Stunt . Plus, the citizen cycle. You have a leaker backing a leaker. Well try to sort out all the spin on the james comey memos. And later, joint session. Ill be introducing ledges to decriminalize marijuana. The bipartisan push to solve a chronic problem. This is mtp daily, and it starts right now. Good evening. Welcome to mtp daily im chuck todd here in new york. The Democrat National committee is making headlines today with what appears to be a political stunt straight out of President Trumps playbook. They are filing a lawsuit. The lawsuit targets the tramp campaign, the russian government, and wikileaks, alleging they conspiracied to disrupt the 2016 election in Donald Trumps favor. The lawsuit alleges a conspiracy that quote stoconstituted unforeseen treachery. My question tonight, is this lawsuit a stunt or is it something we need to take legally very seriously . Folks, there are a lot of reasons to question this motivation and the merits of this lawsuit. And there is a lot of merits to the lawsuit. Lets get started. First off, democrats do have a base thats fired up and angry about President Trump. Democrats need to do something. But they have struggled with finding a message heading into the mid terms. Is this their answer . The dnc suit names a host of top figures from President Trumps campaign, like former chairman paul manafort, deputy rick gates, social jared cubner. Donald trump jr. , and roger stone, and george papadopoulos. One reason not to take this lawsuit seriously, it is not going anywhere any time soon. All of those people are wrapped up in the Mueller Probe. And that criminal probe does take precedence over this lawsuit. As Pete Williams of nbc news says, this lawsuit could be tied up for yours just getting to first base, meaning just to start the process of having a trial. Now the Trump Campaign accused the dnc of filing the lawsuit as a way to raise money and distract from its own internal strife calling it a sham lawsuit filed by a bogus in a statement to mtp daily, roger stone calls it quote a left wing Conspiracy Theory dressed up as a lawsuit. He goes on to ask, does the dnc expect the Russian Federation to show up in court . That is another reason not to take the lawsuit seriously. It is highly unlikely that anyone in russia is ever going to be deposed in this thing. One more reason not to take it seriously is its not clear if it even can survive a motion to dismiss it. But if it did go forward one big reason to take this lawsuit seriously, the dnc could force key witnesses to answer questions under oath in depositions. Another reason the take this lawsuit seriously, President Trump cant pardon his way out of it and he kane cant fire his way out of it. So there are both publicity stunt ways to look at this thing and serious legal ways to look at this thing. We will try to look at both of them. Joining me now, danny is a vallo. It is a civilian court. They got a judge already named. Okay. But give me a realistic time line here. You file this suit. How can you if you are in the middle of a Mueller Probe and we dont know for sure if the got is going to charge the russian government with any of this stuff . At this point, this is the very inception of a lawsuit. The defendants have to be served. They have to appear. They have to answer the complaint. There may be extensions. And some of these defendants, as you know r the Russian Federation. Even if they can get jurisdiction over them and District Courts do have jurisdiction over foreign governments in cases like this, but the real question is, how do you serve them . How do you bring them into court. How do you even commence this litigation with this many defendants and this many counts . Is that the reason there are so many defendants. In that the russian part they probably cant depose them. But donald trump jr. They can. Hes a private citizen. Roger stone they can. Are they does each individual named in the suit have to deal with it separately as if they are being sued separately or do they Work Together . Broadly speaking each defendant the more defendants in this case likely were to create better allegations of conspiracy. Look, the real charges or the real counts, causes of action in this case, are the conspiracy counts, the rico counts. Rico is the racketeering law that brought down the mafia. But in this case it is a civil rico and the basic allegations are, take all of the things that we know about russia involvement in the campaign, trump contacts with russia during the campaign. And now we are saying all those things that we previously called collusion, now they are a civil conspiracy under the rico statutes. Basically, what this means is all of these contacts, all of these emails, all these relationships constituted a conspiracy to commit a number of predicate crimes. How would you make the argument to have this dismissed. First, the number one thing i would do is attack the civil rico. And i would say that merely putting out all of these facts and this is where it becomes very political. When you list all of these contacts with russia that the Trump Campaign had, that donald trump jr. Had, all of these individuals, you have to ask yourself a question, does this show a conspiracy or is it just showing a lot of acts that had very close similarity and very close