my thanks for phil rucker, jennifer rubin, jennifer johnson and ashley parker. that does it for our hour. i'm nicolle wallace. "mtp daily" starts right now. hi, chuck. >> is it really friday? >> i hope so. i thought yesterday was a friday so i had a very long day. >> this has been a rough friday for you, then. enjoy your weekend, nicolle, thank you. if it's friday, the democratic leader is tangled up in blue. tonight, could a democratic wave at the ballot in november wash away nancy pelosi's power? we have exclusive new reporting on how the tide is turning for one of the biggest power players in capitol hill history. plus, chaos in kansas. the republican gubernatorial primary is still too close to call. we'll dig into the vote counting confusion and the vote counting allegations.

>> that's why they're called unofficial results on election night. >> and political bread and butter with heaping sides of fun. my triple fried love affair with the iowa state fair. this is "mtp daily" and it starts right now. good evening, i'm chuck todd here in washington. welcome to "mtp daily." nancy pelosi is accustomed to being target of republican attacks, but now a growing number of democrats are going after her sort of saying it's time for her to step aside. if this week has told us one thing, it's that a blue wave is coming. but everyone that's been to the beach can tell you with every big wave, there's an undertow. it's possible this november the undertow is named nancy pelosi. >> a vote for paul davis is a vote for nancy pelosi. that's too risky. >> after lying the whole

campaign, dishonest danny o'connor now admits he'd vote for pelosi. >> mccall for congress? pelosi for speaker. >> republicans are pummelling democrats with anti-pelosi tv ads. but pelosi doesn't appear to be ready to relinquish her leadership role any time soon. then again, that decision may actually be out of her hands. according to a new nbc news survey, more than 50 current democrats running for the house say they will not support pelosi for speaker, more than 50. among them michigan democrat rashida talib. >> will you vote for nancy pelosi? >> probably not. >> probably not? >> that's my answer. no, probably not. >> i think we should probably hang on to that word "probably" for a while, but still. then there's connor lamb who

disavowed pelosi in march's special election, a race that turned pennsylvania's 18th congressional district blue. could democrats win the house even with nancy pelosi as the leader? yes, i think we're seeing that landscape. should they win the house even with nancy pelosi as their leader? we'll find out. but ask jon ossoff. if republicans' efforts helped or hurt him in his special election narrow loss. ask danny o'connor if his initial resistance to distance himself helped or hurt him, in a race he's still trailing but by only about 1,500 votes. lots of provisionals still out there. nancy pelosi has been the democratic leader in the house since either ossoff or o'connor were old enough to vote. she was the first woman speaker in the house. 12 years later could she be hurting the party she helped so much? could she be the difference between a narrow democratic house majority or a bigger

governing majority? could she be the difference between a blue wave and a blue tsunami? let's bring in tonight's panel, yamiche alcindor, rick wilson, author of "everything trump touches dies" and neera tanden, current president for the center for american progress. welcome, all. neera, i'm going to start with you. does she -- does she hurt the party's chances to have a big election, and should that matter? >> i think the challenge is that every race we are looking at so far are ruby red districts, right? so we're talking about a republican plus 11. >> like ohio 12. >> these are not -- if danny o'connor won, there's 70 districts to the left of him that are better for democrats. and so that's the challenge she's looking at, right? it's like you're in these super

republican districts. republicans are using these arguments against her in these incredibly conservative districts. i do not think it will be the same in other locations. i don't think it's the same in swing districts or much more swing districts. and i think the issue here really is republicans said that they were going to campaign on the tax cut. that didn't work. they obviously can't campaign on the health care bill. that's a disaster for them. so they're going back to the pelosi playbook to basically make the race as partisan as possible. i think they would come up with some other thing, because really the argument is democrats will have the house. >> but in 60 days it's hard for them to make a new boogie person quickly to do this. rick wilson, if you were in the shoes of who's running the dccc or if you were advising a democratic congressional candidate in, say, a district that looks like ohio 12 or let's go florida 2, for instance, in your neck of the woods, what

