me. i will see you back here tonight at 9:00 p.m. eastern for "the rachel maddow show." as always find me on social media, twitter, facebook, instagram, snapchat and linked in. thank you for watching. have a great weekend. "deadline: white house" with nicolle wallace starts right now. hi, everyone, it's 4:00 in new york. america's half-cocked president said he was cocked and loaded for a strike on iran last night but he called it off at the last minute when he learned that 150 people would die. since making that life or death decision about american national security and instability, donald trump tweeted six times including to offer his own ticktock of his decision making to attack journalists and, of course, to complain about the russia investigation. he's also conducted a sit-down interview with our own chuck todd in which he offered color commentary on his decision making. >> did you greenlight or or had

you said, if you do it, i'll do this? >> nothing is greenlighted until the very end because things change. >> you never gave a final order? >> no, no. but we had something ready to go, subject to my approval. they came in about a half hour before and said we're about ready to go? >> were planes in the air? >> no, about ready to go. no, but they would have been pretty soon. things would have happened to the point where you wouldn't turn back or couldn't turn back. so they came and said, sir, we're ready to go. we would like a decision. i said i want to know something before you go, how many people will be killed? in this case iranians. i said how many people are going to be killed? sir, i'd like to get back to you on that. great people, these generals. they said -- came back and said, sir, approximately 150. and i thought about it for a second, and i said you know what, they shot down an unmanned

drove, plane, whatever you want to call it, and here we are sitting with 150 dead people that would have taken place probably within with a half hour after i said go ahead. hn i didn't like it. i didn't think it was proportionate. >> "the new york times" reports the first revealed decision to strike and the president's reversal of that decision tells a slightly different story. quote, the operation was under way in its early stages when it was called off. a senior administration official said planes were in the air and ships were in position but no missiles had been fired when word came to stand down. "the times" peter baker adds this day of swerving decision making, in a volatile day of internal debates and on again/off again strike against iran, mr. trump confronted the sem conflict to his approach to national security. for 2 1/2 years he veered between bellicose threats between america's enemies and promises to get the united states out of the intractable

wars of the middle east. now he had to choose and as if to remove any doubt to him it's all a show, "the times" mackey haberman tweeted this -- a source told me 30 minutes ago that trump was pleased with his own performance last night, loved being in command by ordering the strikes and ordering the standdown and the president just tweeted it. here to talk about it all, some of our favorite reporters and friend. with us former republican congressman from florida, now an independent, david jolly. an executive editor from bloomberg opinion, tim o'brien. plus p. journalist who covers foreign affairs lisa lavin is joining us. foreign policy analyst tom nichols, professor at the naval war college. and with us from "the new york times" white house correspondent michael crowley. michael, we have not seen you since you joined "the new york times." congrats on your new posting. and take us through what you and your colleagues were reporting all through the night and this

morning. >> well, we're still trying to get to the bottom of exactly why the president called off these air strikes that he authorized. and there have been different versions of this put out by the president on twitter and trump allies in public. and i don't think we have a kind of clear and convincing answer at this point. so that is the great hunt that is under way. even the president's own account when he describes this casualty figure is a little hard to make sense of. i mean, by his telling, it appears that he's basically authorized the operation and then asked what the casualty count is going to be. and then says that he's told we'll have to get back to you on that. it sort of doesn't add up. that's typically done very early in the process would you have that number. it's hard to understand why someone would have to get back to him. that account is just a little bit peculiar. but what we do know is that he

walked right up to the brink of what would have been a very dramatic and i think indisputably dangerous military action that could have escalated quickly out of control. there's a difference of opinion about whether it would and could have been containable or not. but certainly it would have been a dangerous strike. and what we also don't know is what could come next? is the possibility of some sort of military action still on the table, or has the president decided that's just not the path he's going to go down? i don't think we know that either. >> elise, i think the idea this information is all out in public and being amplified by donald trump is something extraordinary that we shouldn't skip past. national security when it is conducted behind closed doors is done so to protect innocent lives not just in the context of a decision but in the future. and i think that a lot of folks have a feeling that moving forward lives, including those

