jennifer ruben and malcolm na e nance msnbc terror analyst. your reaction. >> i think there are two possibilities. one is that he simply was settling one case that he got reimbursed by president trump and in doing so mr. cohen and mr. trump both violated various disclosure laws and the fec. the other possibility which i find more and more likely is perhaps michael cohen was giving a slush fund of lots of money, and it was his job simply to get rid of these problem people for mr. trump. you know, you don't come up with one of these complicated mdas and have a whole process of sending money around just on the fly. this seems like a routine these guys had down pretty pat. he was given a certain pool of money. it was his job to cleanup donald trump's problems. and if that's the case, i would like to know how many of these problems the russians know about. i'd like to know how many other opportunities for blackmail are out there. and i'd really like to know the sum total of the people he's been paying off and why he's been paying them off. >> i thi

kill more than just the intended victims, which is, of course, the definition of terrorism. >> malcolm nancefor your expertise. we needed it tonight. thank you, malcolm. >> my pleasure. >> "the last word" is next. >>> time for tonight's last my gums are irritated. i don't have to worry about that, do i? actually, you do. harmful bacteria lurk just below the gum line, and if you're not taking care of your gums, you're not taking care of your mouth. so now i use this. crest gum detoxify. introducing new crest gum detoxify... it works below the gum line and is clinically proven to neutralize harmful plaque bacteria and help reverse early gum damage. new gum detoxify, from crest. gums are good. so is my check up! crest. healthy, beautiful smiles for life. sometimes you need an expert. i got it. and sometimes those experts need experts. on it. [ crash ] and sometimes the expert the expert needed needs insurance expertise. it's all good. steve, you're covered for general liability. and, paul, we got your back with workers' comp. wow, it's like a party in here. where are the hors d'oeuvres, right?

kill more than just the intended victims, which is, of course, the definition of terrorism. >> malcolm nancexpertise. we needed it tonight. thank you, malcolm. >> my pleasure. >> "the last word" is next. ♪ ♪ (vo) you can pass down a subaru forester. but you get to keep the memories. love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru. (avo) get 0% apr financing on all new 2018 subaru forester models. now through april 2nd. this time, it's his turn. you have 4.3 minutes to yourself. this calls for a taste of cheesecake. philadelphia cheesecake cups. rich, creamy cheesecake with real strawberries. find them with the refrigerated desserts. with real strawberries. so, howell...going? we had a vacation early in our marriage that kinda put us in a hole. go someplace exotic? yeah, bermuda. a hospital in bermuda. a hospital in bermuda. what? what happened? i got a little over-confident on a moped. even with insurance, we had to dip into our 401(k) so it set us back a little bit. sometimes you don't have a choice. but it doesn't mean you can't get back on track. great. yeah, great. i'd like to go back to bermud

. >> malcolm nance, jennifer ruben, i start with you, what you just heard from the lawyer, your reaction? >> i think there are two possibilities, one is that he simply was settling one case, that he got reimbursed by mr. trump and in doing so, mr. cohen and mr. trump violated various disclosure laws and the sec. the other possibility, which i find more and more likely is that perhaps michael cohen was given a slush fund of lots of money and it was his job simply to get rid of these problem people for mr. trump. you know, you don't come up with one of these complicated ndas and have a whole process of sending money around just on the fly. this seems like a routine that these guys had down pretty pat. and i do won't whether this wdes just normal, he was given a pool of money just to clean up donald trump's problems. and if that's the case, i would like to know how many other cases the russians know about. how many other cases are out there, and who he's b ee's payi and why he's paying off. >> is this a pattern of practice and does this mean there's more vulnerability for the white house. i

now for more on this, malcolm nance is back with us, the man who wrote the book on this, before we knewas, "the plot to hack america: how putin's cyber spies and wikileaks tried to steal the election." 35 years working in the counterterrorism and intelligence business. he is our analyst in this area. malcolm, let's do this as a lightning round. any doubt in your mind this is the russians? >> no, without any doubt. the weapons system that they deployed, the novochuck nerve virus which is eight times more virulent than vx, what kim jong-un had his half-brother assassinated with in kuala lumpur, this is an attack by russia using state weapons systems. >> the russians who don't seem to scare easily seem pretty brazen about this stuff. you can't blame people for fearing that this material could end up in the wrong hands on the streets of washington or new york. how easy or hard would it be to fly some through jfk and get it through security and deploy it, use it on someone here? >> it wouldn't fly through jfk, it would fly through an airport using diplomatic couriers, using diplomatic bags,

