had regarding terminating the special counsel. it turns out that robert mueller won't have to wait for that presidential interview after all. the president tweeted the answer this morning. in effect, ordering his attorney general to end the special counsel probe. the president writing, quote, attorney general jeff sessions should stop this rigged witch hunt right now. bob mueller is totally conflicted and his 17 angry democrats that are doing his dirty work -- dirty work -- are a disgrace to the usa. three things have become clear from the president's behavior in the public statements of his lawyers and allies this week. one, the president will likely never be interviewed in the mueller investigation. two, the president appears to be obstructing justice in plain sight because he thinks he can survive the politics of impeachment. and three, the picture bob mueller is stitching together using his wide ranging investigative authority, the public -- the president's public statements and the president's tweets, a mueller tactic we first learned about from "the new york times" may after this

morning include a whether donal trump is seeking to obstruct the investigation into himself. long-time trump allies for many months targeted all of their attacks on jim comey as a flawed witness in the obstruction case, but it is increasingly clear that trump's treatment of the attorney general, jeff sessions, may be the open wound in trump's conduct during his time in office that leads robert mueller straight to obstruction of justice. the president's attorney addressing all of this just in the last few minutes. take a watch. >> if he wanted to obstruct it, he'd obstruct it. he could just end it. then you'd all battle whether he has the legal right to do that which i think he does but he's not going to do that. he's made it clear he wants it to run its course. but on the other hand, he is a person with a first amendment right to defend himself, first amendment right to express his opinion, and as a president it is even more important that he express his opinion because these kinds of allegations can do damage to the country, not just to the president president.

and if he believes he's innocent and he is innocent he should speak out. >> if he can he did he wouldn't, i guess that's clear. joining us to discuss the impact of the president's tweet and the president's agitated conduct on day two of the manafort trial, some of our favorite reporters and friends. "the new york times" mike schmidt. here at the table daniel goldman, former assistant u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york, now an msnbc contributor. nbc news and msnbc national affairs analyst john heilman is back. eli stokols, white house correspondent for the l.a. times. solina maximum well, former clinton advisor, now director of progressive programming for sirius xm. michael schmidt, get us started. you wrote the piece last thursday about mueller's tactic of stitching together what his investigators have uncovered, the president's conduct, his efforts to get jeff sessions to reverse his recusal, his desire to have his white house counsel don mcgahn fire mueller. with his tweets and with his public statements, this tweet this morning seemed like it

could fit into that fabric in an obstruction investigation. >> mueller is looking at the other tweets and the public stramts how they lineup with what was going on behind the scenes, trump's effort to influence comey and put out word he was not under investigation. his efforts to get sessions to reverse his decision to recuse himself. and what's happened here is the president has sort of played into this narrative and to the question today by tweeting about sessions and about the investigation. what legal experts would say is that you shouldn't talk about an investigation if you're under investigation, especially not an obstruction one where your public statements and tweets are being looked at. but nevertheless, the president being emboldened here and continuing to beat the drum and continuing to do that. and then the president's lawyers quickly getting on the phone with us today an hour and a half after the president tweeted to explain to us that this was not an order. he was not ordering sessions to do this. he was simply expressing his opinion. >> they seem to be and it depends what the definition of

order is, territory now. and i wonder if they've had a chance to explain to the president what you reported last week, that under this beefed up post-enron witness tampering law, he may have more exposure than he understands. they seem to be leaning on a first amendment defense, which is not going to hold up if your reporting holds up he's being scrutinized for the way these fit together. >> what rudy giuliani said today is this is ridiculous, the clip you played. the idea obstruction by tweet. he said it was bizarre and idiotic and there was nothing to it and the president can express his opinions. the thing about the president and obstruction and collusion, you know, interference or whatever you want to call it is the president usually focuses on the russia question. he says, this is a witch hunt. there was no collusion. he repeats that over and over again. the thing is that does the president really understand obstruction? does he understand the exposure he has there? when mueller's investigators sat down with the president's

lawyers in march and said, look, here are the things we want to ask the president about. two-thirds or maybe three-fourths of them were about obstruction, they were not about the president's ties to russia or the campaign's ties to russia. >> a lot of them, we found eight of the questions you reported on earlier this year are about jeff sessions. so, while as you said a lot of his allies attacked him, comey, you see them do that publicly, they do it privately, it's really the questions around jeff sessions. he wanted an interview in december. his guys, roy cohn, he admired eric holder because he saw him as someone who protected obama. how does that kind of thinking about what your own justice department officials could or should do look to robert mueller's investigators? >> well, the original sin for the president -- and he openly says he has an interesting transparency to this -- he says, look, i never would have made sessions my attorney general if i knew he was going to recuse himself. he said that out loud in public in an interview with us last july. so that is the thing that is --

