president trump, learning that allen weisselberg, long-serving cfo in the trump organization, has been given immunity in the michael cohen case. but first, john mccain has decided, along with his family, to discontinue treatment for the brain cancer that the senator has been fighting so valiantly for more than a year. this from the mccain family today. "john has surpassed expectations for his survival. but the progress of disease and the inexorable advance of age render their verdict. our family is immensely grateful for the support and kindness of all his caregivers over the last year and for the continuing outpouring of concern and affection from john's many friends and associates, and the many thousands of people who are keeping him in their prayers. god bless and thank you all." this morning on twitter from his daughter, meghan, "my family is deeply appreciative of all the

love and generosity you have shown us during this past year. thank you for all of your continued support and prayers. we could not have made it this far without you -- yew given us strength to carry on." and his wife of nearly 40 years, cindy mccain, "i love my husband with all of my heart. god bless everyone who has cared for my husband along this journey." joining me now, nbc's kelly o'donnell who has covered senator mccain for all these years. mike murphy, a strategist to senator mccain for his run for president in 2000, and of course a friend and long-time adviser. kelly, first, to you. this is a very difficult situation for you, you know him so well, you traveled with him during those critical years during his campaign for the presidency. we know he's been fighting this brain cancer as no one but john mccain could have, valiantly. >> for 13 months, andrea, he has been battling this brain cancer. it was announced in july of last year. and one of the things that really strikes me today as we

think about his decision to not seek further treatment is that he has been in sedona at home for a period of months convalescing. it is the longest he has spent in one place since he was in vietnam as a prisoner of war, and by that i mean as a long time member of congress and the senate for decades, he was traveling back and forth commuting between washington, d.c. and phoenix on a regular basis. for these months he has been in one place, sort of receiving friends and family, having time to reflect on his life, finishing what we presume is the final book, "the restless wave," that came out earlier this spring, and having time to -- for what many people would say about john mccain, always in a hurry, always rushing, having time to take in some of the accolades that have been certainly surrounding. in these months of his very serious illness. this is an illness that of

course has been know to come to a point where there would be a decision like this. the cancer, i am told, has in fact receded but it's all the ravages of the disease that have brought him to no longer receiving treatment. he is turning 82 next week. the genes of the mccain family, his mother roberta is 106. senator mccain is a former prisoner of war, an aviator, a statesman. he talked about the proudest achievement of his life politically being nominee of his party in 2008. when he lost that election to barack obama, finding that he still had a very current and relevant voice on matters of national security and something that he enjoyed being in the fight, in the arena on a daily basis. teddy roosevelt, his favorite, coined the phrase "in the arena." that's something john mccain continues to live up to. >> and kelly, thanks to you, as we talk about john mccain, it's

obviously a critical passage that he is now going through. mike murphy, you know that in this past 13 months, for most of these period, he has been a very important voice on national policy. he was the critical vote. we saw that last speech, and he was the vote, shocking the president. you see right now that moment, the thumbs down from the senate floor. he stopped the repeal of obamacare, went up against his party's leader, the president, sxhkd n and could not have been more outspoken, even as the president has, there's no other word to say it, trashed him at rallies continuously as well as in recent weeks. >> well, he has always been -- he used to joke that his colleagues named him miss congeniality in the senate. i always found him very congenial in our association, i never found anyone more fun in

politics. he goes to the compass of his own character. and that's an important lesson that i think will outlast his amazing career of service to our country. the idea that there are causes bigger than your own self-interest. and he dedicated his whole life, both his military service and in the senate as a candidate. he was never afraid to tilt against port arty orthodoxy a bf he thought that was the best thing for the country. that idea of service above self, he's an example, i'm praying for a miracle, but should he leave us, that purposefulness, that idea has to endure, because it's the path out of our current morass. for president trump, you don't have to say a lot to see the lifelong contrast in character and service between those two men. >> he also, as much as a partisan as he was, he has always worked across party

lines. he became very close with hillary clinton on the armed services committee, traveling to afghanistan, traveling to iraq when she was a senator, amy klobuch klobuchar, and certainly joe biden. joe biden is very much a part of this process because of his own son beau biden passing from geoblastoma, which is not responsive to immunotherapy. kelly o, thanks so much to you. now to the politics facing the president. if anyone could be so different from john mccain in so many ways, it's president trump. now president trump facing new troubles from his inner circle, new developments today, fresh on the heels of the michael cohen guilty plea, allen weisselberg, a staple of the trump

