playboy model. what more does he have on the president? >> he will tell the truth to whoever asks him about what he witnessed, what he observed about the president's pre-knowledge to the crime of computer hacking or the hacking of somebody else's e-mails. >> pardon me? the president praising paul manafort just hours after his former campaign chairman was convicted on felony tax and bank fraud charges. is manafort considering flipping on the president to avoid his next trial? or is he banking on a trump pardon? >> at his age, even a ten-year sentence could essentially be a life sentence. the only guy who could give him a walk-away deal is donald trump. and party down. how will congressional republicans react now that the president is implicated in a felony? will they continue to stand by their man or is it time to start

investigating? >> i think paul ryan needs to think long and hard about the future of the republican party. this is your last chance off this train. if you start the procedure in the house judiciary committee, you give some home, some place for republicans getting nervous to say, hey, you know what, let's start an investigation and we'll go from there. coming up here, a leading senate democrat, california's kamala harris, joining us to talk about what all this means for the november elections and beyond. and good day, everyone. i'm andrea mitchell in washington where president trump's long time personal attorney voluntarily all but made mr. trump an unindicted co-conspirator while pleading guilty to eight criminal charges in federal court in new york. the president responding on twitter today, writing, if anyone is looking for a good lawyer, i would strongly suggest you don't retain the services of michael cohen. two of the charges in cohen's

plea relate to campaign finance violations from payments. cohen says that the president directed him to make those payments to stormy daniels and karen mcdougal. some legal and campaign finance experts believe cohen's allocution makes president trump an unindicted co-conspirator. all of this has the white house staff in meltdown today, with no control over what michael cohen says to the feds. jeff mason joins me as well as harry litman, and chuck rosenberg, along with nbc correspondent kristen welker. kristen, let's talk about the aftermath of two stunning decisions yesterday. >> i can tell you, andrea, it's tense here. a number of top officials have been huddled in meetings throughout the morning. that's not necessarily unusual, but clearly this is something

that is consuming this administration. and the question is what happens next, how will they respond. we're getting a sense of how the president and his legal team plan to respond, and that is to essentially paint michael cohen as a liar. i've been talking to rudy giuliani as well as others who are familiar with the strategy, who say, look, the bottom line is cohen is on tape, including with some journalists in instances saying he made the payments, so-called hush money payments, on his own, not at the direction of the president. and now he's essentially changing his tune. that's what they're planning to argue, andrea. and so they're going to say, was he lying then or is he lying now? they're going to try to attack his credibility. this is not a surprise. we've seen this play out from the president himself, escalating his attacks against michael cohen while at the same time taking a very different tone when it relates to paul manafort, expressing sympathy for him, expressing sympathy for his family as well.

will he offer paul manafort a pardon? that remains to be seen when our own peter alexander asked him that question last week. he said he's not really thinking about the. but he didn't dismiss that it's on the table. i would also point out, andrea, it was striking to hear the president last night at that campaign rally in west virginia. yes, he referred to the witch hunt. yes, he took aim at the media, some of his familiar targets. but he really largely stayed on message. and you have to ask the question, if some of the wind has been taken out of his sails when to comes to attacking the special counsel, andrea. >> on his way to west virginia as he was arriving, he said he felt badly for both manafort and cohen, clearly he was asked about both, he said he feels badly for both. that's before the transcript from the court was released. once the transcript was released and it was very clear that michael cohen had very explicitly implicated the

president, now we see a very different posture from the president in his tweet today, "i feel very badly for paul manafort and his wonderful family, justice," quotation marks, "took a 12-year-old tax case, applied tremendous pressure on him and unlike michael cohen he refused to break. make up stories in order to get a deal. such respect for a brave man." that certainly, jeff, seems to indicate a very different attitude towards manafort and cohen and maybe dangling a pardon. >> absolutely. look, we can just analyze that tweet. that suggests that he thinks that cohen is making up stories or did make up stories as part of his guilty plea and it suggesting he may be considering a pardon for manafort. he's been praising manafort repeatedly. he did so, as kristen noted, last week when we were outside before the president was leaving to board marine one. we in our reuters interview with the president this week also asked him if he was considering a pardon for manafort and he declined to comment then just as he declined to comment last week.

