as you see with us we have sam stein, walter isaacson.t omarosa thinks he's unhinged. >> omarosa can secretly tape the president of the united states inside the white house, the fact that his lawyer and so-called fixer is taping the white house, what do you think the russians and the chinese -- >> what a useful idiot is what they are thinking. the fact that he would bring in someone close, that he would be so unbelievably reckless to bring in someone close who would audiotape their conversations. what kind of people do you have around you? again, he needs a wall around him. white house reporter for the associated press jonathan lam erelameer is with us. kasie hunt is with us. >> joe, are the google dolls cool or uncool? >> that's a good one. let me tell you something. the google dolls are cool. amazing. iris amazing. you know what if you don't like the dolls, if you don't think black balloons aren't the best songs of the '90s turn off the tv right now. >> and eamon javers is here. >> he often sings his questions to the white house staff a

sam stein is back. sam, let me start with you. it seems like wi we often over read the results of a special election. if you prevail, you read into it, project onto it national import. if you come up short, you make it local. that doesn't seem like an excuse the republicans have for this district. being this close does not mean anything good for republicans right now. >> yeah, and i wouldn't just, you know -- don't take just this one race. look at the totality of races that have been done. the congressional ones, state legislative ones, the senate. in each instance democratic turnout is not far exceeding. democratic turnout is greater than it was in 2016 and far greater than the republican growth in turnout. what that builds up to is a likely wave. we don't know if it will be across the board. but the more interesting thing to me i guess from last night is that republicans find themselves in a little bit of a box. on the one hand, donald trump's incredible unpopularity has hurt the party politically obviously. but on the other han

and sam stein is back with us, a politics editor at the daily beast. so josh, tone and tenor of day one so far. what was the dynamic like in the courtroom? >> well, it was quite surprising, i think, to see the vigor with which rick gates was thrown under the bus by paul manafort's campaign team. i should say his defense team. we were all expecting that there would be an effort to dirty gates up as a witness, but to suggest as manafort's attorneys did that the entire enterprise that the government was alleging essentially all of the fraud, the whole special counsel case stands on the shoulders of rick gates was a rather startling argument to hear from manafort's team. and that was in fact the central thrust of their defense. we had a pretty good sense of what prosecutors were going to say and how they were going to blame manafort for what took place here and described the luxury goods that he was indulging in and often pays for with transfers that came directly from bank accounts in shell company names in places like cypress and the grenadines. but the

sam stein, thank you to both.e new york times reporting one of the biggest activist in the me too movement arranged to pay off her own accuser. a young man, that's next on "andr "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. >> to stay successful on "your business," we got your back with experts' advise to create eye contacting marketing. we'll focus on ideas for growing your business and bringing all the moving parts together. join me on sunday on msnbc at 7:00 or connect us any time of all your devices. it's gone. that's why you need someone behind you. not just a card. an entire support system. whether visiting the airport lounge to catch up on what's really important. or even using those hard-earned points to squeeze in a little family time. no one has your back like american express. so no matter where you're going... we're right there with you. the powerful backing of american express. don't do business without it. don't live life without it. >>> actre leader in the me too movement, actress argento is facing her own sc

we have mike barnacle, politics editor for the daily beast sam stein. kornacki is here. he has a forthcoming book, "the red and the blue" coming out october 2. also in washington, former chairman of the republican national committee michael steel. why don't we start with yesterday's important news out of florida and arizona where they held their primary races. in florida, tallahassee mayor andrew gillum narrowly won the nomination for governor. what an upset that was. i saw commercial after commercial after commercial for all the other candidates. he actually becomes the first black major party candidate for governor in the state's history, in florida history. gillum will be facing off against the trump backed congressman ron desantos. think about how that will set up. steve kornacki, what an upset this was. if you were down in florida -- i was down in florida and saw ads for a couple of weeks -- you didn't see his ads. you saw ads from everybody else. how did this happen? where did he come from? let's just talk about the battle lines that have been dra

attorney with the eastern and southern district of new york and sam stein is back with us, politics editor for the daily beast. sam, beginning with you because you can say whatever you wish. what are we witnessing? is this just letting it fly? >> can i say whatever i want? >> well, within reason i guess. >> probably not professional. it is letting it fly. this is not a coherent legal strategy by any stretch or not even an effective one or not even an effective pr strategy. rudy giuliani is not there to serve the president as a lawyer in the traditional sense. he is there as a political hencheman. part of his task is to simply muddy the waters and insist that things he said a month ago he never said to keep moving the dates in the negotiation goalpost. what he gets out of this is not entirely clear expect for the fact they convinced a fair chunk of the population essentially that what robert mueller is doing is the equivalent of a political witch hunt, out there looking to trip up donald trump in any way possible and that robert mueller is inclined to find any wrongdoing wherever he can fin

