stephanie, give me the background on this. >> yes, stef.st of all, most people know mark cuban because he's on "shark tank." they don't also know that he's the owner of the dallas mark ricks. he says he never in his wildest dreams could have imagined this misconduct detailed in wednesday's independent report happening underneath him. but now he says he's vowing to make things right. this morn, billionaire dallas mavericks owner mark cuban taking the blame. >> everybody has every reason to question me. but i just wasn't there. and that was my fault. >> apologizing after a seven-month independent investigation found sexual harassment and other improper workplace conduct within the mavericks organization over a period spanning almost 20 years. >> there were many instances of sexual harassment, physical violence and threats and intimidation against women. >> that investigation launched after a bombshell "sports illustrated" report earlier this year. that detailed a corporate culture rife with misogyny and predatory sexual behavior. cuban agreei

president trump up and tweeting about this today, stef, not surprisingly.t me read you what he has to say before we do some analysis on the other side. the president saying, quoting congressman king effectively, saying what will be disclosed is there was no bias for these fisa warrants. that the information was kept from the court. there's going to be a disproportionate influence of the, quote, fake dossier. you have a counterterrorism tool used to spy on a presidential campaign which is unprecedented. congressman peter king. really bad things were happening, but they're now being exposed, big stuff. it underscores i think the argument you're going to hear from republicans which is by exposing this information, it will show there has been some bias that has run through this investigation from the very start. but as ken is pointing out, this is an open investigation. so to reveal these documents, if you talk to law enforcement officials and a lot of democrats, will undercut the mueller investigation. so this is undoubtedly going to be a political lightning r

>> first of all, stef, it was july, not june. you're right, there are a lot of questions from democrats as well as from republicans about how this unfolded in the judiciary committee. as you also point out, senator feinstein has been very clear in saying that the reason she wasn't sure what to do, that she didn't take this more widely is because dr. ford was saying that she didn't want it to be public. she was trying to respect her wishes on that. now of course in "the washington post" story that came out yesterday, dr. ford said, you know what, news of this started to leak. she had sent this letter -- you know, reporters were showing up on her doorstep. people were trying to figure out what was going on. essentially all of the negative things that she had been expecting to happen were already happening. so she now has changed her mind and said she wants to come out in public and now we learned, as you showed from deborah katz, her attorney, that she wants to testify in public. the big question on everyone's mind, is this actuall

. >> how far can the white house distance itself in the way of the president himself, stef, putting outhat tweet after michael cohen agreed to work with bob mueller, he was praising paul manafort, talking about what a brave man he was. >> and we're seeing this over and over again, where the president will end up distancing himself from people who he's previously praised, especially on twitter. and of course these are all people who did work very closely with the president on the campaign. so it's difficult for them to fully distance themselves from this investigation, from these people. now of course there hasn't been any news yet that is specifically targeted towards the president. but we're seeing mueller circle closer and closer with each of these plea deals. so it's something that the president won't be able to escape from entirely. >> i'm curious, brian, the perspective here of this particular plea deal, this agreement in terms of the latest developments. a week ago we were talking about george papadopoulos heading to privile prison for 14 days behind bars. how big a deal is this?

trump indicating he may delay that meeting so he can focus on kavanaugh today, stef. >> my panel, an extraordinary all women one. andrea mitchell, nbc chief foreign affairs correspondent and host of "andrea mitchell reports." maya wily, nbc legal analyst. my friend, elise jordan, a "time" magazine contributor and served as an aide in the george w. bush administration. and midwin charles is an attorney from mt lthe law firm midwin charles and associates. if you were advising dr. ford ahead of this massive day, what will you tell her? >> the first thing is be yourself. the most important thing here for the public to see, it's not just the senators, it's also the public, is who she is. because a lot of the conversation happening around this hearing has turned to credibility obviously. there's a lot of information we won't get in this hearing about credibility because other witnesses are not being called because the fbi background check has not been reopened. so since it's really what she's going to say and what brett kavanaugh's going to say, the question becomes who is she? let the pub

anne. >> hey, stef, a stellar career is in tatters.s moonves built cbs into an entertainment powerhouse. over his 24 years with the company. but scandal forced him out following a second group of women who came forward to describe in graphic detail incidents of sexual harassment they say happened over decades. this morning, one of the most successful runs in television is canceled, effective immediately. les moonves out at cbs. his exit coming just hours after new claims of sexual harassment or assault were published by the new yorker. in a statement, cbs said the network will donate $20 million to organizations that support the me too movement and equality for women in the workplace. that money will be deducted from any severance package for the longtime chief executive. those benefits withheld until investigations into moonves' behassle yor are cob behavior are completed. a range of allegations against moonves, from forcing oral sex to exposing himself. even violence and retaliation. tv executive phyllis golden gottlieb said when the

