very close attention. >> lydia, let me give you the last word. >> i said the word catastrophe. i think that we are really entering a period of uncharted territory for ourselves as a country and where this leads no one knows but for donald trump i suspect nowhere good. >> lydia, let me follow up on that. you said nowhere good. it feels like we've had this conversation. we had in the the heat of the kavanaugh moment and other intense flash points in the mueller investigation. i agree with you this feels different. but do you think trump will act differently? >> i don't want think donald trump based on the evidence that we've seen so far is capable of personal gret or change so i don't know that he'll act differently. to me the key question is will his party act differently. >> you're right. lydia, thank you for joining us. chuck, thank you, daniel goldman, nick confessore and rick stengel. i'm nicolle wallace, "mpt daily" starts now. hi, chuck. >> you had a criminal

investigation break during your hour. >> and then we had the "wall street journal" report. so we had great luck. may the news gods smile on you, too. >> it is one of these things. you think you're going one way, we're going to need a lot of score cards to keep track of the investigations. >> have a good show. >> if it's thursday in the room where it happened. good evening, i'm chuck todd in washington. welcome to "mpt daily." it's been ten minutes since we learned of a new criminal investigation. more evidence that potentially puts the president at the center of a campaign conspiracy. nbc news confirmed mr. trump was in the room when michael cohen and the publisher of the "national enquirer," david pecker, discussed ways to catch and kill negative stories about him in the early stories of the campaign, august, 2015.

the meeting happened two months after he declared his candidacy. yesterday, federal prosecutors in new york disclosed a statement of facts noting that in august, 2015, the chairman of ami had a meeting with michael cohen and, quote, at least one other member of the campaign. according to a personal familiar with the matter, the other member was mr. trump himself, something many folks thought was likely but now you have at least a second person making this claim. so now we have the testimony from cohen that the president directed these campaign felonies. we have the sdny stating that as fact in their court filings and we have confirmation that the president was in the room when other aspects of the scheme were apparently first discussed. now keep that in mind right now. realizing that the president was in the room, here's some of what the president said today about the cohen matter. >>

>> why did you hire michael cohen? he was known as a fixer? >> it was very low-level work. in retrospect, i made a mistake. whatever he did, he did on his own. he's a lawyer. they put those charges on to embarrass me. they're not criminal charges. nobody except for me would be looked at like this. >> and thin there's a story which broke minutes ago as we joked we'll need a bigger show. from the "wall street journal" federal prosecutors in new york are looking into whether trump's 2017 inaugural committee misspent some of the money it raised. by the way, that's connected to the cohen raid and that may sound like a run of the mill campaign finance scandal. but yet it's another thing on the investigation pile that's marked trump. folks, this is a moment when you could argue that everything is at risk of collapsing around the president. his long time lawyer and fixer is going to prison. more evidence is emerging tying him to those crimes. his chief of staff is leaving with no replacement lined up and people not wanting to take the

job. by the way, we're hurdling towards a government shutdown. let's bring in tonight's panhandle sach panhandle. sah sahil kapoor, bill kristol is editor at large at the "weekly standard" and i believe we have one of our legal experts with us as well, daniel goldman. let me start with you on the report about trump being in the room. there's been this question of has the president -- i've been asking this. do we know the president committed a crime based on what we saw from the southern district of new york that it's plausible he might have committed a crime but we don't know intent just yet. does this news that trump was in the room make it easier to say the president also committed a felony? >> absolutely, chuck, for two reasons. one is yesterday when the ami cooperation agreement was announced there was nothing in

it that directly tied the president to ami's involvement in paying off karen mcdougal. but now with this revelation that trump was in the room with david pecker and michael cohen as early as august, 2015, not 2016, but 2015, now we know that there were communications between pecker and trump related to what is really a scheme. it's a full-on conspiracy to cover up any illicit affairs that donald trump may have had that might have influenced the election. so for -- in two different way this is makes things a lot worse for trump. one, ami just points the finger at trump and trump is now connected to the karen mcdougal payment in addition to michael cohen connecting him to the stormy daniels payment. and, two, it shows that this was a long-running plan, a long-running scheme well before the "access hollywood" tape, well before the michael cohen and donald trump recording in october, 2016 and well before

