. >> thanks, mr. vice president, for giving me 15 seconds. that brings this hour to a close for me but you're in good hands. i will be back tomorrow at 1:00 p.m. eastern with stephanie and 3:00 p.m. eastern. "deadline: white house" with my friend nicolle wallace, who will pick it up from here. hi, everyone, it's 4:00 in new york. reality bites. donald trump in the you know where, the president's address to the nation failed to rally gop support for his wall as the tally climbs to at least four republican senators who have broken with trump on the shutdown. less than 24 hours after delivering his oval office address, the president has already changed his wall message, threatening to declare an emergency to fund that wall. >> why not declare a national emergency? >> i may do that at some point. chuck and nancy, who i'm meeting with in a little while, if they don't agree to the fact our country really has problems with

crimes and drugs and a lot of other things that come through our southern border. i don't know why it's politically, i don't care about political i, i'm doing what's right for the country but i'll tell you it's a very bad political issue for the democrats. >> pretty bad one for you too, sir. just moments ago, fireworks from democrats after a meeting with the president ended in one of the most explosive conflicts we've seen in the nearly three weeks of gridlock over the border. >> unfortunately, the president just got up and walked out. he asked speaker pelosi, will you agree to my wall. she said no. and he just got up and said then we have nothing to discuss and he just walked out. again, we saw a temper tantrum because he couldn't get his way and he just walked out of the meeting. when leader pelosi said she didn't agree with the wall, he just walked and said we have nothing to discuss. he said it was a waste of his time. >> the president today increasingly desperate for a way out of the government shutdown,

as polls show voters blame him. joining us now, matt miller, former chief spokesman for the justice department and here at the table, john heilemann's back, co-host and executive producer of showtime's "the circus" and the chairman of princeton african-american studies and the host of "amanpour and company" and contributing editor. this is not where a normal president -- i hate to use that word -- expects to be the day after harnessing the communications value of what they call road block coverage, when the president's address appears on all five networks. this is not where you are if you think that went well. >> certainly, we now know from the reporting the peter baker and others, the president assumed it was not going to go well before he came in. i tweeted last night, he was the first ever presidential address by a collapsed souffle. he looked defeated and deflated. he looked terrible. i have never really seen trump.

he's never good on prompter, whatever skills he has aas a performer are not maximized as in that setting and he's even better in the well of the house when he speaks in a formal setting off prompter, alone to the tv, direct camera, not his best place. and, again, he was trashing his staff basically hours before. there's an unprecedented thing. you have never seen that before. a lot of presidents trash their staffs in private after a speech goes wrong but he was preempting the badness of the performance beforehand with broadcast anchors. >> let's go there, who would that be, bill shine? >> he pointed to, i believe, according to the report in "the new york times," he pointed at sarah sanders and billy conway and said these three are making me do this. i know it will not change anything. while that deflects an unusual defeatism, it was also a moment of clarity for him. kno of course he was right.

there was nothing he would say in that speech to move the needle. he's wrong on the merits, bad on the politics. the democrats are not going to move. they have the upper hand politically. the country is not with him. he's right. nothing he could have said last night was going to change the dynamic, which is why we're at a place where that piece of theater last night was what it was. we're now back today to really where we were earlier, which is -- >> he's in a worse position today. he's now lost four senators. >> he's in a worse position, although we knew that would come. republicans were going to start to peel off. this is inevitable. republicans will peel off as the pain starts to be felt. now we're thereth we're back to this extraordinary thing where he's talking about doing this -- marshaling the powers of the federal government very national emergency, when there is none. >> the big scam of last night, other than the more than half a dozen lies that were repeated by the president of the united states on roadblock network

coverage, is the actual crisis is a fabrication. border crossings are at a 45-year low. a normal president would tout that as one of his political successes and run on it. but his whole frame around this entire debate, the entire shutdown, the entire government is shut down over a scam. >> that's what is really baffling to me. we all know for the most part that the foundation of this this crisis is a lie. >> it's like the patient zero of fake news. >> it's as if we have chicken little in the white house. and he's constantly calling for, calling the sky is falling, the sky is calling, and we're supposed to mobilize but we know he's lying. so it baffles the mind. as we see the gaggle of chicken littles after the meeting in the situation room. >> but he brought candy, eddie! >> candy for everyone. >> so part of what i'm trying to wrap my mind around is what does

