Brian Williams examines the days top political stories and current politicalcampaign news. This presidency, we will ask a celebrated historian if there is anything to celebrate in the history that we are witnessing. The 11th hour on a friday night begins now. Good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters. Day 561 of the Trump Administration and the end of another week brings a new sign of Robert Muellers increasing interest in one of Donald Trumps veteran advisers. His friend of 40 years, roger stone. Nbc news reports that according to a source with direct knowledge, a member of muellers stone met with a stone associate named kristin davis. She first came to prominence when the tab lights nicknamed her the manhattan madam after she said she provided prostitutes to the rich and powerful including a governor of new york. Davis said in july that the mueller representative who
contacted her lawyer asked if she would accept a subpoena or if the fbi needed to serb it to her. She said she would accept it. She worked if are stone for many years and others had already been subpoenaed. I am the godfather to her 2yearold son. She knows nothing about russian collusion. Wikileaks collaboration or any other impropriety related to the election which i thought was the subject of this probe. Davis was at least one of Stone Associates said to be on muellers radar. They remain interested in that june 2016 Trump Tower Meeting and wants to talk to the russian singer who helped set it up. Reports of a new angle in the russia investigation. The ongoing negotiations over a possible mueller interview and the trial of trumps former
very low iq. Low iq. They can make anything bad. They are the fake, fake disgusting news. On that note, lets bring in the lead off panel for a friday night. Jonathan allen, our political reporter and the coauthor of shattered about the hillary campaign. And former assistant Watergate Special counsel. The White House Reporter for the associated press. If its friday it must be new jersey. Editor for the los angeles times. Welcome to you all. Covering the vacationing president , i would like to begin with you. By the way, as long as president s have vacationed, white houses have rushed in to say no, no, no. This is a Working Vacation. Calling this a Working Vacation is one of the most traditional things this white house has ever done. Having established that, you reported days ago this president
was in a very dark place. Is he in any brighter confines even including the fact that he likes rallies like that for what we just saw . Hey, brian. He is in one of the nations great estates tonight. He wont be here for long as he heads back for a rally. Last night he was in pennsylvania and portrayed where his mood was. He had a lot of venom, shall we say, towards the media. It came hours after his National Security staff finally did what so many people wanted to hear for a long time. Chastise russia for the Election Interference and outline steps to prevent them from doing it again while sounding the alarm. This thread is still very real from moscow and should be taken seriously. Just six hours later in North Eastern pennsylvania, the
president downplays it and suggests the whole thing is a hoax and turns Withering Scorn on the media there, suggesting that we were treating him unfairly. Reappropriating fake news. No longer a report that he thinks is inaccurate, but unfair or unkind to him. And therefore labeling us sort of his enemy. Though he didnt use enemy of the state, he described us as disgusting horrible people. This is the white house as you said. Its a Working Vacation. He made a series of phone calls to lawmakers. We didnt lay eyes on him. A day after behaving himself on twitter like he did today, we all expect it wont just be the news media, but the russia probe that followed him throughout the white house and bed minster. You covered the tour deforce in wilkes bury. Chuck schumer, referencing the other greatest hits. Whats important about that is as he is ramping up, he is not trying to expand the republican base, but fire up his own supporters and get them energized. He has seen a president in his presidency throughout his presidency that has been static in terms of approval ratings. If his party is going to win in the midterms and preserve the majorities, its going to be on the basis of every last republican turning out, particularly every last base supporter. We can expect to hear more and more of what we heard last night. Jackie, you covered a story or two in the pantheon of bad weeks for donald trump. Noting that this one started with him telling the ag to end the Mueller Investigation and after the Intelligence Community talked about the russia threat,
he called it a hoax. Where does this rank in the short history of bad weeks . I actually think its no worse, really, than some of the worst. When you look at it substantively, it was really important. When you think about it, here we are more than a year and a half after he has taken office. We are coming up on two years since he was elected. The unanimous consensus of the Intelligence Community is that we were attacked by our biggest adversar adversary, russia. For the first time in the past week, he presided over a meeting. The first time a meeting of his National Security council and it lasted under an hour. Maybe just a half hour before he went off to bed minster to his golf club for last weekend. This week, because the administration feels so on the defensive that they are not
