we're back. you think we're about to witness the spectacle of brett kavanaugh and professor ford on capitol hill making their cases to the public? >> yeah. i thought that was very likely, but the comments from susan collins i think make it inevitable that you're going to have this moment where they're going to have to make their case to the american public, and they will have to assess their credibility. >> all right. my thanks to paul butler, charlie sykes, elisa and jonathan capehart that does it for the hour. "mpt daily" starts right now. hi, steve. >> hi. if it's monday, chaos over kavanaugh's confirmation. good evening. i'm steve kornacki in new york in for chuck todd. welcome to mpt daily. we begin tonight with breaking news as the confirmation battle over judge brett kavanaugh has been roiled by an on-the-record

allegation of sexual assault. today we received word that judge kavanaugh's accuser is willing to testify. so is judge kavanaugh. but there appears to be little appetite among republicans to hold a hearing. just a short time ago, president trump spoke about delaying the confirmation. >> if it takes a little delay, it will take a little delay. it shouldn't certainly be very much. they had the information in july, as i understand it. that's a long time ago, and nobody mentioned it until the other day. it's very -- you know, it's very unfortunate they didn't mention it sooner. if they delay it a little bit just to make sure everybody is happy, they want to be happy. i can tell you, the republican senators want to be 100% happy themselves. they're doing it very, very professionally. again, this should have been brought up a long time ago. >> so what happens now? well, it has been a wild day of fast-moving developments after california professor christine blasey ford went public with her allegations. she told "the washington post" that the president's supreme

court pick tried to drunkenly assault her at a high school party more than 30 years ago. she said, quote, i thought he might inadvertently kill me. he was trying to attack me and remove my clothing. here is professor ford's lawyer earlier today. >> she clearly considers this an attempted rape. she believes that if it were not for the severe intoxication of brett kavanaugh, she would have been raped. >> ms. katz, is your client willing to testify before the judiciary committee year publicly and tell this story? >> she is. she is willing to do whatever it takes to get her story forth, yes. >> and ford's lawyer says she has therapist notes in a lie detector test to back up the allegations. we should note nbc news has not spoken directly to professor ford. we haven't seen those therapist notes either. still, kavanaugh spent a good chunk of the day at the white house huddled there with officials, trying to figure out what to do. he put out a statement this morning. i said, quote, this is a

completely false allegation. i have never done anything like what the accuser describes to her or to anyone because this never happened. i had no idea who was making this accusation until she identified herself yesterday. white house official tells nbc news that kavanaugh says he was not even at the party in question, and president trump told reporters he believes the confirmation is still on track. but there is growing public pressure for both kavanaugh and ford to publicly testify about these allegations. some of that public pressure came from the white house. >> should she be heard on capitol hill? >> absolutely. she should not be insulted. she should not be ignored. she should testify under oath and she should do it on capitol hill. and judge kavanaugh should also testify as to these 36-year-old allegations. let me beer have clear. she should not not be ignored or insulted. she should be heard. be i talked to senator lindsey graham, and he said that could be done tomorrow. >> but the republican chairman of the judiciary committee,

chuck grassley, has not committed to a public hearing this, not yet. nbc news has just learned from a white house source that kavanaugh is set to hold a conference call with republican members of the senate judiciary committee in less than 30 minutes. let's bring in tonight's panel with us. beth fooey, john todd torres, msnbc contributor, and zerlina maxwell, a former hillary clinton campaign adviser. thank you all for being with us. so it seems like if you can find some consensus on capitol hill, some consensus on the senate side it's that she should be heard. but the question of what form that takes is very much up in the air. this going to be a 19 once clarence thomas/anita hill style situation? the cameras roll. she tells her story. kavanaugh comes out, he tells his version, or is this going to be more behind the scenes? >> what i was struck with mitch mcconnell coming out on the floor today to discuss this, he

was quite perturbed what was going on, more so than president trump, i might add, who was kind of zen for him who said yeah, we can let this keep going and why not. but then mcconnell did say let's leave this to chairman grassley to figure out a good plan. and chairman grassley seems to be open to this testimony, as you said. whether or not it's public of course is the big question because everybody's already heard from kavanaugh, not necessarily on this topic, but we've seen him. we've seen hours and hours and hours of his testimony. we now have the name of an accuser, but we have no sense of who she is, how she would present herself. it's huge pressure. it's terrible pressure to put on somebody who is making this kind of accusation. but in order to level the playing field and get voters, the american people to sort of know what they're dealing with, it would make sense for their come forward publicly. >> democrats are pressing hard on this too. this was chuck schumer earlier today on this idea of public hearings. >> i believe she's credible. a lot of my republican friends don't. what are they afraid of?

