Chris Hayes discusses the days top news. What the president and his attorneys are up to, devlin barrett. They really moved quickly to get out there, the notion that there is no directive or order behind this tweet. No other set of instructions going to the justice department. And while they say, you know, this is just his opinion, the truth is that the president does sometimes announce or carry out Executive Decisions via tweet. You can ask rex tillerson, the former secretary of state about that who was essentially fired by a tweet. This is an amazing day. I think there were incredible things that happened today. But how it all plays out and what the ultimate consequences of these things is still playing
on it great point. Thanks for your time. Here to help me joyce vance. We already know that the mueller team was looking at pronouncements by the president by tweets. An interesting debates about the status of those legally. What do you make of what he said today . Today look loose i can a dangerous day for the rule of law with the president now telling his Attorney General whose who is recused. But the president directing the Attorney General to terminate this ongoing investigation. What is it that the president wants the Attorney General to stop . Does he want him to pull the plug on the Manafort Trial . Who are alleged to have hacked. Take your pick and what is it that trump wants undone here . That is one interesting aspect of in this. The other interesting matter for us to consider is the language and the statute itself that makes it a crime. It is not just a crime to successfully obstruct a legal proceeding, it is a crime for someone to endeavor, to obstruct that sort of proceeding. And so this tweet is very hard i think to rationalize in any manner other than as an effort by the president to put up roadblocks for this investigation whether directly or not and certainly a great piece of evidence as it applies to obstruction. That likely happens in the course of Impeachment Proceedings on the hill rather than in the form of indictment. But this is something that if
the president were your client, you would be very unhappy to see him doing. I want to play you the defense of sar the Press Secretary. The launching of the witch hunt, the president has watched this process play out and also wants to see it come an end which he has stated many times. She seems to be furthering the sub text, of the tweet in her response to it. I suppose it is not surprising that the president who seems to have less respect for the First Amendment than any other president in the country
history would have a Press Secretary who engages in this sort of word salad trying to justify the president tweet. It is not an exercise of his First Amendment rights. Not a statement of his opinions, it is a direction to his Attorney General. Thank you for joining me. Thanks for having me. Democratic Congress Member of the House Intelligence Committee joins me now. I want to play something about what senator blumenthal had to say about this today. These tweets adding to each other amount to evidence of criminal intent. There is now right now, a clearly credible case of Obstruction Of Justice against the president of the United States. Do you agree . Yes. I think it is a pattern of behavior. Rarely in these prosecutions do you have one big bombshell act. Especially post enron where we beefed up the laws allowing for this sort of prosecution. They understood it was going to
be a pattern of behavior, accuracies, activities, clearly the president , not just in his tweets, but the talk of pardons of people who are on trial right now, implying if they didnt go along and cooperate with the investigation they could be pardoned. The sheriffs pardon in arizona clearly telling folks you dont have to abide by lawful subpoenas. Firing comey, and asking for his loyalty, threatening to fire mueller previous time. You put it all together and i think we have met the burden. This investigation is going to take much longer and we need to be patient. Two ways of looking at it, one is frog boiling in the water. He is testing his limits. The other is a sign of how impotent he is. This is something who is wining because he knows he cant take
the steps. The legal term is he is actually freaking out. His Campaign Chairman is on trial, his National Security adviser has already pled guilty and is cooperating. And his personal attorney, the person who was so important why, why do we know cohen was important . Because President Trump thought he was important. He gave him as you know, his most Sensitive Task and right now, there is a real possibility that he is going to follow flynn and cooperate. You know, you are on the House Intelligence Committee and you guys have the investigation that was i think i will editorialize, pre maturely cut short by the majority. Do you think i think to myself, do people on capitol hill feel confident they know what the president did and what will come out. And are you walking around. Some of my republican colleagues wish they would go away. And others are Company Conspirators in a sense. They taint the investigation and they shut it down. They work hand in glove with the president of the United States to obstruct this investigation. Do you think that is going, when you guys get back from recess in the fall and it will be months from midterms, do you expect more on that front . You say we look at this investigation through a straw, the Mueller Investigation has been careful about leaks. And they have been careful to stay away from our investigation and vice versa. But knowing the type of person he is, my assumption is that if he doesnt do something pretty soon, he is probably going to put off anything until after the
