now. hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. donald trump today defying the advice of his top military advisers and ordering a complete withdrawal of u.s. troops from syria creating a power vacuum likely to be filled by russia, in a part of the world decidedly zero-sum. it will cheer isis, moscow and iran. it's a fact not lost on the pentagon which lobbied the president as late as wednesday not to take today's action. in a series of meetings and conference calls, defense secretary jim mattis and other senior national security officials have tried to dissuade mr. trump from a wholesale troop withdrawal arguing the significant national security policy shift would essentially cede foreign influence in syria to russia and iran at a time when american policy calls for challenging both countries. the times adds, pentagon officials who had sought to talk the president out of the decision as late as wednesday

morning argued that such a move would betray kurdish allies who have fought alongside american troops in syria and who could find themselves under attack in a military offensive. if you need any more proof that trump made today's decision unilater unilaterally, "the washington post" writes this. the decision signals a halt to an extended american ground campaign against the islaj state and upends plans across the u.s. government articulated by senior officials as recently as this week. for an ongoing mission to stabilize areas once controlled by the militants. but donald trump disagreed. this morning he tweeted this. we've defeated isis in syria. my only reason for being there during the trump presidency. the whiplash was best described by josh rogen who writes for "the washington post," on a piece entitled trump undermines his entire national security team.

on monday, the u.s. special representative for syria engagement publicly pledged that the u.s. commitment to syria would not waver. the very next day, trump reportedly decided to rapidly withdraw all u.s. troops there. at least one russia watcher says to look for vladimir putin to tout today's news in his year-end press conference tomorrow. a russian government spokesperson has already praised the order saying, quote, the u.s. decision could result in genuine, real prospects for a political settlement in syria. so to recap for everybody, pentagon, not happy. putin, so happy. here to break down another extraordinary day of news, some of our favorite reporters and friends. from "the new york times," peter baker. also joining us, kevin barron, executive editor of defense one, barry mccaffrey, a former battlefield commander in the persian golf and with us on set, jason johnson, politics editor

for the root. i have to start with you, general mccaffrey. your reaction? >> well, i think the most important assertion i'd put on the table is there is no national security process in the u.s. government. we ended up with bolton and the state department rep and pentagon and chairman of the jcs and others reassured the international community we would not withdraw. and it's clearly good news for the iranians, for hezbollah, for the russians and most importantly for assad who will now see a chance to finish them off. it looks as if it was cooked up essentially one on one between erdogan and mr. trump in which he says, look, the turks are buying a bunch of our military equipment and he ceded the battlefield. this is speculation to the turks. >> general, what do you make of all the background noise? just this week, the president's

former national security adviser mike flynn had two of his former colleagues indicted for crimes around their business activities with the turks. mike flynn himself was essentially planning what looked like a rendition of someone erdogan wanted. and now the president seems to go against the advice he was given by secretary mattis, by his military advisers. and doesn't just go against their advice. pulls the rug out from under them. a lot of members of congress and others saying they learned about this in the newspaper. >> it's also a lot of pushback to republicans in congress, which is encouraging to me. the mike flynn thing is almost a separate issue. poor mike flynn. the whole idea of renditions, snatching somebody in the united states and possibly turning them over with such criminal insane conduct, it's hard to imagine what was going on. and, by the way, obama had fired flynn for being a raddic while

on active duty. so i think mike flynn is probably going to end up behind bars and is a separate issue. back to the issue at hand, the problem is we are running a global national security foreign policy strategy. and what we have right now, essentially, the president and almost sort of a rogue operation, actually within his constitutional authority making impulsive, unilateral and frequently bad judgments. that's the issue. >> i wanted to ask you about that, general. we've seen the president go to war, really, a hot war against the intelligence community undermining and not accepting their assessment around khashoggi, very famously now, undermining and not accepting their assessment around russia. he's been at war with the law enforcement agencies since day one. it seems with the planning or the desire to have the military parade, the decision to send troops to the border and this

move today that he's accelerated his conflict with the military, how is that going over inside the pentagon? >> i wouldn't want to speak for inside the pentagon. i think basically, you ended up -- the primary national security players are the pentagon, cia, state department and treasury. and they are very professional people. they are career people. they know exactly what they're doing. they have series of experience. and they are running into an operation in the white house in which the president really won't read their material. won't take complicated briefings. has no background and yet will impulsively make a decision. it's hard to know where all this is going to go but so far it's rebounding to our disadvantage in terms of keeping the american people safer. there's still a couple of thousand isis fighters in syria. and our kurdish allies who we're now going to abandon. and that's another message to our allies to not trust us.

