Our tools to undermine democracy. As facebook comes to terms with its unprecedented power, is there anything anyone can do about it . I wish i could tell you that were going to be able to stop all interference. But that just wouldnt be realistic. All in starts right now. Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. Tonight, the infamous steel dossier is at the very center of the news on the russia investigation. Nbc news reports that investigators on special counsel Robert Muellers team have interviewed christopher steele. Thats of course the former British Intelligence officer who compiled that absolutely explosive document. The dossier deals an alleged effort by the russian government over a period of years, stretching back to 2013 or so, to cultivate and coopt donald trump and his inner circle, as well as an extensive conspiracy between the Trump Campaign and Russian Forces to Work Together to interfere in the 2016 president ial election on trumps behalf. The president denies those claims. But clearly mueller isnt taking the president s word for it, neither is the Senate Intelligence committee. Yesterday chairman richard burr discussed the committees investigation into the dossier but said theyre having trouble verifying some details. As it relates to the steele dossier, unfortunately the committee has hit a wall to wall. Although we have been incredibly enlightened at our ability to rebuild backwards, the steele dolls 88 up to a certain date, getting past that point has been somewhat impossible. It appears those efforts havent been entirely unsuccessful. Because according to nbc News Reporter ken delaney, two sources told him the committee has indeed contributed parts of the dossier. Ken dlanian joins me now. What is your reporting telling you about the ways in which the committee or the Mueller Investigation are dealing with that document . I wish i had a better answer to you you, chris. The real answer is, we just dont know. Its classified and theyre not giving details on what theyve corroborated. But im glad you played that rather inarticulate clip from senator burr because the republicans. Trying to say he said no such thing, and he clearly said in his inartful way, he used the term rebuilding. They have a timeline. There are meetings, things in that dolls 88 that can be checked with, for example, u. S. Intelligence reports, signals intelligence, travel records. Every effort has been made to do that. The fbi has done it as well. And so there are parts of the dossier, as you know, that track with what we know from public reporting. For example, the dossier said weeks before newspapers reported that there was a russian hack of the dnc in july 2016, theres a dolls 88 report dated in july that says there is a kremlin effort to hack the dnc. It wasnt until october that the u. S. Government formally said, hey, this was the russians that hack the dnc. I have to say the document itself, published to great fanfare and great controversy, it contains some salacious details and explosive alleges the president denied somewhat humorously, to go back and look at it and read line by line, you are constantly encountering bits of information that are just publicly verifiable. For instance, that july 19 report in which the dossier says the russians have hacked the dnc. Two weeks later press reports say that. Thats absolutely true. Theres another passage where it says, look, despite trump denying he wants to do business in moscow, hes been actively seeking it out. Well, what do we learn a couple of months ago . There was a trump tower moscow proposal on the table and Donald Trumps lawyer Michael Cohen was pursuing it with top kremlin officials during the republican primary. There are other things that are unverified, unproven, and subject to investigation. For example, the dossier basically says Paul Manafort was acting as a gobetween, between russian intelligence and the Trump Campaign. Obviously thats not proven, thats something mueller and the congress are investigating. The final thing i think that seems important here is just the degree to which the status of this document, which this document has been at the center of a lot of the reporting, the earliest reporting that it was comey who had to pull the president aside at a briefing and say this was out there. What does seem clear, and i want you to tell me whether this is how you understand it, is that this is taken seriously as a document not itself verified, but as a skeleton to work off to attempt to verify. That is such a great way to put it. This is raw intelligence. Raw intelligence is often wrong, but some of it is right. James clapper, former director of national intelligence, said in june that donald trump asked mill to refute the dossier, and he said, i could not and i would not. So youre right, its a roadmap for the investigation. The fbi has had most of it from steele for a long time. And now it appears mueller wants to ask some followup questions. Thats what i think this interview would have been about. Ken dlanian, thank you. I want to bring in former assistant Watergate Special prosecutor juwan banks, former federal prosecutor renato marriotty. What do you make of this news . Its interesting and big news. The dossier i think you and ken covered it very well, chris. The dossier contains a lot of explosive details. And had been denied had been the subject of very frequent denials by the administration. They said, oh, false dossier, fake, theres nothing real in there. But at ken was pointing out portions have been verified. Now that muellers looking at it, what it tells me is hes going back and trying to figure out what he can create usable evidence out of. So your viewers understand, you cant just toss this dossier in front of a jury. You actually have to bring in witnesses who can testify as to what they saw, what they heard, bring in documents that can be authenticated. Look, even if mueller is able to just verify small portions of it and bring in that evidence, that could be real problems for some of the president s associates. Like Michael Cohen. He is