pulitzer center and "boston globe" columnist. i'll see you back here tomorrow, 1:00 p. mp. 1:00 p. mm. eastern with stephae ruhle. deadline white house with nicolle wallace starts right now. >> it's 4:00 in new york. so it didn't take donald trump 24 hours after one of the largest news organizations in this country was targeted with a pipe bomb to attack the media. donald trump now playing the blame game targeting the press for generating, quote, a very big part of the anger we see today in our society. this is the president's response to a potential serial mail bomber who may now be responsible for sending ten suspicious packages. the targets now include both vice president joe biden, two devices addressed to him were intercepted in delaware this morning. and actor robert de niro, a frequent critic of the president. as we sit here, there's still no suspect and no motive, but investigators might have a lead. two senior law enforcement

officials tell nbc news they are looking into whether some of the packages were mailed from florida. here was donald trump less than 12 hours after cnn's new york headquarters were evacuated. >> as part of a larger national effort to bridge our divides and bring people together, the media also has a responsibility to set a civil tone and to stop the d endless hostility and constant negative and oftentimes false attacks and stories. have to do it. and by the way, do you see how nice i'm behaving tonight? this is like -- have you ever seen this? we're all behaving very well. and hopefully we can keep it that way, right? we're going to keep it that way. trying to say that very nicely. i'm trying to -- see, normally i'd scream, they want a social takeover. now i say wants a socialist takeover. i'm trying to be nice.

>> irony is dead when the american president has to pat himself on the back for behaving. "the washington post" responded to trump's effort to shift blame from his own vitriolic language to the media that covers him. trump again shirked responsibility for his own inflammatory contributions to the political discourse and instead assigned blame to others. the president who has made a sport out of mocking his political rivals with nicknames like crooked hillary, also exhorted others in the political arena to stop treating their opponents as morally defective. here's donald trump just this month, just this month on his political enemies, all of them, targeted with bombs this week. >> crooked hillary say great unifier. maxine waters. good old maxine. low iq individual. low iq. do you ever see when the fake news interviews them and then they try to cut it. they'll go to a person holding a sign who gets paid by soros or

somebody, right? that's what happens. by the way, by the way -- >> cnn sucks! cnn sucks! cnn sucks! >> don't worry. i don't like them either. we call them 1% biden until obama took him off the trash heap. tough guy. >> morally defective, i'll say. here to discuss today's developments, some of our favorite reporters and friends. former u.s. attorney joyce vance, power up anchor jackie alamani. she also covered trump's campaign. nick confessore and rick stengel, former under secretary of state for public diplomacy, steve schmidt joins us as well. steve, let me start with you. what's happening in america right now? >> an historic event. we haven't seen anything like it since the night abraham lincoln was assassinated. this was a mass assassination

attempt, including two former presidents, a former vice president of the united states, a former attorney general of the united states, a former chairwoman of the democratic national committee. the person who is responsible for sending bombs to all of those people is the person who mailed the bombs. donald trump did not mail the bombs, but he created the atmosphere where a sick person would look at those individuals and see an enemy. trump makes no pretense about being the commander in chief of all of the country, being president of all of the people, including the people that voted against him. he is in effect a tribal chiefton who has declared war on half of the country. when he incites by attacking and stigmatizing vulnerable minority populations, alleging conspiracy, calling his opponents enemies of the people, calling journalists enemies of

the people, what is it that we do to enemies? how do we deal with an enemy when we invoke martial analogies? we kill enemies. and someone out there took him both literally and seriously. when you look at a trump rally, the venom spewed at the journalists, the level of menace, the edge of violence, his celebrating body-slams by a congressman who physically assaulted a reporter. his celebrating supporters who punch opponents in the face. every day, donald trump does everything he can for his own selfish political purposes to inflame and incite. and we sit around now and we wonder, is there any causation? of course there is. is there anything that he has done that would create an atmosphere that would instigate or trigger a sick person?