would you tell them to do? >> i would run like hell from nancy pelosi. guys like me -- i've probably made two dozen ads with the typical republican scare ads. john smith is ready to go to washington and stand with nancy pelosi against our values here in florida 2. this is easy stuff. it's a layup for riepublicans. she doesn't test well with the gop and doesn't test particularly well with independents. so it's an easy lift. if they took her out of the line of fire, it would be something where the ads would suddenly seem very clunky and very strange that the woman who just announced she's not going to be speaker is being highlighted. >> like what are you doing, you're still beating her up. you know, yamiche, when you ask, some democrats will say pelosi is not the major issue. but if it's costing you 5,000 votes or 10,000 votes, that matters. these are red districts they're running in. it's interesting, in wave years the difference between a wave

win and sort of a good win is sometimes 10,000 votes. i want to put something up here. in 2006, 14 seats that democrats picked up were decided by 10,000 votes or less. in 2010, 16 seats that the republicans picked up were decided by 10,000 votes or less. so you only need a slice of those republican voters, suburban voters that they need to get chicken there when it comes to pelosi. >> nancy pelosi is an easy target and it's easy when you're campaigning as a nominee or candidate to say you would vote against nancy pelosi. when you get to d.c. and talk to nancy pelosi and talk to the people around the congress and realize that she's usually one of the only women in these high-level meetings, you realize that as the democratic party talks about wanting diversity, she is part of that diversity. of course she's in a tough place because there are so many democratic sources who say they're eager for fresh blood. you're looking at campaigns where clinton for the first time in a long time isn't the name that's hanging over a lot of these races and they realize

that president trump is kind of on the ballot so republicans have their own boogieman they're running against. so nancy pelosi is one of the people that can get democrats what they want. she's in the meeting with president trump as the only woman when they're talking about immigration. so there are people that will say nancy pelosi will be an easy person to run away from when you're running. when you get to d.c., you might completely have a change of heart. >> it's interesting, i have this theory and i'm curious, a 25 to 30-seat gain for the democrats, she has a harder time becoming speaker. a 40 to 50 seat, are they going to deny her speaker? >> the reality is she has -- there are a lot of members who are saying they're not going to support her, so who knows how it will actually be in months' time. i will say one thing which is if you look at the array of leaders right now, pelosi, ryan, mcconnell, schumer, pelosi has delivered for the democratic

caucus. she's been excellent in the negotiations. if you look at the omnibus, conservatives attacked it because she got so many things for democrats. she's very good. now, i totally recognize that she has become a status of washington, et cetera, or sort of a symbol of that. people are distancing from her but i have to say one thing that i find really odd is that a lot of people aren't asking candidates about jim jordan as a possible leader of republicans. he's going to put his hat in there. it's a little odd that that's happening. >> nobody beyond jim jordan and mark meadows think jim jordan is a realistic candidate for speaker in fairness. >> i don't know, the freedom caucus has had a lot of sway in the house over the last -- the fact that no one is willing to tell him to leave means he's got a lot of power. it's just an oddity. and i think a lot of people think that she's been a target of hundreds of millions if not a billion dollar ads. democrats shouldn't be basically

rewarding republicans for their attacks on women. >> rick, i'm going to play you an array here. it goes back ten years of ads. i'm wondering, can't you come up with something else? here's our montage of pelosi from '08 to now. >> a vote for don is a vote for barack obama and nancy pelosi. >> he already votes with pelosi 90% of the time. now what you think he'll do? >> spratt is nancy pelosi's budget chairman and it has a trillion dollar deficit. meet kathy who said about pelosi -- >> she's done a great job for this country. great job? >> positions on the issues matter. we can't sending barack obama and nancy pelosi a rubber stamp. >> a pelosi palooza. former congressman joe wants his old job back and nancy pelosi is throwing him a party. >> when nancy pelosi needed votes, peterson chose pelosi.

