law with misleading health claims. now juul is pushing prop c, to overturn san francisco's e-cigarette protections. say no to juul, no to big tobacco, no to prop c. red-handed. let's play hardball. good evening, i'm chris matthews in washington. we're getting major breaking news tonight from multiple sources about the president's alarming conversation with a foreign leader that prompted an urgent whistleblower's complaint. "the washington post" tonight has revealed crucial new information that, quote, president trump pressed the leader of ukraine to investigate the son of former vice president joe biden in a call between the two leaders. that's according to two people

familiar with the matter who say that trump used the july 25th conversation with ukraine president zelenskiy to pressure him to more aggressively pursue an investigation trump believed would deliver potential political dirt against one of the president's political adversaries, joe biden. again, just to reiterate, a president who spent three years that he colluded with a foreign power to get dirt on his political enemies has been caught red-handed doing just that. and this comes today after the president declined to say whether he discussed the former vice president joe biden's family in that phone call with the ukrainian president, a call he insists was appropriate. >> did you discuss joe biden, his son, or his family with the leader of ukraine? >> it doesn't matter what i discussed -- >> did you ask him joe biden during the conversation? >> i don't want to talk about any conversation other than to say great conversation, totally appropriate conversation,

couldn't have been better, and keep asking questions and build it up as big as possible so you can have a bigger downfall. >> well, separately "the wall street journal" reports that in that phone call president trump, quote, repeatedly pressured the president of ukraine urging that president about eight times to work with rudy giuliani, trump's personal lawyer, on a probe, according to people familiar with the matter. we already know that since may giuliani has been working outside official channels to push the ukrainian government to investigate biden's family. in fact giuliani confirmed it himself just last night. in a bizarre performance on cnn giuliani first denied he asked ukraine to investigate biden only to admit it just seconds later. watch this. >> did you ask ukraine to investigate joe biden? >> no, actually, i didn't -- >> so you did ask ukraine to look into joe biden. >> of course i did. >> you just said you didn't. >> you just figure that one out.

we know three house committees in the house of representatives have launched investigations into whether the president held military aid to ukraine, a to pressure the ukrainian government, a prospect they say would be a staggering abuse of power. that aid was eventually released last week but only after lawmakers of both parties expressed outrage over the delay. joining me is ben wittes, and cal lenning, one of the reporters who broke the story from "the washington post." great to have you on tonight. this is the biggest story i've seen in months. the president of the united states always spent three years denying he colluded with a foreign power to get dirt on hillary clinton. and now says -- excuse me, i'm out there doing it again this time to get it on joe biden, i'm working for 2020 here. >> i know. what gives? it's funny a person that we've interviewed said to me today, you know, robert mueller in his

two-year investigation never really had what you would ostensibly call a quid pro quo and here it is right in front of us in broad daylight, apparently. the time line is not very flattering to the president, july 25th. he makes a call to zelensky, pressures him to look into joe biden's son, then sends his son to meet with zelenskiy, days later has the ambassador to the ukraine help set up that meeting all of it while offering or withholding as like a tease $250 million in military aid that congress has approved. >> so he's doing two things. he's getting dirt from a foreign government directly, simply. this is much simpler than the whole russian collusion thing. this is clear cut. i'm going to a foreign government, a president of a foreign government for dirt. i'm using my office as president to do it. i'm using the threat of

withholding military aid to a country that is vulnerable to it. moments ago former vice president joe biden said if these reports are true then there's truly no bottom of president trump's willingness to abuse his power and abase our country. this behavior is particularly abhorrent because it exploits the foreign policy of our government and undermines our national security for partisan purposes. he also said at a minimum the president should release a transcript of the call in order that the whistle-blower's complaint be released to congress. congressman quigley, thank you for coming on a friday night, but my god, this is big one. the president of the united states, put it into perspective, out there trolling for dirt on political opponent using his presidential power, his office or foreign policy, or foreign aid or military aid to go to a foreign government to get oppo on someone he thinks he naive run against. your thoughts. >> as tough as this is to say, i guess i'm not surprised.

