tv The 11th Hour With Brian Williams MSNBC August 7, 2017 11:00pm-12:00am PDT
11:00 pm
americans i think he could get that. >> it sounds like he is sick of even that. thank you both for joining us. that is tonight's last word. that is tonight's last word. the 11th hour is next. it's been 200 days, not much has changed as the president spent much of the day tweeting about the fake news media. all this while the president is on what he is calling a working vacation and there's work to do. new polling out tonight shows nearly three quarters of the american people don't trust most of what they hear from the white house. tonight we look at the challenge in the west wing with a man who once ran the place and look at the big challenge overseas. north korea vowing revenge, saying americans aren't safe. all of it as the 11th hour gets underway.
11:01 pm
starting off a new week on a monday night. good evening from our nbc news headquarters in new york. day 200 of the trump administration, and some of the news is indeed good in the trump administration. there are many robust economic indicators and this weekend's unanimous 15-0 vote at the u.n. was in fact a huge diplomatic victory. after touting all of that this weekend the president changed the subject. he went off on twitter again. again calling the news media fake and uncorking a vicious attack on a member of the u.s. senate. in terms of the president's preferred metric, the polls, there was more bad news on that front. a new poll found that 38% of americans approve of the way donald trump is handling his job as president. 56% disapprove. it also found that just 24%
11:02 pm
trust almost all or most of what they hear from the white house. 73% say they trust some or nothing at all of what they hear from the white house. hours before that poll was released the president wrote on twitter the trump base is stronger and bigger than ever before. despite phony fake news polling. he saved his toughest criticism from a sitting u.s. senator. an attack that took place over a nine-hour span. it started this morning when he wrote interesting to watch senator richard blum b that will talking about hoax russian collusion when he was a phony vietnam conartist. never in u.s. history has anyone lied or defrauded voters like blumenthal. he told stories about his vietnam battles and conquests, how brave he was. and it was all a lie. he cries like a baby and begged for forgiveness like a child.
11:03 pm
now he judges collusion. more than eight and a half hours later he finished with this. i think senator blumenthal should take a nice long vacation in vietnam where he lied about his service, so he could at least say he was there. blumenthal has apologized for saying he served in vietnam. he was in the marine reserves during the war but was not deployed to vietnam. speaking with chris hayes on this network tonight, he deflected the personal attack and placed the attention back on the mueller investigation. >> there are growing ominous threats, tweets and warnings that we have seen, the world has seen that we're heading towards a collision between bob mueller and the president of the united states. >> on this day 200 of the trump presidency, we took a moment to look back on day 100 and what was going on back then. jim comey was still the fbi director. robert mueller was still a
11:04 pm
lawyer in private practice. reince priebus and sean spicer still worked in the west wing. and the president was confident republicans would repeal and replace obamacare. here now, a look at some of the most memorable things the president has said in just the intervening 100 days. >> what do you make of the north korean leader? >> at a young age he was able to resume power. a lot of people i'm sure tried to take that power away. obviously he is a pretty smart cookie. we'll be discussing details of what has proven to be a very difficult situation between israel and the palestinians. it is something i think is frankly not as difficult as people have thought over the years. how am i doing? i'm president, right? can you believe it? i was going to fire comey knowing there was no good time to do it. in fact when i decided to do it i said to myself, i said, you
11:05 pm
you know, this russia thing with trump and russia is a made-up story. no politician in history, and i say this with great assurely, has been treated worse or more unfairly. and i never asked once what the new nato headquarters cost. i refused to do that, but it is beautiful. >> you were referring to the testimony of james comey vindicating you. >> no collusion. no obstruction. he is a leaker. i heard it was 17 agencies. i said boy, that's a lot. do we even have that many intelligence agencies? it's an honor to be with you. thank you. by the way, just a question. did president obama ever come to a jamboree? sometimes they say he doesn't
11:06 pm
