Omarosa, whats going on . I just saw in the news that youre thinking about leaving. What happened . When all in starts right now. Good evening from new york. Im ali velshi in for chris hayes. As the special counsel closes in, the president and his lawyers appear to be changing their stories about how some of the key events under scrutiny in the miller probe turned out. One of those events is the meeting at trump tower between donald trump jr. And Senior Trump Campaign aides and russians offering dirt on hillary clinton. Just last week the president tweeted this was a meeting to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics, and it went nowhere. But in a new statement about his son to the Washington Post the president takes a noticeably more careful position. Don has received notoriety for a brief meeting that many politicians would have taken, but most importantly and to the best of my knowledge, Nothing Happened after the meeting concluded. To the best of my knowledge. Thats a far cry from no collusion. More like if collusion did happen i wasnt a part of it. The president for some reason is now hedging his denial of any trump tower meeting followup. Meanwhile, his lead attorney, Rudy Giuliani, is now changing his story about what the president said to then fbi director james comey regarding former National Security adviser Michael Flynn. Giuliani now says the whole encounter never took place. There was no conversation about Michael Flynn. The president didnt find out that comey believed there was until about i think it was february when it supposedly took place. The memo came out in may. But mr. Mayor, you told abc news last month that the president told comey, can you give him a break . Now youre saying they never had i never told abc that. Thats crazy. I never said that. What i said was that is what comey is saying trump said. I never said that, thats crazy. Okay. Lets check the tape. Hes saying the president was asking him, directing him in his words to let the Michael Flynn investigation go. And he didnt direct him to do that. What he said was can you comey says he took it as direction. Its okay. By that time he had been fired. As a prosecutor i was told that many times. Can you give the man a break . Either by his lawyers, by his relatives, by friends. You take that into consideration. But that doesnt determine not Going Forward with it. Giulianis explanation that he was describing what comey thought the president had said simply doesnt hold up. You cant help but wonder why the president and his lawyer are changing their stories now and whether it has anything to do with their negotiations with the special counsel over a president ial interview. While the president continues to call muellers investigation a hoax and a witch hunt, the probe was validated by a fourth federal judge today, this one nominated by the president himself. D. C. District court judge Dabney Friedrich just rejected a constitutional challenge to muellers appointment brought by the Russian Company charged with carrying out a massive influence operation during the 2016 campaign. Similar challenges have been brought by Paul Manafort in both jurisdictions where hes being tried and by a longtime aide to roger stone named andrew miller, whos been called to appear before muellers grand jury. All those challenges have been thrown out. For more on that ruling and the president and his lawyers changing stories, im joined by msnbc political analyst phil rucker, White House Bureau chief for the Washington Post. Phil, good to see you. What was your reaction to getting the new statement from the president about the trump tower meeting that Nothing Happened to the best of my knowledge . Well, those words to the best of my knowledge are really important, ali. I was surprised to see that. Thats not the kind of language were used to seeing from the president. Perhaps this statement was lawyered, it was in response to a request that my colleague Ashley Parker and i made to sarah sanders, first to interview the president. He wasnt available for an interview, but she offered to get a statement from him which he provided. Look, its important because he seems to be creating some wiggle room for his son. We know from our reporting that theres anxiety in the president s inner circle including by the president himself who has fretted to associates and friends that hes worried about don jr. , worried that there could be some legal jeopardy, legal exposure there, and theres a feeling in the orbit that something could potentially happen in the next few weeks. We dont know what that might be. But this maybe the president trying to protect himself, distance himself from anything that may be afoot with his son. All right. So theres the issue of the trump tower meeting which we know mueller has a good deal of information of because he was able to get everybodys phone records and conversation records and hes piecing that together. And then theres the issue about what happened to Michael Flynn and what the conversation was with james comey. And it goes to why the president fired james comey. Earlier today i had a conversation with Omarosa Manigault newman about the tlers holt interview. Heres what she told me. I want to talk about the lester holt interview where you said that the team prepared him well. Then he went into the interview and he said what a lot of people believe to be the truth, that he fired jim comey over russia. So was he being prepped to lie . He was being prepped by hope hicks and the coms team to say that the d. O. J. Had come up with this memo so that they could justify the firing of comey. So you