controversial interview with the fbi, partially redacted. but this is the substance of the crime he confessed to. we just got it, want to let you know. i'm sure there will be more coverage on it throughout the night on msnbc. i'll see you back at 6:00 p.m. tomorrow. don't go anywhere. "hardball" with chris mathews is next. >> 20 tweets for the bunker. let's play "hardball." ♪ ♪ good evening. i'm chris mathews in washington. ratted out, trump retreats to the bunker. president trump spent the weekend launching a slew of angry tweets as he finds himself under siege on multiple fronts. hunkered down in the white house on a rainy weekend, trump tweeted roughly 20 times since friday night. lashing out at the media, denouncing the special counsel's probe as a witch-hunt. and once again, blaming good old jeff sessions, of all people, for allowing this total hoax to

get started. at one point president trump referred to his long-time fixer and personal lawyer michael cohen as a rat. tweeting, remember, michael cohen only became a rat after the fbi did something which was absolutely unthinkable, and it hurt up until the witch-hunt was illegally started, they broke into a attorney's office. this comes on the heels of a rough week for trump and his family. trump is under scrutiny now on six different fronts. according to reports, the trump campaign, the trump transition, the trump inauguration, the trump administration, the trump organization, and the trump foundation are all being probed for things ranging from campaign finance violations to accounting fraud. over the weekend another one of president trump's cabinet members was forced to resign under a cloud of ethics inquiries, setting another record for the president who has the most cabinet replacements by i first-term president in 100 years. if this were not enough, president trump and the republican trolled congress have just four days to avert a second

shutdown of the u.s. ghochlt in just two years. and looming overall this is special counsel robert mueller's investigation. rudy giuliani, the president's out-front lawyer, insisted that his client will never speak to robert mueller now, never. let's watch. >> the special counsel does he want to interview the president? >> good luck. good luck, after what they did to flynn, trapped him in perjury -- >> when you say good luck, no way, no interview? >> they're a joke. over my dead body, but, i could be dead. >> that's a strange comment. that might be wise. a new nbc "wall street journal" poll says 6 of 10 don't believe the president is being truthful when it comes to the russia investigation. 62% don't believe him. and breaking just moments ago, the fbi has released a key memo ahead of feels like l flynn's sentencing tomorrow. the document contains notes from

the national former advisor michael flynn. i'm joined by heidi przybyla, u.s. news political correspondent. nbc news. williams, former federal prosecutor, and philip blum. a new report flashing out right now, these notes on the michael flynn investigation and sentencing tomorrow. >> right, yeah. so, there is a new memo that came out that was essentially transcribed at the time the fbis interviewed flynn in the white house in early january, rather late january 2017. it documents more completely than we've seen publicly so far what that conversation looked like. flynn talking to the fbi agents about the fact that he was in dominican republic, that he didn't have good cell resechgce. he doesn't remember speaking to the russian ambassador about the requested trump administration, trump transition team was making of the russians in response to new sanctions over being imposed by obama's government. it outlines broadly what it is

that we've known in the abstract for months now, which is that flynn had this extensive conversation with the fbi, made representations to them about the conversations he'd had with kislyak that ended up being undermined by other information the government had apparently from surveying kislyak's communications directly. >> this is what they're going to use against him in the sentencing tomorrow? >> right, yes. so, this is part of the initial plea agreement from flynn was that he had misrepresented the truth in this conversation with the fbi. there were other aspects to it as well, including that he misrepresented the extent of his relationship with turkey, which also we had new news on today with the indictment of two people he used to work with. but yes, this is part of the case the government had made to get him to get to that plea deal in the first place. >> lepts' talk about this weekend and the president's behavior. 20 tweets coming out of the white house starting after this program, after "hardball" friday night. he kept at it all weekend. apparently the rain had