it's hard to understand what he was thinking except placating the turks and doing something positive for the russians. and by the way, benefiting the iranians and hezbollah in the process also. >> kevin barron, can you jump in here, and the general has -- chooses his words very carefully but there's something ringing in my ears. the impulsivity of the commander in chief. the impulsivity and absence of a strategy with american national security. those are things you usually hear on the campaign trail, not from someone who has already sort of arrived at the post of the commander in chief. do those things disorient, scare, frighten, alarm, or are they ignored inside the pentagon? >> we're two years into the presidency and two national security advisers into the presidency. we've already heard inside the pentagon how they've adopted to the president. they expect him to make impulsive decisions, and when they do, they try to be ready to

feel them. we should look ahead to, what's going to happen? are all u.s. troops going to pull out of syria? already we're hearing probably not. that's not what the pentagon is trying to do. that may have been the tweet but there was a background call at the white house and they're all saying the right very cautious things that there already was a plan. the president has wanted to pull people out. you know, some people think you could lower the troop levels a little in the north and that would placate some of turkey's concerns while still ensuring u.s. interests. no one is talking about pulling the troops where the real fighting is going on in southern jair. those troops down there and in the rest of the country are what's keeping the lid on isis. not just the active fighters but the ones that are -- people are afraid will come out of the woodwork in places like raqqah which is supposed to be a huge success story. it's the one area in the world where everything has gone right, meaning the u.s. used local

forces to secure the area with -- at a very low cost to the u.s., low cost to u.s. troops, with a great benefit. women in charge of leading civil governance. democracy flourishing and ready to go. if the u.s. international community will support it. if the president will support it. will provide the stability ops, keep some troops in the area. so i think this is very similar to what amounts to, we're going to leave syria in the spring when this happened before when he said it, the pentagon said, well, wait a minute, wait a minute, and it didn't really happen. let's give it a day or two to see what the real pullout is going to be. >> have we ever had a commander in chief who is essentially ignored? we've had troops to the border. lots of republican senators and democrats called it a stunt. he ordered a military parade. they humored him. planned a parade and then pulled the plug. is he someone -- is the pentagon -- you're basically describing a u.s. military that does not listen to the commander in chief.

is that what's going on? >> well, i don't think that they don't listen to him. i think that they try to -- >> the transgender ban. he ordered -- listen. to their credit, i'm cheered if you're telling me the military doesn't listen to him, but i read a lot of quotes of senior pentagon officials who were alarmed by the news who had the rug pulled -- who were testified or communicated as recently as yesterday that our commitment was solid. the president seems to have his foreign policy run through moscow or turkey or other countries. i mean, are they happy just ignoring him? >> no, i think there's a little bit of having it both ways. the president will make these outlandish announcements that throw everybody into a fit and surprises folks, and the professionals that general mccaffrey talked about come into the room and say here's what we can do to -- >> they were in the room yesterday. they were in the room this morning and they didn't prevail. >> well, we don't know that yet. as far as we know we heard today mattis has not signed an order to pull all the troops out. and the white house on their

conference call saying that a troop withdrawal is, you know, going to be happening. but we don't know that it's a full pull-out yet. i understand what you're saying. there's a lot of frustration. people wish there was a more traditional process to these decisions. especially for people like the central commander who has to field phone calls from every chief saying you guys said you were going to say. the president makes his statement and the pentagon goes, here's what we can and can't do. we'll see if there's a full pull out from syria. i doubt there will be. >> i'm old enough to remember when they used to red team american adversaries, not the commander in chief. tell me what you make of the fact that the common denominator, the first thing we checked when we saw this news was to see if there was any official reaction from vladimir putin's government. sure enough a lot more enthusiasm for today's decision from vladimir putin's government than the united states military. the united states congress or the united states allies. what do you make of, once again,

a story with a punchline that runs through moscow? >> yeah, it's a great question. there are two aspects to this decision that need to be focused on. we've been talking about general mccaffrey. there's the substance of the decision and the process of the decision. the process clearly is a donald trump classic in which not everybody knows what's going on. they are being undercut from one day to the next and not 100% sure if it will follow out the way kevin has described. the substance of it, though, is in keeping with what donald trump has said from the beginning. the truth is, as much as he might not like to admit it, he and president obama share a general skepticism about the use of american force overseas and america's commitment. he accused president obama for being too slow getting out of iraq. he did say he was going to pull out of syria. only backed off when emmanuel macron said that would

