that is it for me. i will see you again at 1:00 p.m. tomorrow. "deadline: white house" with nicolle wallace begins now. ♪ hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. as public support for the impeachment inquiry into donald trump rises, and the house committee is investigating the president's request for dirt on the bidens from a foreign government reaches deep into the west wing with a threat of subpoenas, donald trump appeared to totally lose it today after a night in mourning of increasingly paranoid and agitated social media posts that seem to warn of his impending outbursts, the president let it rip at an oval office appearance. his outbursts included threats for the whistle-blower whose account of presidential misconduct has been almost entirely corroborated by the president himself and his personal attorney rudy giuliani. the presidential tantrum came after democrats held a press

conference of their own warning that stonewalling the impeachment inquiry could lead to charges of obstruction of justice. here is house intel committee chairman adam schiff. >> we are concerned that the white house will attempt to stonewall our investigation much as they have stonewalled other committees in the past. it's why i say the white house needs to understand that any action like that, that forces us to litigate or have to consider litigation will be considered further evidence of obstruction of justice. and of course that was an article of impeachment against nixon. we will also draw the inference as appropriate that they are trying to conceal facts that would corroborate the allegations in the whistle-blower complaint. so we'll have to decide whether to litigate or how to litigate. we're not fooling around here

though. >> in response, a leader of the free world typed b.s., the long version in all caps. then he made these comments. >> we had an exact transcript. and when we produced that transcript, they died because you look at the whistle-blower statement, and it's vicious, vicious. and that whistle-blower, there's no question in my mind that some bad things have gone on, and i think we will get to the bottom of it. and the only ones that don't like my conversation are the ones that never read it. but they heard shifty schiff. that's what i call a lie. and because of the fact that he's lying about the president of the united states as to what the president says. believe it or not, i watch my words very carefully. there are those that think i'm a very stable genius, okay? i watch my words very, very closely. and to have somebody get up and to totally fabricate a

conversation that i had with another leader and make it sound so bad, it was so evil. >> literally no one on the record describing him as a stable genius. but all this is happening in the shadow of a potential more consequential meeting right now by the state department inspector general that's following his urgent request to present documents. joining us from capitol hill, senior writer for politico jake sherman. former republican congressman, now an independent, david jolly. with us at the table, associated press white house reporter john jonathan lemire. and former dnc senior adviser doug thornell. i was going to do this later in the show, but this has become our thing. i have to fact-check that bs, to borrow your word, mr. president, about the whistle-blower complaint. so for everything the

president's saying about his july 25th phone call that it's perfect and whatnot that it was a perfect call and anyone who has a problem with it has been misled by adam schiff and the whistle-blower. let's stop with that. that's nonsense. that's the big lie because trump, the white house, and rudy giuliani have now corroborated almost all of the whistle-blower complaint. the whistle-blower and this complaint can disappear because this is what's been corroborated. the president pressured mr. zelensky to initiate or continue an investigation into the activities of former vice president joe biden and his son. the white house released records that say this. this is in the white house notes from the call. quote, there's a lot of talk about biden's son that biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that. so whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great. that's donald trump talking to zelensky in notes released by the white house. biden went around brag that he

had stopped it, the prosecution. so if you can look into it, it sounds horrible to me, trump said. trump also told us that he urged ukraine to investigate biden. >> the conversation i had was largely congratulatory, was largely corruption, all of the corruption taking place, was largely the fact that we don't want our people like vice president biden and his son creating to the corruption already in the ukraine. >> so that's all that the whistle-blower alleged. donald trump then blurted it out of his own, what does he call it, stable brain and mouth? here's another example from the whistle-blower's complaint. white house officials told me that they were, quote, directed by white house lawyers to remove the electronic transcript from the computer system in which such transcripts are typically stored. instead the transcript was loaded into a separate electronic system that's

otherwise used to store and handle classified information of an especially sensitive nature. well, the white house has also already admitted that lawyers from the national security council in fact did direct the transfer of those records to a highly secure system. there's much more we could choose from, but here's one final example from the whistle-blower complaint. whistle-blower wrote this. the president pressured mr. zelensky to meet or speak with two people that the president named explicitly as his personal envoys on these matter, mr. giuliani and attorney general barr. again the white house's records of the call that they released to the press prove president trump did just that at least three times. and, jonathan lemire, i can't say enough how dangerous it is to leave the president's smears and lies hanging out there for even a moment. >> no. it's extremely important to do fact-checking. i'm glad this news outlet has. but i think what you saw today

