expert medicine works here. learn more at cancercenter.com cancer treatment centers of america. appointments available now. my thanks to the r emmiev, zerlina, jonathan and steve. "mtp daily" starts right now with katy tur. >> if it's thursday, as the queen of soul would say, who's zooming who. tonight, here we go again. why it seems president trump is once again admitting to obstruction of justice, this time over security clearances. >> look, i thought it was just kind of a banana republic kind of thing. >> plus, has the white house chain of command devolved into a chain of foolishness? >> donald trump has met his match. >> and the war on the free press. how newspapers across the

country are standing up to the president's attacks. this is "mtp daily" and it starts right now. ♪ freedom, freedom ♪ freedom, oh freedom >> not bad theme music today. good evening, i'm katy tur in new york in for chuck todd. welcome to "mtp daily." just like that, the president pretty much blows up his own cover story and potentially exposes himself to further legal jeopardy. folks, before the ink was barely dry on the white house's stated reason for revoking john brennan's security clearance and threatening to revoke the clearances of other trump critics, the president said he did it because of, you guessed it, the russia investigation. the white house said the president was acting to protect the nation's classified

information. then the president told us that he was basically settling scores with people connected to bob mueller's investigation, an investigation in which he is a subject. here is what he told "the wall street journal" about his actions. quote, i call it the rigged witch hunt. it is a sham and these people led it, so i think it's something that had to be done. these people that he's punishing and threatening include possible witnesses against him in robert mueller's investigation. like james comey, andrew mccabe, and sally yates, who have all reportedly testified in mueller's probe. these people also include witnesses in congressional investigations. comey, mccabe and yates have all spoken to congress, so have john brennan, james clapper, susan rice and peter strzok. prosecutors will tell you that they often look for patterns in the behavior of the people they're investigating. we don't know what mueller knows, but we know what our own eyes have seen, which is a

president constantly doing things and saying things that look like an attempt to interfere with this investigation. and there's no cloak and dagger in this particular instance. the president seems to be saying, yes, this is exactly what it looks like. joining me is mimi rocah, former assistant u.s. district for the southern district of new york and an msnbc legal analyst. and tonight's panel, kasie hunt, host of "kc d.c." sunday nights, susan del percio, republican strategist, and democratic strategist, aisha moody-mills. welcome, everybody. mimi, first to you. would prosecutors be interested in the president's admitting that he punished a witness in his investigation, the russia investigation, because of the russia investigation? >> absolutely, katy. and there's a couple of points to make here.

first of all, obstruction of justice, witness tampering, can be based on retaliation. it's explicit in the statute. i don't want to get too far into the weeds, but i just think it's important for people to know that given the language that trump used when he admitted why he was revoking the security clearance and why he's threatening to revoke it as to other people who have been and could potentially be witnesses. he's talking about it in very retaliatory terms. and so while we traditionally think of witness tampering as someone threatening or trying to stop someone from speaking, that can be done through retaliation, and the statute talks about it. we also should remember that it isn't just about the fbi investigation. as you said in the setup here to the show, it's about the congressional testimony, congressional hearings, the statutes all explicitly look at that. so he's really, i think, just given a lot more fodder to the idea that many of the things he's been doing when you take

them altogether, whether it be trying to fire mueller or talking about firing mueller, threatening jeff sessions, firing comey, the trump tower false story and now all this, they all go in a bucket together that looks like obstruction. >> let's talk about that larger body of evidence and what he has done, guys. trump said he revoked the security clearance of brennan because he didn't like the russia probe. he said he's threatening the clearances of others who some of whom are witnesses. he said he had tapes and threatened comey with tapes. he publicly pressured his a.g. multiple times on twitter and the like to shut down the russia probe. he's publicly pressured mueller and his team to end the probe, clear him and instead investigate hillary clinton. he's privately ordered mueller be fired and he dictated a misleading statement for his son aboard air force base one. that looks like a big deal. and yet republicans are shr

