Coverage of national and international news, including breaking stories. And cause significant negative economic consequences for iran. And from intern to loyal deputy to arch nemesis, Rick Gates Set to face the heat from the lawyers it had as they crossexamine the former Campaign Aide one day after his testimony. He sat in the alex andrea, virginia courtroom on monday. Manafort glared at him from the defense table. Theyll likely paint him as an untrust worthy testify interested character. Take a look at just what rick gates did and what he said about manaforts crimes and his own. Remember that, and his own. Hes no good guy. He said he had a total of 15 Foreign Companies owned by manafort from the United States government. Companies gates said z Russian Oligarchs paid millions into, was asked about a meeting between manafort and members of congress that took place years earlier. A meeting gates falsely claimed never actually happened. In his testimony, he admitted to the lie, but pointed out his plea deal depends on his honesty in court, trying to inoculate himself from any challenges. Its going to be a heavy day. Joining me retired navy Counter Intelligence operator. And my dear friend former fbi official chuck rose enberg. How bad is gates testimony . He is not a credible guy. Hes a criminal. But criminals tend to hang out with other criminals, bank robbers with others, fraudsters with fraudsters. So, from the perspective of a federal prosecutor, this happens all the time. We put on, in evidence, conspirators, those who worked with the criminal on trial. And they detail what they themselves did, just as mr. Gates is doing now. So, is it important testimony . Absolutely. Is it determine in aative . Probably not. Because remember this is a paper case. We have bank records and tax return that is Wicorroborate Wh he is saying. This is not good for mr. Manafort. We should also remind the audience Paul Manafort getting money funneled from Russian Oligarchs, hiding money from the u. S. Government and the irs. This was the man selected to be the Campaign Chair for President Trumps campaign. Remember, President Trump loves to say it. He hires only the best people. A guy who is hiding money from the u. S. Government. Chuck, i also want to ask you about the judge here. He seeps to ms to be giving the prosecutors a really hard time. Well i was a prosecute ear in that courthouse for many years. Ive appeared in front of judge ellis many times. Thats what happens. He tends to be i want to Say Something nice but also truly. Just tell the truth. Im going to. So the best judges are umpires. They call balls and strikes. Judge ellis likes to pitch and catch and play short stop too. He interjects himself into cases. He likes to take over questioning and likes to tell them how to best frame their arguments or put on their witnesses. Look, i think hes a good judge. I think he gets to the right place in the end but sitting through a trial with him, particularly as an advocate, can be torture. But hold on. If hes doing this and giving the prosecutors a hard time, one could be because hes a showman or knowitall. And the other because he wants to help the defense because its the prosecutor he seems to be cutting off, not the defense. My sense is he doesnt want to help anybody. I think that would be an unfair characterization. Something bugs him that day and hes on the prosecutor, something to bug him the next day and hes on defense counsel. Ive seen him do both. Ive seen him do both in the same trial. I think the bottom line is this. Jury is out of the courtroom for some of this. Theyre not really going to, i think, learn much about one way or the other based on the judges interjections. This the end i dont think it really matters. Its just a bit annoying and you have to put up with it as a prosecutor. Okay. Malcolm, just a minute ago rick gates laid out in court how a ukrainian businessman paid manafort for consulting work and manafort hid that money. Walk us through the Conflict Of Interest for manafort here. Well, the Conflict Of Interest is manifest here. Manafort was a fixer for dictators. And in this particular instance, working with the ukrainian government, a promoscow ukrainian government, he was doing activities all of Which Werent Being reported at the time, and where he was getting paid under the table, tens of millions of dollars. And all of this eventually would transport itself into the trump campaign. Theres reporting that he was actually in debt despite the fact he was receiving tens of millions of dollars in these activities. And then, when he came on as the Campaign Chair, for donald trump, he was offering russian owingly gashin owis access. This is a lot bigger than money. And i think that the Mueller Campaign knows that. What theyre doing is there are three trials going on. This one, with is manaforts past which will eventually lead to a future trial about his relationship with russia in the future and then New York State, which is going to guarantee he gets no pardon on all the crimes hes carry the out within that state. Chuck, whats the fate of the mueller investigation, if