thanks for joining us at this hour. rachel has the night off. she will be back on monday. i will try not to break the furniture while i'm here. tonight is officially the first summer friday of 2019. it doesn't feel like it tonight in the news. for starters, a couple of hours ago a federal court unsealed something that we not only did not see coming, we didn't even know it existed. a series of hundreds of text messages between trump campaign chair paul manafort and a fellow he calls shawn. that would be our friend shawn hannity of the fox news channel. apparently mr. manafort and mr. hannity were exchanging text messages on a nearly constant

basis in 2017 and 2018 starting a few months before manafort's indictment on multiple felony tax and bank fraud and conspiracy charges. pretty much right up to the moment mr. manafort went to jail. the judge in manafort's case was examining these text messages to determine if manafort and his lawyer may have violated the gag order on the case by talking to a tv host, and now the messages have been made public. the texts are largely messages of support from hannity. quote, i know is this is very hard. stand tall and strong. we are all on the same team, says hannity. manafort responds, and we will prevail. exactly, says hannity. hannity also spends a lot of time asking if manafort is watching his show and they discuss hannity's theories of the deep state and hillary clinton's crimes and how manafort is being railroaded, sometimes hannity appears to text manafort during his broadcast, quote, you watching? manafort responds, yes.

i love you. manafort, i hope potus, meaning president trump, understands your point. hannity replies, i tell him a lot, a real lot. so that is how this evening started. right now let's take a look at this. you are looking at a live shot from columbia, south carolina, or you will be momentarily where 22 democratic presidential hopefuls are gathered to take part in one of the biggest political events in this key early primary state, namely congressman jim clyburn's annual fish fry. tonight is the first time in the race that so many democratic contenders are appearing together at the same event. also tonight, a bombshell story on the cover of "new york" magazine. here's the headline, this is what i was wearing 23 years ago when donald trump attacked me in a bergdorf goodman dressing room. the president is denying the

allegations in that story tonight. we will have that all ahead. because all of that was not enough for one summer friday evening, "the washington post" says that president trump has directed immigration and customs enforcement to, quote, conduct a mass roundup of migrant families with pre-dawn raids in major u.s. cities on sunday. now there's been some confusion about these raids. trump first said the raids would round up millions, then officials said there was no such plan. then it was reported that a much smaller plan had kind of sort of been in the works for a while maybe, and now we have word that donald trump has ordered that operation. the trouble with covering news like this is certainly an operation to round up 2,000 undocumented immigrants specifically targeted at families, well, that's a big, serious consequential thing for a lot of people. that is a scary thing. but if there's one thing donald trump is invested in more than any other, it is that he is personally ordering big, serious

consequential scary things aimed at immigrants. i mean, we don't know if this operation is actually going to happen on sunday, but we definitely know the president wants people to think it is. as the washington post put it today, quote, some within dhs and i.c.e. says the president appears to be using the operation for political purposes as he begins his re-election bid. law enforcement officials worry that by publicly discussing the plan trump has undermined the chances of capturing those on the target list as it likely pushed migrants with deportation orders underground. if trump is undercutting the success of his own operation by announcing it in advance, it's probably safe to say that announcing the operation is more important to him than actually carrying it out. and that's kind of a pattern with this president. earlier this year president trump announced on twitter that he was cutting off federal emergency aid for california because he was convinced that they were doing something wrong with the forest management or

something. but it turned out he never ordered fema to do anything of the sort. last fall trump boasted confidently about a new tax cut that he and republicans in congress had come up with. they were putting the finishing touches on it. it would be unveiled right before the election. no one in congress had any idea what the president was talking about and even white house officials quietly admitted they were mystified. when asked about the tax cut trump's own treasury secretary said this, i quote, i'm not going to comment on whether it is a real thing or not a real thing. trump talked about it at his rallies. it was a major applause line, but as you may have noticed, there was no new tax cut plan. there never had been. the president likes to say that his border wall is being built, has been built, is nearly finished, is finished. one time they even put up a plaque on some replacement fencing that had been ordered by the obama administration and they just

