week together. thank you so very much for being here with us. good night from nbc news headquarters here in new york. and thanks to you at home for joining us for the next hour. here's the good news. rachel has the night off, but she will be back here tomorrow, i promise up. we are in the dog days of summer now, but in the dead of winter, on february 22nd, rick gates, donald trump's former deputy campaign chairman, the number two person on donald trump's presidential campaign, had a very, very bad day. that's because on february 22nd, special counsel robert mueller slapped rick gates with 23 new felony charges. that was on top of the eight felony charges he was already facing. an avalanche of charges. if he was trying to get rick gates to blink, it worked. the very next day, february 23rd, rick gates made all 31 of his charges disappear when he cut a deal with special counsel robert mueller. at the time, gates wrote a

letter to his family and friends calling it a, quote, gut-wrenching decision. but in exchange for making the charges going away, gates pleaded guilty to lying to the fbi and conspiracy to defraud the united states. charges that are nothing to sneeze at. under the sentencing guidelines, those two charges carry a maximum prison sentence of ten years. when you factor in things like rick gates not having a prior record, he could be facing four to six years. the cooperation agreement that former national security adviser mike flynn got from mueller puts flynn's risk of jail time at 0 to 6 months. so, gates did not get flynn's sweetheart day. but gates does have one get out of jail free card. the court could choose to give him no jail time at all, or something like probation, but that all depends on whether rick gates plays by mueller's rules. which is a pretty good incentive for gates to spill everything he

knows. rick gates knows a lot. he and paul manafort were the center stage at the republican national convention. rick gates traveled with donald trump on the campaign trail. when paul ma that fort got pushed out in august 2016, rick gates stayed. he was there through the election and beyond. rick gates was the second-highest ranking official on donald trump's inaugural committee. he probably heard rick gates referred to as manafort's deputy, but that doesn't do rick gates justice. rick fwaelts kn gates knows a l paul manafort. he might know more about donald trump. rick gates was right there when paul manafort was in a mad scramble for cash right before mana not suddenly offered his services to donald trump for free, and rick gates stayed inside trump world long after manafort hit the exits. meaning rick gates, arguably, knows a whole lot about the central question of what really

went down between the trump campaign and russia. which explains why eye witness accounts inside the manafort trial made it look like a high noon showdown. rick gates sitting just 20 feet from paul manafort, taking pawns not to make eye contact with his former mentor. gates staring straight ahead. this was the first time we heard from mueller's star witness and it did not disappoint. the prosecutors asking gates, quote, did you commit crimes with mr. manafort? gates responded yes.fessing to fezfulifezful i -- embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars. in a case where paul manafort's attorneys would like the jury and court watchers to see this as a trial about bank statements and tax returns and secret overseas accounts, in a case where we've been told you won't hear the words trump or russia or olli jar, that one's been banned, make no mistake, russia showed up in court today in a very big way. joining me now, the senior reporter at politico. he's been covering the manafort

case since the beginning and been in the courtroom every day of the trial. josh, take us through these dramatic points that are coming out in press accounts about rick gates, about the dynamic between gates and manafort and about the larger picture that's being filled in through press accounts about gates is an eyewitness to much more than manafort's crimes. >> well, there was more evidence about the russia issue that you hinted than i had expected today. i thought we would be hearing pretty much just about the tax issues, the failure to report foreign bank accounts and things along those lines. the bank frauds that are the focus of this trial. we did hear some of the things about russia, about loans, about $10 million that manafort owed to a russian olli jar. so, we could see the russia message and the russia theme seeping in at the edges. but what everybody was on edge for today and what everybody was

looking for was the interaction between these two men. gates was sort of a protege of manafort. gates worked for him for a decade, had known him in a more distant way for almost 30 years. and, you know, gates tried to keep a lid on any of those tensions today, as you say, when he came in the courtroom, he made a point of not looking at manafort. he looked at the jury and then he began responding to the prosecutor's questions, always turning back to the jury as he answered those questions. but there were points at which he did look towards the defense table. you have to remember, the way the courtroom is set up, the prosecutor is only one human away from manafort. manafort's lead lawyer today, kevin downing, was sitting between manafort and the prosecutor asking questions. so, manafort had to be there in gates' peripheral vision. >> take us through some of the emotions that went through this room. was gates -- and did the jury pick up on any of that, was gates acting fearful of what he