shruggishru shrugging their shoulders at this. >> you're right. especially on this brennan question, which is the one we've been asking today, should the president be doing this, doesn't this set a dangerous press dentin -- precede precedent. a few weeks ago bob corker said this is banana republic stuff. but you've seen republican after republican say this is the president's prerogative. >> you ask paul ryan this and -- >> he said that the president was just trolling us. >> i know the house is not back in session, but has there 99 any reaction from paul ryan? >> we have reached out to paul ryan's office. there has been no additional reaction to my knowledge at this point. we are obviously following him out on the campaign trail and will ask him next week. >> what do you guys think? >> i've never heard silence from you two at least. >> at the end of the day, the president was in his right to do

it, i agree with that. it's just fundamentally wrong that he's using that right. and he's seeking to punish people associated with an investigation. it also shows exactly why in that interview that the president of the united states, donald trump, will never go in front of mueller. there's just no way. he cannot keep his stories right. he cannot help himself from trying to explain this russia probe any time anyone doesn't ask him about it but has a reporter in front of him. >> what about the larger pattern here, mimi, and the way the white house will say one thing, give a reason for one thing, say the firing the james comey, and the way the president will turn back on that and say, no, no, no, i was thinking of the russia investigation. or the white house saying it's national security, that's why they revoked brennan's security clearance. and the president in the same day doing an interview with "the wall street journal" saying it's all a wnitch hunt and he led th

witch hunt and that's why i fired him. >> first of all, a mixed motive doesn't change anything. so if someone is going to be charged or we're going to put this under the blanket of obstruction of justice, it doesn't have to be that 100% of your motive in doing it was to interfere, slow down, obstruct an investigation. it can be a mixed motive. but obviously you would need to show that you did have the intent to do the thing that we're saying here, obstruction. and i think the pattern that we see here is that trump, when he's left to his own devices, kind of spontaneously says what i think is true, which is, yeah, i'm doing this because of russia. but then his lawyers or the white house, they try to walk it back and give some legitimate reason. or semi legitimate. and i think that the changing stories, it all goes to the consciousness of guilt. that's definitely something people look at. why do you keep changing your story? why do you have to keep going from one explanation to another if you're not hiding something?

>> so the thing that comes up for me, katy, i've been thinking all day about the fact that he keeps telling a story. why do we keep hearing from this president? where's the staff? i'm thinking about white houses past. there actually is staff that handle -- one, his attorneys should actually be handling how he is responding to anything legal going on around him. also, staff should have taken his phone a long time ago. i seem to remember when barack obama couldn't use his iphone. >> he's not going to let anybody do that. i was talking to a former white house staffer today and asking them who is saying no to him. no, don't do these interviews. the person laughed and said nobody is saying that. i said why not? because he's never going to listen to anybody. >> but he surrounds himself with all these really good people -- >> with the world's best people but he would still ignore them. >> they're doing a really horrible job in their position because they can't control the president. >> they're not allowed to control -- the president does his own thing.

i understand your point about staffing. to compare this to any other white house is just -- we can't. we cannot compare what we're seeing in this white house to any other presidency. this white house distinctly has no respect for the oval office or the people they serve, period. so there's no way that they can go forward and do a job respectfully and with honor. >> they can't just leave the white house and say what they think either and they can't speak out publicly while they're in the white house because they're legally required to say nice things about him because he's forcing everybody to sign nondisclosure agreements. while it might not be enforceable, i'm sure there are people in that white house who don't want to test whether or not it is enforceable. >> and you talk about staff in the white house, that's one thing that has marked this administration in a way that it rarely does elsewhere. almost everyone who's left and many people still serving have leem teams to get ready for whatever is coming from mueller that are putting them thousands

