joyce vance former u.s. attorney now an msnbc contributor. with us at the table, jonathan lemire, associated press white house reporter and sliding in as only he can do, john heilman is back. got sechlt entitles i'm nven ti to read because i didn't think he would be here. if you could, underscore the significance of learning that donald trump was aware months before the election of these hush money payments to karen mcdougal. >> in early november of 2016, w "the wall street journal" wrote an article about the payment. they said it was news to them. what the article shows is the president clearly knew about it at the time. this is something michael cohen updated him on in september. he was briefed on what was going on. this is obviously something they were trying to do to keep this quiet leading up to the election. it now raises these legal questions, whether there were campaign finance violations or campaign finance laws that were broken because these payments were made and they were not disclosed and done in secret. >> we've had a lot of con

attorney and msnbc contributor joyce vance. joyce, i'll start with you on what we just saw.nd i know you were paying attention to it over the course of the week. it was really, i thought, a remarkable display for them to so publicly attack rosenstein. >> it was incredible. this was the deputy attorney general, the number two guy in the justice department, testifying under oath and being accused of lying by a member of congress. while that deputy attorney general is in the middle of supervising the turnover to congress of an unprecedented level of documentation in an ongoing investigation. >> and the president has -- he did an interview with maria bartiromo of facts and talked about why he -- or how his involvement is coming to be. we'll take a look the about it, and paul butler i'll ask you about t. >> are you going to ask them to get those documents over to congress? >> i may get involved. i've been told by so many people don't get involved. it's not good. and they'll get the documents and it's getting and they're getting them, and they're great people. i didn't like the sc

fridays, joyce vance takes us to law school. mike schmidt, thank you for spending some time with us. thank you for the story. when we come back, an attorney for another woman paid hush money after an alleged sexual relation ship with donald trump joins us to discuss breaking news. also donald trump's war on intelligence may be backfiring. detailed reporting on the malaise inside donald trump's west wing as the country's top intelligence official seems to laugh at donald trump's stunning embrace of vladimir putin. and is rod rosenstein getting his groove back? he was greeted with a standing ovation from national security experts and he appears to be finding his sea legs after months of being on the receiving end of pointed attacks from the president. but is he safe? two motorcycles, a boat, and an r.v. i would not want to pay that insurance bill. [ ding ] -oh, i have progressive, so i just bundled everything with my home insurance. saved me a ton of money. -love you, gary! -you don't have to buzz in. it's not a question, gary. on

i touched on it briefly with joyce vance.hy not privately tell mueller about it if you have this information. why leak it right now across the air waves? no one knows the answer to that at this moment. as for the legal implication, cohen is effectively accusing trump junior of a new crime because in september he told the senate judiciary committee that he did not alert his father to this meeting ahead of time. ditto for his reported comments to the house intelligence committee in december. so if this news about what michael cohen is willing to tell mueller is true, then it does obviously call donald trump jr.'s testimony into serious doubt. now, the leading democrats on the senate judiciary committee, feinstein and leahy, are already saying they want donald trump jr. back in for questioning. senator leahy wants to question him in public. that would be different, as well as under oath. adam schiff says he also wants trump junior back. he wants to extend an invite to michael cohen as well while they're at it. democrats do not c

i turn now to former federal prosecutor joyce vance who has much experience here. i don't think there's any doubt that donald trump is not taking mike cohen's advice and counsel anymore. how do you view the significance of this rupturen at types of leaking and back biting that we're seeing tonight? >> this is potentially very significant, ari. you know, prosecutors are hardwired to be cautious. so it's important to say that we haven't heard this story in cohen's own words yet. that will matter. it will also matter if he has any evidence, text pessages or e-mails that were sent contemporarily ha back him up. so far the reporting we've heard is there is no evidence of that nature. but this really is a bombshell. this idea that the president knew about this meeting before it happened and signed off on it, places him squarely inside of collusion with russia. >> when this kind of information goes public, obviously, prosecutors would rather they held it and no one else knew. how do you interpret that? >> it's interesting. we don't know the source of these leaks. and fran

