Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. The president is an idiot. Thats what his own chief of staff said on many occasions, according to multiple current and former white house officials in a blockbuster report from nbc news. John kelly, said chief of staff, is denying it. But four current and former white house officials have heard kelly call trump an idiot. And a total of eight officials have described kelly repeatedly insulting the president s intelligence and casting himself as the savior of the company. Hes said stuff you cant believe said one senior official. Hell say it and that is not what you should be saying. The president s knowledge about immigration policy. Told aides he prevented trump from signing a deal on daca that was insufficiently hard line, quoting again. He doesnt even understand what daca is. He is an idiot, kelly said in one meeting. Weve got save him from himself. Officials also said kelly, who told a patently false story last year to smear democratic congresswoman Frederica Wilson has made multiple remarks that have rattled female staffers in the white house, including repeatedly telling aides that women are more emotional than men. Youre going to want to stick around to hear tao the white house defended him on that front. The white house and kelly declined to offer an on the record response although three people said on background they personally never heard kelly call trump an idiot. In a statement late this afternoon kelly said i spend more time with the president himself and we have an incredibly candid and strong relationship. Note not a denial. He always knows where i stand, also not a denial, and he and both know this story is total bs. I am exit committed to the agenda, our country and this president. Its another attempt to distract from this administrations many successes. Joining me nbc correspondent Stephanie Ruhle who broke this story. Maybe its pathetic that people on your team are that willing to be sources on the story. Pathetic is out there. But i dont think its pathetic that this story exists because there was plenty of sourcing on it. The white house seems to be saying two things. One, theyre trying denight. It. He never said it. That doesnt seem to reflect particularly well on the white house. No. And there could be people out to get kelly within the white house. Those things can both be true. And it speaks to the white house in chaos that the president regularly, including today, denies. And the relationship john kelly had with President Trump several months ago has simply deteriorated. A couple of months ago, he was with the president at all times, doing everything he could to sort of be hanging around the hoop. Thats not the case. He has retreated. And to say that he is a man of his honor, a man of honor, he always speaks the truth, to the federica wilson point, youre correct. John kelly has denied in the past that he wants jared and ivanka far outside the white house. But we know he wants that to be true. There are so many cases that we know of, put this story aside, thats just not the case. There is also the rod porter swachlgts thats a place where he was at most charitably less forthcoming and less charitably lying about the rob porter situation. During a firestorm in february over accusations of Domestic Abuse against then white house staff rob porter, kelly wondered allow how more he would have to endure before his honor was restored. He also questioned why porters exwives wouldnt just move on based on information he had about his marriages, the official said. At best, why is john kelly opining on what rob porters wives, exwives should or should not be doing . Its john kellys job to take that information and then make decisions about staff. Absolutely not be openly discussing what he thinks they should do. And the more we reported on how john kelly handled the rob porter situation, kelly is the one who blew this up. Rob porter maybe shouldnt have had a job in the white house to begin it. But did he deserve it to become an International Incident that ruined his life . Thats interesting. We do have reporting that the white houses counsels office was made aware of the allegations as early as march 17th. So the white house in general, when you say how did you handle this, and this speaks to john kellys sensibility of well handle this. Well, no. In 2018 in a safe workplace, this isnt something that you boys can handle on the side and well deal with the girls over here. No, sir. The you boys thing, its really striking when you watch this white house how many events consist of 20 men sitting around a table, 18 men and two women sitting around the table. You can feel what the gender dynamics of the white house are just from looking at it. Here is more reporting i would like you to elaborate on. The white house spokespeople said they havent seen kelly have a negative effect on the morale of women staffers. If anything, during meetings kelly is the bigger gentleman who steps in when aides use foul language to note a lady is present. And similarly says you shouldnt use foul language in front of a lady. The spokespeople said its possible kelly may have said women are more emotional than men with one of them saying in general women are more emotional than men. Im going to speak for women at large. We have a much less problem with people who are cursing than we do saying women are simply too emotional. Us mothers out there, how could we possibly handle life in the tough