we, of course, send along our condolences to his family. that is our broadcast for this friday night and for this week. thank you so very much for being here with us. have a good weekend and good night for all of us here at nbc news headquarters in new york. >> that's katy tur after two hours of live tv. it's 4:00 in washington, d.c. we're keeping a close eye on paul manafort's trial this hour. it was on pause most of the day today as the judge in the case huddled with lawyers from both sides. it's unclear what was discussed in the hours long secretive meetings or what the delay means for manafo . but that mystery serves as a ruling from the judge that should be as a warning light to donald trump's lawyers that the russia investigation is moving full steam ahead and the public has seen only the tip of the iceberg.

the federal judge sealed a transcript on thursday of a private discussion in front of his bench after prosecutors from the special counsel's office argued they needed to protect an ongoing investigation. the conversation concerned whether investigators had questioned rick gates, the government's star witness and. manafort's long-time deputy about the trump campaign. prosecutors argued that they needed to protect the secrecy of their inquiry and limit the disclosure of new information. the judge t.s. ellis ruled in their favor. the ruling confirms what we believed to be true throughout the trial that rick gates has more to offer mueller than evidence of manafort's alleged financial crimes. and that could mean danger for trump or members of his inner circle. maybe that explains the new battle cry emanating louder than ever out of trump's orbit. >> well, i think if it isn't over by september then we have a very, very serious violation of the justice department rules that you shouldn't be conducted one of these investigations in

the 60-day period. >> this needs to be over with soon. i think it's been very bad for the country. and we're at a point in this inquiry where they can wrap it up. >> mayor, you've said and i've said we want to see this come to closure here. >> we do. it's about time that it ends. i also think and i hope the special counsel is as sensitive to it as we are. we don't want to run into the november elections. back up from that, this should be over with by september 1st. >> i think it needs to end very soon and it needs to end soon because the fair of what's taking place is irregular. that's being kind. >> from lock her up to wrap it up, that sounds like lawyer speak for we might be losing. latest evolution of their messaging strategy from no collusion to collusion isn't really a crime to let's cause the whole thing off cops as we see more signs today that mueller is zeroing in on another one-time trump ally roger stone being investigated for communicating with russians over

stolen e-mails. he seems likely to become the probe's next target. one of his close allies the man the madam testifying today while another one of stone's allies is being held in contempt of court for refusing to comply with a judge's order to testify which means he's choosing potential jail time over cooperating with robert mueller. here to help us, joyce vance law professor and msnbc contributor, frank an figliuzzi and an msnbc contributor. on set with us, reporter from "the washington post" ashley parker and mike schmidt from the "new york times." joyce, all the machinations of this i guess for a nonlawyer and someone outside this court, it seems like a bizarre trial with a very interesting character as a judge. tell us what it means that they were on pause for so long, do we know what they were doing and what are the scenarios for what

could have been going on? >> we don't know exactly what was going on. but this isn't at all unusual for trial. sometimes when you get to this point or even earlier on in a case, issues can come up. there can be the need for a lot of back and forth between the judge and the lawyers as they sort out legal issues. and sometimes you can see juries either sitting in a courtroom or back in the jury room wondering what the delay is about because the judge doesn't necessarily share it with them either if it's purely a legal issue about admissible evidence. here we had a little bit of a curiosity thinking that perhaps it might involve jurors who had begun to deliberate prematurely. the rule is the jurors aren't supposed to begin to discuss the evidence until the trial is complete complete and till they're all in the room together. they're admonished nat to talk in twos or threes but own to deliberate as an entire group. we don't know there was a problem.

the judge did give an additional instruction but they're back in the room and listening to evidence. so it looks like the parties agreed the case was ready to move forward. >> frank, i know we were pinging you all day with questions about your theorys of what this pause could have been about. can you share them with our viewers? >> my first thought was indeed, what appears on its face that is some juror may have been reported as saying or doing something inappropriate. as joyce said, this happens all the time. it can be remedied. the key for me on this is whether there's any appealable issue. it sounds like there's no disagreement between the defense and the prosecution on this. it sounds like it was an amicable agreement to resolve it. if this is what happened we move on. don't forget, there are alternate jurors if indeed this continues to happen, this is why you have alternates. you cannive sert someone and dismiss the juror who is causing an issue. this may have been it. we may be wrong. there may have been something else going on, as well. >> joyce vance, let me ask you