from the president including some of the falsehoods is what has been happening behind closed doors for days sort of burst into open for all the public to see. we know according to our reporting how angry the president has been for a week or so, well angry that this story overtook the yunited nations. for not providing any counter narrative. angry at fox news because some of the anchors there are not friendly enough to him, angry at his allies in congress like kevin mccarthy because this president time and time again values loyalty by people willing to go on television and defend him. >> that means lie because the white house has put out notes of the call. they have coughed up confessions to everything in the whistle-blower complaint. >> that's right. but the president has encouraged aides and staffers to lie throughout his time in office. there's no question that he's doing that again now. but very few republicans other

than a few exceptions like lindsay graham are willing to go out there. and what we saw here the public certainly is getting a taste of his anger on twitter. but we're used to the president sort of being angry to twitter. what we saw today in the oval office next to the president of finland and then again at this news conference was the pure rage. the frustration from this president who feels that there is no easy way out of this. is he angry at the media? sure. adam schiff took the brunt of it today. people who i have talked to around him feel that he's angry at the situation and does not see an obvious way out. >> i would continue down this path as jonathan lemire describes enraging donald trump with the confidence that he's run all of his plays. he doesn't have anything else. he's got rail against the media. he's got rail against schiff. he's got mike hall was perfect,

let's try to dilude my 35% into thinking there's nothing wrong with asking a foreign leader for dirt on opponent. >> i was literally just talking to my colleague as i approached this camera. and what you and john both said is 100% right. surrogates are not along to defend him. and everybody around him, i mean, his staff is leaking. there's no white house press conferences. so there's no infrastructure around him. we had something today in playbook about how our republicans feel there is no strategy and the president is just kind of lashing out randomly. and we saw that again today. and meanwhile it's equally important to point out what democrats are doing. which is the committees are getting more and more serious about holding the president to account, meaning if they stonewall congress or attempt to as adam schiff said, he is going

to take that, a, as obstructing the investigation. and he's going to use that as evidence of obstruction and use it as some evidence in some cases as trying to cover up the underlying pieces of information that they are trying to get. so you see the president kind of in one corner, democrats getting more serious in another corner, and the president's only strategy at the moment appears to be lashing out. and there is no counter narrative because nobody knows where the bottom is besides the president and his inner circle in the white house. members of congress are increasingly skittish about going on air to defend him because they don't know exactly what they're defending. but what about joe biden, what about hunter biden, what about hillary clinton, what about no subpoenas from republicans. so not especially powerful messages. so the surrogate kind of backpack is empty at the moment. >> well, the surrogate backpack is empty. if you play out any of the

threads, what about hunter biden? i mean, donald trump's kids travel the world with pamphlets with the president's name on it, you know, schlocking condos all over the free world. the idea that trump wants to fight on this terrain that a politician's children can't have jobs is shocking to me. but if you play out the idea that they need any more facts to develop in the pattern, that seems faulty too. if george w. bush had asked one of his closest friends on the world change, which zelensky clearly wasn't to trump, but he'd ask tony blair for dirt on john kerry, i think he would have been impeached in about four and a half weeks. what are the facts that they are trying to deepen and sort of have dead to rights on capitol hill? >> well, a few things. i had a republican tell me today, well, maybe hunter biden did do something wrong, we have no idea. maybe that does merit an

investigation. but that doesn't disprove that the president also might've done something wrong, which congress is trying to get to the bottom of. the interesting thing to me here is that the white house seems unwilling to provide some sort of strategy to deal with these investigations. because you worked for a white house that was under constant barrage. henry waxman who was all in george w. bush's face. the bush administration provided information, it was like pulling teeth at times but to quiet the opposition on capitol hill. this administration does not appear to want to hand anything over to capitol hill. so the president said he is very happy to cooperate. that's not what we've seen so far. that's actually the opposite of what we've seen. so again, no real strategy. and no real plan to have a strategy at this moment. >> well, staffers, i mean, i was a white house staffer. when the waxman emails came

over, nobody from on high told us what to do or not to do. so we code-word searched our emails and turned over enron emails, u.s. attorney emails. not everyone is taking their legal advice from the top down when they've got a secretary of state who appeared to lie in and around our sunday shows about being on the call in the first place. who is running the rodeo at the state department in toerm terms of those subpoenas? >> that's a good question, and that's presumably why the inspector general is up here today to talk about whether state department officials have been instructed not to cooperate with capitol hill. that's going to be a big deal in the coming weeks and months because you have now three committees all with subpoena power looking into that. and i think if you look deep into these agencies, there are people, career employees, who is don't want to play by the same rules that some of the administration on the political side want to play by.