something to do with it. people believe rain isn't good for trump because it frees him up and keeps him from tweeting. this weekend it was all tweets. heidi, what is his particular fear? six fronts he's being hit on we pointed out. all these probes coming at him. it only takes one to get him. >> well, the turning point did seem to be the cohen sentencing memo, where this is completely outside the scope of mueller and yet now we're talking about him being named with a crime. now he is named as someone who was part of a conspiracy, who created a shell company in order to essentially mislead the american people, defraud the american people, and the question now is that people like us are debating whether a sitting president can be indicted. that's got to really scare him. on top of that, you see all the staff turnover, general kelly leaving. >> who would make that call to

indict him just to get it nailed? could it be you don't need mull to er to do it, somebody from new york could do it. the sergeant of arms in the senate? who does this? they come and get him? >> i guess we're in uncharted territory. >> the marshals? who comes and gets the president to say you're under arrest? >> i believe the only person who could arrest the president is the sergeant of arms. it's months of litigation whether you can indict a president. it would create a mess. >> might as well be a sheriff of knotting him. he's not going to be arrested, the president of the united states. what is the fear about, he is afraid, do you think? >> he is afraid. that's where all these twiets a tweets are coming from. if you don't like what people are saying, change the the conversation. what they're trying to do is distract the united states and distract everybody into -- away from what the president is really facing. what it does is undermines people's faith in law

enforcement. when you're talking about rats -- >> don't shoot you, man. you're having the same series of days -- heidi, you first. then to philip. the same series of days the president talks about being ratted out -- he's a gang roadster, in the under world. i've been ratted out, like james cagney in the old movies. at the same time rudy giuliani says he's not going to talk. he's using gang roadster talk to be crude about t. he's going after people -- which he says is tantamount to admission of guilt. >> lax to make that connection to the mob language. he talked about paul manafort. not only calling cohen a rat, but he's saying manafort -- he's praising him for not flipping on him. i don't think giuliani did him any favors in those interviews because, number one, he pushed the time frame way back in terms of the trump tower that trump may have known about trump tower and been negotiating with the russians all the way to november of 2016, which would be a key

plank in the argument. >> in other words, he was working on his deal in russia with the russians all the way through the actual general election of 2016, not up until january of 2016 as previously confessed to. anyway, in his interview with abc, rudy giuliani, the president's out front lawyer, seemed to shift the goal post, as heidi said, when the president stops talks over building a trump tower in moscow. michael cohen pleaded guilty that talks of the tower, beginning of 2016. he later admitted the talks lasted up until june. but yesterday another six months, giuliani suggested the conversation continued through much of 2016. let's watch that language. >> 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 november of 2016.

said he had conversations with him with the president -- >> earlier they said those conversations stopped in january 2016. >> i mean the date -- until you actually sit down and answer the questions and you go back and you look at the papers and you look at the -- you're not going to know what happened. that's why, that's why lawyers, you know, prepare for those answers. >> philip, i imagine the president watching that from his bunker saying, that bone head, why did he confess now that i'm talking trump tower with the ruskies with my election, i'm thinking if i don't get the presidency i'll get the tower in russia. seems like he was working both sides of his options. >> i mean, i read that rudy giuliani quote a little differently. i think he was saying -- who knows the specifics. i think he was saying the answer that he gave to mueller would cover any conversations through november. i don't think he said there were 0 r were coffer indications through november. it raises the question of why is rudy giuliani going on tv. he never has once done any good

for donald trump. donald trump is the only perp who ever speaks for donald trump anyway, so why have someone out there that constantly is muddying the waters, constantly having to change his story when new details kim out of a michael cohen, for example, it's baffling. no idea. >> george stephanopoulous, great reporter sitting there with a lot of help. doesn't need help. everything was at the tip of his tongue. this guy was winging it. rudy giuliani cannot wing it, just back from arabia where he was a few hours before. anyway, giuliani also claimed this weekend it didn't matter the president can't keep his story straight because he's not under oath. let's watch. >> southern district says, you 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 has to do a lot of singing to get out of the three years. he will say whatever he has to say. he's changed his story four or five times. >> so has the president. >> the president is not under oath. >> you know, i don't like this reference, but the mob talk never stops.