to weigh in on the other story we mentioned at the top of the show, this ruling this conversation could be sealed because of concerns about gates' testimony in the context of the larger ongoing investigation. >> this i think is very interesting. we also heard this week that it was possible that gates wouldn't be any jail time at all at the end of these proceedings. you'll remember he was indicted along with manafort for the whole kit and ca todkaboodle. i don't think it's by testifying in the manafort trial. frankly the government didn't really need gates to problem this case. it must be they're get activitience from him on something else. that something else is the content of those six sealed pages of the transcript from yesterday. gates was around for the republican convention. he may know details, for instance, about how the republican party platform was softened towards ukraine.

he could know about money donors to the inauguration. he could know about contact between people involved in the campaign and russians. there are a lot of possibilities for what he might be able to narrate. we'll have to remain curious a little bit longer. >> frank figure will you zi, he was around on campaign when figures like carter page were swirling around that rather chaotic campaign. george papadopoulos was around that campaign. it started as a counter intelligence investigation, something you know a little bit about. how would you use rick gates in the larger investigation into potential collusion or conspiracy with the russians to impact the 2016 campaign? what questions would you have him answer in exchange for what joyce just described potentially no or very little jail time? >> so i never thought that rick gates was all about a white collar crime case against manafort. he can answer the key question, the umbrella question of what this is all about, which is to

what extent did this campaign include with an adversarial government to impact the outcome of an election. and did the president of the united states have as his campaign chairman an agent of a foreign power. that's what gates gets to the heart of. that's what he's answering. i believe he knows the answers to those questions and has already provided them to the mueller team. >> and you reminded us today that gates was around a lot longer than manafort was. they spent a lot of their fire attacking manafort saying he wasn't around very long. but rick gates was. they haven't done nearly as effective a job of distancing themselves from all of the episodes. he was in and out of the white house for meet it is almost till he was indicted. >> that's right. rick gate was a survivor. i can remember on the campaign being told by people the president wants him fired, he's

out tomorrow. there he was. not only does he have this perch as manafort's right-hand man but he's there through the rest of the campaign. the transition, he had a role on the inaugural committee and through a close friend of trump's he was deeply involved in the day-to-day business of the white house, spotted on those 16 or 18 acres, as you said up till the day he was indicted. this is another reminder of how deep the tentacles of mueller's probe potentially go and how much we don't know. there's not a ton of concern at least yet of manafort flipping, there is more concern about a, gates has already flipped and b, what he may know. >> do you have any sense, mike, there's any growing anxiety about all these fronts they're managing now? it's the manafort trial, the ruling yesterday there is a value gates has to the larger investigation. we haven't heard much from cohen but that's unfolding. is the president there sort of

stewing, is that why we see jay and rudy all over the airwaves. >> they're keeping the press as cup as much as possible and trying to hold him back. >> he would be doing more? >> they've shown time and time again xwn that failure as he continues to tweet about it and talk about it in ways that pretty much everyone in the legal community says are damaging. why would he continue talk about such sensitive matters that relate directly to his own conduct and he continues to do it. so look, i think the president gets very upset a lot and it gets reported a lot in the press. he has to look at this and be concerned. i'm not sure what else he can do. i mean, he has one decision he could make to do that and that's to fire mueller. he doesn't seem to have the guts to do that. >> you may have waved a red flag in front of a bull. doesn't have the guts to do that. jay sekulow and rudy giuliani were on the radio when we came on air. lis. >> and when you say a perjury

trap, you've got one witness that says this is happened and another witness that raws that's not how i recall it. it happened this way. does someone write a report and say we bleen this one, not that one, thus it's perjury. >> flynn is the example. no crime. offit had been said the president says guess easy on him. >> wit president says. >> didn't say stop it, don't do it. so no crime. however, didn't take place according to president, according to comey it did. >> of course if it did it wouldn't have mattered. but you're right. >> i'm thinking my cousin vinny. why are they acting out how the president might perjure himself in interview after interview? >> this cannot be said enough, they believe the only thing that matters is public opinion. and if they can muddy the waters and make it more difficult for the average voter, the average voter will put pressure on the

people in the house of representatives, the president will not face impeachment. if they're making it more confusing, then to them they think that's effective. rudy will look at the poll numbers from before he came in and where they are now. they'll say look, we have eroded mueller's standing with voters. that is an accomplishment for us. that's how they see it. >> joyce, it seems like that is a strategy of necessity. if that's the strategy of necessity, it had seem the facts are not on their side. i think there are at least four witnesses who can corroborate the other side of what rudy is describing, who could corroborate comey as a side, andrew mccabe and others in the fbi. the larger point seems to be his own lawyers are making their client sound guilty of at least obstruction of justice and maybe making it sound like a legitimate line of inquiry to ask what he knew about the meeting with russians to get dirt on his opponent.