so this is going to be the next tension in the next couple weeks. and adam schiff said we're not playing games, we don't want this to go on forever. but it appears based on what we see in the public that it's only deepening, that there's only becoming more avenues for investigation, not fewer. this is not getting to be a more narrow investigation. it seems to be ballooning and spreading into other departments. we had a story on politico that rick perry is someone that democrats want to talk to. obviously mike pompeo who was on capitol hill, was a member of congress during the benghazi investigation and other investigations, is being brought into the fold. so getting broader, not more narrow. >> jake, we are just hearing that the briefing from the state department's inspector general is just breaking up. are you hearing anything about that? or is that something you can run and check on and come back to if you're getting any read-outs? >> i mean, we are somewhat close but not very close. and this is a staff briefing. so the amount of information

that was probably conveyed is going to be limited. but as soon as you cut away from my camera, i'm going to look at my phone to see if i have any information i can share with you. >> we are going to cut away. but stay with us if you will and let us know if you have anything else. david jolly, if i'm a staffer in the state department or in the white house, i'm going to be responsive to these committee subpoenas if i know that the president and mike pompeo have played all their cards. and what their cards tell me is that the whistle-blower complaint has been corroborated first by the intelligence committee inspector general, deemed the complaint credible and urgent. second by the president who coughed up a confession to just about everything in it. and third by mike pompeo who first lied about listening in on the call and has since confessed today. >> you're exactly right, nicole. we are seeing i believe and we will see more of these moments of patriotism from career civil servants. first and foremost the whistle-blower who came forward

and for the story that has come out today that he went to house intel. i think that's not scandal. that's additional affirmation of patriotism. this was somebody who knew he had information about the president's wrongdoing and wanted to ensure it wouldn't be buried. and we're seeing that from state department officials as well it appears based on this i.g. briefing of capitol hill staffers today. i think what we're seeing from the president, nicole, is somebody who knows he is going to be impeached. donald trump knows he's going to be impeached by the house. that's why he's acting like he is. that is why he is lashing out. and the urgency with which he is trial-ballooning different theories of the case, it stands a marked difference with the mueller report. we have heard him throw out the notion that, yes, he was pressuring the ukraine, and then, no, he wasn't pressuring to investigate because he wanted more multilateral money. that's what he was waiting on.

then he's attacking pt bidens, he is attacking the whistle-blower, he is attacking schiff. donald trump knows he's going to be impeached by the house. the only question is, as jake said, how far does this reach. because mike pompeo could also be impeached as the secretary of state of the united states and that's where this investigation may go. the flailing we are seeing is because though he likes to convince people with superlatives how great he is, he's already convinced himself. donald trump believes that he is the best president to ever serve in the united states. so he doesn't understand why he could be impeached. but for somebody who likes superlatives like greatness, he is likely to be part of the greatest impeachment since richard nixon. >> let me put up the tape of mike pompeo because as david accurately says, the question is how far did this cover-up go.

and mike pompeo's on tape. we played it yesterday, urging the president almost through television which we all know he watches, not to release the tapes. he plays like he doesn't know -- here's some of that conflicting sound. >> the "wall street journal" is reporting that president trump pressed the president of ukraine eight times to work with rudy giuliani to investigate joe biden's son. what do you know about those conversations? >> so, you just gave me a report about a whistle-blower complaint, none of which i've seen. >> i was on the phone call. the phone call was in the context of now i guess i've been the secretary of state for coming on a year and a half. i know precisely what the american policy is with respect to ukraine. it's been remarkably consistent. we will continue to try to drive those set of outcomes. >> i don't even know what he's talking about there, but the answer was i'm sorry that i left

an impress with martha radditz. i was listening on the call and i was waiting to talk to my lawyer about what exposure i might've had. not some b.s. about knowing the ukrainian policy. >> it's become so truman at this point, right, with pompeo, with all of the president's men. it's usually the cover-up that takes them down. it's not even what they did. it's the cover-up. he's just digging himself more and more into the bottom here. and the thing is every time donald trump speaks, every time rudy giuliani's on tv, now every time pompeo speaks, they make the democrats' job a lot easier. this is it. and the thing about donald trump is he walked into this impeachment. he totally walked right into it. nobody was expecting on august 2nd we'd be talking about impeachment inquiry. nobody expected that. but he did -- he admitted to doing what he's being impeached

