good morning. welcome back to "up." i'm david gura. a reminder this week for the rest of president trump's cabinet, they work for a president who demands loyalty. >> even my enemies say that jeff sessions should have told you that he was going to recuse himself and then you wouldn't have put him in. the only reason i gave him the job is because i felt loyalty. >> loyal. we could use more loyalty. >> these are my people. these are my people. >> so matt whitacre, a trump loyalist appears to have the equal thefications the president wants. here is what the president told the "new york times" about who he wants as the nation's. top law enforces. holder totally protected

president obama and i have great respect for that. i'll be honest. as robert mueller's investigation continues, president trump wants an attorney general who will serve and protect him. on friday, chuck schumer questioned the legality of matt whitacre's appointment. he sent a series of questions to the president. among them, kwet, did you ask or receive from mr. whitacre a pledge of loyalty to you? if you look at what matt whitaker has said, he comes as cross as a man to kiss the ring. let's talk a bit about loyalty. let me ask you about that piece, your piece in "the washington post" today. what accounts for that, the surprise that those who surround the president have at this point? >> it's a apparently, you see. donald trump in the past, when close associates have become embroiled in controversy, paul manafort, the campaign chairman who he really didn't know, michael cohen the personal attorney who he didn't really

know. this is trump's m.o. to distance himself from people when it gets too hot. but the reality is trump selected whitaker for this job. he knows whitakew. he's met with whitaker many times in the oval office and he was drawn to whitaker because he said so many things on television and in writing about the mueller problem. he saw whitaker as an ally. >> on this subject of loyalty, let's dig into this a bit more. paul talked a while back about loyalty. he wrote, quote, the more trump is threatened, the more intense his demands for loyalty are likely to become. he wants to know how far you'll be willing to go to protect him no matter what you'll have to justify or how unprincipled you

have to be to do it. you were in the just department. i want to get your reaction to what we saw this week vis-a-vis matt whitaker. >> it couldn't be more transparent what trump is looking for in an appointee. i don't think we ever once heard the president criticize jeff sessions for not implementing the administration's immigration policy, for example. but what did we hear? the incessant complaints. he's not protecting me. i don't have an attorney general. he's not raining in or shutting down the mueller investigation. so ultimately, he has done what he has wanted to do all along and he fired jeff sessions and has replaced him with somebody who is not only -- he's like a conflict jamboree, but let's set that aside. >> kumbaya, yeah. >> i thought we would be talking about his many conflicts, but when i saw the reporting this morning that said he's been making these -- not secret

trips, but he's been two-timing the department of justice by going into the white house, into the oval office and apparently whispering sweet little nixonian nuggets in the president's ear. >> i'll interrupt you to go to phil here. you had the president yesterday embarking on this trip to washington. >> that's not true. >> how well do they know each other? >> they know each other pretty well. whitaker has been in the oval office several times to meet with the president. and the reason he's in there to brief the president is because the president didn't want to talk to jeff sessions. he's so mad at jeff sessions, the attorney general, he didn't want to talk to him so he deferred to the chief of staff whitaker to deliver briefings about the updates at the department of justice. my colleague called a white house source yesterday about why the president is saying he doesn't know matt whitaker and my source just laughs. >> it reminds me of sergey

kislyak. and i feel like matt whitaker, policy aside, is a guy that stands out. i have behind me folks who have pledged their loyalty to the president in some way. you think about that exchange, that james comey said he had with the president. let's play a clip of james comey talking about his interaction with the loyalty. he said, again, i need loyalty and i said, you will always get honesty from me. and he paused. and then he said, honest loyalty. >> last hour, we had somebody positing that there would be people in the president's base who would be fine with this. someone even described him as a mini trump. how do you react to the president's decision to put this person in this position for 220 days? >> if you are a trump enthusiast, you are very