but the fact that he continues to give sort of positive praise to him and certainly not to cohen does raise that question. >> and let's take a look at what lanny davis, michael cohen's lawyer was saying. this was lanny davis to rachel maddow last night. >> mr. cohen has knowledge on certain subjects that should be of interest to the special counsel, and is more than happy to tell the special counsel all that he knows, not just about the obvious possibility of a conspiracy to collude and corrupt the american democracy system in the 2016 election, which the trump tower meeting was all about, but also knowledge about the computer crime of hacking and whether or not mr. trump knew ahead of time about that crime. >> harry litman, that sounded as though lanny davis was making a proffer on national television

before there's any sit-down between michael cohen and the mueller team. >> yes, it really did. and by now, he and everyone who has been involved here should know better. first, it's very volatile or incendiary proffer. i mean, it means, if it's true and credible, that the president would be guilty of a whole separate criminal conspiracy. but it's just bad business, and he should know to be initiating the proffer with rachel maddow, as eminent as she is, as opposed to the sdny prosecutors or bob mueller. but i think we'll be seeing cohen play it as an open book in the coming weeks. >> the nonlawyer in me, the journalist, loves the fact that he did it with rachel, understanding your point, i take your point. chuck, this is also what lanny had to say to savannah guthrie on the "today" program about a

possible pardon. let's watch. >> there's one person who could make michael cohen's legal problems go away in an instant. it's donald trump. is he hoping for a pardon from president trump? >> not only is he not hoping for it, he would not accept a pardon. he considers a pardon from somebody who has acted so corruptly as president to be something he would never accept. >> that is a complete switch. it just tells you a lot about the transformation of michael cohen in these many months, as he has seen the way the white house has treated him, particularly starting with the fact that he didn't get the job he wanted in the administration, although he had very high aspirations indeed. but there's clearly been a complete breakdown there. >> so at one point, andrea, he said he would take a bullet for the president. now he won't take a pardon from the president. it's really a rather remarkable transformation. i don't know that i've ever seen a situation where somebody would

refuse a pardon. so the well is poisoned. i imagine it will be worse and worse as the months go by. >> chuck, what is the next process here? because for the man aare the rt you have a d.c. jury who will perhaps not be as sympathetic to the defense as the virginia jury was. you probably won't have the d.c. federal judge being as proactive, putting his thumb on the scales, in favor of the defense. so he faces a much tougher climb, where is in this case he did get the ten hung jury counts. but he also has been convicted of eight federal counts. he's got a big financial burden here if he takes this all the way. >> he sure does. by the way, i don't know that the jury in virginia was all that sympathetic to him on those

hung counts, the counts on which the jury could have reached no verdict. it could have been 11-1 for conviction. it may have been one holdout juror, it may have been more. but i think you're right, andrea, it may be a rougher road in d.c., i suspect there won't be a lot of sympathy. and prosecutors will have learned how to sharpen their case from what they did in virginia. it's not the same charges so it's not exactly the same evidence, but if they've made mistakes, they've learned, they won't make them again. >> they probably knew this in advance, they've learned that rick gates is not a sympathetic witness so do not put too much reliance on that cooperator. >> right. you don't want to put too much reliance on any cooperator. you need e-mail, documents, taped phone calls, other evidence to help corroborate that witness. gates is probably still valuable

but they have to be cautious in how they use them. but the same applies to michael cohen down the road. you don't just take him at his word, you have to corroborate what he tells you. >> there isn't that much time between now and september 17th, the trial date. harry litman, do they have enough time to go through a detailed examination of michael cohen's offer? they only got all of the records from the master last week. they've only had a week to go through all this stuff. do they have enough time between now and september 17th to potentially use michael cohen against paul manafort in this next trial? >> i doubt it. i don't think you'll see him as a witness. it looks like his role is only oblique anyway. and there are two separate tracks here. he really hasn't even sat down, as far as we know, with the mueller folks as opposed to the sdny folks. of course he's going to have potentially some very interesting testimony. now perhaps we'll know about the