called it trump's wall. it's created the strange, uncomfortable dynamic in which everyone, the press, foreign governments, members of congress, they all have to be constantly gauging what relationship if any trump's pronouncements have to reality. last year after trump announced he was calling off negotiations over the dreamers, undocumented immigrants brought here as children. "the new york times" noted in passing, quote, it was unclear whether the president's tweets represented any change in his immigration policy or were just the sort of venting he is known to do after reading a newspaper article or seeing a television program. the same year when trump announced he was delaying a trade agreement with south korea, david ignatius said were one south korean asked him, quote, prosecute president's comments about holding the new trade deal, was that real? did he really mean that or was he just ad-libbing? the president is in effect an unreliable narrator of his own presidency, and everyone knows that which is a big, big part of

what makes the current situation we are in, this fraught situation with iran so dangerous. >> did you green light something or had you said, if we do it, i'll do this? what was the order you gave? >> nothing is being added until the very end because things change. you never gave a final order? >> no, no, no, but we had something ready to go subject to my approval and they came in and they came in about half an hour before. sir, we're about ready to go. i said, i want a better -- >> were planes in the air? >> about ready to go. no, but they would have been pretty soon. and things would have happened to a point where you wouldn't turn back or couldn't turn back. so they came and they said, sir, we're ready to go. we'd 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. i said, you know what, they shot down an unmanned drone, plane, whatever you want to call it, and here we are sitting with 150 dead people that would have taken place probably within a half an hour after i said go ahead and i didn't like it. i didn't think it was -- i didn't think it was proportionate. >> okay. obviously we don't know what happened last night in the white house when a missile strike on iran was ostensibly ordered and canceled. we weren't in the room, but it is nearly impossible to believe that it went down as the president described it to chuck todd today. the president is saying that half an hour before the planes were to take off to launch a carefully planned missile strike he asked his generals how many casualties there would be, and the generals who had planned this operation and presented it to the president and prepped it to go and were ready to launch, said to the the president, you know what, that's a good question. we hadn't thought about that.

we're not sure. let us get back to you. if that is what happened, that level of carelessness and slap dash planning would be a scandal unto itself. ryan goodman, a former defense department suggested that it would likely be illegal to approve an operation without knowing the estimated casualties that it would cause and then there is the multiple source reporting from various outlets contradicting the president's version of events. "the new york times" reporting that the planes were already in the air when the president canceled the operation. "the washington post" reporting this evening that in fact the president was informed of the number of estimated casualties earlier in the day when he approved the strike. the president being an unreliable narrator makes it difficult, if not impossible, for us as citizens to understand exactly what is happening here. was there actually a strike ordered and then called off at the last minute? why did that happen? who in the administration decided it would be a good thing for us all to know that that is what happened? because it was leaked to the press almost immediately.

much of the information we're getting may, in fact, by the various factions trying to box the president into a particular course of action because as we know, the president's main source of information is this, cable television. the "times" reports that, quote, mr. trump's national security advisors split about whether to respond militarily to the downing of an american drone. quote, senior administration officials said secretary of state mike pompeo, john bolton, the national security adviser, and gina haspel, the cia director, had favored a military response but top pentagon officials cautioned that such an effort could have a spiraling effect. if it is top pentagon officials who are the primary voice against escalation with iran, then this is probably a particularly bad time for one acting defense chief to be handing off to another acting defense chief.

