Youre running for u. S. Senate in West Virginia. When all in starts right now. Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. The president of the United States is taking right now concrete steps towards a major high stakes confrontation with his own Justice Department. The strongest advocate for cooperating with special counsel mueller is now leaving the president s legal team. The administration confirming that ty cobb who represents the white house in the Mueller Probe is stepping down at the end of the month. According to one report, cobb has been clashing with the president over trumps combative prostour towards the investigation. Ty was uncomfortable with the mueller tweets. He was not going to be part of a mudslinging campaign. If you take a look, theyre so conflicted. The people that are doing the investigation you have 13 people that are democrats. You have Hillary Clinton people, you have people that worked on Hillary Clintons foundation. Theyre all i dont mean democrats. I mean like the real deal. Those claims are not true. We should note. Cobbs successor reportedly plans to take a more confrontational approach to the investigation. Hes set to be replaced by irony of ironies one of bill clintons impeachment lawyers, emmet flood who served in the second bush white house. According to Rudy Guiliani who heads up the president s legal team, they were looking for someone that was more aggressive. The shakeup comes as the president s previous personal attorney john dowd confirms to bloomberg what the west first reported last night that mueller has raise the possibility of serving the president with a grand jury subpoena if he refuses to sit for a voluntary interview. Today, giuliani told the post he plans to take a harder line on the negotiations, pushing mueller to show what evidence hes got and limit his questions for the president. Quoting him here, some people have talked about a possible 12hour interview he said. Thats not going to happen. Ill tell you that. It would be max two to three hours around a narrow set of questions. According to a source familiar with the president s legal team, emmet flood was expressly picked to lead the president into battle against account special counsel. Heres the quote. Who do you want on your side if mueller decides to subpoena the president . You want to have your wartime consigliere. Emmett is a convince seen the consigliere. The president threatened once again to obstruct justice by interfere into the investigation into him, his campaign and his associates and family. Tweeting this morning a rigged system. They dont want to turn over documents to congress. Why so much redacting . Why such unequal justice . At some point, i will have no choice but to use the powers granted to the presidency and get involved. I mean, i guess hes not standing outside the department of Justice Holding a bat in his hand but that sentiment echoed his rant on a phone call to fox friends last week. Ive taken the position and i dont have to take this position and maybe ill change, that i will not be involved with the Justice Department. I have decided that i wont be involved. I may change my mind at some point because whats going on is a disgrace. Our Justice Department which i try and stay away from but at some point i wont. The president today appears to have been referring to a demand by his closest allies in congress to Deputy Attorney general rod rosen tine, turn over an unredacted version of a memo laying out the entire scope of the Mueller Probe. It was a request so absurd it seemed designed to get rejected which it was earlier this week. That prompted the president s allies to draft articles of impeachment against rosenstein and has given the president new ammunition to ramp up his war on the Justice Department. Msnbc legal analyst Benjamin Wittes and natasha ber tram. Ben, let me start with you. What is your understanding of what the meaning of todays legal team change is . Well, i think its partly exactly what you describe which is an effort to be more aggressive, more combative. Its partly i suspect also a matter of the fa seeing of prior forces and you know, ty cobb has been unhappy and kind of wearing that on his sleeve for a while now. And so i think you know, replacing you know, the people who dont want to be there anymore with fresh faces who do want to be there is part of the larger picture of the administration. Right . Its going on in cabinet officials offices, its going on, you know, all over the administration. Natasha, one of the things that this legal team has been fairly effective at is framing things as if mueller is looking at obstruction. Hes not really looking at collusion whether he it comes to the president. Its really about obstruction. Michael cap pugh toe who was interviewed by mueller gave a pretty startling quote. This is him talking to cnns reporter manu raju. He says you know, the investigators know more about the Trump Campaign than anyone who ever worked there. And says they are still very much interested in collusion. Whats your response to that . Well, of course. Collusion was always at the heart of this investigationing whether russia interfered in the election to help the campaign and whether