for the system to stand up. if a man getting out of the car can be shot and killed and not be looked into, if a young man can be shot, some of the shots in his back, 300 feet from his grandmother's bed in her backyard and the excuse is you thought his cell phone was a gun, then it is those things that bring the system down. we must stand for what is right and stand for what is transparent, not hide them in prosecutors' offices. that does it for me. thanks for watching. i'll see you back here tomorrow at 5:00 p.m. eastern for a new live edition of "politics nation." up next, "deadline white house" with my friend, nicolle wallace. hi, everyone, it's 4:00 in new york on the fourth day of what's already been nominated

for the worst week of donald trump's presidency, a bombshell, with something for everyone. a trump lie so big the trump family and their lawyer appear to be in on it. a national security threat so dire that two of the most senior west wing advisers warned against it, and the new hallmark of a trump scandal, contemporaneous memos chronicling the transgression. in this case the story involved the president's son-in-law jared kushner and his pursuit of a security clearance. turns out there was never an all-clear given to jared, there was never a decision jared kushner could be trusted with the nation's most sensitive secrets. from "the new york times" scoop -- quote, president trump ordered his chief of staff to grant his son-in-law and adviser jared kushner a top-secret security clearance last overruling concerns flagged by intelligence officials and the white house's top lawyer. four people briefed on the matter said trump's decision in may so troubled senior administration officials that at

least one, the white house chief of staff at the time, john kelly, wrote a contemporaneous internal memo about how he had been, quote, ordered to give kushner the top-secret clearance. the white house counsel at the time, don mcgahn, also wrote an internal memo outlining the concerns that had been raised about kushner, including by the cia, and how mcgahn had recommended that he not be given a top-secret clearance. this reporting also revealed a network of coordinated lies. >> did you tell general kelly or anyone else in the white house to overrule security officials -- >> no, i don't think i have the authority to do that. i don't think i do. but i would never do it. jared is a good -- i was never involved with his security. >> the president had no involvement pertaining to my clearance or my husband's clearance. >> what were the problems early on? >> there weren't any. >> so no special treatment? >> no. >> there was nobody in the

political process that had anything to do with it. there was nobody who pressured it. it was just done the normal, regular way. >> in case you forgot how harshly the republicans treat liars, here they are. >> you're a pathological liar. >> he's going to prison for lying to congress and he's the star witness to congress. >> convicted liar, lying to congress. apparently he even lied about delivering his own child, which his wife had to correct the record. >> liar, liar, pants on fire. >> you know, it's just one more example, mr. cohen, of you skirting the truth. >> no word yet from any of those men on the big trump lie about jared. we're joined by our favorite reporters and friends including the reporter on that "times" report, adam goldman. matt miller is also here, former chief of staff to vice presidents joe biden and al gore, ron klain is on set.

matt, let me start with you. i feel like you and i have been having this conversation about jared kushner. you and i and probably ron klain probably has too. a background check process, but most people, i hate to use the word normal, but normal white house staffers take as seriously as a heart attack. the fact jared kushner never, was never, ever cleared and the problems with his background check so dire that the white house chief of staff wrote a memo. i think this is the first report of a memo written by the white house chief of staff. white house counsel also getting himself on the record, at least internally, objecting to jared's clearance. >> it's an alarming action by the president. obviously the career officials who conduct these investigations conduct thorough investigations and they make the decisions based on facts and evidence. the president obviously had the authority to overrule those decisions. it's something i have never heard of a president doing in the past but he does have the authority, but if he's going to do that, he ought to be honest with the american public and

tell them that's what he's doing and that's obviously not what he's done here. you see the clips from jared to ivanka, all of them not telling the truth about what happened here. they didn't tell the truth because they knew what the president did was inappropriate. i think that raises the question, why couldn't they just be honest with the american public? it raises this broader discussion about how the president repeatedly has pushed back against any constraints on his behavior, any part of the government that is governed by rules, by due process, he's pushed on it and looked to reward his cronies and retaliate against his enemies and i think that's what you see here. >> adam goldman, take us through what you and your colleagues are reporting and take us through what some of the concerns were about jared kushner in the background clearance investigation process. >> well, early on when jared was struggling to get his security clearance, when they had botched two fs-86s, the security forms they fill out, we started hearing rumblings about other concerns, classified concerns,

concerns about his contacts with the saudis, israelis and russians. and emirates. so we kept digging and digging. in ultimately may 2018 kushner's lawyer, abbe lowell, gets out there and says, hey, everything is fine, just hunky dory. we didn't buy that for a minute. we continued to report. probably a few weeks ago maggie haberman, the force that she is, got a -- got a tip that the president ordered these clearances. and then we had a chance to interview trump. the story wasn't fully baked but we conferred and we thought why not ask trump the question. let's just put it to him. it wasn't a gotcha moment. we weren't trying to trap him. we just thought maybe he will just tell us. because he can be -- sometimes he can be unusually open. and we put it to him and we were surprised by his response.