act presidential. with the exception of the late great abraham lincoln i can be more presidential than any president that's ever held this office. >> that's a walk back through contemporary history. let's bring in our starting panel. moderator of washington week on pbs, robert costa. senior white house correspondent for bloomberg, margaret tolive. and covering the president's working vacation in new jersey means the first-ever studio visit for "the washington post," phillip rucker. welcome to you all. phillip, we'll start with you. so it's very important apparently that the president, that we call this a working vacation. he's on vacation. this is what happens today on a rainy day in bedminster, new jersey. not content to nick a sitting
11:07 pm
u.s. president. he goes for a personal full-on takedown. >> that's right. and on a day like today, he might have otherwise been on the golf course. instead it was raining and he had a lot to say on twitter and had a lot to say into the afternoon. his aides are saying he's working, he has a number of cabinet members coming by. he'll be having a briefing tomorrow on the opioid epidemic. but he's having a lot of time to think, to stew, and to fret over this russia investigation, which continues to expand. >> i was watching you watch that compilation. how does it feel? you lived all those moments firsthand. >> we lived all 200 days and they were all pretty special. this was a remarkable start to this presidency. not like anything we ever expected or covered before. but we're on for the ride. we'll see what the next 200 days bear. >> robert costa, what have you been able to ascertain about the president's state of mind since it's germane to what we're
11:08 pm
talking about tonight? >> i'm not a psychologist, brian, but when it comes to his behavior, not much has changed. his leadership style has not changed, even though he's had a change in personnel. in particular at the top with a new chief of staff, general john kelly. my sources in the west wing say general kelly is trying to stabilize the staff. he's not trying to change the way the president operates. and you see annage kno agnag an acknowledgement across the white house that this social media behavior will continue, will not abate. because this is who president trump is. >> margaret, let's talk about general kelly. you, among other journalists, were reporting that just perhaps a new sheriff in town might modulate and moderate what the president says on twitter and how often. so much for that, i guess, after today. what have you been able to learn about his communications inside the west wing and elsewhere with
11:09 pm
members of the staff? >> well, brian, general kelly's mandate is twofold. one is to send clear signals to the staff about the staff behavior, both their engagements with the president and their engagements amongst themselves. the other is to try to provide for president trump a sounding board on issues that general kelly picks out. it's easy to look at the twitter some and say that's out the window. trump showed him. but our understanding was never that all of the tweets were going to be censored or dialed back or anything like that. even vetted. but there are some areas in which both general kelly and national security and defense officials are urging the president to use caution. so you see, he has been more careful so far in talking about issues hike nor s like north k venezuela. and if he wants to go off on the media and a democratic senator, that's probably not general
11:10 pm
kelly's priority at this point. >> robert, because you spend so much time and attention talking to congress, the dome right over your shoulder, i want to talk about some of these poll numbers with you. 73% don't trust all or some of what's coming out of this white house. 6 in 10 americans define this presidency as a failure thus far and don't find the president honest thus far. the only place those numbers will have a similar impact to the west wing is that building behind you. they'll be so closely watched with the men and women who have all of the houses up for re-election in '18, they have to in effect run on this. >> that is very true. in the last six months we have seen a revolution about their expectations. i used to think months ago maybe the president would change and be more of a main stream republican president. just like thoughts on the staff that he could evolve and adapt in that way. those are gone out the window on
11:11 pm
now there's -- on capitol hill. with health care having been paused or maybe even dead there's a prayer among republicans that the economy continues to be pretty steady. i think a tax cut and business growth more than anything they could continue on from the white house is what will protect them next year when they try to keep the house and senate. >> phillip, understanding you're not his explainer or interpreter, can you explain these tweets about his base? where is he getting the notion of it expanding? >> i don't know where he's getting the notion that the base is expanding because it's just not. one of the most striking statistics in the cnn poll is his base is softening. that the support is shrinking among republicans. that's a real problem inside the white house and they're aware of it. they're trying to work on it. trump, what he sees are these ral yis.
