recommendation for his sentencing, they took some jabs at him. they said he wasn't helpful. >> is this a sign to flynn? >> i'm not sure, that's a good question. it's possible. i'm certain flynn has read it, is keeping an eye on it. >> we know he watches the news. my thanks to you, that does it for this hour, i'm nicolle wallace. "mtp daily" starts with katy tur in for chuck. >> what was that in front of you, nicolle? >> he is the unsung hero of our hour but i think he was -- >> he is a beast. he does my hour sometimes too. we all walk in front of a camera from time to time. >> it's a better shot him than me, so it was a little extra, monday extra. >> nicolle wallace, thank you very much. kareem, thank you as well. if it's monday, we're talking truth, justice and the american way. tonight, the truth about truth. how time trump is in overdrive working to cloud the russia

investigation. >> that's so silly because it's somebody's version of the truth, not the truth. he didn't have a conversation -- >> truth is truth. i don't mean to go -- >> no, it isn't truth. truth isn't truth. plus, the mcgahn interviews. what white house counsel's cooperation with the mueller team could really mean for the president. and we're on verdict watch in the manafort trial. >> how's your client feeling today? >> he's feeling really good. >> this is "mtp daily" and it starts right now. good evening and welcome to "mtp daily," i'm katy tur in new york in for chuck todd. we don't know what the president knew about his campaign ties to russia. we don't know what the president's team's reasons are for not telling the truth about the trump tower meeting. we don't know what the white house lawyer told special counsel robert mueller's team during 30 hours of

conversations. and we don't know what mueller's investigation will ultimately find. but we do know this. president trump's team is trying to discredit a federal investigation and condition his supporters to discount any of its findings. how? by saying truth isn't truth, and what you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening. and by calling it all a rigged witch hunt. that's how. and hanging over all of it today, the manafort verdict, which could come down at any minute. 12 jurors outside washington are currently deliberating the fate of the former trump campaign chairman. it could be a pivotal moment for both mueller's investigation and the trump presidency. but regardless of whether manafort is found guilty or innocent, we are watching this white house's concerted effort to inject doubt into the u.s. justice system. the president has attacked the probe countless times. most recently today calling

mueller, quote, disgraced and discredited on twitter. then this from his personal attorney, rudy giuliani, to chuck yesterday on "meet the press." >> look, i'm not going to be rushed into having him testify so that he gets trapped into perjury. and when you tell me that, you know, he should testify because he's going to tell the truth and he shouldn't worry, well, that's so silly because it's somebody's version of the truth, not the truth. he didn't have a conversation -- >> truth is truth. i don't mean to go -- >> no, it isn't truth. truth isn't truth. the president of the united states says i didn't -- >> truth isn't truth? mr. mayor, do you realize what -- this is going to become a bad meme. >> don't do this to me. >> don't do truth isn't truth to me. >> guys, president trump's team appears to be rattled, whether they have a legal reason to be or not, that's unclear. we just don't know how this story is going to end. and if the truth isn't always the truth, that could have more lasting damage than any indictment. let's bring in ned price, former

special assistant to president obama and spokesperson and senior director of the national security council. he's now an nbc news and msnbc national security analyst along with tonight's panel, jonathan alter, columnist for "the daily beast," noah rothman, associating editor for "commentary" magazine and beth fouhy. gosh, i felt bad for chuck todd this weekend, guys. i wanted to give him a hug. the idea of somebody looking at you in the eye through a camera or not and saying truth isn't truth is just absolutely absurd. rudy giuliani tried to clean it up by saying he was talking about moral theology, which i don't know what that is. but what is going on with this legal team, the president's team, where they're now trying to just tell you not to see -- not to believe what you see in front of your own eyes, truth isn't truth, don't believe anything unless it comes out of the president's mouth and don't worry about his contradictions either. >> it's not a legal team.

