but when it comes to a death toll, we are probably sometime away from establishing what that is because it is just short of resources to get out there and go door to door and dig under this rubble and find out what's going on. it's hot, it's been several days since this hurricane. there's probably not a lot in the way of rescues going on anymore. but we are still probably just early into the stage of recovery here, eamon. >> all right, ali velshi live for us there in abaco island. "deadline: white house" with nicolle wallace starts right now. ♪ hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. well, it's no secret that donald trump's presidency is often defined by his own personal interiority complex when it comes to the accomplishments of his predecessors. it was still a shock to the system to learn that he planned to host the terrorist group. a plan that was sculpted according to the president because the terrorist group in

question carried out a terrorist attack. from "the new york times" report, quote, on the friday before labor day, president trump gathered top advisers in the sit room to consider what could be done, what could be among the profound decisions of his presidency. a peace plan with the taliban after 18 years of grinding, bloody war in afghanistan. "the times" goes on to describe a rare vibe between mike pompeo and john bolton. bolton warning against getting in bed with killers swathed in blood. but bolton ultimately would not prevail with donald j. trump. "the times" adds this. quote, the leaders of a rugged militant organization deemed terrorists by the u.s. would be hosted in the mountain getaway

used for presidents, prime ministers and kings just three days before the anniversary of the september 11th, 2001 attacks. the meeting was canceled by how else, a presidential tweet. but that hasn't stopped the president from lashing out at critics of the planned talks. some from within his own party. >> a terrorist organization that doesn't recognize nation states, it kills innocent women and children, that denies women to really even be in the same room as their husbands is just a minor part of the terrible things that they do. to have them at camp david is totally unacceptable. >> and as we head into the anniversary of 9/11, i do not want to ever see these terrorists step foot on united states soil, period. >> and just in the last hour, president trump defending the diplomatic chaos claiming credit for ending the talks that he pushed to hold at camp david. >> in terms of advisers, i took my own advice. i like the idea of meeting. i have met with a lot of bad people and a lot of good people during the course of the last almost three years.

and i think meeting is a great thing. i think that meeting with, you know, you're talking about war, there are meetings with war, otherwise wars would never end. you'd have them go on forever. we had a meeting scheduled. >> it was my idea and it was my idea to terminate it. i didn't even -- i didn't discuss it with anybody else. when i heard very simply that they killed one of our soldiers and 12 other innocent people, i said there's no way i'm meeting on that basis. there's no way i'm meeting. >> he didn't discuss it with anyone else. that's reassuring. and for those asking how could this happen in the first place, well, take a look at donald trump's past comments about what 9/11 meant to him, and it might become clearer. >> many of those affected were firefighters, police officers and other first responders. and i was down there also. but i'm not considering myself a first responder. but i was down there. i spent a lot of time down there with you. i watched when the world trade

center came tumbling down. and i watched in jersey city, new jersey, where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down. thousands of people were cheering. so something's going on. we got to find out what it is. >> 40 wall street actually was the second tallest building in downtown manhattan, and it was actually before the world trade center was the tallest, and then when they built the world trade center, it became known as the second tallest, and now it's the tallest. >> so in order there, donald trump not a first responder, an outright lie and a boast about his real estate. that's how the president has spoken out publicly about september 11th. that is where we start today with some of our favorite reporters and friends. with us from washington, white house reporter for "the new york times" whose byline is heavily quoted "new york times" report michael crowley.

georgetown university, she joins us again at the table. former republican congressman, now an independent, david jolly, and nbc and msnbc national analyst john heilemann. i want to read some more from your superb reporting and then have you take us through it. you write on display were all the characteristic traits of the trump presidency. the yearning ambition for the grand prize, the endless quest to achieve what no other president has achieved. the volatile mood swings, and the tribal infighting. my question when i got to that was tribal infighting, was that in afghanistan or inside his cabinet? what was the reference? >> [ laughter ] well, yeah. believe it or not in this case we are talking about the president's cabinet. i want to make sure i give due credit to my colleagues peter baker and mujib who were also bylines on that story. but, yes, there are tribal

factions you might say in this white house. in particular this episode has shined a spotlight on these conflicting impulses, both within the president's own mind and top levels of his national security team, namely, his national security adviser john bolton in particular. in this case secretary of state mi mike pompeo who was trying to make these talks happen. and now they are kind of shattered on the floor. and who knows what comes next. >> what's mike pompeo's best argument for meeting for terrorists? and i'm sure there is a lengthy reel of tape of him as a congressman that he was the one pushing on behalf of sal in washington with the president. >> yeah. you know, somebody put it to me today that bolton, this gets painted sometimes as a little bit of hawk versus dove, bolton and pompeo.