11:12 pm
full arena in west virginia last week. he sees the enthusiasm and the attention on twitter. but when you measure the support out in the country, it's softening from where it was last november. >> about these numbers, we have not heard a lot from the president about polling. >> he thinks they're all fake. but his political operation in the white house, especially kellyanne conway who is trained as a pollster, they're looking at these numbers. they do some of their own measurements internally and they're keeping an eye on it. they're concerned about the softening of support. >> margaret, is there a metric for judging the general kelly administration as a subset within the trump west wing? what do you think he would be comfortable in being judged on? >> my sense of general kelly not having known him very long is he would prefer to be not talked about all the time. but so much for that. we're totally going to do that right now.
11:13 pm
but one is how much public infighting you see. i think the mcmaster scenario is an interesting one to watch, because general kelly effectively helped to, on some level shut that down when he had the president come out with the very unusual state around seeing jared kushner echo some of those sentiments as well in terms of standing by the national security adviser. but at the same time, you see this active campaign continuing. so part of general kelly's mandate is going to be to stop the very public infighting among some of these cross currents. and the early indications are that he commands a lot of respect and a good degree of fear. but i think it's going to take several weeks to understand his thinking on all of the personnel moves, as well as his thinking on how the president can possibly reset some of his relations with congress, which is going to be really important coming out of that august recess. >> margaret, our viewers
11:14 pm
probably don't know, you are the new head of the white house correspondent's association, i guess because you had so much free time as it is. >> i wasn't doing anything else. >> we've been able to see these briefings on television of late. do you think that is a trend that's here to stay? >> i really do. i think it is back by default unless we hear otherwise. i think sarah huckabee sanders, the white house press secretary, is personally committed to that. and empowered to do that by the current leadership. the president seems to be okay with it. general kelly seems to be okay with it. and she certainly seems comfortable. so i would expect the press corps expects that it's going to continue now as a matter of course. >> robert, you were trying to get in here before we take a break? >> real quick. the point about h.r. mcmaster. we have all this reporting that the right -- the trump base is very unhappy with him. but this is really about more than general mcmaster.
11:15 pm
the president maneeds to make a crucial decision on afghanistan, whether to increase troop numbers or not. it's about what does the president really want to have as his foot print in the middle east. >> yeah, the president's statement in support broke just prior to us going on the air friday night. as i mentioned, we'll take our first break here. thanks to our initial panel. coming up, the president may be on vacation, but that's one man still working back in washington this week. that would be robert mueller, the latest on the russia investigation when "the 11th shower" continues. we're just getting under way.
11:17 pm
11:19 pm
the special counsel is subject to the rules and regulations of the justice department. we don't engage in fishing expeditions. >> in the course of the issues he is looking at, if he finds evidence of a crime, can he look at that? >> if he finds evidence of a crime that's within the scope of what we agreed is the appropriate scope then he can. >> that was deputy attorney general rob rosenstein yesterday discussing the ongoing russia investigation led by robert mueller. as the president and his aides continue to dismiss it as a hoax, a witch hunt, a fabrication, robert mueller, who turns 73 years old today, and his team continue to investigate any role russia may have played
11:20 pm
in the 2016 election. joining our conversation tonight, joyce vance back on the broadcast. a 25-year veteran federal prosecutor. he spent almost eight years as a u.s. attorney and was among the first u.s. attorneys appointed by president barack obama. robert costa and phillip rucker remain with us. so joyce, when you looked up and saw rosenstein on television, did you find his comments pointed or routine? >> i thought they were very pointed comments. rosenstein is really an apolitical kind of prosecutor. he's concerned with the law, with the facts, with doing the right thing. i don't see him as being someone who would be very interested in political spin or buffeted by the politics surrounding this investigation. and i think you hear him saying that here when he tells you that mueller can investigate anything that's fairly within the scope
11:21 pm