tonight the president did announce his intention to nominate that new acting chief to be the actual defense secretary, which means he will be going through the senate confirmation process as this confrontation with iran unspools. ever since this administration withdrew from the iran nuclear deal and began rachetting up pressure on iran, it's been unclear what its goal is or what its end game is. we've reached this point where to hear the president tell it last night, last night we may have been minutes away from a strike that could potentially have led to a war. and we have little to no clarity about what happened or why or what happens next. joins us now, courtney kube the national news security and military reporter who just returned from the united arab emirates. courtney, thank you for joining us tonight. courtney, you know the pentagon well. yesterday night we got reporting that planes were in the air and

ships were in position and the president called off the strike. today the president told chuck todd that the planes were not in the air. what are you hearing? >> reporter: so the ships would already have been in position. so u.s. central command has anywhere between 06 -- 60,080,000 troops, ships, aircraft throughout the region at any given time. the aircraft -- the officials who i've spoken with say that in fact the aircraft were not in the air at the time yet but that they were close. so, you know, you made a good point in the intro, and that's the idea that the military when they were planning the operations and all the options, they look at all of the contingencies, and one of those is the collateral damage assessment. that is the potential for how many civilians could be hurt or killed in this kind of an operation. what we don't know is exactly what happened at that meeting at the white house yesterday. did they sit him down and explain to him the collateral damage assessment or not? but the notion that it wouldn't

be part of the original military planning is pretty difficult to understand, ali. >> and following on that, is it possible that the president would only have learned that approximately 150 people would die with minutes to spare? i would imagine when there's a submission of that sort of proposal general barry mccaffrey told me last night they have proposals for any contingency, about places you don't think we have aggressive relationships with. but the idea of what we call collateral damage, the death of people, that would have to be very high up in that report. >> it would be but, again, what we don't know is exactly what happened when they presented it to him. if that's something he didn't ask the question or if for some reason they didn't present it. as part of basic and very standard military planning for an operation like this, especially something so high profile, i find it impossible to believe that that wasn't part of the original planning but, again, we just don't know how the conversation was. when you look at the basic idea

here, i was also struck when the president said that 150 people, whether that is civilians or iranian military, would have potentially been killed in these kinds of strikes, that is not -- the military officials i was speaking to said this would be -- any kind of reaction would be very proportional, that it would be -- to what actually happened here. the iranian revolutionary guard shot down a u.s. drone, unmanned, of course, drone, an expensive drone, no loss of life. you would think that the u.s. military response would be something that would take out perhaps the place where they shot the surface to air missile from, perhaps the radar system that was used to lock in on the drone. something like that. the notion that it would involve that many casualties was really surprising to me, ali. >> there's been a dispute about where this drone was shot, the distance of what iran claims is it was in iranian air space and america

claims it was in international air space. we're now hearing some reporting that it was in iranian air space. what are you hearing about that? >> so the u.s. military denies they had any access. there was a u.s. navy surveillance plane up around the same time that was near it. but the military maintains that both of them stayed in international air space. one of the problems is iran sees a lot of the area in the strait of hormuz as their territorial waters and air space. they might believe despite the fact that the community sees it as international waters, they may believe it drifted into their territorial waters. i was out on the gulf of oman only a couple of miles from where that drone was shot down, and i can tell you that that area is considered international waters. if, in fact, the drone went down where the u.s. military tells us it did.

>> courtney kube, national news reporter. joining us now, dr. vale naaser, a veteran of the obama state department. dr. naaser, thank you for joining us. >> thank you. >> the president has said that the drone was shot down in international waters as i was just discussing with courtney, and he's been out making the case that some sort of rogue actor may have organized the attack. fox news is reporting that the president was told that iranian leadership was furious that the drone was shot down and that's why he called off the attack and all along the way iran has rebuffed these claims. iran has released the exact coordinates of the attack to say it was in iranian waters. it's come out and said it intended to hit the drone. it wasn't an accident. and there was a manned aircraft with 35 people aboard that it chose not to hit. why is iran responding the way that it is? >> i think the iranians are

frustrated with the economic pressure on them. they realize that washington's very comfortable applying pressure on iran. iran's economy is now in shambles. the united states wants to reduce iran's oil to zero, wants to bankrupt the economy, crush it. iranians want to essentially change the impasse that they're in. they want to change the calculus in washington. put pressure on trump. send a signal to trump that using maximum pressure is not cost free. he would be running the risk of a war. if he doesn't want to go to war with iran, he has to think about this differently. it's a way for them to basically force a change in the impasse. >> when you say if he doesn't want to go to war with iran, he has to think about this differently, what does thinking about this differently mean? on one side he's been inviting president rouhani to dinner. there are reports he's done so eight times and been rebuffed.