>> ashford voted with flopelosi% of the time. >> nancy pelosi's liberal agenda put america $20 trillion in debt and jon ossoff is on her side. >> that went longer than we anticipa anticipated, in fairness. but rick wilson, if you remember that first ad back in 2008, that went almost as long. in hindsight, when you have 15 years of negative ads against you, of course you're going to be unpopular if you don't run a national campaign pushing back. she never did. so she was fighting with both hands tied behind her back. is there anything she could have done about this? newt gingrich has the same problem. >> i don't think so because when the opposite party lacks a number of prime targets, you're inevitably going to go for the leadership. harry reid was -- harry reid was like watching paint dry but people tried to turn him into this great demonic figure.

it never tested as strongly with republicans as pelosi does. >> she's a woman. they did a lot of this against hillary clinton. there is a thing about attacking women in the republican party. and i think the issue is a lot of women think why should we give into that. >> let's talk about people who could, though. i've heard a couple of names when it comes to people that could challenge her, yamiche. one is hakeem jeffries. when you used to start with california and the cbc, when you start with those strongholds it's hard to win but it does look to me like she's leaking some support from the congressional black caucus. >> as someone who's talked to a lot of members of the congressional black caucus, they have been very frustrated in the age of president trump mainly because they feel as though the democratic party has been trying to lean to this kind of almost mythical voter -- >> the unicorn, the white working class democrat that hasn't voted democrat in a generation? >> and they feel as though the democratic party hasn't been

able to say plainly what this president is saying is racially derogatory, possibly racist. i think you've heard a lot of those voices from the cbc but not the leadership. also maxine waters and several members of the congressional black caucus who have gone harsh against president trump have not enjoyed the support of the leadership. so you have the cbc saying we deliver you votes in no other way the constituency does but you're not listening to our concerns. i know those are tense meetings when it's just the members talking about how the party is structured. they're very structured. hakeem jeffries is a charismatic guy and he's a sleeper candidate so i could see him going for this. >> and then there's tim ryan, which would go in the exact opposite direction. >> isn't he running for president? >> that's what i said. but, you know, that's the type of candidates i've heard. but hakeem jeffries, i've been continue to be told he has real standing inside that conference. >> the secret sauce of nancy pelosi, though, has always been that she raises a metric ton of money.

that is her ability that she has delivered on time and again and she has been able to activate that california and new york money in ways that benefit her caucus tremendously. >> but i do wonder, neera, in this year where you've seen almost organic money, that these new candidates haven't felt, haven't seen -- they don't see the necessity of her today perhaps that those that have been in congress a while know like when it was hard to raise money. this year it has been easy so perhaps that's not as much of a thing for her. >> i also think nancy pelosi recognizes the needs of every member. she is a cold, hard person recognizing the importance of this election and so she's -- >> with permission you're allowed to vote against her, right? >> she's very smart in asking for a pledge. >> look, connor lamb is as welcome in the caucus, having said that he opposes her as speaker, as any other member. >> okay. do any of you think she will not be speaker if democrats get the

majority? >> i don't know. i don't know. >> you don't know? >> i think she will be. >> how about you? >> i think she probably will be. >> i think she will be too. that would be my guess. all right, you guys have to stick around. up ahead, the paul manafort trial comes to a screeching halt. what was the holdup? see that's funny, i thought you traded options. i'm not really a wall street guy. what's the hesitation? eh, it just feels too complicated, you know? well sure, at first, but jj can help you with that. jj, will you break it down for this gentleman? hey, ian. you know, at td ameritrade, we can walk you through your options trades step by step until you're comfortable. i could be up for that. that's taking options trading from wall st. to main st. hey guys, wanna play some pool? eh, i'm not really a pool guy. what's the hesitation? it's just complicated. step-by-step options trading support from td ameritrade