in proximity . Do they just result in groups of people who had similar interests, they were sort of aligned in wanting donald trump to win. Or was this an agreement with an overt in furtherance of that agreement and an illegal objective . Does the i guess the folks who filed this lawsuit, the dnc, can they make that calculation yet . Or do they have to wait for the end of the Mueller Probe . Is this a way to preserve evidence from the Mueller Probe if mueller gets fired . They can try to. If they get into discovery they have the power of discovery behind them. And there are many things that come with that. Will they be able to depose russians in this case. Probably not. But as to the defendants they can serve, and what we are learning in the last few months, what everybody is learning is that if you are a defendant or a plaintiff and you get drawn into discovery, whether state or federal court, you mayor baring your soul under oath. And how risky can that be to other cases you have going. Okay. Donald trump jr. Is named in this lawsuit. Give me a time line that would have him be deposed. A realistic time line that would have him be deposed . In the District Of Columbia well now go ahead. I think they are in manhattan. Thats right. Its going to be in manhattan. There are so many court cases. Here in manhattan n the Southern District of new york, the case would probably each party needs to answer the complaint. Assuming there are no extensions of time given, you could be looking at discovery in federal court, which moves a lot faster. They have to meet and to their conference. You could be looking at it within the next several months if everything runs shootly. Defendants will try to find ways to postpone the discovery phase as long as possible. Those are act as a pous to some degree. How long does it is take for each of those motions to get heard. Des positive motions, to throw out a case, that is dependent on how long it takes the judge and her clerks to go through the moving papers. They are going to be some very, very heavily briefed papers on both sides. It could take a very long time. Plus a district judge is going to know this is no ordinary case. This is a very, very serious case that requires significant time. Obviously, mueller is in some ways going after these folks in a criminal matter. This is in a you know civil. This is a civil action. The most famous sort of the difference between criminal and civil of course is o. J. Simpson. On one hand he was not guilty of a crime but there was a lower standard of proof and he was liable for a lot of money . Beyond a reasonable doubt. And then you have preponderance of the evidence. You only need a preponderance of evidence in a civil case. They have a better shot here of basically proving some guilt than mueller does . Thats right. Its the oernl burden of proof we can express as a number. Anything more than half we can say its 51 . If you can get up to 51 in your burden then the plaintiff in a civil case like this can prevail. How does a jury trial work here when you have plenty of them who are going to feel this is the dnc, you cant have democrats on the trial. Im sorry, jury selection for this seems to be impossible. I have what may be an exclusive here. I think they may have mispleaded this case. I dont believe under the federal statute they have cited that they are entitled to a jury trial because wow. Because when the District Court shall have jurisdiction of all cases nonjir civil actions against a foreign entity like this. I believe under the federal statute they are entitled to only a nonjury title. Under a plain reading of the statute, they dont get a jury trial. This case, thats going to be one of the first things the defendants are going to look to when they file their motions. Sanny cevallos bringing more complications to this case. I cleared up nothing. Exactly. Thanks for the fog. No, thanks very much. Let me turn the president for senate on american progress. She saw her emails published widely mostly by wikileaks. She is not party of the lawsuit but i imagine she is supportive of it. Welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. When i heard about this, i wondered, why around neara tan den, john podesta, why arent the individuals who maybe felt the most damage filing this lawsuit . Why is it an entity thats filing this lawsuit . There were two separate hacks. There is the dnc hack, and then there is the hack of John Podestas email. In a sense the russians basically stole his email. He would be the victim. I dont actually know why he doesnt have his own lawsuit. I imagine it would be a separate lawsuit. He is a separate victim. But i dont think this precludes a possible future lawsuit by john poe testar. But you dont have any plans on one. I actually dont believe that obviously, i feel a bit victimized by wikileaks having thousands of my most personal emails made public but i dont think that since my emails werent tollen from me i dont believe i can bring a lawsuit. But if people have creative thoughts im open to trying that. This object a double edged sword. There is going to be some democrats saying shouldnt you focus on the mid terms, shouldnt you be focused on health care. Shouldnt you be focused on spending resources time and energy into that . Why are you continuing