rosenstein or mueller or gets whitaker to fire mueller or whatever, would congress step in and hire muler to contin er tmu investigation? now the president has a democratic arm of congress who without question, without question would take that step. the or question is would any republican in congress raise their voice and support that? >> maybe lindsey graham would. >> the same lindsey graham from south carolina? >> who has said mueller has to finish his investigation. there are so many dominos here to think about. first of all, who's in charge? is whitaker now in charge of rosenstein, how is -- >> if he's the acting attorney general. >> and in charge of rosenstein and in charge of mueller as a result. because they were thinking of whitaker to replace rosenstein, remember when they all thought rosenstein was going to get fired because of what he said in a private meeting about the president. so whitaker was on deck. so rosenstein still remains, but if he has lost his authority and he has expressed faith in mueller, which he has publicly, will he resign? is this one other way of decapitati

or have robert mueller fired? did i get that right? >> i do believe that. and also, if the president believes that the only way to clear his name is for the mueller investigation to clear his name, then he would not fire him. because otherwise there's no way donald trump gets his name cleared. >> do you actually believe that? or are you just trying to convey that to president trump, trying to convince him psychologically, some sort of vulcan mind melt here, that don't do this, president trump, because you want to clear your name. do you actually think that he has this red line? >> i do. because i think he would have actually, in fact, executed a firing of robert mueller. i think he does think in his mind that the majority of the american people would rise up against him and that the judiciary committee and now the democratic control of the house would be a check in balance on his ability to do that. >> congressman ted lieu, thank you so much. and presumably, congratulations on your re-election. i'm assuming if you

mueller. presumably he gave them something. this is the first time he has had a witness blow up on him. you had pop who was the first big lead. he became almost a hostile witness. notably the court refuse. the court gave papadopoulos exceptionally light sentence. it is not clear what he has gotten. so many witnesses seem to have pushed back on mueller. with manafort there is this intriguing question of whether mueller played manafort whether manafort played mueller. manafort looks now like he had a plan all along to basically switch sides again. this is a wonderful beltway sort of side quarterbacking. mueller got this plea right after manafort was handed his head in virginia. he was not only convicted of multiple counts. he came with the table being swept of all counts that he would have been convicted on everything. he was heading to d.c. where it was a worse trial waiting for him, where he was looking at horrific allegations come all of which seemed supported by the prosecution. mueller,lips

mueller's team. roger stone and his allies continue to predict that they expect to be indicted at any moment. while anxiety about mueller's next move may be growing at the white house, on capitol hill there is ongoing concern about the future of this investigation. outgoing arizona republican senator jeff flake, as we reported last night, says he'll continue to push for a vote on a mueller protection bill. he's already vowed to block trump nominees awaiting a vote in the judiciary committee on which he sits. today some republicans on that committee weighed in on flake's move. >> what do you make of senator flake saying he's going to vote against judicial nominees until he gets a vote on the mueller protection vote? >> since that bill came out of committee, i think it's legitimate that the bill be brought up. i'm not going to be in the forefront with flake advocating that the leader do so and so, but i wouldn't do anything to stop it. >> i have a lot of confidence that mr. mueller will be allowed to d

action something that will raise a red flag with mueller. giuliani told me he tried to stay away from this decision. he knew the president wanted to make a change, but he acknowledges it's a delicate moment. >> we just got a comment, by the way, kelly o'donnell sent it over from the white house saying that white house officials are saying that deputy attorney general rod rosenstein is coming to the white house today for a previously scheduled meeting. a previously scheduled meeting. robert, obviously the biggest thing, the reason america knows rod rosenstein comes to an ending with the appointment of matthew whitaker. but there is a whole lot of controversy surrounding matthew whitaker, who is exactly what donald trump tends to look for in people around him, someone who sounds loyal and has suggested that the mueller investigation is either illegal or can be pushed back through efforts of the president and the white house. >> i have known matt whitaker for years. i actually moderated his senate debate when he ran for u.s. senate back in iowa

that's another question for mueller to ask. another round of interviews for mueller to conduct. why was sessions removed? and it's pretty clear it's a removal, even though the letter says resignation. and what are the other people going to do to help protect the president? i think this adds to the obstruction case. it doesn't subtract from it. >> whitaker might be of interest to a potential witness to mueller to answer the question you just posed. what did you promise the president and was there a quid pro quo? >> it might be completely innocent. he might have thought matt whitaker was the best person on the entire planet to be the acting attorney general. >> you don't seem like you believe that is a viable scenario. >> he's a lawyer. maybe that qualifies him. >> maybe. >> he wrote a letter defending -- i'm sorry, excoriating rosenstein and criticizing the investigation by mueller. maybe that qualifies him. or maybe there's a deal. and i hate to sound so sinister and to imply something so nefarious, but this is a question that i think mueller has to ask. >> all right. mueller ma