the stormy daniels payment. >> if there are no payments, would getting together with an organization like american media and agreeing to the scheme of killing stories, catching and killing and all the things they agreed to, if no money changed hands, would that have been illegal? it may have been unethical, but would it have been illegal? >> technically, yes. that's a conspiracy. a conspiracy is an agreement to do something wrong. you don't actually have to succeed in the object of the conspiracy. that would be what we call a substantive offense. however, in situations like that, you're a little more reticent as a prosecutor to charge an inchoate conspiracy, a conspiracy that didn't result in the crime being committed. here that's not the case. the crime was committed. >> all right. i feel like toens trump and cohen and this stuff folks need to redigest certain things. so the first thing i want to play is the infamous -- it's our

number three soundbite to the control room here and this is the infamous tape that michael cohen made of donald trump that he leaked early on after he made the case and he flipped. so i want everybody to have this in their heads. take a listen. >> i need to open up a company for the transfer of all that info regarding our friend david, you know, so that -- i'm going do that right away. >> leave it to me? >> i've spoken to allen weisselberg about how to set the whole thing up. >> so what are we going to pay? >> yes. and -- it's all the stuff. >> i was thinking about that. >> you never know where that company -- never know where he's going to be. >> maybe he gets hit by a truck. >> correct. i'm all over that. and i spoke to alan about it. when it comes time to the financing -- >> what financing? >> well, we have to pay. >> not cash? >> no, no, no, i got it.

>> all right, now you got all that. now listen to the president earlier today. control room, soundbite number one. >> this was someone who surreptitiously recorded you. >> terrible. >> is now known as a criminal liar. yet this was someone who was in your inner circle. >> yeah. well it happens. look, it happens. i hire usually good people but it just happened. >> why did you hire michael cohen? he was known as a fixer. that was his title, a fixer. >> he did very low-level work. >> why did you need him? >> he did more public relations than he did law. he was okay on television. but years ago, many years, like 12, 13 years ago he did me a favor. he was on a committee and he was so responsive and so good and i said he's a nice guy. and you know what? in retrospect, i made a his stake. >> i think he is right he made some mistakes. the question is, which mistakes are they? sahil, i wanted everybody to see that in context, have all of

that here. the president is now basically admitting all of this happened, he's just trying to say i didn't commit the crime. >> and in context, the president's approach has to be understood more as a political than legal strategy. he's tweeting these things like i fired cohen, i was thinking about the russia investigation by attacking the special counsel. his goal is to undermine public confidence in this investigation to keep his base on his side because if that is the case, members of his party are not going to remove him from office and today he said at least four times in that fox news interview this is done to embarrass me, to embarrass me, to embarrass me, to embarrass me. he said the prosecutors are putting charges on cohen to embarrass him. so it's a conspiracy against him. >> but there's one thing he never said. he never said it wasn't true, bill. >> yeah. that's interesting, isn't it. >> the president never said it wasn't true. >> before he's lied about his knowledge. >> now he's not. >> he's involved in a

conspiracy, it seems to be the case, to hush up the payments to the porn stars or other women "playboy" playmates and other people and he lied about that until it became impossible for him to lie. he said he knew nothing about the trump tower meeting, that's the russia side of things. we'll see if that's true or not. i'm doubtful that will turn out to be true. and on the obstruction side of things he said all kinds of things that i'll just guess aren't correct and he probably did tell james comey to go easy on flynn and so forth so it looks like he's lied about women, russia, and obstruction and in each case robert mueller is going to be able to prove he lied and maybe the lying by itself doesn't get you in deep, deep, deep, trouble, some of it could if it's lying to a special counsel but why is he lying? when you have this degree of lying, when there's this much cover-up, there's something to be covered up, i guess. >> what i found interesting about his reaction today was

