the time said the dod paid for on-field color guard performances, enlistment and reenlistment ceremonies, performances of the national anthem, full field flag displays and ceremonial first pitches and puck drops. about the contract, senator mccain added, fans should have confidence that their hometown heroes are being honored because of their honorable military service not as a marketing ploy. just so we're clear. catch me tomorrow morning at "a.m. joy." starting at 10:00 a.m. eastern right here on msnbc. "the 11th hour" is up next. breaking tonight. hhs secretary tom price is out, resigning after reports of his private plane travel paid for by taxpayers. tonight, what that means for the trump pledge to drain the swamp. also the president touts an incredible job on hurricane maria response, as the san juan mayor cries, we're dying here. warning of something close to genocide if food and water don't

arrive soon. that mayor joins us in a moment. "the 11th hour" on a friday night begins now. good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. i'm ali velshi in for brian williams. it's day 253 of the trump administration. the president is dealing with a growing humanitarian crisis in puerto rico. he's down a secretary of health and human services. tom price right hand today as criticism mounted about how he chose to travel for work. politico reports he racked up a million tab that taxpayers are on the hook for by using private jets and military planes for trips everywhere from philadelphia to europe with his wife. we'll talk about price being out and the other members of the administration who have taken private jets, in just a bit. first, the government tragic strategy for puerto rico, people on the ground say is simply not working. today, nine days after the storm made landfall, the acting homeland security secretary

visited puerto rico for the first time. she said the situation is not satisfactory. but she's proud of the work the federal government is doing. but people who live there are on day nine without power, and waiting in line in the sweltering heat for hours just to get a bottle of water or a bite to eat. the president spoke twice today about the response. the first time talking about the territory's infrastructure being wiped out, and again mentioning the debt that puerto rico faced before the storm. >> now virtually everything has been wiped out. and we will have to really start all over again. we're literally starting from scratch. ultimately the government of puerto rico will have to work with us to determine how this massive rebuilding effort will end up being one of the biggest ever, will be funded and organized, and what we will do with the tremendous amount of existing debt already on the

island. we will not rest, however, until the people of puerto rico are safe. these are great people. >> now, later in the day, he talked about how well the relief effort is going. >> as far as puerto rico is concerned, that's been going, as you know, really well. it's been total devastation. it's a tough situation. the loss of life, it's always tragic. but it's been incredible, the results that we've had with respect to loss of life. people can't believe how successful that has been, relatively speaking. >> crews are working to clear roads so trucks can deliver much-needed supplies. the government has laid out what it sent to help. manpower, helicopter, ships, food, water, medical supplies, and much, much more. but according to the mayor of san juan, those supplies are not getting to the people who need

them. today mayor carmen yulin cruz made an emotional, desperate plea for help, saying she just wants to give her people a chance to survive. >> so i am asking the president of the united states to make sure somebody is in charge that is up to the task of saving lives. i will do what i never thought i was going to do. i am begging. begging anyone that can hear us to save us from dying. if anybody out there is listening to us, we are dying. and you are killing us with the inefficiency and the bureaucracy. so i am done being polite. i am done being politically correct.

i am mad as hell. because my people's lives are at stake. and we are but one nation. we may be small. but we are huge in dignity and in our zealousness for life. so i am asking the members of the press to send a mayday call all over the world. we are dying here. >> joining us now from san juan is mayor carmen yulin cruz. mayor, you and i have been talking together since the moments the storm first hit nine days ago. your message, your request for a mayday has gone out. at the very moment you were uttering those words today, the president of the united states was repeating, he must have said it five or six times to reporters, talking about how well the recovery effort in

puerto rico is going. where is this disconnect between the federal government and you coming from? >> well, i'm sure it's not only myself. it's the mayor of san lorenzo, it's the mayor of ponce, it's the mayor of almost any one of the 78 municipalities in san juan. people have no food, no drinking water, no medical supplies. and people that are going to pick up the supplies from the different fema distribution centers have been told that there's none, call on monday and we'll see what we can do for you. this is how ridiculous this gets. fema is telling people that they have to register via internet or the phone. hello, news flash. we don't have internet. and most people don't have a phone connection. so it is amazing that we

