bring alone and in particular, some much more serious experience on national security issues. so i'm going on explain here what is going on right now in the news that i think requires us to bring in the sort of experts who you are going to hear from. then after i tell you why i'm approaching it this way, we'll stay here a while. this is going to be a slightly different way than we usually do things here. this bat time and this bat channel. here's where it starts. it starts last week at the summit between trump and putin. can you believe that was only a week ago? it was only a week ago. there was a landmark moment in the question and answer period where the two presidents were asked questions by reporters and

a reporter named jeff mason stood up and asked a very direct and a very important question to vladimir putin. you probably remember this moment. if you watched the summit that day or if you watched any of the news coverage there after. just for the record, this is actually what happened in that moment. >> did you direct any of your officials to help him do that? >> translator: yes, i did. because he talk about bringing the u.s./russia relationship back to normal. >> so that happened in real life in front of a room full of people and it was covered live around the world. while this was happening, i had a flight i was supposed to catch that morning. i missed my flight and i ended up unexpectedly driving a really long way during the whole press

conference. i listened to it live. it was only a week ago. this really happened. i heard it in my car. you saw it if you watched either the news coverage there after or watched it live. and there were reporters in the room who witnessed it. let's do it one more time. except this time put up the transcript of what happened right next to the q & a. >> president putin, 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 talk about bringing the u.s.-russia relationship back to normal. >> here's the reason i'm trying to nail this down as a recognizable part of our lived shared reality as humans. just put the transcript up there again. this is transcript of what you just saw happen at that press conference. if you look at a real transcript of what happened, this is it.

president putin, did you want president trump to win the election and did you direct any of your officials to help him do that? and yes, yes, i did. as of right now, here is the official white house transcript of that same moment. do you see that? in the white house transcript, look at what is missing. in the white house transcript, we've still got president putin's answer, yes, i did, yes, did i. the white house just dropped the question that he was answering there. the white house transcript has no reference to reuters asking president putin, did you want president trump to win the election? that's not in the white house transcript. now, the reporter at the atlanta magazine was first to report on this anomaly right after it happened. and sometimes transcripts are wrong. they're very rarely wrong at such a high profile, simple thing. that moment probably got more

media attention than anything else that happened in that remarkable q & a with reporters. but in the grand scheme of things, it is not unheard of for a white house transcript to be inaccurate. when that happen, reporters point out something that's wrong or missing or miscaringized and then the white house later makes a fix. it happens, not all the time but fairly frequently. it is not that big a deal. so after this incorrect transcript came out from the trump and putin summit with the question, did you want president trump to win the election, with that gone from the transcript, the atlantic published this criticism noting that the transcript was wrong. and after the atlantic first published this account, a lot of other news outlets picked it up, and pointed out that the white house transcript was wrong. the white house is not correcting it. it is still incorrect tonight. the incorrect transcript dropping out the question when putin was asked if he wanted

trump to win the election, and we can report that the white house video of this exchange has also skillfully cut out that question from the reuters reporter as if it didn't happen. i'll show you back to back here. i'll show you the real one first and then i'll show what you the white house has posted online. here's the real one. >> they all can be found -- >> 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. >> that's the real one. watch what the white house has post online instead. >> they can all be found in an appropriate legal framework. >> and did you direct any of your officials to help him do that?

>> yes, i did. yes, i did. >> they just dropped it out. >> first part of queflt president putin, did you want president trump to win the election? they just dropped that out. what the white house has disappeared from the official record. both in print and in the video, president putin answering in the affirmative when asked if he wanted trump to win the election. just for kicks, if you want to try the russian government version, their supposed transcript of this event. in the russian transcript, not only does the reporter not ask the question. it doesn't even exist in the russian transcript. see that red arrow? they've completely taken out that whole part of the q & a. at least the white house had the courtesy to leave in half the question so you can get a misleading answer. the russians took it out all