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welcome back. it was a strange day in the manafort trial because for most of the day there was no trial. the special counsel's team planned to rest their case in the paul manafort trial today until everything suddenly came to a screeching halt. so what happened? two sidebars, two recesses, an extra long lunch break and we still don't know what happened. still a mystery. the only thing we know is that

during the hours-long delay, the judge reminded jurors not to discuss the case with anyone else and to keep an open mind because manafort is presumed innocent until proven guilty. perhaps it was a juror issue, we don't know. when court finally resumed, prosecutors moved on to the next witness, the vice president of a bank that lent manafort $16 million. the witness testified how manafort secured oddly quick approval of loans with direct involvement from the bank's ceo, who wanted a role in the trump administration. prosecutors had shown jurors an e-mail from manafort trying to push the ceo to be the secretary of the army. joining me is chuck rosenberg, former u.s. attorney for the eastern district of virginia. so he knows this courtroom quite well. all right. the whispers all around alexandria were that this was a juror issue. we don't know for sure, but a delay like this, it was certainly odd. then you hear the admonishment. we're trying to connect dots. are we trying to connect dots

too hard? >> possibly. trials have delays and they have delays for lots of reasons, chuck. i've had juror issues in my own trials. it could be that someone tried to talk to a juror, or a juror overheard something in a hallway or a bathroom, or a juror fell ill. all of these are possibilities. by the way, that's why there are 16 jurors, there are four alternates. so the alternates don't know who they are. all 16 are listening to the case as if they are part of the 12 that will ultimately decide it. if it was a juror issue and one of them has to be excused, you still have 15 left. >> i have to say, and maybe i've watched too many movies or too much tv, i was surprised that this jury wasn't sequestered a little because this is washington. paul manafort already tried to tamper with witnesses even when he was with an ankle bracelet on him. i'm just -- it's not as if there wasn't concern that outside forces might want to mess around. >> yeah, it's both rare and expensive. frankly, we're already asking a

lot of the jurors to give two or three weeks of their lives. now we're asking them to go back to some lousy motel room at night and watch three channels that are permitted on their cable tv. we don't like to do it. the judge admonishes at the beginning of each, in the middle of each day, at the end of each day. don't watch, don't listen, to talk to each other and don't talk to anyone about the case and that is usually sufficient. >> would you have had concern prosecuting this case given that manafort already was caught witness tampering? is this something that somebody has to request -- a prosecutor would have to request if they were concerned about the jury tampering. >> first question first. so witness tampering and jury tampering are two different things. >> right. i get that. >> and would i be concerned enough to raise it and suggest that the jury be sequestered? i don't think so. but you're right, he demonstrated that behavior in the past so your antenna would be up.

i don't think it's necessary. in my experience, chuck, jurors follow those instructions. every now and then one goes off the rails but you have alternates, but jurors take those admonitions seriously. >> the prosecution is about to rest. gates, seems like it was a double-edged sword. i assume the prosecution knew that going in and it seems like they started with paper trail and they're ending with paper trail. was that a purposeful strategy knowing that gates was going to be a subject i'ive witness, i guess? >> double-edged sword is a good description. remember bank robbers run with bank robbers and drug dealers run with drug dealers. manafort runs with gates. this guy is not clean. if we got to pick our own witnesses for trial, chuck, it would be nuns and librarians, but it's not. so what makes gates valuable is that he kraub ratcorroborates t documents and what makes the documents valuable is they corroborate gates. so surrounding gates by

documents and other witnesses makes him credible. the jury may not like the guy, he's a criminal, but he's a credible one. >> so the prosecution is about to rest. there's already been chatter through the last few months that if manafort at any moment thinks it's over, there's no way he can get out of this, that maybe he finds a way to cut a deal. is this the moment before you would try to do it if you were on the defense team? you know, i don't know if we want to presenting. they'll obviously ask them to have the case dismissed. that probably won't happen. but is this when a deal could be cut if one were cut? >> the window is closing. some prosecutors would tell you that it closed. i would never rule out the possibility of taking a plea and getting someone's truthful cooperation, but it is getting awfully late in the day for that, chuck. >> do you think this is getting close to slam dunk or no? >> well, i hate that term. >> so does george tenant.