singing? i mean, what are we watching city hall here? i remember the movie "city hall" with danny ayala. he says, you're a singer. this kind of language, singing, ratting out, taking the 5th, it's under world talk. >> mob cases they're smart enough to use code when they're talking on tape. no, they're smart enough to cover their tracks. but these guys really are behaving as if they have -- i mean, rudy giuliani having been a united states attorney, who has prosecuted mob roadsters,st being out there giving these interviews that are not helping his client in any way, actually making things worse. >> he's also covering himself, too. he's starting to hedge here. i thought it was telling that when he was asked about whether roger stone tipped off trump about wikileaks. he really paused. that, that was i think really troubling. a sign of either he knows something or he's unwilling --

he's at a point where he's unwilling to fully defend this president. >> the other thing is, look, again, having been a prosecutor, had a big guy at the justice department, doesn't understand lying not under oath is still an offense. >> the movie references here, i keep hearing -- i used to watch them on tv when i was growing up, the movies from the '30s. cagney, humphrey bogart. rat is a term used in the under world. a rat, here are a few examples of that kind of mob language. >> you take the first like a man and you learn the two greatest things in life. >> what? >> look at me. never rat on your friends, and always keep your mouth shut. >> you dirty yellow belly, i'll give it to you through the door. >> i didn't rat. >> no, you didn't rat. >> i did a good thing, right?

>> yeah, you did a good thing. you did a good thing for a bad man. >> philip, your last words here. we didn't invent this language. the movies made up. i hear mobsters talk like mobsters in the movies. >> al capone used that word. i looked it up. >> you dirty rat. jimmy cagney never said you dirty rat. why do they go on tv and talk like characters in the bad guys? >> i think there is this undercurrent in politics where everyone likes to feel tough. this is something that comes up constantly. people are always talking about it, going hard after -- yada yada. there is this overlap. the way people look at themselves in politics and the way they look at themselves in criminal activity. rarely do we see the overlap that is suggested by some of the recent revelations and quite frankly i think seeing good fellas at this point in time, he's on the look out for the helicopters. i think that's the stage we're getting to in this administration. >> good movie.

thank you, heidi przybyla, phil bump. how widespread the russia campaign to influence the 2016 election was and it's worse than we previously thought, even worse. plus, the 2020 presidential campaign coming up, we're getting a look at who is leading among potential democratic candidates in iowa. most voters say they're looking for a candidate who can beat donald trump. the white house shuffle continues. john kelly, ryan zink ee out. mick mulvaney, acting chief of staff? how many jobs can mulvaney handle? finally let me finish with how the mueller investigation could end. this could be exciting, sort of like spiro agnew. this is altschul where the action is.

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welcome back to "hardball." two stunning reports out today show that russia's effort to manipulate the 2016 presidential election was widespread and went even further than we previously thought. the reports commissioned by the senate intelligence committee -- this is a bipartisan report conducted a sweeping analysis of the russian disinformation campaign, reviewing millions of social media posts from facebook, twitter, instagram and youtube, created by a group called the internet research agency. nbc news reports that the two separate reports found the organization set out in the 2016 presidential election to help trump and hurt hillary clinton. inflame right wing conspiracy theories and engender trust and suppress the vote of left leaning groups including african americans. in fact, president trump himself alluded to how african-american turnout may have helped him during post election appearances in two key states, michigan and pennsylvania. >> 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 big league. big league. [ cheers and applause ] and, frankly, if they had any doubt, they didn't vote. and that was almost as good. >> well, that was a poker face, wasn't it? i'm joined by natasha bertrand with the atlantic and ken dilanian, nation at security reporter. it seems to me they were sharper than a lot of micro analysts on one of the candidates, hillary clinton. they seem to know exactly how to turn off black voters and make them think, these two guys, hillary and trump, aren't any better than one or the other, so stay home. >> that really was remarkable at this. we knew about this effort. robert mueller indicted the people behind this internet research agency and he described some of their efforts.

