tomorrow at 5:00 p.m. that's right. a new live edition of "politics nation" tomorrow as well. and to keep the conversation going, like us at facebook.com/politics nation. and follow us on twitter @politics nation. coming up next, deadline white house, with my colleague nicole wallace. league nicole wallace hi, everyone. it is 4:00 in new york. amid new evidence that washington post columnist jamal khashoggi was killed inside the saudi consulate in turkey. the trump administration doubles down on its relationship with the kingdom. u.s. treasury secretary steve mnuchin announcing today he still plans to attend an investment conference in saudi arabia while other media companies and businesses cut ties with the kingdom until it offers more answers this. as "washington post" reports that the turkish government has

tapes of the killing of the "washington post" columnist. from the paper, quote, the turkish government has told u.s. officials that it has audio and video recordings that prove "washington post" columnist jamal khashoggi was killed inside the saudi consulate in istanbul this month. that is according to u.s. and turkish officials. the audio recordings in particular provide some of the most persuasive and gruesome evidence that the saudi team is responsible for khashoggi's death. but turkish officials are wary of releasing the recordings. fearing they could divulge how the turks spy on foreign entities in their country. those officials said. and while members of congress propose sanctions and blocking weapons sales to the kingdom, donald trump stays focused on the bottom line. >> well, we have, it is not our country, it is turkey, and it is not a citizen, as i understand it, but a thing like that shouldn't happen. it is a reporter with the "washington post." and it is something like that, it should not be allowed to happen. i don't like stopping massive

amounts of money that's being poured into our country. i know that they are talking about different kinds of sanctions. but they are spending $110 billion on military equipment and on things that create jobs, like jobs and others, for this country. i don't like the concept of stopping an investment of $110 billion into the united states because you know what they are going to do, they are going to take that money and spend it in russia or china or some place else. >> and there is brand new reporting today on trump's long-standing business ties to saudi arabia dating back to at least the '90s including quote in 2001 trump sold the 45th floor of his trump world tower in new york to the kingdom of saudi arabia for $4.5 million. and in his own words trurnl makes it clear how much he likes the saudis. >> i get along with them.

they buy apartments with them. they spend 40 million, 50 million. am i supposed to dislike them? i like them very much. >> ann guerin, one of the reporter's by line on the latest story surrounding khashoggi's disappearance. >> and phil rucker. tim o'brien executive editor for bloomberg opinion who has written extensively on donald trump's finances. and robert jordan is us with. a diplomat in residence and author of the book "desert diplomat" inside saudi arabia after 9/11. >> you and your colleagues have done an extraordinary reporting on the disappearance and now what we believe to be the gruesome murder of your former colleague jamal khashoggi. please take us inside anything you have been reporting and anything you have learned since the story posted. >> thank you. what we are trying to figure out is what exactly the turks have

in terms of evidence of what happened inside the consulate and what is going to happen to that evidence as this case moves forward. the turks have been speaking not in an official capacity about things that they say they know happened inside the consulate. and as you alluded to at the beginning, those things are gruesome and point unfortunately to jamal khashoggi's death. we do not know for certain that he is dead. but what we do know is it has been well more than a week since he went into the consulate. he has not come out. there is no evidence that he ever came out. there is no evidence that he has been heard from in any way. electronic or in person since he went through those doors. so the saudis have some explaining to do about what happened inside the consulate. and where this ties in with the u.s. administration is that we believe that the turks have now

shared a fair amount of what they say they know with american officials, and the question then becomes what do the americans do with that information? >> and you and your colleagues reported on what appeared to be u.s. signal intelligence, intercepts, that showed the u.s. intelligence agencies were aware of, they overheard, or learned of conversations that revealed that the saudis intended to lure khashoggi back to saudi arabia for the purposes of detaining him. do you have any reporting on how high up that intelligence went? >> we do not know for sure at this point. and i should say that it is a different thing to say that americans were aware of the potential for a saudi plan or hope to bring khashoggi back to saudi arabia, which he was a national of, and for them to

lure him to a consulate in a third country, and kill him. those are very different things. and at this point, we do not know that the u.s. had any advanced knowledge at all, or even a flip of it, that this might be in the works in turkey. but nonetheless, if u.s. officials did know that khashoggi was sort of in their sites, so to speak, then that raises a question of whether it would have been a good idea, even if they're not legally bound to do so, to have tipped him off. >> phil rucker, i want to ask you about some of the sound we played at the beginning where donald trump said "it's not a citizen ". interesting approach. others, democrats and republicans, have used the office of the presidency as a beacon for the protection of human rights around the world. i have never heard any past president describe a human as an

