on news of the days tweet me your questions wit with #askalivilshi. every week i'm going to look at your questions and choose one to do a deeper explanation at 3:00 p.m. eastern. thank you for watching. "deadline white house" with nicolle wallace starts now. hello, everyone, it's 4:00 in washington. in-depth investigation into donald trump's finances, from "the new york times," dropping in just the last hour. implicates president trump in suspected tax evasion and instances of outright fraud. that, quote, greatly increase the fortune he received from his parents. a potentially devastating revelation for a president who has based his entire identity in the public and private sectors on the contention that he's a self-made billionaire. the stunning report is the result of an exhaustive investigation by the noo"the ne times," based on what it describes as a vast trove of controversial tax returns and financial records. it's the first comprehensive

look at the president's entire financial history. the report reveals trump received the equivalent today of at least $413 million from his father's real estate empire. starting when he was a toddler and continuing to this day. adding that much of this money came to mr. trump because he helped his parents dodge taxes. he and his siblings set up a sham corporation to disguise millions of dollars in gifts from their parents. records and interviews show. records indicate that mr. trump helped his father take improper tax deductions worth millions more. an attorney for president trump forcefully denies the litany of allegations laid out by the "times" saying, ""the new york times" allegations of fraud and tax evasion are 100% false and highly defamatory. there was no fraud or tax evasion by anyone. the facts upon which the "times" bases its false allegations are extremely inaccurate. should the "times" state or imply that president trump participated in fraud, tax evasion, or any other crime, it

will be exposing itself to substantial liability and damages for defamation." here to help us sift through this massive story, jennifer ruben, "washington post" opinion writer, happenses to be a former tax attorney. matt miller, former chief spokesman for the justice department. ashley parker, white house reporter for the "washington post." sam stein, politics editor for the daily beast. ashley, let me start with you on the sheer political enormity of the entire trump brand, the self-made billionaire, falling apart based on this investigation. >> well, it certainly does undercut his inception story and his narrative which is sort of the crux of being donald trump. right? and the irony is that story really comes from for a lot of voters what they learned about the president on "the apprentice" which is actually sort of -- it is reality television, and it's quite fictitious. so now you have actual reality bumping up with the fiction of reality tv.

and so that is huge and cannot be overstated. at the same time, again, what we'll have to wait and see, this literally just broke, one thing that struck me especially about the president's core group of supporters, the president has often been able to say to things like making products overseas that otherwise would be unacceptab unacceptable, wouldn't you have done the same thing? wouldn't you, too, have avoid e taxes if you could? that's smart business. we don't know what his response will be. on one hand, you're right, it total he undercuts the myth of president trump, dealmaker, the businessman. on the other hand, it will be interesting to see if the president can find a way to talk his way out of this. >> let's see, it's not just his identity based on his time in reality television, it was one of these central messages on the campaign trail. here's donald trump talking about being self-made. >> i mean, my whole life really has been a no, and i fought through it. i have been -- you know, i talk about it. it's not been easy for me. it has not been easy for me. you know, i started off in

brooklyn. my father gave me a small loan of $1 million. my father gave me a very small loan in 1975 and i built it into a company that's worth many , many billions of dollars with some the greatest assets in the world. i say that only because that's the kind of thinking our country feeds. >> i may have to watch that a few times to get through this hour. let me contrast his public statements, which often struggle with the truth, with the first couple paragraphs of this new "times" investigation. "the president long sold himself as a self-made billionaire. a "times" investigation found he received at least $413 million in today's dollars from his father's real estate empire, much of it through tax dodges. president trump participated in dubious tax schemes during the 9 '90s including instances of outright fraud that increased the fortune he received from his parents." sam? >> yeah. >> here's the thing. i think you can say you're going to, you know, have a certain position, you can say you're going to build a wall and never build the wall. you can say you're going to, you know, do this or that.

i don't think you can say you're self-made and actually be someone who inherited $433 million. >> you want to bet? i bet trump will do it. no, i mean, for a lot of people who watch this open mindedly, this is nothing new. we knew that, you know, he was an inheriter of immense wealth, that his father helped bail him out on numerous occasions. >> he was 8 when he became a millionaire. >> according to the story. by age 3, he was earning $200,000 a year. in today's money, a millionaire by age 8. maybe he, you know, i don't know, maybe -- >> hard knocks. >> building those train sets. but, you know, to ashley's point, voters seem to not really care. for me, you know, what's remarkable about this, and i'm looking at it in a meta sense, you know, one of the things that is remarkable, why did it take so long for something like this to come out about his background? this is instructional, about who he is, foundational to his story. we're just now getting this stuff. the reason is because donald trump unlike any other person who's ever run for president before comes from are a