>> they are on the one hand. i think it's absolutely 100% accurate that all they're doing here is playing the public relations strategy. they don't want to see motivated citizens doing what they did on health care or immigration calling their representatives on the hill and demanding impeachment. they're willing in essence to sacrifice the more legal argument in favor of that strategy. but what they're describing as a perjury trap and we've discussed this before but it is utterly inane because what the government has to do is prove perjury beyond a reasonable doubt. so when have you rudy saying one person says one thing and another pesh's memory is different and then the government charges perjury, that's utter nonsense because the government will have to go into court and problem it beyond a reasonable doubt. a he said she said isn't enough. when you have perhaps a president who tweeted he knew michael flynn had lied to the fbi and then that president goes to jim comey and asks him to go

light on flynn, maybe you might be talking about obstruction and perjury in a little different manner than just this he said, she said giuliani consistently talks about. >> frank, let me get you in on this. why are they acting out the perjury scenario? that's the third time i've heard rudy do that in the context of what jim comey may have testified to about the firing. this is a spotlight. >> they know as joyce said, this is when you're deciding something beyond a reasonable doubt, you've got to put things on a scale and you have to start determining who do i believe here and is there enough credible evidence to make a conclusion. what they're afraid of is not that the president is going to fall into a trap but rather that the president is unable to tell the truth because the truth is going to jam him up. that's the problem here. and so he's going to having to lie to the mueller team if he's going to come out of this.

they know that they're trapped. it's not mueller trapping them. they have put themselves in a box. the president has said conflicting statements. it's not only a question of who do we believe. which statement of the president do we believe. this is why i'm continuing to assert he's not going to be interviewed. if he is interviewed, it will be completely on his own against all advice of counsel. i'd love to see it happen. >> no one will be there there. >> i'd love to see it happen. >> is that going to happen? >> what they also have to do, if the president doesn't do an interview and it looks difficult, they have to explain that to the public. there's going to be a political question. if you did nothing wrong, why can't you answer questions. part of softening the public releases thing is coming up with an explanation for that. that is why you see them say perjury trap. they have to say to the public, here's why he can do this thing that most people would say if he did nothing wrong, why can't you answer the question. >> that's their strategy for

ignoring a subpoena? >> yeah, because the president would have to explain. he can say this is a witch hunt over and over again but the average person will say all right, just go in and answer the questions. >> if you have nothing to hide. that's what i tell my 6-year-old. >> ashley, roger stone seems to be the person in the swirl today on the collusion side of the investigation, the manhattan madam went in and testified. another former aide is being held in contempt of court today. does that is trigger any anxiety around the don junior circle or the jared circle or any of the other individuals who are in the room with the russians who promised dirt? >> i think right now, yes and no. roger stone is pretty loyal to the president. they have a very complicated love/hate relationship that goes back decades. >> as far as we know. >> stone sort of understands the psychology of president trump better than most people inform that orbit. he said publicly so far he's not going to testify against the president. that's probably viewed as reassuring. this white house understands that people can flip like

michael cohen. >> michael flynn. >> and mike flynn and rick gates. so pretty much everybody except paul manafort have flipped. >> they're aware people can change when pressed by the feds. when you have someone self-described colorful character a practitioner of the dark arts like roger stone who plays up that idea of himself it's never great if he ends up going before mueller's team. >> does have these long ties to donald trump. it doesn't seem like a good piece of the pattern if the person who arguably was around him in the context of politics the longest was the colluder. >> not a good fact. >> frank, what would you do as an investigator if you were able to sort of put roger stone in the category of people who you can prosecute beyond a reasonable doubt if you're able to do that? where does he fit into the collusion puzzle? >> i think we've been -- because