joyce vance former u.s. attorney. julia, let me start with you. this new reporting we cited there about michael cohen and his motivation where he talked about putting country, putting family first. the idea that he wants to change the narrative. i guess what i am wondering is why, when you are in the legal situation he is in, shouldn't you want to be dealing with the legal predicament first? when that is all settled, then you worry about the pr. >> i am wondering if it has tong with subtle messages that are going to two different camps. not just the message that he is sending to donald trump. since he hired rudy giuliani has been on a blitz trying to distance himself from cohen. some of the tape you played there saying he wasn't my lawyer. he has already thrown him under the bus saying he was responsible for the payment. and then the other side, the message he might be wanting to send to prosecutors right now. if you want to talk about the switch flipping, realized that donald trump wasn't going to bail him out. he changed his message. no longer g

joyce vance thank you.'m so glad we tricked you into waking up early. >> it wasn't a trick it was a threat. >> the last word, week nights at 10:00 p.m. on msnbc. still ahead a federal judge has rejected president trump's latest effort to stop a lawsuit that alleges he's violating the constitution by continuing to do business with foreign governments. we're digging in to that new reporting when "morning joe" comes right back. are you ready to take your wifi to the next level? then you need xfinity xfi. a more powerful way to stay connected. it gives you super fast speeds for all your devices, provides the most wifi coverage for your home, and lets you control your network with the xfi app. it's the ultimate wifi experience. xfinity xfi, simple, easy, awesome. >> look at those cameras. all those cameras. all these stops. this never happened to obama. this never happened to bush. this didn't happen. they just follow. they are dying to see us make a little bit of a mistake. they analyze every word. they say did

attorney and msnbc contributor joyce vance. joyce, how do you interpret these latest indictments and the president's take on extraditing the 12 russians charged and does that have anything to do with the fact it happened during the obama administration? the activity? the actions. >> the first part of your question, many of us in public have been trying to put together the evidence we're seeing reported by news outlets and add up the dots and many people aren't surprised to see this indictment coming down saying that russia hacked in essence with the intent to throw the election towards president trump in 2016. what's significant about the indictment is that federal prosecutors took the evidence and put in the front of a grand jury and that grand jury after considering the evidence did what prosecutors called returned a true bill giving prosecutors the permission to go forw5rd with that indictment. that means there is a serious quantum of proof to back up this evidence. it's not to be taken lightly at this stage. the president's

and joyce vance. let's start with peter. the report is fascinating. just because you do something in public doesn't make it legal or innocent. you can kill people in public and it is still murder. your thoughts >> it is striking that the things that he has said in public and said out loud, had they been in secret memos, people would say aha. a conduct or pattern of conduct that might be questionable or criminal. the fact that he says it out loud has gotten people desensitized. up front about what he thinks about sessions and about comey. trying to weave it together to see how it fits into a pattern. no single tweet or statement. whether you add it up, does it add up to witness tampering or impeding the investigation. >> demanding the loyalty of comey before firing. or let michael flynn off the hook or he said tell the public i'm not being targeted here. all of those demands we have learned he is doing. they could be potentially be, i'm asking you, obstruction of justice. >> peter is right. trump doing it in broad daylight has desensitized the public.

attorney joyce vance who spent 25 years a as federal prosecutor. joyce, if this isn't crazy, it will due until crazy gets here as they say. what strikes you about this case of this young woman again who was apparently fixing to leave town? >> you know, it looks that way and looks like we're finally getting to watch that season of the americans that the producers wouldn't run because it seemed too farfetched, right? >> yeah. >> all joking aside, i think this is a very serious case but not currently being handled but mueller's team, it looks like a case that could end up there or be a companion case because of the serious nature of allegations russians were trying to influence the nra and we know $30 million in money funneled out of the nra into the presidential campaign more than the nra ever contributed so there are serious questions that need to be answered here. >> i know you're not a political analyst, if that's proven, if russian money was in an nra pool, you got all these people running for reelection in the midterms whose opponents can say my

also joining us is joyce vance. both are msnbc contributors. joyce, i do want to start with you. can you help us understand this idea that it could have been privileged and then waived and where that means this evidence stands now for prosecutors? >> so the context for this evidence coming to light was the search of michael cohen, which produced a lot of documentary evidence. and he was the first one to raise this idea that some of it was privileged because he was a lawyer and that trump as the client would have attorney-client privilege to atert, too. both trump and cohen's lawyers went through the documents and designated certain items as privilege. that was subject to review by a retired mag strait judge who the district judge brought in. the reason all of that background matters, katie, is because somehow we have shifted from this process where trump and cohen were asserting that these documents were protected by the attorney-client privilege to this point where we're told tonight, they decided we'll go ahead and waive it and put it out there even though the judge found in ou

