as support for his impeachment is swelling among american public, and support among senate republicans who would serve as jurors if the house votes to impeach him faces its most serious stress test yet. donald trump under fire from green lighting a turkish military operation that has already resulted in the u.s. military cutting on the closest allies. the question today will trump's conduct in the middle east which has already led to one of the fastest and most dramatic political realignments in history, one that strengthens syria's assad, iran, and russia, all american adversaries contribute to a political realignment here at home wherein republicans participate in the congressional investigation that donald trump request digging up dirt on a political rival. another former trump aid from deep inside his own west wing is today's witness in the

impeachment investigation on capitol hill. fiona hill, trump's former russia adviser, who had expressed alarm that rudy giuliani was subverting the official policy process to try to remove the u.s. ambassador to ukraine is at this hour still behind closed doors offering her deposition. the "new york times" reports this morning on details of her conflicts with trump's inner circle centering on the firing of ukraine ambassador marie yovanovitch. they report this. quote, ms. hill who stepped down from the white house's national security council staff over the summer reviewed the recall as an egregious abuse of the system by allies and mr. trump who were seeking to remove a perceived obstacle. that's according to a person familiar withes had hill's account. yovanovitch's firing which has been featured in every development of the scandal so far, the whistle-blower complaint, the transcript of the july 25th phone call and arrest

and indictment of two of rudy giuliani's associates. and it's also at the heart of the breaking news over the weekend from the "new york times" that donald trump's personal attorney rudy giuliani is now personally under investigation in the southern district of new york. from that stunning report, quote, federal prosecutors in manhattan are investigating whether president trump's personal lawyer rudy giuliani broke lobbying laws in his dealings in ukraine. that's according to two people familiar with the inquiry. the investigators are examining mr. giuliani's efforts to undermine the american ambassador to ukraine, marie yovanovitch, one of the people said. it begs to reason that if rudy is under federal investigation for acts ultimately carried out by donald trump himself, the smearing and the removal of the former u.s. ambassador to ukraine, marie yovanovitch, could trump be under investigation as well? that's where we start today with some of our favorite reporters and friends. from the "new york times" washington correspondent mike schmidt, former assistant director for counter

intelligence at the fbi, frank figliuzzi. with us at the table paul butler, former federal prosecutor and former managing editor for "time" magazine. i pose that question to you to start. >> well, it's clear through the indictment out of the southern district of new york that there are persons known and unknown. when you hear persons known that, means that the government knows there is other individuals and that they're likely under investigation. is one of those individuals rudy giuliani? it would appear through multiple media reporting that it indeed is. and i can tell you from the level of detail, nicole, that you see in the charging document against rudy's two associates, when you see quotes attributed, for example, to foreign national number one, when you see specificity to time and place, you need to read that as either human source and/or electronic source. that means, i think, that rudy

is called an incidental intercept and rudy needs to proceed very carefully. you know the drill here. they are going to try to flip these two associates of rudy, and they're going to motive yatd them strongly to talk and start pointing upward at others. >> paul butler, what frank is saying is certainly mike schmidt's reporting that there is now an investigation at the southern district of new york which has already found donald trump to be an unindicted co-conspirator. it would appear that donald trump carried out the actions that rudy giuliani is being investigated for having taken for -- so could donald trump again find himself an unindicted co-conspirator? >> he certainly could. we know the mueller investigation there are teams that they didn't think that a president could be actually named as an unindicted co-conspirator based on that justice department policy. but, as you've said, they all

but charged him in the michael cohen case with directing that criminal conspiracy. so now we have this weird association between giuliani and his two aides who were arrested last week. and his clients they are actually working for the business. they are donating $325,000 to super pacs that are associated with president trump. well, these aren't rich dudes. so one question is where does the money come from? again, if they've got the goods on giuliani, giuliani might want to make a deal if he's looking at jail time. and, again, he only gets a good deal if he can give up someone higher in the food chain. i think we all know who that person would be. >> and we're probably getting ahead of what's been reported. but mike schmidt, take us through what you reported about the investigation out of the southern district of new york, now including an investigation