>> and he probably should. juries do strange things. is there a shot of acquittal? sure. how big is it? it's awfully small. in order to acquit, they have to be a unanimous 12-0. the notion of running the table in a case like this is really small. >> there was a sidebar conversation where they were able to get some testimony, some gates testimony to keep it away and say it's part of an ongoing investigation and they don't want the notes of the sidebar to get out. how often does that happen in a case like this? >> it happens. if you have a trial with other subjects and targets sort of out on the streets, it happens. >> does this indicate gates is still cooperating? >> it indicates there's an ongoing cooperation. i imagine that gates' cooperation is reasonably close to done, but they're going to need him again. for instance, if there's another trial for mr. manafort in washington, d.c., i imagine mr. gates will be on that witness stand again. >> the judge, judge ellis, they

filed another motion today where the prosecution feels as if essentially a judge prejudiced the jury here. first of all, does the prosecution have a case on this? >> they have an argument, absolutely. do they have a case -- >> they have an argument that this was -- >> they have a valid argument. is there anything they can do about it? no. remember, if the government loses at trial, they don't have an appeal. but the defendant does. >> even if they think in their minds judicial misconduct or judicial prejudice? >> it would have to be extraordinary and i've never seen that happen. >> you've gone before judge 'em is and i know you've said judge ellis has gone to judge ellis. what should we expect next week? >> it depends on what mood he's on that morning. >> really? it just depends on whether the coffee was good? >> i don't mean to be glib. he's a smart guy and usually gets to the right result. but judges have to be so careful, chuck, because the jury watches the judge and takes signals for how the judge acts.

who he berates and who he admonishes. they don't know any better. they think he's always right and he often is, but in my experience, the very best judges only call balls and strikes. if they want to admonish counsel, they do it privately at the bench out of the earshot of the jury, and that way the jury doesn't draw any implications. >> those are my favorite baseball umpires, too, the ones that just do this. >> and you see it where an umpire goes after a player. that's crazy. it's not their job. >> chuck rosenberg, as always, sir, happy friday. have a good weekend. >> you too. up ahead, a full-on republican nightmare in kansas. we'll explain. if you use some of these moves way too often... then you might have a common condition called dry mouth... which can be brought on by many things, like medication and medical conditions. biotène provides immediate, long lasting relief from dry mouth symptoms. it is clinically proven to soothe and moisturize a dry mouth.

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welcome back. tonight i'm obsessed with the midwest, specifically the little slice of homegrown farm raised deep fried hawkeye heaven that is the iowa state fair. more than a million people are expected to visit the fairgrounds in des moines between now and august 20th. that makes it one of the biggest state fairs in all the 50 states, a big rivalry between minnesota and iowa, who's got the better one. now, i say this without a drop of irony. i love the iowa state fair. and diet, not so much. running at the bottom of the screen is a partial list of foods you can get at the iowa state fair, all of course on a stick, because why would you want food any other way but on a stick? remember my last visit to the

iowa state fair in 2015 laying before me a variable smorgasboard of deep fried everything, always or often on a stick. of course it's not just about food. you have your rides, remember, the ones that go backwards and forwards. you have your little shops. the cool cars that are on display and you have your politics with the famous state fair soap box. some potential 2020ers on the schedule. john delaney, hjulian castro. not on the schedule, former speaker john boehner, but he did make a surprise visit today. no word if he found deep fried merlot. michael avenatti is now at the state fair and he's telling people that he's considering his own presidential run. he brought his own soap box with him we hear. we can't talk about the fair without talking about this. the official butter cow. there it is pain stakingly carved each and every year. it's been an annual tradition more than a century. don't believe me? here's the butter cow from 1911.

it hasn't melted. so iowa, make it a great fair this year. trust me, i wish i could be there. rest assured, my visit to the iowa state fair is still with me. kind of like a corn dog. sfx: [cell phone dialing] no. no, no, no, no, no. cancel. cancel. please. aaagh! being in the know is a good thing. that's why discover will alert you if your social security number is found on any one of thousands of risky sites.