i've watched and investigated this white house for over three years now and absolutely nothing surprises me. i guess if i've learned anything is there's never any coincidences with this white house and their operations and everything's tied together. i mean, this began a long time ago with manafort and the profiteers who worked in the white house. this is just an extension of those actions. >> you're not supposed to take aid from a foreign power, a foreign government in a political campaign. is this that? is this going over there for something of value, in kind dirt which is something usually paid for from an oppo operation. is this a crime? >> look, even if you don't conflate these two issues, the assault on congressional oversight and the whistle-blower operation and what we're learning about ukraine, these are two body blows to the country that we live in. it is extraordinary. it is a danger not only to our

country and what we present, let's understand exactly where ukraine is right now. crimea is occupied, there's fighting in the east. this is a country just hanging on against russian oppression, so these are our allies, what they must think of us now. >> i disagree with you, congressman, because i'm shocked by this. this is blatant. he's been investigated for three years for this very act. he now does it in broad daylight and we caught him. you know what, a whistle-blower caught him doing this. we didn't catch him. >> yeah, so i think there's three issues here, and they're all really big deals. so the first is shaking down a foreign leader for his own personal political gain. it's not for some u.s. policy objective, right, but it's holding up congressionally appropriated money while you're making demands for your personal benefit, personal political benefit from a foreign country. the second issue is inviting as

you just pointed out, inviting or asking or demanding that foreign country to improperly engage in the u.s. political process, right? this is collusion, right? and the third, which is from my point of view by far the worst is asking, demanding a foreign leader to investigate your political opponents. and trump has been pretty open about demanding that his law enforcement apparatus investigate his political opponents whether it's hillary clinton or, you know, obama, right, he's easy about that. but now we see he's leaning on foreign officials to do it as well. and by the way, he's not sending -- he's not saying to the ukrainians cooperate with our law enforcement officials. he's saying to the ukrainians cooperate with my personal lawyer in digging up dirt and

spying on and investigating my political opponents and their children. >> in addition to abuse of power it's extortion. it's taking a country vulnerable to being brought down by russia and putin and saying i know you're in trouble. you want to be saved, give me my dirt. in june the president openly admitted he would accept dirt on a political opponent from a for any reason government and said he would not inform the fbi if he was contacted by a foreign government. let's watch. >> this is someone who said we have information on your opponent, oh, let me call the fbi. give me a break. live doesn't work that way. if somebody called from a country, norway, we have information on your opponent. oh, i think i'd want to hear it. >> you'd want that kind of interference in our elections? >> it's not interference. they have information. i think i'd take it. >> in this case he didn't have something come over the transit. he went over. he went to another government and said you want that $250

mill? give me the dirt on biden. >> it seems as though from the reporting that we've seen from "the washington post," "the wall street journal," "the new york times" is that, yes, the president is open to that. and it fits a pattern. when he was a candidate in 2016, he said russia hacked hillary clinton's e-mails, what he tells george stephanopoulos, hey, you have information from foreign governments, give them to me. if you're a foreign government and you want to sway this president can you give him information you come across about any political opponent and say here, mr. president, give me this because i want to be interested in you and i want you to work in my favor. so i think this is going to be a big issue going forward. there's been a big question whether or not foreign government are going to meddle in 2020. now question is president trump going to help them do that? >> of course. in the last several days this story has blossomed. a whistle-blower's complaint through the dni -- the director of national intelligence doing

something that was so upsetting to that person and national security that they said this was urgent. we had to know about it. they're withholding that information turned advice of william barr, the president's ag. and now we're finding out it perhaps was a quid pro quo. how'd this story break out? there's a lot of theories about what your sources are. one source himself thinks trump himself is putting it out -- i like your face. you just did that. the camera catches you. thank you, carol. >> in fact, what i would say, chris, is one of the stunning things that tells me this is a big deal beyond the fact that it is encouraging a foreign power to get involved for his personal benefit has been put so well, what tells me it's a big deal is how silent the white house is. usually you get some engagement, somebody there to say, look, here's our argument, i want to push back on this. there is an absolute deafening

over there. the president for his part today said my lawyers are looking at it and they're laughing at that complaint. i'm not so convinced they're laughing at that complaint. our reporting today is that the white house counsel and bill barr both if not personally their offices was consulting with the director of national intelligence, given legal arguments why this should not go to congress -- >> the complaint, the content of it? >> yes, why this whistleblower's information shouldn't go to congress and that this has created great consternation and tension between the office of the director of national intelligence and the white house. >> let's go back. both your piece today and "the wall street journal" piece that came out late today say "pressured." the the president of the united states pressured the ukrainian president zelenskiy to give us that dirt or else. what's the or else?