of rudy giuliani's lobbying work. >> yeah. well, this is, you know, this indictment comes out last week, and we basically are saying that there is more here on giuliani that is being looked at, that his conduct in this is important, and is something that is being examined. it's just another distraction for the president. you saw him sort of struggle to deal with it at the end of last week, basically not committing to giuliani being his lawyer saying -- i guess he said he didn't hear the question or didn't answer it. and then giuliani having to come back and say that he still represents the president. then giuliani having lunch with the president. it's just another thing that the president has to contend with as he faces this impeachment proceeding. and that's just a very perilous position to be in. but it is one that he has seen before. he did stair down the michael cohen investigation. he did go through the mueller investigation and he came out of those intact. >> can you just speak to what

you've reported about the intersections of this firing and smearing of the reputation of marie yovanovitch? you reported on an effort by ambassadors volker and sondland to get zelensky to commit to investigating the bidens and an undercurrent in all of the machination. was either weakening, solelying the reputation of or ultimately removing marie yovanovitch. why? >> well, giuliani sort of is the thing that connects all of this. he believed that she was not doing enough to, quote/unquote, quite corruption. but in his mind, that was doing the investigations related to hunter biden and related to the 2016 election. this is part of a larger effort by him to have her ousted and ultimately something that he succeeded in. and if you look at all of these strands, giuliani is the thing that runs through them all. in terms of the statement that the american diplomats tried to

get the ukraines to put out, it was a statement that giuliani helped work on. giuliani was talking to these diplomats about what he wanted the ukrainians to say. sort of lock them into it because they had said stuff in the past in private. but in this case he wanted them to say it publicly to sort of get them to commit to it. >> so joining our conversation, former u.s. ambassador to russia michael mcfaul. can you just pick up on mike schmidt's reporting about rudy giuliani -- and can we just stop with all the serious talk and just give ourselves a w.t.f. moment? this is rudy giuliani doing foreign policy in the first place. how is rudy's desire for a career ambassador like marie yovanovitch acted upon by donald trump and how are we still looking for more dirt on donald trump at this point? isn't that bad enough? >> it's completely crazy, absolutely crazy. i mean, number one, some private

actors involved in any conduct of american foreign policy or diplomacy is wrong. but number two he's actually seeking to advance the american national interest in his involvement here. he is seeking to dig up dirt on the president's political opponent and his family. and number three, he's deputizing lieutenants, parnas and fruman. i don't think they have america's national interest at the top of their agenda. in addition to it all, they are undermining and going around the professional diplomats like ambassador yovanovitch, like ambassador taylor who i think comes out really good in these texts. like the entire state department. it's no accident that the one person they're engaging with this is a trump funder, mr. sondland, who has no experience with diplomacy whatsoever. it's a real tragedy about american foreign policy.

>> but ambassador mcfaul, are you heartened by the fact that the american public sees it that way? i mean, one of the -- and i think mike schmidt said on this show, one of the problems after the mueller report came out is there were no witnesses to bring sort of the episode or the story to life. we have a parade of witnesses even though the trump administration didn't want them there. fiona hill, and you can explain to our viewers who she is. there is a parade of people who worked inside the executive branch for the trump administration heading to capitol hill to basically tell different variations of the story you just explained. >> that's right. and let's just always, always remember the basic facts are all in the partial transcript and the text messages between the diplomats and the ukrainian official that we got last week. it's all clear as day. you don't have to believe me, you don't have to believe any other guest and you don't need any whistle-blowers at this point in time. and all of these people including fiona hill who's

testifying today i'm sure are just confirming the facts that we already know. to underknow who fiona is, she worked longer than almost anybody at the white house as president trump's chief adviser for europe and russia. so believe me she knows a lot if she chooses to talk about it today. >> rick stengel, you worked at the highest levels of the state department. there is some exquisite irony in the fact that donald trump waged a war against jim comey and andy mccabe and law enforcement officials. and it may be some of the least political, i think fiona hill's british. it may be some of the least political people from inside the us government, diplomats who bring him down and get him impeached. >> yes. the locks of irony is here beginning with the idea that trump doesn't even understand what an ambassador is. he thinks the ambassador represents him. he thinks the ambassador is meant to defend him, not the constitution. >> and attack his opponents. i take it beyond --