"it" and i have never heard any past american president talk about human rights abuses which if the turkish account is true, at a minimum, that is a generous description of what happened to mr. khashoggi, if it is as the turks described. any readout from inside the white house about the president's tone and posture on what could be the gruesome murder inside that turkish consulate of "washington post" columnist and american green card holder? >> i too was struck by that statement and an alternative might have been "he" is a permanent u.s. resident, which is the case. he works for the "washington post." look, the president has been pretty cautious the last few days about what he said. in part because his administration has banked the future of its mid east strategy on saudi arabia. they see saudi arabia and its young crown prince, who is very close to jared kushner, the president's son-in-law, as a real linchpin in the strategy to counter iran and the strategy to bring about piece in the middle

east, and investment deals -- peace in the middle east, and investment deal, in terms of defense arm sales to saudi arabia. this is a key component of the administration's strategy. it is the first country that president trump visited on a foreign trip, back last may, when he arrived with a grand reception. the sword dance. the fighter jets streaking through the sky. the red carpet and so forth. so president trump has been very careful in what he says. he doesn't want to criticize the saudis until he has conclusive evidence that they executed the is u.s. resident journalist. and the evidence is coming in, and it looks like this is what happened, but the president seems perhaps unconvinced at this point, or perhaps he is taking the advice of those around him, to just tread carefully and be wary of making any broad pronouncements or declarations about saudi arabia at this hour. >> ambassador jordan, i heard you say something that stopped me in my traction and we're very grateful for you spending some time with us this afternoon.

you said this incident is more than a bump in the road. it is a category four or five diplomatic hurricane. one we will not get over easily. can you expand on that thought? >> sure. i think it is the worst moment in u.s./saudi relations since 9/11. i arrived in saudi arabia as ambassador a month after 9/11 and the question then was are the saudis friend or foe. i think we've got similar questions going on right now. is this a regime that is descending on a slippery slope into authoritarianism, thuggishness, and perhaps rogue behavior? and i think we've got to seriously ask that question. i think the time has come for us to stand up and show some leadership on this issue, and yes, it is, i think, a potentially serious rupture. now, let's all remember, we do need saudi arabia in fighting terrorism and maintaining a posture against iran, and other ways to be our ally.

but it doesn't mean they have a blank check. and i think the time has come to make that clear with a red line here, and making it clear also that we are going to exercise some leadership in the region. >> a former is u.s. government official describes the difference between the trump administration's posture with saudi arabia and other administrations, again, democrat and republican presidents, who sought to do what you just described, have a functional and a productive relationship with saudi arabia, as being in what you just described as a lack of a backstop. that all there is love fests on the hands of the orb. all there is projecting donald trump's name on the wall of a fancy hotel. all there is a seeming transactional nature and spirit of donald trump. and jared kushner's feelings towards saudi arabia and at its roots and maybe their business relationships. and it extended in a very shallow foreign policy. can you tick through the dangers of our posture with saudi arabia right now at a moment when saudi arabia is engaged in an extremely controversial war in

yemen, at a moment when our relationships across our closest and most reliable allies are strained at best. ruptured, your word, at worst. talk about the dangerous position we may be in, in terms of the shallowness of the trump administration's relationship with the kingdom. >> well, it appears that the crown prince, mohamed bin salman, has at least in his mind been given a green light to engage in any kind of behavior in the region that he wants. especially in stifling descent. let's not forget that a year ago, at the ritz carlton, mb's cousins, uncles and others were incarcerated, along with a number of saudi businessmen, and shaken down for about $100 billion. this is the same ritz carlton at which they are now proposing to have this conference on october 23. i can't imagine a worst optic than having american officials participate in this pageant that they have orchestrated.

>> can i press you on that, ambassador? do you think it is a mistake, secretary mnuchin today announced that he would be attending that pageant as you described it and the saudis about v- -- have been getting very good at pageantry under this young leader. they have taken the tech industry by storm. hollywood. do you think it is a mistake that secretary mnuchin announced that he would still attend the conference? >> it is a big mistake. and my hope is that members of the private sector will take a lead from people like richard branson and others and decide not to go. with the last thing we need, jamie dimon, steven schwartzman and david terez and others giving speeching to glorify this regime at this time. i think it is a great danger that this regime will fall into disarray. many of the senior members of the royal family have got to be aghast at what has occurred. and there may well be a question now as to whether this crown