to fight the last campaign . What do you say to that criticism . When i go out on the road i hear so many people, so many democrats, progressives, who are worried about what is going to happen in our future elections. So far, because of the failure of the Trump Administration to do anything regarding the past election, russia has not really seen any consequences. So i actually think most democrats are going to be happy that somebody is finally sticking up for obviously the Mueller Probe but we dont have results from that, but someone is really sticking up for the fact that the dnc itself was hacked. The Democratic Party was hacked. If we want to ensure that our future elections will be safe we need to create a deterrence for them now. When the president attempts to interfere in the Mueller Probe in various ways, retorically, sometimes with veiled threats, many people push back on him democratic lawmakers will say hey let the Mueller Probe run its cars koss. Many republicans say let the probe to run its course and then we can have this debate. Why not wait before filing this lawsuit . These are two entirely Different Things just to be clear. Why . How are they talking totally different . Because the dnc litigation doesnt interfere with the Mueller Probe. What is happening is you are talking about the president of the United States trying to stop the Mueller Investigation by firing mueller or rosenstein. The dnc is simply creating a separate cause of action for us for the courts to actually adjudicate whether there was a civil rico case here. And obviously, it doesnt stop the Mueller Probe. Mueller, if he wants to quash evidence, he obviously can do that. None of this will interfere with their probe. This is very different from the president of the United States trying to stop finding out what happened between him and russia. This is actually trying to get at what happened between the Trump Campaign and russia. Kind of the opposite, i would say. Well, it is an election year. And this is a case thats going to take perhaps years before you actually can depose anybody, as we heard here, all of the different delay tactics that are there that would continue to push this off, perhaps three months, six months, et cetera, down the road for different avenues here. I guess, with a president determined to make everything mueller does more political, doesnt this create an atmosphere where it looks like, boy, everything its a Democratic Party pile on and you are conflating everything . You are sort of introducing throwing a match into the politicized and polarized atmosphere . Look, i think its just im sorry just ridiculous for republicans who are trying to fire the special prosecutor or justify firing the special prosecutor arguing that mere discovery by the Democratic Party as to what happened is going to be some giant polarizing event. I just think its it makes no sense. What i think the Democratic Party is trying to do here is actually just get to the bottom of what happened. If people didnt do anything wrong then they shouldnt really fear discovery. If there is no collusion, they should definitely not worry about any level of discovery. And so you know, i think this is a situation where we as the American People should try to understand what happened. It is already a year and a half from the election. I was just honestly, i think people do want to know what happened. I was going to ask you this, there is one crime everybody agrees was committed. It was the stealing, the theft of these emails. Absolutely. Mueller hasnt said who committed that crime. And thats where my question is, are you confident that you have the right people that you are suing . I leave to the dnc whether they have everyonen involved. I think part of discovery prosays may illuminate other parties to this suit. They do have the right pat buchanan peep per public reporting but you are absolutely right, there may be other people involved. I think that they have enough people in the discovery process that it may help determine who else is involved. Much appreciate it thanks for coming on and sharing your views on that one. Thanks for having me. James comeys secret memos are out. And many republicans are happy. Should they be . Or did their political move backfire. Join me on meet the press this sunday. Mark short joins us, so does senator Susan Collins of maine, and the chairman of the dnc, tom perez, to discuss that lawsuit. Back in a moment. Ot an idea sir. Get domo. Itll connect us to everything thats going on in the company. Get it for jean whos always cold. For the sales team, it and the warehouse crew. Give us the data we need. In one place, anywhere we need it. Help us do our jobs better. With domo we can run this place together. Well thats thats your job i guess. You might or joints. Hing for your heart. But do you take something for your brain. With an ingredient originally found in jellyfish, prevagen is the number one selling brainhealth supplement in drug stores nationwide. Prevagen. The name to remember. You know whats not awesome . Gigspeed internet. When only certain people can get it. Lets fix that. Lets give this guy gig really . And these kids, and these guys, him, ah. Oh hello. That lady, these houses yes, yes and yes. And dont forget about them. Uh huh, sure. Still