>> when the ambassador yovanovitch didn't do that, he then brought in an outsider. by the way the other irony. ambassador sondland who is ambassador to the e.u., this all started when the president of ukraine, the protest started because he wanted to move away from the e.u. ukraine is not even in the e.u. it's just kind of fantastic. and then if you look at these two knuckleheads. i believe that's the legal term for guys that are -- >> rudy's partners? >> yeah. there's a terrific "new york times" story. no vet in. they don't eaven open the googl machine and look at who these guys are. they paid cash on the head and the only ability they have is blind loyalty. that is the kind of recipe for being part of trump world and the white house. >> mike schmidt, do you have any reporting about the strategy? i mean, if the strategy at the beginning of last week was to keep people from inside the executive branch from testifying it seems to have failed

miserably or fantastically depending on your perspective. >> yeah. it seemed like there was a real pivot last week when the white house comes out and says they are going to stonewall everything from capitol hill and that the investigation of the president is completely unfair. then by the end of the week there is witnesses of who the white house doesn't want up there. and it looks like that will happen again here in the coming days. so that strategy not being effective. so what does trump do at this point? how does he protect himself as i think we can see the most important thing to him are senate republicans. that's the only thing standing between him and the end of impeachment. and whatever he does i think that this strategy probably should be focused on that. but last week as we saw with his decision on syria, he upset a lot of them. and he asked them to carry more and more for him. so i'm not sure what strategy. >> but we did see with regard to the russia investigation the strategy was to distance trump from all of the other players

like paul manafort, michael cohen, people who had been very close to him one day. the next day trump barely knows them. so we heard trump say last week or this weekend i'm not sure if giuliani is still representing -- again, you know if your lawyer is representing you. they're only not representing you if you fire them. and so for people who rely on trump's loyalty, people like giuliani. a lot of those people who relied on the president's loyalty are now sitting in federal prison. >> i think i have a list of them for you, frank figliuzzi. so these are the people that paul butler is talking about. michael cohen in prison. paul manafort in prison. michael flynn, found guilty. rick gates, found guilty. george papadopoulos, found guilty. and rudy giuliani now under investigation. we should add by the office he once ran. frank, offer me some of your theories on why public opinion

is swinging so far in favor, not just of the inquiry but the public it would seem enough of them have heard enough to also support his removal. and, you know, to me some of this evidence is weedsy. but when you hear donald trump in the transcript attack the ambassador who was against investigating political people who wouldn't carry out his investigations, as rick stengel said were politically motivated. it feels like enough for the public to swing in their support of this in ways that they didn't swing during the mueller probe. >> yeah. here's what i think is happening, and it's tied directly to the senate republicans feeling pain and pressure. because at the point where they see the public sentiment turning, it's going to be too painful for them to continue to be joined at the hip with the president. and i think what's happening and resonating with the american people is they are saying, look, if i voted for this guy, i voted for him because he was going to drain the swamp. he's actually created a swamp

that's larger and deeper than any swamp we could have imagined. his people are going to prison in record numbers. he's created a shadow government. so if you wanted him to break the mold, if you wanted him to kind of have a new government, he's created a shadow government of thugs and shady characters going to prison. and i don't think anyone who voted for trump is saying, yeah, that's what i voted for. i voted for a bunch of thugs to operate under the radar, break the law. and now what's happening is unlike the russia investigation where he had a teflon nature, some distance, plausible deniability, it was my guys, it wasn't me. now we are looking at the ukraine situation. we are looking at syria, turkey, isis, the kurds. and we're saying, don, you're in the middle of this, there isn't any distance left. >> you know, ambassador mcfaul, it's a good point. and also worth noting that if you wanted people investigate now that he's president he has investigative agencies at his

disposal. he runs the fbi, he runs the cia. it feels weird that he had rudy doing the investigating through the state department. >> exactly, of course. i mean, when have you ever heard of that speech that candidate trump or president trump give about he's concerned about ukraine. he never gave it. and most certainly we have the ability to investigate people through proper channels. by the way not even the state department, through the department of justice. when i was ambassador in russia, we did do investigations. but it's through the department of justice and their legat out in the embassy, not state department. obviously that's not what motivated him. and that's why it's so, i think, easy for everybody to understand because he's right there asking i need you to do this favor for me from that reconstructed transcript. that's the president of the united states. and then the fact that he involves all these crazy characters in it adds further suspicion, and then one more