was testifying to? did manafort seem angry, were there any family members with any outbursts or emotions that they displayed in the courtroom? >> i didn't see any outbursts. manafort seemed very serious. at times, he had his arms folded. he looked, perhaps upset or disappointed, but his emotions were pretty much in check. gates, you know, he seemed, i think, a bit nervous, but he was very matter of fact in the way he delivered his testimony. there weren't a lot of lengthy explanatory kind of sentences from gates. a lot of it was delivered in yes or no answers, as we were hearing earlier, questions, did there come a time when you were working for mr. manafort that you became involved in criminal activity, and that was the first big moment when gates said yes in answer to that question. and began to describe how manafort had directed him to transfer money from offshore accounts to pay personal expenses of manafort's and to become involved in these efforts

to get manafort loans. we hear one thing after another listed and as i say, a very plain, kind of matter of fact fashion, although what did seem awkward was the fact there was a certain part of the courtroom that gates didn't seem to want to look at. >> the manafort part of the courtroom. >> right. >> let me ask you how they deal with explaining to a jury that someone is a cooperating witness, that they've already pleaded guilty to committing some crimes. does that change or could you detect any change in any of the body language from the jury? did they seem to -- to listen less intently or did they lean in as this was someone who had traded something? how does that go over in a jury? >> so, i was watching the jury as they were describing, or, as i said, as the prosecutors were leading gates through a description of his deal with the government, and the jurors were watching that very intensely. i saw a number of them taking notes on the different provisions of the plea deal and i was struck by the fact that the prosecution seemed to want to get gates' baggage out of the way as quickly as possible.

after his educational background and his time working with manafort was laid out by the prosecutor, the very next thing they got into was his plea agreement with the government and there was more discussion later on of the same basic theme, especially this issue about embezzlement. prosecutors seemed to want to get that out on the table very early. folks may remember the defense brought this up, that gates had apparently stolen money from manafort, or from manafort's firm, and the prosecution definitely wanted that laid out before we quit court today. they wanted that out on the table and brought that out before they sort of went through chronologically the different crimes this pair may have been involved in. they were clearly trying to imewe nice him for the counter attack from the defense that is coming. >> rudy giuliani called it hanging a lantern around your problems. that's not a tactic limited to one side or the other. josh, thank you for covering ie

case for us. >> thank you, nicolle. >> let's bring in our legal power team. first of all, josh just reported, barbara, that russia was front and center in some of the testimony from gates today. what is the larger picture look like and how does gates help us understand not just the manafort piece, but the trump campaign piece and everything that happened afterward until the point where gates left the scene after he was indicted alongside his former mentor, paul manafort? >> well, one of the pieces of evidence that the prosecution was trying to get in today and the judge was being a little bit difficult about how much detail he would allow them to go into was when paul manafort and rick gates were working in ukraine, they were working with these oligarchs. because they were making enormous, enormous campaign

contributions, much more than we see in this country, they don't have the kinds of rules we have in this country, because in exchange, they were expecting to get huge parts of the economy when they were done from these elected officials. someone was going to control the energy sector and somebody else was going to control the steel seco sector. so, the stakes are very high for people who are involved in political operations, and so, that's why paul manafort was receiving so much money, which he then stored in these bank accou accounts. so, you wonder to what extent that influence came over to this country, as well, and paul manafort may have imported that practice or what extent the oligarchs are seeking influence in this country. >> i understand that gates is an important and significant witness, but his deal requires him to cooperate with everything and anything that robert mueller is investigating. so, what other investigative threads could gates be useful to, and what would you surmise he's being used for by the special counsel? >> right. so, great question, nicolle.