that he felt the need to do the interview to explain himself and he felt the need to admit a mistake in hiring cohen. and he -- when he acts nervous, that's very telling to me and revealing because normally it's a lot of bravado about they're trying to embarrass me. but he was trying to minimize cohen's influence on him and saying it was a mistake to do that and that is when i think -- when he starts to act conventional and weak, that is pretty revealing and that -- you know -- like so what? does this mean his supporters won't be with him anymore? are you getting chinks in the armor? hard to say that now. i'd love to see. >> i know what some of his supporters will say, bill clinton lied about sex. bill clinton lied about it. why wouldn't he? >> well, he got impeached, bill clinton. >> he got impeached, he had a trial. >> and he lied under oath to a grand jury and the question is one thing we don't know -- >> and we went through the

process. whether we like it or not, we went through the process. >> one thing we don't know is what trump said under oath to the special counsel, leave aside lying to the public. >> his supporters are with him, self-identified republicans are with him, 85% to 90%. this is a boil-the-frog development where new developments don't seem consequential because he says this is a conspiracy to get me. but if they knew his lawyer and fixer, campaign chairman, deputy campaign chairman, national security adviser, foreign policy adviser would later be indicted in court, think would have a different impression. >> i have a challenge to whoever wants to accept it. has he ever had an initial denial that turned out to be true? >> an initial denial that turned out -- >> an initial explanation on something that that initial explanation was actually the explanation? >> i'd find it fascinating that he's trying to create a gray area. he's saying i didn't direct michael cohen to specifically do this. but he said -- and i found this quote fascinating, a lawyer who represents the the client is supposed to do a right thing,

that's why you pay them a lot of money. in other words, maybe it was -- >> he did seem to be concerned about legal implications. he appeared to be speaking carefully to avoid implicating -- >> which is very unlike trump. >> very unlike him. it makes me wonder what he said under oath at other times because normally he doesn't care because he's like you can't indict me. >> let's bring in our lawyer. is -- that defense that the president -- well, well, well, it's the lawyer's job to follow the law, not mine. that's why i pay him. that's what he's trying to say is his defense. >> it works in two ways, there's a technical advice of counsel defense in which he cannot meet. he can use this as a factual rational as he's trying to do which is exactly that. it's my lawyer. he tells me what to do and i do what he says. the problem is, there's a recording. there's a recording that undermines that defense. >> is that recording -- that game, set, and match this

reporting? >> i don't know if it's game, set, and match but when you combine it with michael cohen's testimony, which the southern district does not have yet because he's not a cooperating witness, and the ami, you wrap those three things together, it's a done deal. but the reason why the recording is so important is not necessarily for anything that is said, it's for what isn't said which is he doesn't say what are you talking about? what do you mean we're buying the stuff -- all the stuff, not just karen mcdougal but all the stuff. i have no idea what you're talking about here, of course not. because they were engaged in a long-running conspiracy and the last thing, chuck, on this defense about michael cohen, he made it all up, you would have to believe that michael cohen lied in order to become a convicted felon in order to believe this defense. >> that would be amazing. >> people don't do that. >> there could be more recordings, right? >> there are more recordings.

>> right. so we don't know what else is out there. i do not consider it settled law that a sitting president cannot be indicted. that was a justice department opinion for from 40 years ago. if the acts the sitting president committed were acts that were committed that helped him become president, it seems a little strange maybe to say he can't be indied or at least cited as an undiun cited as an undiindicted co-conspirator. >> watching how aggressive sdny seems to be right now, the way they wanted more jail time for cohen than mueller and all this stuff, is it possible they may have an indictment under seal already? could that be possible that they have indicted the president but it's sealed perhaps until after he's out of office? >> i agree with bill that it feels like the policy has been outstripped by the events in the sense that it feels anathema to be able to say i'm going to commit a crime in order to get