of the men and women of america's military, may be imperial imperilled to donald trump showing such an aversion to a single topic. can you widen this for us how limiting it is to reveal a military option presented to him by his advisers was something he dismissed at the last moment because of the cost in human life. >> you're right, nicolle, but that's the narrative he wants to put out. that's not necessarily the narrative that happened. my understanding is the president, all of his advisers were on the same page and the president came back later and decided against it. did he have cold feet? did he talk to someone? he talks to a lot of friends and business associates on his own. they get in his ears, sometimes to the good, sometimes to the detriment. as michael said, he was fairly

diplomatic. but it's inkov seenable when the president's military advisers are advising him on potential action that he didn't know what the casualty count was. this was the weekend and middle of the night in iran. casualties would have been automatically damaged. but this is an idea the president wants to put out there. it's also entirely possible they got a signal back from the iranians they got the message. my understanding was there was a message to the omanis to the iranians, be aware a strike is coming, something is coming. possibly the president got word back that the iranians got the message. whatever it is, it does put the president in kind of a dispute with his advisers and it makes it a little bit difficult to decide on a strategy when you know that the president can turn it around like that. >> i want to ask you about carrying out american foreign policy as the president with

next-to-no credibility, not just among more than half of the u.s. population but as someone who has had skir vishes on twitter and world summits with allies who embraced publicly and privately some of the world's most brutal dictators. there's something, and i described is it as a white knuckle moment for the country earlier in the week. the decision aside and let's examine that separately, but just the description or the articulation of what donald trump is doing, it's not even clear that's a fact. >> one of the problems here is that if you're really going to go up against the iranians or any other serious power like this, you need to have all of your ducks in a row. you need to have your allies on board. you need to have the entire bureaucracy and national security establishment rowing in the same direction. you need to have made some phone calls to your allies and put out

some subtle signals to your opponents that everybody needs to get out of your way. that's how superpowers do things. again, i should point out i don't represent the navy or the government on this. my view is if you're going to take down the iranians for the kind of behavior they're engaging in -- and i don't think it should go unanswered but i don't think president trump will lead us in this conflict, you need to do a lot of prep work and the problem is this administration doesn't have a lot of credibility either with the a fair number of people at home and certainly with a lot of our allies because no one ever know what's they're doing at any given moment or why they're doing it. and you can't think about the use of force without that kind of careful preparation. it just doesn't work. and this is the result you get, a kind of a hot mess where everybody stands around looking at each other trying to figure out what just happened. >> i want to stay with the hot

mess theme, michael crowley. it is extraordinary we know this much this quickly. you all report mr. trump's national security advisers split about whether to respond militarily. senior administration officials said secretary of state mike pompeo, john bolton, national security adviser and gina haspel, cia director, favored a military response. but top pentagon officials cautioned such an action could result in a spiring escalation for a risk for american forces in the a veteran of the bld. there were often stories in your newspaper about dk dk and rmd and wolfowitz, partnering with people cliek colin powell but never the next morning. this is a public divide among the president's national security advisers. >> yes, thanks and i want to make sure the several colleagues that worked on the story get the credit here they deserve. a lot of really good people pitched in on this and it was an amazing window into the deliberations of this

administration. but i would say there's still a sense and i think elise put her finger on it, there's more to this that we don't know. although a remarkable amount did come tumbling out, i think elise is right we know that the president makes big decisions outside of the normal lanes of policy making that we're all accustom to and you saw in the bld, where you had regular policy process and it was considered this kind of shocking break from the policy process if one official went in directly to the oval office and wasn't making their views known at the table. whereas with this president, who is he on the phone with when he walks out of the situation room? it could be a tv host. it could be somebody he did business with in manhattan. i don't know something specific in this case but i do think there are people around the president who feel like he makes these decisions not based

entirely on the opinions of his national security officials who are presenting him with the battle plans, and that he can turn virtually anywhere for advice. it makes him incredibly unpredictable, and it has our allies extremely nervous about trying to figure out what the u.s. is going to do next and whether we can be on the brink of war. >> elise, talked about back channels. there was an open channel of communication via social media from vladimir putin. we know donald trump likes to line himself right up with vladimir putin's foreign policy goals. do you think it's a coincidence that once again the american president did what putin wanted to have done? >> i got to be honest, i don't really think putin was a play here. i think the president got cold feet for whatever reason. as michael said, was he on the phone with some fox host or was he talking to some back channels with omen? there's a lot we don't know. i don't think necessarily why didn't putin call up and just