rudy giuliani is spinning, it's a pr team. he's turned into a political sack. it's really sad to watch the highest levels of our government turn into an orwellian nightmare, the kind of thing that we used to see in stalinist countries where they deny truth. i was reminded that 44 years ago this month, richard nixon resigns his office effective the next day and gerald ford, who the next day will become president, goes out on the lawn, flood-lit lawn in alexandria, virginia, and he can only make a very short statement to the world. what he chooses to say is truth is the glue that holds together our government and our civilization. good night. >> don't hold your breath for the president saying that. >> but that's how central truth is to our entire system, and that's how dangerous what's going on now really is. >> and a shared set of facts. since you brought up nixon, i'm going read a tweet from peter

baker from "the new york times" over the weekend. he said shades of 1974? the week started with an enemies list, then came secret white house tapes and it finishes with a white house counsel spilling to a special prosecutor. ned, don mcgahn, this news about him and talking for 30 hours to the special prosecutor, i mean it does feel like we are reliving history. >> well, katy, in some ways i almost wish we were reliving 1974 because that would mean that we were nearing the end of this chapter in the american presidency. but in this case i think what this story illustrates more than anything is that donald trump doesn't know how the executive branch functions. he doesn't know what it means to be president of the united states. we can assume that when donald trump sent -- allowed don mcgahn to go speak to the special counsel's office for all of these hours, donald trump appears to believe that don mcgahn was acting in his capacity as his personal lawyer, as rudy giuliani has been, as

his private legal team has. that is not the role of the white house counsel. the white house counsel represents the american people, the office of the presidency. when i took the oath of office for the first time, there was no reference to president obama. there was no reference to president bush for whom i also served. it was a reference to or allegiance to the constitution above all, and that is apparently what -- how don mcgahn saw his role. and so that, unfortunately for donald trump, could translate into some very bad news when we are allowed to see what transpired in those sessions, if don mcgahn was not protecting a client but he was protecting the constitution he swore an oath to uphold. >> is don mcgahn john dean in this scenario? >> well, i was going to bring up john dean since we were talking about 1974 and watergate. over the weekend president trump called john dean a rat. >> which is very interesting since john dean is the only person to come out of that scandal that looks okay today.

>> and he has gone out and tweeted something like president nixon was a fairly competent guy but botched watergate. president trump is an incompetent president botching this investigation. so he's making another distinction that president nixon had done some other things fairly well. here's what i would say about that. john dean, yes, he cooperated with the prosecution then, he was a key witness to help bring the president down. beforehand he had been involved in obstructing justice and basically sort of turned and decided to do the right thing and spent some time in prison. in this case don mcgahn was given permission by president trump to go speak to the mueller team. so it was part of at that time a legal strategy, which they seem to blunder into and now they're pulling back and saying they never should have done it. >> that john dean rat tweet really struck me because it really shows you what the president thinks matters or what the president thinks people around him should be doing. john dean is a rat for nixon? does that mean the president thinks that everybody who works in that white house should be

loyal to him above everybody else and lie for him if they need to, protect him at any cost, be their roy cohn. >> i think it's pretty obvious the answer to that is yes. the extent to which he has compelled the member of his staff to subodor nate their morals and better judgment to whatever the narrative is donald trump wants to see on television i think is pretty obvious. i'm not sure i would call it orwellian because in orwell's universe they had some complexity and depth to them. truth isn't truth is kind of shallow. don't believe your eyes and ears is getting the subtext right in front. but there's some truth to that. he is communicating to a very small base of supporters and the people who are diehard loyal followers. you don't know how big that base is going to be. the more you ask him to internalize these contradictions, the slimmer an slimmer it is. >> how small is it? right now it's around 40%. that's one of the most depressing things about this entire affair is how many people

are sticking with trump. something that he's doing better than nixon, nixon really messed up with the saturday night massacre where he fired archibald cox. nixon was a republican president and fired a liberal democrat who he thought was out to get him in the saturday night massacre. that was disastrous for him. trump is doing a kind of slow-motion saturday night massacre and it's more effective because it isn't done all at once and the blowback in the whole country is not as severe as it would be if he did it in one fell swoop. >> but he also has not only fox news parroting all of his suspicions and his claims and his conspiracy theories, but he also has twitter to go and say directly to those people who are supporting him, this is all a witch hunt, this is all a bunch of lies, this is all john dean's a rat, this is all mccarthyism.

