bret, elise and it says heilemann in the prompter, thank you for now. i'm nicolle wallace. thank you for being with us. "mtp daily" starts right now with katy tur in for chuck. >> if it's monday, the prosecution's star witness is on the stand right now at paul manafort's trial. plan. good evening, i'm katy tur in new york in for chuck todd and welcome to "mtp daily." we begin with breaking news. you're looking at the federal courthouse in virginia where rick gates, the prosecution's star witness, has just taken the stand no more than 40 minutes ago in the criminal trial into the trial of paul manafort. we are watching what could be the pivotal moment in this trial

in a case that president trump is obviously highly interested in. manafort was trump's campaign chief and gates was manafort's top deputy. but the former partners are now on the opposite sides of the courtroom. we're getting word from inside the court house that gates just testified that he committed crimes with paul manafort, and he embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars from him. gates pleaded guilty to conspiracy and lying to the fbi. he's cooperating with special counsel robert mueller's team. we should note gates wasn't just the trump campaign's deputy chief, he also played central roles in trump's presidential transition, which is also of interest for mueller's team. gates and manafort worked together for a decade and their activities included a lobbying effort for a pro-russian political party in ukraine. that's how manafort made his millions to live a lavish lifestyle.

15,000 ostrich jacket and all. prosecutors say that manafort turned to tax and bank fraud to lower his bills when that money dried up, and rick gates is likely on the stand right now testifying about how he helped him do it. remember, prosecutors detailed last week how manafort was essentially broke when he took the job to work on the trump campaign for free. manafort's defense team is arguing that gates is really to blame for any fraud or financial wrongdoings and that he did it all without his boss's knowledge, which means we could see some fireworks when gates is cross examined. i'm joined now by nbc news intelligence and national security reporter, ken dilanian, from outside the court house. he joins our panel. beth fouhy is a senior politics editor. joel benenson was chief strategist for the clinton campaign, senior strategist and pollster for president obama and john podhoretz is an msnbc

political analyst and editor at "commentary" magazine. ken, i want to start with you. rick gates testifying that he was involved in criminal activity with paul manafort. >> reporter: yeah, that's right, katy. and that part was expected. but he did solve a mystery for us just now. i just stepped out of the courtroom where the testimony was absolutely riveting. all along during this trial the defense has been saying rick gates embezzled money from paul manafort and there was no allegation that the government made that that took place. it turns out he did do that, he admitted it on the stand. he said the only reason the government knew about it was he volunteered the information. he was faking expense accounts causing money to be wired from these overseas accounts that both men used that were outside the reach of u.s. taxes. he said it was around a couple hundred thousand dollars that he admits stealing from mr. manafort. he said this as part of this ritualistic process that you see with cooperating witnesses, where they get up on the stand and the prosecution starts grilling them about all the

crimes they have been charged with, all the crimes they are admitting to. gates is admitting to everything. he said that he was indicted with paul manafort on bank and tax fraud charges and he is guilty of all those charges. and then he said he'd guilty of other conduct, including this embezzlement that the government didn't know about. he talked about writing a false letter in an investment scheme and some other lies that he told in unrelated situations. he even talked about violating the terms of his bail when he was 15 minutes late for a curfew. why is he doing that? because prosecution does not want one thing that the defense can raise that the jury doesn't already know about from direct. they don't want any surprises when gates gets up there on cross. they're trying to build his credibility. they introduced him and pointed out that he worked for paul manafort as a protege for ten years. he actually started as an intern right out of college with the former firm of black, davis and manafort. and he took on increasing responsibility until he was essentially doing mr. manafort's bidding in the business transactions of the firm, including wiring money from overseas accounts.