>> as we've been discussing it's the $250 in military aide the -- that congress approved, that the president was holding back on and blocking, which is pretty unusual. and then the other was a meeting with the president. aides had been trying to arrange for trump to meet with zelensky, something zelenskiy really wanted. it's a signal to the world, i've got the u.s. behind my back. that ally that's feeling so unprotected. and trump was withholding that too. >> is that the promise we read in this piece, he will meet with him? >> i can't tell you. >> but there is a quid pro quo aspect to this? >> there is an alleged promise according to the complaint which i can talk about a little bit more. >> i'll say this in terms of the president has always and people in my reporting has always talked about the thing that blocks the president has been the courts. now we're seeing with this whistle-blower there are people within his own government that are willing to say, you've gone too far, here it is.

we've been waiting for republicans in congress, at times for people to say oh, they've gone too far, the president can't do this. and now we see he is not pushing back as much. i'm thinking -- i've been calling and asking the white house about this. they're not pushing back because if they do they obviously have people inside that can push back on that who have evidence of this call. is there a recording of the call? who knows. but the question is they can't push back too hard because the person who's whistle blowing is inside this administration. >> and they don't know. their guess is the person inside blew the whistle. you said there's more there you wanted to get to about a possible quid pro quo. what was it? >> well, i want to stress something about the whistleblower complaint, which is this complainant took a pretty brave, some might say, step, because this could be career-ending, and this could also lead to them being found out because of the way they've described what happened. >> you said them to avoid giving

gender away, right? >> i apologize that i did reflexively. >> i love the way you source these things. go ahead. >> that complaint is based not just on the one july 25th call but multiple events, multiple incidents. it's not just i'm on the phone and i hear the president doing something -- but i know through several methods that a series of events that are of urgent concern. what's an urgent concern? an urgent concern under the statute is something that's a flagrant abuse that needs to be alerted to congress immediately, and if one of those things involves what the president said, that should worry everybody. >> congressman quigley, the requirement of the statute is when the whistle-blower blows that whistle, you folks get to know what the whistle was about. what can you do to get the content of this complaint which has led to this whole explosion of news tonight?

in the last several nights building to tonight? your thoughts? >> i want to reinforce the inspector general told us this was an extremely important function that the dni has, the responsibility to the american people. he said he corroborated it, so it was extraordinarily important. he stressed the chilling effect on the entire process of congressional oversight and what's his next step, i think we're going to see him on thursday, the acting dni explain to us why he's blocking a lawful effort. beyond that i think this can't just be another court fight. this must be an emergency order seeking injunctive relief to get a copy of this complaint. it is being unlawfully held from congress by an opinion, according to the inspector general, from the justice department. >> is this going to move pelosi to impeachment? >> look, i think it should move

everyone to understanding what we saw in the special counsel's report was only part of it. the special counsel didn't even follow the money. there's so much more to be investigated and the abuses haven't stopped. a president who has never been held accountable will not act in an accountable fashion unless we do something. >> thank you so much u.s. congressman mike quigley of illinois. ben wittes, congratulations carol lenning. is a blockbuster. coming up giuliani's melt down. first he denies he asked ukraine to investigate joe biden, and seconds later -- seconds later he admits he was trying to get the dirt. plus, what donald trump learned about fighting dirty from his ruthless mentor, roy cohn. we're going to have that story for you tonight. nice foal, roy cohn, the kind of guy trump could use, the subject of an intriguing new documentary. watch a bit of it. >> trump settled but that for him was a victory because he didn't admit he did anything wrong and it's very consistent

