members are gathered to celebrity the life of the rapper. just moments ago his girlfriend spoke about how the loss affects the community. in moments a memorial service will go past his clothing store. thank you for watching the "deadline: white house" starts now. it's 4:00 in new york. for two years, two months and a couple weeks the war on war was waged from the oval office, fox news and the president's hard lined gop allies. this week the war seemed to gain a new general, the country's attorney general. who suggested that, quote, spying did occur on donald trump's campaign. he vowed to, quote, explore it. the "new york times" reporting, quote, mr. barr's pledge made as he prepares to make public in coming days a redacted version of the special counsel's report on the russia inquiry was a sign

that after nearly three years of investigating the president's campaign and russia, the justice department's focus may begin to shift in a direction that mr. trump has demanded. amid an outcry from former national security officials who served in democratic and republican administrations over the unfounded accusations of spying, there was at least one very satisfied customer today. >> i think what he said was absolutely true. there was absolutely spying into my campaign. i'll go a step further, in my opinion it was illegal spying, unprecedented spying, and something that should never be allowed to happen on our country again. and i think his answer was actually a very accurate one and a lot of people saw that -- and a lot of people understand -- many, many people understand the situation and want to be open to that situation. hard to believe that it could have happened, but it did. there was spying in my campaign and his answer was a very accurate one. >> notable that 24 hours after

barr made those incendiary comments about spying that have only been celebrated by a president who's awaiting the results of an obstruction of justice report that explicitly does not exonerate him, his new supporters, the justice department has offered to evidence to bolster barr's testimony yesterday. leaving a few to think he may be previewing or shaping perceptions of an expected report. mike schmidt with us at the table, matt miller, former u.s. attorney joyce vance is at the table, and cohost of the circus john hileman is here. all msnbc contributors. john, i got to start with you. just the mind meld is so staggering. donald trump who searched high

and low for a roy cohen ended with a devin nunes. >> mind meld is a kind way of expressing it. i said last night it's all the more obvious and true today that the two days of testimony of the attorney general have made clear something that was truly not clear until these two days, because there was a lot of debate, a lot of people in justice department circles, legal circles, prosecutorial circles who remember bill barr's history and had hope he would be an institutionalist, he was a republican, there were things that gave people pause, including the job-seeking memo but in the end he would be on the side of the department, institutions that abutte the american justice system. what we found out in the last two days is he's a partisan and hack, and his main goal to be a political actor in this and to be a defender of donald trump and not a defender of the institutions in play. and i just think this is still

open to debate. it's no longer open to debate, we know exactly who bill barr is now. >> you were one on the side of hope, you hoped that he'd be an institutionalist. you talked once about the sacred nature of walking those halls changing and shaping someone. talking about spying. this isn't some, you know, surrogate booked on "fox & friends" who throws around spying that he doesn't know what he's talking about. spying is not something that the men and women use to describe any u.s. conduct, it's what we use to describe the conduct of the chinese and russians. it's not a word to describe what americans do to themselves under any circumstances. >> everyone who worked at the justice department hoped that after the matt whitaker dy backle, barr would bring something better, breathe life back into the justice

department. and he has spent the last two days confirming the worst fears of everyone like me read the 19-page memo that he wrote to audition for the job he now holds. the spying language is dangerous. it puts as you point out, the u.s. intelligence community and the fbi on the same level of foreign governments who engage in this activity. this was all predicated activity. signed off on by different levels of leadership inside of both the department of justice, the fbi, the intelligence community. all of those different chains of command from bottom to top would have scrutinized this sort of activity and signed off. so to call it spying does an enormous disservice to the individuals and the institution. >> i never thought i'd start a sentence this way, in defense of matt whitaker he never sat before congress and described the conduct of law enforcement officials or agencies as spying. >> bill barr's performance has been abysmal.

