ken dilanian, i want to get your thoughts on mike schmidt's reporting and the mike flynn sentencing. >> i think it's fascinating we're hearing this story now, nicolle. it suggests the stenlt to which rod rosenstein has had it. he's at the end of his rope. our colleague julie ainsley said he was having late night phone calls with friends and was resigned to the fact he might be fired. here i stand. this is recorded further evidence. the fact folks are willing to disclose this. it's not surprising. i remember talking to pete williams how rosenstein's appointment of mueller was in a sense his way of trying it get some of his reputation back after being so badly used in the comey firing. and now we're seeing sort of the details of that. but it's absolutely clear a that he is at the end of his rope and yesterday's hearing was just the latest kpamt luis palomino of that. >> and, ken dilanian, let me get you to switch topics for us. i know you have some thoughts on the sen 10%ing of the delay of mike flynn who pleaded guilty and is a cooperating witness. he's on team america now. >> right.

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 march 1, 1810 -- [ ding ] -frédéric chopin. -collapsing in 226 -- [ ding ] -the

joining us by phone from "the new york times," mike schmidt who broke this story along with his colleagues. 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

with their no fly list they were busy capturing nuns who were going to protests and people like mike. schmidt book barbara old shinseki who was every time she she had to make sure she had good underpants because she was strip searched every time she would fly because she was a lawyer for the center for constitutional rights people have to understand is that you don't have any right to fly in the united states certainly it's a privilege to fly and you don't have a right to say whatever you want on a plane or in an airport you don't have a right to move about the way you want so your freedoms are severely limited to begin with for security purposes and i believe most americans would agree rightfully so these things get out of hand if people don't get to know that they're on a list and get to challenge the list and that was the problem with the no fly list that's the problem with this list that nobody you know i hear out of ten maybe or so then they say why isn't it we know maybe they're watching you know maybe they're watching probably if i don't know their air marshals who are armed on my flig

with their no fly list they were busy capturing nuns who were going to protests and people like mike. schmidt book barbro shinseki who was every time she she had to make sure she had good underpants because she was strip searched every time she would fly because she was a lawyer for the center for constitutional rights people have to understand is that you don't have any right to fly in the united states certainly it's a privilege to fly and you don't have a right to say whatever you want on a plane or in an airport you don't have the right to move about the way you want so your freedoms are severely limited to begin with for security purposes and i believe most americans would agree rightfully so these things get out of hand if people don't get to know that they're on a list and get to challenge the list and that was the problem with the no fly list that's the problem with this list that nobody you know i hear out of hand maybe yours and then they say why isn't it we know maybe they're watching you know maybe they're watching probably if i don't know there are air marshals who are armed on m

with their no fly list they were busy capturing nuns who were going to protests and people like mike. schmidt book barbro shinseki who was every time she she had to make sure she had good underpants because she was strip searched every time she would fly because she was a lawyer for the center for constitutional rights people have to understand is that you don't have any right to fly in the united states certainly it's a privilege to fly and you don't have a right to say whatever you want on a plane or in an airport you don't have a right to move about the way you want so your freedoms are severely limited to begin with for security purposes and i believe most americans would agree rightfully so these things get out of hand if people don't get to know that they're on a list and get to challenge the list and that was the problem with the no fly list that's the problem with this list that nobody you know i hear out of ten maybe you're out of there and they say why isn't it we know maybe they're watching you maybe they're watching probably if i don't know their air marshals who are armed on my f

i am sure we could ask mike schmidt about it. but if it is trump and his lawyers t says one thing. and if it is michael cohen leaking it, then you can see it as a warning shot or a cry for help or a signal that he is intending to cooperate. and some people suggests that if it is the president's attorney or rudy giuliani, then they see it as potentially good news for the or they are trying get out of a bad news story. there is a lot of potential sources. >> well, you know, michael, look, i know, futile, i was going to ask you to reveal a source or anything. but is your sense, do you have any sense of the motive of who is leaking this? >> no. and i think sometimes is looked at too black and white in the media that things are dolled out and handed out. this is an important part of the current trump story. in new york, there is an investigation that is focused on cohen. but trump's lawyers don't know what the authorities are looking at. still fighting over what the u.s. attorney's office can have and can look at and whether anything is protected. michael cohen has not formally agreed t

maggie haberman and mike schmidt. the court allows us to respond without waiving any privilege. if we have to defend him, that's what we have to do. it's been very helpful because now we've been able to put out the whole transcript which contradicts several things that lenny davis says but he's almost as bad as cohen. he said he didn't intend to deceive when he did these recordings. what is it to take a phone, put it in a tour and say you're recording them. these are lies that can be contradicted by tape recordings. >>chris: i want to ask you something that may seem off-topic but it will become of relevance. about brett kavanaugh, he said the case that ordered nixon to turn over the tate, maybe nixon versus u.s. case was wrongly decided. in a 2009 article, he wrote this, like civil suits, criminal investigations take the president to focus away from his or her responsibilities to the people. a president concerned about an ongoing criminal investigation is almost inevitably going to do a worse job as president. question, is judge cavanaugh right on the law? >> i've looked at the