of course there is. and so this idea that donald trump is held harmless and not responsible is absurd. he has degraded the civility. he has exacerbated the divisions more quickly, more profoundly than any leader of this country in american history. and now we stand at the edge of -- we stand on a ragged edge looking into an abyss. this is partisan violence. this is sectarian violence. this is one of the two political tribes targeted by a sick person. but a sick person perhaps instigated by a rhetoric that trump revels in all day, every day. >> steve, let me read you something that "the new york times" charles blow writes about on these lines. he writes, rhetoric, mobs and terror. trump said that their enemies

were his enemies. everyone they saw as a threat to their cultural heritage, societal dominance. he would attack on their behalf. never projectionist, trump repeatedly encouraged violence at his campaign rallies and has recently taken to casting democrats as a mob. in fact, his supporters are the mob. steve? >> he's 100% correct. let's look at the caravan such that it is. now whether you think that consideration should be given to allow some of them into the country as refugees or whether you believe that none of them should be allowed into the country, the truth of the matter is, this is not a panser division advancing on the southern border that's a national security threat to the united states of america. but donald trump has instigated hatred. stoked it by saying that they are. and so if you are an unbalanced

person out there, what is it that you hear? you hear that all of these people are enemies. they're enemies of trump. they're enemies of the state. they're enemies of the people. and what they are doing is allowing the country to be invaded by a dangerous hoard coming from the south, made up of brown people. and so the consequences of all of this after two years should not be a surprise to anybody. if you incite and then you incite again, if you revel in menace, if you stigmatize and declare your opponents as enemies from the highest office in the land, the reality is this -- when the president of the united states, people listen. when the president of the united states speaks, people listen. and someone out there took him literally. took him seriously, maybe, and the result is that we also --

that we almost saw a couple of presidents, a vice president, assassinated. imagine if the security screenings did not work and yesterday was a day of bloodshed as opposed to a day where these terror attacks and assassinations failed. this would have been amongst the most significant days in the history of the united states. and but for proper security screenings and the competence of law enforcement, there was no disaster. but that doesn't mean there won't be next time. and the person who is most singularly responsible for edging this country into a cold civil war is donald j. trump. it's a shameful legacy that he'll carry with him because of that for the rest of his days. >> jackie, let me bring you into this conversation. alex burns of "the new york times" writes some of trump's worst political crises as president have come when the country has been looking for

moral clarity. charlottesville, helsinki. he's declined to offer it or offered the opposite. you cover this president. you cover this white house. talk about how he seems to do the opposite of rising to these moments. he seems to sink lower if we can track the events that alex burns remarks on. >> yeah, we've seen this president time and time again be very slow to be that voice of moral clarity. if rising to the occasion at all from charlottesville to encouraging violence at rallies, encouraging protesters to beat each other up, to calling our elected officials low iq individuals, calling to lock them up. obviously, the heated rhetoric that we've seen for the past two years since, you know, since trump took that escalator up and in trump tower and announced he was going to be running for president. and again, i just want to get back to something that steve pointed out, which is in the

churn of punditry and the nonstop news cycle, we lose sight of just how -- what stark terms we should be viewing this in, which it was a mass assassination attempt of some of the most powerful people in the united states. and first and foremost, it's the president's job to be that voice of moral clarity to rise to the occasion. and initially, i think you know, people at the white house were, you know, almost surprised. white house supporters when the president rose to the occasion at the top of the opioid events yesterday. he acted presidential. you know, the words rang a little hollow considering the week before he had just called -- complimented gianforte for body-slamming a reporter. but he did do what was expected of a president. but that only lasted for all of, you know, six hours where he then went to wisconsin and deflected blame on the media. and, you know, and back to this rhetoric.

enemy of the people. that is a really, really heated term that is intended to delegitimize opposition. when you say something enough times, it does back to that idea of people taking things literally and seriously. that's what happens. >> jackie, you've been to his rallies. and you've had experiences where his crowds have -- talk about your experiences of covering him and being at those rallies. >> i went down a rabbit hole yesterday just trying to remember all of the times during even just the early days of trump's presidential campaign where there was nonstop fights breaking out at these rallies with the president encouraging them. calling these fights exciting. yelling to get him out. get him out. and then applauding people when they were punching protesters. peaceful protesters who were just attending the rally to hold up a sign. and trump -- the president would go out of his way to call these

people out and have, you know, his supporters mob them. and it wasn't just his supporters. it was also his campaign staff. i mean, corey lewandowski, we caught him on camera dragging a protester out himself with his own bare hands in a near choke-hold. and even that sort of behavior has carried over into the white house with john kelly and corey lewandowski getting into a fist fight outside the oval office. so this is nothing new. i think because, again, there is so much that constantly goes on with this president. it was maybe something that we had maybe potentially forgotten about. but this has been a longstanding pattern under trump. >> joyce, jackie and steve have both turned what was a story that scared me and depressed me into something potentially extremely haunting. they're both absolutely correct to describe this as an attempted assassination of some of the country a most powerful and prominent political leaders. your thoughts?