and in the process of that, he is saying we committed tax fraud, we committed bank fraud together, and mr. manafort was directing that, katy. >> and he embezzled money. let me get this straight. he embezzled money from paul manafort so he committed a crime against his former boss who he is now saying he committed a crime with as well. given that, the prosecution must find him to be a particularly worthwhile witness if he was that shady behind the scenes. i mean just give me an idea of how valuable rick gates is given that he is also so tarnished. >> reporter: well, given what i just saw in the courtroom, i think he's incredibly valuable. he's a calm, polished, articulate witness. he was a military veteran, he served honorably in the virginia national guard. yes, you're right, he's guilty of crimes and admitting crimes, but this is very common in these kinds of trials. cooperators are not the sisters of mercy, they are the criminals who participated in the schemes and who have come forward and

you're absolutely right, the prosecution has to plumb the depths of that including this embezzlement. he submitted false expense reports behind manafort's back and caused hundreds of thousands of dollars to be transferred to his accounts that weren't his. he said he did that but he's painting this picture of basically a crime spree that he and manafort were in the middle of so it's not surprising that he divided to defraud the man who was defrauding the ukrainian clients with him. so he's saying this guy is a criminal and lied but they're also pointing out the terms of his plea agreement are if he lies on the stand, this agreement is null and void and they walk the jury through that whole process. >> is this the first time he and manafort have been in the same room together since gates made a plea deal? >> yes, and it's very dramatic. he's literally less than 20 feet away from mr. manafort sitting on the witness stand. i can only see the back of manafort's head from where i'm sitting in the courtroom, but

manafort is turned his direction. one can only imagine what is going through manafort's mind, because if you believe the prosecution version of the case, gates knows all his secrets and is about to expose them to the jury. if you believe the defense version, gates is setting manafort up and framing him. we'll have to see which version the jury believes. >> ken, how long can we expect gates to be on stand and, number two, what is manafort's defense right now? >> they were really motoring through gates' testimony. generally this court wraps up at 5:30 but i've got to believe he'll be back tomorrow on direct and then there will be a lengthy cross examination. the defense really rests on tarnishing gates. there was some devastating testimony before gates from cindy lapartyorta who made the understand that she had no idea that paul manafort had overseas accounts. he was supposed to disclose on his taxes. she prepared the taxes and had no idea they existed. that was very persuasive testimony of a crime.

but now t-- >> and some of these crimes were being committed while the two of them were working for the trump campaign? >> reporter: yes. well, this conduct, yeah. most of it happened before. but some of these loans and the alleged bank fraud and tax fraud continued, yes, right up until the time -- because manafort was broke, as you said in the intro. he was strapped for cash, he was in debt and could barely pay his health insurance bills at the time he was working for donald trump. so the prosecution alleges some of the bank fraud and misrepresentations to banks happened well into 2016 and beyond. >> john, isn't that one of the key points, that manafort was completely broke when he went to work for donald trump's campaign and he worked there for free? isn't that one of the open questions? why would a man who has no money work for a billionaire for free? >> i think we've all speculated that the manafort story as he was campaign manager for three months and he got one very significant thing done in that

time aside from getting ted cruz booed at the convention, which is that he had removed from the republican platform an item denouncing the russian invasion of crimea. now, we've speculated or people who follow this closely have speculated that there must have been some quid pro quo there. why was this necessary? it just was removed from the platform. but this trial, trump's not in this trial. >> no. >> there is no trump in this trial. so if that's an issue, it's going to come out later. it doesn't seem to be playing in this courtroom in virginia. >> that's a really good point, because the prosecution and the defense have been instructed by the judge not to bring up trump's name. this is not about trump, this is about their activities before, mostly before they got onto the trump campaign. their business activities, their financial crimes, but it's very hard to separate these two because he was donald trump's campaign chairman, paul manafort

was, and rick gates was the deputy campaign chairman. they got caught doing this in part of the wider probe into what happened in 2016. >> yeah, i mean president trump or then candidate trump may not be relevant to this legally, but politically certainly very relevant. you have to wonder why the man who is the nominee for the major party of the united states, the republican party for president, is bringing aboard people who are clearly engaged in a criminal enterprise. you wouldn't have probably had to look very hard to figure that out. there was no vetting that was done on manafort, gates who manafort very well known for many years in washington as representing these sort of sketchy strong men overseas. gates, his deputy, who knew what his background was but it probably wouldn't have been too hard to check what these business ties were, that they were financially in trouble, that they were double crossing each other. i've been watching "the sopra s sopranos" and that's what this feels like. it couldn't have been that hard 2309 trump people to figure out there was something a little