of dollars in debt. >> that's a good point. >> wow. >> let's read a part of what brennan said in "the new york times." he's got an op-ed. mr. trump's claims of no collusion are in a word, hogwash. the only questions that remain are whether the collusion that took place constituted criminally liable conspiracy, whether obstruction of justice occurred to cover up any collusion or conspiracy and how many members of trump incorporated attempted to defraud the government by laundering and concealing the movement of money into their pockets. so this is john brennan saying this. mimi, does that make you think it's a foregone conclusion that robert mueller will report that there was collusion? >> well, i think it's a foregone conclusion that he will report there's collusion, but i think brennan is absolutely correct in pinpointing is it legally criminal conspiracy. collusion, we've all seen it already, right? the taking the trump tower meeting to get dirt on hillary clinton. that is colluding with the russians. asking the russians to go find

e-mails from hillary clinton's e-mails, that is collusion. and there's so many more examples, those are just two that we've talked about so much. >> you say we've seen publicly collusion, the don junior tower meeting as one example. what's the line between that's, i guess, legal collusion or maybe could be legal collusion and what brings that into illegal collusion? >> so what would make it a criminal conspiracy depends really on sort of what they knew at the time they were doing it. did they know that the russians were trying to interfere in the election when they were doing this? did they know that the russians were trying to help trump when they were doing this? again, i think we've already seen some evidence of that, but i think mueller knows much more. so i do think it is likely that certainly donald trump jr., i think roger stone and likely president trump could be put into a criminal conspiracy. the one that mueller has already

charged with the russians. >> so on that note, though, omarosa has told me that she knows the president knew about the wikileaks release of the e-mails before wikileaks released them. she was asked again today, pressed, how do you know that? she wouldn't give any evidence, but she did seem to imply that the evidence she has, she's already given to robert mueller. i was just talking to chuck rosenberg off camera a moment ago and he said if she really is coordinating or cooperating, excuse me, with robert mueller's team, there's just no way she would go on television and talk about it. >> well, i think that's probably right. there's no way she should go on television and talk about it if she's coordinating with mueller. i guess that doesn't necessarily mean she wouldn't. she is refusing to answer certain questions that would be way over the line if she's working with mueller. but look, if her -- if she really has some kind of proof other than just her say-so that he knew about wikileaks ahead of time, that would almost make it in my view a slam dunk type of

case. so what we've been all talking about and debating and is it a criminal conspiracy is really assuming you don't have sort of a smoking gun like that. >> kasie, last word, 20 seconds. >> you know, this is -- i feel like we say this over and other and over again in the trump presidency, that this feels like uncharted territory. i also feel like a lot of the conversations that we are having around these issues are picking up on little bits and pieces that are floating out of the robert mueller investigation. when he is in fact painting an entire picture. and i think the overarching and most important question is whatever he comes up with is clear enough that the american people will accept whatever that conclusion is regardless of what rudy giuliani, the president and highs legal team are saying about it, because that is the strategic battle that's going on right now. >> and will the republicans in congress who have so far -- >> that too. but that's going to depend i think on where the people are. i mean we don't want to make too many direct watergate

comparisons here, but the turning point for richard nixon after this investigation was when republicans in congress turned against him. they did that because republican voters across the country turned on the president. >> good point. kasie hunt, susan, aisha, stay with us. mimi rocah, thank you very much. we're following breaking news in the paul manafort trial. the jury just asked a note be delivered to the judge and paul manafort has been brought back into the courtroom. we're not quite sure what this means yet but we'll have a live report from the courthouse straight ahead. plus, turning on trump. omarosa has yet another secret tape revealed here on msnbc and it is just the latest drama exposing a vicious inner circle at the white house. ♪ this is a story about mail and packages. and it's also a story about people. people who rely on us every day to deliver their dreams they're handing us more than mail they're handing us their business and while we make more e-commerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country,