for potentially, right? which is he used the power of the presidency to ask a foreign government to get dirt on a political opponent, period. he admitted to it. >> this is where we are. so what we're seeing now is the wheels are coming off this really insane not so stable genius bus. and now you have donald trump who's kicking up dirt. this is what he's doing. he's kicking up dirt trying to confuse all of us. but once again this is clear as day. and let him continue to obstruct congress. let's not forget one of the articles of impeachment for richard nixon was obstruction of congress. so he is walking right into an impeachment. >> the confessions are to me the most staggering part of the story because with mueller there seem to be an effort through his lawyers to find out what avenues mueller was pursuing. with this the whistle-blower complaint laid out the allegations, and then the white house went about corroborating and confirming all of them. so you have the fact pattern,

you have the crime and you have the confession. >> it's all been corroborated this notion that it's hearsay is nonsense. i think pompeo obviously lied. you also have -- we know now that he is trying to find a fall guy or fall girl or fall people in the state department with what he's doing have volker. and you're probably thinking about that if you're in the state department and you're going to get ahead of that. so i think all of these folks, the president's three stooges, giuliani, barr, and pompeo. the walls are closing in on these folks. and they're acting guilty. they sound like guilty folks. and i think one of the things that the president really miscalculated on, on top of everything that jonathan and jake laid out is that democrats have remained unified. there haven't been cracks there yet. there's no one going after -- there are none of biden's opponents going after biden right now. that i think was a calculation

that maybe trump and his folks were going to make that, you know what, they're not going to be able to stand the pressure. the frontliners, the new freshmen are going to go back home that. has not happened. so what they're doing now is the rnc is spending $2 million to try to attack a number of house freshmen back in their districts. they're hoping that that is going to be something that breaks this unified core of democrats. it's not going to work. >> yeah. i mean, jake sherman, i want to come back to you, but also hit you with the impact of public opinion polling. it's swung almost 15% in support of at least commencing an impeachment inquiry. those are numbers that donald trump can't turn around by simply main-lining disinformation to his base. >> reporter: yeah. i mean, i don't have any information quite yet. i am going to go attempt to get some soon. now i think the poll numbers are ticking up. and even republican polling of which we'll have some tomorrow in playbook, republican poll agshows impeachment in some

tough districts ticking up as well. it's not a bottom of the barrel scraping issue. it's gaining residence. and depending on how it's asked, it is gaining residence in swing districts and republican districts. and, again, there are ways for democrats to, as doug just said, to mess this up and get off of the path that they're on. right now they have been on a path that's successful for them. they can determine whether it's good or not. and it is picking up resonance. so i think that's some of the situation that republicans and democrats are working with. >> jake sherman, thank you for spending some time with us. after the break, there is at least one foreign leader who stands to gain from a weakened u.s./ukrainian relationship. you guessed it vladimir putin. msnbc news caught up with putin earlier today. he doubled down on election meddling in 20. we'll show that to you and speak with the former cia director john brennan about russia's big bet on donald trump.

also ahead, donald trump's ever darker language of a coup leads some to wonder if he will ever leave office peacefully. and joe biden, his first reaction to the president's stone cold attack and the latest developments in impeachment inquiry. all those stories coming up. all.

to impeach a president over a fraud that was committed by other people that want to win an election in 2020, which they won't is incredible. this is the greatest hoax. now it's gone on for a long time. we had the mueller collusion

delusion. that went on for years. >> he can rhyme. it was a probably agitated, particularly alarming display from donald trump as the impeachment inquiry closes in. former cia director john brennan reacted to trump's press conference on twitter like this. press conference with finnish president shows donald trump is a national disgrace, who deserves impeachment, conviction, and ouster from office. republicans in congress must abandon them now if they care about our country and have any hope of sallaging a political future for the gop. now msnbc senior national security analyst john brennan. what did you see when you watched that press conference? >> i saw a trfbesty. i saw a national embarrassment. i don't see how anybody could defend his performance at that press conference. i think the finnish president, just like a lot of other visitors at the white house comport themselves very professionally and responsibly. donald trump time after time

after time continues to show how unfit he is for office and how he continues to just divert the conversation to his political misfortunes. and the questions that he was asked, he just, you know, he doesn't have a response for them, so he will respond to other questions. so i really do think we are seeing donald trump being very anxious about his situation. that's why he is lashing out more and more. and so that's why i ask any republican to look at that and say this is the president of the united states that we are proud of. >> homeland security adviser in the white house sounded one of the most impassioned alarms on sunday when he talked about how the president, you can't penetrate the president with facts, that he would go to the president over and over again on this ukrainian conspiracy specifically, and the president didn't want to hear any facts. how dangerous is that? >> very dangerous because not only is he not hearing it from his white house staff, but he's not hearing it from the national security team.