continue to use the same standard operating procedures that do not work in a situation like the one that we have. i am sure the president wants to help. yesterday i got a call from the chief of staff himself that asked what we needed. but still, things didn't happen as fast as they should have happened. i had to give the rations that i got yesterday from fema, three or four pallets of water, three or four pallets of food, four pallets of baby supplies, to the town of comario because they have not received one bottle of water at the time. so the plans are in place. but the reality does not go and does not fit to the plans that he has. you have to do like the marines, adapt, improve, overcome. this situation of talking about the debt. who's going to pay the debt? really. what do you pay the debt with? >> what was the implication you

heard in the president's comment, again, this is not the first time he said it, he tweeted it after the storm. he keeps bringing up the debt. he said a decision will have to be made what gets done with puerto rico. in other words, the decision hasn't been made as it would have been in texas, as it would have been in florida, automatically, that puerto rico will be rebuilt. the idea that puerto rico has debt is somehow being held over the heads of american citizens in puerto rico. >> and not only that, there are two different issues. we are in a lifesaving mode here. talk of anything else, and of course we have to rebuild, and of course we have to reconstruct, and of course we have to rethink what kind of a society we want. we have to have more solar power. we have to handle trash a different way. we have to have our energy lines not to be up in the sky but

perhaps underground. those are things we have to think about when people have food on the table, when they're not thirsty, when they're not on the brink of death. so there are two different things. one is the debt. two are the people. and i am sure that president trump is all about putting people first and putting debt second. >> mayor, you talk about these other municipalities. we've had conversations with people outside of san juan who say the farther you get from san juan, the less you have of food, of gasoline, of water, of ice, of medication, and of cellphone possibilities. >> that is true. one of the mayors yesterday, i was told by a fema employee, if your people are so desperate, put them in a bus, get them in if a bus and take them to san

juan and they can register by phone. what kind of civil servant says that? >> general russell honore has said fema has 10,000 people on the ground in puerto rico. he had 20,000 troops when he directed the effort in louisiana. he had ships. today the u.s. ship "comfort" has left port in virginia on its way toward you, a hospital ship, a big ship. do you have any explanation, it's there on the screen for our viewers to see it. do you have any explanation as to why that delay, why that ship and why these supplies weren't set to sail on the day of the storm? because you and i talked while you were in that shelter with your fellow citizens and you knew what was coming, we knew what was coming, we had those forecasts. why didn't the federal government act?

>> i think it's not why didn't they act, it's why didn't they act fast enough. and i am sorry, but it's very difficult to think that the most powerful country in the work has logistics issues. seriously? logistics issues? one cannot drop a parachute in an island, 100 miles, 35 miles wide, just like they do in a war zone? if you look and compare the amount of people that were put on the ground in haiti and the amount of resources, as they should have been, in the humanitarian side of it, and you look at the kind of resources we're getting in puerto rico, they're not equal. bureaucracy is killing us. inefficiency is killing us. maybe looking the other way is killing us. so my plea, and i will continue to do it until i have no voice left, is for somebody out there, especially the trump administration, to do what america does best, to take aid

to where it's needed, to comfort those that need it, to feed the hungry and to provide water for the thirsty. it is not complicated. it is not difficult. you just have to want to do it. do it right and do it now. >> mayor, we will continue to stay on top of the story. i will join you in san juan, i will be in puerto rico by sunday afternoon and we will continue our coverage of this tragedy, this devastation in your city and in puerto rico. thank you, mayor carmen yulin cruz. >> we'll be happy to have you, thank you very much. >> we'll see you there, mayor. axios co-founder mike allen, nbc political correspondent steve kornacki. what do you make of this, it is becoming hard to understand why we've had a controversy about john mccain not voting for the health care bill, a lot of

discussion about the nfl not kneeling during anthems when all of this was unfolding. >> right. i mean, like you said before, the word you used was a disconnect. there's definitely a disconnect. at the white house this week you're hearing from officials that they are sending everything that's needed, and that they have -- they were prepositioned before the storm hit. they knew exactly what they were doing. so clearly there is a disconnect. you know, you can see from what has happened this week that they were preoccupied, the president was preoccupied with a number of other things. the question was what was happening behind the scenes. did they send things right away? were they ready to go at the start? it does not sound like they were. >> mike, you know, we've seen this story before. we saw it in katrina. many of us watched this happen. many of us watched russell honore go in, and suddenly somebody was in charge, the nation saw this cigar-chomping guy with a remarkable louisiana accent go in there and take

charge of a lawless situation, a situation where water and low gichtices -- we've seen it. the response to harvey and the response to irma has actually been pretty good, the federal government got good marks for that. what happened here? >> that's a smart point, ali, it's almost like they took their foot off the gas or became distracted. the point you make about the general is, he became a face of the response. >> yes. >> and now we have the mayor who has done numerous interviews today, as the face of puerto rico, reaching out to both our heart strings and our brains with the practical argument, in a way that these earlier stories had not. we've read about how there aren't atms, people aren't able to get cash. people have $11 in their pocket, as a "new york times" story vividly points out, bags of ice cost $8. we've heard this in a fragmentary way.