elected and i'm going to be protected by my elected office from being indicted for that crime but it's doj policy right now. so in order for the southern district to indict the president, they would have to go up the chain in doj and have to reverse that policy and given the fact that the same office of legal counsel just seemed to have sort of done -- gone through many hoops in order to justify the appointment of matthew whitaker, it's hard to believe that they would reverse this policy in order to indict trump. >> makes it easy in a democratic house to say, quite legitimately, for house judiciary committee to say if they can't indict, fair enough, but we have an obligation to have hearings. >> if this is what you believe, ju jau judiciary committee is the new justice department. >> and this case is already in the southern district of new york. he can't shut down the southern district of new york, even if she doubts down the mueller

investigation. and his former lawyer has implicated him in crimes. >> i don't want to start a new facet of the conversation, i want to play the president's weird michael flynn spin. >> the fbi said general flynn didn't lie but mueller said he did lie so they took a man who is a general and a respected person and a nice man. i don't know what he said about me, maybe they scared him enough that he'll make up a story but i have a feeling he's a tougher kind of a guy than michael cohen but they took a general that they said didn't lie and they convinced him he did lie and he made some kind of a deal. now they're recommend nothing time because they're embarrass

ed they didn't get him to lie. >> he's having a hard time keeping his stories straight. he's worried about paul manafort in his head. it does feel -- his supporters continue to hang in there with him again. that was true for nixon for a while as well but it feels like that walls are closing in. >> daniel, if you heard somebody you were trying to potentially put on trial, what did you make of that word salad on flynn? i'm confused. michael cohen is a horrible person for flipping. michael flynn is a stand up person. i'm just trying to figure this one out. >> well, what he's saying is a very typical defense against cooperating witnesses at a trial. that you have to undermine what they're saying so you always -- defense lawyers will always try to claim they're just making up the bad stuff about me but really they're the ones who did

it. the problem he runs into when he starts talking about flynn is the fbi agents who interviewed flynn left the meeting and said he didn't seem to be lying. but they didn't have all the evidence. robert mueller has the evidence and robert mueller confronted michael flynn and said you were lying and he said okay, you're right, i'm going to cooperate. this is just a desperate measure. when defense lawyers do this, it's usually game, set, match against them. >> sahil, it feels like -- he said maybe he's going to make up a story. as nervous as we thought he was abcohen, i think he's more nervous about flynn. >> seems that way. he's angry, frustrated? >> i think he's nervous. his lawyers have told him, i think, that flynn may well delivered information presumably on russia cooperation or obstruction on the transition or obstruction. >> and flynn can do what trump did as president of the united

states, right? michael cohen it's all the campaign. >> flynn brings it into the oval office. >> the legal action keeps escalating to the point where i now understand why house democratic leaders -- i asked speaker in waiting nancy pelosi about this. i asked elijah cummings who will have subpoena power, they don't want to talk about this. there's enough legal action they don't need to be the ones who talk about it. they say we'll talk about health care, pre-existing conditions, voting rights. let the lawyers handle the rest. >> good luck with that. >> it will take a congressional committee to put together the dots. they're separate investigations that at some point like watergate -- >> but they don't want to lose their political message. >> i hear you there. let's sneak in a break. daniel goldman, appreciate your expertise. everybody is here is trying to say well a lawyer would say this. we have one. always nice to have one. thank you, sir. up ahead, the drama surrounding the russian woman who pleaded guilty to infiltrating u.s. politics today. how much trouble is the nra in now? this is yet the 18th different

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janssen wants to help you explore cost support options. >> if you would be elected as president, what would be your foreign politics especially in relationships with my country. do you want to continue the politics of sanctions that are damaging of both economies or you have any other ideas? >> i don't think you need

sanctions. i think we would get along very, very well. >> you sometimes can't make it up, can you? that was donald trump in 2015 just a month -- less than a month after announcing his candidacy for president. and the woman asking that question? she just admitted today she was a russian operative. her name is maria butina and she pleaded guilty to conspiracy. she admitted to working with an american on behalf of moscow to open lines of communication with influential americans and political organizations. now, there is no indication that butina influenced donald trump or his campaign and she was charged by the u.s. attorney in washington, not special counsel robert mueller. but what about organizations like the nra, which she is accused of infiltrating? how much legal trouble are they facing and her -- perhaps the connection with her on again/off again boyfriend. with me now is michael isikoff, the chief investigative correspondent for yahoo news who wrote about maria butina and danny cevallos, msnbc legal

