human services people testify. there was never any intention to reunify these kids. and they said these family detention centers are like summer camps. so when i asked two of the five testifiers who had some experience, including the guy from i.c.e. experience with these family centers, would you send your kid to these so-called summer camps? i just got a lot of hemming and hawing. so we have an administration that still hasn't reunified some 700 kids. >> thank you for joining me. that's "all in" this evening. nicole wallace is in this evening. >> thank you. rachel has the night off. i am more distraught than you are. we have a ton of news to get to. for starters, they don't call at this time rocket docket for nothing. today paul manafort went on trial in a federal courtroom in xanld re, a virginia, and the

court lived up to its reputation for moving cases through at lightning speed. they polished off jury selection before lunch time. six men and six women plus four alternates. both sides gave opening statements and the government even put its first witness on the stand before the day was out. this is the very first time for the special counsel's office. the case the prosecution laid out in its opening statement goes like this. paul manafort earned millions and millions of dollars through his political consulting work in ukraine. he then kept that money in overseas bank accounts and never paid taxes on it, even as he used that money to fund an extravagant lifestyle including a $21,000 watch and a $15,000 jacket made from an ostrich. then he defrauded american banks into loaning him more moneys. maufrt's lawyers rolled out a

defense. it was all rick gates' fault. rick gates was his long time business partner who in one time was indied alongside manafort. then he decided to cut a deal with prosecutors which means he is now government's star witness. but manafort's defense lawyers told jurors that rick gates was responsibility for any tax and bank fraud and gates it was one who embezzled millions of dollars. paul manafort was simply guilty of trusting gates too much. that is what his lawyers say. this is a big momentous day. not only our chance to see prosecutors argue a case in front of a jury, what they're arguing is that the chairman. president's campaign is guilty on 18 felony charges. donald trump and his administration have repeatedly tried distance themselves from manafort. pretty much since they took office. >> and obviously there is discussion of paul manafort who played a very limited role for a

limited amount of time. >> i know mr. manafort. i haven't spoken to him in a long time. we was the campaign for a relatively short period of time. >> they all but call him a coffee boy. paul who? so they argued that paul manafort and these charges against him have nothing to do with the president. while it is true that this trial that got underway today is not about manafort's time on the trump campaign, prosecutors are going out of their way to keep trump out of the trial. abc news reports that prosecutors have been coaching their witnesses not to mention trump's name. the judge has barnld bringing up manafort's ties trump could unduly influence jurors. but there is at least one thing about this trial that is important to the relationship between paul manafort and donald trump. the first witness today was tad devine. chief strategist for bernie sanders's campaign who worked manafort on political campaigns in ukraine. the prosecution called devine as

their first witness to have him describe how much work manafort was doing in ukraine and how lucrative it was. just before i went on the air, we got an early transcript from today. here's one little bit that's worth hearing. this was the prosecutor today. quote, up until 2014 paul manafort was flushed with cash and hiding a lot of it from the irs. but in 2014, the evidence will show president victor yanukovych, the golden goose in ukraine, he lost power. and manafort was on the source of a new source of money to fund his huge lifestyle. the evidence will show that manafort then applied for tens of millions of dollars in bank loans from a series of different banks. however, in order to obtain those loans towed lie in violation of the bank's rules and federal law. that's what the prosecution intends to prove. that manafort was hard up for cash and desperate for income

after his ukraine work dried up. and that is important because that's when he went to one of trump's closest friends and said i really need to get to trump. and then offered to work for trump for free. how and yes became the campaign chair is still a weird so far unexplained thing. today in court prosecutors began laying out the evidence for the dire straits manafort was in when he joined one trump's campaign for free. that's something to keep an eye on as the trial goes forward. joining me, senior white house political reporter, a close observer of the manafort case cynic it began. he was in the courtroom today. and i get to announce that as of today, he is an msnbc contributor. i've seen some of the early reporting that there were audible gasps. take us through some of the more audible moments. >> well, this reference as having embezzled from manafort was something that grabbed my