workplace. And if this is if the issue is youre too emotional to be successful, i turn you to president donald j. Trumps twitter feeds. What do you think that is filled with . Emotion. The funny thing is that twitter feed would be a fireable offense for just about anyone working anyexcept for the president of the United States. Except for the president of the United States. And this issue that people throughout the white house, to say that john kelly hasnt hurt morale, this is a guy who regularly is telling staff how lucky they are that he is there. And if it wasnt for him, the situation the president would be in, possibly impeached, maybe we would be at war. And those people in the white house are scratching their heads saying are you kidding me that this guy regularly says things like that . But he does. Its one thing to think that its another to say them out loud in front of the white house. You know thats exactly what we keep hearing. The president may say or do outlandish things. And our internal voices may say oh, my gosh, is this what is happen hearing . But nobody but nobody is articulating things out loud quite like john kelly has. Stephanie ruhle, thanks. With me now for more on the john kelly fallout, daralynne, matt miller, former spam at the doj, and chris liu, former white house cabinet secretary. Chris, let me start with you. I worked through kitchens, waiting tables all through high school and college. And there is this idea of the thing that things said in kitchens dont count. You call people idiots. You curse at them. This kind of par for the course . You know, look. People obviously say things in frustration. But i worked for rahm emanuel. Rahm emanuel was not one to mince words. And i never heard him come anywhere close to this in his remarks about president obama. Here is the thing. For the relationship between the president and the chief of staff to work, there needs to be mutual trust and mutual respect. Whether or not john kelly called the president an idiot or not, its very clear there is no mutual trust and mutual respect. And the fact that you other white house staffers that are putting out these allegations suggest that people who work for kelly dont respect him there is no way that a white house can function in that climate. Dara, i wanted to ask you about the daca portion of this. How does that jibe the idea that he said the president is an idiot who doesnt know anything about daca. We have to save him from himself. How does that jibe with what you saw play out at various attempts of a dhaka deal . Im not at all surprised that any of this happened or that kelly was taking credit for it. The president said as much. That if there were a deal, he would sign it. And he wasnt particularly concerned what was in it. And time after time his staff would come forward and say actually we have three pages of demands, eight pages of demands, the things that president says are important like the wall are not the things that we think are important, like changing asylum policy, like cutting legal immigration. So i think a lot of us intuited that john kelly was one of the staffers who was really pulling that back, and its good to see that confirmed. But it absolutely does seem accurate that had john kelly not been in the room, donald trump might have gotten Something Like 18 billion for the wall and in exchange will give permanent legal status to dhaka resip yentes. It was kelly who called Chuck Schummer to say the deal is off. That leaves you with this question about this white house. Who the speaks for the president . What is the Administration Policy . These very simple things about what the administration does or says, whether they can be trusted, which really, really matter now as they do high stakes Nuclear Diplomacy. The president speaks for the president. And sometimes the president will change his mind as we talk about immigration. The president was for an immigration deal on the record in front of tv cameras in the oval office with senators sitting in the room and a day later was against it. It creates real problems for International Diplomacy, but for everything, for dealing with congress when you dont have anyone whose word can be trusted. No one really has the permanent faith and confidence of this president. One of the things that we heard stephanie talking about the last thing she said in the report, its fairly Common Knowledge it seems a lot of people in this white house think the president is an idiot. How could they not . But theyre not supposed to say it. So if you have all these people that are acting like this in the kind of snake pit where they dont think highly of the president. They dont think highly of each other. Theyre at each others throats leaking all the time, it makes it impossible for anyone in the press, on the hill or internationally to have confidence that anything they say can actually be counted on. Chris, i want to ask you about this one sort of remarkable moment in the story in which according to the reporting john kelly basically apparently persuade as president not to withdraw all u. S. Troops off the Korean Peninsula unilaterally. For kelly, the exchange underscored the reasoning behind one of his common refrains which multiple officials described as some version of im the one saving the country. The strong implication being if we werent here we would have entered world war ii or the president would have been impeached. What do you think of that . There is certainly the