destabilize everything. don't do that at this point. the russians are more than happy to have us be pulling back. they've increased their presence in the middle east in the last two years. the more we pull back, the more they feel they have a free hand. but remember what president trump is doing is what he has said he would do and in a lot of ways, a lot of the american people are -- kind of want him to do. they don't particularly want to be part of these middle east ventures, even if there are consequences to the national security to pull out like this. >> there's some pushback on capitol hill from democrats and republicans. let's watch. >> the decision to withdraw american -- an american presence in syria is a colossal, in my mind, mistake. a grave error that's going to have significant repercussions in the years and months to come. >> in my view, isis is not defeated in syria and iraq. if you're tired of fighting radical islam, i understand it.

they're not tired of fighting you. if you don't get that, you're making a mistake. if this is a withdrawal of all of our forces in syria now, we're dramatically less safe. this is an obama-like move. >> no, because obama didn't do that. >> correct. >> that's part of the issue. >> this is what concerns me about this. you pointed out this about our allies. if we just this announcement alone, even if the generals don't do what donald trump, what president trump has asked for, every single refugee -- because what's been happening is the u.s. troops have been allowing the refugee crisis of people fleeing into europe to sort of slow down because they see the americans will protect us and stabilize things. if they hear we might flood out, there's a flood of refugees going back to germany, france, england which destabilizes them. leads to belgium, right-wing organizations getting more power which helps putin. all of this is a -- it's not just stabbing in the back

american foreign policy but stabs in the back our allies as well. it's a humanitarian crisis created by a tweet. >> peter baker, just the optics of doing another thing on vladimir putin's national security honey-do list for donald trump is terrible. and a moment when people are debating openly and your newspaper and on our air, whether or not a sitting president can or will be indicted. >> right. it's a really good question and comes on the same day the treasury department is -- once again on these sanctions impose something new ones on some russians for the election meddling. you see this dichotomy inside the administration and yet the russian oligarch is going to get some breaks. so it's a really messy kind of situation right now when it comes to russians. are we standing up against them in places like the middle east, places like ukraine, and in terms of an election meddling that continues to be of great concern? or are we basically their collaborators or allies, partners in some of these

things. what you saw in buenos aires, does the president want to sit down with vladimir putin? he was annoyed he couldn't because of the ukraine crisis and he's looking for ways to get back together with president putin if they can resolve some of these issues. right now this is a relationship that's fraught with difficulty both politically, domestically, as well as internationally. >> general mccaffrey, the fight against isis is hard. it's long. but it has at its heart our own security and the security of our allies. donald trump thinks he knows more about it than the generals. let's watch, and i want to ask you about it on the other side. >> i know more about isis than the generals do, believe me. >> you still feel like you know more about isis than the generals? >> they don't know much because they're not winning. that i can tell you. >> your thoughts? >> well, look, you know, first of all, there's dozens of terrorist organizations who we

have to take into account. and over time al qaeda, isis, offshoots in yemen, offshoots in paraguay, there's a kaleidoscope of threats to the american people. we have to stay engaged at. this isn't world war ii. we don't have a nazi and japanese empire to fight. there won't be a victory parade. we shouldn't rely on military power alone. every other element of allied power has to be engaged. but there's no walk away from the world. we have to provide leadership. people are countingous. as peter baker says, there has to be some logic, some engagement of all of the united states government so it looks like we know what we're doing. and it doesn't look as if we know what we're doing right now. >> kevin, let me put you on the spot and give you the last word here. when a story like this explodes on twitter in part because of donald trump's fanning the flames here, what does it do to morale inside the building to see their advice was ignored by the commander in chief, to see

that the process was not adhered to, to see the rug was pulled out from under them to see that america will not be a partner in trying to defeat isis, a promise we made as recently as yesterday? >> it ruined my morning and i'm sure a lot of people's over there. there's a couple levels to that. if you ask the senior leaders in the national security and military you'll get one answer and ask the grunts, you'll get something else. people have been worrying and complaining this is exactly what would happen. as soon as isis was defeated on the ground to some level, the u.s. would pull out. after trump was elected, the thought was even more so that trump was going to pull the u.s. out too soon, abandon the sdf after all the promises we made and abandon the country strategically to the russians and the iranians, et cetera. at the higher level, there's been a little more caution to say, look, we know erdogan is a pain and turkey wants to fight the sdf and we're making excuses