>> this was an effort, if we take it at face value, to take out a senior tier of leadership in the democratic party. we don't know who the perpetrator was at this point. that's the fbi's job. we don't know if this is an ongoing crime, if there are more bombs coming. so we'll learn a little bit more in the days ahead, but i had someone say to me this morning, a friend who called and said i need some reassurance. i feel like it's 9/11 happening all over again. this is what bombers try to do. they want to instill fear in people. they are cowards. they act from afar. today it's a good opportunity for the country to reassess where we are and recommit to working together and having a few more country over party moments. unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be where the president wants to lead us. >> nick, your thoughts. >> it's interesting. i was thinking about a phrase from pat buchanan back -- from his days with richard nixon.

our strategy is to divide the country in half and hope that our half is the larger half. and that is trump's strategy. he casts his opponents as part of an alien force. people who do not share your values or your country or your patriotism. >> who represent a threat. >> a threat. a threat to your lives and your culture. that is what he revels in. it's the entire arc of his politics from day one. his words matter. they have consequences. he has a huge soap box and he uses it and constantly uses it to stoke hatred and fear. that's his style as president. >> so he -- one of the people or one of the organizations that received a bomb was evacuated was cnn, one of the largest news organizations in this country. less than six hours later after appearing presidential for about 120 seconds, with the opioid event, he was back to putting the blame on the media. what is it like to be part of a news organization that holds him

accountable every day? >> it doesn't matter what he says about us. it's not about us, the reporters. it's not about "the new york times" or cnn or nbc. it's about the work and the facts. and in these moments, all we can do is drill down and focus on our jobs and present facts and information to citizens so they can make decisions. what the president wants to do, and he has said this openly, is he wants the people not to believe us, to look at our stories and not believe them. and he attacks us deliberately because he wants to create some mistrust because it always expands the power of people in office. i think it's bad for the country in the long term for democrats and republicans. rick? >> and that's exactly what autocrats do. i'm not even going to give you my word. victor hugo in "les miserables" wrote in the dark the sins will be committed. the guilty one is not he who commits the sins but he who causes the darkness. donald trump is causing the darkness in which he's acts are committed. no, you cannot blame him and say

he put together that bomb or he put the stamps on the package, but he created an environment where people who are damaged can do this kind of thing. i fought isis messaging from the state department. they weaponized grievance. so that people who were damaged, people who had a grievance, people who were mentally unstable would act on their behalf. that's not very different than the environment that we're seeing now here. >> and we should talk about -- we both worked in the federal government when terrorist attacks caused the federal government, the executive branch, all agencies to work backward and try to figure out how we got to those points, particularly after 9/11. any sort of national crisis. you work backwards. it seemed like the president is trying to delegitimize a conversation about what he contributed. we just played what he said about the people who received bombs in october. the clips we played are from this month about brennan, about hillary. they all received bombs yesterday and those are things he said about them in october of 2018. >> and just the way he's

labeling the media as enemies of the people so people discount what the media does. he's doing the same thing to his own government that's trying to protect people from these bombs. calling them the deep state. saying they're not reliable. that's the height of irresponsibility. >> senior justice department official told me yesterday they were pushing out the names of all the targets immediately. the media was learning things in realtime as part of a reck nifgs this dynamic and they had to recognize the pattern as quickly as we did that these were frequent targets of the president. >> he says these names over and over again in rallies. these are the people the president has said are his enemies and the country's enemies. we don't know who did this. >> of course. >> it could be some kind of a hoax or an elaborate con. but generally in these circumstances, there is some connection with the ideas. and either way, the president has used this language over and over again, and we are all responsible for how we talk and act, including him. >> all right. we're going to pause here.

