Transcripts For MSNBCW MTP Daily 20180723

With his base is at a record high, there is new evidence of a blue wave building. This is mtp daily and it starts right now. Good evening, im katy tur in new york in for chuck todd. Welcome to mtp daily. We begin tonight with all the president s men. Clearly fueling all the president s tweets and all the president s threats. The latest being a threat to revoke the security clearances of his political rivals. This comes as three key members of the trump team, his campaign chief, his personal attorney and his campaigns Foreign Policy advisor are at the center of a dizzying series of traumatic legal developments and revelations connected to the russia investigation. In response, the president is lashing out at mueller, the fbi, the media, federal judges, the Justice Department, president obama, hillary clinton, the dnc, and his political enemies, just to name a few. The president s tweet storms and threats have even gotten some folks speculating that he is spoiling for a war with iran just to change the subject. So lets dive into the big news that seems to be fueling the president s attacks. For the first time, the fbi has made public the highly, read highly secretive Court Documents that authorize the fbis surveillance of Trump Campaign advisor carter page. Justice Department Officials in both the obama and Trump Administration believed page was, quote, collaborating and conspiring with the russian government and that he perhaps and other Trump Campaign members were coordinating with the russians during the campaign. Page has not been charged with a crime. He denies the allegations. So does the president. These surveillance applications were authorized and reauthorized by these four judges on the secret fisa court. All of them were appointed by republican president s. The president s own Deputy Attorney general Rod Rosenstein signed off on their reauthorization too. But heres the president s rather predictable response to that news this afternoon, care of the White House Press secretary. He sees more and more every single day that this is proving further and further to be a total witch hunt, particularly because it was based on a false and unverified and discredited dossier. But wait, theres more. The president also appears to be reeling from the recent revelations that his longtime personal attorney, Michael Cohen, secretly recorded him during the campaign. Today a courtappointed reviewer of mefaterials seized by the fb said that 12 audio tapes have been released to federal prosecutors. Its unclear how many of those involve the president. But wait, theres more. Because the public is poised to see prosecutors unveil the dirt they have on the president s campaign chief, Paul Manafort, a federal judge ruled that manaforts court would begin on july 31st, that is next week. Weve also learned the names of five witnesses that were given immunity to testify against him. Manafort has pleaded not guilty, but he faces an array of financial crimes that could put him in jail for decades. That is if he doesnt cut a deal to cooperate with muellers team. Weve got a lot to dive into. Ken dilanian is an nbc news intelligence and National Security reporter. He joins our panel. Nick confessore is a New York Times reporter and msnbc political analyst. Zerlina maxwell, a former clinton Campaign Advisor and an msnbc political analyst. And noah rothman is the associate editor at commentary magazine. Well talk about the spin and the reaction in a moment, but i do want to drill down on the evidence that we have here and what we got from this fisa document over the weekend. A lot of it was heavily redacted but here is what we do know. Page has been the subject of targeted recruitment by the russian government. The fbi believes that page has been collaborating and conspiring with the russian government. The fbi believes that the russian governments efforts are being coordinated with page and perhaps other individuals associated with trumps campaign. Ken, as i just laid out, these applications were approved under both Obama Administration the Obama Administration and the Trump Administration by judges appointed by republicans. Thats right, katy. And before that happened, they went through multiple layers of review within the fbi and then were sent over to the Justice Department where lawyers took another look at them. Look, this is a rigorous process. The process to obtain a secret fisa warrant against a u. S. Citizen. Its not a joke. Nobody fools around with it. You risk your career if you misrepresent things to the fisa court. What we see with those documents is that there are reams and reams of redacted pages that people like adam schiff say include all sorts of evidence unrelated to this Christopher Steele dossier that gave the fbi and judges probable cause that carter page was the agent of a foreign power. This is not a high standard, this is not beyond a reasonable doubt, this is a probability of a possibility. Enough evidence to believe that they should investigate whether he is an agent of a foreign power. We should add, he hasnt been charged with a crime and he