they're afraid she might be very persuasive? well, if she, it's a whole different ball game, isn't it? >> that's going to be the line from democrats, isn't it? as long as there is no plan in place, they're going to be saying what are the republicans afraid of. is there a path for republicans the get this through without public hearings? >> i'm not sure, but kavanaugh needs to be there for public hearings. if there are not public hearings in which she airs what she has to say and he airs what he has to say, and he is credible in denying the accusations and believable in the way he comports himself, his entire career on the supreme court will be overshadowed -- well, not overshadowed, but there will be a shadow over his entire career on the supreme court from this point forward. he needs there to be public hearings. >> we should say too, susan collins it sounds like, in such an evenly divided sentence, susan collins certainly giving indications maybe that she think there's ought to be hearing here

as well. if you had the risk of losing susan collins, if you're a republican, you got to take that publicly. do you think we'll have hearing? >> i hope so. i can't predict anything in this political climate. but i do think there should be hearing because the american people absolutely need to examine not just her story, although we do know her story because she put it in "the washington post," but also they need to hear from him, because in the present day he is calling her a liar that is not in the past. in the present day he is calling her a liar, and the american people deserve and are entitled to basically balance whether or not his integrity is intact in this moment. look, this is a lifetime appointment on the voter where women's rights are at stake. and if the bar to entry can't be at this that you have not attempted to rape something in your past, then what kind of country is that to live in, particularly if you're a woman in this country. i mean, what's the promise of equal rights if we're willing to put somebody on the highest court that determines our lived

experience who has been violent towards women, and we're all apparently okay with that. >> we mention -- let me play this first. we mentioned susan collins a second ago. we can listen to what she had to say about this issue of will there be a hearing. let's listen to susan collins. >> i want to have both individuals come before the senate judiciary committee and testify under oath. obviously, if judge kavanaugh has lied about what happened, that would be disqualifying. >> and i think if you listen closely there, maybe not clear if she wants public hearings. i guess if you read that, listen carefully, that could be private hearings. but if there were public hearings in this case, i think everybody's point of reference, as i said at the top, is going back to 1991. clarence thomas and anita hill. obviously the culture has changed enormously since then. what happened then had something to do with the evolution of culture after that. but when you go back and look at those hearing, tens of millions of people watched them. everybody was talking about

them. the public opinion polls didn't move much afterwards. and when you look at them, everybody walked away it seems with sort of a muddled i kind of belief her, but i'm not sure. i kind of believe him, but i'm not sure. it ended up really -- it was not a clear-cut outcome from that committee politically. >> well that. >> didn't have all the information at the time, to be fair. during the committee hearing. >> we can get into the separate decision of not. but in terms of before people, which says was an allegation from anita hill that for years clarence thomas had subject her to unwanted advances, lewd conduct, lewd behavior. she put that out there. she had friends who said hey, she told us about it in realtime. clarence thomas who said no, we worked with him. this is totally out of character. this was all on the record. 10s of millions of people watched that and the verdict back then was fairly muddled. >> at least in terms of the accusations, not so similar. we have one person saying this happened. one person saying it didn't. that's exactly what happened with clarence thomas and anita

hill. and ultimately the judgment was rend heard people found him more believable than her. that changed over the course of the decades since then. right now what we have is a different environment. we have women on the judiciary committee, which we did not have back in 1991. no republican women, unfortunately, but we do have four women on the judiciary committee, democrats, who are going to put this, if there is a public hearing, it's going to be conducted very, very differently than it was back then. that was an all male panel. senator biden, who was at the time the judiciary committee chairman very much criticized for the way he conducted it. it's going to be a very different environment this time, very different showdown and in a very different time. but ultimately it come downs to one or the other person's version of events. >> but clarence thomas came out of the gate saying none of this is true. my reputation is being destroyed here. this is a high-tech lynching. he put it on the line that you couldn't be -- it was one or the other. and the simple fact of the matter is that the slam-dunk was not produced in the course of

those hearings to have the senator say he can't possibly serve. remember, that was a democratic panel. that was democrats had the majority in the senate. clarence thomas performed well enough that the panel wasn't flipped to vote him out and to say that he should not serve. that is why i say kavanaugh needs hearings. this is a republican, you know, panel, republican senate by two votes. and if he needs to be able to address the charges being made against him, which again is a 36-year-old charge by one person, okay, in the cases of the things that we've heard over the last year, part of what made them so, you know, unassailable was they were thick, right? there were eight accusers of roy moore. there were multiple accusers of harvey weinstein, multiple accusers of les moonves. right now we have one, one person. right now we have one person.