released that you have whitaker in this position. >> relief that hsessions is out? >> yes. and notice i am saying trump enthusiast and not republicans. >> if you are part of that trump base, you are happy with anything he is happy with because you believe in trump and anything trump is trying to do. with that said, i feel like they thought that jeff sessions was a traitor to trump, that he would never have put himself in the position and trump was honest. trump said, if i would have known he would have recused himself, i wouldn't have put him in there. so his base is like, boo, sessions is bad. now they're looking at whitaker and saying finally, someone with a backbone. this is just if you are for trump. you are looking at this thinking

thank god somebody is in there to protect our trump and to protect himself from this evil zero nothingness of an investigation that they're calling a witch-hunt that they feel like they are searching for any lig little anything to try to get our trump out. >>. >> i wonder what happened next. there are plenty of questions that have been raised about the ethics of this. matt whitacre said he will seek the counsel of advisers within the justice department. what happened as you see it here? >> as we've all just discussed, he's incrediblien conflicted. he is not the right person for the job. he has made his opinions public in terms of how he feels about the russia investigation. but, you know, all this talk of loyalty from president trump, you know, i hate for someone to remind him, this is not an episode of "the sopranos." the attorney general is not your defense attorney. his job is to uphold the laws of

the united states of america. he's the top cop of the united states of america. what i hope is that this appointment is incredibly belri and that we get to someone who has been vetted in front of the senate. the way the statute says it's supposed to happen. >> you you bring up the family. phil, i want to ask you about the family, we look back at the art of the deal, what the president has written about loyalty. one thing he wrote was this, what i needed was somebody totally competent, totally honest and totally loyal. there is nothing to care with family because you can trust family in a way you can never trust anyone else. that gets me to a question about the paranoia working within this administration. knowing that, he prizes family loyalty above all else, even those who are loyal to him have to look at the episode that transpired this week and wonder, am i going to be next. how important is my loyalty compared to jared kushner or others. >> there was a long time when

jeff sessions was considered the most loyal person to donald trump. he was the first sitting senator to endorse donald trump. he was behind a lot of the campaign messages. and he made one decision which is to recuse himself from that probe because he had a conflict of interest. >> and i know that hurt jeff sessions. if you know jeff sessions, he is a loyal guy. he came out and put his neck on the line when nobody else was endorsing him. he and his wife went to a lot of fund-raisers and rallies and things. and i think that he is probably -- i don't know this, but, you know, probably deeply hurt that all this went down like this. i feel like he feels like he did not deserve any of this. >> so the last question here. you watch at how this unfolded and you look at it with how ambassador nikki haley left her job. this was the president refusing to answer a question with about

jeff sessions in the east room press conference saying we'll find out more about it later. then there were these two tweets. he talks so much about the toll that working in an administration, the administration, takes on people who take those jobs. what are you hearing? what is your sense to the degree that people are willing to enter into this as they see how all of this plays out? >> what's interesting is the search for a permanent attorney general is not going swimmingly. there are candidates who have been approached who are not interested in the job. you hear senator lindsey graham, for example, saying, no, no, i'm going to stay in the senate. look at how the president spent so much time to try to find a lawyer to help him on the russia probe and settled for rudy giuliani because a lot of white shoe lawyers in the big firms in washington were not interested in working for this president. he's a very difficult person to work for. and the people who do take the job do the so out of a sense of loyalty to him and wanting to be a real warreror, a fighter, like a sarah sanders who is going to

get out there and defend him. >> i said last question, but i have to ask you, how you're processing all of this, if you were still in the department and this were to have happened, if you were to see somebody who is so transparently political, without approval of the senate, how would you have reacted to it? what do you think your former colleagues are saying about this senate? >> my heart breaks for the 110,000, 115,000 colleagues of my over at the department of justice. we know loyalty is a one-way thing with donald trump. the only people he may at the end of the day remain loyal to are his family members. i suspect, though, when we're talking about the shelf life of whitacre, he may have a shorter shelf life than share mutually -- scaramucci at this point. >> the bet made right here. we'll see what happens in the coming weeks. coming up, t minus three hours with that noon deadline looming large as uncertainty

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we're four days out from the midterms. the stakes are being set for major legal battles with possible recounts and a runoff on the line with four highly watched races shifting. today's noon deadline for florida's tally is expected to set off new legal action.

