shannon pettypiece, right after we were told he had anything but a low-key day, he went to his golf resorthere in west palm. >> right, the motorcade drove to palm beach. they dropped him off. the press then held for about five hours at the nearby library, return today the golf course and followed the motorcade back to the mar-a-lago resort. this is the pattern that happens whether it's bedminster, whether it was last year at mar-a-lago where the white house refuses to acknowledge the president is golfing when he spends four to five hours at a golf course. sometimes we'll even see him in golf clothes getting in and out of the van. sometimes he shows up on instagram golfing with people and club members post photos. and all the white house will say is he may have hit a few balls. >> kimberley atkins, i am old enough to remember when presidents did things like lay a wreath at arlington or offer remembrance and offer a statement on the assassination of our presidents. today's twitter storm, the first part of it was directed at a private citizen. the power, prestige and words of the president di

joining us is shannon pettypiece, white house correspondent for bloomberg news. pettypiece, it's really nice to have you with us tonight. thank you for being here. >> thank you. >> this story confounds me. it has confounded me from the very first inkling that we got that members of the administration and the campaign were going to need private legal counsel in these investigations. without getting into the -- all the back and forth detail that i just ran through in this new reporting, do you understand basically what's going on in terms of paying for legal fees in this investigation? is there some method to the madness here? >> i understand what is going on at the moment but i thought i've understood that before and i have been asking the questions you've been asking since the summer really, since this investigation started to heat up, who was going to be paying these legal bills, and asking the campaign, the rnc, asking the individual lawyers, and it was a question that people really couldn't answer for me for the longest time. then finally it seemed there was s

to our lead-off panelists for tonight, eugene robinson, columnist for "the washington post," shannon pettypiece, white house reporter for bloomberg, and michael crowley, senior correspondent for politico. shannon, because you're still on the beat tonight, i guess you're never off of it, the president of the united states has once again taken to twitter. i guess to no one's surprise, but this was kind of unbelievable to read tonight. the al frankenstein picture is really bad, speaks a thousand words, where do his hands go in pictures two, three, four, five, and six while she sleeps and to think last week he was lecturing anyone who would listen about sexual harassment, lesley stahl tape. i believe he chronicled in his book offcolor jokes he had made preparing a comedy sketch in the mid-'90s about lesley stahl at the time. shannon, here we go, the president has joined the fight against al franken. >> a democratic strategist said earlier today, well, he's not going to be able to criticize al franken and he's not going to criticize roy moore. and i thought, well, he's going to do whatever he wants

. >> joining me now after all that is shannon pettypiece, a white house correspondent for bloomberg news, dana milbank, a columnist for the "washington post" and jason johnson is a policy editor at the root. and an msnbc political contributor. i don't know where we go on that menu. i want to start with it, but what do you think, how's history going to encapsulize all that when they try to put together the first year of the donald trump american presidency? >> well, when you look at what he said in his statements, you look at that as unprecedented. no president has ever spoken like this. made these sort of bold proclamations and statements, but when you look at his actions, it's pretty modest. >> good modest or bad modest. >> i think modest in the sense of he hasn't accomplished much. >> he's kept our attention, dana. i am stunned. i want to start with his historical knowledge, and jason's shaking his head. i remember don quayle used to make these comments, like the holocaust was the worst thing happened in our country's history. what about frederick douglass being a guy around the corner

shannon pettypiece, white house correspondent for "bloomberg news." ned price, former senior director to the national security council. former senior analyst at the cia. these days, an msnbc national security contributor. so, phil, home team advantage for you. you're here with us in new york. you get to go first. i heard a lot of people kind of instant analysis to this story in "the atlantic" saying in effect this is what collusion looks like. though i guess we're not prepared to make that leap. >> yeah. >> what do you think just happened? >> well, it certainly indicates some form of coordination. you had wikileaks communicating directly to donald trump jr. it's unclear if donald trump jr. receiving that message is what informed the then-presidential candidate donald trump sr. to issue that tweet, but if there were a connection there, it would certainly look like coordination. but i think politically it's more damaging because it's yet another example of some connection between the trump campaign, in this case the candidate's namesake son, and russian

shannon pettypiece, and byron york.yron, overall, on balance, the attorney general on capitol hill today. >> on valence, the first clip, it was a five and a half hour attempt by democrats to catch jeff sessions an ally about russia. we heard a lot of questions about the george papadopoulos affair, the man who pleaded guilty to lying to the fbi, was the informal trump advisor on foreign policy. we heard a lot about that. we heard more about carter page, whom sessions had had a very, very cursory encounter with. didn't even remember. then we heard more about sessions 'of meeting with the russian ambassador during the campaign. the bottom line was i didn't really move the ball very far. if you believed jeff sessions going into this hearing, you believe him now. if you didn't believe him, you don't believe him still. it really didn't change a lot of opinions. >> bret: shannon, the attorney general did have some issues. he obviously was pressed numerous times about democrats on the various testimonies he's given. he pushed b