joining us now, joyce vance who is kind enough to explain these things to me when they happen.ere tonight. >> thanks for having me. >> so first of all, should i see these two peas as being in the same pod? the keeping the identity of these five possible witnesses secret and under seal? and them being granted immunity in exchange for their testimony? do they always go together oris? >> you know, they don't always go together. they're two separate but related issues in this case. >> on the matter of immunity, prosecutors are saying that they couldn't -- these people are not people who've been mentioned in previous indictments, they've not been publicly described as being associated with the case, but they wouldn't testify unless they're granted immunity and they want the judge to grant something called use immunity in order to compel their testimony. what does that mean? >> so you can't be forced to testify against yourself. we all have a fifth amendment privilege that keeps us from incriminating ourselves with testimony. this means that mueller's lawyers believe that these five

. >> joyce vance, will special prosecutor robert mueller link donald trump at some point, link that comment, to what the russians did on that same day? >> you know, that has to be the question that we're all asking tonight, lawrence. this is what prosecutors call a speaking indictment. it tells a narrative story instead of just reciting the elements of the statute. and, so, mueller had a lot of discretion about the language that he chose to include in this indictment, and he's very deliberately setting the stage here, making sure that none of us could miss this conduct on the 27th where he notes that russia hacked the dnc hacked clinton's servers for the first time trying to get this information that trump asked them to get for him on that date. and, so, i suppose much like watergate, we're back to this question of what did the president know and when did he know it? was it just a random, lucky chance guess of a question that he asked russia to do this? or had someone told him there was a realistic possibility? you know, law enforcement folks say there is no such thing as a coincidence in l

joyce vance and the panel are back with us right now. harry, let me get to you quickly.ould we read into the fact that they have not set a sentencing date. they said hey, we're going wait a little longer here if >> although it was initiated by the government and the -- and flynn making a joint request, let's start to get the process for sentencing going, at which point the judge said, that's unorthodox, i want to see michael flynn in court and see him eye to eye. so i think we can take two premises from it. one is, they're hm doalmost don. they envision his cooperation won't last much longer. but there's still a little more to do. >> let's drill down on this. is the end on sight for michael flynn here? >> i think the end is in sight. the reason the government -- this is just my suspicion -- the reason the government tried to move up this presentencing report, which happens once you set a sentencing hearing, michael flynn wanted a job and they wanted to speed up the process by which this ends. so don't set the date far in advance. now we see him taking a job. the weird th

thank you so much, joyce vance and nina totenberg. >>> coming up, could a meeting with vladimir putin jeopardize president trump's nato summit before it begins? (♪) i'm a four-year-old ring bearer with a bad habit of swallowing stuff. still won't eat my broccoli, though. and if you don't have the right overage, you could be paying for that pricey love band yourself. so get an allstate agent, and be better protected from mayhem. like me. can a ring bearer get a snack around here? you always get the lowest price on our rooms, guaranteed?m let's get someone to say it with a really low voice. carl? lowest price guaranteed. what about the world's lowest limbo stick? how low can you go? nice one, carl. hey i've got an idea. just say, badda book. badda boom. badda book. badda boom. nice. always the lowest price, guaranteed. book now at choicehotels.com >>> the kremlin announced today that if both sides agree, president trump and president putin could actually meet privately without their aides before the start of that official summit in helsinki. the summit is set to take place less than two

what to make of michael cohen's video i'm joined by nick akerman, former federal prosecutor and joyce vance, former u.s. attorney. joyce, will he met start with you as somebody who prosecuted cases, a former federal prosecutor, i find cohen's behavior strange. and i'm not sure what to make of it. it seems like a lot of dangles for the president. i want to read one section of the interview which was not on camera. he said, "i will not be a punching bag as far as anyone's defense strategy he said emphatically. i'm not a villain of this story and i will not allow others to try to depict me that way." what do you make of cohen's behavior here? >> entire interview done publicly on national television after announcing it on twitter is a little bit unusual of a tactic for a potential criminal defendant. if i were a defense lawyer which i've never been, i don't think i'd advise any of my clients to do that. prosecutors don't like to negotiate plea agreements in public. so cohen's got guy petrillo, this sort of storied sdny prosecutor, coming on board. and one assumes if cohen wants to talk to prose