and under those circumstances, you know, i don't know that the american people faced with that one-on-one thing will say, you know, it's okay, brett kavanaugh should not be confirmed and his life should be ruined on the bases of an unsubstantiated charge. >> where one allegation is taken as seriously as multiple, because the problem that i have with a narrative that well, it's only one is we're dismissing the testimony of that one person. and her story is not a misunderstanding. it's not something that's very gray. she is talking about a violent assault, right? putting your hand over somebody's mouth to the point where they cannot breathe and they fear for their life, that's not just a drunken moment or, you know, characterized how a lot of folks who don't understand this issue, how they talk about it. this is something that has to do with consent. that is what sexual assault is about. and often we talk about it in terms that don't have to do with whether or not consent was present or not. >> you cannot destroy a man's

life on the basis of -- >> his life is not destroyed. >> his life will be destroyed. >> he is on the federal bench right now. her life has been destroyed. >> no. >> do you understand what happens after a assault? >> zerlina, you are -- >> i'm sorry, but i let you speak. she says that it happened. he says it didn't happen. we cannot as a matter of fairness simply assume that what she is saying is true. in a highly politicized atmosphere. who said we're not taking it seriously? that's why i said there should be a hearing. >> and i agree with you on that 100%. we are absolutely supposed to take the veracity of her story and weigh that against his denial. we're in immigrant on that. what i don't agree is that we need a pile of women to go up against one man's denial. >> it does strike me, again, where we're all thing a hill/thomas parallel is how far apart the starting points were here. anita hill was telling a story of years, a pattern of behavior that extend over years. and the clarence thomas answer

to that was, no none that of happened. absolutely none that of happened. it wasn't this area of well, maybe she misunderstood this or that. in the situation here where the description from dr. ford here, professor ford is very, very specific and very, very troubling, and apparently the answer from kavanaugh at this point was i wasn't even at the party. >> right. and that's what's really sort of stung about all this. he had issued a denial on friday that was very general. this did not happen. after she came out on sunday, he doubled down. he said i was not at the party. i had nothing to do with this. this is completely not true. he really has stuck his neck out. and this sound bite that you played from susan collins said if he proves to have not been truthful, that's a disqualifying situation. so all it takes is one person to come forward and say i do remember him being at that party. and his credibility is completely shot. so he has stuck his neck out very, very far on this. >> i agree. and the oddity of this is he says he was never at the party. she doesn't remember where

the -- or she says we don't have a location for the party. she says -- >> but she was 15 years old. she doesn't remember where it was, she says. his claim that he wasn't at a party that she doesn't remember the location of, i mean, we're in like multiple narrative hell here because if she can't say well, it was at phil jones' house on old dominion road and he was well, i was never at phil jones' house. but she can't say where it, how can he and his denial of saying i wasn't even at that party, he doesn't know what the party was. that's the weird part. he said i was never at that party. we don't know that there was a party. how does he know he wasn't at that party. >> zerlina, i just want to ask you quickly about the other aspect of this. we saw republicans making this point today. they said this allegation was given to dianne feinstein, ranking democrat in this committee, a long time ago, and she chose not to do anything

with it until last week. do you think she made a mistake there? do you think she was respecting the wishes of dr. ford and she did the right thing. >> look, i just want the clarify something i said on joy yesterday. i was critical of dianne feinstein's decision not to at least tell the other democrats, but that was before i read "the washington post." and in the post story, it's very clear. the professional in this particular story requested that she remain anonymous. and so it's -- i always am going to default to doing what the survivor asks for. >> okay, beth, john, zerlina, stay with us. we're just getting started. also, a quick clarification here from nbc news. white house team brett kavanaugh is set to speak with judiciary committee member staffers in just a few minutes. not the senators on the committee themselves. ahead shore, brett kavanaugh's hearing be delayed over these explosive allegations? we're going to talk with one of the lawmakers who says yes. illinois senator tammy duckworth.