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but hurry in. 'cause crabfest will be gone in a snap. welcome back. some breaking news right now inside the court house where the jury is deliberating in the paul manafort trial. manafort is in the courtroom, but we don't know why as of yet. the jury has delivered a note to the judge with four questions. manafort faces 18 counts of tax and bank fraud. that includes multiple counts of falsifying tax returns, failing to file reports on foreign bank accounts, bank fraud and conspiracy to commit bank fraud. manafort could end up spending the rest of his life in prison if he is convicted. i'm joined now by nbc news intelligence and national security reporter ken dilanian from outside the court house. ken, what's going on? >> reporter: so, katy, this is the first we've heard from the jury all day. they have submitted four questions to the judge. we have the judge's answers.

the most interesting question is they are essentially asking can you define reasonable doubt, which of course goes to the heart of the case and their obligation. they have to find manafort guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, if that's going to be their find, and the judge answered the government is not required to prove beyond all possible doubt, just doubt that can be reasoned. this is a common question that juries have, something that juries grapple with. the law doesn't require them to have no doubt, just no reasonable doubt. they also asked a complicated question about foreign bank account ownership, which goes to the heart of some of these charges. manafort is charged with not declaring the foreign bank accounts that he owned on his tax return. it's pretty obvious that that's what happened. but there is some dispute about one particular account where he had less than 50% ownership and they asked is one required to file this, it's called an f bar, foreign bank account report if they own less than 50%.

that's a question that could be favorable to the defense. that's an argument that the defense raised that maybe manafort didn't have to file this particular report. they also asked a question about defining a shelf company which came up in the trial. the judge told them to rely on their collective recollection. lastly, they asked whether the exhibit list can be amended to include the indictment. that's a strange question because the jury has access to the indictment. that's at the heart of the case. that's the charges the prosecutors have brought. my understanding is that the judge dismissed the jury for the day. while both sides can talk about exactly what they perceive of those questions. >> so why is paul manafort currently inside the courtroom? >> that we don't know, but he is entitled to be present when the two sides argue about jury questions and how the judge will answer them so i can only speculate that's part of the reason. >> so we will not be getting a verdict today. that's the short answer? >> that's pretty clear, katy. they're coming back tomorrow it looks like. >> in terms of exhibits, ken, we know that they have to go

through quite a few documents. they had to request a larger space to do that? >> reporter: well, actually they requested a larger space for their comfort level. they were in a pretty small jury room during the trial, kind of their holding room where they wait to go into the court room. they asked to deliberate in a larger room so they're in a conference room. they do have dozens if not hundreds of individual documents to go through, including photographs they had not seen during the trial, photographs of that famous ostrich jacket and the python jacket that manafort spent those thousands of dollars on as well as reams of e-mails and bank and tax records. this is a complicated case. what these questions show is that they're grappling with some of this evidence and there clearly is not unanimous agreement to convict on day one, katy. >> ken dilanian, thank you very much. ahead on "mtp daily," the world loses a truly iconic voice. remembering the life and legacy of aretha franklin.

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franklin, one of the greatest voices of our time. franklin died this morning. the iconic r & b singer had been suffering from pancreatic cancer and was on hospice care. franklin's career as a performer spanned six decades. it began in detroit where she sang gospel music in her father's church. she would go on to win 18 grammys, a kennedy center honor, a presidential medal of freedom and countless other awards. franklin last performed in detroit back in 2017 in june. she planned to hold concerts earlier this year too until doctors advised her not to. she sang at inauguration in 2009, marking the election of the first black president. ♪ let freedom, freedom ring ♪ yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ let it ring ♪ let it ring

>> the former president tweeted earlier today saying in part in her voice we could feel our history, all of it, and in every shade our power and our pain, our darkness and our light, our quest for redemption and our hard-won respect. president trump tweeted as well saying she was a great woman with a wonderful gift from god. her contributions to music are too numerous to mention. among her legendary hits, "i say a little prayer," "chain of fools," "think," "respect," and "natural woman." aretha franklin took gospel out of the church and brought it to the charts. aretha franklin, the queen of soul, was 76. ♪ you make me feel ♪ you make me feel like a natural woman ♪ (ford chime)