prinsz is suited to become king. >> ambassador, are you concerned having served as an american diplomat, in saudi arabia, can you talk about the messages sent by an american president in terms of what an american president says about the press, what an american president says about other dictators, other thugs, john mccain thought kim jong-un was a thug, and donald trump has nothing but praise for him, other american officials have described this young crown prince the way you have but never donald trump. can you talk about serving as an ambassador when an american president calls the press enemies of people and lavishes praise on dictators. >> it certainly encourages that kind of authoritarian behavior. i would say during my time under president george w. bush, he developed a very positive personal relationship with king abdullah. i spent time with them at summit meetings in crawford and also in sharm el-sheik egiptd and you could tell the two genuinely

liked each other. but when president bush had a hard message to deliver to king abdullah, they would respect each other, and king abdullah would pay attention, because he spoke with authority. i think we're losing that sense of authority here. and we're governing by sound bite. we're governing by tweet. and certainly, leaders around the world are going to roll their eyes and do what they want to do at this point. >> tim o'brien, i want to turn to the president's financial ties to saudi arabia. because there is extraordinary investigative journalism. you have done a lot of it, about donald trump's businesses, but then there is donald trump in his own words saying i like them very much. sold them 40, $50 million appoints. the "washington post" reports in 2017, a lobbying firm working for the saudi embassy reported spending $270,000 on food and lodging at the downtown hotel in washington. and manhattan's central park west, told investors he had good news. after two down years, revenue

for the first quarter had gone up, according to a letter obtained by the "washington post." one reason, a last-minute visit to new york by the crown prince of saudi arabia. >> the post and jonathan o'connell, they did a nice job parsing -- there are two separate sets of issues here. there is donald trump going broke in the early 1990s. and he sells two of his prized asset, his yacht and a landmark hotel, the plaza hotel to sheikh ala ka lead. and one of the investors. trump had to sell it. it wasn't a special relationship. the banks needed to unload those assets. bin tala was one of the sheikhs who the crown prince put in a brief imprisonment at the ritz carlton in riyadh recently. you have to wonder, in that long trajectory, what was on donald trump's mind. the second set of issues that come up are the more recent financial relationships. they bought an entire floor of trump world.

the trump world plaza. for their mission at the united nations. more recently, they have been patronizing the hotels. and all of this reflects back on this issue that still dogs the trump administration, are they making good public policy, or are they doing things that pad their wallets? and that raises of course the specter of jared kushner, who has been trump's lead ambassador, essentially, to the middle east, and especially to saudi arabia. there has been speculation as to whether the people who were put in the hotel and imprisoned by the crown prince, if he got those names from u.s. intelligence sources that jared kushner passed along to him. what was kushner's goal in doing that? kushner at the time that he was lobbying both sources of money in the middle east, china, and russia, was desperately trying to bail out a skyscraper that the family was in debt for on fifth avenue. trump himself would be very hard-pressed to locate most middle eastern nations on a map. they have been full bore on

saudi arabia. >> i have heard that movie before. i know how it ends. >> and this is all coming back to haunt them. they've got conflicted, at least an appearance of conflicts. and possibility the reality of conflicts. and they're in over their heads on foreign policy. >> let me pick up on one thing you said and ask phil rucker, this question of sharing intelligence, of not understanding what u.s. intelligence is, this is something donald trump has done, he shared with the russian foreign minister sensitive intelligence, i believe it was israeli intelligence. but are there questions, are they running around trying to batten down -- are they trying to get their hands on a fact pattern, whether it is trying to understand what u.s. officials knew about the saudi -- as ann gueran points out, luring khashoggi and luring him back to saudi arabia is different than dismembering him in turkey. but they're trying to at least understand what the president knew when he knew it and when jared knew it and when he knew it and are they trying to follow the chain of command of what the intelligence agencies knew about the crown prince's designs on

khashoggi, phil? >> i mean we at the "washington post," are certainly trying to get answers to all of those question, and do not have them yet. it is difficult to piece this time line together. and i'm not confident that the u.s. government, as of right now, has a complete time line in terms of what happened at the consulate, what was sort of picked up when, and what they knew about this plot as it went along. it is unclear, for example, as ann gaeren was saying at the top of shot whether there was intelligence intercepts that the u.s. had, reached the highest levels of the government, whether the president's intelligence briefer shared that information with him, or with jared kushner, or with john bolton, the national security adviser, if it reached that level. we just don't know yet. perhaps we will soon find out. hopefully we will soon find out. and that will really provide a lot of information for us to determine whether this was something that the government sort of let go on, without intervening in any way. >> let me give you the last