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all right. welcome back to meet the midterms. we're going to take a look now. of course that allegation of sexual assault roiling the brett kavanaugh confirmation process. the politics of the confirmation vote, if there is going to be a confirmation vote in the end in the senate, of course this has huge significance for the midterm. right now democrats with 49 seats in the senate. republicans at 51. and we have spent so much time before these allegation hit, talking about the democrats who at this point were most likely to be persuaded to vote yes. talking about democrats running in 2018 in red states, in states that donald trump carried in 2016. would there be pressure on these democrats to vote yes as they face reelection with trump-friendly electorates. some of those states carried by are a very small margin. michigan, even florida was only

a few points, pennsylvania. but how about the real trumpy trump states? montana, north dakota, missouri, indiana, west virginia, places where he won by 20, 30, 40 points. what about the democrats running there. so how does this, how does this change their dilemma? this was the situation for joe manchin in west virginia, running for reelection this year in a state where a recent poll found that 62% of voters want to confirm brett kavanaugh. manchin has been dealing with that dilemma. do try to keep those voters happy, those swing voters in west virginia, or do try to keep that very energized democratic base happy by voting against him. that has been a dilemma for manchin. it's been for heitkamp in north dakota, tester in montana. how do they navigate that? well, now with these new allegations, the question emerges. what happens? we'll see. but what happens if this nomination falls apart? what happens if it ends up maybe being withdrawn somehow? what would that do to the politics for democrats in those states, in those -- facing those dilemmas. obviously they wouldn't have to

make that choice anymore. the question on the flip side is if that seat is open, if that seat in the supreme court oopen heading into election day, in the midterm election, would that fire up the republican base knowing that hey, the election now is all about whether donald trump is going to have a senate that could confirm somebody to fill that seat. so for the democrats that could spare them that dilemma they face so far. but on the other hand, that could energize potentially maybe republican base as well. always a political balancing act when you look at these things, the 51-49 senate. and again, keeping a close eye on how those numbers shift over the next couple of days. we'll be right back. -trash can, turn on the tv. -my pleasure. -ice dispenser, find me a dog sitter. -okay. -and make ice. -pizza delivered. -what's happened to my son? -i think that's just what people are like now. i mean, with progressive, you can quote your insurance on just about any device. even on social media. he'll be fine. -[ laughs ] -will he? -i don't know.

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state, and the answer was whether going to be so much pressure on this to vote yes. now the flip side of this becomes susan collins, lisa murkowski, moderate republicans. >> cory gardner. >> the possibility if they were to turn, and that would potentially give cover to democrats to vote no as well. >> suddenly everybody is looking at 20-20. it's how we do things in politics. well cannot even pay attention to the next race and go to the one after that. but it's a legitimate concern. these are folks who do come from moderate states who are in no hurry to jeopardize themselves with women than republicans have under trump. basically, president trump's popularity among women has gone into the toilet. he is down in the 20s that is going to bring down republicans with him if there is not some major change in the environment. and somebody like susan collins, she's got several political organizations now who have organized, who are raising money to put pressure on her, to make her life miserable, this is something that they're going to have to care about, and you're

entirely right. if this is something that can give the red state democrats enough cover to say i can vote against him, it continues to jeopardize his actual confirmation, because suddenly you take the heidi heitkamps off the table, you take the joe donnellys off the table and suddenly you have to wonder about flake and corker and others who might jump ship. >> collins and murkowski, do they have the keys to the kingdom? >> sure, they do. if they were to announce they were voting no, that would be the send. it's 51-49, that's two votes. he is gone unless democrats were to vote for him, which i see now as highly unlikely. the crosswinds are very interesting. on the one hand you say republicans have to worry about women. but if trump's numbers with women are this bad, it's sort of hard to imagine them going lower. he has probably hit a floor, you know, at 29, 30%, something like that. and the women who are very conservative are going to stick with him. the question is if kavanaugh

becomes a martyr, that is to say if the idea is that the media and the democrats have gone after him with a late hit and take him down and he goes, will the republican base find the negative enthusiasm that republicans have deeply wanting from them all year with, you know, all the polls recently have been bad for republicans, right? we have democratic senatorial candidates in tennessee and arizona according to your latest poll, i can't remember whose poll. >> the republicans down in tennessee. >> right. they need republicans to be angry. republicans need republican voters to be angry. it's conceivable in the crosswinds of this that the republicans will get angry that somehow a dirty trick was played on kavanaugh. now i don't know that. i'm swaying don't know what the politics are over the next seven weeks. circumstances there also, is there time if kavanaugh, if it