organization for decades, the accountant, the money man, the cfo, close confidant of the president and his father before him, granted immunity in connection with the michael cohen case, following the revelation that long time friend and supporter david pecker, ceo and publisher "the national inquirer." joining me now, tom winter, daniel goldman, joyce vance, and kristen welker. tom, first to you, set the stage of what has happened today with allen weisselberg. >> andrea, today, what's different from yesterday, yesterday we were talking about david pecker and payments or a payment that was made to karen mcdougal. today, allen weisselberg, this has to do with another count in the information that michael cohen pled guilty to on tuesday.

basically what's talked about here, in the criminal information there is an "exclusi "executive 1," who is not named. we understand that that's allen weisselberg, who we hear has been granted immunity. he's able to offer testimony, provide information to prosecutors and investigators that are involved in the michael cohen investigation and to be able to provide that information to them without concern that whatever he said, if it may have been self-incriminating, may have hurt him from his own legal liability standpoint, that he would be able to say that without that coming back to him, essentially. so what we've learned today is that he was the person who was kind of directing how this payment would go to michael cohen, paying him back for that payment to stormy daniels, andrea. and so this is another development that we've learned now post the guilty plea by michael cohen, again that we got in court shortly after 4:00 p.m. on tuesday. >> dan goldman, let's be very

clear about what a grant of immunity is, because this is not the same as being a cooperating witness. this is basically someone who has some legal exposure but has proffered enough to prosecutors of what he could offer that interests them enough to give them a free pass, basically, by granting immunity. this also affects, and we'll talk about this in a moment, again, david pecker from "the national inquirer," but weisselberg knows where all the bodies are buried financially in the trump organization. >> that's right, andrea. there are two different paths this could take. one is that weisselberg is granted immunity, which is an immunity order, it means that his testimony in the grand jury cannot be used against him. the other path, which is often used by prosecutors, is sort of an in between cooperation agreement. we know about the cooperation agreements of rick gates,

michael flynn, where they plead guilty to crimes and agree to cooperate. there is an in-between angle called the nonprosecution agreement, which is really just an agreement with the u.s. attorney's office that you will not be prosecuted as long as you continue to cooperate. what is interesting to me is whether this is truly a grant of immunity and he was put in the grand jury to testify, or whether he is cooperating with the southern district of new york, perhaps pursuant to a nonprosecution agreement. and the reason why that matters is that weisselberg not only would have the information that tom just referenced in michael cohen's case related to the campaign finance fraud and the stormy daniels payment, but he also knows where all the financial bodies are buried in the trump organization. and to the extent that the southern district, who has already subpoenaed the trump organization, is interested in criminal conduct that goes beyond michael cohen's campaign finance involvement, which may

or may not -- which he has implicated the president in, there is a lot more at stake that is much more significant than, you know, a campaign finance violation. and so perhaps his knowledge of the campaign finance fraud is why he got immunity, because he would be a witness to that but was not central to that. but if it goes beyond that, then this could really blow up. >> i mean, this could involve -- there's always been specificatiospeculation, how did adopt get out donald tr his bankruptcy situation, i'm just speculating, i'm not alleging anything. the finances of the trump organization have never been disclosed, the tax returns, he didn't put anything in a blind trust. he's still the head of his organization, although he turned over the operation to his two adult sons, dan. >> that's right.

what we know is that basically weisselberg is really running the trump organization right now. i think that donald trump turned it over to eric and don junior, but weisselberg is also one of the principals. and unlike michael cohen, who really took care of any problems, you know, the fact that he was a fixer in name says a lot about him. he was not, you know, the legal muscle in the trump organization. but the person who really understood the inner workings of the trump organization is ail en weiss -- is allen weisselberg. if he is cooperating with prosecutors and dwulgs whivulgee knows about the trump organization, he still remains at the top of the trump organization and has been there for a very long time. we know, for example, andrea, many of the condos in trump