denies he was an agent of russia. The fbi believes the russian governments efforts are being coordinated with page and perhaps other individuals associated with the Trump Campaign. That alone is something that i imagine anybody, regardless of whether it helps you or hurts you, would want to get to the bottom of. Thats a pretty big accusation or pretty big concern at the very least. On top of that, carter page has said on cnn that it was he was a formal advisor to the kremlin. Im not sure how many more layers of evidence we need. I do think its important to pull back here for a second. The entire koucounterattack is based on the idea because the dossier came from somebody who was trying to discredit trump, the entire investigation is discredited. When you think about how thin a read that is, right, its so the dossier is one piece of evidence that went to an applicable for probable cause this guy might be worth surveilling, thats it. And its actually well supported. But carter page wasnt surveilled until october. The investigation started in the spring. It started because another campaign Foreign Policy advisor was bragging to an australian diplomat about the russians having dirt on hillary clinton. This is not even if you want to pan the dossier, fine, but this is not how the investigation started. For me the statement of offense came out for George Papadopoulos, a name many of us were like who is that . The day that that happened, the day that happened is the day that argument stopped having merit, because that statement of the offense articulated the exact timing through between the fisa warrant was approved and what triggered the start of the investigation. As nick said, that was him drunk in a bar talking to an australian diplomat. So for now were all serious at this table. Some arguments have merit and theres evidence to back them up, but i think that what we learned this weekend is devin nunes has been lying this entire time and the entire memo they put out is in bad faith. Its not just devin nunes, but its the president. Im going to ask this and youre going to laugh at me. Do facts matter with the president . Why did the fbi tell the fisa court steeles work was potentially biased because it was commissioned to be used defense trump these are not the trump tweets. The department of justice and the fbi misled the courts. The whole fisa scam led to the rigged mueller wnitch hunt. But thats not what happened. We just pointed that out, noah. I saw a tweet from representative jim jordan today who said sort of backing up the nunes memo that essentially this was a product of an effort to mislead the fisa courts because they never informed the fisa courts about the bias inherent in this dossier. And its right there in black and white in this footnote, which ends up being about a page and a half long, where they expressly say this was the product of an effort to undermine, to discredit candidate 1, donald trump, but we nevertheless believe is me t meritorious. So you have to assume to suggest perhaps you havent read the documents. Anterior you dont care what they say. And thats very disingenuous. But, ken, this is not how the investigation started. It feels like were arguing apples versus oranges. But theres a whole amen chorus that is arguing with donald trump and thats whats fueling this. It isnt just trump and his tweets, its fox news, the daily caller website. Its the whole cod radre of journalists dont use that. Theyre not journalists if theyre doing that. The facts dont comport with that at all and absolutely the investigation started because a russian agent approached George Papadopoulos and said we have emails and incriminating information about hillary clinton. Nothing to do with carter page. By the way, the fbi would have been derelict if they didnt look at carter page. He had already been the target of russian recruitment in a separate case. Then hes an advisor for donald trump and then goes to russia and meets with russian officials. How could the fbi not investigate that, katy. So today because of all this drama, to distract from the drama, who the hell knows, donald trump wants to revoke the security clearance for his political rivals. Is there a way of looking at this that, hey, hes got a point. Is there any generous reading for the president . Not for the president. Look, i think there is an argument to be made that there are a lot of former officials who use their clearances and parlay that in business careers and consulting work. Thats fine, thats a fair argument to make. That list of people who do that is very long and it does not stop with the people who are critical of the president. So if rand paul wants to say thats his argument, thats fine, senator paul has said that. But for some reason the only people being threatened are critics of the president. Thats a bad argument. Zerlina. I just think the president takes every single critique personally. And what is distinct in their critiques of their president , some of it has been about National Security and thats something we should all care about. Were sitting in a moment when we have an indictment that lays out in great