he's going up into the cloud and taking anything he can, grasping for various scandals in our american history and claiming that he's the victim of them all over again. listen to this mccarthy tweet. study the late joseph mccarthy because we are now in a period with mueller and his gang that make joseph mccarthy look like a baby! rigged witch hunt! i really -- it's hard to understand what in the world he's talking about, but politico spoke to a mccarthy biographer and this is fascinating. according to biographer richard revere, mccarthy was a chronic opportunist, a political spec later, he was a republican who had started as a democrat. he was a skilled manipulator of public opinion and something like a genius at that essential american strategy, publicity. he was a vulgarian, he faked it all and could not understand anyone who didn't. also at the end of that they say he's a man who liked to use the

third person. >> more than that -- >> sounds very familiar. >> there's a real connection. so mccarthy's top aide was roy cohn, who was donald trump's mentor in new york for many years before he died of aids. roy cohn. roy cohn died in 1986, the same year stephen miller was born. coincidence? i don't think so. he's got his own kind of roy cohn working for him now. they play by the same thuggish rules. >> there are no rules. >> there are no rules, but they have their own kind of code. and it comes from the mafia, which roy cohn was deeply involved in and there's some trump investments that have been connected. >> ned, i do want to get your take on this. regardless of the answer to the questions, what did donald trump know about collusion or the e-mails or what did he do about obstruction or what did mcgahn tell mueller. what we are very clearly seeing is a strategy to tear down truth at all costs, to tear down our

institutions, to tear down credibility, to make people not believe what they see with their eyes and what they hear with their ears. talk about what that means for the future. >> well, look, there are some things in the trump era that we will be able to repair in the short term, a matter of weeks, a matter of months, sometimes a matter of years. this is what i fear will be the most long-term challenge we face is repairing the damage that this president and his enablers in congress, to be honest, have done to our institutions, to our national security community, to our intelligence community, to our law enforcement community. he has made these three institutions, these three communities as antagonists of the american people. look at the top two antagonists on president trump's twitter feed the past couple of days. it's bob mueller, a former marine who ran the fbi in the years after 9/11, the second longest serving fbi director in the bureau's history, and it's

john bren nnabrennan, a career official who later coordinated the bin laden raid from the white house. the fact that president trump is going after these two men says a lot more about president trump than it does about these two men. but unfortunately, katy, as you said, president trump has also generalized and he has turned the cia, the fbi, the department of justice, just about everyone who is out there trying to uphold the rule of law and has an allegiance to truth over subjective truth, he has tried to make them the enemies. and when you ask why? it seems pretty clear, because truth does not seem to be on donald trump's side. donald trump seems to be afraid of whatever that truth is. i think all of us can only hope that one day we will know what that truth is. we will know what has him so agitated. >> i have to disagree, the extent to which donald trump has elevated john brennan as a foil suggests he knows precisely what he is doing and he knows this is a foil that he's going to like. the fact that john brennan has

testified before congress that he has no evidence of any collusion occurring and goes to twitter and says the precise opposite, the fact that he surveilled members of congress. he knows that this is a gentleman he can go up against. secondly, the notion that we are all entertaining that this is watergate, again plays into donald trump's hands. if this is an effort to oust him from office and not an effort to get to the truth, which is all what we want, right? then it becomes a political activity and then donald trump is on offense and not defense. donald trump's detractors around this table and elsewhere would be wise to pull back and let the facts speak for themselves and not prejudge them. >> robert mueller's team has only spoken through court documents, they haven't got into the political fight of this. they have kept to the facts, they have been doing an investigation, but here is what donald trump and his team are doing. the people who are finding the facts without political motivation it seems, they are trying to tear them down and assign political motivation to them so that they're going to discount whatever he comes up with and that's what makes somebody like me nervous.

we're going to hold on to the conversation right there. ned price, thank you very much. jonathan, noah and beth stick with us. ahead, how worried should president trump's lawyers be about what one of their own told the special counsel? my next guest says it's like mueller having the keys to the kingdom. (vo) this is not a video game. this is not a screensaver. this is the destruction of a cancer cell by the body's own immune system, thanks to medicine that didn't exist until now. and today can save your life. ♪ ♪ mom: okay we need to get all your school supplies today. school... grade... done. done. hit the snooze button and get low prices on school supplies all summer long. like these for only $2 or less