andrew gillum is gaining on ron desantis squeaking into what should fall into recount territory. in the race for the senate seat, bill nelson is trailing rick scott by less than a quarter point. stacey abrams is digging in on her refusal to concede in georgia. and in arizona senate race, kirstin sinema's race is growing, but there is a way to go before that final tally is in. mark joins us now from miami. mark, i want to go to you and ask you about this moment. here we are again. the focus once again is on florida. your reaction to it? >> first of all, i have to tell you guys on this panel, as the gop strategist here, i'm horrified. i'm horrified because georgia, florida with the tax free status and how great a job that governor rick scott did, these races should not be too close to

call. they shouldn't be going on this way. and as a republican, this is a wake-up call. we either need to be getting different types of candidates or we need to see why in the holy heck this is so close. this should not be. especially georgia. texas, ted cruz, what happened? >> i just think it's a repudiation of what i think those states have seen in congress for the past two years. i mean, you have seen a congress that has done nothing, that has refused to exercise their constitutional duty, which is of oversight of this administration, constitutional duty to check off check this president. and i think people are frustrated about that. and i think that's why you see progressive candidates such as andrew gillum and stacey abrams, black candidates, obviously, who are doing incredibly well in these states. and you have high turnout. i mean, i think you have -- >> where did the -- >> where did what? >> everything is moving towards

progressive left on the democrats, where are your moderate democrats? where are these people? >> perhaps the moderate democrats are not that outraged with what it is that they hear from these progressived cans. i mean, you know, medicare for all and, you know, education and, you know, can we have a better environment? who is against that? i mean, who wants to live in a country where you're dealing with a party, for all intents and purposes, that isn't necessarily addressing the problems of america, rather the focus is on uttering people of color, people from the lgbt community, muslims. and that is not going to carry the day going forward. at the end of the day, americans want politicians who are going to solve their day-to-day problems. can i put food on the table? can i get my child health care? those are the issues that americans care about. >> mark, i want to go to you down in miami. it's not the throwback thursday. throwback saturday, i suppose. we posted a picture here on your twitter. that's you tired at a nationally watched florida recount, 18

years ago. i think that's a -- that's not a staged ja staged yawn, mark. what are we going to be watching for? >> broward, broward, broward and a little bit of palm beach where i was photographed there. broward has had numerous controversies and problems before this election and now the nation's spotlight is really on the mismanaged of the problems with the broward county election supervisor there. one of the troubles we've seen is not only have they kind of failed to say, okay, we have x amount of votes left to count and, therefore, in this vacuum of information conspiracy theories and charges so far unfounded of fraud have decided to fill that gap, but we've also seen that there was probably bad ballot design in broward county for the u.s. senate race. it was tucked in the lower left hand corner of the ballot. it appears a lot of folks disproportionately missed it.

if you do some math and you apply the vote share of the senate race, the number of votes, the percentage of votes that governor scott and bill nelson got in that race and you apply that to what the vote likely would have been in relation to the governor's race to the senate race, well, scott's lead statewide would decrease from about 14,000 to about 4800. and in a recount, that really matters. because then you have really small margins where little things can actually trip the difference and perhaps flip the race. currently, you have about a 15,000, 14,000 lead from scott and you've got about a 36,000 lead of ron desantis in the governor's race over andrew gillum. these will be difficult races to flip. >> mark, i'm just wondering as we watch all this play out as we look at younger mark from a few years back, why that didn't bring more of a change. your question to mark. >> good point. that's basically what i was going to say. i ran for congress in florida's