the Trump Campaign then collaborated with the russians you know to undermine Hillary Clinton. That was why the investigation was opened in the first place. The obstruction element only came later when the president fired the fbi director who was investigating his campaign for that alleged collusion. Of course, this is this was always going to be top of mind for bob mueller. And i think that bringing in emmet flood is significant for another reason which is that whether he worked in the george w. Bush white house, he detail mostly with executive privilege issues. That indicates theyre going to take a new approach maybe to fighting off a potential interview with mueller by limiting the scope of questions or limiting the topics that he can cover by saying no, no, no, those covered by executive privilege. Problem with that so much of what mueller is investigating is collusion. That goes back to the Trump Campaign and the communications that occurred in the summer of 2016 and the fall of 2016 which, of course, would not be covered by executive privilege. Flood plans to invoke executive privilege. The recruitment of flood sends a signal the team plans to rely on a strategy long advocated by don mcgahnton exert executive privilege more aggressively. Ben, do you understand what that means . Im a little confused. Given theyve already turned over a very large volume of information, im not honestly sure what the value of discovering of this would be now except to the extent youre using the term executive privilege to also include say resisting a subpoena for the testimony or interview grand jury testimony of the president. Sort of use it to include a sort of a wider array of kind of article 2based resistance to the special counsel. I think that is going to have limited utility at this point because so much of the investigation has already happened. Yeah, and theres a question, too, natasha about how much of this is a sort of how much of this is political and how much is legal at this point . What do you think . I think the president has made it pretty clear that it is political because he is attacking his own Justice Department and 2003s at this point basically advertising hes going to try to obstruct justice if it gets too close to him to the white house and his inner circle, if he really feels that Rod Rosenstein is not doing his job which is something that the president s allies have been pushing Rod Rosenstein on. Theyve been kind of setting up this conflict between the white house and the Justice Department so that the president has a pretext for getting rid of rosen tine. In his place, whoever he appoints coz go ahead and fire bob mueller. In that sense, the president through his own tweets through things he has said about wanting to control the doj, calling it my Justice Department is really it reveals a lot about how he views this. Ben, what do you make of his tweet this morning in the long line of intensifying threats hes going to interfere with the Justice Department . Look, i think you always have to take those seriously. When somebody tells you what theyre going to do and what their attitudes are, and the bad things they mean to do, you should always keep in mind that they might not be lying and that might actually reflect their intentions and who they are. I he has done this before. Its dangerous every time he does it. Its objectionable every time he does it, and its corrosive of the institution of the Justice Department every time he does it. And by the way, it is particularly awful when he has stalking horses in congress who are doing his work for him in countrying the Justice Department. And so you know, my enthusiasm for Rod Rosenstein is under control. But i think at this point, we kind of all just need to stand behind him and you know, when he says the Justice Department will not be extorted, that is exactly what he should be saying and that is exactly what the stand he should be taking at this point. Benjamin and natasha, great to have you both. For more on the campaign against the Justice Department by the president as allies in congress, im joined by david cicilline, a member of the house judiciary committee. Your colleagues are requesting that unredacted document from Rod Rosenstein which would lay out the scope of special counsels investigation. What do you think thats not appropriate . Well, its an absurd request. The idea that you would ask an investigator to turn over a document that describes the scope of the investigation when these are individuals who are acting on behalf of the president who is the subject of the investigation. Its an absurdity. I think what they did was in making that request they are beginning to try to continue their effort to really undermine the special counsel with this crazy notion of impeachment articles. This is part of a Larger Campaign of the white house and many of the president s allies in congress to undermine the Justice Department, to undermine Rod Rosenstein to, call into question the legitimacy of this investigation. I think this is just the most recent example of it. Its very, very dangerous, completely disappointing. These republicans have taken on the role of being the president s protector rather than