rates. he's sending a signal to the markets that they're getting near that point. doesn't mean there aren't more interest rates coming but that's the closing bell. the dow closing about 2.5 points higher. that wraps it up for me. thank you for joining. "deadline white house" with nicolle wallace starts right now. hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. stop me if you've heard this one before. the president of the united states might be obstructing justice in plain sight. again. donald trump revealing in an interview today with "the new york post" that a pardon for convicted felon and one-time trump campaign chairman paul manafort is, quote, not off the table. a pardon for manafort might strengthen an obstruction of justice case against the president if the special counsel could show that the pardon was intended to impede the investigation or ensure manafort he could lie to the fbi even after agreeing to cooperate. it's a line of inquiry the special counsel is pursuing at this hour. today's comments come after we

learned last night from "the new york times" that lawyers for paul manafort have been feeding donald trump a steady stream of information about special counsel robert mueller. information that's likely been loaded into donald trump's fragile psyche and weaponized in the public relations war against that investigation. the times reports on an alliance on information sharing agreement between paul manafort's lawyer and the president's legal team that continued even after paul manafort entered into a cooperation agreement with the special counsel. the times reports the arrangement inflamed tensions with the special counsel's office when prosecutors discovered it after mr. manafort began cooperating two months ago. some legal experts speculated that it was a bid by manafort for a presidential pardon. even as he worked with robert mueller in hopes of a lighter sentence. we also learned from the times what mueller's team is probing. giuliani said mr. manafort's

lawyer told him that prosecutors hammered away at whether the president knew about the june 2016 trump tower meeting where russians promised to deliver damaging information on hillary clinton to his eldest son, donald trump jr. the president has long denied knowing about the meeting in advance. he wants manafort to incriminate trump, mr. giuliani declared of mr. mueller. here to take us through this reporting, one of the reporters who broke that story and some of our favorite reporters and friends. mick schmidt from "the new york times," from "the washington post," aaron blake, former u.s. attorney joyce vance is here. and at the table, jonathan lemire, white house reporter for the ap. let's first, though, head over to nbc's kristen welker who has breaking news about donald trump's written answers to robert mueller. kristen welker? >> hi there. according to two sources who i just spoke with, president trump as a part of his written answers to special counsel robert mueller told mueller that he

didn't know about that 2016 trump tower meeting between don junior and a russian attorney before it happened. and that he didn't know about those wikileaks from roger stone. that he wasn't informed about that. now this is according to two sources familiar with the matter. this was reported by another news outlet earlier today. but we have, in fact, confirmed that reporting. according to these sources with whom i spoke, nicolle, i am told that the questions that president trump answered all related to russia. not related to the issue of obstruction. those sources telling me the president answered those questions to the best of his recollection. these sources also confirming that news that "the new york times" broke that i know you'll delve into with mike moments from now, but that news that, in fact, they have been updated by paul manafort's legal team. and adding to that something that our anna scheckter broke shortly ago which is that they've been updated by the

legal team of jerome corsi. they have agreements with both. so some significant developments here coming on the heels of what we learned yesterday that paul manafort's plea deal with the special counsel has deteriorated. has broken down amidst allegations that he lied. those are allegations that he denies, but looming over all of this, will the president pardon paul manafort? the president himself not taking that option off the table. and i spoke with his attorney rudy giuliani earlier today who underlined that saying that, look, there has been no discussion of a pardon, but he's not taking anything off the table, nicolle. >> kristen welker, anything in that interview with rudy giuliani or any of the sources about the president's responses that pointed you toward any areas where maybe he didn't answer, where he left them blank or refused to fill in to the best of his recollection his responses? >> it's a really important question, nicolle. my sources wouldn't delve into any more details beyond those

two subject matters but here's what i can tell you having had these conversations over the past several days if not weeks. the president's legal team is expecting some follow-up questions from the special counsel. so i think that goes to your point. is it possible that some of these answers that president trump gave may have left some room for follow-ups, for some more information? i think that would not be unlikely. the president's legal team expecting to hear back from the special counsel robert mueller. they are hoping within a week or so. but, of course, the special counsel's team is going to take its time and read through those answers very carefully. >> kristen welker, thank you for spending time with us and for that reporting. we're grateful. joyce vance, can you jump in. obviously, the topic is not surprising but the president's response is equally unprizing. i don't think anyone thought he'd say, oh, yeah, i was in new york the day the trump tower meeting but on my way through i