he is just continuing to go by his gut or his instinct that he says he is the stable genius without the input on so many of these national security issues from the professionals who really can tee up options for our country to be able to pursue. so the fact that he is just ignoring all advice, professional advice, and doing what he thinks is best for his personal political purposes i think that just shows what a bad situation we're in. >> well, let me get to specifically the record on this ukrainian scandal, donald trump asking the leader of ukraine to dig up dirt on joe biden. >> in my years working for six administrations, six presidents, i have never heard of anything remotely elected to something like this. seeking information from a foreign leader for personal political gain on the part of the president of the united states and then holding up by his own admission military assistance to ukraine that had already been approved and appropriated by congress.

although the words quid pro quo would not end that conversation. >> but he did say i need a favor, though. i'm not sure -- >> it was quite obvious to everybody including the people on that phone call, including president and what it was that donald trump was seeking. >> do you think it's a coincidence that russia stood to benefit by withholding military aid to ukraine? >> i don't know. i am still very, very puzzled and troubled by donald trump's actions vis-a-vis russia. it's just something that just makes me very much wonder what is at the root of some of his actions and decisions. >> so they're on the same page though with taking the whole thing not so seriously, making a joke of election meddling. here's putin today and donald trump on the same topic. >> is russia as robert mueller alleged attempting to influence the 2020 elections in the united states?

>> i'll tell you in a secret, yes, we will definitely intervene. it's a secret so that everybody can laugh and so we will go big. but don't tell anyone, please. please don't tell anyone. >> mr. president anyone >> mr. president . >> to this attack on the american democracy that my former colleague michael hayden described as a political 9/11, the unanimous judgment of the intelligence community was that russia attacked our democracy, robert mueller testified in his july 24th testimony -- july 23rd testimony a giant joke, putin and trump. >> it's not a laughing matter. it's a very, very serious matter. russia did interfere, continues to isnterfere.

and the fact that donald trump and putin can make jokes about this i think just shows how unable donald trump is to defend this country's national security. and it's something that i think all americans should be outraged over. >> and if you think about some of the high-level departures. john bolton gave a speech last week and sort of voiced his disagreements about disengagement on iran, on north korea. on this sort of emboldening of putin to treat the entire issue of election meddling as a joke. do you think that that puts some steel in the spine of former security officials to come out? >> i certainly hope so. i think that john bolton and others, even though i disagree with them from a policy perspective, i do think they are concerned about the national security of this country. they have seen up close and personal what donald trump has done to it. so i hope that more are going to speak out because clearly donald trump is unable to protect the

rights and the liberties and freedoms of this country. jonathan lemire, you asked the question in helsinki, i think of it as the soda you shake and you open it and it's still spilling out. all of his utterances that are so exculpatory of vladimir putin, he can't stop himself. >> no. his relationship remains -- he has never to my knowledge said anything negative about him, either while he is still a candidate. though there are parts of the administration and federal government that has been tough on russia. the president never has. he has said only, he has russia to hack hillary clinton's emails. he said that he would accept foreign interference in the next election. the day after robert mueller testified is when he went to the ukrainian president and offered this deal. this is something that he does not think is out of bounds. it's sort of reverse ndgei-engig of the mueller probe.