buildings were paid for in cash by russians. and it's been alleged in, you know, a number of reports, and adam davidson from "the new yorker" has done a great job at looking into this, that a lot of the money invested in trump organization properties was likely dirty money. that gets us close to money laundering. but anyone in the trump organization would need to be -- the prosecutors would need to show their own knowledge that that money is dirty money in order to be implicated. but that's just one of many examples of where this could go. >> and joyce, let's talk for a moment about the legal ramifications. because although it's been pretty well-agreed that there is a disputable issue as to whether a sitting president could be indicted for something and perhaps can't, and perhaps robert mueller would not even push it or other prosecutors would not, but certainly his adult sons and the trump organization are very liable. and this is getting very close to home if it involves

potentially the trump family. >> i think that's the right question to ask, andrea, where this this head from here. and leaving aside the possibility of indicting a president, which i think we've all discussed to death at this point, there are other potential targets for prosecutors in sdny, also for prosecutors in the state of new york, in the ag's office and in the district attorney's office. why would the feds give some sort of immunity? we don't know if it's immunity from prosecution or use immunity for the testimony he's offered, weisselberg. the reason is to continue to go up the chain. you don't give the cfo of a corporation or any sort of business entity immunity in order to prosecute the people who work for him. they're going for bigger fish. there are three obvious bigger fish than weisselberg here. that would appear to be where

this investigation is headed. >> kristen, there at the white house, probably they read very closely, the president's lawyers read closely these documents coming out of the michael cohen guilty plea. when they see "executive 1," they've probably figured out there are some issues here and they have some vulnerabilities. what must the president be thinking today, to look at these headlines, that allen weisselberg, his father's accountant, his accountant, the cfo of the trump organization, is talking to the feds? >> i think you're right, andrea, that his lawyers knew this was coming and likely discussed it with him and prepped him for this. but there is no doubt that the headlines this week are getting to the president. look, he hasn't lost it yet. those close to him say that. but they are bracing for a potential eruption here. we're seeing that start to play out in the president's tweets recall you c.

you can see him grow increasingly frustrated, tweeting about michael cohen and taking aim at his attorney general. this is of course not directly linked to that but an outgrowth of it. that's why his tweets are getting sharper and more furious. now, the president is heading to ohio a little bit later on today. so we're hoping to be able to ask him about all of this. and it will be interesting to see what he actually says from the podium, andrea, will he address any of this, will he stop to answer any of our questions? when he went to west virginia earlier this week, he was subdued, and a lot of people noticed that. he made one reference to the russia probe. that may have underscored the enormity of this moment and the fact that it's still sinking in for him, andrea. >> and we shouldn't overlook the fact that as of yesterday, there is another immunized witness, david pecker.

tom winter, this is the publisher eof "the national inquirer," who has been promoting his career and has been in supermarket tabloids across the america in 2016, trashing hillary clinton with fake news, false headlines, horrible pictures, some doctored-up, and headlines against his other opponents, if we can see some of those graphics. look at some of these false stories about hillary clinton. he has used that tabloid and also, according to the associated press, has a safe where he was storing all of his most important secrets, which is widely known within "the national inquirer" newsroom, even, that some of this would of course also include the two women and the two causes that involved "the inquirer," in particular the mcdougal case, tom. >> that's right, andrea, i had

kind of forgotten until you should us this morning, how withering "the national inquirer" was in the lead-up to the election last year. i've covered "the inquirer" before, in the case involving bill cosby, you're looking at some of those covers right now. you look at two people directly referenced in a criminal investigation that we now find out there is immunity given to the ceo of american media, referenced in the information that michael cohen pled guilty to, david pecker, and as we've been discussing, allen weisselberg. when you have two people who are key figures in specific counts involving michael cohen and they were given immunity, they provided information to prosecutors, that's pretty damning evidence, on all of all the materials they were able to take from michael cohen as part

of that court-authorized search warrant back in april. andrea, you see these cases were not just derived on one particular person's word or one particular piece of evidence. of course we wouldn't expect that in this case, but according to prosecutors, they say that they have a lot of evidence that backs up, and now we know that these people have had immunity. if it was any other office than the president, if we were talking about a mayor, a governor, even a congressman, if we were talking about people that were sitting in those offices, we would say, okay, there's an awful lot of testimony and evidence coming that person's way, when that person is then charged. but obviously, as we've discussed here, as joyce said, to death, the idea of indicting a president is a little bit of a different matter. but it certainly appears they have a lot. >> andrea, if i can make a final point on that, it starts to explain why michael cohen is not cooperating. if the southern district has all the materials they seized from