but now we're seeing an organization noised plea arguing that this just isn't working the way it should, or the way it's being portrayed back on the mainland. >> steve kornacki, let's understand what the president could have been distracted by or what the administration had its eye on this week when all of this attention on puerto rico should have been focused. we had a health care bill that failed. we had an election that didn't go the way the president was hoping it would go, a primary in alabama. we had the launch of a tax reform bill which is the last chance for the republicans to get any legislation of meaning done before this year. paint a picture of this week for the president. >> yeah, that's interesting, when you show the response, his response this afternoon when he was asked about his response to puerto rico, he put it in such glowing and positive terms. i think you saw right there the instinct the president has to personalize all of these

questions. he takes every question as sort of like the subtext here is this is a political judgment about trump, this is a personal judgment about trump. and he's never, it seems, capable or his playbook, whatever you want to call it, never involves saying anything other than, everything's going great because everything can only go great with donald trump. so you get that response. but yes, when you have that mindset from donald trump's standpoint where everything has to be a win, everything has to be going right, it's true. this week, if you look legislatively, as you just said, health care, how many passes have the republicans taken at this, how many times as the white house put it out here that it's going to happen now, it has to happen by the deadline, september 30th, and he hasn't come up with it. if you look in washington for victories for donald trump, you're not finding them. if you look in alabama this week, you didn't find a victory there. he declares a victory when he's put on the spot about puerto rico even though you've got the mayor saying what she's saying. >> anita, let's talk about what the president needs to do to fix this now. very strangely, we've been talking with fema for weeks about harvey and irma.

it's really been a relatively solid response. and suddenly it became politicized. yesterday at the white house press briefing, sarah huckabee sanders and tom bossert both said the misunderstanding around puerto rico is because of misinformation. the implication is that it's the new version of fake news, that somehow the news has been telling a different story than the reality. as i'm talking to you, we're showing pictures of the devastation in puerto rico. we're not making this stuff up. >> right. i mean, actually the briefing was even the second briefing of the day. i was there yesterday. tom bossert and elaine duke, the acting dhs secretary who is on the ground there in puerto rico today, had another briefing. and they pushed back hard, i mean, it was very defensive, in which they said, you know, we're very disscourged by some of this media reporting, the reporting is old, the information you have is wrong, and it's nobody's fault. but clearly they were saying it's our fault.

you saw part two in the white house briefing. i think one of the interesting things is, there have been a lot of questions, and they're not really answering them. one of the questions that came up this week is, from senator rubio, who said that the pentagon should be in charge and there should be one person in charge, like you mentioned has happened in the past. and they could not answer exactly why they were not doing that. they said, well, the military is in charge of pieces of it but they're not in charge of the whole thing. why is that? they could not answer that question. >> mike, the idea that health care didn't pass and that this tax reform thing may have some struggles, people like us will remember this five years from now. the average person won't. but they will remember the failing in puerto rico. they will remember this disaster. americans who couldn't care less about puerto rico now care because they're seeing this unfold. what has to happen now? >> no, that's right, ali. and i'm really looking forward to your reporting and your coverage from down there, because there's a little bit of a failure of imagination by this west wing.