. >> i'm joined now by charlie sykes, shannon pettypiece, and clarence pates. want to start with charlie on this. what do you make of, well, it's obvious a question, but i'll ask you, why does he not talk about moore but he talks about franken? kind of rough to put it lightly. >> yeah. i mean, the hypocrisy has hair on it in this case. number one, donald trump understands that his base is still with roy moore, and that's the message that steve bannon has been spitting out and nothing this president ever does separates from the base. and number two, look, you know, this is his playbook. the maybook is to play the card of what aboutism. he thinks this playbook worked for him. this is basically the entire message of the moore campaign, the evangelical christians supporting moore, which is to turn it around like he did with "access hollywood." but the question is whether that playbook accounts for the way the game has changed. but he's still going back to, this is what donald trump does, he punches back and does not separate himself from his base. >> i don't know w

. >> joining me now after that is shannon pettypiece, a columnist for the washington post and jason johnsonan msnbc political contributor. i don't know wherewithal go with that venue, how is history going to ens caps late all that when they put together the donald trump american presidency. >> when you look at his statements, that's unprecedented. no president has ever spoken like this, made these sort of bold proclamations and statements. when you look at his actions and what he's done and accomplished. i think this past year, it's pretty modest. >> pretty modest or bad modest? >> i think modest in the sense he hasn't done that much. >> he's kept our attention. i am stunned. i want to start with historical knowledge. jason is shaking his head. i remember dan quayle used to make statements like the holocaust is the worst this thing happened in history. what about way back in nantucket in the 18th century we're talking about here, early 19th and this guy is talking about him as he he's a anybody. >> he's being recognized more and more day-by-day frederick douglas. of all the things you playe

to our lead-off panel tonight, shannon pettypiece, eli stocky else, and former u.s. attorney joyce advance, who spent 25 years as a federal prosecutor. welcome to all of you. joyce, let me start with you. just this constant trickle of new information about people connected to the trump campaign who had something to do with russia. may or may not be suspicious on its face, except that everybody has denied that they had anything to do with russia. >> the cumulative incidents that we're starting to hear will certainly lead to interest on the behalf of mueller's team. obviously they have a lot of information that we don't have in the public. perhaps they're not surprised by any of these new public disclosures. but the more contact we find out individuals had with russia during the campaign after the campaign, the more difficult it becomes for them to explain it away. these excuses of i forgot or it wasn't significant, it wasn't what you asked me about, once we have three or four events in someone's trajectory, then it really starts to look like what prosecutors call will

with us tonight shannon pettypiece a white house correspondent for "bloomberg" news. i have to say the papadopoulos matter, number one, amounts to the kind of parade of drip drip drip and number two, when it happened smart people, you included, knew that this was a really interesting move, because this was a guy who had not been on any radar and yet the tributaries coming off of his case and his actions could be really interesting. >> people who have done these type of cases, prosecutors, you know, smart defense attorneys, they really saw this as a very strategic move by mueller. of all the leaks around this investigation, this papadopoulos arrest in july at dulles was kept completely secret. and this was mueller last week really showing his hand. and since then it's really sort of filled in some of the holes and some of the blank spots that a lot of us have had about what was going on at this campaign and contacts that we suspected were there but didn't really know about. i still think that this is still just one more piece of a broader puzzle, but it was certainly a

this past week, shannon pettypiece was first to report that the president will now stop charging the republican party for his legal fees, and that goes for his re-election campaign, as well. he's going to start paying his own lawyer bills. we don't think that means he's going to reimburse the republican party and his re-election campaign for the hundreds of thousands oaf dollars, maybe over a million dollars already spent, but hey, you got to start somewhere. when it comes to don jr., shannon also reported this week that donald jr. will stop getting his legal fees paid by the trump re-election campaign. that leaves open the possibility that the rnc is still contributing to his legal fund. now, as to whether or not anybody else is going to get any sort of help in paying for their lawyers, the white house started to make vague noises this week that some mechanism may be created, sometime, to help other people outside the trump family pay their legal fees in the russia investigation. but the ambiguity on this point, which has persisted for weeks now, even for months now, since we first