where mueller is going. it's one of the reasons he fired comey is because comey was not sufficiently forthcoming to give him a look at what was going on in the investigation. and this is truly, you know, the fox at the henhouse, that he now has the ability through whitaker to get a full picture of what is going on in this investigation, which are the crown jewels in terms of what he does to extricate himself from terrible, terrible legal problems for himself and his family and in itself, it is an obstruction of justice and we're going to see if some people in the congress of the united states have enough backbone to say we must have the rule of law prevail here. >> well, the other question, shimon, has robert mueller baked this in? has he kind of gamed this out already? >> yeah, so, yes, he has. i think they were prepared for this because rod rosenstein who was overseeing this was prepared for this. you know, because he thought he was going to get fired a few weeks ago and whitaker was going to take over his

he did not give mueller what mueller wanted or at least all of what mueller wants. the question is what he gave mueller enough. we don't know. he spent hours and hours in these interviews with mueller so presumably he gave him something but this isn't the first time mueller has had a witness blowup on him. you had papadopoulos it was the first big plea and ultimately became almost a hostile witness and mueller pushed to convince the court to give him a longer sentence and the court refused, giving papadopoulos an exceptionally light sentence so things have not gone that welfare mueller so it is not clear what he has gotten. the witnesses seem to have pushed back on mueller. with manafort, there was this intriguing question of whether mueller played manafort or whether manafort played mueller. manafort looks like he had a plan all along to switch sides in the middle of this investigation. consider this, a wonderful beltway sort of side quarterback. mueller got this plea right after manafort was handed his head in virginia. he was not only convicted of multiple counts

bmu -- robert mueller. a sentiment echoed earlier today by mitt romney, the republican party's 2012 nominee for the white house, mitt romney said that the robert mueller investigation should remain unimpeded. >> senator elect romney. >> pleats bring in david chalion. republicans lose the majority of the house, the president declares victory and fires the attorney general what do you make of all of it? >> i thought he was going in to put his spin on the election. he did pad his senate majority. lost the house. he hung on to some governorships in key states, ohio and florida. there were things for him to tout and yet, he has this press conference where he relishes the fight with the press. he jumps right to threatening democrats, don't you dare investigate me or i'm going to use senate republicans to go right back at you. immediately after he fires sessions, because he didn't want today to be about the fact that the democrats won the house of representatives in a pretty sweeping result. >> what's your bottom

mueller to subpoena the president. now we don't know if robert mueller was planning to subpoena the president any time soon. but we do know he's given trump every opportunity to get his side of the story on the record. mueller haggled with trump's former attorney general john dowd for months about an in-person interview until dowd resigned rather than let trump sit down with mueller. according to bob woodward's book "fear" he pleased with him. i wish i could persuade you, dowd said. don't testify. it's either that or an orange jumpsuit. mueller told trump's lawyers that he'd accept written answers from trump but just this afternoon, trump's attorney rudy giuliani acknowledged to politico that trump still hasn't submitted the answers. that leaves a subpoena as a logical next step for the special counsel. opening up a high-stakes line of questioning. has donald trump appointed in matt whitaker someone who is likely to turn down any request from mueller to subpoena the president? and did whitaker make that promise to trum

of what mueller has and doesn't have all based on what mueller's been asking manafort. so manafort's saying, i think they've got this wrong, they're asking me about this, they don't know about this, they haven't asked about this, and trump relies on that to submit his written responses and perhaps those written responses are flawed or even lies based on manafort. that would be an intriguing scenario. >> that would be an intriguing scenario. that would be submitting false answers of a sort. and let me ask you this. is manafort's decision to share the inner goings-on with trump's lawyers, is that in and of itself potentially an act of obstruction of justice? >> well, the answer is the legalese here as always is it depends. it depends on what the lawyers were thinking when they were sharing this information and if the intention -- and if this was a two-way sharing, brian, then i feel very comfortable saying we're looking at obstruction. by that i mean if upon hearing from manafort's team what was being asked and answered the trump team went back and said, well, do this, sa