bothers the president the most, that he does not have someone loyal to him like he thinks obama did, or jfk did running the justice department. he wants someone who will do what he wants in the justice department. the thing i don't understand, i tried to press the lawyers on, the president could call the justice department. he could call rod rosenstein, who actually oversees the investigation. sessions doesn't. sessions doesn't have the authority to do it because he's recused. et could call rosenstein and say shut this down, if not, i'm going to fire you and put someone else in. i don't understand if the president is that concerned this is a witch hunt why he does not do that. >> and clearly it is not a witch hunt. bob mueller referred three cases that include and involve democrats to your old stomping grounds, the southern district. where do you think a prosecutor, an investigator who is not sort of rattling around in this echo chamber, where do they see this conduct? where does this point them toward? >> well, it confirms one of the critical elements of an obstruction of justice investigation, which is the

corrupt intent. and this notion that it's laughable or ridiculous that you would have obstruction by tweet is actually laughable and ridiculous. the tweets are just simply statements. and any lawyer worth his salt knows that any statement by a potential defendant can be used against him. >> mimi rucker said that. if this was a debate -- >> there have been many people for months and months and months who have gone on television including me, saying stop tweeting because these tweets are going to be used against you. that defense doesn't go anywhere, you pointed out the first amendment defense doesn't go anywhere. of course, you can't use the first amendment as a shield to commit crimes. but this in and of itself is not obstruction. it's remarkable in many ways not the least of which as mike just pointed out, jeff sessions is not overseeing this investigation. so if he wants it to end, he should call out rod rosenstein to do it. but i'm not sure that that is

unintentional. in other words, i think he wants to get the message out, but have enough removed so he can have some plausible deniability and say i don't want this to happen. if i wanted to order it to happen, i would. which of course everybody would know would be a near immediate impeachable offense. so he's walking a fine line. but as we are learning with trump and giuliani, there is more of a method to their madness than it meets the eye. and everything that they say comes from somewhere, and the difficulty for us is to try to figure out what is driving them. >> what do you think is driving them? >> it's a little more method than madness. we know where it's coming from. it's coming from both of their screaming raging ids, the fear center of the president. some day when i die if i go to heaven, heaven for me is going to be a poker game where donald trump is at the table with a big stack of chips.

the guy has the worst poker face in the world. when he is triggered he acts out. he's been acting out with resecretary to jeff sessions the first 18 months. if you're a prosecutor, you're going to look at a piece of evidence that are not in the public record, there aren't things we've seen, there aren't things like this because there are apparently we'll talk about this later, i'm sure. there's been incredible reporting in the last week about some piece of actual contemporaneous evidence coming out through investigative reporting in new york review and books and other places. you look at what donald trump has done with jeff sessions consistently throughout. this is a 35fifth example. the man is desiring to obstruct justice, he wishes justice was obstructed for him. he is screaming his guilt every time he does something like this. of course, the man stands up almost every day and brags about he has tens of millions of twitter followers. i have the biggest megaphone in america. it's not really like a megaphone. it's not really a -- not an

order. if bill clinton stood up in the white house press office in 1995 and said, i think janet reno should fire ken starr, we would all, everyone would have had a ka nipgs. it would have been the obvious thing in the world. it is now 2018. this is the equivalent of bill clinton standing up in the white house press office saying janet reno should fire ken starr when donald trump does it to his twitter followers, tens of millions of them, it's the same thing. >> you know, i figured out all the reporting you and your colleagues have done about all of the white house staffers that have gone into mueller's investigation offices and testified to all of what john heilman just detailed. hope hicks has been with mueller's investigators. reince priebus has testified, steve bannon has testified. there are witnesses to everything everyone is talking about. the firing of jim comey, the desire to fire jeff sessions, the desire to fire bob mueller. what is the purpose served? is it simply to sort of play the last card that they're holding or the last chip to carry over

heilman's poker analysis and say all we've got is to muddy the water so we can survive an impeachment in the house and the senate? >> this is the most calculating thing they've done. they say, look, there's no legal issue here for the president. we don't think he's going to be indicted. the only thing that matters and rudy giuliani's mind is public opinion. that's what could affect the house of representatives which would deal with impeachment. there is no other issue for them. there's no concern that he could go to jail. nothing about that. it's all about shaping the narrative. if you look at some of the polls giuliani has made an impact here. he has pushed things against mueller who cannot go out and certainly hasn't gone out and said anything publicly. and giuliani has muddied the waters. he has made it much more difficult for mueller here who can only really speak in indictments and court filings. >> what's funny about that, eli, they don't pretend to act like they think their client is innocent of obstruction.

