Coverage of national and international news, including breaking stories. Coverage of national and international news, including breaking stories. Stories here, who has more perceived credibility at this point . Its a tough call. What do you think . Well, thats a good question, i dont think either one of them does. President trump says things that are untrue all the time. He has about this very anecdote because the New York Times reported a year ago he helped create a false statement about this meeting. Don jr. Most likely told his father about this meeting, its not plausible that he wouldnt have. Michael cohen doesnt have credibility. Rudy giuliani doesnt have credibility. I think what this does, we dont know again if this is collusion, if collusion is a crime. If this is actually an impeachable offense. Well wait for mueller to figure this out. Whether or not there was a direct act that could be
translated from collusion to conspiracy. But i think what this does is, with Michael Cohen seemingly turning on the president , it exposes him with regard to his Business Dealings at the Trump Organization. Thats what the trump allies are worried about. If Michael Cohen has decided he can no longer be loyal. In he has roads to take investigators down in terms of a potential financial crimes by the Trump Organization over the years, thats going to be extremely problematic for the president. This could be just one piece of the puzzle, the information hes putting forward. The president has uncharacteristically not spoken to reporters since this cohen tape leaked. Sources are saying trump has had a difficult time with what he sees as a huge betrayal on the part of his fixer. What does the president s silence indicate to you now . This is a pattern weve seen before, when theres difficult news, especially in a case where
there may be a legal liability involved. The president retreats to media, sean hannity, the white house took an extraordinary measure this week. And we learned the Washington Post had a story indicating this pretty much came from the top, the president has been asking his aids to consider banning other reporters who ask questions that he deems unfriendly, theres a bit of a Siege Mentality here. And silence on the tweets too. Now, following cohens accusation, democrats are ramping up accusations that trump included with russia, of course. Watch what eric said on the Rachel Maddow show last night. Its not about what donald trump did with that meeting, i think what is significant is what he did not do. If he knew that the meeting was to take place, he did not tell his son to cancel the meeting. He did not tell the fbi about the meeting, and if anything, he further encouraged and emboldened the russians to hack. Because he went out and said, russia, if youre listening, which was two years ago from today, you would be rewarded for hacking Hillary Clintons emails. Its an interesting time line that gives us more of a picture of this mosaic. What do you make of the congressmans comments. You really see this defense that trump has laid out is very rests very much on him not knowing about this meeting. One of his own Talking Points has been, why didnt the Obama Administration do more to publicize the russia threat. If you knew that was rush yaz was actively trying to help your campaign by peddling dirt. Why didnt you do more . Why didnt you go to the fbi. You see the kind of rabbit hole this leads into here. The white house cant sustain some of these earlier defenses. And then we have this almost comical reversal from giuliani. What do you make of Giuliani Pivoting from calling cohen honest and honorable and then saying, hes lied all his life shortly thereafter. Its a damaging shift from a legal standpoint. Rudy giuliani is going to have to bring this up in court at some point. The fact that hes completely changed his tone on someone who can be a key witness in this case is not good for his credibility. And he really ive talked to some legal experts in reporting this out the last few days. They were making the case that he should not have taken a definitive tone on mikal cohen to begin with. He should not you should step back from the public position hes taken. That being said, the strategy from the Trump Legal Team seems to be to fight this out in the court of public opinion. Thats what Rudy Giuliani has been doing over the last couple weeks. That is the political strategy the president has insisted on. I want to talk about this coziness with russia. Trump is open to visiting the kremlin after receiving the surprise invite from putin. Its been a confusing and shocking relationship, especially since the helsinki summit. Where do things stand in your opinion . Its interesting to concerned republicans throughout the government and outside of government that it took days for us to learn from the president of the russian federation, that they had discussed President Trump going to moscow. Now, its one thing the only thing worse that putin coming to the white house, where you heard congressional leaders in the president s party say he would