attention. one of the great mysteries was going to be, what was manafort's defense? how would he defend against what appeared to be a strong case on paper, $60 million on this ukraine related consulting and paid only a fraction of that on income tax on the bank fraud charges. the defense seems to be to lay as much of that as possible at the feet of rick gates, his former deputy who agreed on turn states evidence. the question is how likely jurors to buy that given the large stack of paperwork and the real question of why gates would engineer this offshore banking system that primarily benefited

his boss. they had to know will would be an effort to dirty up rick gates. to throw him under the bus. they had to be ready and there was even a portion in the prosecutor's opening statement which went before it where they brought up gates and they said, look, it is not just about witnesses. there's a lot here in his own hand and his own e-mails. i believe they said they think there's ample proof that he's guilty. >> armchair lawyering is dangerous but one thing that those like myself feel, this was a paper case. all the evidence was in the charging documents.

was there a sense in the courtroom today that this was an air tight case? >> i think a lot of people feel it is a strong case with gates' testimony, you get the offshore machinations but these questions of bank fraud that arose in some part during the trump campaign. the applications for large loans that went from, i think, the middle of 2016 through early 2017. rick gates allegedly had direct involvement. in so he'll be an important witness on at least some of the charges. most people watching believe the defense is trying to pitch to maybe get one or two holdout jurors who will buy the fact rick gates engineered this fraud and somehow manafort was just along for the ride. even though he was the one at the top of the food chain here. >> and he's the one with the

history of doing business in this part of the world. take us through jury selection. i read that that was the most animated you all saw paul manafort. >> yeah. maufrt seemed real subdued in these hearings, here and in virginia. he ended up being jailed for the last month and a half or so. which was something his lawyers tried to avoid and that seemed to dampen his emotions. he was very involved during jury selection when they were trying figure out which jurors to strike and which to keep. he was flipping through the pads. he was chatting with his lawyers rather animatedly and even seemed to be making notes, or having lengthy discussions about which of his jurors might be more advantageous to him. they ended one six men and six women who will decide his fate,

at least in the first trial. >> tell me if i led the correctly. he was wearing suit today. the jurors will not be informed or see any images of him wearing the jump suit. why would that be? >> they typically would not. usually they are only used for arraignments. when someone is in front of the jury, they're usually brought in in street clothes. usually jurors are not told whether the defendant is in custody or free on bail. it is considered that would be prejudicial. there is whole implication of guilt. especially in a violent crime case, if you see somebody brought in in shackles. a lot of jurors may think this person is guilty.

so it usually takes place outside the courtroom where the jurors can't catch a glimpse of it. >> but no ostrich coat, right? >> no. a pretty standard business suit. probably more expensive handle the my suit but i doubt it is one of the special $10,000 or $15,000 numbers that he was wearing in new york. >> lucky for us, a brand new msnbc contributor. thank you. we're lucky to have you. joining me, joyce vance, thank you for being here. i'm struck by what josh was talking about. the entire manafort case is blame that guy. that doesn't seem like solid legal strategy to me. >> just from the evidence we're seeing, it seems like the government has a very good case. it is a paper case. that means the government will largely rely payment work, many

pieces of payment that manafort has either touch or signed to prove its case and they'll jazz it up a little bit. they'll have rick gates and others to narrate the case which the jury will undoubtedly find a little more interesting than looking at paper. still, you have to wonder why he was holding out. why he wasn't pleading guilty. i thought we might see a bit of a twist. what his defense would be during opening statements. instead we got the my underling defense did it. it's a bit of a yawner. something juror there's occasionally show interest in. it doesn't seem like a strong defense. i was surprise that had we didn't see a better opener. >> are you able to answer the question, why is manafort holding out? >> there are a couple of

reasons. frankly, we all speculate. is there someone that manafort fears more than he fears mueller? spending the rest of his life in jail? does he think that trump will pardon him and make all of this go away? i suppose that's a possibility. then a third possibility some of the defendants like to see how the evidence come in at trial. bank on cutack late deal with prosecutors if they believe evidence isn't coming in favorably to them. >> i understand this is about bank fraud, tax fraud, things other than paul manafort's time and ten you're as chairman of the trump campaign. clearly this trial is about the southern district. just based on the claim of