there's been so many people to focus on, we've been ignoring the significance of stone. he's a significant player. let's not forget the whole connection to russian social media propaganda the connection toke julian assange, the wikileaks issue, hacking, all of this is encircling stone and puler is getting closer and closer. let's not forget that the manhattan madam was interviewed first voluntarily by the mueller team and then put in front of a grand jury. that tells us she said something very significant, very worthwhile and likely against stone or someone else being targeted by the mueller team. so this is a man to keep watching. i'm beginning to envision a cafeteria table in a federal prison where one guy says to the other guy, hey, what are you in for? i'm in because i couldn't rat out the president. yeah, me, too. these people are going to prison. >> that's a good tv show. you just pitched a pilot. after the break, in service of

an audience of one. the president's allies up the ante. also ahead, the one-year anniversary of the deadly protests in charlottesville is in weekend. and the president who saw good people on both sides he marked by attacking nfl players who kneel in protest. and brand-new reporting from "the washington post" about another woman allegedly offered pone 0 keep quiet about donald trump. all of that coming up. stay with us. you're turning onto the street when you barely clip a passing car. minor accident - no big deal, right? wrong. your insurance company is gonna raise your rate after the other car got a scratch so small you coulda fixed it with a pen. maybe you should take that pen and use it to sign up with a different insurance company. for drivers with accident forgiveness liberty mutual won't raise their rates because of their first accident. liberty mutual insurance. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty ♪

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♪ these are a few of my favorite things ♪ thanks, janet. it's welcomemy happy place. store. you can learn how to switch to xfinity mobile, a new wireless network that saves you cash. and you can get 5 lines of talk and text included with your internet. and over here i'm having my birthday party. dj fluffernutter, hit it! ♪ dj fluffernutter simple. easy. awesome. ask how to get $300 back when you sign up for xfinity mobile, and purchase a new samsung phone. visit your local xfinity store today. well, that's because he'd rather have a puppet as president of the united states. >> no puppet, no puppet.

you're the puppet. >> it's pretty clear -- >> first it was no puppet, you're the puppet. now maybe it's no collusion, you colluded. rudy giuliani tweeted this this morning. maybe it's time for attorney general sessions to appoint a special counsel to investigate the conspiracy to defeat donald trump by buying and disseminating fake dossiers, obtaining i lee wires and as is so often the case in the new world in which we live, giuliani has back up on capitol hill. a new report out today says the republican chairman of the house judiciary committee is readying subpoenas for people connected to the controversial steele dossier. sources tell the hill. the committee will go after other current and former fbi and d.o.j. officials including jim baker, sally moyer, jonathan moffa and george toskas, the sources said. joyce and frank are back along with ashley and mike are said. frank, you know how to say that

name if i botched. you believe him to be an important piece of this. why? >> once again, nicolle, we are seeing not oversight, but rather complete attempts to obstruct by calling as witnesses under subpoena to the hill people who -- some of whom are career public servants. jonathan moffa, for example, is a long-time career intelligence analyst in the counter intelligence division of the fbi. he's very smart. heeds been with this case since day one. so what they're doing is they have identified him by name. they are going to call him to the hill under subpoena. they are going to threaten contempt if he doesn't spill everything he knows as sensitive as it is about this case, and it's shameful that they're going to attack a public servant for political reasons. that's what we're going to watch happen here and i hope it doesn't happen. >> mike schmidt, how do they destroy the credibility of the fbi attacks land at the fbi? some of these people were, are highly regarded figures who had the bureau's interest in mind and they are now political chum in the water for rudy and the

president. >> look at the damage they've done. the director, the deputy director, the general counsel and the top counter intelligence agent. so, in that sense they've cleared out the folks the closest to this investigation. i think the fbi is as good enough of an organization that whoever replaced those folks are probably as capable. but what a deterrent and what a success it has been to hollow out the agency in the way that they have. >> but is there any fear -- all those people did that we just named, they've scrutinized the fisa application. they've scrutinized the use of the dossier and the original application. the surveillance was fruitful enough to continue to reauthorize it. is there any change how they go about doing their jobs because of these attacks? >> i don't think so. they're probably a little more nervous. do you really want to be on a big case now if you're a line fbi agent knowing you may get called before congress? you may have hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal

bills? you could turn out like pete strzok who probably has millions of dollars in legal bills. there is a deterrent to get involved. if you're the republicans i can see why they've done that. the fbi has been the greatest gift to donald trump in this story. the page and strzok text messages, between the agent leading the investigation in which he expresses this anti-trump bias, that was a very, very important thing for trump trying to turn the narrative in the other direction. >> frank, do you want to get in on that? >> it's a good question as to whether or not people will think differently or do their business differently in the fbi. and the one thing that i can think of is actually unfortunate, which is that now fbi professionals have to start thinking politically. how is this going to be perceived on the hill? how is this going to spin politically? should we be doing something to counter political appearances? i can tell you that's not how fbi professionals thought in the past. they just go about their business. the unfortunate by product of this is we are now going to have fbi professionals at all levels thinking about political repercussions and trying to

figure out what the game is going to be on the hill. >> is there anyone in the white house that's concerned about any of this, that they see, is there anyone in leg affairs, national security apparatus, the counsel's office that is ever squeamish about what the president's defenders in the house do? >> i will say very, very, very privately, there are some people who think it is wildly unhelpful, some of the sort of more overtly political initiatives that are getting started in the house. but it's certainly not something anyone would, as we discussed before, resign over or even raise concerns in a public way. >> if rod rosenstein is there in the morning, callahan or chris wray, do any of them turn on cable in the afternoon and see, goodlatte or trey gowdy really decimating the integrity of the fbi or doj and pick up the phone and say back off, i was with chris wray. he's doing his best to turnover

a new leaf is a right word, do any of them try to stop this or is it green lit? is it ordered from the white house? >> it's not ordered from the white house but i think the way a lot of people in general -- this is somewhat of a blanket statement, have learned to deal with this white house and this president as sort of tuning out what can euphemistically be described as the noise, right. it's not helpful to try to engage the president on his tweets. it's not really helpful to try to have a discussion about the latest thing that devin nunes has said. it's sort of to try to get in there and do your job and persuade or sway the president or move the institution a very tiny bit in the direction you believe it should go. and that on the whole is how people are handling a tricky situation like this. >> joyce, speaking of devin nunes, rachel maddow our colleague had an audiotape of him speaking privately. he never once said the president was innocent. he never once in private said he thought collusion was perfectly legal. he said the opposite, collusion is criminal. what he said is if we don't protect trump from all of this, this all goes away. what does that sound like to a

prosecutor or an investigator? >> whether it's technically obstruction of an investigation or not, it sounds awfully close to it. it sounds like nunes is saying we'll lie to the american people until this election is over, but then we'll come back and put an end to rod rosenstein, which means curtailing the mueller investigation. so now in advance of this election, every republican and probably democratic member in the house those up for re-election, those not up for re-election, need to be asked, will you vote for rod rosenstein to be impeached so the mueller investigation can be terminated they need to all be on record so the american people can hold them accountable. what nunes is done is just disgraceful but not particularly surprising. >> you're right about that. >> when we come back, more hush money. this time it's omarosa claiming she was offered cash to keep quiet after being fired from her white house job.

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it was always about the country. i was haunted by tweets every single day. like what is he going to tweet next. >> should we be worried? don't say that. >> because we are worried, but i need you to say it's going to be okay. >> it is not going to be okay. >> america, i'm sorry. i couldn't help it. now we get know why it's not going to be okay, because former white house aide omarosa is speaking out in a new report in the washington post. she says the trump campaign tried to stop her according to open rosa's new book and people familiar are the proposal, she was offered $15,000 in hush money after she was fired from the white house in december. quote, the proposed nondisclosure agreement said omarosa could not make any

comments about president trump or his family, vice-president pence or his family or any comments that could damage the president. it said she would do diversity outreach among other things for the campaign. omarosa turned down the offer. instead, writing a book titled, "unhinged, an insider account of the trump white house," where we called the president a racist, a bigot and misogynist. her book hits the shelves next week. good thing for us, we have a lot of friends from the washington post here today. phil rucker white house bureau chief joining us on set along with ashley parker opinion columnist jennifer ruben and political contributor jason johnson with the root.com is also here. phil rucker, it's your report. take us through it. >> so, josh read a lot of this book and it's a pretty explosive portrayal of president trump. she describes him as a narcissist, as a racist, as a bigot, as a misogynist, all the bad words. but there are some specific things -- >> did she leave anything out? >> ashley is smiling in here because we were joking in the office. there is a scene where michael