kind of talk to him and they put that call out. i don't think that's really the case. i think something we also have to take a look at is as michael was talking about, this would have had a very dangerous -- could have had a very dangerous escalation with unpredictable consequences. so i think a lot of people think it was a good end result. maybe those like john bolton or mike pompeo would have liked to have seen a strike. probably best that the u.s. and iran are not trading military strikes. but the indecision as we have been talking about is really what's concerning here because what kind of message does that send to iran, who is really engaged in a game of chicken with president trump, looking to see if he's going to keep swerving, continuing to test him. what kind of message does it end to kim jong-un? i lobbed a couple short-range missiles, maybe i will lob a medium range one.

these are larger questions when you're looking at u.s. foreign policy that have to be answered. >> tom, i'm going to go out on a limb here and say there's a tie between the things he says, if it's little rocket man in north korea, and the things he ends up doing, whether it's becoming a pen pal love letter writing bestie with kim jong-un. do you think our policy vis-a-vis iran is heading in the same direction as our policy vis-a-vis north korea, where despite, despite the briefings that must be available to him from the u.s. intelligence community about the threats that they represent in the region, how destabilizing they are is there, the blood that the iranians have on their hands in iraq, including to u.s. soldiers, at his heart donald trump is -- i don't want to use the word for peace but he's really the isolationist, anti-interventionalist he's pitched himself as since the south carolina primary very early in the republican primary

season. >> i cannot imagine what it must be like to have to brief donald trump. >> yeah. >> and you and i both worked for politicians. i worked for a senior republican senator. they listen. they ask questions about things like casualties. that's the first thing they ask. so i think part of the problem here is that donald trump comes from the world of tv, where nothing is real. nothing has actual consequences. and when he suddenly -- it suddenly occurs to him this isn't a tv show and people are going to shoot back, i think that changes his calculation at the last minute. i don't know if this story about omen is true. my guess is if there was communication through iran -- from iran through omen back to the white house, my guess is the white house said go ahead and stake your shot. roll the dice. i don't know that he did what putin wanted him to do but it didn't help that putin in the middle of the day said this

would be a bad thing to do. and every now and then the president suddenly comes to the realization, wow, this isn't tv. real things will happen. and i'm one of people who's glad he backed off of this. i think it would have been a disastrously bad idea. but i think he did it in the most destructive way possible. and we're going to be paying the price for this kind of backing and forth for a while to come. things will get worse -- they will get worse before they get worse. but i think that this is not the end of this. >> david jolly, i don't have an opinion about this but i think whenever a loss of life is avoided in the near term, that's a blessing. but i'm not convinced this was the decision that result in the least number of lives lost in the long run. and i'm not confident that donald trump is the best man to be representing our country's interest when it comes to iran. he took mbs' word on it about this brutal slaughter of khashoggi and we know mbs is one of the people in his ear when it

comes to iran. he's done things at the behest of the israeli leader. we know israel has equities in iran. i'm not sure that we have a steady hand receiving information making these decisions, do you? >> or truthful hand. i'm not sure donald trump is telling the truth about what actually happened. >> correct. >> as a tv and mass media guy, donald trump is trying to frame this as one of the defining leadership moments of his presidency when in reality, the president's projection of incompetence and incoherence on the world stage is devastating to our national security interests. this is not the first time that a strike package or a mission package has been changed or aborted. but to your earlier point, it really is the first time in modern political history there has been such transparency about this decision making. if donald trump really did not understand the consequences of the mission that he had pre

previously approved, that speaks to his own level of incompetence. if he did and aborted it at the last minute because something spoke to him, that speaks to his incoherence. i know he will saber rattle and start a war to try to win an election, but my greater concern is what other nation states around the globe are thinking knowing we have 18 more months of donald trump at the helm of the white house as commander in chief. what can we extract as adverse nation states from the united states and its current leader? >> tim, you're a student of donald trump. you're a student of his lack of any sort of monogamous relationship with the truth. just examine him as the commander in chief in these moments. >> getting back to what tom said earlier, he can't imagine what it would be like briefing donald trump. the reality is donald trump is unbriefable. he's undisciplined intellectually and emotionally. he's not sophisticated.