or control robert mueller. robert mueller does not care about how he's depicted in the press and robert mueller is going to get to the truth about donald trump. >> one of them talks all the time. one of them talks never. one of them served in vietnam. one of them had bone spurs. one of them is on twitter. >> one of them still weighed what he weighed when he was 18. >> one is under investigation. the other is investigating that guy. this is a position the president has never really been in. >> ever. >> he's never been in a place, tim knows this, where if he lied he'd get in trouble. where he couldn't push something off or countersue or -- his entire toolbox of how he gets out of problems in his life. how he's gone through his business. it's unavailable to him. this twitter account is valuable to the country. it's like an early warning system. we can see him popping off. something is going on. >> i defended this today. i was asked why we cover his tweets. i said, listen, he fires cabinet secretaries whose agencie

what mueller knows. cnn receives draft court filings which may show robert mueller is in the home stretch of a collusion case. the documents detail alleged steps by a trump ally to obtain information on democratic e-mails stolen by russia. manafort's meetings. former trump campaign chairman paul manafort denies a report that he net secretly with wikileaks founder julian assange even as the special counsel says ma manafort broke his plea deal by repeatedly lying to prosecutors and investigators. >>> narrowing denials. as the mueller investigation closes in, the white house now says president trump did nothing wrong, but this time, there's no blanket denial of wrongdoing for those who were in his inner circle. >>> and not sharing intel. is the white house blocking the cia director from briefing u.s. senators on the murder of a u.s.-based journalist by a saudi hit team? and is the trump administration trying to shield the saudi crowned prince? >>> i'm wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room." >> announc

this is what he said about trying to limit the mueller probe. >> bob mueller and his small u.s. attorney's office as i've heard it described today does go beyond the 2016 election and get into trump organization finances unrelated to the 2016 election and really unrelated to russian coordination if it even exists. i think that would be crossing a red line. >> crossing a red line. whitaker describing things we know bob mueller did and rosenstein even approved, like looking at manafort's now admitted crimes that weren't related directly in 2016. you are looking at your new attorney general. he has discussed in public. tonight democrats are saying he should recuse. he's discussed a blue print of sorts to further oversee or interfere with, yes, the mueller investigation. >> i can see a scenario where jeff sessions is replaced with a recess appointment and that attorney general doesn't fire bob mueller, he just reduces the budget so low that his investigation grinds to absolutely almost a halt. >> grinds to a halt. one of the men on your screen was on your screen a moment ago. becaus

mueller doing? he's more publicly aggressive. he's going to fight manafort on the issue and he'll demonstrate in court with publicly revealed papers about how manafort was lying. and in this case of course we see it all laid out in the record, the lies that he told. >> but this isn't just about this moscow trump tower project, right? we've now confirmed today that cohen and all of his 70 hours collectively with robert mueller and his team, he's been talking about other things. what else could he be revealing? >> he could have information on the trump tower meeting. this is the approach -- this is the other thread which is about offering dirt on hillary clinton's e-mails in exchange for who knows what but we're going to help you win using this damaging information. we may have information about other players. he was very close to this family. he may know about what role that don jr. may have played. roger stone, he was involved in this. so he has a lot of i think damning evidence to potentially provi

mueller. they've actually had these written questions for months, but they are cramming to do their homework at the last minute. and that means that we had every right to expect a crazed twitter attack on robert mueller, whenever the president took a break from his homework assignment of answering robert mueller's written questions. today was that day. the president delivered four attack tweets against robert mueller without one word of truth or sanity in any of them. historians will use them as a window into the deeply perverted mind of the president of the united states. msnbc's nicole wallace reports that a source close to the president told her today that, quote, his mind is the worst it has been since the campaign and that among the west wing staff there is a near universal sense of foreboding. politico quotes, that the trump white house is quote preparing for the worst. you can see it in trump's body language. all week long there is something troubling him. it's not just a couple of staf

paul manafort agreeing to work with bob mueller, and then turning around and feeding details about mueller's investigation directly back to the president and his lawyers. i know, stranger than fiction. i have a panel here this morning to explain what's going on, but let me try and lay it out for you. it turns out that president trump and his legal team have reportedly been getting the inside scoop on mueller's investigation for months with manafort's attorney communicating information directly to trump's team, even after manafort agreed to cooperate with the special counsel. that is according to "the new york times." and now we can make it clear. the idea of trump and manafort coordinating their legal strategies, it's not a new one. we learned in september that the two had a joint defense agreement that allowed them to share confidential information, up theically when a defendant flips and agrees to a plea deal, they have to pull out of agreements like that. as nbc news reported at the time, once manafort changed sides, the agreement should have been null and void. but giuliani told "the new