swung back and said hey to the russians promising dirt on hillary clinton. >> rudy giuliani said all along the president's responses to the written questions would be consistent with his public statements. and, of course, he has always denied collusion and knowledge. leave aside whether or not he's just thrown his first under the bus by saying only his fir first born was aware of the meeting. what trump has done is locked himself in after a fashion. sure, there's a qualifier on these questions, to the best of my recollection, which as we all know, leaves a little bit of room to hedge. if mueller has phone records showing there were communications between trump junior and then candidate trump, as they were arranging the meetings with russians or if there's other sorts of documentary evidence that confirms trump's whereabouts and location during some of these events, if there are, for instance, e-mails or recorded

recollection or even recordings of calls between roger stone and the president discussing e-mails, all of these pieces come into sharper focus now that mueller has his hands on trump's written responses. >> mike schmidt, take us through what you and your colleagues have reported last night about the president's flow of information from manafort's lawyers, even after manafort had agreed to cooperate and i guess a nonlawyer would assume that meant be helpful to the mueller probe. that wasn't the case. >> yeah, so there was a pipeline from kevin downing, manafort's lawyer, to rudy giuliani. and this really helped give the president's legal team insight into what was going on. and this also helped certainly led to the president becoming agitated. the president knew that the prosecutors were really hammering on manafort. and specifically on the question of the trump tower meeting. what did they -- they were going to manafort and saying, what did the president know about this? did he know about it before? did he know about it afterwards?

and what giuliani says is that, when they got answers from manafort that they didn't like, when manafort said he didn't know anything about this, he put him back in solitary confinement and kept him there for four days. it's not the prosecutor's decision to keep him there. it was a decision the jail made. but giuliani making it seem like there was an enormous amount of effort being used by the special counsel's office to get manafort to incriminate the president. >> mike schmidt, let me ask you about pardons and read something the president said this afternoon to "the new york post." this is the president. you know this flipping stuff is terrible. you flip and you lie and you get the prosecutors will tell you 99% of the time they can get people to flip. it's rare that they can't, trump said. but i had three people -- manafort, corsi -- i don't know corsi, but he refuses to say what they demanded. manafort, corsi and roger stone. it's very brave of that trio. this is mccarthyism. we're in the mccarthy era. this is no better than mccarthy and that was a bad situation for

the country. but this is where we are and it's a terrible thing. this is, i guess, his feelings about these three targets of the mueller probe. but this also seems to be in line with something you and your colleagues have reported about softening the ground for what may be their next legal move in a public relations fight. do you hear that as softening the ground for pardons for all three of those men? >> well, it's unclear if -- look. the president is talking about pardons. they've talked about pardons before. he hasn't talked about it in private. he has talked about it in private. the interesting thing in all of this is the president does have a big interest in undermining cooperators. think about who has cooperated. his personal life attorney cohe. his former deputy chairman. manafort as well. so there's a lot of people around the president who knew a lot of things that were going on during the campaign that have been flipped. and this has been a theme of his since manafort was flipped months ago. they are rats. he would call michael cohen a rat and he'd criticize this

process saying the justice department overuses its power to get these folks to say things that the justice department wants them to say even though they're not true. and you can hear the drum beat of that in his efforts to undermine it. >> joyce, let me bring you back in. it's weird to the ear to hear the president of the united states, someone who sits adop the executive branch of government and atop the justice department accuse people of cooperate with a federal investigation. people who have committed crimes. the only reason you flip is if you're guilty of something and it may be a road to a more leanielea lenient sentence. >> i think weird to the ear say very kind characterization of what the president is doing here. there are criminal defendants all over this country who are excited to hear the president's characterization of flipping as wrong. i am sure defense lawyers all over america are going to be arguing it to juries at some point within the next couple of months. the reality is that this

president is making the effort to undermine the american justice system in order to benefit himself. and it becomes normal. we sit around and we're all talking about the fact that the president of the united states has a joint defense agreement with 32 other individuals. they are all under investigation for federal crimes. and somehow that's becoming normal. and we have to resist that urge and keep it from becoming normal because it's not. the president's job is to sit atop the executive branch and uphold the work of the justice department in keeping all of us safe. what he's doing is making all of us less safe every day. >> aaron blake, you had one of my favorite pieces of analysis about what mike and his colleagues reported. i'll just put up the headline and let you explain. giuliani's bizarre bragging about manafort/trump alliance raise news obstruction questions. take us through your thoughts on that. >> yeah, so i thought, obviously, the first two paragraphs of mike's story were great and newsbreaking and all those things. we get to paragraphs three and