there were people who hoped that he would be an elliott richardson type, someone strong enough if he ever was asked to do something inappropriate by the president, he would resign, refuse to carry out that order. so far he makes jeff sessions look like elliott richardson in contrast. his handling of the mueller report has been a farce. his attack on the people that work for him -- that's people who work for him, in the fbi -- >> put the names up, i wonder if they're still there. dana boente signed the fisa reauthorization. and rod rosenstein who is either still there or has just departed but is someone that bill barr leaned on rod rosenstein's reputation as someone who signed this fisa application, and the staff of the dag's office and the department of justice has defended these two men and those two signatures on your screen for two years, two months, and several weeks as reauthorizing

fisa applications for which there was probable cause to reauthorize those fisas into carter page. those are the men who's integrity he's questioning. >> but also other men and women inside the fbi that worked on the investigation. inside the national security division of the justice department who don't deserve to have their reputations called into question by the attorney general, the person supposed to be defending them. especially when there's zero evidence of what he's alleged. this is a conspiracy theory repeated by the president and fox news over and over. and now bill barr has given the president the talking point others weren't able to do. he gave him the talking about that he was exonerated on obstruction of justice, which bob mueller wasn't willing to do. it's an abysmal thing for william barr to do. >> don't forget the fisa courts.

he's impugning the recommeputat of the justice department, he's also including the fisa court. >> your reports, mike, by you and your colleagues into the beginnings of the russia investigation, the report that in addition to mr. barr's review of the investigation, whatever that turns out to be, the justice department's inspector general, a specially tasked u.s. attorney and republicans in congress are studying key actions taken in the course of the inquiry. those actions include how officials opened the trump russia investigation, and obtained a secret warrant to wiretap a former trump campaign adviser. any reporting on what led mr. barr to be dissatisfied with the ongoing and pending investigations and believe he had to explore it himself? >> no.

but this is something we've seen before from whoever was the attorney general. trying to line up with the president on different issues, to sort of appease him. if you remember jeff sessions when he was attorney general going up to capitol hill and talking about how they had this u.s. attorney take a look at these different issues that the president wanted a second special counsel for. so maybe here barr is trying to keep the president at bay, i don't know that. i'm just trying to figure out with why he said what he did. i think what's important to understand here is that all of this comes back to jeff sessions' recusal. i know that may sound weird but in march of 2017 jeff sessions recused himself from the russia investigation, the president went ballistic. and that weekend he tweeted about how obama had wire trapped trump tower during the election. comey was then the fbi director. he dug into the issue, saw there was nothing into it. tried to get the justice department to push back on this, put a statement out refuting it

and the justice department wouldn't do it, and it stayed as sort of a talking point that the president has used since then. there was generated by a "breitbart" story he had seen. that's where the origins are, the things you see coming out of bill barr's mouth. >> there's a lot to unpack there. but first, jeff sessions when he went before congress, it was jim jordan that pressed whether a second special counsel was necessary, and jeff sessions said it was not. any time anyone says origins, i wonder if they mean oranges. by the origins have been investigated, defended by trump's own appointees at the justice department. so what is the what that is being examined? >> rod rosenstein has been a big defender of this process and the republicans on capitol hill have demanded a lot of documentation about this. a lot of it has been handed over. we saw the stuff that went on with devin nunes and the memo and the stuff about the origins

of the investigation. the refuting of the notion that the dossier was the reason for opening the investigation. so this is all in the same caldron of things that the president has tried to kick up. here he has the wind at his back a bit. he has embraced the barr letter, said it fully exonerates him and now he wants to investigate the investigators and he's clearly made some head way in that direction. >> robert costa you have an incredible body of reporting about the role the freedom caucus has played in shaping the trump republican party. they've been on their heels a little bit in recent weeks. this seems to breathe new light into what they spent the last two years doing which is to be at odds with the rod rosenstein, jeff sessions justice department, the affairs office, the press office. the public affairs office spent a lot of time defending trump's

appointees from trump's allies in congress, the fbi at the same time the same situation. how did the sort of ideology of mark meadows and jim jordan and devin nunes make its way inside the brain and mouth of the sitting attorney general? >> even people close to the freedom caucus this week are telling me privately that they are surprised to see attorney general bill barr echo their own rhetoric, their own perspective. >> that's amazing. >> about this investigation. they did not expect that from the attorney general. and they say privately they don't have a relationship with the attorney general. and they were frankly surprised, many republicans on capitol hill, to see him and hear him use the phrase spying. because they thought he would be much more measured in the language he chose during his testimony and when senator sat from hawaii said do you want to use a different phrase such as