detail what happened in our election in 2016 and were not doing anything to prevent that in 2018 even as Administration Officials right now like dan coats are ringing the bell and saying we need to be paying attention to this and taking this seriously. You have a president whos completely unable to do that because everything he is considering in terms of the russia attack and all of the facts he views through a prism of how it impacts him and any question about whether the russians impacted the outcome goes to whether or not hes legitimately elected. I dont know what youre talking. Sarah Huckabee Sanders has says very dwefinitively that he can separate these. Is it clear to you, noah . No. There was another effort to retroactively condition readers of Donald Trumps tweets to believe that the reference to the hoax that he tweeted out last night, this russia thing is a hoax, basically the entire russia assault on american interests in 2016 was a hoax. The press secretary goes on television today and says he was clearly referring to the mueller probe, which is a hoax somehow. Conte contextually that doesnt make sense. Theres no agreedupon set of facts. Were all looking at the same dossier and coming up with different talking points. Its extraordinarily frustrating and suggests that we cant have an honest conversation about this probe. So we cant decide that this is a banana right here, this cup . A banana or an apple. We cannot have a serious conversation and agree upon a set of facts because facts are not to be agreed upon, they are facts. That cup is a hoax. Its a witch hunt, its a hoax. Ken, one more thing on the security clearance is what makes this so interesting and seemingly blatantly a political act is that james comey doesnt have a security clearance any longer. Andrew mccabe according to his spokesperson doesnt have security clearance anymore. Clapper says he hasnt used his clearance since he left power. Michael hayden says it wont have any effect on what he says and what he writes. We shouldnt minimize this. This is a huge deal. This is nixonian. This is the president threatening to use his power essentially to punish his political enemies. Nick makes a great point about former officials going out and trading on their clearances. You know who did that . Mike flynn. He had a security clearance when he was standing up at the Republican National convention and shouting lock her up. Look, former officials who lead intelligence agencies continue to hold their clearances so they can talk to their successors about very sensitive operations they may have a perspective on. Theres a serious Public Policy reason for that. The idea that the president would get involved in trying to punish his enemy by revoking his clearances, first of all, its never happened in American History according to experts ive been talking to and its really troubling to people who deal in security clearances and members of the intelligence community. I take all of those points and dont disagree with them at all, but how well thought out was this if james comey doesnt have a security clearance any longer or Andrew Mccabe doesnt have a security clearance any longer . Yeah, thats a great point. Nixon was at least competent when he tried to use the government to punish his enemies. This operation seems to be not very well founded from its beginning. It just makes it even clearer that its a political move rather than a move to, i dont know, protect security clearances. Who knows. Ken dilanian. Ken, great reporting as always. Nick, zerlina and noah, stay with us. We never even made it to cohens tapes. Well get to that. Ahead, the negative headlines just keep piling up for the white house, but President Trump is still winning big, at least among republicans. At t provides edgetoedge intelligence, covering virtually every part of your healthcare business. So that if she has a heart problem the staff needs to know, they will theyll drop everything can you take a look at her vitals . Share the data with other specialists yeah, im looking at them now. Theyll drop everything hey. Take care of this baby yeah, that procedure seems right. That one too. At t provides edge to edge intelligence. It can do so much for your business, the list goes on and on. Thats the power of. When your patients tests come back. 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According to our new nbc news wall street journal poll 88 of republicans approve of the job President Trump is doing. The only president with a higher Approval Rating within their own party at this point in their presidency was president george w. Bush, less than a year after 9 11. Joining me now is charlie sykes, contributing editor at the Weekly Standard and msnbc contributor. Our panel is back, nick, zerlina and noah. Charlie, i want to get your take on this. Republicans seem to have gotten the signal that if the media is attacking donald trump, dig in their heels, dont worry, the poll numbers will go up. The same thing happened during the election. Whenever the reporters or the media was criticizing donald trump for something that he did was inappropriate at the time, going