irony of that comment, true or not true. And now the president taking credit for what is happening in the Korean Peninsula. You know, as frightening as i find so many aspects of the story, im also frightened about what happens when kelly leaves the white house. And to be clear, his days are numbered at the white house at this point. We already know that donald trump has said he doesnt want a chief of staff. So imagine an already chaotic presidency completely unleashed at that point. And the question really comes, if that happens, will congress, the Republican Congress start to act like a coequal branch and put some guardrails around this president . Narrater voice, no. Dara, do you agree with that is the concern of chris lu . Im not sure, but because kelly has always been a little bit public about his disdain for politics and the work he is doing, even if he hasnt been telling the public he thinks trump is an idiot, we know trump has started working around kelly in a lot of ways, that he is not looping him into his conversations, his phone calls. I think its easy to overstate how controlled things are now. We dont know where the ceiling is on how uncontrolled things can be. Part of what i find somewhat infuriating about all this, matt, is all the reporting suggests people inside the white house Reince Priebus is on the record saying imagine how it was 50 times worse than what you imagined about how chaotic the white house was. All the people inside talk to reporters off the record every day saying its totally crazy. The highest principles call the president and idiot and a moron. And yet the president turns around and said you terrible people, bad people in the press, its all you. Youre the ones who want to bring the president down. I think its possible that the version we see of donald trump in public, as hard as it is to believe is actually the best version of him. And the version they see every day behind closed doors is much, much worse. As hards that is to imagine. So, you know, it is just so chaotic there. And to your point about them blaming the press. One of the things about this story, there is no reason to take john kellys word for any denials. He has a track record here both in the rob porter situation when he not only lied personally, but directed others to lie for him to the press and blamed it on the president. But also with the Frederica Wilson incident. Correct. Where not only did he lie, but then when there was Video Evidence that what he was saying wasnt true, he didnt back down. Lots of times chief staffers will make a mistake. And if it comes out that what they said wasnt accurate, theyll come clean it up. Theyll apologize or say what it was they were trying to get across. He never did that kind of par for course with this white house, they always blame it on someone else. Why do you this he cant survive, chris . Well, i think its about the credibility at this point. He clearly doesnt have the respect of the president. The president s cutting him out of conversations, nominations. You clearly have at least eight staffers now who are badmouthing him. And at that point, the chief of staff doesnt function if he doesnt have the respect above and below. It really is one of the most important relationships between the president and the chief of staff. In many ways, more important than the one between the president and the vice president. And it seems frayed beyond repair at this point. Dara lynn, matt miller and chris lu, thank you all for your time tonight. Next, Stormy Daniels is suing the president again, this time over something he tweeted. Ill explain in two minutes. 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Mr. Elliot, whats your wiwifi . Ssword . Wifis ordinary. Basic. Do i look basic . Nope which is why i have xfinity xfi. Its super fast and you can control every device in the house. [ child offscreen ] hey lets basement. And thanks to these xfi pods, the signal reaches down here, too. So sophie, i have an xfi password, and its daditude. Simple. Easy. Awesome. Xfinity. The future of awesome. Stormy daniels is suing the president for a second time, filing a defamation lawsuit over a single tweet. It involves the sketch released by daniels lawyer showing the man that Stormy Daniels says threatened her in 2011 after she told her story about her sexual relationship with donald trump. After that artist rendering was released, donald trump tweeted a sketch years later about a nonexistent man. A total con job playing the fake media for fools, but they know it. Executive editor of the must read legal read above the law, what do you make of the case . Donald trump going to learn today if he so much as thinks about Stormy Daniels, Michael Avenatti is prepared to sue his brain stem. Trump thinks that he can kind of say anything about anybody to anybody. And Michael Avenatti is doggedly pursuing him at every opportunity its kind of an officer and a gentleman. He is using every means fair and unfair to get donald trump into a deposition at which point avenatti wins. I dont know, there is two things about this case. One is can you sue the president . Yes, you can. Theyre suing him in his personal capacity. So theyre able to sue him. Look, the case is light on the ground. What does that mean . We had had a few defamation cases based on twitter. But that is still a relatively new and novel way to go about defamation. Because twitter is fleeting it tends to be more like an opinion. And opinions are protected