cohen including the recordings, and now the cooperation of david pecker and allen weisselberg, they may simply just not need michael cohen. >> right. >> and of course they already had michael cohen's taxi business partner as a cooperating witness as well. so they may not need to do anything to reduce his potential sentence as well. thanks to all of you, to joyce, to dan. of course kristen welker and tom winter. great way to start us off on a very, very busy day. coming up, the leak that was. the impact of the president's legal woes on his own party in the midterms. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports." stay with us on msnbc. there's little rest for a single dad,

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it is a dark week for the trump white house. a jury finding president trump's former campaign chairman paul manafort guilty on eight felony counts. we learned from a juror afterwards that there was only one holdout on all 18 being guilty verdicts. his personal attorney and fixer michael cohen pleaded guilty to eight counts, including paying women hush money, he says at the direction of donald trump. in "the weekly standard," "no gop senator seems eager to play the role that senator howard baker played in watergate. there are no barry goldwaters

willing to tell the president hard truths." with me is charlie sykes, and mike murphy, again, long time republican strategist. susan page as well. charlie sykes, tell us what you mean by "the moral rot." you're in wisconsin. where is paul ryan? where is the voice speaking up at this stage? >> well, you know, the bottom line is the republicans have bet their future on the proposition that character does not matter, at least not the character of donald trump. so what they've done is they have tolerated this culture of corruption. but more than tolerated it. by believing that nothing matters, that they are going to be immunized from any consequences, they really have encouraged this kind of swampy behavior that we're seeing with congressmen collins and duncan hunter. at this point it is an extraordinary moment. this would have been the week, right, this would have been the week where republicans would say

we need to draw the line and make it clear what we're willing to tolerate and what we're not willing to tolerate. and all we're getting is crickets. >> let's talk about duncan hunter, who you brought up. susan page, what should be a reliably red district, we've learned his and his wife had separate attorneys and did not communicate, and he's completely throwing his wife under the bus. she ran the money. they're both charged in these cases they've pleaded not guilty to. they were dead broke and spending thousands and thousands of dollars on vacations, on hawaiian shorts, disguising it as golf balls for wounded warriors and for boys and girls clubs gift packages, spending $12,000 on fast food, alcohol, and groceries, his wife spending $152 on makeup at nordstrom's,

telling the campaign it was a gift basket for boys and girls clubs of san diego. let's play the sound bite of him talking about his wife. >> when i went to iraq in 2003, i gave her power of attorney and she handled my finances throughout my military career. that continued when i went to congress, i'm home for two days a week. she was the campaign manager. whatever she did, that will be looked at too, i'm sure. but i didn't do it. >> i mean, "i didn't do it, the wife did it." susan, i don't know what to say. we're both married to wonderful people. just watching this marriage -- >> if my husband were indicted this way, i would hope he would not do an interview like that. if you read the indictment, it has the congressman being all too aware that there were problems with what his wife was doing, with the credit card he had given her with his campaign,

put aside the complaints he was hearing from campaign people about her inappropriate spending. i mean, it's really what people must assume -- when people assume the worst about washington, this is what they're thinking about. >> let's talk about the worst and the best. so, susan, you and i have long covered john mccain. i want to ask your thoughts about that as well. but charlie and mike murphy, charlie, let me ask you about john mccain, and the role he has been playing especially since his illness, in the republican party, going up against the leader of his own party. >> well, he continues to be the conscience of the party. mike said this a little earlier on your show, the contrast between john mccain, this man of honor, and tonigdonald trump, c not be more stark than it is right now. what an extraordinary turn of events. we're perhaps focusing the mind on what true honor looks like. we have a president who says he's proud of paul manafort but

he's not proud of what john mccain has done. somebody who admires a convicted felon and yet can never bring himself to really admire this genuine american hero. and i do hope that other republicans look at john mccain and his legacy and the way that he's going to be remembered and say, okay, do i want to be remembered that way, or do i want to be remembered as a rubber stamp for donald trump? >> susan page, when we think about john mccain, the straight talk express, we also think about that concession speech in arizona and what we now learned later from the books that were written, that sarah palin wanted to speak and john mccain said no. >> i think john mccain probably didn't view the selection of sarah palin as his brightest moment in politics. in july of 2007, his campaign had pretty much collapsed. he was out of money. he had a big campaign shake-up, almost no staff left. he went to new hampshire, spoke

