betsy woodruff, let me ask you about jared kushner. the diminished role that he's playing in this white house, of course, he's been involved in these allegations of russian interference as well. "the new york times" supporting that you do whatever you want philosophy when reince priebus was the white house chief of staff. what do you make of the favor that he enjoys or doesn't enjoy in this white house today? >> one thing that's become clear to me is in the course of covering the mueller investigation and ever since it was rolled out months ago is that jared kushner and his legal team are facing a significant amount of anxiety because of these investigations and flynn's potential cooperation is actually an important piece of that. just to take a step back, we know flynn and his attorney have essentially been waving their arms over their head saying we're interested in telling you guys things. we know things. in fact, flynn's attorney all but said that his client had a story to tell back months ago and flynn potentially was going to sit

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betsy woodruff, thank you for joining us. tonight's last word is next.ing means making tough choices. jim! you're in! but when you have high blood pressure and need cold medicine that works fast, the choice is simple. coricidin hbp is the #1 brand that gives powerful cold symptom relief without raising your blood pressure. coricidin hbp. >>> i've spent this week beginning to meet last word viewers around the country, so far in new york city, boston and tonight in washington, d.c., talking about my new book "playing with fire: the 1968 transformation of american politics" and i'm going to leave you with a sample of the television talk about the book this week. and i know you didn't get to see rachel at 9:00 tonight. so here she is now. >> you can learn about water gate by learning about what richard nixon did, but if you really want to learn about water gate, learn what the country was like and what was going on in the country at the time water gate happened, which allowed watergate to end the way it did. and the way to start understanding that is to unde

and betsy woodruff joins us from the daily beast.sman jeffries, this is a question of the law. if you keep saying you forgot, you forgot, does that save you from a perjury indictment. >> it absolutely does not. i pointed out in the first part of any questioning of jeff sessions that he, himself, made the point in october of 2016 that when hillary clinton said i don't remember over 35 times, that if that was intentional, that itself could constitute the crime of perjury. now it turns out that jeff sessions earlier this year testified before the senate intelligence committee, said i don't recall approximately 30 times, same thing before the senate judiciary committee today, repeatedly said i don't recall at least 25 times. so it was a classic case over and over and over again of selective amnesia when convenient. it's clear, chris, that he has been less than truthful on multiple occasions when testifying before congress about contacts between himself, the trump campaign and russia. and that's a serious thing. >> did you notice anything

the author of that report betsy woodruff joins me now. what's the connection? >> it was hid no one plain sight. what we learned from the indictment is that paul manafort, through a company called lusical consulting, spent upwards of $5 million on mercedes-benzs and real estate and clothing from a best of hill hills clothing store, start in about march 2012. that's the new information we got from the indictment. the reason that information is important is because "the new york times" reported this past summer that lusical consulting received millions of dollars from ukrainian political figure ivan fursin in february of 2012. a month before lusical starting spending so much money at manafort's behels. which raises important questions like, who is this ivan fursin guy? according to an austrian police report, the austrian police piece of this is really important -- the fbi believe that ivan fursin was a senior figure in simeon's organized crime group. austria is key here. the country the austria is at the crux of eastern and western europe, particularly in vienna,

bet betsy woodruff, thank you for joining us. tonight's last word is next.e up with back pain. but he has work to do. so he took aleve. if he'd taken tylenol, he'd be stopping for more pills right now. only aleve has the strength to stop tough pain for up to 12 hours with just one pill. aleve. all day strong. ...you might be missing to stasomething... ♪ ...your eyes. that's why there's ocuvite. it helps replenish nutrients your eyes can lose as you age. nourish your eyes to help keep them healthy. ocuvite. be good to your eyes. ...from far away. but they only ♪harsee his wrinkles.♪ ... ♪if only harry used some... ♪...bounce, to dry. ♪he would be a less wrinkly, winning guy.♪ >>> i've spent this week beginning to meet last word viewers around the country, so far in new york city, boston and tonight in washington, d.c., talking about my new book "playing with fire: the 1968 transformation of american politics" and i'm going to leave you with a sample of the television talk about the book this week. and i know you didn't get to see rachel at 9:00 tonight. so he