different type of universe. so people who are always looking into his past, the opposition researchers on different campaigns, had a lot of trouble digging into stuff because the paper trial is so byzantine and complex. as opposed to a politician who has votes or took donations. >> public life. the "times" addresses your point. let me read that. they report, the top of the story, "a handful of journalists and biographers, wayne barrett, david k. johnson, tim o'brien, have challenged trump's stories, especially the claim of being worth $10 billion." described how mr. trump piggybacked off his father to gain a foot hold in real estate. citing evidence he actually got $14 million. they told how fred trump helped his son make a bond payment at an atlantic city casino, bying $3.5 billion in casino chips. the "times" investigation of the trump family finances is unprecedented in scope and precision offering the first comprehensive look at the

inherited fortunes and tax dodges that offered donald j. trump a gilded life. in every area of his life, his finances were deeply intertwined, on his father's wealth. >> there are some anecdotes in here that boggle the mind. for instance, setting up this, essentially what is a shell company, ostensibly designed to do all the purchases for the properties they had in fred trump's empire, but really making make ing no purchases at all. claiming the purchases were made and transferring the money to donald trump and his siblings. that's gross evasion of taxation. there's another anecdote about donald trump trying to essentially take his father's will, manipulate it to become the sole enharter and his own sister at his father's instructions looking at it saying this doesn't pass the smell test. those are biographical character assessments that could resonate with voters but might get lost in the business -- >> on the phone we have one of the reporters who broke the story, david barstow, political prize winning senior writer at "the new york times." we're diving through this in realtime.

take us through not just the revelations in your reporting, but the breadth and the depth and the time invested in this investigation. >> yeah, we spent an enormous amount of time, i think as you can see, from just the sheer length of the story. trying to piece together using, you know, over 100,000 pieces of paper that we swept up over many, many months of reporting. and -- and trying to really peel back a whole bunch of more layers of the onion in terms of looking at the financial biography of the 45th president. i think the most, you know, think some of the notable things that help give our reporting both its precision and its detail is that we were able to ultimately sweep up tens of

thousands of pages of previously confidential financial records that really detail the inner workings of the very impressive real estate empire that the president's father constructed over many years in brooklyn and queens, including more than 200 tax returns that are not the president's tax returns, but these are tax returns that actually for the first time give us a sense of the money that flowed from fred trump's real estate empire to the president through various family partnerships and trusts. >> david, it's extraordinary as you're talking about it in its detail, but i wonder if we can start at the beginning of donald trump i trump's life. you report by age 3, mr. trump was earning $200,000 a year in today's dollars from his father's empire. he was a millionaire by age 8. by the time he was 17, his

father had given him part ownership of a 52-unit apartment building. soon after, mr. trump graduated from college. he was receiving the equivalent of $1 million a year from his father. the money increased with the years to more than $5 million in his 40s and 50s." so the lie -- did you uncover when the lie about being self-made and only receiving $1 million total from his father, where that came from? >> incredibly creative ways that fred trump came up with to funnel money to -- to all of his children, but actually to donald trump in particular. we actually have been able to document 295 different streams of revenue that fred trump created to enrich donald trump

over a 50-year period of time. i mean, it was kind of astonishing the different ways that fred trump funneled money to donald. he didn't just put him on his payroll. he made him his banker. he made him his landlord. he made him his consultant. he made him his property manager. he made him his purchasing agent. he gave him laundry revenue. sort of on and on and on and on. the various methods and strategies that fred trump used to funnel money to -- to president trump. and not just at the beginning of the president's career, but actually throughout his adulthood. you know, we could see and trace through the documents that we obtained that when the president was in trouble, fred trump was

there and, you know, supporting him, trace to the documents that -- loans, et cetera. we've traced $413 million in direct financial support that fred trump gave to his son over, you know, over multiple decades. this, of course, is also the president who i think we all got very familiar with on the campaign trail saying he started with a $1 smillion loan from hi father and parlayed that into this $10 billion empire. >> a complete fiction. i found this section of the piece that you were just talking about. i want to read this to you and talk about it some more. all told, the "times" documented 295 streams of revenue that fred trump created over five decades to enrich his son. in most cases his four other children benefited equally, but

over time, as donald trump careened from one financial disaster to the next, his father found ways to give him substantial empires being used out his son. his father was there to bail him out from his failures, it would seem. >> yeah. i think the other -- i think the other extremely important piece of this story is that -- is that the amount of money that flowed from fred trump to donald was significantly increased by -- by a number of certainly legally dubious and certainly in some cases outright fraudulent tax

schemes that the president participated in. that was a kind of another piece of this was understanding that the inheritance that donald trump received from his father both in gifts and ultimately after fred trump passed away, that inheritance was significantly increased by a variety of tax schemes that various tax experts we consulted with described to us as improper in some cases, probably illegal. >> i mean, i found that section, i'd like to read that to you as well, and just drill down on what your tax experts and legal experts say about these practices. so you report that much of his giving was structured to sidestep gift and inheritance taxes using methods tax"times" improper or possibly illegal. although fred trump became wealthy with help from federal

housing subsidies, he insisted it was manifestly unfair for the government to tax his fortune as it passed to his children. we when he was in his 80s, beginning to slide into dementia, it became a family affair with president trump playing a crucial role, interviews and newly obtained documents show. take us inside what you understand at the end of this reporting about how much legal jeopardy the trumps may be in for the tax practices. >> well, because so many -- in the late 80s '80s, through the , early 2000s. the statute of limitations on criminal tax charges has long since passed.