after a gold star family, whatever, judge curiel, it felt like donald Trump Supporters would dig in their heels and his poll numbers would go up. Yeah. That is the pattern. I mean you have tribalism, transactionism, antiantitrumpism, all of those things playing in. The harder he gets pushed, the more his supporters decide they have to stand by their man. And again, it is interesting. I would like to look at the numbers a little bit more closely, though, because his support among selfdescribed independents, you know, is very, very soft. So you kind of wonder whether or not these numbers are perhaps slightly skewed by the number of people who go, okay, if this is what the Republican Party stands for, then im out and, therefore, they dont selfidentify. But theres no question about it that the base is sticking with him and that obviously explains why members of congress are also sticking with him and reluctant to take any strong action. It gives us an opportunity to replay this sound bite from the campaign, which is now officially two and a half years old today. Listen to President Trump. My people are so smart. And you know what else they say about my people, the polls . They say i have the most loyal people. Did you ever see that . I could stand in the middle of fifth avenue and shoot somebody and i wouldnt lose any voters. Its like incredible. Charlie, does that still ring true . Yes, obviously it does. Were seeing this played out on a weekly basis. How many times have we had this conversation. Is this the straw . Will this be the turning point . Will this finally break this lockstep republican support for donald trump . And nothing does at this point. So the extraordinary thing is not that donald trump turned out to be who we thought he was, the extraordinary thing has been the degree to which conservatives and republicans have adjusted and adapted themselves and their standards and frankly their morality to donald trump. You know, whatever it is that we speculate, what will it take for them to break with donald trump, its probably already happened. Look at jeff flake. He comes out and criticizes the president. Criticizes the president for that meeting with Vladimir Putin the other day. Hes been one of the more outspoken people along with john mccain and others. When you ask jeff flake what is he going to do about it, hold up judicial nominations, as he did for tariffs, jeff flake says no. So what does that mean, nick . Charlie, go ahead. I am fascinated by these mantras of impotence that we get from members of the United States senate. This is one of the most powerful august bodies in the borworld legislative. The constitution endowed congress with incredible power, whether it is to legislate, to confirm, to consult, to hold hearings. All of those things. And yet you talk to members of congress right now and its like, well, we cant do anything about it. We are completely powerless. Whether or not its about political courage or not, isnt this exactly why we had a system of checks and balances . Isnt this exactly what James Madison talked about in the federalist papers . Being a United States senator or chairing a Major Committee like the Foreign Relations committee and deciding, yeah, you know what, im going to be a potted plant. Im going to be a footnote in Donald Trumps march of folly. I think charlie is right but the bigger problem is that base, that trump core, theyre dying. Theyre literally dying and figuratively dying. It is a shrinking number of americans. They are mostly older and white. They are being replaced by people that are younger and not white. Eventually its going to turn. The question for republicans is has donald trump branded the party but also backed it into a political corner as a nativist and nationalist party forever. Are you say confidently this is going to be a blip on the radar . Its not a blip at all. Im just saying we talk a lot about trumps base, trumps base, which is a percentage of a certain number of people. Im saying that number of people over time is going to get smaller and smaller, not bigger and bigger. From that perspective i have to say that this poll suggests not ole roses for democrats either. The most fascinating result in this survey was a very of whether or not candidates, both republican and democrat, are within the mainstream or out of sight of what americans are thinking generally. Democrats today as opposed to two years ago collapsed. 