four and what we get is rudy giuliani, the president's lawyer, not just confirming this arrangement that is highly unusual and perhaps ethically questionable, but actually bragging about it in a lot of ways. he almost seemed to be needling robert mueller and saying, hey, look what we pulled over on you. the fact that he said they were getting strategic information from these conversations between the two legal teams. he's basically saying that this was a fruitful arrangement for them strategically. that they used to inform their public strategy and their legal strategy. that's a remarkable admission, and i think that there are a number of legal experts, former federal prosecutors talking about whether something like this could amount to some kind of an obstruction of justice. that would require it for this to be a quid pro quo of some kind of arrangement in which paul manafort was installed as an informant in some ways inside the mueller investigation by informing -- by reaching that

plea agreement. we don't know whether that's actually the case. but the fact the president's lawyer is basically out there talking about how this was such a fruitful circumstance for them to have paul manafort inside telling them what was going on. i think it's a rather remarkable set of circumstances and i commend mike for the excellent reporting and getting that on the record. >> mike, can you jump in on that and pick up on the idea that sometimes your analysis when you come on is they do these things in plain sight, it must not be as bad as it sounds or that which would have constituted obstruction of justice in the nixon era, if it was on a tape that was revealed through an investigation because they do it on twitter, because they say it in quotes to your paper or aaron's, i don't know, maybe it's a question mark. this seems to some people like open and shut obstruction if the intent of manafort's lying to mueller was to continue to feed information back to trump's legal defense team.

>> yeah. what we're seeing from giuliani looks like the second wave of an attack on mueller. giuliani comes on in the spring, all summer long, launching these attacks to undermine mueller. giuliani got quiet during the month before the election. and now is back at it. really hitting the gas and trying to do what he did before. similar version. throw a lot of different stuff at the wall. say a lot of different things. make it very confusing for the average person. they still think they're playing the game of public opinion. they believe public opinion will dictate whether the house of representatives would be willing to, you know, impeach the president and they believe the more confusing it is, the muddier the water is, the more successful the president will be. and when you look at what giuliani has done in the past few days, it's very similar to the tactic they took earlier this year. >> jonathan lemire, it leaves the question, it gets easier and easier to answer. why, other than a promised or suggestion that a pardon was

imminent? and manafort was offered a pardon before. i think mike and his colleagues reported on the president's last lawyer, or maybe three lawyers ago, dangling lawyers in front of mike flynn and in front of paul manafort before they were charged. so pardons have been in the water. what other motive would manafort have for lying to mueller? >> i spoke to giuliani as well. and he said to back up the reporting about the pardons. it's not an act of consideration that his legal team are not considering it now but they're not ruling it out down the road. perhaps after this process with the mueller probe wraps up. they understand how problematic a pardon may be this time. >> what makes it better in a month? >> well, i mean, if -- i think the presumption is it's something they'll revisit after the mueller probe is over, not now. manafort would potentially still be facing state charges on some of these tax crimes and financial fraud that even if the president were to grant him a federal pardon, state prosecutors in new york or virginia could then go after him. but to mike's point, it's

exactly right. giuliani has clearly -- they are trying to undermine the credibility of whatever testimony is coming. some of these details we'll probably find out in the sentencing agreement when manafort is sentenced. those documents that mueller who, of course, doesn't speak publicly but those details were reveals in the sentencing documents that he told me that they accused -- andrew weisman, one of mueller's top lieutenants was keeping manafort in solitary confinement for almost the entire day. they were trying to pressure him to flipping on the president to say things that were untrue. of course, there's no sense that's happening at all. giuliani did not provide any evidence to back that up, which is not a new thing for him whatsoever. but it shows they are once again ratcheting up the attacks here on mueller. as they feel like the next steps in this probe are imminent. >> this all requires such a departure from history. manafort is the kind of criminal that rudy giuliani used to prosecutor when he was on the side of the law. it's bizarre to see everyone in a role reversal. let me ask you, though.