18 that brian mass beat me in that eight-way primary and went on to win the general, which was crazy. but i've got to tell you, wouldn't you think with florida being so focused upon, you know, back in the day where we had the al gore and bush and the pregnant chads and the hanging chads and all that stuff going on, wouldn't you think that they know they're going to be a main focus and it's so important which way florida goes, especially if we're looking at 2020? wouldn't you think they would have their act together? i know you're on the ground. i know you. you're an awesome reporter and a lot of people look to you to see your opinions. wouldn't you think florida would have their act together by now? >> well, when it comes to broward county, i think the answer is no. broward county has had repeated elections problems and meltdowns and koncontroversies. for instance, in the last year, the republican party had to sue brenda snipes, the election

supervisor there because according to a judge she did violate the law in the way she opened up absentee ballots before the canvassing board had an opportunity to canvas them. she didn't mow the definition of the term canvas. it's like, well, that's kind of important. in another case, tim canova who is the candidate who twice now ran against debbies wasserman schultz, he thought suspicious happened with the race. first he tried to request to see the ballots and they wanted to charge him tens of thousands of dollars merely to look at them. he had to the hire a lawyer, negotiated it down and then brenda snipes' office destroyed the ballots. i believe there's a required 22 month detention period. in that lawsuit, the guy in charge of deciding when to follow the law and destroy state ballots versus federal ballots, he testified in a deposition he

didn't know that the congressional race was a federal race. now, this is an elections office. it has one job. so this is the nature of that office. incidentally, if we had time, we would go through the parade of horribles in broward county. but i'm just telling you as a person who watches florida elections, as someone who is used to razor thin election margins, as someone who has had to write a lot about broward county, this one is a nightmare to deal with. >> phil, we had the president weigh in on a number of times. rick scott was up by 50,000 votes on election day .now they found many votes and he is only up by 15,000 votes. he call these the broward effect. how come they never find republican votes? your sense of the degree to which the white house is going to continue to be involved in this as it all plays out? >> i think the president is going to stay with it all the way to the end from no matter where he is. these races matter.

desantis is a candidate who ran as almost a mini trump. for president trump this is a very personal race down in florida. and he's engaged. annie carney, one of my colleagues on the white house beat at politico had an interesting tweet yesterday and she said this is a window into what trump would have been like had he won the count in 2016. he would have hammered home these ideas, these voter fraud conspiracies out there in his base. >> glenn, your read on the legal side of this as the president talks about sending better lawyers down there, as well? >> what bothers me most is how the rhetoric and the conspiracy theories immediately rachet up to 11 and maybe prior to 2016, before we all knew and accepted, maybe other than the president, that russia had interfered in our elections, that kind of rhetoric wouldn't resinate the way it resinates now. and i just -- i worry moving forward that everybody is absorbing this -- you know, the

screams about voter fraud and recount fraud and that seeps into the american psyche and it's just so unhelpful to our democracy. >> slowly but surely. come back here in just a moment. a new blockbuster report reporting the president played a central role in those payoffs. coming up next. e payoffs. coming up next

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duvid you know about the $130,000 payment to stormy daniels? >> no. >> do you know where he got the money to make that payment? >> later on i knew, later on. did they come out of the campaign? no. they came from me. >> welcome back to "up." despite what the president said, "the washington post" said he played a central role to organizing the payments to stormy daniels and karen mcdougal. he was involved in or briefed on nearly every step of the agreements. "the wall street journal" spoke to three dozen people who have direct knowledge or have been based on the payments. that reporting seems to confirm nbc news reporting that

president trump's former attorney and fixer michael cohen has cooperated with federal prosecutors and directly implicated the president as the person who ordered him to make those payments. i want to go back to my panel now. starting with you, glenn, and looking at this article in the "wall street journal" today, i'll read the most important paragraph. he directed deals in phone calls in meetings with his self-described fixer, michael cohen and others. the u.s. attorney's office has gathered information and evidence regarding these payments. your reaction to what the journal is reporting? >> my reaction is how is this not disqualifying? we look back and think this is one of the more quaint scandals, you know, getting around campaign finance laws which put a cap of $2,700 on contributions and here we have the president ultimately paying out about 150

grand at a clip to hide his own conduct. hide his conduct. i do want to call it misconduct. to impact his chances of being elected. this is prosecution 101 that these are offenses that the president has committed, campaign finance loilgzs. with an ordinary president and presidency, that would be enough to outrage the american people. here, it's a drop in the bucket. >> if we go back to john edwards, what happened there, how good is the parallel? what does this article tell you about the way this investigation may be turning? >> i think we have to remember that the president of the united states right now is an unindict