his exposure to any sort of criminal tax liability would be very limited because of the statute of limitations. there is, however, no statute of limitations on civil fraud. and civil fraud cases, although they're rarely brought, can result in very significant fines. but, of course, it would be, you know, it would require, you know, require the internal revenue service under this administration to do something at that doesn't normally do. >> david, i want to recap this for our viewers and bring in some of our other folks here. an extraordinary body of reporting breaking in if "the new york times" in just the last hour. david barstow, one of the reporters with the byline on the story son the phone with us. they report the president who's long sold himself as a self-made billionaire received at least $413 million in today's dollars from his father's real estate empire. much of it through tax dodges in

the '90s. president trump participated in dubious tax schemes during the '90s including instances of outright fraud that greatly increased the fortune he received from his parents. this investigation by "the new york times" has found the white house pushing back, the president's lawyer issuing a statement. this is from charles harder saying ""the new york times" allegations of fraud and tax evasion are 100% false and highly defamatory. there was no fraud or tax evasion by anyone. the facts upon which the "times" bases its false allegations are extremely inaccurate." matt miller, your thought. weigh in on david's last point about where the president may still face some legal liability. >> so as i understand the story, the period that they cover, you know, sort of ends in the mid 1990s. david is absolutely right, the statute of limitations for criminal matters would have long since expired. the irs, though, could still pursue a civil resolution, pursue a civil investigation and given both the person who this relates to, the president of the united states, and the sheer amount of muconey involved. millions and millions of dollars

of lost revenue. hard to see how the irs wouldn't take a look at it. the second thing, anyone who's been involved in these cases in the past will tell you someone who commits tax fraud or any kind of other fraud for decades long, who has a decades-long history of fraud, doesn't just wake up one day and decide to stop committing fraud. and start paying all their taxes. so while the period that's the subject of this story ends in the 9 t'90s, if the irs were to start taking a look at this period and to use that to kind of get under the hood of his business and his personal finances, i suspect you would see that tax fraud and tax evasion has continued to now. and it highlights the point that has been at the forefront with donald trump since he first got into the race for presidency. for president. which is we know nothing about his personal finances. he's been completely opaque about them. >> so for those of us who during the campaign took a cursory look at donald trump's financial statement, which he was required to submit, you will see, david, and this is my question for you, i don't know if you have any answers to this yet, but any indication that he continues to

use those schemes that he seemingly learned at his father's knee in terms of how he organizes his businesses. we noticed that there were many shell companies, for instance, when he first came in, he listed a handful of them in saudi arabia, alone, which then were later closed down. so what, just based on the minimal information that we have, and i think there was one year of tax returns that actually was made public, what do we know about how donald trump has his businesses currently structured? whether there is any there, there, that should be looked into? >> david, are you able to address that? >> yeah, i mean, our story is really, you know, framed around looking especially at the -- the relationship between donald trump and his father. and we've really looked very carefully at that period of time, but i think one of the

things that this story illustrates is how much we still don't know about the very questions that you're raising. you know, we can tell you a heck of a lot and we have told you a heck of a lot in this story about a big chunk of donald's -- donald trump's life and the path that took him to riches in new york in the '80'90s and the 2000s. this story definitely does not answer the questions about what's happened over the last five, ten years, in terms of how donald trump has structured his -- his financial affairs. so, you know, this one is attempting to peel back a bunch of layers on an earlier phase of donald trump's life. >> david, one thing that comes

up on page after page of this reporting is how many times his father bailed him out from either bad bets or bad outcomes and i want to ask you if that was a throughline through the relationship. you wrote, "fred trump's generosity created a crucial backstop when his son pleaded with bankers in 1990 for an emergency line of credit. with so many of his projects losing money, donald trump had few viable assets of his own making to pledge as collateral. what's never been publicly known, he used his stakes in the empire and high-rise for the elderly in east orange as collateral to help secure a $635 million loan." and seems like this pattern of his father bailing him out runs through the entire, i have 38 pages. of your report. >> there's going to be a quiz, nicolle. no, that is a through line, in fact, you know, one of the -- one of the books that president