collusion, he pivoted today, maybe it is a quince against it is the same day as the trial no, longer is he saying there was no collusion. now he's saying collusion isn't a crime. now does this fit into russian influence over the trump campaign? >> this case i think is the preamble to russian collusion. this is setting the scene for manafort's past dealings and past crimes. some of it may well sbleek his time with trump. it will clearly set the stage. and we've seen mueller stage other cases this way. indicting russians in hacking. and we see the possibility that there may be americans who were involved. now we are learning more of

russia's history with dictators in ukraine and it seems this is headed in that same direction. >> could you take this case, would it be a building block if you're trying to put together some broader picture, some broader conspiracy case? the information coming out of michael cohen's camp is putting donald trump as someone who may have had knowledge of that trump tower meeting, paul manafort happens to be one of the other people in that trump tower meeting. there are a lot of connections. if you were looking for a russian plant, paul manafort would be your guy. it is remarkable that we have this. suddenly he shows up despite that and volunteers to work for free on the trump campaign. and then during his tenure, he

offers to debrief him on what's going on. this is a remarkable string of coincidences and i think jeremy's analysis from pretty far out will be accurate at the end of the day. so we could see this come together. i'm sure they would prefer to have him cooperate with they will. but at the end of the day, even if he doesn't cooperate, once this trial concludes, they will likely be able to compel his testimony and although it is always better to have someone testifying as a result of cooperation, manafort can likely shed light on a lot of these issues. >> joyce vance, former u.s. attorney from the northern district of alabama. we're always grateful to have you but especially on nights like tonight. president trump and his personal attorney rudolph giuliani keep changing their minds about what the president is willing to be asked about should he ever agree to sit down with robert mueller

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there was no focus russia in the opening statements today at paul manafort's trial. but the specter of manafort's deep connections to russia and to cell lynn linked oligarchs hovered over the proceedings. manafort was heavily in debt and owed millions. once he became chairman of the campaign, he offered private briefings to one of the creditors, a putin friendly oligarch. mueller's prosecutors have described the ukrainian business partner as having active ties to russian intelligence services. in fact a memo written by rod rosenstein last summer laid out mueller's authority to investigate whether paul manafort committed a crime or crimes by clueding with russian government officials. we know his team has questions for the president on this very subject. mueller wants to ask the president, what knowledge did you have of any outreach by your

campaign including by paul manafort, to russia about potential assistance to the campaign. last week began with the president's lawyers saying they were willing to let the president answer questions on possible collusion, but not on the issue of obstruction of justice. but now with the president's exlawyer michael cohen reportedly alleging the president knew about the trump tower meeting in advance, democrats stay president may be on the hook for both. >> there's credible evidence that the president of the united states has committed obstruction of justice and possibly a conspiracy to undermine our elections. >> and the latest messaging from the president and his team of lawyers, there was no collusion. even if there was, collusion isn't a crime. in case anyone is wondering they are now unwilling to answer questions on that topic either. >> you said maybe would you let him answer a few limited questions on collusion. >> i don't want him to answer

questions. we've been driven further away from the idea of answering any questions from them. we don't think they have a legitimate investigation. >> joining us now, chuck rose yepberg, former cia official. thank you both for being here tonight. so you have both banned the word collusion from any broadcast on which we all appear together. talk about how the real sort of pot at the end of the rage bow for an investigation is a conspiracy. >> i guess collusion irks me. >> you're not easily irked. >> it means agreeing with somebody else to do something. that's what a conspiracy is. the fact collusion doesn't

appear in the code as mr. giuliani says is nonsense. couldn't spearcy does. and what the mueller team is looking into is whether they conspired to interfere in the election. when they finally charge it, it will be charged as conspiracy. the notion that collusion isn't a crime is a complete red herring to mislead people. it is for the court of public opinion but not for a court of law. >> are you seeing enough pieces come to light that you believe there will be enough to charge someone with a conspiracy to coordinator receive assistance from a hostile foreign power? >> it is an educated guess but yes. there are bits and pieces in the republican record that suggest. it was just russians. the timing of the statements in

doral, florida, are urging the russians to go find the missing e-mails, hack into the dnc computers. all of that is tied to russian activity that mr. mueller recently charged when he brought a case against the russian intelligence officers. i think there are other calculations like whether mr. mueller believes he has the authority to charge a sitting president. there is some debate on that point. the department of justice has weighed in on it in the past and has opined that you cannot. i think the pieces are there. >> i have a well attuned ear to everything chuck rosenberg says and i have never heard him say that before. do you see enough public facing evidence at this point to believe, make another educated guess for us, that there is enough evidence to charge someone with conspiracy to coordinate with a hostile foreign power?