i imagine because of his role in the campaign that they are asking him lots and lots of questions about contacts with russia and the roles not just of the president, but of other people. roger stone, jared kushner, donald trump jr. look, this is a guy who was around the campaign for months and months, who traveled with the president, who was there for conversations, who may have read e-mails, who may have listened in on phone calls. and so, he's not just important for manafort. you're exactly right. in fact, the government could probably convict manafort without gates. this is largely a document case. manafort -- i'm sorry, gates put some meat on the bone, but he is going to be important to mueller and his team in lots of other ways. >> this is what i found curious about subjects gates having to go through, as josh just said, revealing what he got the deal for, having to say in court today that he committed crimes, that he embezzled money from manafort. it seemed obvious that he is

maybe apart of this, but are they telegraphing anything, the names you just ticked off, kushner, roger stone, donald trump jr., they are all at that intersection of potential collusion, potential conspiracy around that trump tower meeting that the president tweeted about on sunday. >> that's exactly right, nicolle. first of all, i wanted to make a point about the stuff that the government did today with mr. gates on the stand. they have a constitutional obligation to turn over to the defendant and to his lawyers every bad thing that mr. gates had done. and so, what the government always does when they're putting on a co-op ray or the -- co-op the is draw the sting, essentially. to your question, though, right, so, there's a whole bunch of people who are at that intersection of conspirery or collusion or whatever synonym you want to use, but perhaps other crimes. financial fraud, bank fraud, tax

fraud. and gates had a view of that, a perch, if you will, to see it in a way a lot of other people might not have been able to. he was at the center of this for quite awhile. does he know everything, of course not. but was he around these people, these actors while they were committing crimes? well, he was certainly around manafort when he was committing crimes, so, he's a valuable witness to the governor. >> i don't ever want to put steve bannon in the same conversation as you, but i'm struck by something he said in "fire and fury," you get these guys, he meant the trump family, was to go after money laundering. he said the line for mueller goes straight -- i think he talked about how some of these guys were money laundering guys. you go through manafort, through kushner and that's how you get trump. is ban nnobannon, was he a cana the mind how you could use manafort, some of the foundations being laid in this trial to get to other people in the trump orbit?

is that why the president is acting out? >> it's hard to know why the president is acting out, but i do think that is -- >> that's true. >> i do think that is a very valid theory. i think it's been widely reported that president trump accepted a lot of money, investment from russian businessmen when he was having a hard time getting loans from other sources. that a lot of his real estate was bought with catch from russi russians. so, when you think about all the things that paul manafort is doing, he's learning how money is flowing out of russia. when russia went from the soviet union and came out of that, there was a lot of money up for grabs that went into the hands of these oligarchs who then tried to get it out of the country and needed a place to park it and so a lot of that money came into this country, possibly even through to donald trump. so, yes, i think that is certainly an avenue of investigation that robert mueller is likely to pursue and as chuck said, rick gates is someone who likely knows a lot about that and so, having him as a co-op ray or the has a lot of value, not just what he can do

in this case, but what he can do for the overall investigation. >> you guys have a lot of value to us. thank you, barbara, chuck, we're going to make you stick around a little longer. i have a few more questions i'm going to ask you about later. rachel has a mantra for this show for covering the trump white house. watch what they do, not what they say. unless what they say comes with potential legal liabilities. that story is next. stay with us. dear foremothers, your society was led by a woman, who governed thousands... commanded armies... yielded to no one. when i found you in my dna, i learned where my strength comes from. my name is courtney mckinney, and this is my ancestrydna story. now with 2 times more geographic detail than other dna tests. order your kit at ancestrydna.com