yes xfinity delivers gig speed to more homes than anyone. Now you can get it, too. Welcome to the party. Welcome back. Today in meet the mid terms its republican versus republican in the Tennessee Senate race. Neither of them on the ballot. Bob corker is retiring and the race is on for who will fill his seat. On the right, you have marcia blackburn. On the left, phil breddison. In the middle a conflicted bob corker. Corker got himself into trouble this week after he said this about breddison. I dont plan to campaign against a friend. But beyond that, i dont know what the dynamics are. Will breddison have crossover appeal . No question. I think hes got real appeal. I dont think it. I know it. Yeah, guess what. Interin angry mitch mcconnell. He warned corker about going rogue telling him he is risking control of the senate in develop. And pointing out there is reason the seat is open and competitive, because corker whacked away. Corker in response said she is a good candidate and i will fully endorse her. More mtp daily in 60 seconds. Ive always wanted to have a Photo Exhibit of the faces of our community and those people that create the heart and the soul of where we live. Directer so i think we can make that happen oh my gosh, youre kidding me. Introducing the suv equipped to make your firstever happen. The firstever Ford Ecosport is here. Welcome back. Our panel is here. Jonathan alter. Susan del percentio. And ben white. Welcome all. All right. Jonathan, the dnc lawsuit, good or bad idea for democrats . A very good idea. Why . Look, there was a chance that bob mueller would release his report it would be a oneday or oneweek story and then we would all have to move on because there wouldnt be anything moving on impeachment and nothing would be happening on this story. Now we know that the story will be with us for many months, possibly years to come. You see it as an insurance policy . Not just an insurance policy but politically it keeps the whole thing at a low boil and sometimes a high boil for the foreseeable future, which is good for democrats. They shouldnt campaign on it but its good for them as background noise. It is a stunt. And basically they need to raise money and thats what they did. A fundraising note went out a few hours ago. If they keep using it thats how they are going to use it. You said dont use it in the campaign. Right. I also worry, and we listened to neara tandem tell us why it is a good idea for democrats. It is not an alternative to tromp nommics, they dont have an alternative to the trade wars, to the blue collar base. I think jonathan is right that they want background noise but they need something other than trump is bad in order to win. They have got to coming up with this is our vision for america certainly in 2020. Dnc did this in 72. Everybody laughed at them and they won. On the day nixon resigned. It takes a while for these to work through the courts. We are probably to the going to have an impeachment trial, the odds dont favor that right now in the senate. This could be the only way everything is laid out, everything we know about the collusion. There were 70 meetings between trump and Trump Associates and russians. 70 contacts. 22 meetings, 70 contacts thats a lot of material. I am assuming you have a lot of faith in mueller. Yeah. But you dont have a lot of faith in people taking muellers if you lays out a clearcut conspiracy where you cant look away do you think the party walks away from it or not . I think donald trump going to have the walk away. Im talking about mcconnells, that crowd. They are going to have to support whatever mueller comes out with. There is one thing thats notice number this court filing. Its Something Else involving the Mueller Investigation. There is one name that doesnt appear in either one. Thats Kellyanne Conway. She was the Campaign Manager. How is she not listed on that lawsuit . How have we not heard about her meeting with mueller . Why would she if you are saying the bannon is not on there. At the time of the theft she wasnt. You would expect that the Campaign Manager especially. I see what you are saying there, but certainly in the mueller case we havent heard her name there either. June of 2016. Thats when everything took place. Thats before either bannon or Kellyanne Conway joined the campaign. There is a lot of smoke around june of 2016. But they are going to say thats not when it stopped. If they were dealing with the russians that didnt stop in june it started in june. Im curious who made it and who didnt. Donald trump jr. , yes. Its almost as if somebody said was involved in that meeting. The trump tower meeting. There is no Corey Lewandowski either. They put the manager when it was manafort for that two month period. They specifically picked out people that we know have had contacts with the russians so they can depose them and get the discovery and have the documents and all that stuff and the alternate documents from mutualer. Couldnt Kellyanne Conway get it thrown out if she were named its probably harder for others to throw it out. Im just saying it is curious her name hasnt come up. Im starting to think our whole politics is being consumed by this and frankly nothing is going to break through. I think that may be true. When i hear jonathan say this is not going