surveillance, the attorney general said no. and now they believe there could be an appetite for a second special counsel, this ig investigation which they thought would be as far as doj would go could be expanded more in weeks to come. so look for them to keep pushing how far the attorney general could go on this front. >> he was too nutty for the nuts, you blew my mind, what do we know before the inspector general report came out that had a lot of harsh revelations about some of the former leaders at the fbi, there were whispers and murmurs. are you hearing any murmurings, do you think they're armed with more fodder for the weaponization of these issues? >> there's a belief inside top republican circles that this mueller report will be a political problem for the president when it comes to obstruction. but what they're also hoping is that even if new evidence comes to light about the president's

conduct they can politically counter that by raising questions about the russia aspect of the investigation, and going back to issues that have to deal with those original fisa warrants, saying that the entire investigation, including the obstruction part, can't really be taken seriously. you're seeing now not only a legal war but the beginnings of a political war. >> mike schmidt you've done a lot of reporting on the p.r. war being the front, on which rudy giuliani and the president's lawyers have focussed on the whole time. is this rooted in a fear about what that sort of narrative will look like? the marshalling of the evidence in the obstruction investigation? >> yeah, this comes back to the four page barr letter in which he cleared the president. that helped the president in the p.r. war because it allowed the narrative that the president had done nothing wrong to be cemented. the president embraced it. that was i think some of the frustration that we reported about a few weeks ago within the mueller team about how their

findings were not included when the clearing occurred, when the deck la nation decision was made by barr. so going forward here, will the report -- will the mueller report change that narrative? will it make it more difficult for the president to say, i was fully exonerated? if people pick up the report and they look at it and say, okay, maybe this didn't violate the law but it feels pretty bad and this is something that doesn't look good for our president, is there a larger problem there for the president? giuliani has said from the beginning, this will be an issue of public opinion, what happens with the president. >> it raises questions about coordination between the white house and the justice department, who seem to be on absolutely the same page, and if you think about how it almost feels quaint that everyone was up in arms that bill clinton got on loretta lynch's airplane.

it sounds like donald trump is programming and rudy giuliani, the rhetoric coming out of the attorney general. >> i'll tell you how you could see that yesterday, not on the mueller report but two other places he had to point two. one was asked about the affordable care act and the lawsuit with his effort to try to strike down the law in the court where he was asked something about it and he responded with a talking point about how donald trump plans to have a replacement with the aca, had nothing to do with the law, the case he was bringing, it was a political point. he was advocating the president's view on a health care policy. the second was an issue where they talked about the opioid crisis. he said the way we're going to solve the drug problem in america is build the wall. forget about the illogical nature and the silliness that the wall has to do with opioids, which is local problem not a foreign problem it's talking points out of the attorney general's office and not a point

of view. and irrelevant to opioids. he's not only parroting the president on issues relating to mueller, he's parroting the president across the range of political issues. all points that are at home on sean hannity's broadcast. that speaks to the degree which i said before illustrates he's not just a political actor in one area, he's a fully armed, locked and loaded, advocate for the president across the range for the president on matters and that's a messed up place for the attorney general to be. >> another question on whether or not this had been a witch hunt. let's what. >> do you believe the investigation that robert mueller under took was a witch hunt or illegal as was asserted by the president? >> as i said during my confirmation, it really depends on where you're sitting. if you are somebody who's being falsely accused of something,

you would tend to view the investigation -- >> you're sitting as the attorney general of the united states with constitutional responsibilities. so if you could answer in that regard. >> i'm not going to characterize -- it is what it is. mueller and his team conducted an investigation and are issuing a report. >> it is what it is. not what christopher wray said, donald trump's hand picked head of the fbi. let's watch how he responded. >> as i said before, i do not believe special counsel mueller is on a witch hunt. >> i believe director mueller is appropriately remaining within his scope and conducting himself appropriately. >> i have known mr. mueller over the years, he served 12 years as fbi director, i knew him before that, and i have confidence in mr. mueller. >> i mean, barr is turning those three into possible candidates for the democratic primary. it makes you miss people we've hardly celebritied. some of them we have --