not be welcome in the congress, that would be quite a frosty visit in washington. But the only thing worse is for President Trump to go to moscow. Thats not in the best interests of this country. They can keep talking at g 20 meetings or get together in some way, on neutral ground. Its not a good idea for the president to go to moscow. If youre looking at the next couple weeks and months, and the midterm elections coming up, youre going to see continued push back from republicans who want this whole idea to go away. Shocking we found out about it days after the two hour meeting that no one knows anything about between president s trump and putin. Not in the best interest of national scout. Probably best that its been postponed. Thank you for sharing your insight. Next up, legal jeopardy, how Michael Cohens Bombshell Allegation puts President Trump and others in a pretty uncomfortable situation. Stay with us. Mcquaid thank you both for being here. By a flub of accounts 37 wieselberg has a lot of answers. This is a pretty big deal, what do you think the significance is of his subpoena and what are federal investigators looking for here. The subpoena is particularly significant because it comes in the investigation in the Southern District of new york into Michael Cohen. What it suggests is, there is a link to the Trump Organization and perhaps President Trump himself in that investigation. Theyre now looking at trumps finances. I think its an opportunity for them to look at, were there fraudulent payments, bank fraud, money laundering. As his long time chief financial officer, wieselberg has access
to all this information. I heard him described as the human tax return. This could be a real gold mine for investigators. He was involved when the trumps, when trumps father was at the elm. What legal danger could the president face if its proven he did know about it . Well, certainly other facts are going to matter to find out context and other things. It suggests the possibility that President Trump could find himself facing conspiracy charges if theyre able to prove there was an agreement between russians to do a number of things. Weve already seen the indictment against russians to defraud the United States out of Fair Administration of elections. President trump could be added to such an indictment. There could be charges for violating the Computer Fraud and abuse act as has been alleged in the other indictments. Theres also concern here about
some sort of obstruction of justice. We have donald trump jr. Saying he didnt know about it. President trump has said he didnt know about it, i dont know that this standing alone makes out a criminal case, you add it to all the things President Trump has tried to do to divert attention from the investigation into coordination with russians, this could be a powerful evidence of obstruction of justice. The challenge for mueller will be to find that truth, that proof. Cohen reportedly claimed several people were in the room when trump was told about this trump tower meeting. Corroboration can be everything for prosecutors to make their case. How could that change things for the president if there were other people there. There were two ways it could change for the president. One is corroboration, if other people are persuaded to tell the story that does appear to be there. You dont need the corroboration, you have the ability to examine what happened
before and after that meeting. You have phone records. Theres no doubt in my mind bob mueller had before we were talking about this. You have all the Financial Transactions that the Financial Crimes Network processes. Bob mueller has access to all of that information. As these walls are closing in on all of these fronts. Many things on the russian ya investigation front. It encourages more people to come forward and Tell The Truth and cooperate. This is a Snowball Effect that probably isnt going to end soon. When donald trump jr. Testified, he was questioned about a blocked number he was in contact with while arranging the meeting, he testified he didnt know whose block number it was. What if any questions could he face if it turns out he lied about this . This seems to be the kind of thing hes speaking before he thinks through the consequences of it, not knowing the blocked
number you were in contact with, it strains credibility a bit. Given the number of false hoods that have been stated, hes not putting himself out there as a good fact witness for himself. Many of the things hes mentioning, there are ways of finding out whether its true or not, thats the real issue, saying something doesnt mean its true. With the other evidence coming in around him, hes putting himself in jeopardy, and closing in the walls around his father as well. We learned this weekend, special prosecutor Robert Mueller examining tweets and negative statements made by the president for possible obstruction. His tweets seems sometimes pretty innocuous, how can they help the investigation here. This is interesting . It is really interesting. And certainly a new form of technology, new form of communication that hasnt been used much before for this kind of thing, it can demonstrate whats necessary in a case like
this, these Arent Secret Communications which often is the case when youre trying to obstruct an investigation. You told some witness you better lie for me or else. This is putting public pressure on Jeff Sessions and jim comey about the investigation. Was he trying to nudge them in a certain direction . Stand ago lone, i dont know that any one of these tweets would make a case. To prove that corrupt intent, they could provide a real window into President Trumps mind, when you see what it is hes tweeting. When i briefed bob mueller the Intelligence Report every day. I saw the way his mind worked. He left no stone unturned. If there was something that could give insight, he did not hesitate to ask and follow it up and chase that fact until he had it. Theres no doubt in my mind that hes incorporating these tweets into the time line of potential obstruction of justice. They certainly can give us an