manafort gets off here . Well, he has another trial in the District Of Columbia later this year. First of all, i dont expect him to get off here. This is an exceedingly strong case. But, stephanie, to your question, if he does, continue it is. Acquittals happen. Ive probably tried 40 or 50 cases. Ive had an acquittal or too. All good prosecutors, i think have. Politically i mean that with a small p. It would be a setback. Legally rather meaningless. I want to ask you guys with hope hicks. Hope hicks left the administration. She resigned a day after she testified to the house intel committee, and im sure she was asked about that trump tower meeting, because remember, she was on Air Force One with the president when he misrepresented what that Meeting Don Junior had with the russian lawyer. Hope hicks now made her way back to bedminster supposedly for old times sake she decided to go to the rally in ohio with the president. I would probably bring tennis shoes and a tshirt. Alas she was ready to join the president. Could Robert Mueller or house intel ask to speak with her again . If she had oneonone time with the president , given how serious things are about that meeting, how closely tied she is to it, and now she was with the president , did she just walk back into a hornets nest . Yeah. I think so. By the way, so the extent the president and his team complain about how long this investigation is taking, frankly, theyre the ones creating more evidence. First thing that Defense Lawyer will tell his or her client is not to talk to any other witnesses. Its a strict rule and makes perfect sense. And so, naturally, i think, muellers team is going to want to ask her, what did you talk did she tell us the truth the first time or did she go to the president and coordinate a lie . Like she helped did with the trump tower memo . Back in 2017. I really wait and hope to see that she played the right role and shes going to be straight with the Special Counsel and not cover for the president. Well see. How she told that story of the meading at best was naive, at worse was complicit. What is Corporate America going to say. When you got involved in the whole mess, not over and done with and then went back . Strange. I really appreciate you joining me. Next, nbc news exclusive. President trump has now gone from separating children to attacking people who are applying legally for citizenship and green cards. Were going to explain his new plan to target legal immigrants and why it would not need congressional approval. Remember . Ivanka trump said the child separation issue was a low point. How is she going to feel about this . Youre watching velshi ruhle. For investors. Introducing zero account fees for selfdirected brokerage accounts. And zero minimums to open an account. We have Fidelity Mutual funds with zero minimum investment. And now fidelity has two index funds with a zero expense ratio. Because when you invest with fidelity, all those zeros really add up. So maybe ill win saved by zero its the ultimate wifi experience. Xfinity xfi, simple, easy, awesome. Welcome back to velshi ruhle. An update on the number of children who remain in custody at our border. Because of President Trumps immigration policy, 5072 kids separated from their parents at the border remain in the custody of health and human services. Now the Trump Administration has gone from separating kids to attacking legal immigrants applying for citizenship and green cards. We are talking about 20 Million People who are living and working and paying taxes in the United States of america who could be affected. Nbc news now exclusively reporting this proposal comes from Stephen Miller as he moves to limit the number of migrants attaining legal status. It would make it difficult for ones who use a range of Public Welfare programs including obamacare. This push is in direct contrast with the president s own words. I want people coming in, people dont say this and they certainly dont report it but i want people coming in based on merit. We want people to come into the country but we want them to come lowpaying jobs because theyre in jobs a lot of american citizens wouldnt want to take. Its like a man named louie carl charless. He works 80 hours a week, he has to use public assistance to take care of his daughter. He wants to get citizenship but under the new policy he could be eliminated because he uses public assistance, like obamacare, food stamps even some tax credits would actually hurt a lot of immigrants applying to get green cards or citizenship. Theyre esditimatesing it coulde 20 million. It affects one thats applying for citizenship if anyone in their household needs that assistance, like Louie Charles daughter. I want to walk through the type of people this could affect. I can see miller saying do you think people should come here and be on welfare. These arent people sitting on in their house collecting a government check. These are people working fulltime. Theyre not offered health care by the employer. Thats why they use the obamacare system. Thats not what one would think is typically welfare. Why would we look to punish