attorney and msnbc contributor, joyce vance, katie and navid jamali. kate, do you think the timing help bolster president trump in some of his allies' views that the mueller investigation is actually a conspiracy to undermine the administration? >> i think that the president and his allies will look for absolutely anything to be able to find a conspiracy, so of course you could say the timing did help them with that. but the timing is also fascinating because it shows that the justice department in particular has a lot of cards to play and that while president trump can win the short-term pr battle by attacking the mueller investigation, the mueller investigative team can always come back with hard facts that support them that will be remembered long after the president's complaints are done. >> joyce, what about the fact that the americans that were listed in the indictments were not actually named? what does that tell you? >> it doesn't really tell us a lot because doj policy is not to name people who are unindicted co-conspirators. so this indictmen

i'm joined now by former federal prosecutor joyce vance, jennifer reuben, and david corn has been covering this story since day one. david, as we look at that photo, and we'll put it back up on the screen, walk us through what you see between these men here separated by just a few feet, the special counsel's office tells us bob mueller was not aware that that was donald trump jr., and that they are not confirming that aspect of it. but what do you see in this photo? >> what i see is the guy in charge of an investigation and a guy who is the subject of an investigation that just got more profound. we have to preface everything, ari, with if the account from michael cohen is true, but, but, but. so if the account is true, it is a tremendous change in the landscape. what it does is show us two things. one, that donald trump, from the very beginning, was in on an attempt at collusion, an attempt to conspire with a plot that was described to donald trump jr. as a secret operation by the kremlin to help trump. so if trump knows about that from the very beginning, and is in on it, i think that ha

we'll see where it lands joyce vance. thanks to all of you for being with us on this fourth of july. secretary of state mike pompeo headed to north korea for a critical meeting with his cou count counterparts in the kim government. is the trump administration moving to goal post when it comes to denuclearization? plus, a 24-year-old mother from el salvador who entered the k i country legally is separated from her young sons for months. that's next. >> why haven't you gotten your children back? [ speaking in a foreign language ] >> we don't know anything. i don't know how long it's going to take. -here comes the rain. [ horn honking ] [ engine revving ] what's that, girl? [ engine revving ] flo needs help?! [ engine revving ] take me to her! ♪ coming, flo! why aren't we taking roads?! flo. [ horn honking ] -oh. you made it. do you have change for a dollar? -this was the emergency? [ engine revving ] yes, i was busy! -24-hour roadside assistance. from america's number-one motorcycle insurer. -you know, i think you're my bes

msnbc contributor joyce vance and former u.s. attorney and msnbc contributor charlie savage, washington correspondent for "the new york times" and nbc intelligence and national security reporter ken dilanian and pete williams at the white house. pete, what happened in the pretrial hearing? >> well, it's still going on, andrea. and it's going to be going on later this afternoon on some other issues that paul manafort wants to raise about how much evidence can be admitted about the work he did for ukraine. but today the argument has been for the last hour and a half or so about whether this trial should be delayed. it's scheduled to start on wednesday with jury selection and probably opening statements on friday. but manafort's defense lawyers told judge t.s. ellis just a short time ago that they've been basically overwhelmed, swamped with 120,000 new pages of documents that the government has produced just within the past weeks. much of it from a personal computer, and other storage devices belonging to rick gates, the former mana