were to reach a point where he were to withdraw, if he reaches a point where the votes weren't there, is there time there for a new nominee to emerge? republicans really want to get this through. >> sure, but maybe not. merrick garland is available. he probably could be a good pick that could be a bipartisan consensus. obviously a joke. but to the larger point, though, i think, yes, republicans do need their base to be angry in order to increase their turnout. but women are already very angry. and i'm talking about women on the left side of the spectrum. they've been angry since the day the "access hollywood" tape came out. they were angry that day, and they've been angry since donald trump was elected. and that's why you see so many of them running for office, getting people out to vote. and that's why so many women, and women of all colors and all backgrounds are for the first time getting involved in politics. the impulse to do that is rage that is what women are feeling right now because we somebody who admitted to sexual assault

on tape get elected to lead our country. and so i think the kavanaugh controversy that's happen right now is really an outgrowth of that. if women were upset and they very much were, if you look at all of the responses from suburban america with women who have not been involved in politics getting involved because they were so angry at the election of donald trump, and really, the dismissal of what he said on the "access hollywood" tape as disqualifying for office, i think we're going see another year of the woman like we saw after clarence thomas. i really do. >> after clarence thomas and anita hill. and the numbers in '92, before the '92 election, there were two women in the u.s. senate. after, there were six. call that one the year of the women. the number of candidates out there, just certainly dwarfs that. stay with us. we're going to be right back. as well as promised we have it up and trod go. democratic senator tammy duckworth on the late west kavanaugh. stay with us. but allstate actually helps you drive safely...

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welcome back. as we've said, questions are swirling about whether there will be a delay in judge kavanaugh's confirmation, and whether we will hear publicly from judge kavanaugh and his accuser. joining me is illinois democratic senator tammy duckworth. senator, thank you for taking a few minutes. you tweeted these allegations are zurich and deserve to be investigated before kavanaugh's nomination moves forward. the senate committee must delay thursday's schedule vote.

thank you, dr. ford, for bravely coming forward to share your story. so you want the delay. my question, do you want, there seems to be some doubt about how her allegations should be shared. do you want a full public hearing similar to what we saw with anita hill and clarence thomas where they both appeared before the committee in public session, cameras rolling? >> i think the public deserves to hear from certainly dr. ford in a full public hearing. they've been hearing a lot from judge kavanaugh so far. i think she deserves her day in a public setting. i think the american people deserve nothing less, especially when we're talking about appointing someone to a position for the rest of their life. and to the highest court in the land. >> in terms of the timetable then, what is reasonable here. thinking back to '91, the anita hill allegation came out on the 6th of october. the committee reconvened for more hearings. they were held the 12th to 14th, basically a week later. that roughly the timetable you have in mind here when you talk

about a delay in hearing? >> well, i think we should take whatever amount of time we need in order to have the thorough hearing. we shouldn't rush it. i'm sure there might be other witnesses. and remember, as far as a hearing is concerned, that's not the only thing that needs to happen. well need to have the fbi fully investigate the allegation as well. >> you're -- one of your colleague there's in the senate, chuck grassley, the chairman of the judiciary committee, he addressed this topic today, and he's noncommittal right now in terms of the action he is going to take. but he is trying to put some of the onus back on democrats, back on your party, specifically dianne feinstein. of course dianne feinstein had been given this allegation over the summer. she kept it to herself within her office until the last week. grassley basically saying unfortunately, committee republicans have only known this person's identity from news reports for less than 24 hours. they've known about her allegations for less than week. senator feinstein, on the other hand, has had this information for many weeks and deprived her colleagues of the information necessary to do our jobs.

do you think he has a point there? >> well, i think he is missing the point that this was all at the request of dr. ford herself. you know, i've dealt with military sexual trauma, women who have been victims of sexual trauma in the military. this is a common thing for victims, that they are very reluctant to come forward. you read the text of the letter that dr. ford sent to senator feinstein. she was very clear that she did not want to come forward. she herself has said that she didn't make that decision until just this very weekend. so i don't know that senator feinstein had the ability to share that information with anybody else. but now that dr. ford has taken the very brave step of coming forward and willing to expose herself to public scrutiny, she should be honored for her bravely, but she should also be listened to as a potential victim. we don't want to set a bad example for victims all around this country and this time when women and men also are coming forward to talk about the sexual assault that they they've been victims of, and to really scare people from coming forward if

they truly have become victims of a crime. >> yeah, i think that's an interesting point you're making, because i have seen at least initially where it may be dying down a little bit right now, but some pretty loud criticism on the left at least initially of dianne feinstein and her decision not to turn that information over to make it public initially. in her situation, is that how you would handle it if you were given information from a woman who said this happened to me. i'm telling you about it, but i don't want you telling your colleagues? i don't want you bringing it up in these hearing. is that how you would handle it? >> i would certainly handle it much the same way. that is i would turn over the information to the fbi, which i understand senator feinstein has done, but i would first and foremost honor the victim. remember that sexual crimes are a crime of power, and we have to really protect the victim first and foremost and let her know that she control. shes that power in this situation. if she doesn't want to come forward publicly, then she has that decision to make and that's