trump is well known for is "the art of the comeback." and one of the things that we describe in the story is that, you know, "the art of the comeback" was a book he published in 1997 and it was sort of how he bounced back from -- from his disaster in the casino industry in the late '80s and the early '90s. well, what he didn't include in that book is the fact that weeks before publication, he actually had through a very complicated trust transaction that we describe in the story, he had actually taken ownership of 25% of fred trump's real estate empire. an empire that bankers were valuing at being worth more than $1 billion when the trumps finally sold off all of fred

trump's buildings in 2004. and so what was -- one of the things that i think was striking to us and our colleagues who worked on this story with me is how extensive the financial support was from between fred trump and donald trump. you know, well into donald trump's 30s and 40s and 50s. you know, again, it was such a distance from i guess the image that we've all become familiar with which is sort of this notion that donald trump kind of in his early 20s, his father, you know, staked him a $1 million loan and he was off to the races. that actually isn't even remotely close to the truth of what we uncovered through our interviews in these records. >> it rarely is. >> that is the art of the comeback. you got to go to dad and get more handouts.

that's the art. >> i guess the political question from this piece will be donald trump's political brand can handle anything, but do his voters think that this is a fraud too far? >> there is one vulnerability sort of buried in this piece that i think could be politically problematic and that is this shell company that they pumped all this money into ostensibly to just enrich the trump kids, what they ended up doing is they would jack up rents on people who were tenants of fred trump's real estate empire as a way to justify the fake expenditures being made by this company. that can be distilled into a pretty potent political attack which is they schemed the tax code to enrich themselves and passed the bill onto the lower, you know, the people who are paying rent. and, you know, whether democrats can put forward someone who can articulate that case is the question. that seems pretty straightforward slam dunk politics right there. >> jennifer ruben is with us, jennifer ruben knows more about taxes than i do. jennifer, i want to ask you for your thoughts on the piece and whether you can weigh in on this

political question that emerges. this is a mythbusting investigative piece of journalism. it blows apart the myth that donald trump repeated himself that based on a $1 million loan, he created all the fortune and all the gold stuff in his apartment and all the planes and whatnot. what do you think the political significance will be of this body of reporting? >> i think, unfortunately, there's a certain element, of course, that doesn't believe facts and they don't believe facts that "the new york times" or the "washington post" or msnbc or other mainstream outlets come up with. so for his true core base, those people have drunk the kool-aid a long time ago, they're not going to be dissuaded or upset by this at all. i think the problem for trump's opponents has always been that once this myth gets set in

stone, once the lie gets set, everything else -- e -- the extent to which any of these practices continued or he's benefitted from these practices, that may be something that mr. mueller is going to find out. and you remember why donald trump drew that red line. he didn't want people going into his finances. i think there's another, which is donald trump is probably the neediest person on the planet. he constantly needs reaffirmation. he constantly needs to be told what a success he is. constantly his lies as well. why? because he didn't do it on his own. he didn't do anything on his own. his father was a genius. his father made millions and millions. perhaps billions. but donald trump really hasn't done anything. you could have done a lot better putting this in the stock market in a money market account than giving it to donald trump. so i think for him personally, this is part of the explanation

for his neediness and his penchant for exaggeration and for falsehoods. that he's built a world that is completely divorced from reality because the reality is he's not that smart or he's not that successful and he lost a lot of money over the years. last thing i think it comes back to, donald trump, he does not give up easily, and what he will say is look how i have paid back the american people. look how i have bequeathed this wonderful economy to the american people. what are you talking about 20, 30 years ago, somebody didn't pay some taxes? that's how his mind works. he is constantly the victim. constantly the one who is aggrieved. he's constantly the hero of the american people. pulling one rabbit out of a hat after another. so he will turn this around and say, look, i've used all this for the benefit of the american people. aren't you going to thank me? >> let me read you, there's a

great paragraph in here, i got to page 37, david, here. i'm ready for my quiz. i'll ask you to weigh in. i want ashley to weigh in on this, too. "money is at the core of the brand, mr. trump successfully sold to the world. essential to the myth making is keeping the truth of his money, how much of it he actually has, where or whom it came from hidden or obscured, across the decades aided and abetted by less than aggressive journalism, mr. trump made sure his financial history would be sensationalized far more than seen." david? >> yeah, i think, you know, think that one of the revelations to us in doing this story, this is a guy who's really been famous and been so heavily covered for so many decades yet i can tell you, you can search high and low through all the books, all the cover stories, all the tv interviews

and i can promise you, you will never see any reference to all county building supply and maintenance which is one of the companies that we described here that they used to evade taxes. and it's a reminder of how little we actually know about the financial history of donald j. trump. you know, we have, i think, and hope, have pulled back many, many new layers of this, but i think there's still a heck of a lot of work left in front of us. >> ashley? >> well, the central irony here is one thing that donald trump has always done is to over, sort of proudly overinflate his net worth to get on the tops of these fortune or "forbes" lists and say they ranked him here, he should be much higher. what we read in "the new york times" story, while he was doing that publicly, privately he was