33 say Democratic Candidates represent what most americans are thinking and 56 , a 14point jump from this point in 2016 say that they are out of touch. Thats not just republicans, thats democrats too. Democrats who identify as democrats say im not with these candidates. The vast ma noejority of the public is not obsessed with russia and obsessed with trump like the way certain precincts are. I saw a friend of mine was tweeting around the ideal platform for democrats. It does not mention russia. Be careful what you say. I said that once and my twitter mentions went down the toilet for a month straight. What democrats have to worry about is trump is the most powerful and able brander in politics in years, maybe ever. And he has the megaphone. I think that he has some power to take their policies like abolish i. C. E. And put them out of the mainstream. I would say that democrats, certainly there are the contingent that are having the debate in the progressives base about abolishing i. C. E. On a daytoday as were seeing firsttime candidates, women running in these districts, theyre not talking about i. C. E. , theyre talking about health care. I think that thats the winning issue for democrats and weve already seen that because they were able to stop the repeal of obamacare before the tax cut bill essentially gutted it anyway. And so i think as we head into the fall and as premiums start to go up for folks everywhere, i think democrats are going to both coalesce around Holding Obamacare together, but also theyll have real world premiums to show this is what republicans have done to your Health Care Bill and this is what democrats will do to lower it. I would also add too, donald trump won 26 of eligible voters in 2016, so the idea that he has some sort of mandate when half the country did not vote at all and Voter Suppression efforts in states like wisconsin, michigan, absolutely impacted the outcome of the election, i can say that is a fact. Can you confident it wont impact the election again . It absolutely could and thats why democrats need to talk about Voter Suppression but in 2016 the message that we got was if you talk about Voter Suppression, that actually supresses the vote. I think that democrats actually need to rework that messaging in 2018 and 2020. Charlie, a second ago you talked about the separation of powers and the checks and balances in government. Why dont republicans if donald trump doesnt stand for a lot of what they stand for, tariffs, the positions on russia, et cetera, why dont they band together and form more of a, i dont know, a human wall against what they dont agree with with donald trump . Why dont they use their collective power to push back . Well, they ought to, but the answer is timidity. Right now theyre really content to have people like john mccain or jeff flake go out and say in public what they have been saying in private. But at this point they look at those polls and they go, look, as long as the base is with us, we are stuck with this guy. If we pass something, hes going to veto it. But i think you can look back as a moment of real failure i think on the part of congress to be able to balance all this out. By the way, just some thoughts about the democrats. One of the lessons i think from 2016 is do not underestimate the democratic partys capacity for blowing an unlosable election. A lot of the things that you have been talking about, i think noahs point is dead on. If the democrats decide that they are going to move out of the mainstream and rely on antitrump sentiment, i think theyll be making a huge mistake because one of the things that motivates trumps support is this notion of a binary support. At least hes not as bad as those leftists. They are very much, i think, willing to run against people they see out of the mainstream. I think thats a real danger for the democrats, not just in the midterm but in 2020 as well. To compound on that, my bigger fear is not that democrats will blow the election, but win despite their movements to the left, the forgiveness of student debt and will win as a result of those claims. Youre talking about a democratic socialist platform. I dont think alexandria ocasiocortez represents that. They will Enter Congress with an equally polarized Republican Party and you will have two very far apart polls in a congress that cannot function. So does the Freedom Caucus represent all republicans . I would also say congress is pretty divided. I dont think theyre very functional now. You saw what happened with a discharge petition and an effort to get a vote on an immigration measure that was centrist. It failed. 20 staunch conservative republicans didnt move. Talking about a binary choice, charlie, i think youre right about that. Thats why donald trump was able to motivate people to vote for him, people that wouldnt normally approve of the way that he behaves, the way that he speaks. Theres a great story in the Washington Post talking about evangelical support for the president about a church down south. Its really interesting and you might not agree with anything thats said in it, but it will give you some insight into whats going through the mind of certain trump voters. Charlie sykes, thank you for joining us. Panel, youre not going anywhere, youre not loose yet. Ahead, President Trump fires an allcaps threat towards iran, but could it be the beginning of north korea talks part 2 . Advil presents a big breakthrough in pain relief. Advil liquigels minis. A mighty small pill with concentrated power that works at liquid speed. Youll ask. What pain . Advil liquigels minis. Gimme two minutes. And ill tell you some important things to know about medicare. First, it doesnt pay for everything. Say this pizza. [mmm pizza. ] is your part b medical expenses. This much about 80 percent. Medicare will pay for. Whats left. This slice here. Well. Thats on you. And thats where an aarp Medicare Supplement insurance plan, insured by Unitedhealthcare Insurance Company comes in. This type of plan helps pay some of what medicare doesnt. And these are the only plans to carry the aarp endorsement. Thats because they meet their high standards of quality and service. 