one of the most hotly contested elections in the country, the democratic candidate said this about his opponent. i'm not calling him a racist. i'm just saying the racists think he's a racist. welcome to 2018, folks. the stakes couldn't be higher, and the temperature can't get much hotter. also ahead -- special counsel robert mueller. is he trying to catch one of the president's political advisers in a lie about the hacking of democratic e-mails. new reporting from nbc news on the questions at the heart of the mueller probe. in and donald trump's cell phone calls to foreign leaders are about as secure as a teenager's. how hapless presidential advisers tried and failed to keep him off his iphone. all those stories next. can be relentless. tremfya® is for adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. with tremfya®, you can get clearer. and stay clearer. in fact, most patients who saw 90% clearer skin at 28 weeks stayed clearer through 48 weeks. tremfya® works better than humira® at providing clearer skin, and more patients were symptom free with tremfya®. tremfya® may lower your ability to fight infections

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you've made appearances at four of david horitz's freedom center events, four separate times. among his statements, quoting here. this country is only serious race war is against whites. >> he hasn't even made those statements then. >> the first statement was made -- >> how the hell am i supposed to know every single statement somebody makes? >> mr. gillam, i'll give you a chance to respond. >> my grandmother used to say a hit dog will holler. i'm simply saying the racists believe he's a racist. >> if you're not following the florida governor's race you should be. that was one of the more heated exchanges from the final debate for florida governor between former republican congressman ron desantis and tallahassee's democratic mayor andrew gillam where the issue of race was a big part of last night's meet up. the miami herrals described it as a bare knuckle brawl and

writes cool was lost. the moderator was not spared any venom. in between daggers and accusations when policy was actually discussed, two candidates on the opposite ends of the spectrum left little in the middle for voters to chew on. polls still show gillum with a lead over his opponent. he's 4.5 points ahead of desantis. joyce, steve and the table are here. what do you make of this race? >> this has been a republican state at that level for so long. >> i worked for a past republican governor. and it's become very red in presidential. >> you know what, i think that ron desantis made a tactical choice to dive head long into the trump wing of the party and court them and he's paying the price. if you were a republican in the primary it was a problem of attacking too hard on issues. now it's a problem of attacking and becoming too trumpy. he became too trumpy. >> here's one of desantis' ads. >> everyone knows my husband ron

desantis is endorsed by president trump. but he's also an amazing dad. ron loves playing with the kids. >> build the wall. >> he reads stories. >> then mr. trump said, you're fired. i love that part. >> he's teaching madison to talk. >> make america great again. >> people say ron's all trump, but he is so much more. >> big league. so good. >> i just thought you should know. >> ron desantsis for governor. >> this ad is both the best and worst ad of the cycle. probably gave him the nomination. but now it looks silly. >> it really does. >> probably will cost him the general. >> looks like a parody. >> she says you know that donald trump has endorsed my husband. but he's a good father. in other words it's saying, he's demonized by donald trump but he has some saving graces. he's actually nice to his children. that's kind of amazing that's the ad. >> and that's where we are.

karine jean-pierre is a senior adviser to moveon.org. you've been on the ground around the country. this race seems like one that is -- i don't want to jinx anything, but trending in the democrats favor. describe what you've seen going on. >> yeah, it really is. i'm sure you talked about donald trump won the state by one or two percentage points. it's a very red state. it's the big battle ground state in the presidential election. i think what's happening is, in this particular election is desantsis has literally embraced the worst starts of donald trump's political playbook. and by doing that, you have white nationalists. he sent a loud and clear message to white nationalists coming out and supporting him. talked to -- i'm sure you talked about the robo calls that happened after he kicked off his general election campaign with a racial slur. so essentially what's happening, though, is they're running a very, very different campaign. you have -- in closing arguments, you have desantis