people like that . Well this will goes to the heart of how you build the american dream. Miller says he wants to target illegal immigration. Most people ive interviewed you have a very familiar immigrant story. That is that someone comes here, start working a low paying jobk might need Government Assistance at the beginning and then they go on to maybe go to college and might become a professor. So many years after im able to support my family and put my kids in college. I know so many people like that. What this would do is say even if you had a simple beginning, were going to hold that against you. I think we have seen Steven Miller talk about this idea of chain migration. It has just been family immigration. Its been the way that generations of immigrants have come here. Come here, built a way and brought over the family and built families. Its how america was built. I think thats a really at the heart of this policy. Julia, who does this policy serve . Is who does it work for and who supports this idea . Because when you get down to the nuts and bolts of it, i mentioned it earlier, we need a labor force. Think about the i. C. E. Raid that took place last month, the biggest ever in ohio that was in a Meat Processing plant and those people were in violation of the law but the reason that Processing Plant hired them was because they couldnt get americans who wanted to literally make the sausage. So who is it Sfipecifically Thas going to look at this policy and say right on, mr. President. Theres reason Steven Miller is trending on twitter because people want to know who would back a plan. Theres a lot we can learn from him and the group of people that came from the hill with him, and have been placed in the administration. These are now people at dhs, Justice Department and at the white house. They used to be seen as a right fla flank on the hill pushing policies like this especially the policy to lower the overall number of immigrants coming into the country. This is their plan. Of the it could potentially set up a political conversation they would want heading into the midterms where were not seeing them pulled apart but on welfare. They may try to glaze over the fact that you accurately brought up that a lot of these people are working immigrants, working when someone says that to you, do you ask them would you like to be a taxi driver . Would you like to deliver food z, build a fence . Well i dont ask them that specifically. What ask them is what did that taxi driver do to you but nothing in particular. I just dont like the look of them. Its not the fact you dont like theyre brown its the fact that youre uncomfortable around people of color and around other cultures, so in some ways as a reporter im here to expose. Donald trump spoke to that vein of america and thats what really this is about. You know what looks really ugly, people who spew hate. If we just gave one another a chance and cared more, i think we could solve a lot. Thanks so much. Next, President Trumps radical diplomacy. Can you believe that . I dont like when my taxi driver has an accent. Then walk. His moves puzzle even the mow experienced states people. What is his strategy . Does he have one . Youre watching velshi ruhle live on msnbc. I dont keep track of regrets. I never count the wrinkles. And i dont add up the years. But what i do count on. Is staying happy and healthy. So, i add protein, vitamins and minerals to my diet with boost®. New boost® high protein nutritional drink now has 33 more highquality protein, along with 26 essential and minerals your body needs. All with guaranteed great taste. The upside im just getting started. Boost® high protein be up for life but if something happened to you. You need Life Insurance and chances are selectquote can get it for you for under a dollar a day selectquote found michael, 38, a 500,000 policy for under 23 a month. Selectquote found anna, 37, a 750,000 policy for under 22 a month. Selectquotes secret . 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President trump is boasting about slamming sanctions on iran which is creating tensions with our own allies. He tweeted earlier in part, these are the most biting sanctions ever imposed and in november, they rachet up to yet another level. Anyone doing business with iran will not be doing business with the United States. Im asking for world peace. Nothing less. Sanctions, which had been eased under the iran 2005 excuse me. 2015 nuclear deal went back into effect this morning. As a result of the u. S. Pulling out of the greem. Now the European Union is encouraging investors to increase business with iran arguing the nation has upheld its end of the deal. With me now former democratic congressman jane harman who is the president and ceo. Woodrow wilson center. Trump appears to be threatening any country that does business with iran. ,000 is that going to affect the United States and europe . The Regime Collapse is going to be pretty hard to achieve. That seems to be what hes going for. But i think the rest of the world is not in step here. By blowing up the iran deal, in the spring we lost the support we