together. they skipped over the entire exchange. so a critical exchange deleted from the transcript. a report he's question edited out of the videotape. the u.s. government is following the kremlin's play book and maintaining something we all saw happen with our own eyes, we all heard happen with our own ears, has nevertheless disappeared. like old political points being air brushed out of photos. weird, right? creepy. it turns out wasn't a mistake. it was on purpose. now today we got the inevitable payoff. the inevitable next step from this president on this point. if you've watched the show before, you might know that i don't generally make a habit of reporting on the public's, on the president's public pronouncements. particularly on twitter. but having said that, i think you should see this twitter feed. he said i'm very concerned that

russia will be fighting very hard to have an impact on the election. they'll be pushing very hard for the democrats. they definitely don't want trump. a week ago, live on television, in front of hundreds, in a room full of hundreds of reporters, president putin said, i want trump. you know that to be true. you will know it to be true as long as you can remember. but if the official record says it never happened, if it is not in the transcript, how fast does it disappear? a week fast enough? like i can, i don't usually report on stuff the president says on twitter. other presidents from a reporting perspective, it is sort of to know mostly ignore things this president says, at least if you're looking for any indication of factual things that really happen in the world. he says a lot of untrue things. i try not to invest in untrue

things that he says. i treat this administration more like a show with the sound turned off. watch what they do, not what they say. in this case, this statement from the president, it is obviously factually inaccurate but it is an important thing that we are back in this part of the movie again. i imagine it will be like this for a while now. maybe through the election. maybe through the end of the mueller investigation. but this is the kind of political challenge that we don't really train for as americans. the president disappearing evidence, telling you things you actually saw live when they happen, those things didn't really happen. things you heard, you didn't really heard them. going beyond that so that what you think you saw, you actually saw the opposite. putin stood there and said, i wanted trump. we'll tell you he said he wanted a democrat. i think in the specifics, the president disappearing, the real

information that putin said he preferred trump, the president announcing the opposite, that putin prefers democrats. in the specific that probably lays the ground work for how president trump plans to respond if the democrats win the election in november, but in a more general sense, the president disappearing evidence that delays in plain sight pretending up is down and black is white, i think we should see this as americans as a signal, broadly, that this is garbage time again. we are back into a politically potent era of deliberate nonsense. disinformation, a form of information warfare. and it is being waged against us. here's another example. tomorrow in washington, d.c. we expect maria butina. on charges that she operated as

a secret russian agent in this country, working on behalf of the russian government to affect the conservative movement and the republican party in the 2016 election. just tonight the judge in the case filed memorandum about why butina should stay in jail and not get bail while she awaits charges. as is the case in many court filings, the footnotes here turned out to be the best part including this footnote here on the bottom of page 6. this is an issue we pulled out of a transcript from her last court hearing. this is about u.s. person one, right? the unnamed person who is described in the maria butina transcript. u.s. person one not named in the documents in conjunction with the case but he's been widely reported to be a republican named paul ericson. who is described as her boyfriend or her fake boyfriend just for spying purposes,

depending on whether you ask the defense or the prosecution. we still haven't seen any changes against mr. erickson, and that's interesting given that he's described as her co-conspirator. we did hear a reference and now judge confirms in this footnote that paul erickson may himself, quote, be the subject of a federal investigation. now, this is intriguing, right? you got this new federal indictment that is essential lay collusion indictment. a russian citizen indicted. a u.s. person describe as a co-conspirator in her scheme. who is, according to discussions in court, apparently, he is the subject of a federal investigation of his own. and according to what has happened in court in the buttina case thus far, his purported girlfriend apparently offered to help investigators in their investigation of the guy who was supposedly her boyfriend. even though prosecutors say he

really wasn't. so it is definitely intriguing about this case. potentially very important in terms of understanding this case. if you were intrigued by this information about maria butina and her alleged boyfriend and her being in jail awaiting charges and him being an alleged co-conspirator, this is a collusion case, right? it may want to make you look up more information on these two characters. well, their wikipedia pages have been scrubbed clean. the daily beast has a great report up on this detailing dozens of edits to both the wikipedia pages for both, dropping all information about alleged ties to the russian government, alleged ties to broker meetings during the campaign, reported criminal history, business history between them, russian money being funneled through the nra.

