of donald trump's defenses. his lawyer rudy giuliani struggling to answer questions in two sunday show appearances. and the president himself sounding more like a jilted mob boss than the commander in chief. "the washington post" with this insight on the impact of the half dozen investigations on donald trump's psyche. quote, there has been one immediate impact on a president accustomed to dictating the country's news cycles but who now struggles to keep up with them. trump has been forced to spend his political capital and that of his party on his defense. the president with some remarkable tweets over the weekend like this one. quote, remember michael cohen only became a rat after the fbi did something which was absolutely unthinkable and unheard of until the witch hunt was illegally started. they broke into an attorney's office. why didn't they break into the dnc to get the server or crooked's office? and this one slamming his former attorney general jeff sessions. jeff sessions should be ashamd of himself for allowing this total hoax to get started in the first place.

our colleague joe scarborough with the astute observation that it's mind-blowing to see a republican president call for a break-in of dnc headquarters. and rudy giuliani changing his story once again. not claiming that the payoff scheme that yielded a guilty plea from michael cohen and a nonprosecution agreement from the parent company of the national enquirer didn't happen but saying that he's arguing in the alternative, whatever that means. watch this. >> according both to cohen and to pecker, again, he's the head of -- or was the head of the national enquirer, they say they were in a meeting with donald trump. >> chris, chris -- >> in the summer of 2016 in which they discussed the payment to karen mcdougal. >> we're talking about something that doesn't matter. whether it happen or didn't happen, it's not illegal. >> but you're -- you're moving shelves around on me. either it happened or it didn't happen. >> but that's what lawyers do all the time. you argue in the alternative. i'm telling you definitively --

>> i'm asking you for the truth, sir. >> well, i want the truth, too. >> if you like that, there's more where it came from. here's giuliani again. this time he's not saying that collusion didn't happen. he's arguing that even if it did, it's not a crime. >> and did roger stone ever give the president a heads-up on wikileaks' leaks concerning hillary clinton and the dnc. >> no, he didn't. not at all. i don't believe so. but again, if roger stone gave anybody heads up about wikileaks' leaks, that's not a crime. >> depends on what the definition of a crime is. joining us on another extraordinary news day, some of our favorite reporters and friends. senior political reporter aaron blake. here at the table, msnbc political analyst elise jordan, david jolly, a former member of the republican party who served in congress from the great state of florida, and our legal duo to help kick off the show. harry litman and paul butler.

what is that? i mean, it's sort of like my cousin vinnie meets, you know -- i mean, i don't know what that was. >> about giuliani? >> yeah. >> it was a little perplexing, right? because, of course, it's a crime depending on what stone is telling him about. we already know there's a crime. the crime has to do with a conspiracy to -- with russians who have already been indicted. and to hack podesta's e-mails. and if stone knows about it and is dropping the hint or coordinating with donald trump, that's not like saying there's something in "the new york times," which is what the way giuliani has put it. in general, i think nobody, even giuliani now is trying to defend the president on the merits and all you're hearing are these kinds of defenses. something is really changed since pearl harbor day, ten days ago, when we knew the president, in fact, had committed a crime. >> you made this point before we

were on the air. i'd like you to drill down. we've come on the air before, and i think of days like the raid on michael cohen's offices, like flynn flipping. there have been other points where we thought, this is it. but it does seem like the walls are closing in is the wrong image, but the bricks are sort of breaking the roof, you know, buckle. and you spoke to the collusion question. but there also was a bizarre dissembling going on, on the question of the campaign finance violations which are so clear that the president's dear friend mr. pecker signed a nonprosecution agreement. >> and needed to. otherwise he -- >> would have been prosecuted. >> criminal culpability. so it does seem to me that whereas in the past there are bombs going off but there is also -- the republicans for the first time it seems to me are really flailing. even trying to avoid questions because now it's been put to them that there's a changed posture. the posture is now, we have a