we also real i saysed -- realized the raised the bar of putting the story out. and then my other colleagues, mike schmidt and annie carney came in and we -- we got this thing over the edge. and as i tweeted, we live in the age of contemporaneous memos. i'm a big fan of them. i did the reporting on the 25th amendment and the wire comments that rob rosenstein made, deputy attorney general, so we knew there was something out there we needed to get a handle on. there were knowable facts in thesis memos. >> it's such a fascinating peek into your process and you're right, there was a bold-faced lie told to maggie haberman and your publish's face, and i'm sure that's like waving a red flag in front of a bull. but i want to press a little on the cia's role because when i was vetted, the fbi does the background check, they bring any concerns that come up in the vet to white house officials, the security office, and then

they get quickly bounced in a normal white house to a white house counsel or chief of staff. none of those guardrails held, and it was the cia raising concerns. what kinds of contexts and questions did the cia have about jared kushner? >> we don't have full visibility into that. that is something we continue to report on. but whatever concerns the cia had, they were deep and not to be dismissed. the office of security at the agency is not an agency -- is not an office to be trifled with. and they weren't going to be overruled and they stood their ground. so whatever they thought -- whatever they thought the problem was to give jared tssci, they weren't going to give ground on it and they made that clear and they made that clear to the white house. so that in itself is extraordinary. >> ron klain, i don't know the people who have not been vetted understand the significance of what adam goldman just detailed. it is not standard for the cia to be the agency that stands in

the way of any staffer in the government getting a clearance. but the problems for -- for the problems to have been ignored and disregarded and got to the point where the agency said to a man who is known to text with other world leaders, you cannot have the most classified material in our possession is something extraordinary. do you think what the committee is looking into other issues, do you think we will get to the bottom of what it is that makes jared kushner a threat if he were to possess our top secrets? >> you know, i do think that's the question, nicolle. there's a lot of focus on the lies and lies about it. i understand why there's focus on lies about it. but to me what you just asked is the interesting question. what about jared kushner is so wrong, is so unsafe that you cannot trust him with this information? after all, surely the cia knew they were under pressure to get to yes on his background check. kushner had an interim clearance for 18 months. he was getting a lot of secret information.

and to go to the white house and say you can't grant him permanent clearance. and then to have two of the president's trusted aides, john kelly and don mcgahn, agree and say he shouldn't get a clearance, there must be something very, very scary there, very bad there, about either foreign influence, about recklessness in handling this information. and i hope our focus on the lies is important, but we need to get to the bottom of what jared kushner has done that makes him such a security threat. >> can i make a point? >> yeah, go ahead. >> i was going to say as someone who has written a lot of critical stories about the cia, give them credit where credit is due. there was a political risk to doing what they did, and they did it anyway. which says something about at least on their end, they haven't been totally politicized. >> and that's a good point. the cia, especially under this president, loathes to sort of pop their head up and intervene. but there's some patterns here.

and joyce i want you to pick up on adam's point about the memo. don mcghan and the colleagues reported on hours, at least 30 hours we know of cooperation with robert mueller. we learned in a story last week that exhaustive notes were taken by mr. mcghan's former chief of staff, detailed in realtime mr. trump's behavior in the west wing. this was the first memo written by the white house chief of staff. and first incident i know we learned of that the cia objected to a white house official getting clearance, someone in charge of middle east peace. what does this picture look like? and it certainly suggests abbe lowell, i don't know what the ethics are for a lawyer but clearly lying in that clip, clearly lying to the press, could abbe lowell have any sort of exposure for the lies told about jared kushner? >> lots of different issues here but one thing you know and i know is when you write a contemporaneous memo and you're a government employee and it's not your regular practice to do that in every instance, you do it because something bad has