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i'm kate rogers with this cnbc market wrap. u.s. stocks rallied on strong earnings athe u.s. and china announced plans to resume trade talks later this month. the dow soared 396 points. that is its best one-day rise since april 10th. the s&p rose 22 points and nasdaq rose 32 points. >> walmart said sales was the strongest in over a decade who saw online sales climb 40% during the quarter. that's it from cnbc, first in business worldwide. now back to "mtp daily." this is just the beginning of the type of corruption that's going on in trump world, and i am here to blow the whistle. >> what kind of other corruption? >> you know, there are things that i write about and then

there are things that i'm going to save to share when the time is right. >> welcome back. leaks, tapes, blind quotes and court battles. it's another day or episode of president trump's inner circle. this afternoon former white house aide omarosa manigault newman released another tape that she said depicts president trump's daughter-in-law and 2020 campaign official lara trump attempting to buy my silence by offering her a job with the trump campaign days after she left the white house. lara trump responded in a statement that says in part, we never would have imagined that one of our own was secretly recording all of our private conversations. i hope it's all worth it for you, omarosa, because some things you just can't put a price on. this latest release comes as the president is reportedly furious with manigault newman. a source told gabe sherman in "vanity fair" that president trump told advisers that he wants attorney general jeff sessions to have manigault

newman arrested. joining me now is sam nunberg, former political advisor to the president before and then during the 2016 campaign. let's talk about the culture of back stabbing at the white house. you have omarosa making tapes or just back stabbing in donald trump's inner circle. you have michael cohen making tapes. you have 24 people talking to "the washington post" on any given day about what's going on in the white house. does the fish rot from the head here? >> look, i must have been naive. i never taped or recorded. in fact when i had a conversation recorded that was played back to the president, i said to him you have no problem that i was taped and he said no problem with it. >> is the president taping people? >> i don't know. >> you told me that you were warned by folks, hey, if you walk into donald trump's office before he was president, he might be taping you. >> yeah, i had been warned. i've been warned by people outside of the trump organization in new york culture, it's known that he likes to tape. >> why would he do that?

>> lots of business people do, katy. this is things done in new york, in real estate, wall street, lawyers. it's a one-party consent state. >> is that why omarosa or michael cohen would be taping him? >> i think michael, michael did not tape donald trump maliciously i don't believe. i think michael taped donald trump to memorialize his relationship so that he could five years from now, eight years from now or even could play it to someone -- >> but he's also taping conversations with journalists, so is it to memorialize conversations with journalists also? >> michael never taped donald trump because he was worried about covering himself for legal exposure or something along those lines. i don't believe that. i think omarosa is omarosa. be careful around her. >> but could it also be, and this is the way that people describe the president. he is loyal to you for as long as he needs you. you've had firsthand experience with that. >> yes, i have. >> and he expects and demands loyalty back. but when he decides he doesn't

need you any longer, you're cut loose, you're nothing to him. so this culture of leaking, of covering your own behind of taping. >> right. >> could that be because folks realize that at some point he's going to take the bus and back over them with it? >> look, i think in omarosa's case, i think that she feels -- i said to gabe sherman in that article, hell hath no fury like omarosa scorned. this whole idea that she shouldn't have been taping in the stat room i have no problem because i think kelly mishandled that situation. then after that when they told her subsequently, well, we didn't know about it. perhaps they did, perhaps they didn't. it wasn't the way to handle it with somebody like omarosa. i think it was a critical mistake. i think that kelly, by the way, is one of the people that's actually prodding the president to try to arrest her. >> you think kelly is telling

the president to tell jeff sessions to arrest that? >> i've heard that from other people. >> other than just hearing it from rumor, are these reliable sources you're hearing it from? >> yes. >> that's a pretty serious allegation. >> they think it's a national security violation. >> in talking about the white house and the culture there shall it's not just -- it's not just recording people, you have married couples who are willing to back stab each other, at least one person who works in the white house. listen to -- or look at what kellyanne conway said about her husband and his tweets, because george conway has been tweeting at times about the president not flattering things. so she's doing an interview with a "washington post" reporter and the reporter says you told me you found your husband, george's, tweets disrespectful. conway, it is disrespectful, it's a violation of basic decency, certainly, if not marital vows as a person familiar with their relationship. reporter, no, we're on the record here. you can't just say after the fact as someone familiar.