president who has committed crimes and maybe there are more to come. and that's -- just can't be a matter of indifference in a democracy. >> let me just ask you about sort of prosecuting corruption cases. i mean, i'm just thinking of acts and billions. he's less corrupt than the way donald trump talks about rats. there is something so dirty about the things he tweets about the federal government's cooperating witnesses. >> because he is the leader of the federal government and he has no confidence in his department of justice or the fbi. so i don't think we've ever had a situation like this. we have had many presidents under criminal investigation. i think barack obama was the only president in the last 20 years who hasn't been the subject of an investigation. but even those presidents have not tried to demean the fundamental institutions of our democracy. and what the presidents or with giuliani we see a pattern. when one of the president's lies is exposed and incriminates him

on yet another felony, then giuliani goes on tv with a new version and tries to make it act like that was the old version. we saw that with the hush money payments. and now we're seeing that with this new evidence about trump tower, how trump was involved in business negotiations with moscow throughout the campaign, even though he denied that during the campaign. >> we're not going to deprive our viewers of the delicious giuliani pieces of sound, but i want to show you first something that former fbi director jim comey just said about the rat tweet from the president. >> it undermines the rule of law. this is the president of the united states calling a witness who is cooperated with his own justice a rat. say that again to yourself at home and remind yourself where we have ended up. this is not about republicans and democrats. this is about, what does it mean to be an american? what are the things that we care about? above our policy disputes, which are important, there's a set of values that represent the glue

of this country, and they are under attack by things just like that. we have to stop being numb to it whether you are republican or democrat. you need to stand on your feet, overcome your shame and say something. >> david jolly, this is a theme he came back to again and again and again last weekend when i interviewed him. stop being numb to all the obliteration and annihilation of the norms. if we spend the next 50 minutes and don't get past the president calling a cooperating witness a rat and a prosecution run by his justice department and his sdny office, that's okay because that is so fricking weird, that would be enough for the day. >> we've come to expect it but we shouldn't normalize it. that's the most heated you've seen james comey in a long time. what went on behind closed doors must have been instance. he called ought republicans and democrats. democrats have done a much better job standing up to this president but he has said to republicans, where are you? don't just do the -- don't just talk about this as you're

leaving. we saw it in the sunday shows over the weekend. a lot of republicans, i think, deliberately conflating the southern district of new york matter with the mueller investigation as a way to obf obfuscate it. the president of the united states has been named in a felony. we can't let our political leaders on either side get away with conflating those two issues. democrats don't want to touch that issue either. that's going to be a hard question for democrats. i think it's an impeachable offense, and i think democrats have to wrestle in 2019 with the fact this san impeachable offense. but you saw james comey do there is call everybody to the mat and say we're one team, we're americans and stop with this partisanship. stop protecting the president of the united states. >> the alignment now isn't right/left, it's liars and truth-tellers. >> and i think that today in a poll that was released, the new nbc poll, it really took my breath away that 63% of americans do not believe that

donald trump tells the truth. >> 62% of americans which i guess -- i don't know if this poll number, i don't know how low has numbers have gone. 62% think he's lying about the russian probe. >> that's up from about -- it was 6% lower at around 57% in august. so that shows you these last six months and the events that are happening. this poll was taken the first week of december. they're having an effect. even though the base may be there, 44% or so say that they'd still vote for donald trump again, the fact that people are really starting to believe that he is a liar as the cumulative effect of michael cohen, of paul manafort, of mike flynn. donald trump is coming to be seen as someone who just you can't trust with the truth. >> there's something disorienting about the pace with which he lies. the pace with which he debases the office he holds. the pace with his his lawyers go on tv and lie. the pace with which people have

to sort of track all of the criminal proceedings, all the investigations. you sort of take the first stab at writing these drafts of history. what do you make of this moment you're in and the weekend of appearances by rudy giuliani, some of which we already showed. >> i was thinking a couple days ago, i read our "washington post" headline about how the president had denied that his payments to a porn star and a former playboy playmate had violated the law. even just a year ago, before we first started hearing about stormy daniels and karen mcdougal if you imagined that headline, even in the early parts of the trump presidency, i'm not sure you would have believed we're actually there. the president's best friend in a lot of this is his kind of constant barraging of the media, constant barraging of the american people. there is a kind of steady lowering of the bar, a rolling back of past denials that will regularly kind of desensitize us. and so i think to the extent that people aren't clued in to