encrypted blackberry message and the like. but generally i think we're proceeding on two tracks and you won't see cohen in the d.c. trial. >> and jeff mason, the president was out again, a little bit more subdued than in the past, he was in west virginia, with his supporters. i want to play a little bit of their response to him. >> -- even called hillary warm, compassionate, engaging, tough. can you actually believe that? [ crowd chanting ] got to go. will have to go. >> you heard them all shouting "lock her up, lock her up." it's sort of stunning, this is a few hours after a guilty plea and a guilty verdict of two of

his closest former associates. and they're still shouting "lock her up" against hillary clinton? >> yeah, i think it goes to sort of the broader look at the political implications of these pleas and these events for president trump. certainly it's a concern for him and the white house and for his attorneys. but for his supporters, not clear that it's a concern. in fact this and other major things that have happened since the president started running for election during the 2016 campaign have not chipped away at the support that his base has offered to him. in fact instead, just like you were just playing, they drill down on things that they were upset about in 2016, focused on hillary clinton who is no longer a candidate and not running against president trump. >> and barely in the public domain right now. kristen, finally, we know that rudy giuliani can spin almost anything, but what about the

senior white house staff? >> well, look, andrea, we're waiting to see if they're going to add a briefing to the schedule today. and that will sort of give us our first real glimpse. i anticipate they'll echo what we heard from rudy giuliani, which is that they're going to try to attack cohen's credibility. they'll downplay paul manafort's role in the campaign. that's something that we've seen from this president, from this white house, despite the fact that he did serve on the campaign for about five months, including three as campaign chair during that critical time of the republican national convention. so that is my anticipation. again, andrea, we hope we hear from them today. >> kristen welker. and jeff mason, harry litman, and chuck rosenberg, thank you to all. for the latest on whether paul manafort is talking to the mueller people, katy tur will interview michael cohen's lawyer lanny davis. coming up here, deal or no

deal? will former trump campaign chairman paul manafort flip now that he faces a tough trial in d.c., potentially? you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. it was here. i couldn't catch my breath. it was the last song of the night.

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simple, easy, awesome. in many cultures, young men would stay with their families until their 40's. and now to the first test of special counsel robert mueller's investigation, the first trial of former trump campaign chairman paul manafort. as you know, he was found guilty of eight felony counts.

on the other ten counts, the jury couldn't agree. today president trump on twitter writing a large number of counts, ten, could not even be decided in the paul manafort case. witch hunt. joining me now, daniel goldman, former u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york, who has been in that courtroom for the manafort trial throughout. and national correspondent for "the atlantic," a long time manafort watcher. daniel, the president certainly seemed to be dangling a pardon for paul manafort. we've been discussing this is the point where he now has another opportunity to decide whether he's going to cooperate and avoid that second trial which could be a lot tougher even than the first trial. >> that's right, andrea. i think we're at the point right now over the next few weeks where paul manafort has his last opportunity to cooperate. he decided to test the prosecution in this case. there were sufficient convictions for him to go to sentencing and look at, you know, in the high single digit years, potentially.

he's facing -- he's in jail. he's facing jail time. but notably, he didn't testify and his defense was the government didn't meet their burden. those are both very consistent with post-conviction cooperation. but once he goes to trial again, i do not think that there's really going to be an opportunity for him to cooperate. and notably, what was interesting yesterday is his defense attorney, after the verdict came down, came out of the courtroom and unlike most defense attorneys who say we're going to appeal, we have a lot of our options and we're going to pursue them through the appellate courts, he instead said, we're going to evaluate our options, which is a very different sentiment than we're going to appeal. so in the next three weeks or so i would imagine we will know whether or not paul manafort is going to cooperate or whether, as i've been saying for quite a while, he's really waiting out the pardon game and looking for a pardon from the president. >> and as you just pointed out, kevin downing, that very aggressive and ebullient defense