he's the one who appointed bob mueller in the first place. and i'm not aware of any regulation that requires rod rosenstein not to be involved. and i think it would be silly and it would also be a bad look optically if the new acting attorney general decided to freeze out rod rosenstein. because he can still offer advice and guidance and counsel. and he should. >> he's a former u.s. attorney in baltimore, rod rosenstein. you know, kaitlan, i'm anxious -- what did you think of that little goodbye that the attorney general -- now the former attorney general, jeff sessions had? it was all staged, as evan correctly points out. they wanted to show that. but some are already suggesting maybe it was a little bit of a slap at the president for firing him. >> well, of course. and we have seen jeff sessions take those actions over the past year with when president trump has criticized him. he went to dinner that time really publicly with rod rosenstein at a very popular washington restaurant and a photo with them dining with the solicitor general quick

he said publicly i would shrunk mueller out of existence -- mueller spends a lot of money. he has many fbi agents and prosecutors and clerks. you cut off the money, you're interfering. that's what whitaker said. the other reason is he hasn't been confirmed by the senator which was just pointed out. >> shepard: new reporting, rod rosenstein on his way to the white house. john roberts on the north lawn. john? >> and we know that the deputy attorney general rod rosenstein is on his way over to the white house for a previously scheduled meeting. he comes here a number of times during the week, shep. so in the past, it has been read into that somebody may be up in terms of rosenstein. there was a time not too long ago when rosenstein came here to the white house and told colleagues on his way out the door from the department of justice that he expected to be fired. he had a meeting with chief of staff john kelly when he arrived at the white house at which we're told that kelly told him that he wouldn't be fired. for all we know right now, shep, and again, the reporting is still

he's not firing bob mueller. the reality is there used to be a point in time where limited government conservatives opposed special counsels on the basis that they go beyond the limitations. what you see is something that starts as a russia investigation that now is prosecuting people because they failed to register as foreign lobbyists. i think there's a time when republicans hated this concept then during the clinton years they fell in love with it and decided this -- >> mark, to van's point, jeff sessions was, you know, the early supporters of the president in the senate and in terms of a cabinet member who was actually executing the president's agenda, he was doing a great job. >> he was the one who defended the president most on the campaign, no doubt about it. van's right on that. >> he was moving judges through. wasn't he doing a good job in that sense? >> i think a lot of that was coming out of the white house counsel's office. the president i think should be allowed to put in place a cabinet he has faith

one is that he's held accountable by mueller, that it becomes part of an obstruction case that mueller makes along with the dozens of other things that we've talked about and others have talked about on this program that the president has done to interfere, to try and interfere with this investigation both publicly -- largely publicly he's done them, which is confusing sometimes because we forget that they can be part of obstruction of justice if they're so public. and yet they can. and then the other possibility is obviously congress. right now giuliani and other people are in danger of being subpoenaed. i think as we discussed if there's no joint defense agreement the reason that is relevant is that it means that the communications between paul manafort's lawyers and trump's lawyers about this whole cooperation and possibly about a pardon, you know, are not privileged. so either one of them can be subpoenaed and asked about those communications under oath. >> sam, you and i have long established this is a golden age for journalism, perhaps for all the wrong reasons. but tonight the "

this is related directly to mueller, to mueller, who's looking at questions of collusion. we'll have a better idea today as cohen is in court right now in new york and we'll have a better idea about the extent of what he is leading to and what the charges are. >> what he had pled to previously is eight counts of tax evasion, bank fraud and campaign finance violations back in august. so i know you only have limited information. he lied to congress. when, in what termed? >> we haven't seen the court document yet so we don't know the extent. cohen, there's been questions about cohen's tries to russia for some time. questions about whether he was truthful to congress. if you're looking at the ties between campaign and russia and you are trying to understand, cohen was a very important person to talk to. you would not want to close the investigation without talking to him. there were allegations in the dossier that had been given to mueller, the federal government, by the former british spy who looked at russia. there were a lot of different questions for that. for mueller to w

he was not senate-approved, mueller. he was not confirmed by the senate in this interview with the daily caller. he says as far as i'm concerned this is an investigation that should never have been brought. it should never have been had. it's something that should never have been brought. it's an illegal investigation, he says, and it's very interesting that mueller was never confirmed by the senate. your reaction? >> he doesn't need to be, and mr. mueller had extraordinary bipartisan credentials coming in. when he was appointed i heard prominent republicans saying there couldn't be a better choice than mr. mueller who is a war hero who has done nothing but run a very tight investments in fact, i think he's brought over backwards to not antagonize the president of the united states. we've heard that he's sent questions for the white house to respond to. i believe he's well within his bounds to have called the president in on subpoena and require the president of the united states to answer these questions, so obviously t