i told you everything about his tweets was off the record, she says. reporter, no, that's not true. it never happened. conway, well, people do see it this way. people do say it that way. i don't say i do, but people see it that way. reporter, but i'm saying we never discussed everything about his tweets being off the record. there are things you said that i put off the record. conway, fine. i've never actually said what i think about it. i won't say what i think about it which tells you what i think about it. she said a moment ago what she thought about it. >> look, i think it wasn't fair that they asked her about this. >> she invited the reporter into their home. george conway's tweets are out there. of course she's going to be asked about it. it's a features reporter. a reporter talking about the lifestyle and their marriage. >> i think it's a difficult situation. you know, i don't know what goes on -- >> regardless of what you think about it, what about kellyanne conway saying something derogatory or slagging off her

husband and then trying to do it as somebody familiar with their relationship. >> well, i think she's in a very difficult position too and that goes within the white house and the dynamics of the white house. i am sure other people, her adversaries, bring her husband's tweets to the president or makes sure that he sees them and it's not a fair situation to her. >> she immediately tried to withdraw her remarks with disinformation. how low will people go in this white house? >> look, i like kellyanne a lot. you know, i -- >> isn't it just an example of the way they behave and what they value? >> this is very -- you know, this white house, the minute they have all gone in, they have been under a lot of scrutiny. then you have this independent counsel as well. now you're looking at me like this. i don't think that she should have done the interview to begin with or a feature with her husband in light of the tweets. with that said, it's a difficult position that she's in. >> let's talk about what you're doing now. >> yes. >> you're working with steve bannon for the midterm elections. >> i'm glad we're aoff all that >> you're trying to save the house for president trump.

i find it interesting because in the past you've said some pretty horrible things about the president. you've called him an idiot, an f'ing fool, a man that's devoid of character. is trump a good person, an intelligent person, a capable person asked sam nunberg. i don't even know. but i know he's a star. >> no, i said i knew he was going to be elected president. >> why do you want to help a man you describe that way to win back the house? >> i think he's been a very good president. with that said as well, this is his first re-elect. when you look at the fact that you have democrats only need to win 24 seats, 25 districts which hillary clinton has won, everybody is forecasting this will be some kind of blue wave. i don't believe it, we'll see. i think that there are institutional problems. as we were talking off camera, this goes to whether or not he will be impeached or not. and i think that in terms of that, there are a lot of constitutional issues, there are a lot of constitutional issues,

there's nullification and from the point of view of his actions as president, these are issues that i think he can win on. >> is bannon back in touch with the president? >> i don't know. >> sam nunberg. always good to see you. thanks for coming on. tomorrow, steve bannon himself speaks exclusively with ari melber at 10:00 p.m. eastern right here on msnbc. and ahead, the gop brings out the heavy artillery. how republicans are using everything they have got to keep the house. 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. plus, it freshens breath. biotène. immediate and long lasting dry mouth symptom relief.

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welcome back. today in "meet the midterms" it's only august and republicans are already spending big to try to disqualify democratic house candidates. just yesterday the congressional leadership fund, a super pac backed by house republican leaders, released at least five different ads hitting democrats, like this new radio spot against randy bryce, who just won the democratic nomination in speaker paul ryan's wisconsin district. >> we have a drunk driver in custody. >> can we get an i.d. on him? >> his name is randy bryce. repeat offender. >> nine arrests? randy bryce has no business making the laws. he's spent his life breaking the law. >> or this ad against first-time candidate andy kim, who's running against new jersey republican congressman tom mcarthur.