election. Because of that window of interfering of the election yeah, what we learned from comey all too well before the president ial election of 16. What are your conversations back in the district or does it come up . It comes up all the time. I get stopped in coffee shops, riding my bike, walking my dog. Most people say please continue this. Find out what took place. Remind them on the Intel Committee and all i can tell them is that we are doing the best we can. I think most people recognize for what it is. This is more important than watergate and more complicated. Why is it more important . Because it involves a foreign adversary, and a real possibility that our President Trump conspired with them. Thanks for being here tonight. After the break, day two of Paul Manaforts trial, things going faster than expected. But now learning the supposed star witness might not testify what happened in two minutes. From the very beginning. It was always our singular focus, a distinct determination. To do whatever it takes, use every possible resource. To fight cancer. And never lose sight of the patients were fighting for. Our Cancer Treatment specialists share the same vision. Experts from all over the world, working closely together to deliver truly personalized cancer care. Specialists focused on treating cancer. Using advanced technologies. And more precise treatments than before. Working as hard as we can doing all that we can for everyone who walks through our doors. This is Cancer Treatment
centers of america. And these are the specialists were proud to call our own. Treating cancer isnt one thing we do. Its the only thing we do. Expert medicine works here. Learn more at cancercenter. Com Cancer Treatment centers of america. Appointments available now. Are you ready to take your then you need xfinity xfi. . A more powerful way to stay connected. It gives you super fast speeds for all your devices, provides the most Wifi Coverage for your home, and lets you control your network with the xfi app. Its the ultimate wifi experience. Xfinity xfi, simple, easy, awesome. In day two of the trial of President Trumps former Campaign Manufacturing Paul Manafort. Manafort repeatedly paid. Why . According to the government, well very simple to hide that income from the irs. Not complicated. If it is proven, it would be tax evasion. The big price of the day came from the judge asked the prosecutor why he was using a particular witness to introduce a document. The judge said why are we, are you going to, your going to offer mr. Gates, arent you . Had been described as many observers as the prosecutions star witness. To help sort through the cases fast second day, joined by nick ackerman. And News Intelligence and National Security reporter ken dilanian. Much to the annoyance to prosecutors, judge ts ellis likes to make himself a part of the theater. Luxury goods paid for by wire transfers. And as you said, this is money that prosecutors say he parked there to avoid taxes. He then used it to pay for example a Million Dollars, a Million Dollars for suits over a period of four years. 3 million paid to a contractor who is doing various improvement to his hampton vacation homes. And trying to get in evidence of his luxurious life styles. The judge was pushing back for that. He is not on trying for being wealthy. The other major theme was rick gates may not be as important to the prosecution case as the
defense would like him to be. Not only did prosecutor suggest that he may not testify at all. But for every one of these witnesses who describe these transactions, the prosecution would ask have you heard of a man rick gates. And they said no. To a person they have never heard of. He was not involved in any transactions. So hard for the defense to argue that you know, rick gates is to blame for all of this alleged illegality. Basically said their theory of the case is that rick gates screwed over manafort. He did all of this bad financial transaction, it was his fault. Paul manafort said bill my bank account and i bill it and sell a Million Dollars in suits. What do you think about the centrality in the case. I dont think he is central at all. If you look at the exhibit list, there are lots of emails involving rick gates and a lot of directions. They dont need to call rick gates. In fact i dont think they are going to call rick gates. If you look at the prosecutors opening, it is not traditional popping where the Prosecutor Says i am calling x witness and i want you to know about his background. He lied to us. He lied on his taxes, but the real issue is whether he is telling you the truth and you are going to tell you that what he tells you is corroborated. They didnt say that. To pre butt what defense is going to say about this guy. Right and in Addition Mueller has a good reason not to call rick gates. He has to turn over what is called impeachment material
which means he has to provide to the defense all of the witness statements that were made by rick gates. The last thing he wants to do is turn over statements that gates has made about the conspiracy between the Trump Campaign and the russians. On top of that, prosecutors like me used to like to try really lean cases. The less evidence you put before the jury, the better you are because every time you call a witness, there are pluses and minuses. And if you dont need that person on the stand, you do not call them. Shortest distance between two points. Exactly. And if you can prove your entire case with documents that is the way to go. The government is going to argue in the end that rick gates was available to the defense. They can call them and it is charged that the judge will give