on the question of helsinki, the potential collusion. >> they don't. the president doesn't act like an innocent person either. i think what is hard to process about a lot of this stuff is it is so blatantly transgressive and on the surface. yet because he tweets every morning whatever is upsetting him, we process these things. oh, it's just another trump tweet storm in the morning. >> we separate them out. >> he never said what he said directly to sessions, end this thing or you should end this investigation. to mike's point about why won't he just make the call to rosenstein and threaten, do this or you're fired, i think the reason is twofold. it's partly about this belief that he and giuliani share about being able to beat this in the court of public opinion politically whatever the legal repercussions now come of the probe. the other thing is even as schmus i ha submissive as congress has been to this president, there is a sense republicans on the hill doing that, firing rosenstein, ending this probe somehow would be a red line.

a lot of republican senators have said that and i think that is something the president actually deep down believes. so when he's lashing out, when he's scratching the itch this morning saying, you should just fire rosenstein, i think he's doing it to make himself feel good and to communicate to the public, you know, even though this does align with the white house narrative, oh, it's not an order, it seems like an order to the public and that's a problem. >> comey testified that it felt like an order when he asked, can you see to let mike flynn go. >> the proof of it is now. he can send this tweet today and there are not republican senators on the hill calling for his impeachment. there would be political consequence if he actually summoned rod rosenstein to the white house and fired him. >> what consequence -- >> i think a fair number of republicans on capitol hill -- >> name them. >> do we want to make a list? >> let's make a list. what republican would be mad if donald trump fired rod rosenstein? orrin hatch thinks he's the --

>> you're asking me to do a memory test of all the republicans -- >> i'm asking you to think of one who has courage. i can't think of any. >> i'm not going to argue with you they have courage -- >> eli came up with one. >> i gave you orrin hatch. do you want a better one than that? >> we'll find the sound he said donald trump is the bestment ever. >> he said it would be an issue -- >> when trump -- when he grabs the third rail and he -- whatever he does, no one ever does anything. >> there is no doubt that history, that is factual. >> i want to ask you something about, john's analysis, mike's analysis they're playing this card because they think they can survive impeachment. the way they got to mike flynn is because his son had "today's special value" exposure. i'm not ascribing onto donald trump the humanity of mike flynn. there is a known unknown. do you think there is any peril for donald trump, jr., or his daughter's husband jared

kushner -- >> or his daughter. >> or his daughter, any of that calculation changes, bring it on? bill clinton had 67% approval the week he was impeached. that's a poll number played back to me by trump's allies. he'd love the fight. not so much if one of his children or son-in-law were in legal trouble. >> i think that's where it becomes more tricky. i don't know what he will do if they go after his son or son-in-law or daughter or his other son eric trump who has openly talked about russian money coming into their businesses. i'm looking at two things right now. not just the public tweets, but also his private conduct because we've talked on the show before about how he's calling around capitol hill and all the agencies, calling the dni and calling in favors to have them in private shutdown the investigation. so i think that if it in public got to the point where they're going after his family members, we should look at his private conduct as well because as it gets closer to going after ivanka or jared or don junior, is he calling in private while

he's tweeting in public to try to shutdown this investigation another way, or trying to fire rod rosenstein another way in private behind closed doors when we don't know about it? >> mike, let me ask you a question about the nature, the spirit with which the president's lawyers were in touch with you and your colleagues today because you hear this sort of stonewalling out of the press briefing. the president was just expressing an opinion. if they weren't worried, why are they in so much contact with so many reporters today? >> i think they're very afraid of the narrative. it comes back to the issue of public opinion. and they're trying to insulate the president from himself as much as possible. as it's long been established, the president's aides and his lawyers have no control over his tweets. they have no ability to stop that. so the only thing that they can do is try and manage the fallout from it and try and say, look, he's just blowing off steam. he's just expressing his opinions. the problem is that if that's someone sitting on their couch just kind of popping off on twitter that's one thing. when it's the president of the

united states, it comes with a different weight and i'm not sure that everyone in the white house or outside of it that's close to the president really appreciates that. >> so, if you could just paint for us the picture of what mike and his colleague maggie reported last week mueller stitching together these pieces, how does it fit into an exhibit of obstruction of justice? >> there are two parallel things going on that intersect, because i think that the smoke that we're starting to see including from mike and maggie's reporting, but also that we are starting to see from some of these michael cohen leaks and critically now that the manafort trial is starting and rick gates is a cooperating witness is taking center stage, i don't think it's a coincidence that he's lashing out this way in an obstructive nature when we are starting to see in the public a little bit more of the collusion end of things. and remember, we don't know what rick gates has told bob mueller about any russia collusion. and he was there for a lot of it. and he was very close with