>> good morning, stef. the biggest concern here is getting residents out. only 60% of the people in this county have evacuated. that means 40% of the people have chosen to stay. and for those people, time is running out. i can tell you the owner of the store, robert mills, he told me he wants to evacuate but he has no choice. he is on a mission, a mission to save these adorable animals here. now, robert, what are you doing here today? >> well, we're condensing everybody down, getting them to get plenty of food and everything we're going to need while we go through this all. >> where are you moving the animals to? >> they're all going to my house. we've got the generators, plenty of food and water. that's where we're going to bunker down. >> you've already moved 154 animals to your home and you're moving how many more? >> about 60 here between everything i think that's left. >> you really care about these animals? >> yes, i can't just leave them. we don't do that to our animals. >> you'll have roughly 200 animals at your house, plus your dog, your children,

a lot at stake is the rhetoric and the stakes continue to heat up, stef. >> kristen, thank you. this is how perverse things have gotten. he didn't go over the edge but he got right up to the line. in 2018, when the president of the united states says why didn't a sexual assault victim make a call to the fbi 36 years ago. that is right up to the line. in 2018. right up to the line was binders full of women a few years ago. just get your head around that. i want to bring in my panel. i mean, blows my mind. i got to bring my panel in. jess mcintosh, executive editor of progressive news website share bloom media. ron insana, senior analyst. and basil smikle, former executive director of the new york state democratic party. ron, to you first. if she's serious about saying she will testify, can republicans give her that time? >> it's odd to the extent all these demands are being put around her appearance. one would assume she's had some time to prepare for this. what the president said, as you pointed out, was unconscionable, that a 15-year-old some 36 years ago would make a phone cal

. >> you're right about that, stef. good morning.ng spread wide backlash from democrats and republicans over the president's earlier claim that he didn't believe 3,000 people died related to the hurricanes in puerto rico last year and that the whole thing was a ploy by democrats to make him look bad, the president is leaning in. in a km of tweets, the president said when trump visited the island territory last october, officials told him in a briefing 16 people the died from maria. this is long after the hurricane took place. then, like magic, 3,000 people died, 50 times the original number. no way. the study commissioned by george washington university revised the official death toll taking into account injuries, taking into account people who died from not having access to clean, running water, not having access to vital resources like running power. the president, at the time the white house at the time when that study was issued accepted the study. but president trump himself refuses to accept it. he refuses to accept his adminis

at one point her stef father remarried with a different family and asked her for money.m? >> sure, yeah, yeah. >> and she told me she thinks she should have showed up for his stunt man award before he died. >> should have done it because of why? >> i don't know. because i -- it was a weird thing to say. because i won. i won. we were in some weird battle, and that's just the truth and i won. >> and finally one more piece of her life to face down. sally field was in her 60s when she gathered the nerve to ask her aging mother that lacerating question. did you know what he was doing? >> she was very frail and -- and passion away. i have the conversation with her, yeah. >> they were in the kitchen. her mother trembled confessing that decades ago her stepfather had mentioned one event. >> that he had done something and he felt terrible and he wanted her forgiveness. and she said something pretty awful, pretty graphic that he had said which, you know what, went whoa. for me to hear that and to know that that was true and for me to say to her, mother, it wasn't just one moment i

either of you know how many times people within "the new york times" who know this person is, blake, stef >> i think they said it's three or four. for something that closely held. >> i'm thinking the fewer the better. we also have the president calling on the attorney general to unmask this person's identity saying it's for reasons of national security. on what grounds is he saying that, blake? >> i can understand that concern a little bit. if someone is working on national security, it seems that they are, given the own of the op-ed. a heavy focus on russia. there's a shoutout to john mccain at the end. if that's the person that doesn't support the president's agenda and is actively working to undermine it in concert with other officials i can see how they weiview that as a threat. now you weigh that with all that we've seen that the president is a difficult manager and lots within the administration are concerned about his leadership. >> if you look at the list, 27 and now counting, key administration officials saying not me. how striking, though, is it having one high-ranking administr

stef. >> you might be on the beach, but it is not a beach day. i am stephanie rule live in new york city with a lot going on this morning. we're going to be speak background the plea of paul manafort and a huge anniversary, the collapse of lehman brothers which started off the collapse into the great financial recession. but first, to my friend alley velshi. walk me through exactly where we are, what the state of things are in myrtle beach where you're located, but really across the region. >> yeah. well, walk is actually the right terminology because this storm is moving more slowly than i can walk it. it's moving at about 5 miles per hour. to most people, we associate these storms with the fast numbers and the big numbers so people say what's the problem with 5 miles an hour? well, the winds have dropped to 50 miles per hour. in other words, it's rotating. but the difficult is that it is moving so slowly that it is dumping this rain in some regions for more than 24 hours. if we go way up to north carolina where joe friar is they've been seeing