they've talked to leaders in australia and the united kingdom and other places. to explain away the russian interference because the president can't handle the fact that people think he was elected illegitimately. it's not just that looking backwards. it's looking forwards. he is saying that he can do it next time around. he'd be open for the help in 2020. and i think there are a lot of people in the washington establishment who are very unnerved by this. the question is what can they do about it. >> and, david jolly, there was a report late friday night in "the washington post" that in that now infamous meeting between donald trump and the two russian diplomats, labrov, he said to them that he wasn't bothered by election meddling. >> and he wasn't because he saw himself as the beneficiary of it. and 15 intel agencies or 16 of the united states have concluded that russia interfered and the purpose was to benefit donald

trump. and so he sees russia as his greatest ally going into 2020. and he welcomes their interference. nicole, if i could just revisit very briefly your conversation with mr. brennan there because i think it's important we contextualize the president's behavior on the phone call with the leader of the ukraine. the question of whether or not a quid pro quo existed is important. and i think ultimately we will see that it did. the questions around hunter biden are important. we should talk about those. but both are irrelevant to the president's impeachable behavior. whether there was aid on the table or not, donald trump used the office of the presidency to ask a foreign leader to reopen an investigation for the singular purpose of benefitting donald trump politically in the united states in and of itself is impeachable behavior. donald trump and republican surrogates will say what about quid pro quo, what about hunter biden? we must not take the bait.

to distract from the impeachable behavior. donald trump asked the ukraine to interfere by providing disinformation that would affect voters' information when they went to the ballot box in the united states in 2020. >> we are just getting our first read-out here on that meeting on capitol hill with the watchdog for the state department. we are going to get that ready. we are going to read it ourselves at the table and bring it to you on the other side of this short break. er side of this short break

we're getting some breaking news here about that briefing that just wrapped up on capitol hill. the state department inspector general briefed members and some staff on capitol hill about some documents. here is democratic judiciary committee member jamie raskin trying to explain what he saw. >> i don't really know the relevance of it. but at a certain point it's hard to follow all the conspiracy theories. but this packet of information is simply meant to advance the conspiracy theory that mueller's

finding that there was a sweeping and systematic campaign by russian interference was fallacious. >> you are on the judiciary committee. how does that play into this, i mean, is this part of -- and did the i.g. come forth with this at this point only prompted with the fact that we are this deep into impeachment at this stage and thought he was compelled to do so snchdgets there's nothing in here i think that's directly relevant to the president's impeachable conduct. i don't think it relates to the president's high crimes and misdemeanors. but it does relate to efforts to sabotage ambassador yivonovich and to basically smear a number of employees who perhaps were getting into the way of the president. and i think that's really the importance of this document that there was an organized effort to go after people who the white

house or perhaps mr. giuliani thought were getting into the way of the president. >> so, that's all we have. we are going to be careful and not read from twitter. we are going to let some of this information become corroborated. but it would appear, doug, that what was shared was evidence of an ongoing i think that you're very aware of, effort to discredit the universal assessment that russia hacked our election in 2016. and i guess my question would be why. and if you're being impeached or if there's an impeachment inquiry because you attempted to seek help dirtying up joe biden from the ukrainian leader to impact the 2020 election, why are you still litigating 2016? >> well, this is all about donald trump trying to protect his own self-interest. and in the call log, people forget one of the other crazy things in that call log is the attempt by trump to exonerate russia from hacking us because

there is a conspiracy theory on the right that this actually all came out of the ukraine. and he asked for a server and some stuff on crowd strike, which was a company that the dnc used. i mean, can you believe that? i think we can all believe it now. but this is another example of him putting his own self-interest ahead of the democracy and the national security of our country. the other thing i'd point out is i have yet to see the president or anyone in his administration to bring republicans and democrats together and have a real conversation about how are we going to protect our elections in 2020. you know why? because he doesn't care. any other president, george w. bush, barack obama, ronald reagan, george h.w. bush would've probably convened some sort of blue ribbon panel to make sure that our elections were protected in 2020. trump has not done that. no one on his team has done that. he doesn't care.

he welcomes the help from russia. and that's why he made light of it with vladimir putin. >> it's unbelievable. confusing sort of read-outs, first reads, but it would appear that what the state department shared or distributed was a packet of information that congressman raskin describes as propaganda furthering some of the conspiracy theories designed to take down mueller's conclusion i heard him say that russia had ordered and orchestrated the attack on our democracy. there's a thread to what i talked about earlier, tom bossert who was donald trump's homeland security adviser making some of the same claims in a sunday show television appearance saying that donald trump was married to these conspiracy theories about ukraine being to blame for the 2016 meddling. >> so the definition of corruption which is you move out of the way, people who are not corrupt you spread disinformation about them as a way to discredit them. then you try to cover up your

tracks. and i think we see all of those examples in what donald trump has done over the past several months. and it's my impression that they're continuing to do this, and they're just digging themselves deeper and deeper into this hole. so i think there's going to be a lot more that's going to be coming out, not only in terms of what they already have done to discredit very good professionals like our ambassador and the ukraine. but also what they're trying to do to prevent the light of dam being shed on their corrupt practices. and it's not just donald trump, it's those around him too. >> well, and attorney general barr, there's been some stunning reporting in the last 72 hours about attorney general barr's effort to travel the globe, not to fight terrorism, not to advance democracy, but to investigate the intelligence that was at the inception of the investigation in russian meddling. do you understand a motive? >> i don't. and i'm supposedly going to be interviewed by mr. dorm as part of this noninvestigation.