the president the day before said he would talk to the ayatollah. there's obviously some distance between negotiations with iran and shooting down drones and launching air strikes. what does thinking dimple about this mean? >> first of all, the iranians want the u.s. to release some economic pressure on them. they are not going to go to talks if they are choking on their sanctions. and they're going to be indefinitely in that situation and don't see a way out of it. secondly, they don't trust trump. he, after all, broke a nuclear deal that was working and then he has a national security team that are hawks. that actually run regime dmang iran. trump says, let's talk. look who's standing behind trump, john bolton, secretary pompeo. these are people who don't want to talk, they want to crush the iranian regime. as a result, it's not very clear to them. what's the purpose of this pressure? is it really to talk or is it to bring about regime change and the collapse of the iranian state?

just because trump says let's talk, it doesn't mean that the iranians believe he wants to talk. secondly, iranians want to go into talks feeling that trump takes them seriously. they don't want to come to talks with trump thinking that, okay, i just applied pressure and they're surrendering, waving a white flag, and i can put even more pressure on them at the table. so they're trying to get some leverage from trump by saying, look, we have sophisticated military. we can't shoot down a drone 30,000 feet in the sky. we're willing to be as reckless as you. we're willing to risk more. -- war. we're willing to hit tankers, disrupt the oil economy, hit our neighbors. you know, don't think just because we haven't done anything in the past two years that we're going to play dead going forward. >> one of the things we've been discussing today and for the last week that the united states has far superior military power to iran. but iran can wage what some call asymmetric war.

they have influence around the region in small and sometimes large ways that don't represent the correspond larry to american air strikes, for instance. >> well, first of all, iraq proved that, proved the technological superiority of the u.s. forces does not guarantee that it can actually successfully manage a war. we won the war against iraq in two weeks and then got stuck in a quagmire that proved to be trillions of dollars in cost and thousands of american lives. secondly, iranians understand the american might may be great, but the political tolerance for risking body bags and risking the wrath of the american people is actually very short. so trump -- that an trump doesn't toing to war. that's not his inclination, but also in an election year trump may have vulnerabilities of going to war with iran.

he's not as invulnerable to iranian pressure as we may think. >> dr. naaser, thank you again for joining us tonight. >> thank you. we have a lot more to get to this first summer friday. senator chris murphy will get here and we have the latest of new allegations of sexual assault against donald trump. stay with us. i can't tell you who i am or what i witnessed, but i can tell you liberty mutual customized my car insurance so i only pay for what i need. oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no...

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these are their names. jessica leads, rachel crooks, kristin anderson, jill harth, kathy heller, temple taggart mcdowell. corey in ana virginia. melinda mcgillivry. nina luxonen, jessica drake, summer zervos, juliet huddy, alba johnson, casandra searles. at least 15 women have accused the sitting president of the united states of sexual assault or misconduct. most of them coming forward during the 2016 campaign before he was elected. incidents of groping, forced kissing, unwanted sexual attention.

today there's another name to add to the list, but this one is different. e. jean carole is a journalist. she's written for some of the top magazines in the country. at one point she had her own tv show. today "new york" magazine published a column where she reports a violent assault by then real estate tie coop president trump. according to carol the incident took place after the two bumped into each other in a department store in the mid-1990s. fair warning, the excerpt i am about to read is very graphic in nature, so if you have got young viewers, you may want to ask them to leave the room. quoting from the piece, in carroll's account, trump shoves her against a wall inside a dressing room, pulls down her tights and these are carole's own words, forcing his fingers around my pivot area, forces his penis halfway or completely i'm not certain inside me.