>> meet washington insider andy kim. kim spent his adult life in d.c. in fact, kim still keeps his home there. now kim wants our congressional seat. >> here's why this matters. republicans are facing a challenging political environment and they are not waiting until the fall to throw the kitchen sink at democrats. this is what you do when you're behind, sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. we'll be right back. ♪ ♪ ♪ raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens ♪ ♪ bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens ♪ ♪ brown paper packages tied up with strings ♪ ♪ these are a few of my favorite things ♪ ♪ ♪

but prevagen helps your brain with an ingredients ♪ originally discovered... in jellyfish. in clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve short-term memory. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. these are very dishonest people, many of them. they are very, very dishonest people. fake news, fake news. they are fake. they can make anything bad, because they are the fake, fake, disgusting news. >> those right there were just some of president trump's attacks on the media over the past four months. today in "the lid" the media

responds to those attacks with "the boston globe" taking the lead and asking editorial boards from papers across the country to address the assault on the free press. more than 400 news outlets in 49 states responded with editorials in support of that case. with us now is linda henry, the "boston globe's" managing director. the panel is also back, kasie hunt, susan del percio and aisha moody-mills. linda, do you think it's a good idea or why do you think it's a good idea? >> i do, i think it's a good idea. this is an unprecedented increase in rhetoric against the media. what this is doing is it's galvanized them in their own words to explain why they matter. and the response was really terrific. if you read them, there's just such a variety of voices in terms of a lot of media outlets were connecting them to their community and saying we're fellow americans, we're your neighbors. the language that's being used is incredibly dehumanizing.

to say the enemy of the people, it sees other as this otherness. this was a chance to remind citizens of the function of the press that's often taken for granted. >> can you argue that -- isn't it better to remind voters and citizens the function of a free press is just being a free press and not making yourselves a -- not a target, but not calling attention to the president's allegations of collusion by making it look like there's a coordinated effort to push back on him? are you concerned about that? >> well, that's definitely something that we thought about, but we have a choice. so we've been taking it. it's been coming, these attacks on this increased rhetoric and this dangerous rhetoric has been increasing. and we decided that we were going to respond and write about it and say, you know what, there is a danger to this rhetoric. we reached out and invited

others to join us. and individual editorial boards made their own decision. and again, it was in their own words. and so the response -- the choice is do we do nothing is one option or to do something and we chose to do something. again, it is not an anti-trump, it is a pro constitution, pro first amendment discussion, which should not be controversial. >> what do you think about this? >> i think that we as journalists go out of our way to make sure there's a distinction between our editorial pages and our news pages. the attacks that the president is leveling at the media are undermining the american public's faith in their ability to find information that is true. and that is at the root of the problem. so from that perspective, you know, while i commend the effort that they are doing, that is not i think what we as reporters, we're not trying to argue they speak for us. so it is a delicate balance. you saw the "l.a. times" kind of

give voice to that balance when they said, hey, we're not actually going to participate in this. but that said, this is also a role for the editorial boards for the newspapers in our countries. they take stands on important issues all the time. the coordination here, i think, does speak to kind of the degree of concern. >> we have an "l.a. times" editorial. let's read it. he has called us, suggesting over and over that we are in ca hoots to do damage to the country. the idea of joining together to protest him seems almost to encourage that kind of conspiracy thinking by the president and his loyalists. why give them the ammunition to scream about collusion, and then look at trump's response? today to all of this, he says the boston globe which was sold to the failing "new york times" for $1.3 billion, plus $800 million in losses, or $2.1 billion was then sold by