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on july 9th of last year, "the new york times" came out with a bombshell scoop. reporting for the very first time the president's son don jr. had met with a russian lawyer at trump tower after, quote, being promised damaging information on hillary clinton. three days later, the confirmation for the president's nominee to lead to fbi got underway. that's how christopher wray found himself in the uncomfortable position of having to weigh in on the propriety of that meeting. >> let me ask you this, if i got a call from somebody saying the russian government wants to help lindsey graham got re-elected, they've got dirt on lindsey graham's opponent, should i take that meeting? >> i would think you would with

a not to consult with some good legal advisers before did you that. >> so, the answer is, should i call the fbi? >> i think it would be wise -- >> if you want to be the director of the fbi, pal. here's what i want to tell every politician. if you get a call from somebody suggesting a foreign government wants to help you by disparaging your opponent, tell us all to call the fbi. >> to the members of this committee, any threat or effort to interfere with our elections from any nation state or any nonstate actor is the kind of thing the fbi would want to know. >> i miss that guy. that lindsey graham. of course, we all know don jr. did not do that. his response to a meeting pitched to him as containing very high level and sensitive information as part of, quote, russia and its government support for mr. trump was to accept the meeting and bring along his brother and law and the chairman of the campaign. now president's acknowledgement

in a weekend tweet that his eldest son did in fact take that meeting with russians to get information on an opponent has many believing the president has increased his own legal jeopardy by admitting the true purpose of that trump tower meeting. and it stands in stark contrast to the initial statement that he dictated last year explaining that the meeting had been primarily about adoptions. the president now claims that the meeting was, quote, totally legal. done all the time in politics, which fits into the president's and his allies' latest talking point that collusion is not a crime. >> i've been sitting here looking in the federal code trying to find collusion as a crime. >> it's not. >> collusion is not a crime. >> collusion is not a crime. >> i don't even know if it is a crime, colluding about russians. you start analyzing the crime, the hacking is the crime. >> the question is, how would it be illegal? the real question is would a meeting of that nature constitute a violation, the meeting itself constitute a violation of the law?

what statute or law or rule has been violated? nobody's pointed to one. >> so of course accepting something of value from a foreign government in the context of a campaign is actually illegal and it appears the president is aware of this. his tweet this weekend came in reaction to this story in "the washington post." "the post" reporting that trump has expressed to confidantes lingering unease about how some in his orbit, including his son, are ensnared in the russia probe. the president does not believe his son purposefully broke the law, but is fearful nonetheless that trump jr. inadvertently may have wandered into legal jeopardy. joinings now is ashly parker of "the washington post." i love all your stories. this is when trump reaches for his device, to start banging out his tweet. based on interviews with 3,900 -- but i think it was 16 or 18 sources. take us through what they reported about the president.

>> sure, so, the key thing that we reported, that we heard from them that seemed to be what the president was responding to in that tweet was his unease about don jr.'s possible culpability in all this. >> he stumbled into conspiracy into collude with a foreigned a verve tear. >> done something bad, or even that he feels guilty in a way that his son is caught up in all of this in a way he feels probably collectly his son would not be were he not his son and of course had he not taken that meeting. >> right. well, and -- he -- there are people he can talk to if he feels guilty about that. but he responded. your reporting got so far under his skin. he responded and retweeted. this is the story. this seems to be, if you step back, the simmer that you describe, the blowing of the lid, how you describe him and other flash points in his presidency, really started with

the thursday morning tweet about sessions ordering him to stop the mueller probe and i heard he was talking about firing jeff sessions again on the phone with friends. take us through this slow boil and where they go now. >> what's interesting to us, there's a private and public donald trump. we sort of see both of them. privately, as we reported, he was upset with sessions. he's been increasing the number of falsehoods he's been telling. he's been naming mueller now publicly by name, which is something he didn't do before. and we sort of looked back at his tweets and he's been using the phrase witch hunt almost twice as much in the past two months as he was previously. so, it's really getting under his skin. part of this is, you know, his former campaign chairman is standing trials he's watchi tri. he's watching that nonstop. and he cannot stand when they're

talking about manafort, they're also talking about trump. he thinks it's sort of a white-collar crime and it wouldn't be this way without manafort's connection to him, which is correct. >> it seems to me that these spears are all pointing in towards the oval office. you have the cohen legal shenanigans with cohen now trying to get some sort of deal with the southern district. you've got not just the manafort trial, but the gates testimony. as we talked about with barbara and chuck, gates is a cooperating witness that anything that bob mueller is investigating. it's not just what gates says during the manafort trial that he's going to be annoyed by. trump's bad behavior is afternoon animated by fear. what's the central fear? >> that's the great question. and people that are close to him say they don't know what they don't know, what we don't know. part of it is the president has made a decision. he truly believes and i'm not saying this is correct, but he truly believes that he did nothing wrong.