analyst who is -- there was a time this was the biggest story of the day. that was some six hours and 25 news cycles ago. but michael why did she plead guilty? is this a russian spy? is this a bad lobbyist? what is she? >> look, she didn't plead guilty to espionage and they didn't charge her with that but they've h had her in custody for some months now. it was clear the only way she was going to get out any time soon or have a prospect of getting out is pleading and cooperating with the feds. she was -- she and her handler, alexander torshin, this former deputy governor of the russian central bank, were as much a part of the russian influence operation in the 2016 election as the gru guys who hacked the dnc and -- >> torshin is connected to a

couple of the other strings on this besides maria butina, right? >> well, look, he was influential figure in the duma in putin's party. he's been under -- he was under investigation for years for money laundering but spanish national police almost arrested him until he got tipped off and didn't attend the birthday party of a gang leader there so there were a lot of reasons for the feds to be suspicious about him from the get go, but what happened here is starting in 2015 they launched this thing called the diplomacy project to influence american politics, primariedly republican party, by using the national rifle association as leverage, what better way to influence republican politics all for the purpose of changing policy towards russia. and in december, 2015, butina who has been currying favor with

nra leaders attending their convention s invites a whole array of nra leaders to moscow. and afterwards she sends a message to torshin, her handler, which was translated two ways. her prosecutors read both ways. we should let them express their gratitude. we will put pressure on them later. the other, we should allow them to express their gratitude now and quietly press. >> danny cevallos, after reading this, should the nra feel as if they've dodged a bullet here because maria butina is not fingering them for money laundering. paul erickson, the boyfriend who is the -- might have been the -- who is alleged to possibly be the go-between or are they not

out of the woods? >> they are not out of the woods. federal election law prohibits contributions from foreign nationals and that includes in its definition a foreign government and that also includes a prohibition against a foreign national, giving noun a domestic corporation or organization and then having that organization give money to a candidate or campaign. now, ordinarily civil enforcement of the federal election law is exclusively held by the federal election commission. fec. they have the exclusive jurisdiction for civil matters and those are violations that are negligent or even reckless. the doj's own manual says that it can and will prosecute willful violations of the law. so the nra should be concerned about maria butina's plea today because of the possibility that the nra was involved with money from a foreign national that may

have eventually ended up in one of our american campaigns. >> paul erickson. first of all, they may still be togeth together. his attorney put out a statement that said paul erickson is a d good american. he's never done anything to harm our country and never would. >> he's referred to in the statement of offense that was read in court today as u.s. person number one. he was clearly assisting bird flu tina on this project that the government says was a -- >> assisting or being duped? do we not know yet? >> we're going to have to hear butina's full account. she's cooperating with the feds to make a final judgment so he's not out of the woods. there's been reports he's gotten

a target letter himself. but i have to say on the nra thing, that what s what got us so worked up. you saw the $30 million that the nra poured into the 2016 election. >> more than they'd ever done before. >> you have this guy torshin and butina who are showing up at nra meetings. >> lifetime members. >> developing relationships, or the shin's background is suspected money launderer, raised all sorts of questions but -- and this is a break on what danny said is i don't think if the feds had the money laundering to the nra they would have let butina plead to this one count of not registering at a foreign agent. you want your chief cooperating witness to plead to that case and then testify in court and there's nothing in here about laundering money to the nra.