i remember william barr when he was testifying in front of congress. he said he didn't understand the predication of the counter intelligence investigation that was launched into russia's interference in the 2016 election. i don't understand the predication of this worldwide effort to try to uncover dirt, either real or imagined, that would discredit that investigation in 206 and into russian interference. on one hand, the obama administration is crucified for not doing enough. now they're looking for what we might have done in order to try to understand better and to prevent the russian isht interference. and i -- interference. it's not just that trump doesn't care about russian interference. i think he is hoping that he is going to get it because he knows that russia isht feared on his behalf. and i think as he sees his political fortunes dwindling, i think that he really is hoping that his pal vladimir is going to help him get and help him get elected in 2020. >> you're going to sit for an interview with the u.s. attorney

overseeing this investigation. do you have faith in the sanctity of the investigation, or does the recent reporting in the last 24 hours that william barr is basically co-investigating the matter with durham. he's either working for durham or running it himself. do you trust the investigation? it's difficult to say you have faith in an institution because the institutions are made up of people. by all accounts, john durham is a very accomplished prosecutor and is a person of integrity. but my earlier hopes that mr. barr was going to be a good attorney general and not be the president's attorney have fallen by the wayside. given that barr is now accompanying durham on these things, it really makes me think that the hand of politics of trump are now being used to massage what this ongoing review quasi-investigation.

so i am concerned. >> and taupt to meddle in america's election in 2020, and you're russia or saudi arabia, do you look at this durham/barr effort and say the coast is clear? what do you think the disposition of the executive branch of government about election meddling? >> i think if i was a foreign leader, i'd look at the jokes that trump is making. so obviously there is not this full court press to try to interfere. so i think that there is great concern, certainly in the part of the professionals within the national security environment that were not doing enough. but also my concern is the signal we are sending to the world. >> it's unbelievable. nbc's geoff bennett has more on that briefing. what are we learning? >> reporter: well, nicole, it turns out that urgent matter in

fact wasn't all that urgent. the headline here is that this issue that was conveyed by the state department inspector general had nothing to do with what some other news organizationed reported and that was that the state department had retaliated against career officials who wanted to cooperate with house officials as part of their impeachment inquiry. congressman jamie raskin was the only lawmaker in that meeting. and apparently the i.g. brought forward this packet of disinformation and a huge apology in advance because this is confusing stuff here. a package of disinformation that had a return address from the white house. >> it was addressed to the state department attention ruth. ruth i'm told is the name of secretary pompeo's assistant. you see folder upon folder that had trump hotel branding on each folder. and within each folder raskin

says was propaganda, disinformation that spoke to a number of conspiracy theories that raskin says that rudy giuliani and president trump himself have given voice to. in that package raskin says there was disinformation about . in the package, raskin said, is information on a foreign service career official who the democrats want to hear from late next week. it's not clear, in fact, raskin says that this package that was sent to the state department, he says it's completely irrelevant and has nothing to do with the ongoing impeachment inquiry that house democrats are carrying out here. so this will have nothing to do with the investigation work that house democrats are currently undertaking. >> i want to ask you a -- can i ask -- >> reporter: huge dud in terms of a news value. >> is there any sense that the inspector general was trying to get the committee to believe some of the propaganda in the trump hotel stamped crinkly

manila folders, or was there a sense that the state department inspector general was trying to sound an alarm about the trump hotel manila folders crammed with conspiracy theories? why, do you know the why the folders were shared with congress? >> reporter: yes. according to raskin's account -- none of the information he says is classified which is why he was able to talk about it to us reporters openly. he says that the state department i.g. received this suspicious package in may, and it had sat in that office for a time. he also says that the state department i.g., he says that he let the fbi know that he was in receipt of this suspicious information. after the whistleblower complaint came out and was made public, raskin says the state department i.g. then viewed that package completely differently. he wanted to make sure that house democrats or, rather, the