doing the exact opposite with the shell companies and his family was saying we made nothing, we're worth nothing, so they didn't have to pay taxes. so there's a huge yawning gap between the public and private behavior, which is often something voters seize upon that type of hypocrisy. and the "times" story also mentioned there was just a handful of journalists who did delve deeply into the president's finances. part of that is because he made it very difficult, but part of that, if you look at the journalists who did, take tim o o'brien, for instance -- >> they got sued. >> yeah. this is something the president quite deliberately wanted to keep a black box. but for these pieces here or there, the deposition when tim o'brien times" piece, we're piecing together the understanding of how different the private and public wealth of the president is. >> matt, that's my question for you, donald trump said to maggie haberman, peter baker, mike schmidt, that businesses were a red line, if rob mueller got

close to them, that might be a red line. there's now a huge piece out we've been poring through for the hour. they have threatened to sue. their statement threatens legal action. >> of course. >> they call it defamatory. it seems like to prove that that's the case, they'd have to prove, disprove everything in the story which doesn't seem likely. require opening the books to a degree they've never done. >> yeah, i don't think they're going to sue. >> they never do. >> and allow "the new york times" attorneys to put donald trump into depositions and having subpoena power over the records. >> right. >> something which they revealed already in this story. i think to the point about whether anyone gets to take a look at his finances, you know, he is the subject of two criminal investigations. one by bob mueller which we think has probably never gotten into these questions of money laundering. one in new york which has come very -- right up to include a look at his business. whether this kind of now opens the door for the irs starting on the civil side, approaching the criminal side, if they, you know, get into the business and find allegations of, you know, that are within the statute of limitations, that turns into

either folded into a southern district of new york investigation or a tax investigation by the tax department, or the tax division of the department of justice, i think remains to be seen. i don't think anyone could read this story and take away from it, though, that this is probably the only wrongdoing by this organization. >> to that point, let's say house democrats get the majority in the next congress, the oversight committee does have some jurisdiction here, right or are there limits to what they can do? >> so this is an interesting point about everything involving the president. the white house has defenses for subpoenas from congress about presidential records. they have zero defenses for subpoenas about the president's personal business records. either current records, past records, going back to the '90s or going back in the 2000s or right before he was elected president. they can subpoena and get every bit of those records that they like. >> all right. david barstow, congratulations on an extraordinary piece of reporting. i'd say go get a beer but that doesn't sound as good as it did a week ago. thank you for hopping on the phone with us. matt miller, thank you for spending time with us.

after the break, did donald trump draw a line in the sand for his supreme court nominee judge brett kavanaugh? and the plight of the angry white man. drumming up anger and anxiety among white voters might be donald trump's get out of the mess i made for myself free card. stay with us. stay with us different, better world. here's to the people who do what it takes to build it... to keep it running. the people who understand no matter what the question, the obstacle or the challenge, there's only one answer... let's do the work. (engine starts, hums)

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democrats are today shining a spotlight on inconsistencies in supreme court nominee brett kavanau kavanaugh's congressional te testimo testimony. turning up heat on the nomination fight trump now describes as a scary moment for men. >> i say it's a very scary time for young men in america when you can be guilty of something that you may not be guilty of. this is a very, very -- this is a very difficult time. what's happening here has much more to do than even the appointment of a supreme court justice. it really does. you could be somebody that was perfect your entire life and

somebody could accuse you of something. doesn't necessarily have to be a woman as everybody says. but somebody could accuse you of something and you're automatically guilty. but in this realm, you are truly guilty until proven innocent. that's one of the very, very bad things that's taking place right now. >> but as concerns mount over kavanaugh's lack of candor in his senate testimony about his conduct with women and his history of drinking in high school and college, trump did draw one critical line in the sand. >> i don't think you should lie to congress, and there have been a lot of people over the last year that have lied to congress and to me, that would not be acceptable. >> that's a position shared by at least one key swing vote who could help determine kavanaugh's fate. senator joe manchin telling reporters today that kavanaugh is done if the fbi finds in its investigation that he lied. "the new york times" today brings into focus kavanaugh's

potentially precarious position as questions continue to swirl around his credibility. "democratic efforts to highlight sexual assault charges that are more than 30 years old have been dismissed by supporters of judge brett kavanaugh as the dredgings of ancient history. the judge's response to the accusations raised new issues that go to the core of who president trump's supreme court nominee is right now. his truthfulness, his partisanship and his temperament." joining all of us here at the table is michael steele, i've been dying to talk to you about this for days. what do you think? >> well, let's start with what the president said. at a base level, there is -- there is truth in the idea that we don't want to create an environment in which anyone can be accused of something falsely or wrongly to get back, payback, you know, for bad date or something like that. god forbid. but then the question becomes so then what is the resolution of that? how do you begin to solve that particular question? what are you contributing, mr.