mueller's effort? >> you know, i cannot stop thinking about, as from one professional looking at another professional, the beauty of this week. if you just go to 30,000 feet and look what's happened, they waited until trump got his answers in, and then, bam, all kinds of things have happened. especially today. today they snuck in cohen. he was a john doe when they came in at first, and reporters were, you know, milling around and they realized it was mueller's team that was there. and they took this plea. and it was a way of mueller and his team looking the president in the eye and saying, we got you. it was, like this. that's what it was today. it was just a thing of beauty from somebody who has done this before. i just thought, i've had so much admiration for the manner in which it's done. it just made me smile. >> bob, about this president, the charitable way to put it is he has an agnostic view of business deals. the less charitable way is, when you balance the job of president-elect and/or preside

so now he can say, i didn't fire mueller. i didn't touch mueller. i also didn't touch rod rosenstein. i have no issue with him following "the new york times" revelation that maybe the 25th amendment being talked about or him wearing a wire. i'm just going to replace the person who made it possible that rod rosenstein would have his position and mueller would have oversight by that person. and so by putting matthew whitaker in the position, which by the way is not in line of succession. it would naturally go to the deputy attorney general, rod rosenstein, then to a solicitor general. the chief of staff or the a.g. is not the person who is supposed to be in line. so one has to first wonder by what authority he's going to put him there. but the president's already told us he's temporary. he'll have a more permanent placement put there in the long run. so i'm wondering if in many ways this is the president's attempt to gain information about the investigation. so once he's downloaded everything and debriefed from robert mueller and then he walks away to

he overruled mueller or he curtailed mueller or he stopped mueller from moving forward, but only once mueller's investigation is complete and mueller has submitted his report. months or possibly years from now. >> meaning that if he does anything up to short of firing him, if he says to mueller, you can't go into donald trump's finances, you have to limit your inquiry into these areas. congress wouldn't know about that? >> congress would not know about it. whitaker, of course, would have no interest in leaking this out. and mr. mueller, himself, is famously tight lipped and he's also a rules follower. he might chafe. he might be very upset his discretion is being limited. but he follows the rules. >> could whitaker, even though he is acting, and there's a lot of question about whether or not his appointment is even constitutional, whether or not it could stand. could he, despite that, fire mueller? >> yes, he could. there is no question in my mind at least right now while he is the acting attorney general, the second he took that job, he took over supervision from rosenstein who he ha

he appears to be clearly in robert mueller's crosshairs. you have some text messages that he released, roger stone, discussing wikileaks, the plans to release the hacked e-mails from the dnc and from john podesta. tell us about what these e-mails show. >> these were released by roger stone. he is clearly trying to support and bolster his claim that, you know, his back channel to any information about wikileaks was coming from this new york radio personality randy credico. so we have some e-mails starting back from august of 2016. and in one of those e-mails, this is a text message sent from randy credico to stone, just days after credico had interviewed julian assange, the head of wikileaks in which credico tells stone wikileaks has kryptonite on hillary and please don't out me as your source. another text message from september 18th in which credico says to stone, just remember, do not name me as your connection to assange. and then on october 1, which is six days before wikileaks does the dump of john podesta's e-mails where credico is sa

mueller. mr. mueller might have to ask permission to issue certain subpoenas or to take certain actions that might be denied by mr. whitaker. when the report is actually issued, it will be mr. whitaker's job to decide what the congress sees and what it doesn't see. so those kind of things are very much in question. and i think it behooves us to move in the senate. >> you have roughly a month and a half left in office. is this the end of the road for you in terms of trying to protect mueller? >> i can speak out as a private citizen. right now i have leverage because there are a number of judges about 25 or so that we haven't moved through the judiciary committee that my vote is needed to move them through. i indicated i won't vote for those judges. more than a dozen are slated for a vote tomorrow morning in the judiciary committee. i will vote no which means they can't progress to the floor. in addition, i just voted no on one that they had to bring the vice president in to put over the top on a cl

mueller is not senate confirmed. nobody was asking about mueller. nobody was asking about the russia investigation. in fact, you were asked about chris christie and whether or not you were thinking down the road about who might ultimately get this position after matt whitaker. but nevertheless, the president volunteered his response, yeah, he put whitaker in there. you know what? the mueller investigation, that's a problem. so that was, that was late last night 2they released that transcript after we were off the air. the president started tweeting in all capital letters about the mueller investigation. it's the first time he's done that in a few weeks. he hasn't done that since september. in general, i try not to care too much about things the president says online. it's very rarely a means of him conveying factual information to the american people. i usually think it's designed to be provocative and it can therefore be ignored. in this case what the president posted online this morning, after volunteering to the daily caller last night that he in