this is getting reinforced now by rudy giuliani. other lawyers around him previously were giving him a different set of advice. that's not what giuliani is telling hip. trump believes his biggest risk is not necessarily from mueller, but may come from possible impeachment, in democrats take the house. there is an element where he believes this is a public relations battle and he needs to discredit mueller in case the investigation finds anything. and sort of lay the groundwork that as he likes to say, this is a witch hunt, collusion is not a crime, and he did nothing wrong. but again, i have to say, we don't know what we don't know. we don't know what maybe didn't happen on the campaign, but happened when michael cohen worked for him, all those decades and now that michael cohen has flipped, that's a risk, for instance. >> there was a sea change in the things that people close to him, and you talk to many more of them than i do, there was a sea change in what they thought about the president's potential guilt on the question of collusion. they always thought, he's too incompetent to have colluded with russia, he couldn't collude

between the plane and the headquarters, but obstruction, he sort of was a family business, he could have done something wrong there. but after helsinki, there was a sea change in what people thought the president could be hiding or protecting against on the question of collusion. >> i think that's true. i think there's also a concern after helsinki that, again, it's not just maybe his family business, but that he may be getting himself in more trouble as he tries to fight this publicly. remember, there's the collusion and there's the obstruction of justice and there is definitely a sense that the tweets are not helpful. the public statements are not helpful. the moods in public and private are not helpful. >> talking about firing your attorney general -- >> not helpful. >> not helpful. ashley, congrats on the reporting. air force one is surprising in a lot of ways. i spent a lot of time on it. it was a privilege. it can feed 100 people at a time. really good stuff. it can project against an elect

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hope hicks is back in the news. the one-time model who started in pr for ivanka trump's clothing line and within five years landed a job as president trump's white house communications director has re-emerged six months after resigning that post. on saturday, hicks was spotted getting onto air force one, just before it took off for the president's rally in ohio. and there she is, actually in

the plane with the president. but president trump may want to get some legal advice before he swaps stories with hope. because about two months before she resigned, hope hicks met with robert mueller, reportedly more than once. hope hicks, you will remember, was also onboard air force once when president trump was putting together his public statement about the now infamous trump tower meeting. miss hicks was reportedly right by the president's side for that project, texting back and forth with his son, donald trump jr. now, today, a source close to the trump legal effort tells me that the president's conduct since the trump tower meeting, his involvement in the crafting of a false statement about that meeting and conversations he's had with white house aides about it point to an increasing likelihood that the president could be vulnerable to charges of witness tampering and obstruction of justice. it all brings back into focus the ongoing legal jeopardy facing all of the individuals who have testified to robert mueller and his team about the crafting of the original false statement and any conversations they may have had with the

president about their testimony. with this in mind, what do we think hope hicks and the president talked about? and do you think anybody wanted to download afterward? joining me now to help me answer that question is the former assistant director for counter intelligence during robert mueller's tenure as fbi director. and back with us again is former u.s. attorney chuck roserosenbe. we started this conversation at 4:00, frank, after i heard this reporting close to the trump legal effort that the president, even if he ended up having nothing to do with the original meeting with the russians, all of his conduct since then, all of his involvement in dictating the false statement to the press, all of the conversations that have been widely reported by "the new york times" that he's had with white house aides about their interactions with mueller's investigators, that all of those incidents could leave him very vulnerable to charges of witness tampering and

obstruction of justice. >> yeah, we continue to see this unexplainable behavior between what is right from a legal, strategic standpoint, which would be to not talk or be in the same room or airplane with hope hicks, and then the strategy, perhaps, of public perception, which is to tell the public, i'm thumbing my nose to all of this. if i want to invite hope hicks on air force one, i'm going to do it, she's with me, she's on my team. the problem with this dichotomy between what you should do legally and for public perception, he's going down the wrong path with this. he's subjected himself to more questioning by bob mueller, and he's putting hope hicks into a box where she's likely to be reinterviewed, perhaps for hours again, about what transpired on that airplane, whether the president or his aides are attempting to tamper with her and her testimony, it's all a very bad idea.