and wikipedia has regenerative power. when somebody mounts an effort to make real information go away, other people are likely to reinstate the information. with you there has been a diligent effort online to submarine all of that information about this accused russian agent who tonight sits in jail. as well as the american who allegedly helped her. daily beast reports now that at least some of the edits to these wikipedia pages were made from an account that was maintained on the russian language version of wikipedia. now that we're humming a theme, consider this. a few days ago president trump sent out a deceptively edited old clip of hillary clinton. that was taken from russian state tv. this is from 2010. it was from when she was secretary of state. do you see the water mark in the upper right hand mark? that's the mark from channel 1

russia. i'll show it to you in a different context. here it is again in the upper right on this broadcast of patriotic russian anthems being played over pictures of the kremlin. i wonder who dug that hillary clinton interview out of the archives of russian state television? i wonder who gave it to the president to send out on his twitter feed a few days ago. once he did send it out, a pro trump conservative media outlet and sputnik news from the kremlin, they both gleefully amplified it on twitter with this send-second clip. they both had it word for word to further spread what the president had done. the one on the right is a pro trump conservative media outlet that incidentally has been given a press credential from this president. on the right, that's russian

propaganda. this is garbage time. this is deliberate nonsense time. but here's an indication that this isn't just small stuff and trans parent propaganda. and disappearing facts we know are true. it is also the most serious stuff in the world, too. go back to that putin-trump summit last week. in addition to the two leaders reacting with reporters, there was also, of course, the one-on-one meeting that happened between putin and trump for which our president specifically asked that no other u.s. official be present. because no other u.s. officials were present, we have no idea what was said to in that meeting or agreed to by our president. he made no public account of what happened, what he might have agreed to or even what was discussed. russia, however, keeps making new announcements about all the things they say trump agreed to in that meeting. and of course, there is no way of factually countering anything they might assert about what

trump might have agreed to or not. it is interesting to note the white house hasn't even tried to contest anything that russia has asserted. they haven't pushed back even a little bit but tonight it has taken a more serious turn. for the past few days the russian military has made repeated statements that following summit, they are now ready to get to work with the u.s. military on the new plan that was just agreed to by the russian president and the american president on the issue of syria. now, russia, of course, supports the syrian dictator. we're supposedly against him. since the summit, the russian military keeps saying that there is some new agreement about our military and the russian military now being on the same side in russia. and they keep saying they're ready to get to work this new agreement. what is it? i have no idea. the commander of centcom said

after the trump-putin summit that he had received no new orders, no new orders from the white house about whether the u.s. military is being ordered to do anything differently in syria than what they've already been doing. now in an interview with abc news, the same centcom commander in fact expressed some concern about these as, hes from the u.s. military which indicates that they seem to think that our two militaries are now pulling on the same side in that conflict. general joseph vodel saying, i want to make sure this isn't something we stepped into lightly. i'm not recommending that. that would be a pretty big step at this point. talking about working the russian military in syria. i'm not recommending that. that would be a pretty big step. now tonight, in response to those comments from america's top military commander in the middle east, the russian government has unleashed an attack on that general, on this

american general, the head of centcom, the russian ministry of defense putting out a statement saying, with this statement, general votel discredited the official position of his supreme commander in chief which means russia now claims to know official position of america's supreme commander in chief even while the u.s. military doesn't. whatever else you think about all this other garbage and disinformation, the disappearing of known facts and this deliberate nonsense, as of tonight russia is using whatever happen last week between our president and theirs to split the u.s. president and his top military commanders to try on break certainty in the u.s. chain of command. and i don't mean that in a metaphorical sense. i mean literally the military chain of command. they are accusing the top military leader in the middle east of disobeying orders, of defying the wishes and the official position of the

president of the united states, which is something they say they know even as our u.s. military doesn't. this is deliberate trafficking in unreality, right? this is garbage season. that's what it feels like to wade through this kind of stuff. you know what? it is supposed to be disorienting, demoralizing, it is supposed to make you feel exhausted like nothing is real. everything is too hard to work your way through. that is the point. it is supposed to make you not believe anything anymore. it is supposed to stop your morale or to make you believe anything important. it's supposed to make you feel bad. and right now, it's cranking back up to what it was like ahead of the 2016 election. and so tonight, a special edition of the rachel maddow show. a special augmented in brain power edition of this show. i feel like it is my job every