of the special counsel ground. >> so what's the motivation for him to grant an interview? he's been an inside player. he's been the kind of guy who has not enjoyed the limelight, we've been led to believe he has received foreseeing his name in the media. >> it's an interesting point. i was thinking about that over the weekend. i can't remember the last time a sitting deputy attorney general made a sunday morning television appearance like this. he's not someone who enjoys the limelight. he's not someone who feels the need to self-promote. he's a very serious career prosecutor, probably one of the longest running u.s. attorneys in our country's history, serving both republican and democratic administrations. and if mr. rosenstein is doing something, it's because he thinks it's important to getting the job done in that interview with chris wallace, he referred repeatedly to doing the right
11:22 pm
thing and his goal was to do the right thing. >> robert costa, just imagine the pressure on all of these players, the department of justice, the fbi, the special counsel, all the co-counsels he has hired. and imagine, here we are day 200. when we reach day 300, will the central theme of this administration still be russia? >> there are deep concerns, brian, in the law enforcement community, in the justice department, about preserving the integrity and the institution and also explaining how this is all unfolding. you ask where will we be on day 300? i've been covering attorney general sessions over the past few weeks. they feel like a lot of the people in this country don't understand how rosenstein stepped in to appoint mueller because attorney general sessions recused himself. by putting himself out there, rosenstein, i'm told, is just
11:23 pm
trying to better explain where this institution that may be a bit fragile because of these investigations stands. >> phillip rucker, kellyanne conway doing her job defending the boss this weekend, said something again on television. their defense against mueller appears to be to go on offense about mueller and the team and kind of this whiff of conflict of interest. they keep saying that mueller has hired attorneys who are democratic donors. what is the story behind that? >> so they're looking at the 16 attorneys mueller has hired doing sort of basic background check research and finding a number of them have made campaign donations to hillary clinton specifically, but there's a different change of tone when you look at what some of trump's lawyers are saying. they're taking this investigation much more seriously than they had been four, five weeks ago. there's a new lawyer now at the white house trying to take it seriously as an investigation.
11:24 pm
i think that's the shift in tone because they know this investigation, this probe, is becoming more serious, it's escalating, looking into finances and other issues, as well. >> joyce, when you first heard this argument going against some of the players that mueller had hired, did you think it was kind of a ground softening operation to lay a predicate argument for potentially going after mueller or justifying his dismissal? >> we hear a lot of that coming out of the president specifically. he's trying to lay some ground work with his base to try to denigrate mueller, to try to indicate mueller doesn't have credibility, doesn't have integrity. so if this investigation breaks bad against him or against members of his administration then he can say oh, look, they were playing gotcha with me all along. the reality is, bob mueller's credibility i think will emerge throughout this narrative, and people will understand at the end of the day that wherever this investigation leads, the
11:25 pm
process will have had a lot of integrity, a lot of the best of the tradition of the justice department behind the way it's conducted. >> robert costa, this might call for a bit of a judgment. but if you took an honest opinion poll on capitol hill, 535 elected members of congress, and asked them about robert mueller, where do you think mueller would poll? >> i think he would poll very favorably. i think the key example i would cite for you, brian, is senator tillis, a republican of north carolina, a conservative, a rank and file member. he's taken action along with senator cons of delaware to protect mueller from presidential action should the president move in the action of firing mueller. tillis has reflected how many lawmakers feel on both sides of the aisle. keep the integrity of this process moving forward. let mueller stay in place, protect him if possible.
11:26 pm
>> terrific conversation. can't thank the three of you enough. coming up after another break. north korea threatens revenge after a new round of sanctions. so does the trump administration have a plan to top a potential nuclear pyongyang? some answers when we continue. my advice for looking younger, longer? get your beauty sleep. and use aveeno® absolutely ageless® night cream with active naturals® blackberry complex. younger looking skin can start today. absolutely ageless® from aveeno®.