bolton is definitely a hawk. pompeo is no dove, he is actually pretty hawkish himself. but what he is trying to do is to implement the president's agenda. his critics would say that he's just trying to please the president. but what the president has made clear is he thinks that afghanistan is basically a boondoggle and a quagmire and he wants to get out. he also has a political motive to break to voters that i am ending this war that no one else could wrap up in 18 years. so pompeo was given the mission of figuring out a way to do that. so he launched through zalmay khalilzad these talks with the taliban that have been happening for nine months. a lot of people who know much more about afghanistan than i do that you have to do it through talks. but what's interesting here is that a contrary view that i think john bolton was expressing is why get in bed with the

taliban, you know, just say you're leaving. and so that's the tension you are seeing right now. but that's why trump and pompeo launched this diplomatic effort. >> let me read you a little bit more from "the times" excellent reporting on this. they also write what would have been one of the biggest head-line grab moments was put together in the spur of the moment and canceled on the spur of the moment. dispensed with only a small circle of advisers was even clued in. your thoughts? >> well, some excellent reporting there by michael and his team. but it's true. look, there have been talks about meeting with the taliban. you remember last month there was this meeting in bedminster, and it was first raised then. and the president kind of saw this deal sheeping up. he was getting pressure from bolton, from congressman like lindsay graham, other supporters that said this deal was putting too much trust in the taliban

and the president was getting frustrated. he said, listen, i don't really like this deal shaping up, but i also don't want to walk away, so he was looking for a third way and thought i talked to kim jong-un, i talked to vladimir putin, i talked to president xi and i negotiated with them. i can do this better. and i don't know who the genius was that came up with the 9/11 kind of date, the date so close to 9/11, but clearly the president was thinking he could get in the room. and this is the problem, as we've all said, a lot of people think that you're going to need to talk, try and come to some accommodation. you don't talk with your friends. you talk with your enemies. but the way this was done, it was done without, you know, kind of a process. even zal's team didn't even really know. they were caught flat-footed. and this overreliance on the pageantry and the president's own desire to get in the room i think is, you know, a lot of the problem. and also the idea that he'd be conferring this legitimacy on

the taliban instead of on the afghan government to strengthen their hand with talks. this was not a real pre-cooked way to have a negotiation. it just, the deal wasn't ready for this to happen. >> i mean, john, just to take these three examples and inside trump's mind, he thinks i talked to putin, i talked to xi, i talked to un. he didn't even confront him about election meddling is widely viewed to be destabilizing the global economy over his failed trade talks with china. and kim jong-un is just launching away. so i trust her on how trump came to believe that only he could negotiate peace with the taliban. but he's 0-3 on big swings in foreign policy. >> yeah. and as you know, the supposed middle east peace deal that is very hard to get done, but we're going to get it done like that, not happening. there is i think we're almost now three years in, and the trump foreign policy has been i

think by just -- you don't have to be a wild-eyed partisan to sort of say what hasn't occurred other than the destruction of barack obama's legacy other than drawing from the climate accords, shutting down the iran deal. what's the policy so far? i think the answer is zero. and -- >> so bad that mattis left over your syria policy. >> right. here's the most interesting part of the times story. where it says it talks about -- only then can mr. trump's tweet on saturday night disclosing that he had invited the taliban and ghani to camp david. it took many by sprichltz there was no reason for mr. trump to reveal, especially since he was not given the idea of the negotiate the settlement. many presidents conduct diplomacy of high stakes in secret. the president revealed it although apparently for no good reason. what he wants is credit. >> for what?