it mean for us to mobilize around and behind a lie? what does it mean for us to respond to it? i just can't seem to put one and two together. >> and i guess the reassuring thing is for the first moment in the trump presidency, the lie is a flop. the polls show, we have new polling that shows the shutdown -- it looks like it's snowing in washington. he may not get his wall but he made it snow, ladies and gentlemen. the polling on the wall and the shutdown is on a bad trajectory for this president. more people blame him now than blamed him when it started. >> right. and 800,000 people come friday without a paycheck. >> without a paycheck. without a check to their mortgages. >> all of those folks at the first of the month -- >> they're not shopping. all of those stocks -- >> food stamps. >> get ready for angry people. >> it's going to be ugly. >> i don't want to lose sort of the -- this is not -- some of his lies are victimless, his weight and whatnot. this is not a victimless lie. this is a lie with really the

most vulnerable people in this country, the people seeking to come to this country are the victims here. where are we when our country's president takes the national airwaves and asks and receives for network coverage, nefrt wev network agrees, and he does what he did last night. >> we're in a bad place. first, he admits there's a humanitarian crisis happening but takes no responsibility for the fact he and his administration are the ones who created this humanitarian crisis. >> puts babies in jail. >> doesn't talk about the fact of the metering at the border, if you were serious you would talk about the push-pull factors that lead people to seek asylum in the united states. that's not what he's interested in doing. from there he pivots to a series of outrageous lies. you mentioned border crossings are the lowest they've been in two decades.

in addition the entire riff about drugs, which is not true, the majority of the drugs come through legal ports of entry. there's no proof the state department said the terrorist groups have tried to bring people in through mexico. all of this happening, as you said, on the backs of people who are nonviolent, law-abiding, productive members of this society. for those of us who come from immigrant communities, we recognize that there is a real day-to-day price that is paid by people for those lies. >> matt miller, i want to bring you in on some of the big lies and ask you to pick up on this thread. i mentioned yesterday in the show to a former senior intelligence official who says it was his job to know where all of the terrorists well, all of the cells and actual of the terrorists. there were none on the southern border. today there were stories in the paper about how the counterterror folks, the experts, we are basically corroborating that. last night's address emphasized drugs. drugs are a tragedy and he

dimming, but most come through legal ports of entry. all crime, horrific. the crimes he described last night, tragedies, full stop. but the truth is nonimmigrants commit crimes at higher level than immigrants. how is this sort of the evidence-based agencies, the justice department, the cia, the counterterror folks, it's almost donald trump's own government closing in around his spin. >> look, i don't think it's a coincidence that after the trump administration, the white house went out along with kir sters nielsen, the homeland security secretary, spent a week talking about the threat of terrorists coming about the southern border, you saw the numbers from inside the government about what was really happening. we saw julia ainsley's great reporting that there is not a terrorist threat across the southern border. there were a small number of people, i think six in the first six months of last year, who were terrorist suspects or on a terrorist watch list encountered at the southern border. less came on the northern

border. you are seeing people pushing back as what they see as a mountain of lies from the white house and inside this agency. this mountain of lies is in some ways the central premise of the trump presidency, just as it is the central premise of the trump campaign. remember it was in his announcement remarks he was announcing he was running for president, when he came down the escalator talking about rapists who came across the border and later changed that to terrorists. but it's always the central core to his message there are dangerous people across the southern border. they may be criminals and terrorists and you need me to protect you. that is the demagogue's core message at heart. the threat changes in his description but it's always a threat that he describes and one thing that's consistent is when you actually see his government's own data, it never backs up what he says about it. >> nbc's kelly o'donnell joins us now from the white house. kelly, i want to ask you about the politics of it.