happened and you need cover down the road and you need to have a clear memory down the road. at least one, two, key people thought something here was a bad problem. it is i think unprecedented for someone to be denied clearance and then to have it superimposed. if you work in an office like mine for long enough, you know periodically there's a new hire that doesn't get a clearance and it's almost always that they lied about something they could have cleared up in the background process had they not lied and tried to keep it from being disclosed. i suppose the question here about abbe lowell is whether or not he was lied to, was he told everything was cleared without the president's intervention? because if he knew, he is in hot water certainly with the states in which he is barred, where his law license is maintained, and likely also some federal prosecutors will want to have a talk with him an congress too. >> adam goldman, do you want to jump in. i hear that's the story lowell is telling, that perhaps he

didn't have all the information. >> i didn't deal with abbe. i do know abbe. he's a smart lawyer. >> let me just read you his statement. his statement is -- in 2018 white house and security clearance officials confirmed mr. kushner's security clearance was handled in a regular process with no pressure from anyone. that was conveyed to the media at the time and news stories do not change what was affirmed at the time. even the statement is inaccurate. news stories certainly changed what was affirmed at the time. >> yeah. i mean i don't know what abbe knew they time and what these individuals were telling abbe about the security clearance process. and whether any of those individuals actually lied to abbe about this. if abbe did lie, he certainly had a lot to lose. it wouldn't have seemed worth it. >> matt miller, let me bring you in on this point. >> it's never worth it to lie, by the way, nicolle.

it's never worth it. why don't these people realize it? it's never worth it. >> it's the undercurrent, matt miller. as with mike flynn, who had the authority to change sanctions policy but liedr, who probably had knowledge that the president of the united states could overrule the security, why not come clean about what he did? here are three things he failed to disclose in one of his runs. i think he updated his background forms in excess of 200 times. he failed to disclose contacts with russians around the trump tower meeting. that had to have been a memorable event, i don't know. a meeting with kiz yaslyak, a meeting with the head of a russian bank. those are just big questions about russia's role in the 2016 election and he forgot about them. >> look, i think the reason people usually lie is because the alternative, telling the truth, is extraordinarily damaging. people know if they lie and they get caught, it's going to hurt them but they make a choice because the alternative hurts. what ron said a moment ago is important, which is what are the underlying reasons why the

security clearance was rejected, but i think the lies are connected to this. they lie because they know the underlying reasons are really important, are really damning so they couldn't just overrule the career officials and overrule the decisions they made because of the damaging information without lying about it. and with respect to abbe in particular, i know him and i would like to think he wasn't intentionally lying here, but as someone who's spoken on behalf of a lot of government officials, spoken on behalf of clients, if a client ever sent me out like that to tell a lie that i didn't know, i would find a new client pretty quickly. >> let me ask you, ron klain, to weigh in on this piece of reporting, which feels different in the context of what we're learning from adam's reporting. "the washington post" reported in february officials in at least foir countries privately discussed ways that they could manipulate jared kushner,

president's son-in-law and senior adviser, by taking advantage of his complex business arrangements, financial difficulties and lack of foreign policy experience. among those nations discussing ways to influence kushner to their advantage were the uae, china, israel and mexico. i know just enough about blackmail to be dangerous but mike flynn was fired in part because he was at risk of being blackmailed. isn't this the same thing? >> yes, it turns out if the cia security office finds you're a security risk, it may turn out you're a security risk. and i think that's what's going on here. look, it is possible that he was denied this clearance because of his failure to fill out these forms. you filled out the forms, i filled out the forms, i remember in the midst of presidential transitions going out and getting my passport and digging out old tourist trips to mexico to make sure the forms were right. people take these seriously. maybe that was kushner's problem. but far more likely if the cia weighed in against his clearance, it's because they believe his conduct, his

behavior, his contacts, his activities, made him a risk to handle this information. that's scary enough. we also have to remember for 18 months he had access to a lot of the information on true clearance his father-in-law had granted to him. there was a tremendous breach of security procedures at the white house here, and we deserve to know what happened and why kushner was such a risk to have this information. >> adam goldman, i want to give you a last word on the topic you raised, the gift that is contemporaneous memos. you talked about your reporting based at least in part about memos about rod rosenstein's conduct in the period after jim comey was fired. this is two senior white house officials who had both been fired and essentially run out of the west wing, came to the same conclusion, wrote memos detailing the same thing. i'm guessing the white house has enough trepidation about either what's in the memos and what else may be in memo, that their response was simply we don't talk about the background check. they're not rebutting. they're not disputing. no fact in your story has been rebutted or disputed by this

