trying to protect against this. but it's in the absence of national leadership from the president to direct the full force of the government to protect our democracy. that's really what this is about. so potentially this cloud could hangover the midterms. you hope just as an american citizen that it doesn't, that we don't have a foreign government meddling in our elections. but who knows, we may be talking about that. >> remember those words, to protect our democracy. philip rutger gets the quote of the notice. thanks to frank montoya and phil rucker. coming up for us, two former assistant u.s. attorneys are coming here with us to breakdown the night's headlines on hope hicks, on rick gates, on paul manafort, and robert mueller. there are developments on all fronts. that is ahead after this break.