had, which was hard to achieve in russia and china and obviously the eu. And theyre working against us as you just said and i dhingk russia and china are not going to care about the threats. I want to stay on that because the National Security adviser said this morning he is not worried about countries like you a iran and china doing a workaround working with excuse me russia and china to do a work around. What is bolton talking about . A workaround is exactly russia and chinas jam. I dont know. And hello. If youre kim jongun and listening in and watching this new movie. We threaten Regime Collapse after we do agreements with countries, to denuclearize, if im kim jongun i say, no way. And there really is no agreement yet with north korea. I think this makes the north korea deal, if one is in play, much harder to achieve. So that exact point, what position does this put the president in . He said over and done with, he gave me his word, theyre denuclearizing, then we hear from john bolton again that north korea is not living up to its deknee clear ration process. I dont get it. I dont know what the end game is. Nobel peace prize. Well, you know, if he achieves world peace, he deserves it. Lets go there. Thats what his tweet says hes after. I think he made it harder in north korea today or last night. I think hes i dont see where iran goes. And lets think about russia. Vladimir putin is working with iran in syria. We basically have given syria to iran and Vladimir Putin, and iran is detablizing iraq, so i just dont see how any of this leads to steps in any country that i can name that will make create a more peaceful world. Rand paul just went to moscow and invited russian lawmakers to washington. Why would he do that . I dont know. Weve had exchanges for many years. I dont get the timing now, given what the stakes are, it seeps to me, with russia. I think pompeo particularly he and mattis have created a fame work where i think our relationship with russia is where it needs to be, which is highly critical of the invasion of ukraine and some other actions its taking, but rand paul is a lone actor. I think hell need to explain this. Jane. Thank you so much. Coming up next, a new investigation tallies allegations against commerce secretary wilbur ross. If the claims are correct, it would mean ros stole more than 120 Million Bucks from the people he worked with. That is like a grand champion of but first, President Trump is going to be hosting a dinner with ceos at a golf club in new jersey, leaders from companies inenclos including Pepsi Johnson And johnson. Youre watching velshi ruhle here on msnbc. Yielded to no one. When i found you in my dna, i learned where my strength comes from. My name is courtney mckinney, and this is my ancestrydna story. 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Thats the icing on the cake. I love cake. Finding the right aarp Medicare Supplement plan for you could be just a quick call away. So. Call. Heres one for the draining the swamp special. Congress secretary wilbur ross facing accusations of stealing more than 120 million for people he worked with and investors. Forbes tracked allegations he took money from businesses and funds he had interest in. Alleged total, more than 120 million. Hes currently involved in a multi million lawsuit in New York State related to some of the allegations and faced multiple lawsuits, repayments and fines since at least 2005. Commerce department responded this morning saying in part, the anonymously sourced forbes story is based on false rumors and inverifiable claims. Fact remains that no regulator has ever made these accusations. I want to bring in foibrbes associate editor. There are legal court filings. Four of his highest ranking employees have sued him. That doesnt mean the sec has to charge you with anything. He had major settlements. How could they possible say its unverified. Not only that but the sec has already charged his firm with thing tsz and fined him for that. As part of the settlement they had to repay millions back to investors. You can say things are based on Anonymous Sources because people arent talking to the press but this is documented. Its in lawsuits. Its hard to be anonymous when youre putting this this suits. He had to pay a major fine just before he took the position with the white house . His firm did. 2 pinpoint 3 million in august of 2016. This was for allegedly misleading investors and de frauding them. Thats not his only issue. He has a long list of confrikli of interest. Insider trading involving ross. He still owned between 10 and 50 million bucks worth of stock in the parent company. And even though the funds did divest, its only on paper because his investments are transferred to a trust that his Family Benefits from. How could anyone even say hes doing nothing wrong here . And hes god ties to china in his investments and hes the guy at the held many negotiating trade deals. Thats right. Theres a remarkable pattern. If you look at any one of these claims, you might say this is a guy whos been successful in business and high flying Business People get sued all the