to the concord chamber of commerce. i was there. there was a scrum afterwards. i said, what would prompt you to done out of this race before the new hampshire primary? and he looked at me like i was out of my mind and said, "nothing." there was nothing that would make him quit. that was one of the characteristics of john mccain as a politician and as a human being, that he never quit. >> and mike murphy, the straight talk express, let's go out on a high, which was perhaps the most fun campaign that any of us have covered in 2000. >> yeah, it was let hmccain be mccain, a long shot. but he was a fighter. and the rule of the campaign was let him be himself. we stuffed a bus full of all kinds of odd balls but usually including a bunch of reporters, and he would take any question. and it really caught on in new hampshire. and then leveraged up. i remember how tough he was and what a happy warrior on that campaign. i'll never forget we were in south carolina and there had been a screw up, the local folks

had loaded the schedule, which we staffers were supposed to prevent. it was 6:00 a.m., he had gotten no sleep, we were in the world's worst hotel somewhere. john weaver came up, knocked on the door, said, sir, i'm sorry, the next three days there's going to be no sleep, there's been a schedule breakdown. we were sheepish and ashamed. he grinned and said, you're telling me no sleep, too many events? boys, we can do that standing on our heads. he smiled and off we went. it was a time that i'm very proud of the campaign we ran. we didn't win the nomination, but we did what mccain does. we stood for principle and we fought until the last. >> if not for dirty tricks that were racially motivated in south carolina, he might have won the nomination, who knows? mike murphy, we'll always have 2000. thank you so much. a lot more to talk about. coming up, reality check. could democrats take the house

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growing opposition to key policy decisions including tariffs has created another headache for republicans facing a difficult political landscape with widespread expectations of a so-called blue wave. new analysis from the cook political report shows democrats could pick up as many as 40 seats. they only need 23 to gain back control of the house. but it's still an uphill battle for democrats in the senate. joining me, charlie cook, editor and publisher of "the cook political report." even with 40 seats, the democrats would gain a lot of control, they would have subpoena power, control of chairs. but they would not necessarily have effective legislating control because of the divisions in caucuses and the power particularly of the freedom caucus on the republican side. >> that's right, andrea. between -- right now democrats need 23 seats. we see the most likely outcome as a net gain for democrats of between 20 and 40.

if it's not between 20 and 40, the odds of it going over 40 are a lot higher than it being under 20. but you're absolutely right, democrats would need to pick up 46 seats to get up to the place where republicans are now and that anything over 46 seats, they would have a bigger majority than republicans do now. but the thing is, what republicans have to really worry about is, among the republicans that are not part of the tea party and are not conservative white evangelical christians, of the other republicans, do they stay home? will the events that we've seen over the last year and a half, over the last week, are these the kinds of things that demoralize sort of nominal republicans, more conventional republicans so they don't turn out? that's the difference between the republicans having a bad night, maybe losing the house, or a horrible night with massive, massive house losses.

>> the president is campaigning on a number of things, immigration. there's been, some suggest, race baiting, bringing up south africa, incorrect reporting, based on a fox news report. if you look at a marist poll from pennsylvania, the tariffs are not popular. 45% believe tariffs will raise costs on consumers. he originated this trade policy when conor lamb was running in that district, it was aimed at steelworkers and aluminum tariffs, and it's having a counter effect. pat toomey, a republican from there, says it's bad for the state, there are more manufacturing jobs being hurt by higher costs on steel and aluminum than there are steel jobs. >> well, i think one of the things we're watching with the impact of tariffs, is what does it do in rural america that

president trump's base in rural america, a big element of it, are farmers, people who live in small town rural america. these are people that could be very, very much affected, damaged, by tariffs. but so far they're kind of hanging in there with him. there are a lot of nervous farm leaders out there. and, you know, he's playing with fire politically here. but we haven't seen yet a real decline, a big decline in republican support because of the tariffs, yet. but it may very well happen. but we haven't really seen a lot of it yet. >> one other point was the new nbc news/marist poll in texas showing a very close race, four points between ted cruz and beto o'rourke, the democratic challenger.