dodgy. >> we should remember that the ukrainian anti-corruption truth commission told "the new york times" in august of 2016 that they had found a ledger in which manafort had been paid $12.7 million under the table by the previous regime. and that was why he got fired from the campaign. >> that was part of the reason he got fired from the campaign, but donald trump is still tweeting why didn't anybody warn me about paul manafort if he was under investigation. why didn't the government warn me? but the government did warn him that some people in his campaign had funny connections to russia, that was reported. he obviously knew about it because as john just said, sorry i threw my pen, he was fired for that "new york times" report. >> and there were people in republican circles who had worked with manafort along the way. he built his business over a couple of decades in washington. >> democrats too. >> democrats too. who, you know, knew about him. now, i think the thing about gates today that you didn't touch on yet i think that we haven't heard a lot about is not only did he acknowledge that he

committed crimes, but he also said today he committed crimes with mr. manafort. i don't think we've gotten into the details of those yet and that's when we may learn a little bit more about -- >> well, financial fraud. and i wonder at what point -- and ken, i'll bring you back in for this. ken, will we potentially see in the future some more or other indictments or other allegations come out against gates or -- not gates because he's made a plea deal, but manafort having to do more directly with the 2016 election? is that still a possibility? >> reporter: anything is possible, katy. you know, you've got to believe that one of the reasons the government is throwing the book at manafort here, we've all been saying this for months, is that they're interested in what he might have to say about his meetings with donald trump and his activities in the campaign as it relates to russia and potential collusion, because he was the guy with the russia connections. and so -- but if that doesn't happen, if he doesn't talk and doesn't reach a deal and they

develop other evidence, i can certainly imagine charges. that's the big mystery here is we do not know. rudy giuliani doesn't know, we don't know, donald trump doesn't know what robert mueller knows about potential collusion with russia. it's a big black hole and at some point we're going to find out, but we don't know now. >> and we've seen the mueller team building a case. they started first with the social media or manafort and gates and then social media and then the russians that hacked the dnc. there is that big last piece, what did the trump campaign know, if they knew anything, about collusion. but does donald trump have a good argument politically speaking when he says this isn't about me, they're going after my guy on financial crimes. this is mueller doing it with the guise of the russia probe, but this has nothing to do with it. politically speaking, does he have a point? >> well, he should, i think, be saying that. he's not quite saying that. in other words he could say,

look, the big indictment in this case involves actions that took place two years before our campaign and manafort may be guilty and i'm clear. but because the whole mueller procedure is a witch hunt, according to trump, so too by analogy must the manafort prosecution be an element of a witch hunt and not a real thing. if he were not so negative on mueller, he could be using mueller as a shield for himself. >> more strategic? >> i think his tweets this weekend basically confirm that there was a conspiracy to break the law, and his son is at the center of it and, i believe, i'm not a lawyer, you'll have a lawyer and you'll ask them that. but when he doctored the statement falsifying what that meeting was about, i believe he becomes a co-conspirator. he's the president of the united states. he knew damn well what the meeting was about and he concocted a statement for public release that was put out, that was completely false about that meeting. >> joel, you've just perfectly

set up our next block. thank you very much. ken dilanian, thank you. if there's more breaking news on this trial this hour, please let us know. beth, joel and john, stick with us. president trump now says the trump tower meeting was about getting dirt on hillary clinton, as joel just laid out. but is that admission serious political strategy or a serious gaffe? dear great-great grandfather, you made moonshine in a backwoods still. smuggled booze and dodged the law. even when they brought you in, they could never hold you down. when i built my family tree and found you, i found my sense of adventure. i set off on a new life, a million miles away. i'm heidi choiniere, and this is my ancestry story. now with over 10 billion historical records, discover your story. get started for free at ancestry.com this is a story about mail and packages. and it's also a story about people.