he's a student of nothing other than his own public image. he's driven generally by self-absorbed goals. you put all of that together and it adds up to what we've always known about him when it comes to presidential character, this is a man who is very dangerous when it comes to issues like military strikes or the rule of law. the second the u.s. withdrew from the nuclear agreement with iran, there were two routes, crack down economically or go to war. trump had a lot of time to think about net outcome of that decision. he overturned an obama agreement. he was proud about that. but there were consequences that came home to roost and wasn't ready for it. what he cares about most even now is performance art. convincing people he's in control, convincing people he made the right decision. i think in that moment in the interview with chuck todd and he's talking about taking advice from his generals and his lip curls a little bit and he speaks

disparagingly of his own military advisers in that moment, he does a disservice to the men and women of this country who are in public service and in military service. it should really raise questions in the minds of voters and trump supporters about who this man is. the last thing too is just the language, custom loaded. what is he talking about? >> because this is a tv show to him. >> i missed that one. what is it? >> somebody said it's the secret service code names for eric and don jr. but look, this is the president who sees his entire presidency as a branding exercise. the reporting it's not the poll numbers that matter to him, it's the ratings. this is a ratings week for him. i'm concerned going into wednesday and thursday of next week when the democrats have their debates, what is this president going to do on matters of national security, on immigration? i'm afraid this strike package gets move a week in the middle of the debate. i know that's crazy, and maybe

it is, but we are seeing this president try to flood the zone on the media cycle for next week. it's already in place. >> do you think he's constitutionally weak enough if this military decision gets bad reviews on the sunday show, he would revisit it? >> oh, absolutely. i don't think at all this is the end of it. he's been embarrassed today. he's got to recognize that. however he's trying to re-create the fact pattern here, he either launched a strike not knowing what the casualties would be or in the middle of it when he found out decided to reverse. either way that's not good. he mismanaged a military strike that was going to be extremely consequential. secondly, he still can't pull himself out of the performance art moment that he likes to occupy all the time. >> right. >> and the thing that dragged him down here, and it's going to become part of the immigration of it too, he wants to project unilateral power and he's able to walk through all of these moments without taking advice, without considering the views of

others, that he can get it done on his own. then he discovers when the moment arrives that he can't. he's not constituted to handle that in a mature way. >> elise, it's a pleasure to have you join us. i'm glad to see you. tom nichols, you too and michael crowley, congrats to you and your colleagues on this extraordinary reportling. thank you all for spending time with us. after the break, mayor pete tends to a crisis at home while joe biden seeks to smooth things over with cory booker. we will dig into the 2020 democratic primary ahead of a big south carolina weekend. also ahead, hope hicks' testimony may have given democrats a legal tool that the lawyers did not expect. we will explain. and the inhue mantty of the president's immigration policy continues with families targeted for mass deportations.

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questions about race have already tripped up some of the 2020 democratic candidates, and the elephant in the room, if you will, is this. it's a good for a party that increasingly values diversity to turn to white men to lead it. take pete buttigieg, a candidate previously unknown to voters who worked his way into that second tier of candidates that he himself still recognizes and needs to make more inroads with black voters. and tonight would have been the perfect time to do that. congressman jim collab urn's world-famous fish fry in south carolina. buttigieg had been slated to attend but announced today he to cancel. the reason he's going to be in his hometown, south bend, indiana, in order to attend a march related to the fatal shooting of a black man by a

white police officer last weekend. here's how buttigieg described his decision. >> and part of my job is to promote healing and to make sure that members of the community, especially the black community who are concerned with whether they can trust the police, even as details are still coming out about this specific issue, making sure we demonstrate our commitment to transparency, to fairness, justice and healing. this evening is one of those moments where i city just needs its mayor and i look forward to returning to the campaign trail in south carolina tomorrow. >> while buttigieg won't be at the fish fry, joe biden will. he reached out to cory booker last night to try to smooth over any friction between the two men after biden's comments about being able to work with two segregationists in the u.s. senate. >> when i go home tonight back to a black and brown neighborhood that you can still literally see the legacy of this dark, dark past. and for him to dredge it up in the way that he did, in a way that harms and hurts, we had a