wiaway, its going toe with us next year and forever. There is a real dilemma. Hugely important to the base. Im sure there are people listening to me say they shouldnt make this the centerpiece who are raging against that. Thats good and motivate informing the mid terms. I dont think long term it is a solution for the Democratic Party to win the white house again and get solid majorities in both theout house and the senate. They need something yaend t beyond the donald trump stuff. It will provide a lot more information and discovery. It will get to the bottom of elements of the story that we dont know about. The standard is lower. Its hard to prove conspiracy. Collusion is not a crime. The krooi crime is conspiracy. The bar is high on that but lower in a civil case on racket yearing. It was interesting when danny was saying they may not get a jury trial because you would assume a jury trial would make their case a little bit easier. Absolutely. There is no doubt about that. I dont know how they could even proceed and get a fair jury trial at this point. Who doesnt have an opinion on it . When we look at 2018 and look at 2020. I wonder if its 5 28 right now. We havent had breaking news. Thats unusual, not the norm. Why are you jinxing it. Ill even take it up to here. Thats good. Normally we have three or four stories. The president golfed today. He has been back on twitter. There is owe much noise out there when members of the senate and congress are back to their homes, comey, mutual, he all of this, watergate, we want to hear that, that becomes noise. Is there just too much noise out there that people cant focus on anything. What does the exhaustion do to the voter . Do they say im done with it and dont vote . Or im done with it and they send a message with their vote. If 2017 is any indication guess what they are going to go out and vote for democrats. Its not just the voters. Its getting to the bottom of what would be treasonous activity. This is not a suit unlike Trump University this is not a suit that donald trump can settle. This will very possibly go to trial. Its not going to get thrown out on summary judgment. Some of these people are going to end up in trial. Some of them may get their names out of lawsuit but not everybody. Right. Guys, we will talk we didnt even get to comey yet. We will bring you back and talk comey tos. Up ahead, President Trump spent the day golfing yet again. Par for the course on a friday . We have got a problem. A few problems actually. Weve got aging roadways, aging power grids,. Aging everything. We also have the ageold problem of bias in the workplace. Really. Never heard of it. The question is. Whos going to fix all of this . An actor . Probably not. 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Many mourners waited hours in line to pay respects. The casket remains in the church until midnight tonight. Her private funeral is set for saturday. First Lady Melania Trump and both the clintons and obamas will be there. The white house says President Trump will not attend due to security issues. We will have coverage this tomorrow on msnbc. Well be right back. This is a story about mail and packages. And its also a story about people and while we make more ecommerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country, we never forget. That your business is our business the United States postal service. Priority you phone ringing big button, and volumeenhanced phones. Get details on this state program. Call or visit we need to help more tocalifornians get ahead. D, thats why Antonio Villaraigosa brought both parties together to balance the state budget with record investments in public schools. And new Career Training programs. As mayor of la, he brought police and residents together to get illegal guns off the streets and keep kids out of gangs, and on the right path. Thats Antonio Villaraigosa. A governor for all of california. And accessories for your mobile phone. Like this device to increase volume on your cell phone. phone ringing get details on this state program call or visit House Republicans got their wish last night when the Justice Department provided lawmakers with memos written by former fbi director james comey after meetings with frump and white house staff. The republican chairman of the intelligence judiciary and oversight committees haled the memos. And President Trump tweeted they show no collusion and no obstruction. If anything, when you read the memos, they only seem to confirm comeys version of event. Wouldnt be surprising. He wrote them. They also show a president who seems extraordinarily concerned about the salacious findings in the steele dossier and a white house that was suspicious about National Security adviser Michael Flynn before he ultimately resigned. Comey writes, Reince Priebus asked do you have a fisa order on mike flynn and that President Trump himself can serious questions about Michael Flynn. Comeys character has been questioned lately because of the snarky swipes he takes at the president in his new book. Thesos show he refrained from sharing the detailings of his observations. Joining me, chuck rosenberg. Good to sigh, sir. Nice to see you, chuck. Let me start with the thing about the memos and how often james comey does this. One of the criticisms i have heard