they're going in the wrong direction for this president. new polling shows 51% of americans blame donald trump for the shutdown. that's up 4% from before the holidays. he lost another republican senator today that's going in the wrong direction. you covered a lot of addresses from the oval office from presidents, my hold boss george w. bush delivered a few. this is not what typically happens to any president. he also made a significant change to last night's message. you saw the four republicans peel away, senators murkowski, gardner and i believe tillis. why are we this white house the president projecting and "the new york times" reporting the president didn't believe in this communication strategy before he sat down and the cameras were on and the politics speaking for themselves today, a clear setback. >> nicolle, this is one of those days that is in many respects the president saying on capitol

hill he was feeling confident, he believed there were solidarity among reporters and was looking forward to a meeting with the principal negotiators for the democrats, the house speaker and leader schumer. and then a cold wind blew across the west wing here. and that's both literal and figurative, as the weather fell apart here, so did the negotiations. and we saw them come out and say, they described the president leaving the meeting abruptly. and then, of course, the president himself acknowledging that through his tweets, followed by the vice president. so where are we now? from the heights if you will of the intended unity of an oval office address, that's really the kind of backdrop of what any oval office address is intended to do, to inspire unity, bring people together. now we have the most fractious part of this multi week kind of negotiating mess. and so what happens next? the feeling here when we saw this sort of crumbling in front

of our own eyes in an unexpected way. we did not expect the meeting would be as brief as it was, that the positions would be as hardened as they were. they were hardened publicly but we thought behind closed doors, with the opportunity to get somewhere, and a lot of talk going for a bigger deal including things like some protections for certain unqualified documented immigrants, things like that, that have been thrown about as potential ways to give democrats something they want and the president something he wants, without that, now it feels, nicolle, like the only lever left is to pull the national emergency switch, and to try to bypass congress at least short term, or i got the sense from watching the vice president here right outside this door and nicolle talking about this, trying to reset the narrative to say the democrats are not willing to negotiate. could that change the bubble at all? it certainly would be appealing to the conservative base. but as you know, the polling has shown the democrats are not being blamed for this shutdown right now.

so nancy pelosi is one of the most astute political crafts people in the business, and so her saying no came with a lot of confidence from her sense of where democrats are. so this is an impasse. if we haven't seen an impasse for 19 days, boy, you can see it now. what's the next move? >> kelly, let me ask you, is there anyone on the president's staff, kellyanne conway used to be a pollster, bill shine, they can read a poll, i think. is there anyone who can say to the president you're in a weaker president today than you were in 15 days ago and when you said on national television, i would be proud to own the shutdown, that can play in a loop over and over and over again and no one with a brain is going to believe anything else. you have a weaker hand to play today, take any deal you can get, and go back to tweeting along with "fox & friends," mr. president >> part of it was to do the oval

office address and for the president to use a card we don't of on see played, sympathy, empathy, gut feeling on the humanitarian piece. that's not his area of strength, not what he typically displays. there was a bit of that in his oval office address last night. and you saw just a short time ago secretary nielson saying this is a crisis, trying to focus on the people side of this. that's where they thought this would be politically a narrow lane but a moveable lane. the personalities in the room seemed to take this to a cold, dark place. it's hard to imagine they would have another meeting. when the president goes to the border, which he's expected to do unless that changes based on this, is that another one of those sort of key moments where they can regroup and try to give him a different message. at the moment, the message out of the white house is the increments am bills that the house is trying to pass under new democratic leadership, veto

threat, veto threat, veto threat and now the walkout of all walkouts, really a striking day. and we've covered a lot of unusual days in the arc of the trump presidency. this day really does stand out as one where a divided government, if you were waiting to see what it would look like, save this space. boy, was it messy today. nicolle? >> kelly o'donnell, i always love talking to you but you also have the two best weather references i have heard on television in a very long time. thank you so much for running out and talking to us and stay dry. don heilen, i want to play the fox news reaction. i don't know if we have it yet. fox news did something extraordinary for fox news. shep smith was on after the speech calling it out and rebuking the lies. we do it here every day but it doesn't matter because we don't have the power to crack trump's base, the 40% that would be with him if he shot someone on fifth avenue, and the hits keep

coming. let's watch. >> the most likely thing is he's probably going to declare it's going to be a national emergency. he did not mention that last night but according to people close to him, that is the most likely option. >> that would be bad. next thing you know, there would be a democrat in office and they will say, climate change is a national crisis, and here are the stats that show the temperatures are rising and fish are dyeing. so i just think that would be -- we will be in another legal fight and then nothing gets done as the courts mull this through. >> so fox isn't even buying the tactics or the substance. >> right. there are a lot of conservatives who aren't. my old friend and college classmate used the phrase, cold, dark place. so as long as we're in a cold, dark place let's get out and play to a colder, darker place. you can make fun of the speech and just how bad of a negotiator he is. he's not just a bad negotiator, he's the worst.