malcolm nance, it's why we always have you on.o very much for joining us from the great city of philadelphia tonight. >> coming up for us, three former presidents joined together today, all to pay tribute to a legend in the political trade. >>> 2004, zell announced he would support my reelection and offered to endorse me at the republican convention in new york if i thought it would help. [ laughter ] >> darn right it would help i told him. because zell had spoken at bill clinton's 1992 convention and he became the first person in american history to deliver the keynote addresses at both parties' convention. >> it's a rare honor, as you may know, to have one former u.s. president speak at your funeral, let alone three. today george w. bush, jimmy carter, bill clinton all spoke at the memorial service for former georgia governor and u.s. senator zell miller. after his death friday at the age of 86, the comments you read most often over this past weekend came from people thanking him for sending them to college. mill are allowed a s

thank you, malcolm nance. and david ignatius.xt, disturbing allegations continuing to emerge from the stormy daniels scandal. daniels' lawyer now says the film actor was physically threatened to keep quiet about anything she had to do with donald trump. that has certainly escalated. this is "hardball" where the action is. about your brokerage fees. fees? what did you have in mind? i don't know. $4.95 per trade? uhhh. and i was wondering if your brokerage offers some sort of guarantee? guarantee? where we can get our fees and commissions back if we're not happy. so can you offer me what schwab is offering? what's with all the questions? ask your broker if they're offering $4.95 online equity trades and a satisfaction guarantee. if you don't like their answer, ask again at schwab. jimmy's gotten used to his whole yup, he's gone noseblind. odors. he thinks it smells fine, but his mom smells this... luckily there's febreze fabric refresher for all the things you can't wash. it finds odors trapped in fabrics and washes them away as it

let's bring in malcolm nance who spent 40 years counterterrorism officer. why is the suspect deviating from his first three bombings. >> i think what we have is someone who really knows what he's doing. i don't think this is an amateur bomber. it's someone who was given this campaign he's doing. that's what we have. this is a terrorist bombing campaign. he is trying to deliver these devices through a myriad of different ways in order to raise the stakes and the tensions in this campaign. one thing we don't know and maybe police have been withholding from us is were the original bombs, the first two bombs, were they delivered by fedex? if they were, it's very interesting because fedex requires a lot of documentation to put a package into their system. the u.s. post office does the exact same thing. that gives you a line on trying to track down the bomber himself. then we had another device which we find was victim initiated which was a trip wire. it's a very different type of device to be used in that case. that one injured only two people. so this bomber is

joining me is malcolm nance. malcolm, there's a piece out -- good morning.re's a piece out in foreign policy that talks about what john bolton is expected to do once he gets in place. inco they are expected to launch a massive shakeup at the nfc aiming to remove dozens of current white house officials. those targeted for removal include officials believed to have been disloyal to donald trump, those who have leaked about the president to the media, his predecessor's team and those who came in under obama. the choice quote from it, one of the former national security -- former white house official who spoke to foreign policy offered a blunt assessment of former owe bo baa obama officials. everyone who was there during the obama years should start packing their s-h-i-t. >> this is a guy with two guns shooting in the air who is going to come in and clean up the white house. the people that he is talking about getting rid of are the staffers who are part of the general government bureaucracy. most of them are seconded from other agents like the department of def

joining me are malcolm nance, navid jamali. we have confirmation from mr.ho was there that he did arrange this back channel meeting. an intriguing bit from "the new york times" march 6 story, mr. nader was first served with searched warrants and a grand jury subpoena on january 17 shortly after landing at washington dulles airport. he had intent to travel to mar-a-lago, mr. trump's florida estate, to celebrate the president's first year in office but the fbi had other plans, questioning him for more than two years and seizing his electronics. what, in your view, could mr. nader be giving up on donald trump? >> well, you noo know, i think particular story and george nader's role in it is going to be one of the bridges where russia was not just directly communicating -- you don't establish a back channel through the crown prince of united emirates and meet down in the seychelles with an oligarch just to shake hands and have a beer for 30 minutes like eric prince said. this has to be something much deeper than communications. more than likely, it's going to in