and bedfellows with odd enemies but turkey is a nato ally. they hold some of our nuclear weapons. they are a strategic linchpin between u.s. interest and russian interest and that outweighs the sdf of fighters on the ground. this is now the point a lot of this has come to a head that a lot of us have been watching for some time and the president's impulsiveness seems like the u.s. is going to pull out, but i caution to see what's going to happen at the end of the day. even if they pull out, there's thousands of troops across the border in iraq and in the region but it puts everything in a horrible state of uncertainty. >> horrible state of uncertainty. great place to stop. kevin, peter, general mccaffrey, thank you for starting us off. after the break, from russi russia-friendly foreign policy to more of trump's intention to build a trump tower in russia. and donald trump chasing the news cycle like a dog chasing a

car. we'll show you his morning twitter tirade that spanned multiple problematic story lines for this white house, all of them spiraling out of control. facebook blows it again for disclosing personal information, again. and seeming to cover it up, again. we'll bring you the latest from the reporter breaking all of the stunning news about the tech giant that can't seem to get it right these days. stay with us. hi, i'm joan lunden. when my mother began forgetting things, we didn't know where to turn for more information. that's why i recommend a free service called a place for mom.

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for better and for worse, donald trump has a knack for dominating the news cycle. but increasingly, he's playing catch-up, chasing after stories, reacting, responding, at times

sputtering on twitter. take his tweets this morning responding to news of his foundation being shuttered amid allegations it operated as a slush fund for his businesses and campaign. he insisted the trump campaign has done great work. he attacked a former state attorney general and insisted he wanted to close the foundation so as not to be in conflict with politics. the last part particularly interesting considering news today involving another one of trump's namesake business ventures. trump tower moscow. after spending the entire campaign insisting that he had no business in russia, we find out trump tower moscow had been on the table even well into 2016. donald trump jr. told congress his father even signed a letter of intent. but here's where it gets confusing. on sunday, rudy giuliani tells cnn, quote, it was a real estate project. there was a letter of intent to go forward but no one signed it. no surprise here, a few days later, cnn says they obtained a copy of that letter and it appears to show a signature. donald j. trump's signature

dated october 2015. nbc news can't independently confirm the letter and cnn didn't state how they got it. when reporters followed up with giuliani, he told them, well, of course, trump signed it. yet another changing, shifting story that trump will have to chase after. joining the table, chuck rosenberg and former senior fbi official michelle goldberg, "new york times" columnist nick confessore, "new york times" political reporter jason is still here. the audacity of the lies is -- is stunning. >> yeah, i mean, at this point in time, i would trust the grinch with my christmas presents before i trust rudy giuliani with the truth. that is not just the story changes every day. it changes sometimes multiple times within a day. nicolle, what's really adding up here, it's a good time to take a step back and look at what we see which is basically trump said through the campaign, i had

no business dealings with russia. he was in a multimillion-dollar project with russia throughout the campaign. he asked them to hack hillary clinton's e-mails. they did. he changed the republican platform on ukraine and nato and his national security adviser makes a secret deal and lies about it to the fbi. this is an entire spy novel of corruption, of collusion, of conspiracy. and, you know, i think all the pieces are coming together now. >> ron, here's my question for you. we had similar jobs. we were strategists. how long until the strategy shifts from maga to makeclusion great again to saying, never mind, we colluded and colluded better than anyone ever did ever. we are in charge of the law so we're going to make collusion great and legal. >> look, i think they are really kind of there. i think maybe not haven't quite put it on a red hat yet. >> give them time. they make hats. >> i'm sure it will be for sale

as a trump christmas ornament in the store in the next week or two. the bottom line is there is no question now that they were in business dealings with russia and political dealings with russia. russia helped them win the campaign. new reports out about russian money going into the nra, about russian social media impacting the campaign. it's just there. they are going to have to own it and deal with the consequences of it. >> chuck, i had this theory that because what we've had to cover as a methodical fact-based, opaque investigation, we in the media have been too timid about saying what ron just did. >> but probably it's because you have standards. i'm not suggesting ron doesn't. >> thanks, chuck. appreciate that. >> we can take this. >> no, let me explain. you have to be bound by fact. it's okay for ron or for i or anyone around this table to speculate about the facts. but when you're reporting the facts, you have to be bound by them.