>> he wants credit for trying. i'm not saying he deserves credit. i am saying there is some impulse that he has where he thinks that taking -- trying to do something like that because he believes he is the only one who can do it, somehow the notion that he was going to get them over there, that he was going to do this, he didn't get a deal done, we didn't even have a meeting. but having even tried to do something no one else has done before. that's all that matters in his mind is has anyone done it before. if they haven't done it before, i am going to try to do it, and ideally i will do it. >> but if i don't do it, i will take try for trying to do something. it's the most infan aisle approach -- infant aisle. >> and i think the frame is dangerous because it ushers in a lowering of the bar where there are actually serious people having serious conversations about whether it makes sense to talk to the taliban or not. this to donald trump was information delivered on the same transem as tweets about individual reporters who wrote stories about his squandered

something, something he's privately mused about. there is a flattening with donald trump. and i think that even -- i agree with your analysis, but i think even legitimizing the idea that to him this was meaningful. you know what other presidents did the sunday before 9/11? well, first of all, barack obama before 9/11 killed bin laden. so there is that. but other normal presidents, do you know what they did on the sunday before 9/11? let's say, obama proclaimed the national days of prayer and remembrance. george w. bush visited ground zero the sunday before 9/11. i mean, normal presidents certainly focus on what happened with the taliban but not to invite them to camp david for diet cokes. >> this was not a president trying to end the war in afghanistan. this was a president reaching for a headline. and when he failed to accomplish it as the reporting shows, he had to create it himself. there was no reason for him to acknowledge to the world these

conversations were going on. and the other bit of surprise in his tweets is that he seemed to be taken aback that the taliban was actually a bad actor, that somehow the taliban was behind the latest act of terror surprised him because he was going to bring them to camp david and they were going to negotiate. we often see this president when he is reaching for a legacy, he simply demonstrates his own idiocy. he demonstrates a lack of respect and understanding of the national fabric. we're reporting on how this almost happened. we are talking about the decisionmaking which was absurd and unconventional. but, nicole, imagine if this had happened, that the week of 9/11, donald trump would've been standing not just on american soil but in a sacrosanctspace like camp david next to the leader of the taliban. the surviving families of those who lost their lives at ground zero in pennsylvania, the surviving families of those who lost their lives on the battlefields of afghanistan,

iraq, other deployed locations. think about the signal donald trump would be sending to those surviving families in the nation to stand shoulder to shoulder with the leader of the taliban on american soil the week of 9/11. it is an atrocious and frankly garbage moment from this president. i said earlier i try to choose my words carefully, but it is episodes like this that cause a lot of people to simply say this is a bad guy. he is just a bad guy. he is looking out for his own legacy in some perverted way that he thinks actually satisfies long-term respect by striking this deal while he's trampling on the legacy of those who lost their lives. we were attacked on 9/11. this is different than past negotiations, past wars. our soil was attacked. >> but it's worse than that. the. >> and you want to stand with the enemy on the commemoration of 9/11. >> you put it at the which i did which is it's not that he's going for legacy. he's going for the cheap headline. because when the legacy is out of reach, when that goes away, he's like, well, i got to get

the headline anyway it. >> doesn't matter whether it's a good headline, a bad headline. i just got to get some attention for me. that's all it is. >> michael crowley, that's what's so remarkable about sort of the pulling back of the timeline. you start with the friday before labor day. and even the way you've reported out these conversations in the sit room. and i understand there weren't political or communications folks in the room who might've alerted everybody. i'm not sure pompeo and bolton should've been alerted that the date would fall before 9/11. but it's remarkable. >> and i would love your thoughts if this was the case. it would sound like even national security conversations and appeals are presented to the president in terms of how they would project outwardly on the world stage and domestically. is that an accurate read of what you guys report? >> well, i think -- yeah. i think the president isn't interested in other people's opinions about how things are going to play. he has his own paradigms of how

things play. and, in fact, this is a little bit in the realm of speculation. but what would you get from this meeting? i mean, we are saying headlines, but it's the sort of holy bleep factor of it, right? which reminds me so much of this decision he took to go meet with kim jong-un who, you know, now we see perhaps slightly differently. but remember, and that's a complicated question we can return to. but remember how we thought about kim jong-un before he ever came out and met trump? it was murderous dictator, killed members of his own family, dispatched assassins with nerve agent into a major airport to kill his half brother. now it's sort of this slightly goofy guy who waddles across the board with trump at the dmz and they have -- but that's the holy bleep factor. he loves that. >> to your point, i was thinking as david was talking about otto warmbier's parents who when he did some of those holy bleep factors because i think david's

point is right. the audience that kind of the first group of people that a normal administration takes into consideration are the people who are actual direct victims of a murderrious dictator which kim jong-un is. and you think about how otto warmbier's family has been retraumatized on behalf of this president's image-making. >> yeah. and yet, you know, somehow the president does these things, they completely horrify a huge number of people and he always hangs around at about 43%. he's got some theory of the case. and it will be put to the test in 14 months. you know, does commanding these headlines and making everybody freak out and say, oh, my god, he can't do that? yes, he just did that over and over and over again. he seems to think that's going to be the path to victory and that he's going to have just enough, 43, 45%. what did he get in 2016?