will anyone privately acknowledge the problem with the pardon, and is everyone so sure that trump can restrain himself until the mueller probe is over? i keep checking my phone to see if he's tweeted out a pardon already. i plan to pardon paul manafort. >> there is concern in his inner circle he might go ahead and do this. he's had to be talked out of some decisions before, whether mcgahn or giuliani or other members of his inner circle inside or outside the white house have tried to talk him out of potentially destructive moves before. impulsive moves. he's in a rage about the probe. he's very frustrated this is back. it's in the forefront. that he identifies with corsi and stone. he thinks they oare -- >> he identifies with corsi and stone. >> all you need to know, folks. >> victims of government overreach and -- >> he is the government. >> but he separates that. he always does feel like the power of justice, even though

he's viewing them as -- >> take us through where the pardon responsibility lies. i'm old enough to remember when that process was run at the justice department. recommendations went to the white house. has this white house, this president, the people around him have they changed anything about the pardon process? >> yeah, it's supposed to be recommendations that come in. there's supposed to be a lot of paperwork. it's a real process. the obama administration used it to pardon a lot of people that were in jail for drug crimes to get them out sooner for what they thought were too long of sentences. but trump has circumvented that. using the pardon, you know, for celebrities earlier this year. and the other thing we continue to forget about or maybe not forget about is that the president's lawyer john dowd had discussions with manafort's and flynn's lawyers last year about a pardon. and this was something that mueller, as part of his obstruction investigation, wants to ask the president about. it was in the questions that mueller's team relayed to the

president's lawyers and there's a real issue here of what did the president know about his own lawyer discussing pardons with two folks who ended up getting charged in the investigation. >> all right. i'm sure it's not the last we'll hear about pardons. after the break, the president of the united states may have been in the loop when conspiracy theorist jerome corsi passed along information about stolen e-mails to the trump campaign. that's according to a new filing that made trump so mad, he delayed his answers to questions from mueller. we'll explain that. also, walling off intelligence. did the white house forbid the cia director from testifying on capitol hill about the intelligence community's assessment on the killing of a "washington post" columnist? we'll bring you the latest. and trump's gut versus the world's brains. we'll show you the matchup of the century. all those stories coming up.

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nbc news has obtained draft court documents that show robert mueller may believe roger stone and his associate jerome corsi had advanced knowledge of a wikileaks dump of e-mails hacked by russia during the 2016 campaign. those documents include e-mails between stone and corsi that suggest they were in the loop all along. those e-mails appear central to mueller's collusion case. but what should be most troubling for the president is a sign that mueller is trying to connect the dots back to him. according to reporting in "the new york times," trump's lawyers were alarmed that mueller's team made a point to note that stone was, quote, in regular contact with senior members of the trump campaign, including with

then-candidate donald j. trump and corsi would have known that. the times adds the reference to mr. trump coincided with other events that so disturbed the president's lawyers that they delayed turning in his responses to written questions after negotiating over them with the special counsel for nearly a year. only after mr. mueller's team reassured mr. trump's lawyers that they were not trying to lure the president into a trap did they forward his answers on november 20th. mike, joyce, aaron and jonathan are all still here. take us through what could have been so catastrophic for the president to -- i mean, as jonathan lemire just noted, he sees himself in these figures. these outside mainstream political figures. why didn't he want to be named in this filing? >> well, so the president, two weeks ago, was ready to send in the written answers. three things happened. one, they find out about this corsi deal and they believe he looks like an unindicted co-conspirator and did not like

it. then they saw the unsealing of documents in the eastern district of virginia that said that julian assange had been charged. and that had been a huge mistake. if it wasn't done purposely and sent a message to the president's lawyers that what is the justice department doing? is there something more afoot here. they knew about manafort. they knew what was going on between manafort and mueller's investigators. they looked at these three things and said we don't feel good about this. are they setting the president up? would the president respond? as soon as he responded, would corsi's plea deal come out? so they wanted reassurances that there was nothing more going on here. the interesting thing about this all is the assange thing. the disclosure about the charging and how the president's lawyers thought the justice department would -- had done that purposely to set them up. so a very damaging thing coming out of that unsealing. >> but, mike, it doesn't appear that the mueller team removed the reference to donald trump from the document that they

ultimately sent to corsi. so is this a window into how the justice department sort of coddles and holds their hands when they say they're angry but doesn't change the mueller course? >> the corsi document was never formally files. so i don't know how that would have been. this is a weird thing. the president is the head of the executive branch in charge of the justice department but navigating an investigation of himself by the justice department in which he has the power to basically take charges off on anyone. that's incredibly difficult for the justice department to manage because, like, what do you do here and how do you deal with problems and such? obviously the president's concerns probably get more of an ear from the prosecutors than the average defendant. >> joyce, a mueller watcher said to me this was textbook mueller. that, as mike and his colleagues report, the complaints were they listened like a complaint department, but that he would be