that's the difference. while i think ron is drawing perfectly fair inferences, you can't do that in your reporting. journalists can't. but ron is right. in almost everything we see here, touch and feel and smell, it's russia. it's russia in all the ways that ron described. i think it will continue to be russia. >> you don't see there's any off ramp here? looking at this as the people investigating trump and his businesses are looking at it, the southern district of new york, the mueller probe, we don't know if there are other u.s. attorneys offices looking at other cases. we don't know if rod rosenstein sent other cases to other offices, but as all those investigators and prosecutors will look at it, they're not oblivious to -- joyce talks about the lines. in the center and the spokes all come back to russia. >> they seem to. well, they come back to russia and to one other thing -- money. and it's so cliche that i almost hesitate to say it, but you follow the money. in this case, follow the money and follow russia.

that is the hub of the wheel. the hub is the middle, right? >> everything i know about those charts i saw from -- >> hub, spoke, rim, i got it. and it comes back to russia and money and regardless of what u.s. attorney is investigating it, it's still one department of justice and one fbi that they are sharing information with one another. and they are following all of these leads. i'm confident in that. >> the scope and the reflex for criminality is, to me, what's coming together in the shuttering of the foundation because it operated essentially as a slush fund for the businesses and the campaign. the conduct that's revealed through michael cohen and his roles as a witness in the trump organization. and the lies that are told as recently as on the sunday show where giuliani, about business with russia. if you wanted your guy to get one thing right, wouldn't you want him to stop lying about russia? >> i would think so.

and, look, the charity investigation is really an x-ray into the character of how the trumps did business. if a guy will take a charitable foundation and use it to pay his son's boy scout dues, what won't he do? if we'll take someone else's money in a charity and then pass it off -- that's a low standard of behavior by anyone's likes. take that and apply it to business deals and what he might do to get a tower built in russia where the stakes are higher for him. potentially his family's biggest deal ever. what wouldn't he do? when i look at all these facts together, we're not ahead of the facts here, but i'm just thinking that, you think of how little it took for russia to try to put all these pieces in play and get a tower approved potentially. have a buddy at the kremlin spent money on this disinfo operation.

it wasn't even that elaborate and look what they got in return? a friendly president at the least. >> where do they go from here? >> where do who go? >> what do they say next sunday? rudy will be back sitting there and george will ask his smart questions. i think he was on another show. but the stories changed so often. that's why i only have jokingly made that point to ron. the only next stop that the train can stop at is there's nothing wrong with collusion. >> i'm almost positive rudy specifically has already said collusion is not a crime, right? and they sort of all say this. >> just hasn't gone global. it's not on hats. >> well, nobody died. that was rudy's other -- that was rudy's other justification for why this is all just sort of piddling nonsense. and so i think you'll hear a lot more than that. and i think you'll hear a lot more of trump being like, well, it's good if we get along with russia. what's wrong with getting along with russia? and just deny that they've ever

said any of the things that they've evidently said on video for months before that. >> stage four or five of this walk back is going to be, sure, some light treason. collusion. but we had to beat hillary clinton. she was so bad. and isn't that worth it? i think we're going to end up there. >> the people who are kind of being honest with you, that's sort of baked into their dismissive response to all of this. >> that's always been the argument. that hillary clinton was enough of an existential threat to all that is american that alying ourselves with someone who was an enemy 15 minutes before she ran is okay. this goes to everybody that trump works with. everybody who brings this organization. can you think of a single more incompetent spokesperson in american history? from stormy daniels, let me give you a secret. he didn't pay for it. he is leaving scooby snack trails for investigators. every time he lies we find out

something else trump did. >> when he said on television that michael -- that donald trump reimbursed cohen through the law firm, do you think that did trump any harm legally, or do you think the sdny already had all those facts? >> i think they already had those. >> just hurt him public relations? >> it had to have hurt him publicly. legally, they have all of that stuff. much of this actually gets rather simple and linear if you just ignore everything that mr. giuliani says. if you just factor everything out, there is a linearity to the story. it's when you start putting in his denials or his obfuscations. >> there's nothing he denies more than collusion. pull that thread through collusion. >> i remember talking about that with you because i think i was here when he first said collusion is not a crime. and i think the response was -- i think he explained you don't find that word in the criminal code. and you don't find the words