indication of the thoughts that were going on at that time. David and barbara, thank you for sharing your insight with us. Saturday a major push by republicans to keep control of the house and overcome a pretty difficult electoral map. Well have a live report from chicago. Trade wars, the Political Risk as President Trumps tariffs start to hit home for people in his base, stick around. Im ray and i quit smoking with chantix. I tried cold turkey, i tried the patch. They didnt work for me. I didnt think anything was going to work for me until i tried chantix. Chantix, along with support, helps you quit smoking. Chantix reduced my urge to smoke. I needed that to quit. When you try to quit smoking,
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hand out mailers as theyre doing now. Operations like these are happening all across the country. About 100 days away from the midterm elections. Its an illustrative mic microcosm. Republicans in the midwest could face a backlash to President Trumps policies. Today agriculture secretary sonny purdue told this to reuters, farmers will receive money from the 12 billion aid package as soon as september. That money is designed to help farmers affected by the administrations aggressive tariff policies. The president could already be paying a price politically. Trump is losing support in the midwest. His job approval in michigan, minnesota, wisconsin is now in the 30s. He deserves to be reelected. As you remember, trump won wisconsin and michigan by pretty slim margins. Joining me to talk about this is former Iowa Governor tom vilsak. President and ceo of the u. S. Dairy export council. Thank you for joining us. Great to be with you. Is this bailout helping farmers . It doesnt seem to be what they want. They want markets, they want to be able to earn money the right way. Very dependent on export markets. Soybeans are down 20 sales have been stopped in china. And were really dealing with the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars of had income. A 1. 8 billion loss over the last several weeks. Its a fairly significant
opportunity and challenge that farmers face because of these tari tariffs. Markets that were open, markets that had momentum are now being shut off. To explain this better, china buys most of the u. S. s soybeans which are now being supplied by brazil and other countries that are ramping up production. Thats been hurting the u. S. The reality is, the retaliatory tariffs increases the cost of our soybeans to chinese purchasers. Theyre not competitive. Theyre not competitively priced. That makes it easier for South American soybeans to be closed into china. Mexico is our number one market for cheese. Our cheese used to be financially advantageous to the mexicans. The refail Ya Tory Tariffs by mexico, makes it we have a logistical advantage, at the end of the day, the tariffs have
made it difficult for us to make the financial case. We have these tariff issues as well. The eu made some concessions depending on who you ask. Is trump right that farmers are getting a raw deal from previous u. S. Trade policies, in your opinion . Its interesting. Because we had the highest farm income in the history of u. S. Agriculture, the highest Export Numbers in the history of u. S. Agriculture, its difficult to make the case that the trade issues directly affect negatively the farm community. Farmers benefit from exports. We happen to be on the front lines, the casualties of this trade war, which is why the president and his team put together this aide package. Politically advantageous, prior to the president s visit to the midwest and prior to the november elections. Farmers acknowledge that they need help, but what they would like to see is nafta
renegotiated as quickly as possible and this chinese situation resolved as quickly as possible. There are questions about whether the president himself fully understands the complexity of some of these trade issues, trump tweeted, tariffs are the greatest, a country that has treated the u. S. Unfairly on trade or it gets hit with tariffs, its as simple as that, and everybodys talking, remember, were the piggybank thats being robbed, all the will be great. During trumps meeting with the European Commission president this week. The eu leader used a dozen cue cards. How do you assess trumps approach to trade. How does it compare to president obama, of course. I think president obama took the view that we benefit from global trade as a nation that we create relationships with nations that make us a more
secure nation. In agriculture in particular, we had an advantage, there are issues with reference to china, the problem is, is that when you go after china, you go after china alone as the sole nation, we didnt build a Coalition Many if we had another number of nations join us. It would have been far more difficult for them to reail yat in the way they did against u. S. Agriculture. The problem isnt that theyre raising questions about china. Its how theyve approached it by going it alone. We put a bulls eye if you will on u. S. Agriculture. And theyre paying a steep price, the problem with the bailout, it provides some additional help now, it doesnt guarantee we get markets back that we lose as a result of these tariffs. This is a difficult situation for farmers, theyre anxious about this. Tom, we appreciate your very informative insight on this topic. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. Republicans table their plan to impeach rosenstein for now. Copd makes it hard to breathe. So to breathe better, i go with anoro. Go your own way copd tries to say, go this way. I say, ill go my own way, with anoro. Go your own way oncedaily anoro contains two medicines called bronchodilators that Work Together to significantly improve lung function all day and all night. Anoro is not for asthma. It contains a type of medicine that increases risk of death in people with asthma. The risk is unknown in copd. Anoro wont replace Rescue Inhalers for sudden symptoms and should not be used more than once a day. Tell your doctor if you have a heart condition, high blood pressure, glaucoma, prostate, bladder, or urinary problems. These may worsen with anoro. Call your doctor if you have worsened breathing, chest pain, mouth or tongue swelling, problems urinating, vision changes,