>> and chuck, we know that lies were told if we could adopt the language that politicians take on, there was one in the white house in which i worked where scooter libby was ultimately charged with obstruction of justice and perjury, and that's often what trips up aides. and it was positive to me today that it's possible that somebody involved in crafting that false statement repeated that lie when they went in to meet with robert mueller and it's possible that one of the people that was called in and questioned about that is already in some legal jeopardy and for the president to talk to anybody that was called in and questioned about that is not smart. >> no, it's not smart. look, if you're a defense attorney, the first thing you tell your client is, don't talk to anybody. anybody. who might be a witness in this case. and if you need to pass something to another person, another witness, do it through me, your lawyer. all right? we can talk lawyer to lawyer without obstructing justice or

tampers with w ing with witness. you cannot talk witness to witness. at the very least, it looks bad. more than that, it could be actual witness tampering. imagine the president saying, hey, what happened on air force one or, how did you describe this to bob mueller, did he ask you about it and what else did he ask you? and to the extent that mr. trump and his team are concerned that this is taking too long, my advice to them would be to stop creating more evidence. >> and we already had some evidence. there was somebody who was part of the p.r. side of this. he quit around this flash point over concerns that obstruction of justice was an area that they were all wading into. do you think there's any chance hope hicks was onboard air force one as somebody that is already a cooperating witness in the mueller inrest game? >> wow. i think it's a minimal chance, nicolle. i'm not sure the strategy would be to insert someone into air

force one who would go up against the president of the united states who is represented by counsel. probably highly unlikely. so, we've got a woman here who's got her whole career and life in front of her. her judgment, so far, has been, as far as we know, has been rather poor. and she's got a choice to make. she can either establish a legacy of associating herself with a president who is likely to face serious charges, if not impeachment or otherwise, or she can be her own person and do the right thing. and we're not seeing that happen yet. in fact, we're seeing quite the opposite. >> and a corroborating witness including everyone who has gone in and answer ed questions, so, that, at this point, includes a wide group of current white house aides. there are a lot of people cooperating at witnesses in the mueller probe.

we know that the president is now being investigated under this beefed up post-enron witness tampering law and he continues to be a subject of obstruction of justice questions. where do you think the interaction with all these witnesses ranks on a risk scale for the president? >> well, it makes it more risky for the witnesses. it makes it more risky for the president. but let me just draw a distinction between a cooperating witness and a truthful witness. i think frank's point is a very important one that i want to underscore. i also agree that hope hicks is a very unlikely, you know, wired up or going in as a government agent, if you will, trying to elicit admissions from the president. that doesn't mean she's not a truthful witness. and the more the president talks to her, the more the government and the mueller team is going to want to know what he said. all these people you just described are very likely truthful witnesses, right? they don't want to risk their

own, you know, fortune, their own liberty, right, their own freedom, to lie on behalf of another person. and so, as the president continues to reach out, he's increasing his own risk, and as long as the people to whom he's reaching out when they're questioned about it, they should be okay. of course, like mr. gates and mr. manafort, if they have committed underlying crimes, they have a separate problem. >> just like mike flynn, too, right? >> that's exactly right. >> frank, chuck, thank you both so much for spending some time with us. stul ahead tonight, democrats are trying to pull off something that has not been done since the 19 80s, and may nay just do it. stay with us. we'll be right back.