its not going too far to say to protect this country from the president. Jill, jackie said a series of important things and now we need to know what it looks like from a lawyers perspective. If you were Rudy Giuliani or jay sec low or the rask ins, attorneys at law, how would you view the past week . I would be very correspond. The president s actions have been more obstruction and no question that his tweets as Attorney General Sessions should stop the investigation is an active act of obstruction of justice. I also think his tweet that the hoax about hoax and the manafort trial saying there is no collusion and the trial is a hoax could be seen as jury tampering. Republicans just passed the biggest tax cuts in the history of our country. So jonathan, what is the white house process when the president goes out . The president has a pretty unconventional relationship with the truth, brian. For the most part, the white house process resembles this. I think that they try to clean up some of his stuff and they know there is a sense around the building and not just the white house aides, but those who he talks to late at night that the president needs to blow off steam. Sometimes it happens on twitter and sometimes at rallies. Lets also remember that this is snag predates his political career. From being a Real Estate Developer in new york or recording tabloids, he would push his own version of the truth. He would lie to reporters and lie in public and do it so often, it seemed as if he was
convincing himself it was real. We are seeing that since the moment he came out of the escalator at trump tower, a lot of supporters are willing to go with him. Republican who is trust and support trump trust him far more than the news media. The most telling of that real you just played is where he suggested Vladimir Putin did not want him to win. Just a couple of weeks ago, putin was asked that question. Who did you want to win in 2016 and he said donald trump. This is now an argument that the president made on twitter suggesting that its the russians helping the democrats. Not only can he not be taken at face value at the rallies, but this is hovering over him. The idea of russia and it colors everything he tries to do and the probe seems to be inching closer and closer to him and his family, i suggest that the
moments and that the pressure to end the investigation are only going to accelerate. As we watch that, we watch his position on all things Russia Hardening sharply. Right and again in contrast to what we saw with the officials, all of whom at different times said russia had interfered in the 2016 election and might be doing so in 2018, they felt like they banded together and went to the White House Briefing room and gave this stunning condemn nation of russia continuing to have this ongoing effort to undermine american democracy and the president of the United States split screen in wilkes bury and never mind what my top aides are saying and never mind that all of this is disrupting my relationship with putin who didnt want me to win. For those of us in the room in
helsinki when putin was asked that, you dont have to speak a lot of russian to know that the answer of do you want trump to win, he was like yes, yes, yes, i wanted trump to win. The lies mount up and its so hard when you are in the room at those rallies to count them. They are coming so fast. You showed several clips. There must have been another half dozen at least. He said the sitting senator wants to abolish ice. Not true. Jackie, at the same time the assaults on the media are getting sharper and more frequent and the crowd is getting into it more. They are. It is really concerning. I dont think your audience can appreciate what its like to be a reporter in the press pool when you are shepherded into the big rallies and you are coming
in as all in a group and the audience is looking at you and its clear who the reporters are and the camera crews carrying their equipment. You get the hissing and the booing and the yelling and the middle fingers going up in the air. Its really threatening. What a lot of People Dont Know is during the president ial campaign, some of the correspondents had to have security. At one point Secret Service escorted them, but at other points they hired security to be with them. Thats unprecedented and there is one one reason for it. They are goated by donald trump himself to be negative against the press. Whats really hypocritical about it, donald trump himself personally can be quite nice to the reporters and call them up on the phone and were an easy foil for his base he plays to. Jill, i keep Hearing Folks in your line of work say things along the lines of i wouldnt want to be roger stone right now. I say that by way of asking you what big move you are looking for next in the Mueller Investigation. I also am glad im a lawyer on and not a journalist. It is really scary to listen to that rally. Its also scary as a citizen to worry about freedom of the press. As to roger stone, its very interesting. He seems to be clearly identified in the russian hacking indictment as one of the u. S. Citizens involved. Of course we know that he was in touch with gucifer 2. 0 and wikileaks. Now all of the people who surrounded him are being called as witnesses as you pointed out in your opening. Kirstin davis is the most recent