or eye pain while taking anoro. Ask your doctor about anoro. Go your own way get your first prescription free at anoro. Com. Welcome back, the push to impeach Rod Rosen Stein is on hold for now. Rosenstein overseas the Mueller Investigation. Hes under fire by conservative Freedom Caucus members. They claim hes stonewall iing. Congressman mark meadows is leading this fight against rosenstein. He will give the Justice Department more time. One of two things will happen, well either get the documents that were entitled to, or there will be some type of action in september. Its an effort to undermine muellers investigation. Joining me now is michael singleton, and adrian elron to break this down. Thanks for being here. Meadows says he may consider a Contempt Vote instead of considering impeachment. Why this Change Of Heart . I think for the Freedom Caucus, they recognize that for their base, which is the same base as President Trumps. This is something that resonates
particularly with those political voters. Im extremely disappointed with the fecklessness. I have to ask, why arent they focused on protecting our elections. They have a guy whos a republican, who was appointed by the president. It doesnt make any sense to me. Jeff sessions continuing to back his deputy, however, take a listen. My deputy, Rod Rosenstein is highly capable. I have the highest confidence in him, you probably know, not only did he go to the Wharton School of business, but graduated from harvard right here in this area. So what i would Like Congress to do is to focus on some of the legal challenges that are out there. Very to ask you, adrian. What do you think is really behind this move by the freedom
caucus. And all the stuff weve been talking about . Its two things, the Freedom Caucus is trying to do everything they can to undermine the Mueller Investigation, theyre going after one of their own. Hes overseeing the Mueller Investigation. This is what their base wants to hear, there have been some reports that have come out this weekend that there are people in american who are staunch supporters of trump who are glad that russia interfered in the election, because they wanted to make sure that donald trump won. The Freedom Caucus, jim jordan, mark meadows, all of their members are doing what Donald Trumps base and their base wants. Lets talk about our relationship with russia. Putin invited trump to moscow. John bolton says the summit is being put off until next year, when the witch hundred is the
over. Is it clear that the Mueller Investigation is over, what do you think the postponement of this meeting possibly indicates . I dont any of us has an idea. I think more than likely, knowing him, he will probably wait until after midterms, because he doesnt want to impact the election whatsoever. As it relates to russia and putin, i have no idea what the administration is attempting to do here, there isnt a coherent strategy. I dont see how inviting putin to the white house benefits i mean in a classical sense, theres a lack of courage and a lack of magg in a minitti we have expected with all of our president s of the past. For some odd reason, the republicans, a party that respects tradition, that respects norms have flown all of those things out the door and for what, its not going to
benefit us in the long run. I dont know what the president seeks to gain out of this. Seems like an apt word to describe the relationship with russia. Some Foreign Policy experts agree with trump that hes been tougher on russia than the previous administration, why is there disconnect between policy and trumps reluctance to criticize putin and what were seeing. Im not sure who those experts are, or their credibility. Its not true, donald trump is buddied up to our biggest adversaries out there, north korea, russia, china to an extent. And at the expense of our democratic allies, hes alienated some of our closest allies, candidate to put at the top of the list. Bust i want to go back to something that john bolton said, the fact that the National Security adviser of the United States of america is actually
calling the Mueller Investigation which is looking into the interference of russia, calling a witch hunt in the official white house statement is, i cant believe this is actually happening, i guess we cant theres nothing thats shocking any more. I think its important to realize, this is the National Security adviser who made this statement, this is a person whos in Donald Trumps ear, constantly advising him on all matters of National Security, were going down a dangerous road here. Certainly interesting wording. Michael singleton. Thanks for being with us. Thanks so much. Still ahead, were going to be talking about facebook. What led to the social media giants one day, 120 billion market plunge, if you can believe it. Liberty mutual accident forgiveness means