cohen comes into the oval office with omarosa. president trump according to omarosa's account actually chews pieces of paper in the oval office. so there's a lot of -- >> eating his words. >> wait, wait. let me just ask a question about this. there is so much bad news, like what would be so bad, he would eat it? >> i will just -- i will never not find that passage amusing. it's totally unverified. we should add our colleague said open rosa is widely uncredible. he did listen to some tapes omarosa made that verified what she's quoting in the book. best we can tell, there's no munching of paper. but you're right. >> can we find a sound effect of chewing? we need to play that for ashley. let me read this excerpt because it is pretty delicious. in early 2017 omarosa said she walked michael cohen -- this is so funny. sorry.

then trump's personal errant hoping to flip on the president and saw the president chewing up a piece of paper highway cohen was leaving the office. this is the president of the president of the united states. good god. i saw him put a note in his mouth since trump was ever the germ phobe, i was shocked. he appeared to be chewing and swallowing the paper. it must have been something very sensitive, she writes in the book. several white house aides laughed and said it wasn't true. why wouldn't it be true? there are all sorts of weird conduct that's happening for the first time and as mike schmidt and frank and joyce said, the defense isn't he didn't do it. it's always that he can get away with it. >> he hired this woman. the fact -- >> she's not like a media plant. >> this is a loyalist. what's bizarre is she presumably knew all this when she worked at apprentice and went along with

him anyway. why would she make things up to sell a book. >> $15,000 is not much. she should have held out for $150,000 like some of these other gals. is this credible? who knows. and at some point you have to kind of don't care. she doesn't have anything probative in terms of any of the scandals that i've heard of yet, so it is amusing i suppose at some level. it is indicative of the fact this president was surrounded by low life, by people who were not competent, by people who were not professional, not honest, and maybe it's going to come back to haunt him. >> jason, i was thinking about how his supporters might do -- view this. as jennifer says, she was a loyalist. >> yes. >> she was a lifer. she was on board for the duration of the campaign. she did defend him against all of the attacks, attacks for being racist, attacks after access hollywood, i think she was still out there for -- this is a defender and a loyalist turning on him. and i wonder if within that -- this is not, you know, someone from the media. this is not someone that came in

and wrote a tell-all. this is someone from deep inside his inner circle. >> i say this as someone who has had a lot of conversations with her during the campaign. none of the stuff about him being racist is surprising. i remember her saying that to me during the debates. so none of this is shocking. as far as being a loyalist, no one actually thought she was loyalist. she was loathed among african-american republicans. none of them liked her. she was not liked very much in the campaign. she wasn't a loyalist. she was a hanger on when it comes to donald trump. like most people when it comes to donald trump, if it's not financially viable, $15,000, she can get that in a speaking fee in certain sections. i'm not surprised by any of this. betrayal is the standard when it comes to this president. working with him, if it doesn't payoff, you have to stab him in the back. >> do you think this book -- sarah huckabee sanders put out a response that was eerily similar to what she put out in "fire and fury." instead of telling the truth about all the good president

trump and his administration are doing to make america safe and prosperous, this book is riddled with lies. sound like her briefings. it's sad she is trying to profit off the attacks and the media is giving her a platform. we didn't give her a platform. he did. even worse, they're not taking her seriously -- let me see. we don't take a lot of you seriously. so much wrong with that. phil rucker, the way to say about a book, what you're all saying, is to ignore the book. this is not the way to respond to a book that you're not worried about. >> i imagine we're going to hear from the president at some point. he's not going to let meese grunls occur silently. one of the problems the white house has is they don't have credibility because of the 18 months of the presidency so far where they've told the american people things that are not true. >> right, right. >> again and again and again. so if they're now saying this book can't be taken seriously, they're not credible -- >> it's like two tarantulas in a bowl. who do you root for?