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congress. it sits in a reliably republican district. donald trump won by more than 11 points. in normal times, this seat would be a lock for republicans. in normal times, we would probably not even be talking about this race on the national news. these, of course, are not normal times. for months, the democrat in this race, danny o'connor, has been chipping away at his opponent's steadily lead in the polls. and now, on the eve of the election, he has erased that lead entirely. this is the latest poll out of the ohio 12th. the democrat running in this deep red pocket of ohio is now beating his republican opponent in the polls by one point. now, one point is, of course, not a slam dunk, it doesn't guarantee democrats a win, but it's a heck of a lot closer than democrats ever expected they would get in a district that has not sent a democrat to congress since the '80s. turning the ohio 12th into a tossup is the political equivalent of a double rainbow. so, now that they have republicans sweating in their own backyard, now that they're within reach of the political upset of the year in ohio.

what can this race tell us about the democrats chances in the midterms this november and if they have a shot at taking back the house. joining us now is robert costa, national political reporter with "the washington post." great to have you. there's a tendency in politics when you're on the right side of a poll like that, to overread the national implications and when you're on the wrong side, to downplay the national implications. which side is making the more credible argument? >> well, nicolle, you never want to read too much into an august campaign. people are on vacation. voter engagement may not be there. president trump waded into this race with a rally in the columbus area, and you have this in some respect being a retch ren dumb on president trump because the president has embraced the republican, and danny o'connor running against the democratic leadership in washington, running very much like other candidates across the country this year. this is -- if not a microcosm

for the sun try, but one for the midwest. >> does this race have republicans -- i don't know that it's possible, and i'm sure that republicans will say anything these days, but in the good old days when i was a republican, we used to acknowledge publicly that you could not win the white house without winning ohio. do people acknowledge how nerve wracking it is to have a district like this in a part of a state that you must win to send a republican to the white house that this is an ominous sign for the republicans? >> they feel like they have an impossible choice. talking to republican consultants in and outside of ohio, they say, you can't win in some areas with president trump because of the way he may anger women voters, college educated voters, suburban voters that may have given him a chance in 2016 but have since distanced themselves from president trump, but you can't win without him, because he enthuses the republican base. you see so many republicans like the senate senator troy balderson talk about the tax cut, not really talk about immigration in the same hard line way as president trump with

the build the wall rhetoric, but still talking about immigration, because they want the trump voter to come out. it's a balancing act that some republicans can handle and some republicans cannot this year. this is a major test to see if a normal mainstream state senator type can pull it off. >> so, the cook political report has identified 60 house districts that are more democratic than the ohio 12th. not a good sign for republicans. what are the democrats doing right in those districts? are they nationalizing the contest? are they nationalizing the republican party? what are they doing that has that many races that are even more favorable to them looking so promising? >> when you listen to danny o'connor, the democrat in ohio, or you listen to other democratic candidates like him who are, let's say, between the ages of 30 and 50, projecting themselves as a new generation of the democratic party, they're actually not talking about the headlin headlines, the russian investigation, many of president

trump's stroerns. they're trying, and sometimes not that well, but trying to talk about the economy, talk about health care, core democratic issues, because they know if they have any shot at a real wave, not just a little bit of a ripple this november, they have to activate core democratic voters. but they're finding their own tensions from time to time. the leftward pole of the democratic party in some primaries, but for the most part, democratic candidates are running on health care and the economy, not so much talking about bob mueller and president trump or really even immigration, as a major issue. they want to really just rouse the central democratic issues. >> and we heard donald trump talking about a red wave. i don't hear any political consultants warning about that. robert costa, always grateful to have you here. >> thank you. >> we have a lot more to get to tonight, including what we are still learning about a critical failure of the trump administration.

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it's been 11 days since the court-ordered deadline for the trump administration to reunite the children it forcibly took away from their parents at the southern border. and still, between 500 and 600 children remain separated tonight. the aclu has been fighting in court to force the trump administration to reunite all of these families. if you want to know how the trump administration is faring in that court battle, consider that late last week, the administration suggested in a court filing that the aclu should actually take the lead in locating the remaining parents