>> i don't know we know, i don't think we know all the facts yet. if you want to understand it, just take your july 13th indictment of 12 russian intelligence officers on 11 counts. in there bob mueller and his team lay out exactly what conspiracy looks like. if people want to use the google machine to research it, 18 usc 371. conspiracy to defraud the united states. and a couple of interesting things about that statute. first of all, it states that if two or more people agree to do something to commit an offense against the united states, and one of those people actually goes ahead and does it, then both people are guilty of conspiracy and shall not be imprisoned for more than five years. a classy felony. if there were people inside trump tower, at the trump tower

meeting, or inside the trump campaign, or even donald trump himself, who knew what the russian government officers were doing, and if the russian government officers did it, even if they didn't come back and report it back to the trump campaign. the trump campaign knew about it. in effect, mere knowledge establishes a conspiracy. and there are other places in the mueller indictment. if you look at paragraph 21 d in here. it talks about how one of them created a spear fishing e-mail attack. it is clear that all the other 11 defendants didn't know or participate. yet they were all under the indictment terms, conspirators and guilty of the alleged offenses. so i think you have to understand the way bob mueller and the special counsel's office is approaching the crime of conspiracy to see if there will be a charge at the end of the day. >> okay. i love both of you.

i love spy models. you said there's a 96% chance the reason donald trump has taken a pro putin position is because of money, because of longstanding financial ties with the trump organization and people around the russian government. i want to ask but that and something else you said. you talked about one-on-one meetings. you talked about donald trump clearing the room which is what we understand trump did with putin. he cleared the room when he asked jim comey to see the investigation on mike flynn go. how do those two hang together in your mind in terms of what an investigator or a prosecutor -- >> when does donald trump want someone to leave the room? when he wants to do something where he doesn't want others to hear what he's doing. one of the concerns that i have, and many national security investigators have with putin, and we still don't even know if the translators were in there

for the entire time or if the american translator was in there the entire time. one of the problems is there is no record of what was said. and i think even to this day the director of national intelligence spoke publicly about this. and mike pompeo was questioned about this. they have not received a full debrief about it. it harkens back to putting this arm on jim comey. >> if i give you a two-part question here, if could you weigh in on the news tonight that bob mueller has sent more cases to the southern cases. >> the reason you though everybody out, the reason you want something quote/unquote off the record is you're going to do something underhanded.

it seems like a number of these conversations are underhanded. i want to echo what he said. he did a nice job explaining the law of conspiracy. one thing i would add, it doesn't require that you would succeed. you and i could agree to rob a bank. we could get jeremy to be a part of this. he goes out and buys a getaway car. and then we get stopped on the way to the bank. we're still guilty, all three of us of conspiracy to rob that bank. so when i said i think there's enough information to see a conspiracy, i don't necessarily mean that they succeeded. or that everybody knew every part of the conspiracy. what is required is that somebody took a step in that direction.

and referring mort cases to the southern district. these were more lobbyists doing more pro russian business in the ukraine and other cases. >> right. t it's not at the core of it to look into the election. you have a binary choice when you're a prosecutor. you come across criminal behavior. i face this myself in my time as a prosecutor. you either do something with it or you do nothing with it. and it is very hard for a prosecutor to do nothing when they come across evidence of a crime. so it makes perfect sense that these other folks will get farmed out to u.s. attorney's offices around the country and face consequences of their actions. >> all right. thank you for taking me to law school. coming up, president trump's new best friend is reportedly still