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so you can spend more time floating about on your inflatable swan. [ding] and if you get lost, just hit me on the old horn. man: tom's my best friend, but ever since he bought a new house... tom: it's a $10 cover? oh, okay. didn't see that on the website. he's been acting more and more like his dad. come on, guys! jump in! the water's fine! tom pritchard. how we doin'? hi, there. tom pritchard. can we get a round of jalapeño poppers for me and the boys, please? i've been saving a lot of money with progressive lately, so... progressive can't protect you from becoming your parents. but we can protect your home and auto when you bundle with us. welcome back. what did white house counsel don mcgahn tell special counsel robert mueller? that's the million dollar question right now. as we said earlier, "the new york times" reported over the weekend that white house counsel don mcgahn cooperated

extensively with the mueller probe, giving 30 hours of testimony over almost nine months. president trump says that he allowed mcgahn to testify and has nothing to hide, but the white house does not know what mcgahn said to mueller. here's rudy giuliani yesterday on "meet the press." >> we have a good sense, obviously, of what mr. mcgahn testified to. i can figure it out. >> so you don't know what mr. in began -- you don't know 100% of what he testified to to mr. mueller? >> i think that through -- through john dowd we have a pretty good sense of it. >> the testimony could be a bonanza for mueller's team. sol wisenberg told "the new york times" a prosecutor would kill for that. it would be like having the keys to the kingdom. sol joins me now. good to have you. you say it's like having the keys to the kingdom. what do you mean by that? >> i probably should have just said the keys to the castle

instead of the keys to the kingdom. it's not every day you get a white house counsel in for 30 hours of testimony. we would have loved to have had bruce lindsay, president clinton's deputy counsel, in for 30 hours of testimony. instead we had to fight and go to court and spend some time in order to force him to testify. so i think it's a real -- it would be a real bonanza for a special counsel. but it also shows, i think give the president some credit, that he allowed him to go in and do that instead of being instructive. so condemn the president where he deserves to be condemned, which is often, but i would applaud the president and his original lawyers, john dowd and ty cobb, for doing this. >> so mcgahn and his lawyer decided to be really, according to "the times" to be really open with the special counsel because they were worried that donald trump and his team were going to throw mcgahn under the bus. this all started or got prompted

by ken vogel, a "new york times" reporter overhearing john dowd and ty cobb talking in a restaurant in d.c. about the case last fall in september 2017 and them talking about mcgahn and saying mcgahn doesn't want to cooperate as extensively as we do. he wants to talk about executive privilege, and then saying that mcgahn has papers hidden away in a safe. so "the times" reports that mcgahn and his attorneys took that to mean he was seriously legally liable here, that the president could put him in some real legal jeopardy, so he went in and told them absolutely everything. do you think the president fully understood or his legal team fully understood what mcgahn was going in to do here, that it was really them saying, oh, we have nothing to hide? >> well, first of all, we don't really know if the conversation between cobb and dowd that was reported in "the times" really was the motivating factor for mcgahn. it's hard for me to believe that he would have gone in against the opposition of cobb and dowd.

here's what i think really went on. ty cobb and john dowd thought that the investigation was primarily about collusion/conspiracy having to do with the russians and the election. they felt that the president was on very solid ground there. they have said that from the beginning. i don't think they realized what a broad concept of obstruction bob mueller has. and it is a very broad, unusually broad view of obstruction from everything that we've seen. and i think now they may look at it differently. but even as we speak now, we don't know what mcgahn said or that mcgahn has damaged the president. like so much in this investigation, we'll have to wait until it plays out. >> we don't know out, and you're very good to point that out. but mcgahn has been present for a number of key moments that we do know the special counsel is looking into. the firing of james comey being one, getting jeff sessions to