. >> i'm sure we can ask mike schmidt about it, but we don't want to give anything away. if the source is michael cohen and his lawyers it says one thing. if it's rudy giuliani or the president and his attorneys it says another. i think you could see it as a warning shot or a cry for help or a signal he's willing to cooperate. and some people have suggested if it's the president's attorneys or rudy giuliani then they see it as potentially good news for the president or they're trying to get out ahead of a bad news story. at this point there are a lot of lawyers who have their hands on the material that was seized on the fbi raid on cohen's office and hotel room. there's a lot of potential sources. >> michael, i know i -- i wasn't going to ask you to reveal a source or anything. but is your sense -- do you have any sense of the motive of who was leaking this? >> no. you know, i think sometimes that's stuff is looked at too black and whitely in the media, that things are sort of doled out and handed out. look, this is an important part of the current trump story. trump face

and, josh, because you've been around a while, when you read about in mike schmidt's story the genuine despair, that list of modifiers and emotions we used at the top of the broadcast, how does that strike you? >> well, i know that a lot of rosenstein's friends were mystified by the situation that he found himself in, in may of last year. he's a veteran bureaucratic operator in the justice department on nearly three decades. so this is not somebody wet behind the ears, unfamiliar with the interaction between the white house and the justice department and how to manage it. and so there ended up being two camps. a number of people thought that rosenstein had just made a serious error in judgment in how to handle this situation. and some others thought he had made some kind of deal that it was some effort to ingratiate himself by writing this letter, to ingratiate himself to the white house for reasons that are not entirely clear. i think partly as a result of that one week or so in may, he finds himself really in a faustian bargains here that has caused all this problem between him and r

. >>> joining us now mike schmidt who broke this story along with his colleague maggie haberman is at the table along with mimi rocca, former assistant attorney in southern drilkt of new york where everything is happening. jonathan lemire and former u.s. attorney joyce vance. lucky for us all are nbc analysts and contributors. take us through your reporting. >> basically mueller is looking at a lot of different things the president has done. and while most people think obstruction of justice is something that happens in private -- >> that's rudy's comment. >> correct. or people make threats against witnesses in a dark alley. the president's conduct here is public. his public statements about comey and sessions, and what was the president doing behind the scenes when that was going on. one of the examples we use is how trump asked comey to put out word that he was not under investigation. comey didn't really want to do that, and then the next day trump went out in an interview and raised questions about comey's job status. >> in an interview with maria bartiromo. what you're basically

with us we have mike barnacle, john heilemann, knnick confesso, carol lee, benjamin wittis and michael schmidt. so, john heilemann, i don't know if trump supporters digest twitter the way i digest twitter, but if they do, these days especially on summer weekends, they're probably getting one line into his rantings and it's like scrolling on. been there, done that. but the amount of vitriol, the amount of just craziness, the level of unmored behavior by the president this weekend was over the top. it's always over the top, but the intensity is picking up and of course it ended with him talking about fire and fury coming to iran. >> right. >> is this a president feeling more cornered than usual because of the michael cohen tapes? >> well, it's hard to judge exactly how cornered he feels relative to other times he's felt cornered. my thought when the story broke there's going to be a lot of all caps this weekend. >> there were. >> on a variety of topics. and as you pointed out, joe, he often foreign policy has become a place that is refuge for him. and it's a little strange. there was a period, a

mike on my right, please. >> that's matt's way of saying i'm blathering on too long. >> >> your question is? >> eric schmidt, general, new york times. i just want to look at this point as almost an in flexion point following up -- inflexion point following up on your last response. do you see the trajectory moving forward a consolidation of these various islamic extremist groups or do you see, for instance, them needing competition between al-qaeda and the islamic space or is there yet another area more centralized? we're seeing groups pop up like these islamic extremist groups in the drz and mozambique. >> thank you, eric, good to see you. i think we will see everything you just said. we are seeing everything you've just said. you used some contemporary examples already, but i'm going to give you a slightly different answer from what your question would otherwise led me to. i'm going to answer your question by i'm going to answer your question saying here's what i worry about the most when it comes to the future of terrorism. it's the convergence of two things i talked about in my prepared remarks. the con

mike barnicle. also with us, national affairs analyst for nbc news and msnbc john heilemann, associate editor of "common" magazine and jonathan lamere and betsy woodruff and "new york times" reporter michael schmidtand mika have the morning off. a full house and a verification of a 2016 audiotape recorded by trump's former fixer. who said what, agreeing on the subj t

schmidt, thank you so much for being with us. as always, we really, really appreciate it. >> mike, i'm reminded at the end of one of the great scenesmovies, end of "absence of malice" where sitting there talking about subpoenas. they're wonderful things. we could talk about it here or we could go up and give the judge a subpoena. you could start talking then. they all started talking. mueller can get one of those subpoenas. and the united states supreme court going to say looked good to us. i mean -- >> maybe. >> they will. this is the curt flood example. >> yeah. >> you never want to test it out because if you do then you open up free agency for everybody. if there's a smart lawyer around donald trump, he will say, we do not want to start a series of challenges that we will lose. >> well, he has a smart lawyer, joe. emmet flood is a smart lawyer. >> who knows that just as bill clinton was forced to testify, related to a relationship with an intern, chances are good the supreme court is going to give an independent counsel appointed by the justice department an opportunity to talk to the president of the united states under oath in

mike barnicle. also with us, national affairs analyst for nbc news and msnbc john heilemann, associate editor of "common" magazine and jonathan lamere and betsy woodruff and "new york times" reporter michael schmidt. joe and mika have the morning off. a full house and a verification of a 2016 audiotape recorded by trump's former fixer. who said what, agreeing on the subject of the conversation. then candidate trump is heard discussing a possible payment to purchase the story rights of a former "playboy" model karen mcdougal about an affair the president had in 2005, of which the president denies. nbc cannot confirm whether it's been edited or altered, here's what was played. a warning. it includes a profanity from then candidate president donald j. trump. >> let me know what's happening. okay? oh. oh! maybe because of this it would be better if you didn't go. you know? maybe because of "this." for that one, you know, what you can do to get rid of this, because it's so false, what they're saying. it's such bullshit. um -- i think -- i think this goes away quickly. i think it's probably better. to do the charleston thing. just this time. yeah. in two weeks it's fine. i think right now it's better.