if you pardo manafort he has no ability to refuse to testify. then robert mueller can put him onayhe stand and you now have to testify because you've been pardoned and you can't claim the a fifndment if you don't face any criminal liability. you have to tell us about donald trump. that could be backfire on the president.ro rt: molly, you've been writing cover stories for "time" on democrats this year.y en't they bringing up russia and paul manafort more? molly: they do in the contex of capitol hill. democrats have obviously been the most outspoken in the oversight rule, particularly mark werner in them senate, a schiff in the house. they're on television net works all the time talking about they take it very seriously as do many republicans. as a campaign issue, the conventional wisdom of both parties, has been that they're better off not talking about it. republicans feel that it doesn't matter to their constituents, therefore th are not motivated to speak about it, positively or netively i suppose. you don't hear them defending trump a lot on

manafort trial is very sad. i don't talk about that in reference to whether or not he would pardo him. lester, this comes as the white house and this president a facing an increasing number of legal problems hover them, including, of course, the case of michael cohen. we are watching that very closely. expecting him to plead guilty to a range of charges as well. of course, that's the s presiden former attorney and personal fixer. so all of this looming large over president trump as he prepares not only to head to west virginia but t try to hold on to the house in the critical mid-term seasons wch are comi up. lester? >> kristen welker at the white houseg nbc analyst nick ackerman is a former u.s. attorney and jo.s us n nick, this is probably a political question but a lot of pressure because this is the first prosecution of the mueller team. 18 counts and only guilty on 8. how does that weigh into whether fey proceed forward and troy again? st of all, the premise of your question that only convicted on 8th fact of the matter is this is a huge deal. it doesn'tfe make any dnce if he's co