from defamation suits. All the kind of people who are i dont like that pc talk, there is a reason why people do. There is a reason why you say in my opinion, this is a con job. If trump had said that, he might actually be much more safe. The knack he refuses to use these allegedly it doesnt seem to me. I can say right now im not sure if tom brady assaulted Stormy Daniels, because thats what the picture looks like. But you see how i couched that. Right. Trump refuses to couch things. And that could get him in trouble. There is a broader question about the way that twitter has created legal headaches for him. If you were his lawyer, what would you tell him about his use of twitter . Stop just stop, man there is nothing good that happens to him legally on twitter. Thats the other way we kind of get back into avenattis case. Im going give avenatti credit for being very smart and for understanding that his case, as alleged right now, is not the strongest thing in the world. But were talking about president snowflake here. He is easily triggered. Right. And if trump takes this lawsuit as a reason to get back on twitter and go off on a whole another Stormy Daniels rant, its very toes amend the complaint to include further allegations. Oh, so you think is partly laying a trap . I think he is poking the bear a little bit. And trump so far has proved completely he is too stupid to follow the legal plan, right . So if you poke him a little bit, and his lawyer says okay, dont say anything else, that doesnt mean that trump is not going to say anything else. Here is what avenatti said about how much he likes it when the president talks. Take a listen. The more they talk, the better our case gets. And thats really one of the reasons why we brought this suit over this tweet. That tweet should have never been sent. Its irresponsible. Its undisciplined. If the president wants to be undisciplined in politics, thats one thing. But if youre undisciplined in litigation, thats when you get hurt. Exactly. Con job that could be an opinion that could be a statement aumped as a fact. But the next time he tweets, the next time he calls her a liar, the next time he says something untoward about Stormy Daniels, we have a ready made defamation suit for the next tweet to slide right on in. I have a theory that one of the reasons they keep the president relatively locked down is because of precisely this problem with this case. Look, again, its really and i know so many people dont like this about the law and lawyers and whatever. But there is a reason why lawyers have to be cautious. And there is a reason why there is a reason why when you talk to somebody, if you interview somebody who is in the middle of litigation, theyll say, well, chris, i cant answer you. Its part of pending litigation. Thats not nothing. If you talk during pending litigation, you open yourself up to get in more trouble. Trump doesnt understand that these pc rules are not there theyre not trying to rob him. Theyre trying to protect him. Do you think ultimately there is a 90day stay. Do you think avenatti can get him into a deposition . Yeah. Really . I really do. I dont know that this case wins. But in the other twitter lawsuits that we have about defamation, we have seen it go through discovery. The case against cohen. That is almost certainly going to go through discovery. And the whole thing about the 90 days right now, this is the other Stormy Daniels and the lawsuit, i dont know that the court did trump any favors by delaying it 90 days. Because if you think about it, 90 days from now is right in the middle of the midterms when avenatti can start having more discovery. Theyre also waiting for an indictment shoe to drop on Michael Cohen which might change everything. Exactly. You know youre in bad shape when youre waiting for the indictment because that might bail you out of the civil suit. Alley mystal, thank you. Thank you. Why the National Enquirer may be trying to discredit the president s lawyer, after this break. Im leaving the track behind, but im not standing still. And with godaddy, ive made my ideas real. I made my own way, now its time to make yours. Everything is working, working, just like it should as trump learned, Michael Cohen braces for a possible indictment, what might have crossed his mind when he saw this . The extremely trump friendly National Enquirer which has squashed stories of President Trump in the past. A headline touts cohens secrets and lies, and the story quotes some are questioning cohens role, alleging blackmail, threats, hush money payoffs and even collusion with russia. Just when there wasnt any doubt, trump passed polygraph proving no russia collusion. Spoiler alert no. No he did not. Its not true. All of this as abc news suggests the Trump Campaign is footing some of cohens legal bills. Here megan tooey. Msnbc little analyst paul butler, a former federal prosecutor. Matt welch of reason magazine. You reported on ami and david packer. What is that relationship between trump world and that publication . Well, its been very close. In fact, several months ago when several of my colleagues were zooming in on Michael Cohen and some of the things he has done related to ami trump during the campaign, ami released a statement acknowledging owning the close personal relationship that david packer, the head of ami had not just with trump, but also cohen. Thats what is so crazy about this. Its not just trump. Michael cohen knows pecker and has been