they tried to cover it up. don't forget that. they've tried to cover it up by putting it on that secret server at the nsc. that suggests that they had a lot to hide. >> you don't to have worked in government to know how shady a protected secret server sounds. after the break, a new poll that drives home just how damaging everything we've been talking about. everything from inside the trump administration is to donald trump's repeated insistence at his call with the leader of ukraine was perfect. it seems the public isn't quite down with asking another country's leader to dirty up one of trump's rivals. and as the president abandons america's closest allies in the fight of isis, our friends rush into our enemy's waiting arms. how donald trump is now making us less safe. and a macabre video played at one of the president's hotels depicts a fictional donald

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fiona hill, the former trump russia adviser who's on capitol hill today answering questions in the impeachment inquiry is adding her voice to a growing cacophony of voices raising alarms from inside the white house and within the executive branch. and there's more additional officials scheduled to testify this week. three house committees have

scheduled interviews with a host of other officials with a particular focus on e.u. ambassador gordon sondland. he is scheduled to testify thursday. he appears to have played a central role in trump's pressure campaign against ukraine. ambassador taylor expressed concern that trump was conditioning military aid giving military aid to ukraine on the ukrainians doing political favors from sondland's text. quote, the president's been crystal clear no quid pro quo of any time. it's a message we now know was only sent after sondland consulted one person, one person who's told more than 13,000 lies. that person was donald j. trump. she's revelations from within trump's administration formed just a part of the narrative that's now shifting public opinion when it comes to trump's impeachment, despite the president's pattern of obje

obfuscation. a full 63% of americans think trump should now cooperate with the impeachment inquiry. joining our conversation "new york times" editorial board member and msnbc contributor mara gay. i keep saying this because we sat here day after day after day even after mueller's report came out, find 150 contacts between team trump and the russians, found ten acts of criminal obstruction of justice, public opinion really didn't sway. 63% support this investigation. >> i think what's happening is the effect of the impeachment inquiry requiring multiple, actually government officials to come forward and testify. these are names that americans may not know or haven't heard before. but, you know, trump may regard them as the deep state. but these are clearly sound public officials, and then also you have trump appointees who are kind of i think no longer sticking with trump and they're seeing the writing on the wall

and they're trying to be honest or more honest or forthcoming about what's actually happened. and i think that between trump officials and appointees breaking their silence and then having a steady drum beat of nonpolitical appointees who are testifying, i think that's pretty convincing day in and day out when you have people telling the same story again and again, the american people are starting to get it. it's not just coming from nancy pelosi or adam schiff. it's coming from people who have -- are civil servants. >> right. and i think ambassador mcfaul, i was critical of nancy pelosi's reluctance to sort of budge an inch. there were national security officials who said if x then y. if donald trump did everything robert mueller found him to do, then y. you have to strengthen your tools and open an impeachment investigation. it turns out i was wrong and she was right. there is a benefit to having all the evidence, first of all to have a confession, a south lawn

confession from donald trump to the act under scrutiny. and then to have all the witnesses hand their evidence over to congress in sessions that are largely briefed to the public afterward. >> well, i don't know if you're right and who's right and wrong. [ laughter ] let's leave that for the past. but i do think the predicate does make this case stronger. that is to say that, you know, everybody got pulled into the muck and the russian intervention and all of those contacts. it was pretty complicated. it took hundreds of pages for the mueller investigation to lay it all out. they thought case closed, maybe he did something wrong, but we're going to move on. and then right after that, the president jumps right back into the muck, and this time it's just clear as day as to what he was doing. and i think for the american people, i speak about u.s./russia relations a lot. i'm in boise, idaho, tonight speaking about it. i think for the american people it's just like, hey, wait a minute, he dodged a bullet there

and got out of it, and then he went right back on this. and when we have on a transcript the president speaking about these things, it makes it a lot harder for him to say, oh, that was just the other people i wasn't involved and that's why i think this story is sticking. >> it's really simple. it's a movie now. before it was just a screenplay. now there are characters. there are actors. that transcript or pseudo transcript is so important. it is the moral equivalent of the watergate tapes. even with nixon, nothing happened until there was actual evidence that people could relate to. people see the transcript and they understand could you do me a favor though? people get that. they understand that even though all the hundred pages of the mueller report seemed abstract compared to that one statement. >> it's all so cumulative though. i think the point ambassador mcfaul is making is there is a cumulative effect of trump being an unindicted co-conspirator that sent his lawyer to jail. the. >> i think there is a cumulative