white house. what does that mean? and where does this story go next? >> it means our story was extremely solid or we wouldn't put it in the paper otherwise. where does the story go next? we need to learn more about the concerns that prevented jared from getting a top security clearance. and what did the cia find out? what did they know? and we need to get to the bottom of that. i have a reasonable expectation because i know there's a whole team of new york of reporters who >> we look forward to you coming back when it does. thank you for being here with us. congrats on the scoop. after the break, the family of otto warmbier speak out with the president's summit with the north korean dictator they believe is responsible for the murder of their son. also ahead, michael cohen's

road map to the crimes committed by the president. where does the house committee go next? and a member of congress complaining the loudest about what was described as a racist act has a history of making racist statements. we'll show you. stay with us. us in jellyfish. in clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve short-term memory. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. at outback, your steak & lobster wish is our command. steak & lobster is back by popular demand, starting at only $15.99. hurry in to outback! and if you want outback at home, order now!

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first of all, he's -- he's a character. >> you're laughing about it. >> he's a real personality and he's very smart. he's sharp as you can be and he's a real leader. again, the relationship is very good. he likes me, i like him. some people say oh, you shouldn't like him. i said why shouldn't i like him? >> why shouldn't you like him? seems rather obvious but here's one reason, a flashback to two years ago. >> otto warmbier is returning to cincinnati tonight but it appears he's gravely ill and has been in a coma since sometime after his conviction and sentencing to hard labor for allegedly stealing a poster. >> he's blind. he's deaf.

he's got a feeding tube. and we kneeled down and hugged him and tried to connect with him, and he's a complete vegetable, and his bottom teeth look like they had taken a pair of pliers and rearranged them. >> it's hard to watch. that was fred warmbier describing the state of his son after they got him back from north korea. otto was dead less than a week later. now the warmbier family once again forced to speak out publicly two years later. except this time talking about donald trump and his bizarre, reprehensible claim that kim jong-un knew nothing about otto's apparent torture. here's what they said today -- we've been respectful during this summit process. now we must speak out. kim and his evil regime are responsible for the death of our son otto. kim and his evil regime are responsible for unimaginable cruelty and inhumanity. no excuses or lavish praise can change that. joining our conversation,

michelle goldberg, columnist for "the new york times" and reverend al sharpton, host of "politicsnation" here on msnbc and president of the national action network. matt, ron and joyce all still here. donald trump tweeting -- a beauty to borrow one of his words, this is the last few minutes. i never like being misinterpreted, especially when it comes to otto warmbier and his great family. remember, i got otto out along with three others. i'm not reading all of this. basically disputing the account of a family that lost everything. there are some times i don't even know what to say. >> it's outrageous. first of all, this is a pattern. you're talking about a president that said he believed putin over his own intelligence officers, whose son-in-law was talking to the crown prince even after a saudi reporter that was writing and living here in new york in the united states, writing for "the washington post," was

killed and actually dismembered, and now you have him saying that kim jong-un said he didn't know, and i take him at his word. it doesn't matter whether you went and got him, you got him from kim jong-un, now you're going to sit up and give the guy you got him from credit for saying i had no knowledge that an american student was in north korea and i control everything in north korea but i didn't know they were doing all of this to him. who was the one that let you take him out, donald trump? this is atrocious on its face. >> there was a moment, a lot of people after 2008 said to me, is this your fault you didn't tell sarah palin how to answer the question from katie couric, what did you read? i said i guess it was my fault. i didn't think to do it. i'm watching trump with hannity saying why shouldn't i like him? why didn't pompeo or bolton tell him he's a murderous dictator.