from the right is this. Im not giving value to it but im cure your your reaction. Did james comey make memos like this with president obama or was this only done to entrap President Trump . I think the answer is neither. Right. Lawyers arent the only people who write stuff down. Doctors write stuff down. Accountants write stuff down. Chuck, i presume you as a journalist write stuff down when you want to remember something of the so we all have lots and lots of conversations every day that are normal and sort of just sort of we gon our way. But if something memorable happens, if you need to remember something, well, you write it down. And it strikes me that the conversations that jim comey had with the president were memorable. And im glad he wrote them down. Another aspect this has to do with the classification process of this. It was i have to say as a journalist, feeling truly like a fly on the wall i was intrigued by then director comeys sort of speculative nature at the top there. For now im just going to choose secret for the classification, and perhaps others will decide where it belong. How does that process work . Director comey had one decision to make. He said not the lowest level but somewhat lower. Is that his discretion to choose or can someone day it should be higher or lower. Its his right to choose. He has a classification authority, meaning authority to determine at what level something should be classified but he wasnt certain. It was wise to say if its too high or too low other folks with expertise in classifying documents ought to take a look at it and adjust it appropriately. I think he took sort of a smart middle ground there, chuck. I know supposedly the Inspector General is going to take a look. When he shared parts the memo with a friend, when that portion when he shared those and leaked to the media, essentially, he did make a decision on his own to redact things that he thought truly were classified. Pars this. When is a memo classified . And does it suddenly become unclassified if you redact the fact that makes it classified . So potentially, right, you dont want to be able to read into a document from context something that you took out of a document. Honestly, let me stop you there. Everything that got redacted from these memos could you infear via context in this case. You could try to avoid i think what happened here im not an exert on it is that jim comey tried to take stuff out to make sure that the documents that he had were not classified at all. And by the way if its not a classified document, then its really not a leak. I mean leak is a term of art for federal prosecutors and those in the intelligence community. It refers to the unauthorized passing of classified information. So i think he tried to get it right. The Inspector General will take a look at it, as he should. And well see where it comes out. Obviously, the Justice Department was fighting this order by Congressional Republicans who were trying to force the release of these memos. They went ahead and released them. It didnt seem harmful to me. Why did justice fight as long as they did in releasing the memos . There is a principle and a practicality. The principle is we as prosecutors dont like to give up stuff when we have an ongoing investigation. Its kind of a reflex, and it makes sense because it is a bad practice to get into. But there is also a practicality and the department of justice had to figure out which fights are we going to fight and how hard are we going to fight them. As you pointed out these documents dont seem to be all that damaging to the ongoing investigation. I am sure that d. O. J. Officials spoke to mueller and spoke to the investigators and concluded that we could give this over and sort of live to fight another day. Let me ask you the larger question here, one of the defenses that the House Republicans made in their memo said hey this proves the president did not obstruct. If the anything he was begging the president to investigate parts the dossier. I dont think it proves or disproves that at all. It reflects certain conversation has the president had with jim comey on certain days. As we have discussed many times, proving obstruction of justice really requires you to prove a difficult thing, intent. And you are not going to glean intent from one conversation on one day. Its something that you put together with many conversations, with many people over many days. And so i dont read this as proving or disproving. One interesting thing to me, chuck is that the memos that jim comey wrote are by and large quite consistent with the testimony he gave on the hill and with the stuff he put in his book. To me, i think thats quite telling. Look, i would say, if anything, he withheld, i think, some aspects of it. I didnt realize how often the president seemed to come back to the dossier himself in his various conversations. That in itself seemed to be an Interesting Development there. Let me ask you something about Michael Flynn. He is apparently giving a Foreign Policy speep up here in new york. Did it last night. He campaigned for a congressional candidate in california. He is a cooperative witness right now in the Mueller Probe. What is that if you are allowing him to go around the country does that mean mueller doesnt plan to