unindicted coconspirator. news comes out that you have many, many people who are constantly, constantly, at least in this administration and with trump getting into trouble. and i'm not sure how we get a handle on all of this. >> this cloud has been over the white house for a long time now. we're talking about investigations in new york, we're talking about the new york attorney general, as well, squarely out of robert mueller's camp as this is new scrutiny on that investigation and what's going to happen to it. >> we know that this sort of ongoing story about the hush money payments and michael cohen and the affairs has bothered the president. it's also bothered the first lady. it's worth pointing out that the journal story landed or was published about the time that the president and the first ladier were on air force one for a, what, eight-hour flight to paris. >> it was a tossup. >> there were a lot of tweet attacks from the president during that flight so i think that's an indication of how he's handling it. >> noah, i want to get your perspective on this, as well.

one of the things that this journal article does, as well, is lay out this well woven story. >> this is really sad because as a gop strategist i can't believe i'm talking about porn star, playboy and the president. this is not a treat. >> have one of these. >> presidents, porn stars and payoffs and what not, i'd rather talk about the muffins. is it great to have this cloud over our head with our president? no, it's absolutely not. but the thing that i -- you know, you have to focus on is regardless of all the cloud of junk over here, let's just say, is were there any laws really broken? were there any campaign pay to play, you know, finance laws that were violated. and, you know, that still --

that is still at hand. >> gets back to your revision, doesn't it? >> i can answer noel's question and the answer is yes, there were laws broken. when you saw michael cohen walk in and counts seven and eight involve the president as basically an unindicted coconspirator, yes, laws were broken, and let's see how that fits into the larger report to congress or indictments that ultimately are handed down. >> how do you regard michael cohen at this point? you're talking about what he's brought forward here. we've seen his tweets. he's waiting on the election. the importance of that. i'll have both of you weigh is in in. >> yes, because i have something i want to say. michael cohen is indicative of the kind of person who chooses to work for donald trump in the sense that this is someone would says they will be loyal. at one point, he said he would take a bullet for donald trump. he has worked for donald trump for many, many years. now all of a sudden when things don't look good for him, but for him to come out now and say that donald trump has said racist

things, make sure you vote for the might tell midterm elections because this administration can't continue. but where were you all those years and all those times where you acted as donald trump's bully and you threatened reporters who asked questions of donald trump. and when you said that you would take a bullet for donald trump. so he has no credibility at this particular point. but it's indicative of the kind of person who chooses to work for donald trump. where are your ethics? where are your ethics? where is your character and where is your integrity? >> exactly. i love cooperating witnesses as a prosecutor because when i argue to the jury, ladies and gentlemen, the prosecutor didn't select michael cohen as a witness to bring before you. donald trump selected him. so, yeah, we're going to show you the parade of horribles, but that was trump's man. we didn't pick him. the other thing that i think it's been so quiet on the cohen front, we haven't heard anything about what he's doing, who he's meeting with, what he's saying, that tells me he is

prosecuting -- i mean cooperating long, hard and effectively with the southern district of new york, maybe state authorities in new york, maybe the mueller team. so he is downloading a whole lot of very damaging information about the president. >> there has been a quiet here over these last many weeks. coming up, fast and furious in benghazi are some of what the republicans investigations have previous done. so what do the democrats have gear in store? t do the democrat gear in store? ♪ the new capital one savor card. earn 4% cash back on dining and 4% on entertainment. now when you go out, you cash in. what's in your wallet?