whom the government separated from their children and then lost. on friday, the federal judge overseeing the case took the government to task, noting that as of friday, only 12 or 13 of the around 500 parents haven be located. the judge called that unacceptable. even worse, it appeared there's no plan in place for the government to find the rest of the parents. quote, many of these parents were removed from the country without their child. all of this is the result of the government's separation and then inability and failure to track and reunite. and the reality is that for every parent who is not located, there will be a permanently orphaned child, and that is 100% the responsibility of the administration. reporters who have been covered the chaos around the trump administration's zero tolerance immigrant policy have raised this specter before. children forcibly taken from their parents and never returned. but it seems so much more real now, as the trump administration, even under federal court order, fails to take even the most basic steps towards fixing this human rights

catastrophe. joining us now is the aclu attorney who has been arguing this case. thank you for joining us. and help me understand this. they now welcome your help and your capacity and your expertise, but the federal government hasn't turned over the files or the personal information about all the parents they deported without their children, is that right? >> that's exactly right. i mean, so, what we said is, look, it the government's responsibility, the court made clear, of course it's the government's responsibility, but they tried to wash their hands and say, you do it. well, that's not right. they need to take steps to find the parents. but we are more than willing to help, and we want to help, but how can we help without any information? now it turns out that the government has been sitting on potentially many, many phone numbers. we could have been calling these parents for the last weeks or months and they're not turning over the information. and they have -- the judge basically said, what are you doing? get a plan, turn over

information to the aclu, can try and help you. they can't help you without the information, but you, the government, also need to take steps to find these parents. it was stunning, the position the government took. >> and how does it actually work? because i'm guessing someone that comes into this country and is fleeing circumstances so dire that they bring their young children, in some cases, young infants, to this country -- i'm guessing they don't leave with a forwarded address or a doorman building or a working cell phone. i mean, what is, under the best case scenario, how do you find a mom or a dad who left their infant or their young child in basically a detention center in america? >> right, that's exactly right. it's a difficult task. but there are pieces of information that we can use and so, for example, a lot of the parents have been talking to their churn from abroad. the government has those phone numbers. we've been begging for those phone numbers. they have not turned over those phone numbers. there may be addresses, the

government's turned over addresses for some, they say they don't have addresses for all, but even those addresses sometimes just say, here's the city where they might be. so, we're asking for any piece of information that might help us. for example, many of the parents are in guatemala and speak an indigenous language. certain languages are only spoken in certain regions. we want to know -- and the government knows what language the individuals spoke when they came here. we want to know that. we want to know their i.d. numbers in the countries. if they have a phone number for a close relative. we want to know that. anything to help us. we're organizing groups on the ground in central america. but they can't just simply drive around the country aimlessly. we need pieces of information. and the government should also say what they're going to do. for example, they could be running psas in these countries in print, on the radio, maybe television, saying if you were deported without your kid, call this hotline. the government's come forward with no plan and is telling us they'll get us the information about the parents when they get

it to us. that's not good enough. >> and this isn't just a story about the cruelty of the crumb tr trump administration policy, there are children going days upon days without their parents. are you worried about long-time impacts on these children? >> you're exactly right about that. the medical community as filed affidavits on our case and come out overwhelmingly to say, look. these children are going to be permanently, permanently traumatized and every day that goes by, it goets worse. when i talked to one of the families that had finally been reunited, the mother told me her 4-year-old keeps asking her, are they going to take me away again? that's exactly what we're doing to these children. you create a sense of vulnerability in them that might never leave them. it's horrible. >> it is horrible. lee, we're grateful for the work you are doing, the lead attorney on this case. thank you for spending time with us tonight. still ahead, i have something very important to tell

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tonight where broadway actors past and present belted out showtunes to protest this president, capping off a busy news day that's just the start of a very busy news week. the biggest event of all is happening right back here. now it's time for the last word with lawrence o'donnell. good evening, lawrence. >> i just want you to know, nicole, every richle fan i have spoken to is very happy with having you sitting in that chair. >> thank you. >> but, you're right, they're going to be very, very happy tomorrow night at 9:00. >> i think we should make t-shirts. i survived the maddow 2018 vacation. i'll bring you one. >> thank you. yesterday, on the 44th anniversary of the day that president richard nixon obeyed a ruling of the supreme court handing over the tapes that contai