attorney was really downcast after this verdict. let's play that tape. >> mr. manafort is disappointed of not getting acquittals all the way through or a complete hung jury on all counts. he is evaluating all of his options at this point. >> now, we should point out that on the hill just now, senator lindsey graham, who was just playing golf with the president in new jersey over the weekend, very close to the president, said that a pardon for paul manafort would not go over well. franklin fuller, this could raise questions of obstruction, a pardon at this stage for paul manafort, since the president has now been implicated in a larger issue than just the new york issue. >> the timing here is so awkward, manafort has this trial. he doesn't know what else mueller is pursuing that relates to him. when will trump issue the

pardon? and when does manafort give up hope that trump is going to issue the pardon? and how much pain is paul manafort willing to take? i mean, he's already had to pay for a fairly expensive legal defense. everything in front of him is going to be expensive. the timing just doesn't line up in a way that means that he can have this state of telepathy with trump and read his mind and figure out when the pardon is going to come exactly and when he can breathe a sigh of relief. he's got to assume there's more. >> you've been following paul manafort for a long time, we've both seen him in politics and his role for ukraine and other foreign actors. >> right. >> how do we figure out what he would decide? cut his losses? >> he's got this incredible capacity for denial. on the one hand, he is the

master crafter of narrative. he is -- he creates images for people and he lets them live this narrative that he's created for them. and he's done the same in his own life. if you look at the way he's behaved since the special prosecutor has started to pay attention to him, he's tampered with witnesses. if you look at his own personal life and his finances, even when he was out of money, he kept spending money and kept buying properties. and so he has this incredible capacity for denial. but when you're staring -- in prison and you can see you have years ahead of you in a jumpsuit, behind bars, eating terrible food, your calculus begins to shift. >> without a good haircut, look at the mug shot. thank you very much. thanks, franklin foer, thank you, dan, and for all your incredible work, we're so grateful for everything you've been doing. >> thank you, andrea. and up next, senator kamala

harris joining me with her reaction to the president's legal crisis. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports." stay with us right here on msnbc.

talk about timing.

as the news about michael cohen and paul manafort was all breaking yesterday, within minutes of each other, the president's team was trying to carry on as though it was business as usual on capitol hill, escorting supreme court nominee judge brett kavanaugh to make the rounds, including at that very moment a courtesy visit with california democratic senator kamala harris. joining me now is senator harris. senator, you didn't have your tv on. >> correct. >> because the nominee was with you and you were trying to be polite. >> correct. >> so this was all happening. >> this was happening in real time. i was literally receiving the white house counsel along with this nominee to the united states supreme court, turned off the tv so i could focus on the conversation, hopefully everybody else would focus on the conversation. and, you know, about 45 minutes later, of course, i turned the tv on after they left, to learn what had happened. >> does this change your view about the timing, your view was

that it was being speeded along too much by the white house, by the republican majority. but do you think now there is a real argument that the republican majority should not race ahead with kavanaugh's nomination because he's been nominated by a president of the united states who is essentially an unindicted co-conspirator according to a guilty plea taken under oath in a federal court in new york city? >> so on the subject of kavanaugh, even before this happened, there was no question that the process was horribly flawed, in that there has been a refusal to provide the united states senate and members of the united states senate judiciary committee, as representatives of the american public, with the vast majority of documents that are evidence of brett kavanaugh's background, his perspective, the work he's done. i've only been given, andrea, about 10 to 15% of the documents that exist that are evidence of brett kavanaugh's work. so the process was extremely

flawed, just on that point. and then rushed through without giving members of the judiciary committee, and again, as representatives of the united states public, an opportunity to review the background of someone who will have a lifetime appointment to the united states supreme court. and let's also remember, this is kennedy's seat. this is the seat that is the so-called swing seat. this is -- the person who fills this seat will be pivotal in making decisions about a variety of issues that impact americans in our everyday lives including a woman's right to choose, including the affordable care act and whether we're going to have access to health care, including issues that relate to voting rights or organized labor's ability to collectively bargain, issues that affect people every day. >> you and other democrats have been making that argument, unsuccessfully. now chuck schumer has been issued a call to action to republicans, saying the

president is under a cloud. do you think that will make any difference? >> i would think that folks will understand that this has reached a point, like that point years ago during the watergate scandal. this is a situation where a court of the united states of america has accepted a guilty plea from someone who was the lawyer for president of the united states. and that person, in pleading guilty, basically made very clear that it was the then-candidate and now the president of the united states who directed him to commit a crime. this is a serious matter. >> lindsey graham, republican stalwart, friend of the president, has said this would not be the right time for a paul manafort pardon, because of the circumstances. would it be just a lightning rod if the president were to grant paul manafort a pardon now?