unrecuse himself, the president telling mcgahn to fire robert mueller. "the new york times" finding out about it, writing a story about it, and then the president ordering mcgahn to tell "the new york times" it didn't happen only for mcgahn to say, no, it did happen i can't say that. when you take those circumstances and say mcgahn told the special prosecutor that, what does that mean for the investigation? what does that mean for robert mueller? is it a silver bullet for obstruction? could it lead to a silver bullet? >> you've named four particular instances and i would say four times zero is zero. not one of those four instances separately or together would constitute obstruction. the real key is does mueller have something that is -- that constitutes classic obstruction, which is hush money, paying somebody to tell a lie or to not testify at all. you know, explicitly dangling a pardon in exchange for somebody

testifying the right way. all those classic things, which is what -- destruction of evidence, which is what nixon and watergate was about. if mueller has something like that, all of these other statements and things that president trump did would be evidence -- further evidence of his intent. but those things alone under the arthur anderson case, under the case law as i understand it, could never constitute obstruction because as corrupt as it may be in the lay sense, the president has the legal right to fire jim comey, to ask jeff sessions to unrecuse himself or to consider firing bob mueller. he just does. i know people don't like hearing that. i think it's tough. there's a disconnect between what we all understand is the english language sense of obstruction and what the criminal law says obstruction is. that should be kept in mind. >> what do you think about the president crafting a statement

for his son aboard air force one that is misleading about the actual intent of the trump tower meeting, saying it was all about discussing abortions when that was not the case. >> you mean adoption. >> i'm sorry, not abortions, adoptions. thank you very much. sorry, sorry. >> well, i think it's terrible. i think if he did that, that's terrible. and it's a good example. because let's say that he, when he was crafting that statement he said to everybody on the plane, now look, this is going to be our story going forward. not only with the media, but with everybody, including the senate, if they ask, and including bob mueller. that's different. that's classic obstruction because you're telling people this is going to be our story and it's a lie. but if all you're doing is lying to the press, again, it can end up being very damaging. it could be used against the president in a trial. but in and of itself it could

not constitute criminal obstruction of justice. >> do you see a john dean angle here when it comes to mcgahn? the president certainly does or at least he's alluding to it. he said the failing "new york times" wrote a fake piece today implying that because white house counsel don macbegan was giving hours of testimony to the special counsel he must be a john dean type rat. to be fair, this is him commenting on "the new york times" saying this. but what about calling john dean a rat here. what sort of message could that send to don mcgahn? >> oh, i don't think it sends any message to don mcgahn. i don't think he should have called him a rat, that's mobster talk, let's face it. but the key difference between mcgahn and john dean is that dean was not only involved in the initial planning stages for what became the watergate break-in, but he was an absolute

key player in the cover-up. dean committed numerous criminal acts, encouraged people to destroy evidence, encouraged people to lie. there's no suggestion whatsoever that don mcgahn has done any of that. >> i'm just curious on your take on all of the behavior of the president and his team. if they're really not worried about anything and he's done nothing wrong, why go on the offensive against robert mueller? why launch such a brutal pr strategy to tear down the credibility of everybody involved? >> that's a great question. as trey gowdy said a couple of months ago, talking to the president's attorneys, if you've got an innocent client, why don't you act like it. any prosecutor looking at how the president has acted toward bob mueller over the last several months would have to ask that question. what in the world does he have to hide? it's a really good point. >> sol wisenberg, thanks for

joining us. we appreciate it. >> no problem. next, the president punches back at john brennan after he threatened legal action over security clearances. plus, the jury is out in the manafort trial. we'll take you to the courthouse as we await a verdict. so, how's it going? well... we had a vacation early in our marriage that kinda put us in a hole. go someplace exotic? yeah, bermuda. a hospital in bermuda. a hospital in bermuda. what? what happened? i got a little over-confident on a moped. even with insurance, we had to dip into our 401(k) so it set us back a little bit. sometimes you don't have a choice. but it doesn't mean you can't get back on track. great. yeah, great. i'd like to go back to bermuda. i hear it's nice. yeah, i'd like to see it. no judgment. just guidance. td ameritrade. ancestrydna can open you to a world of new cultures to explore. with two times more detail than any other dna test... you can get a new taste of your heritage. save 40% with our lowest price ever.

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zero percent financing for sixty months on f-150. get zero percent financing for 60 months- plus $2,800 bonus cash on a 2018 f-150 xlt equipped with 2.7l ecoboost. welcome back. president trump is firing back after former cia director john brennan said on "meet the press" that he may take the president to court over having his security clearance revoked.