it was, you know, 45% plus or minus a little bit, got him elected president. and he thinks he can do it again. so, yeah, i think a lot of people would've been really shocked by the appearance of the taliban at camp david. but the optics, how does it look, he just has his own theory of the case, and it just comes from a completely different direction than we've ever been used to. >> i want to give you a two-part question and the last word on this. i agree with everything michael crowley said and his reporting is tremendous here. but the truth is donald trump cares 100% how it looks in the mainstream media. there is no other mirror. so he may do these things sort of marching to his own beat. but the only reviews he cares about are the ones from michael crowley and his colleagues and other folks in the media. and on that, this was not going to be a winner. there were going to be the kinds of folks that david jolly talked

about who were horrified to see terrorists including from my understanding some in his own administration. then i'd like you to end with some substance. what is the substantive effect of having a terrorist organization at camp david? do other terrorist organizations think, hey, i want to come, and i want the camp david package. what do we unleash? what do we unfurl with a move like this being on the table from an american president? >> well, i mean, on the first part of your question, i think that he thinks, you know, i think he thinks maybe this is going to help him in the negotiation. and that, you know, reflects a real fundamental misunderstanding of both the taliban and afghanistan. these are not people to negotiate with. they're not, you know, he has a beautiful relationship with kim jong-un and now he's chairman king -- i mean, i don't know that he's going to be bosom buddies with the taliban. this is not the same thing. i don't think you can really apply it.

these are people that you're trying to negotiate an end to, you know, withdrawal of u.s. forces. there's not going to be peace. there's not going to be some warm, loving relationship. and i think if he thinks this kind of raises his standing, i think he's going to be mistaken. i mean, right now estimates of the taliban, you know, holding about 60% of the country, they have been hit a lot in the last few weeks. i think, you know, the taliban would like to negotiate some end. but if there's not going to be a peace, there's not going to be a peace for afghanistan. in the last couple of days, pompeo went on all the talk shows and said, you know, you bring a lot of bad people to camp david. i was thinking back, i've been covering foreign policy for close to 20 years i can't really think of that many bad people that have been at camp david. to kind of confer the legitimacy as we've been saying on the taliban to bring them to camp david, i think it sends a really bad message. >> all right.

my thanks to michael crowley, to you and your colleagues. thank you for the reporting. it paints such a vivid picture to us. and elise, thank you. news of report the military business has coincided with the change in fortune for trump's once lagging property there. also ahead, house democrats turn up the heat on impeachment by broadening the scope of their probe and sharpening their investigative tools. will it quell the amounting hunger from their base for oversight of a white house committed to stonewalling congress. donald trump may have met his twitter matches, chrissy teigen and john legend push back on the cyber bulling. all those stories coming up. tho. ready to upgrade. moving in. moving on up. or making big moves. deliveries ship free and come with a 100-night free trial. no matter your budget.

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well, we've come a long ways since only a peanut farm was considered a presidential conflict of interest. the air force is ordering a worldwide review of its procedures in selecting overnight accommodations. the house oversight committee is now investigating an air cruise stay at trump's resort in scotland while their plane was refueling at a nearby commercial airport. and as it turns out, that might not have been an isolated incident. politi politi politico cites a letter. the military has spent $11 million on fuel at the presswick airport since october 2017. fuel that would be cheaper if purchased at a u.s. military base. the letter also cites a guardian report that the airport provided

cut-rate rooms and free rounds of golf at turnberry for u.s. military members. taken together the incidents raised the possibility that the military has helped keep trump's turnberry resort afloat. the property lost 4.5 million in 2017. but wait for it, revenue went up $3 million in 2018. trump responded to the story on twitter today because of course he did insisting he knows nothing about it but adding that the air crew has, quote, good taste. the air force said in a statement, quote, while initial reviews indicate that aircrew transiting through scotland adhered to all guidance and procedures, we understand that u.s. service members lodging at higher-end accommodations, even if within government rates might be allowable and advisable. with us from capitol hill, senior writer for politico, jake sherman. it was your news organization, your colleague with the scoop.