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did you ask ukraine to investigate joe biden? >> no, actually, i didn't. >> you never asked anything about hunter biden, anything about joe biden? >> the only thing i asked about joe biden to get to the bottom of how it was -- who was appointed dismissed the case -- against -- >> so you did ask ukraine to look into joe biden? >> of course i did. >> you just said you didn't. >> welcome back to "hardball." that bizarre performance is the latest from president trump's personal attorney rudy giuliani, attempting there to explain his months long efforts to get the government of ukraine to help

dig up dirt on one of his political rivals, joe biden and his son hunter. multiple news outlets tonight are reporting that in july president trump himself pressured the new ukrainian president eight times by the count of "the wall street journal" to help giuliani in his efforts to get the dirt. according to "the wall street journal" andriy yermak with a top aide to mr. zelensky and assured him the ukrainian government would get to the bottom of the biden matter. and it was the state department that helped connect him to that top aide. giuliani defended his actions back in may to new york reporter ken vogel saying there's nothing illegal about it. but admitting somebody could say it's improper. i'm joined by ken vogel, evelyn farkas. ken, give us a sense of your sense of rudy giuliani's last chapter perhaps of his public life here.

what's his role? it seems to be oppo, get me the dirt on the guy i may have to run against, joe biden? it seems to me the number one job for the number one guy? >> yes, his explanation is he's acting in capacity as president trump's personal lawyer, and he says that he started looking at ukraine because he was looking for exculpatory information about the origins of the mueller probe. believing somehow it got its start because of a ukrainian investigation of paul manafort, donald trump's campaign chairman for a time. and that that's why rudy giuliani started looking at ukraine. in the course of looking at ukraine and pushing the ukrainians to investigate that, he says he stumbled upon this potential investigation or this matter involving joe biden, and joe biden's diplomacy in ukraine

and how that intersected with joe biden's son hunter and his work in ukraine for a ukrainian owned oligarch gas company, i used the air quote stumble there because we had written about that back in 2015. it wasn't like he discovered anything new. what he say doing more was to push the ukrainians to investigate it, to give fodder to trump to be able to potentially run against joe biden, and that is why we see this complaint which i think is quite valid that rudy giuliani is sort of distorting the u.s. foreign policy apparatus and he has support in that effort from trump. >> what we're talking about tonight is this breaking story tonight which has really come to full bloom which is the latest reporting from "the wall street journal" and is that the president of the united states, donald trump, is out there dealing with the president of ukraine to get dirt saying i'll give you the latest military aid we owe you if and only if you get me some

dirt on joe biden and his kid hunter. last night rudy giuliani said he had knowledge of his initial efforts to dig up this different let's watch. >> did he ask you to do what you were doing? >> no, i did what i did on my own and then i told him about it afterwards because i'm his lawyer and i know how to investigate. >> back in may before his canceled trip to ukraine that time giuliani told ken vogel that the president basically knows what i'm doing. sure, as his lawyer. does anybody know who's paying the tab for all this travel to kiev and madrid and paris? rudy's flapping around the world, he's not staying at the two starr hotels and not flying coach. somebody's paying for all this. >> yes, he's going through an expensive divorce so i'm guessing somebody is. either the trump administration or -- i think the real issue is for some reason rudy giuliani is

out here now to capture our attention. a lot of times what we see is when the president is doing something wrong a la the mueller report, rudy giuliani will come out and make it seem like it's okay. he'll actually air the dirty laundry. it may explain why the white house is so quiet. >> while would he initially deny it to chris cuomo and only when chris was probing him, oh, yeah i did. >> that's a little weird. that is, i admit, odd, because he was clearly on there for some reason. he was trying to make some point to the public about the president's dealings and about president trump and about of course the biden, you know, fake conspiracy he's trying to make up. but i do believe that he comes out when the white house is in trouble. so my guess is the white house feels they're in trouble. >> i'll tell you that's the side story but why does rudy make himself like ed coch. he's so flame buoyant, so out there at 9:00 after dinner, obviously people think that's a factor.

what do you make of all this? why is he so exposed? is it to draw fire from the president? is that what's going on here, ken? >> yeah, i think there's certainly something to that. i think there's also an element of he's working for this guy who he sees as able to say the most outlandish controversial thing for the sole purpose of kind of stirring the pot or trolling his rivals and giuliani in some ways has mirrored that. that is the way he was behaving. he wasn't always like this. he's still quite lucid and for the most part he's good on his feet with the exception of a few interviews like the one you just showed. but i think he used to be like a little more careful and sort of calculated in his statements and now we've just seen that totally go out the window, whether that's because he's acting on some instructions from trump, to take the pressure or scrutiny off him, it's tough to get in his head and what we can clearly