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And we use this information in partnership with First Responders and californias Emergency Response systems. To learn more about the Community Wildfire Safety Program and how you can help keep your home and community safe, visit pge. Com wildfiresafety welcome back. President trump may be reluctant to confront Vladimir Putin, but he went ahead and sent a blistering allcaps tweet last night threatening iranian president , hassan rouhani. Never ever threaten the United States again or you will suffer consequences, the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered before. We are no longer a country that will stand for your demented words of violence and death. Be cautious. It appears to be a response to rouhani warning that america should know that peace with iran is the mother of all peace and war with eiran is the mother of all wars. He also said do not play with the lions tail because you will regret it eternally. The president s tweet is rising rhetoric against iran. It came after mike pompeo gave a blistering speech comparing irans government to the mafia. Im joined by richard haass, author of a world in disaway. Richard, it is confusing to look at the way the president is treating russia and iran, both hostile nations. Yet one hes say youd be crazy to ask me to yell at him when he was standing next to Vladimir Putin. The other, hes basically yelling at him through twitter. Well, youre right, katy. Iran has become the adversary of choice. Lets put aside russia, because obviously the president has this inexplicable devotion to a positive relationship. Its interesting to look at the difference, say, with north korea. The summit accomplished in singapore accomplished from what i can tell virtually nothing, yet north korea is off the front pages. They have Nuclear Weapons and the president is basically saying be patient. Iran does not have Nuclear Weapons. It was the United States, not iran that blew up the Nuclear Agreement. And now the president is acting in a remarkably confrontational manner. Youve got to think that it has something to do with our allies in the region, israel, saudi arabia, all favor a tough confrontational approach with iran. Unlike north korea, iran is on its own. It doesnt have a great power patron like china or russia. So iran is more exposed, so you have the support of allies in the region to push it. You have a powerful group of people in the United States across the board politically who are antiiran, and iran is in some ways on its own. Why now . Why late last night . And i ask this because youve got to bring in Donald Trumps old tweets into the conversation because it helps you understand where the man where his head might be. Hes got a number of old tweets from 2011, 2012, basically saying that barack obama is going to start a war with iran in order to get reelected. He says it in 2011, in order to get elected, barack obama will start a war with iran. Is it fair to point back or look back at these tweets and wonder if maybe theres something more to him getting angry with iran last night suddenly late at night . Katy, youre not going to ask me to explain why this president does what he does, particularly at 11 30 on a sunday night. 11 30 on a sunday night when hes facing a lot of criticism about the way that he handled the putin summit, when hes facing criticism about not being on the side of our intelligence community, when its been a pretty terrible week . I dont know, richard. Theres a couple of things out there so there is a case for some distraction. On the other hand, he has also been quite consistent with his criticism of iran. He called the nuclear pact the worst agreement ever negotiated. As you pointed out in your intro, the secretary of state gave a very tough speech on iran essentially calling for such fundamental political change, its almost tantamount to regime change and suddenly iran is being singled out for its lack of democracy and lack of human rates. Unless i missed it, russia, china, turkey, north korea, the philippines and others have escaped such criticism. Clearly the administration has decided for whatever political or geo political set of reaches that iran is its favorite adversary. So what is the goal here . Could he be trying to foment more unrest . Theres protests going on right now, the economy is in the tank, its going down even further since the president announced he would pull out of the iran deal and reimpose sanctions. The short answer is, yes, i think the administration has a policy of destabilization. Again, you look at the secretary of states speech, which was brutal in its denunciation of iranian leadership, associating them with corruption and in a very detailed way essentially siding with various opposition elements. The administration