but why should you have to tell him? >> do you think a, he would care or b, that it would really penetrate? he obviously doesn't read his briefing books, he sort of doesn't take in information that's contrary to what he wants to believe. he clearly does feel a rapport with this man i think because they have kind of similar personality types. i think he envies kim jong-un and the lavish deference he gets as a totalitarian dictator. would like the americans do gymnastics in his honor the way north koreans do. this man, one of the biggest mega stories of the past two years has been his disloyalty to kind of america. but we see there's no individual american to whom he will be loyal and to whom he will stick up for. you see first with khashoggi, a resident of america, he gets murdered and the united states basically throws up its hands and says this really isn't going to affect our relationship with saudi arabia. now an actual american citizen

is murdered, he sort of exploits the parents as props at his state of the union when he's taking a very bellicose stance towards north korea. when that no longer suits him -- and i don't think anybody would argue with negotiating with kim jong-un but this kind of -- just like ridiculous flattery and -- i mean, it's obscene. and you see that he -- the fact that this man has kind of been responsible for the horrific death of an american citizen means nothing to donald trump. and i think this is something that american journalists keep in mind, that we know it used to be that you could kind of count on the american government if something happened to you abroad. you just can't anymore. no american citizen can. >> joyce? >> you know, we're on notice. we've watched president trump do this for three, four years now. we've repeatedly watched him kowtow to dictators, who he has

nice words for. words that he would never spare for nancy pelosi, joe biden, "the new york times," "the washington post" all on his enemies list. we have a saying in the house, fool me once, shame on you. fool me twice, shame on me. the american people need to stop being fooled by this man. >> ron klain, there's something about the chip that must be missing in your dna to retraumatize a father who describes the bottom teeth of his son as being rearranged with pliers. there's something -- i mean we call him a pathological liar. there's something sociopathic about this behavior. >> i agree with that, nicolle. i think it's one other thing which donald trump likes to be tough and strong but he wimps out when he deals with dictators face to face. it's really the art of the squeal. he's like the little mouse when he faces one of these dictators face to face. he can tweet tough things, he can talk tough things, but he gets in the room with these dictators and he's just kind of bowled over.

so he takes putin's word about the russian elections and he takes kim jong-un's word about what happened to otto warmbier. he doesn't have the kind of moral center that allows a president of either party, of any ideology, to stand up and go toe to toe with a tough foreign leader. he just crumbles when he's face to face with one of these foreign leaders. >> matt miller, i was reminded not just of the putin moment, khashoggi, you know, shameful conduct of this president around his slaughter and dismemberment, but i was also reminded of the president's days long, maybe weeks long war of words with the khan family when they took to the podium at the democratic national convention and criticized donald trump as well as his seven-day war of words with a widow and her appearances after her husband, la david t. johnson was murdered. it's not hyperbole to say for donald trump nothing is sacred. i heard from former national security adviser who was in this white house when otto warmbier's

body came back who just galled by what she saw from her former boss in this appearance in vietnam. >> i felt so sorry for the warmbier family watching the president's words. they suffered the most unspeakable tragedy any parent can suffer. and to have the leader of their own government add to their pain by making unbelievable excuses for the dictator who was responsible for that loss, it must be beyond the pale. i think what happens here, there are two ways to compromise donald trump. one is to spend a lot of money at his hotels and resorts, and the -- is to flatter his ego. foreign dictators have figured this out. he's an easy mark. whether it's by telling him he won the election on his own and not because of russia interference like vladimir putin did. whether it's throwing a big party for him in saudi arabia and plastering his image on the side of the building that like the saudis did or sending him beautiful letters and telling him how great he is like kim did, what it means is that the

end, the president will take your side even over a grieving american family and it is a ream tragedy. >> ron klain, we're losing you. you have to come to new york so we can keep you for the whole hour. thank you for spending the first half with us. when we come back, michael cohen's roadmap to the potential crimes committed by donald trump. where does the investigation go next? oh! oh! ♪ ozempic®! ♪ (announcer) people with type 2 diabetes are excited about the potential of once-weekly ozempic®. in a study with ozempic®, a majority of adults lowered their blood sugar and reached an a1c of less than seven and maintained it. oh! under seven? and you may lose weight. in the same one-year study, adults lost on average up to 12 pounds. oh! up to 12 pounds? a two-year study showed that ozempic® does not increase the risk of major cardiovascular events like heart attack, stroke, or death. oh! no increased risk? ♪ oh, oh, oh, ozempic®! ♪ ozempic® should not be the first medicine for treating diabetes, or for people with type 1 diabetes