take us through what we might've missed out and sort of the reaction. i think this story broke friday night and there have been a lot of developments since then. >> well, first of all the most important thing to keep in mind is this has now spurred a big-time investigation on capitol hill. because when you put this together with vice president mike pence's bizarre stay in ireland at the president's hotel which the vice president's chief of staff mark short said on the record the president asked us to stay here, and then later had to walk that back and said it was vice president mike pence's decision alone. so you put these two things together and you have the government doing business with the president at his resorts. something that is bizarre, is unheard of in our nation's history. and again will add to this kind of snowball impeachment snowball that's beginning to gather steam on capitol hill. i think the focus that a lot of people are focusing on whether trump asks specifically for people to patronize his hotels and i think that's not even an operative question. i think if people are staying

there, they understand the president might want them there and might be doing it without him asking. so, again, this is something that seems like a vanity could seem like a vanity, could seem like a fun story that's just a little bit offbeat, but it's not. this is going to cause serious investigations in the air force is going to have to fork over documents to capitol hill to investigators over the next couple weeks and months to help build out this investigation, which is getting again impeachment is getting more and more serious and more and more likely on capitol hill after this august recess. >> jake sherman, you just made the most important point i've heard made. this is not a story about whether or not donald trump sends some smoking gun. this is how we all got wrapped around the axle i think of the mueller investigation. this is not whether donald trump sent out a memo saying must stay at trump properties and order room service twice a day. this is about the culture. and you take your reporting. you take reporting in "the new york times" about members of congress staying at trump hotels

and being in the lobby of a trump hotel every tuesday night. i'm going to read a little bit from that. 90 members of congress including 26 of the 53 republicans in the senate have made 188 or more visits on a trump property. another 250 trump officials have been seen. more than 110 officials from 60 different foreign governments have visited trump hotel golf course or other property according to the count. i mean, this is about donald trump corrupting everything including the military. >> nicole, you know this, but every time a president comes into office, there is a culture shift in d.c. but there is obviously under bush and obama, but there's never quite been one like there was under donald trump because no other president has had his name on a massive hotel on pennsylvania avenue. and i could tell you because i wrote a book about congress, it came out this year, the trump hotel is the epicenter for

republicans in d.c., whether it's fundraising, grabbing drinks, getting dinner. this is where republicans do business and hang out and hold fundraisers and things of that nature. it's stunning because it's again never happened before. but it's been the major cultural shift in d.c. over the last couple years when it comes to going out, dining, and things of that nature. >> elise jordan, i completely agree. and i think this is one of those things where the joke is on us. we ask this is beto, why do you ask questions you know the answer to. has donald trump corrupted congress? of course he has. has he corrupted the cabinet? of course he has. has he corrupted the air force? it turns out we will find out. >> the simplest answer is probably the right one here. to quote casablanca, of all the gin joints in the world, just how coincidental this golf course in this country just all these air force people just start to show up. >> it's what showed up on trim adviser. >> it got a really high rating.

we don't need to beat around the bush here. this is what we think it is. it's corruption plain and simple. i can't believe that the democrats have let this go on for so long without raising holy hell about it. and i hope they are going to start doing what republicans did to them, which is attack and prosecute this until donald trump can't do it anymore. >> it is the right point. and you look at what was done on the select committee on benghazi. i mean, why aren't the democrats like the republicans on benghazi? and as jake sherman just said, there is a plethora of corruption examples to go dig into. >> i think the democrats are not like republicans on benghazi because democrats are like republicans on nothing. and i think whenever we talk about this on this air, if you

say something like democrats should be more like republicans on benghazi, you get one of two reactions among democrats which is like yes they should because they need to be like a dog on a bone, and what's good for the goose is good for the gander and they should be tougher. or you get people who yell at you and say we don't want to be like republicans. there are a bunch of democrats who are just as ruthless and tough and pipehitting as republicans are. but then there's another chunk of a names -- >> who? >> there are lots of democrats who would like to see or you hear them all the time who would like to see congressional leadership be more aggressive. then you hear from another group that says, no, this is what sets the democratic party apart from the republicans is that we would never engage in those kind of tactics. i'm not going to rule which one of those is right or wrong. but that's not a problem you have in the republican party. and the republican side, it's like everyone's like let's do benghazi. and on the democratic side you have this bifurcated,