doesnt have a way of fighting back against iran in syria, doesnt have a very effective way of fighting against iran in lebanon or in yemen, so this seems to be irans achilles heel. As you say, a very weak economy, the currency is plummeting, inflation is going up, growth is going down. So youve got a weak economy and real political protests. Youve got iranians going into the streets saying stop spending so much on guns, start spending more on the quality of life here at home. So i think the administration sees a weakness and theyre trying to exploit it. How much could this have to do with how frustrated the president is reported to be when it comes to north korea and how north korea has not been keeping up their end of the bargain and nothing has come out of it . Well, he should be frustrated over north korea, but he should be more frustrated with his own policy towards north korea. He set out an impossible goal or up realistic goal of denuclearization. Claimed he accomplished it when in fact he had not. Every day that goes by shows the gap between the administrations rhetoric and the reality. So hes frustrated with north korea. Hes on the defensive with russia. Hes launched a trade war, which i think threatens a lot of the gains that had been made in the markets. So theres iran. And again, almost by a process of elimination, you get the sense that the administration has decided this is their best chance to do Something Big in Foreign Policy. Do they want to negotiate with iran . Is that even a desire . I dont think so, because i cant imagine that an iranian leadership that for decades has called the United States the great satan is going to accomplish is going to agree to negotiate. I think the gap between the two sides is so fundamental, im not sure what the negotiation would be about. So no, i dont think this is a bid to negotiate. I dont think this is another north korea. I think this is an attempt to put real pressure on iran so either iran says uncle and agrees to all sorts of things in a new Nuclear Agreement they werent prepared to agree to before, but failing that, i think this is an attempt to destabilize the government. Richard haass, thanks for trying to make sense of it with us. We appreciate it. Thank you, katy. Ahead, what are the chances the democrats with flip the house this november . Weve just released new nbc news wall street journal polling, next. 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. Tonight in meet the midterms some numbers from our news nbc news wall street journal poll tell us where the fight for the house stands three and a half months out from election day. Democrats hold a sixpoint advantage over republicans on the generic congressional ballot. That is down from the tenpoint lead they had over republicans in june. But dont call the blue wave alert off just yet. Democrats are maintaining big advantage in voter enthusiasm. 65 of democrats have a high level of interest in this novembers Midterm Election compared to 49 of republicans. That is a 16point margin between the two parties and it is the same as it was in june. Now, a lot can happen over the next three and a half months domestically, internationally and with the special counsel investigation. But at the moment democrats have enthusiasm on their side. Having enthusiasm on your side is a whole lot better than having it on the other side. Well be back with the panel in just a moment right after the break. Were in a small room. What . welcome. [ gasps ] a bigger room . how many of you use Car Insurance . Oh. Well, what if i showed you this . [ laughing ] hohoho wow. Its a computer. We compare rates to help you get the price and coverage thats right for you. Thats amazing the only thing that would make this better is if my mom were here. What . an unexpected ending the kayak explore tool shows you the places you can fly on your budget. So you can be confident youre getting the most bang for your buck. Aloha. Kayak. Search one and done. Time now for the lid. The panel is back. Lid. The panel is back. Paul manafort was in court today, not in one of his thousand dollar, 10,000 suit but a green prison suit, which was unusual for Paul Manafort since weve seen him go in and out in the fancy suits. The judge has delayed the trial one extra week. Paul manafort going to trial, first one in the russia probe to go to trial. Do you have any idea why Paul Manafort is going to trial and not cut a plea deal as everyone else has so far . No, i have no idea. Doesnt seem like he has much of a case. Apparently the evidence was Strong Enough to suggest he needed to be in prison, a risk being out on bond. I suspect and i think others would suspect as well perhaps he is angling for some sort of exoneration from the president in the event he is convicted on the many charges he faces. Theres no other reason i think he would go to trial because it doesnt look like hes got very much of case. Theres a lot of speculation on the part of trumps critics that would be a significant offense to the point it would shake republicans loose. Im not convinced, he would issue a pardon and we are used to the pardons to the point it