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i'm meg terrell with the cnbc market wrap. the major indices closing in the red rattled by geopolitical concerns over the mounting currency crisis in turkey. the dow fell 196 points, the s&p dropped 20 points, the nasdaq closed 52 points lower. the turkish lira sliding against the dollar briefly touching a record low of 20% after president trump announced plans to double steel and aluminum tariffs levied against turkey. trump tweeting our relations with turkey are not good at this time. that's it from cnbc, first in business worldwide. now back to "mtp daily." welcome back. we've got ourselves an

old-fashioned stand-off in kansas. the governor and the secretary of state are fighting over the ballot counting in a razor-thin republican gubernatorial primary where, oh, yeah, the two of them are also the candidates. about 180 votes separate the secretary of state, kris kobach, and the incumbent governor, jeff colyer, right now and that can change literally at any moment. mail-in ballots postmarked before tuesday and provisional ballots still need to be reviewed by august 20th. the unofficial count has just under 9,000 provisional ballots that they have to get through. as we told you earlier this week, vote counting and any recount ends up being overseen by the secretary of state, kris kobach. now, governor colyer sent a letter yesterday calling on him to recuse himself from the vote counting process and accusing kobach already of giving election officials incorrect information about the count. kobach, who became nationally known by crusading against voter fraud, we'll put that in quotes, recused himself today handing over his duties to a deputy.

let's be honest, folks. this is a nightmare for the gop in kansas. it's hard to see how there's any way for this primary to end without the loser feeling that the process was fair. and it's even harder to see how this doesn't hurt the eventual gop nominee in a competitive three-way general election. so let's get some help on this one. joining me now is hunter woodall, a political reporter for our friends over at "the kansas city star." hunter, wow, you've got yourself quite the story to follow here. first of all, where are we right now? how many ballots do you think we have left to count, and when are we going to see these ballots counted? >> well, chuck, like you said, it's a very fluid situation. i checked the vote total as i came in and kris kobach is still leading the governor by 182 votes but that changes by the instant as more counties are finishing counting the mail-in ballots. as long as they were received by today and postmarked on tuesday, those counting. we haven't gone through the

thousand provisional ballots that are set to be counted next week. >> is there any history on provisional ballots, is it 30% of them, 50% of them that end up being counted? is there any sort of estimation over the years about how many of those we think will be legitimate votes? >> my colleague, brian lowry, spent most of the morning trying to figure out that. we've ascertained about 60% to 70% end up being counted but it's not clear if they're democratic or republican votes so it remains to be seen how many of those will go towards this gop governor's race. >> so try to help me out here. did kris kobach fully recuse himself, because there seemed to be some confusion at first. he said i'll recuse myself but i haven't done anything yet. obviously the governor's letter was pretty tough. has he fully recused himself, and what does that mean? >> well, this process is really interesting because when we interested secretary kobach are you going to recuse himself, he kind of laughed it off the day after the election. and then governor colyer did not

demand he recuse himself in a press conference. the next day it became clear colyer said i want kris to recuse himself. then yesterday on cnn kobach said, okay, i will recuse myself. now, he passed off the duties to a deputy, eric rucker, who has a little controversial tenure in the secretary of state's office and is very much tied to kobach. my sense is from the colyer camp, they're not too happy this is the person that would be overseeing the possible recount. >> this is an election that looks like obviously there's going to be a recount. it's hard to imagine there won't be. but there is a hard deadline for the general election ballot. by federal law you've got to get this ballot and they have to mail it out. in kansas, that's friday, august 31st. it has to be certified. is there any wiggle room to august 31st or is that just it? whatever the number -- whoever is leading on august 31st is going to be the republican

nominee? >> we're still not really clear. this is not something that's come up in kansas in recent history. you've had state legislative races flipped by provisional ballots and there's one that's been decided by one vote in this cycle in a state house race but both camps are readying for a legal challenge. obviously kris kobach is an attorney. the colyer camp has signed on todd graves so it seems like they're both bracing for a legal challenge. if this keeps going on, how is this going to impact the eventual nominee, because the democrat, state senator laura kelly, and independent greg orman, this gives them more time to prep, fund raise and start challenging either colyer or kobach. >> normally a big party leader could step in and sort of calm the situation down but in this case the leader of the republican party, the sitting president, picked sides, he's with kobach. can a pat roberts -- is there somebody else, bob dole, i think