protecting the independent counsel, the integrity of the investigation Apartment Department of justice. Do you think theyre actively at the staff level or principal level coordinating with the white house . I mean, its hard to know that. Its hard to know that. But there were some reports maybe the white house played some role in helping to put this together. They dont have to be directly coordinating. They understand what the president is trying to do in undermining the investigation. Its like theyre trying as hard as they can to find ways they can please the president by attacking the investigation and the department of justice. They have the an oversight responsibility. Theyve completely abandoned that in favor of basically being an advocate for the president. And its really undermining rule of law in this country, certainly undermining their functions as a member of congress and disappointing. Do you think theyre making requests intentionally knowing theyll be rejected to lay a predicate for impeaching or moving against rosenstein . I think anyone who knows anything about the way investigations are conducted would know this is an absurd request and, of course, it wouldnt be granted. You have to wonder why did they do it. And i think the answer is they expected it would be deny aden looing for a reason to attack Rod Rosenstein to create some doubt about lis legitimacy as an independent counsel. The work that the investigation is doing. And this is part of a pattern weve seen for many, many months of undermining the legitimacy of the investigation, attacking the professionals at the department of justice, attacking the individual who are leading this work and we have a responsibility i think all of us to speak out in defense of this investigation to protect it from political interference to make sure there is no effort to under mine that they have the resources to find the truth. We have an obligation to be sure this continues and to see the talking laws of the president continue to try to undermine is very disappointing. I want to play some commentsing that Rod Rosenstein made yesterday. You had some concerns about him and questioned him in early hearings about his level of independence. This is what he had to say yesterday. I want to get your reaction. Take a lis. And there have been people who have been making threats privately and publicly against me. For quite some time. I think they understand by now the department of justice is not going to be extorted. Were going to do whats required by the rule of law and any kind of threats that anybody makes are not going to affect the way we do our job. What do you think of that. I think those words were important to be heard loudly and clearly by the president and all of his advocates and all the people. Congress acting on his behalf. The men and women in the Justice Department are extraordinary professional whos take an oath to the constitution not to the president but to the constitution of this country to protect the rule of law. I think Rod Rosensteins words were important. I hope theyre a strong message to people who dont understand their responsibility and i have tremendous confidence that he and the others responsible for this investigationing will protect it from the kind of interference we copy to see. Congressman david cicilline, thanks for your time. Next a remarkable story today. Did the country of ukraine, home to so much of Paul Manaforts lobbying efforts stop cooperating with the Mueller Probe because the Trump Administration armed them with missiles . That story in two minutes. Mr. Elliot, whats your wifi password . Wifi . Wifis ordinary. Basic. Do i look basic . Nope which is why i have xfinity xfi. Its super fast and you can control every device in the house. [ child offscreen ] hey lets basement. And thanks to these xfi pods, the signal reaches down here, too. So sophie, i have an xfi password, and its daditude. Simple. Easy. Awesome. Xfinity. The future of awesome. New reporting by the New York Times today raises a jaw dropping question. Here it goes. Did the Trump Administration trade favors to ukraine and sell them weapons in exchange for shutting down investigations into Paul Manafort . According to the times, after the u. S. Approved the sale of antitank missiles to ukraine earlier this year, the country froze four cases involving the former Trump Campaign chair manafort and allowed con tan steen kilimnik a potential witness to the russia probe to leave for russia. Kilimniking is an old colleague of manafort who the Mueller Investigation identified as a russian spy. Manafort emailed him about his work on the Trump Campaign asking how do we use ovd manafort owed millions. Officials were frank about their decisions. One member saying in every possible way we will avoid irritating the top american officials we shouldnt spoil relations with this administration. Here to help me, juliaoff if i and David Ignatius associate editor of the washington post. David, let me start with you. Back when the u. S. Started selling these javelins to ukraine, something the government had been seeking for awhile which the Obama Administration had not done, there was a lot of kind of head scratching that it was very