bank heist in the criminal code either but that's a crime. we just happen to call it bank robbery. so we've adopted their language, which say huge mistake because as we've also discussed, words matter. and they are picking the words. >> we'll change them. we'll sneak in a break. afterwards the mueller mystery. confidential hear,s, secret entrances and sealed court documents. we'll check in on the multiple investigations into donald trump today. this is your wake-up call. if you have moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis, month after month, the clock is ticking on irreversible joint damage. ongoing pain and stiffness are signs of joint erosion. humira can help stop the clock. prescribed for 15 years, humira targets and blocks a source of inflammation that contributes to joint pain and irreversible damage. humira can lower your ability to fight infections. serious and sometimes fatal infections including tuberculosis, and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened; as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems,

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today a few new answers, but even more questions surrounding a mystery that journalists covering robert mueller have been trying to crack for months. to quickly catch you up, since september, a secret witness has been fighting over a sealed grand jury subpoena with an unknown prosecutor in court. people following every twist and turn of the mueller probe believe with some confidence that that prosecutor is in fact, the special counsel.

until now, we had no real clue as to who he was fight with. last night it became a little clearer thanks to the ruling from a federal appeals court. the person mueller was up against wasn't a person at all. the ruling revealed the grand jury was seeking information from a corporation, one owned by another country. and mueller won. the three-judge panel ruled the feds have the authority to get the information they want, whatever that information turns out to be. jason, chuck, michelle, nick and ron are all still here. explain. >> gladly. what you're seeing here is the fact that sophisticated professional investigations go far and wide for information. they have a bunch of ways to do that. one is asking the grand jury to issue subpoenas, which is what happened here. another is collecting information from overseas, which appears to be what happened here. nonge >> not the first time. >> not the first time. not the last time. if you look at some of the indictments, manafort, russian

intelligence, you see the hunter/gatherer mode of these investigations. what happened here is that the court of appeals in the district of columbia up held the subpoena. they said it's valid and that this foreign corporation, part of a foreign country, has to comply with it. one of the reasons these investigations take a long time, for instance is that you see folks who get subpoenas fight them. that's what happened here. inevitably slowed the investigation. >> i hear chuck rosenberg say hunter/gatherer and have this image of donald trump running screaming through the east halls. this notion of robert mueller huntering, gathering facts and that there is nothing he'll not pursue in his pursuit of the fact and the fact of the 2016 election. that it has ensnared not just a corporation but a corporation owned by a foreign government. i'm guessing it doesn't surprise you, but what does it tell us about where this investigation

is heading? >> i think it tells us two very important things. to build on something chuck said. this investigation isn't over or nearly over. there's been a lot of buzz in the press that maybe mueller is going to wrap this up in the first few weeks of 2019 or whatnot. i think there's still a lot of investigating to be done from the cooperating witnesses and from things like this. unreturned, unresponded to subpoenas. so i think we're in for more mueller. and secondly, it also tells us that everything we may know, as large as it seems, may still just be the tip of some icebergs. there may be a lot still under the surface. we don't know if company "a" is owned by russia or some other country. but if company "a" is owned by russia it may be another data point of how russian money flowed into our politics in 2016. and so i think there's a lot of information still yet to come and a lot of investigating yet to be done. >> you've done some great reporting under the iceberg of cambridge analytica and businesses involved in the tech side. talk about that.

>> look, a big mystery that i have around the mueller investigation is how much he cares about cambridge analytica. we've reported and we know that federal prosecutors have interviewed witnesses connected with facebook and cambridge analytica. they've asked questions about their finances. they've asked questions about data sharing. it could be mostly about facebook and securities issues. it could be partly connected to russian interference because the big question mark, i think, and know n no one has quite answered is how they countered the interference campaign. their off the shelf targeting is very, very good but it's also possible they had a list of voter targets with help from a consulting firm or people. i don't know that, but that is a topic -- it's a big question mark we have about them. >> we're way in the weeds. let me try to break some of this down. one of the questions that could

get the president in trouble is, was there -- and ron and i worked on campaigns. if you coordinate with a pact that has the same goal you have, that's illegal. that's a crime. we're asking the -- because the question is stunning. they are asking a question, did the russians coordinate, target battleground states and target with the trump campaign. that would be stunning. >> look at the reports that came out that were prepared for the senate. the reports said a huge focus of the russians' work was trying to suppress african-american turnout by sort of exploiting anger around black lives matter and around police violence. steve bannon -- >> which was a trump message. >> steve bannon has said suppressing african-american tu turnout would be part of their strategy. it could be they independently landed on these two -- on these two strategies. but at the same time, you know, the internet research agency in st. petersburg had not