this has illustrated that. but now we're in this place in the course of the day, even before this meeting fell apart, and as kelly crystalized, his notion there's only one way out and the only way out is the national emergency. you're hearing that from increasingly the reporting all day has been republicans starting to say, you know, we don't like it, we don't want it. they will have to take money out of the pentagon budget. but it might be the only way out. i got to say, you know -- >> grow a spine and veto. >> if you put these two things together we've been talking about, the big lie, when we're in a place where the president of the united states is declaring a national emergency and potentially deploying the military to build a wall -- >> and there is no role for congress. >> this is -- and i hate to go to the hyperbole but i don't think it is hyperbole, the big lie that justifies extra legal, extra constitutional fiat government is awe tok rasy.

it is the definition of what an autocrat does. a dictator is in trouble at home. his numbers are falling. you declare a national emergency based on some made-up think and declare marshal law and have the military in the streets. thought before, oh, trump is horrible but we won't -- this won't be serious, we're on the brink rights now where republicans are saying the only answer is for donald trump to fix this self-inflicted problem is for donald trump to adopt a specific tactic that is the tactic of dictators and autocrats. not only when trump thinks that but when this becomes the thing as the republican party as spineless and useless and hopeless it's been the last two years, it's not just spineless and useless now, it's acquiescing in a dringt wirect this is the sounds of

acquiescence to republicans saying this is the only way out of the national emergency. i said cold and dark. >> cold and dark plis, maace. ma matt miller joins me. >> we know, most people know this shutdown was stupid. they were ready to pass a bill and send it to his desk right before the end of the year that would have solved this entire problem, funded the government going forward. there's another way out for them. they can pass legislation in the senate the house democrats are passing, override the president's veto and move on but they're acquiescing to him in this kind of political death wish he has for nothing other than party loyalty. it is, i think, every bit as dangerous as john makes it out to be. >> the party loyalty, the party is dead, it's trump loyalty. when we come back, is he the human guardrail of the mueller investigation. today a deeply concerning breaking news about rod rosenstein's future. plus, if it looks like collusion and talks like collusion and acts like collusion, it just

might be collusion. new details about what donald trump's campaign chairman shared with the kremlin operative. and beto and harris, straight talk mantel. insight on last night's speech that puts him at the head of the pass in this former politico's humble opinion. in terms of just understanding just how donald trump sees his base lie. all of those stories coming up. if you have moderate to severe psoriasis or psoriatic arthritis, little things can be a big deal. that's why there's otezla. otezla is not an injection or a cream. it's a pill that treats differently. for psoriasis, 75% clearer skin is achievable, with reduced redness, thickness, and scaliness of plaques. for psoriatic arthritis, otezla is proven to reduce joint swelling, tenderness, and pain. and the otezla prescribing information has no requirement for routine lab monitoring. don't use if you're allergic to otezla. it may cause severe diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. otezla is associated with an increased risk of depression.

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eclipse disturbing news from the justice department. deputy attorney general rod rosenstein, who served as a one-man human guardrail for the mueller investigation is expected to doe depart his post as soon as bill barr, the incoming general, is confirmed. a source telling me last night that rosenstein is leading. barr, who happens to be a sharp critic to the justice administration, to appoint his own deputy. adam schiff weighed in. >> it's deeply concerning, particularly when we have an acting attorney general who is so hostile to the investigation and an incoming attorney general who made it clear he doesn't bring a president can strike justice, even when he fires an fbi director to make the russia problem go away. so the combination of those changes ought to be deeply concerning to anyone who cares deeply about the rule of law. >> a reminder why this matters so much to the fate of the mueller problem. rod rosenstein lives on the nice

edge working to preserve the integrity of the investigations into russian collusion by the special counsel and those out of the southern district of new york over the nearly daily complaints and harassment from this president. his departure was feared in september. "the new york times" reported he offered to wear a wire to record the president and discuss rallying support among the president's cabinet for invoking the 25th amendment. joining us now, the former director of counterintelligence and jeremy bash, matt miller and everyone at the table are still here. let me start with you, frank, your thoughts. >> i don't like it, nicolle. i tried and tried again to go through the options why rod would be announcing it this way. we've all heard the options. he feels he's very confident about this case being almost wrapped up. i don't buy that because the case -- what case is wrapped up? the kaz that's going to have to be filed in a report that's going to go to who?