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pg&e wants you to plan ahead by mapping out escape routes and preparing a go kit, in case you need to get out quickly. for more information on how to be prepared and keep your family safe, visit pge.com/safety. donald trump is clearly agitated with the testimony of his former fixer. lashing out at michael cohen five times this morning in multiple tweets calling cohen's testimony fake, full of lies, misrepresentations and contradictions. and then falsely claiming prosecutors are now looking into every deal they've ever done here's what cohen said after wrapping up over eight hours of grilling by the house intel committee yesterday.

productive, as i said, i'm committed to telling the truth. and i will be back on march 6 to finish up. there's more to discuss. >> the committee said they will only release a transcript of his testimony after all questioning is done. "the washington post" points out, quote, while it is not clear what precisely was discussed, trump's pardon power and how he's attempted to wield it, has been an area of interest for lawmakers and investigators. during his hearing michael cohen said never asked for nor would he accept a pardon. it's not just cohen that congress wants to hear more from. the testimony left a trail of bread crumbs for the house to follow. elijah cummings will sure to follow. when asked who he will follow up with, cummings said, follow the transcript. here it is. >> jay sekulow for one. >> who else knows that the president did this? >> allen weisselberg, rob

linerman and matthew calamari. >> who is the campaign official? >> corey lewandowski. don trump jr., eric trump, david pecker, dylan howard, barry levine of ami as well. allen weisselberg. alan garden. >> the panel is still here. joyce, it's like a gallery of names. what was that list? what do they do with that list? i'm guessing robert mueller's already got that list. >> that's a list investigators need to talk to, whether they're on the legal side of the house or congressional oversight side of the house, we will hear from all of these people before it's over. >> matt miller, you want to jump in and sort of lump any of those groups together? it seems like the last group, those are people involved in the illegal or partially charged conspiracy, the campaign finance violations charged by the southern district of new york.

some of those names felt like they were perhaps at the intersection of donald trump and his business efforts and endeavors and lies about russia. but pretty big list of people who may be ensnared in one way or another in a conspiracy. >> it's a very big list of people and they all have one thing in common, none of them work for the government. jay sekulow is obviously his attorney, he has certain privileges and has the attorney/client privilege but mostly he cannot be called to testify. but if bob mueller or the prosecutors in the southern district of new york or more importantly for what we're looking at now, congressional investigators subpoena any of those people either for testimony or for documents, they don't have executive privilege to hide behind the way people in the white house can do. so if the committee wants to call matthew calamari, who i can't believe is a real person, or if they want to call allen weisselberg to come and testify, those people have to show up.

they can raise their hand and take the fifth amendment. every american has the constitutional right to do that. but they don't have the same ability to delay and stonewall and block investigations the way the white house does. and i think given the potential criminality we've seen, that we just saw emerge this week in the trump organization across a range of different areas, that's peril for him in terms of all of this being aired publicly over the next couple of years before the house committees. >> rev, i think there's a reality setting in possibly, maybe not yet in the oval, but that the congressional investigations are going to make him miss robert mueller. here's some reporting in axios. for trump, the russia investigation has been a behind-the-scenes probe with sensational yet intermittent revelations. now it's about to become a persistent and very public process at best, a nuisance and at worse a threat to his office. >> i think that is very, very important to trump. trump is the person that believes in playing to the public no matter what. the comfort he has in private

situations is that he can do all kind of spinning and all kind of ways that he can manipulate public opinion because prosecutors are not going to play the public game, as joyce would know. they just got to take it even if they don't want to. now he's in the public. now you're getting what you love, wall-to-wall coverage, but you are not writing the narrative and you're not the main actor, and it has to be driving him crazy because being the megalomaniac that he is, he can't spend, if cohen is sitting there being questioned and cohen is over and over and over again saying and doing what he said and did, and now he's going to bring the others on, possibly members of his family, for a megalomaniac who also may have done some very inappropriate if not criminal things, this could not be a worse nightmare. >> this is like a "curb your

enthusiasm" meets "the usual suspects" feel to watching sean hannity talk about what is really on a serious level a threat to the presidency but just in terms of the characters ludicrous. here he is talking to the president last night about michael cohen. >> i was kind of dragged a little bit into the michael cohen story. i can tell you personally he said to me at least a dozen times that he made the decision on the payments, and he didn't tell you. he told me personally. >> he did and he made the decision -- and remember this, he's an attorney. whatever decision he makes, you're supposed to rely on an attorney to make the decision. >> don't take our word for it. here's rudy giuliani rebutting donald trump and sean hannity. >> that money was not campaign money. sorry, i'm giving you a fact now you don't know. it's not campaign money. no campaign finance violation. >> so they funneled it through a law firm? >> through the law firm and the president repaid it. >> oh, he did? >> yes.