use him as a witness, flynn is cooperating in other ways . It seems surprising to have a potential witness be out there in the political square. It is a little surprising but most people who plead guilty arent also in high demand to campaign for folks running for high office. So it is a little bit unusual, chuck. That said, i presume that general flynn has cleared this with his probation officer, has checked with his lawyer. And i hope his lawyer has checked with the investigators. But there is another principle at play here. Right now, general flynn is a private citizen. He was before. He will be again. He may have to serve some period of incarceration. But hes a private citizen and he has every right, like all of us to do those things if he choose snooze chuck rosenberg, i will leave it there. Thank for coming on. Thanks for having me. Up ahead, President Trump is golfing again. Were going to keep score. As a control enthusiast, im allbusiness when i travel. Even when i travel. For leisure. So i go national, where i can choose any available upgrade in the aisle without starting any conversations or paying any upcharges. What can i say . Control suits me. Go national. Go like a pro. Welcome back. Tonight im obsessed with the kind of twitter tantrum a president gets when like President Trump did today he decides to play a little golf on weekday no less like this. I wish i could be on the golf course but i have to work. Must be nice to be president. Or this. Golf outings arent just bad optics. They are fool skpish voters realize that. Or this, glad our arrogant president is enjoying his taxpayer funded golf outing after announcing the u. S. Should take military action against syria. Or even this. While our wonderful president was out playing golf all day the tsa is falling apart just like our government. Airports a total disaster. Wait a minute. Wait, whats that . None of those comments were from today . Sorry, guys. Thats awkward. Turns out those statements, they werent about President Trump. They came from sean spicer, Reince Priebus, sean hannity. They werent about President Trump. They were about president obama golfing. There has to be criticism of President Trump here. Give me a moment here im sure i will have them after the break. They are here somewhere. Ill find them. Okay folks lets team up to get the lady of the house back on her feet. 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Senior living has never been better, and theres never been an easier way to get great advice. Call today. A place for mom you know your family, we know senior living. Together well make the right choice. So. Time now for the lid. Panel is back. Jonathan, susan, ben. All right. The comey memos were im still trying to figure out why house republican, susan, its your side of the aisle, so ill give you a chance. Do you know why they pushed this . I havent a clue. It did nothing for them. As a matter of fact, i actually it probably ended up hurting them, because it gave something for the democrats to kind of go on and say, look at comey. He always was on the same path and trying maybe to bolster him up a little bit. But it doesnt make any sense. And i wonder if a Rudy Giuliani was there before someone and would have said, hey, guys, you dont want more information out there. You want less. Most lawyers say that, youre absolutely right. So i was curious, how would the president s favorite morning show handle this, considering that it would seem to backfire. Heres mr. Doocy today. Mr. Comey said he leaked these memos to a friend, leaked to the newspapers to start the special counsel. Do they show collusion . Do they show obstruction of justice . No and no. He was worried about andy mccabes loyalty. He said, i was pretty tough on him during the campaign. He said, dont worry about it. When it comes to the fbi, we check our biases at the door. Not true seemed pretty thin reads. I think they tried. I think steve and brian, they were going, mr. President , were going to do the best we can for you, but we dont have much. Were going to portray this as completely exculpatory and say theres no proof of collusion. All you see is them asking for loyalty and all of those things. Theres nothing that makes the story better for donald trump. They were leaked themselves. They went with the leaking problem with comey and the memos were leaked instantaneous. This was very early in the trump presidency. One of the things that struck me was the total lack of curiosity on the part of the president the way the fbi works, the way the Justice Department works. Hes just on transmit. Hes never on receive. The first two weeks for him. Ill give him that. You would think that he would want to learn something about the government hes just taken over. Speaking of sort of circular spin here. For a long time, those in congress that were trying to help the president out with this investigation were trying to get they kept used the dossier. The dossier triggered, the dossier is such, you know, its terrible, its all this. And now the spin last night was, the president did want the dossier investigated. See, he wasnt obstructing justice. And im thinking, wait a minute. Do you want the dossier investigated or not . Right, get your stories straight. Yeah, it seems like their spin collided in each