>> don't get carried away. >> it's amazing you miss these people who simply refrain from as john hileman said, echoing the president's overheated, highly partisan rhetoric about mueller being on a witch hunt. >> the man we heard testify for the last two days was on the president's pr team. he comes across with the talking points and here's the bottom line hardship that he impoises on all of us. he's sitting on the mueller report, his four page summary he acknowledged that he agreed with mueller's bottom-line conclusion that the russians were trying to interfere with our elections, that it was sustained and per sis tenant, it will come again in 2020 and this attorney general is more concerned with giving the president talking points than protecting our elections. that should be his job number one and it's not. >> i want to ask you two questions, one, what recourse do the democrats have?

and two, as though we need more evidence it wasn't a witch hunt, a big democratic head figure indicted today in an offshoot of the mueller probe. >> i think democrats have to keep demanding the mueller report and they're going to have to demand to see people from the justice department up before congress. because the justice department leadership has gotten worse over the last two years -- >> two years? two weeks! >> my point is, rod rosenstein and jeff sessions' hands aren't clean either. trump has been trying to mold the justice department to do his bidding for two years p. part of the problem with where we are today is jeff sessions and rod rosenstein didn't stand up to trump the way they should have. the ig report shouldn't have been opened in the first place. but they did it rather than stand up to him. that wasn't enough for trump he has someone worse. with respect to greg craig, there's been a case brought against the democrat, you saw kellyanne conway trumpeting that on twitter, something the white house shouldn't do.

there's something weird about this prosecution, though, it was the southern district of new york, according to craig's lawyer pass odd it, it was referred to d.c. and they brought it. it looks like a justice department -- i don't know if it's partisan reasons or they want a democrat because they indicted so many republicans. but a weird thing for the justice department to do. >> robert i saw you try to jump in. >> a lot of my republican sources are calling up friends of bill barr and asking what's going on here, what explains his behavior? privately they're told, remember this is not a career prosecutor, this is someone who ran the doj for bush 41 but doesn't have a prosecutorial mindset. he worked at the cia, focussed on china. they think he's more interested in having scrutiny of the intelligence agencies than lining up as a traditional doj person on these issues. a perfect place to end because a former intelligence issue told me yesterday it makes

his comments about spying all the more bizarre and troubling. after the break, donald trump told us over and over again that he loves wikileaks. today wikileaks founder julian assange was arrested in london after his asylum was revoked. what we learned about wikileaks's role in the 2016 campaign. also ahead, hiding donald trump's taxes is a family affair. new reporting on his sister's move to avoid disclosing information about the trump family fortune. and new efforts by democrats to call a lie a lie when it comes to the president's empty promises to the forgotten american men and women. all those coming up. en and women all those coming up. want preventive screenings for things like

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after nearly seven years of asylum inside london's ecuadorian embassy, julian assange was arrested today. he was then hit with an indictment by american prosecutors. u.s. prosecutors are now calling for his extradition, which julian assange's lawyers say he will fight. here's president trump being asked about wikileaks today just hours after the arrest. >> i know nothing about wikileaks. it's not my thing. and i know there is something having to do with julian assange, i've been seeing what's happened with assange. and that will be a determination, i would imagine, mostly by the attorney general who's doing an excellent job.