>> you see what we're talking about, it's not a crime. it's not a crime, george. paying $130,000 to stormy whatever and paying $100,000 to another one is not a crime. >> someone remembers her name. >> we don't even have to take his word for it, trump is on tape, right? cohen released that tape of him and trump talking about that they were going to make this payment. or maybe it was a payment to stephanie cliffords as opposed to stormy daniels. but we know there's no question this is how they do business. >> but there's something insane about seeing the president of the united states and sean hannity, both clients of michael cohen, who in this twisted story has become the freaking hero. >> you know, the incredible thing about it is i think hannity invited prosecutors on national television to send him a subpoena. back to matt miller's point, he doesn't work for the white house, although he sometimes plays somebody who does on television, and he's clearly

made himself a fact witness for everybody to see. >> mommy's heading straight for mommy water after this hour. after the break, mark meadows nearly exploded when he was called a racist during public testimony earlier this week. but days later new video surfaced and has people wondering if he owes barack obama an apology. this is the story of john smith. not this john smith. or this john smith. or any of the other hundreds of john smiths that are humana medicare advantage members. no, it's this john smith. who we paired with a humana team member to help address his own specific health needs. at humana, we take a personal approach to your health, to provide care that's just as unique as you are.

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with a range of sizes for all body types, depend® fit-flex underwear is guaranteed to be your best fit. >> mr. chairman, i -- >> mr. chairman, i reclaim my time! the highest office -- >> chairman, the rules are clear. my nieces and nephews are people of color. not many people know that. you know that, mr. chairman. and to indicate that i asked someone who is a personal friend of the trump family, who has worked for him, who knows this particular individual that she's coming in to be a prop, it's racist to suggest that i ask her to come in here for that reason. >> congressman mark meadows, outraged after his behavior during michael cohen's public testimony was called racist. his track record suggests it might not be such a reach.

listen to what he says a few years back about president obama. >> 2012 is the time we're going to send mr. obama home to kenya or wherever it is. we're going to do it. >> if we do our job fromk home kenya or wherever it is. >> send him back to kenya. he's not from kenya. i think the most basic, the most racist thing that sort of went on on the right, i used to spend some time on the right, was this birther movement. he seems like a card-carrying member way back when. and we didn't catch it by accident. we took ten minutes and found two clips. >> the other thing is that this was kind of taken by everyone as evidence. clearly, mark meadows has this past of racism, but also i think it underlines how preposterous

it is for him to be so indignant that somebody called donald trump racist, right? because donald trump was the leader of the birther movement. he was probably its most famous proponent, it's how he rose to political prominence. it's probably why he's president. so the central, i think, kind of contradiction in our politics is that donald trump is -- should be treated beyond the pale. he should be shunned the way steve king is shunned, right? he's a fringe racist figure who is also the president, and so should be shunned but can't be shunned, and kind of the republicans have a difficult time, i i think managing this contradiction and the way that they try to manage it is act as if it somehow is not only questionable donald trump is racist but to have room to talk about his evident racism. >> and i also think, let's look at it from the proceedings. michael cohen, who was donald trump's lawyer and he said like his son, said that donald

trump's a racist. now, are you going to tell me that some event planner, which is all this young lady was, is there to contradict what a guy that was with him almost every day and that was fixing his business, including the mistresses? she couldn't be there to counter that, one. secondly, she couldn't be sworn in because you have a witness, she wasn't given a microphone. so what is she other than a prop? she had no standing in the proceedings. she would only be a prop. and michael cohen was the one that would reach out to all of us when donald trump had questions of racism. when we argued about birtherism, it was michael cohen that called me through a friend of his that went to college with him saying why is reverend al on tv banging him on birtherism, calling him a racist, and my friend said he calls me direct, michael cohen. the boss is upset. would you meet with him?

would you talk to him? i said this is racism. he's playing on he's not one of us. i go to trump tower, as i have been there many times arcing with donald trump, and have this meeting that michael cohen set up. michael cohen was the guy that set up the meeting. secondly, i've never seen in all of my visits to the trump tower any black executive, so i don't know what this event planner is talking about. >> she wasn't talking. wasn't given a microphone. >> she couldn't. she was there as a prop. and the darkest i have seen is the dim elevator lights going down. i have never seen anything darker on the floor. the other thing you have to keep in mind here, michael cohen called me twice, we had breakfast twice, before he made his guilty plea. he told me personally many things that mr. trump said was bigoted, and i know i fixed meetings with you and him to talk and i had to take the other side. i saw michael cohen say on that stand many things that he said to me.