like all of the allegations of sexual misconduct, the president denies this. in a statement this evening he says in part, regarding the story, in quotes, by e. jean carroll, she's trying to sell a new book. that should indicate her motivation. it should be sold in the fiction section. i would like to thank bergdorf goodman for confirming they have no video footage of any such incident because it never happened. the president also said, quote, i've never met this person in my life. for what it's worth, here's a picture of donald trump talking with e. jean carole in 1987 about a decade before the alleged attack. as for why she's coming forward now all these years later, she says, quote, receiving death threats, being driven from my home, being in dismissed, being dragged through the mud and joining the 15 women who have come forward with the credible story how he grabbed, badgered, belittled, malled, molested and assaulted them only to see the man turn it around, deny, threaten and attack them, never sounded like much fun.

it's taken e. jean carroll years to come forward but now she is speaking out. she'll join my colleague lawrence o'donnell as a guest on "the last word." we'll be right back. join t-mobile. 1. do you like netflix? sure you do. that's why it's on us. 2. unlimited data. use as much as you want, when you want. 3. no surprises on your bill. taxes and fees included. still think you have a better deal? bring in your discount, and we'll match it. that's right. t-mobile will match your discount. eh, not enough fiber... chocolate would be good... snacking should be sweet and simple. the delicious taste of glucerna gives you the sweetness you crave while helping you manage your blood sugar. glucerna. everyday progress can't see what it is yet.re? what is that? that's a blazer? that's a chevy blazer?

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if you were skeptical of the president's claim that he learned about potential civilian casualties only minutes before a planned missile strike on iran and then proceeded to call it off, you're not alone. quote, the idea that an american president didn't bother to ask about civilian casualties before

ordering a massive military strike, getting around to it only 600 seconds before the attack was to begin, is mind boggling. don't let this ever feel normal. don't let this ever feel normal. joining me now is senator who tweeted that, senator chris murphy of connecticut who sits on the senate foreign relations committee. senator murphy, thank you for joining us tonight. you are on the foreign relations committee. were you or your chair men briefed on the idea that we were on the brink of starting war? >> i can't speak for the chairman of the committee, but certainly members of the committee were not briefed on this. in fact, we have spent the last week pressing for a vote in the united states senate to make it very clear that the president of the united states does not possess the legal ability to preemptively strike iran without congressional authorization. the constitution is pretty darn clear on that count and while it is unbelievable to think that the president didn't ask about casualties until ten minutes before, it frankly isn't

surprising to those of us who, you know, have listened to how totally uncurious this president is about the national security briefings that he is supposed to be reading, how he asks very few questions about the policy proposals that are being put in front of him. it just makes us all shudder to think about what comes after the strike if we do actually get into a long-term war with iran. if the president isn't asking about casualties, is he really asking about what the effects are when it comes to american troops that are being put in harm by his recklessness. >> senator, let's talk about the authorization to use military force. senator schumer said today as you just articulated that you are looking for a -- an action in congress for this. there's been some chatter that this administration is prepared to use the authorization of military force that was authorized for 9/11 to go ahead with this. >> yeah, that's been asked. that's bananas. the authorization that was passed in 2001 was an

authorization to root out al qaeda primarily in afghanistan. if you use the 2001 aumf to suggest that anywhere any member of al qaeda has ever been or transited through, then that is a permanent authorization for war without any congressional check in almost every single country in the middle east and africa. the fact of the matter is, i don't think there's a lawyer worth his salt who would tell the president that you can pervert the 2001 aumf to invade iran over a dispute that has nothing to do with their support for al qaeda, by the way. we're talking about invading or attacking iran because of their nuclear ambitions or because of provocations that have happened in the last few weeks. so we are all very worried about the president's potential reliance on an outdated authorization or his just willingness to ignore the entire issue of authorization. he may just say that he has