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welcome back. for the first time president trump is definitively and publicly stating that the infamous trump tower meeting was totally about getting dirt on hillary clinton, which is a dramatic departure from the statement he personally dictated for his son, don junior, last

year which said that the trump tower meeting was totally not about getting dirt on hillary clinton. that statement from july of last year, again, as dictated by the president, said that his campaign, quote, primarily discussed a program about the adoption of russian children and it was not a campaign issue at the time. compare that to the president now saying that it was actually a meeting about getting information on his political opponent. guys, this is no ordinary meeting we're talking about. by all indications, the special counsel's office is investigating this meeting. they're investigating all of the statements about the meeting and they're probing the president's tweets, so you'd think mueller is keenly interested in this development. bob bauer was white house kowbe counsel to president obama. bob, it is so good to see you. the president's statement, do you read it as an admission that

he initially lied to the public in that dictated statement aboard air force one? >> i don't know that he sees it as an admission or that he'd admit that it is an admission, but it clearly constitutes an admission. that is to say there's no way of squaring that message with what he previously said about that meeting. >> when you are white house counsel and the president of the united states says i want to tweet something in defense of my son. i don't like this article, and it's going to completely contradict what we had initially said, what does white house counsel say? >> white house counsel and in particular in this instance, the personal counsel of the president responsible for his legal defense gets on their hands and knees and begs him not to do it. as we know, he does not have a history of listening to his lawyers. i think i saw some quotation in the press today, some close associates saying he cannot help himself. so he is fighting his lawyers or is not getting very good advice. >> could you argue that there is some sort of strategy here? is there something to be said about him contradicting himself left and right, never being --

well, lying a lot. "the washington post" has been cataloging all of his false statements. they're up to 7,000 or 4,000 now. a lot essentially. is there a strategy to being all over the place? >> no, there's no strategy at all. in fact it's possibly harmful to him. at the moment his lawyers are negotiating with mueller over whether he's going to give testimony. their argument is, well, you don't need to hear what he has to say, but in fact he keeps on putting facts into evidence out of his own tweets, if you will, and therefore he strengthens mueller's hand that he has to speak to him, mueller has to speak to the president. >> what's interesting about the end of it was this was a meeting to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics and it went nowhere. i did not know about it. number one, is it totally legal and does it happen all the time in politics? >> it is not legal and it does not happen all the time that political campaigns enter into political alliances with foreign governments. foreign governments come to offer help to a campaign and the

campaign welcomes them. that is fraught with legal consequences. there are campaign finance laws, under provisions that broadly prohibit that sort of political interaction. >> and then what else struck me in this tweet is the final line. i did not know about it. why does he feel the need to include that when it seems like he knows everything else about this meeting? >> who's to say except that he obviously wants to say on the one hand, my son didn't do anything wrong, but on the other hand he's being cautious and saying just in case, i had nothing to do with it. so there's an inconsistency of message there. what is most troubling about what he's doing is he's putting facts out there while at the same time saying why would the special counsel need to speak to me? >> when the special counsel reads a tweet like this, what are they thinking? >> two things i would think speaking broadly. number one, they have drawn a picture of the president's behavior, his reliability, whether he can be trusted on these issues. secondly, i think it just strengthens their resolve to have the interview.

if that comes down to a subpoena fight, it comes down to a subpoena fight. >> the president is in bedminster, new jersey. rudy giuliani said they are will decide whether to sit down with the mueller team. the mueller team agreed to limit the scope of the questions but not to take out obstruction from the questions. is there reason to believe that this is not just some made-up timeline from rudy giuliani but that mueller's team might have said, hey, listen, we need an answer on this. if you don't give us a yes answer, we're going to use a different tact? >> meaning the issuance of a subpoena. that could very well have happened. we've waited for a while, we've made a series of adjustments, we've tried to accommodate you, trimming down the number of questions and taking some of them in writing but we're not going to be patient forever. particularly at the same time the president is saying he wants mueller to wrap it up. >> don junior is out talking about this meeting again. he was on with a friendly face on the laura ingraham show. let's thing to don junior. >> donnie, did the issue of adoption, it's near and dear to