her right to do that. and again, i just want to thank dr. ford for her bravery in this last minute to come forward because she truly believed she is compelled to do the right thing, even at her own personal expense. >> i'm just curious, or being around there today as all this unfolds. what is your sense of politically speaking here, the state of play on this right now. do you sense republicans are staying together and determined to get this through on a speedy timetable? do you sense that there are crack there's? what is your read on the situation? >> well, you know, we're all just getting back into town right now. i've not had a chance to really talk to any of my republican colleagues so far. i would just hope that they would react in the same way to the situation as they would have over the last, you know, months and year over the me too movement with women coming forward of allegations of sexual misconduct. i would hope that certainly the women of the senate would come together and support a woman whose coming forward in a very difficult time, dr. ford, to

make these allegations. we need to make sure that we support her first and foremost and that we take these allegations very seriously. this is the united states senate. if we don't take this seriously, who will in the rest of this country? we have to set an example for the rest of the nation that we will not dismiss a victim's claims and we will not whitewash and sweep under the rug a victim of sexual misconduct just for the convenience of a timetable. that's not the right thing to do here. >> all right, tammy duckworth, democratic senator from illinois. thank you for the time. >> thank you for having me on. coming up, the president's poll numbers are slipping with 50 days until the midterms. we're going dig into what could be driving that drop and what it could really mean for november. looking for advantages. the smart ones look to fidelity to find them. we give you research and data-visualization tools to help identify potential opportunities. so, you can do it this way...

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we've got some breaking news out of the white house on the russia investigation. the president just now has directed his intelligence chiefs

to declassify a range of documents, some involving the fbi's application to surveil his former campaign aide carter page. the president is also directing the administration to declassify fbi reports about interviews they conducted with a top justice department official bruce ohr. ohr has been criticized by the president and republicans for having had contact with the author of that infamous dossier. breaking news here, and we're trying to figure out. i have the official statement here, beth, from the white house in front of me, specifically here the president directing the director of national intelligence, the department of justice to provide the immediate declassification for pages 10 to 12 and 17 to 34 of the june 2017 fisa application for carter page. also interviews with bruce ohr in connection with the russia investigation in all fbi reports of interviews with carter page over fisa applications. so what do you make of this? >> gosh, well, sounds like he is under the impression that getting this out will improve

his standing. and why not? he's made very, very clear that, you know, he feels like he is going to be vindicated. and he feels that ohr has done something very, very bad. he is changing the narrative, getting out in front of this and rolling the dice. >> republicans on the hill led by representative jim jordan have been pressuring the white house for months to do this. they know what's in there. so presumably, you presume what's in there makes it appear as if the fisa warrant for carter page was issued on weak foundations, or the extension, excuse me, of the fisa warrant for carter page was issued under in weak ways. and he has so far not done this, and now he is doing this. and maybe he was saving this in his pocket to make -- to do something at the moment of a big story to try to change. >> that's the context of this. the pressure he has been -- the campaign there sort of you've

been hearing from the right about the idea of hey, there is this deep state. and it goes back to '16 and all this stuff there has been that open question of okay, if trump feels that way, why won't he just declassify these documents. but then there is this question of why is he declassifying those documents at 5:30 on the day this kavanaugh thing really takes off. >> it's interesting the timing. sometimes i think it's random and he is not using any particular strategy with his tweets and other controversies, but this is a moment in which they had many, many many months to do this. jim jordan, devin nunes, if you watch fox news, they've been obsessed with this for many, many months. absolutely their base wants this information. but i think it's important to remind the audience that bruce ohr's expertise is in russian organized crime, and carter page absolutely was associated with a russian spy ring. i mean, that is a fact. that's not something that, you know, we wondered. that's why the fbi was particularly interested in him

as an individual when he joined the trump campaign. and that is not something i think any american would think the fbi is wrong in doing, right? if you have somebody that is associated with spice from a foreign government joining up on a presidential campaign, you might want to submit an application using the documentation that you have to surveil that person. and the fisa court is a very high standard. so, yes, these documents are going to come out and they're going to be used as political fooder in a moment when we should really be talking about the supreme court. but it doesn't mean that it means it's going make a large scale difference in the russia investigation, because this has happened before. remember when the nunes memo was going to change everything and it was going to expose the russia investigation as a hoax, and it did not do that? i think there are probably high expectations for these documents and what's in them that will not be met by reality. >> how much appetite is there on the republican side to sort of go down this road? >> a lot there is a lot of appetite. it depends on which camp you're in.