it's like the white house lies. >> not credible. >> who is? what's the answer? >> probably neither one of them so you don't believe either one of them. phil brings up a good point. this is exactly what they did to push the last tell-all book to the top of the charts. >> right. >> so having sarah huckabee sanders tweet about it or put out a statement and better yet having the president tweet about it, that is what omarosa is praying for because that means she's going to sell more books. >> and i think it would be an elite fairy tale to think people aren't going to buy it because they think she's a low life. people are curious. he's the president of the united states. she's a famous reality star person, i think. >> realistically speaking, she has one of the longest relationships with him of anybody in this white house right now outside of his family. omarosa was the first apprentice, 2002 or something like that. if there is anyone who actually knows him, it is her. so that part is reasonably credible. but again, i don't think from what i've heard, i don't hear anything that we haven't already heard. i interviewed some of the black members of the apprentice

including the one who comes on msnbc. everyone says even if they haven't heard him say these kinds of things, no one has said that they're surprised. no one said they're surprised. i don't know she's telling all. she's reminding us of what we already know. >> and what she saw. it's either the greatest trump troll. the attorney for stormy daniels is making a serious run for the presidency. that story is next. troll. i woke up in memphis and told... (harmonica interrupts)

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i think it's really important that the democrats, whoever they nominate, he better be a fighter. i think i've shown a unique ability the last five or six months to take the fight to donald trump. in the event i decide to run, that's going to be a big part of my message. >> out of the courtroom and into the critically important early voting state of iowa, michael avenatti, attorney for adult film actress stormy daniels has taken a big step to introducing himself to voters today. he will speak at the iowa wing ding in an hour. i spoke to him about an hour before we came on the air and

asked him if he thinks he can win. he said, quote, there is a handful of people who can beat donald trump, i think i'm one of them. democrats have made a mistake by underestimating trump by thinking he can't win again or he only won because of 0,000 votes in a few states. an opponent who can connect with voters to defeat him, i think i can. voters will make that determination, of course, but i got a sneak peek at his prepared remarks tonight and they hit a lot of the right notes, telling his personal story, talking about shaking up washington and bringing more nonpoliticians into d.c. but running for president your first campaign is straight up crazy, right? donald trump didn't think so. will it work for michael avenatti? the panel is still here. what do you think? >> it could. i mean -- >> every time i was like, no, it can't. this is trolling trump. you know, someone said that -- we all said that about trump. i said that about trump. >> trump made it happen in the republican party a few years ago. you look at the field of democrats and avenatti is the

one who stands out, he's not a politician or a senator or a governor or a mayor or what have you. if he gives the base what they're looking for and shows that he can go toe to toe with trump, he'd have a chance. >> i think the determining sort of factor for him will be what do democrats value most? if they decide they value a fighter most, people would be foolish to under estimate michael avenatti. >> i have always said they need a fighter. that's why i said, whether it's elizabeth warren, governor of virginia, you need someone who is actually going to go head to head with donald trump. you need someone who is not going to try and take the high road because the high road doesn't work with this guy. to be honest with you, an avenatti/holder ticket who knows if that ends up being effective one way or another. i don't think we're at a pount anymore and this is important to remember when you're running against a president who is already in office. democrats will want to win. whoever they think can win regardless of what his or her background might be, that person can be ahead. if avenatti can give a good speech, why not? >> the asymmetry seemed to be what led the 16, 17 republicans

who ran against him and ultimately hillary clinton to lose. they tried running factually accurate ads. donald trump didn't say anything factually accurate. they gave speeches. they prepared for their debates. he didn't do any of those things and he won. >> i think this is a really bad idea. simply because donald trump ran as a celebrity and has become the worst president in history doesn't mean the democrats should duplicate it. democrats are different than republicans. they do care about governance. they do care about some of the policy issues. i think looking at him, democrats would and should be insulted that he thinks he can come into their party at the last moment and run for president. >> it's not at the last moment. it's 2018. >> he's not been a political in his career, in his life. at the last moment, he hasn't been a democrat operative, he hane been au democratic candidate at any level. they better get a decent person. >> who is it? >> they haven't found one yet. they're going to go out looking. they have mayors, they have

governors, they have senators. i really haven't seen anyone who grabs you by the throat. >> i haven't met, ashley parker, a democrat who feels good about their pool for 2020. i haven't met a democrat who fees good about bernie sanders. other than people who like bernie sanders. i haven't met a democrat who likes their odds with anybody else. i'm not advocating for another person who hasn't worked in politics. i'm just saying, why not. >> there are a lot of things as we know running for president the democrats still value. understanding policy and someone who can withstand -- >> i've been to the movie. i can tell the democrats how it ends. care about national security, fair. >> the one thing i will say is compelling about him is democrats, whoever they nominate, will need to be someone who understands the trump psychology, who can go one on one with him and who isn't going to be dismissed by a silly nickname or being called sleepy. michael avenatti has shown, keep in mind all those women came out during the campaign. they did not breakthrough. it was not until he began