various dmecommittees undertaki the impeachment inquiry knew they could do whatever they would choose to. the good news for raskin or whoever was in the room is there is nothing material to the information, the package of propaganda, disinformation, other than the fact that there are conspiracy theories about the ambassador, conspiracy theories about the bidens contained in this package that rudy giuliani has given voice to. raskin says it's entirely possible that this entire thing is a false flag operation. but still, the state department i.g. thought it was important enough to make sure that the investigators here on the side house were aside of it. >> geoff bennett, thank you for your reporting on this. this seems to me that the only part of this exercise that will still be talking about 24, 48, 72 hours from now is why. why did he turn over these folders? is there now alarm at the state department that anyone that could be viewed as a

co-conspirator to disseminating the rudy/trump conspiracies about ukraine could have some -- has this become a hot potato that they want off their desks? >> the why here remains -- certainly remains a mystery. to your other point, there is growing concern in the white house and other parts of the administration about exposure. about legal exposure to what's been going on. there's been talk, whispers in the white house, people i've talked to there consistently are starting to wonder do they need to lawyer up again. you know, the shades of the mueller probe. as one person told me, again, sort of ruefully talking about the timing of this, the mueller investigation shadowed the white house for two years. because of the president's conduct. as we know, there are good people who work in these administrations, people just trying to do their jobs day in and day out, whether it's the white house or departments who felt there was nothing they could do because of the probe. as soon as one ends, another starts. the president's behavior, alarming and worrisome phone call with the ukrainian leader. there are people looking at themselves like do they want to stay with this, do they want to

work for the government. and if so, do they need to hire a lawyer? we could see people heading for the exits in droves. >> you know, one of the parts of the story that's so disoriented i would imagine even for the white house staffers is its speed. so even watching donald trump's bizarre ramblings today, he's fighting yesterday's war. >> yeah. >> the attack on the whistleblower is never wise. it's never lawful. it's never honorable. it's everything you said, it's a travesty, but it's also politically ineffective once you've confessed to every line of the whistleblower complaints. >> yeah. look, in the last ten days, this has moved with lightning speed because it's so clearcut. there is really not that much confusion to what occurred with the ukraine call that donald trump made and what he asked for, right, the election interference. i think what we're seeing now just kind of piggybacking on what jonathan said, i think it's like a yard of thread that's

unspooling. i think what we're seeing is the truth is going to come out. and i don't think that there are enough government officials that is going to stay on this sinking ship. i think we will see more whistleblowers, more people coming forward. and maybe that's the why of what happened today with the secret i.g. meeting that's not so secret anymore. i think that's where we are. i think people like you said are thinking about this and thinking i don't want to be part of this. >> david jolly, i remember the scene in "the thomas crown affair" where they've got the hats on, and you don't know where the real one -- this does have the feel of information and suspects and suspicious conduct, suspicious packages moving around with lightning speed. >> raskin said something at the very end of the sound we had that i found intriguing. he said, "concerns of people who felt like they may be in the way of what giuliani was trying to do, state department employees in the way of what giuliani was trying to do, look, we don't know the gravity of that

reference by raskin. but it points to the bigger picture, and i alluded to it earlier in the show. i think that the house democrats should expand their impeachment inquiry to include not just the president but the secretary of state, the l&b director, the vice president, and the attorney general. that does not mean that it would lead to impeachment charges against each one of them. but we see enough information coming out of state that pompeo knew what was going on and is probably protecting giuliani. >> it's a unbelievable statement. you think the inquiry would allow them to sharpen investigative tools, i'm guessing? >> yes, the a.g. was gathering intel it points to ukraine. we know the president's conduct. we know pompeo was on the call. who knew what when is going to expand beyond the oval office. i think it's worth investigating whether it results in impeachment results against the president or not. >> we'll be right back. t the president or not >> we'll be right back we present limu emu & doug

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my thanks to david jolly, director brennan, most of all to you for watching. that does it for our hour. "mpt daili" with chuck todd starts right now. welcome to wednesday. boy, it ends in a "y" but it is an extraordinary one. it's "meet the press daily." i'm in washington where we've got a lot of late breaking, rather mysterious developments tied to an urgent briefing of the state department watchdog gave to members about ukraine. jamie raskin, democrat from maryland, spoke to reporters after being behind closed doors. the inspector general briefed them on some kind of packet of conspiracy theories that was circulating mysteriously at the state department, seemingly connected to the former ukrainian ambassador which was seemingly connected