manafort and anything manafort told gates can be -- gates can testify about most likely. and so there's a lot that we don't know. >> let me play that and get -- this is rudy seeming to rack his brain or hit his brain or do something to his head trying to remember who was in that meeting. let me play that for you guys. >> lanny davis was there, there was a meeting two days before the meeting took place with donald junior, jared, manafort and two others. gates, one more person. >> that's a real meeting. you're saying that that -- >> that's a real meeting on another provable subject in which he did not participate. >> that was him trying to -- >> that was so great. >> a real meeting that i'm trying to say never took place. >> is that what you're talking about? >> that's exactly what i'm talking about -- >> do you think he knew that rick gates had testified to something that perhaps jeopardized donald trump? >> so, we don't know and there are a lot of potential

limitations. but my theory on this is that it wasn't lanny davis who reported or leaked that meeting. lanny davis has not said anything about that meeting in public. so rudy giuliani is trying to distract from the original source of the information, which was really him. and the thing that sticks out to me as a prosecutor is you have a cooperating witness who was at that new pre-meeting. that cooperating witness is required to tell the special counsel everything he knows about any criminal conduct. and it is not a coincidence to me that right when paul manafort's lawyers get all of those statements from rick gates -- because that's required before a trial -- that all of a sudden rudy giuliani is doing what he often has done -- it's a pattern now, which is trying tri and get out in front of something and spin it. so i think that's what was really going on here. >> mike schmidt, i'll give you last word. you and your colleague maggie cover rudy. do you have any theory or new reporting on what that head

banging was about, what that meeting was about and why it mattered so much to rudy to get out that list? i don't know the words. >> what was the head banging? >> i don't know if it works. >> i think the issue the trump legal team runs into is the president's legal exposure is so complex. there is obstruction. there is collusion. there is a question about whether to do an interview. and these are things that if you're going to go out and speak publicly about them, you really need to be well versed in. you need to know all the facts about them. and i think they run into trouble when they run into subjects that they don't necessarily know as well as others. these are not simple investigations. they have complex legal, you know, questions around them and about the facts. and when the homework is not done, it doesn't come out right. >> i bang my head, too. really quick. >> the point mike is making is right. they don't know everything. in fact, they don't know a lot. and so they're learning it probably a little bit ahead of

us, but they don't know, so they're scrambling and chasing just like we are. >> not always ahead of everyone. mike schmidt and dan goldman, you make me want to bang my head. thank you for starting us off. rocket docket speedyest court of the land the raid on manafort's home. new attacks on the media. audacity of lies. he outpaces his own rate of spreading miss truths. is he the biggest liar to hold the office of the american presidency? i think so. you're headed down the highway when the guy in front slams on his brakes out of nowhere. you do, too, but not in time. hey, no big deal. you've got a good record and liberty mutual won't hold a grudge by raising your rates over one mistake. you hear that, karen? liberty mutual doesn't hold grudges... how mature of them. for drivers with accident forgiveness liberty mutual won't raise their rates because of their first accident. liberty mutual insurance.

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behind the president's hours-long seven tweet meltdown, paul manafort on trial in alexandria, virginia. the trial is moving at break neck speed. the prosecution telling the presiding judge just in the last hour that the government will rest its case as early as next week. that's days ahead of schedule. nbc's ken dilanian joins us from outside the courthouse to bring us the news from day two of the trial. and joining the table ben rhodes, former deputy national security advisor to president obama. lucky for us now an msnbc contributor and author of the book the world as it is. maybe we should change it to the world ads it was. ken dilanian, start us off. day two, what has it brought so far? >> well, nicolle, as you mentioned part of the news is the fast pace of this trial. it's going much faster hannah we anticipated. in part the judge is pushing the prosecutors. so much to their annoyance at times, to keep it moving, keep

it moving. he's preventing them from going into certain areas. to the has been mostly a story about purchases by paul manafort of luxury goods, paid for by wire transfer from bank accounts in cyprus. there's been a parade of witnesses including from elite suit makers in beverley hills, where manafort pent $334,000 over two years on suits. another suit company said he was one of their top five customers. he bought a $2 million house for his daughter in alexandria, $67,000 for a mercedes. $3 million in improvements, the contractor was just on the stand, at his homes in the hamptons, in brooklyn and manhattan, over four years. all of it came from wire transfers from cyprus. here's the important point, nicolle. the defense in their opening said they'll blame all the illegal conduct on rick gates. they'll say gates was managing the business and if anything wrong happened it was his fault.