word. let me ask you, does the act as described by the turks of luring khashoggi to the consulate there, murdering him after torturing him and dismembering him, is that the kind of act that would take place without the crown prince's knowledge? >> absolutely not. he had to have known this. this is not a bunch of keystone cops out on a freelance operation. he had to have known about it. >> mr. ambassador, we hope you will continue to join us, and share your insights with us. we're grateful to have you. ann gearen, thank you for your reporting. phil rucker as well. when we come back, new reporting that says bob mueller's lawyers are working on ties to russia. and the governor's race heats up amid a brand new lawsuit. the race is a dead heat. and how did donald trump's public appearances this week in the face of a deadly hurricane and a growing diplomatic crisis stack up in the history books? we will ask an expert to weigh in. stay with us. ears, right? ears, right? fact is, there have been twenty-six in the last decade.

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donald trump's lawyers have reportedly received written questions from special counsel robert mueller in a source familiar with the matter, tells nbc news the legal team is currently at work preparing answers. but pay attention to the wording of the report. you won't see the word obstruction anywhere. quote, the questions are focused on the issue of whether the trump campaign clouded with russia during the 2016 presidential race. however, the source stressed that these questions are a refined version of questions that have gone back and forth between the two sides for months. back in april, "the new york times" published dozens of questions mueller wanted antied, most had to do with obstruction and a few on collusion as well. trump tower meeting. the 2013 miss universe pageant. that sudden rnc platform change that made it way more favorable for russia. trump's business interests in russia. and a few about wikileaks and julian assange. donald trump was asked yesterday about the prospect of an interview with the special

counsel. >> well, mr. president, there is no collusion, but there is no conclusion either. so what -- >> that i can't help. >> is there anything, have you thought again, about sitting down for an interview, or write written questions, or any type of hybrid approach there? >> well it seems ridiculous that i would have to do it, when everybody says there is no collusion, but i will do what is necessary to get it over with. >> joining us now, is former u.s. attorney joyce vance and with us at the table, al sharpton, host of politics nation and president of the national action network and corinne jean pierre, and joyce, let me start with you. why would the mueller team allow written responses and written answers. are they trying to button things up or more to view him as a target? what is behind the mueller side? >> it is really interesting that they seem have to have bifurcated the inquiry, that they are insisting on an

interview on obstruction, but they have submitted some questions, or at least so we have been told, on this issue of collusion. we have to remember that everything we know about this comes from trump's lawyers. we have no idea if this is the same way that mueller's team views what is going on between the two sides. so it is important to keep that caveat in mind. but this looks like it is just a way of keeping the dialogue going. written answers, they may give some interesting line distinctions like no, i didn't know anything about collusion, but they really won't be worth much more than the paper they are written on in terms of evidentiary value. >> it seems though, joyce, like what they could be inching toward is trying to have something on record. because we know they have binders and binders of transcripts from the dozens and dozens of people who have already been through and answered questions about contacts with russia. they have paul manafort as a cooperating witness who has told them, we would expect, everything they want to know, about how that platform change

went down in cleveland at the republican convention. they may or may not have spoken to don jr. they have spoken to paul manafort. they believe i have spoken to -- they have other people who have answered questions about everything on that list. the trump tower meeting, michael cohen pleaded guilty and cooperating with everything and anything the federal government wants to do vis-a-vis donald trump so it seems like written answers could trip up somebody like donald trump. >> i think you're right. there are two reasons that law enforcement likes to speak with witnesses or with people that are involved in an event. one is to get information. they have plenty of information here. the other is to create account ability for people who were arguably involved in criminal acts. the best way you do that is by having someone testify under oath in a grand jury. and then if they're lying, you can prosecute them for perjury. i don't think that written questions will have exactly that same force, but i suspect that these questions will be very carefully designed, and there will be an effort to create some

accountability by the same token, the president's lawyers know what the game being played here is, and they will be careful to put a lot of caveats and possible outs into anything that they submit in writing for the president. so hard to see whether this will give mueller the sort of evidence that he would need to move forward against the president, if that is what he has in mind. >> it is so interesting that we have arrived at this place, not because the president has been exonerated in any way shape, or form, rev, we have arrived in this place, because everyone around the president said publicly, what they have said to him privately, which you can't meet with mueller because we know you will lie. >> and i think that should be very disturbing to the american people. that even his closest advisers and lawyers are saying that we are afraid that you don't have the capacity to tell the truth. so why risk it? i mean lawyers usually say be very careful, don't talk without a lawyer. but to say don't talk at all,