article 2 authority to protect the united states and the congress be damned. that's why we have to pass this by next week. >> we had heard perhaps it was the people at the pentagon who cautioned against doing this. maybe it was someone from the joint chiefs. we also have heard -- we know john bolton is hawkish on iran. we know that secretary of state pompeo is. we've heard that gina haspel of the cia was arguing for military action. now in the past hour, you notice i didn't mention a defense secretary. in the past hour the president has nominated mark esper. to be the secretary of defense. how do you foresee this nomination process going. we haven't had a permanent secretary of defense in sometime. >> it's tragic it's taken six months for the president to put this name forward. we were all bewildered as to why it took so long to put shanahan's name forth. esper has much more practical experience. than shanahan had. yes, he does come from the

defense industrial sector but also has a history in policy and in the military. and so i'll be very willing to take a look at his nomination. i'm glad the congress put it in quickly before the congress. but his twitter feed today has exposed to the entire world how absolutely out of control the decision-making process is inside the white house. frankly, a new secretary of defense is not going to change that reality. the president does not consider facts. he makes it up as he goes along. this campaign of mindless escalation with iran has had no end game behind it and i'm not sure that a new secretary of defense is going to cure those aisles. >> senator murphy of connecticut, thank you for joining us tonight. >> thanks. >> a new democratic plan for getting most out of non-answers from a former white house staffer. stay with us.

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communications director hope hicks showed up foreclosed door testimony before the house judiciary committee. we could see from the transcript yesterday that hicks refused to answer 155 questions including really tough ones, like where was your office located in the west wing? now house judiciary chairman jerry nadler tells politico that he plans to use that transcript as a real life illustration of the white house stonewalling as they ask a court to force former white house counsel don mcgahn to testify. the chairman says, quote, it's one thing to tell the judge blanket immunity is not a right thing, it's another thing when a judge can see what that means in actuality and how absurd it is. if nadler could win that against don mcgahn, that would open up the door to testimony for more witnesses the white house has kept out of reach. there's one more aspect to keep an eye on. when it was first announced that hope hicks would testify, another interview with another trump insider was announced the same day, annie donaldson.

former chief of staff to white house counsel don mcgahn. it turns out she was a big notetaker. her notes figure prominently in the mueller report like when she wrote about the president being, quote, in panic/chaos over the russia investigation or when she wondered whether it was, quote, the beginning of the end because she was worried that the decision to terminate comey and the manner in which it was carried out could be the end of the presidency. on monday annie donaldson's turn to testify before house judiciary comes up. will she show up and talk? if she doesn't, if she still stonewalls, does that give nadler even more fire power in the court battle ahead? joining us now, former u.s. attorney and msnbc contributor barbara mcquade. barbara, great to have you here in person. thank you for being with us. explain to me what this means. the house judiciary chairman jerry nadler is saying the transcript, the answer that were

not provided with is fodder for an argument that the white house shouldn't argue for this immunity or this executive privilege over some of these questions. >> yes. they had to go through that exercise yesterday, i think, to establish the record that the white house was indeed going to invoke this idea of executive immunity, it's important to explain what that is. >> it's a difference between privilege and immunity? >> it is. it's a degree even greater than executive privilege. what they're saying there is a witness doesn't have to answer any single question at all. the mere fact that they were an aide to the president means that hands off, congress, you can't ask this person anything. now hope hicks did answer questions that pre-dated her time in the white house, time on the campaign and the transition, but anything that occurred during her time in the white house, including the location of her desk -- >> why would there be an objection to an answer like that? clearly that's something people would know. >> i think they were making the point, we are going to object to every single question. you have no right to ask her any

question whatsoever. now, the executive privilege is slightly different, which is on a question by question basis you can invoke that privilege to say, i'll answer most of your questions, but when it gets into these candid deliberations between the president and the aide, we want to make sure that we include -- incentivize people to be candid in their conversations by not forcing you to close those in the future. so there is room. it is a legitimate thing to protect executive privilege. >> because there might be national security issues and things that are not suitable for the public domain? >> yes. what i worry is using executive privilege over everything, then it will be rendered meaningless down the road. it is something that's important to use judiciously, selectively. in very limited situations. when president trump says i'm fighting all the subpoenas, i'm refusing to answer anything, it really loses credibility when he does try to assert it. >> assess house chairman jerry nadler's chances.