for more on the wider implications, i want to bring in betsy woodruff who has been all over the russia, as well as jeff mason, correspondent for reuters. and back with me, renato mariotti. betsy, your view of the news story? >> it really cuts to the core of the final campaign promise that president donald trump made, which was to drain the swamp. what we have seen, both with the indictments that came down last week and then in addition, this new information about the potential legal liabilities that general flynn could have and the way that secretary ross is mixed up in some financial dealings that can be described as questionable at best, it's clear that folks who are very close to the president, who are part of his inner circle, who have had extremely influential roles both in his campaign and now in his presidency, are also deeply enmeshed in some of the systems that trump spent his campaign railing against. in particular, global financial systems. remember, trump's closing campaign ad went after goldman sachs. in addition to that, the way that foreign government lobbying in d.c. tr

last month, betsy woodruff reported at the daily beast that cambridge analytica, the data firm hired by the trump campaign last year, were asked about an offer to publish information about hillary clinton. after that initial report from betsy woodruff of the daily beast we didn't know whether cambridge analyst ka was technically working for the trump campaign at the time they made those overtures to wikileaks. nor did we know if they would have been cognizant when they were reaching out to wikileaks, we don't know if they would have been aware at the time that wikileaks was doing what they were doing as an agent of the russian government. so were they working for the trump campaign? did they know they were dealing with the russians? we didn't know after that report from the daily beast. on friday from "the wall street journal" we got clarification on one of those points. turns out cambridge analytica was work for the trump campaign at the time they reached out to wikileaks and asked them to help them disseminate their stolen documents. we still don't have clarification on that other

betsy woodruff and john harwood, thanks. >>> are republicans about to rubber stamp him into a job?nd thing 1 and thing 2 is next. >>> thing 1 tonight, during his official republican response to barack obama's 2013 state of the union address, senator marco rubio's mouth went dry. >> in the short time i've been here in washington, nothing has frustrated me more than false choices like the one the president laid out tonight. >> it was that excruciating awkwardly moment rubio trying to keep eye contact with the camera that prompted this with donald trump on the campaign trail. >> when they put marco on to repute president obama's speech, do you remember that catastrophe? and he's like, and we will, i need water, help me, i need water. help. and this is our live television. it's rubio. unbelievable. >> trump, of course, mocked rubio on twitter saying, "next time marco rubio should drink his water from a grass instead of a bottle." there's an old witch who cursed trump to live out his old tweets. she was hard at work today as the president recapped his trip to asia. that's thing 2 in 60

. >> betsy woodruff, "the daily beast." kurt bardello, former breitbart spokesperson, joining me now. betsy, i anticipated a fake news attack. i anticipated deny, deny, deny, "washington post" is fake news. what i did not anticipate was watching a bunch of conservatives today bend over backwards to defend molesting a child, and yet somehow that's apparently where we are. >> this phrase "i don't know how you find out the truth" is sort of a profound philosophical moment in conservative media. the idea that there are certain things that are beyond knowing, even when women go on the record, when all their friends and their family members go on the record saying this type of sexual attack happened, and they still don't think they can believe that, i mean, it's extraordinary. it makes you wonder, under what circumstances would pundits like this believe the truth about sexual misconduct is knowable? do they have to be in the room watching it happen? to believe that it's actually happened? it's astonishing. and i don't really know

. >>> my guest earlier in the statement who i mistakenly called betsy woodruff, my bad about that. >>> the president claims the new gop tax plan would cost him a fortune. it's not true of course. senator bernie sanders will be here to discuss. >>> first, new reporting on the allegations against matt lauer, fired today from nbc news. that's coming up in two minutes. >>> just moments ago nbc news chairman andy lack sent the following note to our organization. dear colleagues, on monday night we received a detailed complaint from a colleague about inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace by matt lauer. it represented after serious review a clear violation of our company's standards. as a result we have decided to terminate his employment. we are grappling with a dilemma that so many people have faced these past few weeks, how do you reconcile your love for someone with the revelation that they have behaved badly. i don't know the answer to that. >> that's how the day started here at nbc news with that revolution followed by a statement from nbc news chairman andy lack which added,

krill on foreign relations and a former adviser of the mccain, romney and rubio campaigns and betsy woodruff, a politics reporter for "the daily beast." max, here we have jared kushner having said he knew nothing about contact of wikileaks. here's an e-mail showing him of clearly aware of it to the point where he's forwarding an e-mail about contact with wikileaks. >> right. i mean, lawrence, it seems just like pretty much every day another lie from the trump folks about their connections with russia exposed. right? have they ever told the truth, the slightest sense about this? why are they lying? keep in mind the bigger picture, too, which is that it was only a few days ago that donald trump himself was in vietnam meeting with vladimir putin and what did he do after the meeting with putin? said putin denies having hacked the dnc and i believe him and the professionals who run the american intelligence community a bunch of political hacks saying the russians hacked so, you know, donald trump himself is lending credence to the notion of collusion and then we're seeing evidence of that collusi