i was looking to see if he would have the same countenance and words and he did. he's the man who told "the new york times" the story that he wanted me to pray with him.ut f you. he said, rev, i am going to jail. he talked to me as a man knew he had done everything he had done and ready to pay for it and clean the record because he was concerned of how his kids look at him. >> you have to look at this flash point. this was oh, she called him a racist, no, she didn't. congresswoman simply saying having a black woman standing noe next to you without a microphone is a racist act. the debate is over. donald trump is a racist, no one is still debating that anymore. why do we both sides question

about what is racism. i don't think people out of industry knows better. >> and not only -- spike lee makes an acceptance speech at the oscars, do the right thing 2020. the president says he's talking race. he didn't even mentioned race. they're obsessed with race because that's who they are. i think we need to say as you would say in court, we stipulate to racism. let's go on with the facts. i mean there is nothing else to say. >> let me ask you one question about this. i watch this live. they're not saying we are not racist out of sensitivity to people of color. they're saying we are not racist to white suburban housewives who need to vote republicans.

>> they say or do nothing that'll offend the racist. don't call us racist but i am going to do racist stuff, don't worry about that. donald trump takes every opportunity to whip up that crowd while he tries to tell people that he thinks it is a little independent. their countries are s-hole countries and any other litany of things. you guys know what i am saying. >> he never breaks that pattern. >> he never does. i hear people say this is a teachable moment. i am all in favor of teachable moment when it comes to race. before you get to that moment,

you have to say what it is and acknowledge what you have done and where you have been. there is no willingness on that side of the isle to say we need to reconsider who we are and what our values are and did more to voters. we need to consider race. my former boss, eric holder, took a lot of slaps trying to talk about race. the american people were not ready for it. part of that legacy is we are seeing that continue. >> on another day we'll talk about the fact of the three chin things that cohen charged, racism and financial. after the break, alarming what if that people are just now starting to consider? limu's right. liberty mutual can save you money by customizing your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. oh... yeah, i've been a customer for years. huh...

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given my experience working for mr. trump, i fear that if he loses the election in 2020, there will never be a peaceful transition of power. this is why i agreed to appear before you today. >> ominous warning michael cohen slipped in there at capitol hill this week. it is not outside the realm of possibility. he reports, it is 100% speculation, yes, it is not completely baseless. remember towards the end of 2016 election when everyone including trump thought he was to lose. he even suggested if he lost, there can be no other explanation. the panel is still here.

matt miller, i hear this more and more from what i call normal people, my friends who spend the day on the newsroom or twitter, even if he loses in 2020, they're afraid he won't lose office. >> i worry of all the damages he had done to people's faith at the ballot box. if he loses, he won't go quietly, he'll complain it is stolen from him. but, i do think if he does lose the election, one thing i don't have a worry about is noon on january 20th, 2021 whether he walks out of his own or the secret service escorting him out, i don't doubt about that. >> i will have whatever that's in your cup. >> partly because he does not have a lot of layers of loyalty below him. >> his chief of staff wrote

memos. >> you need to have loyal f not. in some way this is the one saving grace of this administration that he has these authortarian. he does not have many people that'll go out of a limb for him. >> i think he'll make a lot of noise and accusations but he'll have to loeave. he does not have the army as one would have -- i am not going. he could not draw people to the inauguration. he can call for the mass to rise up but the mass is not coming chl. they did not show up for you swearing in. >> mattis is not the sunny optimistic. here he's a little more optimistic than i am. donald trump has win enormous

incentive to remain in office as long as he remains in office t justice department will not indictment him or put him on trials for his crime. he loses that protection as soon as he leaves the white house. he'll do whatever he can to make it tough for him to go. >> joy, just to clarify, i have zero faith in him. >> you heard it here first, matt miller. thanks to matt miller and joyce. that does it for our week, thank you so much for watching, i am nicole wallace, i will see you back here on monday at 4:00 p.m. top secret clearance, let's play "hardball." >> good evening, i am