how does this work as he sues, as he goes to court, and what happens? >> i think there is a very strong likelihood that the committee prevails on this argument. this idea of immunity, executive immunity has been addressed by just one court. it's been rejected by that court. i don't see any reason to think it will come out differently. but they had to go through that exercise yesterday to build the record, show the judge was -- what's happening. the courts are reluctant to get involved but here where he can show we really are at an impasse, we really do need a court to direct members of the white house staff to come in. and answer our questions. i think they'll prevail. >> if the court is reluctant to get involved in political questions, do they have to say this is not political? it's a legitimate pursuit of information. >> so you'll see them from time to time refrain from getting involved in questions that are political questions. here when you have this battle of

constitutional powers, i think there is enough precedent with the united states versus nixon saying that the executive privilege is only a qualified privilege and that if the need for the information outweighs the need to keep the information confidential, then that privilege has to give. i think we'll get an answer. if nadler persists in this legal strategy, he will prevail. >> the judge in paul manafort's case unsealed 56 pages of text messages between sean hannity and paul manafort in 2017 and 2018 when he was supposed to be under a gag order. did you get a chance to see any of those, make sense of what they mean and what impact they have? >> i did take a look at them. it's very interesting. what we see is that paul manafort is communicating with sean hannity. it's not just that sean hannity is expressing his support for paul manafort, which you know, talk about objective journalism ethics and standards. that's one thing. leaving that aside. but from a legal perspective,

paul manafort is under a gag order. think about that. the judge has said i don't want you talking about it in public. i don't want you to do in addition that might taint jury pool. what does he do? instead of speaking to himself, i've got a pretty good friend. with a big audience. he is sharing information with sean hannity with the purpose that it will be shared on his show. he has his lawyer contacting him and they're coordinating strategy so that sean hannity is sharing what paul manafort wants him to share, and then paul manafort and his lawyers quote sean hannity back to the judge and say look what all these legal experts are saying, judge. they think in my favor as well. he's really trying to play the public and play the judge by circumventing the gag order in this way. >> barbara, it is great to have you here. thank you so much for all of the help you provide us and our viewers with. >> my pleasure. >> barbara mcquade is an msnbc contributor. tonight we have a major development in the story that

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today it was officially revoked. for weeks the only abortion provider in the state of missouri, a planned parenthood clinic in st. louis has been locked in a legal battle with the state health department trying to yank the clinical license. that would reeve leave the entire state of missouri without access to abortion. they refused to make up their mind, whether or not planned parenthood could keep its license.

the judge gave the state until today to make up its mind about planned parenthood's license and the state blindly. the last abortion clinic will be yanking its license. the fight is not quite over. the clinic is operating under a temporary reprieve even though its license is revoked. the clinic can stay open and doctors can continue to perform abortions until the judge decides whether or not to let the state take away the clinic's license. but when that that linebacker, when the judge will make up his mind, that's anyone's giss. there is one other thing to pay attention to. rachel has been reporting on this show how the state of missouri told planned parenthood that in order to stay open, in order to keep its license, that planned parenthood must subject every woman seeking an abortion to a mandatory medically unnecessary pelvic examination. doctors already administer a

pelvic exam right before an abortion. that is medically necessary and it's fine. but based on a new interpretation of state law the state told the last abortion clinic in missouri that it must start doing a second unnecessary internal pelvic exam on every single woman who wants an abortion in missouri, at least three days before the actual procedure. the state essentially gave planned parenthood a choice. either agree to those terms or shut down. so planned parenthood agreed. the staff and physicians started talking to us and the media how traumatizing it was to put their patients through an invasive procedure that they do not need. one doctor at the clinic told us the new mandate was akin to state-sanctioned sexual assault. but they did it anyway, to stay open. and went on three weeks until wednesday. the doctors at that clinic said, they had had enough and would stop doing the extra exams.