whitaker to decide to put in the shredder or release it or he feels like it's bulletproof, tamper proof? i don't know what that means. i don't understand that because, again, whitaker or william barr if he's confirms comes in, messes with it. i'm not getting that either. is it possible, nicolle, that he's decided that this isn't going to point to the president, the facts aren't there and he doesn't need to hang on? i'm not inclined to believe that either. if this were me, you'd have to fire me. if the new a.g. is coming in, right, i'm not going to voluntarily walk out. i'm going to say, i've been running this case, i don't know where this is going. i'm happy to leave if you ask me t to but i'm not volunteering to leave. there's another thought here that he's somehow a fact witness, we talked about this before, nicolle, particularly towards obstruction. we offered this that trump used this so justify the firing of comey. is rod going to be the intergal

part of testifying before an obstruction case before a grand jury or somewhere else? there's a conflict that admits if you're running the case and testifying in your case, maybe that's it. but this is a head-scratcher. i don't like it and i'm not comfortable with it. >> jeremy bash, we're happy to have you. it's hard to get you at this hour, and we're grateful today. let me get to you weigh in on two things, one, rod rosenstein as a government official is one of the most fascinating figures in this administration. when the story broke he was willing to wear a wire to record the president and rally support for the cabinet and 25th amendment, it seemed to be a window in his degree of alarm but he's also been used by this president. there were reports he was very emotional about it but on the firing of fbi director jim comey, there was a memo penned by rod rosenstein that kellyanne conway flipped through on the north lawn of the white house and held up and said this, this document right here, this is why we're firing jim comey. we found out from the president

himself that wasn't the reason, he fired him because of the russia investigation. take us through rod rosenstein is face inspecttersecting with roads with the president. >> rod rosenstein is a government employee, and career prosecutor who served as a u.s. attorney. i think his first and foremost commitment is the to the rule of law and constitution. he sees himself duty-bound to protect that even in the face of withering criticism and pressure from the white house to constrain bob mueller. i think rosenstein probably regrets the fact he was somewhat manipulated early on into writing that memo outlying rational for firing the fbi director. once he realized the president had that agenda all along to shut down the russia investigation, i should say, i think rosenstein pivoted very smartly, appointed bob mueller, did the right thing, and since then has been in the mode of

protector. i share frfrank's concern about rosenstein's departure. there's reporting tonight perhaps when bill barr is confirmed and the mueller report comes together, that would be the moment that rosenstein would step aside. maybe that means that perhaps within the next 45 to 60 days, we could see the first draft of the mueller report and rosenstein might say it's over to congress to decide what to do on the big constitutional issues of impeachment, high crimes and misdemeanors. >> jeremy, let me also ask you, it seems to me it's possible some insurance was obtained from mr. barr that he would not halt the mueller probe, that might have given him the ease to step down from this post. mueller just renewed the grand jury hearing some of the this evidence for six months. i am not sure mueller has to be done for rosenstein to step aside if he's received some sort of assurances that mueller will continue undisturbed. >> that's possible. i think that is going to be a very aggressive line of inquiry

for the members of the senate judiciary committee, particularly democrats there, to ensure the attorney general nominee, mr. barr, is resolutely committed to preserving the integrity of the special counsel investigation. if barr indicates in any way a bias, like the bias he's shown in his writings saying basically i don't think the president can be held for obstruction of justice to fire the fbi director to shut down an investigation into his own national security violations, if are b.bar articu those concerns, obviously, rosenstein would have to stay in place. >> matt miller, rod rosenstein in his office oversee the mueller problem. they know everything. probably not everything but they know more than anybody else outside of mueller's investigators and prosecutors. they've also been on the receiving end, that's the office that interfaces with the white house counsel's office. as a witness, what does rod rosenstein know? >> he knows every bit of pressure the president has put on him, every inappropriate