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do you believe that them continuing to build icbms would violate the joint declaration from singapore? >> what we're going on is the commitment that chairman kim made to our president. and that is the commitment to denuclearize. that's something that we certainly anticipate that he

will hold up his end of the bargain. in terms of of that specific report, we're all very well aware of it. it would fall into an intelligence matter. >> really? you think he will hold up his end of the bargain? punting on a question about a "washington post" report which nbc news has now confirmed that satellite photos show that north korea is continuing to produce ballistic missiles and work the missile program even after the june summit in singapore between donald trump and north korea's kim jong-un. the "washington post" said they are working a missile capable of reaching the united states. that after donald trump quoted hasan rouhani who donald trump said he would meet with no pre conditions. a baffling offer from an american president who last week was hurling twitter grenell aids at his iranian counter part and an offer that iran wasted no

time turning down. thanks but no thanks. joining me now, steve schmidt and an old friend of mine from our days at the white house and the campaign trail. you and i worked for someone who could see russia from her house so we're in a position to see whether donald trump is operating from ignorance is bliss or whether he seriously has a thing for these dictators. what's your take? >> well, nicole, let me say former republican to begin. >> nonpracticing is what i like the say. >> at the end of the day, donald trump made the world pro foundly more dangerous with his reality show diplomacy in singapore. of course kim jong-un is not honoring the agreement and they're working on an intercontinental ballistic missile which one day a miniaturized warhead will sit on

top of that could reach the continental united states. so she's up there spinning the american people. the intelligence agencies are under constant attack. so roughly 40% of the country, it doesn't matter what the intelligence agency says. what matters is what trump says. thankfully it is a minority of the country. it doesn't change that the country is more in danger because we had an unprepared ignorant president go over there with the same level of rigor that he would plan an apprentice episode with meatloaf and little john. >> you pull the right thread through all three. the intelligence on north korea didn't ever point to what donald trump declared at the end of the summit. that they're now no longer a threat. the intelligence community didn't point to anything that donald trump said. this is just what we know of at the press conference in

helsinki. the intelligence on iran suggested the deal that the president pulled us out of was better than anything he is likely to point to on his own. soho does the intelligence committee go to willfully ignoring all three of these dangerous regimes. >> well, they can try on serve him and serve him they do. at the end of the day, he is the president of the united states and he believes what he believes. there is more than enough news reports to suggest that he doesn't hear anything he doesn't want to hear. of course the iranian deal, he achieved the remarkable feat of putting the united states opposite the european union, russia and iran, with iran having the high moral ground with regard to fidelity. it went to singapore which he is

violating the spirit of, with no verification protocols whatsoever. so this is all nonsense. it is reality theater with deadly, deadly consequences. it was the strategic aim of the north korean regime, one of the most evil and violent in the world, a slave regime torsion elevate its leader to maximum standing on the world stage, and they achieved that by standing next to the president of the united states. kim jong-un knows his nuclear weapons guarantee him insurance against invasion by the united states. so donald trump played all his cards and he is left with a pair of twos. what he proved himself to be was inexperienced, naive, ignorant and a fal on the world stage. and that was noted by over adversary of the countries. >> and i want to ask if you you're surprised that not a

single nationally appointed security official has resigned over what you just described. it is obvious to everyone here and around the world. i am shocked that there are not more sally yates's. particularly when we see the president of the united states going behind closed doors with vladimir putin agreeing on who knows what, saying who knows what, making who knows what guarantees to putin, what promises to turn another eye of putin eye in the baltics or anywhere else on the globe. he assaults the chancellor of germany, he questions and assaults nato, questions the need for the european union. he is an agent de facto of

russian foreign policy. the foreign policies he's advocating, the bipartisan consensus that was between republicans and democrats would have recognized his foreign policy as clearly in the middle lane of strategic interests. to see it vamsed by an american president is as disturbing as it is shocking. >> your reward is that we'll ask to you stick around for one more minute. there is a real headscratcher. is it possible the president wants the republicans to lose? that he wants the democrats to take over the house? that's next. fact is, every insurance company hopes you drive safely.