were that was definitely hope hicks, press secretary kind of thing. I was really, really surprised that he would implicate himself. Phil, i dont know what to make of that because there are a number of things in that book that seem to be offhand comments and then we heard tape to back them up. This becomes interesting for the special counsel or anyone else to say does omarosa know the president was being coached to lie in that interview with lester holt and in the end when he told lester it was about russia was that the truth or was that a lie . I dont know about her what she experienced or what she may have witnessed firsthand at the time or if she was even in the room for those discussions in advance of lester holts interview. But her account seems to make sense because the administration had put forward a narrative of events where the president was just simply reacting to the recommendation of the attorney general and the Deputy Attorney general to fire comey for his work on the job. But clearly there was more to it than that and trump himself had acknowledged he had fired comey over russia and that that was sort of a series of explanations that were created by the attorney general and Deputy Attorney general to execute this decision. But we know that the white house was preparing talking points and had really been trying to spin it a different way than the president ended up saying. Good to see you as always. Phillip rucker is the White House Bureaufor the Washington Post. Thank you. For more reaction to the trump teams shifting stories im joined by democratic senator Richard Blumenthal of connecticut, member of the Senate Judiciary committee. Senator, good to see you. You like Rudy Giuliani were a prosecutor. I was. Federal prosecutor for 4 1 2 years. The u. S. Attorney in connecticut. Then i was the attorney general of the state of connecticut for 20 years. To evaluate Rudy Giulianis statement he was often told to give the guy a break and it was people, the friends and family of whoever it was he was prosecuting. Its a little bit different with the president of the United States, especially as it relates to something the president may or may not have been involved in. Totally different. Because the president of the United States is jim comeys boss. Its also totally different because of the circumstances which is a private setting without lawyers there, without any witnesses. And obviously its part of a pattern of seeking to in effect squelch, thwart, stop the investigation involving the possibility of colluding between the Trump Campaign and the russians and also obstruction of justice, both under investigation by jim comey. So if Rudy Giuliani were trying to make a point to George Stephanopoulos the argument would have been ive been told a lot of times by my boss to give someone a break, right . Thats what the analogy is. Not that somebodys friend or family is saying hey, could you go easy on my brother or my friend. This is a story of somebody in a position of authority asking a prosecutor to give somebody a break and someone who might have been implicated in the story themselves. Thats key to this. There really is no analogy here. This is such breaking of norms and potentially breaking of laws that its the reason for these shifting stories, changing lamz. They cant get their stories straight because the consciousness of guilt is there. I think theres mounting evidence of obstruction of justice here and its not only that conversation with comey, not only comeys firing but also what donald trump said to the Russian Foreign minister right after he fired comey, he was so relieved because the russia investigation was over. Right. Now, to this statement that donald trump gave to the Washington Post about to the best of his knowledge Nothing Happened after that meeting. As phil rucker said, thats not language were typically used to hearing from the president of the United States. He doesnt hedge anything. He never hedges. And whats different also about this statement is it is in fact a statement, not a tweet, coming from i presume the president s lawyers, not really himself. And it shows very dramatically that the president is worried about his son. I sat through the session with donald trump jr. When he came before the Judiciary Committee where i sit, and he is in deep legal trouble for what he said then, his denial of certain knowledge about the russians coming to him and offering dirt and his saying i love it. And also what he told the president and when he told the president. And i think that donald trump sr. Is very conscious of not only the legal quicksand for his son but also for himself. How do you see this unfolding, then . The bottom line is the president was fairly quick after the knowledge of that meeting became public to go out there and draft a statement which is now under scrutiny as well for saying Nothing Happened, it was about adoptions. We now know it has trickled up and we now know it was somebody working for the russian government who was trying to overturn the magnitsky act and wanted this Campaign Support in doing so. Natalie veselnitskaya who came to that trump tower meeting on june 9th, 2016, was an emissary, in fact an agent of the russian government. Donald trump jr. Was told that he would be meeting with a russian emissary or agent. So the idea that this was just the normal opposition research, totally untrue. Also, that statement that the president wrote for his son not only under scrutiny, it is under serious challenge. It is completely false. And more evidence of his own consciousness of guilt. But the point here is that Rudy Giulianis trying