>> well, i have been contacted by a number of lawyers and they have already given me their thoughts about the basis for a complaint, an injunction, to try to prevent him from doing this in the future. if my clearances and my reputation as i'm being pulled through the mud now, if that's the price we're going to pay to prevent donald trump from doing this against other people, to me it's a small price to pay. so i am going to do whatever i can personally to try to prevent these abuses in the future. and if it means going to court, i will -- i will do that. >> the president tweeted today that he would welcome a lawsuit, saying i hope john brennan, the worst cia director in our country's history, brings a lawsuit. it will then be very easy to get all of his records, texts, e-mailing and documents to show not only the poor job he did but how he was involved with the mueller rigged witch hunt. he won't sue! but despite the president saying brennan won't sue, it seems as

if he -- it seems that if he does, mr. trump has a plan. rudy giuliani tweeted to john brennan. today president trump granted our request, jay sekulow and me, to handle your case. after threatening if you don't do it would be just like obama's red lines. come on, john, you're not a -- i don't think i can say that on television. i'll just let you read that on the screen. this comes as more members from the intelligence community signed to know to a letter rebuking the president for revoking mr. brennan's security clearance. more than 175 security officials have now put their names to a statement saying that it's their firm belief that the country will be weakened if there is a political litmus test applied before seasoned experts are allowed to share their views. life reading tweets on camera. we'll be right back. hey allergy muddlers.

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welcome back. you're looking at live pictures here at the courthouse in alexandria, virginia, where the jury is in its third day of

deliberations in the criminal trial against the president's former campaign chief, paul manafort. there are -- there is a lot the 12 men and women are sifting through as they decide whether he is guilty of 18 counts of tax and bank fraud. meanwhile, another person in the president's orbit may soon be facing criminal charges. "the new york times" first reported last night that president trump's former personal attorney and fixer, michael cohen, is under investigation for bank fraud to the tune of $20 million. according to that report, federal prosecutors could announce charges by the end of this month. joining me now, nbc news intelligence and national security reporter, ken dilanian, from outside the court house, and nbc news investigations reporter tom winter. ken, so the jury sent over a note to the judge saying they wanted to deliberate until 6:15. why might that be? >> that's right, katy. the lawyers were summoned to a

bench trial and they were informed by judge ellis that the jury had asked to stay until at least 6:15. that's interesting because this jury has not worked past 5:30 for this entire trial. so it's got people thinking that perhaps, just perhaps the jury thinks that they are close to reaching a verdict. we don't know that, we're speculating, but that's one possibility here. another possibility is that whoever had the child care issue that had to leave by 5:30 doesn't have it today. we just don't know, katy. one interesting thing is we've had no notes from this jury suggesting they're deadlocked. as pete williams pointed out today, and he's watched and covered a lot of trials, a trial like this with 18 counts and hundreds of exhibits, the jury may just be digging into the meat of it right now. you would expect that they would take their time and deliberate. jurors take their oaths very seriously in that regard. it may well be that they're just motoring the way through the counts and they're getting close to the end, katy. >> so the jury wasn't sequestered. is there concern that they have had some undue influence from the news media, from watching television news, from maybe

hearing the president talk about paul manafort's case in the last few days? >> yes, there's always a concern. sequestering of juries has grown rare, but the news of this trial is so high profile, jurors would have to work hard to avoid it. and in an age of smartphones and, you know, sort of 24-hour cable, it's a reasonable question to wonder whether any of these jurors have heard what the president said or have heard other news coverage of this. but every day they have told the judge that they have fulfilled their oath not to look at outside news coverage and everyone is sort of deciding to believe them at this point until they hear otherwise. >> the other news, tom, is michael cohen and the raid on his office and home was back in april. >> right. >> no charges against michael cohen as of yet. i feel like until he's charged, let's talk about -- let's not talk about the charges, but there's been some reporting out there saying that charges of imminent. what are you hearing from your sources? >> so my understanding of this,