different than the posture the u. S. Intended to take on matters about russia or that russia opposed. What did you make of it at the time and what do you make of it now . My sources have been saying today that the New York Times story is absolutely right. At least in the mind of the ukrainian officials, the sale of the javelins and stepping back from a manafort related investigations were linked. I think theres also an interesting questions whether there were lips placed on the use of the javelins so they would not directly threaten Russian Forces in the dun bass region in southeastern ukraine. Thats something im still trying to report out. But these were sold, its my understanding they were provided as defensive weapons, not ones that would be used against these russian proxy forces. From the ukrainian perspective, i dont blame them. Theyve got a war on their doorstep in their territory. Whatever they sort of feel like they have to do. But it does look suspect. It does. And i read the New York Times story a little bit differently as them saying we dont even want to go there with the Trump Administration. We dont want to the iraq him, piss him off. We want our javelins to fight the russians and well do whatever it takes. It looks horrible because at at very least, the message the Trump Administration is sending out, the tone theyre setting is you know, its like what you said in your first segment. Hes not standing there with a bat but he might as well be. I dont think there was some explicit black channel that said well give you x for y. Donald trump has a kind of, hes very good at where other peoples leverage is and making these kinds of sort of tacit deals in some ways thats the big question that hangs over the entire russian collusion thing. So much of the manafort story and the story around this investigation ultimately do route through ukraine. Ukraine is central. Manafort you mentioned Konstantin Kilimnik his associate in ukraine, august 2nd, two weeks before manafort was fired from his role as chairman of the Trump Campaign, because it was believed his links to two secret payments in ukraine, he met with kilimniking in new york and the evidence is pretty strong that they discussed the things that could be shared from the campaign, the campaigns views about russia related matters. Thats all been pretty clearly documented. Just to make one more point. I really worry and this ukraine story is a perfect example of foreign governments increasingly playing politics increasingly putting information into american information streams or withholding it as seems to be the case here with ukraine to kind of play politics with the Trump Administration that is under fire, that is very aggressive and granting withholding its special favors. I think davids absolutely right. But lets remember about two years ago, a little bit less, at the rnc where you and i think both were, do you remember when Paul Manafort had the republican platform changed to say that ukraine would not get lethal arms. And then they back off, i dont know what, like a year and a half later they back off investigating manafort and what did they get . They get lethal arms. Probably a coincidence. Its a remarkable 180. That was the issue. Specifically this relatively obscure plat tomorrow item that the pressure is bought to bear on on precisely this. And it was manafort who was as david said and as our reporting shows at the atlantic, he was actively reaching out to kilimnik who is allowed to escape to russia where he is completely untouchable now. There is no way they will turn him over for questioning. He was reaching out to derepaska, this russian billionaire close to the kremlin and saying, is he seeing what a good job im doing working at a campaign for free while i owe him 19 million. Im sure its just a coincidence. David, the point you made about the mechanisms of influence for foreign governments, is calls to mind another story reported about the Kushner Enterprises essentially having a meeting with the qataris about infusion of finance capital into their struggling 666 fifth avenue building which they need a lot of money for. After that being rejected, Jared Kushner aligning with forces in the middle east that the essentially declared a kind of cold war on qatar. Do you think theres a question in the minds of foreign governments about the degree to which these kind of personal favor trading might be the way in which you can influence american policy . I cant speaking about the question of financial payments to members of the Trump Administration family, et cetera. I dont know. What im certain of is that people are trying to play personal relationships with this administration because they think getting to donald trump to the center of the white house to the family is the way to do business. And its involved each of the key players in the middle east. Saudi arabia, qatar, the uae. Of all tried to work the trump white house. I think we just need to be much more sensitive how theyre feeding information into our news media, into our discussion to affect these decisions. This goes back to the very, very beginning of the Trump Administration when his lawyer who has since disappeared stood there with all the