. >>> my guest earlier in the statement who i mistakenly called betsy woodruff, my bad about that. >>> the president claims the new gop tax plan would cost him a fortune. it's not true of course. senator bernie sanders will be here to discuss. >>> first, new reporting on the allegations against matt lauer, fired today from nbc news. that's coming up in two minutes. when you have a cold stuff happens. shut down cold symptoms fast with maximum strength alka seltzer plus liquid gels. your privacy makes you myt number 1 place to go number 2. i love you, but sometimes you stink. febreze air effects doesn't just mask, it cleans away odors. because the things you love the most can stink. and try febreze small spaces to clean away odors for up to 30 days. breathe happy with febreze. >>> just moments ago nbc news chairman andy lack sent the following note to our organization. dear colleagues, on monday night we received a detailed complaint from a colleague about inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace by matt lauer. it represented after serious review a clear violation of our company's

betsy woodruff for the daily beast and jason johnson as a contributor. nick, donald trump is saying, first of all, i'm not being investigated. i for one don't take his word for it, if you don't mind. the other part of it, looking at the indictments, one guilty plea, he says he is not in there anywhere. the indictment with the guilty plea is actions taken during the trump campaign, that's how this person is now guilty of a federal crime. >> donald trump is in the center of all of these allegations. he's in the center of the papadopoulos situation who he referred to on march 21st, 2016, as a great guy. he now calls him a liar. which in itself is unprecedented that the president of the united states would call a cooperating government witness when's going to be testifying on behalf of the united states -- >> in -- on this, papadopoulos agrees. he pleaded guilty to lying to the fbi. >> correct. you don't -- the head of the government doesn't go out and call its own witness a liar. that's for the defense counsel. >> or comment in any way on criminal proceedin

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us now is one of the reporters who broke the michael flynn story for nbc, julia ainsley, and betsy woodruff this is looking like $15 million of trouble. >> certainly mueller is looking into that. he wants to know if this meeting happened at the 21 club blocks away from where flynn would have been working on president trump's transition. if he actually agreed to this and allowed himself to be exploited as national security adviser, they're looking at possible bribery charges. this is really serious for flynn and it's part of the legal pressure that robert mueller is applying when he's trying to get flynn to be a cooperative witness. >> betty, he's a transition official, this is quasi-government official, private season. for him to execute the plan, he can only execute it when he's in the white house and has the governing authority to execute the plan if that's the plan. >> exactly. for the purposes of the mueller probe, one thing attorneys close to the probe tell me, the campaign, the transition and the white house are all considered three separate legal entities. so that makes this type of

last month, betsy woodruff reported at the daily beast that came bryn an i lit i cana asked about an offer to publish information about hillary clinton. we did not know if they would have been cognizant when they were reaching out to wikileaks, we don't know if they would have been aware of at the time that wikileaks was doing what they were doing as an agent of the russian government. were they working for the trump campaign? did they know they were dealing with the russians? we didn't know after that report from the daily beast. on friday from "the wall street journal," it turns out cambridge analytica was working for the trump campaign at the time they reached out to wikileaks and asked them to disseminate stolen documents. we still don't have clarification whether or not they knew wikileaks was part of this russian operation. did they reach out to wikileaks before or after it became publicly known that wikileaks was part of this russian intel op? did the trump campaign through came brbridge analytica try to knowingly collude with russia in that attack? they definitely tried to co

thank you, julia ainsley and betsy woodruff, great reporting. >>> next up, president trump is gearingr thanksgiving by asking why people don't thank him enough. interesting. it's him, again. trump launched into a twitter tirade about those basketball players he helped free from china, calling one of their fathers an ungrateful fool. this is "hardball." and that's the president. where the action is. how do you chase what you love with moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis? do what i did. ask your doctor about humira. it's proven to help relieve pain and protect joints from further irreversible damage in many adults. humira works by targeting and helping to block a specific source of inflammation that contributes to ra symptoms. humira has been clinically studied for over 20 years. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened; as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. before treatment, get tested for t