my heart -- >> i know, we've spoken about it. >> did that come up? >> when? >> in the meeting with -- >> that was the primary thing that we had spoken about in the meeting. that was -- that's not the premise that got them in the room and then they started -- it was essentially a bait and switch to talk about that. everyone has basically said that in testimony already. >> it was a bait and switch. so it's again don junior saying i took the meeting because this was political dirt and then they wanted to talk about adoptions. >> and he was disappointed and who knows what else was said in the meeting. that doesn't help us very much but what else do you have which would be illegal solicitation of support from a foreign national. >> the late charles krauthammer wrote last year bungled collusion is still collusion. don junior keeps saying nothing came out of it. does that mastter? >> no. it could be an illegal -- this

is just not one act. the trump tower meeting fits into a broader narrative that suggests that the trump campaign was welcoming and actively soliciting support of the russian government. the russian government did provide some support we now k w know. >> according to my reporting, don junior has not been interviewed by the special counsel. what does that say to you? >> nobody ever wants to know that they're going to be the end of the line, that prosecutors are working their way up. if they're working their way up that's not a good sign, but it's very hard to say at this point. >> jay sekulow, after that trump tower statement was made, he was emphatic. donald trump had nothing whatsoever to do about it. then it was revealed in a memo by donald trump's lawyers that the president actually dictated that statement aboard air force one. s sekelow said he had bad information about his involvement. bad information. where does that bad information come from? >> the president.

i mean there's -- >> so he's potentially lying to his lawyers? >> that seems to be the implication. where would he have gotten the bad information? the only person who would have known would be the president. >> hope hicks was with him over the weekend. why would a former white house employee go to visit him, a former employee who's also under scrutiny for taking the dictation of that statement. she's a witness. >> yes. >> would you advise somebody like hope hicks to get on a plane and go see the man that she might have to testify against? >> well, you certainly would counsel her to avoid the topic, but how do you avoid the topic with donald trump? he doesn't seem to observe any constraints at all in what he says. so do i think that's from a hope hicks' point of view the safest place for her to be? no. >> if you were bob mueller, would you call hope hicks back? >> he might. >> bob bauer, appreciate it. thank you for coming in. ahead, what do we need to do now to protect the midterm elections from russia? we'll talk to former homeland

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welcome back. in a world where the stakes couldn't be higher, only one man has what it takes to save the planet from certain doom. who is that man, you ask? this man is that man. steven seagal, russia's newest special representative on u.s./russian relations. really. that really happened, according

to the russian foreign ministry. the star of "under siege" and under siege 2 dark territory" will assist in the development and implementation of various projects for bilateral cooperation in the field of culture, arts, science, education, sports, public and youth exchange. the protagonist of "half past dead" and "today you will die" will also research and promote the russia/american legacy and other chapters that are of interest to both nations. s seagal has defended russia against election sabotage and also he will not be paid, which leaves some of us to wonder if this is all just research for another movie role. diplomatic impunity. we'll be right back. of course i have- ever since i started renting from national. because national lets me lose the wait at the counter...

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welcome back. even aer the top u.s. security officials issued a harsh warning

last week that russia is trying to interfere again in the midterms, the president kept up his attacks on what he calls the russian hoax. here's what republican senator roy blunt and democratic senator amy klobuchar told chuck yesterday on "meet the press." >> the central threat of the fabric of democracy is people having confidence that what happened on election day is what really happened. another discussion about all the information that may have led voters to that decision, that's where the russians appear to be more vigorous even this time than they were last time. >> how confident are you that the 2018 midterm elections are going to be legitimate? >> i am very concerned that you could have a hack that finally went through. >> joining me now is jeh johnson, former homeland security secretary under president obama. secretary, thank you for joining us. >> thanks for having me, katy. >> i'm going to ask you the same question chuck asked senator klobuchar. are you confident that our 2018

elections will go off unmeddled with, unattacked? >> well, i'm going to disappoint you a little bit because there are very few absolutes in national security and in homeland security. i agree, and i haven't read an intelligence report in 18 months since i left office, but i agree instinctive low with what we heard last week that there has been a considerable amount of work done by state election officials when it comes to election infrastructure cyber security and that the larger threat we need to be concerned about, which is apparently ongoing, is disinformation, misinformation, extreme views published an republished by foreign powers, with a foreign influence. and i don't have confidence at all that we have our arms around that, that we understand the full extent of it. i think we're still understanding the full extent of that campaign from 2016.