11:30 pm
prepared to talk would be to stop these missile launches. you know, we've not had an extended period of time where they have not taken some type of provocative action. >> secretary of state rex tillerson speaking in manila today after the u.n. security council voted unanimously to approve those tough new sanctions against north korea over these repeated missile tests. in a statement, a defiant north korea has threatened to retaliate against the u.s. thousands fold is the quote. adding that the u.s. is wrong to believe it is safe. joining us tonight, director of international security studies at the wilson studies, having served on the national security council in the clinton administration. and gordon chang is back with us. edward, how big a diplomatic victory was this at the u.n. this weekend?
11:31 pm
i'm sorry, robert, forgive me. of course you're not going to respond until i use your actual name. how big a diplomatic victory was this? and a subset question, how normal are the comments from tillerson as opposed to and compared to u.s. policy going back two or three presidents? >> well, it's a significant accomplishment to achieve the u.n. sanctions resolution. it will cut off perhaps one-third of north korea's exports, $1 billion out of $3 billion. to put that into context, south korea has exports totalling almost $500 billion. so that points to the minuscule size of the north korean economy. but it's also a state that is on the cusp of acquiring a nuclear arsenal, which in three years could be half the size of great britain. about 100 nuclear weapons. so pyongyang and washington have been putting out mixed messages and the possibility of
11:32 pm
jump-starting diplomacy. if that diplomacy does begin, the focus would be on capping or freezing the program, which is currently estimated to have about a 15 to 20 nuclear weapons. it couldn't be about a total rollback of the nuclear program. >> gordon, we have heard hyperbole and hot air going back and forth with north korea a lot of our adult lives. in your view, how dangerous is this period right now? >> well, i think it's dangerous, because we have about a year or so before the north koreans may have the capability of putting a nuke on a missile that can reach the lower 48 states. continue have good guidance, but if you're firing at a big city, it doesn't matter if you're a couple miles off. >> a year? >> that's what the defense intelligence agency said according to "the washington post" about a week and a half ago. it could be a couple months more, a couple months less. but the north koreans are making
11:33 pm
accelerated progress. they might be getting help from the chinese. all of this is an indication that we have to confront some very difficult issues. if beijing is behind this, that undercuts our assumptions about getting help from other countries. >> robert, when you hear talk about a preemptive american strike, about any kind of u.s. military planning in this part of the world, what do you make of it? >> well, i mean, the military option is one of three very bad options. you can bomb, negotiate, or acquiesce. the problem with the military option is that the south korean capital seoul is close to the demilitarized zone, as washington is to baltimore. any military action, even a limited strike on north korea's nuclear infrastructure could escalate into a catastrophic war. 20 years ago, when i was on the clinton administration's
11:34 pm
national security council staff, there was an estimate there a conflict would believe a million casualties. that was 20 years ago. you can work out what a second korean war, a nuclear war now that north korea has obtained that capability, would entail. >> so robert, when you hear that kind of talk, what are they talking about, or is it just for consumption? >> that's the mantra that all options have to be on the table. you go back to the three that are there, bomb, negotiate, or acquiesce. people are talking now about the diplomatic option. and this would be a -- the focus would be on freezing capabilities, not on fully rolling back. a freeze could have real benefit for united states, because as gordon mentioned, there's still some time that north korea needs to perfect its capabilities. it's demonstrated a long-range
11:35 pm
launc launcher, but it's yet to demonstrate it has mastered the miniaturization of warheads. this is a complex integrated set of technologies. took the united states a number of years to master. so that time they'll need for additional testing creates space for diplomacy. >> dporgordon, last time you we on, i asked general mccaffrey what he would do. he said we should put our money, time, and attention into missile defense. he doesn't trust any of these other realms to ever work anything out, because this is a criminal state we're up against here. >> yeah. missile defense is good, but the north koreans can overwhelm it. in one of their tests this year, they fired off four tests. the message was, yeah, you have intercepters, but we have more missiling that you can knock out