previously been known for being super sophisticated about american politics. and yet one of the things the senate report said was that it actually was fairly smart about the way that it directed its messages. >> you can't have it both ways. brad pascal who ran the tech side of it went on "60 minutes" and boasted about for a rag tag campaign whose motto was we couldn't collude with our press office. we couldn't do lecollude with r. >> you figure out the most difficult aspect of campaigning, which is micro targeting. no one believes that. no one believes the trump campaign wasn't -- no common sense person than believe the trump campaign wasn't getting help or providing assistance, wasn't providing sort of cultural guide posts for this information. but i want to step back and i think this is a key thing about mueller. while he's looking abroad, looking domestically, the longer term message or impact i see is all of these different states

attorneys who he is sliding out information to, when his investigation isn't looking at it, they hand it to the southern district. it's highlighted things jared kushner was doing in baltimore. you'll have a generation of states attorneys digging through every aspect of trump's background. this for a young democratic state attorney is going to be like going after the aca for a republican. i'm going to spend the next five years and run for governor saying i went after trump's businesses near much. that's why i should be your next governor. >> chuck, where do you think this is? as ron said, there's a lot of speculation that mueller is rounding third base. where do you think he is? >> i think ron is right. i'm in that camp that we have a number of bases yet to go. and here's why, nicolle. it strikes me we have folks out there like corsi and stone who said they expect to be indicted. by the way, who in the world says that unless it's true? and it hasn't happened yet. so presuming it happens, they want to go to trial, which is their constitutional right, that could be a year away. we have subpoenas out there.

we have other investigations out there, including in the southern district of new york and the eastern district of virginia. so he might write a report. i don't know that means that it's finished. >> right. >> there's pieces of this in other parts of the country. so i don't look at the report, it will be interesting. i'd like to read it. but i don't look at that as the end of this investigation. >> because it has tentacles and -- >> that's exactly right. >> thank you for spending time with us today. when we come back, the reporter breaking all the big stories about facebook these days is sitting at this table. his new report on how facebook has been trading on your personal information is next. - [narrator] the typical vacuum head has its limitations,

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kayla: our dad was in the hospital. josh: because of smoking. but we still had to have a cigarette. had to. kayla: do you know how hard it is to smoke in a hospital? by the time we could, we were like... what are we doing? kayla: it was time for nicodermcq. the nicodermcq patch with unique extended release technology helps prevent your urge to smoke all day. and doubles your chances of quitting. nicodermcq. you know why, we know how. every piece of content that you share on facebook, you own. and you have complete control over who sees it and how you share it. >> not so much. another bombshell report by "the new york times" exposes how

facebook let more than 150 companies have more intrusive access to its users' personal data than it ever let on. facebook allowed microsoft's bing search engine to see all the names of virtually all facebook users' friends without consent. gave netflix and spotify the ability to read private messages, permitted amazon to obtain users' names and contact information through their friends and let yahoo! view streams of friends' posts as recently as this summer. this is your reporting. wow. amazon knows everything, everything, everything about me. like i can't imagine -- that makes me -- >> amazon, google and facebook know more about more human beings than any aughtocracy ever invented in the history of the world. they're not run by bad people now, arguably, but if they were, this is very dangerous. >> let me push back. bad people have hijacked those platforms and technologies. >> exactly. think about facebook's branding

over the past few years. so the internet is a dangerous, creepy weird place but come into our world garden and hang out with your and kids and post your pictures and send messages and it will all be safe. in reality, they threw a huge rangner that garden and invited all their friends to look at your stuff all the time. >> so here's my problem with facebook. they knew they messed up their garden and came out and did a whole new branding. we're so sorry, we fixed the garden. they never fixed the garden. >> in fact, they added doorways to the garden for the biggest companies in the world while closing the doorways for little app companies and app developers. that's what they did. they did it for themself, to get bigger and make more money. here's how it worked. right? let's say you and michelle are friends on facebook and you are on spotify and sign in with facebook. okay, that's kind of on you,