night to do my best to explain what's happening in the news and the country and what we should expect to happen next. in order to do that in this deliberate unreality environment, i feel like there is some special information that i don't have and i want to get. what resources do we have? who is fighting this fight right now? are they any good at it? are we better at this than russia is? how is our defense when they're playing this kind of offense and what can we do as citizens to avoid being road kill, particularly if some of our government isn't trying to help defend us. we're about to bring some serious brain power to bear on this matter. right here, next. what do you loa vehicle? sleek designs. performance. dependability is top on my list. well then, here's some vehicles that deliver on that. woah! wow. oh jeez! that's our truck! it's our truck! and they're our cars! that's my chevy! chevy's the only brand to earn j.d. power

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as i mentioned at the top of the show, we're doing something a little special. we have gathered together three people, three gigantic brains who can help us understand this moment that we're in right now in the news and politics pause

these guys have served in top government jobs, some of the key players in what is now the ongoing russian scandal and its attendant mini scandals. i want to bring them all out here tonight. it is remark panel we have them in one place at the same time and i feel like there is almost nobody better for me to talk on in terms of trying to make my way through the unreality that we're seeing in the news. first, mike mcfaul, the former ambassador to russia, the author of the new book, from cold war to hot peace. american ambassador in putin's russia. should i tell you that he is here fresh from a meeting at the white house, this white house. >> we will get to that in a moment. also joined by chuck rosenberg. chief of staff at the fbi with james comey. he served as u.s. attorney for the eastern district of

virginia. we are also joined by matthew. a $and el rod. gentlemen, thank you all very, very much for being here tonight. this is an unusual format for me. we never do this. >> it is unusual for me. i'm rarely in new york. >> really glad you could all be here. we have a little bit of breaking news that i need to get your immediate response to because it has just become known. this is the tape that became known to the public just a few days ago. it is a recording made by michael cohen, the president's long time attorney. although president had previously denied that he had no knowledge, a hush money payment over the affair of president trump, this is a tape-recording

that was apparently seized by the fbi of mr. cohen apparently unknowing, unbeknownst to mr. trump, tape-recording an in-person meeting they had. we have been reporting about this but it has just been released. i am going to hear it with you right here for the first time. i'm told there is one swear word that we are not able to bleep. so if you are sensitive to that, you may want to go la la la. all right. >> let me know what's happening, okay? oh. oh. maybe because of this it would be better if you didn't go. maybe because of this for that

one, you know. just get rid of this. it is so false, what they're saying. it is such bull -- i think, i think this goes away quickly. i think it is probably better, the charleston thing. yeah. i think right now, okay, honey, you take care of yourself. thanks. big time. probably. no. can we use him anymore? >> we felt -- >> no. >> i'm sorry.

just have a chance. okay. >> we got soaked in the "new york times." unsealed divorce papers with ivana. >> never. never. they don't have that. they don't have a legitimate purpose. about two, three weeks. even after that, there is no purpose. i told but charleston. i need to open up a company for the transfer of all of that info regarding our friend david. so i'm going to do that right away. and i've spoken to allen about how to set the whole thing up with the funding.

yes. and it is all the stuff. because you never know where that company -- correct. so i'm all over that. and i spoke to aaron about it when it comes time for the financing. >> what financing? >> well -- no, no, no. no. >> that's the recording. as you can tell, it is a recording made in person. it appears to capture mr. trump, a person who appears to be mr. trump on one side of what appears to be a phone call maybe, talking on somebody, who you can't hear at the beginning and then a back and forth between a person who appears to be mr. trump and a person who appears to be mr. cohen. nobody is disputing the authenticity of this reporting. there is a question as to whether or not it has political sailence and whether it has legal sallence. let me ask you, given your work

in the fbi and law enforcement over the years, what does this say to you? >> it has least has a number of leads. there are a bunch of people mentioned. some by first name, some by last name, and i'm sure the fbi will want to know who they are and what role they play in that. in and of itself, on the face of the recording, it doesn't seem incriminal in aer to. but often things do not. there is a strange reference, at least i think i heard one, to our friend david. we know that the sued anymore he used, both to karen mcdaniels and mcdoogal, was david dennison. so the fake name he used was david and i think mr. cohen referred to our friend david when he starts to talk about executing. >> it may also be david pecker, the hefd ami.