in every single one of these transactions, the prosecutors would ask the witness have you heard of a man named rick gates? no. did rick gates have anything to do with wire transfer to you? no. >> the ostrich jacket, ridiculous defense. that was yesterday's story. are they sticking to that? i imagine nobody that was a vendor to paul manafort knitted a suit or stitched a suit or put in a counter top or dug a pole for a swimming pool for rick gates. >> that's right. so i'm not sure how much the prosecution is tailoring this case to thwart the rick gates did it defense. it certainly seems to be one aspect of their thought processes here. there's one thing they want to show the jury how extravagant his life-style is. the judge is adamant he's not on trial because he's rich. the prosecution is trying to put in evidence about a pool house in the hamptons. judge wouldn't let it happen. there were pictures of suits the judge wouldn't let the jury see.

that is still up in the air. amid donald trump's talk of -- hinting around of potential pardon for paul manafort, this trial does not seem to be going well for mr. manafort today. >> ben, one of the backdrops of all this is the meticulousness of robert mueller's prosecutors. i remember when the indictments were unsealed, all of the legal analysis was these were paper cases. on paper they looked air tight. what do you make of sort of -- that was a bipartisan analysis of the way mueller's prosecutors, his investigators had gone about their investigation. it was actually echoed by democrats and republicans, including on fox news when the russians were indicted a couple fridays ago, they had the key stroke evidence and it spoke to the meticulousness of mueller's investigators. what do you make of a fact that on a day like today donald trump strongly orders or suggest his attorney general fire mueller or end the probe and no one does anything? john tried to think of a

republican, orrin hatch, he was talking about his brilliance. he tweeted -- >> you keep taking that shot. you want to have this fight again? >> it's 4:28. you have a minute to come up with one more name. >> john mccain. brian corker. >> individuals of conscience who believe in the rule of law should denounce this blatant effort to obstruct justice. congress must warn trump of dire consequence. should we hold our breath? >> what you're going to have is a collision between tua approaches to the truth. there is the donald trump approach and the bob mueller approach. now, when we were in -- >> is one even -- one approach is the truth? >> what i remember, nicolle, when we were in the white house, which wouldn't even comment on ongoing legal cases that had to do with other people. never mind us. we were very careful not to comment on certain supreme court cases. that's the norm of how you deal with these things. trump is trying to create an

alternative reality where he is the victim and the objective truth doesn't matter. what i also will tell you, i worked with bob mueller. bush appointee -- >> i worked with him, too. yeah. >> i remember when there was a terrorism case of a potential bomb on board cargo. bob mueller sat in the situation room days after and he personally recreated the printer and the cartridge that went in there. he had methodically put together these facts to nail the case against the terrorist group that had done this. he is going to be methodically building the facts here. and ultimately what is going to happen is a collision between the reality that bob mueller can layout for people and the lack of objective reality that donald trump is seeking to create with his chaotic tweet storms which violate any basic respect for the rule of law in this country. >> ken dilanian, that is every person that has worked with robert mueller in government has a story like the one ben rhodes just told. i worked with bob mueller after 9/11 and there was account after account like this. people that worked with him in the '90s in san francisco in the tech industry was just beginning

to boom have stories of his sort of early affinity for technology and for using technology to solve crimes. i wonder if there is any sense from the defense that they are going to ultimately be outmatched by this precision and meticulousness, that pardon is their only play. >> if they have that sense, nicolle, they are certainly not sharing that with anyone. in fact, i talked to a representative of mr. manafort who expressed confidence today that there was a good chance of acquittal here. i don't know if that's bluster, but he is certainly spending a lot of money on these lawyers. these are high-powered lawyers he has on his behalf. look, we can see it in this trial how well prepared and meticulous the investigation was here. the contractor from the hamptons was just on the stand talking about how he spent hours with an fbi agent going through every single invoice that he ever sent to paul manafort matching it up with the wire transfers. most of that will not be introduced in the trial, but that's the kind of work, the hours of work that went into