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itching to go up against nancy pelosi who would become speaker of the house again. the thinking with nancy pelosi as his political foil, he can fire up his base into a second term. for a president who plays more whackamole than 3d chess, call me skeptical. he just wrapped up a rally in florida to support hopeful ron de santas. the president in trying to rationalize voter i.d. claiming you need to show an i.d. to buy groceries. i obviously doesn't shop but for the record you do not. for an old friend of mine, are you buying this? the president wants them to lose? i can't imagine anyone more docile than devin nunes.

>> it will work out for him. it's been terrific. at the end of the day, i would think the last thing donald trump wants is chairman adam schiff with subpoena power. and that's what he will have. the interesting aspect of it is this. he may look out and see an 18-person democratic feel and pray that a socialist is nominated by the democrats, believing that you know, in his view, if there are two unelectable candidates, one of the two unelectable candidates will win. he had a razor thin margin of victory. he won by 78 votes across three states, losing the popular vote by 3 million people. and his approval numbers at their highest are mired in the low 40s. if you look at the special election results, and you're a strategist working for the house republicans, you're saying there is no republican safe in any

district that is under plus 25% trump. that means, you can be in a 20% trump district and lose in this mid-term election. when the tsunami hits, and we consider the aftermath, what will be left of the republican party is not adjacent party. well, we were repudiated and bloenl out by trump. the members left will be in districts plus 25%, plus 30%, it will harden the resolve of the party and its faithful to trump, not away from him. as the republican party is shrinking, as people like me are leaving, fervor is intensifying. the strategic problem is it is getting smaller. the smaller the party becomes, the more intense, the more extreme, the more devoted to its

leader. but on a diminishing point of return on the curve. and that's his procedural problem heading into 2020. overwhelmingly, the vast majority of americans don't think he's doing a good job. they think he is a bad president. they think he is compromised by a foreign power. they think he's lawless which of course he is. >> so his base was not big enough for him to have drafted a victory speech on election night. donald trump didn't think as much of his own base as some made him out to be. he won by a razor thin margin. how are republicans marching off the cliff after him if his base wasn't big enough to vote anymore in his own mind? >> in the instinct and preservation all politicians have has run through whole party

during the rise, in a world where politicians pick the voters. we no longer live in a country where so faithfulness to trump is what precludes an effective primary challenger from their right by a trumpist candidate. and so that's the demmic of cowardice we see, is that there's no one literally willing to lay down a political career to stand up for principles that they cherished and held dear until i guess, say, 18 months ago. and since that time everything that these republican members as a general proposition once believed in they no longer believe in or still believe in or are just too scared to say it out loud for risk of ochbzing trump, whose party it is lock stock and barrel. and republicans have lashed

themselves to the mast, and we're going to see what happens in november. but the die is cast on this one for sure. >> that's former republican, still a strategist, steve schmidt. thank you, my friend, for staying up with us. up next, are the russians at is it again? facebook is not naming names but someone on the social network is acting an awful lot like the russians did in the 2016 campaign. more on that story ahead. >> teacher: let's turn in your science papers. >> tech vo: this teacher always puts her students first. >> student: i did mine on volcanoes. >> teacher: you did?! oh, i can't wait to read it. >> tech vo: so when she had auto glass damage... she chose safelite. with safelite, she could see exactly when we'd be there. >> teacher: you must be pascal. >> tech: yes ma'am. >> tech vo: saving her time... [honk, honk] >> kids: bye! >> tech vo: ...so she can save the science project. >> kids: whoa! >> kids vo: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace ♪

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inboxes, telling them that an event they planned to attend or were interested in attending no longer exists. the event had been billed as a counterprotest to a white nationalist rally scheduled to take place in d.c. in two weeks. now facebook says it has disabled that counterprotest event page because the group sponsoring the event is one of 32 pages or accounts that was involved in "coordinated inauthentic behavior that did not appear to push specific candidates but did promote activity around divisive social issues." facebook says it has been unable to identify who's behind these accounts. however, facebook says it has found evidence of ties to the internet research agency. that's the russian company that special counsel robert mueller says led online influence operations in the 2016 presidential election. now facebook has dumped 32 more accounts for engaging in behavior similar to what the internet research agency did just three months before the midterm elections. but as nbc news reports late tonight, that's only part of the story. nbc news reporting that in announcing the investigation