that you are beyond our even prepping you, should frighten the american people. >> and corinne, the president's legal team, there has been turnover, there has been disagreement publicly, ty cobb and john dowz, most people have forgotten who they are except the political junkies among us. and john dowd says, in the last line of bobwoodward's book, the investigation, he is a bleeping liar, he couldn't testify before robert mueller because he is a bleeping liar. and rudy giuliani has made clear the president will not sit down for an interview and he can't get through it without perjuring himself. >> and then you get from the president, i'm happy to talk to mueller and his team, because he thinks, in his mind, he thinks he can get away with everything, because as you know, he is this

entertainer, kind of go-getter, and a company man. >> salesman. >> that's the word i'm looking for. salesman. and i think for me, hearing the story, it really dives into how it is steadfast. it has been quiet, right? >> they don't leak. >> they don't leak. and it makes you think, okay, what is going to happen after the midterms. will it be the winter of mueller? because it is quiet, but they're moving and they're getting in there. and so the other thing, too, that is really interesting, as joyce said, all of this is coming from the trump team. so we don't really know. we have to have a little bit of a caveat there. but it is interesting, it is like so what is going on, is there really collusion? is mueller, does he have more on collusion than we think? and where is the obstruction? is he done with the obstruction? is that all tied up and so he is moving on to something else? so it does bring up a lot more questions than answers. >> you are one of the rare people who has dealt with donald trump under oath in a legal

capacity. talk about donald trump. >> his lawyer has very good reason to worry that he is a pathological liar. we deposed him for two days in december of 2007, i was with "the new york times" at the time, he sued me for a biography i wrote about him and during the course of that litigation, he had to sit with my attorneys under oath. and in the process of that, we caught him on more than 30 occasions having lied about various aspects, his personal life, his business life, and his public life. i think his lawyers look at a document like that, and they know they have a disaster on their hands. the last thing they want to do is have donald trump sitting in a room, live with bob mueller, because it won't go right. not only will he probably perjure himself, he also can't help himself, but self-aggrandize. and the last thing you want a witness doing under oath is brag bragging because it ends up going into areas you don't want the witness to go into. that's the first problem. i think the second thing, i think the mueller investigation has more parts to it than we

understand. i think there is a silo about collusion, there is a silo about obstruction and there is possibly a third with high crimes and misdemeanors. financial transactions. quid pro quos around policy issues with russia possibly. and mueller has given indications through subpoenas and witnesses that he is looking at certainly all three of those. but nobody knows what he is going to ends up pursuing specifically. >> joyce, i'm told by a source close to the president that the thing that unites the white house counsel office overseeing the russia investigation, don mcgahn, rudy giuliani and some of the president's legal friends outside the white house is that they all lay their bodies down and said over our zed body will donald trump -- dead body will donald trump testify. what do you think the approach is to the answers? do you think he is even involved? do you think they're being drafted for him? and if he were a normal person, is that allowed? can you perjure yourself in a written answer? can you take the fifth in a written answer? how does someone like donald trump respond to written questions? >> this is a lot more like

interrogatories. questions that are formally propounded to a party in civil litigation than like the way the criminal investigative process works. i've never used written questions to a subject or a target in a criminal case simply because they never balk at talking to the fbi, and if they do, you send them a subpoena, and they show up in front of the grand jury. so this procedure just really has no feet in criminal practice. i would be very surprised if the president has played a serious role in formulating the responses. i think that that would not be his skill set. >> you made me laugh when you're being serious, joyce, i'm sorry. >> i go back to that tape you played at the state, which i have heard several -- at the start, which i heard several times which the president is saying everybody is saying that there is no co collusion, and he doesn't seem to realize that it is not everybody who is going to make the call here. it is going to be bob mueller and a federal grand jury. so his responses could ultimately be important.

but you know, prosecutors rarely talk to targets in front of the grand jury. it is not unusual to not have that testimony. they don't need it. >> a great point. everybody is nobody and bob mueller is everybody. joyce vance, thank you so much. after the break, the georgia governor race is one of the closest races in the country and today democrat stacey abrams is calling on her opponent republican brian kemp to resign over reports of voter suppression. we will bring you that story next. it's kind of like playing your own version of best ball. because here, you can choose any car in the aisle, even if it's a better car class than the one you reserved. so no matter what, you're guaranteed to have a perfect drive. [laughter] (vo) go national. go like a pro. see what i did there? i'm still giving it my best even though i live with a higher risk of stroke