stacks of phony papers saying its all handed over now, no conflicts of interest. Youre seeing conflict of interest after conflict of interest up the wazoo. Thank you both for your time. Coming up as another lawyer leaves the president s team who else will be willing to join in the midst of the Mueller Probe . A look at trumps crumbling legal team next. It was not that long ago the president claimed to be, dare i say, thrilled with his legal team tweeting in march that i am very happy with my lawyers is jay sekulow, ty cobb. Today we learned that cobb will be gone by the end of this month. So goes the last trump lawyer with a security clearance. According to bloomberg, jay sekulow is still waiting for his clearance. Joining me, former watergate prosecutor nick akerman and jennifer rodgers. Theres no one there right now with clearance. How big a deal is this for doing the work . Well, its a problem only to the extent theres classified information. Some of the stuff about talking to the russians and disclosing he fired comey to get this cloud, those implicate classified information. It is important and it takes time to get these clearances. Obviously expedited for the president but it takes time to get these done. Its a problem that will slow things down. Why is this happening . Why the shakeups . Because no one wants to be Donald Trumps lawyer. Flood apparently does. Buff donald trump. Hes going to get more lawyers before this is over. There will be more turnover. The fact of the matter is the chief legal strategist in the white house is donald trump. He doesnt listen to his lawyers. He tells his lawyers what he wants to do. And when they give him advice, he doesnt Pay Attention to it. So if youre a lawyer, whats the point . You might as well get somebody off the street to give him the title lawyer because it doesnt make any difference with this president. Do you agree with that . I do. I think thats why a lot of people turned him down. There are some people who might take it to try to make their name. But history has shown us even though it hasnt been that long that people have been a revolving door. I dont think anyone will risk that. I copy to not understand the dynamics of this negotiation over the interview. I think its being played up bigger by the white house than it really is. The bottom line is, theyre going to give him a grand jury subpoena. Hes going to have to obey it. The idea that he somehow thinks hes going to get away without having to address a grand jury subpoena and appear in front of 23 people in the District Of Columbia and give, hes living in a dreamworld. U. S. V nixon is pretty much on point. Nismon was forced to give up the tapes. The case stands for the fact that every man no, matter whether theyre president , whatever their position is in this country, that the government, the Justice Department has the right to take their evidence. I mean, for all we know, trump could be giving evidence about other people not necessarily himself. I mean, the fact of the matter is, he has got to go in there and testify. And if he does, he wont have his lawyers in there with him. Theyll be outside the grand jury room. He has to ask permission each time he wants to speak to his lawyers. I want you worked in the Justice Department. In the u. S. Attorneys office, part of the Justice Department. What rosen tine had to say about protecting that independence. Take a listen. There have been people who have been making threats, privately and publicly against me for quite some time. And i think they should understand by now the department of justice is not going to be extorted. Well do whats required by the rule of law and any ki of threats that anybo makesre not gointo affect the way we do our job. I asked david sis lee knee about that quote. He said thats what he wants to hear. What do you think of it . I like the new feisty rosenstein. Its one thing to have former doj folks and other folks outside the system saying this is a real problem, we have to uphold the law. But that doesnt say much about the resolution of the people there. I like that rosenstein flat out listen, were doing our jobs and will do whats necessary to uphold the rule of law. We will not be executored. That to me says hes feeling strong. Hes going to be resolute. Thats an Important Message to get out. Ultimately it seems like what you were saying, theres all this talk about the back and forth between the entities. Theres a fairly clear road it seems towards a confrontation. Its not going to be that big of a deal. Okay. Look what happened with the watergate tapes in may of 74. The District Court ordered the white house to turn over the tapes. They then after that appealed to the court of appeals but then the special prosecutor went straight to the supreme court. By july. They gave them over. It was 8zip. One justice had to recuse himself. That was it. Heres the difference with tapes which are being subpoenaed in the president s testimony. He cant just plead the fifth, right . He can. I feel like everyone i talk to, every lawyer is like theres no way he will plead the fifth. I feel like theres all this talk about is he going to testify or not. It seems to me naturally what will happen, he will be