president, to helping us as a nation deal with something that is so profoundly important in light of the nominee you have put forward and the issues that have been raised there? so the answer to that is, nothing. i have nothing to contribute other than to bloviate about how bad this is for white men. set that aside. now, on the -- >> can i ask you a question? >> sure. >> about that. it seems to me that the message is one that people are going to agree with that. that -- >> yes. >> -- due process should at least be elevated to being on par with women finding their voices as part of the me too movement. i think the problem is that as a man accused, credibly accused of sexual misconduct, himself, he's not the right messenger. >> he's not the right messenger given the baggage that he brings to the table on this issue. there's still at least 18 to 20 unresolved accusations against the sitting president of the united states on this very issue. of which we have him on tape giving us a sort of how-to in terms of what he does. how he approaches women in his relationships. >> grab them in the bleep.

>> exactly. so you have that piece. the other piece, though, is how you put in motion and set up the conversation of judge cakavanau. it's not any longer about the allegations. that's going to be resolved by the fbi. we have to step back and look at how the man performed. how he responded as a young under fi judge under fire in a critical situation which was very clearly an aberrant response. i was sitting there with the jaw open, dude. particularly when he went after senator klobuchar in a very personal way. that to me should bring a pause to everyone. you know, nicolle, it won't. our team is prepared to die on the hill for this man and take with it every value we have in relationship with women. >> i never thought i'd compare brett kavanaugh to sarah palin but the "saturday night live" skit, when "saturday night live" went after sarah palin using her own words in the katie couric interview, it sort of was like

"sliding doors." it transformed into a political crisis to a cultural moment. i wonder if you think the depiction of brett kavanaugh as this shouting, angry, beer drinking guy, his image was so transformed in that moment that the caricature of him became the reality of him. if that's a greater political liability today -- >> i think it is. >> -- than the allegations. >> why that's important, if he does make it to the bench, that then becomes the caricature of his tenure on the bench. you're the no going to get past news articles, you're not going to get past video images comparing that "saturday night live" sketch to, you know, the man in the moment. and i think that's the problem about this that the president, the white house, and republicans, particularly mcconnell on the hill, just don't care about. that, yes, we're going to push this through, we're going to plow through this but going to bring with it a great taint. i think it is a cultural moment. it is a sliding door that now has moved the imagery of this man and turned it around so now the country looks at him, i

think, very differently than they otherwise would as a justice coming to the court. . >> i want to ask you, heidi, to weigh in on this idea of how his political problem changed. his political problem 72 hours ago was the compelling credible testimony of professor ford. his political problem today is that republicans, jeff flake, democrats, joe manchin, are now saying that if he lied in his testimony before congress, he's a no go on the supreme court. >> there's the lying in the testimony which, by the way, i don't think we've seen clear evidence of that yet. and also just the investigation, itself, like i agree with michael that this is -- we've got a temperament issue now here that is a political issue. but there still is an investigation that, by the way, jeff flake, susan collins, lisa murkowski, are in direct contact with the white house counsel about to make sure that it is conducted in a way that they feel is fair. this comes, nicolle, as we're getting all these reports

including our reporting that there are people who feel that they have potentially material information that is important to that investigation who are just not being talked to. we have two people, two women, deborah ramirez and christine blasey ford who no one is saying are not credible and yet the potential validaters, at least in one of those cases with deborah ramirez, the people she claimed were in the room are not being talked to. >> this was handed to me while you were talking. not to pull back the curtain on our stagecraft here, bye, sam stein. an new statement for the attorney for deborah ramirez. debby ramirez spoke to the fbi for two hours this sunday. detailed and productive interview and the agents were clearly motivated to investigate the matter in any way permitted. miss ramirez identified a number of witnesses and the end of the interview her lawyers provided the fbi the names and known contact information of additional witnesses totaling more than 20, to your point, who may have corroborating information. although we do not know the status of the investigation. we're not aware of the fbi affirmatively reaching out to any of these witnesses though we

appreciated the agents who responded on sunday. we have great concern the fbi is not conducting or being permitted to conduct a serious investigation." >> in terms of how this plays out, nicolle, is the fbi in the short timeframe going to reach out, fan out across the country, speak to all these potential witnesses including the people as well who have information like the text messages that we wrote about, about what brett kavanaugh knew in addition in the lead-up to the publishing of those allegations. >> so there's two reports out right now, "the wall street journal" and "the new york times" who are saying that the fbi investigation may conclude tonight or tomorrow, which, you know, which leads me to the belief that ultimately, we'll be still at the place where we started, which is do we have enough credible information to properly adjudicate and assess the claims made by deborah ramirez and dr. ford? ultimately, at least from talking to people on the hill today, i take a simplistic look at this. i think ultimately it will come