>> and that's the other friend david. so it raises more questions than it answers. i think the overriding impression is sure interesting that mr. cohen has tapes, that mr. trump may have tapes, and they probably didn't make just one. >> it is not necessarily for mr. cohen to have made this tape. >> in new york state, new york state is what is known as one party consent state. meaning if you and i were talking many new york, as we are now, and i recorded the conversation without your knowledge, that's not a crime some of the states require the consent of both parties. new york state requires the consent of only one party. >> there is no evidence of some sort of crime being committed on this tape. what about the potential liability that the president has to worry about, in this instance or having had perhaps a pattern of recording his interactions with his clients. >> based on this tape so far, it

seems like the potential liability is more political than legal. the tape seems to suggest that mr. trump was aware of payments being discussed in advance of the election when i believe he is on record saying he knew nothing about it. so it is a political liability. i agree with chuck. i don't see any specific legal liability based on what i heard on that call. that's my gut reaction. but as chuck said, as your question just hinted, there may be more tapes and we don't know what's on them. and i'm sure special counsel is very interested to see what is on them. not just for their content but also forward leads and things that could be run down based on the content of those tapes. >> one more question. if ami, the publishing company in this, if they ended up in trouble for this having been a campaign donation, if they paid

this money to this woman to influence the election and they end up being pursued for that, or pressured for that legally, would the president's knowledge of their having made this payment be relevant? >> conceivably. we can both be guilty of a crime if we have knowledge and agree on the object of our conspiracy. what it is we want to accomplish and one of us, either of us, takes a step toward that crime. so you can aid and abet, you can conspire to commit a crime. knowledge is the key. an illegal payment was made and mr. trump didn't know it was going on happen. or had no idea that in fact it was illegal. but if they conspired, they agreed together on commit a crime, sure. it doesn't matter that they used someone else to do it. >> the tricky part in any prosecution for a crime like that is that there's a readily

available defense. the payment was made not for political purposes, but to save embarrassment generally. >> regardless of the proximity of the election. >> that's a tough argument to make given the timing but that was the case in the john edwards trial and it proved successful. >> it did and john edwards is a great example except he was running in a primary at the time, not in the general. and i believe the last payment to mr. edwards was around nine to ten months before the election. >> so two months before the general election might be more difficult. >> the timing matters a lot. we'll take a quick break. as i mentioned, ambassador mcfaul, you may be surprised to hear this, spent the day at the trump white house after the trump white house spent four days basically openly mulling the possibility of handing him over to russia for questioning. we'll find out what he is willing to tell us when we come back.

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joining us once again, michael mcfaul, ambassador to russia, and a former fbi official, and a senior justice department official. thank you all for being here. the russian government demanded after last week's subtle between putin and trump, they demanded to question you. and some other americans. some american citizens, some american former officials. the white house sat on that request and basically openly mulled it. they said they were considering it for four days before they finally said they wouldn't do it. given that, i am surprised to learn that you went to the white house today. how did it go? >> well, first, let's add a few details. they didn't want to just question us. they think that we are criminals. they were very clear that they think the 11 americans they identified helped the businessmen bill browder, that putin announced to the world in helsinki. i was there listening in

real-time when em, at first he said american intelligence officials helped browder to launder out money from russia and then give it to the clinton campaign. he said all that. on live tv. because we were so distracted with the other giant news that president trump wouldn't back his intelligence community, people missed that. it was only when i was flying home from helsinki that i got news from russian journalists who said by the way, you're on that list, too. >> so the russian government prepared a list to go i know what that allegation. and it was you and then 10 or so other americans. >> by the way, the number was the exact equivalent of the russian gru military officers that mr. mueller indicted. you want to interrogate our gru russian intelligence officials? we have 11 americans that we think also commit crimes in our country and i was on that list. so the good news, there is good news and bad news.