effect to his incompetence. people see that day in and day out. and it create a foundation for this. he can't even get a two-car funeral arranged. no wonder he has to do this kind of thing. >> also cumulative effect to an investigation. one of the reasons that speaker pelosi is such a boss is because she understood that there has to be an investigation. there are people like senator -- >> a public -- i mean she understood that the public had to see the evidence and see the witnesses and feel it and touch it. that's what she has with this story. that's right, a story, a narrative is emerging. senator harris says that she knows enough right now that when it comes time to vote in senate to remove the president, she is prepared to vote. and one question to remove him. so one question was what are they waiting for, why is the process taking so long? well, today is an example. fiona hill who's being interviewed as we speak by congress, reportedly will testify that she was opposed to this july 25th call from the

beginning. she didn't understand its purpose. she asked why and was told, oh, it's a congratulatory call to zelensky. well, zelensky was elected in april. >> and congratulated in april. >> trump called him then. so she's like what's up. again, that goes to a forged story about what this call was really about. >> right. frank figliuzzi, i wanted to bring you back in on sort of the combination of these witnesses who seem like i think the fact that none of us have heard ofr credibility. these are people who probably would've preferred to go their whole lives without ever being talked about on a program like this one. but we've now got ambassador sondland. transcript surfaced in late september. strains the ability to believe since he was trying to get zelensky to put out a statement committing to investigating biden to trust sondland's testimony, members of congress will have to believe sondland

had not seen tv appearances by giuliani over the spring and summer or numerous newspaper and magazine articles questioning whether hunter biden's role could prove to be a drag on his father's campaign. are these witnesses now sort of staring down lying to congress which we know is a chargeable offense to defend donald trump? or maybe contributing to this picture of donald trump needing dirt on an opponent from a foreign leader? >> yeah. we are seeing -- so this is a cast of interesting characters that's coming next. and by that i mean we are seeing a clash of cultures between those witnesses who are career professionals and are apolitical or neutral and are just coming in saying, look, i was trying to do my job and here's what happened. and then we are going to see those aligned with trump who came in as part of a shadow government with an agenda. and they're going to fall flat. they are going to either try to protect themselves, protect trump or speak the truth. either way, it's not going to go

well for trump. and the other thing to watch carefully, nicole, is i predict we have not seen the last of whistle-blowers. you know, if the fbi we spent a considerable time studying and learning about bravery and integrity. and, in fact, the motto of the fbi is bravery and integrity. and it doesn't occur in a vacuum. it's not often that one -- it's not always that one person who stands up and says i am going to be the first one to go. you often need those around you who create that culture of bravery, integrity, and say it's okay for us to go and do the right thing. and i think the dam has broken. i think people around the whistle-blower and around government who spent their careers doing the right thing are now saying it's time for me to do the right thing. >> really quick, just picking up on that thread. ambassador mcfaul a figure that we've heard about and he comes up in fiona hill's testimony is john bolton. john bolton is reported by "the

washington post" late last thursday night to have, quote, gone ballistic when he learned about sort of the depth and extent to which rudy giuliani was going around the process. if i obba hill apparently -- fiona hill apparently testified today about rudy giuliani's campaign to smear and ultimately remove marie yovanovitch. donald trump ultimately acted upon rudy giuliani's business goals which he is now under investigation by the southern district of new york for pursuing. do you think that donald trump could be under investigation by more than congress? >> well, i don't know the legalities but i want to underscore something you just said about bolton and correct the record about one thing you said, nicole. you said nobody's ever heard of all these people. i have heard of them all. i've known them all for decades, except for two. rudy giuliani and ambassador sondland. and that's the point. democrats, republicans, even political appointees, fiona was originally appointed by president bush to work at the

national intelligence council. there is a group of people, national security experts that do think and sign up to advance the national interests. and what you're seeing here just to underscore what you've been discussing is a clash between that group, democrats/republicans is not important, including john bolton i would put in that category, and these other people deputized and privatized to run foreign policy. it's not going to turn out very well, i think, for the president. after the break as donald trump doubles down on his decision to cut and run on his closest allies, the pentagon struggles to get our troops out of harm's way inside donald trump's slow-motion foreign policy calamity. that's next. at t-mobile unlimited talk,