very constructive conversation about that. >> did you come to a better understanding of his side of this experience? >> i think i understood very well even before that conversation. i understood where his intentions were and i understood where his heart was. the fact is though it's not about me or him, he said things that are hurtful and that are harmful. i believe he should be apologizing to the american people and having this discussion with all of us. >> joining our conversation, garrett haake, msnbc correspondent, who is down in south carolina for jim clyburn's fish fry. joining us at the table, rev al sharpton, host of "politicsnation" here on msnbc and axios political reporter alexa mckernan. garrett, let me start with you, a really important event hosted by a really, really important man in a really, really, really important state. >> yeah, i think that about sums it up. i think for these candidates, here's the downside though, you've got essentially everyone here. i don't know who gains advantage

out of being here when the entire field is here. i don't think this is the kind of thing that really hurts mayor pete by not being here. if you look at that from a campaign perspective, it seems like a pretty straightforward risk/reward, you're way from your city, one trto be here for perceived political gain when there's not enough upside to be here, it seems like there could have been neermous downside for showing up and being called out for skipping out on the day job. we will see if anybody breaks through tonight. tomorrow night at the democratic convention, you have booker and biden as the last two speakers of the day which could be an interesting moment. it seems like talking to both campaigns, neither one wants to continue making too much hay out of this going forward. >> rev? >> i think i talked to mayor pete, he called me around the shooting. this is a serious shooting. a man was killed. the police officer's body camera

was off. we talked about that. i have talked to the widow of the man. i think he made the right decision to stay there and deal with this issue, particularly when you have a fatality and the camera was off. i mean, the idea of having body cameras is we see what happens. the other thing of police being able to cut off body cameras is a real problem. mayor pete and i talked about it. in terms of biden, i think he said things that he has to deal with. i think no one thinks he's a racist. he took many shots throughout his career fighting for civil rights and for eight years he took a lot of shots for barack obama. having said that, it doesn't give him the right to make certain statements. i mean the whole thing, they called me son, not boy, very offensive. i i don't kn i don't know if he understands the racial connotation of boy. and the apologize to everybody,

not me, i will be down there to talk to cory on "politicsnation." and he said i didn't realize it was that insensitive. he should own it, deal with it and move on. >> biden is a normal human being like the rest of us but this is his third presidential run. he was a vice president for barack obama. i understand he's 76. in that sense he has one foot in that world and one foot trying to meet the current world and society. at some point you have to think twice and three times about the things you're saying. instead of flat-out deciding to apologize for everything which seems like a strategy of defiance and maybe even taking a page from trump's playbook, why not say yeah, i messed up. i didn't realize when i said the racial history of calling black men boy. that also suggests he has so much privilege saying i was called son and not boy he doesn't even recognize, it's more complex than the racial

aspect. there's an aspect of privilege he's not acknowledging when he's trying to serve the entire country and running campaign that he will reunite everyone, including black folks and people with no privilege, instead of being being a divider like president trump. >> so you're giving him three strikes and you're -- go ahead, ga garrett. >> can i jump in here, because basically you gave me yesterday an assignment to speak to these voters about this. >> i did. >> i spoke to a number of african-american voters here, even folks who told me they're not paying particularly close attention to this election so far, they were aware of this incident. they were keenly aware of what the vice president said and almost all of them told me they were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. but on the question how to handle it, they said he did not need to come out and apologize. they do not want to see a

trumpian response to this. yes, they understand the point the vice president was trying to make. was it inartful? yes, of course. the voters i took to again, this is not a scientific process. we get this guy, guy who stood by barack obama, but he does need to come out and clean this up. the idea you can rush head-long through this a la donald trump did not fly with the folks i was talking to down here today. >> so it does confirm, one, voters are smart, treat them as they are smart. two, voters are forgiving. treat them as though they have the passion for forgiveness. and you look at joe biden's number, he's sitting 50%. he has a lot of goodwill there. he has the space to ask forgiveness for saying something stupid. >> yes, in many ways this is a debate in which everybody's kind of right. joe biden was right saying i need to work with everybody. we saw jim clyburn come out and say that, john lewis, the rev said he had to work with people.