it was completely absurd. it was crazy. the state department called it that. regrettab regrettably, the white house did not. he said it was a great offer. an incredible offer. and in real-time, i was listening to the president. i gave them benefit of the doubt. he probably doesn't know what the treaty is or who bill browder is and he was put on the spot by putin. three days later they said the same thing. that was deeply and disturbing to me that they would say we're still considering this idea and let's be clear. putin proposed a completely absurd scenario. >> he wants the indictment -- >> moral equivalency. a standard operating procedure for vladimir putin. i've seen it a hundred times. finally they got to a statement, after the third try where them, we won't let our people be interrogated. that's the good news.

they still called it, the white house still called it a sincere offer. it wasn't sincere at all. the american people rallied, by the way. we got a 98-0 vote in the senate protecting me. where are there 98 votes nowadays? and whether the russian government indicts us in absenti a and goes after us on interpol, bill browder has a book. that's what they used to get him, and we or i, we fear that may happen to others. so our mission is to treat with trump administration officials and to say send a strong signal to putin, to lavrov, to anyone you can, that they will not tolerate whatsoever this crazy idea of indicting us and then chasing us around the world on

interpole. >> if the president decided this the other day. he did mull it over four days. if they said we're going to hand them over works any other part of the government works the justice department or any other part of government have a say in that if the president had decided yes instead of no? >> yes. under the trees, between nations, the mutual assistance treaty. >> it is, yeah. the ambassador could question it. he could bring an action to a federal court to challenge it. it isn't like some folks at the white house would grab him and throw him on a plane. we have a rule of law. and one of the things that gives me hope, not to be too corny, is that article 3 is holding. they abide by the rule of law. there is process. the amazing thing about our country is that the united

states can lose in its own courts. the united states was seeking to remove ambassador mcfaul. he could go in and work. >> putin has done this before. he puts out red notices, either prevents people there crossing international lines or makes it very difficult. it is a form of international law enforcement. when misused, it is a very potent form of law enforcement. if putin does that with ambassador mcfaul like he has done with bill browder -- >> andle, many others as well. >> where in the u.s. government is there a hurdle? >> you can correct me on this but i don't believe you can go

to court to challenge a red designation. the united states has a representative and is part of interpol. >> do you think that would be a successful challenge? >> i would hope so. we're in uncharted waters. it is hard for to us say, we have these 11 other examples of ambassadors being harassed and handed over to foreign governments and based on that press denial, no or yes. this hasn't happen. not to my knowledge. so i don't know what to say other than to say, ambassador mcfall will stay right here. >> and that's why there has to be a political strategy, too. i worked in the government for five years. if you want to send a message to another government, the president of the united states says to putin or anybody, don't do this. don't even think about doing this. there would be repercussions.

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with advil liqui-gels, what bad shoulder? what headache? advil is relief that's fast strength that lasts you'll ask... what pain? with advil liqui-gels we're back with former u.s. ambassador michael mcfaul, former senior fbi justice department official chuck rosenberg, and former senior justice department official matt axelrod. thank you all for being here. again, i have some questions about the maria butina case. and part of the reason i wanted to have all three of you here tonight if i could, because i feel like it hits kind of a good

cross-section of all of your expertise. first question, she's due back in court tomorrow. she has consular representation. right? she's a russian citizen. we're told that russian officials have met with her in jail since her arrest. the russian foreign minister has reportedly complained about her arrest to secretary of state mike pompeo. the russian embassy has started a free narrmaria butina social a campaign. i know this isn't necessarily specific to her case, but i don't understand how these things work. will they be able to get her out of jail? what's the impact of the russian government having a role and assisting in her case? >> you want to take that one? >> so i can start. it's standard to have consular notification under the vienna convention. so that's normal. it doesn't mean that they have an outsized role. it doesn't mean that they're getting her out of jail. she'll have separate representation as her criminal defense attorney. but the russian government is notified as a matter of course, just like any government would be notified when one of their nationals was arrested here in