pinning all this down. document case, paper case about illicit money transfers, lot of intensive investigation. and this is only one small piece of what mueller is managing in this russia investigation. >> eli, you coined the term trump tells. there is behavior that reveals something else. what were the trump tells in that seven-tweet tweet storm? >> he's a terrible poker player. he's doing it all the time. it's not a very difficult question to answer. you see in some of the tweets about the manafort trial specifically, the president is both distancing himself saying he worked for me for just a little while, even after manafort was moved from the campaign, he was still involved. he was involved through the transition. those are the facts the president is trying to divert attention from those facts. but at the same time, he also has this inclination to portray paul manafort as a victim of this witch hunt. this is a choose your own reality country at the moment because it is incredibly divided and the reality donald trump wants people to choose is that this is a witch hunt and

everybody caught up in the investigation is somehow a victim. it's about 13 anger -- 17 now, 17 angry democrats. it's a partisan threat. never mind mueller is republican. never mind his credentials are impeccable. this is what the president is repeating over and over and over again to the public. it says something about his nervousness. but also says something about his belief in his own ability to gaslight the country and to convince a significant amount of americans to buy his reality. >> he's like malkovich. he sees it's over and starts throwing the oreos all over the place. it's the same thing. he plays the guy with the really flor id russian accent. >> i have nothing else. thank you very much. when we come back, a jar look at donald trump's sustained attacks against the media and the erosion of what used to be democratic and american norms. u.

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those boos were for jim accosta. that's what it was like for him last night in tampa. white house correspondent jim accosta, in case you were curious what that looked like from his perspective, he shared his first person view on his twitter account. what happened in that video didn't get the president's son eric trump any pause at all. he tweeted the video from a different angle with the caption, #truth. guess what? guess who retweeted that? the president of the united states. classy guy. sarah huckabee sanders was asked about this in today's briefing. her first answer was a recounting of the responsibilities of the press. so they'll try it again. >> do you support that or not? >> while we certainly support freedom of the press, we support freedom of speech and we think those things go hand in hand.

>> joining us now, "the new york times" -- we're not going to air that any more. let's make that the last sarah huckabee sanders clip at 4:00. that is it. it makes me sweat. that is vile. >> the previous answer -- >> it makes me sweat. this is someone who complains about a restaurant that exercises their first amendment right to kick out someone obliterating democratic norms t made me sweat. >> the prepared answer where she talked about the responsibilities of the press and talked about osama bin lauden is a pack of lies. the prepared answer was a pack of lies and we got that. >> we got it. we're going to get into this. heilman set up lies. i'm gathering myself. let's watch some lies. >> oh, oh. >> is honoring president obama. he is the founder of isis. >> we have more legislation

passed, including the record was harry truman. i broke that record. >> i watched when the world trade center came tumbling down. thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down. black homeownership just hit the highest level it's ever been in the history of our country. congratulations. we've broken the all-time record in the history of the republican party, all-time record. my numbers are better right now than ronald reagan's numbers were with jimmy carter. >> winning the electoral college is very tough for republican. much more than the popular vote where people vote four times, much tougher, much, much tougher. >> all those clips had in common they were of course lies out of the commander in chief's mouth. white house chief correspondent peter baker. at the table as i mentioned jim

rutenberg. must be fun. it seems like watching a tally of the president's lies, 4,229, seems like the time it takes someone to type that number and he's told three more. i guess what is the point of and what is the value of what used to be a pretty heavy currency when i was working in politics, i'm sure for you guys, the fact check? >> i'll tell you something, there is a key set of numbers that came out sunday from cbs news did a poll with ugov. for strong trump supporters, 91% he is the most trust the source, more than their families. the media, mainstream media was at 11%. >> this is among his supporters? >> among his strong supporters. >> the enemy of the people, we have to love him. peter baker, let me ask you about the conduct at the press

briefing today. "the new york times" publisher, i'm guessing that's your boss, was in with the president not making any "the new york times" specific case, but simply talking about the effect around the world when the american president calls the media, generally speaking, the enemy of the people. i know it's uncomfortable to talk about yourselves and your role. we have a lot of freedom, we are by and large safe to go about doing our jobs. what was, what was the publisher of your paper trying to convey and what are the concerns to be a white house reporter under this president? >> well, look, i don't know about cause and effect. that's obviously something that is going to be debated. but there is a real concern these days in our newsroom and other newsrooms about the safety of journalists. there has been for a lot of time. it's hard not to watch what happened in annapolis just a few months ago, maybe two months ago the gunman who showed up, not related to the president -- the white house. the environment is so toxic. it is a rising concern among journalists. feeding into that concern, to hear a president sit there and talk about enemies of the people