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and electing a former wall street banker named marshall tuck to superintendent of public instruction is all a part of the billionaires' plan to take money away from neighborhood public schools and give it to their corporate charter schools. that's why tony thurmond is the only candidate endorsed by classroom teachers for superintendent of public instruction. because keeping our kids safe and improving our neighborhood public schools is always tony's top priority. i say merry christmas and god bless you. i strongly support president trump, our troops and ironclad borders. and i stand for our national anthem. if any of this offends you, then i'm not your guy. >> that was brian kemp. he is georgia's secretary of state. and he is a republican candidate for governor there. in other words, he is currently overseeing the election he is trying to win. and now he is being sued by a coalition of civil rights groups

who say the method his office uses to verify new voter registration is discriminatory. here is how the "washington post" describes it. quote, the exact match law requires election officials to flag and pause any voter registration application if the identifying information doesn't precisely match the voter's information in existing records. even because of something as small as a missing hyphen. or a transposed number. although voters are not barred from casting a ballot, they must take extra steps to verify their identity. but take a look at who is this is really affecting. an investigation by the a.p. found there are currently more than 53,000 applications currently on hold at kemp's office. and 70%, 70% of those belong to african-americans. georgia's population is about 32% black. kemp's opponent stacey abrams is demanding that kemp resign from his post as secretary of state. but time is running short. georgia's deadline to register is tuesday. the midterms are in 25 days. and they are locked in a tight race. abrams and kemp are

statistically tied right now according to a poll released yesterday. the panel is still here. rev, this seems like it is not even voter suppression disguised as something else. >> no, this is blatant. i mean first of all, you should never have the secretary of state who is over the voting process remain in office in any election that he is in. but on top of that, to have this guy, kemp, decide on how they are going to put quote on hold people's registrations, that is the term they're using, and then 70% of them are black, that was researched by the associated press, not one of the civil rights groups. >> right. >> not one were the claimants. >> not any of the plaintiffs. this is independently by the associated press. on top of that, to have kemp in charge of the process, i mean it is as tainted as you can get. >> why wouldn't he recuse himself? >> i mean the only reason you

wouldn't recuse yourself is because you want to have this advantage. and you want to be blatantly out there, saying i'm going to do what i want, even if we have to change the rules. even -- desantis in florida said i am going to leave what i am doing in congress and run in florida. this guy kemp hasn't done that when he is directly involved in the voting process. so he would, i mean jim crow would blush if he would see this guy kemp. >> it seems to me that we talk to much about the trump effect, one of the effects of trump seems to this be disregard for, we don't know that he broke the law, but this disregard for the norms. i mean the norm is if you're the secretary of state, and you are running, you would recuse yourself perhaps from that election. >> and he is not, and he tried it a couple of months ago, not with this, but with the closing of the polls. and he lost there. so it has been a constant thing with kemp. and he is not stopping. and the race is really close.

stacey abrams could potentially become the first black woman elected to governor in a southern state, which plays into the new south that we have been hearing about. but i do want to step back for a second. this voter suppression has been going on across the country since 2013, when the voting rights act was gutted. and we saw this in 2016 as well. in north carolina. even in wisconsin. there were voters who were disenfranchised and they were people of color. 0 so this is a new play by republicans, since 2013. and it is unfortunately very successful. the one thing that was really great to see is in alabama. alabama had a voter i.d. law, but they got over it. they got 98% of women who came out, black women who came out and voted, and they were able to educate people and let people know, this is what you do, if you are turned away to vote. >> tim, sometimes i lie in bed at night trying to figure out if the trump administration is more

sinister or incompetent and i wrestle about it until i fall asleep. i never really land on an answer. but it would appear that trump and jared kushner are trying to have a position on criminal justice reform. they are trying to get in, they are trying to play in that space, if you will. it would seem that having someone running under the banners of republican, operationalizing the disenfranchised, 70,000 african-american voters would be in direct contradiction to his efforts to play in the swase of criminal justice re -- space of criminal justice reform. the white house could do something easily. he mentions the white house in his ad. why doesn't the white house call him and say back off. >> let me relieve of you burden. when you go to sleep, it is both incompetent and sinister. i don't think you have to choose between the two. i think where they are, on prison reform, is largely driven by jared kushner being outraged about how his father was treated when he went to prison. it is a very narrow space.

in both voter suppression, and this is not just voter suppression, it is racially charged voter suppression, and gerrymandering, you have the 21st century, sort of undoing the 20th century's efforts to get rid of all of these heinous abuses of the 18th and 19th century. and i think that donald trump has opened the door to people getting comfortable wearing racial racially charged machinations or raw racism on their sleeve, because of the way he responded to charlottesville, because of his own history in new york and elsewhere, of using race as a very divisive tool and towards self-agrandizement. so other members of the gop see that and to me it is not about partisan politics or ideology, it is about who we are as a country, hand is a civilized way to -- and that is a civilized way of discussing these issues and trump and the people around

him tore that up. >> kanye west dropped the f bomb in the oval office while those in the southeast are picking through the rubble of their lives. and talking arms sales with the saudi consulate. and fox news stopped carrying maga rallies. is it more of the same in trump's america? next. ump's america? next -these people, they speak a language we cannot understand. ♪ [ telephone ringing ] -whoa. [ indistinct talking ] -deductible? -definitely speaking insurance.