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in northern syria. the situation getting more dangerous and more dire as our allies in the fight against isis, the kurds, feeling like they had nowhere to go after we abandoned them, have struck a deal with the syrian government whose leader is of course russian-backed bashar al assad, an enemy of the u.s. we have to warn you that the video we are about to play is disturbing. nbc new has blurred the most graphic portions and has not independently confirmed. the kurds are do everything they can to fight against the turkish incursion. the kurdish-led syrian democratic forces said sunday that close to 800 members of a camp holding the families of isis fighters had escaped after turkish shelling. amid all this turmoil the secretary of defense announced yesterday that the president directed a, quote, deliberate withdrawal of roughly a thousand american troops ending nearly all of america's presence in the

area. but there's a problem. taking troops out isn't an easy undertaking. at the pentagon officials struggled with the right response if turkish forces, nato allies, again opened fire on any of the 1,000 or so americans now preparing to retreat from their positions inside syria. those troops are trapped for now since turkey has cut off the roads. removing them may require an air lift and just this hour the president announced he will impose sanctions on turkey for their actions in syria which he put in motion soon. let's bring in retired four-star general barry mccaffrey. of all the horrors of the weekend the most horrific was about the line of the bepentago having no plan to get the u.s. troops out of sir that. what do you make of that report? >> i think basically there is no national security foreign policy process anymore where you bring together the tools of the u.s. government, the defense

department treasury, state, cia. that was a one-on-one phone call on a sunday between mr. trump and erdogan, an authoritarian strong man who has taken turkey as a nato ally and steadily walked them into being an active threat to us. and then mr. esper, the secretary of defense, finds out about it. now he's got a very tricky problem of getting our special operations forces out of there alive. i'm sure they will pull it off. but, again, this is -- you know, if you're going to throw allies to the wolves and disregard they fought and died to support your mission, you at least ought to get something for it. what was mr. trump thinking of? for god's sakes he handed a victory to assad, the russian armed forces, and iran. it's an unbelievable situation. >> general mccaffrey, i think we risk sort of covering the volume

of calamities that trump puts in motion. but if we could just freezeframe on something you just said. the people in danger right now at 4:39 eastern are a thousand american troops that the pentagon may have to air lift out of syria without the help of the people who have kept them safe in syria as long as they've been there, our kurdish allies, who are now aligned with our enemy assad. how dangerous is that for us? >> it couldn't be any more risky. i mean, these poor people feel abandoned. they should be. they have been thrown to the wolves. the turkish army is bearing down on them. the arab militias, their purpose is to terrorize the kurdish population up a million people and force them into flight. so the u.s. now has to assume that we're on our own till we get them out of there. i am reasonably sure they will come out safely. but, again, they were caught by surprise. there was no thought about what

are we doing to these people out there carrying a gun at the end of the line? turkey is also acting in a very aggressive manner toward u.s. forces on the ground. one of the things i have been publicly calling upon now is to think about isolating turkey as a nato ally. they're a huge threat to us. and by the way, there may be as many as 60 u.s. nuclear weapons in there under the nato sharing concept. we are in a very difficult situation. mr. trump almost single-handedly got us there. >> you know, ambassador mcfaul, there are two phone calls now under scrutiny. and general mccaffrey and brett mcgurk, former u.s. envoy to the coalition to fight isis have both called for understanding more about what went on in this phone call. but there's one guy who knows. secretary of state mike pompeo, he was on the call with erdogan, the state department official said the official didn't

characterize his views but pompeo had opposed the president's previous move to withdraw u.s. forces. so pompeo sits on the phone with zelensky, listens to donald trump ask for dirt on the bidens. mike pompeo america's secretary of state, sits on the phone, listens to donald trump green light a military operation that imperils the lives of our troops in syria and sends our kurdish allies running into the arms of assad. what's pompeo doing? >> great point. i'm glad you pointed that out. >> that was for ambassador mcfaul. we'll come back to you, general. >> but, general, i am just going to agree with you. i think that general mccaffrey said earlier is really important and that it gets to pompeo is that the normal standard operating procedure for making national security decisions is a completely broke down in. the old days in the obama days and the bush days the president would sit down there in the white house situation room. his entire cabinet would be there. and they would deliberate about what they want to do vis-a-vis