>> danny, what do you make of that? >> it's a very solid point. the money laundering is one of the concerns the nra has. it should be additionally concerned about any involvement it had with any foreign national and on the other end, any campaign involvement. that's not as serious a charge as money laundering or espionage but it illustrates the point the nra may be implicated in a number of different wrongful civil and possibly criminal acts. even if it's a civil violation they may end up in a conciliation agreement with the fec but there might be some violation there. >> look, they clearly don't look good here. they clearly were being used by these russian agents as part of an attempt to manipulate american politics so they ought

to answer question. >> if body language matters here, the nra's body language is one of retreat, we don't know because of this -- but that had a lot of people scratching their heads going -- >> get their new president ollie north on the show. >> we would love to have mr. north on for that. a good booking idea, mr. isikoff. danny cevallos, we need a lawyer for any segment. thank you, sir. up ahead, the russian infiltration. how tight is moscow's grip on the world of trump? wait until you show an example of the web we're trying to put together here. graine hope to be there... for the good. and not so good. for the mundane. the awe-inspiring. the heart racing. the heart breaking. that's what life is all about... showing up. unless migraine steals your chance to say "i am here."

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open back door channels to the nra and the republican party got us wondering. if you were the russians, what back doors and front doors would you knock on to get into trump world or the gop as a whole and how hard would it be? the trump organization, they got in t in. the trump family, they got in. the trump campaign, we know they got in there. how about the democrats' e-mail servers, they got into those. the clinton campaign e-mails? they got those. facebook? they got in through the front door there. the nra? they might have gotten in is this proof of collusion? perhaps not. does this mean donald trump won the election because of the russians? not at all. but it's remarkable how hard the russians seem to have worked to help a new york developer move to washington, d.c. we'll have more on the russian connections to the trump campaign in just a moment. i switched to liberty mutual

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welcome back. i needed a second segment to finish mid-obsess sod i'm joined by michael mcfaul. there's been multiple theories of what the russians did with the trump campaign, someone that there was a big secret meeting with trump and putin who plotted this out. or more realistically it was some form of the spread offense by the russians. it doesn't seem as if it was one attempt. that it was 30 attempts. is that fair? >> yeah, i like that metaphor, spread offense, for sure and over multiple years and multiple modalities. they reached out directly and offered up kompromat on the candidate but then they hacked, they stole data and published it, unprecedented with the dnc and podesta and then they had

another operation on social media and then they had another operation going on with civil society as we would call it generally working directly the nra to create a back channel so it was a comprehensive strategy on multiple fronts trying to influence the outcome of the election. i like the metaphor. i'll use that chuck. >> take it away. let me put up a list of -- what's interesting here is these russian operatives that have some connections to the kremlin and yet they were different. so you have alexander torshin, a former russian senator somehow penetrated the nra and donald trump jr. then you have sergey kislyak, he got access to jeff sessions and michael flynn. sergey gorkov, the banker. you had putin's spokesman somehow had access when they were talking about trump tower. the kremlin

veselnitskaya, and then you have butina. is it possible they didn't know what the other was doing? >> it's possible but it's not possible the kremlin and putin didn't know. >> he's the spider but there were all sorts of extended webs that not everybody knew what -- who was operating in which web segment. >> yeah, that's right. >> yes. you mentioned sergei corps kov and i'm glad you reminded everybody about him. he's faded away but remember he was -- he was in charge at the time of russia's largest bank. one of the largest banks of the

top three, completely owned by the state, was meeting with jared kushner during the transition. >> well, there's the weird server. >> and if you recall they tried to meet -- >> and there's the weird story about the banks, the server that only seemed to have the bank and trump tower connected. >> there's no one, too, yes. so i think it just underscores that this was comprehensive. putin was playing to win. and i do believe, as we talked before, he was seeking to get revenge from what he believed was what secretary clinton did during his parliamentary election back in 2011 and he went on the offensive in 2016. >> you and i have often had this conversation that, oh, boy, this was took too successful in hindsight. putin probably wishes he'd have come up just short. he'd rather have a damaged hillary clinton than what he ended up with. this but watching the western world over the last 48 hours and watching the chaos in parliament in the uk and obviously the