cory booker is also right joe biden emergeford a different generation where using the term boy and son may have a different connotation as now and in some ways reflective of the national conversation how do we recognize and give credit for people of generations past who fought in coalitions to advance civil rights, even though that fight could not apply to 2019 because fortunately the nation's in a different place? the one piece about asking forgiveness and the one thing i think joe biden should take from this and people like me, frankly white men and women, should listen more and talk less. let the voices of the rev and cory booker and kamala harris, let the leaders, african-american leaders in this democratic primary move the national conversation. and joe biden taking a defensive posture not what the nation needs in this conversation right now. i think democratic voters know that and that's what garrett is reporting on. >> i think that may be the best contrast of all. that may be the best contrast available to any democrat hoping to challenge donald trump, shut up and listen.

>> also don't -- you know this idea that trump has blown the playbook up and that it's okay to be socially insensitive or being racist flagrantly because you will not be held accountable for it, that has been some of the dialogue around this biden moment that candidates are trying to tear this page out of trump's playbook. >> i asked that question yesterday. i think candidates should run 100 miles an hour away from that even if it's not politically astute. we're at a point now historically if you're going to look back about the decisions all of us made in the trump moment about what america should be or could be. no one should be taking their cues from donald trump. he's polluted the public dialogue and he's debased our military, he's debased our fellow americans, and he's debased other candidates that he's competed against. all biden has to remember here is humility goes a long way. >> that is my point. i think aside from the moral

side of it and my being a civil rights activist still doing this, i think politically if i was advising biden, i would seize the moment of saying i'm not going to be like trump. yes, i have been out here with you for decades but i'm not taking you for granted. i shouldn't have said it that way and i'm not going to be like that and show the contrast. it would gain for him. i think he has a tremendous opportunity here to show this country how somebody ought to act when they misspeak. definitely misspoke. that doesn't make him a bad guy, but he didn't hands te tell in good way. >> i want to ask you to go ten, nine, eight and wait for your phone to ring? busy season and the stories, did he talk to the rev? the rev. do you sleep with it by your bed, oh, god, what did they do now? >> i'll put it this way, i get a lot of calls. they keep messing up. >> it's good that mayor pete

called you though this is not fatal moment for his candidacy politically the timing is awful for him. there's very little opening to hit mayor pete going into the debates. but this plays into the one narrative that opposition researchers have had, which is his handling of the race in the police force in south bend. this moment now is an opening for somebody if they want to try to take it on the debate stage. >> and he's called me and you're right, he's concerned, i'm sure, about that. and that's why also i talked to the widow and family, it is a serious shooting. the body camera turned off. and he's taking it seriously. >> two thoughts on biden. first, he's running against himself down here. most of the voters are not that familiar with the other candidates. whether they know and like biden is one thing but they don't know who the alternatives are yet. big opportunity for the other candidates. second, if you're joe biden, i think there could be an enormous opportunity to prove at 76, can you still learn.

an apology here artfully delivered in which he says her s are all of the ways i can get better could be a way to turn this upside down that somehow he's done as a politician, his best days are behind him, and no, here's how i can still improve. it's a good opportunity. >> very good advice, garrett. thank you. thank you for joining us from south carolina. rev, you're on your way there. >> yes, biden and cory. i'm getting them as they come off the stage. >> 5:00 here. >> 5:00 "politicsnation." >> i know where i will be. >> right here in the seat nicolle wallace reins from. >> come back monday and tell us all about it. >> i will be glad to. when we come back, hope hicks and her claims of blanket immunity may have given us a much-needed breakthrough. -the bed is huge. it has available led cargo area lighting. lights up the entire bed. it even offers a built in 120 volt outlet.