all throughout that dossier. Theres been there are these allegations in there that he was meeting with russian representatives. If you look at his denials or i should put that in quotation marks, his sort of denials, he denies certain things and not others. So you really could see him potentially getting in trouble for lying to congress. Jill, i was curious about when you were working on the watergate investigation, you know, a lot of what was being uncovered was happening in the press. Famously by woodward and bernstein and others. The degree to which you in the Investigators Office were taking tips that you were maybe getting some other places and attempting to run them down using your powers . We took every bit of information that we got, every clue, every tip, and took it seriously. Its interesting especially in light of the release of the mark felt movie and his being held out as a hero. But really, he was telling us what we already knew, because his information came from the same fbi that worked for us. So it wasnt dramatic, new information. The fbi knew everything that he had and we had it. The people who didnt have it were the public. And it was helpful to bring Public Opinion to support our efforts to uncover all the information. And it really helped in the end too bring about the replacement of the special prosecutor after the saturday night massacre and to get the release of the tapes, because the public was supporting us because they saw the evidence publicly. Here you have a situation where the senate has to get to the bottom of what happened, not just in terms of the dossier, but in terms of the clear and convincing evidence that we have that the russians hacked. Because they have to protect our electoral system. And thats a really important underlying thing that the congress has to do, whereas the criminal prosecution has to proceed through the Mueller Investigation. Renato, i want to talk about time scale here. This is now an investigation that was opened i think in summer of 2016, i believe june. Its gone through several phases. I think its intensified. Its been passed over to the special counsel. And the argument that you heard from Sarah Huckabee sanders, although it was of the Intelligence Committee but the same ilk, theyve been looking and talking to people, theres thousands of pages of transcript, and they havent found the smoking gun so this is a witch hunt. What do you say to that . First of all, we dont know what muellers found yet. So your viewers understand, when you conduct a grand jury investigation, as a legal matter, its secret. So mueller cant divulge to us everything that he knows. We dont know what he knows. And this is just in the frankly, in many ways, its still in a fairly early stage. As we just heard recently, mueller is interviewing people at the white house about obstruction and other issues. So each one of those interviews is going to generate more requests and more subpoenas and more interviews. I mean, this is going to go on and on at hes verifying this dossier. Hes going to be interviewing more people sxoo bringing them in. This is just the beginning. And i would not draw any conclusions other than what we already know about manafort and others being indicted. So then jill, this goes to you. Obviously theres been reporting suggesting that mueller has informed manafort directly, you are going to be indicted, which if he was unclear on that, breaking into his apartment to search a search warrant probably helped him to that possibility. I guess my question is to renatos point, did you feel when you were working the watergate investigation, was there some sense of extemple pressure that you guys at some point, in order to sustain Public Interest or sustain peoples thoughts that this was a fair proceeding, did have to pru something tangible that you could come public with . Lets look at the smoking gun which you mentioned. And we were appointed in may of 73. We found out that there were tape recordings in july of 73. Subpoenaed them, were stonewalled, but then we finally got some. They werent the shown gun, it was nine limited tapes and we only got six because one had an 18minute gap, two were missing. So we only got six of the nine. And then in march we returned indictments. It was only in preparation for trial which was set for september of 74 that we subpoenaed 64 more tapes and got the smoking gun. When we got the smoking gun, and this is now more than a year after we started, that was an immediate response. The republicans acted as americans. The three Top Republicans in the congress, house and senate, went to nixon and said, there is no more support for you, you will be convicted in the senate if you do not resign. And that was the end. But that was a year into it. We did not get the smoking gun right away. This takes time. You know, slow and steady wins the race. We have to put the puzzle together piece by piece. And it takes a little bit of time to develop all the evidence thats necessary. And i think mueller is showing every sign of getting it done. All right, jill and renato, thank you both. Joy reid, host of a. M. Joy joins me. What do you think is the significance of mueller sending folks to talk to steele . I think its very important. I think you and ken made a really important point that this is a research document. Its a document from which the mueller team can work to find facts. It is not the fact. The important thing that is people sort of characterize the dossier as sort of the conclusions that this guy was drawing. He was sweeping in all of this information and mueller has to put it together. Its important because theres a lot in that dossier that has borne out. I think it provides the most compelling set of facts that could be a narrative as to how collusion took place. If they can get to the bottom of that by talking to him, finding out where did he get some of his information, he may or may not be able to divulge it, i think it helps to build slowly this investigation. You know, the document itself, and part of the reason that i the way i think about it has