involved in some of these sort of whats called catch and kill stories, right . Yeah, absolutely. So this was a real turnabout. This was a very the ami is completely changing its tune in terms of now not just going on the attack, but going on the attack viciously against cohen. How do you interpret that . Theyre in the same business, right . They are the print version of Michael Cohen. They have been running interference for donald trump. To the extent of paying six figure sums to sexy time ladies so they dont their story. Its not just the dead fish on the doorstep. Its the horsehead in the bed at this point. Although it seems to me a miscalculation. Dont you want to keep him in the tent . Well, here is the thing. Hes being prosecuted on the state level. Not yet. He is being investigated, search warranted. His life got real bad and so did President Trumps when that search warrant came and started looking at attorneyclient stuff on the state level. The president has no impact on that. He cant pardon his way out of that. So the most significant phrase in the whole National Enquirer story is they brought up collusion with russia. So they know Michael Cohen really well. What does it say that they thought as a firewall here were going to talk about collusion with russia. Thats very indicative of something. It was a federal search warrant with the fbi. Its unclear yet how the criminal prosecution of it might unspool. What do you think as someone who is a former federal prosecutor thinking about the psychology, which at this point thats the most important thing, right . What does Michael Cohen do . And he is scared to death. Because prosecutors are going after him like he is a gangster with a law degree. I think its possible that hes being tripleteamed. One by mueller, who is interested in collusion. Did he go to prague . Did he not go to prague . The federal new york prosecutors are interested in bank fraud and possibly Illegal Campaign contributions. And maybe even the new York State Attorney general taxi medallions. Come on. 16 cell phones were recovered in this search warrant. Thats a hell of a detail, isnt it . And all three sets of these prosecutors can share information. And again, its not looking really good for Michael Cohen. I would point out actually that part of the when the feds went in and gathered all these records from cohens well, the hotel where he has been staying and from his office, some of the records that they collected were related to ami. I mean, there have been allegations that ami actually colluded with Michael Cohen in silencing karen mcdougal. There was evidence that mcdougal was in contact with ami as it was working to catch and kill her story there are questions here not just about Michael Cohen but also ami that may be under criminal investigation. Thats a great point. Whether ami, do they function as a First Amendment protected media entity, which would be my strong bias to view them that way for criminal purposes, or essentially like another adjunct of trump . If money is changing hands so that story gets quashed and activities happen, thats just a different category under the law. Well, there is an active complaint that it is an end itself, a separate Campaign Finance violation. Did you teach Michael Avenatti law . Im actually very proud to say that i did. Taught him everything hi know. He did a good job. He obviously has set a lot of this, it seems to me set a lot of this into motion. You know, he did. And earlier, you were talking in the previous segment about defamation. Another way that we know Michael Cohen might be flipping is he dropped his defamation suit. He was concerned about allegations in the dossier that were about him. And he said oh, thats not true. He changed his tune. Prosecutors look for signs that someone has that psychology where they want to turn into a snitch. And he is showing cohen is showing all of the signs. A piece today floating the idea of cohen already flipping. But you can imagine the panic that would inspire. Oh my god. But rick wilson, the republican consultant who is very antitrump is fond of saying that trump kind of ruins everything that he touches. And i think what were seeing is the broader circle around the president right now just kind of one by one, whether its just staff in the john kelly case at the top of the show or his lawyers, his intimates, that circle is just getting closer. Each time someone is hived off, theyre turned against with a certain ferocity. Thats a bad place to be at the center of. Yeah. Ask michael flynn. Ask george papadopoulos. Ask rick gates. These were all the president s boys and they all turned on him. And nobody is a bigger boy of donald trump than Michael Cohen. I mean of all the people, of all the associates youve just mentioned, Michael Cohen was the one who was by his side for ten years. And not just handling sort of high profile litigation or some of the big business deals, but we have now seen growing evidence that his job was to cover up damaging information about trump. So if there is somebody if there is somebody who is a danger of flipping, hes your guy. The fascinating thing is to consider both david pecker and Michael Cohen probably know derogatory things about each other from the things they have done together. Lets throw in a little civil libertarian bone in all of this. If a highly motivated federal prosecutor wants to shake someone down, and trump world has a lot of people involved in a lot of stretchy things. Yep. Michael