. >> joyce vance is with me. she is an msnbc contributor and former u.s. attorney. e, let me start with you. let's get in the mind of michael cohen here a little bit. so much has changed over the course of the last week. there was the specter of there being tapes. tuesday we heard the tape. wednesday there was the first report here that michael cohen might be willing to say to his special counsel investigator that, in fact, donald trump now about the meeting at trump tower before it occurred. give us your sense of what he is thinking about, what he is weighing, what the options are for michael cohen if he were to played. >> cohen has sent a lot of signals this week that he is interested in cooperating with prosecutors. we don't know if he has had formal conversations or, frankly, even if prosecutors in southern district of new york are interested in taking a look at what cohen has to offer. but if they, in fact, are, it seems likely that cohen, who spent at least a decade of time with trump, watching the daily in and outs of his life, would be able to provide not jus

times" and joyce vance, a former u.s. attorney, professor of the alabama law school and an msnbc contributor. joyce, i want to start with you because credibility is everything when it comes to prosecuting a case. talk to me about the credibility issues that prosecutors are going to face with michael cohen and with donald trump. >> this is a classic sort of a he said/he said dispute, and so what prosecutors like to do as they prepare a case is look for evidence that tends to corroborate what their witnesses are saying. there is some reporting that says that cohen has no evidence to back up his willingness to testify in this regard, but there is some circumstantial situations that prosecutors can pursue to try to buttress his testimony. for instance, there is this phone call that don jr. allegedly made around the time that he had conversations with arissa golorov. they could get phone records. there is the statement donald trump makes two days before this meeting takes place where he promises something big coming with the cl

you know, they were novices. >> i want to thank jennifer rubin and joyce vance. david real quick, have you ever been on fallback friday? >> no, i have not. could it perhaps happen today? >> it could happen today. a year in we will take you. i would hope to get both of you in some day as well. >> thanks to each of you for being part of our top of the news coverage here. >>> coming up, new reporting on how trump's legal team says they might, quote, bury michael cohen. >>> michael avenatti is here live. coming out of his court fight in the stormy daniels case. >>> plus, we're debuting a new series today with tony schwartz, author of "the art of the deal," and talking about the pressure facing trump. all that, plus, of course, fallback friday and our most awkward moments of the year. you're watching a special edition of "the beat" on msnbc. when heartburn hits... fight back fast with tums smoothies. it neutralizes stomach acid at the source. tum tum tum tum tums... smoothies... ...and introducing new tums sugar-free. sharper vision, without limits. days that go from

. >> joining me, nbc white house correspondent kristen welker and two msnbc contributors, joyce vance and barbara mcquaid, both former u.s. attorneys. welcome all. first to you, kristen, what the heck are they talking about today? this is a much more aggressive attack from both the president and his lawyer. >> it was striking. we started to see this more aggressive attack roll out over the weekend when president trump directly attacked robert mueller calling him out by name. calling the investigation an illegal scam saying that he had all sorts of business conflicts with him as you just pointed out. rod rosenstein testified to the fact he saw no conflicts of interest and then you had rudy giuliani really trying to undercut michael cohen, the president's former personal attorney and personal fixer really. giuliani tried to argue that tape that was released by michael cohen in which you hear cohen and the president talking about a payout may have been doctored in some way shape or form. and really calling the very credibility of cohen into question saying that he's a liar and a scoundre

attorney joyce vance. matt, i do want to start with you. given that donald trump today called this a witch hunt and given that rod rosenstein briefed him on this indictment days ago, what does that say to you about how seriously donald trump is taking this investigation? >> he's taking it seriously. in one way i think he's always taken this seriously in that he's been very concerned about it. he's clearly been concerned about the aspects that relate to him, the obstruction of justice aspects that he's under investigation for. and the other part of it, he's never taken seriously. he's never taken this seriously as an attack on the united states. he cares about anything that might affect him. he cares about implications of wrongdoing of people close to him, around him. whenever it is discussed as an attack on the united states, an attack on our democracy, an attack on our free and fair elections, you see his defensiveness from him and this need to lash out against the investigators. and it is remarkable, i think, that days after he was briefe

attorney joyce vance, both msnbc legal analysts.gnal in one direction or another from lanny davis. am i right? >> a signal because he hired lanny davis? >> that he hired lanny davis and the first thing lanny davis does under this new contract is essentially tweet a warning shot. >> yeah, he does, but this is not unusual. during the watergate investigation it was amazing how many nixon people actually went out and looked for democratic lawyers in order to try and appeal to this idea -- >> really? >> yes. that somehow they thought that by having something that's like former senator tidings represent them in our office they kind of bought into the idea that we were a bunch of kennedy democrats, which was not true. so they were hiring lawyers thinking they could appeal to us and somehow get a better in if they came in with these lawyers. you even saw jared kushner, he's retained the woman who was deputy attorney general under clinton. >> yeah. >> a democrat. >> i think it's the same sort of mindset, that people don't realize that what y