the "times" for $1, and now the globe is in collusion with other papers on free press. prove it. i don't understand the tweet. i think the point is he's trying to say collusion. >> prove it is an interesting point. fake news -- what donald trump means by that is news that is unfavorable to him. >> we all know that. >> but we don't say it enough. and i think if each editorial would have taken a story that they wrote, and donald trump at one point called some aspect of it fake news and said this is not fake, this is real news that donald trump doesn't like. i think that message can't get hammered in enough to the american public. we say it all the time. >> yeah. i also wish the news would do more to examine what are his motivations for attacking the press. first of all -- let's be clear, fake news is not a new term that donald trump made up. he is taking a direct play out of hitler's book. hitler came up with this idea

of, like, oh, fake news, and attacking the media, and using this propaganda to try to essentially give cover to his regime. >> what's the german word for it again? >> i don't speak german. i don't want to butcher it. >> i've seen the pictures on twitter. >> it's a german word. >> trump rallies. >> so the media would really do -- continue to do a service by constantly looking at the motivation of the president, talking about the history, the patterns he has and who he's taking his cues from. he thinks he has a regime. >> a more interesting way of doing it, putting it in context, rather, i worry these discussions about him attacking us end up being too naval gazy and make it about us. when i do these segments, i think of marty barron, when he was responding to the president, saying he's at war with the press. marty barron, the editor in

chief of "washington post" we said we're not at war, we're at work. >> we are at work. i appreciate the arguments there. but, again, this was -- we are reiterating what it is that we stand for, what the value, what the role of a free press is. and each individual newspaper wrote about what that meant to them. and what a free press is in boston is very different from what the free press is in boise in terms of the role it plays within the community. >> how so? explain that. i'm confused by that. >> well, so while we are all doing the same thing in terms of holding the powerful accountable, keeping the citizenry informed, but it means different things. it plays out differently on a community level, you know, a lot of the editorials you're reading were talking about how, you know, we care about the school board. we care about the new restaurant that's opening. we are interested in who the city selectmen are. those sort of things on a very

local level. and when the rhetoric comes in from the top that this is fake news -- fake news is the enemy of the people, it plays down through all levels of journalism. >> susan? >> well, i think the free press is the same in boston as it is in boise as it is in los angeles as it is in florida, and everywhere else. a free press means that you have the freedom to report and the government is not there to oversee and prevent you from reporting. those are values that kind of work everywhere. >> it also means that we have access to our public officials and institutions. you know, i cover the capital every day. so, you know, when they try to say that we can't walk down "x" hallway or stand in "y" corner, all of us kind of go up and say, hey, this is not acceptable. i mean, that's a fight that we have, you know, on a daily basis. >> hey, excuse me, we pay for this building and we should have access. >> people have a right to -- they don't have access to their

representatives. we do. that's our job, and it's important to protect that. >> kasie hunt, linda henry, thank you so much for joining us. ahead, the stench of politics. ♪ this is a story about mail and packages. and it's also a story about people. people who rely on us every day to deliver their dreams they're handing us more than mail they're handing us their business and while we make more e-commerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country, we never forget... that your business is our business

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price tag $64.99. she's clearly cashing in on her fame. why should she be the only one? there are plenty of characters, and smells to go around. how about stormy's attorney, michael avenatti. i say we call his fragrance limelight. or how about paul manafort. we hear it like manafort destiny. manafort destiny. from michael cohen, the fixer, her comes the new scent fixeration. or sarah huckabee sanders, deflection. >> deflection. >> omarosa, you should get in on this too with unhinged, an insider's account of the trump white house, the fragrance. >> unhinged, an insiders account of the trump white house, the fragrance. >> and jared curb her, eaud e

jared, sounds good to me. >> it's just water. >> a cashing in on the constant whiffs of scandal. back tomorrow night with more "mtp daily," ari, your scent would be awkward, a mix of pine cones and swedish fish. >> i would add little nutmeg. you're making the calls, and not me. >> an interesting and awkward scent. >> we don't whisper enough on the news. we're always so loud. >> yeah, we can whisper. i will tell you tonight, we have an unusual show and a lot of news developing right now. first, and perhaps the most interesting, the most rev laatory, moments ago we got the most detailed peek ever inside the manafort jury room, several questions hae