so he'll be making a determination. i know nothing really about him. it's not my deal in life. >> it's not my deal in life. if you recall, he was very, very pleased with wikileaks when he was a candidate. after it released the hacked e e-mails from hillary clinton's campaign and the dnc. >> this just came out, wikileaks, i love wikileaks. we got to start talking about wikileaks. >> the wonder of wikileaks. >> we love wikileaks. boy they have really -- wikileaks. >> wikileaks. >> wikileaks. >> this wikileaks stuff is unbelievable. it tells you the inner heart. you got to read it. >> boy i love reading those wikileaks. >> it's not my thing, though. the indictment unsealed today does not touch on wikileaks's involvement in the 2016 campaign, if assange ever comes to the u.s. he's almost sure to be pressed on it. the "new york times" notes how crucial hearing from him could be, quote, mr. assange could

help answer the central question of the investigation by special counsel robert mueller. whether any trump associates co conspired with russia. if it includes charges that he acted as an agent of a foreign power anyone who cooperated with him could be investigated as a co-conspirat co-conspirator. we start with you, nick. big deal, and do you think there's any chance we'll find an answer to those questions your newspaper rightly and provocatively asks? >> it's a great question, nicole. what's fascinating to me is the indictment is framed pretty narrowly in terms of things that don't involve the russia probe. it's regarding acts he took with chelsea manning, wikileaks and american state secrets. they framed it from almost a

grudge match from years ago for things they're trying to get julian assange on for years not as an extension of tmueller pro. so the question is is there more in the indictment, i'm not sure what the answer is. >> there was a flurry of coverage around an accidental filing which revealed, i guess at the wrong time or wrong time and place, something that foreshadowed this in the special counsel investigation. can you remind us what that was and is there any tie between what we saw then and what happened today? >> aspects of this investigation i believe were accidentally revealed in a legal filing by federal prosecutors earlier. so what that did was essentially give a heads up to wikileaks and to assange that the americans were coming for him and that there was something in the works between ecuador and the british and the u.s. that yielded today. so you saw this campaign in the last few days where wikileaks was essentially kind of teasing

the arrest and expulsion of assange from the embassy in london. it's not clear right now if this is going to pull us back into the topic of russia. it could because there are all these questions about wikileaks coordinating on the russian op against hillary clinton and talking potentially with roger stone about it. so there are questions that could be answered if he's in u.s. custody. >> this is an indictment that's been a long time coming. julian assange and his defenders have tried to say he's a journalist and acting like a journalist if the u.s. prosecuted him they're going after journalists. the indictment makes clear he's being charged with activities no journalist under tykes. he's not also being chashlged with acting with a foreign intelligence service. so is today's the first charge against him? the 2016 leaks are not the only

leaks he published. there was the vault 7 leaks. his profile has changed over the time as someone who initially was receiving leaks from chelsea manning, a u.s. government employee and publishing them, to someone by 2016 was working actively with russian intelligence. notice he never published leaked russian documents. his profile has changed over the years. and he looks different to a jury today than he might have in 2011, 2012. >> i don't totally understand why suddenly the timing, why this occurred now, why it didn't occur three months ago or three months from now. it seems to me the key question, this goes back to our first discussion. a justice department that was fully committed to the notion of finding out what happened in 2016, now that he is out, how hard will they press for extradition. if they get it, what's to not just the scope of this indictment but additional possibly indictments, the scope of the investigation, what kind

of pressure can be put on him? it comes back to the question, for a long time, matt, as you know the notion of julian assange journalist/freedom fighter is one that u.s. intelligence agencies have not been believed for a long time. there's now a greater consensus that he's a russian asset and has been for a long time. so how much does the justice department want to bring the full weight of their ability and authority onto julian assange to try to find out exactly what happened and what his complicity was in the 2016 leaks. it seems to me the justice department fully committed to that, this could be a huge opening. a justice department that doesn't want to get anywhere near that could leave it a narrow indictment that doesn't touch it at all. >> go ahead. >> i think they'll come after him with everything they have. julian assange, it's hard to understate the hostility for julian assange throughout the united states government. so it doesn't matter what bill

barr thinks because there's a n machinery that wanted to julian assange. >> sean hannity celebrated julian assange -- are you sure? we have an ag that parrots fox news. are you sure? >> it's hard to slow down the machinery of the government inside the justice department once they get him, if they get him. that said, i think the idea that julian assange is going to flip and provide information to the government seems unlikely when you see the person being hauled out of the embassy like a christmas tree in january. >> is it just a coincidence, i'm not a lawyer, but is it a coincidence that trump has been cleared on the question of a criminal conspiracy to collude with russians, and then -- is that a coincidence? >> it looks a little bit sunny. it likely has to do with the international accord that was reached here. the point we've been making,