these reports make clear a huge part of it was aimed at african americans and, in part, to suppress their vote. it was a three-prong effort. they were given misinformation about the timing of the election and polling place location. they were urged to vote for a third-party candidate, jill stein, and they were fed all kinds of conspiracy theories about hillary clinton, and videos about police brutality, feeding into their very legitimate grievances with society, chris. >> i wish i had an african-american on this panel. i feel a little uncomfortable with that. this came up as part of the discussion. what do we make of the fact they really were smart? some people can say everybody knows you can work the black vote by turning them off to both of the candidates, but i didn't think you could. >> yeah, i think that there are serious questions about whether or not certain aspects of this campaign was coordinated with the trump campaign, especially when it comes to the geographic targeting. how did they know how to target certain areas of the country that were more, perhaps, you know, vulnerable to

manipulation -- >> well, detroit and philly. >> right. the geographic targeting is a very interesting part of this. i also think it is not particularly difficult to determine the society whether it's gun rights, african-american rights, you know, military and veteran issues. so i think that there are serious questions about certain aspects of this campaign. but broadly this interference effort was based on things that are very obvious about american society. i also think that the russians campaign would not have been nearly as effective if it wasn't amplified constantly by then candidate donald trump. if the russian's messaging had difficult verged significantly from messages already being put out by trump perhaps it wouldn't have been as effective. but because they were so aligned the things they were ut palominoing out it resonated that much more. >> response to reports the chair of the senate intelligence committee said increasingly we have seen how social media platforms intended to foster open dialogues can be used by

hostile foreign actors seeking to manipulate and subvert public opinion. most thoroughly it shows these activities have not stopped. ken, and natasha again, what do we make of the fact that people who go online to look up something, they want to know what movie -- they can look up anything and they find themselves in the posting of some kind. they find themselves being manipulated. you can't stop it, can you? >> this spread democracy in democratic speech online and made some people billionaires. it's made us incredibly susceptible to propaganda. that's what we're learning. russians had infiltrated this stuff right under the noses of the american untell jensen community was unable to stop it, and the companies which were slow to come to grips with this. they tried to say in the beginning this wasn't happening. then they tried to say it was very minimal. this shows it was widespread. >> suppose the coalition shows up next time, the russians and trump, who is to stop them from working together in 2020, which is coming on next year? >> right. hopefully media companies will

be a little better equipped to deal with it but this report said they did the bare minimum to deal with it. they really did not recognize it was happening -- >> did they do anything? >> facebook set up a war room to monitor fake news on the platform. that is a good start. they started setting up fact checks and notifying people that something is not correct or factually inaccurate. i think that is a good step in the right direction. but with the proliferation of bots on twitter, for example, all of the ways in which bots and media -- bots, automated accounts on twitter and the ways the social media platforms are able to be manipulated by russia, especially youtube, i think it is important to keep an eye on this. >> let's cut to the quick. is there any way to -- numerically, pennsylvania by a certain majority, wisconsin certain majority, michigan, is there any way to say they accounted for that many votes roughly? >> just the way you can't say that particular ad swung votes

or this ad buyer -- this amount of ads, you can't measure that. there's no way to gauge behavior. but what we can say is hillary clinton under performed and the black vote expectations in the key states of michigan and pennsylvania -- >> i don't want to challenge this because i think it's history. and we are learning history. but i also know the excitement in the african-american community -- i wish there was an african-american sitting here because they check me with this. we'll bring it up with another group. in the absence of barack obama, the first one on the ticket, he had been on in '08 and '12. in '16 you had a white woman running, normal -- but not normal. they didn't show up as much. that doesn't surprise me. that wouldn't take the russians to change that way. >> it's not surprising that she under perform barack obama. it's surprising she under performed what people thought she was going to get had to had r in those states. i'm not a political expert but that's what i was told by those who know. >> we'll get back to it with a bigger audience, bigger panel. thank you.