the jury that this witness was equally available on both sides. Ken, did they cross examine the Witnesses Today . Very gentle. In their Opening Statement they argued he never intended to commit tax evasion. And they are going to blame employees gates but potentially other people as well. Mr. Manafort was busy and he signed documents that was put in front of him. The evidence so far shows that Paul Manafort was involved in these transactions. We will have to see how that plays out. He parks the money in cypress and he didnt realize that you had to tell the irs about it because he had employees to do that. They are not contesting that because the paper trail is there, they are saying he didnt know. Yes, it is the oligarchs the ukrainians idea to do that. And he just went along. All right. Thank you for that. Next. The Conspiracy Theory out in full force at the president s rally, the unbelievable story behind that. That sign you see there. And why the absolutely insane Conspiracy Theory represents has more followers than you know right after this. Those Trump Supporters you see waving around the letter q are followers of q, an anonymous poster on the message board. Q claims to be Sharing Insider Government Secrets of the masses. And inspired a movement which believes the entirety of the Democratic Party and much of hollywood are running an under ground ring. And that the Mueller Probe isnt actually investigating donald trump. But actually investigating the obamas and the clintons. Now if you are hearing this for the first time, your reaction is correct. This is all insane and in core coherent. Curt chilling has a link on his facebook. And the q anon youtube videos gets Hundreds Of Thousands of views. A Conspiracy Theory that appears to be growing in strength. And had its coming out party at the president s rally. I want to bring in two people tracking, sam cedar and will summer tech reporter. I think it shows the Crazy Mystical Cult quality. Q anon storm the great
awakening. This started back when the president was meeting with military leaders, saying this was the calm before the storm. That launched us into what the q team, Military Intelligence talking to all of us, letting us know what is going on behind the scenes, letting us know the covert battles waging between the deep state and donald trump and military alliance. Spread it. I dont want to get into the details this have because it is a bizarre no stick nonsense. But why is this thing taking hold . So q anon, it almost presents a Counter Narrative for Trump Supporters who arent happy with how it is going. So it presents this Counter Narrative of all the items. And so that is wide appeal to Trump Supporters. The mueller, all of the news which is upsetting, actually it is going to be revealed that they are on the same thing. Take it easy, dont worry, we are taking down the deep state. We wrestle sometimes on this show what do you cover, what dont you. People across the entire political spectrum believe all sorts of insane things. And that is true of liberals on the left. The way the right wing ecosystem works. There was a dude at the hoover dam who was armed with the Q Anon Release the oig report. Yeah, and i understand the
dilemma of whether you cover this. I remember an Associate Producer on my podcast wanted to cover gamer gate years ago and i thought what is the point of that, that is not politics. And then these people end up in the white house. This is the dilemma that we deal with. Fascinating things about this, you can track this. For all we know q is some guy who started on fortune who wanted to see if people would believe this like other fake news stories. And the other element is that we have seen left, right, conspiracy theories, but this is for the guy who is in power and it is creating a narrative. There is that stat out today by the Washington Post that the president has told 4,000 lies or Something Like this. This whole narrative is
different in its quality or you know, it is just, it is more interesting version of what the president is telling us. Thats a great point. And there is also the fact that people are getting, being told at the rally by the president , dont read new york times. Listen to me. And you choke off one Information Source and this is what you get. People who believe in q anon, if you believe in it, you are unmoored from what is going on in the world culmination of decades of attacks on the media and independent sources of truth. And you end up with these dangerous situations like you mentioned this man at the hoover dam. And you have a situation, where the platforms, once again are aiding this. When users search for tom hanks,
tom hanks on be tube, the top five videos accuse of hanks of being a pedophile. If you are some person who searches for tom hanks on youtube, you are watching one of these videos. Yeah. In terms of the right wing echo chamber. Alex jones has been promoting this. They were losing control of the narrative, they started to say q anon had been overtaken by i guess internal spies who were starting to spread disinformation. It is all part of the narrative. And there is a lot of money to be made with this stuff. Alex jones is making Hundreds Of Thousands of dollars if not millions of dollars a year off
of his various different platforms and that is compelling. I have to say, this has been a margin of my consciousness. Seeing that at the rally was a shocking and arresting moment. If barack obama were up there with a bunch of people being google 9 11 truth, that would be shocking. Thanks for joining me. Thanks for having me. Ahead, president obama is back and handing out endorsements ahead of the midterms. Notable candidates he is not talking about. First the ostrich obsession. Thing one, thing two starts next. Our reporter reached out to one of manaforts favorite stories. They say they do offer mens jackets from 8,800 up to 195,000 depending on the material. The internet has been hard on the case. This is an artist rendering. Some have suggested this one. Based on our own research mostly on that same Costume Company website, we are pretty sure we located the ostrich jacket. Possibly he just really overpaid for it. Youre welcome, america. Of perjury. It seems to rebut the tantalizing story involving donald trump and instead reaffirms the much more boring story that the deputy finance chair. It is worth by the way taking a quick look at what has become of with the child of mr. Broidy. Something like that in a lawsuit will be Put Forth Under Penalty of perjury. It seems to rebut the tantalizing story involving donald trump and instead reaffirms the much more boring story that the deputy finance chair. It is worth by the way taking a quick look at what has become of the Finance Committee of the