russian influence campaign on brexit, watching what's happ happening to macron; i wonder if you want to revise that. is putin sitting there going boy, this is working like a charm? >> yes. so i think it's important to separate out that he didn't get the deliverables as we would call it immediately. he didn't get sanctions lifted. he didn't get recognition of crimea. those things. but the chaos that president trump has caused to theers with earn democratic world not only within our own country but within the alliance, within the eu, that is -- that is exactly what vladimir putin wants. the withdrawal of the american leadership, that creates a vacuum for vladimir putin so the long term payoff has been extraordinary for him even if the short term payoffs have not come through. >> how difficult will this be to repair? let's say there's a new

administration at some point and that we'll want to get tough on russia, how long will it take to put this toothpaste back in the tube. >> well, i think if trump is a one-term president there's a chance for renewal and i'm always an optimist about this stuff. i think the midterm elections has given them new confidence that they may be recommitted to being the leader of the democratic world in a way that president trump does not want to play that role and he's been very clear about that. he has a different strategy. i think if trump is reelected then you have to begin to wonder about particularly the transatlantic alliance which i think is in a pretty shaky place right now but couldn't survive eight years of the trump presidency. i'm not so sure. i think you would see a pivot to what we have already seen signs of that we have to go our own way, including in defense matters, they've already hinted at.

>> it's like if it's america first, everybody will be like it's france first, germany first, uk first and you're right. that's what president trump would say, so what? ambassador mcfaul, good to see you, sir. sorry that you don't have playoff plans with stanford this year, but there's always next year. >> you had to say that, didn't you? >> you had a slightly better season than the miami hurricanes. up ahead, 2020 vision time. democratic hopefuls don't want to be home for the holidays, they want to go somewhere else. we'll be right back. from floors, from floors, even pet hair, with ease, and now for cleaning surfaces above the floor, it comes with a built in shark handheld. one dock, two sharks. the shark ion robot cleaning system. uh uh - i deliverberty the news around here. ♪ sources say liberty mutual customizes your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need.

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in tonight's 2020 vision, the first in what will be way too many references to "field of dreams." >> if you build it, he will come. a rush of democratic presidential hopefuls are coming back to iowa in force this holiday season before the anticipated new year's crunch of actual announcements. i'm seeing you in iowa? >> yes, you will. >> last week, iowa attracted the likes of west virginia's dark horse democratic candidate richard ojeda as well as new york billionaire michael bloomberg. >> i want to understand what iowa is all about. >> next week, it's south bend mayor, oregon senator jeff merkley, maryland congressman

john delaney, california congressman eric swalwell all set their sites on events in the good old hawkeye state. >> you have to start somewhere kasie and i see a path, i'm considering it. >> there you go. boy, they'll have to build a couple baseball fields for this democratic field. we'll be back with more "mpt daily" right after this. what?! -welcome. -[ gasps ] a bigger room?! -how many of you use car insurance? -oh. -well, what if i showed you this? -[ laughing ] ho-ho-ho! -wow. -it's a computer. -we compare rates to help you get the price and coverage that's right for you. -that's amazing! the only thing that would make this better is if my mom were here. what?! an unexpected ending! but prevagen helps your brain with an ingredient is if my mom were here. originally discovered... in jellyfish. in clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve short-term memory.

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go down. this was yet another new one. you hate to put it run-of-the-mill campaign scandal stuff. >> the question is can michael cohen provide other information on investigations after this. the new york attorney general seems to be wanting to look into the trump organization and some of the real estate deals that they had. michael cohen was one of the key figures in those real estate deals that were at least being negotiated with countries like a -- people with unsavory characters you'd have to deal with in that situation. >> russia wasn't the only country that realized there may be some things for sale. it may be worth stopping by this garage sale to see if there's anything worth buying. >> manafort and cohen weren't the only people interested in selling their access. scandals sort of presumes that the normality is nonscandal, so,