>> the idea we've been having to put women through something that's totally unnecessary, uncomfortable, inhumane just because the state has reinterpreted the rules isn't fair. i cannot justify the harm that is being inflicted on my patients for the last three weeks just so they can get one of the safest types of medical care provided anywhere in this country. and the fact that missouri is holding women's access to care hostage and threatening the last bit of abortion access we have left in the state at my health center, i think it's time for us to stand up and fight back. >> for three weeks the state mandated planned parenthood subject women to a medically unnecessary vaginal problem before they can get an abortion. for three weeks the state ignored what these doctors said was best for their patients. for weeks the state made an unnecessary pelvic exam the cost of getting an abortion in the state until eventually those

doctors said, no more. well, tonight the missouri state health department is changing course. the state still wants to shut down the clinic, they made that clear in its letter to planned parenthood today, but in the same letter they change their mind about the extra pelvic exam saying planned parenthood no long has to subject its patients to that unnecessary procedure three days before their abortion. this went on for three weeks. after outcry from doctors, patients, medical physicians around the country the state says it's changed its mind. we'll be right back. ♪ limu emu & doug

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it relieves pressure, bloating and discomfort fast. so no one needs to know you've got gas. gas-x. something worth watching on the west coast over the weekend. this is the oregon state legislature in salem, oregon. democrats have majority control. the governor, kate brown, is a democrat. both the house and senate have big democratic majorities. one of the democrats' priorities for this session is to pass a cap and trade bill. it's a climate bill which republicans adamantly opposite. however, there aren't enough republicans in the oregon house or senate to defeat a bill like that, and so the democrats were poised to pass it. republicans figured out one thing they could do. they could leave. in order to have a quorum making a decision on action they need 20 senators to be present. 18 senators are democrats. they need two republicans to show up as well to be allowed to

take any action on any vote. on wednesday night the republicans all left. and they haven't been seen since. the senate president formally requested the governor dispatch oregon state troopers to go find them, so now oregon state troopers are searching the state to find the republicans who fled into hiding so oregon cannot pass a climate bill. this is what is happening politically in oregon right now. it took a dark turn. because after law. got after law enforcement got involved this republican state senator threatened multiple times overtly including on tape that if oregon state troopers find him and approach him he will shoot and kill those troopers. >> this is what i told the superintendent. send bachelors and come heavily armed. i'm not going to be a prisoner in the state of oregon's that simple. >> the rhetoric caught militia and one told the "daily beast" they were mobilized to protect

the runaway republicans and there was "potential for violence" and would were defend the senators "at any cost." now tonight we're getting word from a reporter for a local nbc station in oregon that tomorrow's senate session has been canceled because reports of a planned rally that may include militia members. i don't know how this resolves in organ, but godspeed and good luck to the troopers try to do their job in the face of this. rachel is back monday live in miami getting ready to moderate the first democratic debate. i'll be back on my show monday at 1:00 and 3:00 p.m. don't miss it. now time for lawrence o'donnell and "the last word." good evening, lawrence. >> good evening, see you monday. thank you. accused child molester roy moore announced he's running for senate once again in alabama, once again running against

democratic senator doug jones who beat roy moore. doug jones joins us later to discuss his rematch with ron moore and we'll get his reaction to president but first -- today the president of the united states was accused of rape. again. the president's new accuser, columnist and author e. jean carroll is our first guest tonight. the first person to accuse donald trump of rape was his first wife ivana trump. and the book "lost tie kuhn" records ivana trump gave a report assaulting her and pulling out her hair because his own hair didn't turn out right. he finished the violent attack with rape.