where do you see this race going? ted cruz should have a tremendous advantage as the republican incumbent. >> texas has been republican for a long time. because of demographic patterns, particularly hispanic, it's gradually getting more towards purple. i think within the next four, six years, it will become a more competitive purple state, not quite -- [ inaudible ]. >> and i apologize, charlie cook got cut off by the satellite gods. but thank you, charlie cook. we were just about wrapping up. what charlie is saying, that texas is still more likely to be republican on the senate side, and they still are expecting the republicans to hang onto the senate, and perhaps the house not so, depending on the margins, of course. we'll see what has to happen. charlie, you want to quickly button it down? i was trying to summarize what i thought you would say about texas. >> yeah, this race has gotten very, very close.

but cruz still has a little bit of an advantage. those last two or three points are going to be tough for o'rourke. we're looking at a lot of polls with four, five, six, eight-point margin, which is very, very close for a senate race in texas. so i think o'rourke is going to beat the point spread. does he get over the top or not? i'm a little skeptical. >> thank goodness i was on the same page in my quick summary of what charlie cook might have said. thank you, charlie. >> you're a pro, andrea. >> you're the pro. thank you very much. and happy weekend to you. coming up, swinging at sessions. the president ramping up his attacks on the attorney general. pete williams joins us next. stay with us. am i willing to pay the price for loving you? you'll make my morning, but ruin my day. complicated relationship with milk? pour on the lactaid. it's delicious 100% real milk, just without that annoying lactose. mmm, that's good. lactaid. the real milk that doesn't mess with you.

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start them off right, with the school supplies they need at low prices all summer long. like these for only $2 or less at office depot officemax. as legal issues continue to swirl around the president, he went on twitter this morning pressuring jeff sessions to investigate a litany of the president's avowed enemies. hillary clinton, james comey, robert mueller, peter strzok, a long list. this a day after sessions took the very unusual step of issuing a statement defending his leadership of the justice department against the president's repeated attacks, including another one yesterday. joining me now, nbc news justice correspondent pete williams, and betsy woodruff, the daily beast correspondent. pete, the abuse of this attorney general by his boss and the

pushback from some leading republican senators, although that wavered a bit yesterday, how does sessions continue this way? >> the way he has continued since all this started, over the fact that he was going to recuse. it should have been obvious to the white house people that the attorney general had to recuse himself because he worked on the campaign. it's black letter recusal requirement. and it was obvious from the moment he stepped into the role as attorney general that this was what he was going to do. every time we asked him, he said he was thinking about it. clearly he was headed in this direction. why nobody told the president he was going to recuse himself is a bit of a mystery. what they're saying to us, people who know sessions well, is the reason he hasn't pushed back like this is that in the past the president's comments were about specific things, about recusal, about strzok and page, about getting the documents to the hill that republicans want. this was a broader attack, in the fox interview, against the attorney general, that he wasn't

in control of the juchstice department. that's why, we're told, sessions decided to give this rather muscular pushback. whether there's more to it, whether the attorney general senses that his support is wavering in the senate and that his days are numbered in the job, i don't know the answer to that. but in any event, what we're being told is, he felt, the attorney general felt it was a different kind of attack that he had to respond to. it was an attack not so much just at him for a specific thing but at the justice department in general. >> and it was really interesting, betsy and pete, john cornyn, a former judge and a friend of jeff sessions, as many of the senators are, he came out strongly against this idea that the president would move against jeff sessions. but lindsey graham, who just played golf with the president this past weekend, said, yeah, after the midterms, it's probably -- time is running out for jeff sessions or something to that effect. betsy, is that a signal that jeff sessions' time as attorney

general after the midterms, assuming they don't lose control of the senate, is pretty much over? >> it's certainly an indicator that members of the senate are beginning to think that way. another strong or interesting indicator we've seen in the last 24 hours or so is that senator chuck grassley who chairs the powerful judiciary committee previously had said that if the president were to fire the attorney general, that he wouldn't have time on sort of the calendar of his committee to move through the confirmation of a new attorney general. but in the last 24 to 48 hours, grassley has said that actually now he would be able to find time to confirm another ag. so that's another indicator coming from the senate that people are potentially seeing the writing on the wall, gearing up for the inevitable deposing, the inevitable movement of sessions out of the justice department. >> of course that presumes they retain control of the senate, because if the democrats take control of the senate, i think it would be a lot harder for them to confirm anyone. pete and betsy, thank you.