surprised if mueller changed course based on squeaky wheel from the president or his legal team. does that sound right based on your knowledge of mueller? >> it sounds absolutely accurate. i think mueller always gives folks with a complaint or a concern a thoughtful listen. he doesn't have any trouble saying no at the end if that's where he wants to end up. this sounds exactly right. >> let me put up the e-mail now. these are the e-mails that are in question. these are the -- this was the evidence as a nonlawyer, any lawyers if that was like fingers on a chalk board, correct me. this is the e-mail from corsi. he writes word is, friend in embassy plans two more dumps. corsi wrote august 2nd, 2016, referring to wikileaks founder julian assange. one shortly after i'm back. second in october. impact plan to be very damaging. so i guess you don't need to be a forensic investigator to figure out that this conspiracy theorist knew that his friend in

the embassy, obviously assange, was planning two more e-mail dumps before they happened and they would be very damaging. >> well, y aes, and stone at th point was not an official member of the trump campaign. steve bannon included. and october was that very damaging dump of e-mails. that's when -- >> the day of the "access hollywood" tape. >> the first batch of the podesta e-mails came out and it was a steady stream thereafter. every night then-candidate donald trump from the rally stage would talk about, i love wikileaks and it would be part of his routine, even though at that point the u.s. government declared that wikileaks was like a hostile actor and that's something that continues. secretary of state pompeo said the same but the president himself has never denounced them. >> corsi's defense was he was speculating. sean hannity who likes to speculate about this didn't say anything about damaging e-mails.

it seems like a weak defense. if mueller doesn't already know the truth, it seems easy to figure it out. >> the big take away i had is jerome corsi is in a heap of political trouble here. i don't know why he decided to release this document. certainly he's an unusual character. but if you look at the specifics of what he is accused of, basically there is this e-mail that is very specific and directly references wikileaks. there's really no other way to read that e-mail. but he told investigators that he was -- he told roger stone after roger stone requested more information that it wasn't a good idea. that they shouldn't get involved in this. well, we find out based upon the e-mails the mueller team has that he forwarded this to a man named ted malik in london and eight days later, there was the -- there was more response. so basically what corsi is saying is that he downplayed this and he forgot that he actually followed up on this whole thing. and i think that's really

difficult. there's one thing to be said about maybe having a faulty memory. there is another thing to be said about saying something to investigators that winds up being the polar opposite of what eventually happened. >> joyce, it's hard to keep a straight face. how do they -- they all have faulty memories when it comes to contacts, coordination and potential conspiracies with russians. can you take me through what we already know on the collusion side? robert mueller has charged 13 russians with meds meddling in election. to prove a conspiracy, it's not the crime of collusion, you connect a dot to the trump campaign. there seem to be three dots in question today. corsi, stone and trump. am i -- do i have that right? >> i think you're right. there are three dots. and i'd love to be the prosecutor who has now got this idea that corsi has come forward with this incredible story that nobody believes that he was just so smart that he put this all

together on his own and that was the source of the information because that idea that he has to articulate this excuse is in and of itself evidence that he had a guilty mind, guilty knowledge. he now joins stone in that category. and the real question here, the question that we all talk about is, it seems at this point very likely that mueller has a case on stone, corsi and perhaps others that they were involved with russia through wikileaks in the hack of the e-mails, or at least in distributing those e-mails after they were hacked. the million-dollar question, the core question mueller was put in place as special counsel to answer is whether or not anyone on the trump campaign knew about it, coordinated it, helped put it together and we have the steele dossier which we haven't talked about for a long time which was raw intelligence, not corroborated but one of the central themes of the steele dossier is that trump new and trump was involved.

it looks now like mueller has the answer to that question and is preparing to move forward and maybe finally we'll all get an answer as well. >> you are one of the whisperers at the table. this doesn't sound like the bravado we hear from rudy. the president does not recall ever speaking to either stone or corsi. a line the president re-upped today in his interview. >> it's also part of the freeze. yes, he is downplaying these links but we know the president, it's unclear what his ties are to corsi but he and stone were frequently in contact even after roger stone left the campaign. he was his political whisperer for years. >> one of the granddaddyes of birtherism. >> he was still very much in close contact with the operation at trump tower. >> jerome corsi will be on ari melber's show "the beat" at 6:00 p.m. thanks to joyce vance for spending so much time of with us. is the white house muzzling