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welcome back to "up." democrats promised that now that they've taken back control of the house, we will see more investigations by congressional committees. to get a sense of what this could be like, let's go back to 2010. darrel issa told politico then this, i want seven hearings a week in 40 weeks. issa issued more than a hundred subpoenas. attorney general eric holder called to testify in june 2012 about operation fast and furious. >> so 140,000 documents. how many documents are responsive that you are withholding at this time? >> well, we've produced 7,600 -- >> look, i don't want to hear about the 7,600. >> mr. chairman, i would beg to allow -- >> the lady is out of order. >> general eric holder became the first cabinet official held

responsible for holding back documents relating to that scandal. senator hillary clinton was called to testify on the attack in benghazi. >> miss learner, the topic of today's hearing is the irs improper targeting of certain groupser regardinger their.application for tax exempt status. >> i will not answer any questions or testify about the subject matter of this committee's meeting. >> kurt kordell joins us now. what did you learn from that? what is your counsel to the democrats going forward? what would you say to them? >> do not do what we did at oversight. when we took over the majority, that the interview darrel gave, that was a terrible thing to say. talking about sitting up,

completely unrealistic expectations, not able to meet those in the long run, testimonies right now, if they're smart, they will wait. they will be patient. not a blitzkrieg of subpoenas. i know there's a thirty for that from the base. and lord knows in the trump administration there's enough low hanging fruit to go after. you go from 40 people to 80 people. hiring that many people is a lot of work. you have to get organized before you can even think about issuing a subpoena. >> phil, as you look at what's happening in washington, how much of the play book is written at this point? there's an avenue tight to do this. how much of the play book is there? do they know what they're going to do and in what order they're going to do it again? >> democrats have mapped out a number of areas that they're

going to launch and these are areas they've tried to investigate from the minority. so i think it's like flipping a switch to start those investigations in january when they take over. at the white house side, there's a number of vacancies they're trying to fill. there is a new large in charge there at the counsel's office and the white house staff are not prepared for the riggers of an investigation of this nature, having to respond to document requests and having an opposition party with real muscle. >> what does that look like in real terms? how well equipped does a white house have to be to deal with it? >> so as phil noted, democrats have asked for moren than 60 subpoenas in the last two years. they will now take those requests, ask them in a letter. they will send a document request asking for compliance to produce said documents that they

want. presumably, the white house will not in any way cooperate with any of those requests. and then that is when democrats have the license to issue subpoenas and begin the investigative process. but that is a process that takes almost a month for that to happen. so i think there will be a lot of time between when they take over and when there is actual action happening. the one question that is important for republicans on this is who is going to be the public defender on of donald trump who is going to sit there opposite of elijah cummings trying to defend every obstruction that the white house does to oversight? >> let's take a look at what axios is coming up with that. a good samples of them, the transgender dealings with the military, i just want to get your opinion as the republican strategist here.

how important is it to have that? interest i think an ongoing investigation, an ongoing needling so to speak is not good when you are trying to raise funds or trying to bring about unity in a party. i think the democrats have a real choice here. what are their -- what's the base, what's the thirst of the base? is the thirst to do -- to get something on health care, which they say that's their message on health care or is it -- are they so thrifty to have these ongoing investigations, one after the other after the other on trump? because let's face it, in two years, this house, they're re-electing again. so we don't know, the house could flip again. we just don't know. >> phil, to you lastly, we heard from the president talking about the beauty of bipartisanship days after talking about the beauty of barb wire, weeks after talking about the beauty of cole. how serious is he about

bipartisanship? when it comes to infrastructure, when it comes to health care, these other issues? >> the one area where there could be a deal is infrastructure. it's something trump cares a lot about and it's been a core priority for the democratic party for years and there's a natural sort of meeting of the minds there. and i could see pelosi wanting to get a deal done to show that democrats with govern. trump is going to want to get a deal done to show that he can work from the other side. but the minute these investigations started out, it's going to be toxic. >> what's the thing you're counting on congress to do that, you know, special counsel hasn't been able to do. when you look at all the investigations, what are you looking at congress to see? >> special counsel has probably accomplished more than anything of us will know unless he lays his cards on the table. but i don't think this is needling. i think that the democrats and the country are thirsty for oversight and accountability. i mean, this is the checks and balances role that has been missinger for the last two years. it sure feels like not only will