because you're right, looking at houston, they realized both the offensive and the defensive opportunities. they saw that this was a chance for them to get something right. and there are enough people around from bush 43 who have the muscle memory of what happens when you get a hurricane wrong. and so they were determined to get it right. and that just has not carried over so far into puerto rico. there's a chance to do that now. the literal cavalry with the ship "comfort." but they need to show results quickly. and these new faces that are out there are very danger fours the white house, personalizing the crisis, and someone who's raising questions that a lot of people at home say, sounds like a reasonable question. >> steve, we are learning now, "washington post" is reporting tonight that last weekend, the weekend you would have thought the administration was dealing with with this, the president simply wasn't, he was dealing with other things including the nfl. the president's official

schedule is out now for this weekend. he has one hour devoted to phone calls on puerto rico, 2:00 on saturday, no time devoted to it on sunday. has he that you be the fact that maybe the folks who continue to poll in favor of the president just don't care? >> the weight of evidence going back two years right now is, if there is a point where donald trump's base of support -- this is a guy who's never had anything more than his base of support, when people say, you talk too much about trump's base, he never tried to reach beyond his base, that's how he got elected. the weight of evidence, as we look back two years, if there's a point where he loses that base, we haven't found it yet. he's taken his base through things that no political figure has taken their base through before and they've stuck with him. it's a completely different situation, obviously, but two or three weeks before election day, 2016, he's hit with that "access hollywood" tape and his own party gives him up and say, this guy is going to take us down, we've got to cut him loose, and the base stayed with him. it's stuck in my head since then, if they wouldn't budge

after that, i don't know what it would be. >> good to see you, steve, thank you very much. thanks to all of you. >> safe travels, ali. >> thank you, sir. i will be reporting from puerto rico next week. after reports that he spent a million dollars on taxpayer money on travel, donald trump's hhs secretary has resigned. ♪ hey grandpa. hey, kid. really good to see you. you too. you tell grandma you were going fishing again? maybe. (vo) the best things in life keep going.

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he's a very fine man. we're going to make a decision sometime tonight. i didn't like it cosmetically or otherwise. i was disappointed. he's a very fine person. i certainly don't like the optics. i'm not happy, okay? i can tell you. i'm not happy. >> president trump teased the fate of his health and human services secretary tom price this afternoon before taking off for the weekend in new jersey. within an hour of those comments, the white house announced that price had resigned. the latest in a series of high profile west wing departures, typically on a friday night. headlines about price's use of private planes to conduct private business have been front and center all week, something the president was not happy about. the ap reports, quote, privately trump has been telling associates in recent days his health chief had become a distraction. trump felt price was overshadowing his tax overhaul agenda and undermining trump's promise to drain the swamp of corruption, according to three people familiar with the

discussions who spoke on condition of anonymity. jonathan allen and jon meacham, join me now. gentlemen, thanks to both of you for being here. i'll have to call you by your last names since your first names are both the same. jonathan allen, let me just tell you what politico is right guy about tonight. it's an interesting thing that some people may have have forgotten about tom price. ethical questions dogged price even before questions about his travel arose. during his senate confirmation hearing to helm hhs, price faced pointed questions about his personal investments in health care companies during his time in congress. democrats called on government ethics officials to investigate price's health care stock trades following a report that he got a sweetheart deal from a biotech company and invested in a medical device maker days before writing legislation that would have eased regulations on the sector. jonathan allen, you know i'm a

business reporter, right? anybody else in the country who did anything like that would be arrested and jailed. >> well, tom price wasn't arrested and jailed. he was confirmed for his job by the united states senate. and i think some of them probably regret that at this point. i think one of the interesting questions going forward is now that the bar has been set for a cabinet secretary who did all this private travel to lose his job, what does that mean for the other white house officials that have been using private travel? will the same standard be applied to them? >> jonathan meacham, those other cabinet officials who have been cited for travel issues in addition to tom price, steve mnuchin, we've talked about this already, scott pruitt, ryan zinke, david shulkin. ryan zinke made a speech today, he called it "a little bit of bs." >> yeah, it's always bs until it isn't, right?

i think president trump has decided he's the only person who can be a distraction in trump's washington. he doesn't like other people taking up that oxygen. and i think that if anything, it's a fairly good sign that price went. i must admit i'm a little surprised, because what president trump has done throughout the campaign and throughout the now almost ten months or so he's been president is defy all the norms, all the conventions we're accustomed to. the usual life cycle of these things, you all know this, there will be a story, there will be a period of defiance, and then ultimately the person goes. i thought when this first started that trump, to stick his thumb in the eye of the establishment yet again, would hold on and defend him. so the fact that price is gone, i do think, should send a chilling effect to those other cabinet members. >> generally speaking, jonathan

allen, when you see a cabinet secretary leave, questions start to swirl and names start to as far as as to who is going to replace him. there is some sense that the health and human services secretary in this administration, whose main role it was to dismantle obamacare, given the repeated failings of that effort, may have outlived his usefulness and donald trump may not care all that much who the next hhs secretary is. >> the next hhs secretary will have a lot of ability to undermine obamacare should he or she choose. obviously that job is a pretty important job in the country. whether or not trump cares particularly about that department compared to others, the american public has a good reason to care a lot about who is going to be there next. one of the interesting aspects of this story is that the immediate replacement is a deputy assistant secretary, which is pretty far down the totem pole in the cabinet agency. and, you know, you wouldn't expect that that would be where you would draw the next person from.