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i think it was a basic mistake on the part of the administration not to have the cia director brief us today. >> nobody was happy that she wasn't there. >> not having gina haspel, the cia director at this briefing, is a cover-up. >> but i think -- i think 80% of the people left the hearing this morning not feeling like an appropriate response has been glor forthcoming. >> anything that you need me for, i ain't doing it until we hear from the cia. >> have you made that clear to the president? >> i just did. >> senators from both sides of the aisle outraged by gina haspel's absence at today's briefing on capitol hill that covered, among other topics, the killing of saudi journalist -- i'm sorry, of journalist and

u.s. resident jamal khashoggi. a question secretary pompeo seemed to have trouble answering. >> secretary pompeo -- >> why wasn't the current cia director here briefing senators as well? >> i was asked to be here, and here i am. >> senators were frustrated. normally in your past role as cia director, you would be here briefing senators on an issue -- why isn't the cia director herself here? >> i was asked to be here, and i'm here. >> it's called a nonanswer. here's senator dick durbin on the absence of haspel, one of the only top intel officials to have heard the audiotape of khashoggi's murder. >> senator, when you were explicitly told the white house blocked gina haspel from -- >> we asked why gina haspel wasn't there and we were told that was a decision by the white house. >> the cia has a carefully worded statement that says the notion that anyone told director haspel not to attend today's briefing is false.

joining us, former democratic congresswoman donna edwards, and aaron blake is still here. donna, i have not been invited to things that i was not told not to attend. it's not the same thing to say she was not told not to come. she was not invited. >> and she should have been there. >> correct. >> and this is -- >> where is the dni? dan coats? >> not to be seen. and i think this really speaks to the administration and the president in particular knowing that had gina haspel showed up, dni coats showed up, they would have had to say perhaps under oath that they know exactly what happened to jamal khashoggi. and the administration doesn't want that. but come january, the administration is going to have to produce. >> and they got secretary mattis on the talking point. there's no smoking gun. of course, secretary mattis and i have to think mike pompeo also understand that's not how intelligence works.

this is not a tom clancy novel. there is no smoking gun. the intelligence community makes an assessment based on the evidence and information and, you know, what they know. and their knowledge of the regime. and what the policymaker, i guess the president in this case, is resisting is the fact that his ally mbs ordered the killing of a "washington post" columnist. >> absolutely. he's willing to say that mbs denied doing so and is willing to give him the benefit of the doubt in this instance. what we see here over and over, whether it's bolton or secretary mattis is a willful ignorance. >> i think it's worse than that. i don't think that's what it is. they're not ignorant. >> willful ignorance. >> i think there will be an investigation. i think the intelligence came in early. i think it was conclusive. and i think it's something very different. i think they are almost shelving the best, the clearest and most fact based set of data points about the murder for reasons we

don't understand. >> the president has made very clear he is not going to change the relationship with saudi arabia. the statement right before thanksgiving could not have been more expleasicit in that. he's being transactional about it. saudi arabia is a key ally and he doesn't want to disrupt that relationship. he's not going to hold mbs' feet to the fire. the president leaves for argentina tomorrow. mbs will be there. there's no meeting scheduled. the president said yesterday, he wouldn't rule it out. he said he'd talk to him if they encountered each other. >> i think they are pushing the turks on this. we know who does have that audio and maybe some other audio are the turks. and i think he is pushing that envelope. and i would be shocked if at some point, not in the not too distant future that we hear that audiotape. it's coming. >> aaron blake. former intelligence folks don't like to be part of the political debates in this country but people like director brennan whose security clearances were

stripped by the president and others come out of the woodwork when the president does things so, i think, repellent to the fact-based sciences. and one of those examples was him saying that the intelligence community had feelings. they had feelings. i worked in the white house. i promise everyone, the intelligence community has no feelings. for better or for worse. you and your colleagues there, jamal carbkhashoggi was one of colleagues. where does this go from here, this impasse in the national security ranks of the trump administration and not including gina haspel and the cia in today's briefing. >> the president would like you to believe the criticisms from people like john brennan are partisan motivations that people who are out to get them because they're out to get him because they're part of the entrenched culture of washington. people like john brennan also see what's going on, not just with jamal khashoggi but also