the president for the first time be checked and balanced in the two years that he's been president. it may be the first time in his life. he was the king of his organization .now he's going to have to start answering hard questions. >>. >> to your point, here is the thing. if the democrats try to bring one investigation after the other and not focus on health care, the republicans are going to use that as a message and go, hey, democrats, they didn't do anything, but just investigate us. but they left you hanging on health care and everything else. >> i'm with you. health care is important and i don't think the democrats want to overplay their hand, but what's more important is checking and balancing an administration that has no checks. >> if they get results, that's what matters. provide corruption, show that there's wrongdoing. if you get the result, it doesn't matter how you got there. >> leave it there, kurt. thank you for joining us here in new york. coming up, the kremlin announces it is on. the president says not so much. will we see another putin/trump

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i'm david gura. this morning in paris an awkward handshake with president trump by french president macron. president trump will also cross paths this weekend with vladimir putin whom he has yet to criticize. >> i was in moscow a couple months ago. i own the miss universe pageant. they treated me so great. putin ever sent me a present. beautiful present with a beautiful note. >> we were both on 60 minutes. we were stablemates. we did very well that night. i believe that president putin really feels, and he feels strongly, that he did not meddle in our election. >> now they're saying it with putin. putin is highly prepared. trump, will he be prepared for the meeting? putin's fine. we're all fine. >> all of that preceding the meeting that took place in

helsinki. this weekend they have plans to meet, also at the g20 as well. >> it's central for president trump to have a warm meeting with president putin. he wants to be his friend. last year at the g20 sumsummit, they had the long impromptu dinner meeting that could happen again. the president just wants to get along with putin. it's in conflict with decades of american foreign policy and with the intelligence communities con clug clusions about the russian interference in the election. >> what do you make of this? >> it's interesting the relationship with macron. it was off to a great start. >> last spring. >> yeah. i thought, gosh, he has a solid

i'l ally. its topsy-turvy. he throws him under the bus. the putin relationship is interesting to watch. it's like there's something about putin that he likes. maybe it's his personality or the air around putin, not so much his governing or the russian meddling. but it's something with putin as a man. >> something he likes. i saw your eyebrow go up. >> i'm wondering if we would see helsinki 2. what i saw when he stood up and said putin strongly denies interfering in the u.s. elections, i don't see why it would be russia. i pulled out my federal code book. i checked the elements of a crime called accessory after the fact. mind you, the intelligence community, we learned, had long before that meeting briefed the president on the fact that russia tried to interfere and

now 12 military operatives have been indicted from russia for interferin interfering. then the president stands up and says that. let me tell you what the elements are. whoever knowing an offense against the u.s. has been committed receives, relieves, comforts or assists the offender to hinder or prevent apprehension, trial or punishment. check. we saw the crime of accessory after the fact be committed when he made those announcements in helsinki. this is prosecution 101. i didn't need my 30 years of experience to reach that conclusion. >> i think that everyone in this country should be disturbed at the fact that donald trump has embraced autocrats. it's not just putin. erdogan of turkey, why is he so drawn to autocrats, leaders of

countries that have silenced the press. that have killed or ordered the killing of their citizens who have spoken up against them. yet he has turned his back on allies of the united states, france and canada. >> we'll leave it there. thank you very much. thank you all for joining me. nearly two hours away is that 12:00 deadline which is looming large in the florida election. joy reid will have more on that. joy reid will have more on that. (vo) gopi has built her business with her own two hands.

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. that does it for me. thanks for watching. "am joy" starts right now. we're hopeful that every single vote will be counted in this race, and that way that all of us can walk away feeling extremely confident about what each and every one of us did to go out here and to have our say in this election. all i've got to say is let's count every vote, let's bring it home. good morning. welcome to "am joy." the fight for florida is not over. not just yet. because a mere two hours from no all 67 counties in the sunshine state must turn over their ballot results from tuesday's midterm election. if the races are as close as they look, that could trigger official recounts in two key races, the governor's race and the senate race. already vote counting has flipped the race for agricultural commissioner to the democrat. the r