facebook says, whoa, are you friend and can you see her stuff, have you see it on spotify. so spotify has it. but nobody has -- anybody ever asked her if she wanted spotify to have her stuff. >> okay. i'm alaska because i have a mean question. i want to understand why facebook gets away with it? i have a theory it's people in congress have no idea what you just said. >> there are people in congress that know it very well as on any substantive issue. >> who? >> senator thune on the republican side, senator burr, senator warn were. they all have proposals, but the clout that empowers silicon valley is significant, even now, for a very long time, the democrats thought silicon valley were their friends and didn't want to hijack them. republicans said they're a growing business, i don't want to get in the way of that. everybody steers clear. there are no rules around any of this. the only rule is you can do what you want, but you can't lie about it. they've even arguably broken

that rule. >> i think the is as serious anz steroids in sports and a 9/11 attack. i don't understand why there is a commission looking rough shod over liberties and letting foreign adversaries hijack their platform. >> i think it's what nick has said, there hasn't been a political constituency for this. the natural political constituency would be in the democratic party, which is historically suspicious of big corporate monopolies and over leaning corporate powers and privacy concerns. but these are huge democratic donors, by and large. >> can you tell them, dear democratic donor, facebook helped elect trump. make sure it doesn't happen again. >> i think that's happening. you are starting to see some estrangement. chuck schumer said, don't go after nicebook. they're our friend, figure out ways to work with them. again, i think that's changing. people are starting to see despite the sort of progressive

this i think so that mark zuckerberg says or cheryl sandberg's attempt to present herself as a feminist. >> that is actually a very, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, cheryl shand berg was -- sandberg was going to be in the hillary clinton administration if there had been one. >> oh god. we'll put her in charge of the computer is. >> this is really a kind of rugpacious country. there is nothing like you said what it knows about all of us. imagine what it could do if it were really sinister. >> my question is, how do we know it isn't? it seems to me facebook is being used by sinister parties for sinister purposes. it seems we are already there. why aren't the alarms flash,? >> i think clearly it was used by sinister people in 2016. >> it took two years to learn about that.

how do we know they're not doing something that will take two more years to uncover? >> i think nick is catching up in real time. that's for sure. look, i think it goes baening to two things -- goes back to two things. nick did a nice job of name checking a few members of congress. we have a problem, most of the house, most of the senate don't get the technology. they don't know what's going on. it's hard for them to exert oversight over it. secondly, you have the republicans chasing a big can ard, they are obsessed that the platforms are against them. the head of google they were rule nateing there wassee owe ruminating stuff and half the congress is chasing after this ridiculous idea that facebook and google are on a jihad against republicans. it really makes it hard for congress to do its job of doing some reasonable oversight here. >> it's both sides. you got members. we all saw the videos last week,

why does my phone -- does google know where i am? we have a dra lot of democrats that have power and don't know anything yet. people go to target and different their information for a 5% discount. we don't care about it. we hear about american express and credit cards losing tons of information. we laugh when the celebrity phones have been hacked when it hasn't hit us. facebook has to do something that exposes the grandmas in the mid-west, so horrendous, the public starts to scream for congress to do something. and that hasn't happened yet. >> has facebook responded? >> their arguments sure, there were mistakes. >> mistakes were made. but their basic argument is that all this is okay because of whattive said earlier that if you are sharing stuff with your friends, then your friends can get it anywhere they want and those companies can, inturn, see it. that's their argument. i talked to four former officials at the ftc that think

the argument is bogus. it's up to the ftc the consent decree facebook signed five years ago. >> i'm glad are you on the beat. >> thank you. >> we will take a break. don't go anywhere. we'll be right back.

michelle has a break. my producer said, what a week, it's only wednesday. quite a week. what are you working on? >> i'm working on a piece about what i think is the ultimate man bites dog story. which is trump is about to do something good. he's about to sign criminal justice reform. you know there is this old saying how conservative a liberal has been mugged.

you see a conservative that's indicted. the thought is here is an upside of having people in the white house who come from families that have a lot of criminal exposure. right? and generally, this is going to make a lot of people's life better. >> i love you for finding a silver lining. it's a great point. thank you for bringing that. my thanks to you all. >> that does it for our hour. i'm nicole wallace. mt d-daily starts now. hi, chuck. >> thank you, nicole. if it's wednesday, deep debunk, downplay. [ music playing ] good evening, i am not patch, i'm chuck todd here in washington. for the five of that you caught that joke. enjoy