i'm joined by ken delaney, with nbc news, shannon pettypiece and robert costa national political politico reporter and analyst, ken, it's great to have you on, can you give me a full picture now, take some time. what do we know of carter page's relationship with the trump campaign for months if not a year now, oh, he said i was a private citizen, a tourist, vis sarks acting like he had nothing to do with trump and his plan to become president and deal is with russia his way? >> reporter: that's right, chris, so i think his testimony moves the story forward in two important dimensions, one, we've confirmed once and for all he did meet with senior russian government and business officials after he suggested for a month, as you said, he did not. he met with a deputy prime minister. he met with the number two person at a major oil and gas company, this was a high level trip. while carter page may say he was taking it in a personal capacity, it seems fairly obvious the reason these important russians were meeting with carter page was because he was trump's foreign policy adviser. the second th

>>> i want to thank shannon pettypiece and dana milbank and jason johnson. that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. "all in" with chris hayes starts tonight. >>> tonight on "all in." >> there's been no collusion, no obstruction and virtually everyone agrees to that. >> what we know about the investigation into president trump. >> there was no collusion between us and russia. >> the case for collusion. >> the issue of collusion is still open. >> the case for obstruction. >> i take the president at his word that i was fired because of the russia investigation. >> and what following the money could reveal. >> we all know why donald trump isn't releasing his taxes, he's hiding something. >> when "all in" starts right now. >>> good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. for weeks now, the president and his allies have been insisting that special counsel robert mueller doesn't have far to go and it's only a matter of time before mueller clears the president and his inner circle of wrongdoing. in the wake of the first guilty plea and criminal indictmen

. >>> i want to thank shannon pettypiece and dana milbank and jason johnson.s "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. "all in" with chris hayes starts tonight. >>> tonight on "all in." >> there's been no collusion, no obstruction and virtually everyone agrees to that. >> what we know about the investigation into president trump. >> there was no collusion between us and russia. >> the case for collusion. >> the issue of collusion is still open. >> the case for obstruction. >> i take the president at his word that i was fired because of the russia investigation. >> and what following the money could reveal. >> we all know why donald trump isn't releasing his taxes, he's hiding something. >> when "all in" starts right now. >>> good evening fro

here to talk about that and everything else, and boy, there is a lot in washington is shannon pettypiecete house correspondent for bloomberg news. good to see you. >> let's first start with the russia piece. we know about paul manafort and george papadopoulos and now we're hearing carter page may have had undisclosed meetings with officials. >> on the surface the white house has playeded a very calm, cool attitude about this. there's nothing here. nothing to hide, we're fully cooperating. there's obviously tensions among the staff who are being interviewed continuing into next week and there have been a number of interviews and the white house is hoping those interviews are wrapped up by thanksgiving and that might be wishful thinking and there are tensions about who's talking to who and not to mention the huge legal bills they're starting to face as they're called in front of mueer >> the president's longtime bodyguard keith schuller is expected to testify to the house intelligence committee next week. about the dossier about the president's trip to moscow in 2013. how concerned should

shannon pettypiece is here. good to see you. now we're hearing news carter page may have had undisclosed meetings with russian officials. how concerned is the white house at this moment. >> up to now, the white house has remained calm and cool nothing here nothing to hide. there's obviously tensions among the staff. there have been a number of interviews. they're hoping they're wrapped up by thanksgiving. that might be wishful thinking. there are lots of tensions who's talking to who not to mention the huge legal bills as they get called in front of mueller and the congressional committees. >> meanwhile the president's long-time bodyguard keith schiller is expected to testify before the house committee next week. about the dossier, the president's trip to moscow in 2016 how concerned should he be about that? >> other than the first family keith schiller is who he sees e would say until august when schiller left the white house. he's a body gard a body man, a confidante, a friend and he has been with the president step by step th

. >> shannon pettypiece, thank you.n. >>> did michael flynn push a deal for a company he was being paid to advise while still in the white house? >> oh, boy. >> we'll talk about that ahead. paying less for my medicare? i'm open to that. lower premiums? extra benefits? it's open enrollment. time to open the laptop... ...and compare medicare health plans. why? because plans change, so can your health needs. so, be open-minded. look at everything-like prescription drug plans... and medicare advantage plans from private insurers. use the tools at medicare.gov. or call 1-800-medicare. open to something better? start today. ♪ >>> coming up, congressman peter king. >>> also new reporting on the russia investigation from nb's carol lee. ( ♪ ) more people shop online for the holidays than ever before. (clapping) and the united states postal service delivers more of those purchases to homes than anyone else in the country. ( ♪ ) because we know, even the smallest things are sometimes the biggest. even the smallest things and in t