>> i think that if the president were to grant a pardon, that would be evidence of yet another crime, which is obstruction of justice. >> you're a former attorney general, not just a lawyer, but you were an elected attorney general of the state of california. the situation right now with the president under a cloud, with his former chairman convicted, facing another trial, and he still is calling witch hunt, and people in west virginia last night were shouting "lock her up," the mantra about hillary clinton. what does that tell you about the way the president's base is still with him and what the prospects might be in fact for him to hold the senate and do better than some may expect in the house? >> listen, i've traveled around our great country. and i believe that the vast majority of americans do not want their president to be an unindicted co-conspirator to a crime. that is what i believe. that's who i believe americans

to be. and they'll see through the red herrings and the smoke screens that are being spewed as a way to distract from the fans. let's be clear about something else. i am a former attorney general of the state of california. and i honor the work that happens in the courts of our country. and most recently, just in the last 12 hours, in two separate courts in our country, one person was found by a jury to be guilty of eight crimes, and another pled guilty to eight. and as it relates to mr. cohen, that is about -- in addition to everything he did, about being directed by the now-president of the united states to commit those crimes. it's a serious matter. i think the american public will take it seriously and see it for what it is. >> when you see the kinds of changes that are happening at the regulatory level, which are going underreported, some would say, because of all of this, which is major issues, but

there's less focus on the epa decisions that were finalized yesterday where states will have so much more decisionmaking over pollution. california, i don't need to tell you, has been in a crisis of wildfires and other effects of climate change and other things. does it make you more seriously consider wanting to run in 2020? >> listen, right now i'm focused on 2018. but i think that we should all be concerned about the direction of our country. and we should be thinking about it. you know, especially given what's just happened, andrea. >> you're thinking about about it seriously? >> i appreciate you asking the question but i really need to and want to speak to what's happened in the last day. i believe that the future of our republic is very much in the balance. i believe the future of our democracy is very much in balance. our republic, it's like a tabletop. it stands on four legs. and those legs are three independent co-equal branches of government and a free and

independent press. and as it relates to the kavanaugh nomination and the hearings that are scheduled to happen in just two weeks, i would suggest that an unindicted co-conspirator to a crime should not be in the business of having the ability to appoint someone to a lifetime position on the highest court in our land, a court which invariably would hear the matters that are the subject of this very discussion. so that's what's happening right now. and i think it's imperative that everyone take passengepay atten moment and understand it and see it for what it is. it's going to be a question about the strength of our democracy and our republic. this is a serious matter. >> and is it so serious that it now makes you think impeachment is a more viable option? >> what i would say is that it is very critically important that we let mueller, bob

mueller, complete his investigation without any interference and without any influence by way of threat of firing him, because we need to see that through the end. i feel very strongly about that. >> kamala harris, senator, thank you very much, thanks for being with us on a very important day. >> thank you. coming up, with friends like these. president trump's second earliest supporter in congress now also indicted, following chris collins' example. the inside scoop next on duncan hunter. stay with us next.

