nbc news national intelligence and national security reporter, and we welcome to the broadcast anne milgram, she is these days a professor and distinguished scholar at the nyu school of law. also with us covering the president down in florida peter baker, chief white house correspondent for "the new york times" and an msnbc political analyst. ken, you get the wind up question. you get to be the first thoughtful person we have here tonight. what did we learn today? that's another way of asking what was proven, what was disproven and what still dangles out there? >> well, i'm struck by some of the most significant things we learn, do not actually prove this memo shows corruption at the heart of the mueller investigation. and first of all it's the thing you mentioned, which is that the memo is very clear the investigation began as a result of the information about george papadopoulos, which came from a australian diplomat. nothing to do with carter page. and the surveillance of carter page began many months later in october of 2016. so what does that tell us? that the investigation that became

anne milgram subpoena here, jeffrey toobin and evan perez. are you surprised? >> i am not surprised. keep if mind that the first memo was plea .5 pages. no facts. >> essentially they omitted all of these facts that changed the actual time line and meaning. >> exactly. so i think there was a challenge with the idea of the intelligence committee having anything declassified and going out that could reveal sources or methods that the intelligence community uses. beyond that, there wasn't really anything in there that raised concerns. the thing we know about the democratic memo is more lengthy and easy to surmise that it is going to have more facts and more detail. the real question is that what we don't have when you look at this letter that has been sent from rod rosenstein and wray to the house committee is what we don't have is the areas with the red blocks are the ones to worry about. and are there three red blocks or 300? >> this letter is a letter, but it is really more of a hand gesture to the democrats, one that is inappropriate to make on television. it i

also with us, jeff tubin, anne milgram and carl bernstein.gie, at what point does there have to be a formal decision by the president and his attorneys about whether or not he's going to testify? >> i'm not certain about what the precise drop dead is, but i think we're coming up on it pretti pretty soon. mueller has been conscious of the fact there are elections coming up. after a certain point, everything is going to be viewed through a political lens, but he would rather have it done sooner rather than later. i think he's going to go through the opportunity to exhaust all possibilities for getting this interview to happen until he goes ahead and files a subpoena. >> carl, it does -- i mean if it continues on and on, it does then start to impact the 2018 elections even more than it might already. >> that's certainly possible, but i think we need to look at the possibility that trump is getting what he wants these days. and that is he is making this investigation and particularly the arguments surrounding the two memos into a partisan politic

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ryan lizza is here, james schultz, maria cardona, alice stewart, paul begala and anne milgram. ryan, what do you make of this new reporting focusing on citizen trump's business dealings? >> first thing to say is just because they are asking these questions -- >> doesn't mean, right. >> -- doesn't mean they have evidence of it. they would be derelict in their duty if they were not asking basic questions about his relationships that are publicly known to everyone. >> and i think some of the sources they talked to said their sources got the feeling that the people asking the questions were just sort of checking off boxes of questions to ask. >> exactly. so they're doing proper due diligence like any prosecutor looking into this would. i don't think this red line argument that trump has made that said, hey, if you look at any of my business dealings before i run for president, that's a red line, i don't think that -- it's hard to argue this has nothing to do with the broad mandates of the investigation. in other words, this is -- these are there activities that were happening in ru

joining us now is josh campbell, anne milgram, carl bernstein, and phil mudd. your quick takes. joshua, let's start with you. >> the revelations are stunning. i think as you indicated earlier, it really starts to show why mueller picked the people he did to serve on this team, people with diverse experiences. when i was at fbi headquarters, i had the honor of working for james comey. after he was fired, i couldn't go work on the special counsel team because i was conflicted. but those of us who didn't go work the case would kind of look around and see our friends kind of disappear. this person is leaving and wonder, hmm, i wonder why that person is there. okay. that person had cyber expertise. this person has white collar experti expertise. as you look through the indictment you see the diverse charges that we see. you really start to paint that picture. i think the one question that i have is has mueller held off on including any americans who were witting in this operation? he wouldn't necessarily need to include that to- >> you're saying he might have intent

about the mother of all friday night news jumps, jeffrey toobin, van jones, paris denard, and anne milgram. i don't know how we found so many people on a friday night. >> cnn has its ways. >> jeff, you've read this letter. what do you make of it? >> well, the unfairness is so obvious and so egregious. i mean if you are going to trust the fbi, you have to trust the fbi with regard to the democratic as well as the republican memo. the nunes memo came up last week, and the fbi objected, and the white house said, we don't care. we're going to release it. today the democratic memo comes up, and the fbi objects, and they say, oh, we have to respect the opinion of the fbi. i don't personally care whether either memo comes out, but there should be the same standard applied to both. >> scott? >> i will frame this a different way. this memo comes over to the white house. it's ten pages. we don't know what's in it. clearly there's sensitive information in it. and they say, we're not going to release it tonight. we are inclined to do so. the president orders his own administration to work with the dem

also former new jersey attorney general and former federal prosecutor anne milgram.el zeldin, former special assistant to robert mueller at the justice department, as well as kirsten powers and david axelrod and gloria borger. michael zeldin, you see the tweet there from james comey on the eve of what we believe to be the release of this. does it feel to you like a spurious attack on the fbi? >> the nunes -- >> yes. >> -- memo is a spurious attack, politically motivated spurious attack on the fbi that is unnecessary for the redress that he says needs to be happening. >> what the republicans are saying is, look, this is about educating the american people, the american people need to know what's going on at the highest levels of the fbi. >> right. so there are two ways to do that. you can invite the inspector general to investigate those improprieties or hold oversight hearings and, in fact, fbi director wray asked to brief the full committee in closed-door session to answer any and all questions with respect to their concerns about the issuance of this fisa warrant t

joining us now is josh campbell, anne milgram, carl bernstein, and phil mudd. i want to get your quick takes. joshua, let's start with you. >> the revelations are stunning. i think as you indicated earlier, it really starts to show why mueller picked the people he did to serve on this team, people with diverse experiences. when i was at fbi headquarters, i had the honor of working for james comey. after he was fired, i couldn't go work on the special counsel team because i was conflicted. but those of us who didn't go work the case would kind of look around and see our friends kind of disappear. this person is leaving and wonder, hmm, i wonder why that person is there. okay. that person had cyber expertise. this person has white collar expertise. as you look through the indictment you see the diverse charges that we see. you really start to paint that picture. i think the one question that i have is has mueller held off on including any americans who were witting in this operation? he wouldn't necessarily need to include that to- >> you're saying he might have