malcolm nance, it why we always have you on. thank you so very much for joining us from the great city of philadelphia tonight. >> coming up for us, three former presidents joined together today, all to pay tribute to a legend in the political trade. ly, ♪ ♪ slap on some cologne ♪ i'm 85 and i wanna go home ♪ ♪ just got a job ♪ as a lifeguard in savannah ♪ ♪ i'm 85 and i wanna go home ♪ ♪ dropping sick beats, they call me dj nana ♪ ♪ 85 and i wanna go don't get mad. get e*trade, kiddo. going somewhere? whoooo. here's some advice. tripadvisor now searches more... ...than 200 booking sites - to find the hotel you want and save you up to 30%. trust this bird's words. tripadvisor. iebut prevagen helps your brain with an ingredient originally discovered... in jellyfish. in clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve short-term memory. prevagen. the name to remember. >>> 2004, zell announced he would support my reelection and offered to endorse me at the republican convention in new york if i thought it would help. [ laughter

thank you malcolm nance and david. thank you gentlemen.xt, disturbing allegations continuing to emerge from stormy daniels scandal. daniels lawyer says the adult film actor was physically threats end to stay clue et with anything with donald trump. th that has certainly escalated. this is "hardball" where the action is. -looks great, honey. -right? sometimes you need an expert. i got it. and sometimes those experts need experts. on it. [ crash ] and sometimes the expert the expert needed needs insurance expertise. it's all good. steve, you're covered for general liability. and, paul, we got your back with workers' comp. wow, it's like a party in here. where are the hors d'oeuvres, right? [ clanking ] tartlets? we cover commercial vehicles, too. i think there's something wrong with your sink. we cover commercial vehicles, too. looking for a hotel that fits... whoooo. ...your budget? tripadvisor now searches over... ...200 sites to find you the... ...hotel you want at the lowest price. grazi, gino! find a price that fits. tripadvisor. >>> we

msnbc contributor natasha bertrand covering the intelligence community and terrorism analyst malcolm nanceof "the plot to hack america." it's a little complicated. let's start with your kilimnik is who, natasha? >> kilimnik is a ukrainian russian dual citizen and worked for manafort and gates for years. he was essentially their translator. he worked for rush bean military intelligence as a translator and got his training there. he left and went to work for another institute in the '90s. he was recruited from that institute by phil griffin, one of manafort's top spokesman in ukraine to do all this translating work. essentially u.s. intelligence officials now believe that he still has those ties to russian military intelligence that he had back when he was training there as linguist. paul manafort and rick greats in touch with someone who had russian military intelligence ties during the campaign there be drawing the most direct line as you said between the campaign and russia that we've seen. >> not just that. a reminder to folks because this character has arisen before. remember when the e

here to unpack it, naveed and julie who wrote and reported on malcolm nance who wrote the plot to hackstory, i saw it like okay there is a russian coach in a jail that needs asylum to spill the beans about the kremlin oligarch and the election and there is a video, footage in which she doesn't that maybe unlikely or unplausible. what do you make of it? >> we're talking about russia so it's totally plausible. let's just be clear for our viewers, she's not just a sex coach but a professional escort. the way this came to light is russian opposition leader released a youtube video that everybody should go see, it has english subtitles about a half hour long about these escorts who came to troll his campaign offices because he's trying to undermine putin's athoerty. they looked into what these prostitutes were, one of them, her last name means little fish is a frequent companion of this oligarch and paul manafort while being $19 million in debt was working for the trump campaign for free, and through enter immediate yard -- intermediaies trying to show when a good job he was doing. this esc