this case was indicted in the eastern district of virginia. we've heard about the southern district of new york and its reputation as a bold, sovereign prosecutor's office. evda is quieter, not as loud as their reputation but take their independence every bit as seriously. this case has been kicking around in doj since the obama administration. the facts are old, the prosecutors are committed. i think we may see a surprise out of the eastern district of virginia. >> let me bring back reporting from your colleagues to how this ties back to what john was talking about and covered roger stone and trump and the hacking and the leaking. you reported in january that a senior trump campaign official was directed to contact roger stone about any additional releases and damaging information organization one had regarding the clinton campaign, referring to to wikileaks in

october 2016, mr. stone exchanged e-mails with steve bannon. and when exchanged stone wrote that more wikileaks disclosures were forthcoming, a load every week going forward according to the indictment. it seems the questions are still relevant as we head into another presidential cycle with the looming question about whether this administration has done enough to keep russians, russian hackers and actors out of the american election process. >> it does. here's the honest truth. there's this debate if assange is a journalist. the way his organization has behaved in the last several years is to be an agent of a foreign power that has tried to mess with american elections to the benefit of one side, and that was donald trump's. he's not out there as an equal opportunity actor or reporter uncovering secrets from a variety of governments and come

what may. he's been out to embarrass hillary clinton and the u.s. government and did it in a way that aided trump. that should give everybody pause and worry about what might happen in 2020. the problem is it's an asymmetric warfare against one political side in this country. he has taken sides in this debate, in this battle. >> such a good point. such a good reminder. we'll stay on it. after the break, conveniently timed retirement of donald trump's sister and how it feeds the belief the trumps will do anything to keep their financial information hidden. p financial information hidden in jellyfish. in clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve short-term memory. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. woman 1: this is my body of proof. man 1: proof of less joint pain and clearer skin. man 2: proof that i can fight psoriatic arthritis... woman 2: ...with humira.

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donald trump's big sister now formerly a federal appellate judge is retiring in true trump fashion, amid a swirl of controversy. late last year after the "new york times" named her in an extensive report on the history of the family's finances and the dubious techniques they used to

handle them, four people targeted her with complaints to the court. ten days a after those four people were notified that the investigation was receiving the ie tension of a judicial conduct council, she filed her retirement papers. the status change rendered the investigation moot since retired judges are not subject to the conduct ruleds. the people who filed the complaints were notified last week they were dropped. that development and questions on what she has to hide. and news on donald trump's tax returns today, steve mnuchin did not comply with the deadline to turn them over. he said his department was talking to doj about the legality of the request. joining our conversation david jolly, former republican

congressman from florida, now an independent as we all are. as all republicans with a conscious are conscience are heading. just this picture of obscure smoke, mirror it extends to every conversation we have. >> it's telling because one of the most effective means of discipline is through the rules of professional conduct when it comes to attorneys, in this case a sitting judge. what tripped up bill clinton, he lost his bar license though he wasn't impeached. michael avenatti will lose his bar license before conviction. in this case you had a judge facing discipline for what was initially reported. today is newsworthy. the underlying report is news worthy because it raises questions of tax fraud. tax planning, avoidance is not a crime. but what was in the original reporting was self-dealing between trump companies manipulating the value of assets

to reduce their taxable liability. and if the judge was aware of that, that comes within the rules of professional conduct. >> the original reporting was incredible. incredibly in depth, the subject of a lengthy investigative report, subject of a documentary on show time. and the repercussions were probably ones we didn't pay much attention to. but if you tie them to the way the president and the white house counsel's office is using the treasure department today, this week to strain and stretch every norm we know about, in terms of how we use the treasury department and the irs, they're obviously connected. nick? >> sorry. sorry, nicole. i'm always happy to talk to you. yeah i think there's a real connection. if you go back and look at the story my colleagues wrote last year, it's about two things.