saying, fear mongering, doing fear mongering, politics of fear. that's what he's going with. and andrew gillum, if elected would be the first african-american governor of florida running in this inspiring campaign. really authentic and talking about the issues that people care about. young people. you talk to young people in the state who are in college and university coming out to support him. and they'll tell you exactly why they support andrew gillum. and they are energized and totally all in for him. and so it's very two different campaigns. we're talking about the midterms where democrats, the base does not come out on our side. and so andrew gillum has been able to do that because he is authentic and inspiring. >> the one other thing he's doing that really no one has done in the trump era is he's taking the question of race that trump has weaponized through dog whistles and really after charlottesville, not so much dog whistles but megaphones and turned that dynamic around to

say in his debate last night, i'm not calling you a racist, but the racists think you're on their side. david duke after donald trump announced he's going to make the word nationalist great again. journalists asked him if this is white nationalism. it is as there is no ethnic or racial group in america more nationalist than white americans. this is the conversation about race from the point of view of the racist. and gillum just went there and didn't let this sort of undercurrent of -- you can't even call it an undercurrent. this current of racism turn the tide in that state. >> that's exactly right. he was skillful at it. normally democrats stay away from talking about racism. they don't deal with it. they run away from it. what he did is he was able to talk about racism and call and -- he did it without calling his candidate, his opponent a racist, which is really amazing. and what ended up happening is he made it go viral.

he made that moment go viral, which is incredibly difficult to do in a debate. and we're not talking about anything else but we're talking about how skillful andrew gillum was able to do that, to pull that out in a way that was incredibly smart. >> steve schmidt, the question of race and trumpism, nothing surprises me about the lack of courage from republicans, but there are a handful of republicans about whom i'm still disappointed that they don't speak bought donald trump's flagrant racism. i get why they go along with some of the hard-line immigration policies. i get that that has torn -- i don't agree with it, but that's torn the republican party apart since when you and i were still practicing republicans. but i don't get the silence over the flagrant, blatant, constant racism. the embrace from david duke. i have no explanation for that. is this race? is this state finally turning that dynamic around? >> well, it speaks to the corruption of the conservative movement in the republican party.

the reality is that when donald trump declares himself a nationalist, the nationalists understand exactly what he means. and by the way, let's stop calling them white nationalists and call them by their name which are neo-nazis and klansmen. but what trump has done with regard to nationalists, quote/unquote is send a signal that, well, we may not bring you home to thanksgiving dinner and put you in the front row at the rallies, but you're an important and vital part of our coalition. and after trump said he was a nationalist, if you go to the neo-nazi website, the daily stormer, you see celebration that they have achieved a goal. that they have been given a seat at the table, that their views are held as somewhere in the mainstream, and that they are part of a coalition that is led by donald trump. and when you look at that desantis ad, remember two he sa

election is, it's not time to monkey around. uses the word monkey. which, of course, is deliberately racist against an african-american opponent. but think about the small c corruption of the republican party. florida is a state with 21 million people. it has very nearly a $1 trillion economy. and desantis' argument to put him in charge of that as the chief executive is that he is a faithful, obedient drone to the maximum leader donald trump. what an absurdity. what a stupid proposition. and so what desantis has done is he's played footsy openly with the white nationalists, with the most base elements of the trump coalition, and florida voters are rejecting it, which is good. >> joyce, can you weigh in both on this race, the gillum/desantis race in florida and also just, you know in your

life in your role as part of the law enforcement community. just speak to the combustion of the president of the united states declaring and announcing he's a nationalist, not 48 hours later, this unsuccessful massive assassination attempt on democratic party leadership. >> one issue that prosecutors in the south have to confront on an ongoing basis, something that i had to deal with in alabama, are these occasions where law enforcement, usually inadvertently finds that on a police force or in a sheriff's office, there are some nationalists, some white supremacists who have managed to make it past their screening and become police officers. become law enforcement. it rips communities apart when this happens. law enforcement and our political leadership are meant to serve all of us. they're not meant to serve only the people who support them, who vote for them, who elect them. once they're in office, they're there for all of us. so to have a governor and a

southern state like florida in ron desantis who explicitly goes out and talks about supporting the trump nationalist agenda will not help to move us forward. it will continue to inflame passions and people like desantis who have assiligned themselves with trump now need to distance themselves from his rhetoric and say they do not support the use of violence in support of political aims. it's something that should never have to be said in american society, but suddenly we're at a point in time where people who are part of the trump movement need to say they don't support violence. >> it's an unbelievable conversation to be having. karine jean-pierre, thank you for spending some time with us today. when we come back, why robert mueller's to-do his includes trying to sus out whether roger stone is telling the truth. with our tendercrisp technology, you can quickly cook food, juicy on the inside and crispy on the outside.