cohen, the piece about him leads you if a motivated prosecutor wants to make a turn on anybody in the country about anything, he probably can be turned in that sense. So we should be hopefully at the end of the rainbow. When someone turned its for a good reason. Yeah, thats right. Just like innocent people take the fifth amendment. It doesnt mean that he is actually guilty that he took the fifth in the lawsuit about defamation but in this case it actually could. He has mad exposure on any number of federal and state levels. Just to be clear, the state exposure means that the president cannot pardon him. The president is not able to pardon anyone for a state crime. Final question about the money. There is 200,000 plus in legal fees apparently being paid by the Trump Campaign. The Trump Campaign says its all russiarelated stuff. Its by the boards. He was exposed to it because of his relationship with the Trump Campaign. Were not paying for anything else because that would be a problem. So if it is campaignrelated, then the president s campaign is able to reimburse cohen for his expenses. If its not, for example, if its about Stormy Daniels or hush money, that doesnt count. Another reason he might be going to jail. Last thing ill say is that you cant take any of these declarations at face value. Well see. Theyre saying its campaignrelated. Who knows. Megan twoey, matt butler, paul welsh, thanks for your time. Still to come, have foreign leaders figured out the secret to influencing the president . To prop to playbooks, ahead. Plus, missing tree, last seen here on the white house lawn. Thats tonights thing 1, thing 2, next. Thing 1 tonight. When french president Emmanuel Macron visited the white house last week, he arrived bearing a special gift, an oak sapling from the site of a world war i battle in northeast france that took place 100 years ago this june. So of course there was a ceremonial planting of the tree on the first day of macrons visit. The trumps and the macrons traipsed out to the south lawn, wearing some frankly fairly impractical outfits for yard work, and the men picked up their golden shovels and proceeded to dump, well, five shovelfuls of dirt around the tree. The still photos somehow captured the awkwardness of the moment even better than the video, sparking all sorts of memes like this one from twitter user matthew the new the sopranos season is the best. Or this hunter lurie who asked which pink floyd album is this . The couples headed off to mt. Vernon for dinner be. Thats not where the story ends. Over the weekend the white house photographers noticeding this something was missing. And all that remainsis a patch of yellow grass. The mystery of the disappearing french oak tree is thing 2 in 60 seconds. A mystery on the white house south lawn. The oak tree planted just last week by President Trump and french president macron went missing over the weekend with nothing left but a faint patch of yellow turf. Well, tonight im happy to report we have good news about the tree. It is alive and well in an undisclosed location waiting out a quarantine period that is mandatory for all living organisms imported to the u. S. More regulatory red tape, if you will. The french ambassador to the United States confirmed on twitter the roots were enclosed in a plastic protection during a ceremonial planting last week so no potential disease could spread to other white house plants during the short time the plant was in the ground. They explained this was the plan all along. It was actually a special favor from trump to france to be able to plant the tree the day of the president s visit. Since then, it has returned to quarantine and will soon be replanted in the white house gardens. Dont worry, the tree is doing very well. As the u. S. Faces monumental decisions about Nuclear Diplomacy on two continents, with the potential to reshape the world for years to come, World Leaders are scrambling to influence the president of the United States using the best way to his heart, extravagant flattery. Call it the audience of one doctrine of International Diplomacy on full display today from israeli Prime Minister benjamin netanyahu, who of course opposes the iran deal, nuclear deal, knows the joint comprehensive plan of action, jcpoa. He gave a presentation to the press in english using giant texts and plenty of pictures, even a big display of props to try and persuade the president to kill the deal before an upcoming may 12 deadline. The iran deal, a nuclear deal is based on lies. Its based on iranian lies and iranian deception. President trump will decide, will make his decision on what to do with the nuclear deal. Im sure hell do the right thing. Well, never mind the material netanyahu presented appears to come from before the deal was put in place, much reviewed years ago by the u. N. s nuclear watchdog, that agents former chief inspector told the guardian, quote, i just saw a lot of pictures i had seen before. And never mind that irans dishonesty about its Nuclear Program was a may reason for doing the deal in the first place, as the president s own secretary told Congress Last week. I will say it is written almost with an assumption that iran could try to cheat. So the verification, what is in there is actually pretty robust. None of that matters. All that matters is that a certain person caught a few minutes of netanyahus performance on tv. What israel has done today with the News Conference and Prime Minister netanyahu