ukraine or vis-a-vis syria. and then the talking points would get written up. and then the president would get on the phone with the president of turkey or the president of ukraine. we know now that that system does not work at all. and then on top of it you have this very curious thing where the secretary of state is in on these calls. i don't ever recall secretary clinton being on any call that i was on with president obama. and i do think we need to hear from our secretary of state what is his thinking here, can he give us the justification for what is happening in terms of american national interests because he seems to be the one closest to the president in these deliberations right now. >> general mccaffrey, give you the last word. >> well, i think the other thing, look, these are military operations. our forces are at risk. they are deployed globally. they are certainly heavily deployed in iraq, syria, afghanistan. where is the deliberate advice of the joint chiefs of staff? where is the secretary of

defense mark esper, a very experienced guy? why is the president of the united states making sole decisions in one-on-one phone calls with dictators? this is a very tricky situation for the united states. >> general mccaffrey, ambassador mcfaul, thank you both for spending some time with us. after the break it was only a matter of time supporters of a president who describes the press as enemies of the people made a gruesome video depicting the murder of media figures. we will bring you that story next. moving in. moving on up. or making big moves. deliveries ship free and come with a 100-night free trial. no matter your budget. or your sleep style. we have quality options for everyone. so search and shop. save and snooze. and rest easy, knowing that we've got your back. literally. that's what you get, when you've got wayfair. so shop now. i that's the retirement plan.e,

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the effects so grotesque we are only going to show you the beginning of it. it's trump's head superimposed on the dark comedy "kingsmen, secret service." what follows is two minutes of mass murder. the trump character shooting and stabbing his way through depictions of news organizations, lawmakers, and recognizable media figures. mike schmidt who broke this story about the video from the "new york times" is back. mike, take us through what you've reported here. >> basically this was a pro-trump convention. it had a lot of trump supporters speaking there, don jr. spoke there. sarah huckabee sanders, the governor of florida, desantis. there is no indication that they saw the movie. the movie was being played in a room next to a large ballroom. at the event it was being played on loop as part of a meme exhibit of other types of pro-trump videos. this was sent to us by someone who captured it with their

phone. on the video is a trump/pence 2020 logo that is shown. the campaign says they know nothing about the video. and, you know, pretty simply the video is one of the most violent scenes that i've certainly ever seen in a movie. and given the superimposing of the president's face in all of his enemies and media organizations on it is quite striking, certainly one of the more striking things i've seen. >> publisher of the newspaper went into the oval office and asked donald trump to stop using his bully pulpit to call for attacks genls the media. what did he say to your publisher? >> that was a discussion that happened i guess it was earlier this year in which, you know, our publisher made that pitch -- pitch is the wrong word, made that argument to the president about the problems with calling the media the enemy of the people. and the publisher i believe at

the time pointed out that in foreign countries this allows governments to crack down on the media because they see the united states doing it. and i think that one of the concerns around the use of enemy of the people is the that the president's rhetoric sort of seeps down into the propaganda of his supporters. and i think that, you know, in this type of video, you know, the -- the -- the white house spokes woman has condemned the video, as has, you know, the trump surrogates that were at the event. but this certainly does exist. this type of material. this type of media. >> and the -- as mike said, the press secretary doesn't brief but she did condemn this video that played at a trump property where a bunch of trump surrogates appeared. but donald trump who weighs on things large and small, i think he tweeted today about sean spicer's reality tv show hasn't weighed in yet. >> yeah.

it's hard to believe that the president hasn't seen this and it's hard to believe that he didn't enjoy it, frankly. i think it's -- it's very easy for some folks to think of insults that the president lobs and his supporters lob in the abstract. but i think for those of us who are people of color in this country who are women, who are refugees or jewish or part of any minority group, and also part of the media at this point, you know, there are real people's bodies and lives on the line. there is a massive surge in hate crimes in this country. and i would also, you know, just remember that -- that we had a horrible church shooting in 2015. and this gives permission. there's something very ugly at the heart of trumpism and we saw that in this video. >> frank, kill videos are usually examined or at least taken a look at by law enforcement. i mean, they target a couple presidents. a presidential candidate. bernie sanders. would this be of interest to law enforcement?