today it was prosecutors from robert mueller's office, and it was robert mueller's name and signature on the court filings. if matthew whitaker was installed at the justice department to bring the mueller investigation to a halt, today shows that that has not happened. this was a significant new step in the mueller investigation. whitaker didn't stop it, and in fact msnbc's nicolle wallace reported today that matt whitaker in fact is not directly supervising the mueller investigation on a day-to-day basis. the mueller investigation according to nicolle's reporting today is still being overseen by rod rosenstein in the deputy attorney general's office on a day-to-day basis. and what that means in a practical sense, according to "the washington post" tonight is that matthew whitaker was notified about what was going to happen today, but he wasn't asked. he wasn't asked to approve it. it was approved by rosenstein. so whitaker knew it was happening but he didn't get to say yeah or nay. that seems important. another thing this action tells us today is we're to be get a whole much more --

and is mueller now closing in on collusion between the trump campaign and russia? we're taking a closer look at all the late-breaking developments. ♪ introducing e*trade personalized investments professionally managed portfolios customized to help meet your financial goals. you'll know what you're invested in and how it's performing. so you can spend more time floating about on your inflatable swan. [ding] e >>> the breaking news tonight. former trump personal attorney and fixer michael cohen pleading guilty to lying to congress about the trump tower moscow project and what mr. trump knew about it during the 2016 presidential campaign. let's get more with our contributors and our analysts. laura coates, walk us through your analysis of michael cohebb's guilty plea today and what it means for the overall russia investigation. >> well, the underlying question everyone has had about they could lose probe is essentially why would there be some thought on behalf of russia or a foreign nation if there was some reception or receptivity on behalf of the trump campaign? w

so now he can say, i didn't fire mueller. i didn't touch mueller. i also didn't touch rod rosenstein. i have no issue with him following "the new york times" revelation that maybe the 25th amendment being talked about or him wearing a wire. i'm just going to replace the person who made it possible that rod rosenstein would have his position and mueller would have oversight by that person. and so by putting mathew whitaker in the position, which by the way is not in line of succession. it would naturally go to the deputy attorney general, rod rosenstein, then to a solicitor general. the chief of staff or the a.g. is not the person who is supposed to be in line. so one has to first wonder by what authority he's going to put him there. but the president's already told us he's temporary. he'll have a more permanent placement put there in the long run. so i'm wondering if in many ways this is the president's attempt to gain information about the investigation. so once he's downloaded everything and debriefed from robert mueller and then he walks away to

jerome corsi says the mueller team may incite him. we're also getting new leaks about how trump answered the questions on collusion. and ivanka trump defends her e-mail use that led to, yes, her own father's fans chanting "lock her up." and, later, stormy daniels breaking with michael avenatti and saying things that question his role in the attorney in the definition suit against trump. i'm ari melber and you're watching "the beat" on msnbc. how about some of the lowest options fees? are you raising your hand? good then it's time for power e*trade the platform, price and service that gives you the edge you need. alright one quick game of rock, paper, scissors. 1, 2, 3, go. e*trade. the original place to invest online. the united states postal service makes more holiday deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country. ♪ with one notable exception. ♪ i am a techie dad.n. i believe the best technology should feel effortless. like magic. at comcast, it's my job to develop, apps and tools that simplify your experience. my name is m

robert mueller. what does his document say to you today? he's always saying more than what he puts in black and white on paper. do you think that mueller has gone farther in sort of tying the trump orbit to the conspiracy he already charged in july of the 13 russians than maybe we know that he has? >> well, look. i think he clearly wants to send a shot across the bow to people who are minimizing the ties between trump and moscow. and, obviously, he's won convictions against mike flynn who minimized those ties. he's now going after, again, paul manafort, who has minimized those ties. and now he has a plea deal from michael cohen for minimizing and lying about those from michael cohen for those ties. his point is we know the ties are much deeper, much more significant than people within the trump orbit were willing to say, and he is making clear that not only does he know about the lies but knows about the underlying substance of the ties and ultimately what the president himself knows. >> he is has be

mueller of california to become the director of the federal bureau of investigation. >> robert mueller was confirmed 98-0 in 2001, 100-0 when president obama renominated him. but as special counsel, he was not senate confirmed. special counsels don't receive senate confirmation. as for the claim that they've found no collusion with russia, that's not a factual statement. the special counsel said nothing one way or the other. we have no idea what, if anything, mueller has found regarding allegations of collusion. we do know he's indicted russians for alleged collaborating with americans, and indicted one of the participants of the trump tower meeting during the campaign and focusing on others, and now could be on the verge of indicting one or more trump associates with ties to wikileaks. now, of course, it's possible the president's rage stems from being falsely accused. but robert mueller has yet to accuse him of anything. it's also the president sees the walls closing in. whatever the case, he seems to be saying things that increase, not diminish, the scrutiny on him. reporting tonigh