just gave a very i dont know if everybody has seen it. But i got to see a little bit of it. And that is just not an acceptable situation. I think if anything, whats happening today and whats happened over the last little while and what we have learned has really shown that ive been 100 right. All right. Mission accomplished, netanyahu. Netanyahu is allied against the iran deal with, of course saudi arabia, which went above and beyond to massage the president s ego during his visit to the kingdom last year. The saudis have a kind of inside track on this as they are pretty used to public displays of monarchial flattery. Theyre pitted against european leaders who support the nuclear deal and who have been trying to mount a Charm Offensive of their own. We saw french president Emmanuel Macron lovefest last week followed by an unusually friendly visit from german chancellor angela merkel. And just as the president is poised to undue an accord that has thus prevented iran from Getting Nuclear Weapons whose record of lying about his Nuclear Program and defying International Norms is arguably just ad as bad if not worse as irans. South korea president moon jaein who wants diplomacy with the north has been as adept as anyone at playing to the president s vanity. Praising trump for bringing north korea to the negotiating table and letting him take credit for saving the olympics. I tell you, we did a great job on the olympics. President moon of south korea said without donald trump the olympics would have been a total failure. Its true. True. You know . Minus as well say it. Nobody else is going to say it, right . Now, the south Korean Leader has a new ploy about the president of the United States. What it is and how its being received by the audience of one, next. 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And its hard to imagine a more powerful motivator for this president to pursue Nuclear Diplomacy than the sheer thrill of hearing rallygoers chant the name of the worlds most famous peace prize. [ crowd chanting nobel ] thats very nice. Thank you. Lawrence wilkerson is a retired army colonel. Served as chief of staff to former secretary of state colin powell. Prita parcy is plpt of the National Iranian american council. Author of losing iran, the triumph of diplomacy. How do you make sense of this president and this white houses different approaches it appears to the Nuclear Issue with respect to iran and north korea . I have to look at north korea first and have to say im stunned by two things. One is amateur hour in the white house is still going on and its added to and augmented by the Musical Chairs with some of the critical positions like the secretary of state and National Security adviser. But the thing that worries me most is the utter void of history. The utter void of reading. The utter void of knowing whats happened in the past. Kim daejung, president of south korea, got the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000 for this very same thing, for sitting down with the north and talking and negotiating and coming very close to a peace treaty. We forget that maidline albright, the secretary of state, was in pyongyang three hours with kim jong uns father, kim jong il. This has happened before. The difference is that we now have amateur hour in the white house to deal with it. Thats my profound concern about north korea. Tritta, i wonder as someone whos been very invested in this iran deal, written a book about it, been a very active participant in the debate over it and in favor of it, the way that it gets talked about is the hawks, the people who want war are fighting the deal. But what does it say to you when you watch the president at a rally in michigan being cheered by his adoring fans who i think probably hate the iran deal cheering nobel, nobel about the possibility of sitting down with kim jong un . Well, this is what we get when we have a president whos far more concerned about optics than he is about substance. Even if he were to get a nuclear deal with the North Koreans, it is impossible for it to be anywhere close as tight and as restrictive as the deal that obama negotiated with the iranians. The problem, though, was that obama had his name on that deal and trump doesnt care about the substance. He just wants to make sure he has his own deal with his name on it. And as a result hes really gambling with u. S. National security because this iran deal is critical. Without its United States and iran will start drifting toward war once more. Brian schots, senator from hawaii, tweeted making your point saying the reason they want to undo the iran deal is barack obama. Do you think, colonel wilkerson, World Leaders have figured out essentially how to cater to the ego of this president when dealing with these weighty International Issues . I think they have. And i think its very dangerous. I watched macron. I watched merkel. I watched theresa may. And i watch other leaders like moon jaein. And i see how they are exploiting the amateur hour in the white house. I see how theyre exploiting the narcissism, the egotism, the arrogance in the white house. And i understand theyre not exploiting it to the credit of the United States. Theyre exploiting it to the credit of their own countries. And it worries me because what its turning out to be is the u. S. Isolated, the u. S. Increasingly alone, and the u. S. Having to stand up for itself making America Great again, if you will, in the sense that were