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well, while everyone was busy looking elsewhere, house republicans now have a second congressman indicted in two weeks. california republican duncan hunter and his wife charged with using $250,000 in campaign funds for personal expenses ranging from groceries to family trips abroad, and lying about it all in federal filings. this comes after his fellow republican congressman chris collins was indicted on insider trading charges two weeks ago. they were the first two members of congress to endorse then-candidate donald trump long before mr. trump won the nomination. let's get the inside scoop from nbc's kasie hunt, sabrina siddiqui, and rick tyler, former spokesman for newt gingrich and

ted cruz. cas kasie, what's the atmosphere on capitol hill? >> lucky for duncan hunter that there was a lot of news crowding out his own. the house of course is out of session this week, in august. the senate is back, here. but this is another situation where republican leaders are having to grapple with somebody connected to the president, with a lot of ethical questions swirling around. the house speaker paul ryan strips duncan hunter of his committee assignments while this plays out. the speaker doesn't have a lot of personal tolerance for things like this. so i'm looking to see if he gets pushed further, if hunter were to make potentially an announcement along the lines of the ones chris collins made, which is that he was not going to run for reelection, because at the end of the day this just adds to the set of problems that republicans are already facing in this midterm cycle. they are not expecting this to be an easy year for them at all. and this is yet another thing where they have to explain away

actions of a colleague. it seems to play into this overarching narrative that democrats are running on, which is that, you know, there's a culture of corruption in washington. >> and sabrina, what i've been hearing also from republican operatives is that they are really having trouble in key swing districts where there are women candidates in particular, where suburban republican women are turning away and do not want anyone named trump to campaign for them. >> absolutely. this is an election year where democrats are eyeing seats that have been long held by republicans. and this does potentially put yet another one of those seats in play. first and four moremost, it bea repeating that two members of congress who were the first to endorse president trump are under indictment. there is a tendency to ignore some of the national issues that a lot of voters might deem as distractions, but this is something that is going to get a lot of coverage now at the local

level. hunter's opponent is a young upstart candidate who used to work in the obama administration's labor department. he was one of the democrats who earned an endorsement from former president barack obama. so i think that you will expect to be hearing a lot more of this. and republicans, again, are seeing yet another seat become increasingly more vulnerable as we're i'm going to a potential blue wave. >> the cook political report has now deemed it leaning republican rather than solid republican, rick. this is a stretch, though, because this is such a red district. >> i think it's right in the toss-up problem. this is a san diego district with a huge naval base. and apparently, allegedly, duncan hunter was in italy and had requested a tour of a navy base, and they got word back that they couldn't do it at that time. and the response to that was "f the navy." >> oh. news to me. that doesn't go over too well

with the navy. i know something about coronado beach and san diego, that is all about the navy. i can see all those guys working out in the morning as i was training for the marathon back in the day when the republican national committee was there in 1996. sabrina, this is not good news at all for the republicans as they look to what could have been a narrow victory. but still, to gain effective control of the house, let me ask all of you, kasie, you perhaps, being up there every day, people say you have to pick up 60 seats more than just the 23 or 24 they need to gain control, 60 seats, to ghana effective control given how bi-if you afurcated differe caucuses are. >> if you look at the ability to pass big legislation, you're absolutely right. but i don't think we should lose

sight -- and they're evaluating gridlock overall in washington, and i think that's absolutely the case. but think about the investigative levers of control that are at stake. we've spent a lot of time already talking about what i'm starting to call the "i" world, because no democrats seem to want to say it here on the hill today, but everybody is thinking about the. they ha -- thinking about it. but there's so many potential avenues of inquiry, there are so many subpoenas that could be sent. that power in the house of representatives, if it democrats take it back even by just one or two seats, is incredible power. i don't think that anyone that i talk to is really thinking about it in any other set of terms. i mean, we're pretty gridlocked up here. it's been that way for a while. there are people who are long time observers, you have been covering this body for a long time, you've seen it in periods where it's worked a lot better than it's working right now.

i don't think there's any hope on either side that that's going to change at all, no matter who winds. but i think what is important are those investigative powers. >> and the fact that you have not devin nunes refusing to grant subpoenas for house intel, but you would have someone like adam schiff, the ranking democrat, in charge. sabrina, duncan hunter says he's not going to step down. he would have to fight to get off the ballot, given the rules. >> and that is what chris collins initially said too, who was indicted on insider trading but then reversed course. kasie hit the nail on the head, there is a culture of corruption in trump's washington and you can tie the candidates on the ballot to that culture itself. >> thank you so much, rick, sabrina. kasie, thank you. coming up, social action. facebook cracking down on a new misinformation campaign, this time from russia and iran. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports." stay with us on msnbc. feel the clarity of non-drowsy