say is that in this particular case it did not work. it did not deflect any attention. in fact, people are just going deeper into this, and there's been more reporting on it. the one thing i would correct on is this idea that the quid pro quo offered, and there may have been one offered between trump and zelenskiy that involved the u.s. military assistance. it is my reporting that the ukrainians, that, a, that assistance was not raised on that phone call. assistance was being delayed or reviewed until a month after that phone call. >> one last question. one last question. looks to me that rudy is out here doing something bill casey did for ronald reagan, prove himself before he gets elected by doing the dirt work for him. this is big casino for trump, he has to get rid of joe biden's

threat. >> yeah, that's clearly what's going on here. he sees joe biden as a real threat, and we have reporting on this that he sees him as potentially the most viable democratic candidate, and this is potential liability that rudy in some ways is sort of muddling up, he's not helping push the story. the story has become about rudy's efforts to meddle in ukrainian politics. as opposed to is subject. call it a central tenant of the trump presidency. the flouting of rules and norms usually associated with the highest office. zero repercussions, watch it tonight. i'm not confident congress even on this big one tonight will be able to do anything on it. this congress is week. -- weak. it does feel a little different, more damaging if the congress knows how to use it. they don't even have the ability to express outrage anymore. are trump's chickens finally

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welcome back to "hardball." president trump was elected by flouting political norms, of course, breaking the rules three years into his term, his behavior is not a flaw but a signature feature of his presidency, breaking the laws is what he does, breaking the rules. the constitution was crafted to ensure however there's a system

of checks and balances in place to avoid the abuses of a monarch. article 2 of the president's vaguely defined executive power which according to trump means no one can stop me. let's watch him. >> i have an article 2 where i have the right to do whatever i want as president, but i don't even talk about that. >> oh, great. so you can do anything you want. since his election president trump has tested that power. he stonewalled congress' lawful you subpoena powers in response to multiple investigations. he's directed his treasury department in one direct case to simply deny a lawful request guaranteed in statute to turn over his tax returns to the house ways and means committee, the finance committee. he called for political enemies to be prosecuted for unreceivspd crimes, he just makes them up. he shared classified intelligence with world leaders, we know about that.

and now three house committees are investigating whether or not president trump and his personal lawyer, rudy giuliani, pressured the ukrainian government to insist in trump's re-election through profession of dirt. i'm joined by rick tyler, glen kirschner. former federal prosecutor. you know, the politico guy like i've been. what is wrong? there's no sense about regs, this president keeps punching into cotton. there's nobody stopping him. >> we don't have a coequal branch of government in congress. look at the -- nadler's committee. >> the judiciary. >> the judiciary committee. he sends ut subpoenas, calls witnesses three months late, calls out subpoenas, nobody shows up. he gets a low-level fired political hack to show up, and he mocks them. and people are supposed to take that seriously? he's so screwed up the accountability problem with congress, they don't know how to react. congress has a coequal duty, it's in the constitution. read the constitution. use your constitutional powers. they have the power of the purse, the budget. they could screw up this

executive branch so seriously, so quickly if they wanted to, but they're not serious. >> you know, i agree. >> i agree with rick. right now the congress is not acting like a coequal branch of government. i love the eleanor roosevelt quote, nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent. they've given their consent to be an interior branch. -- be an inferior branch. the republicans have given their consent because they're scared to death. >> mitch mcconnell just looks the tv camera in the face and says i'm doing it my way, live with it. >> and the democrats, chris, i given their consent because they're unwilling to use all the tools in their tool box to make the administration accountable. >> they should dump it on him but they don't have one. >> the congress needs to use the lawful vehicle of inherent contempt to hold these people accountable. >> and there's only one vehicle to hold this president accountable. we know the republicans won't, they haven't. so when people say you should hold the republicans

accountable, i have. but now there's one vehicle to hold the president accountable and it's the house democrats and they're not just not doing it. because nancy pelosi and chairman nadler are at odds. and the thing is, chairman nadler, either follow your leader, opposite your leader, or go home. >> republicans on capitol hill have come to the president's defense again on this whole thing we're talking about tonight, this blockbuster story about the president in bed with the ukrainians to get dirt on joe biden. let's watch. >> this is not something i've ever seen the president doing, and i would instead of jump to conclusions actually get the facts first. >> how much do you want to bet whatever the president said was in the best interest of the united states of america? i mean, that's the bottom of line. >> i think there are people in the intelligence community and other parts of our government who just have it out for the president. i don't have any worries about the president. >> it looks to me another deep state attack, another bureaucratic attack on the president.