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welcome back to "hardball." with the 2020 presidential campaign on the horizon, we're getting our first look at how iowa democrats are sizing up the nominees, potential nominees, i should say. a new poll for the des moines register out there has former vice-president joe biden leading the pack with 32%. that's hefty. vermont senator bernie sanders comes in second with 19 points followed by texas congressman beto o'rourke in third with 11, wow, the poll finds the majority care more about nominating a candidate with a stronger chance of beating trump than about picking the candidate who best aligns with their own political views. well, the iowa caucus, the first in the nation contest. for democrats, catch this, the winner has gone on since 1996, to clinch the party's nomination. and i believe going back to the 1976 when carter won it, all those middle people back then between -- were basically midwesterners. discount the midwestern candidate, they pick the winner.

for more i'm joined by jay seltzer, iowa pole roadstpollst. thank you for joining us. what surprised you as a pollster? >> first it's a huge field. we had to cut it off at 20 candidates potential out there. for joe biden to get the numbers he got, more than 30% out of more than 20 candidates people could choose from, that by itself is an accomplishment. but there were six people that we thought of as the top of the leaderboard. three people who were familiar to iowa and three people who are relative new comers. so i think when you're talking about our people looking more for a seasoned hand, yes, in some ways. are they open to a newcomer? yes. >> what does it tell you when people that are on tv all the time got down there in the single digits, for example,

elizabeth warren, kamala harris and cory who were so prolific in the kavanaugh hearings? everybody saw them in action. and down there -- let me go to john on this. isn't it surprising they didn't get into double digits? >> it doesn't surprise me. i think iowa voters really want to meet these folks before -- it is an incredible process in iowa where people campaign all year long. we want to meet people before they commit to them. they know bernie sanders. he almost won the caucuses last time. joe biden first started campaigning there in 1988. that doesn't shock me. what surprises me is you have a u.s. house member who got in double digits. beto o'rourke. it looked like charlie in the chocolate factory. he's like charlie trying to get the ticket with grandpa joe and grandpa bernie looking on. >> the top four except for beto o'rourke are in their 70s. ann? >> the field was so dominated by

joe biden, he's sort of sucking the oxygen out. it's not his first rodeo, it's not his second rodeo. he's the best known of anybody. i don't know there is a living room in iowa that he hasn't visited. so that's room for other people to come in and do well. and one thing we learned from the last time is that bernie sanders, when we first measured him, came in at 3%. so i don't worry too much for these candidates who are showing up in single digits. as i say, anybody can come to iowa and win, anybody. >> let me ask you about the, about the winnability thing. i mean, everybody knows trump will be vulnerable. we know he's not going to be up in 60%. he'll be about 45% going in next time. i have a theory that almost anybody can beat him and almost anybody can lose to him. so i don't say i can pick the winner. i don't claim that joe biden is a better bet than a bernie. i don't know to be honest about it. sometimes passion and ideology can offset moderation in these races.

sometimes you're better off with ronald reagan won big. it's possible you can have somebody who is all the way. the margin of 54 to 40%, a 14% spread, say they want a winner over somebody who aligns with them ideologically. that's the poll. >> the floor is lower than anybody else, the ceiling is higher. he's in the basement mentality. the mathematical is base plus 0 equals loss. you have to figure out a way to expand, but if he's running against somebody else, he may be able to do that. i do think democrats are rallied around the idea they want to beat donald trump more than any other -- >> is that right, ann? did you sense that? i don't care what it takes, we're going to beat that guy. is that it, or i'm a true progressive, that's the term of art today, i'm a real progressive or social democrat or democratic socialist, whatever, i'm a hard eidelogue.

>> that margin is not as big as you think. there is a large percent of caucus goers who are true blue and they want someone who really reflects their -- the way that they feel about the office, the way they think about that office, and the issues and what they can accomplish. and i think in iowa, almost uniquely, they've seen more candidates than any other state so they have the luxury of figuring out, where do i align, where do i align. in the end as we get closer, i'm going to guess that it comes down to who can win. >> let me ask you about bernie. bernie's got -- i have him in my family. i have got bernie-its all the way, not a lot, but significant numbers. does he have to worry about not being able to do what he did last time? he's older, not the most important thing. but he did well last time. >> absolutely he has to worry about that. the poll ann conducted shows he's not nearly where he was in iowa before national polls