to set a deadline. He says september 1. Good prosecutors never set deadlines for an investigation. Rudy giuliani knows it as well as anyone. And i think where it all goes is unfolding additional indictments, whether its before the midterm elections or afterward. Well, according to donald trump in a tweet today about peter strzok who has been fired from the fbi, he the president tweets agent peter strez strzok was just fired from the nba finally. The list of bad players in the fbi and doj gets longer and longer. Based on the fact that strzok was in charge of the witch hunt, will it be dropped . It is a total hoax. No collusion, no obstruction. I just fight back. Theres a lot in there. But the president started by saying even if there was something that went on, even if there was collusion, collusions not a crime. But this effort to undermine the investigation seems to be becoming more desperate for the president. Not only more desperate but more incredible. I think the more the American Public sees of these shifting stories and changing claims the more they see of Rudy Giuliani trying to defend, it i think the less credible it will be. And peter strzok, remember, the i. G. , Inspector General of the department of justice, found conclusively there was no impact on the special counsels investigation from anything that peter strzok believed, anything he did that was improper. He recommended a suspension for 60 days and a demotion. The department of justice today went way further and fired him. But the most important point here is no effect on the investigation of anything that he may have done improperly. Senator, always good to see you. Thank you for joining us tonight. Thank you. Senator Richard Blumenthal of connecticut. To help understand what the president and his lawyers are up to and how it could affect the president s potential legal jeopardy im joined by msnbc contributor and former federal prosecutor joyce vance. Joyce, to g. To sigh as always. Thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me. I have to cannot the conversation i was having with the senator. Does Rudy Giuliani hurt his ability to properly represent the president by giving all these interviews . Its just so easy when he says something for us to find the tape of Something Else he says. Weve come to expect it from the president. But from his lead lawyer . You know, its become so easy that its not even a sporting adventure anymore. No. The problem here is something we all know to be true. People who are being honest dont have to keep changing their story. You only have to keep changing your story if youre lying. So sadly i think in many regards because this is someone who we all loved as americas mayor, were watching him diminish his reputation. Its painful to watch. Its difficult to watch. One wonders if he himself might not end up with some exposure. And certainly the president will be accountable, at least in a criminal forum, only for whatever testimony he would actually give himself. But if what were looking forward to here is impeachment proceedings and giuliani is simply trying on strategy after strategy to see which one works, its a painful exercise in telling things that arent true. Former white House Counsel bob bauer issued this statement. He said, after a year and a half of saying no collusion, he meaning trump, now hes saying to the best of my knowledge Nothing Happened afterwards. Bauer said the bottom line on all of this, bauer concluded, is trump almost certainly knows more than he has publicly admitted to or acknowledged and mueller probably already knows it. This is the point that i think the senator was just making, that theres a consciousness of guilt. Theres a consciousness of responsibility. And the president now seems to be angling around this. What do you make of this as a prosecutor . This is a very carefully lawyered statement, and it looks like the kind of statement you would expect someone to make when theyre very nervous about criminal liability. I think its correct that Robert Mueller and his investigators know a lot thats not public knowledge. And whether thats knowledge that tends to make any one of a number of potential defendants look more like they committed a crime or perhaps exculpatory evidence that tends to show that they didnt have the necessary state of knowledge, one thing that we all know is that theres been extraordinary sensitivity about this meeting in trump tower. The president jumped so quickly on coming up with an excuse. And its amazing how most of the problems that theyve had in this regard have been because they released damaging information. Trump jr. Releasing this series of emails that made it very clear that this was contact that was an expectation that they would get something of value for the campaign from what turned out to be russian agents. So theres all sorts of swirling mystery around this meeting in terms of what level proof there is of intent to join a conspiracy. But it looks very strongly like there is an agreement to have a meeting at which something that would potentially be valuable to the campaign was offered, and they took a significant step toward achieving that agreement, holding the meeting. This is the heart of the crime of conspiracy. You dont have to complete your objective. You just have to meet or you have to make an agreement and take a significant step in furtherance of that agreement and intend to do both of those things. So it may not be relevant. What the president said to the Washington Post may not be all that relevant, to the best of my knowledge Nothing Happened after that meeting. Its really a problematic