request the president has made of him and some of those inappropriate requests have been reported but i would speculate, and i think it's probably likely, there have been many conversations rosenstein's had either directly with the president or things that the president told him he wanted him to do that were completely inappropriate or maybe illegal. he may have sat on some of those. there may be memos he wrote. we all learned over the past year and a half the doj has an active writing culture. and maybe there's things on the special counsel's radar and things the special counsel has been investigating. we don't know the answer to any of those but he is a responsible public servant. i think there are times he's succumbed easily to pressure from the white house but he's protected the mueller investigation. i think if he saw inappropriate behavior from the president, he would be the first one to raise his hand and give that to bob mumer so he can feed it into everything else he's looking at. >> frank, what do you think rod

rosenstein feels about the president? i ask you that because if you look at former officials that leave the government, people like yourself, director comey, sometimes it's when you leave that you can speak freely. so what kind of things could he speak to? >> we just talked about some pretty substantial observations and overhears that he would be pri privy too. imagine a conversation with outgoing general sessions, hey, this guy's whitaker been brought in to nix the special counsel inquiry. all of that kind of discussion is there. when you talk about rod's perception of the president, let's talk what we know about this incident, which he kind of puts off as a joke or sarcasm. do you think i should wire up against the president? if you have to actually joke about that, whether it was a joke or for real, it came out of your mouth. what does that mean? it means you think this president is someone that you can actually suggest might be the subject of a wire.

you might wear a wire against him, perhaps in the oval office. you might consider removing him for mental health or other incapacitating scenarios. he could tell us volumes, and i predict we haven't seen the last of him. i predict the house is going to call him as a witness and we're going to see an interesting discussion of executive privilege with regard to his discussions in the oval office and attorney/client privilege with regard to representing doj. but he's going to get called. >> i guess the reason i'm pushing down this avenue is because don mcgahn, it was his job, it is the function of the white house counsel to preserve and protect that principle, executive privilege. he decided the importance, the priority was mueller's investigation. he spent 30 hours that we know of. rod rosenstein still works inside the justice department. he has to have made a similar calculation. >> yeah, i mean, look, i think in the long arc of this story, he's one of the most interesting

characters, fascinating and partly because he's enmatek. and in part -- don't think anybody who seriously studied this report doesn't agree he took on the notion that he took on the protector of bob mueller. >> he picked him right, appointed him? >> he picked him and under very complicated circumstances made choices. matt miller pointed out the fact there were times you can make a call whether or not it was the right or wrong thing to do. did he succumb too easily? but he was clearly playing the long game, making calculated judgments that are hard calls to try to create enough room and space for mueller to go on and fight another day. and i don't know what's going on here, right? i don't know what this says about the timeline for mueller. but it seems hard for me to imagine that one thing is not true, and that is -- sorry, let me put this in straightforward english. it's hard for me to believe he would leave if he thought that

by leaving he would imperial this investigation. >> me too. >> just if you look at -- i don't know the guy. i have never interviewed him, never reported on him. but if you just look at the behavior over the course of these two years, not always perfect, various calls you could question, the one thing that seems to have unified his action tactical and strategic have been a commitment to the integrity of the investigation. it seems hard for me to believe he would be bailing right now if he had any concern his bailing would undermine mueller's umt mitt mission. >> jeremy, let me give you the last word on this, he was also under constant attack from tweets from the president, mueller is overall except rosenstein, signing off on the rate of michael cohen's office which put in motion all of the charges and guilty pleas from the southern district of new york. just give us sort of your final thoughts on what the rosenstein legacy will be? >> at a high level, the justice department under his leadership has really gone after the circle

around donald trump to include financial inpropriety, finance violations, deputy chairman, national security adviser, we can cgo down the list. both the special counsel's effort as well as u.s. attorney in new york, you will see quite a bit of aggressive oversight and criminal prosecution of the president's circle. and that's i think a testament to rod rosenstein's independence and hopefully that's a legacy that will continue even after his departure. >> high bar for his successor. we're losing matt miller. matt miller, thank you so much for spending so much of the hour with us. when we come back, it sure looks like robert mueller's case took a big step towards proving collusion. new details about what paul manafort was allegedly up to during the campaign. ng the camp. searching for a way to help stop your cold sore?