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a new exclusive report from

nbc news suggests robert mueller may be close to catching roger stone in a lie. new evidence casting doubt about roger stone's repeated denials that he knew in advance about wikileaks dump of hacked e-mails designed to hurt hillary clinton. nbc news is now reporting that at least one of stone's close associates may have been in on the scheme from that report, special counsel robert mueller's office has obtained communications suggesting that stone ally jerome corsi, a right wing conspiracy theorist might have had advance knowledge that e-mails of hillary clinton's campaign chairman had been stolen and handed to wikileaks. mueller's investigators have reviewed messages to members of the trump team in which stone and corsi seem to take credit for the release of democratic e-mails. nbc's den dilanian whose byline on that story joins us now. take us to the reporting and then help me understand how if they're taking credit for the stolen e-mails they want to turn around with the lawyers in the room and robert mueller's

investigators and say oh, i was lying. i made it up. you know, which version of the truth is robert mueller to believe? >> there's been a lot of reporting in recent weeks about this, what is essentially a mueller grand jury investigation into roger stone. and it's a colorful cast of characters who had been paraded before the grand jury and it's sometimes hard to keep straight. i think our contribution here is to answer the question of why. what does mueller have that is causing him to investigate stone so thoroughly and bring all these people before the grand jury? the answer, part of the answer we found is there are these messages, communications between this sky jerome corsi, a longtime friend of stone and associate of the president, by the way. corsi to stone suggesting that he had advanced knowledge that john podesta's e-mails were obtained by wikileaks and that they were holding on to them for an october surprise. now corsey's story, we are told, is that he just figured this out on his own.

that he wasn't in contact with anyone from wikileaks or any russians. he just figured it out by reading the previous release of e-mails. noticing there weren't many from john podesta and figuring wikileaks must have them. it's not clear to me that robert mueller believes that. i'm told that he's sent inve investigators across the country trying to investigate the story. we don't know what eftvidence h has to prove or disprove that or whether he can substantiate stone and corsi's messaging seeming to claim credit for weaponizing e-mails. that could have been bragging. but the bottom line is that what mueller seems to be doing is trying to figure ot whether stone, corsi or any of these other people participated in the conspiracy that he laid out in the previous indictment of the 12 russians to defraud the united states to interfere in this election. that would be a big deal if he charges americans with helping. whether that gets to members of the trump campaign or trump's inner circle remains to be seen

but roger stone is very much in focus right now. >> i want to just pull back the lens a little bit for our viewers. we had carol here on monday who had a part of this story as well. and she reported with her colleagues that this question of roger stone, what you just articulated, we already know there was a conspiracy among the 12 or 13 russians indicted by robert mueller over the summer. that the question that he's trying to answer is whether or not it was a conspiracy that included u.s. persons and whether or not those u.s. persons include members of the trump campaign. the post described this question as the beating heart of the mueller probe. do you agree with that analysis, ken? >> i do agree. and i also think maybe joyce vance can speak to this. there are some serious legal hurdles here. stone's lawyer and corsi's lawyer argue that they are journalists, or acting as journalists. if they obtain information from wikileaks, they're protected by the first amendment. they were participating in any foreign scheme to interfere in the american election. it would seem mueller would have to get evidence that they knew

this stuff came from the russians and that they were lying about it. that's the other thing. and that seems to be an issue here. roger stone's story on a lot of different matters has changed, has evolved. he once said he never met a russian during the campaign and had to admit he did meet with a russian who offered to sell the campaign incriminating information about hillary clinton. he first said his back channel to wikileaks was randy creditco. so stone's story has changed a little bit. he said i had other sources of information from wikileaks. but he continues to say that he had no advanced knowledge of kw of this, that he only trafficked in public information and if mueller can disprove that, he may end up charging him with lying. if that's all that comes out of this, it will not really vindicate the idea of collusion, nicolle. >> nick confessore has a question. >> i spepnt some long days on those e-mails, reading through