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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) i've heard a lot of names. i've heard ivanka. i've heard how good would ivanka be. the people who don't know it, is nothing to do with nepotism, but i want to tell you, the people that know, know that ivanka would be dynamite. >> elizabeth warren, i hope she runs. i hope she runs. then we can finally get down to the fact as to whether or not she has indian blood. her mother says she has high cheekbones. i could go on all night. but i want to get the hell out of here, okay? because i thought i was coming

to iowa. and i say this, and i mean this. the democrats are the party of crime. that's what has happened. they are the party of crime. >> it is not our country. it is in turkey. it is not a citizen, as i understand it. he could speak for me any time he wants. a great guy. he is a smart cookie. smart. he gets it. >> in case you missed any of that, kanye west is now permitted to speak for the president of the united states. ivanka's great but donald trump doesn't want to talk about nepotism. elizabeth warren's high cheekbones say something about something, and i policed that one a-- missed that one and donald trump was mad that he wasn't in iowa. >> michael is here, he just released a new book, amazing and remarkable, i will admit i haven't finished it but i started it. it is called "presidents of war" and you are here to do what rachel does for me every night, you are the tower, talking about this landing, what happens next? >> what happens next is i think we are looking back at this week

historically, i think there is a possibility that what will loom above everything else is that seeming atrocity that happened in that saudi embassy in turkey. for the first year and a half, there has been this shadow over donald trump and his administration of whatever relationship he has had with the russians, which we should know even more soon, as mueller begins to speak, presumably after the elections. there is a possibility that there will be similar scrutiny now to the relationship between donald trump and the saudis. and you have to assume that if the democrats are elected next month, at least in the house, and have powers of subpoena, and investigation, they may begin to look at that relationship in a way that will not necessarily do the president a lot of credit. >> i agree with you. but i want to press you, and i want to understand why you think it is the case. do you think it is because donald trump set a tone as the american president, where reporters are enemies of the people, where dictators are lovely great, wonderful people,

with a lot of promise, or do you think it is in the transactional nature, that even as president, his public statements often blur the lines between his business dealings, his condo sales, and u.s. -- >> absolutely. all of those. all of those things. as usual, you have said it perfectly. all i can do is agree. and the other thing is we've got to know how much of this huge closeness between trump and the saudis is because he has this business relationship that goes back plane years, and maybe hopes of doing more business in the future, whether as president, or after his presidency. but you know, what he said in the oval office, when someone asked him about what happened in turkey, and he said it is not our country, what other president in modern times would respond to something like that? would ronald reagan with his views of human rights have said something like that? it shows you how far we've come from other presidents, for most of our modern times. >> we talked about that at the beginning of this show, that he

didn't, i mean just the dehumanization of the columnist, of jamaal cash fll khashoggi, h him an "it" yesterday, citizen. george w. bush ended his presidency with an approval rating in the 30s, so i get that a lot of people didn't appreciate his foreign policy. but no one questions his values -- >> of human rights and freedom around the worldme. i can't imagine him saying something like that or sending his secretary of state as planned to a financial conference in the country which, you know, was involved in the incident we're talking about. president bush would not have done that. >> so we gloss over the obliteration of norms because they're usually headlines. they're usually things breaking and people handing us papers, a development in the mueller investigation, an outrageous statement about a bleep hole country. just talk about the obliteration of norms. they were still looking for survivors, and there were rescue missions under way in the

florida panhandle yesterday, a battleground state not for nothing, with this politically craven president. and donald trump had kanye west in the oval office yesterday. where are we? >> we're in a place where the president doesn't need to feel he has any empathy for people who are suffering or any sense of responsibility to get them out of their predicament. yes, it is symbolic, but symbols have meaning. for a president to have a political rally while those people are suffering down in the track of hurricane michael and for the president to have that meeting with kanye for reasons that are god knows what -- i can speculate about those. not exactly the most serious incident of statecraft that has ever taken place in the history of the oval office. the message that sends is that, i'm not taking these serious things seriously. that's what a president is supposed to do. >> it's such a good point. you mentioned the desk. every time i see the resolute desk, and maybe you can give our viewers a little history lesson.