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just how close robert mueller might be to proving collusion. "the new york times" has learned more about what paul manafort's lawyers accidently disclosed in improperly redacted court documents. oh, i hate it when that happens. what paul manafort shared with putin's agents and when he shared it, quote, both mr. manafort and rick gates, the deputy campaign manager, transferred polling data to a russia operative in the spring of '16 as mr. trump clinched the presidential nomination. that's according to a person knowledgeable about the situation. this is important. most of the data was public but some of the it was developed by a private polling firm working for the campaign, according to the person. joining us now from "the new york times," political reporter ken vogel, who's byline is on that story and from the newly launched site the bulwark. ken, let me start with you, you were here at this hour yesterday. what have we learned since then?

>> you learned what we just alluded to, what the intent of the situation manafort has to this russian associate kilimnik was and that was to get it to this ukrainian ole agarks who had previously funded ukraine to pay a ton of money. at this time manafort was telling people, including kilimnik, he was still owed money, be beyond the tens of millions he collected for that work, by these oligarks funded. so it appeared he said hey, i'm a player on this campaign which could win the presidency, despite what you heard from the public polling, that trump has a chance, it would behoove you,

that is these oligargs, to have manafort on his team and it was an effort to collect unpaid fees. >> but they weren't just ol gargs looking for money but looking for a war with the united states and hacking our elections. >> mine, these were oligarks who at various times funded parties in ukraine that were seen as russian facing. it does get into the issue, the key issue in ukraine is the relationship with russia and how to reduce hostilities there, turn down the temperature there. and we know from other reporting that there were efforts and we know from other reporting there were other efforts to push what these sort of russia friendly ukrainians have termed peace plans with the trump administration, the trump campaign and the trump administration, that would include the u.s. dropping sanctions against russia.

we know from these attempted re-dakotas that were unsuccessfully carry out, manafort was talking to this russian associate, who we believe has tied to russian associates about a peace plan between russia and the ukraine. at this time you have to consider the context there were russians who did see promise in the trump campaign and manafort was working with some of these same folks. >> necessity shouthey should ha commentators here in america. jeremy, let me ask you to pull this thread a little bit. what ken is reporting is they gave private polling data. that can look at a lot of different things. i've worked on a campaign, it is a version of campaign classified intel. something you have dealt with your career. but after you get the nominee, you get this thing called rnc voting file, incredibly detailed information about everyone who's ever voted for a republican before. it's a little wonky but it would

be the thing in the possession of donald trump's campaign chairman. what's the significance of his campaign chairman handing over what ken is describing at this point from private polling data from a private firm and we don't know if there's anything else he turned over, but why would you other than looking like a big honcho, if you're the russian, why do you want it? >> want it because you're in the midst of crafting an active measures campaign, covert action campaigns, sponsored by the russian federation, by the kremlin and putin himself to direct the gru to interfere in the election and support the nomination of donald trump. to do that effectively, you have to know where your leverage will have an impact, where you can maximize your social media campaign. when and where you should be dumping the hacked e-mails you obtained legally as shown in the mueller indictments of the gru officials. any finished analysis or data analytics, any siinsights not publicly available, campaign consideration that the campaign moved through the russians

through this cutout and ultimately to kilimnik, that could be used against the trump campaign and that is where the trump campaign and kremlin could have been working together to finance the trump campaign. >> frank fa gl, what else do we? there's nobody higher on a campaign then its chairman, other than the candidate. what else do you need to do if you're robert mueller to prove coordination between the trump campaign and russia? >> so close yet so far. we are inching closer and closer to the oval office, and that gap, what is in that gap we're talking about? what the president knew and when he knew it. so i get it that manafort was also about digging himself out of financial debt. anyone that's worked espionage, interm security, knows financial indebtedness is the top