but obviously the cupboard is pretty bare right now at a lot of these agencies because there have not been a lot of people nominated or confirmed. >> jon meacham, the president doesn't like to say anyone is actually doing anything wrong unless he's actually going after them like he was with jeff sessions. in this case the president has commented a few times that he's uncomfortable with the way this has unfolded. sarah huckabee sanders said so in the press briefing yesterday afternoon when asked specifically about tom price's future, she declined to guarantee that it was safe. what is it about this that's annoying the president so much? >> it's a great question. it's interesting and important because of that, what does this tell us in month ten about what the president will put up with and what he won't put up with. history is replete with examples of presidents who have felt particularly close to advisers, particularly close to cabinet secretaries who have gotten into trouble of this nature but have held on and held on until finally they have to cut them loose.

it often gets worse, it gets harder and harder the longer you hold on. i think the test here may be, and other people have made this point, is that these headlines were stepping on what president trump wanted to be talking about, which, interestingly, was the nfl and tax reform, and not puerto rico, obviously. and so in that sense, i think what it tells us is this is, as if we needed one more example, this is a highly egocentric presidency in which anything that distracts attention from what trump wants the attention to be on is going to be doing so at peril. >> gentlemen, stay with us. i want to fit in a quick break. coming up, the trump administration says its new tax plan is a win for the middle class. who really stands to gain? we're coming back after this. stay with us. when heartburn hits,

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you wouldn't benefit under your tax plan? >> no, i don't benefit. i don't benefit. in fact, very, very strongly, as you see, there's no -- i think there's very little benefit for people of wealth. our framework includes our explicit commitment that tax reform will protect low income and middle income households, not the wealthy and well-connected. they can call me all they want. it's not going to help.

i'm doing the right thing. and it's not good for me, believe me. by eliminating the tax breaks and special interest loopholes that primarily benefit the wealthy, our framework ensures that the benefits of tax reform go to the middle class, not the highest earners. >> welcome back to "the 11th hour." donald trump has repeatedly asserted his tax plan will not benefit wealthy americans, including himself. a new study disputes that claim. our friend jonathan allen writes, the top 1% of earners would reap the lion's share of benefits under a new tax cut proposal unveiled this week, according to analysis by the nonpartisan tax policy center. the aforementioned jonathan allen back with me, as is jon

meacham. that report goes on to say that fully half of all the benefits of this tax cut will go to the top 1%. fully 30%, almost a third of the entire benefit of this thing, will go to the top 0.1%. it's kind of hard to believe that the president continues to say this won't benefit the rich when it is -- if you have two eyes and a calculator, you can figure out that it absolutely will. >> right. i'm not exactly sure how the lower quintiles are going to be positively affected by the repeal of the estate tax. i can tell you the top 1% do very well with that. also the elimination of certain gift taxes. my sources told me this week that at a white house meeting with lawmakers, gary cohn pointed to steve mnuchin and told the lawmakers, we're not going to benefit from any of this. that was shocking to the lawmakers who know that they're worth ruffle $200 million and $3 billion respectively. the analysis isn't precise, because the proposal the president has laid out does not have all the details there.