11:36 pm
of the sky. we can't rely on it. there are things that we can do, though. we can impose sanctions much more severe than we have on the north koreaens. also, we can start sanctioning china for its support for north korea and for its money laundering. so yes, when you take those thee options that robert talked about. yes, but we can also use core save diplomacy. >> because of this subject area, we're going to have both of you gentlemen back, we just hope not too quickly after tonight, because we hope the news doesn't force it. that's another way of saying thank you both for coming on. robert, gordon, thank you. coming up, a new chief of staff has not stepped a vacationing commander in chief from hitting social media. can the new man running things in the west wing really change
11:37 pm
the work product of this president? former white house chief of staff will be with us here tonight when we come back. my a1c wasn't were it needed to be. so i liked when my doctor told me that i may reach my blood sugar and a1c goals by activating what's within me with once-weekly trulicity. trulicity is not insulin. it helps activate my body to do what it's suppose to do, release its own insulin. i take it once a week, and it works 24/7. it comes in an easy-to-use pen and i may even lose a little weight. trulicity is a once-weekly injectable prescription medicine to improve blood sugar in adults with type 2 diabetes when used with diet and exercise. trulicity is not insulin. it should not be the first medicine to treat diabetes, or for people with type 1 diabetes or diabetic ketoacidosis. do not take trulicity if you or a family member has had medullary thyroid cancer, if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2,
11:38 pm
or if you are allergic to trulicity. stop trulicity and call your doctor right away if you have a lump or swelling in your neck, severe pain in your stomach, or symptoms such as itching, rash, or trouble breathing. serious side effects may include pancreatitis, which can be fatal. taking trulicity with a sulfonylurea or insulin, increases your risk for low blood sugar. common side effects include nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, decreased appetite and indigestion. some side effects can lead to dehydration, which may make existing kidney problems worse. once-weekly trulicity may help me reach my blood sugar goals. with trulicity, i click to activate what's within me. if you want help improving your a1c and blood sugar, activate your within. ask your doctor about once-weekly trulicity. tha...oh, burnt-on gravy?ie. ...gotta rinse that. nope. no way. nada. really? dish issues? throw it all in. new cascade platinum powers through... even burnt-on gravy.
11:40 pm
i won't be distracted by these bullying tweets. if anything, they strengthen my resolve and determination to work for protecting the special counsel against exactly these tactics of bullying and intimidating. >> more there from democratic senator richard blumenthal of connecticut speaking to chris hayes, defending himself against the president's attacks on twitter again in the space of nine hours today. we have not heard from the vacationing president today, except for his 13 separate posts on twitter. in the fast fpast few days, com have been reserved to comments on policy. that led to some speculation his
11:41 pm
new chief of staff, general kelly, was having some effect. then today that changed. he was back again to personal attacks. with us now is a man with experience in running a west wing, president bill clinton's first chief of staff. thank you for coming by. great to see you again. >> great to be with you tonight. >> so if you were facing 6 in 10 americans thinking the administration was a failure, and you came into this job, what would the rules be in the trump white house if you were given this job? >> let's focus on what people voted for, and those that didn't vote for us, get some results for the american people, brian. this white house, in my judgment, needs to ho s ts to l and reach out to congress, as well. that's where you start making the poll numbers change. when bill clinton was elected, he got 43% of the vote, ross
11:42 pm
perot got 19%. at the end of the first year, stepping on the world stage, getting a government in mace, his approval rating was 58%. that's how you get a white house moving. i think general kelly is committed to doing that. >> you have a 71-year-old american president who is a fully baked person. what he is is what he's going to be. and everyone says, will trump change? will kelly change trump? what do you do with what doesn't fit any set rule book? the fact that this guy, as he proved again today, is going to be this guy? >> well, when someone runs for president of the united states, you have to have some self-confidence to do that. and then you win, that's an accomplishment, no doubt about that. you've followed and reported on many presidents. they have to grow and learn on the job. no one is fully prepared to be
11:43 pm