president lashing out at robert mueller. so just how rattled is he by the mueller investigation? ready to get your feast on? you better be 'cause it's red lobster's new create your own ultimate feast event! pick 4 of 10 favorites to create the ultimate feast you've been dreaming of. will you choose creamy lobster mac & cheese, tender, wild-caught snow crab... crispy jumbo coconut shrimp, hey, we never said choosing was easy... just delicious. so hurry in to create your own ultimate feast before it's gone. and be the party hero. get ten percent off when you order red lobster to go. but only for a limited time. ♪ can you feel it ♪ can you feel it put a smile on everyone's face this holiday, with great gifts from amazon. with low prices and free shipping on millions of items, for everything you need this holiday, visit amazon. >>> this is "cnn tonight." i'm don lemon. lots of news in the mueller investigation to report to you. "the washington post" is reporting the trump organization turned over phone logs to mueller's team detailing

but anyone who knows bob mueller's watch, bob mueller watched the way this investigation has been conducted, i think would say otherwise. and i think it would be important for both democrats and republicans to say, we're going to wait on this report and we will make our judgments based on the substance of what is reported out by the special counsel. >> it's interesting, mark. the president said today, i'm very happy with almost all of my cabinet. in effect, confirming more members of the cabinet are about to be dumped. >> yeah. there's no question about that. and what's actually scary about this is that usually what happens in the administration and david has gone through this. you see the best and brightest tend to go in at the beginning. and then on the second wave, it's not necessarily the best and brightest, but the second best and brightest that come in. what is very concerning, specifically here in washington, d.c., some of these positions he's going to draw off of to come in and fill, those people might not be qualified at all to fill those positions. >> david, senior administration

one is that he's held accountable by mueller, that it becomes part of an obstruction case that mueller makes along with the dozens of other things that we've talked about and others have talked about on this program that the president has done to interfere, to try and interfere with this investigation both publicly -- largely publicly he's done them, which is confusing sometimes because we forget that they can be part of obstruction of justice if they're so public. and yet they can. and then the other possibility is obviously congress. right now giuliani and other people are in danger of being subpoenaed. i think as we discussed if there's no joint defense agreement the reason that is relevant is that it means that the communications between paul manafort's lawyers and trump's lawyers about this whole cooperation and possibly about a pardon, you know, are not privileged. so any one of them can be subpoenaed and asked about those communications under oath. >> sam, you and i have long established this is a gold enage for journalism, perhaps for all the wrong reasons. but tonight the "was

this piece today that ran object mueller looking at a man named john hannah, mueller might be opening another front here, there's a clause in the mandate, open ended to the effect of any associated matters, could be a separate line of inquiry about efforts to influence the election by foreigners, the thinking being some regimes in the middle east. what do you think when you hear that in terms of the scope of what he may be working on? >> well, the mandate that was actually handed off by rod rosenstein, the deputy attorney general who previous to mr. whitaker was in charge of this probe is quite broad, i've read it carefully several times and i don't think there's a whole lot of question that something like -- that would arise out of the russia probe. that being said the big difference really between the white water investigation that i worked on and this one was that what was governing the white water investigation was an act of congress. the act of congress was passed because of the saturday night massacre. that is president nixon trying to game the system in his favor when there was

it's inexplicable to lie to robert mueller. knowing mueller has all the resources at his disposal. the national security agency could be listening and monstering those communications. robert mueller has that. he knows everything. if manafort lied, he put himself at grave risk. >> president has the ability to pardon. we're talking about what a blow this is to manafort. isn't it a huge blow to mueller? he has spent all this time with manafort. now basically sfrl everything he said tainted? >> it is a blow to him. unusable in a court of law. >> a blow to him being manafort or mueller? >> it's a blow to manafort unless there's a pardon down the road. from the prosecutor's perspective, he feels like, all right, we had this guy who was at the top of the campaign, had high level interactions, was in the 2016 trump tower meeting and is the only cooperating witness from that meeting. he can give us everything we need. >> why is it unlikelily pardon? >> i think the reason is he was on the path to a pardon before he decided to cooperate. that would have been the more strategic and better path