neil: well it might be the end as some of these things ultimately get to be, stef, a he said she said what was going on with clarence thomas both stated their case it was riveting have and in the end he was still voted to become a supreme court justice. very different times i know and then you still have bipartisanship in the ultimate vote that is very very difficult to get today, but if they both state their case and let's say before television audience, it isn't necessarily going to move the needle for democrats who might not have voted for him but it would provide an excuse for democrats and trump states not to vote, right? >> yeah, exactly that's what they want and what they really want more than anything is not to have to vote before the election. neil: well that's the one goal but stef, how likely is that especially when you have a susan collins and others maybe lisa montgomery and certainly we're getting a read from jeff flake that at the very least they want this delayed so what are we looking at here? >> it's a very real possibility i think republicans are watching susan coll

and before we could get our story out, stef, that was gone, not only from the senate judiciary committeerepublican relations firm that had referred him in the first place to the judiciary committee. >> that's what blows my mind. if you want to go after the media, if it wasn't for great journalism, the senate judiciary committee would have no idea a person working on their communications around this had previously been fired for sexual harassment claim. i want to bring back governor whitman and jason johnson to go a little bit broader here and talk about the unforced errors and how the republicans are playing this, beyond just that hire. you have got chief judiciary counsel for grassley who is supposed to be working on the investigation, tweeting out, must confirm. you have got orrin hatch, without hearing any testimony, saying that dr. ford must be mixed up. you have got supporters saying all boys do this. you've got president trump saying where has she been for the last 35 years. and you've got lindsey graham saying i want to hear christine ford out but my decision has been made. i don'

let me read you his tweet, stef. he said, judge kavanaugh showed america exactly why i nominated him. his testimony was powerful, honest and riveting. democrats' search and destroy strategy is disgraceful. the senate must vote now. i've been told by white house officials including raj shah that the president and top officials here are going to be working the phones trying to make sure they do, in fact, have enough votes to get kavanaugh passed if this does go to the full senate. i pressured shaw earlier today and asked him if he has the votes right now, how confident are they? he said they're confident they'll get there, an indication they still have a ways to go. >> i want to bring my panel in. yamich, maya wily, senior vice president for social justice at the news school. joe benison served as strategist in both the obama and clinton campaigns. and noelle kompoor. what do you think senators are considering here? they have a massive decision to make and we watched jeff flake earlier saying, you know, if we go one si

remember, stef, that does not seem somebody who works inside the actual white house, right. it could be somebody in one of the cabinets. senior could be a name that you don't even recognize or most of our viewers wouldn't even recognize. >> slow ta down for us. our minds immediately go to exactly that. kellyanne conway. how many people could we be talking about? >> lots. lots of people, stephanie. not all those top marquee names we cover all the time on this network and others. it could be, you know, the level of assistant to the president spans a wide range from the domestic policy council to different agencies. people who work for these principals, folks you're mention like pence, mattis, whomever it may be. "the new york times" is not delineating what they consider senior. depending on your outlet, there may be a different definition of what constitutes senior, right. "the times" isn't saying how they organized or made that distinction and that is a question that is coming up since this thing dropped based on our reporting. there's already whispers of potential backlash.

both cases, and he's agreeing to cooperate with robert mueller, and he's agreeing, as you point out, stefforfeit a number of properties and a number of bank accounts to close to $50 million of value, which is a significant, significant hit. so this is a huge development that, you know, given the president's past signals and his comments, the one you played earlier this hour, he views people who stand up to the government and stand up for him as loyalty, and that's something that he has used as a reason to pardon people in the past. that they've been treated unfairly. but something he does not like and that he disdains is what he calls flippers, which are cooperating witnesses, and right now paul manafort is one of those. >> well, the president certainly doesn't like flippers or cooperating witnesses. he does love the twitter, and he's yet to tweet in the last hour about this, but no doubt he's paying attention. and let's bring in geoff bennett. he joins us now from just outside the white house. okay, geoff, i've been talking about it for the last hour. just a few weeks ago the president t

now though it's back to jon and stef. bye for now.orth £150 billion. one in five people in the uk is affected by harmful content on social media and the internet. the broadcasting watchdog calls for tougher regulation. good morning. we are coming to you from the heart of brussels where the brexit negotiations will take place. it is less than six months until britain leads the eu. we will give you their view. it's team gold for great britain at the world equestrian games, and a flawless round from ros canter on allstar b gives her the individual title too. plenty of gongs for british actors at the emmy awards in los angeles. claire foy among the winners for her portrayal of the queen in the crown. and one award winner turned his acceptance speech into a marriage proposal. will you marry me? cheering. and in weather, we will be marrying strong wind with mild conditions and for some of you, heavy rain. all of the details at on the latest forecast, here on breakfast. it's tuesday 18th september. thank you forjoining us. our top story: a t