commander in chief day one. not even george h.w. bush, who served as vice president. so i think there is some learning curve that every president faces. and this president is no exception. whether he can adjust to that and step up to the enormous responsibility in this very complicated and dangerous world and a very complex economy as well, time will judge. >> what if bill clinton had had social media at his disposal? >> he was an active communicator, if you'll recall. he would generally understand staying on mess aage. he liked -- he loved to campaign, he loved to engage with people. so i can't say he wouldn't have used twitter. but i think he was much more of a one on one, look you right in the eye and let's have a conversation about what's on your mind today. he was a big believer that the voters need to feel that he was on their side, and he was a big
11:44 pm
believer, as i was, that even if they didn't vote for you, you were still president of the united states, and if they liked you a little better and trusted you, it would be good politics, as well as the right thing for the nation. >> final question -- do you get this preference for generals in this administration? do you have any problem with the role these generals are playing? >> they're all people of distinction and accomplishment. they've been patriots. we've always had a careful separation of the military and our government and elected officials. able maturity, i think that will serve john kelly well. general mattis had to make an exception in the congress for his confirmation. general mcmaster, i've been with him on a few occasions, a man of real accomplishments. so i'm okay with it, but i don't think we ought to be just completely oblivious. you can have too much of even a good thing. but in the cases that you're
11:45 pm
11:47 pm
11:48 pm
we want everyone to work safely and come home safely. i live right here in auburn, i absolutely love this community. once i moved here i didn't want to live anywhere else. i love that people in this community are willing to come together to make a difference for other people's lives. together, we're building a better california. hypothetically, if the president were for whatever reason decided not to run in 2020, which could happen, are you saying vice president pence would not step up and take that role? >> i don't talk about hypotheticals. >> well, you do talk about hypotheticals all the time. are you ruling out that possibility? >> what i'm talking about is that we are all operating under the assumption every day that the president is seeking re-election in 2020. that is our goal. that's our focus on delivering his agenda and making sure we're
11:49 pm
in position where the president can be re-elected and continue to lead this country. >> that was a man doing his job. the vice president's press secretary this morning with our own hallie jackson, responding to this growing speculation that pence and other republicans may have their eyes on a presidential run in 2020. "the new york times" reported over the weekend -- >> the vice president was quick to respond in a statement yesterday saying, today's article in the new york times is disgraceful and offensive to me, my family, and our entire team. the allegations in this article are categorically false and represent the latest attempt by the media to divide this
11:50 pm
administration. oh, there's so much to talk about here. m margaret and phillip are still with us. two people on twitter, first joe scarborough, who works the morning shift in this room, one, first vp to ever set up a pac. two, press secretary won't deny 2020 run. three, building contributor base, not disgraceful. more than likely. and then paul begala tonight tweeted, not saying pence has his eyes on the oval office, but his secret service code name is frank underwood. [ laughter ] so is pence talking to an audience of one, and does he just protest too much this >> that statement was to an audience of one, president trump. but the bigger picture is, there's nothing false in that story. pence does have a pac. he is raising money and doing all these things that one would
11:51 pm
be doing if he were preparing for a presidential run. they didn't report that pence was going to challenge his boss, they're just reporting if trump were perhaps not to run in 2020, pence is doing the due diligence to be in a position to run himself. >> margaret, let's be clinical about it. we opened with these poll numbers tonight. none of them good. there's a brand new grand jury sitting in washington, d.c. with a special counsel with unlimited resources. the rule is, anything could happen at any time. >> right. it's politics. it's not hike -- you're not having tea with your next door neighbor. everybody has to be ready and everyone has to assume the guy next to you is getting ready. maybe four years from you you'll be glad you got ready early. so this is the scenario that all things can be true at the same
11:52 pm