he endorsed jeff colyer. is there somebody that could be the person that sits down whoever is in second and says, hey, you can't keep dragging this out, you've got to unite the party. does that person exist in the kansas republican party anymore? >> i actually wrote about this back in february, how the kansas gop convention and it seemed like colyer and kobach were fighting to become the face of the party. pat roberts and jerry moran have been around for a while. sam brownback is now in the trump administration and there's nobody that symbolizes the face right now. obviously secretary kobach is farther right of the party and while colyer is conservative, he is a little hesitant to quite inherent that brownback mantle considering how controversial brownback's tenure was in the state. >> so handicap this for us a little bit. we've seen some polling that shows kobach would be a weaker candidate than colyer. we have the independent

businessman greg orman who many people thought was sort of ran as a de facto democrat against pat roberts back in 2014. so you have a democratic nominee, someone who is thought of as a de facto democrat and the republican nominee. what happens here? >> well, again, it's really not clear. the question gets, okay, would orman take away votes from somebody like kobach. you look at somebody like state senator laura kelly, she has forged a record of working with moderate republicans in the legislature. she's well liked by both democrats and moderate ri republicans and that's something orman doesn't have. he doesn't have that list of legislative achievements that kelly has. she helped expand medicaid in the state. obviously that failed with brownback's veto but she's made a mark as a democrat on that moderate side. orman could be an option but he could still be seen as, is he liberal, is he a centrist, it's

not quite clear given how he ran in 2014 against roberts. >> i know if i were a political reporter at "the kansas city star" i'd want some good races to cover and guess what, you've got some good races to cover. congrats on having a good beat, hunter. we'll check back with you before that august 31st deadline. up ahead, a rare weekend showdown for primaries, thanks to our friends in the aloha state. -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.

welcome back. tonight in "meet the midterms," if it's friday, someone is voting, oh, tomorrow. there is a rare saturday primary on the schedule, and it's in hawaii. we've got our eyes on a pair of very contentious democratic contests there. congresswoman hanabusa is challenging the sitting governor and is hitting him over that missile attack false alarm last january. if you recall, that alert put hawaii in a state of panic on a saturday and confusion for about 38 minutes. he said he was ultimately responsible and pointed to the human error of a low-level employee. and it's a crowded primary for the house seat. ed case is one of the better known names in the case. he represented the other house district last decade. also running is the lieutenant governor, doug chen, who led the state's push against the trump travel ban when he was the state a.g. and then there's state

representative ing leading a challenge from the left and has the backing of alexandria ocasio-corte ocasio-cortez. should be an interesting day/night. we'll be back with more "mtp daily" right after this. welcome! hi there. so, what do you look for in a vehicle? sleek designs. performance. dependability is top on my list. well then, here's some vehicles that deliver on that. woah! wow. oh jeez! that's our truck! it's our truck! and they're our cars! that's my chevy! chevy's the only brand to earn j.d. power dependability awards across cars, trucks and suvs three years in a row. awesome. i'm proud. it's like a dynasty. it's impressive. 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.

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time now for "the lid." the panel is back, yamiche alcindor, rick wilson, neera tanden. rick, we're going to touch your book here, "everything trump touches dies." there's sometimes you just can't make it up. this is not the onion, this actually happened today. jay sekulow, rudy giuliani, the president's lawyers, guest hosted sean hannity's radio show. of course the best thing to do when you're two lawyers defending the president is talk about the case on a talk radio show. they started talking about the case. let's take a listen to this

kpermt. >> flynn is the example. no crime. if it had been said, the president says go easy on him. >> which the president says -- >> he didn't say stop it, don't do it. so, no crime. however, it didn't take place according to the president. according to comey, it did. >> of course if it did, it wouldn't have mattered. >> rick, tallahassee, florida, you're next on the rudy and jay show. first of all, let's get to the specifics. they're basically saying, eh, so he obstructed justice but it's not really obstruction. >> they're hoping to litigate this and hope that they can keep up enough of this bs tornado long enough to convince the trump base that anything that comes down when the subpoena finally hits is invalid and meaningless. they're trying to normalize out obstruction of justice and perjury and all of these other things. >> has it worked? >> it's not quite -- >> with the republican base?