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the phrase silence is golden is taking on a new meaning when it comes to donald trump's investigation and his allies. the judiciary committee released a transcript of the interview with hope hicks, where it was revealed trump administration lawyers were stopped from answering questions 155 times. but that stonewalling will help deliver congress a crucial win in cord, according to the committee's chairman jerry nadler. quote, it very much played into our hands. it's one thing to tell a judge blanket immunity is not the right thing, and it's another thing where i judge can see what it means in actuality and how absurd it is. joining us now at the table and from msnbc "the oath" and if you're not listening to the podcast should be, chuck rosenberg. i was a white house director and read the questions she didn't answer. harry waxman was not the chair but are on the oversight. i turned over all of my emails

when asked. why doesn't hope hicks have to answer some of these most basic and ludicrous questions like where did you sit? >> eventually, nicolle, she may have to answer. this white house is taking a different approach than the white house in which you worked. you were told it was okay, they waived executive privilege so you produced emails to mr. waxman and beyond. >> yes. >> but they're not doing that. so what happened the other day when hope hicks testified lawyers from the white house accompanied her and many times as you pointed out they invoked executive privilege in simpson -- response to some questions you wouldn't think they pertain. now this gives them the opportunity to go to court, your honor, what they're doing is overly broad, not applicable, not right, we have an oversight legislative responsibility, they're impeding that. please rule in our favor. it gives them a procedure toehold if that makes sense. >> they need more than procedure toehold. i they're dyeing up there.

frank figliuzzi and claire mis-cass kill last week on the show were pretty animated how nadler shouldn't be up and down debating impeachment if they can't get mueller on the hill f not mueller, why not all of his deputies? if mueller is like a newspaper's publisher, the reporters are all of the investigators and prosecutors who brought the manafort case and flynn case and all of the interviewed people like hope hicks in the obstruction investigation, why aren't they on capitol hill? >> they can tell the story. when i was u.s. attorney i used to say i had a job in which i saw everything and did nothing. in other words, the men and women who worked for me were the ones who knew the nuts and bolts in every case. i'm not saying mueller did nothing. >> but he ran an office. atp comparison. >> but he ran an office. the folks who know this case inside out that you can wake up at 3:00 in the morning and recite it chapter and verse are exactly probably that group of people. >> and the ones who wrote those sections of the mueller.

>> taking nothing away from robert mueller, he didn't write the report, he approved the report, he supervised the report. if want to breathe life into it, those can do it. >> if you know them, can you call them and suggest they go up there. >> i know them but i'm not sure i will call. >> one of the lead prosecutors will write a book about it. why isn't he on the hill? >> has he been asked to go to capitol hill is my question? >> i assume so. it makes a big deal to voters to see femme talk abo people talk about this stuff. when robert mueller got in front of a camera it made a big difference to people who had not paid attention before. >> hicks transcript on lewd tapes, hicks, the day after the "access hollywood" tape there were rumors going around about rumors of the tape involving mr. trump and moscow about, you know, can i say this? discussions off the record with russian hookers participating in lewd act tinkties. i'm guessing that's the tinkle

tape. so obviously i didn't -- i felt this was exactly how it had been described to me, which was a rumor. nonetheless, i wanted make sure i stayed on top of it before it developed any further to try to contain it from spiraling out of control. the significance here, alexi, and anyone who wants to jump in on the russian hooker conversation, seems to be hope hicks was forbidden from by the six lawyers exerting executive privilege talking about anything that happened 0 around the transition of government, she's talking about the period right after the tape came out. jim comey didn't tell the president about the dossier or about the tape, about him allegedly being peed on by russian hookers. they already knew about it. that didn't seem pretty revelatory. >> i don't know what to make of that to be honest. i think she's not offering anything in that statement. >> i hear hope hicks saying, can i say this? russian hookers participating in some lewd activities so obviously i didn't -- i felt

this was exactly how it had been described to me, which was a rumor. hope hicks was aware with a rumor with russian hookers participating in some lewd activities. jim comey writes about in his book and talks about in subsequent interviews how uncomfortable he was having to go in and brief the president on the existence of this. jim comey also had written about and talked about how the president wanted to knock this down. and hi this job as communication adviser, they work through the worse and sorted rumors, the candidate she knew about it in october. >> she knew there was a rumor but comey was providing a defense. what i mean by that is he's saying i don't know if this is true or false but i know it's out there and, therefore, you need to know it's out there in case there's anything you need to do to protect yourself from being unduly influenced by a foreign add sprer sari. >> i guess the point is trump