one and the assumption is she is being called according to roger stone something that she knows nothing about and the excuse has been its because she was in jail during the campaign. She was released from jail in may of 2016. Just before the Trump Tower Meeting. Just before a lot of the gucifer 2. 0 stuff started. Thats not much of an excuse for what she might know. It could also be that she has information on other people connected to the Trump Campaign from her prior business. We dont know what she is going to be asked or has been asked by mueller. The evidence though is mounting against roger stone and he should be worried. Instead ever commenting on muellers wardrobe choices, he should be worried about his defense. They brought their a game in early august and we appreciate it. Jonathan allen and jonathan and
jackie, thank you all very much for joining us and helping us on this broadcast. Giuliani said a decision on this trumpmueller sit down will come in the next 10 days. We will remind you that we have been here before. The presidency and the press, what kind of history are we watching get made these days. John meachem is here with us as we are just getting under way. Team are near a decision on a sit down interview. This is the second reminder. That did not stop politico from writing trumps legal team will spend the weekend contemplating parameters proposed for an interview with the president and make a decision shortly there after. The decisions will get made in the next week to 10 days. He added that the team is still considering declining an interview all together despite what he described as trumps ongoing desire to meet with mueller. Politico reports that both sides are deadlocked over whether he will ask him about possible obstruction. According to giuliani, they offered to narrow the set of questions related to obstruction. One of the previous occasions when we were close to a decision for an interview. You said now july 4th is when you expect to have a decision on whether he will sit for an interview. Why are you dragging it out. Dont you know now . I dont want to do it. Im leaving it open. The president wants to do it. It is now past the fourth of judging. Where do we stand . We know where we are and we await the decision of the independent counsel. We would not recommend an interview with the president unless they can satisfy us that there is some basis for this investigation. It seems like over the weekend you said it seems like you are moving more and more against the idea of the president sitting down with robert mueller. There is a slight opening. When are you going to nail this down . Maybe this week or next week. Last time you told us july 4th. Well, a lot happened since july 4th. To talk about all this, we asked jack charmin for the House Banking Committee known as the Financial Services committee
during the whitewater investigation. These days he is a criminal defense attorney. As you can tell, the story is a full on cliche. We can close our eyes and read from three weeks or three months ago. The president who wants to talk and the attorneys are cautioning him and the Special Counsel wants to catch him off guard. We can say about this president she expansive, tends to be narcissistic when he starts talking. Doesnt that mean there are a million ways for him to get into trouble even if there are ground rules . Absolutely. That kind of client, the ceo or highly placed public official have those positions because they are confident and persuasive and fluent and they tend to believe and overestimate their ability to persuade
prosecutors and agents of the righteousness of their position. Prosecutors and agents are generally in the business of building cases, not deconstructing them. They come to an interview with that mind set. It could be a very precarious situation for the president to go into an interview. Ground rules or no. To your ground rules point, let me ask you this. Say they agree on ground rules. We can ask you this and not this. The president starts to talk and takes them into an area that had been walled off by ground rules. Thats now open. Thats fair game, correct . That happens often because of the dynamic of an interview. Especially a voluntary interview as opposed to, for example, compelled testimony before a grand jury either because the
witness wants to say his or her peace and gets off topic, so to speak. Or Defense Counsel thinks no harm is being done or that even some hay is being made and lets it go on. I would think in this situation the former circumstance would be more likely than the latter. Whats the chance the mueller team said at some point we are good, weve got enough and dont need the president. Is there any chance of that happening . I would estimate that that is a low chance in that thus far at least, whats been released publicly any case involving the president seems to be highly circumstantial. Of course we dont know what has all transpired before a grand jury or what witnesses may have told the Special Counsel, but one of the best ways from a