the united states. >> so they will be able to have access to her to advise her presumably and to advise her counsel but they won't have any technical role in the legal proceedings. >> they're not a party in those proceedings. the party is maria butina on one hand as the defendant and the united states on the other, the prosecutor. the united states in this case moved for her detention. counsel, the russian government has no say in that. they may not like it. they may create a social media campaign, as you indicated, rachel. but they have no say in that. there's also really good reins for the judge to detain her which is all she has to do is walk into a russian embassy in the united states and she's on foreign soil. so is she a risk of flight? that's one thing that the federal judge looks at. and the answer is decidely yes. >> especially if she's not just -- at least according to the prosecutor's case she's not just a random russian citizen, she's a person whoo been secretly working for the russian dwoft, which would give the government a reason to -- >> and we know how eager the russian government is to protect her. >> mike, when you look at that russian social media campaign,

free maria butina, they're trying to get people to change their online avatars to a picture of her, what do you make of that campaign? where do you see that going? and when you see the indictment against her, when you read the government's charges against her, do you recognize that m.o.? is this a once in a life time kind of case or is this the sort of thing we've seen russia or even other countries try in this country? >> well, with respect to your second question, absolutely. i think people still don't understand that vladimir putin considers us an enemy. and he is using all means he can to advance russian interests on american soil. let's remember that. the indictment that mueller put out was just one more piece to a big picture which includes disinformation and this free -- even some people are joking it's free mcfaul. well, free all russians, too right? but there's a big difference. i'm glad our colleagues pointed out. she's not a diplomat.

she doesn't have diplomatic immunity. right? that's number one. but then the disinformation and spies. they are active in this country all the time. and i want to be clear, i don't know -- let's let her go through the due process. we do have rule of law here. they don't in russia. but it is an active campaign on multiple dimensions happening every day. >> and chuck, you recognize the sort of m.o. that's alleged by the prosecutors here as a typical spying and influence operation? >> i do. both from my time as a federal prosecutor work espionage cases and from my time at the fbi. what the russians tend to do, rachel, and ambassador mcfaul certainly knows this, is run lots and lots of operations knowing that some will fail, in fact most will fail, and some will succeed. and they don't mind sacrificing their own people. they take runs at lots and lots of different americans. right? for lots of different reasons. economic espionage, political influence. this just happens to be one where they succeeded for a while

and it came to light and it failed. >> we'll be right back with matt axelr axelrod, with chuck rosenberg, and with michael mcfaul. stay with us. eep it comin' love♪ ♪ keep it comin' love. ♪ don't stop it now, ♪ don't stop it no. ♪ don't stop it now, ♪ don't stop it. ♪ keep it comin' love. ♪ keep it comin' love. ♪ don't stop it now, if you keep on eating, we'll keep it comin'. all you can eat riblets and tenders at applebee's. now that's eatin' good in the neighborhood. ayep, and my teeth are yellow.? time for whitestrips. crest glamorous white whitestrips are the only ada-accepted whitening strips proven to be safe and effective. and they whiten 25x better than a leading whitening toothpaste. crest. healthy, beautiful smiles for life.

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i want to thank our brain trust tonight. michael mcfaul, former u.s. ambassador to russia. chuck rosenberg, former u.s. attorney and fbi chief of staff. matt axelrod, former deputy to acting attorney general sally yates. thank you all for what turned out to be kind of an exciting breaking news night here. it was really a pleasure and an honor to have you all here. >> thank you, rachel. >> now it's time for "the last word" with lawrence o'donnell. good evening, lawrence. >> good evening, rachel. good thing you had a bunch of lawyers around for the release of the cohen -- cohen tape number 1. there's going to be many more. we're going to play it in its entirety for people to decide what it is they're hearing here. but let me begin by telling you who's not going to be on our show tonight. rudy giuliani declined to come on and explain what his client donald trump is actually saying on that audio that we're going to play in a moment. but michael avenatti is here and he has a