all of these specifics of these things like we are, the things we're talking about right now, they don't necessarily think that what president trump is doing is necessarily different from what other presidents and politicians do. they just kind of tune it out because it's just too much to handle. there's so much detail here. a lot of it is very fine legal minutia. and that's his best friend as far as moving past this and getting people to throw up their arms. but we have seen a steady erosion and it continues of many of the institutions, many of the norms in this society. whether you agree with that being a good thing or not, it's a fact of life that the president has done it and he has done it in a very strategic way, i would argue. >> and aaron, here's the president's lawyer rudy giuliani basically admitting to what you just said. let's watch. >> the southern district says he can get out of jail if you do this. you've got three years now. there's a real motivation to sing like crazy. he's got do a lot of singing to get out of the three years. he'll say whatever he has to

say. he's changed his story three or four times. >> so has the president. >> the president is not under oath. >> yeah, he changed his story four or five times, but, george, he wasn't under oath. i don't know how george kept a straight face. >> it was pretty remarkable. that entire interview was about not necessarily denying things but kind just saying things are the way they are. you know, the fact that there was the possibility of the president and cohen talking about these things beyond the summer of 2016 as far as trump tower moscow. even a time where rudy giuliani seemed to admit that these hush money payments may have carried a campaign purpose to them. but he was saying because they were also personal in nature that they weren't campaign finance violations. they are no longer arguing the merits of these cases. they are no longer disputing the facts as they are aligned. they are just saying that basically none of this is a crime. one, because the president is the president and can't be indicted. and, two, because the legal

threshold is just so high for a lot of these things that they are basically redefining the legal arguments and letting people decide what they want to believe is true. >> and this harry litman is so stunning. they've done this around obstruction of justice over the summer. they said first, he didn't obstruct justice. then he can't obstruct justice. and then they said he can't be indicted while being president for obstructing justice. that's moved to the heart of the mueller probe, the collusion question. new york magazine reports, giuliani's comments that aaron was talking about seemed to indicate that he knows that trump did have a heads-up from roger stone but does not know if mueller will be able to prove it. hence, his competing impulses to deny the accusation but prepare a fallback defense in case that denial becomes inoperable. let's watch that part because i think it's important. it goes to the heart of what this is all about. >> did the president -- did donald trump know that michael cohen was pursuing the trump tower in moscow into the summer of 2016? >> according to the answer that

he gave, it would have covered all the way up to november of -- covered all the way to november of 2016. said he had conversations with him about -- >> earlier they said those conversations stopped in january 2016. >> i don't -- i mean the date -- until you actually sit down and answer the questions and you go back and you look at the papers and look at the -- you're not going to know what happened. that's why lawyers, you know, prepare for those answers. >> okay. i need to recap that because my brain can't process all that. so according to the answer he gave, this is rudy's knowledge of the written answers submitted to mueller. it would have covered, his answer would have covered to november 16th. so it's possible the answer was vague enough to allow for trump to have had conversations about building trump tower moscow all the way through and beyond election day. said he had conversations with him, but the president didn't hide this. so now he's not hiding that he was trying to do business with vladimir putin by building trump

tower moscow through election day and possibly beyond. earlier, stephanopoulos said those conversations stopped in january. i don't, i mean, the date, i mean, until you actually sit down and you look at the questions from mueller, which they've actually had since at least january of 2017, and you go back and look at the papers -- i'm guessing he thinks mueller has some of their papers and you look at the -- the, you'll not know what's happened. that's why lawyers, you know, prepare the answers. where are we? >> so, i mean, two points. first, we're in this very serious point of the so-called political synergy where you have trump's commercial fortunes and his political fortunes intertwine. he drew the red line, but he's obliterated it himself because the crime and criminal conduct he's being investigated for has precisely to do with his mixing of his business motivations. but i have to go back to combine this answer with what he told

george stephanopoulos and just underscore. we laughed in disbelief but the contempt it shows for the notion of the truth. remember, he kept trump from answering anything except very carefully sort of written questions, and now they are a little trapped on that one question of, did it go until november, october, et cetera? he now says over my dead body will the president of the united states speak under oath and combines that with a notion of, as long as you're not under oath, there's no notion to tell the truth to the american people. the idea that the basic responsibilities of the president are those of the mob boss to just bob and weave and demean the -- any fbi investigation. that's what really comes through with giuliani. >> i have a weird question, though, for you. are there criminals out there who will point to the president and say, well, you know, the president's lawyer said he --