really making america weak again and divorcing ourselves from all the things post world war ii, policies, both security and foreign, that made us strong in the first place. Trita, netanyahus presentation today centered on the basic idea, it went like thirdquarter the Iranian Regime has been deceptive and lied about the intents of their Nuclear Program in the pastb what they were doing with it, theyve always maintained it was purely peaceful, theres evidence thats not the case and ergo, because they are deceptive and because we can document this, they are not a regime with whom one can have a deal. What is your response to that . Well, its actually the argument the israelis have been making for quite some time. Because if you cant make a deal with them, what are you left with . Well, then you have to go to war. And thats what the netanyahu government has been pushing the United States to do, quite unsuccessfully, but nevertheless thats been what his agenda has been consisting of for quite some time now. And i think what we see with what is taking place right now is that if the North Koreans, some people are arguing that the North Koreans are not affected by what the iranians will do. But the iranians are following the north korean case very, very closely. Because theyre going to draw the conclusion i fear that they will say, well, look, iran made a mistake by only having enrichment. If they had gone further and actually tested a bomb and tested missiles that could reach the american mainland, then they would get a deal with the United States that the United States also would be adhering to. This is a very, very dangerous development. Not to say that we shouldnt have a deal with the North Koreans. But not at the expense of killing the existing deal that actually is working. What do you think about that, colonel, about what incentive messages the current sort of dual track sends . I agreet with trita. If i were sitting in tehran right now, whether i were leading the rgc or i were the ayatollah or indeed president rouhani, i would come to the same conclusion. The way to beat the United States is to build a Nuclear Weapon and then negotiate. And i would start forthwith. Colonel, what do you see as the consequences if the u. S. Were to pull out of this deal given that its negotiated with a bunch of other countries including russia, china, and some of our closest allies . I think we continue to put real ruptures in the transatlantic link. I think we continue to send signals to our allies in the pacific like japan, korea, australia, new zealand, that were no longer trustworthy. And i think we start a situation that will fold as trita indicated right into Bibi Netanyahu and avigdor liebermans plans, and that is for the United States to take iran on and change the regime there and keep the region restabilized because as long as its destabilized then neither the persians nor the arabs can get together against israel. Trita, where do you think mattis is on this . I think mattis has a history of being quite hawkish on iran. He got fired from the obama administration. Because he actually wanted to have a small confrontation with iran. He believed that a small war would actually be necessary to push back the iranians. I think he has kind of changed his mind. Not in the sense that hes a fan of the nuclear deal or that hes changed his mind about the iranians. I think hes changed his mind because hes fearful of the United States being at war with a country like iran when the commander in chief is named donald trump. So you think thats whats flipped him. I think so. I think hes just seeing that this is a reckless president that doesnt understand International Politics and it would be as bad as it is right now, imagine how bad it would be if the United States was at war with donald trump at its helm. Colonel, youre nodding your head. I think tritas right, and i think theres another dimension to it too. I think mattis has learned just how much trouble the allvolunteer force is. Its in physical trouble, ethical and moral trouble. Its in real trouble. And he does not want to take on an enemy as big, as strategically deep and as ultimately guerrilla warfare powerful as iran could prove to be. Excellent point. Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson and trita parsi, good to have you both. The breaking news were covering tonight. Blockbuster reporting from the New York Times. A list of questions Robert Mueller wants to ask President Trump. Two Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times reporters standing by to talk with us. Also an nbc news exclusive. White house chief of staff john kelly quoted as calling the president an idiot and telling colleagues, weve got to save him from himself. And more legal drama for this president as Stormy Daniel this president as Stormy Daniels files another lawsuit because of what the president said about her. The 11th hour on a busy night begins now. And good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. Day 466 of the Trump Administration and as we have been saying we have breaking news in the form of a remarkable piece of journalism from the New York Times which has obtained the list of 49 questions that special counsel Robert Mueller has recently provided to President Trumps lawyers. Questions that mueller wants answered in an interview with the president. The times Michael Schmidt broke this story. He joins us live in just a moment as colleague matt apuzzo has also been pouring