>> how do we get our arms around that? because they're very clearly exploiting a tenet of american democracy, free speech. >> our strength is our weakness, isn't it. we are vulnerable to fake news. we are vulnerable to people publishing and republishing extreme views because the information highway now is essentially unregulated. virtually anyone with a keyboard can get access to it and there are very few barriers to entry or barriers to exit. and so i happen to believe that when it comes to regulating speech, political debate, government and security agencies of our government have to be hesitant to intervene. >> so is this the responsibility of the social media companies? >> i think to a very large extent it is the responsibility of social media providers, internet service providers to

insist on attribution and monitor and regulate things that go out to the american public. >> still, 21 states had their election systems hacked into. are you confident that those systems are still secure, that there wasn't information that was stolen that will now be used against those systems in 2018? >> no, of course i can't be confident of that. that was a big concern of ours in 2016, which is why i issued so many public statements warning of this threat and why we encourage state election officials to work with us. apparently there's been considerable work done over the last year or so. we're now in the midst of that election campaign, so i think we are better than we were. but there are still vulnerabilities, very definitely. there are a number of best practices out there that state election officials should be adhering to to the full extent possible. keep ballot counting and vote

counting and tabulation off the internet and have redundancies. >> have paper ballots as well? >> whether it's a paper ballot or some other system of redundancy, the ability in case the system fails to have a backup, to have an accounting of votes. there are a number of best practices and there are organizations like center for american progress that have done a lot of good work on this. >> would it have made a material difference if the president was standing next to his intelligence chiefs last thursday? >> that's a good question. i would say that inevitably when the president says it, people listen more. now the next question you're going to ask me is why didn't president obama say something in 2016, and the question in -- the circumstances in 2016 i think were very different because we were in the midst of a presidential election campaign and we were concerned then that by injecting the president into that debate would have created a whole different dynamic.

very definitely, i think the american public needs to hear from president trump that this is something that we should take seriously and this is what we are doing about it specifically. >> let's talk about an article that came out in "the atlantic" i think it was just today. it's arguing that president trump has radicalized i.c.e. you had jurisdiction over i.c.e. for many years as the director of homeland security. what has changed under this administration with that particular branch? >> well, a lot has changed, as that article notes. in the last several years of the obama administration when i was secretary, we gave i.c.e. very specific guidance about what our priorities should be for people who are deported to focus on the criminals, to focus on threats to public safety. ms-13, for example. and they did that. they actually did that. so the number of deportations went down, but the percentage of those deported who were

convicted criminals went up. and little known fact, morale within i.c.e. my last year in office went up a whole seven percentage points according to the federal employee viewpoint because they did what we asked them to do, focus on public safety. >> so why did the union of i.c.e. workers endorse the president and why are we hearing from the head of i.c.e. say things like donald trump took the handcuffs off i.c.e.? >> well, you'd have to ask tom that question. i know that tom and i worked together very effectively. essentially these are law enforcement personnel, and we asked them to function as law enforcement personnel and they did that. i don't know whether there's a strict correlation, but morale definitely went up in i.c.e. my last year in office because these are officers dedicated to

public safety. with the limited resources congress gives them, there's only so much they can do. so i continue to believe that their focus needs to be on public safety, working with the so-called sanctuary cities. and we made a lot of progress in tearing down those walls so that we could do that. unfortunately, everyone has gone to their neutral corner. >> there is a movement to abolish i.c.e. that's been painted as a racist agency, an agency that is doing more harm than good. it doesn't have good approval ratings from progressives with the abolish i.c.e. movement. you've argued that there should be a change in leadership and there should be a change in the functionality or the direction of i.c.e. isn't that essentially the same thing? >> no. abolishing the agency is not the same thing as giving them a whole different policy direction. >> isn't that just -- i mean that's doing everything but changing the name? >> i would disagree.