the legislation hasn't been written -- has not been written yet. so you can't do a perfect score on it. but these estimates show what anybody who looks at this can see, which is that there is a huge skew toward the wealthy getting most of the benefits. >> right. you have to look at three things, the repeal of the amt, the repeal in estate tax, and the pass through corporations, to understand that these are things that affect high end earns rather than low end earns. jon meacham, let me ask you, as hallie jackson asked gary cohn yesterday, what comes from saying things like this that around the true that guys line jon meacham and jonathan allen and hallie and me can all figure out? >> it's one of the great mysteries of the era in which we live. we live in almost a post-truth world, it's a post-fact universe. they've become prisoners of their own narrative, they're the great populist avatars of this new movement. and they also think, and i think

this is really the heart of it, that the president has done enough damage to actual reporting, that is, by denying the evident reality of so much that's been reported and so much that happens, he has successfully made it very, very difficult for a lot of folks to figure out what to believe and what not to believe. so by discrediting things that are self-evidently true, he can now argue things that are the no true and do so in a very confused public arena that enables his base, and his base plus, really, to think, you know, what -- >> sure, because it's confusing to everybody now. >> -- the press is saying this and trump is saying that, you know what, i'm going to with the guy who coined the phrase "fake

news." i'm not going with these people who have characterized my hero. >> you have characterized the fake news era and its pitfalls very well. thank you for your time, gentlemen, i appreciate it. coming up, who made the list of white house officials that robert mueller really wants talk to about russia? the latest when "the 11th hour" continues. rethink what's possible. rethink your allergy pills. flonase sensimist allergy relief

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-whoa, he looks -- -he looks exactly like me. -no. -separated at birth much? we should switch name tags, and no one would know who was who. jamie, you seriously think you look like him? uh, i'm pretty good with comparisons. like how progressive helps people save money by comparing rates, even if we're not the lowest. even if we're not the lowest. whoa! wow. i mean, the outfit helps, but pretty great. look at us. i think there will be a number of indictments before this is over. >> do you see the president being placed under oath before this is all over? >> yes. >> that's a blast from the past, former independent counsel ken starr on "the 11th hour" with brian, making clear he thinks president trump will face questioning in robert mueller's investigation into russian meddling in the u.s. election. mueller was scheduled to start interviewing present and former staff this week, including hope

hicks, don mcgahn, reince priebus, and sean spicer. meanwhile, president trump is under a deadline to start enforcing sanctions against russia. see how this works out. congress nearly unanimously passed this bill in july. it imposes new restrictions and at the same time limits the president's ability to lift the restrictions. trump signed it but made it clear he wasn't happy about it. now he faces a sunday deadline to identify exactly which russian entities are off limits to u.s. business. senators john mccain and ben cardin, a republican and a democrat, sent the president this letter on thursday. they wrote, quote, congress' swift and united action and your signature sent a strong message to adversaries and allies alike and particularly to those such as russia who have sought to undermine our democracy. now as critical deadlines are approaching, it is imperative that your administration

implement the law to its fullest extent to uphold and protect american interests. joining me now, former federal prosecutor paul butler and former assistant special watergate counsel attorney nick akerman, both msnbc legal analysts. gentlemen, thank you both for being with us. let me start with the first issue, the mueller investigation. nick akerman, the wall street journal is reporting tonight that white house counsel don mcgahn this summer was so frustrated about the lack of protocol surrounding meetings between president donald trump and jared kushner, his son-in-law, whose activities are under scrutiny in the russia probe, that west wing officials expressed concerns the top lawyer would quit, according to people familiar with the conversations. mr. mcgahn expressed concern that meetings between mr. kushner and mr. trump could be construed by investigators as an attempt to coordinate their story, said three people familiar with the matter. >> none of this is very

surprising. >> i was going to say, you sort of suggest these things all the time. >> well, the problem here is that the lawyers in this white house are really just bit players. it doesn't make any difference what they do. it makes no difference what advice they give. the bottom line is, this is all being orchestrated by donald trump. they could try and keep jared kushner out of the oval office any time of the day. but the reality is, he's the son-in-law. he's going to speak to donald trump at night, he's going to speak to him early in the morning. they can get their stories together any time they want. i mean, if i were a lawyer working in that white house, i would be so frustrated, because you really are carrying out a fairly meaningless job. >> and paul butler, this isn't an area of expertise, like all those people that robert mueller wants to investigate, this isn't don mcgahn's area of specialty, the work that he actually does there. but it really is an implausible situation. nick says these lawyers are bit players.

but don mcgahn is going to central to what's happening in this investigation. >> it's really an extraordinary story, ali. you know, everyone knows about jeff sessions, the attorney general. but the white house counsel is the second most important job a lawyer could have. and so for him to say that he would quit if there wasn't some structure between these meetings between trump and kushner, suggests he doesn't want to be blamed if something bad happens, something like trump and kushner actually try to get their stories together, which would be more evidence of obstruction of justice, or even if that doesn't happen, that special counsel mueller thinks that's what's going on, and again, there is an indictment of kushner and a bad report about trump which could lead to an impeachment. >> let's talk about, nick, this ken starr comment to brian last night, that he thinks donald trump is going to testify. that is incredible. you were there for watergate.