we have seen this over and over and over in this administration or from anonymous sources deep inside the bureaucracy. frankly, it still been an unprecedented attempt by the bureaucracy to resist the policies of a dually elected president of the united states. >> again, the amen corner, they come from districts 90%, whatever republican, they just bow down to this president and make his executive power even grander. >> you know why this is in a way even more troubling than russian collusion, chris, that was, hey, russia if you can find the e-mails that would be great. this is him affirmatively asking another world leader to investigate another presidential candidate and his family. guess what? we at least have some constraints on u.s. law enforcement. when we're criminally investigating people, i had to abide by the constitution as a prosecutor. if ukraine sends agents to the

united states whether overt or covert, they are unconstrained by our laws. >> imagine this whistle-blower listen to the president of the united states talk like that, like a mob guy. >> sttd -- the president is talking like a mob family. i've been told he's a partisan, he's a high level intelligence official, he's someone known to the president. >> he's telling the truth, he must be a partisan. still ahead, you guys have more outrage than the whole democratic half of the house. still ahead, what donald trump learned about fighting dirty from his ruthless mentor, roy cohn. wait till you catch this stuff. stick with us. your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. nice. but, uh... what's up with your... partner? not again. limu that's your reflection. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪ ♪ ♪ award winning interface.

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welcome back to "hardball." everyone watching right now knows donald trump wanted an attorney general who would protect him especially against his investigation of his dealings with the russians in

2016. "where's my roy cohn," trump yelled in angry when he told person he did name attorney general refused to do just that, that jeff sessions had actually recused himself, in other words refused to even handle the russia investigation. "where's my roy cohn"? the president was referring to his late mentor roy cohn, a cars mat charismatic brauns born prosecutor his methods were ruthless and in fact criminal. he began his career hunting suspected communists as the chief counsel to joseph mccarthy in the early 1950s. no client was too unsavory over the years who went onto represent a number of mafia figures among others. now filmmaker matt tyrnauer with a new documentary, "where's my roy cohn." here's a clip. >> the justice department was going of fred trump and donald trump for not letting blacks in their housing. rather than making a deal, rather than admitting guilt, roy

said that, trump, you need to go full after the just department. >> roy was clear what to do, attack, don't settle, don't apologize, attack. >> roy would always be for an offense hit strategy. those are the rules of war. you don't fight on the other guy's ground. you define the what the debate is going to be about. i think donald learned that from roy. i learned that from roy. >> roy cohn began this whole mode of what you see today of get off the issue, attack law enforcement, attack the government, attack the press and create phony issues so you can totally change the debate. >> there's a bit of mccarthyism going on right now. >> he shouldn't disclaim i mean a totally inability to cope with any of these current topics. he does it with great precision. >> keep talking. keep talking. this is known as filler. you throw your mud and then the filler goes on until we've forgotten what the point was.

>> well, the incredible story of mob lawyer roy cohn and his ties to donald trump coming up next. you're watching "hardball." l. ♪ -i'm sorry? -what teach here isn't telling you is that snapshot rewards safe drivers with discounts on car insurance. -what? ♪ -or maybe he didn't know. ♪ [ chuckles ] i'm done with this class. -you're not even enrolled in this class. -i know. i'm supposed to be in ceramics. do you know -- -room 303. -oh. thank you. -yeah. -good luck, everybody.

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mccarthy to his service as mob lawyer that makes for one hell of a story. >> cohn soared to national prominence as mccarthy's hand maiden, whispering in his ear in a conspiratorial fashion, advising him how to question witnesses before the congressional subcommittee. roy's tactics and approach via mccarthy make him one of the most controversial people in the country. >> i don't think you understood the question. the question is do you know this man, and i would assume the answer is yes or no. >> tell us if you know the man before you proceed. do you know this man or don't you? >> your statement about him has made it difficult for me -- >> joining me is filmmaker matt tyrnauer whose new movie "where's my roy cohn" examines the dark and compelling life of roy cohn. thank you so much for joining us. and here's the question. what attracted joe mccarthy to this guy roy cohn? he trusted him completely,