would be a twoday news cycle and wed forget about it. If manafort is going to trial, what is cohen doing . Michael cohen has tapes. Hes definitely signaling, having breakfast with al sharpton and tweeting it out. Definitely sending a signal to President Trump through the television saying, please please please, either pay my legal bills as we were discussing during the break or pardon like manafort might be angling for. I do think none of that will necessarily matter, in the sense if he pardons one person he has to pardon a lot of people, because there are a lot of people caught up in the legal tentacles of this case. The legal pardon, i think that was the goal of the pardons weve seen in this last few months to normalize it so he could pardon other people so he would have that option. I dont know its a realistic option given the number of people caught up in the tentacles of the legal probe. The special master is allowing 12 of the audiotapes cohen has recorded to be turned over to prosecutors. The only one we know has the president was the one we reported on last week having to do with karen mcdougle, playbook playmate said she had an affair with the president the president denies. The playboy playmate. We should also point out Michael Cohen has not yet been charged with anything. Thats correct. If youre a fixer, the guy who says he would take a bullet for you, pay people off, your best buddy is also taping you in your conversations, it suggesting the relationship you thought you had or presented to world you had is not the actual relationship. These guys were sharks, collecting evidence on each other. Theyre going to war. I say popcorn for the viewers back home. What does that suggest Michael Cohen thinks of donald trump . He cant be trusted to have his back in the end. That was a cya moment in terms of im recording this conversation because later i might need it. Thats alarming in the sense of the attorneyclient relationship certainly recording your client is a rather unusual circumstance. I think in this case you have the president and his team out with all of these denials, hearing him on tape talking about something he already publicly denied would be something perhaps might break some of the partisanship were seeing. We have not yet seen you think so . No, i dont know. Im speculating in the sense it would be different in that it would be a tape of the president and his voice republicans have been burned by tapes in the past, access hollywood and then he moved on, oh, gosh, what do i know . I wouldnt say that. Anybody that saw that tape and went out and supported the president , im questioning their judgment in terms of the access Hollywood Tape. This is a different tape, him on tape talking about having an affair with a playboy playmate when he denied it. Ironic we have so many tapes. The access Hollywood Tape was not evidence of a crime. I mean, against people perhaps but not against the law. What could im just saying its him bragging about Sexual Assault its not him committing a crime. To be clear. What could be on this tape, if he is attesting to the political import why she had to be paid off it could go to the Campaign Finance case against him. Of everything thats happening being optimistic. Thank you for a spirited monday, guys. Appreciate it. Ahead, weapons of mass production. Alright guys lets go lets do this. Okay you gotta be kidding me. Hold on, dont worry, theres another way. Directions to the greek theater. beep can i get a connection . Can i get can i get a connection . Ohhh can i get a connection . Trying find the old me are you ready to take your then you need xfinity xfi. . A more powerful way to stay connected. It gives you super fast speeds for all your devices, provides the most wifi coverage for your home, and lets you control your network with the xfi app. Its the ultimate wifi experience. Xfinity xfi, simple, easy, awesome. In case you missed it, this right here is the lib beret tore. It looks like a toy gun, liberator, nothing to worry about, right . Right . The liberator is a 3d printable pistol. In just a matter of days youll be able to download one off the internet and make it at home if you have the right printer. The Gun Rights Group distributed reached a settlement with the government that was on diy firearms, a digital file that pinned the Second Amendment against the first. The settlement takes effect august 1st when the defense distributed the age of the downloadable gun begins and expected to post a file to 3d print a semiautomatic rifle. Getting a gun in this country is not very difficult but about to get a lot easier especially as 3d Printing Technology becomes more widespread. We now know the what and when about the future of guns. Now, what does this mean for the future of gun control . That will do it for me with more of mtp daily, the beat starts right now. Two trump former aides tonight, former lawyer, larry cohen, tapes found in his office hand over to the feds and Paul Manafort handed over to trial on wednesday and just got a one week delay. And buzz on news he secretly taped donald trump. Tonight, the news is that tape didnt exist alone