joyce vance, we always learn a lot from you. thank you for joining us tonight. >> thanks. >>> nbc news national reporter ken delanian is reporting. his story headlining, the trump administration has no central strategy for election security and no one is in charge. ken, thank you for joining me tonight will. >> great to see you. >> your story digs in deeper than just what is blatant odd about this meeting and its brevity. walk us through what former and current officials are telling you. >> yeah. this is not some great scoop. this is simply talking to folks and listening to cabinet officials talk many public about their efforts to combat foreign election interference. what they say, the department homeland security secretary with our own peter alexander in aspen talked about the things dhs is doing, working with the states on election security. then she said, that's not enough. we really need the whole of government strategy. what she didn't say there isn't one. that's what everybody you talk on has said. i was flabbergasted whe

attorney joyce vance and nbc news justice correspondent pete williams. pete, what can you tell us?se are the main points. now agent is a term that has to be understood. in the law it's someone acting on someone else's behalf. they're not accusing her of being a spy. but they're saying she came here as a graduate student in august of 2016 with one goal in mind and that is to try to insinuate herself into the political process to advance russia's interest. this is not a robert mueller case. she's not accused of trying to affect the 2016 election by hurting clinton or helping trump. but what the indictment says here is that she became friendly with a number of conservative organizations and a large donor to the republican party and became a member of the national rifle association. the charges don't actually mention the nra, they call it the gun organization, but law enforcement officials say it was the nra. that she organized dinners in washington and new york for people to try to come together and talk about russia's interests, that she got herself invited to the national prayer bre

joyce vance, thank you for spending some time with us. come back, stumping the secretary of state. democrats and republicans pile on to the secretary of state as he struggles to explain what he knows and doesn't know about donald trump and russia. crabfest is back at red lobster! discover our largest variety of crab and crab dishes all year! like new crabfest combo. your one chance to have new jumbo snow crab with tender dungeness crab. or try crab lover's dream. sweet, juicy king crab and jumbo snow crab cozied up with crab linguini alfredo. even our shrimp is crab-topped! so hurry in and get your butter-dunkin' game on! 'cause crabfest will be gone in a snap. and now bring home the seafood you crave with red lobster to go. call or order online today. and i don't add up the years. but what i do count on is boost®. delicious boost® high protein nuritional drink now has 33% more protein, along with 26 essential vitamins and minerals boost® high protein. be up for life. >>> we focus on words from the president because our allies and our adv

presumably each of these five individuals is less culpable than manafort is. >> joyce vance, thank youmuch. appreciate it. now it makes sense. we'll be right back. on earth ♪ uhp. i didn't believe it. again. ♪ ooh, baby, do you know what that's worth? ♪ i want to believe it. [ claps hands ] ♪ ooh i'm not hearing the confidence. okay, hold the name your price tool. power of options based on your budget! and! ♪ we'll make heaven a place on earth ♪ yeah! oh, my angels! ♪ ooh, heaven is a place on earth ♪ [ sobs quietly ] ♪ ooh, heaven is a place on earth ♪ when it comes to strong bones, are you on the right path? we have postmenopausal osteoporosis and a high risk for fracture, so with our doctors we chose prolia® to help make our bones stronger. only prolia® helps strengthen bones by stopping cells that damage them with 1 shot every 6 months. do not take prolia® if you have low blood calcium, are pregnant, are allergic to it, or take xgeva®. serious allergic reactions, like low blood pressure; trouble breathing; throat tightness; face, lip or tongue swelling, rash, itching or hives have

for counter intelligence, former chief speaks plan for the justice department, matt miller and joyce vance. >> given trump called this a witch hunt and given rod rosenstein briefed him on this indictment days ago, what does that say to you how seriously donald trump is taking this investigation? >> he's taking it serious lis in one way, i think he's always taken this very seriously if that he's been clearly concerned about the aspects that relate to him, the onstruction of justice he's under investigation for. the other part he's never taken seriously as an attack on the united states. he cares about anything that might affect him. he cares about implications of wrong dong by people around him but whenever it's discussed as an attack on the united states and our democracy, an attack on the way on our free and fair elections, you see this defensiveness from him and this need to lash out against the investigators. and it is remarkable i think that days after he was briefed on this indictment, when he knew it was coming, when he knew there would be public evidence unsealed about a russian con