there are a lot of people who objected to the vietnam war in the '60s, but very few people said we should abolish the department of defense and try to reconfigure it in some other way. i.c.e. is removal operations, but it's also homeland security and investigates crime having to do with customs and the border, counterfeit currency, child pornography. they do a lot of very, very important things. i just believe that the focus needs to be in a certain direction for the benefit of public safety. don't just go after the low-hanging fruit. >> and i do want to get you on the record in terms of the president and race. over the weekend he tweeted about lebron james and don lemon over at cnn, called them dumb. there are folks that say this is proof that the president if he's not a racist, then has racist thoughts. there are folks that are saying that today. what's your take on this? >> i am hesitant to brand

somebody a racist or to call something racism. me personally, that's not my style. i wish that we could instead of focusing on that tweet and that exchange, focus on the positive aspects of what lebron james was trying to do. this is a successful, professional athlete that wants to give back to his community and open a school. that effort has been drowned out by this whole debate about this one tweet from the president of the united states. i'd rather see us focus on someone who is a successful professional athlete who wants to give back to his community and all the good things he wants to accomplish. >> so why is the president not focusing on that? >> well, i wish he would. i wish he would recognize some of the good things that lebron james and others are trying to accomplish rather than focus on

one comment that apparently was made in the course of that interview. >> jeh johnson, wish we had the whole hour to talk, my friend. thank you so much for coming on. >> thanks, katy. >> we appreciate it. ahead, the buckeye blitz. ohio voters head to the polls for a special election tomorrow. could it be a sign of what we will see in november? your brain changes as you get older. but prevagen helps your brain with an ingredient originally discovered... in jellyfish. in clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve short-term memory. prevagen. healthier brain. better life.

i got some financial how'd that go?le ago. he kept spelling my name with an 'i' it's bryan with a 'y.' since birth. well, i happen to know some people. do they listen? what? they're amazing listeners. guidance from professionals who take their time to get to know you. with our largest variety of crab all year! like new crabfest combo. your one chance to have new jumbo snow crab with tender dungeness crab. or try crab lover's dream. but hurry in. 'cause crabfest will be gone in a snap. ...to give you the protein you need with less of the sugar you don't. i'll take that. [cheers] 30 grams of protein and 1 gram of sugar. new ensure max protein. in two great flavors. welcome back. today in "meet the midterms" it's almost the big day for the

ohio special election. as we're seeing yet again this cycle, republicans are scrambling to save what should be a slam dunk for them. republican troy balderson only a single point ahead of democrat danny o'connor, 44% to 43%. this is a district president trump carried by 11 points in 2016. so he made an appearance for balderson over the weekend in the hopes of rallying the base to the polls. that's on top of the millions of dollars republican groups have spent on this race. but one top republican who used to represent this district in congress expressed concern that president trump's involvement could actually hurt turnout. >> i think they think they're firing up the base, but i have to tell you, at the same time that he comes in here, i was with some women last night who said, hey, you know what, i'm not voting. they're republicans. >> balderson's campaign isn't addressing kasich's claim -- yes, kasich's claim as he tries

to thread the needle between the district's moderates and its trump fans. we're going to see what happens tomorrow. in the meantime, back with more "mtp daily" right after the break. -morning. -morning. -what do we got? -keep an eye on that branch. might get windy. have a good shift. fire pit. last use -- 0600. i'd stay close. morning. ♪ get ready to switch. protected by flo. should say, "protected by alan and jamie." -right? -should it? when you bundle home and auto... run, alan! ...you get more than just savings. you get 'round-the-clock protection. ...you get more than just savings. your digestive system has billions of bacteria but life can throw them off balance. re-align yourself with align probiotic. and try new align gummies with prebiotics and probiotics to help support digestive health.