it's about the president lying about the myth of his own self-made wealth and lying to the irs about his family's money and how they got it. and both of those are essentially central questions to a broader discussion of their president's wealth and how he made his money in later years. you can easily imagine the president's sister had not taken this tactical retreat. you can imagine that this would end up in front of congress again, especially if this kind of reprimand or investigation led to a request to have her impeached even though she's no longer an active judge. that would give the democrats a chance to play the tapes again so to speak, how did the trumps make their money, did they lie in their taxes? they're all terrible topics for the president and go to the question what's he hiding on his tax returns. >> you can't see me, but i've been nodding to you as nicely as

you nodded to me. joyce, normal people or people that don't lie about everything turn them over because it's just what you do. it's just what you do when you run for president. i defended the tax returns of everyone i ever worked for. this is a red line, as described by the president, his finances were something he described as a red line. what do you make of this fight, and do you think it needs political traction or do you think it can be propelled by a legal process and a congressional process? >> i guess everything needs political traction these days, but did tax code does not leave any room for doubt. it says the irs shall turn over the president's taxes. particularly when the "new york times" has done this i think explosive piece of reporting that talks about reasons it might be important for congress to engage in oversight. it's very difficult for the president to work his way out of it. sure he can make political noise but it looks like he's found his match in congress and these

folks know the law and they're going to pursue it. >> there's an issue here, which is if the trump organization was engaged in any manipulation of the previous tax filings, the value of the assets roll over year after year, which means the president today while sitting in the oval office would be engaging in the same fraud that he's being questioned whether he engaged in it before he ran for office. >> didn't michael cohen tell us he did that? >> yes. but the filing this year now would reflect that chain of value, if you will, that would ensure the president would be committing tax fraud this year if he did five years ago. >> he's going to put on his wall, the doj can't incite a sitting president? how many investigations can that protect him from? >> an infinite number. >> i think what happened to the president's sister, the president has defenses that

aren't available to normal people, he can't be indicted, a treasury secretary that won't follow the laws. but the other people when usual judicial or functional processes are applied, they collapse like a house of cards. you see his sister quit, people indicted, people going to jail. if the president didn't have the protections he did, you would see him falling the same ends as the rest of them. nick, thank you so much for spending time with us and making me laugh. after the break, how democrats intend to weaponize donald trump's broken promises. that's next. trump's broken pros that's next. when did you see the sign?

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after our amazing election victory, the forgotten men and women, remember we used to talk about the forgotten men and women before the election, guess what, they're not forgotten. anymore. right. anymore. now they're not forgotten

anymore, folks. in fact, they're trying to figure you out. they're saying the obstructionists. how do we get them to vote for us? i don't think that's going to happen >> that was trump boasting about how he's lifted up the forgotten men and women. americans in smam, rural communities across the u.s. but exclusive nbc reporting today about a new dnc strategy for 2020 zeroing in on the impact trump's actually had on the local communities he promised to help. our colleague heidi przybyla reports, quote, voters in hundreds of small and medium-sized towns across america are about to be targeted with digital ads, press conferences and billboards featuring neighbors and friends who say they've been betrayed by president trump. one state the dnc will target is ohio. he was there after the election and told supporters, quote, i'll tell you what, i rode through your beautiful roads coming up from the airport and i was lo

looking at some of those big, once incredible job-producing factories. my wife said, what happened? i said, those jobs are left ohio. they're all coming back. they're all coming back. little over a year later, not far from where trump held that rally, general motors closed their lordstown plant and laid off 15% of all their salaried workers. joining us now, nbc news national political reporter heidi przybyla. heidi, the power of a story, not just in a local community, but to tell a story nationally, is -- there's really nothing like it. but the -- the power of that failure can also really be lowered on a candidate that comes up short, especially if he has four years to deliver. >> because it's peoples lives they're actually living. and despite the numbers that the president often touts at his rallies, these booming urban numbers, in many of these forgotten places where he went to in these small and medium-sized communities, things