. >> malcolm nance. thank you for joining us. >> thank you. are defined by the things we share.s we love. who never stop wondering what we'll do or where we'll go next. we the people who are better together than we are alone... are unstoppable. welcome to the entirely new expedition. don't we need that cable box to watch tv? nope. don't we need to run? nope. it just explodes in a high pitched 'yeahhh.' yeahhh! try directv now for $10 a month for 3 months. no satellite needed. we've just learned the president and vice president had dinner with the nra. they did that tonight. another meeting with the nra after meeting with a bipartisan group yesterday. the president tweeted, good dinner with the nra. meanwhile, republicans in the georgia legislature removed a tax break for delta airlines to punish delta for ending a discount for the nra. delta is based in atlanta but the republican governor said he will sign the bill. and kroger which owns fred meyer department stores announced it will stop selling guns and ammunition to anyone under the age of 21. and r.e.i. doesn't sell guns but

. >> malcolm nance. thank you for joining us. >> thank you.e need that cable box to watch tv? nope. don't we need to run? nope. it just explodes in a high pitched 'yeahhh.' yeahhh! try directv now for $10 a month for 3 months. no satellite needed. at planters, we put fresh roawhich has its drawbacks.an, guys, know anything about this missing inventory? wasn't me! the cheeks don't lie, chet... irresistibly planters. was a success for lastchoicehotels.comign badda book. badda boom. this year, we're taking it up a notch. so in this commercial we see two travelers at a comfort inn with a glow around them, so people watching will be like, "wow, maybe i'll glow too if i book direct at choicehotels.com". who glows? just say, badda book. badda boom. nobody glows. he gets it. always the lowest price, guaranteed. book now at choicehotels.com you wouldn't accept from any one else. why accept it from your allergy pills? flonase relieves your worst symptoms including nasal congestion, which most pills don't. flonase helps block 6 key inflammatory substance

joining me live now, former naval intelligence officer, malcolm nance, now a terrorism analyst. he is author of "the plot to destroy democracy. "how putin's spies are winning control of america and destroying the west." also joining me is white house director of global engagement. good to see both of you. malcolm, russia's retaliation for having its diplomats expelled was expected. we heard the russian ambassador to washington tell savannah guthrie, what happens when your face is slapped, you retaliate. where is this headed? is this going to continue to be more of what's expected, or are you nervous? >> well, the place it'll head is determinant upon what russia wants to do. this stems from russia's aggressive actions they've taken in the west. they carried out a weapon of mass destruction attack. not just against two british citizens. there were 21 people affected by the nerve agent there. they would have assumed that the united states would carry out some sort of action, along with all its nato allies. russia is playing this game because they know they can get away with it. the

joining me now is malcolm nance, nathsha baltram. malcolm, starting with you.e talked about the bank meeting that jared kushner had. we know he met with anbang, which owns the waldorfs astoria. explain why the needs of jared kushner, why does that pose a national security risk? >> well, because you may be trading on government information, government intelligence. we don't know whose side you may be trading it for. you may be an agent of a foreign power or using classified information for your own enrichment. he met with the director of veb bank, known as the bank of spies, run by an ex-kgb officer. went to them for money without telling anyone. when you go out and reach out to oshgizati organizations like that, then the chinese, qataris, united arab embrats while supposedly an official working for the united states government every one of those governments can now blackmail you. >> we know that jared kushner among his portfolio were these business roundtables, trying to meet with executives. we know from the "new york times" that both citi group and this apoll

joining me now is malcolm nance, sarah kendzior and naveed jamali. malcolm, it is weird. we do remember that during the convention when you and i were sitting across from one another as we have done for 18 to 19 months, that the one thing that the trump campaign wanted changed in the republican platform was to take away a plank in the platform that talked about arming ukraine, which we know crimea was seized in 2014 by russia. now they've gone bag on tback o that. they have called to arm ukraine. donald trump doesn't want it spoke in public. what do you make of that? >> i think it's clear that the defense establishment and like general mattis and others in congress and the senate, they want this pressure on russia. i think they're setting up circumstances where donald trump has to go ahead and acquiesce. as we've seen, donald trump himself will not mention a negative word about vladimir putin. it's fascinating, over the last week everyone has been talking about donald trump's nondisclosure agreement, the nda with stormy daniels. i want to see the nda between donald trump