princeton university and column at "new york post" and contributor editor of "weekly standard" john and sam stein and washington anchor katy kay and benjamin. good to have you all onboard with us on another very busy morning. we begin with the very latest in president trump's former lawyer implicating him in his guilty plea yesterday. trump appeared to acknowledge his attorney's campaign finance violation and then walked it back in an interview all while maintaining it's not a crime and say he blamed attorney general jeff sessions for his former lawyer's prosecution. the president tweeted, michael cohen pled guilty to two counts of campaign finance violations that are not a crime. what time was that tweet, alex? >> in the morning about 9:37. >> okay. >> so then president obama had a big campaign finance violation and it was easily settled. yes, he talked about that. trump was referring to a late filing on small dollar donations by the obama campaign, which resulted in a large fine given the scale of the operation, but is different than knowingly concealing campaign spending as pleaded to by cohen

attorney with the eastern and southern district of new york and sam stein is back with us, politics editor of the daily beast. and sam, beginning with you, because you can say whatever you wish. is this just letting it fly? >> can i say whatever i wish? >> well, within reason, but it is a family broadcast. it is probably not professional i geuess. >> it is lettinging it fly. it is not a coherent legal strategy by any stretch. it is not an effective one and not even effective p.r. strategy. for a while it is clear that rudy giuliani is not there to serve the president as a lawyer in the traditional sense as a lawyer, but as a political hinchman, and part of the task, i can surmise from this is to muddy the waters and to insist that things that he said a month ago he never said to keep moving the dates and the negotiation goalpost, and when he gets out of this is not entirely clear except for the fact that they have convinced a fair chunk of the population essentially that what robert mueller is doing is the equivalent of a political witch hunt. here is out there to trip donald trump up in a

sam stein, mimi roca, now a distinguished fellow in criminal justice at the pace university school of law. barbara mcquade is a former u.s. attorney for the eastern district of michigan. and matthew miller is the former chief spokesman for the justice department. all four are msnbc analysts. thank you for joining us here on a thursday. barbara, let me start with you. the president said -- you heard him say just moments ago, if this doesn't straighten out soon i'll have to get involved. that's ominous talk because we don't know what if this doesn't straighten out soon looks like. >> yeah, injecting politics into the department of justice is so incredibly damaging. you know, the department of justice has a history of acting with independence. and from day one president trump has tried to politicize it. if they don't do what he likes then he's going to have to get involved. i think it really undermines the credibility of the department and insults the wonderful public servants who work there, who dedicate their careers to serving the public. i think it's very harmful and has a harmful ef

sam stein, how did you get here? >> oversight. >> he's the politics editor of the daily beast. and michael steele, former chair of the rnc. all msnbc analysts. joyce vance, let's start with you. during the course of your career as u.s. attorney, i mean, you welcomed and prompted a lot of people to say it at the expense of the u.s. government and various federal prisons. and so let me ask you, as u.s. attorney, what's going on when you have a guy on trial, in federal court in virginia, on tax charges, and he doesn't want to cut a deal apparently with the special prosecutor, bob mueller's office. yet at the same time the trial is ongoing, his lawyers apparently, it's reported, that he's trying to cut a deal on a second trial scheduled to start in a couple of weeks in september in the district of columbia. what would be the thinking there, according to your prosecutorial mind? >> so there's two possibilities here. one is, and it's just true of some defendants, no matter how good the government's evidence is against them, they don't want to plead guilty until they've heard that evi

to have her side-by-side with sam stein. >> a moment.ene robinson, so much to say about aretha franklin, of course, but to give perspective about who she was and where she fits in the history of this country, she sang as both the funeral of martin luther king jr. in 1968 and the inauguration of president barack obama in 2009. >> yeah. that says a lot about where she fit in the civil rights movement. where she was a huge advocate. so she has that place in history, but, you know, i wrote this morning about her place in history as a musician. she was just a tremendous ly gifted and accomplished musician who had the skill and the chops to take songs that had been made hits by great singers, like otis redding and dionne warwick and just make them her own with "respect" and "i say a little prayer" she was versatile, no one can forget that evening in 1998 when, at the grammys, when luciano pavarotti was sick, couldn't perform and she did the arya that was -- you didn't think of her as an opera singer but she was just so talented and such a -- s