along with joyce vance former u.s. district attorney for alabama. daniel, let me start with you. you seemed shocked that you have reached a point that you would be writing those words about treason and the president of the united states. a year and a half ago, someone would have called that, as rand paul said trump derangement syndrome. but now it is narrowing and narrowing down in terms of what the possibilities are. >> the question has been when we deal with trump or any president that we disagree with. and we find genuinely shocking. do you explain this through incompetence or explain through mallevance. either we are talking about radical incompetence. or we are talking about mallevance. why does he tweet out that he prefers vladimir putin to the u.s. mainstream media. it is a question of revealed preferences which is trump prefers foreigners who like him to americans who are loyal americans but nonetheless disagree with him. a common saying in washington is the notion that reasonable people can disagree on something. and the fact that reasonable people can disagree whether o

attorney joyce vance, now an msnbc legal analyst, and nancy cooke, the white house reporter for politico. joyce, let's start with you. what does it mean robert mueller is expanding his team but he's going to the u.s. justice department for career lawyers. is that relevant? >> it's interesting. part of it may be resources. he's getting ready to launch the manafort trial, and he may feel the need to bring more bodies onboard to manage all the pieces of the investigation. it could also signal he's thinking about spinning off pieces of the case or there are matters that aren't so central to the trump-russia campaign relationship. and one of the details is that mueller is tapping investigators in pittsburgh. and that's interesting because pittsburgh is a venue where they've gone in the past for the chinese hacking case, and this could signal prominence for cyber crime and hacking. >> last week the testimony of rosenstein in that congressional hearing got very hot. trey gowdy, one of the lead republicans of the e-mail investigation into hillary clinton, really, really encouraged rosenstein to

congressman ryan costello, and joyce vance., will republicans call out the president's wild spin today. this mickey mouse thing he said, i got the wrong word in there. plus president obama gave an amazing, i thought it was a good speech. you are watching "hardball." ♪ ♪ let your perfect drive come together at the lincoln summer invitation sales event. get 0% apr on select 2018 lincoln models plus $1,000 bonus cash. you shouldn't be rushed into booking a hotel. with expedia's add-on advantage, booking a flight unlocks discounts on select hotels until the day you leave for your trip. add-on advantage. only when you book with expedia. add-on advantage. southwest has $69 one-way sale fares for travel throughout september and october. so you can fill the rest of your year with all the fun. book now at southwest.com. low fares. no hidden fees. that's transfarency. the chili pepper sweat-out. not cool. freezing away fat cells with coolsculpting? now that's cool! coolsculpting safely freezes and removes fat cells with little or no down

. >> joyce vance, donald trump seems to be easily impressed with, what, tone of voice?ure what. >> it's hard to know what it is that impresses him. he's clearly more impressed with putin than one would expect buck he's clearly more impressed with rom rom because he sat down with putin, but won't sit down and have a one-on-one with robert mueller. >> as the president is meeting with vladimir putin today, these prosecutors, the wheels are still turning. donald trump knows that. every day there could be another revelation. this was just today's revelation. >> it's one of my least favorite cliches that you can only see 10% of the iceberg and 90% is under the water. i think that's true. we don't know when it's going happen. it just gets progressively worse for trump. today sea clarifying moment. that press conference showed the world nothing that he hasn't said before bush he is enthralled by putin. there's something going on between the two of them and he's scared of the mueller probe and it's not going get, i think, any better for him. >> thank you for joaniining us tonigh

joining us, joyce vance, great to see you.for being here. >> thanks for having me, joy. >> let's talk about this change of ven uthey'd like to have, shall we? we have a map here of roanoke, virginia. and it went clinton by roughly 70-30, where in roanoke they went for trump in therely the reverse, something like 68-32. is that common to try to move the trial to more politically favorable climate? >> i'm sure it's what every defendant who believes politics would help him or her would like to do. but typically these transfers are authorized under the federal rules only in cases where there would be such extreme prejudice to the a defendant he or she would not get a fair trial. you think of those high profile cases like the oklahoma city bombing which was moved from oklahoma city to denver because of pre-trial publicity. that's where these type of transfers usually take place. >> so in this case do you think it's likely to succeed? >> you know, i think this motion has a very slender chance of success. one factor here is it's not