with what happened with the russia investigation which the president questioned the conclusion of for many months and hasn'tm bra embraced totall until today. they see an intelligence community that feels like it's, you know, solutions, its assessments are not being taken seriously and being acted upon. what is the worst thing you can say about the intelligence community. it's that their work is not being regarded by the person who is responsible for making these decisions. and now we have a second very high-profile example of the president basically disregarding an assessment of high confidence and nitpicking because he doesn't want to believe what the intelligence community is telling him. that's not a recipe for harmony of the government. it's not a recipe for harmony in a national security establishment and i knowledthin people like john brennan and gina haspel, given that she's not showing up and hasn't said anything publicly, maybe they

are just not willing to toe that line and concedes that point. >> that was the exact point made by a security official who said there's a pattern, not of the cia having feelings but the president having a whole lot of feelings about intel and this person cited the assessment on russia. is there anybody inside the president's national security -- certainly all the public facing individuals. bolton yesterday. pompeo today. they are happily toeing the president's line. i have been to this movie and know how it ends when you end up sideways with the intelligence community. >> the evolution of trump's cabinet is selecting four people who are going to toe that line. we had rex tillerson who was not always willing to do that. he got replaced by mike pompeo, who even when he was cia director did a number of questionable and pro-trump things, including suggesting that russia had not actually had any impact on the election which was not a conclusion of the cia.

you know, i think with gina haspel not showing up at the briefings, there are two answers for why that is. one is that she is not willing to toe that line. the other is that she knows that if she has to be honest about exactly what happens, it's going to basically inflame the president. it's going to set up a feud between the intelligence community and the president. and that's not something that she can countenance. but that's not really a great way of doing business. and that's not how this solution is going to be resolved any time soon. >> when we come back, listening to his gut. that seems to be donald trump's entire governing philosophy. so what could go wrong?

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did look it up, and that's not true. that's because you looked it up in a book. next time, look it up in your gut. i did. my gut tells me that's how our nervous system works. >> in 2006 it was just a punch line. in 2018, it's policy. here's what donald trump told "the washington post." quote, i'm not happy with the fed. they are making a mistake because i have a gut and my gut tells me more sometimes than anyone else's brain can ever tell me. what about 300 -- sorry. what about 300 brains, scientists brains and 13 federal agencies full of brains to boot? apparently trump's gut still wins out. listen to what he said about that potentially catastrophic climate report. quote, one of the problems that a lot of people like myself we have very high levels of intelligence but we're not necessarily such believers. as far as word salad goes, that's up there. but it also makes complete sense

if you put it in context like aaron blake did for us. few trump quotes have epitomized him like this one. he has been skeptical of u.s. intelligence, the judiciary, the legal system, climate change and many other institutions and sources of expertise. thank god everyone is still here. almost didn't make it through that one. what? >> those were hall of fame quotes. but this is exactly right. there's sort of a -- he's representative of the larger movement in certain parts of the right to de-emphasize science. >> let's call it a grave period of shameful ignorance. >> great period of shameful ignorance. this president has long done that from his business drear political career he's trusted his instincts over the people around him. if he feels like his instincts have taken him this far. he told us in our interview with him a few weeks ago in the oval office that he had a natural instinct for science because his uncle was a professor at mit. even though he never discussed

climate change with him, some of that knowledge must have rubbed off on him and that influence his thinking. >> this is not the flu virus. let's watch some of the president's greatest hits doubting the facts. >> i have great but i will tell you that president putin was extremely powerful in his denial today. but whether he did or whether he didn't, he denies it vehemently. his father denies it, the king, vehemently. the cia doesn't say they did it. they do point out certain things and in pointing out those things you can conclude that maybe he did, maybe he didn't. i've seen it. i've read some of it and it's fine. >> is the economic impact devastating. >> i don't believe it. >> you don't believe it? >> no, no, i don't believe it. >> first of all, he's lying.