prosecutors Point Of View of turning a circumstantial case into a direct case is to get a statement from the witnesss mouth, the subjects mouth that is untrue or inaccurate or can be portrayed so believably. It would change the game for everybody if the president were to submit to an interview. This is why we wanted to toss you a few questions. Thank you as always for saying yes and coming on the broadcast. Appreciate it. Coming up for us, what Paul Manaforts former accountant admitted that she once did for the man on trial. Information valuable, by the way, to give todays witness immunity from prosecution. That and more when we come back. And National Security reporter and reporter for the associated press. Welcome to you both. How effective was today and part of whats getting the press tonight is that mrs. Manafort was driven at some point to leave the courtroom because she got emotional. Thats right, brian. That seemed like an interesting moment. It came when another book keeper was discussing the fact that he was not aware that Paul Manafort had control of all these foreign accounts. Thats important because he prepared manaforts taxes. He had an obligation to disclose the foreign accounts of more than 10,000. The testimony was understated, at some point Kathleen Manafort began to dab her eyes and get emotional and she got up and left the courtroom. When i heard that happened, i thought im not crazy. It is true this trial is going very poorly for Paul Manafort. You dont get that impression. He is projecting confidence in his blue suit, looking at the jury, participating with his lawyers and seeping like everything is fine. The evidence has been very damning and the defense thus far has been ineffective. They stipulated to most of the facts and i guess their story is going to be these frauds and these failures to fill out tax forms was not intentional. I heard them say this is a paper case and further while they can be on the boring side, the feds like a paper case because Paper Cant Get Cross examined. Having said that, where do you think the opportunities are as they go by in realtime for the defense to come back and take jabs . I think, brian, on monday afternoon we are going to see the defense cross examine the very same government witness who
was on the stand today and i certainly agree with my friend ken that the government scored critical points, but i do think there opportunities that this witness gave to the defense that i are going to seize on. One thing that you mentioned earlier, she is there under immunity which means she is not going to be prosecuted for anything she says on the stand. The defense can basically use that to say you yourself, this tax preparer action acknowledged and engaged in wrongdoing yourself. She may not exactly have Pristine Hands and they will try exploit that. Rick gates, there is no question the defense is going to subject him to a bruising crossexamination. Their whole case relies on being able to prove that the crimes of Paul Manaforts own trial were not committed by him. They are committed by gates and a refluxion of negligence by the
tax and accounting profession s professionals. Lets go back to the other side and that is the prosecution. Gates could be a devastating, withering witness because of how deep into Paul Manaforts and career he was. Thats right. They set it up today by asking witnesses about the status of mr. Gates and he was repeatedly described as manaforts right hand man and giving instructions to the book keepers and Tax Preparers, but thats a doubleedged sword. The defense will argue he was the one responsible for the misdeeds. Hes going to have to acknowledge that he not only committed the crimes and lied to the fbi as he was negotiating with the plea agreement. He lied to the fbi. It could be a really tough moment for the prosecution, but i would argue that they have established so much evidence without gates. As eric said, some of these
other Tax Preparers and book keepers and the days of testimony about all the luxury goods that manafort bought with money from a Foreign Bank Account that his tax returns clearly say he didnt have. Eric, about those very luxury goods, this speaks to the judge to say he is brisk sounds like an under statement. He has not allowed the artwork to come in and said the juries will get that. He told both sides to take a week out of your arguments and moving it along so much so that i heard former fed say he could hurt the case. He is taking the juice out of the federal case. Having said that about the judge, what is your view . Sometimes you can tell a lot about Jury Interest by looking at them as a journalist. Whats your view of the jury . The jury just like paul manford seems to be really engaged for the most part even
though its an beinging heavy case. There are no perry mason opportunities to really slam a witness to the ground, but you do see the jury taking notes. You do see the jury looking at the screen when there are documents displayed. As far as a documentheavy case like, this i think they are engaged. There is no question, brian, that the judge himself is part of whats keeping the jury entertained. He is making them laugh. He is making the courtroom Gallery Laugh and the prosecution laugh much less than that, but there is no question that this judge ellis has become part of the story and he is working a syduously to make sure Paul Manafort gets a fair trial as possible. She trying to appealproof the case so if he wants to appeal which he has the right to do and no doubt wants to do, he wont be able to say anything that ellis did in the courtroom is responsible for him losing the case. He is trying very hard to keep