down to the question of will two female republican senators in this case susan collins and lisa murkowski, essentially say i don't have enough belief in the stories told by these fellow women to vote against brett kavanaugh? i mean, that's essentially the question that will ultimately determine his fate because i have a sense that senate democrats are going to be able to corral all their votes and essentially put the pressure on collins and murkowski to say i can't side with dr. ford and debby ramirez, there's not enough there. that's a very difficult place for them to be. >> is there also possibility, ashley, there could just be too much weight? i mean, say kavanaugh nomination is a backpack, has it just become too heavy for collins, murkowski, maybe even flake who is having indisputably a moment? >> sam's right in that at least initially, there was just this one issue which people privately would sort of say for something that happened that long ago, it really is a he said/she said and

even if there is a full investigation, it's going to be hard to get at an objective truth. that's the way a lot of people felt. they felt it was unfortunate. that's how they felt. but there is now this other issue of just pure credibility. let's remember, there was a time you could not be a nominee and go and potentially lie before congress and then get voted into a supreme court seat and if people do believe that he is lying, not about the sexual misconduct at all, but about, quote/unquote, smaller things, like was he actually a binge drinker who blacked out? was that yearbook club really to honor this woman? then it will be interesting to see how, again, senators flake, collins, murkowski, vote on that and one other thing that's been interesting to see is that people are now, this is why the white house wants this to get done quickly, they did not want this long period, are coming out of the woodwork and saying, look, i know nothing about the sexual assault allegations, i'm not a partisan person, but i now feel compelled to speak out because i saw him get blackout

drunk and when he said before congress that he didn't, that maid me feel compelled to come forward -- >> jennifer rubin in, too. go ahead. >> i just spent the day shadowing sexual assault survivors on the hill as they petition lawmakers. they have no direct connection to the kavanaugh story. right? and i just get the sense that their own stories, them coming forward and talking to these senators about their own experiences in their own lives will have just as much of an impact on how the senators end up voting as kavanaugh's friend from yale who may have been there when he threw ice. this is a deeply emotional thing. for collins and murkowski, they're getting people coming forward in their own lives, listen, this is happened to me, how can you let this guy on court? >> a lot of pressure on the two republican moderate women. what do you think they're thinking right now? >> i think they thought their biggest issue is trying to tell their votersing constituents, this guy was not going to

eviscerate roe v. wade. that's low on their list of concerns for exactly the reason sam just said. i think they're very troubled the female constituents, whatever their views on roe v. wade, whatever their views on judge catch nau akavanaugh are take this as a betrayal if they turn around and add this guy on the court. we're talking about an audience of three. should be careful about saying momentum in his direction and a clear road. the only people that know anything are the three people who are up in the air. interestingly enough, with the exception of susan collins, lisa murkowski and jeff flakes had things to say. jeff flake was very upset, apparently, about the way he responded to -- judge kavanaugh responded to his colleagues. sharp and partisan, he said. lisa murkowski, not ready to vote unless she has a complete fbi investigation. so those people are telling us something. they want more and they are troubled by his performance.

>> thank you. heidi, thank you for spending so much of the hour with us. when we come back, identity politics on steroids. stay with us. politics on steroids stay with us

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tremfya®. because you deserve to stay clearer. janssen wants to help you explore cost support options. been waiting to yell and shake my finger for 15 minutes. and i know i'm supposed to shut up, because i'm a single white male, 5'10", uncut. but i will not shut up, because this is a bunch of c-r-a-p, crap. >> there are a few violations of cable there, but we'll keep going. highlighting serious issues stemming from the kavanaugh controversy. "the washington post" saying, quote, the sexual assault allegations against supreme court nominee bret kavanaugh have sparked a wave of unbridled anger and anxiety from many republican men, who say they are in danger of being swept up by false allegations against them. this outbreak of male resentment

now seems likely to play a defining role in the midterm elections, just five weeks away, contrasting with a burst of enthusiasm among women propelling democrat campaigns. the republican party has long identified with more traditional white males such as former presidents reagan and george w. bush, but strategists say it's now turning more toward combative male -- oh, good -- combative male candidates in the mold of trump with allegations of misconduct interpreted by many within the party not as liabilities but as unfair political attacks. say it isn't so. it's a political asset to punch people? that's unbelievable. >> well, president trump, as a candida candidate and has he has taken office, the idea of grievance is fueling this blitz call mopolit. he's made it clear he sees the me too movement not as a moment for women to come forward with their stories, but he seeps it as a danger for men who are

accused of these things. and of course without saying so, he's reflecting back upon himself. he had more than a dozen women accused him of that sort of misbehavior, while businessman and then candidate. and he's seeing that now, too. you heard him on the white house lawn, suggesting that he was very afraid, not for young men and how they would be impacted by this, and when he was asked what his message would be for young women, he said, women are doing great. there are men who feel like they are going to push forward with a sort of angry populism that we're seeing from him. >> can i just ask a question -- i'm sorry. so, do we have any example of evidence or where these white young males or white males generally are being unfairly treated in this me too era? i mean, how many cases, allegations, have come forward that have been shown that these