rnc. Rnc has not returned any of his donations. And his oaks to the Family Separation Policy and broidy, who it appears paid to cover up the affair and abortion of former playboy model. Your Republican National committee. And just in time for the 2018 midterms. That is next. 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. The Consumer Protection bureau running for governor of ohio. And Stacy Abrams Running to become the first black governor in american history. Notably, obama did not endorse Congressman Roark running within a few points of ted cruz for a texas senate wave. The obama group said this is just a first wave and more will follow. Im joined by the former advisor to hillary clinton, and democratic pollster and margie, also a democratic pollster. I know the obama group is very strategic about endorsements and said some races it wont help if i endorse. Comparing stacey and oroarke, its interesting to me running in a red state in georgia, barack obama endorses because he thinks based on the theory of
the case stacy abrams has to win that race, right . A helpful endorsement in the red state of georgia. Georgia is a state, secret, we actually did an Obama Campaign and dipped poll georgia and it was competitive but we didnt put resources there, right. Georgia is this state they say is trending blue. I think georgia very soon will be what North Carolina is and i think soon North Carolina will be where virginia is. I think thats where that trend line is going. The obama endorsement is important. Weve seen his favorabilities and mean thermometer rise as hes left office. Especially in House Districts, a lot of suburban House District his average mean Thermometer Rating is 1030 points better than what donald trump is. This is a good endorsement. Interesting, very different than the 2010 situation. Another big graph here i want to
talk to you. Steve bannon told vanity fair, the Republican College educated woman is done, theyre gone. They were going anyway at some point in time. Trump triggers them. This is now the trump movement. Hes not wrong if you look at the polling. That is white women with a College Degree who have just absolutely like someone with like a thing that makes them allergic in front of them, like an Organ Rejection about donald trump. As if someone were grabbing at them in an unwanted way, they move back that quickly. Thats what that graph shows. The only place steve bannon is wrong, they were going anyway. To back up a little bit, weve always done this wrong about women voters, women vote democratic, a maxim youve always heard in politics, thats not true. Women of color vote so democratic they pull white women over the line. White women are reliable
republican voting blocks, just the way it is, always has been. Hillary lost them, obama lost them, they vote republican. Those margins shrink and expand. You can cut it by married and unmarried, but losing a chunk of white women who have been reliable Republican Voters is astronomically important for the Republican Party. They wont get those voters back and means theyre shrinking their base to just white men. There arent enough of them even in places like texas and georgia. Those numbers are crazy. White College Educated women are part of america. And what about the 30 most contested house seats and most contested senate races . It means this is a group that is clearly moving democratic. The thing steve bannon said, it
just happened. Who could have ever predicted this would happen . Theres really not much the Republican Party under trump is trying to offer women across the board, a variety of different stripes. You see it in a variety of issues and the candidates they support. I talked about abortion the last time i was on. Today, we have a poll about reducing the number of guns to make it harder to get guns. Its a message that helps a progressive candidate. Even with no message at all. There are a variety of issues you see women responding to a democratic message and republicans are throwing up their hands, we lost them, what can we do . One thing about the different collisions, cornell, there is a guy who won the democratic
primary there, very impressive resume. Whats interesting about that district, hes a black nominee running in a district i think 80, 85 white, a very white district. Hes not the only one losing, down in georgia six is a black woman running in a District Majority white and you have Stacy Abrams Running and in 14 as well. Thats right. Thats a fascinating phenomenon to me given the white racial Identity Politics weve seen cultivated by donald trump in this era, those are test cases. Its a backlash. In full disclosure, i work for Lauren Underwood. That name just came to you shes getting her money tonight. Its part of this backlash that you can double down on the tribalism and it will expand the tent. Its not expanding the tent. Its shrinking the tent. If i was sitting at the Republican Congressional Campaign committee i would be losing my mind to find out that youre losing the white women by 20 points. Its something we talked about before, chris. This isnt about economic, about women being ticked off in our country and places where theyre moving the most away from him is the suburb districts, economically theyre doing pretty well. I dont work for Lauren Underwood and will make a point about her campaign anyway. When women run for office they tend to say it that theyre doing it to fix a specific problem. Men run for potholes and local issues. Laura underwood is running on her own healthcare story and the crisis she went through to create better policies. Thats what Stacey Abrams is doing, able to pull herself up by her bootstraps because georgia gave her just enough to do so. They are not playing Identity Politics and one of the reasons why theyre doing so well in white districts. A special election has the democrat tied in a plus trump district in ohio 12. What do you think . A top tier race, targeted race. Looks like democrats are overperform Writing Republicans should be similar to what weve seen. Interesting, shes not saying we will win this one, they were up 10 points. That has now evaporated. Interesting to see who turns out, a testament to the excitement level. Thank you all
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