katy, the government is acutely aware and going through all the normal procedures that they're going to do. they know exactly how much attention is focused on this case, and so prosecutors don't want to do anything out of the normal. and so when they look at that, they look ahead to we have an election coming up this fall. are there any sort of guidelines or any sort of doj procedure or just practice that they need to be aware of. in other words, do they want to bring or seek, i could say, a potential indictment close to the election. but everything that we're hearing is that by labor day, by the endi of this monday, there' an increasing feeling that we might see an indictment at that time. we could also see -- there's a number of options on the table. they might also call up cohen's attorneys and say, hey, this is what we're about to do and do you want to talk to us. and is there something that you want to plead to and do we want to offer? another scenario is that they do seek that indictment, a grand jury votes on it, indicts

michael cohen, and at that point they are able to talk to him and essentially say, obviously here is what we have indicted you with. do you want to plead to this and what do you want to tell us and at that point they have to test what he's told them. so it's not an instantaneous process. they can't do just a he said versus he said, michael cohen versus the president's word or somebody else in the trump organization who obviously had a lot of -- a lot of input and worked for a long time for the trump organization, they have to test the things that he might potentially offer and testify to. >> and how valuable they'll be. >> exactly. >> for a deal. >> exactly. >> in talking about cohen, and we've been bringing up john dean a lot. lanny davis, michael cohen's attorney, says they have also been talking to john dean. >> well, i think it's an interesting development. obviously it behooves -- i think it behooves michael cohen and his representatives at this point to show that michael cohen is somehow involved in this process, that he wants to do the right thing.

it does help with his credibility, potentially long term, but i think what we're really going to see when the rubber meets the road is does he in fact plea and how does he react when there is an indictment and where things go from there. >> and what he could have to offer. >> and the special counsel angle of this, because this investigation is being coordinated with the special counsel, so it's important for us to keep in mind there's two parties in play here. >> ken, one last question to you. robert mueller, are we going to see him go dark in the two months before the election? >> reporter: i think so. and i think the james comey example in 2016 reinforces why that's very important. i mean, you know, mueller has no interest in being accused of being political. justice department guidelines say that you shouldn't do anything public in the weeks before an election, and i think we have every expectation that robert mueller will adhere to those guidelines. >> we will be able to focus on policy and politics. oh, joy. tom and ken, thank you very

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welcome back. tonight in "meet the midterms," a blue wave may not lift all democratic boats in this fall's midterm elections. check out this new analysis by david wasserman of the cook political report. he writes in "the new york times" why even a blue wave could have limited gains.

wasserman says if you give every democrat running in the house an 8-point bump from their party's performance in the 2016 election, democrats would pick up 44 house seats. that is almost double the 23 they need to take control of that chamber. but if you gave the same 8-point bump to every democratic senate candidate, the party would lose four senate seats, pushing them farther away from a majority in that chamber. how could that be? it's all about geography and where the battlegrounds are. control of the house in 2018 hinges of republican-held districts in the suburbs where a motivated democratic electorate could put the party over the top, but in the senate where just a third of the seats are up for grabs, democrats are defending seats in red rural states that broke hard for donald trump last time around. it may be one big term election, but it's happening in two very different battlegrounds. we'll be right back.

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time now for "the lid." the panel is back. guys, midterms coming up. republicans i guess had expected to run on tax cuts. hey, listen, they passed this new tax law. it's going to give everybody money, but they're not doing that, they're running on immigration instead. that's probably because a lot of those tax cuts aren't going to everyday folks, but they are going, according to "the new york times," to one very crucial bloc for republicans and that is billionaires and corporations that reaped millions of dollars in tax cuts are pumping some of that windfall into the congressional leadership fund, a super pac closely aligned with speaker paul d. ryan that is flooding the air waves and front porches of swing congressional districts with increasingly sharp attacks on the democratic candidates, vying to wrest

control of the house. so tax cuts not helping regular folks but helping their donors. >> if money were the only thing going to make a difference we never would have seen donald trump become president. he raised and spent far preside. he raised much less money than hillary clinton. that was politics very much violated in 2016. >> you and chuck schumer pulling out the -- >> to the other point you're making, what has motivated republican voters under trump is culture issues, immigration, race, nfl players taking a knee, anything about the tax cut is basically put over here. the thing that is very -- make s them very passionate. this is what donald trump needs to get them out to vote is cultural issues that inspire and get the blood boiling. that's what they're doing and recognition the tax cut hasn't made that much of a difference to most of the voters that they need. >> let's underscore that point. our friend, john harwood spoke to the chairman of the nrcc.