subpoenaed and he can plead the fifth. Im with you actually. At the end of the day, pleading the fifth is a political issue for him, not a legal issue. And he so far skated by without much political consequence for what he does. I agree with you. I think he takes the fifth here. Look, nobody in the watergate investigation took the fifth. Every Major Political figure went into the grand jury and pur jurred themselves. Every single one. They were convicted of perjury. They probably should have taken the fifth. Were they ordered not to . To no, it was a political consequence. You had to take the position we did nothing wrong and they went in and they just came up with all kinds of stories and they paid for those stories. They didnt set up the witch hunt the right way. Thats what you think this is about. The white house using increasingly trumpian language about the investigation, not pretending to say well of course, were innocent. Theyre now setting up witch hunt parameters. Correct. Nismon called it a witch hunt, too. They were attacking the prosecutors. They were attacking us. They fired cox. They thought they got rid of all the prosecutors and then the public outcry pushed them the other way. That was the question. Things crumbled. We will see as this is sort of moves from a kind of explicitly legal footing to political one which i sense the terrain shifting a little bit how that goes. Nick and jennifer, thanks for joining us. Still to cop, Vice President mike pence heaps praise on joe arpaio. What that reveals ahead. Plus tonights thing 1, thing 2 starts next. Ahh. Summer is coming. And its time to get outside. Pack in even more adventure with audible. With the Largest Selection of audiobooks. Audible lets you follow plot twists off the beaten track. Or discover magic when you hit the open road. With the free audible app, your stories go wherever you do. And for just 14. 95 a month you get a credit, good for any audiobook. If you dont like it exchange it any time. No questions asked. You can also roll your credits to the next month if you dont use them. So take audible with you this summer. On the road. On the trail. Or to the beach. Start a 30day trial and your first audiobook is free. Cancel anytime, and your books are yours to keep forever. No matter where you go this summer make it better with audible. Text summer17 to 500500 to start listening today. Thing 1 tonight, the gop Senate Primary in West Virginia gets stranger by the day and the night is getting so nasty, one attack ad shows patrick morrisey, republican, shaking hands with the hated Hillary Clinton but it turns out the image is a fake. The image at left of morrissey shaking hands with President Trump was photoshopped to create that fake image of him shaking hands, clinton, an ad by his opponent evan jenkins. A campaign ad confirmed the image saying the campaign took creative license. Take the third republican contender in West Virginia. But mr. Blakenship, isnt it true you live in nevada, you pay taxes in nevada and in fact, your probation officer is in nevada and yet, youre running for u. S. Senate in West Virginia. And thats still not the end of the offenses of Don Blankenship. Thats thing 2 in 60 seconds. So convicted criminal Don Blankenship who finished a year in prison for conspireing to violate mine safety laws when an explosion in his mine killed 29 people, that guy is the third republican contender for the u. S. Senate race in West Virginia. Hes trying to so hard to position himself as the antiestablishment candidate, hes unleashed by czar quasi racist attacks on Senate Majority leader mitch mcconnell. In one ad, he calls mcconnell cocaine mitch. Based on some very, very tenuous and bizarre claims that drugs were once found on a shipping vessel owned by mcconnells fatherinlaw. He also claims mcconnell has a conflict of interest with the nation of china citing mcconnells wife transportation secretary elaine chao and his family. I dont have any problem with chinese girlfriends, chinese anything. But i have an issue when the fatherinlaw is you know is, a wealthy china person and theres a lot of connections to some of the brass if you will in china. So much going on in that quote. Any quote that starts with i dont have an issue with chinese girlfriends but you know hes going somewhere really good. He said at the end a weirdly pc attempt at a racial slur which he was confronted with at last nights gop debate. His answer, well, i guess gets points for creativity. This idea that calling somebody a china person, im an american person. I dont see this insinuation by the president that theres something racist about saying a china person. Some people are korean persons and some of them are african persons. Its not any slander there. Le cleaning tasks . Sprays in the bathroom can be ineffective. Try mr. Clean magic eraser with durafoam. Simply add water, to remove soap scum. Try mr. Clean magic eraser with durafoam. But im not standing still. And with godaddy, ive made my ideas real. I made my own way, now its time to make yours. Everything is working, working, just like it should Vice President mike pence appeared yesterday in arizona in a Campaign Style rally organized by a trump supporting Dark