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but we won't get there without you. join the fight with the alzheimer's association. welcome back. time now for "the lid." joel, i want to ask you. if somebody came to you during the clinton campaign and said, i have dirt on president trump, i'm a lawyer working with china, a lawyer working with italy, working with anyone, what would you have done? >> not talked to the person again. there are things you do and things you don't do. the president's tweet was so far off the mark yesterday saying, this is routine, it's baloney. not only that, you have to remember there was an e-mail disclosed from rob gold stone, the guy who set this meeting up

telling donald trump jr., this is part of russia and government trying to help trump get elected. you cannot work with foreigners to get elected. >> to the public, what is the difference between a campaign trying to dig up dirt from russia on a political opponent, the dossier, and a campaign getting dirt from russia, being offered dirt from russia. what is the difference? >> potentially, the main difference here, the information they had, this was part of the russian government's attempt to influence the election in favor of donald trump. you can't work with a foreign government. you can dig up information from wherever its origins are, if you can find donald trump was parking money in a swiss bank account, there's nothing wrong with that. that hurt mitt romney during this is campaign. you cannot work with a foreign

government in a democracy. there's a difference between active engagement on a candidate and finding information no matter where it's coming from geographically. >> if the only thing that came out of this trump tower meeting, don junior had an e-mail exchange offered dirt, says, i love it, but nothing actually comes out of it. do you think that is example and evidence of collusion? >> i'm not a lawyer. collusion is not a crime, conspiracy is. if you are working willingly with agents who are committing a crime, which the russia people would be doing and you're a willing participant saying, i would love it. i think there's a conspiracy there. >> you think that's enough? >> you can be guilty of a conspiracy even if you do not effectuate the crime. >> you think that's enough? >> i'm not a lawyer but i think you can be guilty of a conspiracy even if the crime doesn't take place.

>> it's gross. russia is an adversary, at war with them, undeclared war. russia is an adversary country and it is gross to try to seek advantage in a u.s. election from an adversary. in a funny way, we would not be having this conversation if it was england because you wouldn't assume the country looking to dig up dirt on somebody did not have america's best interests at heart. russia did not have america's interests at heart j not friends of this country. >> you think it's enough, too. >> i don't know if it's enough legally, enough morally. >> that the president didn't have enough standing to sit in the oval office? >> i think that's a perfectly fair thing to say. if there is a legal standing, it is something he shall have to answer to the voters for in 2020 if he stands for re-election. >> one thing the trump team has tried to say about all of this throughout the course of the

couple of years -- your and half we learned about it, to some degree they were an island of misfit toy, not professionals, swashbuckling pirates that came in to elect their man. >> paul manafort was not that. he did. >> he did. you take jared, junior, i'm talking about this excuse they offered up, not that big of a deal. we were talking about this in the break. much of this comes back to confusion, fog, president trump has been out there saying today, in fact it was not only hillary clinton conspireing with the russian, congressman adam schiff running the committee looking into this thing is colluding. if everybody is colluding, nobody's colluding. >> i'm rubber and you're glue and everything you say bounces off me and sticks to you. >> it's been very effective. >> i saw the campaign.

it was in disarray. they were not organized. yes. that argument falls down when you look at paul manafort and the history he had working on campaigns. if anybody didn't know better jobs maybe don junior or kushner. guy, thank you very much. ahead, a moment in the sun. ♪ this is a story about mail and packages. and it's also a story about people. people who rely on us every day to deliver their dreams they're handing us more than mail they're handing us their business

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are really heating up at nasa to 27 million degrees. the agency is about to language the parker solar probe. its destination, the sun. no, really, the sun. if all goes according to plan, the probe, about the size of a car, will travel within 4 million miles of the sun's surface in 2025. the whole goal of the launch is to learn more about solar winds and how they impact earth. the launch is set to take place as early as saturday from kennedy space station from florida. this launch got us thinking about the last space launch we were obsessing over. whatever happened to star man? the space mannequin from the cherry red tesla roadster that took off in the epic road trip in february? where is road star?

he's about 1.5 million miles past mars. i hope he's got a decent playlist up there. that's all for tonight. we'll be back tomorrow with more mtp daily. "the beat" with ari melber starts now. hi. >> thank you very much. we have breaking news in this mueller probe and special guests. trump critic rosy o'donnell joins me with a special exclusive interview about this white house protest she's involved in also. barbara is here with a story to tell on the bombshell news of donald trump admitting he lied and the real goal of the trump tower meeting was to do something that may be illegal, get foreign help for his campaign. our top story is breaking news from inside the trial of paul manafort. one of donald