used it as a weapon. he used it as a bludgeon by which he bludgeoned the fbi and intelligence committee. he assailed them every day from the convenience briefing. before the inauguration, he knew the roomer was out there. it didn't come from a dossier or buzzfeed or cnn. hope hicks knew about it in october. >> hope hicks' testimony in a very casual way paints the perfect picture of the posture u, defensive posture, of the world at times and on in matter of russian interference. hope hicks was asked did you have any advanced knowledge of the wikileaks release? and she said no, but we had a strategy to be ready as soon as it was released, we were going to seize on it. that would have been like al gore's team saying we were ready if somebody gave us the debate book to use it and seize on it. the other part she acknowledged they did not invoke any privilege on is they said what happened when questions about russian interference came up? what was the president's concern?

and she said the president said well, these are the same intelligence agencies that said saddam had weapons of mass destruction. and somebody said, i believe congresswoman dean said to hicks, so he wasn't concerned about the interference? and hope hicks says during this interview on the record, well, may he may have been concerned about that but he was concerned about story would undermine the legitimacy of his election. what we see with the russian hookers and wikileaks and interference, hope hicks' job was to attack the intel agencies on behalf of the president. that's been his singular posture and it was on full display and she confirmed it during this testimony. >> i need you on all of this, tim. >> just to follow up on what david said and he wants to attack his own law enforcement community and intelligence community in the service of his own image. he's not actually focusing when he's being briefed by comey or hope hicks is bringing this information that there's a threat to the office of the presidency, there's an issue with the rule of law. coget blackmailed by a foreign

power. at one point with comey ed said, i really don't want my wife to find out about this. >> yes. >> and i think there's another moment for us to recognize we see everything through the prism of what it means for him, not what it means for the country. when we come back, the trump administration planning massive roundups of undocumented migrants, mostly parents and children. arents and children

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the president appears to be using the operation for political purposes as he begins his re-election bid. so not a surprise that he is using the deportation of humans, moving human beings around like -- dehumanizing them for political purposes. but it is always remarkable to read it in the newspaper. >> we saw this political mackey nation when he sent troops to the border to protect us, though they were hundred he is of miles away from the major ports of entry. here -- so the context is important. these are people who have final orders of deportation. so their cases have baeen adjudicated. at least by policy and perhaps because of a lack of resources for many, many years, people with final orders of deportation were not removed. and so what has happened over

time, they have had children in this country, they have held jobs, they have been good citizens other than coming here perhaps illegally, they haven't committed crimes by and large. these are honest hard working people overwhelmingly and that is what makes it so difficult, so tragic. >> and it also comes after we've learned about more migrants, children, in dire situations in the custody of i.c.e. and cbp and it comes just days after president trump launches his re-election campaign. he doesn't have the wall to run on because he didn't fulfill that promise. so he can do is go to the extreme lengths to prove to his base that he cares about immigration and keeping the can country safe and all the crazy things that he said during his 2016 campaign launch about the rapists and bad embreys coming over the border. he will use this as a way to say look, i'm doing something. congress didn't help me build a border wall, but look at what i'm doing on my own to keep you

all safe. it is clearly a political employ because he doesn't come to the negotiating table to come up with a comprehensive immigration plan. he only goes to these extreme lengths to say i'm doing this on my own. >> and consider the foolishness of somebody tipping their hat to a major law enforcement asks. consider if you are the chief of this law enforcement operation due you to be deployed and he goes on twitter and says guess what we're doing next weekend. but look, he is playing this political strategy. he uses every tool he can for his own re-election. and the interesting thing is november of 2018 showed us a lot of voters were turned off by the kids in cage, by img grace and it hurts in the popular vote. but is this part of his electoral strategy. because at the end of the day, the president will lose the popular vote again, but he is trying to win out the eelectric to electoral college. ctric to electoral college.

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we ran out of time, but my thanks to chuck, david, alexi and tim and to you for watching. "mtp daily" starts right now. ♪ if it is friday, president trump sits down with "meet the press" for an exclusive sitdown. revealing just how close he was to striking back at iran. >> so they came and they said sir, we're ready to go, we'd like a decision. i said i