suggested he wasn't where he was last time. and i think there may have been a -- the tendency for bernie and people around him to over estimate the degree to which his support last time was about him versus activating some latent anti-clinton sentiment in the democratic party. >> it's very hard to read back. you just never know. hillary had such a profound impact on people in terms of who she is to voters. it's very hard to control her out of the conversation. last time, therefore to project this time. j. ann seltzer, thank you very much. keep it coming. how did you have for years grassley out there? the conservative cranky senator for the republican side from iowa all these years, reelected year after year. at the same time you elected liberals like tom har kin. what is your state all about, ann? explain us. >> well, i think when you have both har kin and grassley being elected with over 60% of the vote, there was a fair number of

cross over voters. these were people who felt that those senators would put iowa first, put iowa ahead of party and they were able to get things done. >> thank you so much. thank you, ann seltzer. john allen, of course. up next, more staff shake ups in what is already a remarkably high turnover white house, don't you think? and why is it so hard for this president to find and keep qualified pros in key posts? it's a decent question, isn't it? why is everybody running away as soon as they get there? everybody is acting at this white house. you're watching "hardball." y sen and in your garage, a brand new john deere. that's not a mirage. with 60 months financing at 0%, say "happy holidays" to money well spent. if additional offers are what you desire, visit your john deere dealer before they expire. now, start up your engines and drive out of sight. new john deere equipment for all and to all a good night. see your john deere dealer today to discover more great deals

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is he a role model for my 16-year-old -- is he a role model for my sons? absolutely not. yes, i'm supporting trump as enthusiastically as i can. i think he's a terrible human

being. >> that was president trump's next chief of staff mick mulvaney about a million years ago calling donald trump a horrible person. that sort of covers the bases, doesn't it? horrible person. mulvaney was named chief of staff, he was desperate to end the story line no one wanted to be his chief of staff according to nbc news. mulvaney understood the president was in a jamb and felt he didn't have much choice, but made clear his intention to serve a limited period of time given his general reluctance to accept the position. the president announced in a tweet interior secretary ryan zinke will leave in ten days -- 20 days. he faces multiple probes looking into ethical violations which makes him the fourth cabinet secretary to leave his post under such intense scrutiny. ethical scrutiny. zinke's departure makes president trump's 11th cabinet

vacancy in less than two years overall. let's bring in adrian elrod, strategic communications for hillary for america. national political reporter for bloomberg. thank you all. mick mulvaney, you know what i like about politics today? the bad sound quote. whenever somebody is being picked up on bad sound from ambient -- being picked up by the room rather than personal mic, is something they didn't expect to be picked up on, john. here's a guy who said a horrible person. he didn't think it was going to be broadcast to the universe, now he has to live with it. >> well, let's go back. first, everybody wanted nick ayers in that position. >> ivanka's candidate. >> that's exactly where nick ayers should be. >> can't they hire someone from the hotel? jared and ivanka, that's who they want as their guy. >> everybody knows he's one of the top strategists around.

he should be on the campaign side. here's the deal. he said that interview before he worked for him. now after getting to know him, he wants to be his chief of staff. >> adrian, these aren't top choices in either direction. >> right. >> this wasn't the -- mick mulvaney's top choice for president. so the word acting i think should be hung on all the jobs from now on out. >> acting. i don't know how he's going to actually do this job and run omb. omb is a big job. >> i think it's crazy. >> i think it's crazy, too. >> he's not resigning from omb. nobody can do chief of staff, run the white house and be omb director at the same time. that is a senate confirmable position, though. the fact that the president is not removing mulvaney from that position -- >> who is the head of benjamin? >> -- budget? >> why is he resigning from omb? >> they have confidence -- >> he's auditioning mulvaney but not sure about it. >> or maybe mulvaney wants to be temporary and he's not sure about it. >> this would solve the problem.