>> already happened. >> are there criminals who are going to model the president's conduct while under federal investigation and make it harder to solve crimes? >> but, of course. the irony is that now law and order donald trump and rudy giuliani are the leaders of the don't be a snitch movement. and the concerns they have about cooperating witnesses are legitimate. there's an incentive to tell the prosecutor what she wants to hear in order to get a good deal in your case which is why mueller has backed up everything that cohen has said with forensic evidence like those tapes that cohen made of trump, e-mails, texts, and eyewitness testimony from people like alan pecker who will say the deal was going down at the time that trump was lying about it. and again, the concern with trump lying about stuff that's happening in russia is not just pecker and cohen who know. the russians know, which exposes the president to blackmail. >> it's unbelievable.

i can't believe we're talking about blackmail and the president running something you usually hear from gang leaders. don't snitch. i heard from a source close to the investigations that the reason the sdny cases seem or feel more aggressive, they've named the president as directing this conspiracy is because of faith and history of having and knowing their evidence. do you think that's what scares donald trump? >> well, it's undoubtedly true the southern district of new york is known for being among not just the most aggressive, but the most experienced, the most kind of in touch with the evidence, the most perhaps confident about what they are doing here. they also don't have the attachment necessarily to the appointment of the special counsel which was -- has become something of a political lightning rod. i think it is remarkable that they've been probably more forward about their evidence than the mueller investigation has in this whole thing. if you were to have told us that at the start of this that the president would be implicated in

a crime but it wouldn't be mueller, it would be an offshoot of what he was directing, that would be pretty surprising to some people. but they seem to be pretty confidence. mueller seems to be increasingly confident judging by the filing that he's putting out. the guilty plea that he reached with michael cohen that's very much focused on the trump tower moscow meeting. so i think this is happening on two tracks and it's definitely advancing very quickly on two tracks. >> and we're going to keep talking about this all hour. aaron blake, thank you for starting us off. when we come back, another sign of the times. the legal debate about whether and when you can indict a sitting president heats up. also ahead -- the national enquirer as an arm of donald trump's presidential campaign? it may explain their willingness to cooperate with the federal prosecutors. we'll bring you some excellent new reporting on the fruits of the trump ami partnership and two blockbuster new reports in the expansive russian effort to elect donald trump. all those stories still coming up.

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you don't have to be a constitutional scholar to get the sense we're paddling through uncharted political waters. and all the investigations, the trials, all of it leading to something. it's natural to wonder what's going to happen to donald trump. "the washington post" reports there's a consensus view inside the white house that a sitting president will not be indicted. but could they be wrong? former acting solicitor general laid out three ways it could happen on "the new york times" podcast, the daily this morning. trump could be an unindicted co-conspirator. he could be subject to a state

indictment and finally, maybe trump's wrong. maybe the circumstances actually allow for a federal indictment. listen. >> a justice department policy here is not quite as clear as trump has made it out to be. and in particular, there are memos that say a sitting president can't be indicted. but they're generic memos. they don't apply to a situation like this in which the crime that's being alleged is one that allowed someone to get the presidency in the first place. you know, these are campaign contributions and hush money that very well could have swung the 2016 election. they maybe considered the most significant campaign contributions in the history of the united states. >> "new york times" reporter mike schmidt who conducted that interview for the podcast joins the conversation now. and everyone is still at the table. mike schmidt, that was the first time i've heard that articulation that what may render those doj memos that probably allow some folks at the white house to sleep at night

that a sitting president can't be indicted really have never been applied to a situation where the alleged crime or the possible crime may have put the president in office in the first place. is that a legal theory popping up more and more? >> yeah. i don't know if it's widely held. i think that your average lawyer in washington who follows this stuff closely would probably not necessarily agree with neil. he's taking an aggressive view here but certainly one that i'm sure folks in the justice department understand and have heard. now we do know that, according to trump's lawyers, mueller's office told them that they were not going to indict the president. we've never heard that from mueller himself. we've never seen that in a court filing. we don't have any other reporting that goes beyond that. but some months ago, they did say that. and this was at a time that the trump legal team was trying to figure out what their posture was going to be like as they