schizophrenic view of how ruthless to be. and i think that split in attitude towards how to wield power is one of the things that holds a lot of democrats back because they're like i don't want to be like that. >> i guess what i don't understand is it's almost become comical. how bad does the corruption have to be? what they reported about -- i mean, and we found out about this, there is a house investigation, but you just take the stories of -- just take the post mueller scandals. take the post mueller corruption stories, which not one of them has been refuted by any of the subjects of these scandals. the air force is now answering questions from jake and his colleagues on the trump hotel. you've got statements coming out from these organizations. i mean, there is blood in the water, if you will, on all of these fronts. and my question, the question that i never get an answer to is how bad does it have to be for anyone to find anything awry?

>> and you have to look to the clarity of leadership from capitol hill. and i've said at this table it is frustrating that we look to the next highest constitutional officer in charge. that would be the speaker of the house and the congress with the tools to provide oversight. sometimes in the lack of clarity around messaging, we get wrapped around impeachment and all these other oversight investigations when there is an answer sitting right in front of us. the answer on all this emolument stuff is at least on government contracting and using government dollars is to restrict through the appropriations process expenditures of the department of defense on properties owned by the president of the united states. september 30th is the end of the fiscal year. we are facing a government shutdown. the department of defense appropriations bill has to be passed. congress can write into the budget none of the funds provided to the department of defense may be used to provide

for housing or transportation at a trump-owned property. that is perfectly legitimate. it's done all the time. they can do that today without confusing this around the impeachment issue. >> jake, i see you nodding. i'll give you the last word. >> he's right. mr. jolly was an aid on the appropriations committee too so he knows this well. [ laughter ] but, yeah, and they could say that no money could go to setting up the g7 at doral. democrats keep saying we are looking to find out the whole story. well, the story is unfolding and a lot of democrats are saying there is nothing to wait for anymore. we need to streamline our efforts and really focus on the next year or so on really probing the president in every single way. and some democrats believe they have been successful so far, and many do not. so that's going to be one of the big story lines from now until the midterm election, or the presidential election. >> it's one we are going to get to after the break. we are going to cover democrats bringing back sprawling

impeachment investigations into donald trump. stay with us. investigations int donald trump stay with us with uncontrolled moderate-to-severe eczema, or atopic dermatitis, you feel like you're itching all the time. and you never know how your skin will look. because deep within your skin an overly sensitive immune system could be the cause. so help heal your skin from within, with dupixent. dupixent is not a steroid, and it continuously treats your eczema even when you can't see it. at 16 weeks, nearly four times more patients taking dupixent saw clear or almost clear skin compared to those not taking it, and patients saw a significant reduction in itch. do not use if you are allergic to dupixent. serious allergic reactions can occur, including anaphylaxis, a severe reaction. tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems, including eye pain or changes in vision. if you are taking asthma medicines, do not change or stop your asthma medicine without talking to your doctor. help heal your skin from within. ask your eczema specialist about dupixent.

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the lifetime achievement awards ceremony is quickly erupted with people holding "impeach now" signs. >> impeach now! >> do you support an impeachment inquiry now? >> we need to nail him to his own particular cross. and send him out. by impeaching him. >> when last we talked, you were not committal. so i am now asking you where do you stand now about joining members of your caucus, or are you going to just continue to wait? >> that's a little bit of what members of congress and presidential candidates heard from constituents and voters over the summer. now that lawmakers are back in washington, they are tackling impeachment with a focus that some democrats feel was missing after the mueller report came out.

house judiciary will vote thursday to formalize procedures for future hearings related to the impeachment investigation. and while this doesn't mean a formal inquiry has been launched, it will mark the first time the committee has taken a formal vote on impeachment. this coming after the committee has expanded its investigation. "the new york times" reports the committee is preparing to rapidly broaden the substance of the inquiry this fall beyond the investigation into any role on the agenda for new scrutiny for mr. trump's role in illegal hush payments to women who said they had affairs with him and whether his resorts have illegally profited from government spending. "the washington post" puts it in historical context saying it reasonables something the judiciary committee did in 1973, two weeks after the saturday night massacre when richard nixon fired several justice department officials for refusing to. joining our conversation j of