to encourage crowds, not just to disapprove of the media or criticize the media, but to heckle and jeer and behave in the way you saw in that tape. that that's what a.j. salisbury was talking about. overseas, foreign correspondents are in hazardous places. authoritarian regimes take what they see happening here and use it as an excuse for much more draconian measures in their own countries that have put journalists, both foreign correspondents and domestic correspondents at risk. he was trying to get through to the president there was a consequence for words and he was hoping for an audience that would be receptive. >> i'm struck your boss and my old boss used the point between his election free press. in almost identical language, we didn't like everything written about us. on the contrary, we were one of the people covering my old boss. we disliked a lot of it, id a

lot of late night and early morning talks with both of you. peter, we are committed. there was something sacred, there was this third rail where complaining about the content of the conk was one thing. but i could never imagine president obama, vice-president biden or george w. bush permitting that kind of conduct, that kind of menacing threatening conduct at any of their events. in fact, when they traveled overseas, your boss and mine used to protect the american press that traveled with them and advocate for their access. >> yeah. the problem here is the fact checks, we get caught in mistake. that was the value of them. here you have a president who is hostile to the truth and hostile to a media that can hold him accountable. what i worry about, nicolle, is all around the world, in russia, in china, in venezuela, in many countries, there are regimes that are hostile to the press. we used to advocate on behalf of independent journalists. we advocated to get in both of our administrations, get journalists out of prison in

places like saudi arabia, friends of ours, right? and now trump is just giving a green light to every thug, every dictator around the world who is calling their own media fake news. so this is going to have much broader impact than just the united states where it is insidious enough where people are believing things that aren't true because they'll believe anything trump says. i think around the world, this is dealing a huge blow to the media which is really the only source that can always hold power to account. and if no one holds power to account, there is massive abuse of power. >> and i don't want to be a source truther, but the truth is a lot of trump white house officials are sources to all of us. everyone at this table has heard from people in the trump white house. every one of us and i won't check anyone's phones, has at least half a dozen white house staffers. they are the most vain group of political people i have encountered in my political life. >> it is a fascinating paradox. then you'll hear either from the press secretary or from the president himself. if you see anonymous sources, it's not true. it's like, come on.

>> right. >> it's very interesting. but the thing that is really starting to dawn on me, it's obvious in a way, the novelty is now gone, we can agree. we have what is a sustained attack and i don't think we even understand the full consequence of this. this is starting to really take hold in a way i don't think we first saw. i don't know where it's going to end up. i hope there is some kind of pull back, but i'm not expecting one. >> salen aera peters articulate has happened, not happened, cause and effect as peter articulated in this climate journalists were targeted. >> absolutely. we saw at his rallies during the campaign. katy tur had a lot of verbal abuse, she had to be escorted out by security. i'm worried because we're coming up on a year of charlottesville, the anniversary of charlottesville. he's about to go out on the road to campaign for republicans in the midterm elections and have multiple rallies just like this where this is just going to be

repeated over and over and over and something potentially could happen because you have a mob basically being incited by this rhetoric, chanting build the wall. build the wall is something children are being bullied with that phrase now, latino children in america are getting told, build the wall, as almost like a slur. i'm worried about the fact you have the combination of rallies that he's going to be holding ahead of the midterm elections and this fervor against the media and you're going to have them in the pool at all of these rallies and that is a dangerous combination. >> john. >> last night we saw the emergence of people who ascribe to a conspiracy called q-a non. >> what is that? >> a cornucopia of conspiracy theories many of them are dangerous. >> a tin foil hat, they used to be purged. were they at trump rallies? >> they are out in the open. >> they're at the white house. >> they work at the white house? >> in the oval office we have a

conspiracy theorist. >> that's true. peter baker, how do you cover this president with the appropriate level of skepticism for the 4,229 lies he's told in 558 days? how and why do you continue to go to press briefings when the press secretary lies from that podium day in and day out? >> well, look, you know, obviously that's our job, is to scrutinize what presidents say. your president, ben's president, we did take our responsibility seriously in trying to test what was said by presidents at the podium. try to give additional context if we didn't feel it was being represented in a three dimensional way. you're seeing something different here. this is not an ordinary politician. this is not an ordinary president who spins or, you know, is selective about the truth. what you see here is day after day, tweet after tweet, statement after statement that is just filled with false information, false assertions. and it is a hard thing for journalists because it's not our

job to be the opposition. it's not our job to be nana, pants on fire. it is our job to hold people accountable. when somebody is so off the reservation when it comes to factual statements as this president is, it's a huge challenge. i think the washington post has done a great job with their fact checking tally that they've done. i think the fact checkers we have in the bureau in washington have done a fabulous job with their columns. it us didn't seem to be getting through to a lot of people. that's the real impact of what's going on. >> real quick. >> it is our job to call b.s. when b.s. is out there, a fundamental part of our job, along with afflicting the comfortable. we're luck any this country journalists don't get killed. happens every once in a while. but not that often. in 2017 looking at this over here, there are 46 journalists killed. you get big numbers, too many that are working in dangerous places around the world, or dealing with people like the putin government, or people who