it's not that he chose to do something light. presidents always have to balance the lighter aspects of their job, christmas parties, you know, entertainment, figures who are important to american culture, with the more serious ones. it's this president's capacity to be tone deaf 100% of the time that made this kanye meeting so weird. >> and not only tone deaf, but you and i know, nicole, he's got people around him who will tell him, mr. president, maybe that's not a good idea to do that. it's going to send a bad message. it's not going to help you. and obviously he's discarded that advice. it shows a degree of lack of sensitivity, lack of empathy that i can't think of with other presidents. and you want me to say one word on the resolute desk in. >> please. that goes back to the 19th century. it was a gift from the british. franklin roosevelt used it for his fireside chats. jackie kennedy brought it to the oval office. it's been used by every president in the oval office almost unendingly except for george h.w. bush.

and the result is that it is a reminder of the way that other earlier presidents have behaved. so when president trump sits at that desk with kanye west and has a conversation like that, it shows him eagerly and conspicuously and defiantly flouting the traditions of the presidency that most americans feel pretty strongly about. >> picking up on that idea of the traditions of the presidency, what worries you most about the early stages that we're in of this crisis with saudi arabia, that we may be in bed with a leader in saudi arabia? we may have made such a big bet on mbs that we don't have the kind of leadership on the world stage to have any moral high ground to seek justice for jamal khashoggi. what are your concerns in terms of sort of the string of what presidents normally do in the position the president has us in right now in. >> nicolle, everything that you and i might have said about

donald trump's meeting with vladimir putin in helsinki, that he didn't seem to care about what putin did and repeatedly gives an idea that he doesn't care about putin's invasion of our elections, you know, other things that the russians have been doing around the world that defy human rights. we're hearing the same kind of language from donald trump about saudi arabia, and that's going to have very big consequences. and the main one is, you know, i think at base, you know, anyone's objections to donald trump should not be necessarily ideological. people should feel free to agree or disagree. but where he is different from all other presidents is on the question of democracy. is this a guy who is going to use his power as president to dismantle certain basic pillars of our democracy in a way that may change this country conceivably forever? and one of those is for a president to react to something like what we've heard happening in turkey, what we heard

happening with russia, and say basically, i don't care. you know, america no longer stands for morality and human rights in the world. we're just going to let it be a war of all against all. >> i don't sleep anymore, so i should be done with your book by the end of the week next week, so i hope you'll come back and talk about that. >> i would actually love it. thank you so much, nicolle. nice to be with you. >> it's a treat to have you. we're going to sneak in our last break. don't go anywhere. we'll be right back. [woman 1] this...

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and we've grown substantially. so i switched to the spark cash card from capital one. i earn unlimited 2% cash back on everything i buy. and last year, i earned $36,000 in cash back. that's right, $36,000. which i used to offer health insurance to my employees. my unlimited 2% cash back is more than just a perk, it's our healthcare. can i say it? what's in your wallet? hurricane michael has finally moved out to sea, but the historic storm has left its mark on the southern part of the u.s. at least 13 people are dead, more injured, and thousands of

homes and businesses have been destroyed. roughly 2 million people lost power. hurricane michael will go down in history as the fourth strongest hurricane to make landfall in the united states. before we go, i just want to mention politics nation is moving to a new time, 5:00 saturday and sunday. what have you got planned? >> i have senator cory booker tomorrow for the first show, 5:00 saturday. and sunday i'm going to break down on how donald trump orchestrates things. what a lot of people miss, nicolle, why was kanye west allowed to bring his cell phone into the oval office? no one's allowed to do that. so did they know some of what he was going to do yesterday, and did they help to accommodate that because he shouldn't have had his cell phone there showing pictures aside from dropping the f-bomb. >> is that typical donald trump? you both would know the answer to this. to constant stagecraft. >> i think donald trump is still -- when you look at kid

rock, when you look at kanye west. he still thinks he's booking artists for atlantic city casinos he owns rather than the united states. >> my thanks to the panel. that does it for our hour. i'm nicolle wallace. i'll see you back here monday for deadline white house at 4:00 p.m. republicans call retreat. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews up in boston. fearing a massacre at the polls next month, donald trump's republicans are concentrating their forces, cutting off outposts they see as lost causes. the goal is to save their majority in the house, if only by a single seat. to do so, republican groups are cutting funding to roughly a dozen members of congress incumbents who are deep underwater, in effect, turning off their lights.