Money Group called America First policies. Now, you may not have heard of the group but you may have heard of one of their latest hires, carl higbie who resigned from the federal agency that manages americorps after it was unearthed a string of racist, antigay, antimuslim comments he made in the past. I have somebody who lives in my Condo Association that is has five kids. Her and her husband, the five kids and the grandmother of the kids. And they cant they dont have jobs. Theyre there all the time. I bet you can guess what color they are. They have no jobs. I bet you can guess what color they are. Nice, right . Higbie apologized for his comments when he resigned in january. Now he says he was the target of a Mainstream Media hit job. Look, i had a radio show. How many times have you said something on radio that could possibly be construed as very controversial when taken completely out of context. You could not have been more far off base by putting that headline out there. Because i made a statistical observation, they think thats racist. Yes, the old statistical observation. Ive seen those before. He says he was being taken out of context when he said he doesnt like gay people and that africanamericans have lax morals and people with severe ptsd have weak minds. Here are some comments he made about muslims completely in context. I was called an islamophobe the other day. I said no, no, no, no, im not afraid of them. I dont like them. Big difference. And they were like, well, youre racist. If thats the definition, i guess i am. That is the definition of it. Carl higbie isnt the only unsavory character the Vice President associated with last night. What he said about former Sheriff Joe Arpaio and what it tells us about who mike pence really is. Next. The infamous former sheriff of maricopa county, arizona, joe arpaio is both a Senate Candidate and a convicted criminal. Arpaio ignored a court order to stop unconstitutionally racially profiling people and was then convicted of criminal contempt of court when he ignored them, only to be subsequently pardoned by President Trump. Yet despite his lawflouting record, Vice President mike pence hailed arpaio of a champion, of all things, the rule of law. A great friend of this president , a tireless champion of strong borders and the rule of law. He spent a lifetime in law enforcement. Sheriff joe arpaio, im honored to have you here. Joining me now, christina greer, fellow at the mick silver institute, sam seder, and mckay coppins, writer of the piece gods plan for mike pence. Mckay, let me start with you. Ive seen a lot of never trump conservatives who are sort of mike pence curious, ill call them, or sort of like mike pence. They dabble in mike pence, being pretty horrified by the joe arpaio shoutout. Yeah, ive been surprised by that, the amount of shock among a lot of antitrump conservatives. Having spent a lot of time talking to people close to mike pence, researching his life, reporting out that profile, the thing that has become most clear to me is he has erected a moral, ethical, theological framework for himself that essentially justifies doing anything in this Current Office that President Trump asks him to do. And i dont say that glibly. I mean, the reality is he believes that there was a divine intervention at play in his ascent to the vice presidency that his current job is to serve President Trump loyally and faithfully until the moment, if it comes that he is supposed to ascend to the presidency. And when you look at everything he does in this Current Office in that context, you realize that none of this should be that surprising. He is going to be a good trumpian soldier until the moment that it doesnt suit his interests. Yeah, correct. Mckay, its a great piece by the way. Thank you. But here is the piece with mike pence and this entire administration that is so frustrating. If you wake up at 6 00 every morning and go jogging in central park and you meet up with ten people and go jogging for year and a half, two years. Youre a jogger. Thats what it is, right . Yes. You are what you do. You are what you do. We keep seeing bigots and racists and antisemites. And we keep saying well, thats them. But pence and trump, theyre not them. Yes, they are. They are cavorting with these same men that are either in the administration or allied with the administration. And theyre upholding all the same values. Pence is no different than trump or anyone else in this crew. The difference is he sort of waves this evangelical flag and his great moral values with his wife. He is a complete and total hypocrite. And we do know he is just watching the shock clock so when trump goes down he can say the lord wanted me to do it and ascend here. When he was a talk radio show host, he referred to himself as a Rush Limbaugh on less caffeine, or something to that effect. The guy comes from the world of talk radio. He is the one, the serious guy. Right. He has put on a veneer. But also, if you contemplate that notion, if he is genuinely looking a little forward, like whats going to happen perhaps . Lets play the odds here. There is a decent chance maybe hell be in a position to run for president. Right. Slide into president. Now is the