do you think this is possible? >> oh, i think it's absolutely likely. it's got to happen. i mean, if he's investigating donald trump for obstruction of justice, there are going to be a lot of questions that he's going to have to answer about why he fired comey, who he spoke to about firing comey, what his motivation was, what he said to lester holt about wanting to get rid of the russian thing, what he said to the russian ambassador in the oval office. i mean, he's got a lot to answer for in this, on a whole series of things, including what he knew about that june 9th meeting at trump tower. >> paul, as a prosecutor, what kind of witness would donald trump be? >> you know, he's going to be before a grand jury. and so the standard would be whether there's probable cause. so as a sitting president, he could not be indicted. but the other thing the grand jury can do is to haul everybody else in and make them say what trump told them. so this is why i think kushner's

got to go. his lawyer is trying to get him out of the white house now, you can be sure. because what lawyers tell their clients is, don't talk to anybody else about this case but me. but can we really imagine donald trump, from what we know about him, not talking to kushner, who is not just his adviser but his son-in-law, and his staffer, about the russian investigation, and then kushner could be forced to tell the grand jury everything trump has told him. so we kind of know what trump is going to say. what's going to be really interesting is what all of these many other white house staffers say when they have to testify under oath. >> nick, real quick, 30 seconds, on this issue of the letter to donald trump to enforce these russia sanctions. is he going to do it? >> totally unprecedented. here is a situation where the united states congress almost unanimously sort of reaches out to this president and says, you can't do this, you have to enforce these sanctions. then the two chairmen, the two heads of the foreign relations

committee, john mccain and senator cardin, write to him and basically tell him, which companies he's got to put on his list, what he has to do. on his list, what he has to do. it's like taking a child, beating him over the head and telling him how he has to act. the bottom line is the congress does not trust donald trump. >> we'll see if donald trump does what he's supposed to do my sunday. gentlemen thanks for spending your friday evening. coming up, the president has repeatedly gone back at his fight with the nfl. new poll numbers on that. for my constipation,

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well i've spoken to other owners and i really think it's coming together. i notice last night or i was told, i didn't see it, but i heard everybody stood for the national anthem and that shows respect for our country, our flag and for the national anthem. i'm very happy. i heard that. and you should stand. you have to stand. it's our national anthem you have to stand. i spoke to many team owners. i have many friends. i did speak to jerry, yes. >> president trump expressed confidence that his ongoing dispute with nfl players who knelt during the national anthem to protest police brutality. 60% said the president did the wrong thing by criticizing players who took a knee. at the same time yearly 49% of americans said athletes who

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it's me? alright emma, i know it's not your favorite but it's time for your medicine, okay? you ready? one, two, three. [ both ] ♪ emma, emma bo-bemma ♪ banana-fana-fo-femma ♪ fee-fi-fo-femma ♪ em-ma very good sweety, how do you feel? good. yeah? you did a really good job, okay? [ female announcer ] to nurses everywhere, thank you, from johnson & johnson. the last thing before we go tonight, we want to induce you to a 6th grader in pennsylvania. at a school assembly with his

classmates he read a essay, he wrote about his brother who's been stationed in germany for two-and-a-half years. as a specialist. >> here's what happened when he finished his essay. >> i love you buddy. >> were you surprised? >> very. >> as a added bonus he got to take the rest of the day off and his teachers told him he wouldn't have to make up school work. in his essay he wrote this, my brother is brave and smargt, he is always there for me even if i just want to talk. i'm very proud of him for choosing to protect me and

everybody in the united states. he's not just my brother, he's my friend. >> that's our broadcast for tonight. due to mature subject matter, viewer discretion is advised. msnbc takes you behind the walls of america's most notorious prisons. into a world of chaos and danger. now, the scenes you've never seen. "lockup: raw." in prison, time can be an inmate's worst enemy. >> apparently another guy over there said that i hit him. what do you do when you get ready to fight? >> why would she be ready to fight if you're in the cell? >> some find constructive if not unusual ways to fill it. >> this is how i stay out of trouble. this is how i do my time.