but there is an argument been made by people who follow this in granular fashion on the right that the carter page surveillance was circular. that is to say that he was -- they got permission to look into him based on the same evidence that they used to keep surveilling him. that it's all the dossier. it's all the christopher steele dossier. they don't have any independent information that the stuff that's in the dossier was used to get him and to keep him, and nothing else has come out. and this is supposed to therefore disqualify the mueller investigation. and now i don't think that it does. i do think that it may raise questions that civil libertarians should take seriously about whether or not the fisa court is meeting the high standard that we think the fisa court meets. we have no idea. really, no one's ever seen the inside of a fisa investigation publicly like this before, which is one of the reasons that it's all getting declassified.

this is not normal behavior for an administration to declassify documents in an ongoing investigation that is still -- it's one thing to sort of declassify them after the fact or to let, you know, through historical research purposes. but not while the investigation is happening. >> to shed a little more light on this, we have now ken dilanian, nbc national reporter joining us. i think he is on the phone. so ken, again, i've got this statement here from the white house, you know. pages 10 to 12, 17 to 34 of the fisa court application here. interviews with carter page. what are they trying to prove? what do you think is in here? >> well, steve, i couldn't agree with john more that this is not normal. and that's what i'm talking to you right now. having not seen the actual documents that have been declassified, i've never before be seen a statement from the white house ordering the det declassification of something that the intelligence agencies were not ready to declassify.

and that's going have huge repercussions, i think. look, you know, there are reasons that these agencies have not yet been signed off on making this information public there could be reasons of source and methods and other sensitivities. and the president has the absolute authority to declassify anything he wants, but the idea that he is doing that potentially over the objection of his own agencies is incredible. now, what they're doing here, i was just listening to a speech of devin nunes, the chairman of the house intelligence committee gave a day or so ago where he was predicting that this would happen. they are trying to establish that the fisa warrant on carter page was almost entirely the product of the christopher steele dossier. to me, this whole thing has moved so far from that at this point with the cooperation agreement from the president's campaign chairman and so many other people who have been convicted and are now cooperating with this investigation, the carter page fisa seems almost irrelevant at

this point, but it's become a bete noire on fox news and other investigations to show that this investigation is illegitimate, and donald trump has now taken a very dramatic step to advance that cause. >> we've also got hallie jackson i believe joining us by phone. so hallie, again, covering the white house here. >> yeah. >> what are you hearing there about the timing of this, about the intent of this? what are they telling you? >> this has been rumored i think for a period of several days dating back to -- i think it was an axios report actually that indicated that the president's allies were hearing he was going the take this step soon. it didn't come last week but instead is all happening today. a couple of points to make here. i'm sort of jumping into the conversation, so forgive me if i'm being repetitive. number one, there is the broad issue that ken dilanian and your guests on set have been talking about related to the implications now and then long-term for the national security community and the national security apparatus, given that the president is taking this step to direct the people who work for him to release this information. now, again checks, do that. he's the president. he's allowed to declassify

whatever he wants. in this instance, he is essentially handing a political -- i don't want to call it a win, but political present perhaps to house republicans, some of whom have been calling on this, pounding the table, demanding the release of these documents for months now. so the president is giving some of those allies a bit of a potentially gift wrapped up in a bow here by saying he will direct his folks to release these documents, steve. so that's sort of part one here if you look at the political sphere of it. you also have a couple of interesting things. what is the president -- what today was the president tweeting about as the kavanaugh story was sort of just building steam and he was tweeting about peter strzok and lisa page and these text messages. i bring that up because it is an indication of where president trump's head is at. we know we have a window into that based on his twitter page, and he is -- this is something he talks about all the time. he frequently mentions strzok, page, the text messages that now the white house is calling on the intelligence community to

release. you also have a guy named bruce ohr, right? the president mentions him. remember, this is somebody -- i remember standing on the white house south lawn in mid-august where the president said hey, listen, i suspect he will lose his security clearance pretty quickly. now, this was clearance pretty quickly. this is about the time he stripped john brennan of his security clearance. bruce ohr works for the government and justice department currently. there are some big questions related to these documents. you mentioned the page numbers, 17 to 34. if you looked at the original documents, those are heavily redacted pages. that is what the white house wants people to see. this unredacted version could reveal who is the person who made the application, roux it? and that may bring another name to the scene here. so it is interesting. keep in mind, none of us have seen these documents yet, but the president is directing these