men have been falsely accused for every one, there are -- >> yes, sexual assault allegations, there are no more false sex crimes allegations than there are allegations of any other crime, and that's about 2% to 8%. 60, perhaps 70, a high eer percentage of women do not report it. so, we're talking about a tiny number of people who may be falsely accused versus a whole bunch of people who are getting away with it. but this is the whole republican party. they have become professional victims. the people who are least entitled to claim it are now claiming victimhood. we are now supposed to cry tears for donald trump and brett kavanaugh, rich, entitles, privileged white guys because they're not getting something they want. they are having a public temper tantrum. no one here has shown that either dr. ford or deborah

ramirez have falsified anything, have been part of this conspiracy, they come across as credible, conscientious people. so, when it comes to who is being wronged here, i don't think it's these two guys. >> ashley, the piece that i quoted was from your colleagues, and it certainly takes a conversation out of the serious and into almost the ludicrous, that he too is a political message. is that real? >> i think it is. they wouldn't have written that story if it wasn't true. >> i'm not questioning the reporting, i'm just saying, there are campaigns that are looking at this as a thing? >> you have the president today coming out and basically articulating the thesis of that article, and again, to the point over there is that, this isn't necessarily based inreality. what it is based in is messaging and sort of vice call gut instinct. and if you take a number of the things the president said, when he goes to communities and he churns up fears about immigrants

taking away jobs, oftentimes, the people who are most concerned about that are the communities that have the fewest immigrants, the fewest chances of that happening. and so, this is a message that resonates. i don't have to -- i don't know how much we'll see this in ads, necessarily, but it is something that plays well to the president's base, that politics of grievance and someone else is taking something away from you. >> and it's not always broken down on gender lines. there's been plenty of anneck doal evidence of republican women out in trump rallies saying, you know, what brett kavanaugh's accused of doing, you know, that happens all the time and if it happened to my daughters, i wouldn't really think twice about it, it's just like, whoa. and their daughters are right there. and then -- >> i guess the vast majority of men and women think that if a line is crossed and sexual assault -- i mean, i think most human beings, men and women, think that sexual assault is bad full stop. so, i guess -- >> but i'm not convinced the president does. >> no, i think -- >> i'm not convinced the president thinks it's a bad

thing, to be honest. his rhetoric doesn't say otherwise. i mean, he's -- >> defense of roy moore. >> he's perpetuating this machismo. this is how guys talk, hey, what's up? you know, that's the kind of relationship with women -- now that women are pushing back and gouge, that's not the kind of relationship that we will any longer tolerate. >> there is an antiquated part to it. and there's a racial thing to it, he doesn't really think presumption of evidence applies to black people. and there's the political element of this. and you hear constantly people saying, you know, we can't drop kavanaugh, because the next supreme court justice will be accused of the same thing. and there's no evidence for this. neil gorsuch wasn't accused. and if you don't want to be accused of sexual assault, the easiest thing to do is not commit sexual assault. and so, you know, so none of

this seems totally reality-based, but i don't think it can be discussed as a semipotent political feeling that the republican hair by is going to. >> jonathan, let me give you the last word on how the white house is trying to rein the president in advance of the midterms. you've got some great reporting on that topic. >> yeah, we're seeing a real concerted effort from his allies and advisers, trying to get him to hold off on some of the things he's really itching to do. he doesn't have much in the way of impulse control, he had to be talked out of trying to shut down the government -- >> state of affairs. >> to shut down the government to fund the border wall. certainly talking about moving on rosenstein or sessions, trying to force them out of their positions. he's been warned time and time again, this would be very dangerous for republicans' prospects in the midterms. so far, he's listening to that advice. but i would say that come november -- mid november, there's going to be a lot of action that things he's wanted to do for a long time. >> like a christmas list. my thanks to jon, sam, ashley,

michael and jennifer. that does it for our hour. i'm nicolle wallace. "mtp daily" starts right now. hi, chuck. >> happy news, nicolle. >> happy tuesday from washington. >> yeah, nice to be from washington. >> it's very nice. >> so, we'll take it over. thank you. if it's tuesday, the fbi probe into kavanaugh may be almost done. good evening, i'm chuck todd here in washington. welcome to "mtp daily." the fbi has three more days to complete its supplemental investigation of brett kavanaugh, but it may not need three more days. according to "the wall street journal," agents could wrap it up tonight or tomorrow. we learned late today is fbi is not currently planning to interview dr. christine blasey ford. white house believing that her testimony itself is enough of an interview. but even as the fbi questions other witnesses and even as president trump said again today that a senate vote is