time. you can hope that your boss doesn't have more hardship than he's facing, and at the same time, taking care of your own shop. this is obviously an incredibly awkward story for the vice president. they went out there and did what they needed to do. number one, to protect his brand, which is one of decency and loyalty and appropriateness. number two, to give the president exceptional public assurance that there's nothing he needs to worry about from inside his own shop. and number three, to signal to both the base and to the donor class that the vice president is staying inside his lane. but nevertheless, precisely because of these poll numbers and because of so many divisions inside the republican party, a sense of uncertainty. look, if republicans hang on to these midterms, it may help president trump. if there's a problem in 2018, it
11:53 pm
could be problematic. at that point, all bets are off. >> one of the more pernicious charges the president makes repeatedly, as recently as today, is to paint all the news media and a free press as fake or false. some of his greatest hits on the subject, and when we come back, we'll talk about why it's in the news again tonight. but here a sampling. >> i have a running war with the media. they are among the most dishonest human beings on earth. [ laughter ] fake news. it's all fake news. russia is fake news. the leaks are absolutely real. the news is fake. i'm just telling you, you're dishonest people. i'm changing it from fake news, though. very fake news. the dishonest media. we are fighting the fake news. it's fake, phony, fake. they are the enemy of the people. they're very dishonest people. fake, fake. i don't know what newspaper
11:54 pm
you're reading, but i guess that would be another example of, as you say, fake news. the fake media, the fake news. fake news. we don't want fake news. fake media, fake news. >> phil rucker, it makes it quaint that spiro agnew called us negative. but on this front, there is something called trump tv. we saw it a few months back. it went a little dormant. a contributor to cnn has resigned from cnn, and she's doing a trump news what she used to do at cnn, and that is push the trump cause. what do you know about this venture? >> well, it's an effort to speak directly to the trump voters and something that the rnc, twhere kelly is going to be working, to just get a message out there and to promote the news that president trump feels like is not being covered enough,
11:55 pm
economic numbers, whatever the kind of line of day is going to be from this administration to create their own outlet. it's the equivalent of state media that we see in russia and other countries, and we'll see how much it takes off, whether it really catches on. >> with that, our great thanks to two purveyors of actual, genuine news. margaret and phillip, thank you for staying late with us on a monday night. coming up after another break, there has been another leak, and again, to "the new york times" because someone on the inside fears a government gone wrong. that story when "the 11th hour" continues.
11:57 pm
but at night it's the last thing on my mind. for ten years my tempur-pedic has adapted to my weight and shape... relieving pressure points from head to toe. so i sleep deeply, but feel light... and wake up ready to perform. even with the weight of history on my shoulders. only exclusive retailers carry tempur-pedic. find yours at tempurpedic.com.
11:59 pm
before we go here tonight, new findings on the effect of climate change in the u.s., revealed in a draft report by scientists from 13 federal agencies. this report obtained by "the new york times" and awaiting sign off from the administration finds the average temperature has res risen rapidly sinz sinc 1980 and humans are to blame. >> some scientists are concerned the administration could alter or hide the report, which is mandated by congress to be produced every four years. in fact, the national academy of sciences has already approved the draft. "the guardian" newspaper is reporting on internal e-mails from a division of the agriculture department saying the phrase "climate change" should be avoided and replaced by weather extremes.
12:00 am
the climate section of the epa website was taken down after president trump took office, pending review they say. for us, for now, that's our broadcast for a monday night as we start a new week. thank you for being here with us. and tonight, on "all in." >> hopefully you'll be so proud of your president. >> 200 days in, a rage tweeting president tries to shore up his base. >> the approval rating among republicans and trump voters is down slightly. it needs to go up. >> tonight why president trump is lashing out amid reports his vice president is already gunning for his job. and may interview with the senator targeted in trump's twitter tirade. then -- >> if he finds evidence of a crime, can he look tlat? >> the deputy attorney general's public defense of the mueller investigation. plus, the fcc decision that could give the president access to a vast television empire.
80 Views
IN COLLECTIONS
MSNBC WestUploaded by TV Archive on