time for him to make these sort of signal to these people, the arpaio people, the carl higbies, those folks, im with you. Down the road, i may not be able to cavort with you as much because im going into the general, if i will. But right now its sort of the primary. And that is the time for him to do that. I also think, mckay, the carl higbie story in the grand scheme of things, its a small story. But i find it really generally appalling. Really appalling. You . Right. But this is someone who got hired in the administration that you can say has a vetting problem. The dark money pack hired him as soon as all that was made public. It is explicit white supremacy. It is explicit bigotry. He is a racist by his own admission. And they hire this person. And mike pence has appeared i think at a dozen plus events with him. Right. Thats the thing. Its not just theyre not even trying to maintain the pretense of distance. Mike pence is showing up at these events, giving his enforcement for this man and his organization. And you cant at some point you have to just say look, if youre showing up at this event, you obviously have no problem with what this man has said. You have given him a pass. Thats exactly what he wants. I mean, this is not not a bug. He wants to establish i am carl higbie friendly, if thats going to be the euphemism. And so when he moves on into a wider audience, they know he is with them, but they know he has to pretend that he is not. Thats interesting. That is calculated. Well, he needs this base, right . He needs trumps base to come along. He knows hell have the evangelicals. He knows hell have some moderate republicans because he looks the part. In the past he was a governor. He held office. He sort of checks off certain boxes. The fact that you are cosigning a known racist, im sorry, but the laws say if you spend time with the racists, if you say things that racists say, ps, youre a racist. By the way, i know that this maybe is belaboring the point. But the fact that comment you played by higbie about muslims, i mean, mike pence is a man who has staked his entire career on the issue of religious liberty. You would think that that issue would bother him theoretically. But people dont see muslims as having a religion, right . Its like the law order issue, religious liberty for whom . I would also say hypocrisy in talking about these people, it makes no sense. Right. It is just a different set of principles theyre operating on. Mckays point, the last time he was talked about the religious belief to the holy all is allowed. Which annihilates the conceptual category of hypocrisy. Because you are the receiver of gods grace, you are allowed to do these things because the grace is prior to your acts, right . But he and trump in so many ways are so similar because trump says because i am trump. Its the secular version of it. Pence says because god has chosen me to be here, this is why we can take money away from women and children. This is why we can do all the things that interest antithesis of what the bible says. But he is selling it as though im chosen and im divinely tapped by the lord to be were this horrible agenda. Were describing the Republican Party. Right. None of these value voters, none of these evangelical voters are holding any of this stuff against donald trump or any of them. And i think it lays bare, you could say the same thing about the deficit, on and on and on. It lays bare that the hypocrisy is sort of baked into the cake. But in a particular way, mckay, it also says to me the wings have all collapsed. This is a point that gets made a lot. But it is just the case. This is the trumparpaiopence party, whatever that is. And maybe soon its going to be the blankenship party too. Its all those things. Thats what the party is at this point. Thats exactly right. I talked to joe arpaio shortly after he announced his bid for senate. And the thing that struck me most about my conversation with him was how much arpaio was how confident he was that the Republican Party had come fully in his direction. And thats where we are. And he knows it and we all know it. All right, christina greer, sam seder, mckay coppins, thank you for being with me tonight. To our daily podcast, every day the latest episodes of our show. Even if you just watched it, now you can listen to it too. Subscribe now wherever you get your podcasts. Thats all for this evening. The 11th hour with Brian Williams starts now. A lot of news tonight including the Trump Legal Team shake up. Ty cobb is out, and clinton impeachment lawyer emmet flood is in. One of the reporters who broke the news is here with us tonight. Also tonight, did Rudy Giuliani just do his client donald trump terrible damage on Live Television on fox news tonight as he announces trump paid cohen back the 130,000 given to Stormy Daniels . Plus, the changes still to come for this white house. Nicolle wallace with us on her reporting what those moves signal and who could be the next to go. And a man who was just questioned by the Mueller Investigation has emerged tonight with a vivid description of how mueller is operating. All of it as the 11th hour gets underway on a business iz wednesday night. Its one of those wednesdays