them every day. and certainly as i was scanning all the dnc e-mails, it never occurred to me for a second to think, well, there must be a huge dump separate podesta e-mails coming because most of those weren't about the presidential campaign, per se, or hillary clinton. there were a lot of routine business for the dnc. is that a credible rationale from corsi in your view? this is a guy, obviously, who traffics in lies for money. a paid conspiracy theorist. >> you put your finger on it. it's not very credible. corsi at the time was supposedly studying the podestas, john and his brother tony, looking for dirt on them and on the clinton campaign. but, no, absolutely not. particularly the way he may have phrased it in these communications talking about an october surprise. but the bottom line is it's not clear to me, at least nobody we talked to is aware that robert mueller has developed other information, other witness testimony or documents that would prove that he's lying about it and that seems to be the big question.

>> joyce vance, i'm out of my league with these hard-core investigative reporters but we're talking about stone and corsi, two people who may not be household names who had a minimum have told lies about their involvement and eng tanglement with the russians but at a maximum they may be the intersection between the russians and americans to influence on behalf of trump in the presidential election. do i have that right? >> i think you do. it may be their lies that are the central connection between the campaign and any cooperation, any conspiracy with russians. so what we're probably looking at here, mueller has already indicted russians for a conspiracy, what prosecutors call a conspiracy to defraud the united states by influencing the outcome of the election. the question has always been, as you and ken have pointed out whether or not there were any americans involved in that. one thing that prosecutors know is the same thing that your common sense tells you. people who have to keep changing their story, keep having to

update their version of the truth, when they are confronted with facts they can't deny. those are folks typically not telling you the truth. so roger stone starts out denying any cooperation with russians. it looks like mueller has a lot more information in that regard, spending a lot of time in the grand jury. i think we'll see another indictment here. >> never before have so many people lied about so many contacts with so many russians in the history of time. >> i wanted to put a book end on it. ken knows and nick knows. what you saw at the end of all this was russian state media. russia today. all of their outlets blowing up the assange revelations, boosting roger stone. it came completely full circle. that's a complete 360 collusion. >> we figured it out here. mueller, if you need any help, we've got it. how donald trump may be rendering foreign spy agencies irrelevant and unnecessary by talking on a cell phone. that story is next. it was here.

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her server was easily hacked by foreign governments, perhaps even by her financial backers in communist china. i'm sure they have it. putting all of america and our citizens in danger. >> we can't have someone in the oval office who doesn't understand the meaning of the word confidential or classified. hillary is the one who endangered national security by sending classified information on an insecure server. >> wow. it was one of his favorite cam. a rallying cries that hillary's unsecured e-mail server was putting classified information at risk. new reporting finds he's the one who may be doing just that. "the new york times" writes, when president trump calls old friends on one of his iphones to gossip, gripe or solicit their latest take on how he's doing,

american intelligence reports indicate the chinese spies are often listening and putting to use invaluable insights into how to best work the president and effective mrgss policy. current and former american officials said. the piece continues in what amounts to a marriage of lying and espionage, the chinese have pieced together a list of the people with whom trump regularly speaks in hopes of using them to influence the president. everyone is still here. wow. i mean, this is a story that, like all things trumpian sort of puts back on him everything he ever attacked any of his opponents of doing. >> i will not bore you as i have before on -- >> you never bored me. >> talking about the difference between the classified and unclassified servers at the state department. you can't put unclassified material on classified servers. one thing i'd add to "the new york times" story is this and anyone in the intelligence service can tell you this. the reason the chinese spy on us and the reason the russians spy on us is completely different. the russians want to influence our politics and take the information we have and influence elections.

the chinese are only interested in industrial secrets, in business secrets, and the reason the russians are not is because they have no business in industry. the only way they have leverage is to influence our politics. the chinese want to get leverag. the only way they have leverage is to influence our politics. the chinese want to get leverage to be able to get business interests here. >> because donald trump has no regard for the professionals in his government, no one should assume he's not talking to his friends about what to do militarily or diplomatically with north korea. it is certainly not only likely but probable he's polling his former pals about how to deal with the khashoggi crisis. >> his inexcess tcompetence is he can't make a cell phone call without endangering the national security of the country. he's just irresponsible beyond any words i have to describe it.