gronted this investigation. and their calculus was we don't think the president will be indicted. the only exposure we have is on capitol hill where we could face impeachment. and the only way to push back on that and deal with it is to treat it like a public relations problem. and that is what they brought on rudy giuliani to muddy the waters and attack the investigation and hopefully give republicans on the hill a way to not vote to impeach the president. >> mike schmidt, i can't imagine that rudy giuliani's appearance yesterday gave republicans on the hill any reason to be stronger in their belief that they shouldn't impeach the president. he was talking about the cases out of sdny where no such public relations effort has taken place. are they regrouping? are they getting themselves organized around that? are they going to start at ground zero trying to smear the southern district of new york run by a trump appointee? where are they in terms of diminishing or trying to discredit the u.s. attorney's office that named the president as a possible felon?

>> yeah, that's a good question. the difference here and the calculation perhaps a mistake, and we won't know for some time the legal team made is that they were going to publicly attack mueller and go after that investigation. they spent far less time going after the investigation in new york by sdny. and the question is that were they sort of taking their eye off the ball and concentrating on the wrong thing? when the real exposure and the real problem was coming from sdny because now after all of these months and almost years of witch hunt talk of attacking mueller and undermining that investigation, giuliani and trump have to pivot and take on the sdny investigation. and it's not bob mueller. and it's not 17 angry democrats. it's career prosecutors in new york. and those career prosecutors have, you know, not as big of names as the ones that trump has made out naming some of mueller's prosecutors really going after them. they are more faceless and does that make it harder at this point to attack the findings of their inquiry?

>> and there's one man responsible for those cases going to sdny. who is that? how did those cases end up there? >> well, we think the reason -- we believe that they're there because of deputy attorney general rod rosenstein. he was the one that was in charge of the investigation when the cohen part of it was taken out of mueller, certainly not given to mueller and given to the prosecutors in new york. and for some, that -- looking back on that could be an incredibly powerful, important decision because if mueller had the cohen part of this, would that have sort of undermined the findings of that part of the investigation. my guess is to a lot of people, it would not but this has insulated the cohen stuff from the witch hunt argument because it's being done by the prosecutors who are not mueller. >> it's so amazing, elise, that the attack that donald trump described as an attack on the nation. you knew cohen had the goods on trump that day. it happened right before our hour. so you watch trump call the fbi raids on cohen's office an

attack on the nation and it was like ding, ding, ding, that's where all the stuff is. he can't remember if he colludesed with vlad or not but knows cohen has the goods. from that moment they could have made the pivot mike schmidt talks about. not aware of any attacks on sdny. i don't know if he knows the names of the career prosecutors there. but the idea that what could bring him down is his role in directing a criminal conspiracy in a case prosecuted by sdny that sources say they have the evidence, they're confident enough of their evidence to name the president and they haven't spent a minute -- rudy giuliani had no idea what he was going to say. he looks up when he's thinking. they have done nothing to insulate the president, as mike schmidt said, politically, on those cases. >> and the podcast is great. so i want to stress to everyone who is interested in this question, listen to mike schmidt's podcast today on "the daily" because -- >> from one podcaster to another. >> i never thought about this

yet, the element of rod rosenstein that comes up in the podcast in which we're tapping into a little bit here about how it really does set up a separate battlefield where he doesn't have any infantry in place. he's not been fighting that battle. and southern district new york could follow him post presidency, irrespective of what is decided about indicting a sitting president. and so that's why this question of the southern district is so fascinating to me. >> rosenstein is the central figure also, though, on deciding whether or not -- the policy actually permits a -- an exception. so it's very possible sdny is in there pitching now, let us -- let us try to indict even if we don't prosecute, let us do the indictment. that pitch would go to rosenstein. >> the problem is that there was never going to be a bright line between trump's financial dealings and his politics. with trump it was always for a prosecutor about following the money. and, in fact, with this moscow