hey, there's a scandal in the epa. most of the cabinet agencies act normally. >> hey, they're operating ethically today, breaking news. >> the whole trump organization was a scandalous enterprise. the trump campaign was in many respects a scandalous enterprise. so far as we can tell the trump transition has been and the trump white house. not legally in every case but in terms of norms and ethics and appropriate procedures. so i feel like you point to one scandal after another, it's sort of like the whole thing is a scandal. >> i guess if there's a new investigation, it could be what they're looking at is money coming in from russia, right? just because -- >> it doesn't have to be russia, it could be some gulf countries. >> or turkey. >> or a donation made on january 19th which correlates with an epa rule change on january 27th. >> like michael cohen was not involved in sketchy behavior seems low. >> what's stunning to me is all

these people, michael cohen, paul manafort, papadopoulos, would have gotten away with it if they had not made donald trump president of the united states. >> i think that's what they all were banking on. >> you know paul manafort is saying if only, if only, if only. it is 1:52 of this hour turned into 1:53 but i guess i should bring up the government shutdown. my favorite quote of the day came from john cornyn. john cornyn for what it's worth, he doesn't speech much on camera, but when he speaks, boy are there a lot of messages here. this is what he says about the president's ultimatum to do the border wall. i don't understand the strategy, but maybe he's figured it out and he'll tell us in due course, but i don't understand it. john cornyn is -- he barely hides his contempt for what he thinks, i think, is wasted time. i think he's a man of efficiency, i think is a fair

way to put it. >> he's certainly not the only republican baffled by the lack of a strategy and baffled by the fact that president trump very openly and publicly in that meeting said i will be the one to shut it down, i own it. >> i alone can shut it down. >> exactly. he's threatening it. usually in government shutdowns, the whole game is to blame the other side. what's fascinating is the border wall, the whole debate about that, he had this in hand. democrats caved on this issue in february of 2018. all he had to do was give them daca, which he says he wants anyway. what he did was he added on demands like legal immigration cuts, to family migration. that's his real red line and that's why he doesn't have his wall. >> i do think he's convinced himself he wants this issue. if he cuts a deal on daca, it won't be until he won a second term. that's the only way he would ever cut a deal on daca. >> it looks that way, which is pretty irresponsible to me. there are 10 million daca

recipients here. he can shut the government down. you can override his veto and pass something. god forbid the republicans on the hill, who all know better as we see from the john cornyn quote, can say this is just nuts. we're going to vote for a reasonable omnibus legislation. maybe they could link arms and walk off the bridge together. is it that hard? >> they voted against him today twice on yemen and on saudi arabia. they probably see those as two freebie votes. this is more serious, this is the wall, this is immigration, this is what keeps -- this is among the things that keep trump strong with his supporters. democrats should hang in there. i barely remember that there was a shutdown this year and i pay relatively close attention. >> there were two. one was just nine hours, though. >> thank you, because i don't remember that. i don't think there's any price to be paid by hanging in there, and they should do that. see what the republicans are

willing to stomach from their president. >> it's one thing for republicans to go against the president on a symbolic resolution on a disagreement, but immigration is something that they really don't like to get to his left on. >> oh, can't we just manage the business of government, huh? anyway, thank you, guys. apparently not. >> no is the answer. >> we will only show you news when the government is running well or when ethical things are happening. thank you, all. we'll be right back. ♪ ♪

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well, that's all for tonight. i think three breaking news stories for one day is enough. we'll be back tomorrow with more "mtp daily." the beat starts right now. ayman mohyeldin is in for ari. i need to build a bigger show but we still only got an hour. you do too but good luck, man. >> i don't know if an hour is going to be enough, chuck. it is a busy, busy news night here in new york. thanks very much, my friend. i am ayman mohyeldin in for ari melber. there's a brand new criminal investigation into the trump inauguration. i'm going to talk to the "wall street journal" reporter who broke this story a short while ago. also nbc news reporting that donald trump was in the room for secret talks about hush money payments to women. plus, trump now responding for the very first time to the michael cohen sentencing. we'll have that for you. and conflicting reports tonight on whether jared kushner is being considered for chief of staff. but we start with the "wall street journal" reporting on a