motivating factors to commit sa espionage, sell your sunt out. he's desperate. but what is going on at the same time? this wasn't done in a vacuum. we have social media propaganda campaign, hacking. who did that, russian gru. who did manafort turn the polling data over to, constance climg nick, either a former gru or still connected to gru. this is a problem because once gru, always gru. he's not going to take this and put it on a shelf. he's going to give it to someone who could exploit it. the question is whether manafort then briefed trump on it. for me it comes down to why is manafort still lying about this? if it was all about digging out of debt, he would have told mueller, look, i was desperate. i was trying to save my rear end. i had goiv this thing up to show how great i was. he's lying about it because there's this connection i think to the oval office where he may have told trump, they're helping

us with all of this. i did this. and i think that is the big question mueller's gott the answer to. >> so when frank figliuzzi says something like that, i think ears everywhere perk up and listen. if you believe paul manafort has been under the belief that a pardon might be possible, and we know it's been reported that a pardon was dangled by john dow, the president's lawyer to manafort and flynn, why wouldn't that be an obvious assumption to make? >> it's certainly one of the assumptions to make. all of this is very, very suggestive. we are not there yet, but when you think about how valuable this voter data is. i want to keep stressing that to the listeners, how important this is to be able to do it. dpep, there are gaps here but you look back on the campaign and the way in which the russians targeted just the right voters at just the right time, in places like pennsylvania and michigan and wisconsin, how did they know where to go? how did they know what the messages were?

how did they know how to target it? i have always thought one of the keys was can going to be where did the data come from? who gave them the data? what's the roll of people like cambridge analytica? but here you have the chairman of the campaign handing data during the election year to the russians. this is an extraordinarily advanced, whether you want to call it conspiracy or collusion or not, but, yeah, so why is he still lying about it is an excellent question. >> ken vogel, jeremy bash, frank figliuzzi, thank you for spending time with us. we're grateful. when we come back, he spent three terms on the southern border. after the break, beto o'rourke uniquely responds to donald trump. trump. [knocking]

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there are rapeist and criminas d and murders that will chop your head off, then ya, build a wall. the broader trump phenomenon by understanding and understanding the standard holier than thousand clapbacks, it also setting him apart at this point from everyone else aiming to challenge him in 2020. i pulled that out because as a former campaign staffer, it boggled my mind that nobody -- to beat someone you have to respect why they're winning. and no one got the power of what he was doing. >> and beto can use a bad words.

>> i have no judgment on potty words. it is a nice move on the part of beto to show empathy and understand what is the attraction to trump. understand how he weaponized fear mongering. he tells everyone they're going to get their head chopped off, of course they will fall for it. it is another thing to understand an attraction and a motivation. we talk about it as being a big lie but it is also a monument to a particular ideology. when you understand it's attraction, you have to understand it's motivation. the motivation is that appealing to a country that is no longer

white. it has nothing to do with border security. so as we empathize with the trump voters who are attracted to had, we need to understand what is being activated by trump, it is fear, and it is deeply and profoundly racist to me. >> i think he has a luxury right now of being able to say these things. >> beto, not trump. >> sorry, he has the luxury of saying these things because he doesn't have an official position. i think he is dragging his feet because this is a big decision. the biggest decision. he has a family, little kids, he is putting in time and i think the challenge in this environment will be that there are a lot of people who want to run. at some point just the staffers, the donors, they become the major motivation for making a decision about whether or not you will jump in.

>> i like what i read about him ignoring some of the conventions. you have to study the person that won last. the person that won last is donald trump, everything about him is abhorrent. he won by bucking the city. i like what i see about beto having the courage to buck the system. >> i think the meta analysis of what he is doing is very interesting, and the only thing that most people heard from that sound bite is that he is dropping f bombs. i think there is an expiration date on it. after awhile, is this really the way you're introducing yourself. she a young guy that dropped an f bomb, no, he is saying interesting things and doing analysis and trying to show that he has the trumpian thing, but it is a high risk strategy

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your rheumatologist about xeljanz xr. where are me when i'm defending a democratic who is using bad words. >> i thought you were going to swear. >> i think it is the best calling card, but i know check is on the other side and there is nothing that chuck wants more than a long soliloquy about the power of positive profanity. chuck, can you hear me? where are you? >> chuck in his head is swearing at you. >> you know what? it is so hard to be mad at him because she so