tower deal, we see this kind of alignment between trump's financial interests. he wants his big building in moscow with his name on it and collusion because the questions were motive and method. so the motive would be now the russians have dirt on him because they know he's lying about his dealings. the method would be they are reaching out to him. they are trying to set up meetings with vladimir putin. so all these connections between trump world and moscow, even before the campaign gets going. >> a couple points. first, let's acknowledge that rudy giuliani has become a remarkably bad attorney. and then even worse spokesperson. >> he was too busy in bahrain last week. he couldn't catch up on his notes. >> this is why donald trump is flailing. he has this long career of having to navigate civil legal matters. where you pay people off. you pay settlements. you reach private agreements, but it's always monetary. the reason he's flailing is no amount of money can turn off the sdny case. no amount of money can turn off bob mueller. donald trump, for the first time

that we know publicly, is facing significant criminal accusations. he's never been in this environment before. and for a man who has always been able to write a check to get himself out of trouble, this is the end of the road. no amount of money can turn off these criminal investigations. and they got him. >> mike schmidt, you have a good podcast plug there from elise jordan. for the six people watching this show who haven't listened to the daily yet, go listen. paul butler, thank you for joining us. how the national enquirer contributed the equivalent of nearly $3 million to donald trump's presidential campaign. that's next. i'm snow. and just like you, the further into winter we go, the heavier i get. and while your pants struggle to support the heavier you, your roof struggles to support the heavier me. [laughter] whoo. [crash] and your cut-rate insurance might not pay for this.

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i've always said, why didn't the national enquirer get the pulitzer prize for edwards and o.j. simpson and all of these things? >> there's still time. they might get it for you. that was donald trump saying the national enquirer deserved a pulitzer and it's the owner of

the enquirer who made a nonprosecution agreement with the southern district of new york and revealed he paid off a "playboy" model. in concert with the president's campaign. we looked at the impact the national enquirer had beyond that hush money payment writing, it was a real world embodiment of the fantasy online world of trolls, russian and domestic who polluted the political discourse from its purchases at publix and safeway it was often doing the same job as alex jones at the conspiracy site inowars and the more strident surrogates on facebook. jim continues wondering what the enquirer's covers were worth to the trump campaign. i called regis maher, a co-founder dove it outdoors, a mobile and digital billboard company. could they be scrutinized for

being an arm of the campaign? could they be scrutinized for -- it seems if they were directed by donald trump, my understanding of campaign finance laws is you can't be prosecuted for favorable coverage or a lot of outlets would be in trouble but if they were directed by the trump campaign they could have some exposure. >> i think technically they aren't exposed on those covers because it's not a direct money value. i mean we -- we can put a value on it. >> was he directing that? >> the law on coordination of coverage journalistically because of the first amendment gives a lot of leeway. where it doesn't give leeway is payment. the karen mcdougal was a payment. $150,000. these things did have value and we can put a dollar amount on them. >> they didn't spend $3 million a month on gas for the trump airplane. that would be the largest campaign expenditure i can think of, right? >> yeah, i mean, he wasn't at

that point -- how much was he spending? everyone was just murmuring about, he doesn't have any ground game. he doesn't have staffers. in the end we see where that didn't really matter. the way he commanded the media cycle. if you are on a campaign, wouldn't you have loved for your campaign to have -- >> the national enquirer? >> he's right. some of this stuff was so weird. the only other alternative would be to find it on infowars and they were splashing it in every grocery aisle on the cover of national enquirer. >> the role of the national enquirer, they were the perfect foil to be involved in the karen mcdougal payment. that's what it comes down to. donald trump had the personal relationship with david pecker. they had the business relationship. he was the confidante that trump turned to to say, hey, i need your involvement to hush this woman and that is ultimately now because pecker turned and named that donald trump was in the room y the president of the united states has been

implicated in a federal felony. >> go ahead. >> you can make a contribution in kind. so it's really their first amendment status rather than the fact it was in kind that makes it a problem. there's a very interesting argument here that they really are not deserving the first amendment protection. they are not functioning as a -- as an actual objective news agency here and, particularly, it's not simply because they were biased. many papers are. but their coverage all -- the fountain head of it all is the pecker/trump relationship secret to try to push the election in that way. the first amendment is very strong but it's possible it could be pierced here. >> we did report in the summer that prosecutors looked at that and they came down it was more valuable to strike this agreement with ami to continue, i assume, getting information out of them because their investigation continues. >> let me ask you, this is your