>> it's working with the republican base. they believe the whole thing is invalid. but robert mueller is not bound by the whims of the gop, he's bound by the law. >> yamiche, a point we wanted to make yesterday is stop looking at rudy giuliani as a lawyer and start looking at him as basically a political surrogate. campaign surrogate. >> the reason why the president hired these people were not just because he thought they had a strong legal mind, it's because they could be on television or on the radio talking and really defending him and being his bulldogs in the press. i think if you had listened to this recording and it was secretly recorded, it would be like, oh, my god, i can't believe we got this. the fact that it's out there publicly shows that they're using fox news and thinks it's a good strategy to use fox news to litigate this. >> one is running a campaign and the other is not. at some point is mueller going to regret he didn't push back a

little bit? ken starr combatted the clinton administration. >> i actually think we're undercounting how much the world will change when mueller, who has a lot of respect in the country, at least amongst skb independents and obviously democrats, has established a system in which he is not litigating this in the press, he's going to just issue a report. it will have the facts and i think the world will change the day before and the day after that report. the rita is this is a pr strategy. it's just a pr strategy. it has a political impact. the republicans cannot do anything about donald trump because the republican base is believing donald trump over the special prosecutor. at the end of the day, i think most people get that if you're innocent and the prosecutor skz

you some questions -- basically they're confessing to everything. >> let me ask you this as a floridi floridian. >> so you have a big pool of the florida voting population. >> jacksonville would disagree a little bit. >> jacksonville would disagree but there's a big ole arc over to the top of pensacola that's a very red state. we see in all the polling, all the dem grac the demographics, the older you are, the more you'll support donald trump. so far he's managed to hold up in southwest florida and north of i-4 to keep the numbers up. >> i want to go to your time because a lot of people connected with trump do get punished.

chri crisis getting out of the old crisis and we never stay on target long enough to bring him to account. we saw the inklings of it after the trial separation. we saw after hellsinki you seen he lost control with his narrative on that. when we have the mueller report and people see the depth of the obstruction and conspiracy, that is going to be a moment his narrative isn't always in his hands. >> it's a houdini quality to him. >> a wily creature. >> yes, he definitely has some skills, but i would say one

thing, which is, he doesn't have one opponent in november to just obliterate. he has all those candidates. >> i think we are the opponent, the media. >> yes you are absolutely the opponent but in these individual races he doesn't have an equal. and i think the big question for him and his base is he has basically told his base i'm a winner, i'm a winner, i was a win herb in the primaries, nobody winner in the primaries, and i beat hillary clinton. and if he loses in november the question will be if he loses both the house and senate how he will explain that to his base. >> but this man was bankrupt, he always finds a way out even when he loses. >> and i think it's also because he has laid the foundation everyone should question everything that comes out of everyone else's moung but his own. even if there's candidates that lose in november he's going to say it is a deep state strategy.

>> john brennaman and james clapper were all involved in the house. >> the lesson is they want to take away the victory, don't think i should be here and doing whatever they can to discredit me. i think will do everything they can when the report comes out. i think rudy julie annewe rude --s thank you both. be right back. are you ready to take your wifi to the next level?

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♪ saved by zero interview coming up this sunday, the former white house staffer with a new book called "unhinged" in it she says the president is racist who used the n-word during "the apprentice" and said his mental decline could not be denied. this from the white house saying she's trying to profit, this will be omarosa's first

interview we'll let you leave it up to you. that's meet with the press. "the beat with ari melber" starts right now. good evening, ari. >> chuck, i got to say i will never question you about brain storming in public you're a master of it on sundays, i do wonder if someone knew if they say were facts that long ago why go work for that person in government. >> she spends couple hundred pages trying to explain that. >> it would take a couple hundred pages, i say that with no disrespect. >> no, she's self-aware at criticisms like that. >> it's going to be what everyone thinks so much of what's happening. it's going to be fascinating to see that discussion on sunday on "meet the press". >> you got it. >> thank you, chuck. robert mueller dialing up witnesses holding one in contempt which sets up a cou