we're going to have to run. coming up, fighting fake news. the president using his favorite phrase again today. we'll tell you about the brand-new tool to help fight disinformation and misinformation that millions of americans are seeing every day. stay with us. it's time for the 'biggest sale of the year' on the new sleep number 360 smart bed. it senses your movement and automatically adjusts to keep you both comfortable. and now, all beds are on sale. save 50% on the new sleep number 360 limited edition smart bed. plus, free home delivery. ends saturday.

not not all. but the fake news is. the fake news comprised of big chunks. somebody says what's the chunk? i would 80% it is a lie. if i do something well it is not reported. other than the 20%. >> president trump going on about one of his favorite topics, fake news, joining me now is the founder of court tv and the ceo and cofounder of "news guard." a new tool to help all of us combat false news. steve, how does it work? >> it works by following the proposition that every once in a while human intelligence are better than artificial intelligence, we hired dozens of journalists since march, we have been reading and using various

specific indicators that all professional journalists would agree onto evaluate the thousands of news sites responsible for 98% of the news information that are shared online and in the united states. if a site does not meet the standards, it gets a red but if the site, most sites do the standard, they get a green. we don't just stop there. if you hover over the red or green that you see online, there is a nutrition label that explains completely how and why we have rated the sites and it explains the writer and the background and who the editors are. if there is any complaints anything that we have done, that's transparent. if we have said anything negative about a site even if they missed on one of the nine

criteria, we have called them for comment. their comment is their algorithm don't call people for comments. >> we do. >> it is amazing that you can do this in realtime. how quickly can you turn this around? >> we have been doing this for a while. any site that's going to trans online, we'll have a s.w.a.t. team that's alerted to that and we'll wrestle it to the ground that if it goes viral, it may go viral with the rating. the purpose of these ratings is not to suppress content or tell people don't read anything. it is not to tell the platforms who are going to be licensing this content that they should suppress it, it is saying arm people with information. that's the way to deal with unreliable information is give

people information about it. that's what librains have been doing. >> thank you so much steve bill. we'll be right back. hey there people eligible for medicare. gimme two minutes. and i'll tell you some important things to know about medicare. first, it doesn't pay for everything. say this pizza... [mmm pizza...] is your part b medical expenses. this much - about 80 percent... medicare will pay for.

what's left... this slice here... well... that's on you. and that's where an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company comes in. this type of plan helps pay some of what medicare doesn't. and these are the only plans to carry the aarp endorsement. that's because they meet their high standards of quality and service. wanna learn more? it's easy. call unitedhealthcare insurance company now and ask... for this free decision guide. inside you'll find the range of aarp medicare supplement plans and their rates. apply any time, too. oh. speaking of time... about a little over half way and there's more to tell. like, how... with this type of plan, you'll have the freedom to choose any doctor who accepts medicare patients. great for staying with the one you know... or finding... somebody new, like a specialist. there are no networks and no referrals needed.

none. and when you travel, your plan will go with you- anywhere in the country. so, if you're in another state visiting the grandkids, stay awhile... enjoy... and know that you'll still be able to see any doctor who accepts medicare patients. so call unitedhealthcare today. they are committed to being there for you. tick, tick, tick, time for a wrap up. a medicare supplement plan helps pay some of what medicare doesn't. you know, the pizza slice. it allows you to choose any doctor, who accepts medicare patients... and these are the only plans of their kind endorsed by aarp. whew! call unitedhealthcare today and ask for this free decision guide.

it has been a big week. a lot of very sad and troubling, thanks for being with us, thanks for sharing it with us.

that's it for "andrea mitchell reports." please keep john mccain in your heart and prayers. craig melvin is next. >> indeed. >> good afternoon to you. craig melvin is here. we continue to follow the breaking news, immunity, a second trump confidante was given immunity, we are following the money on this friday. be a tabloid pub isslisher, all cooperating with prosecutors, what does it mean on president trump? attack on justice with the president backed in a