we have two weeks of vacation. he's going to mar-a-lago. who is going to run the country? he doesn't have a chief of staff any more. >> i don't know that it matters much. the chief of staff sets up processes and structures and the president is resistant to that. he doesn't abide by it. he's his own chief of staff, communications director all rolled into one. >> who makes the decision s? john, you're the most political guy here. who makes decisions? how does he know when to go to wisconsin next? how dz he know when to go to europe, the next g20 or not? who makes the big decisions on his schedule, who is he going to butter up -- who does the calls? >> you have to understand this is not the white house we're used to. when he doesn't fit into the role, oh, my gosh, something is wrong with trump. trump is the ceo. people come to him and say, here's my recommendation, not, here's where you're going next. the other thing, too, why we're seeing this big change in the white house is trump, i believe, feels a lot of people did it

their way and he went along with it. he knows who he likes, doesn't like, get rid of the people he doesn't like. >> that's the theory he can get up at 5:00 and tweet 20 times and run the country. that proves -- if he gets reelected with that strategy, god help this country. if that's the way it's going to be run the rest of our lives. >> that's the norm that's going to be scary. to the point you said there is not a chief of staff that can come in and be the chief of staff that is a traditional chief of staff. >> somebody say go back to bed, mr. president, at 5:00 in the morning? >> no, of course not. >> it's a facilitator job. the president plays it by his gut. he a always has. >> on friday, he wants not a chief of staff, he wants a concierge. >> that's one way of looking at it. he wants somebody to execute what he wants to do. >> that's a concierge. >> the people that voted for him knew that's exactly how he was going to be and that's one of the reasons they vote ford him a. >> meanwhile a federal judge in texas struck down the affordable care act. it was upheld to collect taxes.

u.s. district court used congress's 2017 removal of the individual mandate, the tax, which required americans to pay a penalty if they didn't pay health insurance, to argue that without the mandate, health care law was unconstitutional. the judge wrote that obama's architectural design fails without the individual mandate compare it to a slow game of jen ga. opinion piece in the washington post it was described as raw judicial activism. the case is expected to be appealed by the u.s. supreme court. president trump tweeted shortly after the ruling, as i predicted all along, obamacare has been struck down as a constitutional disaster. it does have a logic to it. john roberts, the chief justice voted for aca on the grounds congress has the right to set taxes. the individual mandate was set up as a tax. you pay it if you don't get health care. once that was removed by congressional action, there was no more rationale for this being a tax bill. >> right. this is not the debate that

republicans wanted. this is kind of a no win situation for them because based on the fact that chief justice roberts and the other four members of the supreme court who upheld this law in 2012 are still on the court, the prospect of success for them are remote. and the fact that health care was -- >> how can roberts say this is a tax law if it doesn't have a tax in it? >> the argument is congress made a decision december 2017 to zero out the tax penalty. at no point did congress say it wanted to overturn the rest of the law. it tried to repeal the rest of the law and failed. so it's difficult -- the legal argument against this is that congress has made clear it wanted to repeal just this aspect and didn't think the rest of the law had to go with it. >> adrian, do you think -- i can this h i think this has to be taken to the public. >> yeah. >> we want some form of national health for people that don't have health care. there would be some way of getting to people that normally can't get it in the market. does the country want that say yes to that? >> i don't think the country wants to see an overhaul of the aca. we saw that in the midterm election because they know that it took so long to get to that point, the majority of americans

resisted it then when they finally goto bama care in place, they actually liked it. they weren't being denied preexisting conditions. >> i'll say it a different way. i think we did reach that threshold, john. i don't think any future congress is going to say it's up to you to get health care, we're not helping you. go out there and get it, get tough. those days are over. >> i don't think anybody believes it. let's negotiate this now. you agree in preexisting illnesses, right? >> of course. >> can you name any republican that doesn't? >> i can name a lot of republicans who want to see this completely dismantled. that means getting rid of preexisting conditions. what are you going to have? >> they don't want a mandate saying -- >> that's what makes it work. >> i know i've been fighting this thing. if you set up a so-called insurance company where only old people are in it, that is not insurance, that's health maintenance. if younger people don't insure themselves, you're not sharing the risk. >> look, everybody called it the

affordable care act. what happens, the premiums kept going up and going up. who is it affordable for it was only affordable if we could find other people to pay for t. >> name the last republican health care bill. thank you. you guys control the congress -- up next, some think saturday night live should be investigated for making fun of him. we're making progress here. you're watching "hardball." business loans for eligible card members up to fifty thousand dollars, decided in as little as 60 seconds. the powerful backing of american express. don't do business without it.