out any sort of potentially prejudicial testimony about all sorts of luxury items or details of the lavish lifestyle. We did learn about the ostrich jacket which was the dominant headline. This judge a pointed by Ronald Reagan who doesnt even have email and doesnt intend to start now. Gentlemen, thank you both very much as what i know was a long day on top of a long week. Coming up, donald trump talks a lot about his accomplishments as president. Some true, some not so much. We will talk about all of it with a Pulitzer Prize recipient when The 11th Hour continues. Americas steel mills are roaring again. We saved our family farms and our small businesses. We are going to keep on winning. We are going to win so much, perhaps some of you, but not all will get tired of wing. Anybody going to get tired . A list of accomplishments without ward for the truth. Coming up, there is also this. Complaining about News Coverage is what president s used to do. Every one did. This president has taken it a big step further. We will look at all of it when we come back. Own eyes how hay lie. We are right behind him regardless of the swamp or the fake news says. A small simple of what we heard from the crowd just this week. The message took root back in 2016 on the president s twitter feed. The message evolved overtime. A few days ago, i called the fake news the enemy of the people, and they are. They are the enemy of the people. If you want to discover the source of the division in our country, look no further than the fake news and the crooked media. They are very, very dishonest people. Fake news. They can make anything bad because they are the fake, fake, disgusting news. Also importantly, lets not forget this from a few days ago. What you are seeing and what you are reading is not whats
happening. With us to talk about it tonight, john meachem, Pulitzer Prize winning author and historian. His latest book is the soul of america, the battle for our better angels. These Talking Points we just heard the president make, why is this more pernicious than just another trump thing . Well, he is actively making the Working Press a target of the wrath of people in physical proximity twentyone another. Its a really remarkable thing as you mentioned. Every president beginning with George Washington who almost did not stand for reelection. I wont say run because nobody ran against him. Almost decided not to seek a second term because he was so tired of being criticized. This started in 1792 and presses forward. Whats a little different is
that we used to have to at least hear from aides or in the extraordinary case of the nixon tapes, we would hear nixon himself denouncing the press. The unhappiness of president s, usually in the most casual kind of remark off hand or a leak, this is a case where the president has turned the working media into a permanent foil and political enemy. He is basically in the tribalized culture of the moment. He has said the media is as much an opponent of ours, meaning him and his base, as the Democratic Party or those who oppose on policy grounds. It takes the role and put it it in jep earth. You know the next question is coming. What if we need to say to the american people, no, this next
portion of the story is getting consequential for our country, presidency and constitution. This isnt fake at all. It hasnt been more real. Its the perniciousness of the strategy. He wounded the messenger and opened fire on the potential outlets that will be the means by which any damaging information will come to the people. So in that sense, its as strategic as anything he does. You talk to people who know the president and a lot of them will say you guys overthink this. Hes just making it up. He is rolling with whatsoever comes to the top of his mind. As you just played, this is a consistent theme. I think what hes done is attempted to and i think probably pretty significantly, he wounded the means by which
director muellers report will be reported to the people. And lord knows what else. Brett stevens has written a Chilling Op Ed in the new york sometimes. No one will accuse him of writing unthoughtful pieces. It gives a restation of a death threat. We are approaching the day when blood on the Newsroom Floor will be blood on the president s hands. I dont think thats an overstatement. Its feeling as serious as you portrayed it tonight. I think so and one of the things about history is when we look back, we often see things in an inevitable progression. When we look back at dallas, 1963. We remember that the johnsons were jostled. People spit at lady bird from the right in texas. We see the ambassador to the
united nations was attacked with placards as a rally. We can see all leading up to the tragedy of daly plaza. I play that im wrong, you could be playing the tape you played, the sequence when in fact something terrible happens. Words have consequences and words from the very top have the most far reaching consequences. I join you in hoping youre wrong for the benefit of all of us. Always a pleasure and thank you for spending part of your friday night with us. One of our lawyers noticed about the manafort jury this week. It may be a good sign for the prosecution. We will tell but it when we come back. But its hard to read what the jurors are thinking. They look for behaviors to read the dynamic. The manafort jurors asked the judge if they could bring in a Birthday Cake for one of them. It was a nice enough request, benign enough. It was barely mentioned, if at all, in the coverage. One of the on air experts. The attorney, the former federal prot cuter and attorney for the Southern District of new york saw more than just a request to bring in a Birthday Cake as she told john heilman. A cake request is good for the government. Its a good sign for the prosecution. If i were a prosecutor, i would be happy they asked for a Birthday Cake. They will share the cake . No, a happy jury is a good jury for the government. Heres why. You need to acquit. You need 12 jurors to agree