are not better. and in some cases, things are worse. so, this is a major expansion of the dnc strategy to go specifically into small and medium-sized towns, and to splice footage of the very specific promises that the president made against what's actually happened there, and there's numerous examples. you cited the lordstown example. there's also the closure of the harley-davidson plant in kansas city. there's been december make thof those jobs and down effects of the jobs that have gone away in many other factories that serviced that factory. and so, this is their strategy to try to really localize this race, because they believe that despite these economic indicators, nicolle, that really indicate what's going on in urban centers, in many of the rural areas where trump specifically said, i'm your man, i'm going to prioritize the

forgotten man, things have not gotten better. >> congressman? >> look, they're going after an area where the president arguably was somewhat effective in 2016 and is setting himself up to be effective, as well. because he doesn't care about the truth or the nuances of policy. he goes into communities and says, i'm going to fix something that my predecessors never fixed. he promised the great lakes initiative funding, went to the southwest border to celebrate part of obama's border barrier, if you will. but what the dnc is doing is they're reminding people that there's a difference between thinking the president is simply a liar and thinking you can't trust him. and what they're saying is, this president is not trustworthy. he's promised to change your lives, to help you with health care, to help you with a fax bill that now favors the rich, but are you better off now than you were in 2016? and he's reminding them that for most americans, the answer is no. but it's a soft way of also saying, the president lied to you. and this way, if the dnc does it, the democratic candidates do

have to do it. >> it is also, you get to the larger point. the central question -- you got, like -- what did you do? >> i'm not shorter at all. >> what did you do? >> joyce is -- maybe my seat slid down, i don't know. >> the question is, are you better off? and because he made these -- we cover him as a lying liar who lines all the time, like, 9,874 lies, nobody seems to have their back up except the people that are already critical of him. but these are people who by and large supported him, who trusted him, who put their family's livelihood in their hahis hands. this could be politically devastating. >> he's got a score strength that has -- that has stayed with him so far throughout the term, in a lot of these places, particularly in rural america. but i think david jolly is right about a very important thing. in politics, there's a notion of salience. it's a meaningful thing. the lies that trump tells, a lot

of them, a lot of people write them off. people get the notion that donald trump is per miscue was with the truth. if you can show them a lie that direct little effects something in their life, that becomes a voting issue. that's what salience is all about. that's what the democrats are trying to the focus on here. we're right to focus on them, but the ones that directly effect the real lives of real people are the ones that could actually sway in a close election in a crucial place, in a crucial district, could really make a difference. >> heidi, there's also something very precise about what the dnc is doing, very complimentary to what their field seems to be doing, which is out shaking hands, doing retail politics, this seems very targeted, this seems very technical. they've got their tactics, billboards, digital ads. is there hope that the eventual nominee takes this over? are they prepared to run this for the next 22 months? >> they are prepared to take this straight through 2020, regardless of whatever the nominee is doing, because,

nicolle, they have been building this up for three years, really. they told me right after the president was elected, the monday after, they began sending freedom of information act requests to federal agencies to try and get correspondence, for instance, with states and municipalities about the effects of his policies, and they're going to pinpoint some of these local towns and municipalities and drop into there the results of those and splis them with the presidents visits to those areas. they're going to try to find your neighbor and your friend and put them on tv or bring them to the press conference. >> heidi, it's incredible reporting. we're grateful to have it and you. thank you for spending some time with us. we're going to sneak in a break. we'll be right back. n a break. we'll be right back. (mom vo) we fit a lot of life

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>> you read it. what are you doing? >> what -- i'm looking up to joyce vance. just want to -- always wanted to do it. >> we all look up to joyce. >> did something happen? >> the incredibleshrinking -- >> it's really weird being down here. >> see, welcome to life as a short person. my thanks to john, joyce, david, matt, and everyone else that joined us. thank you for watching. i'm nicolle wallace. "mtp daily" starts right now. >> listen, you guys just can't come on air latching when clearly he told some great joke that none of us are in on. >> wait, show chuck todd where he's sitting. look! >> come on, look. >> we can't show you. he's like a head shorter than joyce vance, who is about my height.