into these 32 accounts facebook did not reveal the depth to which some of those facebook accounts went in terms of stoking racial tension and inciting division. "nbc news was able to retrieve some of the pages facebook deleted via a web archive search. a review of those deleted pages found efforts to target people based on liberal politics as well as hispanic and african heritage." nbc news reports that "facebook dibt deliberate dily did not reveal some of the most divisive content that was delivered. joining us is kara swisher, executive editor of recode. you are the facebook truther. what's wrong with facebook? i've seen other fancy ads, the friends are back, the baby pictures are back. and no, no, no, the russians are back. >> the russians are back and the russians never left and they didn't catch the russians the first time. it's nice they're telling us they're catching russians now but i want to know why they're able to continue to thrive on this platform. i think the problem is fundamentally the platform. and while i applaud facebook for

putting it out before the news reporters get it i also do not applaud them for not doing something about it. and i think they're trying and they're trying all kinds of different techniques but instead of just telling us about it i would rather them do it and rid these things off the platform. but again, they get kudos i guess for announcing it. >> i've played that game as a political operative of putting news out before reporters get it. it's usually because reporters are about to get it. it's usually because pressure is bearing down on you. i guess my question about facebook is what's wrong with the culture? one, that this is still happening and two, they have to be backed against the wall before they reveal something that doesn't sound like very many pages. and it seems like if there are 32 maybe there are 32 more. >> oh. come on. there's more and more. when this happened maybe a year ago i remember talking to facebook executives, if there's one cockroach there's a lot of coke roaches and you have to really understand it. and i think this is a chance where the creation has got anne way from them and they don't know how nornt it.

listen, it's really difficult but they've made a fortune off of this company and in terms of eating up social media and eating up digital advertising revenue. it really is critically important they figure out how to chi their system so this doesn't happen or these tools are not used for these nefarious ways. even if there's always going to be bad people knocking at any any media in history, this is unprecedent examined it's problematic i think. >> we've talked before when they've been staring down the barrel at more regulation at perhaps being regulated like a media organization, is there anything on the horizon that would change that culture, that would change their conduct? is there anything that scares them? >> i don't know. i think what scares them, i did an interview with mark zuckerberg. the thing that scares them is how do they keep innovating and changing in order to do something like this? but they don't seem to want to let go of certain tents they have around free speech. i think the issue is free speech is not free of consequence. the question is what are they going to pay for what they're doing and how they're thinking

about it and how are they going to deal with it as it moves forward? because it's only going to get more complex. this is a platform that is very easy to manipulate. they've got to make a way to make it not easy to manipulate or they're going to be regulated. that's i think their biggest problem, is it's not an easy solution but they're well paid and they've made a lot of money off of this and now they have to fix it. >> you know the human beings who run this company. do any of the human beings have any sort of guilty conscience about being a stool to carry out vladimir putin's goals in meddling with our democracy? >> i think so. i think a lot of people internally are. obviously mark showed a lot of remorse in that interview and at the same time he said he wants it to be an open platform and of course he got into trouble because -- he didn't defend holocaust deniers but he said they have a right to be on the platform too and people who are wrong have a right to be on the platform. it's an incredibly complex issue for someone who is not i would say well versed in the humanities, i guess. so that's the problem, is this is a human problem and the people that are deciding these things, who have enormous power,

don't really know how to deal with it. there's going to be a problem no matter what because of that. >> kara swisher, executive editor of recode. i love seeing and you appreciate your time tonight. that does it for us tonight. i'll look four tomorrow at 4:00 p.m. eastern. now it's time for "the last word" with lawrence o'donnell. good evening, lawrence. >> good evening, nicole. will we look for you tomorrow at 9:00 p.m. also? >> my my how times have changed. i used to be the resident republican. now i get to sit here only tonight. but it's fun to get to do this. >> so it will be a surprise for me tomorrow night. thank you, nicole. well, we have a detailed report tonight on what may be the most compelling evidence that president trump may have obstructed justice. from the start of rudy giuliani's public defense of donald trump, obstruction of justice has always been the part of the mueller investigation that rudy giuliani obviously fears the most, which might be why rudy giuliani and the