beat. i remember you sort of joked about this being part of your beat. talk about sort of the insidious nature. i learned for the first time in your story and reporting that the inquirer was involved in helping him not just smear hillary clinton but win the republican party. how far back and how deep did this relationship go? how did it work on a day-to-day basis? >> there was an agreement at least in august of '15. prosecutors confirmed that. you were talking about it last week in which president trump, then candidate trump, mr. pecker and michael cohen all coordinated protective status for him. and that's before the primaries kick in. interestingly, right ahead of the primary season there was a lot of profiles. a story how vladimir putin -- a source says vladimir putin wants trump to win the presidency. then we see what he did to carson, ultimately ted cruz and what i saw on the ted cruz coverage was this weird bot activity around what he was doing. this could have tentacles into

another investigation. you know which one i'm thinking of. >> the mueller investigation. >> explain the significance for mr. pecker and the national enquirer and ami of a nonprosecution agreement. >> so they are -- please chime in, but they are now -- they are in the clear. >> team america, though. they're helping them with whatever they want to know. >> they have helped them. the question now is, will this go forward for more help? and what did they already tell them? first of all, we knew that mr. pecker and his deputy dylan howard had agreements earlier, kind of more limited agreements. the company was still exposed. now the company is out of hot water. correct me if i'm wrong but it seems like now they're sitting there for three years at their disposal. >> and all the contact. a trump ally said to me that their relationship goes back years. it was social, professional and political. >> that's true. but -- and it's interesting here because pecker, i think they were under tremendous pressure potential liability and it was almost a forced play to do the noncooperation agreement but the report is pecker was very angry

with trump around july for his not being more full bodied in his defense of the enquirer and that trump is being the most disloyal of mob bosses is actually played to his disadvantage. >> well, making tony soprano look like a sweetheart. after the break, two stunning reports that show russia used every social media platform it could get its hands on to help donald trump. if you have psoriasis,

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he just said it's not russia. i will say this. i don't see any reason why it would be. >> now we all know, we all know it was russia. and two new reports out today prepared for the senate intel committee show us just how far reaching the russian disinformation campaign went in 2016. the reports describe how russians used every major social media platform to help trump win the white house. besides ones we already knew about and have talked about like facebook and twitter, they used instagram, youtube, redditpinterest and more. what is clear is that all of the messaging clearly sought to benefit the republican party and specifically donald trump. trump is mentioned most in campaigns targeting conservatives and right wing voters. for the messaging, it encouraged these groups to support his campaign. the main groups that could challenge trump were provided messaging that sought to confuse, distract and discourage members from voting. everyone is still here. this is unbelievable.

>> i mean, this strikes me as the most grave attack on democratic institution. it's really state-sponsored terrorism for the 21st century. and there's two aspects to it. there's the both encouraging of the sort of adoration of trump or partisanship, but the worst part is the disincentivizing of democrats and especially african-americans to vote. dampening down the vote. being deceptive about where you're supposed to vote. a very sophisticated campaign that strikes at the heart of the -- the core democratic value of voting. >> so we talk about collusion day after day. it's rare we can show it. but we can show that. let's watch the president with that same mission. >> they didn't come out to vote for hillary. they didn't come out. and that was a big -- so thank you to the african-american community. and the african-american

community was great to us. they came through bigly. bigly. and frankly, if they had any doubt, they didn't vote. and that was almost as good. >> so here was more reporting from the report. in the days leading up to the election the i.r.a. began to deploy voter suppression tactics on the black community, targeted accounts while some fearmongering on right targeted accounts or voter fraud and delivering ominous warnings the election would be stolen and violence may be necessary. here's colluding. ding, ding, ding. >> the only reaction every american should have regardless of your party today is anger. outright anger at the russians who tried to divide us as an american people based on race and religion. they also targeted certain religious groups to try to do the same thing. to manipulate the cultural divide within the country. so forget about donald trump, bob mueller, forget about collusion. we should be angry and recognize that russia is not our friend.