other, because that is something that came through these memos that didnt come through in the comey book or the comey testimony. The president cant let go of the dossier. He was very interested in the contents of that dossier and having comey disprove what was in there and making the point that this really salacious thing didnt actually happen, but heres what Vladimir Putin told me about the prostitutes in russia and how wonderful they are, which was an incredibly strange thing to say. It also questions the relationship with putin. Like, when did he know putin, when he was talking to putin, which he had previously said they had no relationship. But the relationship was close enough for the president of russia to comment to the president of the United States on the quality of the women of the night. But also, keith schiller, you know, contradicted him on the facts, surprise, surprise. Keith schiller said they did spent the night. And trump said they did not. Well, weve put together its not just schiller, its called instagram. There have been photos. Theres photographic evidence of him there saturday and then, of course, we have airplane evidence you know, airplane tracking to know that he went friday and came back sunday. That was just another thing we saw in the release of these memos. I know it sounds small, but the gratuitous line. He started off by saying, the chief of staff doesnt know about this meeting. And when he left, he said, okay, be in touch with the chief of staff, he knows about the meeting. The man just lies. The president just simply lies for no reason. For none. And i think that is just something that just emphasizes this stream of like, can you believe what he says . Did he stay overnight or did he not . The thing about trump, someone who is very close to Henry Kissinger once said, henry doesnt lie because its in his interest, he lies because its in his nature. This guy lies the way he breathes. Youre going to see it anytime you have any extended contact with him, it will just be peppered with lies. Thats the one thing thats for sure about this guy. Comeys reputation, the irony here, we were just talking about, it felt like it was eroding, and this almost resuscitated him. To a degree, yeah. There was the sense that he put this stuff in the back about the size of the hands and the color of the skin and that looked kind of gross, why do you need to do that . Its gratuitous, your facts are enough. But theres stuff in the memo that he didnt include, which suggests he has some sense of propriety. The week began with Michael Cohen and ends with this. Happy friday. Up ahead, Legal Marijuana nationwide. Hello, 420. Could it be the next reeferre reeferrendum . Just cant satisfy. Ahh your wing nut has you covered. Hi. Introducing planters crunchers. A nutty crunch inside a flavorful crunch. Or a canythingo. But ive got an idea sir. Get domo. Itll connect us to everything thats going on in the company. Get it for jean whos always cold. For the sales team, it and the warehouse crew. Give us the data we need. In one place, anywhere we need it. Help us do our jobs better. With domo we can run this place together. Well thats thats your job i guess. You know whats not awesome . Gigspeed internet. When only certain people can get it. Lets fix that. Lets give this guy gig really . And these kids, and these guys, him, ah. Oh hello. That lady, these houses yes, yes and yes. And dont forget about them. Uh huh, sure. Still yes xfinity delivers gig speed to more homes than anyone. Now you can get it, too. Welcome to the party. In case you missed it, its april 20th, 2018. 4 20, as the kids call it these days. Its now a day dedicated to all things marijuana. And guess what . Senator Chuck Schumer wasnt about to let the occasion just go by. Schumer is introducing a new bill to officially decriminalize marijuana at the federal level. He recently told vice news, quote, if smoking marijuana doesnt hurt anybody else, why shouldnt we allow people to do it . So it appears marijuana is now officially bipartisan. You may recall, former House Speaker john boehner has joined the board of a cannabis company. Today, americans are changing their tune on pot, but it begs the question, which americans . A new study from where else, colorado, ranks which people are most likely to use marijuana by occupation. Ready for this . Topping the list, restaurant workers, artists, and Media Production types. Okay. Were just going to leave that right here. A lot of nods in the room right now. Kidding. No, not. But how about the bottom of the list . The cdc says teachers, police officers, doctors, and nurses. We should all be thankful theyre at the bottom of the most likely to be user list in colorado. I would also like to add, we got through this segment with only one single terrible marijuana pun. So hows that for ending on a high note . Thats all we have for tonight. Well be back monday with more mtp daily, but it is time to celebrate 4 20 with the great crew here at 30 rock. And if its sunday, its meet the press. The beat with ari melber starts right now. I didnt know you were celebrating 4 20. Peter tosh always said, criticilegalize it, dont criticize it. Thats why tosh has like 40 million twitter followers. I didnt know that. I was stunned. I learn so much from you every day, but