implicitly defended him no matter what he wanted and is it the same thing that attracted donald trump over the years? >> joe mccarthy was kind of an empty vessel. he wasn't really the sharpest tool in the drawer and i think and i think he needed someone to manipulate and tell him what to say. the iconic footage of cohn is him whispering in the ear of mccarthy in the senate subcommittee and kind of leading him into these persecuting questionings of usually innocent witnesses. he was a demagogue whisperer and he liked to sort of infect empty vessels and trump was his late-in-life project, his demagogue in the making and he became the apprentice to roy co cohn. >> one thing that impressed me, and i have seen a lot and this was really good, i liked the

artistic quality. hi no problem with the political message, i thought it was very fair about history, very fair. i also thought it was interesting about the new york society and the way they value things, the bad values of new york and this country. why would people of repute, barbara walters, the cardinal of new york, catholic cardinal, why would they all surround this guy as your best friend? why would you want to be around such a sleazeball? >> because new york city, and still is to this day, the most transactional place in the world and roy cohn was the greatest transactionalist until probably donald trump. so ray cohn goes out and befriends everyone and because he became a power broker and mob turn and he had the ear of politicians and up to nefarious things that involved money and changing hands, he accepted new

york society. a lot of people i know with great kra densals were friends of ray cone and called him a lovable monster and shrugged him off that way. the whole media power complex of new york fostered him and allowed him to exist. but the key to roy cohn is he was a manipulating media master. he knew how to work the system. the system of the day was print and tv and radio. he fed information to the press, curried favor with them. he was a wonderful source, extraordinary gossip. and he also was a power broker and sort of the bridge from the illegitimate world of the mob, the attorney for the five dons of the mafia families and legitimate world because he had the ear of the politicians of the die. so he sort of invented this unique job where he was the power broker from the dark world to the light world. and obviously his ultimate mentee was trump. he even sort of predicts --

there's an extraordinary piece of footage in this film from the late '70s where he said donald is a meteor rising from new york city that is going to go on and touch parts of this country and every part of the world. almost nostradamus like he's predicting a trump presidency from the carter era. it's bizarre. >> he also attacked him as a gay entity that targeted gay men notoriously in the '50s with mccarthy. let's watch. >> because mccarthy, you think of him in terms of investigating communists but he and cohn also investigated homosexuals. >> in the '40s and '50s, being gay was such a terrible secret. and that was true for roy. it's hard for people today to imagine the damage keeping that secret did to people and their

lives. and roy certainly did everything to hide it in any way. >> it's a different era today, of course, about people who are gay in this country. we have a gay fella running for president, married to another man. we live in a different time. back in the early '50s, here was ray cohn, who was day, leading an investigation into gays in the country and liberals like david wells doing gay-baiting. i never saw that brought out the way you did in the movie talking about fairies and stuff. they were doing the same anti-gay homophobic stuff the right wing would have done. >> yes, this was the army mccarthy hearings where the army and mccarthy were going after the army. it was a personal affair for cohn. he created this tv spectacle in the early '50s and it really

became a personal matter because cohn at the time had a boy crush on a very good-looking army private named g. david shine. unbelievably he calls the secretary of the army and requests a promotion from private to general for his friend g. david shawn and posting in the waldorf astoria hotel. this is not a joke. the army pushed back and said never. cohn said i will wreck the army. that led to the army mccarthy hearings and that's rife with subtext, the good guy george well saying they have no case and pricks the mccarthy era and they engage mccarthy and cohn trying to pop the bubble and bring the heroes down. >> thank you for a great, great

entry, the title is "where is my roy cohn?" stay with us. ♪ like a drifter i was-- ♪ born to walk alone! ...barb! you left me hangin' on the high harmony there. if you ride, you get it. geico motorcycle. 15 minutes could save you 15% or more.

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we're doing this to wake the leaders up. we're doing this to get them to act. we demand a safe future. is that really too much to ask? >> no. and that's "hardball" for now. "all in with chris hayes" is next. tonight on a special edition of "all in" -- >> why should we study for a future that's being taken away from us? >> it is the single biggest story on the face of the planet. there's a man made catastrophe as protests rage across the globe, as candidates convene to call for action. >> there is a global extinction going on right now. >> breaking news about how the