course uanita, action fund and independent policy institute. jake sherman is back. we made him stay, but we heard he has to go, so we'll start with you, jake. does it feel like impeachment is afoot? or is this sort of process and procedure to placate an antsy base? >> i think probably both. i think democrats have felt frustrated by a lack of progress and kind of a mushy blob of a process in investigating the president. so this is the way to view a lot of these things i think democratic leadership and the committee chairs are trying to show heat, trying to show action while they bide their time. nancy pelosi has been perfectly clear about this privately and a little bit publicly. she does not believe the american public is with democrats who want to impeach the president period, hard stop. until that changes, it's going to be difficult to go full boar into impeachment proceedings. i don't think it's going to happen. now, listen, nancy pelosi is probably acutely aware of what a

lot of us are acutely aware of is if they begin proceedings, they are going to vote on the floor to remove the president of the united states. and that's a big moment, whether you believe it's good or bad, you could have either opinion and argue it honestly. but i do think there is a frustration by what democrats view is a lack of guardrails and process here. and i think that's what nadler the chairman of the judiciary committee and nancy pelosi are trying to do. >> it would seem that it became circular for democrats, the axle around which they have been wrapped is that it didn't become popular because they blinked. the southern district of new york called it an illegal hush money scheme. robert mueller found ten acts of criminal obstruction of justice, and they was like -- no one trusts the investigative powers of the southern district of new york and mueller less than what nancy pelosi had available to her. >> i mean, what is really striking here too is that pelosi's still in this mind that the american people aren't ready. but what we just saw in the

footage throughout the entire summer constituents have been asking why aren't you moving forward with impeachment, and it's really going to leave a mark if democrats don't follow through on the promises they made in the midterms. they said we are going to hold trump accountable, but yet to be seen. >> what do you may think these moves? >> politictions can be leading indicators or lagging indicators. they would say obstruction of justice is an impeachable moment. if you're a lagging indicator, you wait for public opinion to get there, knowing it may never get there, and you're playing it safe. i think something to look for i think there is daylight emerging in a serious way between nadler and house democratic leadership. understand nadler waited for the house to adjourn for nancy pelosi to be overseas i believe before using the word impeachment in a court filing. the house leadership still doesn't want the full house to vote on an impeachment resolution, so nadler is now moving ahead with his committee to do it. they are isolating the political

risk, if you will, within the judiciary committee while protecting the greater house from having to take a hard vote. i think it's a lack of leadership. >> from who? >> i think the full house needs to take a vote from the speaker and democratic leadership, the full house, every single representative of every district, 435, rnd need to take a vote, take the hard vote, explain it to your constituents if you're for it or against it. >> jake, do we still have you? >> yes. >> it is sort of an open secret that nadler's been put in this box of senior democrats in and out of government whispering, oh, he's not up to impeachment, but everybody knows that nancy pelosi sort of handed him the political football and then said you can't get on the field. what does nadler say privately about how boxed in he's been? >> i think we put it in play book this morning that he feels like he could shout from the roof tops that i think he wants to impeach the president. i think no doubt about that.

now i will say he has a committee that's tough to manage. it has some of the most progressive members of congress who are the most forceful on impeachment. and, remember, any single democrat can go to the house floor and get an almost immediate vote on whether to impeach the president. it's what's called the privilege resolution it. >> gets immediate consideration. so the idea that this needs to come from the leadership is a little bit of a fallacy against more credit it gets more, it's more important if it comes from the leadership. but anybody could get that vote at any time. and i know, yes, would be considered a spectacle or a political move, but anyone can get that vote. i think what you're seeing is you're moving toward a more official process. and nancy pelosi, remember, she has to take into consideration i know around the table this might not be a popular comment, but she has to take into consideration that she has her majoritymakers, the people that made her majority are from districts, many of them that trump won, and impeachment is not popular there, whether you believe it's the right thing or not. and whether you believe pelosi's

move to not impeach is the right thing or not, you have to recognize that kind of political reality. now, once you get into 020, this becomes very difficult politically to impeach the president. i think it has to happen if it's ever going to happen between now and the end of the year. but again, conventional wisdom is really not worth much anymore. but that's what people up here believe and people in the leadership world believe. >> intrademocratic contortions on impeachment are just fascinating in terms of a mars and venus sort of look at the two parties. this is about process, it's about procedure, it's about the calendar, it's did decorum, it's about managing an idealogically diverse committees, when you look at what donald trump did to the republican party, he is not conservative on economy. he's certainly sure as heck not conservative on foreign policy. he was going to have tea with the terrorists who were behind 9/11. he's not conservative in his sort of personal life.