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he will now be in charge of overseeing the robert mueller investigation. when the president fired attorney general jeff sessions, he did not allow sessions' deputy, rod rosenstein, to become the acting attorney general, which would be the normal course of events. he instead installed matt whittaker, who used to have a job as a full-time pundit, railing against the mueller investigation. he, as of today, has been in charge of it. what happens now? joining us now is david loftman, one of his roles was to oversee the russia investigation at the justice department before robert mueller was appointed. it's an honor to have you with us tonight. thank you for having time. >> good to be with you. >> am i right that it is not the normal course of events that somebody knew would be installed in the acting attorney general's role rather than allowing the deputy attorney general to step up into that higher position? >> i can't say it's never been done before, but it's unusual, especially with such an experienced attorney general as rod rosenstein ready to step up and

was he talking to mueller? probably so. why? >> well, we know that at least eight of mueller's lawyers on this federal holiday today, veterans day, were in fact seen working over at the justice department. i've got to say we don't know if cohen went there, although that's the widespread suspicion. >> he showed up with his lawyer to have lunch in washington? probably to have a meeting with the mueller team. >> that is what everybody is suspecting. let me get your thoughts on the awful situation in your home state of california. you're a former lieutenant governor of california. the fires that are going on, this is what the president over the weekend tweeted about the fires. there is no reason for these massive deadly and costly forest fires in california except that forest management is so poor. billions of dollars are given each year with so many lives lost all because of the gross mismanagement of the forests. remedy now or no more fed payments. what's your reaction to that? >> i don't think i can say it on television. >> by th

if he fired mueller? if he tried to make the acting attorney general the attorney general permanently? i don't know. that's what we have to watch going forward. if trump goes any further, he walks up to this line, you know, a little bit gray enough for the republicans. and, you know, just gets criticized and continues on. >> all right. after the break, a new report raises more questions about trump's acting attorney general and concerns that trump is trying to abuse his power with the justice department. >>> and bob mueller finally got what he wanted. or did he as donald trump hands him some responses to written questions from the mueller rftigation. the question turns to will mueller be satisfied or is the opinion fight ne subpoena fight next? >>> and the saudi arabia first policy. we'll bring you new reporting on the fallout. [ horn honks ] only one movie is winning audience awards across the country. and now it's hitting a high note on rotten tomatoes. thank you for your warm hospitality. viggo and mah

how is mueller going to. how do you feel about that when he's still talking to his first team. >> clearly the president has surrounded himself with people in a like it. there was a surprise and there might even be some strot, a no one vasz. long-time lawyers are representing these targets and that trust is violated. this is not a healthy situation. mueller doesn't express anger openly and in a very dramatic fashion, but you understand when he's very, very upset. his team knows that he's likely upset by this, and they have a strategy to deal with. >> we keep mentioning a wounded u.s. marine combat veteran from the vietnam war. kim, we waited almost a year for the president to compete what we've been calling the take-home test. now we know he has submitted them on the during that process. it makes for an interesting p. what they had been told by the mueller team. a. and we're hearing more information about what corsi and roger stone may have done as well. all of these are little pieces that the mueller's team h

i think in a weird way mueller anticipated this. i don't think as smart as he is and dealing with who he is, wait a minute, you guys aren't talking to each other, are you? i think for trump he thinks he's outfoxing mueller and sort of boxing him in a corner and delegitimizing him further. i don't see that in the end because of the legal analysis you were given. >> the really perverse thing is that for trump, by treating the process with less integrity he is giving the process less integrity. >> yes. >> that is -- that's what's really disturbing. >> do that again. it's like -- i think it's worth redundancy. >> the perverse thing is the less integrity that trump treats the mueller process, the less integrity the mueller process has. so him throwing out pardons makes the -- you know, turns the process into somewhat of a joke. if he can -- if he's not treating the process with integrity, then like it actually has a perverse impact of hurting mueller. we all have a lot of faith in mueller and any time we've had the opportunity to see his

>> well, he's also said that it was mueller lynch mob. i mean, this is not an independent, unbiased person who is supposed to be meting out justice here, but this is someone who has a strong position. i also think we should ask the office of government ethics to do an evaluation as to whether or not he is appropriate to hold that position. he should recuse himself. he's now saying he won't, but we should demand that that evaluation be done. >> leon panetta, the former white house chief of staff, cia director, he was talking to me in the last hour. he doesn't think it's constitutional because he hasn't been confirmed by the senate during the trump administration. and in order to move up to a position like that you at least have to have gone through some sort of senate confirmation. >> we looked at that, and it appears the rules around having someone in that position during in a vacancy is not subject to the same kind of oversight by the senate as you would expect normally. it's something we would certainly look at. we may want to close tha