And me. We have msnbc analyst susan del percio. Cohost and executive producer of show times the circus, John Heilemann, and Pulitzer Prize winning columnist and associate editor of the Washington Post and msnbc political analyst eugene robinson. Joe, set the stage for us today. Its been building up to this for a couple of tumultuous weeks. Talk about the circus. This has been the circus. A couple developments overnight that well be talking about. First of all, Brett Kavanaugh wrote an epioped for the wall street journal. Very surprising for a lot of people. Its not what Supreme Court justices or certainly not what people who were aiming to be Supreme Court justice usually do, just like they dont usually go on fox news or any cable news show to state their case which suggests that maybe the white house maybe kavanaugh doesnt feel like its over yet, though its moving in his direction. And also tonight, for the first time three decades the Washington Post actually editorialized against a
Im Nicole Wallace in for brian williams. Day 348 of the Trump Administration and tonight theres breaking news in the russia investigation. The founders of fusion gps, the firm behind that explosive trump russia dossier are speaking out tonight about what they learned about trumps ties to russians. Glen simpson and peter frich wrielting an oped in the New York Times that details their investigation and the process by which the results of that investigation were shared with American Government officials. All of this is information they have testified to before three congressional committees. Simpson and frich confirm in their piece that they hired former British Intelligence officer Christopher Steele and write, quote, yes, we hired mr. Steele, a high will he respected russia expert. But we did so without informing him whom we were working for and gave him no specific marching orders beyond this basic question. Why did mr. Trump repeatedly seek to do deals in a notoriously corrupt police
From everybody working for him. Thats the culture in which he has operated for many, many years. Their relationship got off to a bad start. Before the inauguration, james comey was in charge of telling donald trump about the dossier, the controversial document contained allegations an about the president gathered as part of an Opposition Research project during the campaign. I didnt want him thinking that i was briefing him on this to sort of hang it over him in some way. It turns out thats exactly what the president thought, according to an interview he gave the New York Times. Trumps reaction was anger. He said it was completely false. The encounter apparently didnt sit well with comey either. We know he went back to the fbi suburban and pulled out a classified computer and wrote his first memo about his interactions with donald trump. I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting and so i thought it really important to document. Comeys next public encoun
Good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. Im Nicole Wallace in for brian williams. Day 348 of the Trump Administration and tonight theres breaking news in the russia investigation. The founders of fusion gps, the firm behind that explosive trump russia dossier are speaking out tonight about what they learned about trumps ties to russians. Glen simpson and peter frich wrielting an oped in the New York Times that details their investigation and the process by which the results of that investigation were shared with American Government officials. All of this is information they have testified to before three congressional committees. Simpson and frich confirm in their piece that they hired former British Intelligence officer Christopher Steele and write, quote, yes, we hired mr. Steele, a high will he respected russia expert. But we did so without informing him whom we were working for and gave him no specific marching orders beyond this basic question. Why
Himself. Quote, everybody was painfully aware of the increasing pace of his repetitions. It used to be inside of 30 minutes hed repeat word for word an expression for expression the same three stories. Now it was within ten minutes. Indeed, many of his tweets were the product of his repetitions. He just couldnt stop saying something. This description matches something a source close to the president told me today that hed noticed over the last five to six years that trump indeed repeats himself. It also matches an account senators who met with trump shared with New York Times columnist david brooks in october. Brooks wrote this. Quote, republican senators greeted trump on capitol hill and saw a president so repetitive and rambling, some thought he might be suffering from early alzheimers. And members of both Political Parties have publicly questioned trumps fundaMental Fitness to serve. The president has not yet has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability, nor some of the compet