joyce vance, thoughts, feelings?utors only talk to people to hang them up and to lead them into a perjury trap is just wrong. no prosecutor wants to prosecute a case against a defendant who's not guilty. because prosecutors, after all, have a burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. so someone who's understa an investigation, who is in fact guilty, their strongest hand is to talk to prosecutors and tell their side of things. and i can tell you from years of experience people do that and do that successfully. it's only a perjury trap if you're going to come in and lie. >> we've seen mueller use that tactic, where he's gotten people even if they were coming in to cut a deal with him, on a prosecutor charge. >> but a good defense lawyer does not wait to attack the case. particularly if their client is guilty, they attack and they attack. and you know what, it's working in this case because a "the washington post" poll shows that mueller is unfavorable is going up. but mueller hasn't spoken yet. he doesn't speak to the

joining us now is joyce vance, u.s. attorney for the great state of alabama.for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> as a nonlawyer i look at u.s. v nixon and a handful of other cases and see that as a consensus case. in the legal community, in the legal world, is u.s. v nixon a controversial thing? it was a unanimous supreme court ruling. >> it's not controversial and by brown versus board, it's what people agree on and that's why it was shocking to see federal nominees refusing to affirm the principipals of brown. same for nixon. it's revered as a case that was correctly decided. >> this transcript that has just been put forth as part of the documentation around judge kavanaugh's confirmation for the supreme court, this was not him refusing to answer a question about whether or not u.s. v nixon was appropriate precedent or whether or not he agreed with that. this was not dodging the question or avoiding saying what his opinion was on it. this was him volunteering that he thought nixon was a bad case. are there other people in mainstream judicial circle wh

. >> joyce vance, msnbc contributor thanks for coming on, much appreciate it. >> thanks for having meahead, the new facebook threat, yet something else that could have been the lied story today, the social media site says it's uncovered a new campaign to undermine the midterms and russia seems to be behind this one, too. you might take something for your heart... or joints. but do you take something for your brain. with an ingredient originally discovered in jellyfish, prevagen has been shown in clinical trials to improve short-term memory. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. it's a high-tech revolution in sleep. the new sleep number 360 smart bed. it intelligently senses your movement and automatically adjusts on each side to keep you both comfortable. and snoring? how smart is that? smarter sleep. to help you lose your dad bod, train for that marathon, and wake up with the patience of a saint. the new sleep number 360 smart bed, from $999. smarter sleep will change your life. my gums are irritated. i don't have to worry about that, do i? actually, you do. harmful bacteria lurk j

. >> joyce vance, this is why we have you on the broadcast. thank you so much for clear and concise answers as with we are all reacting to what we've read in the pages of the new york times tonight and elsewhere. another break for us. coming up, he was vice chairman of the senate intelligence committee following the collapse of the soviet union. senator bob kerry also talk to us acts the relationship between donald trump and vladimir putin and the u.s. and russia when we return. . >>> i think i did great at the news conference. i think it was a strong news conference. you have people that said you should have gone up to him, you should have walked up and started screaming in his face. we're living in the real world, ok. >> that was tonight. his interview with cbs news, frump p are president trump defending his performance on monday in hell sinky, standing in front of vladimir putin. people find the lack of urgency in his demeanor striking because they have been warned by our government that the russian attack remains under way. >> have you see

attorney joyce vance. joyce, we were going to talk about other things. this news broke before we came on the air. i'd like to get your thoughts on the line between not just -- we've been talking about some of the conduct that's weird. but the ethical lapses were more than just improper use of federal resources. there are some legal questions. trey gowdy questioning his conduct seems to suggest mr. pruitt could be in for some ongoing legal questions about his conduct as a federal employee. >> there are absolutely lapses that are certainly ethical and maybe go beyond that, maybe go into the area of potential criminal prosecution. so, what would seem likely to be happening here, what would happen in any other administration is that the local u.s. attorney with jurisdiction, whether that's the district of columbia or the eastern district of virginia, would have a public corruption investigation opened, possibly in connection with the public integrity serks and main justice. they would be looking at pruitt's conduct and scrutinizing in at least two areas. one