listen to what he said. >> we've seen at crunch time in some of these races you guys have been involved in, your candidates go not to tax cuts, the economy, immigration, i.c.e., ms-13, all that sort of stuff. does that tell us that in this year, it's not the economy stupid? >> we've run ads on the economy in every single special election. but that doesn't mean that's what we will run on the whole time. >> what do you think of that, noah? >> if it was an economic election republicans would not be staring down the barrel of a democratic wave. the economy is doing pretty well. it's not an economic elections, foreign policy election, values election. the values on the table are donald trump's. i think there's a broad misperception what the tax cuts have done. in my state, new jersey, recent poll came out, 13% or so of new jerseyans think their taxes went down, in other words, taking home more money.

that perception does not match reality. when you're explaining you're losing, they have seeded the table to tax cuts to democrats. i don't understand that strategy. i can't imagine why you would not go to war without the army you've got. this is the only thing you did this term and you have to run on it whether you like it or not. they're not running on it. >> steve bannon thinks if you're campaigning on cultural issues, the president's temperament, ms 13, whatever, republicans are going to win. >> it's quite possible. democrats are getting overconfident and going on miller time. >> really, you have it out for miller today. >> wringing their hands instead of knock psychology on doors. i don't agree with beth on the money. in presidential campaign, the person who spends the most doesn't always win. is house, senate and gubernatorial campaigns they

have an enormous advantage, especially at the local level with the state legislative races so important for the census, for the drawing of maps and the 2020 census. donors, really rich guys that got all this money from the tax cut and now basically putting it back into politics, tens of millions of dollars it came out this week, they could make a big difference in a lot of close races. this is not at all a done deal this will be a blue wave. >> hillary clinton is going to fund-raise for democrats. just came out in this story. >> it's an exclusive we just put out. she's a good fund-raiser and has a huge base of support and will raise a lot of money. i don't disagree with you that of course money is more important in mid-terms that presidential cycles. let's talk about the individual candidates out-raising in every

competitive senate race. democrats are raising the money. there's still no for sure democrats have this. the notion donald trump could win yet another race, essentially, it's him on the ballot absent something else compelling, he will be so reinforced going into 2019 and 2020, his power will be rechecked and remade by the electorate. that is something we haven't talked about and seems to be an assumption democrats will win. >> if republicans retain control, what does that say about president trump and the way he behaves and power he has? >> walter mondale says don't panic now, if trump is in a wave in november, democrats are in deep trouble. >> the psychological burden on

the liberal left will be immense and they will check out of politics and revert to more extreme -- >> other than liberals, how about independents? >> they don't identify that much. we don't have independents. >> a real milquetoast middle of the road answer. we'll get back to it. up ahead, opening the floodgates. >> this is for you. >> should i read it out loud? >> you judge. >> damn, katie -- >> dear katie, i'm not very good with the handwriting. >> dear katie, i want to go home at 5:00, ali. >> can di that? >> the whole country is waiting for this. i'd like to go home at 5:00.

in case you missed, in case

you missed it this time last week, we put out a call to action and you delivered. the peters truck firing has re-opened the flood gates from what the president has called spy gate. who decides when something is a gate? is there a clandestine group of gate teachers? should there be. we will call that tapegate. survey says taylorgate. send us on the #gatethis. we got a flood of gates before former nixon white house john dean coined twittergate this weekend. here is a list of gates and most had to do with the president and russian investigation. suggesting we tall it magagate. cyril suggested on vibvuscatega.

and my favorite is the viewer who finds ari melber's ties scandalous. and we will continue to aggregate. all for tonight. back tomorrow with more mtv daily. the beat with ari melber starts now except allie velschi is filling in. #where is ari gate. >> i have never had you on at 5:00 with me on at 6:00. i do watch you and ari. di say that handoff could be handoffgate or transitiongate. sometimes it hurts me. >> ari not being here on a day he's name checked