>> well, i can tell you right now that the people who are depicted as victims in this horrific video, some of them have secret service and/or capitol police protection. specifically, president obama and -- and member of congress depicted in there. so they rest assured right now as we speak are beefing up security on their protectees because they have to. they know what happens when mentally disturbed people feel like they've gotten a green light from the president of the united states because of a video that depicts him as a mass murderer targeting specific victims. and he has -- he has a chance right now to stop blood shed. he has a chance right now to not be an accomplice to murder if some mentally deranged individual takes this as a green light. nicole, we saw it happen who felt compelled to send explosive

packages to people that the president had identified by name as his enemies. and we may well see it again. and the president's spokesperson coming out and rejecting this, renouncing it, is not enough. that rings hollow. the president himself has to come out and denounce and reject it or he's going to be seeing -- >> i mean, your whole book, which we aspired to spend more time talking about. but where is the line between disinformation? it would seem as the ground is softened to disinformation, a meme like this, a video like this is more dangerous. is that true? >> i think it is true. i mean, part of the whole russian idea of disinformation is basically to create a groundwork where people are susceptible to lies and falsehoods. and part of the other problem of the -- that the -- that the russian disinformation campaign has done, it makes us question things that are true. because basically people who are imbued with this falsehood could go everything is not true.

why do i trust everything? i mean, at the end of the day, and i think trump plays into this and -- and -- and it's part of putin's whole modus ap ran die is to make people distrust the idea of empirical facts. that there is one side that actually has fact and another side that has falsehood. trump plays into that and this video does in a really horrific way. >> shep smith sadly and surprisingly announced his resignation from fox news on friday. but one of my favorite sort of, you know, exasperated sheps was he calls news it's real fake. he calls news that's fake real. and then donald trump in his own words has said don't believe what you see. don't believe what you hear. i mean, how indiscernible is the disinformation being spread by russia and donald trump's rhetoric? >> i have a chapter in the book about how donald trump's rhetoric and -- and -- and the russian disinformation rhyme with each other. i mean, this kind of extraordinary similarities. >> is that a coincidence, though? i mean, we don't have any --

greg miller reported we don't have any notes. do they rhyme? or is he being fed information? >> i don't know. i talk about the time during the campaign where he suddenly out of the blue said everybody -- people say people in crimea want to be in russia. i have no idea. nobody knows where that came from. so this idea of there's a kind of metaphorical collusion that was always going on, nobody knows the actual data of -- of the conspiracy of that collusion. >> so it's amazing. every -- every trump crisis has a russia throughline. >> yeah, and again, so i don't get why one republican critique of him is that he's downright unpatriotic. he does not reflect american values. any other republican president, if they knew a video like this was not only played at their property but in support of their rhetoric would immediately denounce it. but this president doesn't. we know the playbook. at some point, he will. he'll say something wishy washy. good people on both sides.

when david duke endorsed him, he took a long time before he pushed back against that. this is a man who tweeted 33 times in 20 minutes on friday. 33 tweets in 20 minutes. his silence on this is deafening. every moment that he's silent on this is an incitement to violence. >> thanks for the report. frank figliuzzi. thanks for spending time with us. we're going to sneak in our last break. be right back. break. be right back. saturdays happen. pain happens. aleve it.

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. i can talk to these friends forever. i want to give you one more last word. i mean, this book -- you obviously had -- write it a while ago. but everything you were inspired to write about is new again. back in the news.

>> yes, ukraine. the book actually starts in ukraine. we also tried to combat isis disinformation. that's all coming around and part of that is because trump himself is the disinformationist in cleehief. not only here but around the world. >> we're excited to have the book. we're excited to have you. thank you for being here today. my thanks to mara. i'm nicolle wallace. "mtp daily" with the fabulous chuck starts now. if it's monday, it's a former administration insider behind closed doors on capitol hill. president trump's former top aide on russia is testifying right now and the white house is worried. plus, a victory for america's adversaries. assad and