time. Highflying Business People get sued but dont settle. Sometimes they do settle if theres no wrongdoing because its easier to settle or whatever. If its a oneoff. But a pattern like this, does the pattern tells a story. You have the employees and federal officials making similar claims. You add it up and its pretty hard to ignore the pattern. Lets say it dozen get ignored. Then what . I think he likes being in the cabinet. He sure does. I dont think that trump has shown eagerness to toss people for ethical issues this the past. You think he likes being in the administration . I do. It is not hard to find a picture of donald trump with wilbur ross next to him. When we calm back. As russia attacks the mid terms, the company is attacking our power grid. Manage if that happened in the dids of winter. What is being done or not. Youre watching velshi ruhle do you want the same tools and seamless experience across web and tablet . Do you want 4. 95 commissions for stocks, 0. 50 Options Contracts . 1. 50 Futures Contracts . What about a dedicated service team of Trading Specialists . Did you say yes . Good, then its time for power e trade. The platform, price and service that gives you the edge you need. Looks like we have a couple seconds left. Lets do some card twirling twirling cards e trade. The original place to invest online. It was always our singular focus, a distinct determination. 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They broke into thes networks in two phases, first smaller trusted Third Party Businesses that had a relationship with a bigger intended target. They did this by sending fake emails that tricked users into giving up confidential information. They altered z trusted energy websites. They also send malicious documents which when opened gave hackers access to the victims computers. That brings us to phase 2. Attacking the primary targets, using fake accounts set up already the hacker rs septembsl. And the really scary part . In multiple instances, the hackers were able to access work stations and servers, but there was no indication that any sabotage existed. Recently, we learned that the hackers had the ability to cause the blackouts. One dhs official tells reporters, quote, they got to the point where they could have thrown switches and disrupted power flows. Joining me now axios Deputy Editor who wrote about the threat. This is a very scary story. If the hackers had ac sos to throw the switch and sabotage the power plants, why didnt they . Experts have told us to lock at it almost like a nuclear deterrence. They kind of want us to know they have the capability such that when he intervene, our capacity to respond to that is hampered by the fact we know they have this capability to shut down and cause blackouts in cities, to disrupt, as you said, critical infrastructure. Imagine, if the power went out in the state of maine in the month of january, all the lives that could be at risk. I know you interviewed a few top officials and specifically asked which global threat worried them the most. What is keeping them up at night . This is former cia directors, national intelligence, Top White House advisers on security. More than half said the biggest threat is a massive cyber attack. He referenced the idea of tampering with the electric grid and causing prolonged blackouts putting lives at risk. Second wassed rise of china, which is a huge crisis for the u. S. You put the fact that Cyber Attacks are above that on the threat scale you can tell its a pretty serious problem. Talk about where the threats come from specifically. People think its just these hackers. We think theyre russians. But its broader. Right. So there are four main Cyber Adversaries that were dealing with. Russia is perhaps the most advanced, but china, north korea, iran, very involved z in the cyber arena. Part of the problem here is we dont really have a doctrine for how to deal with this in the way we do in traditional ware fare or responding to terrorist incidents. Cyber attacks happen. We dont always detect them right away. Theres not really protocols there for they do x, we do y skbr its not strange that There Arent Protocols Theatrics is all sort of a whole new woerlds were living in. But while you hear from these intelligence officials how worried they are about a cyber attack, we talk often about efforts to undermine the election system, and the networks. What is the administration doing in terms of a coordinated front because the president still loves to say things like well, could have been anybody. Could have been a fat guy sitting on his bed somewhere. Right. I dont think President Trump has been personally involved in these discussions, but there are discussions going on in the administration on two fronts. One is if russia does press the button, you know, if it we do have blackouts caused by a f foreign adversary, how do we respond and get things back and running. Part two, the hacks that have happened. If we pinpoint who did it, how do we punish and defer further. I believe it was Vladimir Putin said who controls Art Official Intelligence will control the world. We know