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billion. So founder Mark Zuckerberg himself lost 17 billion in that selloff. The Company Blames slow growth in the afr management of the whole Cambridge Analytica aftermath of the whole Cambridge Analytica controversy. Facebook admitted data from 87 million users may have been shared with Cambridge Analytica which used the information for political purposes. Not what they bargained for. Joining me, nbc news Senior Business reporter ben popkin, and elizabeth dwaskin, Silicon Valley correspondent for the Washington Post. Thanks for being here. Ben, how did facebook get here . 120 billion loss. We knew that they couldnt withstand those skyhigh valuations and live up to them. But no one expected the hit to be this big. Right. I mean, this has been a hyp hypergrowth company, 40 growth for a long time, and planning for it. Facebook told everybody, you know, hit the brakes, were switching to being a 20 growth company. Theyre increasing margins,
theyre spending money, spending more money to crack down on some of these behaviors. Data scandals finally coming home to roost, finally hitting their bottom line. Cambridge analytica, russian interference, fake news, info. Wars, all these things are clustering together. Theyre finally having to pay the price. And its really you know, why it was so steep was because investors, what analysts told me, they didnt expect this to come so quickly. They thought maybe six months from now it will kind of taper down to 35 growth. Maybe go and trend down. It was so hard and so fast, and thats why it got hit with that 20 massive historic ding. Really surprising. So elizabeth, i wanted your take. Mark zuckerberg warning his investors there would be a hit to profits because of investments made into security. Doing the right thing was going to cost them. But isnt that an easier story to tell than the fact that theyre having this big problem with user growth . No, i think youre absolutely right. Look, its whats as a tech reporter, youre looking at the
story. He said that profits might be dinged about a year ago, agent months ago. He eight months ago. He said it, and as a reporter you think when is it going to catch up to them. All in one day it did. Its not really the user growth. One piece is they lost about Three Million users in europe, a big deal. Their growth has basically been flat in the thu in the united. It is growing in the developing world but not as quickly. Theres still a lot of people who could still come on facebook. There is still room to grow there. I think its more about the cost of some of the privacy features that theyre building, and like for instance, you know you can clear your browser, you can clear your cookies . Facebook recently introduced a clearhistory tab. Its one piece of the toolkit theyre releasing to reduce the data they can collect. And thats going to reduce their margins. I think thats what theyre really talking about. And a big question is zuckerbergs role in all this. He laughed off accusations two years ago that his company allowed a platform for misinformation that could have impacted the 2016 election. Take a listen. Personally, i think the idea that fake news on facebook of which, you know, its a very small amount of the content, influenced the election in any way i think is a pretty crazy idea. So he apologized after that. He faced testimony on capitol hill. Is he going to survive this latest hit in your opinion . Well, there have been growing calls for ways to limit his power. Hes chairman and ceo. He has these sort of super shares that give him massive control over the company and limit investor voice. There are calls for him to step down. From what it looks like, you know, facebook will continue. This is not the end of facebook by any means. But it is definitely a
significant Turning Point where they have to change their strategy. Lets face it, facebook at its core is based on violating your privacy. Its based on getting you tricking you into giving up as much information about yourself as you possibly can so they can give it to advertisers, so they can deliver you highly targeted ads. All these steps that theyre doing to make facebook safer, make it easier to use, giving you tools, that limits their ability to invade your privacy. So their problems are completely contrary to their core Business Models. So theyre really at this at this crux. And theyre going to keep having problems. Their Business Model creates the problems. Simply spending more money, adding 5,000, 10,000 more contractors to pull away this crazy inflammatory content, thats not going to stop another russia hack, some other kind of even more, worse misinformation from bubbling up again. Thats what facebook really has to contened with. Right. These are not the problems that Mark Zuckerberg and others in
Silicon Valley, billionaires, signed up for when they started these things. Face it, facebook is still a massive profitable company, and it will do just fine. It just has some growth growing pains to go through. Ben, elizabeth, thank you for sharing your insight with us. Thanks. Tonight, msnbc presenting a special look at some dramatic efforts to rescue those 12 boys and their soccer coach from a cave in thailand. Youll hear firsthand from members of the rescue team. They took part in the 18day mission. Watch inside story thai cave rescue, tonight at 8 00 p. M. Eastern only on msnbc. And its a fascinating tale. Nobody else even comes close. Now starting at 7. 99. Gillette. The best a man can get. And i am a senior Public SafetyMy Namspecialist for pg e. My job is to help educate our First Responders on how to deal with natural gas and electric emergencies. Everyday when we go to work we want everyone to work safely and come home safely. I live right here in auburn, i absolutely love this community. Once i moved here i didnt want to live anywhere else. I love that people in this community are willing to come together to make a difference for other peoples lives. Together, were building a better california