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with our largest variety of crab all year! like new crabfest combo. your one chance to have new jumbo snow crab with tender dungeness crab. or try crab lover's dream. but hurry in. 'cause crabfest ends september 2nd. and facebook has identified a new covert influence, a new

influence campaign from russian intelligence and military intelligence and iran state media trying to mislead users here in the u.s. and around the world. the social media giant moved more than 600 accounts, pages and groups selling miss information. some of those accounts are originated in russia and some in iran. zuckerberg told us in a phone conversation that the company is committed to stopping this. >> we need to make sure that we continue strengthening security operations that we have to be able to defend against those better. >> twitter took down 300 fake accounts late yesterday. microsoft found evidence russia military intelligence was hacking u.s. think tanks. today all 100 senators are being invited to a security briefing on the hill from home security

kirsten nelson and dan coats and fbi director, christopher wray. joining me now, agent on the joint terrorist task force, the author of "messing with the enemy," clint watts. they did alert law enforcement this week of a fishing attempt to access voter files. this attack was detected on tuesday. we don't know how much else is out there. clint, there is a lot of noise here, the social media, google and facebook and twitter are being invited -- they're not being invited, they're told to come to a senate conference hearing two weeks from today in fact. congress is up in arms about the fact that the media giants have not been diligent enough of patrolling their platforms. >> that's right.

what's fascinating here is among between capitol hill and the social media, tlhere is a tug o war over the last year and a half. we are starting to see technology companies really move forward. we have seen facebook now with two different announcements over the last month. we have seen twitter with an announcement today and microsoft taking an innovative approach by going out and seizing domain essentially which are impersonating the hudson institute and gop in the sense going after the republican party. we see the tech companies are picking up the pace. we are seeing with this effort, a state's sponsored news outlet known as press tv interacting with what we call gray zone accounts. we don't know the attribution, they're not telling you who they are behind the scenes. so we are seeing this multi platform approach used not only

by russia but by iran. the last significant thing we saw is russia is still out there. facebook did a take out again but it was focused on ukraine and syrian contact. that's essentially where all of this started from at least when my colleague and i started watching it. >> what iran is doing is not election target. they're not doing the election meddling in this election that russia has done here and in france with brexit and elsewhere around the world, russia is far more sophisticated at targeting political action than it is with iran and north korea and china and other cyber warriors. >> iran is focused on their agenda and advancing around the world. it appears this context was focused on the u.s. audience and the u.k. audience. they had pages and channels and events they're trying to set up similar to the russians but a broader mandate.

they were going of sepecific objectives trying to win per se. they're trying to win people's minds and positions over. what's interesting here is the senate went from being the most aggressive to be behind now. when you look at what's going on those committee hearings have drugged the social media companies there. we are seeing social media companies are really taking the lead. the one piece we don't know about is this session that's going on today. how does the u.s. government interphase with these social media companies. social media companies have a lot of signatures and we see facebook and detect a lot of different activities but they are interphasing with the u.s. government and is there good public privacy to find bad actors. >> certainly not going to end here, thank you so much clint for your expertise and we'll be right back. you can trust for a long time.

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and finally i want to sha share an epic photo of our intern doing her best impression of usaine bolt to help our entire msnbc beat the competition with the news that the jury count its convictions. the image of casey's sprint igniting twitter who is that woman in the blue dress. fast is great and fast and accurate is best.

casey goes back to school next week at temple university but it is not the last we'll hear from her in journalism. that does it from this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." >> craig melvin is with us. >> that's a heck of a picture, i wonder who she was. i should have known she's apart of your team. >> you bet. could not be proud of her. good afternoon right here on msnbc new york city, shock waves after michael cohen pled guilty of his crimes. how the democrats hope to turn all of this to a big win. pardon me, is the president sending a message to his former campaign chairman paul manafort. what it means for his faith.