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welcome back to "hardball." saturday night live opened their show this weekend with a spoof ofs it's a wonderful life imagining a world where trump was never, ever elected president. >> wow, so everyone is better off without me being president. >> well, not just them. you're better off, too. >> clarence, what about my agenda, all the things i wanted to accomplish as president? >> well, that's the best part about not being president. you can still say the same stuff, build a wall, bring back coal, but you vedon't have to dl with the fact that their ideas are insane. >> it's like robert mueller doesn't exist. wow, this night put everything into perspective. i've had an epiphany. i guess the world does need me to be president after all. >> yeah, is that was not the lesson at home. >> keenan is so great. trump reacted to that spoof in a

tweet the next morning. the snl's one sided coverage should be tested in courts, noting that, quote, it can't be legal. we're back with the "hardball" rounds of adrian, john and sahel. the floor is to you. he said it's illegal to have them make fun of him. >> we always knew donald trump was not a scholar of the constitution, but he probably needs to study up more on the first amendment. look, past presidents, snl has always had spoofs on past presidents and non-past presidents. >> dan harryman did clinton better than anybody. >> the absence of humor to the whole stifling -- >> it's not politically balanced. let's not kid ourselves. john? >> look, i believe 100% in the first amendment. they have a right to do this, comedy a bigger pass. however, there is one discussion here. as a candidate, you can't accept unlimited monies, you're limited what you can spend and do something. here you have networks, though, that it's not even their money -- >> you think the network is writing these scripts?

they don't have the slightest ability to write this stuff. >> they're paying for it. but there are stations like this, they actually are becoming -- >> it was harsh, and it was mocking of the president. but it's not illegal to harshly mock the president. >> no one said it is. >> he tweets -- >> snl is great. when we return, we'll talk about how the mueller investigation could end. this is going to really be excited how this whole thing ends. you're watching "hardball." i just got my cashback match,

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let me finish tonight with how the mueller investigation could end. given the toughness bob mueller is showing, it looks like he would have no hesitation indicting anyone he finds guilty in his path. look at his treatment of michael flynn, paul manafort and all the rest. if you did the crime, you're going to do the time. that's unless you're ready to turn states evidence against the king pin donald trump. which brings us to a pair of mueller subjects who lack that option. donald trump, jr., and ivanka trump. the president's children stand right in the line of mueller's investigative progress. they stand as the next dominos to fall. but therein lies the problem. where earlier mueller subjects have given trump up, these two lack the option to do that. they can hardly testify against their father, which brings the country to the reckoning. if the prosecutor will not be stopped and the kids will not fall to him, we see the

president's adult children heading to prison. but what if the prosecutor were to offer the president an alternative, what if he were to say he would let the children walk if the old man does the same. they get to go scot free if he's willing to take the agnew way out. that would mean giving up the presidency for acquittals all around, not just for himself, but for his kids. you say this won't happen? then what will? will the trump kids avoid indictments? will they turn states evidence? will trump allow them to be convicted and sentenced? can he pardon them when they have evidence to bring against him? no. the reckoning in the american saga, this one may come down to the solution faced by prosecutors and richard nixon's twice chosen vice-president. leverage the office while you still have it. the courts would not have to resolve whether a president could be indicted while in office. history has already decided that a veep can. no questions a presidential son or daughter could. let's watch the probable events brick all this to a breaking

point. it is going to be historic. and that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. "all in with chris hayes" starts right now. /s tonight on all in. >> the president of the united states is lying about the fbi, attacking the fbi, and attacking the rule of law in this country. how does that make any sense at all? >> donald trump under fire. >> this is the president of the united states calling a witness who has cooperated with his own justice department a rat. >> tonight, new movement on cohen, flynn and more as 17 separate investigations bear down on the president. plus, how the russians and the trump campaign each tried to suppress african-american voters. >> they didn't come out to vote for hillary. they didn't come out. >> then, making sense of the new legal threat to obamacare. and just what exactly is happening on the border? >> people who tried