representing these women with his tactics that he was able to bring that issue to the forefront. does that qualify for him to be the nominee for the democrats as president? has the showmanship that the president has which is important in going head to head with him. >> i this i we live in a post qualification era. no offense, michael avenatti. up next, one year after charlottesville, the president wading into his favorite culture war again. i didn't think anything was going to work for me until i tried chantix. chantix, along with support, helps you quit smoking. chantix reduced my urge to smoke. i needed that to quit. when you try to quit smoking, with or without chantix, you may have nicotine withdrawal symptoms. some people had changes in behavior or thinking, aggression, hostility, agitation, depressed mood, or suicidal thoughts or actions with chantix. serious side effects may include seizures, new or worse heart or blood vessel problems,

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several nfl players last night took a knee or raised their fist during the national anthem. one of those was malcolm jenkins of the philadelphia eagles, the team that had its visit to the white house in june cancelled by trump, who wasted no time this morning pouncing on one of his favorite talking points tweeting, quote, the nfl players are at it again, taking a knee when they should be standing proudly for the national anthem. find another way to protest. be happy, be cool, stand proudly for your national anthem or be suspended without pay. i want to read something else he said. he said most of them, the players, are unable to define what their outrage is about. that seems to me -- what does that seem like to you? >> it's just a lie. it's just more racism from the president of the united states. i think what's really interesting, there was an article in the ringer where they interviewed aaron rodgers. he's like america's golden boy. even aaron rodgers says this is nonsense. this is nonsense.

he said we didn't even come out for the pledge when i was behind brett favre. all of this is a creation of right-wing white nationalists who want to attack african-american players for being ungrateful. that's what the president wants to do, that's the reason he's talking about it and all the rest of the owners are capitulating. and it doesn't effect the game. so it's obvious it's for political purposes, not for any practical financial reason. >> this is one step above laura ingraham saying it's the america that she has lost. the degree to which the republican party now turns on race, on xenophobia is one of the things we find horrifying. it's the only card they have to play. they still believe it's a base election, they still believe they have to turn out their people and the way to do it is always going back to the race issue. it's not taxes, it's not trade, it's race. they go back to it again and again. >> i get the politics, i don't get the moral compass. where's paul ryan, where's mitch mcconnell. where are the guys who used to

run as politicians with character. there are none. >> this goes a little bit to what we talked about earlier in the show that people have decided that the best way to deal with this president is to sort of stay quiet and to not pick fights. you make a fair point, there are a lot of people we look to, whether it was the policy arbiters or the moral barometers. there's a few of them, but often these are people who are leaving congress or who are retiring or who have some other reason to be outspoken but there's not that many of them. the president has also shown that you thought -- he took on lebron james the night there he -- before he was heading to ohio. he's taken on the nfl. a sport that is huge with his base. so far there have been no major repercussions with him. if you're one of these politicians who is not a profile in courage and you look at the situation, you don't have much incentive to come out. >> it does seem, though, like

when women have to go to the polls, there will be a -- these are cumulative. these attacks are racist. they are against people who are not sticking their toe into politics. they're exercising their first amendment rights to peaceful protests. >> and we're at the one-year anniversary of charlottesville. everyone remembers what the president said about charlottesville and what he didn't say which he didn't forcefully condemn it and he hasn't forcefully used his bully pulpit to condemn racism in our country. sunday there's going to be a protest of white supremacists right near the white house and he's said nothing about it. so he's judging about how professional athletes decide to protest but he says nothing about how kkk members or white supremacists decide to protest. that's an absence of the kind of leadership that we're used to seeing from people who were president. >> and worse than anything nothing, he said good people on both sides. we'll be right back. and i don't add up the years. but what i do count on... is staying happy and healthy.

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my thanks for phil rucker, jennifer rubin, jennifer johnson and ashley parker. that does it for our hour. i'm nicolle wallace. see you back here monday at 4:00 p.m. this is an msnbc special series. white lives matter. >> hate is on the rise in america. it's em bompt-- normalized. >> the government is nothing compared to the jewish menace. >> and destroying lives. >> there are people who will say, once a nazi, always a fana and that you cannot change who you are. >> but i know change is possible. from the age of 14-22, i helped build america's