shifted over time as facts fall into place. When you read it the first time, what it lays out seems really kind of crazy. Like, i mean, or at least so broad in scope. The idea is that this was a sustained effort over a number of years to cultivate donald trump, to bring him into the russian orbit, to have him be essentially turned into a kind of asset, and then to help his campaign. What it lays out in its scope is really, really enormous. Yeah. But it isnt if you think about the way that russia has worked. Lets remember that the current president of russia was a former kgb agent. Kgb spent years cultivating assets. This is not something they do quickly. I think the idea that you have somebody like donald trump, who showed the affinity in the 80s, showed an interest in the 80s, had a need in the 90s, need and greed are usually the components of the way that the russians, even when they were the soviets, would develop assets. This is how its done. I think the idea is if youre going to interfere in a president ial election, this is really taking it to a level that is incredibly risky for russia. If youre going to do that, you better do it carefully. You better cultivate these contacts over a long period of time. Its not something they would rush into. So i think it actually makes sense that it was that comprehensive and that it depended on the greed and need of a lot of different people who wanted to make money somehow through russia, or who wanted to have the power of the presidency. Do we have by the way this clip of the president just speaking a little while ago . If we do, i want to play it for joy. This is the president. Hes having a dinner tonight with military officials and their families at the white house. And its slightly off target but it just happened and i want to get your reaction, i dont know what to make of it. This is the president appearing to threaten something and no one can figure out what. Do you know what this represents . Maybe its the calm before the storm. Whats your storm . The calm before the storm. What storm . We have the worlds great military people here in this room, ill tell you that. Thank you all for coming. Thank you. What storm, mr. President . Youll find out. You know, donald trump what do you make that . Donald trump still seems to think hes in the apprentice, a is spence moment before you go to break, come back from commercial and announce whatever it is hes doing. He treats the presidency like a reality show. He did this with tom price, hamg on, well have more information for you. Stay tuned. But at the time that theyre potentially ripping up the iran nuclear deal, which could send us on a path of hostility with iran. Iran is not iraq, its a republic, its not a puttogether republic where the people are fractured. It was an empire. It has an actual air force. Its four times the population. Hes contemplating any sort of act of hostilities with iran, thats terrifying. At the same time he is goading north korea. If he werent doing those two things that would just be donald trump doing his donald trump thing. Its kind of terrifying in the context of what theyre doing. I mean, presumably there are intelligence agents of other countries trying to parse this as well. Of course. I think he thinks its an asset if they cant figure him out, but theres reasons to think that the literature in deterrence and game theory that could be quite dangerous. Indeed. Next, more exclusive new reporting on the rift between Rex Tillerson and the man he reportedly called a moron. New details of a furious president fuming at the white house in just two minutes. Later, the facebook effect. A special conversation on the crossroads of democracy and the unprecedented power the social media giant holds. Building a website in under an hour is easy with gocentral. From godaddy in fact, 68 of people who have built their. Website using gocentral, did it in under an hour, and you can too. Build a better website in under an hour. With gocentral from godaddy. Whentertaining us,es getting us back on track,hing . And finding us dates. Phones really have changed. So why hasnt the way we pay for them . Introducing xfinity mobile. You only pay for data and can easily switch between pay per gig and unlimited. No one else lets you do that. See how much you can save. Choose by the gig or unlimited. Xfinity mobile. A new kind of network designed to save you money. Call, visit or go to xfinitymobile. Com. New details tonight on Donald Trumps fury over an nbc story. Yesterday our reporters revealed that secretary of state Rex Tillerson had openly disparaged the president referring to him as a moron. Nbc now learning that the president was so angry that chief of staff john kelly scrapped plans to travel to vegas to stay in washington and do damage control. Also angry, Vice President pence, who spoke with tillerson ahead of the secretarys stilted press conference yesterday in which tillerson never actually denied calling President Trump a moron. The president attacking this morning tweeting, Rex Tillerson never threatened to resign, this is fake news put out by nbc news, low news in reporting starts, no verification from me. The white house denying the president undermined tillerson or any other cabinet secretary. Whats your response to those who say the president has undercut the secretary of state . Sarah, just quickly i think the premise of that question is rud dic husband, the president cant undercut his own cabinet, the president is the leader of the cabinet. He sets the tone, he sets the agenda, i think that question make not sense because of that. Nbcs carol lee who worked on that story and subsequent reporting joins me now. What do we know from your reporting about the reaction to the story . We know that the president was furious. And he vented in the white house for about two hours. He had left quite early to go to las vegas. And once he got aboard air force one, that eswhen kelly kind of started to get into action. About two and a half hours later we saw secretary tillersons press conference. The interesting thing that happe