though, i also think he may be talking about what a victim he is. he probably calls his friends up and it's the same conversation we hear at the rallies talking about the fake news, the media. it's one long giant pity fest and if that's the case, i pity the trainees and russian listeners who have to listen to this guy's self-pity all day every day. >> the serious national security um police indications are that spy a gt sits isn't just look for secrets about american industry. they don't just look for ways to advance their national security interests sbreagainst us. they also try to profile the person. when a president of any country prepares for a high stakes diplomatic encounter, they read a profile of the person, of the personality. they want to know what kind of women they find attractive. they want to know what they confide in with their friends about who on their staff is up

and who is down. we read most of that in the newspaper. but imagine some the chinese learn from the president's cell phone conversations. that's a real advantage now. >> of course, it is. while the chinese do focus on industrial espionage, they are trying to steer american policy in their direction on taiwan or the south china sea. they are trying to influence our government. this story depicts a brea breathtaking example of negligence and sort of a betrayal of the obligations of the president of the united states. and i looked back to president obama used to complain when he got into office he had a limited blackberry and then he later got a smart phone in his second term and joked how it had no functionali tity because he was listening to his people. and the reason we're reading about this is because current intelligence officials according to the story are so frustrated they were willing to talk to the

"new york times" about it to try to sbd a message to cut it out. the story also shows that china is manipulating trump by sending messages to him through people who may have investments in chi china, other agendas. that's so disturbing. >> is this the kind of national security concern that if democrats take control of the house that the house intelligence committee would consider or recommend they consider trying to get more information about this, not to try to hem in the president in his free will, but just to make sure that we have a handle on what kind of information those who spy on us are gleaning from these conversations? >> i think that's right. even this free range president has identified this kind of conduct as a problem. he was very clear in the experts about the security risks that are posed by the very same conduct that he himself is reported to be engaging in.

it would make sure those charged with oversight of the executive branch to assess whether there's been damage and the extent of that damage has been. otherwise we have this big gaping hole in our national security moving forward. >> the hypocrisy is staggering, but you do only have to quote donald trump to explain what's wrong with the conduct. >> there's always a tweet. candidate trump would have called for president trump to be locked up for this. this country, our congress, the fbi has spent a long time examine iing the issue of hilla clinton's use of a private e-mail server, which did race questions of vulnerability. as far as we know, it was never hacked. but the nugt where it came true, it is coming true every day. now that he knows about it, is he going to listen? is he going to stop using the unsecured phone and stick to the two phones that are secure. >> he tweeted. i'm going o to go with no.

the so-called experts on trump over at "the new york times" wrote a long and boring article on my cell phone usage that's so inb correct. i do not have time to correct it. you have so much time. i only use government phones and have only one seldom used government cell phone. it sounds like no is the answer. >> ever time he tweets, there's a thing that says sent from twitter from iphone. we know he uses the phone all the time. we have realtime evidence of when he uses the phone. it's not seldom use. he tweets all morning. of course, he uses it. >> let's put the tweet back up. i know we're running out of time. this is for kicks. criminal phone usage, he doesn't offer any correction. and your colleague reports that

he's using the phone to avoid kelly. he is a teenager in chief. >> the part of the trump hypocrisy index is remember when reporters asked him what are you going to do about x? he says i can't tell you. then i'm telling adversaries. he's telling oured a investigator sars every day on the phone. >> thank you for your reporting. thank you for spending time with us. we'll sneak in a last break. wool be right back.

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everything we have been talking about the last hour and tell us the stakes in the midterm elections in a couple weeks.

>> the most significant midterm election in the hus history of the country to be honest with you. one of two things will happen. trumpism will be validate d and he will be em bollened or repudiated and he will have a check placed on him by a democratic majority in the house. that's what's at stake in the election. >> my thanks to the panel. that does it for our hour. hi, chuck. >> thank you. if i yell loud enough, you can hear me in the other studio. i'm virtually waving to you above your head. good evening, i'm chuck todd here at election headquarters in new york city. 12 days until the midterm elections and we have breaking news involving the investigation into what has grown to ten bombs targeting prominent democrats and trump critics across the country. it's a list that now includes two packages found in