china is spending billions, if not trillions on artificial intelligence. Its a topic we havent heard much about from the president. Thank you, dave. I appreciate it. Next, President Trump is politicizing the california w d wildfires. Why he is way off the mark in distracting from the real cause of these devastating wildfires. One is now the biggest in the states history. And our monumental american today is in fact a great lost h battling the carr fire on july 26th. His name is jeremy stokes. He was a Fire Prevention inspector and will be with the Redding Fire Department since 2004. He was killed on the front line while evacuating residents. The New York Times reports he was caught in a 400footwide fire tornado. His fellow firefighters built a makeshift memorial for him before returning to fight the flames. Stoke will be celebrated this saturday with a Memorial Service and honor guard of firefighters. He lives behind his wife, his 10yearold daughter, and his 14yearold son. Mr. Stoke was only 37 years old. Thats a Great American right there. 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A dispute between browns administration and californias republicans over Central Valley farms. The farmers want more water diverted from two rivers which flow into the San Francisco bay. But others, like fishermen, support the current levels, saying any diversion would impact fish and wildlife. It has absolutely nothing to do with these fires. Next, he claimed that the wildfires are being magnified because water is not being utilized properly. But major reservoirs are situated right by the fire zones. A Cal Fire Spokesperson disputes that firefighters have any water access issues. And his second tweet, the president threw in some forestry policy advice, saying trees needed to be cleared to prevent fires from spreading. This one is a valid debate. He may be talking about creating fire breaks, a current cal fire policy and something worth more than 280 characters to flesh out. But certainly this devastating fire in california is nothing to be glib about, especially when lives are at risk. Joining me now, Ucla Geography And Environment Professor glenn mcdonald. Glenn, weve heard about California Droughts in recent years. Could that have anything to do with what the president is tweeting about here . It doesnt have anything to do with water. As you pointed out, you have three major reservoirs, whisk whiskeytown, trinity, and shasta, right there where the fire broke out at 299, the carr fire. That has nothing to do with anything. Thats political theater about the San Joaquin River valley. Ill mention two names of gop representatives there, kevin mccarthy, devin nunes. So you can see why water might be on trumps mind when it comes to california. If you want political theater and drama, take a look at the live images of those fires raging. Now, lets talk about whats driving the fires, because if its not lack of water, what is it . Well, lets take a perspective, if we look back, the beginning of 2017, 14 of the 20 largest wildfires in the state occurred since the year 2000. Weve had a massive uptick in fires. The Mendocino Complex and carr fires will make that 16 of the 20 biggest of the year since the year 2000. Thats an incredible statistic. You cannot ignore that theres a pattern here. What does this correspond with . It corresponds with long term, strong, pervasive increase in temperatures which can be linked to increased gases and Global Climate change. There anything we can and should be doing to prevent this, seeing as these fires are coming year after year . Well, you know what, were not going to dodge this bullet. I mean, there is a very, very Strong Program here in the state. Governor brown in may announced that hes putting almost an additional 100 million into Tree Trimming and fuel load reduction, Prescribed Burns and things like that. Theres only so much you can do with those mechanisms. California had a lot of big fires before european settlement. It will have a lot of big fires going into the 21st century. The problem is theyre exacerbated by the high temperatures, low humidities, high evaporation rates. Theres nothing you can do about the states fires. Were done Fact Checking the president s tweet, it makes no sense anymore to dig into why hes doing that. But if you sat down with the president right now, given your expertise, what would you ask of him as it relates to whats happening at this moment, because those fires are still raging. Right. If we look at the federal level, the president has declared the end of july a federal emergency for the fires here in the state of california. I think that fema aid is necessary. I do think that more support for u. S. Forest service, department of interior, bureau of land management, who are managing these wild lands, 57 of the forests in the state of California Are Run by the u. S. Forest service, they are federal lands. So its important then to support those organizations, both for on the ground things like, you know, fire suppression, thinning of fuels, Prescribed Burns, and also for research, to understand fire behavior, to understand fire