vladimir putin is not our friend. they are a adverse to our national security interest and democracy. from there we get to look at donald trump's behavior. from helsinki to his rallies. to suggest that he can't condemn russia. he can't condemn vladimir putin. what he said at helsinki, well, vladimir putin made a pretty good defense. i don't know, maybe i should believe him. that strikes at the heart of who we are at a country. that a littpolitical leader ref to be as angry as we purpose we know president trump is not angry about this report and he should be. >> these reports mirror the exact messages that were being put out by russia. how can anyone with a straight face so, i don't know yet. >> donald trump colluded and to use his word, he's guilty as a rat. it's just a matter of catching up to him. that's really all this is. you can go through the timeline that you just put together in that package and we know the communications between wikileaks and roger stone, the collusion

between his campaign and whoever was pulling off the social engineering of our elections, that happened. it's just a matter of bob mueller finally giving the report to congress and the american people. >> there's one thing more, though. it's not only happens, but it i incredibly grave that it happened, so when you contrast this with the trivilization, the stakes are enormous. >> when donald trump says he doesn't mind about voter suppression of voters in this country, it cuts against everything that men and women that have died for the right to vote, and for all of the peek that sacrifice, understanding the vote. for any american president to say they don't mind if votes are suppressed as long as it goes in their favor is fundamentally

unrelated. >> all of these parts, you can go back to the inquirer covers. what are was coming out of the trump campaign, the messages are coordinating. maybe they're not speaking and just watching each other, but either way one of those actors was a foreign government so whether or not they're talking or not or colluding we will find out. >> in one of the earlieiest indictments, i don't know if you remember there was a texas republican operative, we know that some americans unwittingly or knowingly contributed to this effort to help russians suppress the american vote. and i think the information that we will know will be a cocon

spir tort. if the trump campaign took a victory lap for their prowless on face. >> definitely, so back in february, there was two main conspiracies brought against russian actors. 13 in february for essentially for computer crimes. if there is not simply the over lap, but actual coordination and the messages are completely linked, criminal liability. >> what were the russians doing on pinterest. i am on there looking for my son's birthday kaicake, what happens on pinterest. >> it was targeted. they knew what the millennials like and they were smart. >> they r ever where.

>> by now that somebody has, or maybe they hired someone here. >> the think white house chief of staff had to say. your school. your job. your dreams. your problems. (indistinct shouting) but at the y, we create opportunities for everyone, no matter who you are or where you're from. for a better us, donate to your local y today. for a better us, cohigher!ad! higher! parents aren't perfect, but then they make us kraft mac & cheese and everything's good again.

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which may worsen kidney problems. i discovered the potential with ozempic®. ♪ oh! oh! oh! ozempic®! ♪ (vo) ask your healthcare provider if ozempic® is right for you. was he a role model for my sons? absolutely not. she is neither a role model for my daughter. we have perhaps two of the most flawed human beings running for president in the history of the country.

i'm supporting donald trump as enthusiastically as i can given that he is a terrible human being. >> that is what the bottom of the bar really looks like. that was mulvaney calling trump a terrible human being. trump tried to end a week of reporting that illustrated how many people wanted to work for him. mulvaney will not be the first person that has to walk back negative comments about trump. i can say something, this is the garbage that the american people defest co detest coming out of the americ americans right now. he said i don't trust this man's influence on my children but he is willing to be part of what donald trump is doing to the country.

consider that. he is aphrase of trump's influence on his own children, but he will empower him, enable him, and do his bidding as his acting chief of staff. >> this is very important, we can get lost in the ridiculousness. i look at those in the white house, especially the ones i know, that's how they do it, that's what they all think of him. >> that's who he is. just as we call out donald trump we have to call out the people that sell their soul to work for that man. >> power is very seductive. there was the argument that you want good people going into the administration to keep him in check, but i think we see less of that impulse as we see more of the enabling of donald trump.

the candidate thinks he is a terrible human being. >> i would call out the first and foremost, have a bottomless appetite, putting up with what he is doing, and just comparing to past scandals, there is a sense that like clinton, nixon, were basically presidential but flawed personalities where as trump just seems like a consummate carnie or something. >> this is a party that was always character counts, right? it was so engrained in the party message. what will that like like in the post trump era. >> people in the highest position in the white house think he is a terrible person with no moral character. what do you do when the chief of staff thinks you're terrible.

it is how it looks. they want to walk the press into that trap. cover it exactly thousand is. >> thank you all, that does it for our hour. mtp daily is starting right now. >> if it is monday, the russian conspiracy is so much worse than we knew. good ev