to be released. the mechanics of that disclosure are yet to be determined. and i imagine if past precedent holds, that it will come likely from the doj, the fbi, from that area. so it is interesting, when you look at the timing, this has been talked about for case at the white house. >> hallie jackson at the white house. thank you both for jumping on with such short notice. the president directing the justice department and the fbi to release all text messages relating to the russia investigation without redak shun of comey, peterstrok strzok, li page. panel, thank you. breaking news on the brett kavanaugh nomination. senators saying there will be a public hearing with ford and kavanaugh. again, that's been said moments ago. we'll be right back. -computer, order pizza.

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welcome back. when it comes to the president's political standing, the story so far has been that president trump's approval rating is dropping. take a look at this. this is the average of every poll out there right now. his approval rating sitting at 40.9%. when you put them all together, if you went back to late august, just a little less than a month ago, his average back then was getting closer to the mid 40s. down 2.5 points. that is a significant drop,

especially when you think about donald trump, whose numbers have been within such a narrow range. that's a critical number when it comes to democrats and their hopes for the midterm elections. joining me to talk about the president's political standings, and what it means for the possibility of a blue wave. monmouth has had some of the best polls we have seen this cycle when it comes to this. the president's approval rating, down the 2 1/2 points. that's significant. what has been driving that? >> it's been absolutely stable until three weeks ago. we have seen these cycle where is it's gone down and come back up. so we're not sure if it will come back up before the election. but it happens when there's a lot of tweeting activity going on, when he obviously is upset with the russia investigation. i think that's going to

contribute to him tweeting a lot more about the things that will be released. and the public doesn't like that. that's when his numbers go down. it's just too much chaos. >> so it does seem to me that the people say the mccain funeral, and i think that was part of it, but manafort, the conviction at the end of the august, which happened at the same deal as the michael cohen plea deal, which rolls into this second deal with paul manafort, which rolls into fisa. there's this escalated level of chaos. >> the public likes shaking up of washington, but it's just when that chaos gets out of control. that's what was going on in late december last year when his numbers jumped back up when we got the tax reform. the numbers stabilize. now they're going down again for the same reason. so i'm wondering if the breaking news contributes to that going down further. that's not where trump needs to be. the midterm races that we're

seeing right now are hinging almost totally on donald trump right now. >> and that's interesting, because when you talk to republicans, and they're trying to hang on to the house, they can't give up 23 or more seats. they say the closer to just get trump to the mid 40s, the better their chances are. >> there's a whole slew of house polls coming out. all of them suggest we have a blue high tide but not a blue wave. democrats are going to pick up 10, 15 seats, but the question is are they going to get those 40 seats and a tsunami? we're not there. and donald trump being stable is going to help republicans. right now the indication is that they're going to continue into this spiral of chaos. >> is there a moment, i guess for president trump, it's self-evident, but is there a moment when all of this does lock in for voters? >> probably about two weeks away from where this trend is going -- we'll know where this is going. because you really can't reel it

back. if you're the president, you have to have some bit of accomplishment. he's going to have to do something outside of the question, which is not out of the question for donald trump. >> in 2016, that access hollywood tape comes out before the election. his whole party is telling him to get out of the race. he did narrowly eke out a victory. he did recover enough to win at the end of that. >> well, here we're dealing with at least 40 or 50 different senate and house seats that are competitive. after president trump, you have the quality of the individual candidates that are going to come into play. so we can't have that one single thing like the access hollywood tape then the comey letter. donald trump is the linchpin between whether republicans hold on or democrats have a huge wave. >> patrick, you've been doing great stuff on key house races. if you want to know who is going to win in the house this fall,

watch the monmouth poll. it's been a very busy hour here, and we just got another piece of breaking news for you, as well. this is a new statement just now from the white house on judge brett kavanaugh. "judge kavanaugh looks forward to a hearing where he can clear his name of this false allegation, he stands ready to testify tomorrow, if the senate is ready to hear him. brett kavanaugh calling for an open hearing." that is all for tonight. we'll be back tomorrow. "the beat with ari melber" starts right now. good evening, ari. >> good evening, and thank you very much. and steve just mentioned, breaking news from the white house. a change in how they're dealing with the big story tonight. donald trump's supreme court pick hanging in the balance. the white house is rocked over these allegations of sexual assault allegedly committed by brett kavanaugh in high school. a democrat on the judiciary commit ltee will join me. later, we'll do a special report on how some stres