get shot. we don't want america to become that place. and whether the president means to or not, the rhetoric that he espouses is -- it makes it more dangerous and maybe we're lucky and no journalist will get killed because of it. i don't think anybody here wants to be in a position where we're tempting fate and creating an environment that is more hostile, where things are in this hot house world we live in right now. it's so polarized and so venomous and people are going to end up dead. it's not overstating that is a world we could end up in. the president is doing less and that's really irresponsible. >> to a final point, he could turn the heat down in a nanosecond. he could do it in a day. he could make the pivot. >> with his words. >> i would bet my last dollar he wouldn't lose a single one of his supporters. all right, no one is going anywhere. i can't get enough of any of you. when we come back i'll ask ben about his helsinki hang over. welcome to the place...

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ben, i spoke to someone close to donald trump who has long banged me over the head with the he's too incompetent to collude excuse for why he can't be found guilty of collusion. on obstruction, he's like, eh. ten minutes after helsinki, he called me and said, you know what, maybe i was wrong. maybe putin has something on him. what do you think? >> i had the same reaction. you know why? it was the whole week. if you were sitting in the kremlin writing the script for what the president of the united states should do that whole week, you would have him trash our nato allies and cause a crisis in that alliance, go out of your way to pick a fight with angela merkel, go up to the uk and further scramble their politics around brexit. and then tell the whole world you're going to sit alone in a room with vladimir putin for 90 minutes, lavish him with praise and trash your own intelligence community. literally it looked like the russians had scripted not just that meeting but the entire week. i don't know how you possibly explain what leads donald trump

to do that. >> well, try. try. >> the worst case scenario is that there is something going on here. >> i guess like what's second worst? >> the second worst is that donald trump just assumes that he has so many skeletons in his closet -- >> he just hates europe and loves russia? what is second? >> second is that trump knows there are skeletons in his closet, financial and otherwise. he just assumes that putin has that information and could put it out. >> the other is that he's more sympathetic to authoritarians than he is democrats and he looks at putin and says i want to have the kind of money and power that that guy has. he finds him more admirable than he does theresa may or angela merkel. i think it's all of these things, by the way. >> maybe vladimir putin made a hard pitch for that. we don't know what they talked about for two hours so one can only speculate. but i think the idea that he is going to get richer off of these deals that he may be making with putin, i think that's -- it doesn't mean that there's no

tape somewhere, but i think it's really about the money. >> peter baker, jeremy bash on this network made a point when he sort of looked at the fact that donald trump was in a room, as ben just said, alone with vladimir putin and there's a question about whether or not translators were even both in there. that one of the flash points in the mueller investigation is when donald trump cleared the oval office and wanted to be alone with jim comey to askts s sort of above board. they're usually to do something sketchy. >> well, look, one interpretation is, of course, is any president is wary of leaks seem particularly m unusual that this one is clearing the rooms for conversations that seem so problematic, so fraught and so related to this investigation that's going on. it wasn't just that he cleared the room with jim comey of his

aides, he cleared of the attorney general who was jim comey's boss at that time, who tried to stick around. he didn't want the chief of staff ithat kind of conversatio. comey said in his autobiography he had only had two meetings with obama alone ever. one of them was before he was appointed and the other was during the discussion of all these racially charged shootings. and so it's -- it does raise suspicions and that's the one reason why presidents don't do it, because it does raise suspicions. why ask for that kind of chatter out there. you don't know what's happening in that room, and that's what people are going to talk about. >> obama ever clear the room for a one-on-one meeting with an american adversary? >> no. you need somebody in there precisely to be able to read out the meeting to the rest of our government and to our allies. >> and that was obama, not donald trump. >> our allies are wondering what happened in there, did he sell us out?

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my thanks to peter baker, john heilemann and others. i'm nicolle wallace. "mtp daily" starts right now. hi, chuck. >> thank you, nicolle. if it's wednesday, we're all atwitter about obstruction. tonight, president trump tweets for his attorney general to end the russia investigation. did the president just hand robert mueller an obstruction of justice case? >> it's not an order, it's the president's opinion. >> plus tailormade trial. the special counsel is working to unravel paul manafort's defense, highlighting a lavish lifestyle and closets full of designer suits. and trump versus the blue wave.