he is not that the republicans used to believe in. he single-handedly runs the entire right in terms of elected politics. and you've got the democrats still sort of managing different constituents like a small d democrats. >> i think part of it is that the president is on the executive branches, he is clearly the leader of the party. nancy pelosi does have a lot of different -- i will give jake the credit to or the credit to nancy pelosi she deserves which is her job is to keep control of the house of representatives. she is focused in a very, very specific way on about 40 members of congress and making sure she doesn't do anything to make their lives more difficult. i'm sure she didn't want to do anything that slows that wave. she's cautious in a way that i think democrats should appreciate in the sense that she gets what the difference between a majority and having a one-vote minority is. and so she tried to be careful. so i think, look, the reality of

what's going to happen i think here is we are going to use this impeachment procedure to try to get some show trials going and try to use this as leverage to get politically damaging for the president events to occur, witnesses to come in. but the notion that given how short the legislative calendar is for the rest of the year which is one of the most stunning things we learned a week ago. to a full scale impeachment before an election year i think is maybe a tiny tick above zero but not much. >> generous. [ laughter ] >> chances are greater that we'll get in all of our commercials. i know we kept you longer than our plan. when we come back, donald trump wanted to change the subject, he may have picked the wrong targets, chrissy teigen firing back on twitter. that's next. ck on twitter. that's next. ♪ goin' down the only road i've ever known ♪ ♪ like a drifter i was--

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it will surprise no one that the president spent sunday night ranting. he said john legend because trump felt legend didn't give him enough credit for the criminal crime bill. legend responded, imagine being president of the whole country and spending your sunday night hate-watching msnbc hoping somebody, anybody, will praise you. melania, please praise this man. he needs you. legend's wife, who didn't appear in the special, played along, tweeted so we can say it on daytime, #filthymouthwife are all trending on twitter. you can use your imagination. anita, take it away. >> he picked the wrong one. >> he sure did. >> to the point he blocked her back in 2017.

over something extremely mal. she wasn't in the special. he just really can't stand a strong woman expressing her opinion, especially a opinion about him. i'm so grateful to chrissy teigen and john legend so promptly gathering up president trump and calling him exactly what many americans probably believe he is. >> yeah. i just -- i just can't -- i'm struggling to not say the thing. >> is it bad? >> you know, i -- no, no, no. i can hear phil griffin in my ear, don't you dare. don't say it. >> what's wrong with him? >> they are master -- both of them, john legend and chrissy, are masters of social media. they're incredibly good. president trump for his followers is increedably good, too. you can't take away donald trump

for what he's trying to get done on this medium but they have done it longer, they're very strong. the reality, on the actual merits of the subject, john legend has been working on criminal reform when president trump was trying to take apart the five. you'll lose that fight not just on social media but on the question of substance. >> that donald trump is really a leader of all the people. he really cares about the -- his country men and women. it's just all about him consistently. from afghanistan and wanting to take credit for an interim peace deal that he botched by inviting the taliban to tea at camp david to this. everything has to be about him or you have him hate-tweeting at chrissy teigen. >> i thought, too, if you want to run on criminal justice reform being meaningful to you,

the way to undermine your own accomplishment is to tweet at john legend about not giving credit. >> and to throw the bipartisan coalition that shared in the success under the bus. look, i admit a fair level of cultural ignorance on the matter, but it's critically importance in that ignorance is the mysogyny. i know john legend's work on criminal justice reform, including the last cycle in florida. i don't know about chrissy. it reminds me of the ted cruz. he called out john legend. >> he we want after her because she was a bad-ass. t after her b she was a bad-ass. but we're also a company that controls hiv, fights cancer, repairs shattered bones, relieves depression, restores heart rhythms, helps you back from strokes,

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my thanks to all, most of you to watching. i'm nicole. "mtp daily," with steve kornacki in for chuck starts now. ♪ if it's monday, it's breaking news. the political storm intensifyings around that false alabama forecast. we've got a new report that a member of the trump administration threatened to fire people who contradicted the president. plus, congress is back. will impeachment be on the top of the to-do list? house democrats are escalating their probef