didn't read a word of the climate report, i'd bet my last dollar on that, and second, you know, i have a 6-year-old who denies taking a cookie vehemently, who does things very strongly. doesn't mean he's telling the truth. >> well, right. for the record, i don't believe there was a landing on mars the other day, but never mind that. the president really needs a detox if he's relying on his gut in the face of scientists -- a consensus of scientists who claim there's climate change. apart from that, the president of the united states doesn't read, we know that from a fact. >> we know that from his friends. >> as an information flow, it does not ever come from reading. >> that's right. and in addition to that, the president of the united states has told us over and over again and it's been documented that he doesn't believe science, he doesn't believe the judiciary, he doesn't believe any element of his government because he alone knows it. you know, most intelligent people don't have to tell you

they're intelligent. >> he said, i'm not a believer. he made it sound as if the science around climate change is a faith claim, is an opinion, right? i don't believe it, right? so at that point what he's doing is he's rejecting the notion of evidence and fact and pulling it into the terrain of opinion, right? and so what we see over and over again is i believe mbs. i believe putin, right? and in each of those instances the belief trumps the fact, right? so in this moment what trump is doing is actually instantiating a post fact world. evidence no longer matters for him. facts no longer matter for him. climate change folk, what we're seeing is a reflection of our faith, of us being believers. >> aaron, general hayden has talked for many, many months about the president's assault on

the truth-based sciences, on all of the -- we've been talking about it all hour, but on these things, on science, on journalism, on intelligence, on the law. were do you think those things, science, journalism, intelligence and the law scare him so much? >> well, i think it's actually pretty simple. those are alternatives to president trump. those are other things that people can turn to when it comes to making their lives better, to telling them the truth and those are also things that find themselves contradicting the president and challenging the things he says. you know, his basic core belief is that he knows best in all circumstances and so any time somebody runs up against him or concludes something that is contradictory to what he believes or what he wants to believe, he is going to attack that. that has been the most common thread throughout his entire presidency. he is saying i am going to turn my 40% of the country, the base that i have that is very devoted to me against anybody who

questions me. i am going to undercut you and make people disbelieve you in the first place and so just don't run afoul of me in the first place. and that's actually worked really well when it comes to the republicans in congress because they have largely stopped running afoul of him or even questioning him when he does things that they are clearly not comfortable with. >> he's also sold that 40% of the population that you're talking about on the size of his brain. let's watch. >> i went to an ivy league school. i'm very highly educated. i know words -- i have the best words. >> who are you consulting with consistently so that you're ready on day one? >> i'm speaking with myself, number one, because i have a very good brain and i've said a lot of things. >> he speaks from his heart and -- >> well, i speak from my heart and my brain just so we understand. just -- this is maybe more important. >> they say, is donald trump an intellectual? trust me, i'm like a smart person.

i understand things. i comprehend very well, okay? better than i think almost anybody. i'm very consistent. i'm a very stable genius. >> i'm sorry, after all of that, lamere? >> i mean, he has the best words, as we see. >> i'm sorry, because i went and read this and i'm like -- i'm -- mika, i think i was sitting there. i think i was sitting there when mika asked you that. who are you consulting with so you're ready. i'm speaking with myself because i have a good brain. >> this is how he's governing. he's cast aside the differing opinions. he is either listening to themselves or the aides who are agreeing with him. so you're seeing this rhetoric. it's obviously funny the way he talks about it but you're seeing it in practice. this is how he is running the white house, he's trusting his gut or trying people who aren't going to challenge him on his opinions. >> i think you feed into the

trumpism by being elite and saying he's not smart. really smart people, as you said, don't say they're smart. the smartest leaders, the smartest politicians seek out people smarter than him. if he's the smartest, it explains a lot. >> real leaders actually seek out people who are going to challenge the way they think about things because they want to come to the best decisions. clearly the president is really only interested in promoting that which he believes in and his gut and the danger for that is that we have republicans in the house and in the senate who are going along. >> right. that was aaron's point. >> willful ignorance, going back to that, right? >> right. >> the other thing is that it plays to dumbing down the public. >> so you don't have to be held accountable. we're going to sneak in a break. don't go anywhere. we'll be right back. truecar is great for finding new cars.

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we were looking for a way to tie this whole hour for y'all. our beloved viewers. the president retweeted a call to imprison his deputy attorney general and various people for

treason. >> democracy is in trouble. profound trouble. in addition to this, nicole, we have two images. we have the election of cindy hyde-smith and we have the images of the u.s. government tear gassing babies in diapers. we're in crisis. crisis moment profoundly. >> my thanks to my panel. that does it for our hour. i'm nicole daily. chuck is back. >> hi, nicole. i have 14 different ways that somebody might construct justice here trying to figure out which one of them the president likes the best? >> can i pick all of the above? >> i think they are all of the above. thank you, nicole. if it's wednesday, apparently a pardon is possible.